The Alliance Wars

by vliegenvanger

this is a general continuation of BSG 16, Under Siege and TFS Ticonderoga. I have changed several other things. although this story is categorized as crossover, it will mainly deal with the SG side and a bit of BSG. now includes the Ori

19. Chapter 18

The next chapter, finally.!

Many thanks to Rudy Pena and Just-a-Crazy-Man for the beta and their suggestions. Also, at the bottom of this chapter I've got a little contest for all of you.

For now, Enjoy and leave a review:

Presidential Retreat, White house

June 3, 2025

2345 hours

As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General O'Neill was the go-to guy for the president when it came to military matters. Since the president's rise to power both had become good friends and more often than not, late-night business meetings would end in private conversations. Today they were in the presidential retreat, the president's private study in the east wing of the White House, sipping from glasses of scotch.

"Sir, about Sally," O'Neill started.

"What is it?" Ryan asked. He had tried getting into contact with his oldest daughter aboard the Enterprise, but had been unable to reach her due to a fleet-wide communications blackout.

"I just got word from Emerson saying she joined General Dex aboard the TFS Shughart, one of the ships that's going to dock with the Dominion mother ships."

"What? Why?"

"There was a minor overload aboard the Shughart, two communications specialists sustained injuries to their hands and had to be replaced. There wasn't enough time to get replacements from Earth so two volunteers were requested, Sally and another crewmember volunteered." O'Neill said. "The other volunteer is the secret service agent we placed aboard the Enterprise to keep an eye on her."

Ryan looked up in shock. "She's not going aboard the mother ship is she?"

"No, their posts are in the CIC. They will be responsible for maintaining contact with the strike teams and guiding them to their destinations." O'Neill said.

"What are the odds of the Shughart making it out?"

"It really depends on whether they are detected. If they are detected before the mother ship exits hyperspace they are dead. If they are discovered during the attack, before they can detach, they are susceptible to hostile strikes. They can also be boarded the same way they intend to board the mother ship. If the strike goes off properly and they aren't destroyed while pulling away from the mother ship, their chance is the same as that of any other 306 in the strike fleet."

"Ah shit." Ryan said as he scratched his head. "At least I won't have to tell Cathy."

"Yes sir."

"Is there going to be any contact with the Shughart before they leave the galaxy?"

"One way only, they will signal us when they have latched on to the mother ships successfully." O'Neill said. "They can still receive the public communication channels though, but those aren't secured."

"I could make a speech." Ryan suggested.

"You'd have to relate it to the referendum, not to them. You can't tip the Dominion off in any way."

"I understand." Ryan confirmed. "So, have you already decided what you're gonna vote for?"

"I doubt you're gonna have to worry about my vote, or that of my wife's."

"Already thought so." Ryan said laughing. "How's she doing?"

"She's doing well. Being head R&D isn't an easy task, and it requires a lot of paperwork, but at least the working hours are acceptable and the danger is low." O'Neill said. "She's been getting some serious offers from universities to start teaching."

"I guess we'll have to give her a raise then." Ryan joked. "Is she going to stay on Atlantis if the moon's attacked by the Dominion?" Atlantis served as HQ for the R&D department.

"So long as the outer defenses hold yes. If the outer defenses are breached she will be evacuated along with the rest of the non-essentials."

"And are you going to stay?"

"Nope, once the local systems are invaded the Joint Chiefs will move back into the Pentagon to prevent us from interfering with General Lorne, he's the orbital commander. I'll be by often enough though, but officially my office's at the Pentagon, with a desk and drawers."

"You actually use those?" Ryan asked.

"Nope, all that's in them are the keys to 'em."

"So the stories are true." Ryan laughed.

"Indeed they are." O'Neill confirmed. "Another thing sir. I didn't dare bring it up at the war cabinet's meeting."

"That doesn't sound good."

"No it isn't. Yesterday I was approached by Thor and Freya. They voiced their people's concerns and those of the Ancients, with regards to the referendum. They feel that, would we decide to make peace, there would be no future for them in this region of space. As it is, all three have prepared to gather all their people on ships. They would then use our jumpgates at the center of this galaxy, the Halo station, to leave this region for our extinction site." The extinction site was a back-up colony created to make sure humanity would survive. Fifty thousand people were sent in early 2019. The planet was out of the way of any Dominion plans. References to the planet were scarce, the general public didn't know about it, and only a handful of people in the government and among their allies knew. Most who knew had left with the group.

"They want to abandon us?"

"Without our fleet, any other power would be without a chance against the might of the Dominion fleet. They simply won't bow down to any other power, they'd rather die, or flee."

"Would you be going as well?"

"I've been thinking about it. On one hand, it'd be treason, on the other, I don't think I would want to work for a people who would willingly subjugate themselves to a foreign power. I've fought to long against the Goa'uld, liberated to many villages, to accept that from my own people."

"Maybe we should prepare orders for the fleet to do the same." Ryan suggested.

"It might not be wrong to give them the option. But it would be dangerous. If the Dominion found out about the extinction site."

"Would it be possible to purge all references to the extinction site?"

"Yes, information about it is scarce as it is. We could also send Atlantis away, and the new city ships we've acquired." O'Neill suggested. "I'd actually have to check if it would work, we have never transported a city ship with jump gates."

"Perhaps you should meet with General Emerson and the other fleet commanders to inform them about this possibility, in case we lose the referendum."

"Yeah, okay. I'll do it. I assume it isn't an order?"

"No, can't be. To the Dominion it should look like parts of our fleet and some of our allies fleeing to another galaxy, it might even send the Dominion searching for a non-existing fleet."

"What is the chance of it actually going that way." O'Neill asked. Public polls varied widely, some projected a 70 percent 'yes', while others projected a 70 percent 'no'.

"Arnie says it's a fifty-fifty split."

"Have you taken precautions?"

"No, though I think director Foley has something ready."

"Let's hope he does."

"Will you be visiting your son before the cease-fire ends?" O'Neill asked.

"I've got an early ride tomorrow morning."

June 6

2355 (EST)

The president and the first lady were both in the living room in their part of the White House. Both had just seen the first definitive results of the referendum go in the favor of peace quickly followed by a celebratory statement by Senator Wilkes. It had been a tight split at 51 percent versus 49 percent (rounded) with over 5 billion citizens showing up for the vote, which was a record of itself. Ryan silently cursed half the population, though he would never say it out loud, they were cowards in his eyes.

His chief of staff walked in. "Mister President."

"I should make a speech." Ryan said.

"Yes that too, but not about what you think."

"Another disaster happened I wasn't told about?"

"Sort of. Between sixty and eighty million votes were ruled invalid. The split is now fifty/fifty."

"Fuck. What happened?"

"The ballots in Europe were misspelled, instead of Europe they listed Europa. Because of the late discovery of this it was decided to proceed with the misspelled ballots instead of having them reprinted. The German votes all had Europe listed and were therefore ruled invalid. The TFBI has started an investigation as to how this is possible and already has some leads. You should go to the situation room, the chairman of the referendum committee is waiting for you."

"So they used the proper ballots, but because of the misprint and subsequent acceptation of the misspelled ones, we found out." Ryan said. "That's some fucking lucky misprint if you'd ask me."

They walked to the situation room where the war cabinet and several other members of the government were waiting.

"Sir, this is David Lloyd, Chairman of the Referendum Committee"

They shook hands and exchanged greetings. Afterwards everyone took a seat.

"So Mister Lloyd, what happened?" Ryan asked.

"After we determined there to have been fraudulent actions with the vote in Germany we had no choice but to render the entire German vote invalid. This has changed the outcome which was reported in the early results. Now a rounded fifty/fifty split is present, there is no outcome. According to the rules the outcome may be determined at the tenth of a percent, even so, it is still an even 49.8/49.8 split, the remaining 0.4 percent are blank votes. In accordance with the bill either a 'yay' or a 'nay' has to be passed so now we are required to take a vote with the representatives of the people. With your permission the members of the House of Representatives and the members of the Senate will be secluded in preparation of a vote tomorrow morning. Both bodies need to be in agreement on the vote, so either two 'yay's' or two 'nay's'. If this is not achieved the cabinet will break the tie."

"Alright, I guess you have my permission to seclude the house and senate, how will you do this?"

"The Capitol police with the support of the TFBI will carry out the seclusion."

"Will it be an open or secret vote?" Arnie Van Damm asked.

"The votes of the representatives and senators will be secret while the votes of the cabinet will be public."

Director Murray of the TFBI walked in carrying two thin sheets of paper. After he greeted the president he handed one sheet over to the Chairman of the Referendum Committee and handed the other to the President.

The chairman was the first to comment. "Oh my." He muttered.

"Sir, it appears two aides to Senator Wilkes were involved with the change of voting ballots." The chairman reported. "Director, is this reliable?"

"Yes, a paper trail led investigators to the two aides and when confronted both admitted to the crime." Murray reported.

"Did Wilkes know about this?" Ryan asked.

"We're unsure. Both aides claimed they were suggested to act as they did by a close confidant of the senator."

"Suggested?" Ryan said as he raised an eyebrow.

"Their words, yes sir."

"Has this close confidant been questioned about this?" Lloyd asked.

"She's currently being brought in for questioning. We'll know more in the morning." Murray said.

"Sir, you should make a statement announcing the new results." Arnie Van Damm said.

"I agree, have something ready for me in twenty minutes. First I need to talk to the Ambassadors for the Asgard, Nox and Ancients." Ryan said as he stood up. "Thank you all."

"Sir, I've got your son on the line." A lieutenant reported.

"Kyle?" Ryan asked.

"Jack Junior sir."

"Patch him through." Ryan said. He took the headphone from the lieutenant and took a seat. It took a moment for the video feed to come through but once it did, it showed his son sitting in a dark foxhole. "Junior!" he greeted him.

"Dad, what happened how did you lose the vote?"

"We didn't son. If you stay tuned in for another hour or so it'll all be explained."

"What happened?"

"Well, someone committed fraud with the vote, between 60 and 80 million votes have just been rendered invalid. It's still a split result though, tomorrow the house and senate will have their vote, and if they can't figure this out the cabinet is the tie-breaker."

"Can you tell them something dad?"

"What is it son?"

"Tell them we don't understand." He waited a moment. "We have fought and bled against these people, kicked their asses more times than they have ours. We have fought and bled for our own people, and to tell us to stop would make all our previous losses in vain. We have all chosen to fight, we're not conscripts, we're volunteers. We all signed up with this war raging, we knew the risks but felt the things we defended were worth fighting for. When we get some news from back home there's always some politician shouting that they should bring back their 'boys' and leave the rest of the galaxy to fend for themselves. Worse even, are all the people cheering them on. It's gone so far that we don't even know whom we are fighting for anymore. The civilians here have lost everything and are in constant danger, yet I've never heard them talk about giving up. It makes me ashamed to think that these people have more spirit for war than our own people, who are safe under their planetary shield. No matter what you and the rest of the politicians decide, we'll keep on fighting for as long as the Colonials want us to. We don't understand why they are so willing to give up their freedom for slavery, not when they have a chance to win."

Ryan had to wipe away a tear. "I'll give them the message, you just get ready to fight."

"Will do dad." Junior waited a second, "Tell mom I love her."

"Why don't I transfer you so you can do it yourself."

"That's possible?"

"It ought to be." Ryan said as he looked up at the lieutenant whose station it was. The lieutenant nodded.

The two Ryan's said goodbye and the call was transferred.

"Sir, I've got the ambassadors you requested waiting for you in the Roosevelt Room." Someone reported.

"Thank you, I'll be right there."

A minute later Ryan walked into the Roosevelt Room located in the west wing of the White House. He was greeted by Freya of the Nox, Commander Helios of the Ancients, and Councilor Freyr of the Asgard High council. "Ambassadors, my apologies for the timing, but I wanted to explain something to you all and address some fears General O'Neill made me aware off you had."

"I assume you are speaking of our intended departure from this region of space Supreme Commander Thor spoke about with your Chief General." Freyr said.

"Yes, and before you make your decision I'd like to inform you of the latest developments with regards to the Tau'ri referendum. It appears that certain persons involved with the counting of the ballots have attempted to fix the results in their favor. This has resulted in a new split of 49.8 in favor versus 49.8 against the referendum. Tomorrow morning the House and Senate will vote on the matter, and if they cannot provide a clear resolution the Cabinet will break the tie."

"I see." Freyr said after a moment.

"Interesting." Was all Helios could manage.

"This attempt at subterfuge is quite disturbing." Freya said after carefully weighting her words.

