Chapter 15: The Siege of Atlantis
The newest ship in the Earths growing homegrown fleet burst out of a hyperspace window back into normal space, after four months of deep space exploration and excavation of various Alteran artifacts from the outposts that hadn't been discovered by the Goa'uld, all over the local cluster of star systems, the small Tau'ri built Argama explorer class, that the design team behind it had based on the Argama from the Gundam franchise. When they had been asked about it by general's Hammond and O'Neill they had merely point to a wall at the rear of the design lab that held everything related to the Japanese show created in the late seventies and early eighties with a sheepish grin. The ship had finally made its way to a nebular that Thor had mentioned to SG1 on the return trip from Ida after destroying the replicators. It was worth investigating to say the least so they had been dispatched by homeworld command with order to search for anything which was out of the ordinary.
And they had found something alright.
"Major… what are we looking at?" Asked colonel Millard Johnson of the Athena as he stared out the forward transparent Trinium windows.
"I believe that it is a space station sir." Major Myung Lone said as she looked over the sensor and LIDAR returns on her display.
"That's one hell of a space station." The ships CAG, major Isamu Dyson, commented as he looked at the station that was just entering into visual range.
It was massive, clearly larger than the battle station that the Archangel had shown up with the day before they had left on their mission started and appeared to look like a long cylinder with a slightly larger one rotating counter to the main one with six large arms arrayed just behind the two rotating sections. The most striking feature of the station was the two large cannons, at least the bridge crew thought they were cannons, running the length of the stations rotating central section, and what looked like a control tower stretching out with a several ships that appeared to be larger cousins of Magellanic heavy cruisers hard docked to it. The helm officer quietly guided the Athena towards the station, as the bridge crew took note that even though the stations lights and rotational sections where working no one was home.
"So that's Arcadia," Jackson mused as he looked over the massive Alteran construction, "I remember Thor telling me about it on the way back after the last battle with the replicators. He said it as a kind of diplomatic station but was armed enough to act as a battle station if attacked." Jackson explained.
"That central tower looks similar to the main tower back at Charon station but it also appears have been modified. I'm also detecting a hyper-drive and massive ion thrusters… this thing definitely wasn't built here sir." A crewman said from the rear of the bridge.
"I know that the Alterans did things big but man… I didn't expect something of this scale and they just left it out here for anyone to find. Where is everyone?" Dyson asked, expecting to find at least one or two Ha'tak's near the station.
"We learnt a few years ago that they left this galaxy when they encountered some form of plague… maybe the station was infected and they abandoned it rather than risk spreading the infection further." Jackson said, remembering the report from one of the SG teams that had discovered a woman frozen in the ice near the outpost in Antarctica that he had read from his time as an Ascended.
"Okay, doctor Jackson and first recon suit up and get set for deployment. You're going over there." Johnson ordered as Jackson seemed to actually fly out of the bridge heading for the ships hanger deck.
-{[]}-
Six columns of light sprung into existence on the main deck in front of a large window that looked out over the forward rotating section of the main body of the station and deposited the members of the Athena's first recon team and doctor Jackson. After quickly securing the area doctor Jackson checked the area with his suits scanners, the device had been designed by general O'Neill of all people, allowed ship based and SG teams to scan an area, which easily notified him that the area was safe and that their was no toxins.
"It's clean." He said as he took off his helmet and placed it upon its clip on his backpack.
"Strange." Dyson said as he looked around the room, "After all the reports I've seen these last few months I was expecting something different." There were a number of panels and control stations scattered around the room.
"The control station is this way." Jackson said as he moved up the stairs on the left side of the room.
They came to a large balcony with a control chair, similar to the one found in the outpost one Earth, with a large two level wrap around viewscreen that covered most of the ceiling.
"Is that it?" the leader of the recon team asked pointing his P-90 in its direction.
"I think so," Dyson nodded and approached the console. "It's in Alteran." He said after a moment as a series of symbols appeared on the hologram by the doors.
"It reads, 'Command and Control' with a name of the station underneath, 'Arcadia'." Jackson translated.
"Hold up a second," The teams tech said and the display turned into English. "That's it, I've plugged colonel Carters new universal translator in and I'm running diagnostics of the main systems now sir."
"Lieutenant?" Jackson asked.
"If I'm reading this right sir," The young lieutenant said in complete surprise. "then this entire station has a stargate manufacturing factory and ZPM generation station as well as controlling the entire Milky Way galaxy. It's not just that … according to this we've hit the jackpot, we have the location of every single gate in the galaxy." The lieutenant said pointing to a hologram of the galaxy which had appeared in front of them, blue dots appearing throughout the hologram connected by a web of connections and strings.
"Athena to doctor Jackson, come in." Johnson asked over the team's comm-link.
""We read you sir." Jackson replied.
""What's your status?" The colonel asked.
"Colonel we've secured the command center and I think that we can take this station with us to through hyperspace, maybe all the way back to Earth." Dyson replied looking around at the control stations and seeing a station that was labeled as Helm.
"… Alright set the course and make it fast. I highly doubt we can hang around here for long like this." Johnson said, "I've sent a data burst back to homeworld command about the find. Athena out." Johnson gave the final order before the channel closed.
"I'm activating the stations transit mode now." Dyson said as he looked over the commands on the screen at the helm station.
"Do we have enough power to make the jump?" Jackson asked watching as the hologram of the galaxy change to one of the station reconfiguring the aft section for travel by retracting the heat exchange and emergency solar collectors close to the hull.
"It seems that the station is powered by ten ZPMs." The technician explained as he looked over the readings at the engineering station, "It looks like the station is also equipped with solar panels of some kind which then transfer the gathered from the local sun and feeds it directly into the stations ZPMs reactors keeping them fully charged."
"It seems that this place is a bit more advanced than Anoke station or the outpost in Antarctica." Jackson said.
"I agree sir … according to the schematics I've also detected a full ZPM construction plant onboard the station with nearly ten thousand fully charged ZPMs. This must have been a major construction plant for ZPMs," The technician mused aloud, "but that still doesn't explain why it was abandoned, especially when the plague broke out on it … I mean why would the just leave it floating out here in a nebular if it was so important to them?"
"Those completed ZPMs could come in handy at the very least." Dyson quipped as the solar arms closed with a slight clang against the hull.
"That's od sir …" Said one of the marines by the forward windows as an alert pooped up on them.
""What is it corporal?" Dyson asked suddenly serious.
"Another ship is approaching at sub-light speed." The young corporal said, pointing out the window.
"The Athena is the only ship this far out." Jackson said knowing that most of the fleet was being kept in the Sol system and that the Zentradi had returned with a station that they could dock with that doubled as a dry dock before they had left on this mission.
"It's not one of ours." Dyson said as he brought up an image of the ship on the main viewscreen of the command deck while blast shutters dropped over the windows automatically, in response to the station detecting a ship of a known enemy.
-{[]}-
"Unknown contact entering sensor range sir." The comm-scan officer reported bringing up an image of the unknown on the main overhead screen.
Beside one of the larger asteroids that had drifted into the nebular over the millennia since the station was last used. It was roughly twice the size of a Ha'tak, and looked like a cross between a an Aurora class and a Ha'tak, the unknown warship turned slightly and accelerated towards Arcadia and the orbiting Athena at a speed which was impressive for a ship of that size.
"Hail them." Johnson ordered getting a sudden bad feeling about it.
"No response sir." The comm-officer said, "Energy spike!"
"Raise shields and take evasive action!" Johnson ordered, hating that his gut had been right once again.
From the end of one of the unknown's larger pods a condensed beam of highly accelerated metal encased in a plasma shell was launched, the metal plasma shells slashed against the Asgard Zentradi hybrid shields of the Athena, knocking the three hundred twenty-three meter exploration ship to the side a hundred meters off her previous course.
"Shields are down to sixty-seven percent, hyper drive has been damaged and several secondary sub-systems are offline." Someone shouted over the din of a sparking console.
"Send a message to the survey team and tell them to get that station into hyperspace as soon as they can. We'll hold off the hostile ship." Johnson ordered, "Helm full power to the engines take us right at them and fire the main gun."
The Athena veered away from the enormous space station and shot off towards the massive alien ship which had opened fire on them at half the speed of light. The unknown fired again, the Athena shifted her thrust at the last second to allowing the shot to flow over the bridge. The Athena then changed course seemingly at random and opened fire with her single bow mounted Gottfried sending a single beam of green compressed energy at the hostile ship only for it to splash harmlessly against a large purple energy shield.
"Their shields are holding." Someone said, "There was a slight fluctuation in their shield grid but not enough for our weapons to breach."
"Who are these people?" Johnson asked worriedly.
"We are receiving a transmission from the ship sir, audio only."
"Open a channel!"
"Hoc est mori vel relinquere numnc sacri." The dark voice spoke over the comm-link despite it having a built in translator designed by colonel Carter.
"This is colonel Johnson of the Tau'ri vessel Athena we are peaceful explorers, why have you attacked us?"
"Tau'ri nimia. Habemus autem nomen Alpha et Omega, quod pertinet dixeris, simpliciter sunt!"
"You have committed an act of aggression against the Tau'ri, withdraw now or you will be fired upon." Johnson said trying to bluff this hostile.
"Fiduciam autem stultitiam. Sanctificate in destructionem." The voice said closing the channel abruptly.
"How is our team doing?" Johnson asked as the ship shuck from another near miss.
"The stations hyper drive is activating now sir."
"Helm set course for Earth, and engage the hyper drive, get us the hell out of here!" Johnson practically screamed as another near miss shook the ship as it turned sharply and accelerated toward her own hyperspace window, quickly disappearing into sub-space on course for the Sol system as the Athena dodged and weaved around the purple beams of plasma and metal which was fired at it. The unknown followed the smaller Tau'ri explorer as it disappeared into hyper-space.
In the Wolf 359 system, Arcadia station reverted back to normal space followed quickly by the Athena, which turned so that it was facing towards Sol, some 7.795 light years away, as her on board navigational computers recalculated her course.
As the computers finished there corrections the unknown ship reverted back to normal space behind them.
"All aft weapons fire at will!" Johnson ordered his tactical officer who unleashed the full aft facing armament towards the unknown. Two seconds later sledgehammer missiles, rail guns and low powered Gottfried shots from the point defense cannons on the aft of the ship. It all struck the shields of the unknown but nothing seemed to get through the purple shields of the unknown.
"Their shields are fluctuating but I don't see any significant damage sir." A comm-scan officer announced. The hostile returned fire from all eight of its cannon pods mounted at the front of the ship, hitting the Athena's shields at amidships pushing the ship sideways and the energy bleeding through to hit the laminated hull armor. "Shields down to fifteen percent and we have a hull breach on the flight deck. We won't survive another hit sir."
"Get us back into hyperspace NOW!" Johnson screamed.
The Arcadia station was the first to re-jump followed quickly by the Athena making the short hyperspace jump to mars orbit, the unknown appeared a second later directly in front of the Athena firing several pulses of plasma as well as the beams of hyper accelerated metal in plasma completely collapsing the shields on the exploration ship and destroying one of her secondary hanger decks.
"Shields are gone!" Shouted someone on the bridge as the ship rocked from the explosion of the secondary hanger.
"Communications send a message to earth and tell them about our situation. Advisee that we may need surface based fire support!" Johnson ordered as the helm officer, first lieutenant Guld Goa Bowman, danced around the incoming fire as best he could in the wounded explorer.
"I've got twelve hyperspace windows opening at green twenty-one delta!" A comm-scan officer said.
The space in front of the Athena tore open in to a dozen purplish blue hyperspace windows and deposited the whole complement of the home fleet's Minerva class battle carriers and the newly finished Mississippi class dreadnought, Mississippi, all moved to attack the hostile intruder.
"Colonel, message from the Mississippi. It's general Hammond." The comm-officer said, slightly in shock.
"Colonel, I thought that I told you and doctor Jackson 'not' to start any fights." Hammond said in his usual tone, that all of the SGC knew meant he was joking, since he had expected the Athena to have trouble due to the curse of SG1 and doctor Jackson.
"Sorry sir." Johnson said replacing the fire-fighting gear in its charging station. "Sir I owe you a beer for this."
"Make it a keg … we'll deal with star destroyer knock off. Mississippi out." Hammond said and the channel closed as the high powered Gottfried shots flew around the explorer to hit the enemy ship.
The large ship, unknown to the Earth forces was a ship belonging to the ancient enemy of the Alterans, quickly realized the threat that fleet in front of it was and opened fire on the fleet. Two beams stuck the shields of the Chinese Minerva Sung and the Japanese Takanami while another two grazed the Daedalus and Nelson. In response the twelve ships fired their Gottfried cannons at once but the powerful shields of the ship held shrugging off the barrage.
"The hostile doesn't appear to taking any damage." A cadet sensor technician said, "Its shields are incredibly powerful, more so than our own Vibranium naquadah arc reactors provide to the Asgard/ Zentron shields at one moment. Sensor logs show that they are generating fifty times the power of the Archangel's main gun."
"It has got to have a weakness somewhere!" Johnson said holding on to his chair as the ship rocked from another near miss.
Again the unknown fired this time concentrating solely on the French crewed Forbin with all sixteen of its cannons. The attack was too much for her shields to handle and they collapsed allowing a single beam of plasma and hyper accelerated metal to slice through the hull and hit her fuel stores. The force of the explosion was enough to destroy the battle carrier with all hands, its laminated Trinium armor doing nothing to reduce the power behind the attack.
