Here's the next chapter for you all, questions will be answered and others will be asked. Note: I only own what characters i create, the names and places i invent and the ships and vehicles i seem to be designing in droves for this single story.

I would like to thank AlexanderD for all his help and i strongly recomend reading his story New Dawn. I hope he likes the character named after him Admiral Alec Xander.

For those of you interested in what some of the ships featured in this story look like here are a few sketches on photobucket: .com/albums/ae166/Senrab_Nomis/

Please review and i will respond. Or alternatively post in the thread for this story in my forum. .net/topic/84023/35075481/1/

Review Responses

AlexanderD: Well if you're going to provide such a good read for me its the least i can do to provide a good read for you.

Shadows-of-Realm: We shall see, eventually we shall see.

stark40763: You are fully entitled to guess, but you are going to have to keep reading to find out.

DaletheChu: Yeah RL can cause problems, but i am determined to post new chapters for this story.

"I think an explanation is in order here," Jakose stated deceptively calmly. "What are you basing these accusations on exactly?"

"Yes," Sovaer started angrily. "And what exactly are you even accusing us of?"

"We are not accusing you of anything," Sheppard replied in a tone that mirrored Jakose'. "We just want answers."

Sovaer scoffed, his head twisting to look at the marines in a half circle. His expression stated that there presence made for an accusation by itself, but his darting eyes that examined each one suggested he was considering them a nuisance he would have to deal with.

"Your presence here necessitates theirs," said Sheppard, answering the unasked question.

"You think he is worthy of a dozen of, what I am sure are, your best men to be contained?" asked Jakose, keeping a straight face. "One ordinary man."

"Considering what I've seen, and what I know," Sheppard replied evenly. "I can say for certain he is no ordinary man."

Jakose narrowed his eyes at Sheppard, studying the man before him. Clearly he knew. He knew and he knew that he knew he knew. And yet he was being careful to make sure his men didn't know. The way they tightened the grips on their weapons suggested that they considered Sovaer to be a dangerous threat now more than ever but they weren't edgy. If they knew his secret they would be a lot more nervous, not sure what he might do or even what he could do. If they knew then they wouldn't be looking at him like he was a man who might reach for a weapon, in many ways he was a weapon. So Sheppard was being considerate and hadn't told them more than was necessary, but he had a lot of men ready so that Sovaer wouldn't even try to make a move. So, this man was both considerate and cautious, and worried for the safety of his men. And at some level he trusted them still. He wanted a valid explanation for what they had found. It was probably the only reason they hadn't been beamed into a holding cell or an interrogation room. So…he was being diplomatic but cautious, and he sure as hell wanted answers.

"Sovaer," said Jakose, while maintaining eye contact with Sheppard. "Sit down."

"Minister?"

"I said sit down. On the floor now."

"Yes Minister."

"Wait," ordered Jakose. "Take off your coat."

There was a pause before Sovaer said, "Yes Minister."

Sovaer flexed his shoulders and rolled them back, allowing the black leather coat he wore to slip free and fall to the floor, revealing the shoulder holster he wore and the two energy pistols it held.

"Take off the holster and then sit down."

Sovaer stared at his friend, his face a picture of disbelief.

"That was an order."

Without even looking Jakose could feel the glare burning into him. It was not malicious. It was anger at being told to put himself in a position where he could not protect his friend. And yet he complied.

Slowly he raised his hands, taking his time so as not to spook the marines, reaching up and grasping the straps across his shoulders. Carefully he lifted the holster up until the strap that would normally rest across his back was above his head and then with a flick of his wrists sent the whole thing flying forwards, clattering to the floor. Once it had landed he lowered himself to the floor, sitting with his legs and arms crossed and his face a stone mask.

"Now," said Jakose. "I think these men and women can lower their weapons."

Sheppard nodded before saying, calmly and clearly, "lower your weapons."

The marines complied, slowly lowering their rifles until they were hanging from their shoulders by the strap. With their weapons hanging there they gave off an image of being non-threatening but that image never reached their eyes. Each marine was watching the acknowledged threat in the room and Sovaer was looking right back at them. They may have been told to lower their weapons but it was obvious by the way their hands remained holding the butt of the rifles, within easy reach of the trigger, that they were being nothing short of professional about this situation. Call it fear, call it pride, call it what you will, they were anything but incautious.

