Battle Cruiser Prometheus.
Orbit, P4X-221.
P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

"Search her. Again".

Vala Maldoran sighed in annoyance as a security guard obediently started to pat her down for the third time while another painstakingly rummaged through her small bag of possessions.

"How many times do we have to go through this?" Vala asked with a sigh, mockingly raising her arms and spreading her legs slightly. Standing opposite her, Daniel noticed with some amusement that her pose was enough to pull her leather clothes flush against her skin as she stared down the SF frisking her.

Daniel Jackson admitted she clearly had to body to pull off the not so subtle intimidation tactic. But it didn't do her any good, as while the Airman's face turned bright red, he obediently started to search her once again.

Daniel in his own way cared for her, despite the chaos that followed in her wake. He knew the cheerfully insincere attitude she put up for everyone wasn't much more then a front to hide the very real scars the Goa'uld Qetesh had left on her, after enslaving her, body and soul, for decades. If he didn't already hate the Goa'uld for killing his wife, killing or infesting others very close to him and enslaving billions across the Galaxy, her situation would have been more then sufficient.

Not that he trusted her further then he could throw her of course. But despite that, even Teal'c had to admit she grew on you after a while… Though he really had to wonder why all the women in his life he had an interest in had been infested by Goa'uld symbiotes at one stage or another…

But at any rate…

"Until Colonel Pendergast is sure you didn't take anything" Daniel responded to her protest, stepping forward until he was right in front of her.

"So does that mean you're going to strip search me?" She asked with a wicked gleam in her eyes as she wrapped her arms seductively around his neck.

"Been there, done that" Daniel replied, tapping on the outline which had shown up when she had pulled her leather clothes tight. Her expression switched to one of annoyance and with a sigh she dropped her arms and extracted a carefully folded page from her vest, which she held out for Daniel to pluck from her hand and pass back to the SF.

"Now that that's over with?" Vala asked, pointedly staring at her bag. The second airman shook his head, replaced the contents inside the bag and handed it over to the still sulking woman. Vala immediately put it back down and dug into it, taking out the case with the tiara, which she immediately opened.

"You didn't think we would steel back did you?" Daniel asked in amusement.

"I would" she pointed out, sounding mildly disappointed over the fact that Pendergast hadn't reneged on their deal.

"Well if you don't want it?" Daniel asked, reaching towards the case, then jerking his hands back as she snapped it shut, missing his fingers by a few centimeters.

"Just asking!"

The Elevator to their right lumbered open and Colonels Mitchell and Pendergast stepped out, followed by Teal'c who had dressed back into his formal high council robes.

"We all ready?" Mitchell asked as he caught sight of the pair standing outside the ring room. Not that they were using the rings, but the room had become the default location for transports on and off the ship and was off limits as such, meaning that there was no chance of anyone materializing inside anything that shouldn't be there

"Just about" Daniel said, slipping into his tactical gear. Theoretically they were only transporting down to P4X-221 for long enough to send some people through the Stargate, then receive some technical specialist from Earth, but standing orders for SGC personnel mandated full field kit when deploying to an unsecured off world environment.

"When you're ready to come back up, just signal on Tac-2" Pendergast said to Mitchell, handing him his P-90 and Beretta leg holster. "The flight deck should be finished by the time you get back".

"Sorry for turning you into a taxi service Sir" Mitchell smiled as he clipped the submachine gun to a fast grab sling, then tied the leg holster securely to his thigh, carefully adjusting it so it wouldn't pull as he walked.

"Don't mention it" the senior officer replied with a deadpan expression.

"Bring back some takeout and all will be forgiven".

The brilliant but not blinding light of the Asgard transporter faded from Daniels eyes, revealing the half familiar site of a Stargate sitting in a clearing. Looking to his right, a chill ran through his veins as he recognized the tree line, behind which Janet Frasier had died over a year ago in a hellish firefight with a battalion of Jaffa. The official US military report into the firefight had declared that one KIA and four WIA were acceptable losses, with over 60 enemy kills, plus a trio of Death Gliders shot down. Daniel knew that in the harsh balance book of military operations, the Pentagon might be justified in calling four casualties exchanged for over 60 of the enemy a successful withdraw under fire.

But Daniel would never forget what the mission had cost the SGC. One second, Janet had been focused on trying to stabilize an injured Marine. The next, a staff blast had lifted her up and thrown her down, dead. No tearful goodbyes. No brave face as she told Daniel to promise her that Cassie would be looked after.

No nothing. Just gone.

Shaking off the uneasy feeling, Daniel started forward behind Teal'c as Vala briskly strode to the DHD and punched in an address, lighting up the chevrons in sequence until the vortex exploded out of the Stargate. Slinging her bag up over her shoulder, she stepped up to the event horizon, then stopped and turned back.

"Well this is it" she said to Daniel.

"It is. I thought this day would never come".

"Oh come on" she said with a sly grin. "You're going to miss me".

"Miss what? The extortion? The fistfights?"

"The sex?"

Daniel tried not to roll his eyes. "We never had Sex"

"And you don't have the tiniest regret over that?"

"I've already seen you naked. But I am curious about why you wanted that page."

"Gods you're boring" she sighed, rolling her eyes, then apparently decided to humor him. "Because it speaks of another hidden cache of Ancient technology and various valuables. I couldn't read the more esoteric Ancient…" then she cocked her head slightly as if seeing Daniel for the first time.

"But iyou/i can…you know…working together, you and I could easily-"

With a not so gentle push to her chest from Daniel, Vala stumbled backwards cursing and vanished into the event horizon, which a few seconds later brightened to a dull white then dissipated as the Stargate shut down.

"Oh that felt good" Daniel said to Mitchell as he walked back to the DHD where Teal'c was punching in the address to Earth.

"Come on; tell me you're not going to miss her".

"Well…a little. The next time I get drunk perhaps".

Once again the Stargate engaged, ripping a tunnel through time and space that terminated deep under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Teal'c turned to face the other two men.

"I must depart. The council reconvenes within the hour on Dakara".

"Well if you ever get board with politics, just remember you can always come back and shoot at stuff with us" Mitchell put in, still not happy about the breakup of SG1 but accepting Teal'c's people needed him to get through the turbulent times. The Jaffa smiled slightly at his words and then bowed his head towards Cameron.

"We will see each other again Colonel Mitchell". Nodding at Daniel, Teal'c turned and stepped up to the Stargate. He paused long enough to send his iris identification code from his GDO, then walked into subspace, the Stargate closing behind him".

"And then there were two" Mitchell sighed.

"Oh lighten up. You got me didn't you?"

"True" he nodded, then frowned. "And now I owe Colonel Sheppard forty bucks".

