A/N - Small timeskip and a lot of changes happened inside of it that will affect the future.
o-0-o
Twelve months have passed since the the existence of the Stargate and interstellar politics was revealed to the public. The next few weeks were interesting, to say the least. Some countries changed governments, some old grudges were forgotten and much to the experts' surprise, the European Union held a series of summits and within two months of the disclosure border posts from inner borders between member-states were being removed as in the place of twenty-eight countries there now existed a single state. A state which had a GDP and population larger even than the USA and would grow faster than the USA.
Those were just the changes in the political landscape of the world, even more changed when it came to the Stargate programme which, for the time, being was still hosted within Cheyenne Mountain. Most of the countries around the world pledged either troops, scientists and other support personnel , or materials and money, an influx that wasn't seen by the programme since its earliest days. Over forty ships were constructed, many more were under construction and would leave slips in the coming months as the shipyards of Titan worked day and night, spewing out everything needed. However it wasn't where most of the effort was put into, it was put into the construction of infrastructure around the system.
o-0-o
Colonel Carter walked to the window and looked out of the bridge of the USS Hammond as she charged through hyperspace. In front of her a small and nimble ship of Alteran design acted as a guide for the journey.
"Half an hour to the exit point," one of her crew reported. "They just sent us the last package of data."
"Very well," Carter said and glanced at the scanner screen, they were in the middle of nowhere, even byspace standards. Four hundred thousand light years away from the Milky Way. "Make sure that we are ready for anything that can be out there."
Her crew nodded and once thirty minutes passed their guide and the Hammond dropped out of hyperspace in the intergalactic void, lacking any stars within hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
"Incoming transmission," the communication officer reported.
"On the main display," Carter snapped and immediately in front of her appeared the face of the Alteran commander. "How may I help you, Commander Tauros."
He smiled, his violet eyes shining lightly. "It is my race that can help you," he said and glanced to the side. "In five minutes a squadron of our capital ships will join us, carrying something you should easily recognize."
"What's this thing and why do you require so much secrecy?" She asked. "Nobody knows why we left on this trip."
"Because we fear that there are spies," Tauros said and she looked at him. "Also this project of yours was infiltrated by spies and we want to be sure nothing happens."
Carter's eyes widened for a second as she realized what this Ancient meant and then she slowly nodded. "If that's the case I will send a message to my superiors to be ready for its arrival."
Tauros nodded and she cut the link before opening a rudimentary and primitive communication software into which she quickly typed several dozen lines of codes. Scanning them she nodded and pressed send.
o-0-o
Sheppard looked with pride at the bridge of his ship, the USS Antietam, a BC-306 class that just left the shipyard and finished her shakedown cruise. When he received the promotion to this position he thought it was a joke, but it was proven true and now he was one of few very people lucky enough to be chosen as the commanders of those massive warships. When he first joined the programme he was responsible for carrying higher ranking officers and didn't expect much more, then came Atlantis and now he was sitting in the command chair of one of the first Earth-built battleships. He looked at the scanner screen and saw that their escorts, a pair of 305's, were in place, their small forms looking like a pair of dwarves close to a giant.
"Is everything ready?" He asked as he looked at his executive officer.
"Yes, sir," she said, her name was Nimue Alban and she was a petite woman with black hair and sapphire eyes. "Mr. Woolsey and his group just arrived."
"Very well," Sheppard said. "Take us-"
"Orders have been changed," Woolsey said, cutting in. "You will take me to Dakara later, first we have a trip to the outer edges of the system."
"Why?"
"Carter and her Ancient friends will be bringing in something big and want to be sure nothing gets between them and the system."
"Some 304's can't do it?"
"She said it is big," Woolsey said and glanced at his watch. "She will be here in four hours."
"You heard him," Sheppard said as he glanced at his staff. "Get us there."
o-0-o
Carter looked at the void surrounding them and then she saw a massive ripple in the universe form as several shapes slipped out of hyperspace and into the material world. She looked at sensors readings and for a moment had troubles believing what she was seeing: a trio of Auroras left hyperspace and between them was a sight she thought she would never see. Destiny, she was being pulled by those battleships that seemed to struggle with their cargo.
