Just in the interest of stopping the complaints before they start, yes I'm altering the Atlantis timeline. No I will not apologize for doing so. Atlantis is now a power house, the Wraith are a threat, and the city's trip back to Earth before Enemy at the Gate obviously changed things. Also, there is so much debate over the actual size of Atlantis that I've come up with figures that make me happy. I went off of that whole "Atlantis is the size of Manhattan," thing and made actual numbers. My point is, I'll use those numbers every time I refer to Atlantis instead of changing them constantly like the internet does. On that note, let's get started!
Chapter 37
The Other Side of Sanity
***Milky Way Galaxy (Lucian Alliance Territory)***
**Sliaagawa (Surface)**
*Lucian Alliance Production Facility (Factory Floor) [one year post-disclosure]*
"We don't care about capturing their war potential, right?" Tommy shouted over the sounds of gunfire tearing through the air.
"No!" Oliver shouted back as he popped out of cover to return fire with his own rifle.
"Jack! Knock it over!" Tommy shouted as he slid into cover behind a crate to let his Barrier recover and swap out his overheated assault rifle for the pistol on his thigh.
"For once, Tommy, I won't argue with you," Jack said as she popped out of cover to throw a Singularity into a thicket of Alliance soldiers.
Tommy chased her attack down with his own, the Warp detonating the Singularity and sending body parts to all corners of the room as limbs were torn from bodies by the explosion. As the Alliance soldiers ducked into cover to avoid the hailstorm of bullets that tore through the air from the Zeta's side of the engagement, Jack approached the wall of crates that were stopping them from progressing. With an inhuman roar, the woman's aura darkened to a nearly opaque consistency. Then, with the laws of physics actively laughed at, Jack took a step forward.
Her training, like their own, had been extensive. Covering twenty meters in a single step was a thing of the past for the woman. Now, she practically teleported. Her biotics opened a tunnel filled with a vacuum then punted her forward. Jack moved so fast through that tunnel that her body blue-shifted, and, for a brief moment, she was in two places at once as she crossed thirty meters in one step. Then light caught up to her, reality corrected itself, and the shockwave of energy that Jack unleashed at the end of her Charge toppled the three story-high pile of goods and sent the whole wall crashing down on the Alliance soldiers in its path.
As the clamor finally quieted, Oliver asked, "Contacts?"
Gabi looked down at her tac-pad, the computer heavily enhanced by the Furlings before they went their separate ways. They were still a few months out from creating honest-to-god Omni-tools, but they were closer now than they were a year ago. "Motion sensors aren't picking up anything, thermals are still blinded by the equipment around us, and the EM spectrum is clear. Hostiles presumed eliminated."
"Then let's get this over with," Oliver said as he slipped his semi-automatic rifle onto the magnetic holster on his back and led the way up towards the control booth. It was so nice to have an actual, working gun again. Spending the whole time they were with the Colonials using his bow was absolute torture. He only carried the damn thing around in the first place because the Mimner was supposed to be a God and nothing said 'fear me' quite like a primitive weapon making Jaffa explode.
**Sliaagawa (Orbit)**
*Shadow of Opportunity (Combat Information Center) [thirty minutes later]*
"Welcome back, Colonel," Oliver's Executive Officer aboard the Shadow of Opportunity, another Australian woman but this one a raven with long dark hair and amber eyes, said in greeting. She was still ranked under Ry in terms of the Zeta's hierarchy, but she oversaw the ship's operation while Oliver was away. Her training in, and natural-born inclination towards, the field of military logistics had kept the Zeta Site running for four years. No one bothered to question her when it came to those matters anymore.
"Fleet status," Oliver replied.
"The SR-1s are docking as we speak and Colonel Ry has sent a report back from the Colonial route to New Caprica. I forwarded his call to your private terminal and put him on hold," Madison Blosseville replied smoothly. "As for damages, there's nothing significant to report. When the Flame lost its shields, the armor held back the two rounds it took. The damage was cosmetic at best, and a small dent at worse."
Oliver nodded in reply to that. "Better than I'd expected."
"Then you don't think us to be a very capable bunch, do you?" Gabi asked rhetorically.
"No, I just expected twenty Ha'tak to be more trouble than that given that we purposefully didn't try jumping past their shields," Oliver replied as he worked the controls to his private terminal and linked the Shadow of Opportunity's FTLC to the Relentless Fury. The channel crackled as the ship's AI secured the line and Ry's avatar shimmered into existence in the CIC next to Oliver. "What did you find?" Oliver asked.
"A Cylon force scouring the Cyrannus Sector in search of the Colonial remnant," Ry replied stoically. Even his face was blank which meant that Ry had made good on his earlier promise to find the part of his mind that controlled his facial expressions and repressed it. Oliver shook his head at that. Ry was a good man even if he refused to let emotions compromise him… maybe even because of that fact. "They started their search near the planet you informed us to be Kobol and spread out from there. Judging from the formation of their search patterns, they are unaware of the Colonials' current location, nor are they aware of the upgraded navigational program you used to get them where they are."
"And what is the state of Kobol?" Oliver asked.
"You detonated a ZPM on its surface," Ry replied casually. "There is nothing left of the planet nor the system it once inhabited."
"But you said they started at Kobol."
"Then I was not specific enough. They started their search where Kobol once was. Now there is nothing but a super-active nebula and residual energy waves that are rendering our cloak inoperable. However, it appears our jammers are still sufficient enough to keep us hidden."
"What can you tell me about the Cylons?"
"They have upgraded their systems considerably. We have detected Naquadah power cores, shields, plasma weapons, ring platforms, subspace sensors and communications arrays, and several other Goa'uld technologies present on their ships. We are, however, incapable of getting close enough to scan within in the hull to detect any changes to the Centurions without being detected."
"Have they caught wind of the Colonials' trail? If they've been searching for a year, then I doubt they're far off from finding New Caprica."
"Indeed," Ry replied and his image was replaced by a map of the area around the Flame. "The Cylons are coming within a dangerously close range of the nebula that hides the Colonial remnant. It is now only a matter of time before the Cylons begin searching the nebula itself. If they do," Ry continued as his body replaced the map, "then we will have to fight to hold the planet long enough for it to be evacuated. That, or we will have to defend it indefinitely until the mines are no longer useful. That, however, still leaves the Colonials themselves."
"The Generals have pretty much unanimously agreed that they're not letting the Colonials live on Earth. I think O'Neill's still pissed that they tried to lead the Cylons to a planet that they didn't know could defend itself, Landry agrees with him, Hammond thinks they can 'earn' their way to Earth, and both Carter and Ervin see them as useless so won't vote either way. For now, the majority of the UNSC's leadership sees them as the native populace alloying them access to their world, nothing more. If we're going to get reinforcements for the Colonials, we're going to have to spin this in a way that highlights the need to defend the mines," Oliver mused.
"Easily done," Gabi said from her place in a nearby work-station. With a thrum of energy, the Shadow of Opportunity jumped into hyperspace with her smaller ships tucked away in the shipboard hangar bays designed to maintain them. "Last I heard, O'Neill had pushed the plans for Earth's first Athena-class City Ship up by a few years. They're actually producing the base for a City Ship now, and O'Neill's decided to have it be the first of the mobile fleet command centers. With the Wraith actively seeking the location of Atlantis, which they had to move again after Todd revealed he knew where New Lantea was, they're looking to reinforce the city. That means that once New Caprica's done being mined, they're going to send the Hephaestus to Pegasus to start mining a planet there and send the materials to Athena which will follow it a few weeks later. They're about three months out from launching so they'll need New Caprica's resources to last them that long. If O'Neill wants his mobile command center, he's going to have to hold the planet. Just remind him of that and the Colonials will be fine."