Daniel rolled his eyes, but was saved from replying by the hissing clunk of a Chevron locking. The inner wheel of the gate started to spin clockwise as a second, then a third chevron locked in place. Daniel and Mitchell scooted out of the way, the Colonel casually gripping his 5.7mm weapon with one finger lightly resting on the safety…just in case this wasn't who he thought it was.

For the third time in as many minutes, a shimmering event horizon formed in the Naquadah ring. The tactical radios on their vests crackled with static, then a familiar voice came through.

"Colonel Mitchell?" Carmon clicked his radio twice for attention, then held the transmit button down.

"Here General, with Doctor Jackson".

"Well the technical advisor is ready to leave" Landry said in his all business voice. "Doctor Jackson, you will be pleased to know the ZPM has been tied into the SGC's power grid and is confirmed at about eighty percent charged. Doctor Weir and her team returned to Atlantis about three hours ago safe and sound".

"Well that's good to hear sir" Daniel, apparently quite cheerful that the Atlantis team had left without him again.

I am going to kill Jack Daniel didn't say out loud…but everyone knew he was thinking it.

"Traveler is on route" Walters voice broke in. "Arrival in five, four, three, two, one…" and the Stargate rippled as a FRED cargo transport rolled out of the event horizon, then angled down and to the side, apparently parking itself (but actually under the control of the technicians back at the SGC). Expectantly, Cameron and Daniel turned to face the Stargate…and Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter stepped out.

"Sam!" Daniel exclaimed in complete surprise and delight as his friend carefully walked down the worn stone steps from the Stargate, which hissed then disengaged.

"Daniel" she said with a smile at the sight of her old teammate, accepting an embrace from him before turning to Mitchell and offering her hand, which Mitchell pumped with enthusiasm. Cameron had first met Sam when he assigned as a consultant on the X-302 program, catching up with the Major in between her off world missions. The two had spent more then a few hours at Area-51's commissary where she had told story after story of her adventures with SG1. Reflecting on those stories during his painful months learning to walk again convinced Mitchell that SG1 was where he wanted to be.

He didn't have SG1 of course…yet…but with Sam here, damned if he wasn't getting close.

"Sam. So you tired of teaching the egg heads how to build alien spaceships yet?"

"No" she said with a cheerful smile as she walked over to the FRED and dumped the laptop bag she had been carrying on top of it. "But I told you I'd be here if you needed me…and General O'Neill threatened to court martial me if I didn't get out from behind my desk and get some exercise.

Mitchell and Daniel laughed, the sound echoing across the clearing even as the flash of the Asgard transporter whisked them away and left the world to the ghosts of friends and foes.

"So do you actually know how to fly this thing?"

Mitchell glared at Daniel as the two of them walked along Prometheus's Starboard hanger bay. Looking somewhat innocuous next to the sinister F-302's, the 'Puddle Jumper' (as it had been christened by one Major John Sheppard) was being swarmed over by a half dozen technicians under the direction of Colonel Carter. A diagnostic station had been wheeled up behind the ship and a half dozen fiber optic cables spooled into the Jumper as the techs prepared the Ancient ship for launch.

The pilots and navigators embarked with the Battle Cruisers F-302 squadron had scoffed at the cylindrical ship that had parked itself into 'pilot country' last night. The fact was the Jumper was slower and less agile then an F-302. And that was all the flyboys needed to condemn it as not worth their time or interest (despite the fact that every single one of them had spent close to twenty minutes poking around inside it). After all it was a relatively 'cheap' utility vehicle (by Ancient standards anyway), not a space superiority fighter. Cameron, who had led those flyboys for over a year, took their ribbing with good humor. It was typical of pilots from anywhere on Earth. Where faster was better and fastest was king.

On the other hand, the Jumper had enough space to bring along a squad of personnel in relative comfort, could land almost anywhere you could find ten square meters of ground, had a cloaking device making it more or less undetectable…and with it's drone launchers could blow ships the size of Goa'uld Motherships to hell.

So it wasn't all bad…

"Yes I know how to fly this thing" Cameron responded to Daniel, who walked beside him down the bustling flight deck, his tactical vest slung over his shoulder rather casually. "I took a look at the jumper with the time traveling thingy back at Area-51 before I transferred over to the SGC. Sheppard gave me a few flying lessons in it while I was training him on the F-302".

"They let you fly the time machine around?"

"After they disconnected the time jump module, sure they did".

Daniel mulled on that as they edged around the diagnostic station and stepped up the ramp, being careful not to dislodge any of the cables.

"Ah. But I thought you needed the Ancient gene to use this thing?"

"I called in a favor" Mitchell shrugged, slinging his backpack into the overhead storage with a wave of his arm, then detaching his P-90 and laying it onto the acceleration couch. Daniel tossed his tactical vest over it, and then followed Mitchell up into the cockpit.

"After I crashed my F-302 into the South Pole, Dr Weir who you may remember was running the SGC at the time, sent me a letter thanking me for saving all of you, yada yada yada. The usual 'if there is anything I can ever do for you' stuff". So when she returned from Atlants with Dr Becket…

"You got Carson to give you that Ancient gene therapy" Daniel finished.

"And we have a winner" Cameron said, looking around at the controls and trying not to wince.

Cameron was impressed with the work the tech crew on the Prometheus had been able to get done in such a short time. Like the jumpers on Atlantis, this ship had been packed full of mundane Earth equipment. First aid kits, oxygen tanks and Co2 scrubbers, heavy weapons and field gear were mounted on fast access points on the bulkheads or stowed overhead in the cargo compartment.

Unlike Earth aircraft or spacecraft which emphasized functionality over style, the Ancient cockpit was almost a work of art. Softly glowing green and yellow panels set into the walls illuminated the cockpit along with track lights set into the roof of the Jumper. Plush leather chairs comfortably held four people inside the forward compartment, two forward for the pilot / co-pilot pairing, then another pair for secondary stations. A DHD based on the master DHD system on Atlantis was squeezed between the pilot and co-pilot stations, allowing the Jumper to remotely power and activate a Stargate without leaving the ship.

Then there was the window…

Mitchell hated the window.

Having started his career in the Boeing F-15 Eagle, he had been trained with a full cockpit canopy giving him 360 degree visibility of the airspace around him. Due to the stresses involved in hypersonic flight, the more recent F-302's he had flown didn't have their cockpit canopies exposed above the fuselage but he could still see everything to his left, right and directly above him.

Where as the Puddle Jumper offered nothing but solid walls in every direction except dead ahead.

The Ancients Mitchell thought, had a chronic over reliance on technology. In aggressor school, it had been drilled into his head again and again that the Mark 1 eyeball, despite the increasingly sophisticated (and multi-spectrum active and passive) sensors military aircraft possessed, was still the most reliable close range "sensor" in existence. The fact that the Ancients could only look dead ahead meant they relegated watching the five other major directions to the Jumpers sensors. Situational awareness was the key to any knife fight be it inside or outside an atmosphere…and if the sensors were jammed or otherwise rendered useless, they be screwed.

