Beyond the Gate

by Xeir Zith

The last thing Tanith remembered was Cameron cracking a very bad joke and Daniel cracking up in laughter. The next thing she knows is that she has a splitting headache and is in the dark, literally. As she unravels where she is, she finds out things she would rather not know. The SGC and Atlantis learn more of who the Furlings really are, and where they were hiding all that time

7. Cayran 1

Beyond the Gate

Chapter 7 Inside Straight

Planet: Ascretta

Six Hours Ago

Sunrise

Everything hurt.

The last thing I could remember was discussing with Col John Sheppard my living arrangements when the freak storm hit us in the North Peir. The next thing I could remember was a blinding flash of light, and then darkness.

So why did everything hurt ?

Did I just die ? Was I killed by a lightning bolt and somehow not entirely dead ?

I felt grass under me, I was laying on grass, every inch of my body hurt. I also could feel that I wasnt alone.

I opened my eyes, and I was not ready for the sight that greeted me. For one thing, it was around noon, for another, I wasnt alone.

"I was expecting a visitor to drop in, but not as quietly as you" A very female, very hauntingly familiar voice broke into my thoughts. I blinked and looked slightly to my left. A woman, a feline woman, human sized and dressed in a gorgeous bodyhugging dress that showed a lot of skin greeted me.

I took in the woman, her long ears, like a cat were atop her head. The dress had matching gloves of mid upper arm that were colored to match the dress and looked to be made of the same type of cloth. And they were fingerless. The woman had a belt of a pair of swords, what looked like dozens of throwing knives. And what I could have sworn were a pair of Kull blasters. An Ori staff was leaning on the womans shoulder as she sat watching me.

The rest of her outfit I saw consisted of a pair of deep black leather leggings, and heeled leather boots. Her skin was thick fur of a gorgeous, black, white and gold mix. "Can you speak ?" The woman asked me.

"Where am I ?" I asked her. Why did she sound so familiar ? "Who are you ?" I raised a hand to rub my head, my head was pounding. I rubbed my head a moment before I stared at my hand, it was covered in fur

The unknown woman half smiled at me, "To the question of where you are, even that I don't know, but some of the others are calling it the Homeworld, whatever that means." The woman told me, "As to who I am, My name is Tanith, Lt Colonel, US Marines, Iota base commander"

"Col Tanith ?" I asked, that was impossible, hadnt she disappeared a week ago like the others ? Wasn't she supposed to be dead ?

"The one and the same" Tanith replied. I blinked, then blinked again. I was confused. And naked. But I was confused for the most part. Tanith was seated of a sort, balanced perfectly on her feet, watching me, beside her and her weaponry, was a stack of items wrapped in a pale raglike cloth.

"That's impossible" I said as I sat up in the grass, weird. Last thing I remember was being inside of whatever accounted for steel and cement that made Atlantis what it was. So why was I suddenly on thick soft grass ?

"Let me guess, you got word of what happened to me at Iota ?" Tanith asked, I nodded, so she explained. "That was a week ago. Remarkably my codes still work on the armories here. Which I am glad about"

"What ?" I asked her, I stopped rubbing my head and stared at my furred arm, red and white stripes adorned my arm which was covered in thick downy fur. A set of dangerous sharp beautiful claws were upon my hand where my fingernails used to be. Everything else forgotten I asked aloud. "What happened to me ?"

"The same thing that happened to me." Tanith told me. I looked up at her from where I sat. "What's the last thing you remember ?" she asked

That was a good question. I wracked my brain in thought. "I was talking with Col Sheppard on where to have my place to live while stationed on Atlantis" I replied

"Good, one question down, plenty more to go." Tanith said to me, then she asked "What was your name that you can remember ?"

I thought a few seconds, two names forced their way into my head and I couldnt make sense of them. But one of them I knew for sure was me. So I said it. "Claire, Claire Pendergast, Major, Us Air Force"

"A pleasure to meet you, Claire." Tanith said to me, she held her hand out to me, I shook it. She then picked up the clopth wrapped package and held it out to me. "I think these are yours. I went back to where I woke up, there was another body missing in that tomb." She told me. I took the wrapped package, it felt like clothing. "I also have a few extra weapons too, the Ori Staffs arent exactly the sniper rifles we're used to, but they do the job, the kull blasters too. Oh, and once you're dressed, put this on last, it works as a necklace in appearance, its Asgard Personal Shield." She handed me what looked like a cats collar or even something akin to a choker necklace.