"How?" she asked looking at Tauros. "We thought about reaching Destiny, but the time was too big to make it a viable journey."
Tauros nodded in agreement. "Normally it would be impossible, but each of those Auroras received nine Potentia, the things you call ZPMs, and their power grid was modified to sustain the continuous load of three."
"So their drives had more power and were able to make longer jumps as well as reach higher speeds," she said and inputted several things into the computer built into her chair. "But even with that, more than several dozen million light years at a time would be impossible as they would be torn apart by the strain."
"Among other reasons," Tauros said and added after a moment. "The reason they dropped here is so that they can slow down from their trip and avoid slamming into any gravity well of a star or something similar."
"And why did you ask for my presence?" Carter asked.
"We want you to board Destiny and rescue your friends," Tauros said and closed his eyes for a second. "You will find all the locks and doors accessible and nothing will be locked from you. You have two hours before we need to once again jump into hyperspace and finish the journey."
o-0-o
Eli Wallace stirred as the pod he had repaired opened and its systems woke him up, he blinked a few times and groaned as he looked around. There were people he didn't recognize and some of them looked as if they were soldiers.
"What's going on?" He asked, overcoming his confusion of the situation.
"Colonel Carter will explain things in a moment," one of the soldiers said. "She told us to tell you that she's on the bridge and will await you there."
Eli nodded and, trusting his knowledge of the ship, walked down several short corridors before entering the bridge where he easily spotted Colonel Carter who stood in front of the command consoles. However it wasn't she that got his attention, it was the thing he saw out of the window. A massive spiral galaxy, one that looked strangely familiar. "Is that the Milky Way?" He finally asked.
"Yes," Colonel Carter said with a smile. "The Ancients dragged you and the ship across half of the universe and in few hours we will make the last jump to Earth. They need their drives to recharge after that travel."
"The Ancients? What's going on here?" He asked, noticing an Aurora pass in front of the bridge.
"Much has changed since you went into hibernation," Carter said. "You will learn everything once we are on Earth and Destiny is anchored at Arkadia so that she can be repaired and damaged sections can be replaced."
"How?" Eli asked. "Last time I remember the Hammond was the most we could repair."
"More or less," Carter agreed. "But now we have a new shipyard somewhere else and you will need to see it to believe that it is real."
He nodded and noticed her smile. "So am I needed for something?"
"No," she said. "Board one of jumpers that's waiting for you docked to the ship."
Eli looked at her and shook his head before walking to one of docking ports that were located aboard Destiny. When he got there he found that something was connected to it and, stepping through, he found that he was inside of the puddle jumper. Looking at it he shook his head, it felt as if he was inside of a dream.
o-0-o
The Tsar Nikolai slipped through the soundless void of space, her sensors focused on a planet below her. It was quite a normal planet located in an average solar system with a single, yellow star in the middle and surrounded by over ten planets. One in question was an Earth-like planet, quite more massive than the homeworld of humans, but possessing the same qualities that is a breathable atmosphere, liquid water and a lush life of all kinds and shapes. The only quirk of it that was visible from space was the presence of two moons that orbited the planet, one of them, the larger one was also possessing atmosphere.
"Initial surveys were right," Captain Lieutenant Chernyakov said, diverting his eyes from the console and looking at his superior, Captain Sokolov. "The planet is rich in trinium, titanium, and naquadah, while one of the moons is full of neutronium."
"So we have what we came for, deploy probes and we will get out of here," Sokolov said. "The Lucian Alliance is too silent after that accident over Mars, it is suspicious."
Chernyakov nodded in agreement and looked at his console. He quickly inputted several commands into it and a pair of probes separated from the ship and flew towards their destinations. He gave one more look at his console before looking at his commanding officer. "Probes away."
Sokolov nodded and the Nikolai changed course, charging out of the system and preparing for a jump into hyperspace. Moments before the jump a trio of Ha'taks appeared out of nowhere and almost immediately opened fire. Bolts of energy splashed on the shields of Nikolai making them shudder and waver under the strain, yet they managed to survive the onslaught.
