Disclaimer: I make no claims at ownership of any copyrighted characters, places or events used herein. The only thing I make a claim to is this fic, which originated in my head and any original characters created by me herein. The following was made for public consumption at zero profit, and is not for sale except to the owning companies. Yes, I dream big.

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Rant: After reading many a fic, I’ve decided to attempt to write in this category. Fear not, for I do have an idea of what’s going on . . . thanks to Wikipedia and having watched most of the available episodes. On a side note, we authors of fan-fiction have to be careful . . . we may get drafted into writing actual episodes if the Writer’s Strike isn’t settled. I, for one, and going to be extremely disappointed (read: will be cursing greedy people until they die) if the second half of Season Four of Battlestar Galactica is shelved, never to be produced (and yes, S4 is the FINAL season as is sourced on Wikipedia).

Bah, enough with the ranting.

Elements: Battlestar Galactica, Stargate (SG1 and Atlantis), Transformers (2007 Movieverse), Star Trek (except Enterprise, Nemesis and Original Series), and last but not least, Star Wars.

Of Starships and Stargates

By: (Driver) Jim Ohki

Prologue: The Door is Open

Opening Scene: Pentagon Briefing Room

Secretary of Defense John Keller had just delivered the news about Sector Seven under orders from the President. The political fallout from the recent events was going to be felt for years to come. The Chinese, especially, were outraged that the US had something alien and didn’t share the information with the world at large.

Though not for lack of trying, the United States government was in a real pickle. The disposal of the remains of the Decepticons had gone off without a hitch. However there had been too much camera footage from the “Battle of the ‘Bots” to sweep under the rug. Even more troublesome was the nifty angle of the USAF SpecOps troops running about, taking shots at the robotic life-forms.

One of the few things they had kept hidden had been Sector Seven and their ‘experiments’. Instead of naming the ‘cloak-and-dagger’ branch of the military, they simply said it had been the Air Force all along.

That didn’t sit well with those in charge. Especially the President, who had the ad-libber immediately confined to the darkest cell in Leavenworth pending the investigations his comments caused.

So the video conference between the Sec-Def and his ranking Generals around the world continued. The door suddenly opened, admitting a new player to the game. Upon seeing the five stars in the pentagonal pattern on his shoulders, the others both in the room and abroad fell silent. His blue uniform gave away that a General of the Air Force had just walked in on a secure meeting.

“Mister Secretary, Generals,” the newcomer started without preamble. “I’m here under direct order from the President.”

Keller immediately had a flash-back to all of a week ago in the Pentagon’s Northern Military Command Centre, when Tom Banachek had suddenly appeared and uttered the same exact line before life, as the human race saw it, was changed forever.

“Jack, what are you doing here?” questioned a Brigadier General whose nametag read Landry. His eyes gave away his surprise at seeing Jack O’Neill in both this meeting and in that particular uniform. The rank insignia was used for one of two occasions . . . either as a one day retirement ‘gag’ (read: honorary, without the powers the position grants) or when the country was at war.

Granted, the Middle-Eastern situation was war. There’d be no denying that fact, no matter the outcome. However, the Iraqis were suddenly taking a back seat as the now identified General continued.

“Protocol aside,” groused O’Neill as a way to remind Landry that there were other ranking officers and the Secretary of Defense present. “The President has weighed his options. Following a threat by both China and Russia, he has no choice but to go public.”

“We’re not ready,” Landry blurted, before regaining his composure. “Sir, the Mission City event may have clued the rest of the world in to the fact that we are not alone, but if the public were to learn of the program . . . it’d be war on a global scale.”

“Generals,” chimed in Keller, his visage one of pure anger, “would either of you please consider filling the rest of us in?” He didn’t want to voice it, but he was uncertain if he could take yet another military ‘black project’ that nobody felt was important enough to fill him in on.

“Certainly sir,” crisply answered O’Neill, proving how serious the situation was. He was known from the lowest enlisted Airman all the way to the President for being a joker, firing off whit and sarcasm at will. If he was curbing it, then what he was about to say would have dire consequences.