Intellectually, he knew the Jumper wasn't really a fighter. The drones could theoretically strike at any target in any direction without having to point anything as mundane as a launcher towards the enemy. The ship was designed to discourage pursuit, not get into a fight; it was a glorified transport after all.

But he didn't have to like the design.

"All hands this is the bridge. Secure all stations and prepare for Hyper-launch". Pendergast's voice echoed through the metal canyon of the fighter bay for a few seconds, then was overtaken by the rumble of the ships engines as they increased in pitch for a few seconds, before dropping back down as the ship made a short hyperspace jump to the other side of the solar system.

"Ok that's it" Carters voice broke in over Mitchell's thoughts as the Colonel squeezed past Daniel and dropped down into the copilot's seat, unfolding a laptop onto the control console. On the surface it looked like your typical laptop. 'Under the hood' Mitchell knew was enough computer technology ripped off from the Goa'uld to make the laptop near as powerful as a high end Cray super computer.

What made it useful however was that Rodney McKay's latest interface program for Ancient computers had been installed. Taking a fiber optic cable and patching it into a data port next to her seat, the Laptops screen flashed and shifted to multiple windows showing wireframe schematics of the puddle jumper as well as windows for sensors, primary systems and life support. Nodding in approval, Carter folded the laptop up and turned to the rear of the craft.

"Ok Lieutenant, it all checks out. Let's close it up"

The officer nodded, starting to shut down his diagnostics station while other technicians finished rolling up cables and removing equipment from the interior of the ship.

"Soo, what's the plan?" Daniel asked, standing up and walking aft to start looking through the storage compartments for something.

"The drone Prometheus sent a few hours ago went through and back without any problem" Cater commented, swiveling her chair to regard Daniel with interest as he continued to rummage through the equipment. "It also confirmed that portal is transparent to radio and subspace transmissions, so we can keep in touch with the Prometheus from this end".

"So it's just a quick look around the block" Mitchell agreed, turning his own chair to regard Daniel. "What are you looking for?"

"Just the…hah! Here it is" the archeologist exclaimed, pulling a ten thousand dollar digital camera down and dropping it onto the chair, then pulling out the book he had recovered from Gladsbery and walking back into the cockpit.

"Just a little light reading?" Mitchell asked as the technicians finished their work and dragged their equipment away.

"A little" Daniel admitted, pulling out the page Vala had torn (and he admitted to her credit she had done so very cleanly and carefully, so he wasn't that tempted to shoot her the next time he saw her) and carefully returned it to its place, then turned to the last chapters of the book. "There was a section here Vala found that dealt with the portal and the group of Ancients who went through it. Not in much detail, but I'll see what I can translate anyway".

"Fair enough. But you're going to miss the in flight movie and I hear it's going to be killer" Mitchell shrugged, turning back to the console. "Tower this is Shaft, requesting engine start clearance".

"Shaft, tower. You are clear to commence engine start procedures".

Mitchell tapped on the oddly square control crystals. The Jumper shook slightly under them, then the whirring hum of the ships powerplant filled the cabin.

"Shaft?" Carter asked with an amused expression, causing Cameron to turn, looking somewhat abashed.

"Its my call sign. Cam. Shaft. Cam-Shaft"…

"Ah". Carter said with a slight snicker, then turned back to her laptop. Mitchell sighed tolerantly and depressed another crystal, causing the ramp behind them to start rising steadily off the ground.

"Hull seals are good" Sam said, skipping down the abbreviated checklist as she prepared for flight. Technically the Jumpers 'expert systems' would check everything themselves far faster and more efficiently. But given the age of the ship (and fact it hadn't been used in many thousands of years), they weren't taking any chances. But eventually even Mitchell was satisfied the craft wasn't going to explode on takeoff and he settled his hands on the yoke.

The console illuminated and a soft humming resonated from the walls around them as power surged into the Jumpers flight systems, followed by a heavy clunk as the ramp locked into place as their rear bulkhead. Outside, an airman in a yellow vest started waving hand beacons forward and Mitchell eased the jumper slowly slid forward, suspended a few centimeters above the deck by its antigravity generators. The airman started to wave towards the right and he obediently slid the Jumper over, until it was in the middle of the bay, pointing down to the airlock doors at the far end.

"Primary engines armed, aft hatch secure"

Hovering in a stabilized holding position on the deck, the deck officer raised his arms and started to beacon downwards. Flicking a switch, Mitchell extended the jumpers drive nacelles. A quick visual inspection to make sure there were no clear problems with the extended engines (and the aft hatch really WAS shut) and the airman returned to the view port, delivered a thumbs up, saluted and retreated to the nearby airlock. As the bulkhead door locked shut leaving the hanger devoid of staff, yellow warning lights started to strobe

"Opening hanger door".

With a thud, the meter thick trinium bulkhead at the far end of the bay unlocked and retracted, revealing the star filled vacuum outside.

"Atmospheric shield confirmed. Snake null is cleared for launch".

"Copy that bridge" Mitchell responded, and then eased the throttle forward. "Please ensure all tray tables are in their upright positions and observe that the smoking sign is not lit, we are outa here".

Gingerly the Jumper pushed off the deck and drifted forward, picking up speed rapidly as the two sublight engines engaged, punching it through the Asgard forcefield with only a tiny amount of drag.

Leisurely curving away from the grey hull of Prometheus, Mitchell came around and had no trouble finding the Ancient space station. A technical crew was on board continuing to study the technology while they looked over the thousands of years of computer logs. Flying past slowly in the jumper, it was only from outside with such a clear view that its true size came into perspective.

"Wow that's big" Daniel said, leaning forward between Carter and Mitchell and stretching his neck to get a look at the alien structure.

"Pretty impressive" Mitchell admitted, kicking in the thrusters and curving around the structure towards the portal. "But it's this thing that concerns me". At this range the portal was visible to the naked eye, a distortion in space like heat waves rising from a highway in summer. "It's going to be a little hard to line up the approach".

"Hang on" Carter said, then reached past him and with a few deft keystrokes activated the Jumpers holographic heads up display, which obediently responded to Mitchell's mental patterns and outlined the diamond with green lines, noting the vertices and satellites station keeping there with green triangles.

"Hey that's pretty sweet" Cameron grinned and with a little concentration the HUD shifted colors, the shades rapidly shifting around as Cameron thought of them from wild pinks to deep blues.

"Showoff" Carter smiled from her seat, tapping the laptop as she double checked the sensor readouts.