"Target the lead ship with plasma beams," Sokolov barked. "Those behind, let's test our ion guns and new railguns on them. Start evasive maneuvers and don't let them trap us in the system."
The moment those orders were given energy was allowed to flow through the weapons systems as firing mechanisms were primed and targeting systems looked for their targets. Once the targets were locked weapons were released and started to fire at their targets. Much to everybody's surprise the shields of the lead Ha'tak managed to survive the first volley of plasma beams and it wasn't until the third one that they managed to pierce them and the hull below.
"We will need to collect the debris," Sokolov said as his eyes watched as the Ha'tak was dying, explosions rocking the massive hull and spilling out balls of flames and debris in every direction.
He heard acknowledgements but he ignored them and focused on watching as the battle unfolded, the strength of their shields was dropping below acceptable levels, but still were holding and should survive the engagement. The shields weren't the reason of his worry, that was directly in front of Nikolai and as he looked at the Ha'taks that took more firepower than their older versions could take he felt unease. If three were enough to pose a challenge to a BC-304, he didn't even want to imagine what more could cause.
"Focus fire on one and quickly destroy it," he said and almost immediately he could watch the effects of his command as a Ha'tak started to fall apart before being ripped apart by a titanic explosion.
Once the last ship was destroyed when it's power plants received direct hits he let out a breath of relief and looked over the bridge. He could tell that their ship took quite a beating, but was still holding strong. The rest of their stay in the system was uneventful, but he was glad for that. He didn't want anything more to include in his report from a typical exploration mission.
o-0-o
Daniel looked through the databases of Atlantis, his eyes hunting for any useful bit of data that could teach them something when his eyes swept over a single line of text that he heard somewhere.
"Occurrens loco et gentibus," he muttered in Latin and scribbled it onto a piece of paper he found somewhere. "Meeting place of the races," he read from the paper and paused. "We saw that planet. It's Heliopolis."
He paused to look at the text, more words around that line starting to make sense as previously he lacked any sort of an anchor to attach the rest to it. He carefully pieced together sentences and soon they started to make sense. He shook his head remembering how badly Heliopolis looked when they visited it, it was almost on the verge of collapse. He had troubles imaging how could it look at its prime.
"You will be able to see it once again in its pride, soon," Janus said as he appeared in the room. "You are on the right path in your search, but you dig in the wrong spot."
Daniel gave the ascended being a long look before shrugging it off and focusing back on his search. While he knew that Janus wanted to help, his help sometimes had the form of giving clues that led to nowhere really useful.
o-0-o
"How did they manage to survive so many hits," Sokolov asked as the Nikolai charged through the hyperspace. "They should be gone with one or two blasts, especially after the last upgrade to power we got."
"They must have either modified their shields," his executive officer said. "Or someone, somehow, tinkered with the software responsible for plasma beams."
"I thought that the last spies were dealt with months ago."
His exec shook his head. "GRU was still tracking a few small cells that slipped past their nets."
"Well, that might be the problem," Sokolov said and ran his hand through his hair. "Do we have a copy of the older software?"
"We do," the exec said and winced. "It won't work with the power levels we now have, so the flow of power will need to be limited and kept under control. But it should work."
"Do it," Sokolov said and his exec nodded and walked out of the room and to the engineering.
Sokolov looked at him and then opened his laptop and started to write his report for Homeworld Command and his own superiors in Russia. Mission was a success, but this encounter worried him, spies were somewhere and it didn't make his life any easier or more pleasant.
o-0-o
Sheppard sat on the bridge of the USS Antietam when a massive hyperspace window was torn open in front of his little group of ships. First to leave it was the Hammond, followed by four Auroras and between them Destiny.
"I didn't expect to see, that," he said, indicating the massive form of Destiny. "It was supposed to be too far away to reach."
"The Ancients did it as a gift," Woolsey said. "Now that's out of the way and safe, we can go to Dakara and refresh our relations with our Jaffa friends."
o-0-o
A/N - End in a place that leaves you curious what happens next, too good of an opportunity not to use it.