Just as he reached into his pocket for something, the door opened again to admit Richard Woolsey, the American representative on the International Oversight Advisory Committee. Those that didn’t know him took a hard look at an apparent civilian waltzing into a high-level military meeting.

“Woolsey,” greeted Landry, all emotion gone from his voice. There was much animosity between the IOA and the Project, especially since everybody from O’Neill down did everything in their power to subtly block the IOA and their attempts to control them. Oh, how he wished he was back in Colorado, running said Project instead of having to make a personal appearance as the JAG office had been making inquiries to personnel on the roster that nobody had seen in a while.

While the exchange had been taking place, Jack had finished fishing around in his pockets. It looked like a standard Blackberry, however it had been modified by a certain friend to be used to contact him whenever the need arose.

“The President is about to go live to the world,” said Woolsey, “and tell them about the project at Cheyenne Mountain. He felt it would be best if his command staff learned of what we’ve been up to during the past ten years.”

As if on cue, there was a flash of light accompanied by a musical chime. Except for the three in the know, the other Generals and Keller had slack-jawed expressions.

“Greetings, I am Thor. Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet and last of my race,” intoned the ‘Roswell Grey’.

John Keller had been right. This was something big, and it was something that was very hard to take in.

Location: Pegasus Galaxy; Atlantis

While Thor was inducting those at the Pentagon not in the know about what Earth had been doing (and had done) in the past decade, a new player was about to turn those events on its head.

“Colonel Carter,” started Radek Zelenka from his post at the long range sensors. “There is a massive energy reading above the city.”

Colonel Samantha Carter came out of her office after the summons reached her ears via the internal communications of the city. Her eyes immediately looked at the ‘big board’, the screen that displayed what the sensors were seeing. With practiced ease, she maneuvered herself around two consoles and three techs without watching where she was going.

“What’ve you got?” she asked as soon as she reached the sensor console, her mind working in overdrive to decode the readings. She could see that the inbound energy wave was originating in subspace and was fixed in its position in realspace.

“If I didn’t know better I’d say that is ZPM leakage,” chimed in Rodney McKay, scientist and pain in the ass extraordinaire. He had stumbled into the current happenings by sheer chance; he had a report on the city’s defense network that was due in five minutes.

“The sensors can only see so much,” barked Zelenka, accompanying the statement with a roll of his eyes. “As you can see, the anomaly is holding position thirty thousand kilometers away from the planet. There’s no sign of cloaked vessels or satellites in the area, and . . .,” when he trailed off, he earned the attention of the entire control room. It was never a good sign when a scientist trailed off. “That can’t be right.”

Definitely not good.

McKay, being himself, moved around the console and pushed his sometimes friend/most of the time rival out of the way and manipulated the controls. His oft described ‘insane’ intellect was moving at hyperspace speeds, calculating formulas and creating theorems faster than most computers on Earth.

“Rodney?” wondered Carter, her mind easily keeping pace with his. Her problem was that he wasn’t sharing the information at the moment, thus leaving her in the dark as to what action she should take.

“These sensors are a lot better than even what the Asgard employ,” he sudden said, snapping up from his impromptu mystery. “The energy they detected is being created at a point two hundred light years away in realspace. There’s a nebula between us and the point of origin, so we can’t see what’s making the energy. However, if it is what I think it is, and I know it is, we’re about to have company.”

“Launch Daedalus and Apollo, once they’re away raise shields,” immediately barked Carter, having decoded the ramblings of McKay like nobody else could. Company in the Pegasus Galaxy usually meant Wraith or Asurans which enforced the ‘not good’ of a scientist trailing off.

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard came barreling into the command center followed by the rest of his team, dubbed SGA-1 by many in homage to SG-1 on Earth. Of course, the chaos that followed Sheppard around earned him the nickname of ‘O’Neill Junior’. Not that he minded, his ‘Daniel’ was at least good looking and female, which he constantly boasted.

“SITREP,” he commanded of McKay, knowing full well that trying to bully Carter around was a bad idea. Well, at least when action was imminent. He had taken a liking to her personality during the down times, especially since too much exposure to Jack O’Neill had left its mark.

