John and Jack left their clubs and bucket of balls in the hallway just inside the entrance and jogged their way to the nearest transporter. From there they made their way to the closest of the four chair rooms.

"Sit down," John said from the doorway, "plug in, and wait for instructions. You can talk to Ryan through the chair's systems."

"Alright," Jack said as Sheppard ran off. The next closest chair was in another building. The Alterra had added the three extras in different locations just in case the city was damaged and the primary chair was lost, which meant it would take a couple more minutes for Sheppard t o 'plug in.'

Jack spun the blue/white chair around and sat down. He concentrated and the chair reclined…

Suddenly he was aware of Atlantis's weapons systems powering up, her deployed shields, and numerous subsystems all at his disposal, yet shared with another control chair. Matt Stevenson was already active in the system.

What now? Jack thought.

In response Ryan's 'voice' transmitted through the chair interface.

"Get the drones moving," he told him as O'Neill noticed targeting information continuing to pop up on the incoming asteroids. Ryan was tagging targets from the 'war room.' "Keep them out of the line of fire and ready to pick up the pieces. Matt's got the big guns, and Sheppard will stand by with the Pesqua if we need them."

Got it, O'Neill mentally replied as he searched for the Alterran drones. He found clusters stacked on the surface of Atlantis's three primary pylon/piers.

"Wakey, wakey," Jack said aloud as the sheets of 4.5 meter square cubes activated. In his mental HUD all the little cubes turned green.

"Up," he said, and the top rows of the stacks started to drift towards the city's shield.

"I'm in," Sheppard's voice announced. "Pesqua standing by."

"Whatever makes it to the atmosphere is yours," Ryan said.

The silver cubes passed through the city's shields as three long streams of them formed, heading up to space. Jack picked a rendezvous spot in orbit and they scurried up to it, unfolding into what looked like mechanical 'spike balls' in the process. O'Neill started their capacitors charging as the first yellow/green beam shot up from one the city's four primary Joktala, or beam cannons.

O'Neill watched through the city's sensors as the thin beam reached high above the atmosphere and impacted the largest of the 100+ asteroids at a range of 196 dekmas, or 512 miles in the Ancient measurement. It took and caught the beam for a moment, then the energy weapon burst out the back side of the asteroid, shattering it into several dozen pieces before the beam abated.

"Whoa," O'Neill commented.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," Sheppard commented to the mental part of that exclamation that got transmitted through the chair.

The asteroid debris began to expand outwards like a halo and suddenly Jack had deployment points appearing in his HUD, courtesy of Ryan.

O'Neill concentrated and split up his 160 drones into five groups and moved them around the firing conduit to their deployment points, which were moving parallel to the incoming asteroids. He accelerated them even further to catch up in time before the rocks hit the atmosphere.

Another two Joktala lances cracked the next biggest asteroids. A few seconds later the fourth fired, then there was a few seconds delay while the first cannon recharged. Matt worked through the asteroids, largest to smallest at range while O'Neill's drones moved into position.

"Have at it fellas," Jack said when he gave the drones their attack command.

The semi-autonomous computers in the drones began their attack, firing single spheres of red energy at the pieces of rock flying towards Atlantis, which were spreading out into a large cone from the detonations. The drones, essentially unmanned fighters, busted up the bigger pieces with the concentrated blasts, then waited to recharge, fired, and waited again.

When the pieces began to shrink in size, O'Neill ordered the drones to pull less charge. As a result the spheres they were firing shrank, but their firing rate increased. They chewed up most of the asteroids, but some large pieces still managed to make their way into the atmosphere…where the drones broke off.

Sheppard sat, waiting and watching as his fellow Alterra made short work of the Wraith asteroids, but some of the debris was getting through…which meant they were his responsibility now.

The city's pesqua holds opened up and several long, but thin streams of the glowy remote-controlled missiles rose up out of the city, then fanned out as John sent them towards individual targets. Atlantis could probably survive some hits from the smaller pieces, but at the speed they were entering the atmosphere they were carrying a significant amount of kinetic energy. Too much would breach the shields, but even if they missed the city they'd create devastating waves in the ocean, and Sheppard didn't feel like having the city flipped over by the impact concussion.

Not to mention there were other lifeforms on Lantea besides the Ancients and their seed species. A brief glance at the sensors confirmed that there were many of the 'talking whales' that had previously warned them of dangerous solar activity. If the asteroids hit the ocean around Atlantis, hundreds of them would be killed within the 200 mile radius.

Not going to happen on John's watch. Besides, Atlantis owed them.

The few hundred pesqua zipped up, boring through their targets then quickly curling around and passing through others, putting holes in the remaining pieces that the atmospheric friction clawed at, further chewing them up. After several dozen passes the drones finally detonated within some of the remaining pieces, but by now there were thousands of small fragments that were going to hit the ocean's surface. They were no longer a threat to Atlantis, but they were going to make one hell of a meteor shower.

Sheppard, now free of controlling the pesqua, tracked the debris a few dekmas above the city, meaning less than thirty seconds to impact. He mentally grabbed control of the city's shields and disconnected the upper shield from the lower shield.

The bottom edge of the top hemisphere of the shield expanded out over the ocean, lifting up to an almost flat angle and spreading out…and out…and out…

The asteroid debris impacted all over the shield, small bits here and there, making quite the fireworks display for the Wraith observing from high orbit, but very little was visible from inside the city. Only a few tiny pieces came down on top of Atlantis…the rest were widely spread out over the ocean.