"It is. Already the TFBI has arrested three suspected perpetrators and more arrests will be made if necessary. Suffice to say, we'll get to the bottom of this, but for the time being there is a chance for a continuation of war. No matter the result of any investigation, once the war starts we won't be able to call it off again."

"So it all depends on the Tau'ri political leadership." Freyr stated.

"Yes it does." Ryan confirmed.

"What are your chances for continuing this war?" Helios asked.

"That might be the problem, the senate is made up of two senators for each state, despite the majority of our people living on earth, nearly half the senatorial positions are off-world. Some of these states have already been occupied by the Dominion. The Senate will very likely vote against a continuation of hostilities. The House of Representatives is made up based on population, as the vote shows, the population is divided. The house may still vote in favor of continuing hostilities. If this happens, the Cabinet will have a vote and I can assure you, we will vote for war." Ryan said.

"And what if your house votes against the war?" Freya asked.

"If that happens, I'll contact Halo station myself, and tell them to return home, and leave the station for you to use. You may also be joined by parts of the Tau'ri fleet on your way out. Once that's done, we'll purge any reference to the extinction site and destroy the station." Ryan said.

"Would you join us?" Freya asked.

"It might not be the worst idea. But I can't leave without my son and daughter."

"I see." Freyr said.

"We will await your decision tomorrow morning before we continue with any of our plans." Commander Helios said. Freyr and Freya nodded in agreement, the Asgard blinking his eyes.

"Thank you." Ryan said as he stood up and shook their hands, once done he returned to his office, his chief of staff was already waiting for him.

"Your speech will be done in twenty minutes sir."

"Don't bother, I'll do it from the hearth. I assume the press corps is waiting for my reaction?"

"Oh yeah, they're all waiting for you to admit defeat."

"Then they won't see this coming." Ryan said as he put on his jacket. "Tell Margaret to announce me." He said to his secretary as he passed through the secretary's office, Arnie Van Damm two steps behind him.

Twenty meters later he approached a door with a secret service agent standing beside it. As the agent opened the door Ryan could hear the press secretary announce him. He couldn't help but crack a little smile as he walked through the door and too his place behind the dais.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen." Ryan started, the room was packed with reporters and cameras.

"There's no doubt you've all been watching the news with regards to our referendum. The early numbers showed a small but clear favor for a cessation of hostilities through the peace proposal offered to us by the Dominion."

Ryan shifted a little and got control of his face to remove the small grin. "During the last hour evidence has come to light which gave the referendum committee no other option than to rule between 60 and 80 million votes invalid. These votes were determined to be falsified. The votes in question were from Europe. The fraud was discovered when ballots were found with the correct spelling of Europe, while all European ballots had mistakenly been spelled Europa. The exact manner in which this fraud has been committed is still unknown although two suspects have already been arrested while a third has been brought in for questioning, all three are senatorial aides."

"Because of this, the outcome has changed slightly, but just enough for a tie. As it is, the percentage of votes in favor of the proposal is 49.8, while the percentage of votes against the proposal is also 49.8. Come this morning, the Senate and House of representatives will convene for an immediate and secret vote on the matter. Both bodies need to be in agreement on the matter, if this is not achieved, the Cabinet will cast a tie breaking vote."

"More information about the outcome, the fraud and the congressional vote will be released once it is available. Thank you, and good night."

Ryan walked out of the press room without turning around to the reporters who were all shouting questions. The press secretary took the first question and did her best to answer it.

Instead of going to the residence he was directed to the situation room.

"What's going on this time?" Ryan asked.

"Sir, it appears the Dominion don't want to wait for the cease fire to end." General Allison reported.

"How so?"

"Long range sensors have detected at least three, but possible up to seven scout squadrons leaving their bases and heading for the DMZ. We've also detected increased activity at their main staging area. At least a hundred warships are preparing to cast off while a second group of transports and escorts has been detected in hyperspace nearing the staging area. As it is they may be making a dash for us."

"How long until they breach the DMZ?" Ryan asked.

"With their current speed the scout elements will cross into the DMZ in about 4 hours, and another two hours later they will cross into our territory. If those other groups keep up their pace they will reach the DMZ in 7 hours."

"How long until they reach the outer planets of the local group?"

"If they divert their course they will reach the Alpha Site within twelve hours of crossing the DMZ and 51 Pegasi within thirteen hours." Allison said.

"And if they don't divert their course?" Ryan asked. It surprised him the Dominion weren't going for the Alpha site straight away.

"They'll enter the Sol system in fourteen hours." Allison said.

"General O'Neill, that's quite a bit ahead of schedule isn't it?" Ryan asked.

"Yes it is. We had expected the Dominion would try to expand the base of their offensive first, before going for the local group. We also hadn't expected them to go after Earth immediately either." O'Neill reported.

"Which is strange." General Maynard of the army added. "They've got to know those ships alone cannot stand against our fleet, and Earth cannot be invaded from space, we've got a planetary shield in place."

"Valkyrie?" The secretary of state asked. Some present didn't know about the operation but they knew enough to not ask about it.

"They should wait then. Besides, we haven't detected anything different with the objectives." O'Neill said.

"Atlantis." Allison blurted out. "We haven't placed Atlantis' garrison on full readiness yet. It was in the papers this morning. Over half the garrison's still planet side. Perhaps the Dominion are feeling lucky and think they can overwhelm our lunar defenses."

"Is that true?" Ryan asked General Moore, Chief of the TF Marine Corps.

"Not entirely, a lot of the furloughs ended this evening but there's still over forty thousand who have to report in during the coming week, that's just under twenty percent of the total marine defense force." Atlantis had been given an extreme garrison of over two hundred thousand marines. They weren't just located at the city itself, but they were positioned in several lines of defense around the city and shipyards. The furthest line of defensive works was over twelve kilometers away from the city's outer piers.

"Start calling them in immediately, I want Atlantis placed on high alert. General O'Neill, I need you to increase the readiness of all our forces to the highest possible, they need to be ready to engage the Dominion within twenty-four hours." Ryan ordered.

"What about the fleet?" Allison asked.

Ryan thought about it for a moment. "I need everyone who doesn't have Top Secret: Black clearance to clear out." They waited as staff quickly gathered up and got out. The marine at the door closed it and locked it. "What about the fleet?"

"Do we deploy them, or do we keep them back for Valkyrie?" Allison asked.

"Do we need to?" Maynard asked. "Atlantis' got enough drones to destroy that fleet ten times over while Earth itself is covered with long range, orbital defense weapons. We can clear them from our skies before they even knock a quarter of a percent of Earth's shield strength."

"Assuming they get in range." Allison said.

"That's the only way for them to threaten us." Maynard replied.

"And if they try to focus on one part of the shield?" the SecDef asked. "Will it just take a bit longer to destroy them?"

"Yes." O'Neill said. "Unless we drop our shields there is no way for that fleet to threaten Earth."

"What if they go after our sun the way we tried to get the Asurans?" the secretary of state asked.

"Won't work. We've got defenses in place around the sun, including a solar powered shield, not so strong, but enough to keep a stargate or some sort of missile out. We've also stored part of our drone reserves near the sun, just in case." The shield was installed on the insistence of the scientist Kavanagh, who had raised hell after he found out about the Tau'ri's plan to blow up Asura's sun. He feared the same could be done to Earth's sun. To get rid of his complaining and after he had gotten a few senators to back him, the military had used some old shield generators and some solar power collectors and put them in orbit around the sun.

"So the only way to hit us is to go after Atlantis, and we've got that covered with the marines there." Ryan surmised.

"Yes, if things really get rough, we can still call the fleet in to lend a hand. But that's after Atlantis has joined in the mix with her drones."

"Okay. General Moore, General O'Neill, get everyone ready for war. If there's nothing more I'll grab some sleep before the vote comes." He said as he stood up. No one brought anything else up so he left for a short night of sleep.

9 AM, June 7th

It had been a mere 7 hours since he had gone to bed. Despite all his worries he'd fallen asleep straight away. He and his cabinet were seated in the Cabinet Room, in the west wing of the White House. Just minutes ago they had received word about the commencement of the secret vote by the Senate. The House of Representatives would also start the vote soon. All were looking around, waiting for something to happen or results to come in. It was expected that the Senate would need about 15 minutes while the House might require as much as an hour.

"Martha, how's your husband doing? He had surgery last week if I remember correctly?" Ryan asked the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

"Joe's doing fine sir, there were some complications but the doctors were able to handle it. Thank you for asking." She replied.

"And Ed, did your granddaughter decide which branch she wanted to join?" he asked the Secretary of the Interior.

"Yes she did sir. She's made the wise decision to follow her father, grandfathers, great grandfather and great great grandfather as well as many cousins by signing up for the Marines. She just started basic training two weeks ago."

"Good for her. Military service teaches our kids valuable lessons and skills."

"It certainly does Mister President. May I ask, how are your children doing?"

"They are doing well, Sally is up for promotion to first lieutenant. Junior called me last night after the initial results were in. He wanted to know whom they were fighting for, he got the idea that the Colonials have more spirit than our own people, despite the colonies being under siege. I guess the entire referendum must be a blow to the morale of our fighting men and women. I can't even imagine what our allies must be thinking about us right now, and what it'll mean for us in the long run."

"We've been getting some signals from some of our allies." The Secretary of State said. "The Free Jaffa laugh at us while the Nox and some other more peaceful races applaud us for giving it a shot."

"Even though the Nox don't want us to quit." Ryan said.

"Correct, they want us to keep on fighting, but they applaud the attempt to make peace nonetheless."

Three uniformed officers belonging to the Capitol Police walked into the Cabinet Room and walked up to Ryan. Two saluted the president while the third offered a leather binder which held the seal of the Tau'ri Federation Senate. Ryan accepted it and opened it. He took a moment to read the contents.

"The Senate has voted. The 'yay's' have it with 57 percent of the votes." Ryan announced. No one was really surprised by it. The result would depend on the House of Representatives.

Before the three officers could leave, General O'Neill and General Allison walked in. As Ryan noticed them he knew what had happened. "They crossed?"

"Yes sir. Their lead elements paused while the rest met up so it took a bit longer, but now they are coming in force."

"How much are they sending?"

"Over two hundred warships, no mother ships. We've also gotten an accurate look on the transports and its troubling. We've discovered a so far unseen transport. We've had knowledge about it, but it hadn't been deployed to our galaxy yet. The total amount of transports is close to a hundred. The problem are these new transports, each can carry nearly two hundred thousand soldiers. And there are forty of them. The total force could reach as high as ten million soldiers." O'Neill said.

"The Dominion have breached the cease fire?" the secretary of transport, energy and infrastructure asked.

"They have moved into the DMZ in force and are heading straight for the Sol system." Ryan confirmed. He turned to the two generals. "All posts have been placed on high alert?"

"Yes sir. The fleet is ready might we need it, Atlantis is at 95 percent strength. The planetary shield is fully powered and secondary and tertiary shield emitters are standing by to energize. We've also prepositioned a number of mobile shield emitters should the planetary system fail."

"Has the Alliance been warned?" the Secretary of Defense asked.

"Yes sir, a flash message went out about an hour ago." Allison said.

"What's the ETA on the Dominion fleet?" Ryan asked.

"They've sped up, its currently at approximately 8 hours from now, we're monitoring their progress, they might speed up some more or slow down for whatever reason. They should cross the border between the DMZ and our territory in about 45 minutes."

"So we're basically at war again already." The secretary of healthcare stated.

"That's what it comes down to yes." Ryan said.

"So why not just end this vote, the Dominion have clearly breached the cease fire agreement?" the Secretary of the interior asked.

"Because we need to give our people an outcome, get a sort of mandate to continue this war. We need justification from our own people to carry on. And we need to give of a signal we are willing to fight on." Ryan said.

Some more discussing went on and time passed by quickly. Eventually three officers from the Capitol police arrived carrying a leather binding with the seal of the Tau'ri Federation House of Representatives. It was handed over to the President. He again opened it and read it like he did with the one from the Senate. This time a small smile formed on his face.

He let out his breath before he spoke "The House of Representatives has voted on the matter. The 'nay's' have it with 56 percent of the vote."

A number of 'thank god's followed and even a 'now we've got a chance'. Relief was evident on everyone's face.

"Alright, let's get the camera's in here and we'll start in fifteen." Ryan said.

For the next fifteen minutes Ryan watched on as the cameras were brought in. The cameras used looked like Kino's from Destiny, they floated and could be controlled remotely, they just weren't as advanced as the Kino yet. Some of the cabinet members left to use the toilet or to get a smoke.

