From the Ashes

By

Lord Anubis

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, Sci-Fi Channel US, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions and Gekko Productions. No copyright infringement is intended and no money will be exchanged. Feedback of all varieties appreciated. All original creations remain the intellectual property of the author, with a requirement of his express consent to be duplicated elsewhere.

Author’s Notes: This is an AU storyline. Seasons 9 & 10 of SG-1 never occurred. Atlantis exists but everything will only happen as explained within the story. So the info dump is over. As always, compliments, complaints, and suggestions will be accepted and taken seriously. Flames are deleted out of hand of course. Enjoy.

Just for clarification

Ancient means Alteran, Atlantean race. ancient (without the capital letter a) means old as dirt

Prologue

Tarsonis, Sodan Homeworld.

Earth year 2012

Lord Haikon stepped out from his simple cottage to glance around the busy square of his village. The populace had already risen hours before and begun the tasks of the new day. Praise had been given to the Ancients for the good harvest and the weather that made it possible but he could remember the grumbling of the farmers who had complained that too many of the prospective warriors had been causing trouble, practicing their combat skills in the middle of fields left for fallow, and generally being a nuisance of themselves.

“Good day milord” Tan’is of the Highlands shouted from across the village square.

“Good day to you as well my friend.” Haikon returned the greeting as he walked over to talk to one of his closest friends. It didn’t hurt that Tan’is was one of the more influential members of the council. “How goes the harvest?”

“Better than we expected this year. The weather has cooperated reasonably well and we’ve managed to bring in almost two-thirds of the crop already.”

“That is good news.”

“Haikon, I’ve heard some rumors of the Tau’ri returning for some discussions regarding an alliance.”

“Yes my friend, they seek to garner our support in an alliance.”

“For what purpose, we have nothing of worth that they might desire.” Tan’is muttered. “Unless of course they wish to discover the secrets to my wife’s cooking.”

“That would be something worth trading.” Haikon joked. It was well known that Tan’is’ wife was one of the village’s most able cooks, her ability with spices and flavoring having been utilized in creating some truly spectacular culinary dishes.

Distant rumbling brought an end to the levity between the two friends. Glancing towards the east, from which the sound emanated, the two were curious as to the cause.

“A storm?”

“It is early in the season for a storm. And look.” Haikon gestured. “There is not a cloud to mar the sky.”

“It is a portent, something bad is coming.” Tan’is stated. “The Ancients may be attempting to warn us against any further contact with those Tau’ri.”

Haikon was about to defend the intentions of the Tau’ri, who had come before to set up the preliminary agenda of the treaty talks, but before he could do so he saw something in the sky that made his blood freeze. “Look!”

101010

“Captain on deck!” Lieutenant Samantha Bishop called out with crystal clear precision.

“As you were.” Captain Anthony Trevayne said as he entered Warspite’s main bridge. “Status?”

“All systems operating nominally.” Commander Robin Packer responded.

“What’s the word from engineering? I gather they were a little concerned about the harmonic’s in the hyperdrive.” Trevayne questioned. The whole reason for Warspite’s shakedown cruise was to prepare her to join up with the rest of the fleet guarding the various British outposts scattered across the width and breadth of the Milky Way galaxy.

“Engineering reports that the harmonic buildup in the drives has been taken care of. It was a minor calibration issue, just the sort of thing that shakedown cruises are for.” Packer said as he crossed the bridge.

“Navigation, how long till we revert to normal space?”

“ETA to Tarsonis twelve minutes.” Lt Bishop responded.

Trevayne situated himself in the command chair near the rear of the buried bridge compartment, a change from the early original SGC design that had emphasized a more prominent location for the bridge, deep within the armored hull of the battleship.

“XO, once we drop off our illustrious passengers I want you to find us some asteroids in the systems belt for some weapons tests. Get on the comm. with the captains of the Ajax, Audacious and the Centaur, and set up a series of war games.”

“Yes sir. Who should I recommend as referee for the games?” Packer questioned.

“The Centaur, Captain Kerensky’s had more time out in space than we have and her ship is suited to run large scale ops like this. Get her staff to set up a series of scenarios and transmit the orders to the rest of the taskforce.”