"Oh that's nothing" Mitchell said with a gleam in his eye, then dramatically let go of the ships yoke and focused his thoughts. "Look, no hands!"

Obediently the Jumper responded to his mental commands and spun into a barrel role, the stars circling so fast outside for a few seconds that they became a blurred whirlpool of light before Mitchell grabbed the control again and steadied the ship. Probably the most disconcerting thing about the Jumper was its inertial dampening technology. Despite the rapid twirling, there was absolutely no sense of motion from any of the physical senses. The absence any feeling of acceleration or movement juxtaposed with what a persons eyes told them often made people 'space sick'.

Daniel had never really been one of those, but he grabbed Mitchell's shoulder to get his attention as his inner ear protested at the aerobatics.

"Don't. Do. That. Again".

"Snake null, Prometheus, you ok out there? You look a little off course"

"Fine Prometheus, just…uh…checking the inertial dampeners".

"Oh, good. If however they're working to your satisfaction Colonel, could we get on with the mission?" Pendergast asked sternly, but with an undertone of humor to his voice.

"Roger that, commencing run now"

Pulling back on the yoke, Mitchell brought the Jumper into a long climbing turn towards the portal which steadily grew ahead of them. Looking at it front on with the HUD defining its shape, Mitchell realized the shear size of the thing. It dwarfed the space station that had generated it, at least four kilometers between the opposing corners of the diamond.

"Ok, take us down the centre" Carter ordered, reading over the scant data the computers on the station had provided about the transition through the Gateway. "Impact in twenty two seconds".

"Copy that" Pendergast said. Out of the edge of the viewscreen, Mitchell saw Prometheus under power moving to a few hundred meters under the space station. The placement was quite deliberate. From that angle, the ship was effectively impossible to see from the other side of the rift, while Prometheus could bring the majority of her weapons to bear on any target…it also meant Prometheus could blow the station if absolutely necessary to prevent a galactic foothold situation…something that the trio inside didn't dwell on, considering that they might get left behind. The subspace communications technology used in the Jumper and Prometheus didn't require a line of sight fortunately, so at least communications wouldn't be a problem.

But such was the risk of working for Stargate Command Mitchell thought, as the window was entirely filled with the shimmering wavering surface of the rift.

"Impact in five…four…three….two…one-"

The second the nose of the jumper touched the portal, something like 'lighting' arced around and inside the small ship, so fast that the trio inside the ship barely had time to see the arcs of light around them as they brightened to an overwhelming flash…which snapped off as the Jumper was yanked through the dimensional breach in a timeframe approaching a femtosecond, then shoved into a universe impossibly distant but impossibly close.

Daniel blinked.

It had taken only that long for them to skip through the portal, but Mitchell was already in action, accelerating the Jumper hard into a defensive turn, just in case anything was waiting in ambush on the other side. The drone hadn't shown anything in the area, but Mitchell wasn't taking any chances.

The lack of weapons fire a good five seconds after their reversion convinced Mitchell that they were probably clear and he eased up on his corkscrewing and into a more stable trajectory, slowly curving back towards the massive portal behind them.

"No ships or energy signatures on the sensors" Carter said after studying the HUD's sensor readout.

"Concur" Mitchell agreed, bringing the ship to a halt in front of the portal as he activated the ships communications systems.

"Prometheus this is Snake Null. Reversion is successful, no sign of any welcoming party…"

"…at this time. Carter wants to conduct long range scans of the system and see what we're dealing with here".

"Approved" Pendergast said, relaxing slightly as the Colonel reported in. Despite all the guarantees he had been given that the portal was perfectly safe to move through, he had a distrust of strange alien technology, even if it had been built by the Ancients. "Report every thirty minutes"

"Will do sir, Shaft clear". With a buzzing snap, the channel shut, leaving Pendergast little to do. Looking at the chronometer he saw that this watch would end in less then half an hour, but he decided to stay on the bridge until the first reports came in. The prospect of a boring half an hour sitting in his chair while the ship was at station keeping was thankfully put to rest by Lieutenant Marks stepping around his chair from the aft sensor stations. The young officer had eschewed his usual place at the weapons console for the aft sensor stations to monitor the transition of the Jumper and he stepped up with printouts of the readouts.

"Sir" he said, standing at parade rest until Pendergast nodded and gestured for him to go on. "The preliminary sensor readouts from the Jumpers transition". Marks presented a clipboard with hardcopy graphs and charts from just about every sensor system the Prometheus possessed, and a few that the technicians on the space station had sent across.

"Translation?"

"There was no increase on the drain of the stations ZPM when either the drone or jumper went across, its power drain remained completely stable. There was however a surge of energy in the rift".

"How so?"

"The readings are not entirely clear, but it looked like the energy inside the rift surged towards the Jumper when it touched the rift, then snapped back to an even distribution once it was through to the other side. Think of it like the jumper pushing into a plastic sheet hanging in space, which was pulled down and wrapped itself around the Jumper as it moved forward until it was completely wrapped in it, then evened out again. There was a similar surge for the drone, but of a smaller magnitude…"

Pendergast simply stared at the junior officer.

"Lieutenant, I'm more then happy to hear Carter talk about theoretical astrophysics. Mostly because she generally has a point where she explains the significance of her latest discovery…"

"Uh, sorry Sir" Marks said with an abashed grin. "In short it might mean that there may be a correlation between the mass of an object and ability of it to pass through the rift".

"You're saying that more massive objects might not be able to pass through?"

"Yes sir. There must be an upper limit, though from my initial guesswork it would be well above a Goa'uld Mothership. The interesting point is the rift has to stabilize before a new ship could cross over and the time it takes to stabilize will probably depend greatly on the mass of the ship that went through…"

Now Pendergast saw where Marks was going.

"Meaning that it isn't likely that a fleet of large ships could pass through the rift in rapid succession. Good work Marks".

"Sir" he replied, then handed off his hardcopy printouts to an airman and stepped back to the weapons console, relieving the officer who had taken his place for the long wait until the next contact.

"Well that's funny" Mitchell suddenly spoke up.

"Funny 'ha ha' or funny 'that really shouldn't have happened'" Carter asked as she looked up from her computer.

"No that was funny, this is strange" Mitchell said, pointing to the edge of the window, where a blue orb was visible. It was just small enough to be hidden by his thumb from this distance, but enough detail was clear to show it was a planet that looked very similar…

Bringing up the HUD again, Mitchell switched over to the sensor readouts and with a little concentration, brought up a solar system view. No mistaking it, P4X-221 in this universe was damn near on the opposite side of the star.

"That shouldn't be there, right?"

"Well it's hard to say" Carter replied. "Assuming the gateway is in the same relative position in both universes, it would mean for whatever reason that the orbital positions of the planets are out of synch".

