Stargate: Unity 4th series

Episode 2: Reconnaissance

Chapter 2:

Atlantis mess hall after all figures in important positions at Atlantis had been briefed.

"Excuse me general, may I join you?"

"Oh I always have time for you, Mr. Woolsey." Replied Jack with a hint of sarcasm.

Woolsey ignored the insult and continued; "If the Aschen really are such a huge threat like you say they are, wouldn't it be prudent to abandon the Pegasus galaxy altogether, and focus on earths defence?"

"Yes, it would be prudent. But no it wouldn't be right. We need Atlantis; apparently it's got all kinds of cool gadgets hidden away that could help us defeat the Aschen. Plus we can't abandon the people here, that's just not an option." Said jack repeating what he had said to the IOA earlier that day. "But we are going to be dialling back the expedition. No more conflicts with the wraith if their avoidable, purely humanitarian and research issues only."

"All I'm saying is; we should pull back from Pegasus for the time being until this threat is dealt with, once it's all over we come back and devote all our attention to the Wraith." Countered Woolsey, he was a smart man, but a coward none the less.

"No." Was all jack could think to say after a few seconds of silence.

"Would someone wake up Vala!" shouted cam with frustration at hearing Vala snoring... Again.

A few seconds later all he heard coming from the back of the cargo ship was "Ow! What did you do that for, Muscles?" Followed by a response from Tiel'c "We have nearly arrived at the Aschen homeworld."

"Dropping out of hyperspace in 3...2...1... Engage Cloak!" Shouted Sam in a hurry.

A few seconds of remaining still and watching the screens for any movement later, Tiel'c took the controls.

"That's it?" replied a surprised Mitchell.

"What do you mean?" asked Vala coming out from the cargo bay.

"Well since when do things go that smoothly for us?"

"Good point." Sam agreed, "But the mission isn't over yet. Activating Asgard systems."

This was the third cargo ship so far to be retrofitted with Asgard systems such as sensors and beaming technology. They were made for the purpose of stealth recon and so far were living up to expectations.

"What do we got?" asked a curious Cam.

"Well there's no movement so far, I think were in the clear. As for ships we've got 72 in orbit, moving in for a closer look at the surface infrastructure." Answered Carter with a worried voice, not worried about their safety, but about what they might find.

"My god it's enormous!" Vala being the only one able to speak, the rest were all left speechless from the site through the windows. What they were all rendered speechless by was a huge shipyard, big enough to fit about 100 X304's, filled with thousands of robots of all different shapes and sizes working in their own separate part of the factory like an assembly line. All resulting in 5 ships being built simultaneously, and by the looks of things, being built very quickly.

"Could there be more than one on this planet?" Tiel'c asked, turning to carter.

"Doubt it. This thing must be a huge drain on resources, not just energy but raw materials to, plus the number of staff needed to operate it. But it's giving of a lot of heat with all the machines at work; I could run a quick scan of the rest of the planet to look for any more."

On the HUD 4 more locations popped up showing the same heat signature. "That's not good, is it? Said Vala with a serious tone she rarely used. No one needed to answer that for they all knew they were in trouble.

"Ugh, get us out of here Tiel'c."

"Setting course for the Volian homeworld, Col. Carter." Replied Tiel'c, setting course for the peaceful farming planet of P3A-194, the planet where SG-1 first encountered the Achen and the second planet on their list.

"Wait shouldn't we be doing some sabotage? I mean, isn't that what we do? We have explosives on board, we have a big site outside which happens to be building enemy ships. It all fits rather nicely, doesn't it?" Asked Vala, looking forward to some fireworks.

"No, we finish our reconnaissance of the Aschen Confederation, report back to the new Tau'ri Command (Homeworld government) and if there is the need the Odyssey will come back here for a hit n' run op. We play this one by the book."

"There's no lemon in this, is there?" asked McKay collecting his lunch from the cafeteria line, when he was joined by a curious Mike Banks.

"Doctor, I was wondering if you could give me a tour of Atlantis."

"Isn't that something a non-important person should be doing?"

"Well yeah, but your just so much fun!"

"Oh very funny."

"John thought so, anyway I was wondering if there might be any facilities on Atlantis or any information in the data base that could help improve efficiency of my ZPM's. My first version that I built in my garage was made out of basic every day materials, it only operated at 40% efficiency of an Ancient ZPM, my second attempt using materials provided to me by the SGC improved efficiency to 70%, which is still very good, but it would help to get that extra 30% which is where you come in." Mike continued, as they both sat down at a table in the mess hall.

"Trust me I have ran searches through the data base thousands of times, there's not even a reference to anything that could be a ZPM, apparently they felt like they needed to keep it top secret to stop the wraith from finding out how to make one. That would have been bad, very very bad."

"Just Humour me."

"Last time someone said that to me I ended up being a prisoner of rogue Asgard!"

"That sounds like fun, how'd it go?"

"Mm, yes very fun. It actually cost the lives of mill-" Dr. McKay was about to explain the consequences of the Asgard's action that day when he was cut off by a familiar voice behind him.

"Rodney, been a long time." Came the relaxed voice of Daniel Jackson.

"What are you doing here?"

"Good to see you to."

"Yes yes, we were actually just talking about you, sorta."

Before Daniel could Enquire there was a soft rumbling noise and a few lights flashing.

"Ok what was that?" Asked Mike curiously.

A few seconds later a much louder thump came, along with the ground shaking.

"McKay get your ass up here, Now!" Shouted Sheppard over the Radio.

The three of them met up with O'Neill in their rush to the control room.

"Whats going on?" Asked McKay in a hurry.

"We don't know, the 17 ships didn't introduce themselves, they just started firing as soon as they exited hyperspace. Lucky we were running tests on the shields, with the new ZPM, at the time otherwise we would have been blown to smithereens. I've never seen those ships before in my life."John replied, gesturing to the screens.

Mike and Jack looked and each other and said together, "We Have."

"What? You mean they're Aschen? How is that possible?" Exclaimed Woolsey.

"Dont ask me." Jack replied, turning to Mike for answers.

"Well it is possible that they have cloaking technology and have been keeping tabs on us for a while. I mean it stands to reason that they wouldn't just attack earth out of the blue after 10 or so years of being out of contact. And if they have been it is very likely that they have tracked ships making journeys to Atlantis and back without us even knowing it."

"Doesn't matter how they got here or how they found out, we need to strike back, shields are already down to 95%, we can't hold this for long. We've recalled the Apollo, it's an hour away, which was which was on its way to pick up an off world team where the Stargate was destroyed, they're going to have to wait for now. McKay, how long before you can get the chair working again?" Asked John

McKay was starting to panic as more sparks flew, and answered with "What? Are you kidding me? It doesn't even look like a chair anymore, after the trip back to Pegasus completely blew its circuits! It just isn't possible. We've had two years and not gotten anywhere."

"McKay this would be a great time to give me that tour."

"What? Now?"

"Yes now, if I find what I'm looking for it won't take more than a few hours to build a new ZPM."

"If?"