"Colonel I think I found something." The cadet sensor technician called out. "Those fluctuations in the shield grid of the hostile ship are a result of them compensating for the fleets assault on it, when it does a gap appears at the rear section of the shield grid during this time, it is barely two centimeters wide sir."
"That's too small for anything to get through." Johnson said pointing out a slight flaw.
"Yes sir, but more than enough to get a lock with the transporters." The cadet countered. "I can override the failsafe's in the system and send a mark VIII warhead over onto their ship."
"… Do it!" Johnson ordered.
The ship fired again, this time hitting the Mississippi amidships, pushing her off course and causing a small mark on her pristine hull as some of the energy from the combined impact of the three beams. The Ontario and Apollo swung around to hit the ship from the flanks firing a barrage of rounds from their Gottfried's, Isolde and Tannhäuser cannons.
"I have a lock!"
"Now."
Half a second later the bow of the unknown ship exploded from inside as the mark VIII naquadah enhanced warhead detonated, the force of the explosion bouncing off the shields and redirected back on to the ship and engulfing the dorsal section of the ship. The Athena quickly turned to fire her single bow mounted Gottfried as the unknowns shields flickered and then died. The Ontario and Apollo formed up alongside the Athena as they cautiously approached the now heavily damaged alien warship, before the Minerva's fired a double salvo of depleted uranium rounds at it.
The twelve rounds from the 50cm Isolde cannons tore through her armor like a brick through a plate glass window. As the three ships shot past it, numerous secondary explosions began to spread across the hull before its main reactor went critical destroying her completely.
"Sanctificetur sunt Ori!" Was screamed out over the comm-lines as the ship exploded and a large chunk into the Athena from behind and tearing off a radiation deflector, causing her to spin wildly for several seconds her aft quarter on fire before Bowman managed to compensate for the lost deflector and a sub-light engine. Johnson and several others were thrown from their seats as a fire broke out where Johnsons chair was and the Athena began to drift. Johnson coughed and tried to stand only to find his left leg gone from the knee down.
"The hostile has been destroyed sir." Bowman reported as he and several others dealt with the fire while a medic started to treat Johnson.
"Get me a damage report!" Johnson said as the medic hit him an auto injector of pain killers.
"Ten dead, fifteen wounded seven seriously. We've lost the port side radiation deflector and the port side engines." Bowman said looking at the damage control board, "(05 of the secondary systems are fried and we've lost weapons control … luckily the main sub-light drive is still functional."
"And the home fleet." Johnson asked becoming woozy due to the medication that the medic had given him starting to work.
"Not as bad as us sir." Bowman said. "Message coming in from Earth now … Arcadia has assumed orbit over earth, we are to dock as Malta defense station for repairs."
"What about that star destroyer knock off? I doubt … command is going to leave the remains up here?" Johnson said slurring his words a bit.
"The Airtimes, fifth squadron of the Starmax corps and our sister ship, the Argama, are moving to begin salvage and study operations." Bowman replied.
"… Okay then … set course for Earth best speed … and lieutenant … take command until we … dock." Johnson said passing out from the pain and medication.
As the Athena limped towards Earth orbit escorted by the Apollo and half a dozen Acidalium class destroyers that had arrived after the battle, just in case the crew needed to be evacuated. Bowman couldn't help but feel that this was only the start of something which no one could have expected, that ship had attacked them unprovoked was clearly the vanguard of some unknown force, which probable meant that their where more of them on the way and they would have to work out some way of stopping them or the whole galaxy would have to face the consequences.
-{[]}-
In orbit on the recently recovered Arcadia station, after a journey back to the surface because of an alert when the Excalibur had returned from patrol early with a malfunctioning IFF transponder, the diplomatic modified Starmax transport finished its docking. As major Davis led the group out of the docking bay the two marines snapped to attention as he waved them off.
"What is this place?" Jaydin asked, suddenly worried for her safety, but still looking around with wide eyes.
"Arcadia station." Davis said as he lead the group into the docking bays observation deck which over looked the cargo stabilizers, that had original thought to have been cannons, where the Minerva was docked taking on supplies for her mission to Atlantis as a pair of Star Wolf star fighter's landed in her open linear catapult, while the Earth hung in the background.
"How… how the hell can you hide something like this while in plain view of the entire world?" Selmak asked clearly stunned at what he could see. "I … I … mean where in orbit of Earth, anyone with even a reasonably priced pair of binoculars can see this place!"
"Why would we hide it sir?" Davis asked politely of retired major general as he directed the group towards a door that lead deeper into that station to continue the short tour before their meeting with the newly established high-command. "The entire planet knows about it." He replied with a small smile."
"You… you… you… you mean that… everything has been disclosed… everything?" The retired general said, hyperventilating and grabbing hold of the nearby hand rail to prevent him falling down with shock.
"Yes sir, we were left with no choice sir." Davis nodded in reply.
"What happened?" Selmak asked having taken over control of his host's body while he recovered from this new discovery about his home world.
"It wasn't that bad … having the home fleet and the ZSMF Archangel in orbit helped to keep the masses calm, still North Korea and the Middle East made some noise for a few months, but it's quietened down in the last few weeks, and the presence of the fleet has reassured everyone that we 'can' defend ourselves from any threat, both foreign and domestic." Davis explained the current planetary situation as the group entered a travel tube which Davis directed to the forum. "I'll admit sir, that it could have been a whole lot worse, but once the initial shock of the attack by Anubis wore off and we started to introduce some of the less advanced technology that has been gained through the project over the years directly into the general population. These days the nations of Earth are moving more towards a single world government which controls all of the off-world bases and the SGC."
"Where did you acquire the resources for the building of a station of this size? The Goa'uld do not have the resources to construct something of this scale." Bra'tac commented as the transport tube began to pass through the massive internal garden of the station.
"It was discovered by abandoned one of our explore class ships in the Eagle nebula, and brought here, apparently they had to defend themselves from a ship that looked like a Ha'tak crossed with a star destroyer from star wars."
"Where exactly are we being taken?" Selmak asked, as Jacob Carter's mind was still in shook, as the transport tube opened onto the gardens.
"Station operations," Davis said as he again lead the group through the gardens back towards the command and control section of the station by the docking area that they had used to board the station, "It is where general Hammond's office is located."
-{[]}-
"It never rains but it pours." Muttered general O'Neill in the control room of the SGC as he watched the marines, combat engineers and a platoon of MACO's from the Archangel's own compliment began to step through the gate with crate after crate of combat supplies to aid in the defense of Atlantis from the three Wraith hive ships which were approaching the massive city ship, with the intent to destroy the last known fortress class colony ship.
The defense force was taking enough ammunition to last for three years-worth of continues battle, freeing up the much needed space in the three battle carriers being sent with the Archangel, as well as the new anti-air railguns which had been set for the next squadron of Acidalium class, and where designed to punch through the armor of a Goa'uld death gliders and Al'kesh, so it was hoped that they would work on the Wraith's fighters as well.
As he stood silently watching as more and more personnel moved through the gate for Atlantis, including the four members of Devil squad and the five members of the newly commissioned Ghost squad, using mark one versions of the equipment used by the Zentradi team, that they were going to their deaths.
-{[]}-
Colonel Steven Caldwell, the newly assigned commander of the Tau'ri contingent of taskforce Atlantis smiled as he looked around the bridge of the Daedalus. The clean but advanced room buzzed with activity as the crew and engineers checked and re-checked everything on the ship, and her two sister ships Minerva and Orion, to make sure that everything was working at a hundred percent and if it wasn't then it was replaced with an entirely new unit, nothing was being left to chance.
Caldwell had been in command of the Daedalus since the battle of earth against Anubis forces a year ago and knew most of the crew personal quirks, but had only worked with the captains of the Minerva and Orion twice before this mission, but was impressed with how their crews work. Unlike when his ship had been launched in the rush to defend the Earth, the Daedalus and all other Minerva class battle carriers had be retro-fitted with the more powerful 50cm triple rail cannon 'Isoldes' which had been developed for the Mississippi class, along with the newer combat tracking systems. These upgrades as well as the additional sixty CIWS arrays and new sledge hammer anti-ship missiles made the Minerva class one deadly class of ships.
Both the Minerva and Orion matched her in every aspect, even down to the pair of industrial size synthesizers in their hangers and mess hall, meant that the battle carriers could be deployed for up to ten years before having to return to base for a resupply, or at least that was commands plan, so they were more or less completely self-sustaining.
Rumors were circulating that the new high command where going to be sending a number of industrial synthesizers to Atlantis once the current crisis was dealt with to save having at least one ship travelling between Zion and Earth on supply runs, and it made perfect sense to those dinosaurs in the I.O.A.
"Sir." Major Kevin Marks said, snapping Caldwell out of his thoughts.
"Yes Marks" Caldwell replied turning to form the plot table face his ships XO.
"The SGC reports that the last of the ground element have gone through the gate to Atlantis sir."
"Good, have we received launch clearance and has the Orion got the ZPM's for Atlantis from Arcadia?"
"Yes sir." The comm-officer replied, "The last of the yard engineers have left and the hanger deck reports it's secure."
"Good, contact the Archangel and move into formation with them and secure all systems for hyperspace." Caldwell ordered smiling as he took his seat while the rest of the bridge crew moved to their assigned stations for the three battle carriers took up flanking positions around the Archangel.
As the four ships moved out of the gravity well of Earth the Archangel expanded her hyperspace fold field so it encompassed all the ships, before stretching and disappearing into a purplish blue cloud of a hyperspace window on its three day journey to Zion.
"Sir. Message from the Archangel, ETA to Atlantis is a little under three days." Marks said looking at the power readings from the Archangel on his sensor display.
"That's amazing. Hopefully once this crisis is over and we return to earth, we could get one of them the Daedalus and her engines." Caldwell said referring to the ZPMs that had been found on Arcadia station when it was recovered last month.
"Yes sir." Marks replied as he thought about the increase it would give the Tristan's and Tannhäuser cannons.
"I'll level with somewhat though major." Caldwell said leaning over towards Marks slightly as the blue green wash of hyperspace bathed the bridge, "I'm not one hundred percent with leaving Earth without a few extra guards, what with the Prometheus battle group somewhere, it only leaves the home fleet and they may need the backup of the Archangel's big gun."
"Yes sir, but the new orbital defense grid is nearly complete, and looking at the defense grid on both the Zentradi station and Arcadia I doubt even that star destroyer knock would survive, plus the Antarctic outpost and Helicarrier fleet." Marks replied recalling how thousands of plasma drones had defeated Anubis's fleet.
"Right." Caldwell answered facing a smile as an enlisted marine sergeant came up to him with a ship interfaced iPad.
The three Minerva class battle carriers and the Archangel all cruised through the sub-space domain, heading for the Pegasus galaxy. The three Tau'ri ships where a new breed, built for war and exploration, and would accomplish great feats in the years to come.
-{[]}-
"Alright Felger you've got ten minutes, make this good." General O'Neill said as he entered the only lab that most of the SGC avoided more than Jackson and Carters, after watching the last of the ground element for taskforce Atlantis through the gate.
"General O'Neill good to see you again, we … we've come up with a suggestion on how to increase our stocks of materials to build up the fleet. Going through the records of the SGC missions trying to find somewhere which has a large amount of minerals and ores, since with the help of the Asgard we've stabilized the orbit of the asteroid that Anubis throw at us and 'Mother lode' has been tapped by the new TDF the supply of naquadah will begin to flow soon enough, we have however with the help of the Charon stations AI gained a lead on a massive amounts of Trinium, Iridium, platinum, palladium and other rare earths relatively quickly."
"For once Felger you have me interested. Where in the records is it that you and your team have found this 'supply' of resource?"
Tapping on the nearby computer he activated the nearby wall mounted screen which showed a map of the galaxy divide into four distinct sections with the first four letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha, beta, gamma and delta along with stargates in blue, red or yellow depending on the relations towards earth. After a second or two a window at the side of opened with a highly detailed yet complicated and familiar diagram scan of a planet with several areas shaded in silver or blue and a string of stargate spatial coordinates came up under the text box with the data about the planet above which pulled at O'Neill's mind like a half forgotten dream.
"That's sort of the problem, the planet is located in unclaimed space at the edge of the Goa'uld Moloc's space, but is also a known target for scavengers and pirates that are known to operate in this area. The Trinium isn't just in the ground in ore form but a lot of it has been refined into metals which are on the surface."
"Felger the only way for that to have happened is if the planet had been heavily mined and the refined materials used for construction …" The thought that he was saying stopped abruptly as he suddenly realized that he knew the gate address on the screen. "This had better not be where I think it is Felger."
"Well, sir it is a lot of refined metals which are almost perfect for construction of ships, fighters and orbital stations which we need to defend the planet. The buried ores can still be mined using the native facilities if they survived or we can do it with our own equipment. Either way general, we can easily get the materials which we badly need, it's just that … it will be a bit … erm, icky."
"Really?" O'Neill said, raising an eyebrow in a masterful impression of Teal'c at how incredibly wrong the idea was, sure they could increase production and even build a few more orbital battlestations but the planet was technically a grave yard.
"The only other option would be for us to have a lucky strike in one of the systems which we control or are on good terms with, sir. Trinium within the area's which we control is getting rarer as we use more and more as we excavate it." Felger obvious enthusiasm for this beginning to override his initial nervousness. "We know from the reports of not only SG1 but also SG3, 5, 7 and general Hammond as well as that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of tons of refined Trinium on the surface of Tollana, perhaps even enough to build not only the flight of Acidalium destroyers and Starmax bombers and several dozen missile platforms or maybe one or two of colonel Carters Super Gottfried cannon stations."