Nevertheless, with this one act of trust by both sides, the tension in the room had dropped significantly, despite the stare down between the marines and the bodyguard.

Sovaer however, once he saw the marines lower their respective weapons, decided to end the staring contest before it could begin. Clasping his hands behind his head he leaned his body back until he was resting against the rungs of the railing behind him, his eyes gently closed. Upon seeing this out of the corner of his eye a small smile was very briefly noticeable on Jakose lips.

He never changes, he thought.

"I think an explanation would be necessary Colonel Sheppard," said Jakose. "What are you basing these extraordinary claims on?"

"Cold hard evidence," said a familiar voice in the back of the room.

Sheppard stepped aside and Rodney McKay strode forwards from his unnoticed position at the back of the room.

"Perhaps you could be more specific?" enquired Jakose, causing Sovaer to smirk, his eyes remaining closed.

"We found that the aliens who attacked Hope station had some Averian technology in their possession," the physicist replied.

"The side arms that your bodyguard uses," Sheppard added.

"How do you know this for certain?" asked Sovaer, his eyes now wide open.

Rodney's answer was to snap his fingers and in response a holographic screen appeared between them generated by ISIS. Displayed on the screen, with crystal clarity, were the collection of pistols taken from the alien corpses. They were all carbon copies of the pair Sovaer himself had used against the Wraith and were even now lying on the floor.

"Where did you get those?" Sovaer asked seriously.

Even as he asked the question the image changed to show the corpses of the aliens from the recovered fighter, along with the fighter itself.

Jakose and Sovaer could only stare at the image before them as countless thoughts reverberated around their minds. Finally though Jakose found his voice.

"What are they?"

"From what we can tell," said Sheppard. "They were grown in a lab using a combination of human and Wraith genetics. They were aboard that fighter which we found adrift in the Hope system after the battle and each of them was armed with one of those weapons."

Sovaer shook himself.

"This is hardly proof that we are involved with them though," he argued. "That pistol design has been around for far longer than I've been alive. Just because they look the same doesn't mean the two are identical if the technology inside is different."

"You're right," Rodney admitted. "The technology does appear to be slightly different. Those pistols fire a green energy bolt, where as yours fire a red bolt."

Sovaer smirked.

"However," Rodney continued, causing Sovaer's smile to waver. "That doesn't explain where they got the design from nor is it the only piece of technology we found."

"And what else did you find?" asked Jakose.

"Well ignoring the fact that their ships seem to be giving off an energy reading similar to your own there is the fighter circuitry," said Rodney.

"Go on."

"The visual screens in the fighter uses the same baseline design as an example of technology we know you have," said Rodney.

"Which technology?" enquired Jakose.

To answer Rodney pulled out of his pocket a small rectangular device with a screen set into the surface. It took Jakose a moment but at last he realised what it was, the computer they had given the Tau'ri that contained a copy of their history. In his head the wheels started to turn.

"You can understand our surprise when it turned out the technology was similar," said Sheppard. "Especially since I'm presuming this particular piece is rather outdated by your standards?"

Jakose nodded, still mulling over his thoughts. For security purposes the device was antiquated and defunct, and no doubt the Tau'ri had done the same.

"Which means someone way back in your history gained access to a significant amount of your tech base," said Rodney. "Even if it isn't up to date they clearly have the expertise to utilise it effectively."

"The question is," said Sheppard. "Who?"

Jakose was still deep in his thoughts and remained silent, which gave Sovaer plenty of time to ponder what the hell had just happened. Now that he thought about it the Tau'ri clearly trusted them on some level otherwise they wouldn't be in this situation. It was a given that a man like him would have some other weapons about his person for when he happened to lack his pair of energy pistols but the marines had still lowered their weapons nonetheless. Clearly they wanted answers, and he had to admit that in a roundabout way this was a pretty good way of going about it. They had acknowledged right away that they were playing the suspicious bugger but they were willing to give him and Jakose the benefit of the doubt. You could call what they had done scare tactics designed to see how an opponent would react without causing any risk to your own side. Sovaer just thought of it as devious and very effective, and he couldn't really fault them for it despite how much it annoyed him. When it came down to it they had sufficient reason to be suspicious and the tactic had told them what they needed to know. Minister Jakose, his oldest friend, knew something. That much had been clear the second the unspoken accusation had been implied. Somewhere in his mind something had resonated to the question that had been actually been asked and the result had shown on his face even if his friend wasn't sure why. Aside from that one lapse his friend had played the part he expected, the diplomat faced with a tricky negotiation with someone who thought there was fair reason for distrust. Now was not the time to interrupt his friend's musings, because he wanted to find out just what was in that head that had caused so much trepidation. Like the Tau'ri he wanted even the slightest clue as to who this enemy was.

