Disclaimer: i do not own any of the characters nor do i own Stargate or anything associated with Stargate.
I came back to read the reviews and realised that I had posted the wrong version it was one of the first drafts… so I'm just replacing them with the proper version.
Just some advance warning there are quite a few aspects related to the universe that I adjusted as you will find, such as Jacob Carter never being a Tok'ra because he never had actual cancer- there was a cancer scare around the time he tried to get Sam into NASA (the same time as the original). SO that meant that someone else became a tok'ra….
It was five hours later when she found it there were four very compressed files in a folder with diagnostic results from 2003. She had frowned when she identified two small unfamiliar protocols in the gate system which instructed wormholes from the Pegasus Galaxy to appear as only 7 symbol addresses and to send files to this specific directory. After that it hadn't taken much to go to the directory and look at the files. It wasn't much later after looking into the file properties that she frowned recognising the compression format as one that she had worked on with Rodney McKay. After that it didn't take long to find the program they had created and get it to decompress it. Mckay had been trying to contact them for years and hadn't known because someone put some small protocols in that weren't noticed. Also in the directory she was intrigued to find a notepad that seemed to have collected the correct wormhole address when dialled in. They were all different. When she had another look through them she could identify that they were all from Pegasus, the first address being the one they sent the expedition to. It could have been them trying to contact the SGC for help or trying to pass on the things they had learned.
She sat there impatiently waiting for almost an hour for the first file to decompress. Once it was done she frowned there were huge numbers of documents with titled with numbers and some videos 351 of them she found. What was more baffling and made her more and more certain that it was Atlantis; was that every file was in a format that they at the SGC could open and view. She frowned and set a virus scan running and waited drinking her coffee. She wasn't sure how she should feel after the scan came up clear and decided to watch the first video.
Her jaw dropped and she sat there in shocked silence as the video played confirming what she had become almost certain of; then the next one, and horror begun to take hold. She opened the lowest numbered document and found what she had been hoping she would and wouldn't find, a mission report with the logo that had been decided on for Atlantis, a Pegasus flying through a chevron with Atlantis above it. Biting her lip she looked at the other three files they had exactly the same kind of compression as the first and with a pale face she set them decompressing; now she knew there was no viruses (well at least not in the first one). While it was going on she looked through a few of the files particularly those with blueprints in the title. Two of them she had seen before from the information brought back by the Daedalus a Wraith Hive and a Wraith Dart, another was similarly designed possibly similar in size to the Prometheus called a Wraith Cruiser. She got excited when she found similar blue prints of Atlantis and several other ancient ships. She smiled when she saw the blueprints of small ships, what they called puddle jumpers like the one they had found on Maybourne's planet. She smiled almost certain that John had come up with that particular name. She sat absorbed in the blueprints for another hour before all of the data transmissions were all decompressed and scanned for viruses. They were all from Atlantis. She felt sick, all this time they had thought they were dead though they didn't want to destroy the hope of the friends and family of the expedition and they were sending them messages every year. Then she almost started to cry, there hadn't been a message, the others had come through at the same time every year but not this one. Then she frowned as the years had gone on the number of videos had decreased significantly, the last one only had 100. She frowned when she noticed the time and knew there was no way she could come back to this later she would have to text the twins and tell them something important had come up and she couldn't do the parents career talk like what had been planned. If there was any chance that she could bring her husband-their father home anytime soon, it meant she needed to get through these files. She couldn't go talk to their class without knowing if John was alive or dead. She pulled the draw of her desk beside her left leg out enough to slip her hand in and grab the phone, checked for texts and sent both Anabelle and Sebastian a text saying that she couldn't come, something had come up to do with her dad and that she would explain tonight. She placed the SGC encrypted cell phone beside her keyboard and focused her attention back to the computer.
Swallowing her fear she opened a window one for each of the files and enlarged the size of the icons. Then she frowned there were so many that had Elizabeth, and either John, Carson or Rodney. They were all labelled with names except the first one in each set. The first she saw without the original expedition member was Colonel Sumner taking a deep breath she clicked play. A minute later her hand covered her mouth in horror, as she realised those by Elizabeth and the others were messages of condolences for the member's family. She was relieved and hopeful to see that John was alive up to the year before but with the lack of message tonight diminished that hope and she felt like her heart was breaking. She wasn't sure she could stand it to now know for certain that John had been alive for the past years but might be dead now. She took a few deep breaths and knew Generals O'Neill and Landry needed to know what she had found. Slowly she rose to her feet and walked to the conference room which was empty. Frowning she walked to General Landry's office and knocked on the closed door. She was called in and found the two generals sitting there.
"What did you find? … Carter, are you alright?"
"I'm fine sir, there were large information packets sent through the Stargate in the connections." She took a deep breath, even she could hear how shaky her voice sounded.
"The information, it was from Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy, from what I found General Yakovich set up a protocol that would automatically send any information received from the Pegasus galaxy through a wormhole of a duration less than 2 minutes to a folder that held diagnostic logs from a couple of years after the Stargate Program begun, when we were still figuring out some of the bugs in the programming of the DHD. If I hadn't been looking for them specifically I would have never found them. The files were tightly compressed and held video messages, mission reports, and possibly everything that they had learned from the ancient database. I just don't understand why he would do it."
There was silence for about a minute before it was broken by Walter with a tap on the door, "Sir a ship just dropped out of hyperspace. The Daedalus said it looks like the ships they encountered while searching for Atlantis but much bigger." She went even paler than she had been before remembering the damage that the smaller ships had done as they ran down to the control room.
