O'Neill signed, "Do we have any idea where this attack is even going to take place?"
"Sorry sir, we have gotten nothing further," replied Barrett.
Landry spoke up, "We suspect its a bomb from the weapon's grade naquadah that was stolen."
"We have scanned this entire planet a dozen times and found no traces of naquadah," replied O'Neill, "At least none that isn't accounted for in our use."
"The head of the aliens? Do they mean the Asgard? Jaffa? Nox? or Tok'ra?" asked Landry, "Everyone of them is on high alert and not finding any trace of sabotage."
"I've got little choice but to send the Ares to P3X-118. Col. Ellis to see if there is any trace of the Foothold Aliens there," replied O'Neill.
"What team are we going to send with him?" asked Landry.
"Sheppard needs to stay here on Pacifica for the time, Teyla, McKay, Sgt. Greer, Barrett, and Odai Ventrell. My gut tells me having him along would be beneficial," replied O'Neill.
"Seriously you want to send him?" asked Barrett.
"Yes, he has payback coming to them, and I think this might go a long way toward building some trust with him," replied O'Neill.
Col. Ellis beamed up Teyla, McKay, Greer, and Odai for the mission, it would be a quick jump to P3X-118. Everyone was ready, with less than 24 hours until this attack. The Ares made the jump and found itself in orbit around a planet mainly made up of a desert. Scans quickly showed there were a number of cities scattered around the surface. Two ships quickly ascended from the planet to meet the Ares.
"Looks like we have company," replied Ellis.
"Do those ships pose any threat?" asked Teyla.
"Only two ships no sir, our shields can handle this easy" replied the helmsmen.
"Receiving a signal," spoke up the communications officer.
"On screen," replied Ellis.
Odai Ventrell appeared on the screen, "Why are you in our space?"
"Why are you pretending to be me?" yelled Odai.
"I fail to understand your question. Why are you here? I demand an answer!" shouted Odai Ventrell.
"When I get my hands on you..." started Odai.
"We know of your pending attack on Earth. Why are you attacking us?" asked Ellis, pointing a finger at Odai to remain silent.
"I do not know what you are referring to," replied Odai Ventrell.
"Look we are able to track your signal. We know you are trying to kill off anyone with the Ancient Gene, and we know you are planning an attack very shortly. Why? What have we done to you?" asked Barrett.
The alien Odai Ventrell stared at the view screen in front of them. Not accustomed to having an enemy around their own planet. They were accustomed to infiltrating and sabotaging cultures. A series of clicks and clucks were made by Odai Ventrell.
"Your kind are a plague on the galaxy. Spreading over taking worlds that are not yours," replied Odai Ventrell.
"We have never encountered your race, except for the time you tried to infiltrate Stargate Command," replied Teyla.
"We have lost over ten worlds to you," replied Odai Ventrell, glancing to his side.
"If we or our allies have taken worlds you have claimed we were not aware of this," replied Teyla.
"Please let us discuss this, we do not need to be enemies. We can work something out," replied Ellis.
"Too late, you will surrender your ship to us!" exclaimed a grinning Odai Ventrell.
"Sir we have fifty-seven ships decloaking around us," replied the helmsmen.
"You do not want to start a fight with us," replied Ellis.
"I think I do," replied Odai Ventrell.
The Ares found itself surrounded by fifty-nine ships, with no immediate path to jump to hyperspace or to open a wormhole to escape. Ellis was determining his options, he did not like the odds of having to fight that many ships. While ten and probably even twenty would have posed minimal risk, nearly sixty with sustained fire was not a good option.
That is when the first two ships opened fire, and the other remaining began to fire as well.
"Direct weapons on clearing us a path to get clear so we can jump to hyperspace!" ordered Ellis.
"Yes, sir!" replied helmsmen.
Weapons were directed toward five ships, which the Asgard Beam weapon was cutting apart, and missiles were taking down.
"Sir shields, are at eighty-five percent," spoke the helmsmen.
"The sustained fire from all the ships over the entire shield array is draining power quickly, the second shield array is ready when the first one reaches thirty percent," spoke McKay.
"Keep firing take out as many of these ships as we can. Let's show them not to mess with us," ordered Ellis.
"Col. sensors are detecting another twenty ships decloaking," replied McKay, "Make that thirty-five."
"Where are they coming from?" asked Ellis,
"I can't tell from the sensors. Second shield array is switching in, and the first shield array is recharging," spoke McKay.
"The new ships have cut off our escape path," replied the helmsmen.
"Make a new path," ordered Ellis, "and get us out of here as soon as you have it open."
"This is not good, the second shield array is down to fifty percent already, and the first shield array is not charged yet," replied McKay.
"We have a third shield array right?" asked Ellis.
"Yes, we do but at the current rate our shield is draining, we will barely have the first shield array back up before the third one goes down," shouted McKay.
"The second one will be back up then right?" asked Ellis.
"An additional eighteen ships decloaking. It's too many we are not destroying them fast enough," spoke McKay.
"Get us a path clear helmsmen!" ordered Ellis.
"The new ships are replacing the ships we are destroying as fast as we destroy them," replied the helmsmen.
"We are at thirty percent on the third array, switching to the first array," spoke McKay.
That is when the weapons fire stopped.
"Hold weapons!" ordered Ellis.
"Incoming signal sir!" replied the helmsmen.
"On screen," replied Ellis.
"Do you wish to surrender?" asked Odai Ventrell.