"What he means, General." His assistant doctor Angstrom spoke up in an attempt to calm the situation between the general and the man she was in love with. "There is a way which we can sort through the material, but it will mean removing a Minerva class from the defense fleet or lending one of the Asgard's vessels. With access to the beaming technology on them it would allow us to filter any inorganic material from everything else and then we could just bring it home for refinement as we currently do with the ore's that are mined."
"Felger, you might be a royal pain in the neck but you are right, it is a perfect place to gather Trinium and other resources. The idea has been suggested over the last year or so since their destruction, but we've not exactly had the resources to spare or a ship to get there since the gate was destroyed during the attack by Tanith. Now we're even more reliant on ships what with the Archangel and three Minerva's being sent to assist Atlantis, Tollana is just too remote for us to get to at the moment without a stargate."
"But…"
"But?"
"There is another reason for the trip to Tollana sir." Angstrom said interrupting Felger. "Their technology was more advanced than even the Zentradi, and centuries ahead of us. There is all kinds of things which we might be able to discover from the ruins and debris of Anubis attack. There could also be survivors, and functioning weapons technology."
"Ion cannons?" O'Neill asked, remembering the first time he saw them in action. "Haven't the scienctists at the SGC already got the technical stuff for them from before the attack?"
"Yes sir, we do but … it is always quicker to make a prototype if you have access to the actuall device to reverse engineer."
"You have no clue how to make them, do you?" O'Neill said knowing when someone was trying to bluff him, normally Reynolds at the weekly SG team commander's poker game.
"Well we have the schematics, a working knowledge of the theory behind the use of frequency nullification and energy boosting properties for the plasma shells used in the ion cannons main …" Felger said switching to technobabble to try and confuse the man that most of the SGC thought was dumber than dirt, before he was interrupted by O'Neill.
"Yes or no Felger. Do you know how to build Tollan designed ion cannon's?" O'Neill repeated looking the other man square in the eyes.
"In a word … No." Felger said, his ego deflating a bit.
"That's all I wanted to hear. Alright I'll contact general Hammond and see if we can send one of the new ships there when he has finished his conference. If, and I reiterate 'IF' the general gives the go ahead to send a ship to do a recon scan of Tollana and its system, then 'IF' it's successful, we will consider sending an expedition to gather resources and look for survivors. Once we get the gate up and running again, then we'll send you and your team through, but until then no dice." O'Neill said before continuing. "In the meantime, we need your people doing their jobs and upgrading our traditional and space capable warships, including the helicarrier's as quickly as possible. Understood." He said making the two scientist know that it wasn't a question.
"Yes sir. Thank-you general it is greatly appreciated." Felger nodded knowing it was the best that he would get as the general left his lab. O'Neill was already exhausted from a very long day that so far had included several meetings with the science section of the SGC, two briefings for SG teams going on routine missions and chewing out several of the newbies to the base about the dangers of level 32, and he still had a dozen or so more meetings to go including one with Hammond and president Hayes to inform them about the status of all of the current and newly christened Tau'ri defense force space navy, the growing network of orbital defense platforms and the newly designed unmanned pulse plasma turrets, based off Goa'uld staff cannons, being built across the surface, in orbit and at all of the Lagrange points around earth space.
"General?" Looking up, O'Neill saw on the more senior members of the base who was acting as his aid and attaché standing behind the markings for the three heavy duty blast door that lead to Felger's lab and gestured for the young woman to join him on his way back to the main briefing room and his office. The young second lieutenant looked hesitant as she fell into step with the general, and a little upset, putting the veteran officer senses on alert.
"Lieutenant?"
"Sir … a message was received ten minutes ago in the communications center from the UN … I'm sorry sir but you are requested to report to the UN security council within the week, to answer the charges that brought against you at the Hague." She said with a genuine tone of sorrow for the man who had saved the planet a year ago.
Gob smacked O'Neill continued walking, finally after a few seconds they reached the lift back up to the main part of the SGCs complex and O'Neill pinched the bridge of his nose before looking at the junior office.
"… Alright." He said sighing, "This day just keeps getting better. Alright contact Arcadia and the White House, I think that we will need to bring my meeting forward a few hours. This day just got a whole lot longer." He said as he stepped into the lift with the lieutenant as the unscheduled activation alarm sounded though out the base.
-{[]}-
"Too Slow! Too Slow!" Executor Granger said as he finished running a group of Imperial personal through an assault course on the Archangel as it raced through hyperspace towing the Minerva, Orion and Daedalus to the besieged Atlantis expedition on Zion. "I've seen first day orbit centurions move quicker! Now MOVE!"
"I see why the MACO second platoon have taken to calling Granger the 'terror of deck sixteen' behind his back." Joked Hudson from the observation deck above as he sent the handful of Hansa centurions through the course again.
"I know." Replied a giggling Dvorak before she turned serious again. "But we are only thirty-one hours out and we've no idea what type of tactics these Wraith use other than scaring the primitive peoples of the Pegasus galaxy into running, before sweep beaming them up for use as food stock."
"I know, that's why I want all of our fighters and Ghosts to load for war." Hudson said as the pair moved off towards the main hanger of ARMD 2 where Murdoch's people were going over the Thunderbolt, Durandal veritechs and Ghost drones fighters before moving on to the Destroids to make sure that they are battle ready before the upcoming battle. "That's why when we arrive I want weapons and engines targeted first."
"Understood." Dvorak said entering the information on her PADD. "I'll also task the monsters for long-range bombardment while the Tomahawks with be used to boost our anti-air and CIWS array."
"Ok, also before arrive schedule a damage control drill for all shifts, simulate a fire in the missile magazines, loose of the bridge and explosive decompression at the same time and an anti-boarding party action."
"As you order, Kira."
"Pass the word. Commodore Hudson, sub-commander Dvorak to the bridge. I say again Commodore Hudson, sub-commander Dvorak to the bridge please." Came the voice of lieutenant Welsh over the public address system, having not gone with Devil squad, due to a lucky shot from one of Phat's Jaffa during their raid, which had broken her leg in three places.
-{[]}-
Several minutes later the two senior officers walked onto the bridge which was slightly bathed in the hue of the hyperspace tunnel despite the polarizing of the forward viewport that stretched the entire height of the bridge to find Welsh, her leg in a medical exo-cast walking with a cane over from the comm-station towards them. "Commodore, sub-commander, we've picking up a signal. It sounds like a distress signal."
"What's our location Meer?" Dvorak asked, having softened towards the younger woman over the last two years since the battle against the Prometheans.
"Outer edge of the Orion-Cygnus are of the Milky-way ma'am."
"Let's hear it." Hudson said sitting down sitting in his command having snagged a raktajino on the way from the hatch.
A few seconds later a heavily static filled comm-channel opened and a very human sounding voice came from the audio only channel. "Help … require assistance … have fail … power out. Repeat stranded … need." Was all that could be made out before the channel filled with static and the computer closed it.
"Sounded human." Dvorak said.
"I know, that doesn't seem right though as the only humans ships this far out are the three Minerva's we're towing." Hudson said stroking his chin in thought, having developed the habit over the last two years.
"This could be a trap by one or more of the Goa'uld, but …"
"But if it is a genuine distress call then I'm duty bound to investigate as I'm sure that you are." He said getting a nod in reply from Dvorak. "Meer, how far off is that call coming from?"
"It's about ninety light-years into the void between the Milky Way and Pegasus, fifty light-years off our current course, boss." Campbell said pulling up the information on her station before taking a sip of her own raktajino. "At current speed we can be there in around thirty minutes."
"Alright then alter course and set level two throughout the ship and let the other ships know, that we will be making a short stop." Hudson ordered turning to face the flight operations station, currently manned by major O'Neill. "April as soon as we are out of hyperspace launch two FAST packed ESINT capable Thunderbolts to have a look."
"Aye sir." O'Neill said as she stood at the flight operations station for this shift, and after a quick look at the flight status reports assigned two pilots from dragon flight for the mission.
Half an hour later the four ships dropped out of hyperspace into the void between the galaxies, ten million kilometers from a debris field of a Ha'tak and two other Goa'uld ships. The closest was a cargo ship with very visible damage all across its drive section and around its ring receiving array, while the second was an Alkesh with some blast damage to its hull but looked intact just unpowered. So as well as the ordered Thunderbolts, O'Neill used her command authority to have the Minervan and Daedalus launch a three craft flight of the new Star Cobra fighters to provide cover while the two Goa'uld craft where recovered.
After around ten minutes, and a short fight which resulted in the Thunderbolts liturually pulling the staff cannons from the Alkesh while the Star Cobra's took out its engines, before magna-locking onto and towing the two craft into one of the Archangel's secondary landing decks. After several minutes the earth made fighters launched again and returned to their own motherships for refule and rearming ready for deployment against the Wraith if need be.
An hour after the ships had arrived they all jumped out again on course for Zion, the only evidence that they had even stoped at the debris field was a small cloaked sensor and sub-space comunicitaion relay probe the size of an VHT1–Spartas hover tank from the second robotech war.
-{[]}-
"Report." Dvorak commanded as she entered the secondary landing deck where the two captured craft had been brought in.
"We've gained entry to the cargo ship and found two Jaffa from Yu's forces, all K.I.A. ma'am." Reported gunnery sergeant Forge who had lead the borading party of the cargo ship as the sound of a Zat'nik'tel firing was heard coming from the hatch to the Alkesh's cargo bay.
"What in guinee!" Dvorak said turning to see a Kull warrior walking out the hatch with a zat'nik'tel in each hand firing one shot at everyone in sight.
"Light it up!" Shouted Forge as she opened fire with her modifed FN-P117B rail gun as she dived into cover behind a tool cart, hitting the warrior in the left leg and breaking it clean off at the knee sending the drone to the deck which instantly began to clutch it's now missing lower limb.
"That's not normal." Dvorak said from her own cover behind the leg of a Thunderbolt in guardian mode with her own pulse pistol in hand. "Hold fire!"
Instantly the MACO's held fire while a small squad moved into secure the drone under the cover of the rest of their squad and the hanger crew armed with heavy renches.
"Ouch … hay watch it." The drone said as a pair of MACO's put the trinium mangnetic binders around its wrists, after stripping it of the plasma repeater gauntlets and zat'nik'tels it had droped. Once it was secure they applied a field dressing of bacta-gel to the leg as Dvorak walked over.
"Once medical have cleared our 'guest', strip the armour and throw it in the brig under a level one lockdown." She odrered.
"Yes ma'am." Forge replied, nodding to the four men squad who man handeled the drone out of the hanger and towards a nearby infirmary before taking it to the brig.
Dvorak and Forge walked over to the Alkesh, once they were closer Dvorak spoke up. "Have Murdoh's mad men and executor Granger or captain Revell go over this ship with a denique tooth comb. I want to know how and why these ships where out here in the void, their cababilities, engines the whole nine yards."
"Aye ma'am." Forger replied, "I'm sure this will make the commadore's day when the report gets back to the Earth ships that the Goa'uld where this far out into the void."
Dvorak chuckled, shaking her head at the gunny. "You Sasha have a talent for having a masterful skill for understatment. I recommend going into politics when we get back home." Before both women broke down with laughter as they imagined the reactions from the new Tau'ri space defence high command when they learnt that the Goa'uld where trying to reach the Pegasus galaxy.
-{[]}-
"Pass the word throughout the ship, captain Revell report to hanger delta two one bravo. Captain Revell report to hanger delta two one bravo."
Angel sighed, having been made the intelligence officer for the Archangel six months ago, as she was just about to slip into bed from the previous battlestations alert and being caught up in an anti-bording simulation on deck twenty-three, when she heard her name being called over the ships internal comm-system. Reaching over sleepily to the comm-link next to her bed before a second call could be made while pulling on her uniform.
"Bridge." Answered Welsh almost instantly.
"Janet, its Angel what's going on?" she asked fixing her hair into a lose ponytail.
"Jen, the sub-commander needs you down in delta two one bravo ASAP. She wants you to go over the two captured Goa'uld ships which we just recovered." Welsh said, sounding entirely to chipper for how tired Revell was.
"Understood Janet, I'm on my way." She replied closing the comm-line, heading out the door from her quarters to the hanger after making a quick stop at a mess hall to get a thermos of extra strong raktajino and some ration bars.
It didn't take her long for her to recheck the hanger, even having stopped off in the mess hall, but when she did she was stunned by the sight which greeted her. The deck crew where crawling all over the Alkesh taking photos and acting as if they were college students at a kegger for the last few days while hanging off it as if it was some form of trophy.
"Chief!" She practically yelled out over the smaller hanger deck towards the master sergeant that ran this particular hanger.
Hearing that he was being shouted he turned away from the ghost drone fighter that he was working on catching sight of what is going on, instantly his face soured at the sight. "Yes ma'am?" the master sergeant asked snapping to attention in front of the senior officer.
Angel returned the salute as she pointed towards where the deck crew where acting like school kids high on sugar. "Get those children down off that ship and lets figure out from those ships and work out what it is they can do?" she said softly but the annoyance in her voice was evident.
The master sergeant gulped as he nodded turning to face the crewmembers in question. "Hay!" he barked out at the top of his voice. "Get! Your! Ass! In! Front! Of! ME NOW!"
The deck crew which had been messing around on the two craft all stopped and made their way over slowly to where the deck chief and Angel where waiting.