As I took it, Tanith explained, Asgard shields were stronger than Ori or Ancient shields because they used some sort of zero point module made so tiny it could fit in the ruby at the center. Which meant it could take everything, including one of the SGCs Gatebuster bombs. And it could circulate air for up to a week. Even in space.

So that meant they worked even as a spacesuit. I could howeer, still eat and drink just fine. I just had to mentally activate it when I needed defense. Which meant I could easily still be standing in a firefight.

I then got dressed, the dress that Tanith had for me was softer than expected, it looked like silk or even thick leather, but also its tight to the body design made it feel briefly like latex, it also had matching leggings and heeled boots that matched Taniths own boots and leggings, the dress I noticed as I put it on, was of a pale brown and red, it was red were I was white, and brown where I was red. It was snug to my body and it felt right. The leggings and boots too.

Something felt off about the throwing weapons that Tanith wore, along with those two swords, then I saw the rest of the swords on her, another three were on her back, with two more blades on her hips. Tanith, I could see, was a walking pile of swords and other sharp bits. But she had ranged weapons too, an Ori staff and Kull blasters

At this moment I didnt feel like wearing a pair of Katana at my hip. At least, at this moment. But when I was done getting dressed I realised something and then asked her "You mentioned others ?"

"Yes" Tanith replied as she handed me the second pair of kull blasters, I slid them onto my wrists. They connected with the armgloves perfectly. "There is myself, Captain Zane, Chief Wallace, And Sgt White, and also a troupe of 25 others or so in one of those complexes" She pointed towards the southwest, towards what looked like a small city.

"Whoa" I mumbled as I took the ori staff that Tanith offered me. She was right, it wasnt exactly a sniper rifle, but it would do. From what I recalled, Ori staff weapons were more stable than a Jaffa staff.

"I know this is a lot to take it so I'll try and keep it brief, you're not on Earth or Atlantis anymore, and there are two stargates on this planet, one of them is a Milky Way gate, but the DHD is all weird, and the other is a Pegasus gate, with a Pegasus DHD." Tanith explained, before I could ask her why she didnt just dial Atlantis she raised a hand. "I know what you're thinking, why didnt I dial Atlantis, I dont have a Atlantis IDC, even if I did, it didnt come with me when I got transported here, you came here just like I did, naked in just the buff of my fur, in this case your own fur, nothing electronic came with me, nor did anything electronic come with you, the only skills I had personally, was how to survive, and how to defend myself as well as memories of the armories we had set up on this planet, where I got the Kull blasters, personal shield, and ori staffs" Tanith explained. She looked at me. "What about you ?"

I was quiet for a long moment, then two. Then I finally spoke, "A conflict of names" Was the first thing I could think of. I was stuck on who I was. I had two names apparently ? One of me was Claire Pendergast, Major US Air Force, the other, a cat of some kind named Cayran. I somehow had both my memories as Claire, with all my time in Atlantis, dads funeral, nothing but an empty casket. His ship, thje first earth ship, Prometheus had been destroyed by the Ori, and then I had memories about some cat named Cayran from New York City, which was bizarre as I had never been to new york before. But somehow I knew that if I were to visit it now, I could easily find my way around because of a cats memories of the place. Though personally I was from Lansing, southern Lansing Michigan.

And the memories I had of Cayran was she was from South Carolina, and had moved to New York City ? So I decided to break the ice a bit further and ask simply. "Where are you from ?" to Tanith

"Long Beach" Tanith replied to me, so she was from California, the oppisite side of the country from me, and wait, I remembered her then.

"That's right, You were the commanding officer of Iota, I remember you now" I said to her. She looked at me, but nodded silently. "You tried to recruit me for the Iota Snipers after my dad died in that satalite attack." As much as it pained me to remember such an event, I still remembered the funeral, how dad had died, his bravery, making sure all his men got down to the planet before ther ship exploded.