Before he could get an answer, there was a musical chime followed by the ‘big board’ flashing twice for attention. Then the energy readings began to disappear only to be replaced with physical objects.

“Neat mode of transportation,” he then quipped, taking in that these ships were just ‘appearing’ from nowhere. Although the configuration of many had him, along with the rest of the command center, confused.

High Orbit, Atlantis

The Daedalus and Apollo went out to greet the newcomers, weapons and shields charged. The two ships were holding station ten thousand kilometers away from the reentry point as ships unlike any they had ever seen before began appearing with flashes of light.

“Report,” Colonel Caldwell ordered his bridge crew. Granted, he was in the submarine equivalent of the navigation bridge, but the designers never thought to contend with the flyboys of the USAF and their need to see everything with their eyes.

“An entire fleet is reverting from faster than light,” responded Captain-in-the-making Marks. He was well aware of Caldwell’s distaste for techno-babble and cut his report down to brass tacks. “Sensors read twenty ships of varying size and state of repair, most have no weapon signatures and none have shields.”

Of course, he spoke too soon. For the largest ship in the fleet, one that dwarfed both Daedalus-class vessels, appeared and began launching fighters. As they watched the fighters assumed a BARCAP pattern, zipping between the other ships.

“That one,” continued an embarrassed Marks, “is designed for war. Her armor is very thick from bow to stern and sensors detect rail-gun emplacements virtually everywhere.”

“Do they not see us?” wondered Caldwell to nobody in particular, his mind churning scenarios to determine his next course of action. He did take into account that the unknown fleet was directly “above” them in relation to the galactic plane, with the planet that now housed Atlantis behind them. He figured that either they were temporarily blind from their reversion to realspace or they were sitting in a blind-spot for their own sensors.

“What do you think, Colonel?” wondered Colonel Ellis from the Apollo on a secure frequency. Both ship commanders were extremely leery of the new arrivals, their ship designs not matching anything in their database.

“I think that cruiser is of Ancient design,” came the voice of McKay over the link to Atlantis itself. Both Colonels had to restrain from yelling at him for interfering during a potentially hostile encounter, but then paused to take in his words. “It’s missing shields and drones, but the vessel matches the Ancient equivalent of a frigate that is in the Atlantis database.”

That information was digested by the ship commanders, before Ellis spoke up again.

“Wait, a frigate? That thing is huge,” he said, gesturing at his primary monitor that dominated the front wall. “Just what would they consider a cruiser to be?”

“Slightly larger than a Goa’uld Ha’Tak Mothership,” was the answer, causing more than one eye-brow to arch in surprise. “The computer recognized the frigate design and opened an entire directory that we’ve been trying to find on Ancient vessels. I must say-.”

“As interesting as that is, we have a situation here,” interrupted Caldwell, breaking the scientist out of the beginnings of a twenty minute rant in techno-babble.

Apparently, the newcomers sensors took a moment to reboot after reverting to realspace as both the warship and her fighters suddenly changed course to intercept the two vessels sitting and watching.

“Launch all fighters, battle stations,” could be heard from Ellis before the line was terminated.

Unknown system, 500 light years from New Caprica

“Admiral, the fleet signals that they are ready to jump,” said Lieutenant Felix Gaeta from his post.

The fleet was on the move, again, from the Cylons that had ambushed them in the nebula. Admiral William “Bill” Adama had to curb his suspicions on the sudden return of Starbuck in favor of saving the mentioned fleet of refugees.

The FTL drives had miraculously fixed themselves, pointing to definite sabotage. Just one more mystery to be put on the shelf as apparently whomever had disabled them had a change of heart when part of the Cylon fleet appeared.

“Jump,” was all he said, knowing that the fleet would respond to the one word command. One of the perks of proving himself to the civilians time and again was that when the orders made sense, they obeyed without question.

The civilian ships were the first to jump, as the procedure had been established. Galactica would hold the back door shut until they were all away, then jump themselves.

So far, the execution of the latest jump had been flawless. They appeared in a system, that much they knew. The blind jump had been one of pure faith and randomness, hoping to lose the pursuers. For the moment, the crew on the last Colonial Battlestar had no idea if it worked or not as DRADIS had to reassert itself after the sudden change in scenery.