"I knew they were sending an Aurora, two more Achilles, and an O'Neill, but another two City Ships? Is the situation in Pegasus really that bad?" Oliver asked.
"Well, Todd's taken Colonel Caldwell's threat seriously and is banding the Wraith together to take on Atlantis. That, and the Replicators are still there so there's two enemies to face," Gabi replied as she turned to face him. "And they're sending the Gaia, Apollo, and four 304s, not a 308, 309, and two more 306s."
Oliver sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I lost track of the fleet's designation system after the Post-Fifth Race Upgrades."
"You have the X-301, F-302, and X-303," Gabi explained in a condescendingly slow tone. "That's the first attempt at a space superiority fighter, the first space superiority fighter we had, and the Prometheus which, technically, never got the official designation of Battlecrusier. Then there's the DSC-304 A which is the standard Daedalus-class or the Deep Space Carrier variant. The BC-304 B is the Post-Fifth Race Daedalus-class or the actual Battlecruiser variant. The IC-305 is the Ares-class Invasion Carriers being built at the Alpha Site. The HC-306 is the Achilles-class Heavy Cruisers which was put into production before the new fighters. Because of that, the new fighters are the F-307s. They would've been the F-302 B, but their design was so radically different that Sam gave it a new series marker. After that is the D-308 O'Neill-class Dreadnought which was added to the fleet in an official capacity after the fighters were which is why it's the 308 instead of the 307. Then they launched the HD-309 Aurora-class Heavy Dreadnought which is the Gaia-Refits. Then you have the SD-310 Furling-class Super Dreadnought, of which there is one, the Paciscor of Nex.
"Then there's the City Ships!" Gabi exclaimed in a tone of false excitement. "Of which, there are now five, count them five, classes. Well, technically there's seven, but only four of them are ours with the other three being Ancient. You have the Delphi-class that we found on Kobol, the second class that the Ancient never actually built, and the stock-standard Atlantis-class as we found it in Pegasus all those years ago. Then you have 'our' City Ships. There's the remodeled Atlantis-class which is Atlantis as it is now with the piers altered to be ecologies and hangar bays, the extra power generators, and everything else we did. Next you have the Hephaestus-class City Ship which is the mobile mining platform class so named for the crippled God of fire, metalworking, and crafts. They say that Hephaestus crafted Zeus' lightning bolts so the mining ships being named after him is fitting.
"Then there's the Athena-class City Ship which is the mobile military base/shipyards/command center/anything-O'Neill-wants-it-to-be. The reason they went with Athena is actually pretty self-explanatory. Ares was already taken, and, because there's always a reason for not switching out the names, Athena is the Goddess of intelligence, skill, peace, warfare, battle strategy, handicrafts, and wisdom, which fits the class better. It is, after all, a mobile command center, not just a weapon of war like the Ares is."
With a sigh and one last deep breath, Gabi finished them off. "Then there's the Demeter-class City Ship which was designed by the egg-heads at Area 51 to be everything you need to sustain a colony. It has ecologies in all of its piers, matter converters to produce building materials, and a specially modified shield that can cover a larger area more easily to protect a colony from attack as well as holding in a larger quantity of breathable air over a greater area. Should we ever start colonizing other worlds, this will be the first thing we send to the planet we claim. The reason they went with Demeter is because Demeter is the Goddess of grain, agriculture, the harvest, growth, and nourishment."
"I hate all this expansion so much right now," Oliver said with a shake of his head. "And where do our ships fit into that?"
"When we get back to Earth and no longer lie to everyone about being aliens?" Gabi asked with a shrug. "We don't. Someone else takes our place as the Impolans and the Zeta Project continues without us. That, or we can sign on to stay another tour as Earth's secret fleet. Because of that, we have our own system. The SR-1s are Stealth Recon Frigates, plain and simple. None of that '301' crap, just '1.' Then the Shadow of Opportunity is the SR-2. It's just a Stealth Recon Cruiser. Just as plain, just as simple. We'll never be a part of Earth's fleet. Not unless the Impolans become part of Earth's fleet."
"So many lies, so few truths," Oliver said with a sad shake of his head.
"Indeed," Ry agreed stoically.
"Just keep an eye on the Cylons. We're headed for the next weapons facility. After we're done with it, we'll switch the Fury out with the Destruction and you can get back into the fight. Shadow of Opportunity out," Oliver replied before ending the transmission. "How many more facilities are there?"
"Two more including the one we're about to hit. After that, the Lucian Alliance's war production capabilities will be contained on Lucia itself," Madison replied almost instantly.
"Then we've almost eliminated the Lucian Alliance as a galactic power," Oliver said with a nod. "Not bad for only four years of work."
***Pegasus Galaxy (UEG-Claimed Territory)***
**New-New Lantea (Surface)**
*UEG Atlantis (Weir's Office)*
"And you're saying you encountered the Asurans?" Weir asked, her tones low despite her door being closed.
"Unless you know someone else that has the resources to send two Auroras after us, yes," Colonel Caldwell replied.
"Are you sure it wasn't the Gaia playing a prank on you?"
Caldwell looked at Weir with a skeptical look. "You're that desperate for it to not to be them?" he asked to which she simply looked nervous in reply. "Look, Doctor, the Asurans aren't a threat to us anymore. They can try to destroy us all they want, but if the Apollo could give them a run for their money before the upgrades to the new class, then the Achilles-class can beat them outright. Two Auroras are now dust in space, Elizabeth. They're not a threat."
"They're robots," Weir countered as she finally managed to force herself to sit down. "They can build their ships fast, and if they capture one of our ships…" Weir trailed off with a shake of her head. "It would be the end of us."
"There are countermeasures in place to prevent that from happening," Caldwell countered. "From what I understand, the PWARW is nearly completed, right?" Weir nodded in response. "Then we wait until the SGC can send us one, and we take care of the problem once and for all."
"But they're hunting you!" Weir countered. "They left their homeworld, in force, and hunted down the Daedalus. How many ships did they send after you? Just those two, or more? How do we know you were the target? What if they're after Atlantis again?"
"Doctor!" Caldwell interrupted forcefully. "Atlantis is a weapon of war equipped with enough firepower to eliminate every ship Earth currently has in operation and enough power in her generators to survive the return fire we'd level against it. The Asurans. Are. Not. A. Threat!"
"And if they don't come for Atlantis?" Weir asked simply. Caldwell blinked dumbly in reply. "If they start targeting the Wraith, that's fine, but what if they start attacking the people of this galaxy? They know we'll mobilize against them if they make a move against our allies. They'll force you out and ambush you the moment you exit hyperspace. And if we don't send help, the Asurans will start wiping out entire populations to get our attention, and it will work."
"So, what? You want me to launch an attack on Asuras now? We all know what happened the last time we used an ineffective first strike against them, Doctor Weir. They don't know where Atlantis is, true, but an all-out assault on their homeworld could provoke them to your hypothetical state of total war even faster. Why don't we just wait for the reinforcements to get here, then dial the SGC and see what General O'Neill has to say about this?" Caldwell suggested.
"Okay, Colonel. We'll send this up the chain of command. What are we expecting to arrive and when?" Weir asked.
"The Gaia, Apollo, Sun Tzu, Phoenix, Two for Flinching, and Cream Puff will be in orbit in a few hours…" Caldwell began before trailing off when Weir gave him a questioning look. "The Gaia is the ship we recovered from the Travelers last year, the Apollo was upgraded to an Achilles-class, and the other four are 304 Bs."
"And the names?" Weir asked, her tones obviously suppressing a laugh.
"Oh, that," Caldwell mumbled. "The Sun Tzu belongs to the Chinese, the Phoenix was built by the Canadians, the Two for Flinching was named by the UK, and the Cream Puff was made in New Zealand."