Once everything was ready and all the members of the cabinet had returned and taken their seats Ryan kicked off the broadcast.

"Citizens of the Tau'ri Federation, yesterday was supposed to be a day to remember, but due to acts of fraud it was not to be. Today will be a day to remember. Today your government will decide if we will accept the peace proposal from the Dominion, or if we decline and continue to wage war. So far, your House of Representatives has voted against this proposal, while your Senate has voted in favor of the proposal. Because of this tie it is up to the members of the cabinet to decide what to do."

"There are those who call upon us to choose the right and honorable way, to bring peace home. They claim our opponents are honorable for they give us this option, and offer us our 'autonomy'. Yet at this very moment, these honorable opponents of ours, are heading for us and are about to cross the cease-fire line they agreed with us into our territory. This alone is enough of a reason to go back to war. But before that happens, we will have our vote. The Cabinet will cast their vote, one by one, either for, or against this peace proposal."

Ryan turned directly to each of the cabinet members, "To be clear, if you are in favor of accepting the peace proposal, you say 'aye', if you are against the peace proposal and therefore choose war, you say 'nay'."

"Let's start." Ryan turned to look at the various secretaries.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I bring forward to you a vote on the matter of peace with the Dominion, at their terms."

"The Secretary of Homeworld Security, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Secretary of Veteran's Affairs, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Secretary of Education, Culture and Science, how do you vote?"

"Yay"

"The Secretary of Transport, Energy and Infrastructure, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, how do you vote?"

"Yay"

"The Secretary of Health and Human Services, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Secretary of Social Affairs and Employment, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Secretary of Economic Affairs, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Secretary of the Interior and National Affairs, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Attorney General, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Secretary of Defense, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

The Secretary of the Treasury, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"The Secretary of State, how do you vote?"

"Nay"

"Alright, thirteen out of fifteen votes have been heard and the result is two in favor, eleven against. The only two remaining are the Vice-President of the Tau'ri Federation and the President of the Tau'ri Federation."

"I would like to know the vote from the Vice-President please." Ryan asked his VP.

"I vote nay. Not in a thousand years."

"Thank you."

"Last night I had a conversation with my son, he shared the thoughts and opinions of his comrades with me. He did not understand. He didn't understand why so many people would choose to abandon so many others who do not share the safety of planetary shields. He didn't know who he was fighting for, the Colonials have more spirit for war than our own people. He stressed to me that he choose to serve his country and put on the uniform, he didn't have to, there's no conscription, and I didn't press him. He did nonetheless, he choose to, as did all of his comrades, and they know the risks, they accepted it for their own reasons. It makes their loss and sacrifice even greater, but they feel it is a price worth paying to defend what they hold so dearly. Stopping now would have made all previous losses be in vain."

"My vote on the matter should not surprise anyone. I have been advocating a continuation of war ever since the first bill was introduced by Senator Wilkes. I vote nay. Those politicians who want to bring their boys home I ask, where are your sons and daughters? Are they fighting at the front? Two of mine are. I fear for their lives every day, but I know that they are surrounded by good men and women and they are fighting for a good cause, one they believe in. It doesn't make my fear of losing them any less, but it makes it bearable. I love them as much as any parent would love their children and I most certainly pray for their safe return every day."

"To date we have never lost a battle against the Dominion, we've always retreated in time leaving behind us those who would try to kill or subjugate us. As my son said it, 'we've kicked their asses more than they have ours'. Our military is the best in the known universe, it is the strongest and most capable and it will keep on fighting because the men and women who are part of it will never cease. To their brothers in arms throughout the galaxy and indeed the universe, I would say, fear not, we are in it to win it, and we will be victorious."

"To our soldiers I would like to say 'be brave, fight on, we support you, you are not alone in this'. To our citizens I would like to say, 'have a nice day'. To our allies I would like to say, 'we won't leave you behind, we will stand side by side in this war against the Dominion, our bonds have never been stronger'. To our enemies I would like to say, 'get lost while you can, if you don't, we'll get you sooner or later'."

"Thank you and have a nice day." Ryan concluded.

Ryan waited for the red light on the camera to stop blinking before he spoke again. "Alright, let's get this to the archives." Ryan signed a leather binder which had gone through the room for all secretaries to sign. Two spots were left empty. Ryan knew both secretaries who had voted for the peace, and had spoken with both on the matter extensively. He respected their opinion. "Secretary Ricker, I hereby order the military to commence military actions against the Dominion and their allies. Offensive operations should not be considered until either the cease-fire agreement ends, or when the cease-fire is broken by the Dominion forces, or their affiliates."

"Yes sir." Secretary Ricker replied. He turned to General O'Neill and instructed him the same.

"I would like to thank you all for being present today and if there are no more issues I would like to end this meeting." Ryan said.

No one had something. "Very well, have a good day and this meeting is dismissed."

1525 hours

Control room, Atlantis

"General O'Neill has given the green light. The system's cleared." Someone reported.

"Very well. ETA is 5 minutes, let's get the chair ready." Brigadier general Lorne ordered.

Deeper down into Atlantis the marine squad that stood guard at the entrance to the chair room stood aside as a major walked in. He was one of the few who was allowed access to the chair, and to use it. The strength of his ATA gene was near that of Generals O'Neill and Sheppard. The major walked up to the chair and sat down. Nothing happened.

Up in the control room General Lorne was awaiting confirmation that the chair had been powered up. As he got confirmation about the chair room being accessed the ground below him shook violently. Immediately alarms started blaring and several screens started flashing red warnings in both Ancient and English. Before he could ask what happened another tremble followed and even more alarms started blaring. He could also faintly hear the noise.

"Explosions in the chair room and berthing area seven."

"What!" berthing area seven was located near the chair room and housed those qualified to operate the chair.

"Damage control units to the chair room and berthing area seven, medical teams stand by for casualties." The speakers announced.

"Get me O'Neill." Lorne ordered.

Ten seconds later O'Neill and the entire war cabinet were ready. "Sir there's been two explosions here, one at the chair room and the other at the berthing area of our chair operators."

"What's the status of the chair?" O'Neill asked.

"No clue, DC is underway but we're not reading anything from up here."

"This can't be coincidence." General Allison commented.

"We need to activate the secondary chair at Antarctica." Lorne said.

"There's no ATA crew there anymore, it's hardly in use anymore." The Secretary of Defense said.

"Sir, with your permission I'd like to take command at Antarctica." O'Neill petitioned the President.

"Granted, go now, before we activate the anti-jamming field." Ryan said after a moment of contemplation.

"This is O'Neill beam me to the Arctic defense platform." Seconds later O'Neill disappeared from the feed.

Everyone waited for a minute.

"General O'Neill, have you activated the chair?" Ryan asked.

"Remind me to authorize the acquisition of a faster elevator for this site." O'Neill said.

"Approved." The SecDef said.

"Dominion fleet is arriving." Lorne reported. "They are spread out across the planet, land based weaponry is opening fire at will."

"I'm at the bottom of the shaft." O'Neill said, he could be heard running. "Powering up control chair."

Down in the ancient outpost O'Neill started working quickly, he ran a check on the chair itself while the caretakers of the site were still trying to figure out what had happened and why the Chief of staff himself had come to use the chair.

"Sensors check out, I'm getting positive readings on the Dominion ships." O'Neill reported. "Nice one." He muttered as a troop transport was gutted by four simultaneous impacts which overloaded the shields and collapsed the hull.

"Checking on weapons." He said. He tried to get an inventory. "I'm not getting any weapons. Do we even have drones down here?"

"I doubt we ever resupplied the outpost, we were going to control them from Atlantis." Lorne said.

"Lorne, I'm sending Atlantis a request for access to its systems in order to coordinate the weapons fire and to launch drones if necessary, it might take a few minutes but it shouldn't be too difficult if you get Sam and on it."

"Copy, got the request. We're working on it." Lorne replied.

O'Neill felt more information coming in as more and more systems were accessed by the chair. He did a quick check on the ZPM status and executed a detailed scan of the entire system, looking for any ships trying to sneak somewhere.

"Why are the shields powering down?" O'Neill asked. He executed a second status check and a diagnostics test on the shield systems. He also tried to access the shield controls.

"What's that?" Lorne asked.

"Are you kidding O'Neill?" Ryan asked in shock.

"'Afraid not, shield strength is dropping across the board, secondary emitters are not engaging." He surmised. He attention was caught by the sensor systems. "Dominion transports are moving in. They are going to invade!" O'Neill said as his brain processed the information.

"O'Neill take them out!" Ryan ordered immediately. "Someone find out what's happening to the shields!"

"Engaging the transports." O'Neill confirmed. "Lorne, I need those drones!"

"We're working on it! The entire system was designed to prevent an outside takeover, not permit one."

O'Neill put up a holographic screen showing the progress in Earth's orbit. Several transports were already destroyed while some more were streaks of fire in the sky, crashing down onto the planet. Unfortunately the largest transports were well shielded and hard to take down. Sensing that the local gun crews were doing the best they could and didn't need anyone telling them what to do he went after the shield problem.

"Got them!" he said. "Sir, I've got whoever is lowering the shields. They are in the secondary auxiliary control room, the fucking Pentagon, right under our noses. They are using a foothold protocol to lock Atlantis and me out. You've got to send troops down there to undo the damage now!"

"Understood, marines are going in ASAP." General Moore said.

"Jack, you should be getting drones anytime." Carter said.

O'Neill checked again and a wealth of information started flowing into his mind. Millions of drones came online and transmitted their status and position to his mind. As more and more drones came online O'Neill touched out with his mind to a group of them and sent them out towards Earth. As he noticed a status change at the Dominion warships he grabbed another group of drones and sent them off towards all the warships. "The Dominion warships are targeting our shield emitters."

"You've got to take them out Jack, without shields we're defenseless." Lorne said.

"Already on it." O'Neill said as he launched another group of drones.

Meanwhile the first Dominion transports were landing.

"O'Neill, something crashed nearby, do you have any clue what it was?" Ryan asked.

"Ehm, one moment please." He said. He checked the trajectories of all landing ships and those which had been damaged to such a degree that they were crashing. "Okay, I've got fifteen lading sites, also, six of the big transports have crashed relatively intact and might actually be a danger as well. The big bang you just felt must have been a big one crashing at Dulles airport, no doubt underway to the Alexandria landing site, there's three of 'em there."

"Where else?"

"Two landed east of Fountain Valley, near the Cheyenne Mountain, must be after the SGC."

"I've got an entire Free Jaffa armored division conducting trials at Fort Carson, they ought to give us some time to send in reinforcements." General Maynard said. The armored division was the first Jaffa armored division, a trial by Teal'c in an attempt to make the Jaffa military stronger.

"One at Jamaica, probably after the shield generator there."

"A crash in the Amazon, near Itamarati, a small place in the middle of nowhere, must've been underway to their Brasilia landing site at Planaltina, three big ones there by the way."

"Another crash in Greenland, not much there to worry about, might just send a squadron of bombers to flatten the area."

"Two big ones just touched down in Madagascar. A third crashed in Congo, near a place called Bili."

"I've also got two more at Kalifa, it's in the very south-east of Mauritania, near the Mali border."

"Europe's got a shit load of 'em. Two at Geneva airport, another two at the Rammstein Air force base, must be after the senate and our communications network. Also three at the German-Polish border near Stettin and another three at Marathon, Greece. One crashed at the border of Portugal and Spain."

"Moscow's got two to its north at Dmitrov while two more have landed near Baki."

"Two landed near New Delhi. Another crashed at a lake north of Tibet called Aqqikkol lake, must have been underway to Shanghai's Chongming Island which has three big ones."

"The last two have landed near Alice Springs, like Rammstein they must be targeting our galactic communication relays and shield emitters."

"It's a full blown invasion." Ryan said.

"It appears so, yes sir." O'Neill concurred.

"General Lorne, I need you to initiate a detailed sector scan with a range of about 12000 LY, we need to know if any follow up forces are underway." General Allison ordered. "Mister President, we should seriously consider bringing the fleet in to clear our skies and provide orbital support."

"O'Neill, do you concur?" Ryan asked.

"Partially yes. If the Dominion try to bring reinforcements we should take them out in orbit. Unfortunately our ships won't be able to provide much bombardment support because of our own shields." O'Neill said. "Sir, it's time to start looking at the binder the captain carries with him, especially the parts about Homeworld Defense Mobilization plans." The President was always followed by a marine captain with a suitcase full of secret documents. Historically it also contained certain parts of the nuclear launch sequence verification. Nowadays the football as it was still called only contained binders filled with all kinds of secret plans.

