Ok so I need to say this first, I thought that I had written that Cassandra had disappeared in S02E01, but seems like I missed that sorry about that. I'll fix it in the next revision of the story.
Now enjoy the story and make sure to read what is written after.
"There's been some complications." Marks said as the last of the council members joined. "The Ori and their Priors seems to no longer be a threat to anyone, but it came at a cost. Today I stand here and report that we have lost ninety percent of the men and women we brought with us to this galaxy. By now the SGC should have all the data we have."
For a long time there was just silence until Sam spoke.
"General Daniel and Captain Marks you are hereby ordered to return to the Milky Way along with any personnel who you can retrieve pending an investigation about this event." She said before cutting the channel.
One by one the rest of the council faded away until only Marks and Daniel was left in the room.
"You heard her Captain. Lets pick up any soldiers still on Celestis and return to the supergate." Daniel ordered as he left the room.
"Yes sir." Marks replied almost a full minute after Daniel had left.
On his way back to the bridge Marks didn't move to fast so it wasn't until a good hour and a half had passed that the ship left the system behind together with the rest of the fleet. Their first stop was Celestis were they picked up the soldiers left behind as protection and after a fast excuse sent to Tomin they left for the supergate which they hurried through before Tomin managed to catch up with them, once back in the Milky Way they jumped back to Earth were most of their fleet was waiting for them, only a minute after they had arrived both Daniel and Marks had been relieved of their duties and had found themselves in Atlantis.
"Welcome home sweetheart." Janet said as she saw Daniel coming home. "I heard that you've had a bad day."
"Thank you." Daniel said as he entered and threw his jacket into a corner. "It's been a really bad day, but I can only imagine how bad this day has been for the soldiers we lost today."
"I heard they were transported away." She said as they say down on the couch.
"They might have been but at the moment we have no idea what happened." He said. "They just disappeared in the blink of an eye."
"People don't just disappear." She said. "You have been gone for quite a few times, but they have always found you again, I'm sure that you will find them in time."
"I sure hope so." He said. "But until we can find out what happened to them I'm taken of active duty."
"Then lets take a vacation, go away to the mainland and take a vacation." She said as she lay down in his lap. "We could leave Claire with Cassandra and have some private time."
"You found her then?" He asked. "I thought she had disappeared."
"It wasn't to hard when you know were to look." She said. "She works as a nurse in Europe, we've actually visited her a few times when you've been on duty."
"Following in the footsteps of her mother I see." He said as he ran his fingers through her hair. "Well if you want to leave her there I can't see why not."
"I'll call her tomorrow and see what she thinks." Janet said. "You know we might be married now, but we've never had a proper honeymoon, we might as well do the most of the situation and take a romantic cruise."
"We could do that." He said. "I'll ask Sam tomorrow if I can leave the base while the investigation is taking place."
"Sounds good." Janet said.
The morning after they both woke up early and Daniel followed Claire to school before going to Sam's office.
"Come in." Sam's voice could be heard from inside the office, in response Daniel opened the door and stepped inside. "Hello Daniel, what can I do for you?"
"Well now that I'm no longer on active duty me and Janet was thinking of taking a vacation while the investigation is going on." Daniel said as he sat down in one of the chairs. "We were thinking of going on a cruise, leaving Claire with Cassandra."
"You know I can't let you leave the base without supervision." She said and looked down at the piles of papers which were stacking up on her desk. "But a cruise sounds nice and I could definitely use a vacation too. Tell you what, I'll supervise you while you two go on the cruise, I don't think that O'Neill will complain about getting some sun and seeing me during daytime."
"Thank you Sam, I won't forget this." Daniel said as he reached over the desk and hugged her. "We'll book a cruise for two couples then, shall we say next week"
"Next week sounds just fine, if you can find a nice cruise in such a short time." Sam said. "Now you'll have to excuse me, if I want any chance to be ready for a cruise next week I'll need to pick up my pace to clear out this desk."
"Of course. If you need someone to sign some papers in your name to manage that I'll be nearby." Daniel said as he left the room and closed the door behind him.
When Daniel returned to the apartment Janet was sitting at the console with her back turned towards him, so sneaked up on her, on the screen of the console he saw Cassandra who noticed him through the camera and begun to smile.