"Let's take a look" Mitchell said in a voice that clearly said he didn't find it interesting in the slightest as he brought the Jumper around towards the planet and brought it up to speed.

To cover a distance of roughly two million Kilometers would have taken something like a month for the Space Shuttle, assuming it had the fuel to accelerate out of Earths orbit and cruise along the way. The Puddle Jumpers internally compensated engines got them there in less then ten minutes.

"So Daniel, what does the good book tell us about this planet?"

"Well not much, unfortunately" Daniel said, having replaced the book in the storage compartment for a laptop which he was typing up some notes with. "The Alterraians who-"

"Whoa, back up for a second" Carter said. "Who exactly are the Alterraians?"

Daniel kicked himself, forgetting that Sam hadn't been with them at Glastonbury. He filled her in quickly, explaining the history in the book he had found.

"Well that makes sense" Carter said after thinking it over for a few seconds. "They couldn't have always have been 'the Ancients' when you think about it".

"Point" Daniel agreed. "Anyway, it says the Alterraians settled on a planet called Kobol. From what the book said, two thousand years ago there was some kind of falling out between the Ancients who led the colony they had founded. Most of them had given up on their dreams of rebuilding their Empire and wanted to return home".

"Home as in our Earth?" Mitchell enquired, listening to Daniels story while he moved them into a low orbit.

"The very one. From the data the Atlantis team has sent back and what I read today, it looks like the majority of the Ancients who came back from Pegasus to Earth, arrived shortly before Ra did. They lacked the numbers and infrastructure to fight off the Goa'uld, so most of them went to small outposts off world. About three thousand years ago, with the uprising against Ra, some of them returned and helped from behind the scenes as it was, to clear the dozen other Goa'uld from the planet, with the help of the Asgard who posed as the Norse Gods, again from behind the scenes. They became historical figures of great learning and knowledge. The oldest known survivor was in fact, Merlin".

That revelation of course set off another five minutes of explanation for the benefit of Sam.

"Well this is all fascinating Doc, but can we get back to current events?" Mitchell asked as he cut his acceleration and moved into a stable orbit.

"I'll make it fast" Daniel promised, closing down his laptop. "Almost all records of the Ancients vanish, Merlin being one of the exceptions, about two and a half thousand years ago, but allude to a great journey they took to join their long lost brethren".

"They Ascended?" Carter guessed. Daniel shrugged.

"Quite probably, but it doesn't elaborate. Now there had been some level of contact between the two groups of Ancients, probably through the space station after the Ancients helped kick the Goa'uld off Earth. I think that a large group of the Ancients on Kobol wanted to return to our Universe and ascend. But a minority of the Ancients wanted to stay and continue with their Empire building. The disagreement escalated and in the end, a large chunk of the Ancients along with one of the tribes, the so called 13th tribe, left Kobol for Earth and returned to Earth about 700 to 600 BC…"

Mitchell and Carter exchanged a look at Daniels clear excitement, which said neither of them had a clue where he was going with this.

"The Roman Empire was founded about 700 BC" he said with slight exasperation. "The guys who spoke Latin which is really a simplified form of Ancient, who we know had extensive contact with the Greeks who in turn clearly had been influenced by the Ancients who returned from Pegasus-"

"Hold it" Mitchell suddenly spoke up. "I'm getting something on the ships sensors"

"I see it" Carter agreed, typing away on her laptop. "It looks like some kind of massive energy surge, no dozens of them, forming about fifteen thousand klicks ahead of us"

"What is it?"

"I have no idea…it's almost certainly artificial…the harmonic looks similar to matter energy conversion in a Stargate or ring system…some kind of transportation device?"

"Swell" Mitchell muttered, hitting the subspace communications array. "Prometheus, Snake Null has possible contacts approaching, we are going dark for two zero minutes". Not even waiting for a response, Mitchell shut the channel and goosed the ships engines. "Engaging stealth mode".

The Jumper which had been sitting in orbit suddenly started to move off and as it did, shimmered and faded from sight, leaving the planets orbital space once again deserted.

For about five seconds anyway.

Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.

The flash of light cleared from Commander William Adama's eyes as Galactica materialized back into real space. On the ships DRADIS console, icons appeared as the sensors swept space and started to display the green icons of friendly targets as they interrogated IFF transponders.

"Jump two eight nine complete. Planet close aboard to port, no unknown contacts" Lieutenant Felix Gaeta reported, and the two dozen personnel in close proximity breathed a silent prayer of thanks that they had not materialized inside a star after this jump out to nowhere. Low conversation started as the technicians in the CIC started on their post jump checklists, covering the sound of the senior officers in the 'pit' at the centre of the command centre as they started to converse.

"Well we're here. Now what?" Tigh predictably opened the conversation. The two senior officers on the Galactica as well as the President and Vice President had kept the reasons behind this jump to themselves, not willing to raise false hope on what might be a completely wasted trip. Granted the evidence Baltar had presented was compelling, or they wouldn't have dragged the entire fleet twenty light years off course, but avoiding a leadership crisis was absolutely critical.

"Well the star maps suggested that this system would either contain Earth or aid us, somehow, in heading towards it" Baltar said. "The planet would probably be a good place to start".

"A planet is a large place to search Doctor" Adama put in as he looked over the first images from the ships cameras focusing on the lush green and brown sphere serenely rotating under them. "Dee, do you have anything from the planet?"

Petty Officer (second class) Anastasia Dualla sitting up in the rows of consoles that ringed the 'pit' looked up from her console after several seconds, and then shook her head. "No active emissions on any frequency from the planet Sir".

"Well this isn't Earth".

"Clearly" Lara Roslin agreed. "But we can't leave this quickly. After all, the tomb of Athena was embedded in a small cliff in a mountain range…we don't know what we might find down there".

"I would agree" Adama said after a few seconds of reflection. "At the least, it looks like a safe enough place to stop for a while and try to take stock of our situation. We might even get lucky and be able to load up some raw materials". Adama turned and raised his voice to reach everyone across the CIC. "Lieutenant Gaeta, launch the CAP and signal the flight deck to prepare a Raptor for high altitude photo-recon on the planet. Helm, move us into orbit. Have the civilian ships form inside our orbit, but keep them, and us, high enough so we can jump if needed".

"He's looking in the wrong place again" an intruder on the bridge announced, visible only to the Vice President. Six smiled thinly as she stepped up next to Adama, looking at him dismissively.

"Well we're do you suggest we look" Baltar muttered out of the side of his mouth in a somewhat irritated tone at her intrusion.

"That's your job Doctor" Tigh responded with a cool expression, shocking Baltar for a second. He didn't think the Colonel, who was standing next to him, had been paying attention.

It also didn't help that the phantom next to the Commander was clearly trying not to laugh at his predicament.