Suddenly Jakose head snapped up, his eyes locking with Sheppard's.

"I think I might know," he admitted. "There are things I need to check first but if I am right then it could change everything."

The seriousness of his expression stopped any objections before they could even be voiced. Subjected to the unwavering tone Sheppard found himself nodding without fully being aware of doing it.

Unnoticed, except by the marines maintaining their vigil watch, Sovaer leaned his body forwards putting his weight on his hands, bringing his legs beneath his torso. Slowly his legs uncoiled, pushing him up and onto his feet. Striding forwards he moved to his friend's side.

"I trust him with my life Colonel Sheppard. He has earned that trust so I hope you will trust him as well."

Jakose couldn't help but smile at his friends kind words.

Sheppard sighed.

"Alright fine, I'll give you a few hours to do what you have to."

"I appreciate," Jakose said sincerely.

"I just hope I'm wrong," he added so quietly that no one heard him.

"Well that went well," said Rodney, to which Sheppard couldn't help but snort.

The Averian's had been transported back to Hope and now the pair were wandering through the corridors of the Weir, passing various crew members along the way, each one heading to places unknown.

"Yeah as well it could go considering we practically accused our newest allies of double dealing," Sheppard said drawly.

"Hey we had to know," Rodney protested. "Besides do you really buy that they would attack their own base for who knows what reason in an attempt to trick us for who knows what reason? We gave them the time they needed and hopefully we'll soon have the answers we need."

"Yeah but remind me again who has to report this latest update to General O'Neill?"

"Hmm now let me see," Rodney replied, pretending to think about it. "It's you isn't it?"

"Yes Rodney, it is me."

"Is there anything that actually says you have to report it directly to him?" Rodney asked, the unseen cogs already turning.

"Well no," Sheppard admitted. "But he's going to get the news eventually. And when he does it's anyone's guess how he takes it."

"So make sure he finds out from someone he likes," suggested Rodney.

"Like who?"

"Easy, Sam."

Sheppard paused halfway down the vacant corridor.

"You mean Colonel Carter?"

"Yep," the Canadian replied smugly.

"Why her?"

Sheppard, like a lot of people who ended up working with one of the pair, had heard the rumours about how the two had had a thing for each other for years. Of course with the regulations as they were neither had acted on it. At the time he didn't know what to make of it but maybe, just maybe, Rodney knew something he didn't, about this.

"Can you keep a secret?" Rodney asked, lowering his voice.

"Yeah," was Sheppard's intrigued reply.

Rodney darted his head back and forth, quickly confirming that the corridor was indeed empty, before lowering his voice to a whisper.

"They're secretly married."

Sheppard was stunned, literally stunned to the point where he could feel his jaw hanging loose.

"What? When? How the hell do you know even that?" he asked, flabbergasted.

"Jennifer told me," he explained. "Back when we were trapped in that mine Sam told her about a guy she was interested in who was retiring soon, when we got back to Earth a couple of months ago she asked Sam if anything had come of it. Anyway you remember how a few months ago there was that thing over General O'Neill retiring?"

Sheppard nodded. He did indeed remember it well, the general had been set to retire before Atlantis had made its appearance over Earth. Once that happened the general was very quickly recalled to full duty so everything could be sorted out. As the president had put it, someone has to deal with the IOA and the general certainly had the experience.

"Well," continued Rodney. "When it turned out his retirement was being cut short he went to Sam, now they both knew that regulations would prevent them from continuing a relationship and the IOA would have a field day. So he proposed they get married so they could continue seeing each other, literally proposed from what I heard."

"That sneaky son of a…" Sheppard said trailing off. "I've seen the two of them together and I never suspected a thing."

