Chapter 13 - Destiny Meets the Tel

Destiny was on the edge of the galaxy currently traveling in FTL as they skirted the outer edge. It had been days since they visited the abandoned outpost and they were still talking about what they should do. Should they attempt to explore this galaxy further? Should they change course and fly through the galaxy instead? The outpost didn't boast of any defenses that we could detect. There was no armory or weapons of any kind.

Three days had passed when the ship dropped out of FTL and the gate started spinning. The gate connected. The shield was raised and something impacted the Iris. Minutes later a voice could be heard over the ship's intercom. The language, if that's what it could be called, was utterly unintelligible.

Colonel Everett responded saying he couldn't understand them. He told them they came from the planet Earth in a galaxy many billions of light years away. He talked about their mission and why they came. He talked about a lot of things and kept talking until finally a voice answered him back in English.

"Strange vessel, we are the Tel. We are peaceful explorers eager to meet and form partnerships with peoples so very far from their home. Our probe did not make it through your gate, could you explain why?"

"Hello, we are excited to meet you and glad you could assimilate our language so easily. I am sure our people could learn much from you. We are grateful that you made contact with us and are eager to open a dialogue in the hopes that this will lead to friendship and cooperation between our two peoples as well as the many peoples of several galaxies.

Your probe did not make it through because we have an impenetrable shield microns from the event horizon that won't let anything to reassemble on our side. Experience has taught us to be extremely cautious when it comes to who we let through our gate. We hope you understand why we would be so cautious."

"Do not worry, we understand completely. The galaxy you just came from was completely devastated by ships stocked full of machines, no less, intent on total destruction of everything man made. We were worried when we detected life forms on the ship and are overjoyed you made it through such a dilemma. Know that you are most welcome and need not fear us. We are eager to get to know your species."

"We are likewise eager to meet your people. Would you consent to meeting on a planet of your choosing?"

"We would. We are sending you the address of our home planet. Please come when you are able."

The stargate shut off. On Eli's console shined the gate address to the Home Planet of the Tel.

"Well, that was unexpected. Everywhere we've gone so far, there's some life form there ready to either fire on us, enslave us or experiment on us." Eli said, "Ten bucks these guys are looking for number three."

"So, I'll be going as will Camille. Sargent Greer and Eli, you'll accompany us along with TJ. Everyone let's suit up and prepare to pay a little visit to our new friends." Colonel Everett said, completely ignoring Eli's comments.

Thirty minutes later, they regrouped in the gate room. The gate was dialed and out of thin air, a puddle jumper (original design) came into existence. They boarded the jumper with Sergeant Greer taking the stick and went through the gate.

They exited the gate slowly since they had no idea what would be on the other side. The gate was out in the open in what appeared to be a city of sorts with buildings here and there.

When they came through the gate, they were completely alone. Slowly, beings that looked very similar to our own started taking shape with what looked like grains of sand flying together. There were about five of them. When they looked at us they simply turned around and jumped into the air. They were flying. We followed them to an open balcony several hundreds of feet in the air. Sergeant Greer parked the vessel and the team disembarked.

"Thank you for meeting us! I am Colonel Everett and this is Sergrant Greer, Eli, Camille Wray our ambassador, and TJ."

At this point Camille Wray stepped forward, "On behalf of all the peoples on our home world, we thank you for this opportunity. We are humbled by your generosity and hope to be strong allies in the future."

"You are too formal, I believe, from what we could learn from your ship's computers. We have just met, let's not talk about advantages. Tell us how you came to be here." Said the Tel representative as he steered them toward a open-aired seating area just inside.

"I would be very happy to tell you everything about our people and our missions through the stargate in our home galaxy as well as of many others. First, however, we are curious why you all resemble us so much. There is no way an iteration of our evolution could have evolved so perfectly similar at this distance from the original galaxy of our evolution."

"You are right. We are very impressed by your understanding of this. We are not individual beings like you are. We are in fact a race of insects who have the ability to join together and make whatever shape we wish. We are telepathic by nature and as such freely communicate with the entirety of our brethren wherever they may be. We are connected to each other which allows us to connect to even the farthest of our people. Though I appear to be alone, the entirety of my people are connected to me and are sharing with me our meeting."

"So what form do your people usually prefer to take when they're at home?"

Before their eyes, the Tel transformed into something that looked very similar to a Taydorian from Star Trek. They were thin where the Taydorian was chubby. They had short arms and legs that looked very similar to us except much smaller and held afloat with wings on their backs. Maybe more like fairies.

The representative changed back into a humanoid. "We are cannot use your language in that form, though, so we will always present ourselves in this form when we interact."

"Your species is truly a marvel to behold." Said Camille, along with other flattering blubbering. She then jumped into the story of how we got to be in their neighborhood.

Atlantis and Utopia jumped to their next armada of thirty Hives and about eighty Al'Kesh. The Earth fleet surrounded the enemy fleet and started deploying Ancient drones and firing the ABWs. The fighters launched from the City Ships and Hephaestus-Class warships and started popping in and out of the battlefield while firing their bubble beam weapons.

The Hive ships launched their Darts as well and started firing on our ships. They didn't care that they didn't know where the ships would come out. They just shot out randomly. Perhaps hoping to hit by pure luck one of the fighters. This did however hamper the fighters as they couldn't phase in as regularly. Now, you could see fighters popping in and out among the enemy Darts. Slowly but surely, the waves were increasing in intensity. The Darts start exploding here and there one by one then in tens and twenties until all have been destroyed. The fighters return to their respective fighter bays. The entire battlefield is shining with the number of Ancient drones littering the battlefield. The Earth fleet worked its way into the center of the armada.