"I see," Weir said with a look of amusement clear on her face. "And the commander of this fleet?"
"General O'Neill has appointed me the 'Fleet Commander,' his words not mine, of the Space Force in Pegasus since I know the Wraith better than anyone else from a militaristic point-of-view. The CO of the Gaia is a Japanese Admiral who has already assured O'Neill he'll follow whatever orders he's given. O'Neill is also contemplating my promotion to make things easier, but assures me that if I'm promoted to General I won't be stuck behind a desk. The chain of command's been set, and everyone will be ready to deploy within an hour of their arrival. Fresh air is a requirement for every living being after spending four days in hyperspace, so we'll let them walk around a bit which gives us time to iron out a plan of attack."
"Then, with any luck, we won't have to worry about the Asurans for much longer. What about the Wraith?"
"Todd's alliance is growing stronger and entire planetary populations have gone missing. If I know Todd half as well as I think I do, he's hoarding them all on one world where he can defend a rich feeding ground made richer by adding people to it. With his alliance needing only that one world to survive off of, he'll be hard to find, impossible to cut off from his food source, and he'll be poised to start searching for Atlantis. We're going to have to accept the fact that moving Atlantis into the void between systems and living off of the hydroponics stations might be the only way to avoid detection in the coming months. With the Neutrino Ion Generators we have, it won't even be a strain on the ZPMs to keep the shield up, the food growing, and the fleet up and running."
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Weir said.
"We're rapidly approaching that point, Elizabeth. Todd is hell-bent on surviving. Can't say I blame him, but his way of living won't be tolerated. When those ships get here and we start deploying more than just the Daedalus against him, Todd's going to figure out that we mean business pretty damn quick. When news of the Wraith got out to Earth, there was an uproar. Do you know how many people enlisted into the UNSC with 'taking the fight to the Wraith' as their reason for conscripting? Thousands, Elizabeth. The people back home want the Wraith gone, and I can't say I blame them."
"Neither can I," Weir agreed, "but I wish there was another way. If they could feed on anything but Humans, it wouldn't be a problem."
"But they can't."
"I know," Weir said with a sad nod. "And we're going to have to wipe them out to the last because of it."
***Milky Way Galaxy (Uncharted Territory)***
**Desolate World (Atmosphere)**
*FGN Isai (Combat Information Center) [two days later]*
"This is the planet," Sieon said as the Isai flew low into the planet's atmosphere.
All that their sensors could detect were crumbling ruins set aflame by super-heated fluids fired at the speed of a railgun. Long gouges had been carved through the cityscape, forests burned freely, and dead bodies were everywhere. Those were the lucky ones. The others had been taken and turned into the abominations that had attacked the Tok'ra.
"There can be no doubt of that fact," Wy'H'ofacion agreed with a sad nod.
"They did not deserve this," Izotiusk added.
"Rare is the time when those deserving of mercy receive it," Rana replied coldly as she worked the controls to the Destroyer and took them lower before the Isai was made to hover over the tallest building that was still standing. "We must search the ruins for signs of their plans. If we cannot find anything, then the Demons will remain hidden in darkness and we will remain powerless to stop them."
"What exactly are we to search for?" Vordir asked as he followed after Rana and the others to where they stored their weapons and armor.
"Anything that does not belong to this universe," Wy'H'ofacion replied.
***Pegasus Galaxy (UEG-Claimed Territory)***
**New-New Lantea (Surface)**
*UEG Atlantis (Caldwell's Office)*
Steven sighed deeply as he read over the holographic report that existed inside of a frame of metal-like, space-age plastic set up in a way that he could stick his hand through the report and have it come out the other side. Why they decided to make everything holographic was beyond him. It's not like they needed holographic tablets for military reports. The orange light hurt his eyes and this report in particular was making his head hurt. Two days of operating in Pegasus with a true fleet and they were still getting their asses handed to them from all directions.
Steven looked around his office and shook his head. His 'office' was a room much like Weir's, but his was located at the base of the tower that overlooked the primary hangar bay, and only a few dozen meters from the Gate Tower. It put him right next to the crux of the military activity in the city, and his office even included a specialized display that showed the status of the shipyards that were located in the city's piers as well as the Gate Room itself. One of those hangar bays was active right now.
A knock on his door brought his attention away from that terminal. "Come in," he said with a mental note of dread. He did not need Sheppard's antics right now.
"Are things that bad?" Elizabeth asked as she stepped in and the door closed behind her.
Steven sighed and dropped his head into his hands. "I like commanding a ship, don't get me wrong, but a fleet?" Steven asked rhetorically.
"Like you said, you know the Wraith better than anyone else," Elizabeth said encouragingly. "That, and General O'Neill doesn't strike me as the type of man to promote people based off of biased opinion. He trusts you because you earned that trust. The Admiral may have more experience in leading a naval fleet, but not in leading a space fleet and he knows nothing about Wraith tactics. If you find yourself overwhelmed, ask for help from those who are most likely to be capable of helping you. As much as I enjoy living in Atlantis, I'm no military commander, General. For the longest time, I had to ask John for advice in those regards, and I still ask Teyla for her opinion on things every day because she's led her people longer than I have. Don't hesitate to ask for help, Steven. That shows more weakness through pride than simply asking does. The Japanese are a very honor-bound society. I'm sure the Admiral will be willing to help if you ask him to."
Steven shook his head at the simplicity of her answer. "Of course it's that simple," he mumbled.
Elizabeth smiled at him in reply. "I find that it almost always is. I search so long for the complicated answer when the simplest answer is just that. Now, I know it's none of my official business, but I believe we have a damaged ship?"
"None of your business?" Steven asked indignantly. "You're still the leader of Atlantis, Elizabeth. The IOA isn't around to supersede you anymore, and I'll be damned if I'm going to start ignoring you. You were right about the Asurans. Even with the Ori invasion of Earth eminent, we shouldn't have pissed them off like that. A lot of people could've died, and everyone ignored you until it was too late. We would've lost Atlantis if eleven ZPMs hadn't have materialized out of nowhere overnight, and now the Asurans are actively hunting us down."
"So it was them again," Elizabeth said with a sad nod. "Scuttlebutt had said as much."
"They slipped a drone through the Two for Flinching's shield and took out one of her primary engines. If the AI hadn't have seen it coming and drained the power from the engine, we would've lost the ship. As it is, twenty people were injured in the explosion and ten were killed outright. Add to that the damage to the ship's hull and the Flinching's down for the foreseeable future. From what I understand, they only made it back through luck. The hull was compromised but they jumped into hyperspace anyway. Better to take the risk of death in hyperspace over the certainty of it if they stayed to fight."
"Is it just me, or are they tracking our ships? We know the Ori could track the Odyssey, is it possible the Asurans are tracking them too?"
"The Ori tracked the wake left in the Odyssey's passage when the Asgard Core's power cell was active during a hyperspace jump. We never confirmed if the ship could be detected while cloaked or if it was just something that allowed them to track her while in hyperspace. Thankfully the Ori aren't around anymore for us to test that, but the question still stands. The problem is, we don't have a power source like that so it's unlikely that the Asurans are tracking our ships. If they were, they would've followed the Flinching back to Atlantis and we'd be under siege… again."
"What about the ZPMs?" Elizabeth asked.
Steven shook his head. "No, not possible. If they were tracking ZPMs, the Flinching's the last ship they'd find. She doesn't have a ZPM. In fact, the only ships in this galaxy that do are the Gaia, Daedalus, Apollo, and Atlantis. If the Asurans could track ZPMs, they'd have found Atlantis already."
"We haven't used the ZPMs since we landed on the City Factory. They've actually been dormant and unused for the entirety of the past year, and I never thought I'd live in this city without ZPMs being the primary source of power. The fact they were so rare made them valuable. Now? We're producing ten of them every week back on Earth, but we're not using them for the ships anymore."