"Yes" She replied, a soft sigh on her tone. I put on the arm gloves as she explained things of how she had gotten there, where she had woken up, how she found her own clothing. Her first thoughts were to surive and find the stargate, if there was one.

And fortunately there was indeed a stargate on this planet. But to my confusion she said there was two ? "How can there be two stargates on a planet ?" I asked her

"Apparently this planet has a Milky Way stargate, and a Pegasus Stargate, I havent tried to dial either one, but the UAV that was mapping this place was sent from Earth or at least one of her Sites. And I then found that stargate, a Milky Way stargate, though some of the symbols are weird looking" Tanith said

"What do you mean ?" I asked. How could a planet have two stargates ? I mean I know Earth at one point had two stargates. But how could there be a milky way stargate and a pegasus stargate in the same planet ? It just wasnt possible!

"I mean that either the DHD is designed for long range connections, or something else entirely because none of the symbols on the DHD look familiar or even remotely like star symbols I've seen before." Tanith told me.

"Its possible that even on the systems you're used to, every star system to find a planet in the network is hard to find or get used to" I replied as I dusted myself off. The wind had picked up, a lot. So it was now quite dusty

"Fair point" Tanith replied, though she had to shout for me to hear her clearly as the wind picked up around us. I looked around confused at the meadow, the grass was blowing as if a fierce storm was attacking it. But there were no clouds, no rain was falling, it was just a strong wind.

"Is it always this windy ?" I asked, only to have my words drowned by the strong winds

"What ?" Tanith screamed at me

"Is it always this windy ?" I repeated much louder.

Tanith shook her head. "No," she screamed so I could hear her over the driving wind around us, "I've only been here a week at the most, and Zane hasd been here at least two weeks longer than me, We've never seen or felt this kind of wind, even on Iota."

"Can we find some shelter ?" I screamed at her, she nodded. However the nearest place, the towers she had indicated felt to be too far away from where we were in the open field.

As we struggled in the strong driving wind we felt the ground under us begin to shift and move. Where the wind seemed to fade a bit, as if there were a current of water we were forcing our way out of, there suddenly felt like an updraft that we lost our bvalance and fell back into the stronger wind on our asses.

"What the hell ?" Tanith screamed as the wind drove around us. The udraft cut us off from anything else. Out of nowhere we were blinded. And then the ground fell from under us. Sending us into freefall a good dozen or more meters into nothing but darkness. Dirt and wind swirld around us as everything went black as we hit something.

"Ow" I grunted in pain as I rolled onto my back and held my head, My staff weapon laid next to me as Tanith was kneeling, holding her own head in her hands as the light made simply a single hexagonal ring around us.

"Oh my head... what was that ?" Tanith asked aloud as I sat up and rolled over to get to my knees, picking up my staff as I did so. Looking around I tried to see into the darkness around us. We were on a hexagonal patterned floor though.

I got to my feet. "Where are we ?" I asked as Tanith got to hers.

"Lets find out." She said, and barely took a step when the hole above us sealed itself just as rapidly as it opened, the driving wind on the madow itself ceased entirely and left us, very briefly, in total darkness.

Well, almost total darkness. Even though the brief light we had before it sealed itself back up, I could feel dust under my feet. As I stood straight, I must have triggered something, because a dim light began to gloe on the floor to either side of us. A good three meter wide hallway of some sort. Then above us the same light slowly dimmed from full dark to a slow brightness as to not blind us outright.

We were standing in a hallway. Glass walls on either side where the lines of light were in the floor and apparently the ceiling ? A sudden wind rushed by us and around our feet. Looking down as the light slowly got brighter I could see that the floor was indeed a six sided hexagon pattern. Even the glass was similar patterned on the strange lines of light.

"This is new" Tanith mumbled, she didnt wake up in such a place, and it didnt feel like an Ancient city like Atlantis. It felt like it was older than Atlantis.

"What do you mean ?" I asked her

"This is nothing like an Ori outpost." Tanith explained, "Fuck it isnt even like Iota or Isa either. Nothing remotely like this. Its almost as if its like we're inside a computer." Tanith was nearly right, to me it did feel similar to a computer, something like that one VRMMO I liked to play growing up actually now that I thought about it.