“Launch the CAP, tally the fleet and get our bearings,” barked Colonel Saul Tigh from Adama’s right, his remaining eye on the plot table. All that they knew for certain was that they were above a planet, one that could sustain life if the greenery was any indication.

“DRADIS contact!” shouted Gaeta within moments of it coming back up. “Two vessels directly below us, range ten thousand. Their profiles don’t match anything in the library.”

“Set condition one throughout the fleet, have CAP move to intercept and launch all available fighters. Helm, set course to follow the fighters, ahead one quarter,” Adama calmly ordered, his eyes glued to the DRADIS display over the pit. The icons were yellow for unknown threat/unknown configuration, two of them just sitting there calmly like a fleet of their size dropping in out of the blue was a common occurrence. “Have the fleet spool FTL drives when able and prepare to jump.”

“Unknowns launching fighters,” reported Gaeta, having calmed down by the sheer force that was the Admiral. There was a reason why he was one of the most respected military people around, which he proved in every combat situation.

“Those ships sure are small,” groused Tigh after moving around to the other side of the plot table. “The fighters, what DRADIS can see of them anyway, are roughly the size of ours.”

Bill Adama listened to his gut more often than he would admit to anyone outside of the President. It was the driving force that had saved the remains of the human race from certain doom, drove him to have fellow humans murdered like Cain, and drove him to continue on with this quest to find Earth. Now, it was telling him to do something he thought he’d never do.

“Hail them,” he suddenly ordered, causing all activity to stop for a moment before the other officers returned to work after a glare from Tigh.

Silence permeated the CIC as Lieutenant Anastasia Dualla complied with the order. She held the headset close to her ears, hoping to drown out the noise of the engines that made the deck plates vibrate.

“No . . . wait one,” she changed her report in mid-sentence, listening as there was clicking coming across the frequency.

Pentagon

John Keller looked as if he were going to explode in the literal sense. Generals O’Neill and Landry, with running commentary from Thor, had just informed him that Earth had been in the mist of galactic conflict for the past ten years. One thing of many that stood out was the truth about Vice President Robert Kinsey and why the man had up and disappeared.

“As the final act of the Asgard,” Thor had been saying, bringing the volcanic Keller back to the here and now, “we are giving the humans on Earth our knowledge and technology. The High Council was more than impressed with the successes the Tau’ri have had in this galaxy alone, against all odds and logic. As Colonel Carter put it, you could think ‘dumber’ than us which proved most useful in defeating mutual enemies such as the Replicators.” Here he swiveled his bulbous head in the direction of O’Neill. “My time is drawing to a close. You will find the remains of the Asgard fleet in high orbit, including several O’Neill II-class battleships.” Before the eyes of those in the room and in video conference, Thor’s body started to turn transparent. Before he faded completely out of existence, he managed to say, “Farewell, my friends.”

“Well, that was anti-climatic,” quipped O’Neill, using his wit to cover his true feelings. He was a soldier through and through; death was nothing new to him. He’d seen many of his comrades pass beyond this life, hell he’d died more times than he cared to count himself, but it never got any easier.

“Sirs, the President is on,” stated an Airman from the door, having poked his head into the room. The somber mood wasn’t lost on him, and he quickly retreated lest he get drawn into it.

“All right people, all commands be ready for an imminent attack,” Keller said, sending the Generals and Admirals into action. He stood up and left the room, motioning O’Neill to follow him. The hallways in the Pentagon had come to life, personnel running to and fro to complete their tasks.

“We need to inform the President about this latest development,” began Keller, his stride quick for a man in his sixties. He did have to slow down a step as O’Neill began grimacing whenever he put weight on his right leg, his knee acting up at a bad time.

“Sir, with all due respect, I’m getting too old for this shit,” he grumbled, earning a sideways glance followed by a smirk.

“Aren’t we all,” was the response before Keller turned serious again. “The public may or may not believe what the President is telling them.”

