"General?" Sheppard asked as he pushed away a console which had landed on his chest. There came no response, but as he sat up he could see the other man still sitting in the control chair. The whole bridge was trashed and most of the loose equipment and the less sturdy things had found their way to the front of the viewport which was cracked, but not broken. The automatic darkening of the glas seemed to have activated too, but it had not deactivated afterwards and all he saw was complete darkness when he looked at it.
After removing some debris from his legs he managed to get up, his legs had taken a beating, but the wounds were already closing themselves. As he hurried over to O'Neill he saw the reason he was still in the control chair, over key points on his body arcs had sprung out of the chair to hold him safely in place. He could see his chest rising and sinking beneath the constraints but there were no signs of damage to him, even if several pipes were sticking out of the chair's back.
Judging the constraints beyond his strength and O'Neill safe for now he got over to one of the still working consoles and pulled up the sensors. The information shown was erratic and he failed to get anything concrete out of it, but there was something moving around outside, that much he could tell. Still they picked up the large planet which the ship was hurling towards at breakneck speed.
"What happened?" O'Neill's voice asked. He spun around to see the restraints retracting and letting go of the man.
"We're safely away from Earth. But something's moving around out there, searching for us no doubt" Sheppard said while he helped O'Neill out of the chair.
"Ouch, careful" O'Neill said. O'Neill could feel his body working its magic to to repair the damage it had suffered, but even his Lantean body had a hard time keeping him alive, let alone repair the damage. "You've got a plan Colonel?"
"Hangar bay, we'll take a 302 and he'd back to Antarctica" Sheppard said as he helped him out of the bridge and into a corridor.
"We'll have to do better than that, we lost both of the hangars and apart from five or six levels the ship's lost all atmosphere" O'Neill said and motioned for his hand which was sending a rain of sparks to the floor from an open wound. "The beacon here would have been a better way."
"I guess it's dead Sir?"
"Yea, it doesn't respond to mental commands any more."
"So where does that leave us then?"
"On a dying ship not too far from a number of angry Ha'taks who's most likely searching for us" O'Neill said happily. "We've been through worse in my fifteen years at the SGC."
"Can't say I haven't been there too Sir, but I've always had my team to back me up" Sheppard said as they shrunk down against a wall.
"Well we're a team now Colonel, let's come up with a plan which gets us of this rust bucket before it either explodes or the Goa'uld come find us" O'Neill said.
A/N: Next book will be a new story, so subscribe or favorite me as an author so you do not miss it.
-Viper Command this is Viper Four we're being cut down out here, we need ground support. Over.-
-Viper Four. You are flying over the fucking Atlantic, where the hell would we place ground support? Over.-
-A freaking ship would be ni…-
-Viper Four come in. Over.-
-Wraith Blight One to Viper Command. Viper squadron was just blown to hell. Over.-
-Copy that. Viper Command over and out.-
-W B One to Viper Command, please respond. We're getting some strange readings from heading two four eight, altitude is five hundred klicks and falling rapidly. Over.-
-We read you W B One. We don't have access to anything which can detect things that far out. But anything coming from space is hostile and should be treated as such. Over.-
-This is Sergeant Adams in control of USF One through Five. Do not fire. Over.-
-I read you Sergeant, what's USF? Over.-
-Unmanned Space Fighter. Atlantis is sending her greetings. Over.-
-Holding fire. Over.-
-Private Hill in control of USF Six through Ten to W B One. We need you to transmit the scanning frequencies of the 302s sensors.-
-Might I ask why? We're in the middle of a fucking slaughter. Over.-
-One of our techs are asking for them Sir. I'm in the dark as much as you are.-
-Not sure what use they are to you. Transmitting data now.-
-Thank you W B One. Over.-
-It's not every day you see almost a dussin crafts shooting past you from out of nowhere. Over.-
-Of course W B One. These things don't have much in the way of firepower, but if you can get everyone behind us we'll play tank and you can have the kills. Over.-
-I hear you Private. We'll see to it. Over and out.-
The moment the Alterran fighters came into play the tide of the battle turned around, where before the orange blasts from the gliders had hit the body of the fighters they now stopped against shields which moved around and only stopped those who were at risk of hitting any of the Tau'ri fighters.
Then out of nowhere blue bolts shot out into the gliders, they did little damage on their own but with hundreds fired from each of the ten Alterran fighters each second they bit through the thin hull and caused great damage to the inside of the gliders. From behind their cover the Tau'ri fighter begun to take vengeance for their lost comrades with the 302's and their railguns leading the way. All sorts of guided and unguided missiles begun to fly from the Tau'ri fighters and even if some were shot down by the gliders the sheer number had the same effect as a flamethrower aimed at a swarm of bees. In just over ten minutes the main force of the gliders had been destroyed while only two more fighters had been lost, due to their own recklessness.
With the gliders out of the way the fighters split up to chase down the Al'kesh who had split from the gliders to bomb whatever they could find.
"You sure you know what you're doing Colonel?" O'Neill asked.
"Never built anything more advanced than a radio in school Sir" Sheppard said as he pulled a control crystal from one of the damaged consoles which was strewn about the bridge.
"Somehow I think this is just a little bit harder to do" O'Neill said as he handed him a bunch of wires he had cut out of a wall panel. They had been stuck on the dead ship for half a day and despite their best efforts the air was running out.