"Very well, any suggestions?"

"Well, I don't know the plans by heart, but it would probably be good to declare martial law, call up all reserves, both active and inactive, federalize all national guard units which haven't been federalized yet. It's also time to fold the registered militia's into the army's command structure, as well as all institutional regiments. We should deploy the 25th Rapid Reaction Corps to Washington DC and the 59th Rapid Reaction Corps to Cheyenne Mountain. Other units, such as that Free Jaffa division should be committed to the nearest and most pressing AO."

The registered militia's had all been approved by the government, constitutionally they could not be prohibited, so instead of making them outcasts the government struck a deal with them. The militia's would register all their members, weaponry and equipment. All heavy equipment and weapons could only be used after permission was granted by the military, or while under the supervision of military personnel. The institutional regiments were a variation of private military companies. Though some purely fought for money, most fought for their ideals which they felt could not be safeguarded by the military and federation itself. The largest group of institutional regiments were known as Vatican Regiments, they regularly escorted missionaries to foreign worlds and were involved in keeping religious minorities safe from persecution at some of the less tolerant planets in the galaxy. All units, be they militia's, mercenary units, Vatican regiments or other institutional regiments, were subject to Tau'ri laws, no matter where they were and they were also supervised by the military to prevent any sort of rebel activity or an uprising.

"We should call up aircrews to man the turn of the century warplanes, we'll need them to bomb the Dominion to dust." O'Neill said. "Sir, the Vice-Chief of Staff will be able to execute any of your orders while I'm down here. In the meantime I would suggest you evacuate the government from Washington DC and Geneva and go underground at a COG site, a Continuation of Government site. Preferably far away from any battlefield."

"I'm not leaving my home Jack, but where can I ditch the congress, what's a safe place?"

"Well, you could send part up north to the Boston site, there's the Negev site that appears to be safe, as is the Singapore site."

"Consider it done."

An alert popped into O'Neill's mind "I've got control over the shields again. Mike, tell those marines they did good work." O'Neill said referring to the Marine Corps Chief of Staff. "Activating shields now, there's some damage though."

"How bad is it?" the secretary of defense asked.

"The Jamaican and Shanghai generators are down, we've lost seven generators in Europe and four in North America, another three in Asia and one each for South America, Africa and Australia. We're also at risk losing the Alice springs generator and the Rammstein and Geneva generators, though the Geneva generator is a secondary generator. As it is, we've got issues with coverage over Europe, from Germany down to the Balkans and Greece and the north of Italy, and the central US, from Nebraska to Ohio, to Tennessee and to Oklahoma. The Dominion have also pushed aside our shield as it were around Washington DC and the immediate vicinity of their Cheyenne landing site."

"We can shift around some of the mobile emitters and transfer a couple of tertiary emitters to the fringes of our cover." The SecDef said.

"It would take a couple of weeks to set it all up and make it as strong as the other parts of the shields, in that time we'd be vulnerable. It also wouldn't solve the holes created by the Dominion shields currently active, so long as those are active, they can fly in any reinforcements they want, we can hit them on their approach, but as soon as they've passed those shields they are out of our reach." General Maynard said.

"Gentlemen, considering the requirements for Operation Valkyrie, we will need to have the situation here under control. The Dominion forces will need to have been cut off from supplies and reinforcements, and at the very least have been contained. Otherwise, Operation Valkyrie cannot be executed. Our fleet is scheduled to leave at July Second, you have until midnight, July first, to accomplish this." Ryan spoke.

"Mister President, your daughter…"

"My daughter and seven to eight hundred other men and women would be cut off from home with no way to return. I know." Ryan replied to the secretary of State.

"I'll let the local commanders know what's expected of them and their troops." The Vice chairman said.

1550 hours

Four mile run, 3 clicks south of the Pentagon

The convoy of fourteen vehicles stopped on the north side of the Jefferson Davis' Four Mile Run creek bridge. The troops climbed out and dispersed and started digging defensive positions. They had intelligence which indicated an incoming Dominion attack. The soldiers all belonged to the first provisional company belonging to the firs provisional battalion of Washington DC. Most of the soldiers were from the Washington Naval Yard and the marine barracks. They were accompanied by some soldiers from the Pentagon security unit and a number of agents and other personnel from the federal services. The second provisional company had also arrived at the George Washington memorial parkway bridge, 300 meters east of them. In total the entire battalion only had 200 members. The battalion only had three Bradley's, no tanks and a number of light machine guns and grenade launchers at its disposal. As two captains started organizing the two companies into a proper defensive line the major in charge tried to get into contact with the chain of command to get more troops and weapons sent.

As the troops tried to find the best cover and improve on it, the civilians who had lived south of four mile run were moving north with all haste. Some were by car, others were by foot. Everyone was trying to escape the extermination that was expected to come with the Dominion troops. Smoke could already be seen rising from buildings down to the south. Also visible were the three massive landing ships, six kilometers away. A single UAV was deployed at the moment, it had signaled the Dominion forces moving north while sending a small scout party across the Woodrow Wilson Memorial bridge. The battalion had received its orders just fifteen minutes ago and had raced towards their objective from their staging area near the Naval Yard. Police had been able to clear the route most of the time, although they did have to push aside one car at a traffic jam, the Bradley had no problem doing so.

The major had set up shop in the first floor lobby of an apartment building where his small staff was busy organizing maps of the area.

"No shit my battalion isn't in your book, it was formed just twenty minutes ago!" the major said to into an old radio set. "Now you take a look over at the watch officer and wave him over." The major said. "Now tell him that the first provisional battalion of Washington DC is requesting all available support and reinforcements available 'cus we've got a shitload of Dominion incoming and we'd like to waste them before they've reached the Pentagon."

"That's great. Thank you very much!" the major said before he threw the headphone at the radio.

"We get anything?" his second in command asked.

"They're setting up four 81mm mortars at the East Potomac Park, should be ready in five. Beyond that, it's all speculation, perhaps some Fc-16's or strike eagles. Possibly an A-10 attack run. No immediate reinforcements though."

"We'll have to make due then."

"How are the preparations going?"

"As well as can be in ten minutes, both Pentagon security sniper teams are up high in this building scouting for the Dominion. We've also gotten help from about a dozen locals with rifles, mostly hunting rifles. I've dispersed them throughout our lines and in this building. We're low on ammo, we've only got a few LMG's, barely any usable cover, though we're trying to rectify that."

"Tell everyone to keep digging, the Dominion will be in range in five minutes."

"Yes sir."

"Oh, Do you know if anyone brought demolition charges? Might be useful to drop those bridges in the water if we get overrun."

"Doubt it sir, at least not in the quantities you'd need for those bridges sir."

"Very well, carry on."

The XO left the major alone. The major walked up to a window which overlooked the three traffic bridges and two railway bridges which he had to defend. He could see some of the soldiers preparing their positions. Most would only manage to dig a small and shallow trench to lie in before the Dominion would arrive.

"Sir, recon on top of the building spotted hostile scouts approaching. Approximately 800 meter out." A radio technician reported.

"Copy that, tell everyone to get into position now."

"Sir, most of the men are still digging their foxholes."

"Tell them to keep digging from their cover."

Time went by slowly. After several minutes the Dominion troops got into visual range, they were crossing a parking lot on their way to the creek.

"Distance to forward elements?" the major asked.

"They're 250 meters from our position, 200 from our units at the creek."

"Tell the snipers they are weapons free and to take out their commanders first. All troops are weapons free at 150 meters."

Seconds later he heard the crack of the rifles. He looked at the Dominion forces which were quick to react to the attack. Nearly all Dominion dived for the nearest piece of cover. Some broke windows or doors to get into buildings. Within seconds their officers were up issuing orders and starting an assault. Most of the officers made themselves good targets, and nearly all of them were taken down within a minute of rising. While the officers tried to organize an assault, other units made their way over to windows and rooftops to return fire. Once the return fire started suppressing the snipers, the other Dominion soldiers were able to make their assault. They quickly got into range of the rest of the company.

Despite being a undermanned and underpowered company, the return fire was impressive. Over twenty Dominion fell within seconds. Half the Dominion force went back into cover. The other half that kept running fired from the hip. Despite the short time to build cover, it was sufficient to protect the soldiers from the inaccurate Dominion return fire. Once several machine guns added to the mix, most attackers were killed or forced into hiding, short of the bridges they wanted to capture.

"Sir, we've got mortars at our disposal. One problem, they are low on ammo, they can only give us forty rounds."

"Then you better make 'em count sergeant. Focus on concentrations of hostile forces."

"Yes sir."

The sergeant did his best to put as much firepower on target as possible, but it only took him a few minutes to run through all forty rounds. In the end it didn't really matter. More Dominion arrived out of nowhere and took the places of those who had fallen. The incoming fire increased while the outgoing fire decreased as the first soldiers reported running out of ammunition.

"Sir, we're running low on ammo. First platoon reports less than half of the men are still firing and requests permission to fall back."

"I'm sure the rest of the battalion is running low as well." The major said. "Get me command." he said as he pointed to a corporal. "Sergeant, try to find us some more air support. And ask those mortars if they can lay down a smoke screen in case we have to pull back."

Two 'sir's' followed and not much later the corporal handed the phone over to the major.

"General, I need immediate support or I'll be overrun. Half my unit's without ammunition and Dominion forces are closing in." The major listened to the response from the general. "M-60's?" "Sir, without any resupply I will be forced to pull my forces back!" "Yes sir, thank you sir!" the major said as several rounds impacted on the wall behind him.

The Major turned to his staff, "We've got four surplus M-60's inbound to clear those Dominion. The General's also redirecting a flight of four A-10's from up north to drop napalm and cluster bombs on the other side of the creek. Resupply is underway but will take at least ten minutes before they are here."

"How do you want to deploy those tanks?"

"I want two tanks on the Potomac Avenue and the other two at the Jefferson Davis highway, about 100 meters before the bridge. In case of a retreat I want those tanks to provide covering fire together with the Bradleys while the troops make a run for the trucks and Humvees."

A minute later the first M-60 arrived. It immediately started pummeling Dominion hardpoints in buildings across the creek. The other three followed soon and within minutes the entire Dominion advance was grounded to a halt.

"Sir, the Dominion have stopped the assault. They are retreating to a deep ditch about five hundred meters away, the tanks are laying down some suppressing fire, but they shouldn't waste to much ammo."

"Agreed. Get started on evacuating our wounded and dead, and collect any weapons and ammo from those we evacuate, we might need it."

"Yes sir."

It took only five minutes to clear their own wounded and dead and get back into position. Had it taken any longer they might have gotten caught in the bombardment that came the sixth minute. A large fireball on the Potomac avenue signaled the end of one M-60 tank. After a minute of intense bombardment the fire started to subdue and only a few rounds fell dispersed throughout the area. Not much later the last tank on the Potomac Avenue started firing its main gun and coaxial machine gun. Not much later the major could see a wall of Dominion soldiers advancing in their direction.

"Get command on the line, tell them we need immediate support directed at the other side of the creek. Waste everything out there."

Meanwhile the few troops who still had bullets started firing at the Dominion. The other two tanks also opened fire and tried to thin the attack out as much as possible.

"Sir, there's some trouble with air support."

"What about it?"

"Apparently the Dominion shield has extended far enough to prevent any of our air units to penetrate the airspace. The only possibility is at Andrews, incoming aircraft land on the eastern runway, taxi to the western runway for takeoff. The shield split the base in two. Fortunately it does allow slow moving objects to pass through, just like our own shields sir."

"Can we expect anything at all?"

"Those four A-10's are prepping for take-off."

"Tell them to put a rush on it."

The Dominion troops had gotten dangerously close, to the point that hand grenades were exchanged between the two forces. Nearly all troops had expended their ammunition safe for some side-arms. Only the tanks kept on firing. Unfortunately the tanks were old and were not equipped with shields like their modern cousins, the Schwarzkopfs. Their armor was not designed with energy fire in mind and as Dominion forces got closer and closer, more scorch marks started to appear on the tanks. It would only be a matter of time before a plasma round would penetrate the armor and cause a fatality.