Rodney shrugged. "Years of practice I guess."

"So what did the IOA do?"

John couldn't imagine the IOA not making a big deal out of this, anything to squeeze some control out of Homeworld Command.

"They don't know," explained Rodney. "Well most of them don't. They haven't seemed to notice yet. Apparently the additions to files paperwork went through Woolsey's desk."

John couldn't help but laugh at that. O'Neill and Woolsey were certainly turning out to be a formidable team. The soldier and the bureaucrat. Who knew what they would try next.

"Why am I only just finding out about this?" John couldn't help but ask.

"It's a secret, so keep it to yourself."

After all a secret wasn't a secret if everyone knew.

The great city of Atlantis rested calmly on the ocean surface, her graceful form unmarked and untouched by the ten millennia she had spent underwater. Ironically the most damage done to the great city was caused after the arrival of the expedition. The most annoying, from the perspective of anyone who had tried to repair the damage, was caused when the shield was offline and incapable of protecting the city from the mega storm that had hit. The resulting volumes of water that had cascaded into the city had resulted in large amounts of flooding, with the water seeping in whether it could. This water had then lingered, even after the near miraculous survival of the city, in some of the lower levels as the tremendous pressure being exerted, not to mention lightning, had resulted in numerous leaks. Since they were in no position to move the city into dry dock to repair the holes in her underbelly the sea water found itself with a firm foothold.

The sea water had ironically caused more damage on the way down than it had just by lingering, while primary systems had not been adversely affected the more vulnerable secondary systems had which included internal sensors. Of course after the whole Asuran's in Atlantis incident General O'Neill would argue that it's not such a bad thing to have a blind spot so long as you know where it is and the enemy don't.

Then of course there was the damage caused by the numerous attacks on the city of the years. For a time the worst damage ever caused to the city had been from the energy beam that had, for lack of a better word, clipped the city during the Asuran attack. That damage had proved to be largely superficial once the power conduits had been repaired but at the time it was the most critical damage that had been inflicted. A few patches on the side of the tower had covered the holes, which was something the engineering teams were capable of performing given the circumstances.

For all intent and purposes though the most damage taken had been during the battle over Earth. The ageing city ship slugging it out with a ZPM powered hive ship, with a depleting power supply and a degrading orbit are bound to leave their marks. They were fortunate that there had been no adverse effects caused by using the highly experimental and so far untested wormhole drive. The constant barrage of energy blasts, consistently striking the wall like shield of the city ship had had the unfortunate side affect of knocking the city out of orbit and into Earths atmosphere. The resulting meteor like re-entry had taxed the power conduits channelling energy to the shield to the limit and beyond, which had resulted in damage to the emitters, the power grid, the hull and the superstructure. The repair teams that inspected the damage marvelled at how well the city had withstood the impact of hitting the water at such speed and marvelled at the strength of the inertial dampeners, which had softened the landing. Those who had been in the city at the time said the inertial dampeners needed to be a bit stronger because they swore that when the city landed they bounced.

Eventually the city had been moved away from San Francisco bay, and a spectacular view, to the small island owned by the United States Air Force. In the specially converted bay/dry-dock the city had finally undergone repairs to bring her back to some resemblance of what she had once been ten thousand years ago. Of course the cosmetic repairs and the draining of the flooded sections were just to bring the city up to working standards. However the people of Earth had found themselves with an opportunity that they had dreamed of for years, a chance to not only rebuild but to upgrade as well.

Atlantis was an inspiring creation. A city capable of travelling from one galaxy to another can only be described as at least being such. The Tau'ri had looked at the city the moment it had touched down and they had been inspired. Over the next two months scientists and engineers flocked to the city like moths drawn to a flame. The halls were filled with the sounds of maintenance teams and repair crews working tirelessly to not only repair the great city but to understand it. This was an opportunity to study a technological marvel built by the Alterans at the height of their technological prowess and they were not about to pass it up. While repairs were being made schematics of the city were being created, information for which was drawn both from the information stored in the database and visual data gleamed from the repair operations. Slowly a picture was being formed of what made this great city tick. But with the repair work being a relatively simple matter with the expertise and the technology at hand efforts were turned to a more appetising question. They knew how to her ticking over nicely, now they wanted to see how they could make her tick louder, faster and longer, a challenge that many relished.