"Well yes of course" Baltar said in a smooth voice as he improvised on the spot. "But a planet is a rather large place to look, what is the fastest way to cover the most ground?"

"From orbit? Raptors running high resolution mapping runs. It should show a city or large town easily enough. Anything smaller though we'll never find.

"Ah very good then, I'll head back to my office and start working out the particulars".

"Very well" Tigh said, looking at him oddly, but not commenting as he left the bridge.

"I wish you wouldn't do that" Baltar muttered as he walked through the corridor, apparently to thin air. Six simply laughed again, clearly highly amused with the situation.

"We've been over this" the Cylon said as she edged around a crewman heading in the opposite direction. Idly, Baltar wondered why she was always dodging around people and things in her way rather then simply walking through them, but decided in the end that he really didn't care.

"I am here to guide you. But you still hold back, you only accept my guidance when it's convenient for you".

Gaius didn't even bother to respond to yet another cryptic scolding, turning through a pair of cross corridors and down a ladder, Six unsurprisingly was waiting at the bottom of it, leaning up against the wall in a shimmering blue dress.

"God is not a last resort Gaius". Baltar walked past her without stopping, only to find her around the corner, sitting on a crate of supplies in a stunning red dress. Giving up, he looked around and saw no-one, stepping into a cross corridor.

"And what does he have to do with anything here?"

"He has everything to do with anything" she corrected him, uncrossing her legs and sitting up against the wall. "You are completely incapable of acting on faith. You are constantly trying to unravel everything God has in store for you and analyze it in the minutest detail, rather then embrace the mystery for what it is".

"Oh do tell" Baltar said with a raised eyebrow. "What is the great mystery…this time".

Six smiled. "That we have reached the point of no return, if you will. The planet is completely irrelevant, the system is not". Her smiled changed, somehow becoming both sinister and strangely…unsettled. "This is the path of the 13th we follow. From here on out the fate of the few, will become the fate of the all. Today…everything changes. For everyone".

"Viper one, clear forward, navcon green. Launch when ready"

Captain Lee 'Apollo' Adama was slammed back into his seat as his Mark VII Viper screamed down one of Galactica's port launch tubes. The walls of the cylindrical tunnel turned into a vague blur as his eyes tried their best to roll around and take a look at the inside of his head. Long experience let him hold his focus as the tiny black disk that represented open space rapidly got closer. The acceleration leveled off and he was able to get a firm grip on his controls just in time, as the Viper shot out of the end of the tube and roared into space. A few seconds later, Lieutenant Kara' Starbuck' Thrace shot from the tube next to his and with an economy of motion, rolled up onto his wing, turning with him back towards and over the Galactica.

"Galactica, Apollo. Clean launch".

"Roger that Apollo" Dualla responded from the command centre buried deep in the behemoth next to them. "Assume BARCAP at Galactica relative five hundred out".

"Copy that" Apollo said, goosing his thrusters and curving up and over the massive anti ship Railguns that lined the Battlestars dorsal hull, switching to his flight channel. "So Starbuck, any bets on what we're going to find here?"

"Frak if I know" her voice cracked back over the wireless link. "Still, I like the quiet for a change. It feels like I've been constantly on the move ever since I…uh…borrowed that raider and headed back to Caprica-"

"Borrowed? So you're going to bring it back?" Apollo playfully added as he cut his throttle.

"Quiet you" she snorted as they cleared the last civilian ships "Sometimes you just have to get out here, cruising along, nothing but the stars and your wingman, just to find yourself".

"I hear that" Apollo replied in complete agreement. The chaos over the last few weeks had taken its toll on every one of his pilots, and he didn't doubt on everyone else through the fleet. It was a major miracle that both he and Kara (and their authority for that matter) had been accepted back so readily by those who had remained "loyal" to Tigh and his father. He had truly been brought to tears by how readily his father had simply opened his arms as a father and not his commanding officer back on Kobol. The last time they had talked, he had just openly defied him and was standing in handcuffs before him, after pulling his weapon on Tigh.

All Apollo's self control. All the words that he had thought to say to his father, all his defensive walls…all completely failed him as his father had simply opened his arms. His actions saying louder then any words that he simply wanted his Son back…and he didn't give a damn about anything in the past…which would stay in the past.

"Uh Apollo…" Starbucks voice suddenly crashed into his thoughts, snapping his attention back into his cockpit.

"Yes?"

"We're here for Barrier cap, not a deep strike mission" she pointed out in an amused voice. Looking at his displays, he saw instantly he had missed the turn for the first part of his patrol leg by about ten seconds. His face went red under his light spacesuit helmet as he realized he hadn't been paying attention…which was a good way to get ones self killed in the ultra responsive Mark VII Viper.

Hauling around sharply, he angled back towards his patrol line and flicked his communications back to the fleet channel.

"BARCAP is on station".

"Roger that CAG" Dee replied, either having not noticed his lapse or choosing not to comment on it (Apollo was certain it was the later, nothing got past the petty officer) as they settled down onto their leg. Kara remained blessedly silent, either having gotten her amusement already or using their 'free time' for some introspection. He didn't know much about her time on Caprica…but he knew she had strong feelings for someone she had met in her time with the Resistance there and she needed time to work out her feelings that she had brutally pushed down while there was a job to do.

BARPCAP or Barrier Combat Air/Aerospace Patrol was a combat patrol stationed much further from the fleet then a normal CAP, which typically stayed in and around the fleet. The idea being that the BARCAP could provide additional warning and much faster interception of an enemy, buying time for the Galactica to scramble its full load of craft.

A theory that was about to be put to the test.

Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.

A half dozen alarms went off in the CIC at the same time, causing Colonel Tigh to snap his head around at the master DRADIS display. The tactical board showed the scarlet red icons of unknown but presumed hostile contacts materializing in a loose sphere around the fleet and his heart caught in his breath. There were at least five primary targets starting to be painted on the screen and if each was a baseship…

"Set condition one throughout the fleet. Launch the alert fighters now, call back the BARCAP and hold off on the Raptor recon launch" he snapped, sending everyone scrambling in the CIC. Five seconds later the 'hot phone', the direct link to the commanding officers quarters, started ringing. The Commander had left for his quarters along with the President to try and work out a systematic plan to investigate the system, which was probably forfeit now…assuming they survived the next fifteen minutes anyway Tigh thought darkly as he pulled the phone.

"Adama, SITREP".

"Multiple capital class contacts have jumped in around us; alert fighters are prepping for launch".

Adama paused for a second on the other end of the line. "I'm on my way" Adama's replied shortly and the line went dead.

