"I didn't think you'd be up and walking around yet," O'Neill said when he saw Mokar walking into the mess hall.

"I need to leave the city and the gate network for a couple of weeks," he replied, ignoring the surprise in O'Neill voice.

"I don't think you should even leave your bed in the infirmary in your condition."

"It is because of my condition that I need to leave."

"We have sent a ship to check on Earth and we will make sure no other explosives can be brought here."

"That will not do not it. There's one of our old galaxies, Libee. We did a lot of dimensional research there because it has a very brittle dimensional barrier. I should be able to break through the barrier with some help from our old labs."

"And it's outside the gate network?"

"Partially, the outer planets can be accessed by gate, but the closer to the core you get the more unstable the barrier becomes."

"So it's really easy to enter and exit subspace then?"

"A little too easy. The problem is you never know where you will end up."

"So how would you navigate the galaxy then?"

"There is two ways. There is several hundred sensor station which a ship can use to navigate the galaxy somewhat accurate, still the margin of error is so large that a ship could risk jumping to a different star system, or even emerge inside a celestial body. The second is by using the same drive Destiny has."

"An FTL drive."

"Yes, there should be a shuttle equipped with one such drive on a planet at the edge of the galaxy with a stargate."

"So any particular reason for this pilgrimage?"

"As I said I need to breakthrough the dimensional barrier."

"To where? What could you possibly gain from that?"

"The realm where my ascended kin reside, I have hope that they will remove the directives enforced onto me."

"They could just come here and do it if they wanted to. But then they have never seemed to care too much about what happens on our plane of existence."

"There is much you do not know O'Neill," Mokar said and lifted his head from the snack he was having. In his eyes O'Neill could see the constant pain which was tearing at every fiber of the man. "There is always a cost to everything, the same is true for breaking dimensional barriers. For example, to enter subspace you need energy, the deeper into the other dimension the more energy you need. With subspace the deeper you go the faster you travel."

"Which is why a ship with a ZPM would go much faster than one without a ZPM," O'Neill said simply to show that he understood.

"As long as the ship can handle the power and does not already have something more powerful to power it. But yes that would be correct. The same goes for ascended beings and the dimension they live in."

"So get a big ass generator and do it here then."

"It is more complicated than that. Subspace can be reached with energy channeled into a hyperdrive. Most other need some sort of harmful radiation to be accessed."

"Why do I get the feeling you're going to need something even worse?"

"Mental energy is what I will be needing."

"The stuff you use to move things with your mind?"

"Yes, among other things. In time I should be able to kill with it, make plasma, small shields and other things."

"Why isn't talking to ascended being on that list?"

"Because there is no way for me to gain such a large energy reserve before I could ascend, at least in theory."

"So normally only ascended beings can cross the barrier without help?"

"No. There is no way to cross the barrier for them alone, they can not create the energy needed. As far as our research into it goes only living creatures in this dimension can create it."

"But we have seen ascended beings in this dimension."

"Yes, I have read the reports from the SGC. They have most likely used the method of the Ori to drain mental energy from the living."

"But then they can do it."

"Yes, but think of the cost in mental energy. If I did it here I would drain the mental energy of the whole city, killing everyone, and still only a thought or two could come through."

"So that's why you're going to a place with a weaker barrier."

"Yes. But I have already wasted too much time here, the sooner I get there the sooner I can get back," he said while rising from his seat. "I have created a list of planets I want you to move the city to in my absence. Place an outpost on each one and move on to the next. Then there's the expedition to Thuvalan, Caari, Sar and Lega."

"I will see to it that the outposts are created," O'Neill promised. "And Teal'c will take care of the expedition, he's a great commander."

"Then I will leave it all to you."

"Take care out there, we all need you and the stuff in your head."

"If I were to die during this journey it will be up to you to take over O'Neill."

"Then don't," O'Neill said as the other man turned around to leave.

"I can not promise that O'Neill and if I do then you need to go to Gamia and pass the trials," Mokar said just before he hurried away.

Nine days after leaving Pegasus the Retribution dropped out at the edge of the Milky Way to allow the crew on the bridge to see that they were moving between galaxies for a few seconds before the ship returned to hyperspace.

P3Z-13 was the designation the Tau'ri had given to an agricultural world which the Alterra had used to show of their advanced technology to other races. Sceron was the name the Alterra themselves had given it and the name the twelve Angelo would teach their children. After searching for a new homeworld in Pegasus the Angelo had chosen to look elsewhere and had quickly found the world in the Milky Way which they now stepped onto through the gate. With them they carried eight ZPMs, crates of food, piles of building materials and a single grey device. When they had all arrived on their new homeworld the gate was automatically locked down and the grey device was deployed. When it activated the device was powered by five of the ZPMs and it pushed the solar system and twelve surrounding solar systems out of phase to protect the Angelo. Then it activated its time dilation field and surrounded the immediate area, before the Angelo had expanded there was no reason for the field to drain more power for a larger field. Normally the use of time dilation fields were banned under Alterran council law since it could mess with the timeline and create contingency problems, but now it was not Mokar who personally broke the law and that would save him from the punishment for breaking the council law. Still it was he who had drained three ZPMs to materialize the device which had put the Angelo out of phase and was now creating the time dilation field. Outside the field time would slowly roll on day after day as usual while inside the field years would pass. It was everyone's hope that the Angelo would get a chance restore their strength inside the field and grow in numbers until they could hold back the tide of the Abasy. With the fields in place the twelve hurried to set up shelters for themselves and what little they had brought with them. Then they got on with the task of creating more of their species. They had five thousand years to expand their numbers inside the field before the ZPM would run dry and they would be returned to the normal world where war would meet them in some form.

At the edge of Libee Mokar arrived through the gate network on one of the old Alterran outpost which had been responsible for shuttling researchers deeper into the galaxy and the countless research facilities they had built there. With easy steps Mokar walked down one of the sixteen corridors which led away from the gate to the control center. Like the rest of the facility everything was covered in thick layers of dust and when he activated the old console the screen barely managed to shine through the dust. The outpost was quite small so there was only a single console to look through to find out that there were six FTL-shuttles in the hangars. Three minutes later he was down in one of the hangars and cleared the shuttle for launch. Anyone who had seen Destiny's shuttles would straight away see the resemblance between the two. Destiny's creator never had time to design a whole new shuttle, so he had only removed the FTL-drive from the Libee shuttles and smacked them onto Destiny. Now the shuttle rose from the hangar and rushed from the surface while Mokar connected it to the sensor network to update the shuttle's map. When the shuttle was ready for the journey Mokar input the coordinates for an ascension research facility close to the galaxy's core and the shuttle blasted off at breakneck speed.