Despite their best effort, the troops could not avoid getting into hand-to-hand combat with the Dominion soldiers. As the first, depleted wave of Dominion troops clashed with the Tau'ri soldiers, the second wave commenced their assault over the bridges. Fortunately the first A-10 commenced it attack as well. It strafed the out of cover soldiers with its 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger Gatling cannon. As it roared overhead and turned northwards to prepare for a second run, the second A-10 commenced its strafe run to devastating effect. Dozens of Dominion soldiers were torn to shreds by the hundreds of bullets being poured into the area. The third and fourth aircraft each dropped four mk-77 incendiary bombs on the Dominion soldiers. Though relatively old, the mk-77 was a deadly weapon against troops in the open due to its incendiary nature.

As the last A-10 turned northwards a Dominion artillery battery took offence to the three remaining M-60's. it took the battery just three short minutes before the M-60's were columns of smoke and fire. On the plus side, the Tau'ri troops had managed to take down the entire first wave of Dominion soldiers, and with the fires raging on the other side of the creek, no more were coming.

"Can those A-10's drop those bridges?"

"I'll tell them to try sir" the radio operator said.

Minutes later all four A-10's had made a run where they had dropped three mk83's each. The mk-83's were unguided, 1000 pound bombs. Three of the smaller bridges had been destroyed, but the two largest bridges only had a side chipped off.

While the A-10's turned around the Dominion artillery started shelling the general area where the Tau'ri soldiers had dug themselves in. Though not very accurate, casualties started to rise as the Tau'ri troops had only been able to dig shallow trenches.

"Sir, the ammo trucks got hit."

"Damn. Okay, without ammo and with this bombardment we cannot hold this position. Call out to all units, retreat to the vehicles and fall back to the Pentagon." The major ordered. He waited for his radio operator to make the call before he grabbed his stuff and walked out to his Humvee which was waiting for him. As he looked left he saw a truck driving away, fully loaded with bloodied and tired soldiers. He grabbed the radio that was inside the Humvee.

"Command, we are falling back, we've sustained heavy casualties and are shit out of ammo and under heavy artillery attack. The A-10's should make another pass to try and drop all bridges into the water, but success cannot be certain, recommend artillery bombardment after BDA.

"Copy that major, you've done your best. Come on home."

Pentagon Security Center

1620 hours

The Pentagon Security Center had once been used to observe the surrounding area of the Pentagon to watch for any signs of terrorism and security threats. Since the increasingly effective methods of tracking down terrorist organizations because of all the technology made available by the disclosure of the Stargate Program, the center had been scaled down. Now it was the hive of all military action on the US' eastern seaboard. It had been given complete control of any and all military units on the east of the Mississippi river as well as the 25th Rapid Reaction Corps which was in the process of redeploying from Kelowna where it had been stationed for rapid deployment anywhere in the galaxy.

The large room had been cleared of nearly all old technology and new equipment was brought in. this included a holographic table which was able to project all parts of the battlefield as well as zoom in at any part, or zoom out to get a wider view. This part of the war would be commanded by just one man. Lieutenant General Donald Hendricks had been given command of the new Army of the Potomac.

He had just heard the news about the retreat of the first provision battalion, and though it hadn't come as much of a surprise, he had hoped to have some more time. It was barely three kilometers from the four mile creek to the Henry G. Shirley Memorial highway which ran just south of the Pentagon itself. The fourth Armored Cavalry Regiment had taken up position on top of the highway from where they had a great line of sight, but could also be spotted easily. With some luck he could have a company of engineers on site to prepare better defenses within the hour. His hope was to establish a strong defensive line following the highway to include the Foxcroft Heights, then follow the south Washington Boulevard followed by the Arlington Boulevard so as to include Fort Meyer, Arlington cemetery and the Pentagon. In a day, two National Guard infantry brigades would be arriving from New England, they would be more suited to defend the Pentagon and Arlington Perimeter.

But the Pentagon, and the rest of Washington D.C. were only one side of the battle. To the east, across the river, he had to protect Andrews at all cost, it was his only way to get fixed wing air support into the area. One company of marines had already created a defensible position at Oxon Hill and another company of marines was inbound to reinforce the position. The Dominion hadn't yet tried to cross the Potomac in force. To the south no contact had been made yet. A battalion of marines had just moved out from Quantico, so far not many Dominion forces had been spotted heading south, but if the Pentagon front held, it would only be logical the Dominion would move south, and not even Quantico would be safe. To the west, the crashed transport caused a problem. He could try to cut the two forces off from one another, but if he didn't commit enough forces, his own might be surrounded by the Dominion and lost. If he committed to much forces, he would risk a breakthrough in another sector. He had decided to send two armored brigades into the gap, one National Guard brigade which was forming up near Manassas and a Reserve brigade, which was being assembled at Culpeper.

"Sir, orders from the president." A lieutenant said as he handed a tablet to the general.

"Okay everyone listen up. We've been given a deadline to contain the Dominion beachhead and prevent it from any further reinforcing by June 30th. This is a hard deadline from the president himself, so it must be important. Let's do our best to meet this deadline. Carry on."

TFS Nautilus

Behind Dominion lines

2320 hours

The TFS Nautilus was one of the LCS' assigned to raid hostile supply lines. Mere hours ago they had set course from the Cau system where they had received a new module for testing. It was quite a revolutionary idea. It was called the Local Hyperspace Denial System. As the name suggested, it disabled hyperspace in a small region of space. At the moment, the Nautilus was in formation with the three other LCS' in the wolfpack. Their target was a convoy of troops underway to the Colonial system. The plan was to ambush them in an asteroid field, where the Dominion sensors would be confused. The commanders of all four LCS' were assembled on the Nautilus for a pre-combat briefing.

"Okay, counter intelligence wants us to start using fake names to refer to one another when we are communicating with each other and Earth." The Nautilus' commander said. He was the most senior commander and therefore the overall commander of the wolfpack.

"How so?" a commander asked.

"Counter intel thinks the Dominion might be trying to count ships. So in order to confuse them we are allowed to create fictional names for use when communicating with each other, as long as these have first been communicated in a safe way with Earth. I've made up the first set for the four of us, to be used today and tomorrow, for any following days we can think new ones up when the time comes."

"Stingray, you'll be U-94."

"Going with Nazi subs eh?"

"Why not, we're already called a wolfpack, so long as it confuses the Dominion, the better."

"Continuing, the Flying Dutchman will be U-124, the Akula will be the U-406 and Nautilus will be U-569."

"Let's try and confuse the enemy, not ourselves. What we'll do is this. The Nautilus, with the LHDS will trap the Dominion group in the asteroid belt. They will see the Nautilus but be out of range for an engagement. We will make contact and lead them through the asteroid belt where the other three can carry out hit and run attacks. Because hyperspace is distorted we cannot enter it ourselves to escape so we need to use cover from the asteroids to make our approach and retreat." The Nautilus' commander said. "Any questions or remarks?"

"Aside from the annoying counter-intel thing, no." the Akula's commander said. The other two commanders voiced their agreement with the Akula's commander.

"Okay, step off is in ten minutes, we've got twenty minutes to get into position before the Dominion convoy arrives. Let's kill some bad guys."

All three commanders agreed and soon left for their ships which then proceeded to make a small hyperspace jump to the asteroid belt. It didn't take much time to find a rock to hide behind and soon enough a route was planned for the Nautilus to lure the Dominion ships into.

Fleet Command, Atlantis

2355 hours

Fleet Command was the name given to the room from where the entire Tau'ri fleet was monitored and directed. Several holographic tables projected the various galaxies where the fleet was active. The holograms also included all known positions of allied and hostile ships. This was quite an easy feat as Atlantis has the most sophisticated sensors in existence. Most Dominion staging areas and fleet bases were under constant surveillance, and even though smaller ships could not be tracked individually, when traveling in larger groups all ships would eventually be picked up.

General's O'Neill and Allison had been staring at the holographic table projecting the Milky Way galaxy and all known ships, allied and hostile. The Dominion assault on Earth had taken both by surprise. By now it seemed clear that it had also caught some of the Dominion by surprise. On Tauron, Dominion units seemed totally unaware of the attack and had just recently gone into high gear. It was assumed that the following morning would see an attack at dawn. The big question was supply. The Dominion would mount an attack that was for sure, they had been building up troops and supplies on Tauron since the cease-fire. Despite all their stockpiles, the Dominion would have to replace all the losses they would sustain and none were discovered to be inbound. Those that had previously been thought to be destined for the Colonial ground war were suddenly deployed at Earth. Both generals felt they had missed something.

"Sir, Message from wolfpack 15." A major said as he handed a tablet over to General Allison.

"U-569 made the contact and lead them, U-94 scored a kill, U-124 sinks four on two approaches and U-406 fails to score." Allison read out loud.

"That sounds cryptic, what's that about?" O'Neill asked.

"Something counter-intel's trying. They want our wolfpacks to use changing names to prevent the Dominion from getting an accurate count on the amount of ships we have out there. They think the Dominion can somehow listen in to part of our communication network. This message's from the Nautilus, a LCS we equipped with the experimental LHDS. They attacked a small convoy and destroyed five hostile ships before they got out. We'll have to wait for a full report to see the exact damage done and to get a feel for how well the LHDS performed." Allison explained.

"Could have used that to pull those Dominion ships out of hyperspace before they got close to Earth." O'Neill remarked.

"I know. It's still experimental, I didn't even know they had a working prototype until an hour ago." Allison said. "There's been a lot of inter planet travel." She remarked.

"Where?"

"Between their forward bases and the Twelve Colonies, and these twelve planets." She said. She highlighted the twelve planets in question and a computer automatically calculated the amount of flights and tons of potential cargo which had been shipped to and from the planets. "They ship out way more than was ever shipped in."

"So they produce it there?"

"No, not the right planets, there's hardly a population there. Perhaps they send it in by stargate?" Allison said.

"That's more likely, but it would require several stargates to supply this amount of troops and supplies." O'Neill said.

"If they're using a system like ours they could theoretically operate an unlimited amount of gates simultaneous." Allison said.

"I'll get intelligence working on it. Perhaps we can hack into their system and find out where they are shipping the supplies in from."

"Would give us some good targets for hit and run attacks."

A lieutenant walked up to O'Neill and handed him a tablet. "From General Hendricks, sir"

O'Neill took the tablet and started reading it. General Allison walked over and stood beside him "Bad news?"

"Depends how you look at it. Fourth Armored Cavalry took heavy casualties repelling seven attacks. Third Infantry Regiment took casualties when they had to fight hand-to hand for the old Navy Annex. For the moment the Pentagon line is secure, but a night attack might still result in a breakthrough. The two marine companies at Oxon Hills were briefly surrounded before being relieved by a Virginia Guard unit which crossed the Chesapeake early in the evening. They've had to fall back a mile or two and have now established a proper line of defense. So far the Dominion forces at Dulles have not been able to make contact with the main force, which is good I guess. The southern flank is still being established, the Dominion made a push for Quantico but were beaten back quickly."

"So, good?" Allison asked.

"For now. At least till the morning. The Dominion screwed up when they didn't use the surprise to their fullest potential, now they're losing the momentum and in a few days they'll lose the initiative. Tomorrow morning might be the deciding day. If the Dominion seized the night and established some AA defenses and built up enough troops to force a break-through we might be in trouble. Beyond that, the RRC will be fully deployed and the Dominion chanceless and left over to a war of attrition, in Virginia anyways."

Aegean Sea, near Naxos

While the troops near Washington were resting from their first day of battle and preparing for a nightly battle, the troops in Europe were at or near full readiness as dawn was approaching. In Athens, Dominion troops had built up their forces to massive heights, throughout the night, fighting had taken place and the northeastern quarter of the city had already fallen to the Dominion. Because of the fighting going on in western and central Europe not much support from those regions could be expected. The forces from the Levant were directed to aid the Greek defenders. The hostilities that once reigned in the region and caused several wars had subsided somewhat since the creation of the Tau'ri Federation and even though the citizens on all sides still were no friends to one another, they at least could tolerate each other.

The Israeli military had always had an efficient and effective system of mobilizing its military forces and time and joining the Federation had not changed it. Two battalions of the paratrooper brigade had already been transported across the Mediterranean into Greece to join the fight while two infantry brigades were being loaded onto transports with all their equipment. The third battalion of the paratrooper brigade had boarded their ride to the battlefield just thirty minutes ago. The spacehawks were the same as those that had transported the first two battalions. Already their transport had been postponed twice in order to bring more ammunition to the troops already in theatre and even now the spacehawks were packed in with crates of ammunition.

According to the briefing they had received before they boarded the spacehawks they were being flown into Athens international airport and from there they would be taken by truck to the nearby village of Spata where a small Greek battalion held on for dear life. The Greeks had sustained heavy casualties and command feared that any assault on their position would break the line.

