Chapter 31

Midway Station

All had been quiet in the void between the Pegasus and Milky Way galaxies. The four milspec containers bound for Atlantis had been unexpected. Activating the McKay Carter intergalactic gate bridge, the containers were soon on their way to the ancient city.

Excitement aboard Midway was hard to come by, so the gate technicians had taken to betting on what each batch of containers held. It wasn't really fun, but it did help pass the time. One could only play so many games of solitaire after all.

In twenty four hour quarantine aboard the station before further passage onto the Milky Way were several Genii soldiers. It had been decided by someone with a somewhat twisted sense of humor that these men would be granted asylum in the galaxy. They were destined for the Planet of King Arkhan the First, known to others as Col. Harry Maybourne, formerly of the NID. In General O'Neill's thoughts the group deserved one another. Just another day aboard Midway…

M2S-998

In a yet as unsearched portion of the Pegasus galaxy was M2S-998. Life in all forms had ceased to exist here long ago. All that remained was a barren and lifeless landscape. For this reason the Wraith had long used this dead world as a shipyard of sorts. This planet had been the birth place of a vast majority of the Wraith fleet.

On the surface of a vast flat plain sat the growing additions to this fleet. Cruisers and Hives were being grown. It started with a single Wraith soldier being infected with a specially engineered pathogen. This pathogen caused the host body to begin the production of biopolymers on a massive scale. Forming tendrils from the body the growing form would seek out a power source to continue its evolution into a vessel of the Wraith fleet. The vessel once complete would have sentience of its own, but the mind of the original host would be lost. For hundreds of miles in all directions the one day sh.i.p.s grew. Assisting their growth were banks of Wraith power generation units for each individual host.

Once the growth process was complete each new vessel would assume orbit around the dead world. Very quickly the number of orbiting vessels grew. With Hives, Cruisers, Darts, and Scout sh.i.p.s being added almost constantly soon the fleet would return to its Lantean War size of so long ago. On other planets new commanders and soldiers were being grown. These vessels would have no queen as they were merely being brought into existence to crush all enemies of the Wraith once and for all.

Pluto

Docked in the ancient shipyard was the Athena. With the go ahead of construction of the Supergate it had been decided to forego the return mission to Destiny. The captured drone mother ship had been offloaded for further study in an energy shield protected isolation bay. Evaluation of sensor data from Athena revealed she had performed admirably on her deep space mission; the only flaw being degradation in several power conduits in the ship. Although the carbon nanotube construction of the power conduits was robust to say the least the constant flow of such massive amounts of power for so long had taken a slight toll. Repairs were currently underway.

In varies states of construction within the shipyard were several vessels of a new design. This as yet unnamed class of vessel was designed as a cargo ship of sorts. Hyperspace capable, lightly armed, and massive; these vessels were as large as the Aurora class. With the number of off world mining sites increasing exponentially these sh.i.p.s were sorely needed and would be put to great use upon commissioning. Upon their backs they would carry the naquadah, naquadria, trinium, and neutronium upon which the new cityscapes of Earth would be built.

In another dock the newest Athena class vessel was nearing completion. She was to be named the Ajax. Unlike other Athena's which had been built with their commanders present for all phases of the construction process Ajax had no commander yet assigned officially. Within the confines of Home World Command rumors had flown as to just who would command the new vessel once complete. Once again General O'Neill was playing things close to the chest much to the dismay of all those involved.