"What are you smiling at Cassandra?" Janet asked moments before two of Daniels fingers got pushed into her sides and she jumped straight up into the air, pushing her shoulder straight into Daniel's jaw.
"Well I was smiling at what Daniel was about to do, but I don't think there's anything to smile at now." Cassandra said as she saw the blood which came streaming out of Daniel's mouth. "You should check up on his tongue mum, but as I said I'll be happy to take care of Claire any time as long as you tell me a few days in advance."
"Goodbye Cassandra." Janet said as she turned of the console and turned to Daniel. "Well you only have yourself to blame for this honey."
From her pocket she pulled a napkin which she used to stop the bleeding before she lead him into the kitchen were he could empty his mouth and what came out truly was a mouthful, when most of the blood had left Daniel's mouth they hurried away to the medical bay were a doctor who was on duty took care of the tongue and reattached the four centimetres which Daniel had bitten of.
When that embarrassing thing was taken care of they returned to the apartment.
"Daniel, look at this cruise." Janet said as she sat down at the console and pulled up an information page. "It will take us around the globe, starting in Lisbon, Portugal, it will then move north and follow the coast past Germany and into Scandinavia. There built in drive pods will raise the ship out of the ocean and it will make its way straight to England before returning to the ocean. It will then take us around the coast until we get to the west side of Ireland were the ship will then raise itself once again to rush to Iceland for a quick stop before moving on to Greenland. Once the ship have returned to the ocean at the south most point of Greenland it will travel down the east coast, into the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea before going down and rounding South America. Back on the west coast it will travel up to Los Angels before crossing over the Pacific Ocean in the air to Japan. Then back in the ocean we will move of to Australia, taking some countries and making quick stop on the way. From there the ship will take us to India before making a longer stop at Madagascar. Once we are done there we will make our way around Africa to return to Lisbon."
"How long will the cruise be?" Daniel said as he begun to look through the page himself.
"It takes a month from start to finish." Janet said. "But the best thing is that we can go on the cruise for free."
"A month for free?" Daniel said in surprise. "What's the catch?"
"No catch." Janet said as she brought up a notice on the screen. "Just as it says, they recognise the things the SGC have done for Earth and because of that all SGC personnel can go for free. The fact that they use many of the things which have been released to the public without paying royalties might have something to do with it too. You should visit the world outside the SGC, as a part of the SGC we gain some pretty amassing benefits."
"Well then we might as well book four tickets then, separate rooms." Daniel said. "And I guess I should go outside, it's been long since I had the time."
"Four tickets?" Janet said.
"Yes, because of the investigation I need to have an overseer with me at all times while I am of the base." Daniel said. "So Sam and Jack will be coming along for the cruise to make sure I don't do anything which can hurt the interest of Earth or the SGC."
"Well it will be nice to have some company." Janet said. "I'll get us four tickets for the cruise then."
"Good." Daniel said as he begun to look through the information.
The week after Daniel, Janet, Claire, Samantha and Jack were all standing in front of the purple gate in Atlantis as it dialled the European gate which was located just outside London, on the other side of the gate they meet up with Cassandra who awaited their arrival on one of the benches which was placed around the arrival hall close to both the gate and the transportation plates. After saying goodbye to Claire they moved their separate ways with Cassandra and Claire going to a transport plate at the far end of the hall to make their way to the small city were Cassandra lived, while they did that the other four took made their way to a connecting hall were all plates which lead to other countries could be found. There Jack quickly picked out the plate which they stepped up on and were sent away, but a few seconds everyone but Jack understood that they were in the wrong country.
"Jack, this is Spain." Daniel said as he pointed at the signs which were all written in Spanish with English written beneath.
"Yes and we were going to Lisbon which is in Spain." Jack said as he begun to look for the sign which would direct them to Lisbon.
"No, we're going to Lisbon which is in Portugal honey." Sam said as she picked out the plate to Portugal, had it not been a Monday there would have been a long line to the plate, but as
it was they could simply go straight to it.
"Isn't Portugal part of Spain?" Jack asked as they came of the plate on the other side in Lisbon.
"No it's another country." Janet said as made their way out of the building and waved in a cab.
"Really? Geography isn't my strong side." Jack said as he and Daniel took the ladies luggage and put it in the back.
"At one time the two was actually ruled by the same man, but.." Daniel begun.