"You might be right..." I said before trailing off as more lights came on around us. A very strong feline voice rang out. For a brief moment I could not understand what was being said before somehow I could understand what was said. "You hear that ?" I asked to Tanith

She nodded. "Yeah, sounds... strange" She replied. We both looked up as the voice rang out as a screen appeared on the glass wall to my left, Taniths right.

"Lifesigns Detected. Please remain still for scan." Tanith and I looked around, Briefly Tanith raised a hand, as if in surrender, me, I just held my Ori staff close as my head was still pounding from my... I guess I could call it my return trip ? Barely on this new world in this new body an hour and Tanith and I find an adventure.

And I was, sadly, hungry. Who knew such a trip in a lightning storm could leave one starving ?

"Scan completed, Welcome; Tanith, Cayran, to Assembly Section Two, Engine Controls and Landing systems." The voice said. Shifting on the screen as it spoke we could see the layout of the area we had landed in. "All systems are at zero production status due to lack of resources at this time." The screen then blinked the words "awaiting voice commands"

We traded looks as a list of files appeared. I shrugged as Tanith looked at me. She sighed and stepped up. "Replay last video feed of section duty officer." Apparently the computer knew what Tanith meant, the shift leader, the guy in command of the time slot the last video was made.

The screen shifted a moment and then it showed a tall black and brown tabby male standing before the assembly section, he was armed with a staff of some kind, and had a bandolier of throwing knives across his left shoulder.

"Play file" Tanith said simply, apparently the assembly computer recognised Tanith as someone in command.

"My name is Mephis; Shift leader of Assembly Section Two. With the recent level of fighting against the Conquors and their mutts, the Pollicles, Assembly Section Two was reconfigured to construct weapons and gear as well as defenses for our soldiers. Alas, it was too little to late, Ascretta has fallen, most of us are dying or dead. The world rebelled as soon as any trace of the original twenty five disappeared. If anyone discovers this recording, Assembly Section One must be reactivated before any other Assemly Sections can start up. I reset the Assembly network to starship and weaponry construction, It will make a new ship with the remaining supplies inside the hour." The black and brown tabby male was then replaced with nothing other than a Puddlejumper.

However instead of an Atlantean appearance, a Furling Puddlejumper was prettier, and painted a different color compared to what the Atlantis team were used to, hell it looked niceer than what I had ever seen.

Tanith stared at the tabby male briefly. "Recognise him ?" I asked her, she had a look of quiet contemplation.

"In a way, yes" She replied, "But I cannot for the life of me remember why I remember him, or how."

I looked at the image of the male tabby, "He called himself Memphis. Did that mean something to you ?"

Tanith nodded in reply. "yeah," she said "That was my fathers name, back on Earth, Memphis Raines was my father." Tanith replied.

"The legendary Car Theif that took down Atly Carlitri ?" I asked her, she nodded. "Does he know you're a cat ?" I asked her

"I doubt it," She looked sidelong at me. A impish grin was on my face, she shook her head and snickered. Briefly changing the topic. "This factory can build a ship, a Puddlejumper, inside an hour with the supplies we got now. With it we can have some semblence of transport. Or even shelter, or defenses."

All those options made sense. But I spoke up. "Why am I remembering living in New York ?" My head was still hammering, hard. I put a hand to my head. Threading my fingers through my thick mane of hair.

"I understand the weird thoughts too" Tanith told me, I looked at her. "I still fight with myself that I apparently lived in a church in Windsor. England. When its just not possible, I lived on Iota, and before that I was born and raised in Long Beach. Thankfully I've managed to somehow convince the cat in me, the one I think who has the memories of the church, that Long Beach is where we're from. What about you ?"

"South Lansing, Michigan:" I replied. "But for some reason I keep thinking I grew up in New York not far from Centeral Park. Like, If we went to New York and got lost in Centeral Park area, I could find my way around without a problem." I sighed, I hated conflicting memories, my family was bizarre in remembering stuff.