Producing the modified Blackberry again, O’Neill began fiddling with the buttons before finding the commands he wanted. Turning to the Secretary of Defense he asked with his eyes (and motioning to the Blackberry) if he should proceed. After receiving a nod, he pressed the enter key and the pair vanished in a flash of light from the crowded hallway, spooking more than a few people in the process.

Atlantis

“Do not engage unless they fire first,” ordered Colonel Carter as she was the ranking officer present. Atlantis was in the dark on the happenings back home, not that they didn’t have their own problems to contend with.

“That frigate is hailing,” said McKay from his station while peering over at Zelenka’s to see the sensors. He could have just as easily looked at the big board, but that would require him to turn around and was thus dismissed as a waste of time.

The hand-held’s crackled as the signal came in, the frequencies not quite matching. Sheppard, having nothing better to do, keyed his mic twice for attention, then three times to acknowledge the hail. He wasn’t authorized to speak yet, not that it mattered as the transmission they were receiving was garbled.

“Almost,” mumbled Rodney, his fingers dancing over the laptop that was hardwired into the console. The mainframe recognized the frequency that the frigate was using as an emergency channel that the Ancients had once used, but the encoding was not matching anything in the database.

Galactica

Dee couldn’t figure out what was going on for the life of her. She could hear the rhythmic clicking that signified that somebody was receiving but not understanding their attempts at communication. Taking a look at her control board, she noticed that the switch for the secure scrambler was in the ON position. With the threat of the Cylons ever present, it hadn’t been turned off in some time. Realizing her error, and discreetly turning the scrambler off, she tried again.

“Colonial Battlestar Galactica to unknown vessels, identify yourselves.”

Atlantis

“That wasn’t me,” said a surprised McKay, his hands frozen in the act of typing into the laptop. “And it wasn’t the city. I think somebody on their end had a scrambler turned on.”

“Thank you, Doctor Obvious,” groused Sheppard before turning to Colonel Carter. He wasn’t about to ask the obvious question of ‘what do we do now’, instead choosing to stare at her. Being a man of action, he just needed to be pointed in the right direction and could take it from there.

“Apparently they don’t see us sitting here,” she said in response to the unasked question. “Let Caldwell handle it for now.”

Sheppard nodded in agreement before moving to peer over McKay’s shoulder. Not only did it serve the purpose of seeing what he was seeing, but it annoyed the scientist to no end. He also used the connection to the city that his ATA gene gave him to tweak the sensors to his liking, much to the irritation of Zelenka. That irritation faded when the resolution improved to something that neared seeing the events through a camera instead of just the sensor shadow.

Daedalus

Having acquired one of the hand-held’s, Caldwell felt absolutely ridiculous. Here he was in an Above Top Secret multi-billion dollar craft packed with the best technology in a pair of galaxies and he had to use a bloody walkie-talkie to talk to another vessel. Taking a look at the communications board revealed that an upload was in progress from Atlantis, which set him at ease as that was more than likely the needed software to modify the communications array to accept the new signals.

“Battlestar Galactica, this is Colonel Caldwell on the Daedalus. You are in restricted space, squawk acknowledgement and proceed on heading one-two-niner mark three-one out of the area,” he challenged as protocol demanded. Protection of Atlantis came first, then they could try to settle things with this mystery fleet. That is, if they hadn’t already seen the city on the planet below and began asking questions that he wasn’t authorized to answer.

“Colonel Caldwell,” came the reply from a quiet yet powerful male voice, this one demanding respect, “this is Admiral Adama, commander of the Galactica. We’ll be more than happy to vacate the area, but we are in need of assistance. Just answer one question and we’ll be on our way.”

Steven Caldwell was in a jam, no doubt about it. The voice sounded human enough, but with enemies such as the Genii out there his reservations were well founded. Taking in the expressions of his bridge crew, he found more than one looking optimistic that for once they could avoid a firefight with somebody in the Pegasus Galaxy.

“All right,” he said after keying the mic, his tone neutral to avoid getting any hopes up on either side of the communication.

“Do you happen to know where we can locate a planet we’ve been in search of for the past three years; named in our legends as Earth?”

Silence.