"That's right, just take your time." The deck chief sarcastically called out, "you're not on leave! GET OVER HERE NOW!"
Hearing this the crew began to move with purpose as the deck chief's temper was legendary when it blew, and it was beginning to show. All twelve of the crew lined up in a perfect parade ground formation at attention. After watching them for several moments the chief walked up and along their three ranks slowly, scowling at them the whole time. "You twelve are a sorry excuse for a deck crew." He growled at them. "I have a senior officer here trying to do a job, and you lot are acting like a bunch of Martian ticks climbing all over those ships as in a child's play zone! You have embarrassed not only yourselves, but me and the rest oh hanger delta twenty-one B!" He snarled as he adopted a very sinister looking smile. "And now you get to pay for it."
Their face's fell as Angel stepped forward an equally evil looking grin on her face, as she took a sip of her raktajino, before she addressed them using the same tone she did with pilots that she commanded. "I want those two ships inspected under a level one inspection from bow to stern for damage. After that I want to know the who, what, were and how these things work, everything from shields and sub-light engines to life support and the heads."
"That will take all stupri night!" the youngest of the trouble makers complained, his voice half breaking.
"You know I think that it will!" the deck chief snapped getting the man to go ridged again, "So if you jarheads hadn't screwed up I would have rotated you out with the relief shift, but since you have all this extra energy, I'm going to put it to use. Note one of you goes off shift until the captain here says she has what she needs."
Angel looked over the now seething deck crew for a second, and it was evident that she was now their number one enemy for the next few days as far as they were concerned, meaning that it was going to be a very interesting few days to say the least. Finally she nodded dismissing the group.
Slowly the small group dispersed, muttering and cursing in a mix of Zentron and standard as they went. Angel held back a few seconds until the crew were out of ear shot before turning to face the deck chief with a smile. "You chief are one truly evil spawn of Kyron, remind me never to piss you off." She joked.
The chief's expression remained stony as he watched the crew get back to work. "Ma'am, it's my job to be a spawn of Kyron, if I get nice they get sloppy, then someone dies."
Angel nodded in understanding, she was the same before being grounded and made a spook, and took out a PADD and a hand scanner. "Ok, I guess I'll start with the Alkesh's weapons, thanks chief." She said walking over to where Vortex and Starstorm had placed the weapons that they had ripped from the Goa'uld bomber.
"No problem ma'am, I'll be over here working on this poorly Ghost if you need me." He said walking back to the drone fighter he was working on when she entered the hanger.
Angel watched him go for several seconds and then cast her gaze onto the captured Alkesh. "Ok," she said to herself having scanned the cannons, "Let's see what makes you tick and how you got out here you little bitch."
-{[]}-
Vala Mal Doran started awake to find herself in a holding cell, but not a Goa'uld style one, and a man wearing a set of advanced armour, which again wasn't that of the Tollan remnant. Darting her eyes around she came to the conclusion that she had been captured by either the rising Tau'ri or the ancient and feared Asgard, meaning that her luck had finally ran out.
Continuing to cast her eyes around the cell she could tell that they didn't like doors, as the exit to the cell was open with a blue light around the wide entrance and that her guard hadn't noticed that she was awake. Thinking that it was safer that they thought her still asleep she reclosed her eyes so that they wear hardly open but she could still see, while opening up her sense listening to what was going on around her.
After about two hours, she heard the sound of a set of heavy doors opening somewhere nearby and a pair of people marching towards her cell. When they got close enough she could see that it was a man and a woman both in a similar set of uniforms to her guard with a green turtle neck under a grey jacket, and that the woman was addressing the man.
"It seems that cargo on the Jaffa ship is weapons grade naquadah, about fifty-three thousand metric tons and several dozen crates of Goa'uld style stun grenades." She heard the woman say, describing the cargo which she had tried to steal from Yu's forces.
The man, who she could see was taller than most even some Jaffa, nodded. "Have them secured in the secure cargo deck. Have you figured out why our 'guest' was in the armour of a Kull warrior?" He asked nodding towards her cell.
"No Kira," The woman replied using the man's name, "we're still looking over the crew section of the Alkesh for anything we can find but nothing so far other than a lot of jewellery, cloths and various other Goa'uld style devices even a voice modulator and something that seems to generate a eye flash like a Goa'uld."
"What about the Alkesh itself?" Kira asked.
"Angel's had the deck crew crawling over the and inside it for the last twelve hours straight, she says she should be able to report to you in about an hour, two at the most." The woman said.
"Good." The man, Kira, said, "Tell her once the report is done to get some rack time, she may be in intelligence now but she knows how to fly a Konig and Thunderbolt so I want her rested before we reach Zion."
"Yes sir." The woman agreed. "But if I know her she will probably just change into a flight suit and sleep in her plane's cockpit."
Kira rubbed his eyes wearily, having been in a vertical meeting with Caldwell, Gladys and Nexx about the defence plans for Atlantis now only fourteen hours away. "Right, knowing her she'll be there itching to get this over with to get into the fight rather than sitting around and watching, but right now I would settle for our 'guest' not pretending to be asleep."
Realising that she had been made she slowly stretched in a very provocatively way, while getting up. "Well since you were so kind after I was shot." Vala said trying to talk her way out, but a quick look at the pair made her realise that she won't be able to lie her way out if this one, even if this Kira was kind of cute, she decides to do something that she hadn't done since she was a very young child and tell the truth. "So I take it we are on our way to some sort of Tau'ri prison complex?" She asked affectionately.
Hudson merely shook his head slightly at Vala, "No we are currently on course for the Zion system in the Pegasus galaxy. In fact we with be there inside of the day, to assist a mission which we lost contact with recently."
Vala smiled at hearing that. "Well if there is anything that I can do to help, please let me know. I'm actually quite good at finding things."
Dvorak snorted and rolled her eyes before replying, to the woman who was obviously a thief. "Look miss. That is not what we had planned."
"Oh what then?"
"We are going into combat, both in space and planet-side. So we are going to keep you locked up here so we can keep an eye on you, obviously without your armour so we know where you are, but if you so much as step out of line even an inch…" Hudson said leaving the last sentence open, so that Vala's imagination could fill in the blanks with what could happen to her.
Gulping she nodded very slowly, realising that she had bitten off more than even she could handle when she had taken this contract from the Lucian Alliance in attempting to capture a Tau'ri ship. "I … understand."
-{[]}-
"Let me pass!" Teyla Emmagan, the leader of the Athosian people whom the Atlantis expedition had rescued from a small scale Wraith culling the first month the expedition was in Pegasus, shouted as she ran into the lower area of stargate operations in the central tower. Hearing the commotion from below doctor Weir, major Sheppard and colonel Everett and Newman, who everyone knew to be called 'Over watch' moved over to the balcony which overlooked the embarkation room to see a pair of marines holding her back. "I need to talk with doctor Weir!"
"Teyla?" Weir asked looking at the scene below and seeing the fear in the other woman's eyes, "What is it?"
"The Wraith … They are in Atlantis!" Teyla shouted up to her in the control room, instantly the military personal present started to issue orders to the rapid response teams to begin sweeping the city, as lieutenant Ford moved down from the spotters station to join the rest of his off-world team and the command tower's defence force.
"Those darts which made kamikaze runs, the pilots must have beamed out right before they impacted." The young lieutenant said.
"So they're trying to take the city?" Everett asked only now catching onto their plans, "How many are we talking about?"
"Both Devil Air and Land counted about thirty, maybe thirty-five hit in and around the city, with around a dozen hitting in the water between the pier going on a report from Devil Sea." Newman said, having had a brief report from the other three members of Devil squad about two hours after the last wave had been repulsed.
"And no way to track them with the internal sensors down." Everett said, shaking his head as Ghost squad ran past to begin sweeping the tower for any Wraith.
"Well we have this." Sheppard said as he reached into one of his chest rigs pouches and removes an Alteran style life signs detector, that the expedition had found in the first few days of the mission, and shows it to the colonel. The display on it showing many light blue dots over a small wire frame representation of the embarkation room, control room and the jumper bay above. "It can't differentiate between the life signs of the Wraith, human or Zentron, but if we confine all base personal to secure areas, then anything that shows up out of bounds will be a hostile."
"Do you mind?" Everett says holding out his hand for the scanner.
Nodding Sheppard hands the device over. "It won't do you much good sir. It only works for people that have the ATA gene active."
Everett nods taking the device and holds it up so Sheppard can see it and smugly says. "I took the gene therapy too." As Teyla and a half dozen other Athosian's came up flanked by Devil Sea and Land having just finished reloading their missiles and other expended munitions from during the nights fighting.
"We wish to help." Teyla said when she is about two paces away from Everett and Sheppard, which caused the former to turn around to face the small Athosian group. "This is quite a large city colonel. Will you not need to have as many people conducting the search for the Wraith as you can?"
Everett and Teyla stared at each other, the two iron willed leaders unwilling to give an inch about their plans to protect the city from the Wraith. Finally after a few seconds Everett signalled to one of the nearby marines. "Captain, get some weapons for these people."
"Yes sir."
Everett smile at Teyla who nods in reply at the faith he was showing her and her people, after what he had said two days before just after he had arrived from Earth.
-{[]}-
While Teyla was having her silent argument with Everett in the embarkation room in the control tower McKay was once again trying to get a still reluctant Beckett to sir in a control chair, which while being out of all known Alteran weapons, it could still activate the fortress-city's star drive even though they didn't have anywhere near the power to activate anything other than the lights and most basic of systems.
"Look Rodney you know that there are other people on the base that can use Alteran technology, doctor Kusanagi for example, I'd bet that she would love a chance to help." Beckett implored.
"I'm exhausted and starving so sit down!" McKay orders pushing him towards the dais where the chair was as Beckett gulped his suddenly dry throat. "Look Carson it's out of drones, so you couldn't do any damage even if you wanted to." Beckett nods slowly and reluctantly sits in the chair which reclines and activates sensing his Alteran gene.
"Thank-you. Ok, we're in business. Power levels from the mark three reactors are holding steady." McKay says over his radio which connected to his Czech counterpart up in the jumper bay above stargate operations, as he continues to move around the room around the several MACO's and marines which were guarding the room now that it was confirmed the Wraith where in the city.
-{[]}-
As McKay is working in the chair room, Everett is leading a mixed fire team of MACOs and marines on search and destroy missions for any Wraith that where in the northern sectors of the fortress-city. In part of the eastern sectors Teyla is also leading another mixed group, this one consisting of her people and MACOs on hunt for any Wraith that they could find.
Meanwhile in the western part of the fortress-city, Ford is making his way down one of the hallways seemingly on his own, even though is protected from the shadows by two people. Half hidden nearly is a simple Wraith drone, and as Ford rounds the bend in the hallway the drone lashes out at him sending him flying into the wall at the other end of the hallway. As the drone walks towards him he still fails to see Ford's companions, but just as the drone is about to feed on him both Sheppard and Devil Land, better known as Rockwell, open fire on it with a concentrated burst of P-90 and Plasma repeater fire, killing it, and as Ford is getting to his feet again Sheppard puts a further two three round burst into the head of the drone at point blank range, spraying brain matter all over the hallway making sure that the drone is dead.
"You ok?" Sheppard asks Ford as he pulls out his life sign detector, dispute the fact that Rockwell's Fire Force assault weapons system has a more powerful version built into it.
"Yeah." Ford says rubbing his shoulder slightly, from where the drone had hit him before his flying lesson down the hall. "How about one of you two be the bait next time?"
"Maybe. Next time?" Sheppard half-heartedly his focus on the screen of the life signs detector, while Rockwell just shrugs. "Ok, were clear. This way."
-{[]}-
Up in the control room the stargate had just activated and a brief radio message had been sent through the gate before it had shut down just as Weir walked into the control area from her office across the short bridge.
"Ma'am, we just received a response from the Genii." One of the none military technicians said seeing her walking into the control room after the gate had shut down.
"Let's hear it." Weir said nodding to the man who activated the playback of the recorded message which had been sent to them moments ago via the stargate.
"This is Prenum of the Genii. We have had our past problems but we welcome the chance to reopen a dialogue between our two peoples. You may send a representative, one person unarmed." The slightly statically filled transmission said over the control room's speakers.
"Is that it?" Weir asked looking at the technician.
"Yes ma'am." The technician relied with a short nod.
"Colonel Everett, this is Weir," She said into her comm-unit, "Just as we hoped, the Genii have asked for us to send a representative to negotiate. I'm all set to go."
"Good, I can't imagine anyone who is more qualified." The gruff voice of Everett said back over the comm-link, "If you pull this one off I'll buy you a drink."
"You got a deal." She said, before turning around to face the gate technician, "Chuck, please dial up the Genii gate."
-{[]}-
Twenty minutes later Weir is led blindfolded into a room and pushed into a chair roughly, before having her wrists handcuffed to the chair behind her back by the guards. Once they were certain that she was secure to the chair they left, closing the door behind them, allowing the other person in the room to step out of the shadows who was hearing the uniform of the highest ranked member of their military dictatorship.
After several seconds in which the man simple walks around the room merely looking at the woman bound to the chair, he decided to speak. "Greetings doctor Weir." He said, chuckling slightly. "My name is Prenum, the new leader of the Genii. To say that I was stunned, no not stunned, astonished that you would not only ask us for help but come here, alone, and unarmed."
"You heard our message." Weir said trying to look under her blindfold and see the face of the man that she was talking to, while bound to a chair. "The Wraith are at our door."