One of the secondary screens in the CIC showed the tactical situation from a view above the systems orbital plain. The planet was situated at the far left of the display, at this orbital altitude as a curved wall rather then a sphere. The dozens of icons that represented the civilian fleet sat in the lowest orbits, effectively trapped against the planets gravity well. To the right of them a fair distance away sat Galactica and at twice that distance were the two Vipers on patrol, turning inbound and heading back towards the fleet. Another four times that distance were the red icons of the enemy contacts in a line three across, the middle icon sat on a line defined through the planets core and Galactic, shadowing its position down to the meter. Two ships were at the same orbital path as the central contact, but covering the extreme flanks to prevent the fleet from punching straight forward or backwards from its orbital path. A closer examination of the middle icon would reveal it was fact three ships, but as two of the ships were directly above and below the middle ship, the 2D display didn't paint them as discrete objects, just adding additional alphanumeric tags to show their presence.

It was in essence, a blockade. The ships had to be Cylon Baseships. When the extended range of their massed missile batteries and huge raider complement was taken into account, the enemy ships could simply sit in their orbits and bombard the fleet into scrap. Galactica with her extensive anti-fighter/ordinance defenses and own fighter complement could maintain a defensive umbrella for a time, but there was no way they could survive an all out engagement. And as the fleets drives would need at least another…fifteen minutes to recharge for the jump….

"New DRADIS contacts across the board, we have incoming raiders" Gaeta warned.

"Get me a count" Tigh ordered, willing the alert fighters to launch faster. The Cylons had been ready for battle and had started unloading attack craft as soon as they had reverted. Galactica on the other hand needed time.

"Forty plus…fifty….sixty…contacts are holding at sixty sir" Dee said in surprise. Each base star was estimated to carry well over a hundred of the fast powerful raiders. Why they were holding off…

"That's just the Basestars fighter screen" the Colonel said dismissively. "Their strike force will be next".

"Alert fighters are launching" Gaeta added, new green icons starting to appear on screen around the Galactica, forming into squadrons behind Apollo and Starbuck as Commander Adama walked into the CIC with the President in tow.

"Confirmed sensor profiles" Gaeta sung out. "Now designating the boogies as bandits"

The screen updated, the red icons for 'unknown – presumed hostile' changing to the all too familiar threat icons for Cylon Basestars and Raiders.

"Helm, roll us out ninety degrees to port" Adama ordered calmly as he assumed his position next to Tigh at the centre plot, the President next to him, but standing a respectful distance from the table to not get in the way. "Gun Captains, stand by for defensive action. Have the armed civilian ships form up ahead and above the rest of the civilian ships and prepare the fleet to make a break on course…" Adama paused and consulted the display "four four nine, carom ten". The commander turned back to Tigh. "Helo was about to fly out on that recon run?"

Tigh nodded.

"Good. Have him make a run to Colonial One the second the President and Vice President get on board".

"Commander, I'm happy to stay on board" Laura protested. "There is no need to have a raptor ferry me back to Colonial one when-"

Adama turned a look on her that stopped her dead in her tracks. Not because of anything directed at her…but because it was just….resigned.

"Madam President, there is an excellent chance the Galactica will not survive this engagement. We should be able to buy enough time for the fleet to escape to safety. Please leave the ship immediately".

Knowing that any argument or insistence that he was wrong would be both grossly insulting to the crew of the ship as well as a waste of time, Laura simply extended her hand.

"I'll see you on the other side Commander".

Adama took it firmly and shook it, and then the President wheeled and left the CIC at a trot with a Marine guide. Turning back, he felt rather then saw the eyes of his entire crew on him.

"Alright. You've all seen what's out there; you know the chances of survival. But our survival is secondary to the survival of the fleet. No matter what happens to the Galactica, the human race has to live on beyond this day".

His crew simply returned his gaze with the calm steady looks of professionals. Everyone one of them would die before letting the Cylons take even a potshot at one of the packed civilian transports and he was damn proud of them.

"Additional enemy strike craft launching" Dualla warned and a much larger swarm of icons started to poor out of the Base Stars. A new alarm went off suddenly and Tigh's eyes narrowed.

"Radiological alarm" he muttered. "They brought nukes to the party".

"Figures" Adama shrugged. "See if you can isolate which ships are carrying them. Signal the fleet; Execute acceleration along the predefined course".

A few seconds later, Galactica's massive sublight drives ignited.

Puddle Jumper Snake Null.
Orbit, Alternate P4X-221
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

"We can't!"

"Yes we can!"

"Are you trying to get me court marshaled?"

Mitchell sighed at Daniel finally understanding what General O'Neill had said, when he had told him that while Daniel was his friend on a level few people could understand…but could rapidly become a pain in the ass where military protocol was concerned.

Their current argument was about what involved, if any, they should make to the massive battle that was about to start. Fifteen minutes of eavesdropping to the civilian radio chatter, including highly entertaining media shows, had lead everyone to the opinion that this was some kind of refugee fleet trying to find Earth of all places. But if the rampet speculation about this start system was any indication, they didn't have a clue where it was. On top of that, some kind of artificial life form they called the Cylons, who no doubt were in charge of the fleet that had just materialized, were interested in wiping out this offshoot of the human race.

Which of course was the crux of the argument.

"Hey Daniel, remember the Eurondans?" Daniel of course knew exactly where this was going to go, but sighed and sat back.

"Yes".

"And remember how Jack was willing to jump head first into a world war without thinking?"

"Yes. But the scenarios are HARDLY the same-"

"But close enough. We'll go back to the Prometheus and let Pendergast decide what he's going to do. But we didn't come here to jump head first into yet another intergalactic war without thinking."

Daniel kept his peace (clearly with some difficulty) as Mitchell brought the puddle jumper up to speed along the course Carter plotted. Unfortunately the rift was very much on the far side of the ships that had just materialized. But there was an excellent chance that they would get through undetected; these newcomers sensor technology didn't look any more advanced then the first groups.

Rapidly outstripping the fighters from the Galactica, Mitchell punched the throttle and streaked out towards the Cylon ships. Looking at his HUD, Mitchell had to wince. There were so many Cylon ships that they severely limited his maneuvering options. Going straight up or straight back meant he would have to stay in 'no mans land' that much longer where as straight ahead meant he would be charging several hundred craft who were, according to carter, carrying lightweight nukes.

Screw it Carmon decided and held his course, decelerating rapidly as the distance closed. The Jumper was grossly more maneuverable then these weird ships and their formations were more then open enough for him to fly through with a minimum of maneuvering. The ships designs were actually somewhat spooky, with what looked like a giant red eye scanning back and forth in its head. Every time one of them focused in their direction, it took all the self control he had not to yank back on the stick, feeing that it had seen him. But the jumpers cloak saved them, not one of the strange craft noticing their presence.

Until they opened fire.