"I see what you mean, when you said your name is Claire, what did that cat side of you, the one from New York, try to insist on ?" Tanith asked me. Apparently the catwoman in a gorgeous dark blackpurple dress had come to terms with who and what she was. A cat woman thing. Named Tanith.

Finally I spoke in thought. "The name that keeps coming to my mind. A girl, Cayran. Apparently born in South Carolina, but moved to New York. Which truth be told is south of Lansing when you look at it on a map." So it made sense, a bit of a southern belle more then likely with how I held myself. I tried for as much modesty as I could. But Tanith felt like a cat I knew, named Bomba, who had it "in the right places" and never feared to show it. Tanith was built like a tank, tall and slender, yet strong, fast, and stacked just right, just like me really now that the wall had become more solid instead of transparent so it looked like a mirror so I could see myself.

Able to see my face for once. A beautiful blend of white and scarlet stripes. Like a tabby cat, but instead of black and white, or black and silver, or even black and brown, or gray and brown, or black and gray. Or whatever tabby pattern was out there. I was a destinct coloration of white and red stripes. And the red and brown gown that Tanith had waiting for me only acentuated my features and colors.

Seeing me staring at myself in the mirror wall, Tanith chuckled softly, I looked towards her confused. "What ?" I asked her.

"Believe me, I've been here ten days already, maybe just a week or more, but the last three days I had access to a mirror, other then water at a stream side at least. I'm still not used to it." She told me. She had a soft smile on her face as she spoke.

"This is going to take a while to get used to" I mumbled softly, the conflicting memories in my head made my head hurt. But for now the cat within, Cayran, agreed to be from Lansing. Less crowded.

"And it only gets better from here" She smirked at me

I threw a look at her as we started walking along the hallway. "How do you mean ?" already dreading her answer.

"I havent been able to find the shampoo and conditioner yet" Tanith told me. I stared at her with a very dirty look, that was just the thing I did not want to hear. But she looked good for no access to conditioner, then again, we were cats now, grooming was going to be easier wasnt it ? I hoped so.

A bit later we came to a large room and looked around as the light was at a proper level. The floor was still the hexagonal pattern around our feet. "What is this ?" I asked seeing the consoles for controlling the assembly line, again the hologram of Mephis appeared and spoke before us

"Welcome to the Assembly Section Two line start. To design your choice of vessel with the supplies you currently have on hand, you may select the desired assembly to begin the process." Mephis however only had a single item on the list of available ships to build.

I stared at the list that even though not able to select most if not all of the ones I figured made the most sense. The one we could select and build with certain options was highlighted and brighter in color than the rest of the list

But Tanith read the list aloud, "Aurora, Cloudrunner, Gateship, Windrunner, Starliner, Cityship, dronebarge ?"

However as she read off the list of ship types and Mephis' hologram showed the massive structures in a image form between us. He always said the same thing. "Due to limited supplies, construction of this vessel is currently unavailable." At least until Tanith said Gateship. "With supplies on hand, a limited number of one Gateship can be constructed with desired enhancements"

At that I figured, what the hell and took the dive. "List all enhancements" I said simply to the screen.

"Enhancements to the Gateship include hyperdrive, sepreate shield system, cloaking device is standard, sepreate cloaking device with standard shield system. Drone weaponry system is standard, due to limited supplies drones are not available suggested replaceemtns are pulse energy weapons. Hyperdrive is optional. Powersupply is standard Zero Point Module type." Mephis said.

I smirked, So ZPMs could be used as a powersupply for a puddlejumper ? I wondered. "Hyperdrive type and range ?"

"Galaxywide hyperdrives for a vessel as small as a Gateship are currently not possible with current supplies and materials, hyperdrive would have a effective range of four to five thousand lightyears." Mephis said to us.

Tanith and I thought a moment. Seeing my expression I cast a glance towards the screen. "System hold" Tanith said out of the blue

"System awaiting input commands" Mephis' hologram replied, we stepped away from it.

"Now what ?" I asked to Tanith in a soft hiss. Building our own puddlejumper was pretty much a dream come true sure. But the list of enhancements, and the limits they included was another thing entirely.