"And we are understandably delighted at the prospect of your people's demise." Prenum said sounding very much like a snake oil sales man.
"That may be so." Weir said calmly, her years of dealing with the UN and other politicians, not to mention Robert Kinsey, coming into play. "But still, we have something which you want."
"C4." Prenum said, realising that Weir had the upper hand and might suspect what he was planning to do with her.
"Yes." Weir said, smirking inside with the ease with which she was leading the Genii leader down the path that she was planning, not that he would ever realise that he had been played. "But we have more than that, we have a chance for you to test your weapon, without risk to yourselves or your planet while striking a blow against the Wraith. You have no idea how close they are."
"The Wraith have come doctor." Prenum said sounding very sombre, "Six days ago. We were fortunate enough to detect there approach and had more than enough time to shut down our reactors. Hundreds of our people lost their lives on the surface, but the thousands that call our underground complex's home went undetected. So you see, the threat from the Wraith to the Genii has come and gone. So far as they are concerned this is a dead world and the Genii are no more."
"So why did you really ask for a representative from my people to come here."
"Why, so we could trade your life for a supply of C4."
"I have already offered you the C4."
"And you want to use our prototype weapon we have made from the design that doctor McKay provided for us. That is not a bargain for the Genii."
"And what would you do if you had the C4 at this moment?" Weir asked appearing to be slightly angry, "Incorporate it into the bomb?"
"Yes."
"Then test it?"
"Of course."
"And I'm giving you the chance to test your bomb on a Hive ship with no risk to your forces, and still have more than enough to build a dozen more. Now if you are too proud or too stubborn to see…"
"Be careful doctor." Prenum warned her cautiously.
"I am way past carful!" Weir spat back, the stress of the situation and her concerns for those on Atlantis becoming more than a little worrisome. "Now you know what the deal is, and it is a fucking good one, so either that it or let me go!"
-{[]}-
While Weir is negotiating with the Genii for the results of their version of the Manhattan project, doctor Zelenka is working on one of the pull down access panels at the back of a puddle jumper while one of the Archangel's MACOs that was also on Cochrane's science team was working on an open Zentron laptop in the front of the small transport shuttle.
"Okay, yeah, that's got it." He said tapping his comm-links ear piece to talk with McKay and Beckett do in the chair room.
"Okay Carson, give it a test." McKay said over the comm-link, "Just clear your mind and think about the jumper. Go through the motions in your mind of powering up the jumper for a trip to the mainland."
"Come on, come on, come on." He muttered as he began to pace around the passenger area of the jumper. "Anytime now."
Sighing into the comm-link McKay continued, Carson, look I know you're tired, but I know that you can do this, just activate the jumper."
It was a tense few minutes before anything actually happened, first the flight controls slowly came on then the rest of the displays and the cabin lights. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" he said in delight almost jumping for joy at the successful remote activation of the jumper. "Rodney! Rodney! It works!"
"Thank god!" McKay said as he again sighed over the radio channel, while in the background of the jumper bay was light up with the sound and light from the activation of the stargate below the hatch which lead down to the embarkation room from the jumper storage bay.
"This is Weir." He heard over the senior staff comm-link frequency, sounding just as tired as him. "I've got two of the Genii prototype bombs."
"Prototypes. Right." McKay said sounding like he just woken up.
-{[]}-
Outside the last set of doors which lead to the auxiliary control room for the fortress-city, Teyla and two mixed squads of MACOs and marines are fighting off a third wave of Wraith that where being led by a commander that seemed to have a basic grasp of tactics and the drones that he was commanding where slowly pushing the defenders back from the natural choke point. As Teyla and one of her people lent out of cover to return fire on the approaching drones, three stunner blasts hit him which sent him flying down the corridor and into the control room.
Just as the defenders were beginning to run out of ammunition and energy packs for their respective weapons, Ford, Sheppard and the walking one man army that people called Land came around the corner behind the Wraith forces, catching them in a cross-fire from which the Wraith force had no chance of escaping alive, more so when Land opened up with his full arsenal of weapons including his new gauss cannon, that had the power of a Monster class Destroid before it's recent refit using the mineral that had been captured at Phat's prison planet.
"That's all of them." Sheppard said as he approached the defenders from the side that his group had entered, spotting Teyla and several others helping to get the stunned up and off the floor of the control room sending them to the infirmary to be checked out.
-{[]}-
Twenty minutes later, having been cleared by the medical from her trip through the stargate, Weir was heading back to her office where she spotted Everett sitting behind her desk working on her laptop.
"Colonel." She said in shock at seeing the man just sitting down, after nearly two days of solid combat.
Hearing somebody was calling him he looks up and realises that he is in her office. "Well done doctor." He says in greeting, genuine praise coming from him, "I … I … I have to admit, I am impressed." He stutters having her to have failed to get the weapons off the Genii and that he might have to have sent some of his defence force to liberate them by force.
"Well, maybe there is hope for me yet?"
Everett smiles over at her, realising that she was trying to get to know him despite his attitude when he had arrived, as he stands awkwardly and moves to allow her to reclaim her desk. "I'm in your chair."
"I thought that it was your chair?" she asked raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, well, I uh, I don't sit much." He stuttered, "I was just going over …" he started pointing towards the laptop on the desk, when McKay came in the secondary door to Weir's office interrupting him.
"We have a problem!" McKay almost screamed, as the P-90 attached to his off-world mission vest swinging slightly due to his abrupt stop. "I've just finished going over the Genii nukes, and they are incomplete. I can finish them, but it's going to take time."
"How much time?" Everett said, instantly switching back to full on military mode.
"About a day."
"Rodney, we don't have a day." Weir said worriedly.
"Like I said, we have a problem." He says turning to return to the lab that he and Zelenka had turned into a makeshift nuclear bomb factory to finish building the two bombs that the Genii had given them, with Everett and Weir following in his wake.
-{[]}-
"You wanted to see me Rodney?" Beckett said as he entered the lab that McKay and Zelenka where using to finish the Genii bombs as the pair worked on removing the casing of the bombs in think heavy gloves and lead lined aprons like you would see at an X-ray department at a hospital.
"Yes, yes I need something to keep me awake." McKay said as the top of the bomb he was working on came off.
"Yeah, me too." Zelenka said taking the screw driver out of his mouth from behind the second device.
"You've already had more than anyone else on the base, and twice the maximum dose." Beckett said looking at the pair worriedly.
"Yeah, well, where making atomic bombs here!" McKay snapped, dropping a pair of pliers on the floor. "Staying awake is kind of a prerequisite!"
"Snappy!" Beckett replied sarcastically, placing his stethoscope around his neck. "All right, all right. I'll get you another stimulant." He replied caving into the two scientist before he left calling out for them to carry on, not that they had actually stopped working.
"Thank-you." Zelenka called out from somewhere in the innards of the bomb he was working on.
-{[]}-
"Times up." Said Newman as he, Ray and two MACOs entered the lab a few hours later where McKay and Zelenka where working in.
"Well that's timing." McKay said as he finished placing the cover back onto the bomb that he had been working on, a little over fifteen hours since the two Genii solders had delivered the weapons to the lab. "We're done." He said receiving a nod from Zelenka.
Moving to one side the pair let the MACOs move the bombs out on the small trollies that they had brought with them for this reason. As the first of the bombs was rolled out of the lab McKay folds his arms in front of him and lays his head on them on top of a nearby work bench, groaning with exhaustion.
"So, chair room." Zelenka said sounding just as exhausted.
"Right." McKay said slowly lifting his head again off the desk.
Splitting up the pair left the lab, Zelenka heading for the jumper bay with the bombs while McKay, escorted by Ray in his cruiser weapons systems, back to the chair room. As the second bomb was moved through the door Newman reached up to the side of his helmet activating the comm-link built into it. Air, Land, Colonel Everett. We're heading to the jumpers with the packages. Repeat the packages are on the move."
"Understood." Everett replied over the link as McCloud and Rockwell just blinked green showing that they understood the message, but just as McCloud had finished his blinked response he broke into the comm-link for everyone on the base including the public address system.
"All call signs. I have a visual on the hive ships! I say again the hives are launching another wave of darts."
A few seconds later Everett came over the city's public address system. "May I have your attention, moments ago the Devil squad operative Air reported the Hive ships and their escorting cruisers are moving into orbit once again. Defence forces to your stations."
"This is Weir, now I know how tired you all are and how much we have asked of you these past few days," She says as McKay and Ray enter the tower with the control chair in. "with any luck the Archangel and Taskforce Atlantis will arrive in time, but until that happens our fate is in our hands." Above the control room Zelenka is guiding the MACO who is carefully with the help of Newman lower the first of the Genii bombs into the back of a jumper. "If during the course of this battle, our defences fail, I will give the order to evacuate. Now we all hope that it won't come to that, but if it does, don't hesitate. That is all."
-{[]}-
"Sir, we're ten minutes out from the de-fold point." Campbell said from the primary helm station wearing her flight suit.
"Understood." Hudson said from the command chair wearing his old CN12 Special Forces exo-frame, which wasn't advanced as those used by Devil squad but it still did the job. "Set level one battle stations, load all weapons and Ghost drones in launch tubes and alert the Minerva, Daedalus to prepare for combat and the Orion to commence landing operations as soon as they secure from hyper speed."
"Aye sir" Hill said from the flight operations station as she began ordering the ghost drones to be loaded into the launch tubes for immediate launch once the ship was out of hyperspace, before talking into her headset and activating the ship wide comm-channel. "Battlestations! Battlestations! Set level one throughout the ship. I say again Battlestations!"
-{[]}-
Ten minutes later the Archangel and the three Minerva class battle carrier escorts dropped out of hyperspace, flanking the Wraith ships and launched a full spread of missiles in a Macross Missile Massacre alpha strike, as they picked up a message on the frequency for the Atlantis military personal. "They haven't detected my approach. The package is armed. I'm going in."
"Sir, I'm picking up a comm-link signal on approach to Tango two's hanger bay, but nothing on scanners, the computer identifies it as major Sheppard. J. TDF." Shouted a tech from a lower comm-scan station on the bridge of the Archangel.
"Deculture! Communications open a channel to that signal." Hudson ordered, which Welsh quickly did and nodded to him, "Major Sheppard de-cloak NOW!"
"What, who is this?" Sheppard asked clearly shocked.
"Authentication code Archangel Alpha two zeta omega." Hudson said using his command code that the SGC had given him for situations just like this.
"Contact!" Shouted Welsh as Sheppard de-cloaked and the first of the Wraith cruisers exploded from the damage that the Minerva and Daedalus where inflicting on it.
"Beam him directly to the bridge!" No sooner had the order for the emergency beam out been given, than the hive ship exploded from within, and Sheppard materialised on the bridge in between Hudson and the helm. "Welcome to the Archangel, major."
"Thank-you sir." Sheppard says in shock as he looks around the Archangel's bridge as two of the cruisers decide to try and take out the Archangel, causing her shields to flare as the weapons fire impacts it.
"Now entering Atlantis scanner range." Welsh said as she directed the Archangels fire at the remaining Hive ship.
"Open a channel." Hudson says nodding to Sheppard.
The major nods, understanding the unspoken order from Hudson. "Atlantis this is Sheppard." He says into his comm-link.
"JOHN?" Weir said, the shock clear in her voice at hearing him given that the signal from his jumper had just been lost as it blew up the Hive.
"How many other Sheppard's do you know?" he asked causing a few of the comm-scan technicians to snigger discreetly at his reply.
"Oh thank god." Doctor Beckett said in the background.
"No, no, no, no, that can't be." McKay said panicking that the Wraith had caught his friend and where forcing him to talk. "We saw the hive go up along a cruiser."
"I assure you doctor McKay, that major Sheppard is alive and well." Hudson said walking over to Sheppard, fighting the urge to beam McKay up and place him in a sealed room with Granger.
"Who is this?" Weir asked, the shock gone and suspicion now clear in her voice.
"Commodore Hudson of the ZSMF Archangel, at your service, ma'am. We stand ready to assist you." Hudson said channelling a bit of his first CO when he had been on the ZSMF Republic for a training cruise his second year at the academy.
"We are glad to hear it commodore." Weir said as the remaining cruisers moved closer to the hive for protection and to coordinate their weapons fire easier at the Minerva and Daedalus while Star Cobra's, Thunderbolts and Ghosts intercepted the advancing Wraith Dart class fighters as Starmax bombers made attack runs on the Hive and cruisers taking out their hyper drives. "I assume that we have you to thank for saving major Sheppard?"
"We were monitoring the situation as we came out of hyperspace," Hudson said as the ship shock from the Monster class destroids near the bridge fired a full spread from the ten gauss cannons at a cruiser vaporizing it due to a hit on the power reactor. "we were unable to get a lock on his transponder until he dropped the cloak on his shuttle."
"Didn't take much convincing." Sheppard sheepishly said.
"Doctor McKay?" Hudson said nodding to Sisko, Ganger and a mixed MACO squad standing by in a transporter room on a display.
"Yes present." McKay says as the sound of a chair being pushed back as us stood up quickly was picked up by the microphones in Atlantis.
"I trust you know what to do with these." Hudson said as he saw the squad's transport cycle finish.
"Doc, your ZPMs." Sisko said in the background, the sound of his fumerllo moving from one side to the other as he spoke.
"How … how … how did they do that?" The shocked voice of Beckett was heard.
"We have a transporter system similar to that of the Asgard." Granger said before McKay could even start to rant.
"McKay how about we get the city's shield online." Sheppard said hoping to keep his friend and team mate focused.