"Nice," Ryan said through the link. "Bring the drones back down and pack them up."

On it, Jack replied.

"Ryan, take a look at this," Matt said, highlighting several of the Wraith ships.

They were gathering more asteroids.

"They think they're going to have better luck with more?" Sheppard asked.

"No," Ryan advised. "They accomplished their mission."

Which was what? Jack asked as he monitored the returning drones.

"To make us expend ammo," Matt answered.

"The pesqua," John said, understanding.

"Jack, I'll make sure the drones get tucked back in," Matt said. "You and Sheppard can go back to whatever you were doing."

Thanks, O'Neill thought back. How long until the next round?

"At least a day," Ryan answered. "We may have to suffer another round or two before the rest of the Wraith ships get here. Then we'll be ready to make our move."

"Call us when you need us," Sheppard said. "Meet you back on the pier."

O'Neill felt John disconnect, so he did as well. The chair powered down and sat him back up. He stretched his arms up over his head. "Well, that was fun."

Two days later the last of the approaching Wraith ships finally arrived, bringing the count to 718, including 37 Hive ships. They had clustered together into 18 battle groups spaced around the planet, with small groups of cruisers moving about in between, ready to pounce on any ship attempting to run the blockade.

In Atlantis's gateroom Ryan waited patiently for the last piece of the puzzle to arrive, which came in the form of an incoming wormhole from Dracona.

Once the event horizon formed, Andara and Phil stepped through arm in arm, and Ryan walked out to meet them.

"Is everything set?" Phil asked his twin.

"We're ready when you are," Ryan said, nodding at Andara. "We need you in one of the control chairs."

She nodded back and walked past Ryan, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder as she headed off to her assignment.

Phil turned around and mentally deactivated the still open stargate, then started dialing a new 9 symbol address. There was a short pause after all nine were activated, during which he mentally entered the access code, then the new wormhole opened. Without another word he walked back through…

…and into the gate hub. He headed over to the control room and pulled up the map of Pegasus. Thousands of small blue holographic lights marked the planets with stargates. Some had thin blue lines between them, indicating active connections. Phil pulled up a second diagram and input some quick commands.

All of the dots in the galaxy winked out, save for six.

Those remaining few were the ones with active wormholes. Phil waited patiently for whoever was in transit to finish their journey, then when the connections ceased he deactivated those gates as well. When all the stargates in Pegasus were deactivated, including Atlantis's, Phil sent a brief text message to Janus:

Gates deactivated. You're good to go.

"Incoming message," McKay announced from the control room of the Terra.

"Just a moment," Janus replied as he made some final modifications. Both the Terra and the facility it contained were brand new, on an uninhabited planet in the Pegasus galaxy. Both he and Rodney had been sent to make sure it was operational before Atlantis needed it.

"Let's see what we've got," Janus said, walking over to the control panel and bringing up the message. "Hmmm, that was quicker than I expected."

"Now I know my Ancient isn't that good," Rodney mentioned, "but I assume that's the go signal."

"It is," Janus confirmed. "Begin power up."

McKay clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation. "Oh yeah, time for some payback," he said as he diverted power from the Terra's potentia into the device constructed beneath it. He watched as the power flowed into the startup matrix, bringing it up to critical levels.

"Ready," he announced when the level was to his liking.

"Activating," Janus said from a nearby console. Without a hitch the device came online, and the Alterran scientist ramped up the coverage to maximum level. "How do we look?"

"Power flow is steady," McKay reported.

"Any anomalies," Janus asked, making certain all was well.

"None," McKay confirmed.

Janus walked over to the communications terminal and typed out another message, which he then sent on to Atlantis:

Attero device activated.

Ryan received Janus's message in the holographic chamber, which was presently converted into their war room, then opened a comm channel to the control room.

"Elizabeth, everything is set. Call in the fleet."

"Alright," she answered hesitantly. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Ryan glanced at the Wraith fleet icons encircling the planet. "We do."

A few minutes later the Nieruie and ten other brand new Columnar-class Alterran warships exited hyperspace on the edge of the Wraith jamming fields. They exited in four pairs and one threesome, spread out at separate points around the planet where the bulk of the Wraith fleets were massed. Still somewhat distant, the Columnars accelerated towards the fleets besieging Atlantis as they received targeting orders from Stevenson.

The four weapons pods on each of the Columnars opened silently, deploying their lox generator towers and revealing their two pesqua holds inside the main hull…one top and one bottom. All over the gray/white surface of the ships, small bumps rose up through the replicator block armor, pushing them aside like sand. The ninety nine plasma cannons deployed just high enough to open their lines of fire, but most of the batteries were still concealed within the moving armor.

The main weapons of the ships had been fully charged prior to arrival, but none of them fired, though they were already within range. Instead, all 11 ships launched two fast moving, yellow plumes of pesqua at the Wraith ships redeploying to engage them.

All the Columnars emptied their pesqua holds in one massive preemptive attack before they closed to plasma cannon range.

"Alright Matt," Ryan said through the chair communications system. "Get us moving. Our ships won't last long against that amount of firepower."

"Here we go," Matt announced to command group, including Andara, Sheppard, and O'Neill who were manning the other chairs. With a gentle rumble, Atlantis lifted off the ocean's surface and passed through the thick cloud layer overhead. When it emerged on the other side the city of the Ancients climbed with reckless abandon toward the developing battle overhead…and the largest cluster of Wraith ships besieging Lantea.