"Sir another two ships just dropped out of hyperspace they are not the same as the big one – they look like ancient technology. They are firing at the big ship." There was silence for a moment as everyone took in what was on the monitors, the first ship looked so different from anything that had been seen in the Milky Way before.
"According to the blueprints I saw from the packages the big ship is a bigger version of a Wraith Hive, the ancient ones look like Ancient Warships. Sir I would recommend trying to destroy the hive and leaving the ancient ships alone." Then she gasped her eyes stuck to the screen. That wasn't hyperdrive it was something else. It looked similar to a wormhole, she shook her head it was impossible. Out of the thing that looked like a wormhole a huge ship, she sighed in relief recognising it from the pictures she had seen. This was Atlantis. Then the ship began firing at the huge Wraith Hive like the smaller ancient ships and the five Earth ships. She frowned wondering if the Asgard would arrive and if so how long they would take to get here. She had barely finished the thought when two Asgard motherships arrived and started firing at the huge Wraith hive. Time appeared to be moving really slowly and she couldn't help but notice that the majority of the fire from the huge Wraith Hive was directed towards Atlantis which was slowly being pushed closer and closer to Earth's atmosphere while the hive followed looming ominously close to the city. She frowned as she recognised Wraith Darts which she had also seen in the blueprints and photos had been sent from the hive and were trying to attack then Atlantis sent out a few of their puddle jumpers who were joined by 302s. It felt like the ships had been fighting forever but it was becoming clear that the hive was losing; however she really wasn't expecting it when it blew up sending out a shockwave.
Earth was safe as were Earth's five ships they were at enough of a distance that they were unaffected by the blast. The Asgard Motherships and ancient war ships also appeared to be fine. Most of the ships reported minimal damage, although the Daedalus had taken a few blows and needed to recharge their shields significantly. It was interesting to note that the ancient Satellite did not fire, its shields had protected it; she was becoming even more certain that the satellite was there for research purposes. Unfortunately all attempts to get aboard the satellite had been thwarted. Luckily both the 302s and the Puddle Jumpers had been back aboard their respective ships when the blast happened. She bit the inside of her mouth concerned as she saw Atlantis, the blue lights that had lit the ship were gone the ship was dark; the engines weren't working either, the ship drifting closer to earth drawn by gravity not fighting it their orbit failing. She bit her lip mentally calculating that it would take about 12 hours before the city would be in trouble with an uncontrolled trip through the atmosphere. Then she frowned again looking at the speed that the orbit was deteriorating the city must weigh more than she had accounted for.
"The orbit of The City is deteriorating unless something happens to change that in the next 8 or so hours they will land on Earth," even she could hear the trembling in her voice.
"Carter, what do you mean 'The City', and why are you so shaky? Unless this other ship is an enemy as well as the... What did you call it a... Wraith Hive," she could see her old commanding officer frowning at her.
"From the blueprints I saw while waiting for the others to decompress the big ship there is Atlantis, my concern is that how are they going to react to us- from what I could tell there has been a large decrease in the number of people in the expedition from when is started up until a year ago based on the change in the number of videos with everything. Just because they arrived to save us doesn't mean they feel positively about us. I think we should use the time we have to read as much as we can from the data we have been sent and see how bad this could go for us. Any press conferences to say that Atlantis is well should be delayed until we know what kind of relationship that they are going to accept."
"You are correct Colonel. What videos would these be?" She jerked her attention to General Landry who had been very quiet up until this point.
"In each data burst there appears to be a video from each of the remaining expedition member, as well as one from the command staff. I believe those that died have a video made by the command staff in that data burst, and then the next one there is not a video from them. According to my estimates there may be as few as 1/3 of the original expedition remaining or less. If you go to the conference room I can show you the command staff videos, although perhaps we should get Daniel he will be able to help if we need any translating done?" There were nods in response to her statement.
"Colonel you have five minutes to get set up in the conference room, we will get Doctor Jackson there in case we need him." She nodded and walked quickly back towards her office to gather the necessary supplies.
Just over five minutes later they were all sitting in the conference room Daniel looking excited to get an insight into what had happened to the Atlantis expedition in the past 5 years. They were less than a minute into the viewing when the first questions begun.
"Where is Colonel Sumner, why is Major Sheppard standing there rather than him?"
"He's dead - there is a video message saying that he died addressed to his family. Colonel Sumner must have died before the first message was sent, really he must have died before they knew they were going to send messages. In each message those who have died they have a message by Major Sheppard if they are military or Dr Beckett, Dr McKay, or Dr Weir if they were civilian, depending on what department they fitted under." Her voice was tight as she held back the tears dreading the thought that there could be a video aboard Atlantis at this moment made about John to her.
The room was silent as they watched the rest of the movies from the first transmission; after which they all received a copy of the mission reports and staff evaluations from that transmission. The plan was to start at the beginning and work their way to the end. The only thing keeping the people in the room moderately calm was the knowledge that Atlantis was in orbit around Earth, therefore they knew that at least some of the people from the expedition were alive. Every so often they checked on how the city was doing and how much the orbit was deteriorating, they had found it interesting to note that as time went on more and more of the blue lights on the city reappeared. It was also a relief a sign that someone was still alive aboard the city. The blast hadn't killed them although it had caused damage to their systems.
See the weapons satellite from Stargate Atlantis the one that Peter Grodin died aboard but a bit bigger for the satellite that uncloaked itself
Apparently Hammond dies 2008 not so in this story…
Hope you enjoy