"Yeah, what's say we." McKay said as he could be heard opening the case of three full charged ZPMs and removing one from its transport packing.
"But we still have Wraith beaming in all over the city." Weir practically screamed, knowing that even if they got the shield up, they would need help to kill them all so that they didn't gain access to any of the city's computers.
"Once we finish off these cruisers and the remaining Hive, we'll send in the MACOs and marines on the Minerva and Daedalus, but the Orion is packed with marines that are itching for a fight and once they make planet fall they will deploy them." Hudson said before cutting the channel.
"Sir the hive is launching additional darts." Kusanagi reported from the tactical air space controller's station.
"Have the Starmax's go planet side and assume anti-air defence and cover the Orion." Hudson ordered. "Set the CIWS array to level three and arm the Valiant gauss cannons. Let's end this."
"Aye sir." The relevant stations responded as they began to carry out their orders.
"Gauss what?" Sheppard asked as the first wave of the new darts began to fire on the Archangel before being destroyed by the forward CIWS and destroids opened up, turning the entire area was a wash of blue plasma from the darts and red tracers with a mixture of white contrails from the smaller gauss cannons. The light amount of weapons on the darts doing very little damage to the powerful shields on the Archangel before they were wiped from space.
"Tell the Minerva and Daedalus to gang up on those cruisers, and the Orion to commence landing operations while we deal with the hive." Hudson ordered noticing how the three Minerva's where taking pot shots at both the Hive and its escorting cruisers, that where down to two.
"Sir, the Minerva, Orion and Daedalus copy and state their shots on all ships have destroyed the hyperspace capabilities." Dvorak said from the main comm-scan station.
"Excellent. Tactical ready the main gun and flash message to our forces, move fight to Minerva's main gun strike."
"Aye sir." Welsh replied as for the second time in three years she activated the firing sequence for the main over-technology super-dimensional energy cannon.
"Sir, Orion reports that they have started drop sequence." Someone shouted from the lower section of the bridge.
"About time. Fire Gottfried's one through eight at the hive let's see how tough they are."
Again a chorus of affirmatives rang out, as Sheppard just watched from just behind Hudson's chair as the eight bow mounted Gottfried energy cannons fired all sixteen barrels, sending a cone of emerald green plasma at the Hive which slammed into and then through the side of the Hive causing a large chunk of the forward hull to be blown off.
"Main gun ready sir." Welsh called out, "All allied craft have cleared the lane, target Hotel one and Charlie two and three are in the lane. The Minerva and Daedalus have Charlie one isolated at green ten and are readying to fire their positron cannons."
"Fire." Hudson said almost in a whisper.
Sheppard watched as the bow of the ship split as the beam polarizing system activated and the massive amounts of energy used by the over-technology super-dimensional energy cannon began to gather for a second before being released in a massive beam, hitting all three Wraith ships vaporising them before the crews could even realise that they had been killed. As the explosions started to die down there was a second explosion off to the side as the Minerva and Daedalus destroyed the last cruiser with a time on target shot from all of their weapons, including the positron cannons.
"Sir, the Orion has made planet fall, but the darts are regrouping." Kusanagi reported to Hudson.
"Alright let's finish this, task all forward CIWS arrays, gauss cannons and defence destroid's for anti-air fire and standby to attack pattern Hayes two one delta."
"We're not the target." Sheppard said, looking at the tactical picture and realising what the darts where planning.
"Major Sheppard is correct sir. The formation is heading for the Orion and Atlantis." Kusanagi said reading the tactical screen herself.
"Deculture!" Cursed Dvorak before ordering the Orion to crash dive as deep as they could.
"Elizabeth, you've got a problem!" Sheppard said into his comm-link.
"Yeah, we can see that major." Weir replied over Sheppard's link.
"We're moving to intercept with the fighters and ships, but the Archangel and Minerva's might not make it in time." Sheppard said having heard Hudson order the helm to go to max burn on an intercept course.
"Not a chance." Both Chuck and Campbell said at the same time. "They are going too fast."
"O MUJ BOZE!" Zelenka shouted in the background, obviously manning one of the sensor stations in the control room. "Their approach is ballistic."
"What does that mean?" Weir asked her voice full of panic.
"Their impact velocities will be in excess of then thousand kilometres an hour." Zelenka said. "There is no part of the city which will survive that."
You better get that shield up!" Sheppard begged, his face going white as he said it.
"How much time do we have?" Weir asked Zelenka over the link, which had now been piped into the bridge of the Archangel and the other ships.
"Eighty-five seconds." Zelenka replied, as the forward fighters began to tear into the ranks as they slowly moved out of range of the three capital ships and their fighter escorts.
"Rodney, we need those shields up in seventy seconds or we're dead." Weir said almost shouting into the comm-link to the Archangel and other ships, there was a reply on a different channel so they couldn't hear the reply which Sheppard knew was almost a sarcastic one. "No." Weir said continuing the conversation. "Rodney!" There was a slight pause as they all waited. "It didn't work."
"Twenty seconds." Chuck said, the fighters and capital ships having to turn back or risk burning up as they entered the atmosphere to fast at the wrong angle, from chasing the Wraith fighters.
"Rodney!" Weir snapped, obviously McKay had caused her to lose her temper.
"Yes, yes, yes." Zelenka said in relief after a beep sounded from one of the consoles, before the Archangel's scanners registered a power surge, from the shield activating."
"Impact." Kusanagi said, from her station at the tactical air space station monitoring the airspace around them for any sign of Wraith reinforcements jumping in. It was the only sound on the bridge other than the constant sound of the bridge electronics.
"Atlantis this is Sheppard come in." Sheppard said breaking the silence after a few seconds, as static came through the comm-link. "I repeat this is major John Sheppard on the ZSMF Archangel to Atlantis base, come in Elizabeth, what's your status?"
It was several minutes of tense waiting as the bridge filled with static from the open comm-link, and even the powerful ship based scanners where blinded by the EMP created as over three hundred Wraith darts crashed into the powerful ZPM powered shield over the city. Slowly the scanners clearer before a slightly static filled channel reopened. "Well, we're still here." Weirs voice came through the static before it was cleared up completely. "That's our status."
Instantly the bridge of all three ships cheered in relief at the news as Sheppard sighed with relief. "Don't scare me like that again."
"Sorry," She replied, "What about the Wraith fleet?" she asked concern in her voice.
"All Wraith ships have been destroyed ma'am." Colonel Gladys said breaking into the channel.
"Who is this?" Weir asked trying to match the voice to the IFF's of the Tau'ri ships in orbit of and sailing towards the city from the west.
"Colonel Talia Gladys, ma'am, of the Minerva." Gladys said before the other two ship commanders, colonel Caldwell of the Daedalus and captain Lin Middleton of the British crewed Orion.
"Thank-you, all of you." Weir said in thanks for the crews of the four ships.
"We're moving into stationary orbit up here." Hudson said, though Campbell knew that it was an order, "for the time being. Can we be of any further assistance?"
"We've still got Wraith all over the base." Weir said, sounding tired again.
"We'll begin launching combat equipped Argos from all three ships up here, plus like I said the Orion is packed with British marines just itching for a fight." Hudson said causing the other ship commanders and the bridge crews to laugh along with the staff in the control room of Atlantis before the comm-link closed.
"Major, I'm sure you're anxious to get back to the fight down there." Hudson said as he walked over to where his cousin's station was next to Sheppard off to the side of the bridge by the while the forward holo-screen disengaged and the blast shutter retracted as combat equipped, troop transport and search and rescue Argo's began to launch from the Minerva and Daedalus in the distance.
"Yes sir, thank-you." Sheppard said nodding as he was escorted from the bridge by one of the Archangel by a MACO that had recently finished the training course that colonel Sisko had designed to allow the Blood Haze's centurion combat troops to join the ships MACO compliment so that they were all on the same page so to speak, to one of the launch bays so that Sheppard could catch a ride back down to the city.
Hudson watched as both of the battle carriers moved on a course that would put them into a V formation with the Archangel at the tip in the middle, while the fighters that needed resupply, mostly the Star Wolfs and Cobra's, rotated through them.
-{[]}-
"Preliminary count is forty-three casualties, maybe more." Zelenka said as he and Sheppard walked through the fortified lower level of stargate operations. "I'm still working on lining up actual life signs to people in the city.
"There aren't any Wraith life signs?" Sheppard asks as Newman and Weir join them at the base of the stairs that lead to the control room.
"The last one was discovered in one of the lower parts of the city." Zelenka explained typing on his tablet computer that was linked to the interface that they had set up to access the city's systems, or as much as they could access, remotely as they worked. He died while trying to damage the city with one of their grenades near the outer edge of the city below the water line."
"Three of the British marines from the Orion's detachment where lightly wounded." Weir said, slightly more energetic after having gotten a few hours' sleep thanks to the extra people that had come back from the Alpha site on M1M-316. "Luckily there was no flooding, but Devil Sea is checking around the area in case there is any damage that the city's sensors can't spot just to be sure."
"Have you been able to locate lieutenant Ford yet?" Sheppard asked as the group entered the control room.
Shaking his head Zelenka apologised. "I'm sorry, we've searched everywhere in the city. It is possible that he may have been swept up into one of the Darts."
"Let's not make that assumption."
"I'm sorry major, but we've searched everywhere inside the city, using the Orion's scanners and the city's internal sensors."
"Well what about outside the city?" Sheppard asked, pointing out the window to emphasize his point.
"I don't understand?" Zelenka asked, the confusion clear on his face as he turned around to look at Sheppard.
"Well, expand the sensor." He said gesturing to the sensor control station nearby. "Maybe he is in the water."
"Even if that was the case, there's no chance that …" Zelenka trailed off as he expanded the sensors out to about a mile from the city looking for the subcutaneous transponder that all SG personal had.
"Deculture!" Newman said reaching up to his helmets comm-link switch. "Over watch to Sea and Air. One of our people is outside the shield grid, IFF as AR1-3. Evac bird on route locate and assist."
Even as Newman was talking both Ray and McCloud were already halfway to Ford's location from two different sectors of the city as the Orion lunched a search and rescue Argo to assist to transport him back to the city for medical assistance. However when the two Devil squad members reached the location they instantly called out to each other before Ray called in what they had discovered.
"Atlantis this is Sea. You're going to need extra MACOs in the infirmary before we get there?" Ray said over the comm-link to the control as the search and rescue Argo approached.
"We already do sunny." Beckett said as Ray helped McCloud lift Ford and the Wraith drone that was attached to him by its feeding hand into the back of the Argo.
Twenty minutes later the pair where rushed into the infirmary under heavy guard.
-{[]}-
"Aren't you supposed to be getting some sleep?" Sheppard asked, having just gotten some sleep himself, as he walks into the control room of stargate operations, to see both McKay and Zelenka huddled over laptops and surrounded by people form the four ships filling in for Atlantis personal, who were getting some much need sleep after the siege.
"Well I was trying to just that, but somebody," McKay said shooting a dirty look at a technician from the Orion. "thought that I should know that both the city's long-range sensors are working and that the information on them has been cross checked with the Archangel. We have incoming."
"Yes? And?" Sheppard asks, suddenly praying that what the he was feeling in his subconscious from the city was wrong.
"We've got thirty hive ships coming towards us hyperspace," Zelenka said gulping his suddenly dry throat. "as well as triple that the number of cruisers."
"Their course and speed will have them in orbit in thirty-six hours." McKay said not even sounding tired at all.
-{[]}-
"Deculture! O amor Deus suus Balteus novo bello." Hudson muttered in his native Varauta as he Weir, Sheppard's team minus Ford who was confined to the infirmary under heavy guard, Caldwell, Gladys and Middleton began to sit down in the conference room on the stargate operations level of the central tower.
"Thirty Hives?" Caldwell asked, having a rough idea what the Archangel's master was muttering even if he couldn't understand a word of it.
"They probably called for reinforcements the second that they detected the fleet, or when the first hive went up from the satellite that Peter Grodin was on." Sheppard guessed looking at the rest of the people that knew him nodding slowly.
"Our, research has shown that there are at least a two hundred hive ships and somewhere in the region of three to four times that number of cruisers and other combat capable support ships." McKay informed the group taking a sip of coffee, the dark bitter nectar that the three ships had brought ten years-worth of with them after nearly six months with none.
"At least the shield is up and running." Sheppard said sound like general O'Neill, making everyone that knew the general groan a little, but it did release the tension in the room.
"That only buys us time." McKay whined giving Sheppard an evil glare.
"Well I like time." Sheppard responded in a joking tone again, glad he had gotten a few hours' sleep before this.
"Look the first siege of Zion lasted for a hundred years, I mean, with three fully charged ZPMs the shield will hold, but we're out of drones so in the end we lose." McKay explained as he leaned back in his chair.
"Couldn't we just submerge the city again?" Gladys asked knowing from her briefing packet that the city had been found at the base of an underwater canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon when they had arrived.
"It's a city not a yo-yo!" McKay nearly shouted before calming down again and speaking very humbly. "I don't even know how they did it in the first place."
"How long until they get here?" Hudson asked, now calmed down, and having not been on the bridge when the information on the incoming Wraith armada had been discovered.
"A little over a day." Weir said.
"You know what. I'm sick of this!" Sheppard said shocking everyone present as he looked at the sensor feed on a screen.
"John?" Weir asked when she had recovered from her shock a little.
"Sitting around I mean." Sheppard said a basic plan in mind. "Waiting around for them to come to us. I say that we take the fight to them." He finished explaining his previous outburst.