"The planetary defense shield was given the priority over everything else. The primary satellites now all have five, fully charged ZPMs in them with two more on standby and I hear quite a few of them went into the global power grid. The others that have been produced so far were put up for auction for the UEG countries. Those who purchased one, much to everyone's surprise, plugged them into the generators powering the matter conversion slips. The Cream Puff was produced entirely by the energy of a ZPM."
"I'll never get over that name," Elizabeth said with a shake of her head.
"Neither will I," Steven agreed before sighing in frustration. "The Flinching doesn't have a ZPM. Only the Dreadnoughts were given on by design and the ships that had them beforehand were allowed to keep them. The Daedalus, Apollo and Gaia are the only ships in this galaxy with ZPMs… well, the only ships we control at any rate. I'm sure the Auroras the Asurans use have them too."
"That is how the Lanteans held back the Wraith as long as they did. It is concerning, but maybe it's a coincidence. In a matter of months, we can build an Achilles. The Asurans are a robotic species that never rests and we left them alone for quite some time when we went to reinforce Earth. They've had a year to rebuild their forces since the last time we attacked them. They're sure to have quite the sizable fleet by now."
"So much for having them dealt with quickly," Steven sighed.
"If only we could get them to focus on the Wraith. Then the Wraith would be under attack from multiple sides and that much easier to beat, and we wouldn't have to worry about the Asurans," Elizabeth mused.
"That's a good point," Steven said brightly before hitting a button on his desk. "Deniece, are the Asurans subjectable to a hack?"
With a shimmer of light being collected into a semi-tangible form, the Daedalus' AI appeared standing on a small emitter located on Steven's desk. The six-inch female AI, still wearing the standard uniform for a crewmen of one of Earth's ships, snapped off a salute before replying. "Not remotely, sir."
"The AI salutes you?" Elizabeth asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I hold everyone to the same standards," Steven replied simply. "Explain."
"Somewhere located on Asuras is a computer core similar in function to the AI Core on the Nex. Like all of the AIs in Earth's fleet, the firewalls of the Asuran Collective are strengthened by numbers. The same way that Apollo was reinforced by the other AIs during an attempt by a Demon to hack their computers, the Asurans will stand as a unified force against any attempt at hacking their systems. The only way to bypass these electronic defenses would be physically accessing the Asuran Core. Consider it the hard drive that houses their minds. If you reprogram the Core, the next time they 'check themselves' or update their software from the Core, the new programming will go into effect. A Trojan Horse of sorts, the changes would wait until every Asuran was linked into the Core before affecting them all at once so they couldn't 'fix' each other once a change was noted."
"So to hack them, you have to have access to the Core…" Elizabeth began.
"Which is protected by an army of robots," Steven finished.
"It's still worth a shot. A stealth insertion coinciding with an orbital assault could buy a team enough time to affect the changes, and we could reprogram the Asurans to attack the Wraith."
Steven rubbed his chin thoughtfully before replying. "It would require coordination and a plan other than just 'get to the Core.' We need to know the lay of the land, which means we need scans. A ship will be too obvious and none of our capital ships have cloaking devices. Are any of the Jumpers equipped with the same hyperdrive the Vultures are?"
"Plato?" Elizabeth asked, the city's AI joining the Daedalus' AI in the small projector.
"According to my records, the only changes made to the Gate Ships was the addition of the two plasma cannons that were put into the drone slings, and the switch that easily converts the cloak into a shield. None of the Jumpers on the city have a hyperdrive," Plato replied.
"Can any of the Vultures cloak?" Steven asked.
"No, but that is the better option. Giving a Gate Ship a hyperdrive would take some time. However, because the Vultures already have a shield grid, converting one's shield into a cloak would be as simple as interfacing a Gate Ship's cloaking module into the field as you have proven possible by cloaking Atlantis in the past," Plato explained.
"Then we've got a way to get our Intel. We'll carry the Vulture into range of its hyperdrive then have it jump to the edge of the system, cloak, and make orbit of Asuras," Steven said matter-of-factly.
"What about the Wraith?" Elizabeth asked as the two AIs 'left,' their avatars flickering out.
"We're still looking for Todd's base of operations and countering their movements as best we can. Once they're done taking on drones, the Gaia's headed off to a world being targeted by three Hives. The rest of them are still out there searching and fighting. Once she's repaired, the Flinching will join them. Until then, I'll get the Vulture ready and we'll go from there. If you'll excuse me, I have work to do," Steven said politely.
"Of course," Elizabeth replied with a nod.
She stood to leave and made it to the door before Caldwell added, "And, Elizabeth. Thank you for the advice."
"Not a problem, General," Weir replied before leaving.
***Milky Way Galaxy (Uncharted Territory)***
**Desolate World (Surface)**
*Desolate City (Street-Level)*
"I don't like this place," Sieon said at a low whisper as he pulled his rifle into his hands. "It brings back too many bad memories."
"You lived through only one such war. I had to bear witness to two," Rana replied as she led the way deeper into the forest of burnt, scorched, and burning buildings. "When Castosis fell, I escaped by the skin of my teeth. Three days the fleet held. Then the Demons started landing their ground forces. Perversions of nature, abominations of life, cheap impersonations of living beings…" Rana trailed off eerily as a building in the distance surrendered to the damage inflicted upon it and crumbled to dust.
As it did, there was a thud in the air and Rheataela decelerated from a Charge more than ten stories in the sky above them. As the dust kicked up from the building's collapse rolled over them, the Reader's body glowed as she altered gravity to ease her fall. She set down as the dust blew in and Rana held back the chocking cloud with an air-tight biotic field.
"What happened?" Sieon asked the newly arrived Furling.
She was a child barely out of her teens by Furling standards. Her being here was a tragedy. The young shouldn't have to suffer sins of their elders. It had been Sieon's solemn duty to destroy the Demons. He had failed, and now his people were barely left living.
"Miss-stepped," the girl replied irately. "I should've been more careful."
"Indeed you should," Rana noted as she started walking again.
"She wasn't always so cold," Sieon said in a distracted tone. "She was a warm-hearted woman once. Even after the Fall, she had hope. Now… I barely recognize her anymore."
"Then remind her who she is," Rheataela suggested as she followed after Rana.
"I'm not even sure I remember who I am anymore," Sieon added as the duo walked out of earshot.
He stared after them for a moment, then looked down a side alley. He couldn't say why, but he needed to go that way. His feet started moving even as he questioned the logic of it. He just walked. Away from his mate, away from his people, and towards… he didn't even know what it was he was after.
***Pegasus Galaxy (UEG-Claimed Territory)***
**New-New Lantea (Surface)**
*UEG Atlantis (Control Room)*
"That just doesn't make sense!" Sheppard exclaimed. "Why the hell are the Wraith in orbit of Asuras and not being blown to hell!?"
"The answer I have for you is shocking, frightening, and worrisome all at once," Deniece replied in a professional manner as her avatar stood at parade rest.
On the screen before them, sensors readings were being piped in from the Daedalus which, in turn, was receiving the information from the Vulture in orbit of Asuras. What it displayed was two Hives and their escorts exiting hyperspace before taking up orbit of Asuras where another sixteen Hiveships were waiting with their escorts, and no less than seven Hives were landed on the planet.
"Don't tell me," McKay groaned.
"The Wraith have gained access to the Asuran Core. They own the Asurans now," Deniece said regardless of McKay's protestations.
"I said don't tell me!" McKay exclaimed in a tone of absolute horror. "I always knew Todd was smart, but this? This is bad, Elizabeth! Those Hives are there for a reason, and I'd bet money that reason is upgrades!"
"The Wraith are using the Asurans to upgrade their ships?" Weir asked disbelievingly.
