"What's going on Sergeant?" Jack asked walking into the control room. The claxons had been sounding for nearly two minutes.
"Unsure Sir, looks like we are trying to receive a coded transmission." Walter adjusted the frequency and the static began to fade and Jack could clearly make out the sound of two voices.
"I don't think they're going to care you have not had chocolate in six months."
"Well how about we let them be the judge of that?"
"Rodney, stop it..."
"Hello?" Jack said into the microphone.
"General O'Neill?" A very distinct female voice asked.
"Dr Weir?"
"Yes Sir, how are you?" Elizabeth asked
"Ah fine...how's your galaxy?" He asked.
"Very good General." There was a few minutes silence before Jack said something else.
"So is this just a social call or did you need something?" he asked.
"Well General, we have some information I think you should hear and Dr Jackson too."
"Ah, he's off world at the moment. Won't be back till tomorrow. So is Carter."
"Well unfortunately this can't wait."
--------------
Sam felt herself being dragged from her sleep by something shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes to find herself staring into a familar pair green eyes looking slightly concerned. "Colonel Carter we have an incoming wormhole." Smith said to her.
Sam jumped up from her bed and was dressed in a matter of seconds. She emerged in the control room as the defence team was getting into position. Sam watched anxiously as the event horizon began to ripple slightly. Although she was ecstatic as she recognized the figure, she was going to have to explain the time difference again to him.
"Hey kids!" Jack said cheerfully. He looked around and noticed the lack of activity around the base, except for the men pointing guns at him and the three people in the control room. "I got it wrong again didn't I?" he asked.
"Yes Sir." Sam said walking over to him.
"Sorry." Jack said looking down at his feet, almost like a small child who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"No worries Sir, I would have been getting up in an hour any way." She replied with a smile. "What's up?"
"Nothing that can't wait until after breakfast." Jack announced holding up a bag that Sam could see had boxes from a bakery they frequented.
"Always a pleasure to see you General." Sergeant Smith said coming up and helping him by taking the pastries. "Let me help you with those Sir. Ma'am I'll start some coffee."
"Thanks Nathan." Sam replied.
"Don't we have a loyal staff?" Jack whispered to her. Sam slapped him playfully before nodding her head in the direction of the small rec room.
"This is cosy." Jack said coming in.
"Well it saves having to go all the way to the mess hall. And the bathroom is big enough." She replied.
"Big enough for what?" Jack asked.
"Go look."
Jack walked into bathroom and let out a small chuckle. Sitting next to a large litter box was a matching water and food dish and a large basket which contained a small orange ball of fluff in the corner and some chew toys and a fluffy mouse. "You do realise he's a cat Sam, not a kid." Jack said coming to stand in front of her.
"Yeah but he's our cat. I want him to be happy here." Jack wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her in for a quick kiss.
"You are rather cute you know. Specially when you're all sleep ruffled and soft." He said giving her neck a nuzzle.
"Isn't this mixing work with pleasure?" Sam said slightly breathless.
"We kiss in my office all the time."
"Yeah but people knock before they come in." Sam replied.
"Seems they should do the same thing here." A slightly smug sounding voice said from behind them. Jack and Sam jumped apart like they were too hot for each other suddenly and tried to stop the blushing in their cheeks.
"Major Andrews, how are you?" Jack asked.
"Fine Sir thanks. How are the Red Sox doing?" Scott asked. Jack mumbled something under his breath and turned to the now boiling coffee pot.
The rest of the night crew filtered in and out grabbing a Danish or other pastry before turning in, and the early rises came in for their first coffee.
"So to what do I owe the pleasure?" Sam asked again. Jack was playing with Space Monkey who he had woken up, against Sam's wishes.
"Oh, lets wait for Danny and T. They should hear this." Jack said.
Soon enough the two said figures came in, slightly surprised by the visitor.
"O'Neill." Teal'c said.
"Jack. Hello."
"Hey fellas."
"What are you doing here?" Daniel asked
"Not happy to see me?"
"Indeed O'Neill." Replied Teal'c.
"Well seeing as you are all here. We received a transmission from Weir and her team yesterday."