"We've only got three ships, major." Caldwell said not wanting to commit the Archangel. "One of which is more a supply ship at the moment than a battle ready battle carrier."
"Don't forget about the Archangel." Hudson said getting a feeling for what Sheppard was planning.
"Yes, but all of them have Zentron/ Asgard shields, an armoury full of nukes, anti-air missiles, Gottfried's, Isolde rain cannons, positron cannons plus whatever it was that the Archangel fired."
"Macross cannon." Hudson supplied smirking at the age old joke, as he interrupted Sheppard.
"That evens that odds a hell of a lot, I'd say." Sheppard said nodding to Hudson as he finished talking like he hadn't been interrupted.
"Thirty ships plus their escorts." Middleton reinforced slight worried despite being British and knowing about fighting to the death thanks to the Blitz being imbedded in his nations psyche "I'm all for a good fight but that is worse odds than Nelson faced."
"I'm tell you we've got to send a message to the Wraith," Sheppard said trying to sell his plan to the senior officers. "We're not like the Alterans, we're not going to sit back and wait around for them to come to us. If they don't back off then we have the ability to hit them hard."
"How do you fight a ship in hyperspace?" Gladys asked, knowing that she hadn't had any training for that sort of fight, and judging by the faces of the others they hadn't either.
"You don't." Hudson said, going into teacher mode. "Hyperspace combat 101. Weapons and shields don't work correctly at FTL speeds, and no-one back home knows why."
"The Wraith hyperspace technology is not as effective as the Zentron/ Asgard hybrid hyper drives we use or the Asgard's own." McKay said changing the sensor feed to the projected course of the Wraith fleet. "Not only is it slower, but they need to travel in jumps. So if my calculations are correct they will make one last stop here, around fifty light years away before they make the final jump to Atlantis."
"Doctor Weir?" Hudson asked, having silently had a conversation with the other ship commanders electing which had placed him in charge of the task force.
"It would be nice to have them on the defensive from a change." Weir said nodding absentmindedly. "Ok, let's do it."
-{[]}-
The Archangel, Minerva and Daedalus dropped out of hyperspace in the sensor shadow of the gas giants where they expected the Wraith to be arriving in shortly, and launched two stealth ghost fighters to provide sensor information on the rest of the system.
"All clear sir." Kusanagi reported from the airspace tactical controller's station on the bridge of the Archangel. "Only friendly contacts in the system." Since all the fighters, thunderbolts and Star Cobra's Wolf's and Starmax bombers had been left at Atlantis just encase the Wraith managed to slip past them here.
"I hope where in the right place." Caldwell said over the secure comm-link between the three ships.
"They'll be here sir." Sheppard said from the bridge of the Daedalus next to Caldwell. "I've come to trust McKay when it comes to these sorts of things." He admitted.
"I'll bet." Major Trine joked over the link from the Minerva.
"If we can destroy the first dozen or so as they come out of hyperspace," Sheppard said explaining his plan, "that'll show them that we mean business."
"Contact!" Hill shouted on the bridge of the Archangel. "Hyperspace window opening orange fifteen sir. Reading fifteen hives."
"Standby for attack!" Hudson said calmly as the blast shield dropped over the bridge view port. "Raise shields, activate all weapons, level one battlestations!"
"Aye sir." Welsh said activating the ships battlestations alert. "Battlestations! Battlestations! Set level one throughout the ship. This is not a drill!"
Outside the small battle fleet, fifteen hives dropped from hyperspace along with their escorts in orbit a world that held a small human colony at the beginning of the Bronze Age in terms of development, and due to the stargate being in space it was incapable of being accessed from the surface, so the Wraith normally raided it with Darts, but this wasn't a raid it was a cull before they attacked their Ancient enemies who had returned again.
"Lock all secondary weapons and begin charging the main gun."
"Aye sir."
Instantly the three ships opened fire with their Gottfried's and full spread of both sledgehammer anti-ship missiles and class three Dispar anti-air missiles at the approaching Wraith ships, that were returning fire with their own plasma based weapons.
"That's a kill." Major Marks said from the Daedalus as a Hive ship was destroyed by a lucky shot from two anti-ship missiles hitting its power core.
"Make that two." Trine said as the Minerva destroyed a second hive with her Gottfried's vaporising the hyper drive on her target, causing a feed back into the power grid from the excess energy in the hyper drive's sub systems as it began its recharge cycle.
"The other Hives are adjusting course." Kusanagi said. "New course is directly for us sir." She finished with an evil grin, which her cousin Marauder knew to run away from as fast as he could normally several star systems before stopping to catch his breath. "All ships now entering the fire cone for the Macross cannon and Tannhäuser cannons maximum range."
"Take us right at them." Both Hudson and Caldwell said at the same time to their helms.
The Archangel and Daedalus both moved forward to attack the Wraith fleet using their CIWS and rail guns to shoot down any darts that had gotten through the missile massacre that the three ships had launched, along with the Archangel which used its upgraded Valiant cannons to vaporise any cruiser that came at them.
"Several cruisers are moving to flank us." Someone said from the lower level of the bridge.
"Time to firing range from maximum effect." Hudson asked, since all three ships had their main cannons synched to the Archangel to allow for an Alpha strike similar to that of the Macross cannons had against the fleet of Mardook invasion in 2092 back in their own dimension.
"Thirty seconds." Welsh said as another Hive become a mini sun as its power went critical.
"Deculture!" Newman swore, having come back aboard with the rest of Devil squad and first platoon when the Archangel arrived at Atlantis. "Ventral rail cannon is out of action along with gauss cannon array three-nine."
"The Minerva and Daedalus rear shields are at forty percent, and our own are suffering." Welsh reported from the tactical station.
"New contacts!" Granger shouted from next to Kusanagi "Son of spawn! It's the rest of the Wraith."
"Are we in range?" Hudson asked.
"The original ships are the others are moving away at their best sub-light speed." Replied Kusanagi as she watched the tracks of the ships on her screen.
"Fire the main cannons." All three ship commanders said at the same time.
From the bow of the three ships massive amounts of energy were released. The Wraith ships at the edge of the formation died as the purplish red beams from the Minerva and Daedalus single bow mounted QZX-1 'Tannhäuser' class positron cannons vaporising them while the bright blue almost white beam of the Archangel's own over-technology super-dimensional energy cannon tore into the centre of the formation. After the ships had finished firing only three cruisers remained from the first wave and all were drifting and on fire and the second wave had turned and was firing on them with such an intensity, that the shields on all three ships where close to falling.
"Sir we have a cruiser approaching from indigo two one on a parallel course." Dvorak said as both the Minerva and Daedalus looped around a pair of hives, lunching a single sledgehammer anti-ship missile loaded with a mark VIII nuclear missile at close range. They were so close that nothing could intercept the naquadah enhanced nuclear missiles which slammed into the hives, breaching the outer armour before detonating, causing the hives to explode and break apart as the flash of energy was released consuming the hive and a cruiser nearby. The two battle carriers had already looped around another hive and used them for protection from the shockwave.
"They may be trying to board us!" Hill said shielding herself from an explosion near to her station at flight operations as Cochrane came over with an extinguisher to put the fire out which had sprung up from the explosion.
"Firing up the rapid response teams!" Dvorak said, talking into her headset that was linked to the ships MACO barracks.
"Shield status?" Hudson asked as the bridge shuck from the two monster class destroids stationed along side.
"Under ten percent." Granger said, having moved there from the tactical airspace controller's station to the damage control board.
"Helm set course for Atlantis and engage the fold drive. Flash the others." Hudson ordered.
"Hyper speed on course for Atlantis, aye!" Newman and Campbell said as they moved the Archangel to avoid fire while getting clear to make the jump to hyper space."
"Minerva and Daedalus have jumped."
"This fight is over!" Hudson said as a few of the secondary consoles exploded. Then Newman accelerated the ship towards a Hive ship, skimming it so close that the CIWS array on the underside of the ship tore into the bio-armour of the other ship shredding it and opening entire sections of the ship to space. As the Archangel was about to reach the rear of the hive they were skimming, Newman activated the hyper drive and opened the hyperspace window two hundred meters short of the main fuel cells of the hive, allowing the Archangel to escape. With the ship that generated the window gone the window close, detonating the hives fuel cells as the exotic radiation from the hyperspace window sending the now heavily irradiated and dying aft quarter into a new dimension, not that the Archangel would realise for some years as it was already well out of sensor range of the event.
-{[]}-
"The bottom line is it didn't work." Hudson said over the comm-link as a pair of engineers replace one of the overloaded console on the main level of the bridge.
"Well at least you gave them a bloody nose and something to think about." Weir replied over the link to Atlantis.
"We'll see I very much doubt that we can use this tactic again, plus all three ships have sustained damage." Hudson said.
"It was still the right thing to do." Dvorak said handing a PADD to Hudson, remembering how he had blamed himself during the war, to which he just nodded in agreement. "We should make it back before the Wraith arrive, we left a lot of them burning and heavily damaged."
"I hope so." Weir said signing off on some reports on her own tablet "We'll leave the porch lights on for you." Before nodding to someone to close the channel.
-{[]}-
Three hours later Hudson, Campbell, Sheppard, Middleton, Gladys and a few of the technicians from the Orion exited one of the larger of the city's internal transporters two sections down from the corridor that led to stargate operations, but only one section down from a heavily fortified check point with several heavy Tau'ri and Zentron weapons which had been stationed at it. As the group finished clearing the security station they were greeted by doctor Weir as the all entered the lower level of the embarkation room as the technicians broke off up the stairs at the rear of the control room.
"Welcome back." Weir said cheerfully despite the current situation.
"We've got ten hives and around three dozen or so cruisers about ninety minutes behind our tails." Sheppard said, his P-90 which was still clipped to his combat webbing.
"I wasn't expecting you to land your ships." She said confused as to the reason that all of the TDF ships nestled alongside the south pier which had guided the Archangel in using a tractor beam system that no one knew of until they had locked on to the massive battle-fortress into a dock that looked as if it was purpose built for it.
"Until repairs are finished, the taskforce is going to need the protection that the city's shield as much as the city." Gladys admitted reluctantly, given how some of the Wraith's shots had hit the landing pad behind the control tower and a little too close to the command bunker for her liking.
"Battlestations! Doctor Weir the hives ships have just dropped out of hyperspace just past Zion's moon." Chuck said from the balcony above the group in the control room as someone else raised the city's shield.
"Deculture!" Hudson cursed as the group began to run up the stairs to the control room, McKay and Teyla doing the same from the jumper bay.
"They are getting into some sort of formation." A technician said as Chuck sat down next to the DHD in stargate operations, before the man sized missile that was McKay moved to the sensor station to look at the readout, just as the technician moved out of his way.
"What are they doing?" Weir asked a second before the city started to shake as Wraith weapons fire impacted the shield.
"A rain of death." Hudson muttered coldly so no one could hear him, but Teyla did hear him to which she gave a slightly curious look, as the bombardment on the shield continued and the flashes of blue and orange splashed through the windows around the control room and other areas of the city.
"The shield is holding under the bombardment, but it's under incredible strain." McKay said still at the sensor station.
"How long will it hold?" Weir asked slightly worried.
"If they stop firing then it will hold for millennia…" McKay started before being cut off.
"Are we talking months, weeks?" Weir asked, as everyone looking at him with a stare that would probably melted through the hull of a ship's laminated armour, before he could begin to rant like he did when he was scared.
"Days. At this rate the ZPMs will be depleted in a matter of days!" McKay explained, already running a diagnostic on the shield and power grids to find a reason why. "It will last a matter of days!"
"Conference room. Now." Weir ordered as she was already walking towards the conference room on the other side of the landing from the control room in stargate operations. As the group of senior officers and civilians began to take their seats, and several others, mostly senior NCOs and division heads, the doors closed sealing the room off in a miniature version of the city's shield turning it into a bunker, now that they had the power to do so.
"Going on the reports from the three ships, that intercepted the Wraith, we could have the task force battle-ready within the next ten to twelve hours, but even with the Orion I think that the result will be the same." Caldwell said, having been told by Hudson and Gladys in a tele-conference during the trip back from the battle.
"Even if we destroy these ships this instant, another fleet would show up in a few days, then another a few days after that." Weir said sounding a little dejected with the current situation. "From where I'm sitting, I… I just don't see how we can win this."
"Well now we know how the Alterans must have felt." McKay replied working on his tablet with a feed from the ships in the taskforce and the city's own sensors, attempting to work out how the fire from the Wraith was draining the ZPM modules so fast when compared to the data in the computers from the last time the Wraith had attacked the city with an orbital bombardment.
"They know that this city is the only way to Earth." Zelenka said stating the obvious to everyone present from where he was sat next to McKay and Hudson. "So long as they know that we are here, they will just keep coming."
"As long as they know we're here." Sheppard mused, playing with an empty coffee cup with a gleam in his eye as an idea began to form in his mind.
"Aww hell!" Hudson said, seeing the look on Sheppard's face, and smirking at the man. "Now I 'know' who you remind me of major. It is senior fleet admiral Hunter back home, should I go to level one battlestations now or wait for your plan to be explained."
"What do you mean?" Gladys asked, completely confused as to what the Zentron commodore had just said.
"Zelenka here just said, that as long as they know that we're here, they will keep coming." He said para-phrasing the Czech scientist. "So what if they thought that we were gone?" Causing Hudson to really mumble up a storm of curses in Zentron, Imperial and a number of other languages at the major's latest high-brained plan.