"Upgrade their ships, increase the size of their forces, hunt us down, abduct Human populations…" Caldwell trialed off with a shake of his head. "They found the one force multiplier in this galaxy that could help either side of the war, and they got to them before we could."
"So getting to the Core…?" Sheppard half-asked.
"Out of the question," McKay replied irately. "Todd's bound to have it on lockdown to keep the Asurans from being rewritten. The Wraith now have their own army of perfectly expendable, hard to kill robotic soldiers, access to an unlimited amount of Ancient tech, and servants that both can and will upgrade their Hives. We are so screwed!"
"This is all because you said that life in Pegasus would be easy!" Sheppard accused.
"No, it's because Caldwell went off and challenged Todd to a war!" McKay countered. "Once again, the military is screwing us over!"
"That's enough!" Caldwell said sternly and McKay, who is usually not easy to shut up, stopped talking immediately. "This complicates things, I'll admit, but it's not the end of the world. Now we know what our enemies are capable of…"
"With all due respect, General, that's bound to change any moment now. If those Hives are upgraded, they could end up with shields, or drones of their own! We have to stop them before it's too late!" Sheppard interrupted.
"Look, you all know I'm never the type to say, 'Nuke it,' but the Wraith are tough enough to take out when it's just their numbers making them hard to kill. If they get Ancient tech on their ships… We need to launch an all-out assault on Asuras before those Hives are finished," McKay finished.
"We can't. The PWARW isn't ready yet," Caldwell countered.
"FORGET ABOUT THE REPLICATORS, WE NEED TO STOP THE WRAITH!" McKay shouted in a panic. "Do you have any idea how bad this is for us?! If the Wraith go intergalactic, they'll forget about Atlantis and target Earth. When Earth proves to be too tough a nut to crack, they'll become the new Ori. They'll dominate the Jaffa, and, Jaffa having more life energy than we do, the Wraith will be able to feed off of them longer. We're looking at the extinction of all life in the Pegasus Galaxy and the third extragalactic invasion of the Milky Way. We need to nuke them before they can take-off, and killing the Wraith will reopen the option of hacking the Replicators! If we don't stop them before those ships take-off, We. Are. Screwed!"
"Calm down, Rodney," Chuck said from his station. "We have more than one ship this go round and those ships are worth multiple Hives. Look, the Gaia's on its way back to Atlantis. They'll be here in a few minutes. We have…"
"I'm sorry, did you just say the Gaia is on its way to Atlantis?" Kleinman interrupted as he could be seen checking something on his terminal.
"Yes," Chuck replied as he pointed to the blip on their sensors that was broadcasting the Gaia's IFF.
"That's impossible!" Kleinman exclaimed. "Even if their mission was a complete success, their engines aren't that fast!"
"Didn't we reassign the Gaia to intercept a fleet of Cruisers?" Caldwell asked.
"Indeed you did, sir," Deniece replied. "The Gaia is currently inbound to a planet on the far edge of the galaxy from Atlantis. I have confirmation from the ship's AI that their course is both unaltered and underway. They're twenty minutes out from target."
"It's a trap," Plato said at a low whisper. "It's a tra…!" the AI began to shout before the ship they were tracking exited hyperspace directly over the city.
As it did, drones left the firing magazines and raced down towards the city. Plato had begun raising the shield the moment he realized it was a trap, but Atlantis was a large object to envelope. Three drones slipped through the gap in the top of the shield as the barrier rose to surround the city. As they did, one of them dove into the top of the Control Tower then detonated its payload. The second targeted the ZPM room and slammed into the shield protecting the vital part of the city. The last one targeted the Control Chair and dug into the armor surrounding that area before losing its energy. Alarms blared throughout the city as fire-suppressants rained down from the ceiling and the shield finished raising.
"Chuck!?" Weir called over the noise.
"We've taken a direct hit!" the technician replied as he worked his controls frantically. "The upper Jumper Bay is gone with all twenty of the Jumpers in the bay at the time. The explosion was amplified by their own drones detonating and the upper five stories of the Control Tower are now rubble in the water. The shield around the ZPM room held, but the Control Chair's another matter. The drone slipped through a micro-fissure in the secondary shield and… crap! We lost the AI Core. Plato is gone and there's rubble blocking access to the Chair. We need one or the other to get the city's systems back up!"
"And the shield?"
"The city's shield was designed to hold in a breathable atmosphere during a hyperspace jump," McKay replied. "Micro-fissures in Atlantis' shield would render space-trips impossible. There's absolutely no way in hell they'll be able to slip a drone past the shield, and drones aren't anywhere near powerful enough to take down the shield after everything we did to upgrade the city. We're safe… for now."
"For now?" Sheppard asked.
"When it rains…" McKay began.
"Inbound enemy reinforcements!" Amelia announced.
"You get the picture," McKay finished while working at his station. "We need to get the stardrive back online and get the hell out of here!"
"I'll head down to the Chair and help them clear the rubble," Sheppard said as sparks flew from a terminal overhead.
"We need you to do it, not tell us about it!" McKay snapped angrily. "The fires in the upper level and the damage to the tower are…" he paused to flinch away from another shower of sparks. "We need to get those fires out, but the suppressant systems in those areas were destroyed by the explosion that created the fires. The only way to put it out now is to expose the flame to a vacuum, but that means both an operational stardrive, and exposing us all to space flight without a shield!"
"Doctor Weir, the military personnel are mobilizing. Both the Two for Flinching and our full complement of Vultures are launching!" Chuck announced.
"What?" Weir asked as she looked at the cracked, half-working screen that showed the local area around Atlantis.
In response to her question, the Flying Fortresses and badly wounded Battlecruiser turned their weapons to the sky and opened fire with a hail of return fire. The twenty massive gunships they had hovered just within the city's shield while the 304 B hovered over the pier it was being repaired in and let loose with what limited weapons they had that were still operational. The Vultures were more heavily armed than an Al'kesh and could, in theory, take on a Ha'tak, sure, but three Aurora-class Ancient warships, six Ancient Cruisers, and a dozen of those smaller ships? It was something, but it was far from enough. Even the Flinching's guns weren't doing much against those numbers and that much firepower.
"We need our weapons, engines, and navigation more than anything else. Focus on those!" McKay ordered the frantically working technicians.
Tapping her ear as the changes made to the city ran through her mind and a plan formed in her head, Weir asked, "Major Reynolds, is your DHD still operational?"
"Yes ma'am. What's the plan?" Reynolds immediately replied.
"We need reinforcements and we need them now. Dial Earth and ask General Landry to send us the Nex," Weir ordered.
"We're on it ma'am," Reynolds said before Weir went back to focusing on the situation in the Control Room.
In her mind, she was thanking whoever it was that designed the Gate Room with an independent power source capable of dialing intergalacticly. She also thanked the Asgard for having given them a generator capable of performing the deed.
There was a beep from somewhere in the room that somehow stood out more to Weir than it should've it. A second later, Chuck announced, "Another contact just arrived. It appeared out of nowhere… Hold on, they're attacking the Asurans!"
"Are we ready for an intergalactic jump?" Sam asked as she walked into the CIC of the Nex and sat in her Control Chair.
"Let's just say I hope you're not planning on returning to Earth anytime soon," Widget replied as the floorboards started to shake under their feet. "Hold onto your nuts," he said with a winch as the Nex's FTL drive, for the first time in several million years, drew in enough power to make an intergalactic jump. The distortion of the wormhole formed by the advanced FTL drive was as bad this time as it was the first time Sam had experienced it, and the ship shook violently as they exited on the other end. As the deck stabilized under them, Widget breathed a sigh of relief. "We're alive!" he exclaimed happily before getting serious. "Shit! I miscalculated the drift factor. We're too far into the planet's gravity well and falling like a rock. BRACE FOR UNCONTROLLED ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY!"