The spacehawks flew close to the sea at as little as thirty feet. Little was known about the fighter compliment aboard the Dominion landing ships, nor about their anti-air capabilities. So far few fighters had been seen and most Tau'ri airborne assets in the region had been diverted to the German battlefields where they were of much greater use. Nevertheless, two flights of F-302's orbited over central Europe, ready to sweep down and take out any hostile aircraft spotted. Only a few of the forty spacehawks had been armed with air-to-air missiles or air-to-ground missiles.

The fourth 'hawk carried the battalion commander, a major. He had been in command of the battalion for just over two years now. During the last year his battalion had been training and getting ready to join the fourth rapid reaction corps to be formed. From his position inside the craft he could only see a little bit of what was happening outside by looking into the cockpit. He tried listening in to the conversation of the pilots but he could not follow the rapid and coded talk. He tried to get a peek outside again and could see the rear of another spacehawk. As his own spacehawk ascends a few meters he got a sight of the other two spacehawks ahead of his own.

Out of nowhere the first spacehawk exploded into a giant fireball. Almost immediately the pilot yanks the controls to make a sharp right turn. The radio's crackle to life with calls of 'under attack, request immediate air support' and calls with direction of attacks. Both the pilot and co-pilot by now were intensely scanning their surroundings for any signs of hostiles while working numerous instruments. "Two o'clock high!" the co-pilot shouted out as he spotted a Dominion fighter approaching. Before the major had any time to process what happened the cockpit turned into a great fireball as it was hit. Immediately a second hit exploded the right engine sending deadly shrapnel into the troop space killing most if not all of the soldiers instantly. Those who had not yet been killed, died as the third, fourth and fifth rounds slammed into the troop compartment destroying the spacehawk instantly sending its remains and occupants into thousands of pieces into the Aegean.

Commander's quarters, Battlestar Galactica BSG-75

Orbit of Colonial refugee planet

After its last tangle with a hostile force, Galactica had been towed to Earth and patched up to a degree. Later it was towed to the Colonial main refugee planet and it had been in orbit ever since. No shipyards had been available to repair the Galactica to such a degree it would be combat ready again. The hole had been closed with sheet metal, but her back hadn't been repaired and she would not be able to survive an individual jump. In the far of distance the Tjolver occupied one of the three shipyards available over this world. It was receiving a minor upgrade to its weapons systems courtesy of the Tau'ri. Even though Adama had asked, the Galactica had not been given permission to go into the shipyards for repairs once the Tjolver was done. As it were, the Galactica was a piece of memories, floating through space silently, seemingly forgotten by the war it wanted to fight.

Vice Admiral Adama sat silently in his quarters. Reminiscing of the days before the Pegasus was lost. At least he got some comfort in the fact that his son had ascended. His thoughts went out to his grandchildren. At least he got to see them more often now that Galactica was orbiting the same refugee planet they were located on.

His thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of the phone on his wall. He stood up and grabbed it and pushed the button that was lighting up, it read CIC. "Adama"

"Bill, we've got some visitors on board. They're on their way to you now." Colonel Tigh told him.

"Thanks for the heads-up, Saul."

No sooner than he had put down the phone, someone knocked at his door, he told the person to enter and a marine opened the door for Tau'ri General O'Neill and the President of the Colonies, and his partner, Laura Roslin. He greeted both appropriately.

Laura started off first. "Bill, we'll be scrapping Galactica from the fleet registry."

Fear and relief struck simultaneously. There were few positions available for him and he had nothing to retire to. But he was also glad his ship had made it, survived all the challenges put in its path, and overcame all obstacles, shattering all expectations. "Why?" was all he could manage.

"Because we'll be selling her." Laura said.

"You're sending her to the breakers!" Adama said, barely controlling his voice. Being sent to the breakers would be the worst fate for a ship like the Galactica. To have all her memories, all the blood, sweat and tears that had been poured into the ship be torn apart by machines, to be remanufactured into razor blades.

"No, that would be the worst thing to do. She's a symbol of hope." O'Neill said. "The Tau'ri fleet wishes to purchase her and refit her before placing her at the command of the Alliance Fleet."

"We're getting 48 billion Terra worth of weaponry and equipment, as well as twelve Kobol II class battlestars, to be delivered over the course of the next two years." Laura said. The Kobol II class was an improved version of the original Kobol class battlestars.

"We'll be throwing in some extras as well. Those Kobol's will be as strong as a battleship." O'Neill said.

Bill had to take a minute to let it all sink in. The price the Tau'ri were paying for the Galactica, or any other battlestar for that matter far outweighed the worth of a battlestar. Adjusted for inflation and translated into Terra, the Galactica had cost the Colonies 'just' 1.3 billion Terra, over sixty years ago. Even the original Kobol class battlestars like the Tjolver had a price tag of about 4.3 billion Terra.

"What's this alliance fleet?" he asked as it suddenly dawned on him, there was no alliance fleet, none that he was aware of.

"It's a new command, part of the new wartime Alliance military. We'll be unifying some of the larger powers into a wartime command. The Supreme Commander will be the highest military leader throughout the entire alliance, he will be directing the war effort with minimal political interference from the alliance leadership, or any national leadership. Of course there will be accountability, but the day to day operations will be his to command." O'Neill explained.

"You." Adama guessed.

"Me." O'Neill confirmed. It wasn't such a surprise. In the past there had been shouts of a unified military command, but politicians never could agree on who should lead such a force. O'Neill was still a person known throughout the galaxy, respected and revered by friend and foe.

"Congratulations." Adama said as he shook his hand. "How many stars will they be adding to your shoulders?"

"Supreme Commander Allied Forces is a six star position, I will need two more stars, just like you, Fleet Admiral Adama."

"Sorry?"

"You'll be commanding the fleet part of the alliance military. Assuming you accept of course."

"The Admiralty has already drawn up the papers to detach you from Colonial service to the Alliance fleet, and they have approved your promotion to that of a five-star Admiral of the Fleet." Laura said as she pulled a file from her case and a box with the new stars which she opened and placed on his desk.

"You're putting me behind a desk?"

"You already are." O'Neill pointed out.

"It's aboard a battlestar." Adama countered.

"As will your next. This one to be exactly." O'Neill said as he leaned on the desk. "In two days, hyperspace tugs will arrive to bring the Galactica to the Midway station where it will be upgraded over the course of about a quarter year. During that time you will undergo additional training to show you the full abilities of Tau'ri warships and systems, as well as those of the Free Jaffa, Asgard, Nox, Ancients and any other allied power with space ships. You will learn how to make them all work together. It will also allow you to get familiar with your new command staff. Your position will be aboard the Galactica, as a command and control ship of the fleet."

"You really want to do this? Make me a Fleet Admiral, over the heads of the Admiralty, General Emerson and the likes, even Supreme Commander Thor!"

"Yes. They all agree. You are respected by both the Tau'ri and Colonial fleets and are one of the best tacticians known to mankind. Thor agreed that it should be a human in charge of such a fleet. Though very knowledgeable, the Asgard do not know how to think outside the box, and he knows it." Laura said.

"Well, I accept. When can I start?"

"Your training commences in seven days. Your position will be made official in a month or two, but it will be somewhat longer before you can take command of a full fleet."

"Why? You've got something planned?" Adama joked.

"Oh yeah, we sure do." O'Neill said.

"Has it got something to do with you guys not deploying your fleet to meet the Dominion head on?"

"I'll tell you about it later, it's one of the best kept secrets to date." O'Neill said. "I hope." He added.

"That important huh?"

"All or nothing." O'Neill confirmed.

"General, I don't want to rush you, but I'm needed on Caprica again." Laura said.

"Sure thing Ma'am." O'Neill said as he shook hands with Adama again. O'Neill stepped out of the quarters while Adama and Laura said their goodbyes.

Situation room

June 8th, 1530 hours GMT/ 1030 hours EST(UTC-5)

The situation room was filled with the president and all Chiefs, also a number of secretaries attended and the directors of several services. Regularly, the room shook as heavy artillery fired at Dominion positions and Dominion troops fired back. the last 24 hours Tau'ri, and even Jaffa forces had been fighting against Dominion forces which had invaded their home world. Sacred ground. For the first time since those 24 hours all members of the security council had assembled for an update on the invasion. The chiefs were the worst off, none had gotten any sleep and especially the Chief of the Army looked worn down. The Director of the TFCIA was not happy. He had been forced to abandon his office at Langley because the Dominion forces were closing in on it. The entire building had been evacuated, and once everything that could be taken had been taken, the building had been thoroughly destroyed. The TFCIA had relocated its main office to Tokyo where it had taken residence at an army base.

"General O'Neill." Ryan began. "How is the war going?"

O'Neill stood up and a holographic map of the planet activated. He pushed a button and the map zoomed in on the Washington DC area. A large amount of units were represented with counters, each indicating the type and size of the unit, as well as its name and number.

"Throughout the night and morning, attacks have been made by the Dominion against all fronts. So far we've got three brigades defending the Pentagon bridgehead. A reinforced brigade is holding Andrews for the moment while two other brigades are attempting to prevent the Dominion from advancing north and south along the Potomac River's eastern banks. This is the most important front at this AO, without Andrews, and Quantico's runway out of commission, we won't have any fixed wing air support. This morning the Dominion made a large push and have gained contact with their forces at Dulles airport. Our forces to the west and south of the landing site have been pushed back quite a bit. Right now we're holding on to Leesburg to the north, with a holding line south where we are barely holding on to Gainesville to the south-west, and east to Dale City at the Potomac river. General Hendricks thinks that with the arrival of the Rapid Reaction Corps he'll be able to hold Washington DC all the way to Leesburg in the east and Andrews to the south-east and from Andrews to Dale City at the west bank of the Potomac. The rest is still hard to manage and will require more reinforcements."

"How many casualties so far?" the secretary of defense asked.

"Hard to say exactly, especially civilian casualties." O'Neill said. "We nearly lost two entire armored brigades when the Dominion pushed for Dulles, and there was heavy fighting south of DC. So far I guess approximately 15.000 military casualties, with about a third killed."

"Okay, next." Ryan said. He could dwell on all the losses but he would not be able to change it, and there was more to come.

"Next is the Fountain Valley landing." O'Neill said as the map refocused on the region around it. "First off, big kudos to Teal'c and the Free Jaffa. That armored division of theirs bought us some valuable time there. For the first four hours the Dominion could do nothing but go east, away from the mountain. The division was able to lay down murderous fire on three sides of the landing zone. After those first four hours the division gradually pulled back because their casualties started to rise, and ammunition was running low, even with the virtual storage system. In the meantime we've brought in additional forces, but the Dominion have been able to deploy and become more effective. So far we've lost Butt Aaf, half of Fort Carson, including part of the golf course. On the Eastern side of I-25, we've been pushed back as far as the south end of Colorado Springs airport. To the east of the landing site we have nothing in place to stop them from reaching state highway 71, and in the south until they reach Pueblo."

"We're bringing up armored troops from Fort Hood, the area is well suited for armored warfare. The battlefield commander expects to fight several fierce but conclusive battles within the week. So long as they'll be able to hold on the north and western part, and keep the mountain we'll survive that one." The Army chief of staff commented. O'Neill voiced his agreement.

"Jamaica, has been lost. The local garrison was overwhelmed within the hour and the shield generators were destroyed. We were able to evacuate the ZPM installed on the island before the facility was overrun. We're keeping an eye on the island, just in case the Dominion try to get off." O'Neill said.

"Sir, considering the strain placed on our forces elsewhere I do not recommend an assault at this moment. The Marine Corps could pull it off, but casualties would be high, and I feel my troops be better used elsewhere, such as Europe." The Commandant of the Marine Corps said.

"How many people on the island?" Ryan asked.

"Nearly three million." Someone reported.

"Sir, even if we started preparing right now, even if we had all the resources of the federation at our disposal, it would be at least another 72 hours before we can get boots on the ground, it might take weeks to get the entire island back." O'Neill said, defending the Marine Corps.

"I understand generals." Ryan said. "What else?"

"The Amazonian crash is being monitored by drones, we've seen very little movement so far and all humans in the region have been evacuated by now. Tomorrow morning, we'll bring in the fleet and our carriers. We'll bomb the site from orbit, just like we'll do with the Greenland, Congo and Tibet crash sites." O'Neill said.

