Part 4

I couldn't believe it. We had met real ancients, we had travelled all the way to another galaxy to find them and it was us, my team that made the discovery. Even greater was the fact that these Alterans were openly attacking the Wraith.

If only we could convince the commander to order the Virtue to Atlantis. To bring the most advanced and definitely the strongest ship we had ever encountered. The crew seemed friendly but they seemed unable to simply talk, I began to wonder if this is how all the ancients interacted. I laughed as I considered Atlantis full, yet quiet.

The room given to me was large, it had what I assumed was some kid of advanced bathroom and a small kitchen area. It was luxurious compared to the Daedalus. There was also a large long window that allowed you to see out into space.

The ship was impressive, it was obviously a battleship but I wondered, was it the last ship or was it one of a fleet.

I was asked to come to a tactical briefing for some reason by Lucas, there were only two possible reasons for this in my opinion. Either he wanted to know about Atlantis or he wanted to keep me close.

I walked towards the light blue door and as I got there it opened. This ship sure did take some getting used to. I loved the fact that we were treated like royalty by a machine. There were no servants but the ship seemed to sense what we wanted and it would then try its best to provide.

The ancients looked so similar to us, it was uncanny to think they were a much older species and we were actually not from the same evolution as them. We were the second evolution of our form.

I got to the briefing room early; only the commander was there, he seemed glad I got there early. He seemed eager to tell me something and he did. He told me everything.

The siege of Atlantis was non-stop; they had managed to get a small fleet away from the city on a desperate mission. They had been sent to negotiate with the nightmarish Wraith. The fleet was massive. There was one visible battleship; the rest of the fleet was cloaked. After about a day it became clear that the Wraith had not taken well to the diplomats and had most likely fed upon them. The dead ship was left in orbit of the planet dead with the shields down. We couldn't allow it to fall into Wraith hands so Lucas ordered the fleet to de-cloak and destroy the sitting ship.

They managed to destroy the ship but took massive casualties, most of the Battleships were too damaged to get away and they fled into the Puddle Jumpers and other small ships that we had not seen on Atlantis and set the self-destructs. The Virtue was the only fully operational battleship when we got out of the situation and the cloak was damaged.

They activated their most powerful engines, at this point I realised that must have been what had kicked in on the Puddle Jumper above the Wraith planet, and they shot across the galaxy. Afraid to jump back to Atlantis the fleet waited on a barren planet whilst they conducted all of their repairs. What was left of the fleet began to start their journey to a certain hidden Alteran base. The Virtue had been off on a supply pick-up and we were returning to the fleet.

The fleet now consisted of two battleships, 6 cruisers and dozens of Puddle Jumpers on each of the larger ships. Our Puddle Jumper was currently being repaired, once it had been we were free to leave whenever we wanted. Lucas told us we were welcome to stay with the fleet as long as we wanted, this was the reason he wanted me at the briefing.

Everyone else soon arrived at the briefing room; Lucas activated a 3-D overhead map and explained his plan. We were now only a few stops away from the other city; we needed to stop for supplies every so often and there would be three more jumps before we reached it.

This seemed safe enough, I still hoped to convince them to go to Atlantis but this city may have spare ZPMs. If we returned to Atlantis with three more, full ZPMs, Atlantis would be re-powered for years

Lucas then told us the difficult part. We had limited possible stop points, all of them deep inside Wraith territory. It wouldn't be easy. We could cloak until we found the supplies. But then we would have to raise the shields and get out of there as soon as the supplies had been transported.

The Wraith would be able to get at least 5 Hive-Ships to our position within the 15 minutes it would take to supply all of the ships. The fleet was in no condition to fight, we needed every pilot to fly supplies. I realised now that Lucas expected my team to collect and fly supplies in our jumper.

I was happy with this as I knew we were already too deep into the Wraith controlled space to attempt to take our Jumper through.

We were going into Wraith space. Deep into Wraith space.

TO BE CONTINUED...