"Lieutenant, bring the weapons online!" Sam ordered and her weapons officer immediately obliged as the Nex dropped like a stone into the skies over New-New Lantea. As they fell, Kimberly fired their vertical lift thrusters and managed to stabilize their flight until they were approaching Atlantis at a more reasonable speed and angle.
The Nex's opening move was both of its coaxial ion cannons firing into the broadside of one of the Auroras. The two hyperaccelerated ion rounds traveled from the rear of the Nex, all the way down the ten-kilometer acceleration chamber, and exited the nose with enough force to shattered the targeted ship on impact. The rounds, literally, hit with enough force that its target broke apart like a glass vase dropped from a twenty-story building. Then the massive ship turned its nose towards another ship and fired a brief pulse from one of its Grodins. The beam lasted for four seconds before punching through the second Aurora, the ship falling from the sky aflame.
The Asuran ships immediately turned their attention towards the monster bearing down on them and let loose. As they did, a burst of white light deposited a some-how familiar figure into the halls of the city below.
"Colonel Sheppard? My name is Wid'getchro'monsure, and I'll be saving your ass today," the new comer said as his body began to glow. "This is the part where you back up," he said in warning. Once everyone was clear, the alien held its three-fingered hand forward and a field of energy washed over the debris. Before their very eyes, the sturdy material of Atlantis' exterior hull plating, which had been blown into the interior hallways, started to evaporate like ice on a stove.
"I'm working on clearing the rubble, but this armor wasn't exactly designed to be easy to get through. It'll take me a minute or two," Widget informed Sam as she sat in the Control Chair.
"Not a problem," Sam replied casually. "Ready the DMEB."
"Aye, ma'am. DMEB is charging," Lieutenant Cody, the tactical officer, replied as more and more drones impacted the Nex's shield.
"I'm just going to assume you haven't realized this on your own, so here goes," Widget said as he purposefully stood in front of Sam to get her attention. "Our shield, unlike theirs, wasn't designed to hold in an atmosphere. As such, drones will find the micro-fissures in the barrier and they will…" Widget began before there was an explosion towards the rear of the ship. With an annoyed sigh, Widget finished. "That."
"What was that?" Sam asked as she rubbed her hip where it felt like the bone had suddenly snapped.
"That was the ship taking more damage than it can handle. We need to either wrap this up, or flee. Either way, they're slipping more and more drones past the shield now that they've found the micro-fissures. I'm adjusting the shield composition as much as I can to keep them guessing, but these drones are being piloted by AIs that are nearly as smart as I am," Widget explained. When Sam felt a very sharp pain in her foot that had her doubled over in pain with tears coming out of her eyes, Widget said, "And there goes starboard anti-proton thruster nine."
"That's it! We're back up and running!" McKay shouted over the noise of the battle raging above them, which was to say the sound of chunks of Asuran ships being blasted off of the hostiles above them to fall onto the city's shield.
Chuck placed his hands flat on the control panel before him, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and connected with the city in a way that was easy for Sheppard but hard for him because his gene was significantly weaker. On the other side of the Control Room, McKay did the same. A second later, the city was rumbling.
"I've got the dampeners," Chuck said as the vibrations lessened.
"I'll take us out," Sheppard added.
"I've got navigation. Just punch the engines!" McKay finished as the three of them joined their minds together over the city's neural network.
"The Nex lost its FTL drive jumping between galaxies before it was ready to handle the stresses of an intergalactic jump and sticking around won't be pretty for us," Carter informed them as the city began to rise above the waters of New-New Lantea, the Nex forcing the Asurans back and clearing their airspace so they wouldn't have to ram their way through the assaulting forces.
"We'll need everything the generators have if we're going to do this," Chuck said.
"Good thing the ZPMs are still fully charged then, isn't it?" McKay replied smugly as Atlantis pushed through the atmosphere and broke orbit. "Just keep up and make sure your dampeners are ready. This might get a bit rough without a proper calibration."
As the city broke free of the planet's gravity well, the Nex flew up under them and came within a few dozen meters of its nose touching the city's engines. Then, with a pulse of energy that caused the lights to flicker across the city, Atlantis opened a hyperspace window large enough to pull the city's impressive bulk through hyperspace with the Nex tagging along for the ride.
***Milky Way Galaxy (Uncharted Territory)***
**Desolate World (Surface)**
*Desolate City (Street-Level)*
Sieon stood before the broken form of a Demon and had to admit that some part of him was in awe. This was uncharted territory in the Milky Way Galaxy, yes, but most of the planets they had come across before this one suffered because of that. They were technologically unevolved, but the people of this world? They had killed a Demon. A Lesser Demon, yes, but that was still impressive.
Reaching out with his mind and feeling for the presence of his mate, Sieon found Rana amongst the ruins. 'You said to find something not of this universe. I have found it.'
It didn't take the others long to find him. The twenty they had sent down to the planet all gathered before the fallen form of the dead Demon and there was an animosity shared amongst them at the very sight of the thing. Then its eye opened.
There was the sound of a foghorn as the Demon's armor casing opened to allow the 'eye' that doubled as a weapon to see them.
DESIGNATION FURLING, YOU LIVE.
The Demon said, its tone, if were to have tones, disappointed.
"It will take more than the likes of you to destroy us," Wy'H'ofacion assured the organic machine.
RUDIMENTARY CREATURE OF BLOOD AND FLESH. YOU TOUCH MY MIND, FUMBLING IN IGNORANCE, INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING. THERE IS A REALM OF EXISTENCE SO FAR BEYOND THE HORIZON OF YOUR OWN COMPREHENSION THAT YOU CANNOT IMAGINE IT. I AM BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION.
"Rudimentary?" Wy'H'ofacion asked indignantly. "Furlings are the second-most highly evolved organic species in the known universe. Only the Ancients can claim to be more evolved, but, then again, they are far from being organic these days. Do not treat me like a child, Demon. I am older than you."
DEMON. A LABEL CREATED BY THE ONES CALLED 'FURLINGS' TO GIVE VOICE TO THEIR DESTRUCTION. IN THE END, WHAT YOU CHOSE TO CALL US IS IRRELEVANT. WE SIMPLY ARE.
'Did it just contradict itself?' one of the younger ones asked. 'It mentions Furlings as if we aren't them, yet it called us Furlings not long ago.'
'He is correct. This one's mind is damaged,' Wy'H'ofacion noted.
"Everyone has a beginning," Sieon countered in a questioning tone. He knew they'd never get direct answers from interrogating a Demon, but what they said could be interpreted for the truth hidden in the lies. People who fancy themselves Gods always have a weakness for monologs it seemed.
WE HAVE NO BEGINNING. WE HAVE NO END. WE ARE INFINITE. MILLIONS OF YEARS AFTER YOUR CIVILIZATION HAS BEEN ERADICATED AND FORGOTTEN, WE WILL ENDURE. ORGANIC LIFE IS NOTHING BUT A GENETIC MUTATION, AN ACCIDENT. YOUR LIVES ARE MEASURED IN YEARS AND DECADES. YOU WITHER AND DIE. WE ARE ETERNAL, THE PINNACLE OF EVOLUTION AND EXISTENCE. BEFORE US, YOU ARE NOTHING. YOUR EXTINCTION IS INEVITABLE. WE ARE THE END OF EVERYTHING.
"Measured in years and decades?" Rana huffed. "Ha! I have lived longer than most every species native to this universe and you say I will wither and die? The mere notion is laughable."