"We could use this to get back to Earth, or even to find Atlantis!" Tanioth hissed softly in reply. "Maybe even dial the stargate here in pegasus and radio to Atlantis that you're safe ?"

I shook my head at mention of Earth. "We cant go back to earth" I said in thought. The last thing I wanted was to get seen as a freak on my own homeland. Though I did want to see my mother again.

"True, but we can at least get word there that we're alive and safe, what other way can we do that if not by ship or a databurst transmission ?" Tanith replied

I thought another minute. Tanith outranked me as a Lt Col, with me being a Major. I sighed and nodded. "What if instead of going to earth, we go to Atlantis, or where you found the Milky Way gate we go to another planet in the milkey way and dial Earth from there ?"

Tanith thought a moment, then she smiled with a nod. "Going from here to Atlantis sounds safer. The only thing we would have to do there is give a blood sample to the doctors on base." She mused, then she smirked, "And then have the IOA grill the fuck out of us all for showing up in the first place."

I nodded. "So we make this gateship, an enchanced puddlejumper by the look of it, and then what ? Use the stargate or fly there through space ?" I asked out of the blue

"Lets at least get the thing built and running. First" Tanith mused aloud, I agreed, turning back to the hologram of Mephis waiting for input, Tanith gave the command to construct a Gateship with a hyperdrive and using a Zero Point Module as a power supply to power the ship, she also ordered the system to install shield system sepreate, with the standard cloaking device. The drone weapons were almost an add in, but then when the limited supplies on hand, we decided on something else

"Asembly begun. Supplies have been drained at completion. Please hold still" Mephis said. Suddenly the floor jerked under us and I stared as it rose a good three meters or so. My jaw dropped as we hovered over the assembly line, the movement of the floor panels under our feet allowed us to travel along the assembly line to get recognised by the construction process in order to control and use the ship.

As much as we wanted to use the drones, which were the Ancients primary use of defensesand attack, we were inmcredibly limited on the total we had available. However what made me excited was something else entirely. Sensing my thoughts, a second weaponry system had been installed. In this case, with the very meager supplies we had managed to instead of using drones as planned for the main weaponry, the fifty or so stored Ori Staff weapons that we had found in the assembly line storroom were broken down to the molecular level and rebuilt in the assembly line into a pulse weapon for the puddlejumper.

Which was, as tested, twice as powerful as a Wraith Dart's pulse weapons. The Ori sure knew how to build major weaponry, even for their footsoldiers. Finally our new puddlejumper was done. We had our ship. And from what I could tell, only Tanith and I could fly it, if at all.

But the sad part was, I didnt even have a pilots license, nor did Tanith, but she was excited totry flying it anyhow. Everything the vessel had she was somehow used to flying ? We felt no g's being pulled whatsoever either as we flew gracefully from the assembly line gangway, as it shut down from lack of further supplies it allowed us to move and fly around to test the vessel.

As we flew I wondered where everyone else that Tanith mentioned were. Suddenly the window screen in front of us lit up with details. "Did you do that ?" I asked Tanith.

Tanith shook her head. "No, I think you did, what were you thinking of just now ?" Tanith replied as another screen appeared and the two settled briefly in a neater pattern.

"I was... wondering where the others you met up with were." I admitted to her. We never saw the other blobs of red dots showing further lifesigns.

Tanith smiled, looking sidelong towards me she said "Relax girl, we got this, we can only hope they're not having a panic attack right now down below us." She said to me. But it did not make me feel any better when she cloaked us entirely.

Six Hours Later

Present time

Taniths voice filtered into my sleeping brain. "OK lets see" It had been about six hours since we made this ship, it was comfy, and the gentle hum of its engine systems had nearly made me fall asleep. I was drowsy, yet also I was wide awake. I jerked slightly into full wakefulness as Tanith was still at the controls. It was dead dark space around us.

"Where are we ?" I asked sounding as if I just had a power nap on the spot.

"Right now, in orbit, I havent been able to fully set up a geo orbit over where everyone currently is, but for the most part I can stay pretty consistant in this location." Tanith replied

"Are those asteroids ?" I asked spotting the busted rocks outside the window. There were dozens of city block sized rocks in space around us. As well as stuff that was much smaller in size.