"What?" Daniel and Sam said in unison.
"Yeah. Seems as if the big bad that was giving the Ancients trouble has woken up. Call them self the Wraith."
"How bad?" Sam asked.
"Bad. Apparently they have some great natural fighting skills and they suck the life out of you."
"Suck?" Sam queried with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah they touch your chest or something and it just drains you dry. Apparently they are looking for a new feeding ground, The Atlantis teams are going their best. They've had a few run-ins already. Lost some good men." Jack said quietly.
"Do they know anything else?" Daniel asked.
"Just that they are unfriendly, and suck you dry...I mean drain you, uh your life, drain your life." Jack stumbled.
"Hold on a sec." Daniel said leaving the table.
The three continued to talk and catch up before Daniel came jogging back into the room.
"They destroyed the Furlings." Daniel said interrupting Jack.
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"It was them, they destroyed the Furlings."
"How do you know?" Jack asked. Daniel looked at him for moment. "Pretend I care." He said.
"When we were going through the ruins on both planets we found discrepancies in text's that gave them an age gap of a few hundred years. Now if a Furling was to read it chances are they would have no problem understanding either, but to translate to correctly for us, we had to do a little more work. This tablet that served as warning and was on the older settlement but in the newer language but I translated part of it wrong. It's almost like phonetics, they may have written it that way so the Wraith would not recognise a reference to themselves if they went back, but it was them."
"And you figured that out how?" Jack asked again.
"Well if you had not have said the name or given that description I would never had thought to think of it in that way, but it was just an idea. This tablet says "Beware those who slumber. The fatal touch they possess. The ones called the R'ae-th''thi. Or Wraith."
"So we have a problem." Jack said.
"How so O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.
"Well they went after the Ancients, then the Furlings..." Jack started.
"The alliance." Sam interjected.
"The Nox are invisible," Sam said "the Asguard are probably too powerful now."
"So that leaves one." Daniel replied.
"The Tauri." Teal'c answered.
"Well we were never actually formalised into the alliance. Maybe they will leave us alone." Jack said hopefully.
Sam tried to pay attention but something was nagging her at the back of her mind, she felt like she should know something. She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to drag the information to the surface of her mind. The onslaught of images nearly caused her to gasp out loud.
"So can you tell me anything that's going on?" Sam asked.
"The Goa'uld were destroyed in 2012 thanks to their own arrogance and some very careful planning. A lot of innocent people had to die. Now the SGC is working with the Atlantis team and several off world sites and allies to try and take down the Wraith."
"The What?"
"They are the cliché, 'take one down and one worse comes along' bad guy. But we're not doing too badly." Kariella said.
"You said they were after a new feeding ground, then it's not power or quality they want. It's quantity." Sam said coming out of the memory.
"And earth just happens to have six billion people." Daniel said.
"And the billions of others in our Stargate network in this galaxy that would have evolved since the Wraith were here last." Sam added
"That's why the Ancients came back to earth. They were finally overcome in the Pegasus galaxy and so they came home."
"Yeah, Weir says a kind of tour guide hologram tells you that." Jack said. Sam and Daniel and were both looking at Jack with wide eyes and almost pleading looks on their faces. "What?" he asked.
"Jack." Daniel said.
"Oh no no. No." Jack said.
"Sir, we have to." Sam said.
"Did I stutter, I said no." Jack said, feeling guilty as soon as he did. "I'm sorry. But no."
"Jack if we don't then we could be dooming the planet. Who knows what kind of information the Wraith gathered on us already. These guys were powerful enough to nearly destroy the four most powerful races ever to exist. We have to." Daniel said.
"Isn't that what they're doing there?" Jack asked.
"Sir the Atlantis team is good, some of the best, but they can't help our galaxy from Pegasus. If we don't go there and find out as much as we can, we're finished." Sam said.
"You seem awfully sure about this." Jack said.
"I know. I never mentioned it before because I was not expecting to hear the name for a very long time, 34 years to be exact." Sam said.
"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.
"I can't say. But Sir, we need to do this." Sam said giving Jack a look that left no room for doubt in his mind.
"Looks like we're going to Atlantis."