"I don't care Daniel, we're on a vacation not a lecture." Jack said as the two got into the taxi. "Rua General Gomes Araújo, please."
"Oh, you know were we're going?" Sam asked as the taxi lifted of and picked up speed.
"No, but I read what my ticket was saying." Jack said and waved his ticket. "I might not have a mayor in physics, anatomy or archaeology, but that doesn't stop me from reading."
"That is true." Sam said as the cab begun to descend towards the port after having already completed the two kilometre journey.
After paying the driver and taking their luggage they made their way to the check in, after waiting in line for almost two hours they got to the front of the line and were just about to enter the ship when a crew member wearing a navy blue suit stopped them.
"Mr. and Mrs. Jackson as well as Mr. and Mrs. O'Neill?" He asked in English with a slight Portuguese accent.
"Yes that would be us." Daniel replied.
"This way please." He said as two more crew members came and grabbed their luggage.
"Do you mind telling us what this is all about?" Jack said as they were lead away from the other passengers and into a door marked "personnel only".
"My apologies I thought you had been informed." He said as they entered an elevator which disposed them several floors up. "The owner of the ship recognised you're names on the passenger list and as honorary members of the original SGC he have chosen to give you our two best suites during the cruise."
"I take it the owner is the one who have chosen to offer the cruise for free to all SGC personnel?" Daniel said as they arrived on a boarding bridge which was much higher up than the one the regular passengers were using.
"Yes, he's read through every report which have been released from the SGC." The man said as they came onto the highest of the top decks. "And he's forced everyone in the crew to read several thousands of them to understand what truly happens in the universe."
"Sounds like a good but harsh man." Sam said as they stopped were at a place were they could see the entire ship.
"He is." The man said. "But enough about him. This is the topmost deck of the ship which you during this cruise will have all to yourself since there are no other people in the other suites, to our right we have a pool which is heated to twenty five degrees for the entire journey as standard, but since there's only going to be you here you will be able to change that if you want to. To our left is a bar which is manned around the clock either by a bartender or by a voice controlled android."
"And no one else can get here?" Janet asked in surprise.
"No, the ships computers will recognise you and will allow you to chose this floor in the elevators while the other passengers will not be able to." The man said and pointed at the elevator as they passed it. "Now I'll let you explore the suites on your own, in most rooms voice control is activated so you can call for room service at any time, but in the bedroom and the two bathrooms you have to activated a switch before it will work. There will also be three crew members and five androids standing ready to serve you at any time. There's also a dinner hall for you, but personally I would chose to eat with the rest of the passengers in the large banquet hall, even if it is in the private balcony each suite have access to."
"Thank you, but I think it will be a bit lonely with just us here." Janet said as they stood outside both suites. "But for now I think we will look at the suites."
"I agree." Sam said as she grabbed a hold of Jack and opened the door to the suite while Janet did the same with Daniel.
Inside the suites Daniel and Janet first saw a hall which was larger than the one in their apartment. In one of the wardrobes which lined the walls they found a number of suits which looked to be just about Daniel's size and next to them several complete sets of clothes were hanging, when they looked in another of the wardrobes they found an equal number of dresses and sets of clothes which seemed to be Janet's size.
After the hall came a large living room with a seventy five inch TV mounted to the wall and any device which you could want with it was sitting in a shelf beneath, on the opposite side of the room a large sofa was sitting. From the living room they walked into the bedroom which had a bed so large that you could have been laying five persons next to each other and two feet to feet without them touch each other. Connected to the bedroom was two bathrooms, one on each side of the bed and in each there was a large Jacuzzi. After losing their jaws several times in the bedroom and the bathrooms they returned to the living room and opened one of the large glass doors to get out on the balcony which was larger than the kitchen and living room in their apartment combined. On it there was a set of sunbeds were standing together with a table and two chairs.
After taking in the suite they unpacked their bags, which had been placed in under the bed, and got their swimwear which they quickly changed to before going out to the pool were Daniel managed to lift up Janet, when she turned her back on him, and throw her into the pool. Not long after they got into the pool both Sam and Jack joined them.
Two weeks into the cruise, full of sun and bathing, just as they were leaving Australia there was a grand ball so Daniel took out one of the suits from the wardrobe which they had been told was sewn to his measurements while Janet took out a long red dress which was similarly made for her. Once they were all done they went outside to wait for Jack and Sam, who took a five more minutes before they arrived in a suit and a long blue dress respectively. When they arrived they made their way to the elevator and headed down to the ball room were several large tables were standing and they made their way to the table closest to the scene which was reserved for the most important guests.