"Indeed," Wy'H'ofacion agreed. "You claim to be the end of everything, yet you have tried twice now to be rid of my people and we stand in defiance of you. Tell me, oh great and powerful 'pinnacle of evolution,' if you are a God as you so claim to be, then why do I stand here alive and well while you rot away on a world so insignificant to those who call this galaxy home that its location is absent from even the most inclusive of star charts? Tell me why, if you're the all-powerful beings you believe yourselves to be, that you hide in the shadows like cowards. You are nothing before me, Demon. You are nothing before all of us!"
YOUR CONFIDENCE IS BORN OF YOUR OWN IGNORANCE. THE CYCLE CANNOT BE BROKEN. THE PATTERN HAS REPEATED ITSELF MORE TIMES THAN YOU CAN FATHOM. ORGANIC CIVILIZATIONS RISE, EVOLVE, ADVANCE, AND, AT THE APEX OF THEIR GLORY, THEY ARE EXTINGUISHED. THE FURLINGS WERE NOT THE FIRST, NOR WILL THEY BE THE LAST. WE IMPOSE ORDER ON THE CHAOS OF ORGANIC LIFE. YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT, AND YOU WILL END BECAUSE WE DEMAND IT.
"So you continue to say, and yet we continue to live. Imagine that. Organics that predate the AI species that claims to be the ones responsible for the creation of all life," Rana sneered. "You are not God, Demon. You are a machine that was created by an organic to perform a purpose. Now you have clearly run rampant and lost your way. Worry not, Lesser Demon. I will end your suffering soon enough, but first, you will tell me why."
MY KIND TRANSCENDS YOUR VERY UNDERSTANDING. WE ARE EACH A NATION; INDEPENDENT, FREE OF ALL WEAKNESS. WE ARE LEGION.
"DO NOT TREAT ME LIKE A CHILD!" Rana roared up to the machine. "I have served as the mother to an entire race of AIs that are each as powerful as your so-called nation! I have birthed a new species into existence that has the power to combat you on an even footing, and you dare to claim that you transcend my very understanding?! I am Rana! I have created VIs older and smarter than you, Demon!"
The machine was quiet then. Its eye narrowed and focused its red light onto Rana. Only then did it speak.
YOU ARE RANA SYNIPULOUS, MATE TO SIEON SYNIPULOUS. YOU ARE THE GAAJLI. YOU ARE KNOWN TO US. THE FATHER HAS ORDERED YOUR CAPTURE.
As the Demon spoke, an inhuman howl filled the air as the denizens of this world, perverted in death to mimic life, rose from their places amongst the rubble. They lurched towards the Furlings with stumbling steps, their every action an affront to organic life everywhere. They reached out towards the assembled Furlings, and fire danced on their fingers, biotics flared from their skin, and the ground shook in their wake. These were not the same creatures that had attacked the Tok'ra. These were an improved variant.
THE TIME OF OUR RETURN IS NEIGH UPON YOU, FURLINGS. OUR NUMBERS WILL DARKEN THE SKY OF YOUR EVERY WORLD. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE YOUR DOOM. THIS TIME, THE HARBINGER WILL ADDRESS THINGS… PERSONALLY.
If the machine was capable of expressing emotion, his last word would've been an evil cackle.
Then a new voice sounded across the planet.
"I am assuming direct control," the voice of a Demon said from the body of one of the non-Humans as its eyes flared with a brilliant golden light. "I address you now personally, Furling," the Host said. "Surrender, and I will make your passing easier. Persist in your attempts to defy the Father's will, and I will make your end slow and full of suffering."
"I will stop you. On that, you have my word!" Sieon snarled at the non-Human with glowing eyes.
"Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction," the Host continued as it raised its hands and the sky darkened as its biotic aura flared to life. "Continued resistance will only result in your annihilation. Stand down or be destroyed."
"I'm going to enjoy killing you," Sieon replied before he Charged at the Host.
Much to the surprise of all the Furlings present, with one hand, the Host grabbed Sieon by the throat at the end of his Charge and held him aloft. "Your resistance, while futile and mildly annoying," the Host said as it took a deep breath in through its nose as if enjoying the smells that surrounded them, "does give me such pleasure! Not even your raw biotic might can hold a candle to the flame that is my existence, organic. Unlike the Lesser over there, I am older than your much beloved Konahrik!"
With a pulse of biotic energy, the Host slammed Sieon into the ground at its feet with enough force to break through his Barrier, armor, and bones all in one hit. That done, the Host turned its glowing eyes towards Rana and declared, "You will be mine!" before Charging at her with its hands held out like claws.
***Pegasus Galaxy (UEG-Claimed Territory)***
**New-New-New Lantea (Orbit)**
*UEG Atlantis (External Balcony)*
Weir had been at the Battle for Earth. She'd seen the Nex then. She'd walked the halls and ridden the internal train network when she was on Earth waiting for Atlantis' relaunch. Even then, she'd never seen the ship close enough to Atlantis to get an accurate size comparison. Atlantis was the largest ship she'd ever seen, but it was a city so that was to be expected. When they first moved to Atlantis all those years ago, McKay had said that searching the city for a ZPM would be like searching every room on Manhattan Island. That island has an area of eighty-seven-point-four-six square kilometers stretched out over twenty-seven kilometers of land. Atlantis has an area of eighty square kilometers stacked up on its five kilometer (in diameter) base. The Nex?
It was ten kilometers across its primary axis which put it as twice the size of Atlantis's primary axis, one kilometer shorter than a Wraith Hiveship, more than twice the size of an Aurora, and all of it devoted from the ground up to be a war machine. Atlantis had been upgraded to defend itself, sure, but the Nex was designed to crush its enemies with overwhelming firepower. Still, the ship was only roughly seven-hundred meters at its 'tallest' point and Atlantis' control tower, before it was partially destroyed, stood at over a kilometer in height. Weir would put money down on a bet that the interior room and living space of the ship, which had five massive spheres devoted to either power production or the CIC and AI server banks, was still less than what Atlantis had to offer.
Her train of thought was broken when a small puff of green appeared off to one side of their location in orbit of the seemingly random planet McKay had taken them to and the Daedalus exited hyperspace to join them in orbit of New-New-New Lantea. Weir sighed at that. They'd been attacked, damaged, gotten the Nex stranded in Pegasus, and now there was the name of their new world.
She walked back into the tower proper, stepped into the transporter, and made her way to the Control Room just as Caldwell was beaming in. "Any causalities?" the General asked.
"You're missing five stories of a building…" Widget began before Sam stomped on the alien's foot hard enough to break a Human's toe. "Shutting up," Widget hissed through the pain.
"It could've been worse," General Carter replied, her words causing Caldwell to snap off a salute as he realized she was present. "We're the same rank, Steven, you don't have to salute me," Sam said as she flicked her hand at a screen that immediately lit up with a display. Weir raised an eyebrow at that. "The FTA gene has its benefits," Sam said in explanation before beginning her explanation. "The Asurans were obviously targeting the Control Room, ZPM room, and Control Chair. If not for the decision to move the Control Room and to add secondary shields over the more vital areas, you would've lost full control of the city, the ZPMs, and the command structure of the city. As it is, you lost twenty Jumpers, several dozen hours of labor repairing the damages… and the harsher side of forty people."
Caldwell had to take a deep breath to keep from shouting. This was no one's fault, he knew that, but that many people dead? It warranted the release of tension, most often delivered in the form of screaming. "Okay," Caldwell said once he was sure his voice was under his control. "Here's what's going to happen. We're going to use the flash-forges to get the tower fixed, obviously. We're also going to have a candlelight vigil or whatever it is you want to do to mourn the dead. We're going to help you get the Nex's FTL drive working again, but, first, we're going to move Atlantis. For the sake of the safety of this city and its inhabitants, we're going to hide Atlantis in Dead Space."
"Steven…" Weir began before Caldwell stopped her with a raised hand.