Atlantis

“No, absolutely not,” Carter practically yelled at the display, her voice transmitted via secure link to the two ships defending the city. She turned to look at Teyla Emmagan, her eyebrows raised in hopes that she would know something about this new group that had dropped in for a conversation. Unfortunately, she looked as lost as Carter did and could only shake her head in the negative.

“Clearly they’re an off-shoot of the Ancients,” argued McKay, pointing at the screen that displayed Galactica and had statistics scrolling along the bottom. “We should talk to them, try to find out what’s really going on. My theory is that that is a refugee fleet and we should find out what they are running from.”

“As much as it pains me, I agree,” chimed in Sheppard. “Except for the Wraith and the Asurans, we haven’t encountered another space-faring race in this galaxy. Either they’re remnants from sectors we haven’t explored yet or they came across the void from somewhere else.”

“Colonel Caldwell,” Sam ordered moments later, hoping that the situation wouldn’t bite her in the ass later, “talk to them, find out what their intentions are. I’m going to dial Earth and get orders from SGC.”

“And how am I supposed to delay for time?” demanded the commander of the Daedalus, his tone indicating his rising frustration.

“Colonel, when was the last time you went fishing?” countered Sheppard, hoping that Caldwell would catch his subtle hint.

In the future, Deveron system

“Captain’s log; Stardate 94439.3: I rarely say something like this in the logs, but I am actually bored out of my mind. We’ve been on patrol for the last eight months, and have found nothing but the standard spatial anomalies. Our tour cycles have increased significantly as the fleet rebuilds after the Dominion War. The crew is restless, and doing everything they can to entertain themselves. I don’t believe Mister LaForge can upgrade another system without a dry-dock, as the Enterprise is at top efficiency.”

Captain Jean-Luc Picard finished his log entry and leaned back in the chair in his ready room. With the exception of the ‘bored’ comment, he had just said the same thing he had since this tour cycle began. There were odd bursts of impishness in private, in which he cursed not being at the Battle of Bajor. At least then, he’d have a real excuse to be bored while his ship underwent repairs and whatever refit Starfleet felt she needed. The system they found themselves in was the same as it was when they passed through here a month ago.

However bored he may be, Picard was smart enough to not wish for something to happen. His intellect and his gut feeling were in agreement that such a wish would lead to some form or other of insanity, in which the ship would be in peril and the crew would be fighting for their lives. Even a recently returned Worf knew better than to question the status quo, for it would come back to haunt them in the end.

However, when the majority of the crew get bored anything became possible. He had nearly ordered that nobody could wish for an event to happen, only stopping himself because such an order would create said event when the crew mutinied over the apparent attempt to control free will.

Looking out the window from his chair while drinking his Earl Grey, Picard lost himself in adventures past. Most of them were sheer happenstance, some were of his own creation while others were of a threat or another trying to destroy this or that. This list was just too long for him to put into some type of order, so instead he took in that through it all he and almost all of his core crew was still alive.

That sobering thought led to the time they had run into the Enterprise-C after one of many incidents involving the space-time continuum. If there was one thing Picard knew, it was that he’d had enough of dealing with anything even remotely related to time-travel. While slightly smiling at the memory of Tasha Yar, the thought of time-travel piqued his mind and led to him reading reports going as far back as Kirk. Only Vulcans or Data could be that precise in using a star’s gravity well to jump through time. He even felt an odd urge to try it, but refrained as the crew would think he’d lost his mind.

Picard became worried when the urge grew stronger, his intellectual mind telling him that some outside force was at work. He had the sudden desire to look up records of the early twenty-first century, but for what he wasn’t certain. As the screen scrolled through the list of what was recovered after the Third World War, he found a report that had been buried and forgotten over time.

“What have we here,” he wondered aloud to the empty room as his eyes took in the reports from the old United States Air Force on a classified project. Picard could hardly believe what he was seeing before his mind went into overdrive. The outside force he thought was compelling him was gone now, satisfied that he’d found something to act on. This was something his senior staff had to know as he dug deeper into the old records.

The bridge was mostly silent, the crew acting like automatons in the patrol. Not a sound was heard, as even the thrum of the engines had faded into the background. There was so much of nothing to look at that Commander Will Riker had actually nodded off for a moment. He was almost tempted to play an old movie from Earth on the viewscreen in an attempt to alleviate the boredom. That was until the door to the ready room opened, and Captain Picard came strolling out. He looked energized by something, which caught the immediate attention of those on duty.