When victory was almost assured, two of the First's ZPM powered Hive ships showed up with twenty more Hives and at least sixty Al'Kesh.

The Earth fleet retreated a ways away from the new comers while deploying more and more drones between the two fleets.

Colonel Carter aboard Atlantis ordered Ganas Lal to send out a distress signal to rest of the fleet in Pegasus. Within minutes, the entire Earth fleet showed up. They too begin to increase the number of drones now making the battlefield extremely bright with their individual lights.

Olympus started to move towards the hives as the drones started firing on any ship of opportunity. All of the Hephaestus-Class warships followed her in focusing on the other Hive ships and their Cruisers. Atlantis and Utopia along with the Copernicus-Class Science vessels moved towards the remaining Hives and Cruisers who started to join the armada that just showed up.

Olympus started firing all of her ABWs at the ship on the left. The hull held and absorbed the damage as the drones started finding their marks and exploding. The hull's integrity dropped by only twenty percent.

Both ships opened fire on Olympus. With both of them firing, her shield's quickly dropped by over forty percent. At this point, the city ship started taking evasive maneuvers, flying quickly around the battlefield avoiding as much weapon's fire as possible.

Meanwhile the five Hephaestus-Class warships closed in on the accompanying ships. They shot their ABWs destroying six hives and just as many cruisers. The drones drew closer and started piercing the ships in larger and larger numbers. The warships kept firing their ABWs destroying six to eight vessels for each volley.

The city ship was focusing on pointing the city part towards the Hive ships so her weapons had clean shots. They started firing on the second Hive as well.

The Hives were able every now and again to hit the shields but otherwise the drain on the shields had drastically reduced. Olympus kept pounding away at the Wraith ships, steadily eating away at the Hive ships' hull integrity. Her ABWs firing constantly while the AMCDs were working hard to spew forth as many drones as possible.

While Olympus was going up against its toughest opponent yet, the rest of the Earth fleet were destroying any remains of the Wraith fleet. Several vessels managed to escape into hyperspace. The Copernicus-Class Science vessels were the first to give chase. Then the Tinkerer warships. But there were too many escaping so Atlantis and Utopia jumped into help. They quickly caught up to them and followed them until they dropped out of hyperspace. There they would meet their end.

Olympus was then left alone to contend with the two ZPM-powered Hive ships. She evaded the enemies weapons fire pretty well considering she was a gigantic city. We would later find out that the Ancients had configured the shields to negate the gradational effect of the rest of the universe allowing her to move around more agilely than any other ship. This was a feature they hadn't know about since they'd never needed to do use it before.

Eventually they started to crack under the strain. The vessel on the right blew up and took with it the one on the left. Olympus's shields took quite a beating as well when the two ships blew up. It completely drained the remaining power of the Secondary shield and almost all of the power from the Primary shield before the technicians could change out the ZPMs for the ninth time that day.

The Hive ship was made for destruction. Pure and simple. Even without shields, it is a monster that somehow just came about naturally. The Goa'uld in their original forms, these guys and the Ori. All evolved naturally by Mother Nature. Mind boggling that such a destructive force came about naturally.

That the Weaith Hives would be so very big. You could easily fit seven City ships inside of it and possibly have room for one more. Massive. Gigantic. Too big for words. How is it that this is natural?

Of course it's natural. The universe goes bigs. Billions of galaxies with billions of solar systems with hundreds of billions of planets capable of supporting life. It's us who go small.

Not anymore. A new design would be implemented on Olympus. The ZPM rooms were going to get an overhaul. In place of the traditional pedestal with only three ZPMs, the replicators came up with a design that would be more like a rectangles pillar from floor to ceiling. The problem with the ZPMs is they release a lot of energy at a time and the pedestal was specifically designed to be able to channel all that power. This new design would allow for more power to flow through and allow for more ZPMs to be plugged in at a time. On two sides there would be five while on the other two sides, four could fit, totaling eighteen per room. The battle with the ZPM-Powered Hive ships had the Olympus crew worried they wouldn't fare so well against the First's Hive ship which was currently being powered by three. Her Hive ships that were being powered only by one were proving very powerful. The destructive power of her ship must be tremendous. The other four ZPM rooms would also be upgraded in this way. After the war, Atlantis and Utopia would lose their other ZPM rooms in favor of this design for the primary room. Vis Uban which was still being constructed would have its ZPM room converted to this design.

This retrofit would have to take place back in Ganymede. Olympus took off and the rest of the fleet continued their hunt for the Wraith.

Back at Ganymede, Vis Uban's bottom snowflake drive was almost finished in one section of the shipyard. In another, Puddle Jumpers were being assembled for the City Ship's use. And in another, more Copernicus-Class vessels were under construction, ten in total. Once they were completed they would be focused on upgrading Planet Earth.

Olympus was directed to another part of the facility that was used primarily for upgrades and repairs. Her she would spend at least a week while hundreds of Replicators work to upgrade her power systems to handler the five new ZPM rooms, each with eighteen ZPMs. Olympus would now be the best powered vessel in any vessel. Once completed, she would have her shakedown in the Milky Way before returning to Pegasus.