At their table they were served an appetizer consisting of small bowls with seven different soups and a main course consisting of lobsters with a Russian caviare sauce served in an oyster shell. On the stage some entertainment which no one really looked at was taking place, but as they finished of their meal the entertainers left the stage and an old man stepped onto the stage.
"Good evening." He said. "I'm the owner of this cruiser and as some of you know I let people from the SGC travel for free, during this cruise we've had some of the people from the SGC here, now usually we don't make much noise about such guests, but today I can't stop myself from presenting them. Give them a round of applause as they come up on the stage, here's Samantha Carter O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Janet Jackson and Jonathan J. O'Neill, true heroes who have saved your lives more times than you would like to know about."
"Well I don't know if we can take all the credit." Jack said when they had been helped up on the stage by the ship crew. "But as you said we have saved Earth a few times."
"There you hear people." The man said. "These people should be the real celebrities of our modern age..."
Before the man had a chance to complete the sentence a loud bang went through the ship.
"Report." He shouted into the microphone before he realized what he was shouting into, put away the microphone and grabbed and communicator which he shouted the same into.
"There's orange energy bolts coming down all across the planet sir. One impacted our shields." A voice came back over the communicator.
"This ship has shields?" Sam asked surprised.
"Of course, we have beam inhibitors too." He said as he lead them of the stage and onto the deck outside were they could see the orange bolts coming down, but to the right of the ship a bright flash appeared and left twenty blue lights which quickly grew in size until they reached the lights of the ship which showed it to be twenty jumpers which passed straight through the shield and landed on the deck.
"Daniel, Carter." Sheppard shouted as he came out of the jumper. "Sorry to ruin your vacation, but we need some help."
"I can see that." Sam said as they begun to make their way to the jumper, but before they could reach it the ship was rocketed by another impact. "What's the situation?"
"We have multiple hostile ships which opened fire the moment the left hyperspace." Sheppard said.
"Any attempts to communicate?" Daniel asked as they managed to reach the jumper.
"We've gotten no replies." Sheppard said before he recognised the owner of the ship. "Didn't know you were here sir."
"Never thought I would see you again." The man said as he climbed inside the jumper without any protest from Sheppard.
"You know this man?" Daniel asked.
"Now that you mention it I recognize him." Jack said.
"You should sir, you sent him to our aid when the Wraith came." Sheppard said as the hatch closed behind them. "I present to you former Colonel Dillon Everett."
"I might not have a body fit for front-line combat any more." Dillon said. "But I can still command."
"I heard from Beckett that he's got some breakthrough in understanding how Wraith feeding works, he's even looked for you." Sam said as they left the shield of the ship and the jumpers were beamed away.
"Why didn't you just beam us out if you needed our help?" Daniel asked as the jumpers sat down in the hangar they were beamed into.
"Because we couldn't get a lock on your transmitters." Sheppard answered before pushing a few buttons which beamed away Dillon. "Might as well let Beckett have his fun now."
"So that's how the enemy looks then, any one else thinking Aschen?" Jack said as they reached the bridge and saw the massive fleet of black ships which were bombarding the Tau'ri fleet which such a bad accuracy that more than half of the bolts flew past them and hit Earth. "Move the fleet to protect Earth from the bombardment."
"Yes sir." The communication officer said before relaying the order.
"The council have chosen to reinstate you Daniel, we'll take the details later. For now you all need to get to your ships. Most of our fleet is still in the Ori galaxy trying to figure out what has happened to our men. So we need the captains and commanders, that includes you too Janet, I've had your armours sent to your ships." Sheppard said as he pressed some buttons and beamed them away.
Upon arrival on the bridge Daniel was greeted by replicators which manned the stations on the bridge and two which held up his armour. Taking the hint he stepped up to the armour which activated and dressed Daniel in itself. He then returned to the command chair and sat down. Out of the window he could see the building room of Atlantis and a ship which was already moving through the active supergate, so he took the 305 which he was sitting in up into the air and lined it up behind the Aurora. On the other side of the gate he pulled of a micro jump to Earth and lined up with the rest of the fleet which until now had consisted of only twenty 304s which had been kept as a backup. Along with the Aurora which had waited at the supergate for Janet to get her bearings in the Aurora she had been given. Jack meanwhile had been sent to Atlantis were the gate sent him to Chrona were a 306 was waiting with a full complement of replicator controlled fighters, so he arrived a while later by the time the enemy fleet had stopped the bombardment and was slowly moving away from Earth.