Seeing them floating effortlessly around us in space reminded me of that one movie I enjoyed growing up.

"Yup, been testing the new weapons on them while you were napping, with the ZPM, the pulse weapons you dreamed up are unstoppable. I've been trying various power levels of output though. I still think they're a little strong, but we dont have any live targets to try them on. So demolishing these asteroids is the next best thing." Tanith explained. Blasting at anotherone soundlessly a blue spear of pulse energy blew apart another rock.

"What about Atlantis, can we get there from here ?" I asked. How far was atlantis anyway ? I wondered. A map of the galaxy formed on the screen. "Whoa" I said seeing the map of the galaxy, it showed where Atlantis was

"Let me guess, you wondered if we have enough juice in the hyperdrive to get to Atlantis ?" Tanith asked me. I nodded. "I thought as much."

It turned out, we did indeed have enough juice, infact Atlantis was just over the halfway point of our maximum range of five thousand lightyears total hyperdrive distance. "If this is reading right, from here right now, its a twenty three hundred lightyear jump from here to Atlantis." Tanith said

"Travel time ?" I wondered aloud, the screen blinked, in a language we could never hope to write, but we could read it perfectly, showing, less than ten minutes. "Huh ?" I turned to Tanith, "You up for a ride ?"

A beeping came up on the screen however as an energy surge was detected on the planet. "I think the stargate just started up" Tanith replied

"What is it ?" I asked.

"The Atlantis stargate, it fired up just now." Tanith said

"Seriously ?" I wondered what the stargate room looked like, suddenly on the screen we could see what was going on, but nobody on the other end could see us. We looked through a camera view as another puddlejumper appeared, came to a halt, then went straight upwards.

"We got company" Tanith said, she found her radio, she had explained to me how she had grabbed a few of them, giving one to several others she was with. "Chief, this is Raines, come in." She said

"This is Quaxo, Colonel Raines, what is going on ?" Came the cultured voice, why the fuck did he sound like a Jaffa from the Milky Way ? I wondered.

"The Pegasus stargate activated and a puddlejumper has just came through, I cant tell how many people are inside or if they're friendlies. Do me a favor and inform the others to hide and not to panic." Tanith said.

"Yes sir." Came the reply. This Chief, he sounded familiar. But why did my mind rebel and want me to scream into the radio, "Quaxo is that you ?" But I never did voice it, I quelled my inner cat and forced myself to remain calm.

Tanith turned off her radio and out of boredom I smirked. "Why not draw those who just showed up, into these asteroids whil we hide ?" I said in thought

"You mean as if we're needing help or want to draw them from the others ?" Tanith asked me. This day went from confusingly painful to incredibly confusing very quickly.

"Both ?" I said, I gave Tanith a look. "Look, in the case things go from fine and dandy to absolutre FUBAR in a sneeze, its better we both keep whoever just showed up in the gateroom down there from finding the others. And if anything, we can destroy them up here instead of getting into a firefight with whoever they are down there." I said I had to stop and think. My entire family was a military family. My mom blamed it on her southern heritige, her parents, grand parents, even great grandparents were all in some sort of battle or armed service. Hell my own mother was a police officer after getting discharged from the Army before she became a mom and had me.

So why was I thinking of shooting someone in the case they were enemies without trying to talk to them first ? Was that my military training saying to shoot first and talk later ? Survive at all costs ? I really hoped so.

"Hmm" Tanith mused thoughtfully. This was going to be a long day.

But it was her next idea that made me agree. "I think we can track that other jumper." She said, instantly on the front window the other puddlejumper appeared.

"The hell is it doing ?" We could track it because it was an Ancient ship, and our ship was built in an Ancient facility, but there was a cool perk, even with their ship cloaked, we could still track its general location, but we couldnt actually see it to know for sure where it was.

"Looks like its heading for orbit not far from us" Tanith said, the screen then showed the possible orbit point for the ship. She smirked towards me. "Lets see what it does, if it so much as makes a wrong move, I'll shoot... fuck not now!" The pulse laser fired off a bolt towards the unseen puddlejumper soundlessly.

We were in for an interesting meeting for sure