Hundreds of white trails of missiles suddenly leapt to life as the Raiders fired a salvo off. Mitchell recognized the tactic as soon as he saw it. At this range, the missiles would take plenty of time to reach the Galactica so there wasn't any real danger to the ship if it had any decent defensive firepower. But the salvo would force the Battlestar to shift fire and engage the missiles first before they engaged the Raiders, eating up valuable ammunition or energy reserves, preventing an effective first strike on the anti ship pack…but critically, letting the Raiders get in much closer without being contested, to launch a much more deadly attack.

But not a single one of the missiles knew that there was a cloaked puddle jumper directly in their path and this single missile would change two universes forever.

Mitchell, despite his incredible skill and reflexes, couldn't handle suddenly having to dodge several hundred more objects that just appeared without warning in the tight clusters of the Raiders. Understandably, the Raiders were firing through the gaps they had left open in their formations so as not to shoot their own craft. But it left Mitchell with so little space to maneuver that it was inevitable that one of the missiles suddenly impacted on absolutely nothing and exploded.

This was confusing to the raider that had fired it as well as the rest of the pack around it, who worried about their own missiles.

Although its warhead was well designed and failed to detonate, the blast of the missiles rocket engine was enough to rip into the exposed drive nacelles of the Puddle Jumper. The relatively low yield detonation did little damage to the ships engines and weapons systems. But the fragile cloaking system on the other hand…

"Oh this is NOT good" Mitchell shouted in alarm as the jumper bucked under him. Wrestling with the controls, Mitchell punched through the last of the line of raiders as the ships cloak failed with a mechanical whine of protest and rendered them completely naked to the sensors on the Cylon ships.

"They're locking us up" Carter warned looking as the distinctive spikes of high frequency fire control radar focused on them. It was almost like a half dozen search lights snapping onto you in the middle of a prison break, before which everything had been going perfectly smooth. A most unwelcome and displeasing change in affairs.

"Can you get the cloak back on line?" he asked Carter as he tried to activate it again with no result. Looking at the HUD, he saw that the strike force of Raiders had collapsed with squadron after squadron turning and chasing after him in a futile tail chase. Granted the Jumper wasn't an F-302, but it was still had orders of magnitude better acceleration then those ships did and unless he slowed down, they had no chance of even matching his current speed.

But of course even by chasing him they limited his maneuvering options to more or less dead ahead…right for the trio of vertically stacked Basestars which probably had more then a few of their own weapons. "Carter?"

"Working on it Cameron" she replied, typing away, and then shook her head. "It's no good, the cloak is damaged and isn't getting any power. I'd need to get at the generator itself to see if I could fix it".

"Well I think it's about time we called home" he muttered, slapping at the control.

Battle Cruiser Prometheus.
Close formation, Ancient Space Station.
P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

"Marks check the clock" Pendergast ordered, having managed to avoid asking the same question every minute for the last twenty minutes. He actually knew exactly what time it was, but it didn't hurt to have conformation.

The Lieutenant glanced at the clock built into his console.

"Coming up on twenty minutes sir, SG1 should be reporting in any minute".

"So we hope" Pendergast agreed, knowing if they were under cloak they might not be able to keep the estimate they Mitchell had given. "Though, technically they aint SG1".

"Well…true. But as Colonel Mitchell is trying to reform the team…though without General O'Neill, it's just not the same".

"Well no-one has opened fire and the Jumper hasn't blown up…yet" the helm officer muttered under her breath, getting a laugh out of the ships Captain as the radio crackled with static.

"Prometheus this is Snake Null, come in". Marks took the communication.

"Null, Prometheus, go ahead we are standing by for-"

"Prometheus, Null is under attack by many hostile fighter craft with capital ship support, requesting immediate backup for hot extraction".

The helm officer was already laying in a course to the rift as Pendergast looked down at her. She then turned with a perfectly level face.

"With respect to my previous comments sir, I withdraw my objections".

Puddle Jumper Snake Null.
Orbit, Alternate P4X-221
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

"We've got about a million of these damn fighters coming in on every side. Daniel, any luck?"

"None so far" he said with a grimace. He had been trying without any success to contact these Cylons and let them know they didn't mean them any harm and were neutral to this fight, but they clearly weren't buying any of it.

"Launch Launch Launch! Missile tracks inbound from the Basestar" Carter stated, as the HDU pained a new cluster of contacts heading straight for them.

"Doctor Jackson, I think you have your answer" Mitchell grimaced as he accelerated right for the missiles".

"Uh don't you think you should dodge?" Daniel asked as the clusters closed awfully fast on the Jumpers icon.

"No" he said. "That's what they want us to do, it'll slow us down"

"Uhh….so what are you going to do?"

"This" he said as the missiles became visible outside the window, rapidly growing in side in seconds. Pulling right, the jumper twisted away into a near ninety degree course change of almost one hundred G's that no Cylon or Colonial ship could come close to matching. The missiles proximity fuses registered that they didn't have a home in hell of catching up and detonated their nuclear warheads.

A blinding white flash detonated to port, Mitchell screwing his eyes shut against the glare unnecessarily as the Ancient 'window' somehow blocked the glare from damaging level of light. Even so, the explosion was near enough to jolt the Jumper even in a vacuum and as Cameron pulled back onto their escape course, part of him thought about blowing the Basestar away.

Obediently, a port compartment on the Puddle Jumpers exterior extended and a pair of brilliant yellow missiles streaked out.

The drone defense system was one of the technological marvels of the Ancients, the technology far beyond anything Earth had ever built. Looking almost organic, drones were capable of astounding agility and could punch through almost any shield in existence without even being slowed down. The reason for this was that drones had an ability to phase shift through solid matter. It was a power intensive process that took a lot of energy. With a full charge from a ZPM, the dedicated planetary defense launchers could shoot drones right through enemy capital ships and recover them like a boomerang.

Alas the Jumper didn't have a ZPM on board, so the best the ships computer could do was dump all the drone launcher power it had into two drones and fire them off, the drones crossing the space between the Jumper and Basestar before the startled Cylons could even think about trying to shoot at them (not that it would have done any good).

The tens of thousands of Cylons inside the huge craft were treated to the strange spectacle of a pair of glowing golden streaks crash through the interior bulkheads, fly down the cavernous red hanger bay, crash through the giant red eye that brooded over the section, take a ninety degree course change through an exposed conduit and crash into the side of the ships Tylium reactor.

Nothing but net.

A gigantic explosion illuminated the central core of the Basestar for a few milliseconds, before a white shockwave blasted out and vaporized most of the capital ship and disintegrated the rest in an orgy of nuclear fusion. The shockwave rocked the jumper even at its distance and after a few shocked seconds, Mitchell turned slowly to Carter.

"Opps".