"Not a chance, we took out over twenty of your ships and you haven't touched us," replied Ellis, "Do you want to surrender?"
"Your shields are superior to ours, but we both know they won't last much longer. I have many more ships," replied Odai Ventrell.
"How about we both withdraw?" asked Teyla.
Another forty-two ships decloaked around them.
"I think not," replied Odai Ventrell, "How about we just sit here and stare at each other. I want to thank, bringing your ship here, made our attack possible. And with that, I'm cutting your communication..."
The signal went dead.
"What did he mean by that?" asked Ellis, "Get me Altera?"
"Sir we have lost communication," replied the Com. Officer.
"Let me have a look," replied McKay.
That is when the view screen showed a new ship leaving the surface of the planet. It was an exact match to the Ares.
"Tell me that's not what I think it is?" asked Greer.
"It is, they are sending an exact match to the Area back to Earth. Only it appears to be badly damaged," replied McKay.
"How did they get that?" asked Ellis.
"I don't know. But that ship has hyperdrive, while those surrounding us do not," replied McKay. As the fake Ares launched into Hyperspace.
"That's their plan they duplicated us, to be able to return as us," replied Ellis.
"Why make it appeared damaged?" asked Greer.
"They would be directed back to dock at Pacifica for repairs, and be able to stage an attack there," replied McKay.
"If they were able to take over Pacifica, Earth is in a lot of danger," replied Ellis.
"We have to warn Pacifica and Altera," replied Teyla.
"They have created some sort of subspace distortion that blocks all of our communications," replied McKay, "The scans I was able to get on that fake ship, their hyperspace drives are not that good. It will take them at least ten hours to return to Earth."
"That gives us ten hours to figure out how to warn Earth to stop them," replied Teyla.
"Yeah but how are going to get past all these ships?" asked Greer.
"How many ships?" asked Ellis.
"One-hundred-twenty-seven as of now," replied the helmsmen.
"Why can't we open a wormhole and go right back to Earth?" asked Greer.
"These ships are close enough they would sustain damage and have explosions. That is not a good thing around a wormhole," replied McKay, "and the sme for jumping to hyperspace."
"If I can speak now I have an idea," spoke Odai.
"Let's hear it," replied Teyla.
Meanwhile back on Altera, O'Neill had been watching the battle take place, and saw the Ares had managed to escape the planet. Something had disrupted the feed briefly, however, the Ares emerged and could be seen now traveling in hyperspace. Communication with the ship had failed, and the communication with the Asgard Core was glitchy. He would wait till he heard from the Ares to see what happened. The computer estimated it would be ten and a half hours to return to Earth. Damage readings indicated they would have to go to Pacifica for repairs.
O'Neill prepared the remaining ships, Caldwell was leading the Athena, Young was now in charge of Apollo, and Emerson was commanding the Poseidon, all three ships were in orbit above Earth ready for action. Sheppard was in command of Pacifica for the time being, Landry was in charge of Altera, and O'Neill was on standby for taking the chair, his expertise with controlling Altera and all her systems were left in his hands. O'Neill checked the clock the Ares would be back in another four hours.
McKay was positioning the cloaked puddle jumper next to one of the foothold ships. Odai was releasing one of the cloaked torpedos.
"That's the twentieth one, five more to go," replied Odai.
"These last five will be to prevent other ships from moving in to replace the ones we destroy too quickly," replied McKay.
"Your not a bad pilot," replied Odai, "at least for this kind of work."
"Thanks, this is a great plan you came up with. Don't know why I didn't come up with it. We've done something similar before," replied McKay.
The Ares contacted Altera, once they were an hour away, "Altera this is Ares please respond?"
Harriman responded, "Ares we are receiving you. I am patching you to Commander O'Neill immediately."
O'Neill responded immediately, "Col. Ellis what's going on? How badly are you damaged?"
"Sir we found a fleet of ships waiting for us, cloaked. We met considerable resistance and took some damage getting out. We are going to need immediate repairs," replied Ellis.
"Head to Pacifica, and dock for repairs the crews are standing by to begin as soon as you land," replied O'Neill.
McKay was docking the jumper back in the Ares bay.
McKay arriving back on the bridge, "Let me program the computer here, it will have to trigger the bombs to go off in a certain order, and to activate the hyperspace jump."
"Why not the wormhole drive?" asked Greer.
"The wormhole is far more sensitive than the hyperspace jump. It's better to make a hyperspace jump and get out of here, than risk the wormhole drive," replied Teyla.
"We have one shot at this, soon as we have communication the computer will send an alert to Altera and Pacifica," replied McKay.
"Rodney we have less than an hour before that ship reaches Pacifica," replied Teyla.
Twenty minutes later McKay says, "We're ready."
Ellis turning to McKay, "Do it!"
McKay triggered the computer program, it initiated two explosions opposite of where the ship was intending to exit, to draw the initial reaction away from there. Second a series of cascading explosions destroying 10 ships opposite occurred, the Ares banked sharply and began to accelerate, when the cascading of another eight explosions occurred, right before a hyperspace window began to form. Weapons fire started reaching the Ares, and the strain in the shields was intense. In the few seconds, the first shield array was depleted, as the Ares started entering the Hyperspace window the final five explosions occurred that crippled the eight ships that were approaching to intercept the Ares. Now they just need to clear the subspace disruption.
On Altera, Harriman reported, "The Ares has just docked with Pacifica."