"The Brasilia landing has been bogged down in the jungle and the slums, and Paranoa Lake proves to be a valuable defensive asset. Most of our military assets in South America are being diverted to this battlefield. Most of these forces are light infantry and trained in the types of warfare to be expected." O'Neill said.

"Our troops in Madagascar are on the verge of being defeated. We've tried to bring in reinforcements, but Dominion forces are shelling all possible landing sites constantly. As it is, our forces are concentrated around Antseranana but they are exhausted and nearly out of supplies. Unless we reinforce them, or pull them out, they will be gone within six hours max." O'Neill said.

"Can we help them?" Ryan asked.

"The problem, once again, is logistics. We simply don't have enough transport craft to transfer any significant amount of forces into the AO, especially while under fire. Since the invasion started we've already lost five percent of our modern assault transport craft such as the raptor and space hawk. So far we've been trying to avoid putting these craft in danger. We need those ships elsewhere. From Madagascar, the Dominion are not much of a threat directly. We'd like to do the same thing as with Jamaica, isolate the island and prevent a breakout. We'll get back to it once we've cleared several of the other hotspots."

"Could we at least drop supplies or something? Without risking our craft?" Ryan said.

"I don't think so." O'Neill said. He stopped when he saw General Allison search for something on her tablet.

"I've got something." General Allison exclaimed. "It's still experimental, but we've already produced five prototypes. We've taken old Tomahawk cruise missiles, and replaced the warhead with a digital storage device for all kinds of materials. We could load them up with supplies and launch them from a safe distance. Once the missiles reach the target it will drop the storage device, which would be attached to a parachute, and thereby supply the local troops."

"Get it going." Ryan ordered.

"Already drafting the orders." Allison replied.

O'Neill carried on. "Okay, the Mauritania landing is proving to be useless. There are very few people around and nothing of real worth. Nevertheless, west African forces are moving in to set up a secure perimeter and eventually start pushing them back. The local commander has planned to evacuate all civilians until a proper perimeter has been established, and only then to start fighting back, preferably with heavy air support."

"Isn't it a bit of a risk to let the Dominion have the initiative?" Ryan asked.

"It's a risk. But because of the vast distances involved it is the best option. As it is we are monitoring the area in case something unexpected happens." O'Neill said.

"Fine, so long as all civilians are evacuated I can accept it, I don't like it, but I can accept it."

"Same here sir." O'Neill said. He pushed some buttons and the map changed to that of central Australia.

"Sir, after about an hour we lost contact with the Pine Gap facility at Alice Springs, from there we operate the galactic communications network. We did receive an emergency beam out of the ZPM which indicated that the facility was about to be lost. As it is, we have little forces in the neighborhood. We're using some of our transport capabilities to bring in troops to at least establish a perimeter. Because of the remote location it will take days to properly organize resistance and logistics into the area."

"How many civilians are in the area?"

"Alice Springs itself has about thirty thousand inhabitants, so considering the size of the Dominion advance I'd say between thirty and forty thousand civilians."

"How will the loss of that facility impact us?" a secretary asked.

"Right now all our military communications are being routed through Atlantis. However, the civilian subspace internet and other communication connections to our other planets will be down. Only local, or gate bound connections are active for our colonies and those allies whom we have given access to our internet. Any military on-line applications have the ability to use a subnet which is supported by Atlantis. Unfortunately, Atlantis cannot direct its communication transmissions to any specific planets, so the entire galaxy will be able to pick them up. Atlantis' basically a bright beacon to the entire galaxy right now." O'Neill explained.

"So everyone not on Earth will have to miss out on any YouTube videos of the fighting going around and people doing stupid stuff." Ryan surmised. "Might actually be better for all." He commented. Several people were quick to agree with him.

"Next thing is Shanghai's Chongming Island. The Dominion landed three fat ones there. The island itself has been overrun. As it is the Dominion have several small beachheads on other islands and the mainland via two bridges and a tunnel. We've tried to destroy these bridges by there's a lack of heavy artillery in the area and none can be brought in shortly. We've tried an air attack, but it failed miserably with the loss of over half the assault force while only doing minor damage to either of the bridges. The Dominion eventually got bogged down in urban warfare throughout the suburbs of Shanghai. As we speak, a battalion of heavy artillery is being flown in from Japan." O'Neill said.

"What can we do to help?" Ryan asked.

"Well, there's a lot of infantry already, they just don't have any heavy equipment, so artillery, tanks and air support are most valuable there. We are already bringing in more such forces from the Beijing area, as well as Korea and Japan."

"Very well. Who's next?" Ryan asked.

"The New Delhi site is being overrun by local militia's as we speak. Forces were quickly to mobilize, partly because they were in the process of running a mobilization drill. At this moment our forces are within a kilometer of the Dominion transports. They are basically taking pot shots at the enemy as they get out of their transports. Heavy machine guns have been set up and effective fields of fire have been established. The local commander is hesitant to go into the transports as he doesn't have the trained forces for close quarters combat. He's requesting professional troops from elsewhere."

"Where can we draw troops from for this?" Ryan asked. "If we can clear out one landing zone it would allow us to focus more resources on other areas."

"There's an ANZAC National Guard marine brigade coming back from the Alpha site, we could redeploy them to this theater, they were earmarked for deployment at Alice Springs." O'Neill said.

"We could bring one or two Indian armored National Guard brigades to Australia, not much use for them in New Delhi anyways." The Army chief of staff suggested.

O'Neill looked over the map showing the Indian sub-continent, a large number of counters represented all the mobilizing units. He noticed two counters near Chennai representing armored brigades. With a mental command, information on both units appeared over the map. "These two units look perfect for the job. Desert, mountain training in the last five years, nearly at full strength already along with relatively modern equipment. I'll have 'em picked up by a large transport." O'Neill said. Mentally, the orders for the move were placed and subordinates would execute and coordinate the transfer.

"Okay, if I'm correct that only leaves Europe and the Caucasus." Ryan said.

"Yes. The Caucasus area has been overrun already, Baku is firmly under Dominion control. In terms of industry we haven't really lost much. The area went into decline after we abandoned fossil resources as power sources. The Dominion might have some bad intel here. We're watching the Caspian Sea for any attempted crossings, and we're setting up a defensive perimeter at about 150 kilometers from Baku, it should be ready before the Dominion get there."

"Okay, and Europe?"

O'Neill pulled up a map of Europe and western Russia. As the counters representing the various units started reporting in the map quickly became a mess. "Europe can be divided into three zones. The Moscow landing, the Greek landing, and the three German, French and Swiss landings. The landing at Moscow has reached far into the city. There's currently a lot of fighting at the Kremlin, Red Square and the Bolshoi Theatre. Most everything else above the Moskva River is under the command of the Dominion. Local forces are currently trying to cut of the troops in the city from their landing ships. The Athens landing has caused quite a stir. This morning we lost a full battalion in flight to a surprise attack by the Dominion. In part because of this loss, we have lost control of most suburbs of the city. Inside the city there's heavy fighting for the old city center. At this moment there is a high risk that historic sites such as the Acropolis and the Parthenon will get damaged. The local commander is requesting instructions. Also still under our control are the ferry terminals, through which we are bringing in reinforcements and supplies. The situation is precarious."

"They are to continue fighting, even if that damages historical sites." Ryan said.

"The landings at Geneva and Ramstein have already connected and formed a single front. The Stettin landing is still isolated but is making progress into the direction of both Berlin and Warsaw. The problem is that not only seven transports have landed, but over half the surviving other transports have also put down in Europe as well. Italian forces have blocked the Dominion forces from going too far south from Geneva and French and Spanish forces are barely holding on to the western front. The problem is the north and east bound forces. Benelux and UK forces are attempting to create a front line to the north near Bonn, but it is rough going. So far, two Langaran divisions have arrived at the Brize Norton stargate complex and are being shipped into the Netherlands from where they will advance towards Berlin by train and deploy to meet the Dominion head on. Most other forces arriving from off-world which are not being sent to North America or India are now being redirected to this front. It is vital to prevent those two landing sites from linking up. Another problem is the kind and quality of the Dominion forces. We have good reasons to believe that we are facing Dominion Guard formations. Also, the Dominion is using a large number of motorized transports to facilitate a rapid advance. They also appear to be under good and experienced leadership. They quickly organized their forces and advanced towards their objectives, they overcame every obstacle they encountered and quickly adapted to our attempts to stop them."

"Where's the hardest fighting going on?" Ryan asked.

The Chief of staff for the Army took over. "There's a lot of fighting going on everywhere. Our coordination is less than optimal allowing the Dominion to bypass some of our units. Half the time those bypassed units of ours are attacked in the rear, the other half they attack the Dominion in the rear. Beyond that, there are a number of large battles raging throughout Germany and Poland mostly. There's three reserve brigades fighting to keep the Dominion out of Berlin while the city is being evacuated. Gdansk has been surrounded, one battalion from the Swedish Caroleans brigade, an institutional regiment based on the 17th and 18th century Swedish army, made its way across the Baltic into the city. Together with local forces, they have set up a defense. As we speak the other units of the Caroleans brigade are being ferried over, but because of the Dominion air attacks, they are restricted to ships. Right now, we're preparing several carryalls to be able to move through the water. They will have sufficient shielding and capacity to land an entire battalion in one go with relative safety. Most Swedish and Norwegian units are assembling near Karlskrona for debarkation once possible. There's one regular army division currently preparing for deployment, the unit had been deployed to the Asgard galaxy to help the Asgard with ground operations against the Dominion. They were brought back recently since no Dominion have been seen in the Asgard galaxy for a while. They are nicknamed 'The Vikings', since most of the soldiers are from Scandinavia."

"What's happening in the rest of Poland and west of Berlin?" Ryan asked.

"We're attempting to perform a fighting withdrawal to give the civilians as much time as possible to evacuate to safer areas."

"Where might those areas be?" Ryan asked.

"As far away as the British Isles, Spain, France, Scandinavia, North Africa and the Middle East. We're lucky that the summer's just starting. Had it been November or December we'd be in much more trouble. As it is, humanitarian support units are setting up refugee camps wherever possible." O'Neill said.

"The Department of Education, Culture and Science is performing a priority evacuation of any and all vital research projects from the area's at risk of falling into enemy hands. The same is being done with any art or cultural artifacts of significant value." The Secretary of Education, Culture and Science said.

"I assume such plans are being executed by most departments with regards to their responsibilities?" Ryan asked. All secretaries nodded. "Where else are the Dominion on the offensive? Outside this solar system that is."

O'Neill once again took the lead. "Not much really. There's some artillery being tossed around at the Colonies, but for now they are keeping quiet, they might still be adhering to the cease fire."

"We should be ready for the moment the cease fire ends. The Dominion in other parts of the galaxy will probably go on the offensive once again, especially at the Colonies." The Army Chief of Staff said.

"I agree, we should remain on guard, not just on Earth, but throughout the galaxy, and be ready for any surprises." O'Neill pitched in.

"Make it so." Ryan ordered. "Has anyone been able to look into the saboteurs of the shields and Atlantis?"

Dan Murray, director of the Tau'ri Federation's Bureau of Investigations spoke up. "Sir, at this moment we have been able to gather several pieces of evidence but are hampered by the lack living saboteurs. Of the twelve attackers, seven were killed when the marines stormed the room, four were summarily executed directly after their capture, and the last one is still comatose due to the severe beating he received during his capture. Another problem is the jurisdiction. Because the Pentagon is officially a military installation, the military is claiming jurisdiction, the TFCIA is claiming jurisdiction because it is an attack by the Dominion and the TFBI is claiming jurisdiction because it is clearly a terrorist attack on our soil."

"Can't you join up and investigate it together? Or share all intelligence you gain while conduction your own investigations?" Ryan said.

"We suggested working together, the TFCIA opposed before we could as the military, we asked the military to grant us access to all data and the site itself, we were denied."

"General?, Director?" Ryan said as he looked at General O'Neill and Director Foley of the TFCIA.

"This is the first time I'm hearing about this. I'll have orders drawn up to open up the site and any relevant information to any agency which will investigate this attack. My apologies. I will also make sure the investigative division accepts any requests for cooperating in a joint military/TFBI/TFCIA investigation." O'Neill said. He was a little bit pissed off. Both by his people actually making a problem of this, but also at Director Murray for not coming to him directly, he had his phone number, probably.

"I welcome the sharing of the site and any information collected and later found, but the TFCIA will not participate in a joint investigation."

"And why might that be Pat? I can order you." Ryan said to his longtime friend.