"Then they would have no reason to remain or return." Teyla answered catching on to Sheppard's plan.
"Exactly." Sheppard said grinning ear to ear, like a he was high on laughing gas from the infirmary.
"Wait, what did I miss?" McKay said now that he had finished setting up a program to cross check the current sensor data with the original one on record.
"We disappear." Sheppard said still grinning like a mad man, causing Hudson's cursing to become even darker.
"Destroy the city you mean?" Caldwell asked still working the plan out in his head, along with Middleton and Gladys if he was reading their faces correctly, unlike the last ship commander's poker game where he lost twenty bucks.
"No sir, we just make it look like we did."
"How?" Weir asked as a small smile appeared on her face sin they now had the start of a plan.
"We clock the city!" McKay said snapping his fingers in excitement, and beginning to work on his tablet again.
"Yes. Yes. The puddle jumpers have a cloaking generator, which renders them invisible to the naked eye and more importantly Wraith scanners." Zelenka said excitedly, also working on his tablet next to McKay. "If we just simply remove the cloak generator from one of the jumpers, we could cloak the city."
"I wouldn't say 'simple' but it could work." McKay agreed energetically, looking at the details on his tablet from a file that he had found in the city's data base describing how to do what they were planning.
"This is all well and good." Caldwell said cryptically, having read the mission reports that were in the data burst that Atlantis had sent, while on route to help out the base. "But I'm sure that if the city was to just disappear, they might be able to put two and two together."
"Which is why we fake a self-destruct." McKay said snapping his fingers as he lifted his head from his tablet. "We have one of the ships launch a, say mark XI gate buster, outside the city's shield and detonate it, and while the sensors are blinded by the explosions static we activate the cloak over the city."
"And when the smoke clears nothing but ocean." Weir said smiling.
"What about hard radiation." Middleton asked, knowing that mark nine naqudria enhance nuclear bomb special was the most powerful weapon ever designed and it's only true reason for deployment was to vaporise a stargate and the anything else within a hundred miles of the point of detonation.
"The Archangel's computers can easily workout the amount of time we'd have to wait before we switch from the shield to cloak." Hudson said to the room, now that his mumbled cursing had stopped, maybe he should speak to Doctor Morse about this since it was getting harder to control his Varauta side since he took command.
"What about the displacement issues?" Zelenka asked casually.
"That's easy." McKay said with a touch of sarcasm in his voice towards his friend.
"Okay … what about the hard part?" Asked Hudson knowing how cloaks and shields don't really mix.
"Hard part?" Sheppard asked confused along with all of the military, command staff and a few of the scientist that where still working out the plan in their heads.
"Erm, well when we activate the cloak, it will, erm, for all intent and purposes, well, replace the shield," McKay sheepishly said, stuttering as he explained the basics of cloak and shield systems, "which means that when we turn on the cloak, we … lose the shield."
"We'll be completely exposed?" Weir asked, her smile vanishing instantly.
"Erm … yes." McKay replied nodding very meekly.
"So if they don't fall for this?" Gladys asked, not really wanting to know the answer, and praying that the miracle works of Dupre, Kent and their engineering teams could get the Minerva battle ready quicker than they estimated.
"They'll destroy the city," Sheppard said before leaning forward slightly and tapping the table in front of him, "which, I might remind everyone, is what we were going to do anyway."
"What about the task force?" Weir asked, looking over at the ship commanders.
"The Orion is fresh from the dry dock ready, since we've been off loading supplies rather than being involved in the fighting." Middleton said.
"The rest of us should have our shields to at least battle ready status to be able to break through their lines and jump out, we already know that we can out run them." Hudson said receiving a nod from Caldwell and Gladys.
"Alright then, let's get as many non-essential personal onto the ships as we can just in case." Weir said as Sheppard nodded getting up and leaving to begin the evacuation process.
"I love this plan, I really do." Weir said, her normal excitement returning, before it came crashing down like a fighter jet crashing at light speed. "But, the Wraith know that we have cloaking technology." She finished looking around the room at everyone who was left.
"They are close." Teyla said with a slightly dreamy look on her face. "So close that it is enough for me to connect with them. If I can convince them that we intend to destroy the Atlantis rather the let it be taken just before the explosion occurs, then they might stop their attack?"
"How will we know if they believed you or not?" Hudson asked, as he unconsciously stroked his old Acolyte Special Forces pistol in its leg hosted.
"Once the orbital bombardment stops." Gladys said, remembering the terminology from her training in starship operations and combat two years ago.
"She's right. If the Wraith do indeed believe that we intend to destroy the city, then it would be the last thing that they will want to do or even help us to do it." Teyla explained the dreamy look on her face now replaced with a look that AR1 and Weir had seen many times, that of a warrior and protector of her people.
"Okay. How much time do you need?" Weir asked looking directly at McKay and Zelenka.
"A month." Zelenka said realistically thinking about how much testing and retesting they would need to do on the shield generators and other related systems and sub-systems.
"A few hours." McKay said at the same time having already sent a message to the relevant sections while he had been working as everyone was talking and discussing the plan.
"I'll take the second estimate. Go!" Weir said breaking up the meeting to let the two lead scientists get to work on converting the shield to a cloak, and letting the ship commanders return to their ships just in case the plan failed. As the group exited and was crossing the small landing back to the control room or heading to a transporter station to beam to another part of the city, doctor Beckett came running in from the corridor that lead to the infirmary level, his lab coat flying behind him like a cape.
"He escaped!" He shouted as he practically flew up the stairs from the embarkation area in front of the inactive gate.
"What?" Weir asked shocked.
"Who?" Hudson asked confusion on his face along with Caldwell, Gladys, Middleton and Teyla, as Sheppard came out of the control room.
"Ford." He said now a couple of steps lower from the group panting slightly, though not as much as he would have when he first arrived in the city, due to his run from the infirmary. "He was able to disarm one of the British commando's in the infirmary, and took all of the Wraith enzyme that I had left."
"Ford, this is Sheppard." Sheppard said touching his radios ear piece. "I need you to come to the control room buddy, we're all heading home to Earth." He said only to be greeted by static. "Lieutenant, do you copy?"
"You're just afraid of me major." Ford said over the link as several people tried to trace his location in the city from his radio signal. "You're afraid of what I can do. I'm not listening to you anymore." Ford said disconnecting the link, before the technicians could get even a rough location.
"I'm going after him." Sheppard said, running off down a corridor from the gate room snagging a life signs detector on the way out.
"Nows not the TIME!" Weir shouted after him, but he was already in a transporter and beaming to another part of the city.
-{[]}-
For hours, the key members of Atlantis had been working hard getting everything ready for the plan to fake the self-destruct using a mark seven naquadah warhead since it was deemed that the gate buster was too much for the task and might overload the weakened shield and destroy the city, with McKay and Zelenka crawling in and all over a jumper and its docking station in the bay above the control room to tie the cloaking system into the shield grid. While they were doing that Sheppard was playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with Ford all over the north pier, as all non-essential personal, the Athosian's and wounded where all loaded onto one of the three battle carriers.
All along the Wraith had continued to rain down death onto the city's shield, which even though it was operating, it was doing so with only half of its generators after being working on holding back an ocean for the best part of four million years or being fried from McKay's use of the raw power of lightning to activate them a few months earlier, draining the three ZPM modules at a steady rate.
"Commodore Hudson." Weir asked over the comm-link which was open from Atlantis to the Archangel at all times, as he signed off on some paper work that Campbell had handed him on a PADD.
"We've gotten everyone secure on the other ships doctor. The Orion has the Goa'uld buster all set for launch to an altitude two hundred fifty meters over the upper most part of the shield, we've also got strong locks on everyone still in the city except lieutenant Ford in case we need to beam you all out." Hudson informed her handing the PADD back to Campbell as he took his seat in the command chair, now in his duty uniform instead of his old exo-frame.
"Very good." Weir said sounding relieved, because she hadn't thought of using the transporter system to get everyone out in case the plan failed. "Stand-by." She said before the channel was muted. A few seconds later the channel reopened and the orbital bombardment slowly stopped. "Orion launch the weapon."
"Weapon away." The tactical officer on the Orion said softly over the comm-link between the four ships and Atlantis.
"Attention all personal." Weir said in a clear command voice. "Prepare for detonation flash!" a second later the naquadah enhance nuclear warhead detonated in an airburst engulfing the city, causing the shields to flicker slightly, and the surrounding twenty kilometres in a classic mushroom cloud as it dispersed outwards, blinding the sensors of the Wraith ships in orbit.
"Rodney!" Weir asked over the link as the blinding flash died down even though the Archangel's bridge window was protected by the blast shield and it had polarized to block the worst of it out.
"Look if we switch to the cloak before the blast wave has diminished, we'll be incinerated. Ten seconds." The panicked voice of McKay said.
"All ships stand by sub-light engines, max-power." Hudson ordered over the channel in full on command mode. "Tactical report!" He asked looking over towards Kusanagi as everyone seemed to hold their breath.
"We're cloaked." McKay confirmed as a few bleeps sounded in the background on the link from stargate operations in the control tower.
"Wraith ships are scanning for us sir." Kusanagi said in a slightly hushed tone when the sound of the stargate activating was heard over the still open comm-link.
"What the hell!" A dumbfounded Weir shouted, all pre-tense at stealth gone.
"Where's Ford?" Sheppard asked entering the range of the control room's microphones.
"I assume that's him in the jumper!" McKay panicked as he pointed out the obvious to the handful of people still in the city. "And no I can't override it to shut it down. The jumper is in control!"
"It won't matter if the Wraith can detect the gate activating through the cloak." Weir said also beginning to panic.
"Sir, sensors show that Wraith fleet is breaking orbit and jumping into hyperspace." Kusanagi said, letting out a small breath that she hadn't realised she was holding, as the other ships confirmed her readings.
"Archangel to Atlantis base." Hudson said with a small sigh. "The task-force scanners are indicating that the Wraith fleet has jumped to hyperspace."
"I can confirm that." McKay said almost laughing with relief. "They've entered hyperspace, look I'm going to keep the cloak up for the next hour our two just be safe, but I think that they bought it."
Almost at once a massive cheer broke out from the other three ships as the crews rejoiced. After all they had managed to destroy over two dozen hive ships, nearly a hundred and half a million darts, while saving a city more advanced than the newly recovered Arcadia station in earth orbit. In anyone's books this was a highly successful rescue mission.
-{[]}-
Six weeks after the Daedalus and Minerva had returned back to earth with the wounded that couldn't be moved via the stargate from Atlantis having sent Vala Mal Doran through under heavy guard for imprisonment by the SGC, and the Archangel had dealt with a very vindictive and smart Wraith VI program that was discovered during a routine examination of her computers by their own AI system, that was trying to mine their databanks for information about Earth, its history, defences, strategic information and location, when it was discovered the program had tried to take control of the ship and move it into the chromosphere of the Zion sun without the shields on the ship.
Now the Archangel was slowly backing into the dock at the fortress station that the crew had built before the raid on Phat's planet and the subsequent mission to the Pegasus galaxy to receive a few upgrades that Cochrane and his team had come up with based on their scans of the wraith ships as well as those of Atlantis itself, plus repair the small amount of battle damage they had received to the ventral weapons and resupply their expended stores.
"So Murdoch how long till the resupply and refit is done." Hudson asked as he looked around the observation room, that two years ago Cutter had used to hold his promotion ceremony before he had returned to sick-bay to die peacefully in his sleep, as the rest of the senior staff filled in.
"Resupply of all the spent munitions and the destroyed ghost drones will be done in the next few hours now that we have reattached to the station." Murdoch said taking a sip of his Trojan tea. "The refit is only minor so about a day. Unfortunately we will be docked to the station for a month however, as my team repairs the damaged guess cannons and ventral rail cannons and the burn through we had just as we made orbit of Zion on our way back."
"Well those Wraith ships did pack a hell of a punch." Welsh said, now without her crutch she had when they left for Atlantis.
"I've got some of the science teams going over the sensor records you transmitted back before you left Atlantis on the way back, but it looks like the Wraith weapons are five to ten percent more powerful than those on a Goa'uld Aphosis class mothership or even a Bydo mothership back home." Cochrane said having had six weeks to look over the data and begin designing new weapons and shield upgrades for the ship.
"What worries me is that their ships are organic." Dvorak said, "Unless we can take out their power core then they can just heal any damage inflicted and continue the fight, much like the Cetaborg Imperium."
"Well at least they can't reach this galaxy," Campbell said with a small tired smile, "and now that the orbital defence grid is up and running, it should allow the Minerva, Daedalus and Orion to hold out till the rest of the task-force arrives in ten days."
"Alright, let's do this." Hudson said beginning the weekly staff meeting. "Any other business?"
Two hours later the command crew left the conference room having discussed everything that had been deemed important, and even a few of the funny stories from their respective sections that they had heard from the lower decks, including one about Kusanagi chasing Marauder the length of ARMD2 when he had walked in on her and an imperial in one of the store rooms.
Author note.
Now I know that in the show they only had around 60 hives, but I increased it based on the fact that in the hologram room it showed more than a hundred ships approaching over the course of the first siege with the Aincent's and given the fact that it has been nearly 4 million years since that battle, it would be logical to assume that the Wraith have been building up, or should I say growing up, their forces ready in case they had to renew the fight for the galaxy from the Aincients :) and most of this chapter is loosely based on the original transcript of the show, but of course I have tweeked it to fit the notes that I had made before I typed it up.