Moving into his chair, Riker couldn’t wait to hear whatever it was that had made Picard more animated. He, along with the dayshift duty officers, didn’t have to wait long as their Captain began typing into the controls on his armrests. When the viewscreen changed from the star-field to old, paper reports did he put a voice to the growing confusion.

“Find something, sir?” he asked, his left eyebrow raised in a perfect Spock Maneuver. He looked from the screen to Picard and back before the dates on the pages caught his attention. They were all from the early two thousands, revolving around a classified project that was forgotten about because of the last World War.

“This is far more interesting than space dust,” quipped Worf, his eyes taking in the information as fast as they could. From the looks of it, the humans had a project running that was so secret that the population had no idea about it. Then the final report was displayed, which darkened the mood on the bridge.

. . . I had warned the Secretary of Defense that going public would lead to an all-out global war. However, as we were left with no choice after the battle in the city the President did so anyway. Turns out, I was right. In a last ditch effort, we are burying the ‘Gate and all records pertaining to it with the vain hope that this will end the fighting. Optimism is not high in this regard, as word has spread that the Russians and Chinese are preparing their nuclear warheads for use.

May God have mercy on us all . . .

Brigadier General Hank Landry

Commander, Stargate Command; United States Air Force

“That is . . . interesting,” came the monotone voice of Data, his emotion chip turned off. With so few records that had survived the nuclear weapons, it was a no less than a miracle that the one that implied what started it all was present just over three hundred years later.

“Highly disturbing,” grumbled Worf at the impromptu history lesson. It was circulated, very carefully, within Klingon society that the human race was capable of extreme amounts of violence whenever they saw fit. It was one of the reasons why they were leery about any deals made with the natives of Earth, for if they were provoked it could very well lead to the end of the Klingons entirely.

“Humans of the twenty-first century knew of alien life in the galaxy, two of them to be more precise, and yet managed to forget about it?!” demanded Riker, his expression wild with agitation. He could understand the knowledge being put on the shelf in the Dark Times, but to completely forget about it was unthinkable.

“More disturbing is what happened to the races they encountered?” wondered Picard. “With the exception of two that they knew about, why haven’t we encountered them?”

His questions were more disturbing than what they had just seen. Worf knew his history, having been around since the later days of Kirk and his people had not encountered any of the races that the humans had. Then a random thought popped into his head.

“Trill,” he suddenly said, the word symbiote having stood out like a sore thumb. Seeing the looks his comrades were giving him, he elaborated. “The Trill might be the remnants of one of the two symbiotic races, having changed their ways much like the humans did just before First Contact.”

Data tilted his head to the right, mentally going through what he had seen. Even with his emotions turned off at the moment, he still felt some disappointment at not discovering that link first. It would certainly explain a few things, like why the Trill were secretive about their past while at the same time subtly helping humanity across the quadrant achieve more than they would on their own.

“Number One, aren’t we due to return to Earth shortly?” asked Picard, even though he knew the answer. This little discovery could turn into a moral boost for the crew, as this was the last circuit in the long patrol cycle. He knew word of it would get out, giving the crew a decent distraction to allow them to finish the patrol without giving in to the boredom.

“Actually, the Ponderosa just arrived to relieve us of this most boring duty,” was the crisp answer, Riker looking more alive than he had in months. Finally, they were going to do something. Even if that something was to take a hard look into Earth’s dark past. Their relief was early for a change, bringing much joy to the ship.

Without delay, Riker had their “findings” transmitted to the Ponderosa so they could get a move on. There were actually no orders from Starfleet on where they were supposed to go next as the Enterprise had temporarily slipped through the cracks as the Admiralty tried to put the fleet back together.

Future Earth Orbit

Much to the surprise of Starfleet Command, McKinley Station and Starbase One, the Enterprise dropped out of warp virtually on top of Earth. While it was fairly common for ships to enter and leave the Sol system, whenever one of their own came charging in like that there was usually trouble not far behind.