"Yes, a long distance subspace quantum link transreceiver is probably something I'd rather hear McKay say he's going to build than me. But it's what the Tria has installed and therefor it's what I hope I can built since I have the blueprints for the entire ship in my head." He said and tapped a finger to his head.
"You might have that in your head Colonel but it still feels a bit too easy." He motioned for the six or seven things they had pieced together, all taken from systems on the bridge.
"It's surprisingly easy yes, but luckily for us Alterran, Lantean and Asgard communications consoles seems to be almost identical on the inside and this ship is based on Asgard designs."
"So we're hopefully saved because they shared designs with each other?"
"Just speculating Sir." He flipped the switch and the device lith up.
"So is it working?"
"I think it is, we can only hope it finds something to connect to."
"Dr. McKay, I'm getting some strange responses from this console" a tech said as he stood in front of one of the newly installed consoles in the Antarctic outpost.
"Let me see" McKay said and shoved the man out of the way.
"Is it a message from Atlantis? Have they found John and the General?" Elisabeth asked anxious as she ran up behind him.
"No, that I can tell you right away." He watched as she got even more sad and depressed. "But this is the outposts main communications console, so there has gotta be some kind of message or signal coming through to us."
"Send it to Atlantis, maybe our Alterran friend can figure it out."
"I haven't had a chance to study much of the Ancient language found here in the Milky Way, but this console is using some derivative of Ancient which I'm having a hard time making heads or tails of. Compared to what's used in Pegasus it feels old. But one thing which is the same here and on Atlantis is this symbol." He pointed to a symbol in the lower left corner. "Quantum linking. The best I could do is to try and tape it and send it as a video. Any tampering on this or the other end and everything gets deleted."
"You're right, this is different from what's used in Pegasus" She was looking over his shoulder. "I've read through some of Daniel's work and I'm sure he can translate that for you."
"Well I don't see him around so just give me a little bit of time and I'll have this figured out."
"Fine, but I can't stand it when there's nothing I can do."
"Then help me translate this" he offered.
"You sure you did it right?" O'Neill asked. They'd been staring at the thing for four hours and he could feel the air thinning out.
"Yes, it's transmitting too, there just doesn't seem to be anyone on the other end" Sheppard replied.
"Time for plan B then."
"What's plan B Sir?"
"Not sure Colonel, but I'm sure we can come up with one."
"We better do it fast Sir, with the way this is going I don't think I can stay lucid more than ten or twenty minutes."
"I can feel it too Colonel, but as we know all SG personnel do their best work under pressure" O'neill said as they felt a tremble through the ship.
"What's that?"
"How should I know? I'm stuck here with you."
"Right, I guess my brain's slowing down now."
"You hear that too?"
"It's our blood pumping in our ears Sir."
"No, that's something else, it's a hissing noise." O'Neill pulled himself of the floor where the two had laid down when the oxygen begun to run low.
In a wall at the back of the bridge a large crack had formed and through it a group of small black orbs slipped through, it was from them the hissing sound came. With the instincts of two career soldiers they drew their sidearms and begun to take them out one by one. When they were destroyed the orbs exploded in a poof of white vapor.
"Gas" Sheppard shouted at the sight of the vapor which sunk down and disappeared as it hit the floor.
"Move it Colonel." O'Neill ordered and together they hurried out of the bridge with the orbs closing in on them.
They ran into a corridor and saw it blocked by an emergency bulkhead which was visibly twisted. They turned to find another way but the orbs had caught up with them. Falling down on one knee Jack fired his gun and heard Sheppard fire two rounds into the swarm before the gun begun to click and four rounds later his own gun did the same. With only a few meters between the hissing orbs and them he reached down to take out a new magazine, but he only felt his own leg. Looking up again he saw it lying on the floor on the other side of the orbs. To his side he saw Sheppard return the pistol to its holster, they were both out of ammunition and looking at each other.
With their backs to the bulkhead they heard a whoosh followed by a bang as part of the bulkhead feel down between them. As if on cue the swarm of orbs stopped in their tracks and formed up in a neat line while the hissing stopped.
"Sirs?" a voice asked through the hole.
"We're here Lieutenant" Sheppard replied as he stepped away from the bulkhead and through the hole. It was one of his men and her team, they had been on Atlantis with them since the start.
"You sent those things to gas us?" Jack asked.
"Yes Sir. They were meant to gas you with oxygen and a fire suppressant, or at least that's what Dr. Zelenka told us he'd been told. They seek out lifeforms and do their best to provide them with a safe atmosphere."
"A note would have been fucking nice" Jack growled while they made their way to the rings and returned to Atlantis.
With awe everyone in the Ancient outpost watched as the city descended into the lower atmosphere above them. A few kilometers above the surface the city stopped and then it moved sideways for something resembling a victory lap around the globe, then it left for Pegasus again.
Now there was no more denying it, not for anyone, no government could suppress it, the secret was out, humanity was not alone in the universe. With most of the world's largest cities in flames and ruins the news was more or less like throwing a letter bomb into a house set aflame, very few paid it any attention, at least until the rebuilding had begun. Around the world the consequences of the attack was evident, even the most pacifistic of countries begun to plan and build up their armies and military installations.
War was coming.
A/N: Please do leave a review now that this book is finished. The next book is not done yet so it will be a few weeks until I have finished it.