The Tau'ri had been inspired to build upon the marvel they found themselves with and they very quickly set to work. Unbeknownst to most plans for how to improve the great city had been in the works for some time. It had started simply as a wish list for what Atlantis could use once the technology was more readily available and had grown from there. But once Atlantis was back on Earth the plans had also grown to include things from if we had the time and the manpower list, which had naturally included repairing the hull and draining the flooded areas.

The refit had been a monumental undertaking in that it was something that had never before been attempted. Instead of tacking on advanced technology to their own they would be stacking advanced technology onto very different advanced technology. The first thing that had been insisted on was the addition of the four power generators to the city. With those tied into the power grid, as well as recharging the present ZPM's, it was possible to add additional power consuming technology. Lessons had been learned from the past and the first year of the expedition had put in perspective exactly what a city needs in order to operate independently. Now the Tau'ri planned on making sure that the city was capable of functioning even if they were under siege and cut off from supplies. This mainly took the form of a number of matter synthesisers designed to manufacture the basic necessities, namely food, water and various medical supplies, but with the addition of a single large industrial scale synthesiser it was also possible to produce other needed items.

There were however, limits to what could be done in the time frame that Atlantis had resided on Earth. While a complete refit for the city was out of the question it was possible to make small but notable additions to the city that would greatly improve her chances of surviving a siege situation. Reconfiguring the power grid in such a way as to accommodate both the generators recharging two ZPM's while a third provided power to the city had been a relatively minor operation given that the system was already designed to receive power from the three sources simultaneously. Isolating the feeds and rerouting around them to create a direct path from the generators in the cities underbelly had solved the issue of preventing power failure to the rest of the city. The actual idea of how to recharge the ZPM was actually so obvious when realised that it was almost laughable. The ZPM's were essentially batteries, admittedly they were incredibly advanced and very, very powerful but the idea was the same. The interface in Atlantis could already do the hard part, which was to extract the energy from the crystalline device, so a flow of energy could already be created. Recharging the ZPM's just meant that flow of energy was reversed so that it was being sent into the pocket dimension rather than drawn out. Also if necessary all they had to do was reverse the power flow and the ZPM's immediately started sending power into the city systems at much higher rates than a generator could.

But incorporating shiny new weapons into the city was not as simple as it sounded, due to the fact that they would not only require a link to the power systems but the city control systems as well. The matter synthesisers were quite easy to add to the power grid since it just meant they had to tap a power feed off the main grid and not link the control systems to the rest of the city. If they wanted to install weapon systems that could be controlled by the systems in the control room they would have to run kilometres of hard lines through the city as well as install a dedicated control station. Now such a task was possible but it would mean disassembling a fair part of the city they had just put back together again, and it meant the weapons would be incredibly vulnerable to damage. One small cut in one small wire and an entire piers weapon grid could be disabled. Okay so it wasn't going to actually be that vulnerable but the point still remained that it would be much more vulnerable than they would like. So they made a compromise that would allow them to retain full control of the weapons systems and not have to install miles of vulnerable cable and a control system, they used the control chair.

The control chairs were already capable of being establishing a remote interface with whatever was fitted with a necessary command receiver tied into each of the systems. Various systems around the city, and in other Alteran outposts, already possessed such receivers, it was part of the reason they had been able to simply swap out the chairs that controlled Earths defences and why they had been able to change the chairs location from Antarctica to Area 51. Set the receivers to right frequency, because there was no known way to change the base programming of a control chair, and the systems in the control chair would automatically interface the weapon systems as part of the control commands. APB's, ICT's and even a number of Grodin's had been added to the cities already formidable compliment of drones and railgun emplacements. The ICT's came with their own independent power supply so no one had hesitated to add a sizeable number of them to the city. The design for the Grodin weapons installed on each pier meant that the capacitor could slowly charge without taxing power to the shield. In fact the only weapon that would cause any major drain to the energy reserves were the plasma beams and even then they should be easily sustained by the newly installed generators. Either way if anyone planned on attacking this city then they were looking at one hell of a fight.

This had all been seen and noted, by a much heard of ascended being, a long time ago, and now Janus was off trying to find something else to captivate his interest.

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