"Because we have reasons to believe they were helped from people within the government. The amount of access cannot simply be gained by hacking a few computers or bribing some lowly placed bureaucrats. We are convinced, and have some initial, unconfirmed, intelligence that there is a conspiracy within the government which made this attack possible, and might facilitate another attack."

"Then why not join forces and fight this together, our three intelligence units represent the majority of this Federation's investigative capacity and we all have the best people." Murray said.

"Because we do not know whom to trust. I would be willing to accept a liaison from each agency to help navigate that agency's bureaucracy, and do the same likewise to you. Right now, I think we are better of having three separate investigations into this matter. That way we can check each other's work and might be able to root out any conspirators within the investigative teams."

"That sounds like a witch hunt." O'Neill said.

"At this point, that might be exactly what we need." Foley replied.

"All right, I'll propose a compromise and hopefully we can get this over with." Ryan said. "There will be a joint investigation including any and all agencies who have some sort of jurisdiction, TFCIA, TFBI, the military, police and any other governmental agency. This joint investigation, this task force, will have full clearance to any and all documentation needed with the exception of any ongoing operations. The TFBI, TFCIA and the military will conduct their own investigations as well, in order to look at this from multiple angles, and to root out any traitors. Understood?"

Three 'yes sir's' followed.

"Okay, I want that last guy interrogated, use any methods needed to get the information, I think the military has a few new ways for that. I want this done thoroughly, such deceptions as this need to be a thing of the past, we need to root out any traitors, and scare of any potential ones." Ryan said as he slammed his pen on the table in anger. "Now what's being done about the drone situation on Atlantis and Antarctica?"

"Sir, we are installing a new drone chair at Atlantis and the Antarctica site is being reinforced by a brigade of ski-jaegers and a full complement of drones. The site will also have a full time staff to man the chair." O'Neill quickly said.

"How about that elevator?" Ryan asked.

"Being installed as we speak." O'Neill replied.

"Very well." Ryan said. "Are there any other matter we should discuss now?"

No one came up with something so Ryan dismissed the group and went back to the residence.

June 9th, 0200 hours

Main pilot briefing room, TFS Enterprise(CVZ-1)

The Main Pilot briefing room had room for nearly 200 persons. Yet, with all viper pilots, and all raptor crews, the room was packed with 247 members of the Enterprise air wing. The briefing room was modeled on the Colonial pilot ready room with rows of seats rising as they were farther away from the front of the room. As the glass doors leading into the briefing room slid open, the 248th person of the air wing walked in. It was the CAG. As one, the entire air wing stood at attention. The CAG, a Colonel quickly walked over to a dais that stood near the holographic screen.

"Good morning." He started.

"Good morning sir!" the rest of the air wing responded.

"Be seated." He started up the hologram. "You've all seen the weapons load out of your vipers and raptors. In about twenty minutes we'll start bombing something into oblivion, hopefully." The holographic screen started showing satellite pictures of Greenland, where a large Dominion transport had crash landed. Its location was not obvious at first, but a zoomed out picture detailing the insertion route made it very clear where they were going. So far no news had reached the ship since the President's address concerning the vote.

"Less than 48 hours ago, the Dominion invaded Earth." He waited a moment for it to sink in. he could see the shocked faced of many. "Through infiltration, the Dominion managed to get a team on the ground which was able to lower the planetary shields for a short while. Coinciding with this, the Dominion sent over ten million soldiers to our planet. Planetary defenses were able to shoot down a number of these massive transports. Our target is the one that crash landed at Greenland. There's no immediate danger, but it needs to be take out. Initially, they were going to send in a few squadrons of B-52 bombers, but the fighting on the ground has gotten so fierce, that any aircraft that can drop bombs is now in the process of dropping bombs. Which leaves us to take these transports out. In about ten minutes all six carriers will exit hyperspace over Earth. We will launch a simultaneous attack against five Dominion transports, all of whom have crashed and shown no activity since. In theory, this should be a walk in the park. Nevertheless, twelve vipers will be equipped with air-air missiles for fighter protection should the need arise. After we have finished this mission, we'll go back to the fleet's rally point and await further orders."

"Any questions?"

A rookie lieutenant raised his hand. "Sir, how bad is it on Earth?"

"I don't know much either. From what I've been told, the fighting is tough. We've been caught off-guard with over half our regular military deployed on other worlds. A number of landing sites have either been contained, or are at little risk for any important installations. Unfortunately, the Dominion landed large forces in both North-America, and Europe. Both continents are being turned into battlegrounds with most of the fighting concentrating around the Cheyenne Mountain, Washington DC, Athens, Ramstein, Geneva and the area between Berlin and Warsaw."

"Can we expect more missions to bomb Dominion positions?" another pilot asked.

"Don't count on it. This may very well be our only mission in this fight. for nearly two days, the military is sending everything it's got on Earth into the fight including old B-52's and even a bunch of M60 tanks. Command has other plans for us, you can be sure of that. Otherwise we would have been deployed the moment those transports arrived in orbit." The CAG said. He was interrupted by PA.

"All pilots report to your craft, prepare for launch in five minutes."

"You heard the call, get to your ships, and get ready to drop some bombs."

Five minutes later the Enterprise and her escorts exited hyperspace over Earth. Around the planet, the other five carriers and escorts also exited hyperspace. Within seconds the orders were given to launch all strike craft. All over the Enterprise hull segments started to disappear, only to return with a fighter sitting on top of it. All 200 Mk.9 Vipers were launched this way while the Raptors, equipped with missile pods, were launched from the flight deck atop the carrier. While en-route to their insertion point they formed up in squadrons and as one started the re-entry of the atmosphere. As confirmation was gained that an entry lane was opened through the shield the force commenced entry. Once the strike force reached an altitude of forty kilometers they leveled off and were approaching Reykjavik. At approximately 900 kilometers away from their target, they were only minutes away from being into weapons range for their missiles. Coordinates were locked in and confirmed before missile release was ordered. As one the entire force launched their missiles. Across the globe, all strike forces launched their attacks simultaneously. In space, it would have taken these missiles seconds to cross the distance, but in atmosphere it took nearly five minutes before impacts were registered. While most of the strike force headed home, the CAG, seven other Vipers, and a squadron of Raptors advanced onto the target. They overflew it at first, noticing the many hull breaches and fires raging across the ship. The Raptors started taking pictures and making sensor scans. During their short stay, they witnessed countless secondary explosions tear parts of the ship off. As the last raptor left over an hour later, it reported the transport falling apart with no apparent survivors.

Later a battalion of marines would conclude that nearly all Dominion had either died during the crash, or during the bombardment and subsequent fires. Only a handful of Dominion were found outside the ship, all frozen to death. The other attacks on crash sites had similar results, all ships were destroyed and only small units were required to mop up the remaining, disorientated, survivors.

June 12th

Bay of Gdansk

Across the bay of Gdansk lies the peninsula of Hel. It had been recaptured by a company of Carolean soldiers after their transport had mistakenly landed there. The company had secured the town of Hel, and had advanced all the way up to Jastarinia, approximately fifteen kilometers up the peninsula. In the following days it had been used as a midway point between troops being ferried across the Baltic from Karlskrona into Gdansk. Troops would be brought into Hel by helicopter or spacehawk, and from there would be taken across the bay in landing ships. Though by no means safe from Dominion attack, it did allow the Tau'ri to bring in much needed reinforcements quickly without risking the much more valuable air transports. Able company of the third battalion from the first brigade, part of the Viking Division was among the first to be sent across the bay to reinforce Gdansk. They would be taken by a LCU capable of carrying approximately 100 soldiers, four trucks full of supplies and one Schwarzkopf from the division's armored battalion which was all the LCU could carry. The other soldiers from the company were being transferred by two LCVP's. Their landing zone was the Westerplatte from where they would march into the city.

The Schwarzkopf was loaded into the front of the LCU with most of the infantry right behind it. About half the infantry was still green and the sergeant major didn't like it when he looked around and saw to many scared faces. He made his way to the back of the Schwarzkopf and climbed on top of it so he could look out over the troops.

"Hear me, Swedish pagans!" The sergeant called out. "Soon, we'll be marching a shore, where our brothers have past, we'll be proven!" the sergeant said as he pointed in the direction of the shores. He held up his rifle, "Forged in Valhalla, by the hammer of Thor himself!" he referred to the modifications made by Thor personally, making the rifle much more useful and effective. The sergeant stepped down from the tank and walked into the mass of soldiers. "Out from Asgard, our Viking ship sails," he said as he stumped the deck, "we'll be first to the battle, and first to the feast! Our destiny is waiting, feel your blood boiling as you will charge, hundreds will fall, we will not retreat!" a large explosion signaled the Dominion artillery firing on them as they drew closer to the shores. "Hear the Fenrir howl!" his comment drew many cheers, mostly from the veterans, but also some from the newbies. "The fires inside us are ignited by the bloodshed we are about to visit upon them! Know that if we fall, our comrades await us in Valhalla!" without having planned it, the LCU ground to a halt and the ramp was lowered. The Schwarzkopf started moving allowing the infantry to follow it off the ship. "To battle!" he cried.

The soldiers quickly followed the Schwarzkopf and marched ashore. The captain was already talking with someone from the unit tasked with defending the Westerplatte. They were directed to a spot about a kilometer further where they would be issued orders. Ten minutes later they had reached the CP of the Carolean Brigade, the current commanding officer of the region resided there until he was relieved by the brigadier general in command of the first brigade.

As they walked up to the tent holding the commander they bypassed a group of Caroleans praying:

'Fader vår som som är i himmelen helgat varde ditt namn
Tillkomme ditt rike ske din vilja
Såsom i himmelen så ock uppå jorden ge oss bröd ock idag
Och förlåt oss våran skuld'

Recognizing the prayer the captain made a sign of the cross in respect and knelt down to join in. once the prayer was done he continued on inside the tent.

"Captain, welcome." The Colonel greeted. The Colonel was a fifty-something balding man with a pair of glasses resting at the bottom of his nose.

"Colonel, heard you could use some help." The Captain replied.

"We sure can. I've lost about a quarter of my force already."

"That bad? What's the current situation?" the captain asked.

The Colonel walked over to a wooden table which had a large map of the area. On it, various units were depicted with flag pins, and strings were used to indicate front lines.

Right across the channel here we control most of Nowy Port, our right flank stretches into Brezezno while the left flank is currently near this arena. The Dominion have cut off our forces at Óstrow Island and just a few hours ago they blew up the only connection we had with it when they blew apart a sunk ship we used to cross the channel. We control all of this island and this bridge has been blown already, this leaves only one bridge still standing through which we can access our troops in Gdansk itself. I want you, and the rest of your forces to get there as fast as possible. I need you to try and retake this part of town so we can retake the bridge going onto Óstrow Island and thereby resupply the forces there."

"Give us two hours and consider it done."

"Thank you captain, those soldiers outside will guide you into the city."

"Yes sir."

AN: it appears that somehow I made a mistake while determining the return date of the fleet. The new return date is July 28th.

AN: I'd like to explain the organization of the Tau'ri military a bit since I get the feeling it might be a bit confusing with national guard, reserve, institutional regiments and the rest of the military. This applies mainly to the Army, but a bit can be applied to the Marine Corps as well. So here it goes:

Regular Army
Tier 1 units: Tier 1 units are equipped with the best material available. They are the best trained units and are at a standard readiness of 21 days. When it comes to deployment they are the first to be deployed. Specialized units such as those belonging to the Rapid Reaction Command are always Tier 1 units, however they can be replaced by other units. All regular units from the Marine Corps are considered to be Tier 1
Tier 2 units: Tier 2 units are usually one equipment cycle behind the Tier 1 units. They receive proper training but not as extensive as the Tier 1 units. Their readiness is set at 120 days, primarily because they will need time to adjust to the new equipment they would receive prior to deployment overseas. While not deployed, tier 2 units serve as garrison units and are assigned a geographic region where they will be stationed for the duration of Tier 2 time. Because of this they are generally referred to as the being part of that territory's army. i.e. French army for units stationed in France.

National Guard
Regional units: Regional NG units are subordinate only to a state's government, unless assigned to the Federal Government.
Interregional units: These units are the same as the Regional units with the exception that these units draw their soldiers from multiple states.

Active Reserve

Inactive Reserve

Institutional Regiments

AN: I've also got a little contest for all the rock/metal fans out there, during the writing of this chapter I drew inspiration from the Swedish band called Sabaton. I referenced several of their songs in this chapter. If you can find all the references I'll let you name one of the new Replicator city ships. There are 3 references.