As the eyes in San Francisco and in orbit watched, the sensors of the flagship began sweeping the Rocky Mountains near Colorado Springs. Before anybody could hail the Sovereign-class ship, their sensors detected the use of transporters. Trying to understand the situation, as something had gotten a genuine reaction out of Picard, several scientific and security teams immediately followed in their wake.

“Hard to believe this place is still here,” groused Riker as he looked around the darkened room. He could only see what he hand-held torch lit up, so he was moving it around quickly for threat assessment.

“As unlikely as it is, does this place still have power?” wondered Picard, whom had received no argument in this away mission to their own planet. He held no illusions to the fact that because they were back at Earth, let alone how they entered the system, that the Admiralty suddenly remembered their existence. He had prepared a data burst for Counselor Troi before he left the ship, leaving her in charge with orders to contact him if Starfleet became a nuisance.

“Actually, it does,” answered Lieutenant Commander Data from somewhere in the room. Picard couldn’t see him as it was pitch black deep inside the mountain. That quickly changed as the lights came on, before many burned out from so many centuries of disuse.

What they could see, however, was the old computer monitors as the system booted up. There were fears of data corruption as the hard drives hadn’t been maintained in the same time frame as the lights, however that was put aside as the boot was successful.

“Data, see if you can get those old blast doors open,” ordered Picard as he walked over to a terminal, digging deep into his memory on how to use the old technology. It was a slow start for him, tapping slowly on the keyboard until his confidence built up enough to go faster. He suddenly stopped, looking at a directory that he’d found.

“Constellations?” wondered Will as he peered over the shoulder of his long-time Captain and friend. Lines of what looked like constellations filled the screen. One thing that was constant was the final symbol, for lack of a better term. It looked like the letter A without the connector tier and a small circle above it, like an arrowhead pointing at a target. Moving over to another terminal to attempt to do the same thing Picard was, he was surprised to see that he was locked out. Moving back over, he reread the list of constellations and noticed the designations after them. ‘P59-115’ and such scrolled with the list, and he was stumped by the meaning of it.

A loud screeching noise drew their attention to the large blast door that covered the window. The tracks being coated in dust and the lubrication having long since dried out, it was surprising to see that the door was able to fully retract. From their vantage point, they could see down into the next room.

In the pale lighting, they could see a giant disk standing on an edge. Barely taking notice of the science and security teams that had started transporting in, Picard leaned forward over a low desk/shelf that had two terminals on it. What he didn’t see, but certainly felt as his hand made contact with it, was a palm reader.

Down in the other room, the center of the disk began to twist and retract. Nary a sound was made as it spun and shrank in on itself before disappearing into the remaining edges. What was left of the disk had turned into a ring.

Other systems began to initialize at that point, the remaining monitors attached to them coming to life as power was fed throughout the system. Motioning his team to follow, Picard found the stairs that led to a hallway that connected to the other room.

What he didn’t see was that as soon as he left all except the terminal next to the palm reader mysteriously (and just as quickly as some had started) shut down. This baffled the scientists and worried the security teams, as if power was being rerouted somewhere.

Atlantis; Pegasus Galaxy; 21st Century

“Fishing?” demanded McKay, not believing that he had heard Sheppard say that. This situation could deteriorate into something very nasty and here was Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard making with the wise cracks. Rodney was much more interested in getting aboard what read as an Ancient frigate to study the systems and try to determine why it was lacking the advanced technology.

All Sam could do was shake her head in exasperation, still not used to the pair going at it like a couple of insulted Jaffa. She knew it could be worse, and then had to kick herself for having the thought for the ‘Gate started a reception sequence.

“Great, what now?” demanded the silent Ronon Dex, his personalized pistols in his hands even though the gate shield had sprung to life.

Ah, famous last words . . .

Continued?

This here idea wouldn’t leave me alone, and I just had to get it out of me so I could work on my other stories. Like What Lurks Beneath this will be a demand-continued fic only. Fear not, for the elements I listed will be explored in depth here. This is the pilot chapter to bounce the idea off of you readers.

Ja!

Finished in Murfreesboro, TN