The steady thrum of the battleships engines was a reassuring sound to her new captain, having been pulled from active duty with Britain’s dwindling wet navy to be sent to the rapidly expanding space borne military arm of the United Kingdom. When he had joined the United Kingdom’s navy twenty years ago he had never dreamed that he’d be one day captaining one of the Kingdom’s battleships, in space no less, and defending over six billion people on the planet against threats from all corners of the universe.

“Captain, one minute to reversion to normal space.” Lieutenant Bishop reported.

“Understood. Set condition one throughout the ship. Tactical, bring weapons and shields to standby.” Trevayne ordered.

“All hands, battle stations. Repeat, all hands battle stations.” Commander Packer intoned across the ships PA system. The ships complement rapidly moved to their positions throughout the vessel, internal bulkheads sealing to form airtight compartments, as engineering brought secondary reactors online to power the ships armaments.

“Sensors, launch a series mark VII reconnaissance drones on a least time course to survey the solar system once we revert to normal space.”

“Captain. Is this really necessary?” Ambassador Charles Frost stated as he entered the CIC. “The Sodan have no deep space military vessels. They don’t even have the technology necessary to create the infrastructure needed to create spaceborne warships.”

“Welcome to CIC, Mr. Ambassador.” Captain Trevayne stated and tiredly began to explain standard procedure to the Ambassador. “It is standard fleet practice to assume nothing, especially since Sodan territory lies so close to Goa’uld space.”

“The Goa’uld are no longer a threat.” Frost said dismissively.

“Reversion to normal space in five seconds.”

Taskforce 8 swept out of hyperspace in a blinding flash of radiation and light, their systems briefly blinded by the excessive outpouring of energy from the decaying hyperspace corridor that they had traveled within. Fleet doctrine had determined that this was one of the most vulnerable times for a ship as it reverted to normal space, unable to defend itself or determine if a threat was nearby. Of course this window of opportunity only lasted a few brief seconds as the ships slowed to sublight speeds.

“Reversion to normal space complete.” Bishop reported.

“Contact! Multiple contacts!” Lieutenant Connor shouted.

“Sensors, talk to me!” Trevayne ordered.

“Sir, multiple contacts in orbit of the Sodan homeworld. Tracking reports minimum of 200 plus contacts.” Connor reported. She was finding it hard to isolate individual energy signatures for the various Goa’uld warships orbiting the planet; with such close proximity their drives were creating a mutual interference field that was shielding them from detection.

“We must retreat, this taskforce cannot fight against 200 Goa’uld warships and survive.” Ambassador Frost shouted.

“Sir, I just got a clean reading of Tarsonis.” Lt Connor stated. “It’s been obliterated.”

“Can we get visual confirmation of the sensor readings?” Trevayne questioned. It wasn’t that he disbelieved Connor’s report; the sensor technology built into Warspite was among the finest in the known galaxies, but even it could be fooled.

Connor didn’t bother to respond verbally choosing to activate one of the CIC’s compartments multitude of viewscreens that dominated one whole wall of the buried control room. The viewscreen confirmed what the sensors had already reported, Tarsonis a world once lush in life now little more than a barren rock covered in lava flows and volcanoes that were vomiting ash and dust clouds across a third of the planet.

“Sensors, I want a detailed scan of those Goa’uld ships. Determine if they were responsible or if this is a Free Jaffa fleet that came to rescue the Sodan.” Trevayne ordered. “Communications open a channel to the unknown ships.

“Sir, Goa’uld vessels are retreating from orbit.” Even as the XO reported this new information it was easily visible, as the viewscreen shifted to show the opening hyperspace windows as the Ha’taks vanished into hyperspace.

“Communications send a subspace message back to Earth. Report what has happened here and inform the SGC that a large Goa’uld fleet is still operational in this sector. Contact Captain Kerensky on the Centaur and order her to launch fighters and shuttles to begin SAR operations.”

“Yes sir.”

“It would appear that the Goa’uld are no longer a spent force Mr. Ambassador.” Captain Trevayne said.