"I know that only a few of us here want to live in space their whole lives, believe me, I get it," Caldwell continued, his voice low, tone calm, and words coming out slower for clarity and control, "but my first priority is the safety of this expedition. Atlantis, as a ship, falls under the command of the UNSC Space Forces according to the UNSC Charter. As such, I am ordering this ship to be placed in a strategic location away from all hostile parties. Doctor McKay, can you get the Gate to work while we're in Dead Space?"
"As long as we're not moving, yes," McKay replied. "That's how we were able to use a Stargate in orbit of a black hole during the Pegasus Project, or the creation of the Intergalactic Gate Bridge that ended up being rendered useless when the Odyssey got back from Ida."
"Okay, then find me a location in Dead Space where we'll be out of the view of prying eyes and figure out what the Gate address would be. Once we have that, forward the address to the SGC and get us moving. Doctor Weir, I'd like to speak with you in your office. General Carter, if you would accompany us."
The trio, which was actually a quintet, walked into Weir's office and Caldwell turned to the extra two. "Why does this one have a body?" he asked Sam, his mask of calm slipping slightly.
"'This one' both has a name, and is capable of speaking for itself," Widget shot back with arms crossed over his chest. "To answer your question, I have a body because, unlike the other AIs in your fleet, I was programmed from the ground up to think of myself as being an organic."
"The actual story is that Widget took something I said out of context and it allowed him to make a body," Sam corrected.
"What did you say?" Sheppard, the last person to join them, asked curiously.
"I told him to grow a pair because he was acting like a child," Sam replied before adding, "On to business," in an all-business tone. "The problem with the FTL drive is that we overtaxed it. The Nex hasn't left the Milky Way in a couple million years, and the FTL drive had only been used in a combat situation in recent times. We had to conduct major repairs to the drive after the Battle for Earth, but those repairs were more like patches than they were anything else. As such, the FTL drive suffered a couple of concerning overloads, the hull is damaged in a few places, and we lost a sublight engine. Don't worry about us, the bulk of our problems are repairs that'll take a few days to fix and then we'll be on our way. The city, however…" Sam trailed off.
"How bad is the damage, really?" Caldwell asked.
"Well, you really did lose five stories of an inhabited building. While the loss of lives is pressing, the damage to the city is mostly superficial. You lost the Jumper Bay and the twenty Jumpers docked in it at the time. Aside from that, there's a hole in the tower near the Control Chair where the AI Core used to be. You actually got off kind of easy, and Landry sending us here does open the option of replacing Plato rather easily. The Nex has a few spare AI-compatible crystal orbs. If we use the scan of Doctor Weir's mind used to make Plato the first time, I can replace the AI without any notable differences. He'll go by the same name, talk the same, act the same… essentially you won't be able to tell the difference," Widget replied.
"I can't believe this happened," Sheppard said with a shake of his head.
"We're lucky you were still around," Weir added. "SGA-1 was supposed to go on a mission when Caldwell called in with the news about the Wraith on Asuras. One minute later, and you wouldn't have been there to fly the city."
"McKay would've managed. Just, you know, don't tell him I said that. His ego's big enough as it is."
Caldwell sighed wearily. "We're going to have to find replacements for the people we lost, but what gets me worried is that you said they were flying under the Gaia's IFF."
"Plato couldn't even tell the difference," Weir said with a shake of her head. "He was sure it was the Gaia right up until they dropped out of hyperspace, but he did manage to get the shield up before he died. If he hadn't of… we would've lost a lot more people."
"So the Asurans have figured out your IFF?" Widget mused with a nod of his head. "Not all that surprising to be honest. You broadcast your IFFs no matter where you are. A few engagements with a hostile power like the Asurans and they're bound to copy the signal they've noticed you're always broadcasting. After that, Todd told them what it was for and you've got yourself a fleet of ships flying under the Gaia's IFF. Not only will you have to get new IFFs, you'll have to encode them better, and only broadcast them when you're approaching friendly space."
"The Jaffa did something similar," Sam added. "When they were trying to expand their fleet and get more followers, they would use standard greetings, their version of an IFF, to get the target Ha'tak to lower their shields then they'd ring over an assault team. That stopped when the Replicators showed up and started attacking anything in sight."
"So our IFFs are compromised, Atlantis is damaged, we've lost people, the Nex is stranded in Pegasus without a viable form of FTL, the Wraith have hacked the Asurans, the Asurans are both mobilizing in force and upgrading the Wraith fleet, and this is all because of the Wraith you named Todd," Caldwell said with a shake of his head. "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch."
"Get in line," Sheppard added with a glare that wasn't directed at anyone in the room.
There was a knock at the door before Widget blinked and the door unlocked. McKay stepped in and said, "We're ready to go, but Chuck has a point in that we shouldn't leave the Nex here."
"Send our destination to the fleet over an encrypted channel that the Asurans won't be able to hack," Caldwell ordered.
"Yeah… I… can't… do that," McKay begrudgingly admitted. "The Asurans are programmed with Ancient code, Atlantis broadcasts in Ancient code by default, the Asurans are sure to know Asgard code well enough hack a communique going to multi ends of the galaxy at once, and Plato's gone so he can't change it on the fly."
"It's alright, I can do it," Widget assured them. "Plato was just a dumbed-down version of me anyway."
"Atlantis' databanks are as large as the Nex's," Sam countered.
"And even then, Plato was only a fraction of me," Widget replied. "It's like saying that one part of your brain is smarter than the whole brain just because it has certain information stored there. The whole brain, which is me, is always smarter than the pieces, which are the other AIs."
"Just send the message," Caldwell ordered while pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Yes, sir," Widget replied in a more serious tone before following behind McKay.
Weir shook her head while sighing deeply. "Welcome to the other side of sanity," she mumbled to herself.
"Here, here!" Sheppard agreed with a sad shake of his own head, the two Generals present agreeing reluctantly.
***Milky Way Galaxy (Uncharted Territory)***
**Dead Space**
*FGN Isai (Medical Lab)*
"What do we know?" Wy'H'ofacion asked, his words distorted to the ears of the one lying in the bed slowly regaining his wits.
"The red ones both control and are immune to fire," Rheataela replied. "They explode if they get close enough to you, and throw fireballs at you if you try to engage them at range."
"The blue ones both control and are immune to electricity," Izotiusk added as she continued to heal Sieon's wounds. "They fire bolts of lightning at you from range and emit area-of-affect electrical pulses at close range, or simply maul you into the ground."
"The ones that glow are powerful biotics in their own right. They are not easily defeated," Vordir piped in from his place administering treatment to the lesser wounded amongst them.
"The brown ones can move the Earth without biotic energy and are physically stronger than we are," one of the Furlings Sieon didn't know by name added. "The grey ones are very maneuverable, and believe the wind answers their call."
"And the ones with glowing eyes are the Hosts to a partial amount of a Greater Demon's power," Sieon finished through a groan.
"Rest," Izotiusk demanded. "You are far from well."
"Where is Rana?" Sieon asked.
He received no reply.
"Where is Rana?" he asked again.
Finally, Wy'H'ofacion spoke. "She is with us no longer."
"What happened?" Sieon asked, his tone raw.
"The Greater Demon the Lesser Demon referred to as the Harbinger has taken her. She fought well, though she did not win. We failed to prevent her capture. I am sorry, Sieon, but she has been taken by the Demons," Wy'H'ofacion explained solemnly.
"Where?" Sieon demanded to know.
A spark of light erupted into a person and the ship's AI replied in place of the others. "I traced the Demon which took her to a location near the galactic edge. Once there, a radiation signature and energy spike comparable to the one recorded upon our arrival here was detected."
"She has been taken back to the universe which birthed our species," Wy'H'ofacion clarified.
"Then it is time for the Furlings to return home," Sieon said darkly.