On the bridge of the enemy fleet the situation quickly changed as the twenty 304s got reinforcements by ships which were much larger, one even larger than their large flagship which in truth mimicked their harvesters in their shape, just like their smaller ships.
"First you tell us that you didn't have a single ship which works then we came upon not one but twenty ships upon our arrival, who luckily for you don't seem to have any offensive capabilities." The Aschen commander said as he sent a long shock through Joseph Faxon. "Now they gain further reinforcements by four more ships, which surely wouldn't have come here without any weapons."
"It has been long since I last was on Earth, when you captured me you had no vessels capable of hyperspace." Faxon said. "But now you've come all the way here, of course my people would have increased their technology level too."
"You speak the truth ambassador and from the looks of it they have only developed their shields." The commander said as he directed all ships to concentrate on one of the newly arrived ships. "But against our armada four ships will make no real difference."
Back on the 306 Jack took the new bombardment as a sign of hostility and deployed the fighters which quickly flooded out of the hangars and took up positions around and inside the fleet. On the Aurora Sam was doing the same and sent out all combat drones she had before telling Janet to do the same. On Sheppard's 304 the small number of soldiers on board begun to prepare for boarding while more were beamed up from the surface. That was when a transmission came from the Aschen fleet.
"We request that you ceasefire and remove your forces from the system before we open fire on your vessels." Jack said the moment he opened the channel.
"You think you can demand anything from us pest?" The man on the other side of the channel said. "We will show you our supremacy by annihilating your fleet first and then we will eliminate your planet from the galaxy."
"If you want to destroy our fleet you will need to get some bigger guns, they won't even scratch the paint of our ships." Sheppard cut in. "And the cities of our planet are protected by shields so strong that a fleet thousands of times larger than then one you have here will never be able to get through them Aschen scum."
"Enough talking worm, I know all about your planet from our friend here." The man said and moved out of the image so that Faxon could be seen just as a shook went through his body. "He's told us everything so there is no real use trying to lie to me, your ships might be able to resist our weapons now but once we increase the power level they will break just as you will."
With that he cut the transmission.
"Do we know of any other personnel which we have lost to the Aschen which they might have captured?" Janet asked.
"No, the only encounter with them was when Faxon was lost." Sam said. "I suggest we focus our boarding parties on the flagship to rescue Faxon if at all possible or otherwise that slime is our target."
"I agree." Sheppard said. "But lets try to capture or incapacitate as many as we can."
"I agree with both of you." Jack said.
At that time a much stronger energy bolt came rushing into Sam's Aurora which shook it around a bit.
"Time to play." She said as she closed the channel.
With those words she let lose the hounds and the combat drones rushed away from the fleet towards the Aschen armada closely followed by Jack's fighters and backed up by the railguns of the 304s which sent ripples across the Aschen shields. From both the 304s and the 305s plasma beams at the lowest power setting were added to the mix as the fired to at the outskirts of the Aschen shields to not damage the ship itself but only remove the shields so the soldiers could beam over.
THE END.
Well that's it for now.
Anyone feel like guessing the title of the next episode?
READ READ READ!
Now please leave a review, there's been over 600 people reading the previous chapter but only two reviews so far, surely there has to be more than a single person who has something to say about the story? So from now on I'll set review goals which has to be fulfilled before I post the next chapter (these reviews have to be a little more than just "Good update."). The first goal which I set for this chapter is 10 reviews, that is as if 1.5% of the people who have read the previous chapter reviewed.
I know some of you will be a bit upset with me doing this but it is simply a matter of giving and taking, I write about 5000 words for each of these chapters so I only think that it's fair that you give me a return of less than 50 words for each and as stated 10 reviews is not much, it's about 1.5% of the readers of the past chapter.
By leaving a review you also give me some feedback and that is something I need badly because if you say nothing then I think that no one likes what is written and I begin to lose interest in the story myself, it's because I'm losing this interest that I'm setting up this goal so that the story can be finished sometime soon.