Jack walked out of the stargate into the gateroom of the new SGC where he was welcomed by the sight of forcefields surrounding the descent ramp and platform. Behind the shields were a pair of machine gun turrets, unmanned, that tracked his movements. A moment later the shields dropped and a green jump-suited female walked out of a sliding door and greeted him.

"Welcome to Springfield," she said with a smile. "I assume you're General O'Neill's clone?"

"General?" Jack said, surprised. "Is my progenitor around?" he said, throwing the impressive word out on purpose.

The woman frowned. "No one told you?"

"Told me what?"

"General O'Neill went AWOL during the whole gate-snatch scenario. We haven't been able to find him since."

"Really? Well that's…unexpected…but it does explain some things."

"This way, sir. General Carter has been expecting you for some time."

"She has, has she? Lead on then…"

The woman smiled. "You don't have a rank yet, do you?" she said, walking.

"Technically no," Jack admitted.

"Good. Then I won't get in trouble for saying you're cuter than I expected," she said, winking at him.

"You don't say," Jack said sarcastically. "Well, even if I did have rank that sort of thing wouldn't get you in trouble," he said appreciatively.

She pulled open a door and stood beside it, looking back at him. "Oh yes it would…sir," she said, smiling naughtily. "Up the stairs and on the right."

"Thank you," Jack said, wryly smiling back as he took to the staircase. It circled upward into a short hallway with four doors. He carefully stepped up and knocked on the first door to his right.

"Come in," he heard a muffled, yet familiar voice say.

He opened the door and walked in…to find Sam sitting behind a ridiculously large desk. She looked up at him and her eyes widened. "Jack…"

The new Wraith queen took her precious cargo back to the inner core, some 8,000 of the Vertarin in total. When her Hive ship exited hyperspace, her cruiser escort was supplemented by a dozen more ships from the defense fleet surrounding the Urutie system. There were 19 worlds occupied by the Wraith in the system, making it the most populous of the inner core systems. Technically one of the 19 was the primary world, and the rest were offshoots. It was to that particular moon that her Hive ship was descending. On the surface were hundreds of surface Hives, along with some freshly grown holding cells on the surface…which was where their cargo was to be delivered.

The Hive ship lowered above the corrals and began beaming down their living cargo. The Vertarin were especially good at jumping, and because of this the walls holding them in were exceptionally high…almost reaching up to touch the underside of the Hive ship. Slowly, a few dozen at a time, the creatures were deposited into two of the 412 holding cells. Once the offload was complete, the Hive ship returned to space, launched a test probe to confirm the Attero device hadn't been reactivated, and jumped back into hyperspace. It would be making continuous round trips back to the homeworld in the foreseeable future, feeding the Wraith on the surface with their new sustenance. That was the role of a gatherer…and the new queen was quickly and efficiently slipping into her role within Wraith society.

Ryan sat, tapping his fingers on the table as he reviewed the surveillance report that Sheppard had filed. Teyla's insights were particularly disturbing, though he could find no fault with them. It seemed that there was more to the Wraith than he'd previously thought, and that disturbed him, given the fact that he had a detailed account of his counterparts' wars to purge the Pegasus galaxy of the menace, thanks to Janus. The man had warned him that events might not match up between realities, but he hadn't expected this much deviation. He silently reminded himself to pay less credence to Janus's other reality reports. He had to deal with this reality, and he couldn't start making unwarranted assumptions.

Janus's reports had indicated 3 to 5 variants of Wraith in the other realities, none of which matched the ant-like version that Sheppard had found. The smaller creatures matched up with a species tagged as the Rik in Janus's detailed files, but the Lanteans had never encountered them here.

The presence of such a large fleet also made Ryan rethink his current deployment strategies. It seemed the Wraith had been holding back and letting the Alterrans kick the crap out of their fleet across the galaxy…but when it came to this particular system they were clearly of a different mind, and had considerably more warships left than he'd guessed.

He needed more intelligence…and he didn't have it. He'd hoped this war would be short, but apparently that wasn't going to be the case. It looked like the Wraith were going to put up more of a fight than they had for his counterparts.

Figured. Ryan always had had a penchant for bad luck, and it seemed his transformation to Alterran hadn't rid him of it.

He reached out and hit the comm button on his office desktop, along with a numeric sequence.

"What is it that you require?" an Asgard voice replied in English.

"Tell Hirrith that I need him to set up a strategic simulation group," Ryan said in Lingara. "I need him to simulate Wraith forces in a war games scenario…and I need him to beat me."

"It will be done," the Asgard said, this time in his native tongue.

Ryan deactivated the comm. If anything, the Asgard were great strategists, and it was time Ryan stopped trying to predict the Wraith and focus on fighting them. In order to do that, he needed someone else to think like the Wraith…and who better than an Asgard?

Freed of the burden, Ryan began thinking along new lines almost immediately, belatedly realizing he should have taken this tac long ago. The key to winning any war, was to stay true to one's self and upgrade the way you fought, not changing to meet your enemy. Granted, he hadn't made that mistake, but he hadn't been approaching this fight as a real war…more of a housecleaning project.

Problem was, he didn't have the Alterran personnel to fight a real war. Which meant that he and the others were going to have to be devious…

A man sat in a cross legged, meditative position on the floor of his quarters' porch, looking out over the impressive landscape that was the north pier of the city. The Ancient shields were active, and keeping the atmosphere contained and separate from that of the planet, so no winds were present. The man soaked up the sunshine and released a slow breath, purging anxiety and realigning his internal Edeva energy. It wanted to swirl about and gain in power, but he gently restricted and redirected the flow, calming himself and letting the prickly energy soak into all of his body's limbs, revitalizing and energizing him in a healing wash that partially counteracted the decay within his body.

That decay was his continual source of frustration…but in order to heal it, he had to let go of said frustration. Quite the paradox, and one that he had yet to overcome. He sensed a presence behind him.

"Excuse me…" a timid female voice interrupted his quiet.

"Yes, Emy. What is it?" he said calmly.

"A new report on the Wraith. They turned back an assault by Atlantis."

Romulus opened his eyes and slowly stood up. "Details please."

"One of Atlantis's large vessels attacked a Wraith world under our surveillance. There was a massive Wraith fleet assembled there…we missed its arrival. They turned back the assault, but Atlantis did manage to damage some of their surface Hives with a pesqua attack. They caught them with their armored shields down."

"Damage to the Atlantis ship?"

"None. They withdrew before being overwhelmed. They did manage to destroy a number of smaller ships before they fled."

Romulus nodded. "Thank you. I'll review the surveillance logs later."

The woman nodded and withdrew.

Romulus turned and walked to the railing on the porch, leaned heavily on it and stared out at the waterworld that his city ship was floating on. Unlike Lantea, this world had no land at all, and was thus off the Wraith's radar, allowing Romulus to rebuild Alba Longa in the light of day, unlike the rest of their facilities that had to remain hidden underground or in deep space. Here at least, his people could find peace in solitude as they patiently planned the downfall of the Wraith.

Romulus stood there, silently, for more than an hour thinking. He eventually left without any conclusions, only more questions.