Chapter 56

Atlantis

In the control room normal operations of the day were taking place. Off world teams came and went, mission reports were filed while mission briefings took place, and the steady flow of paperwork that made up the day to day life of Mr. Woolsey maintained a steady flow. Stepping into the doorway of Woolsey's office stood Chuck.

"Mr. Woolsey, you have an incoming subspace message" said Chuck.

Rising from behind his desk Woolsey quickly covered the short distance to the control interface station. With a nod of his head the incoming message stream was displayed on the flat panel monitor.

"Atlantis, this is Apollo" began the communiqué from Colonel Ellis.

"Go ahead Colonel" answered Woolsey.

"Based on the intelligence provided by Todd we can now confirm a major shipbuilding effort is in play by the Wraith" stated Ellis.

"What did you find Colonel" asked Woolsey.

"The third planet on the list provided seems to be a major hub of activity. In orbit we counted four large battle groups of both hive and cruiser class vessels. Under cloak we moved in for a closer look and found upwards of forty vessels in varies states of completion" intoned Ellis.

"Were you detected" asked Woolsey.

"Wraith forces gave no indications of detecting our presence and did not engage. With the amount of security in orbit this looks to be a very secure location, so I would say that any hint we were here would have brought about a response" answered Ellis.

"Are you returning to Atlantis" asked Woolsey.

"At this time we are continuing our recon of the remaining planets Todd mentioned. We are however transmitting video and photographic feeds of what we found. Apollo out" ended Ellis.

"File received Mr. Woolsey" sated Chuck.

"Upload that to Colonel's Sheppard and Frost. Also dial Earth and flag this priority action immediate for the SGC and the IOA" ordered Woolsey before returning to his office.

Home World Command

After returning from New Heliopolis Lt. Colonel Paul Davis had quickly made his way to the Pentagon via a cloaked puddle jumper. With the constant off world conferences he attended he thought it was good he wasn't married after all. A lower enlisted runner had quickly ushered Davis into the depths of Home World Command and seated him in General O'Neill's office.

"So what have you got for me Paul" asked Jack.

"More than usual General" responded Davis.

"Nothing beats the intergalactic rumor mill over morning coffee" said a smiling O'Neill.

"The Alterran's and Furlings have informed me the final sections of the super gate will be complete within twenty four hours and in place within forty eight. They have requested a further twenty four hour window to calibrate all systems and the gate's protective shield" stated Davis.

"So Destiny is finally coming home eh" asked O'Neill.

"It seems that way sir. The Council of Races is highly concerned about another attempt to capture Destiny after it exits the gate. We have been asked to divert fleet assets to sanitize the area around the gate to ensure Destiny doesn't blindly walk into something unfortunate. Upon exit of the gate an Asgard O'Neill class vessel will take Destiny under tow into hyperspace and deliver her to Arkos Station. This brings me to the next matter of business" said Davis.

"Which is" asked Jack.

"'As you know Ms. Mal Doran managed to plant the advanced persistent threat program in a minor level Lucian Alliance shipyard where she had past dealings. The location signals from vessels tagged is to be monitored from the November site. It appears the propagation method is far faster than we imagined. The monitoring station is currently tracking several hundred small and large vessels throughout the galaxy. They tell me the program did also jump to Jaffa vessels as we suspected it might. So far we have been able to identify the two group's vessels by their current sectors of space. The Asgard are going over previous navigational data with a fine toothed comb also, but they stated that will take some time" stated Davis.

"Ok, so we can track all of their sh.i.p.s then" asked Jack.

"Based on the numbers we have now we estimate both fleets will be tagged with Hermiod within the next twelve hours. Telemetry did pick up on a large grouping of vessels within a short jump of the super gate. The Asgard stand ready to commit their fleet in this galaxy to a joint defense of Destiny should the need arise" stated Davis.

"Thor's handy like that. Ok, anything else" asked Jack.

"The Council of Races has requested Mr. Wallace be allowed to come to Vis Uban on a long term basis to work in conjunction with several of their top minds. It seems they have big plans for our boy wonder" laughed Davis.

"Yeah they mentioned that several months ago to me also. It's up to him what he wants to do. Personally, if I was just coming home from being stranded a few billion light years from home I can't say I would want to just jaunt off to the other side of the galaxy but it's his call. I've got bigger concerns on my plate right now anyway. It seems the Wraith are building a fairly large fleet. We all can guess who that's aimed at" sighed Jack.

"Based on the transcript of the information Todd provided the IOA has been in several closed door sessions. After the Jaffa incident and what Hermes uncovered about Lucian Alliance ship strength it looks like they are going to authorize a second round of Fleet expansion in our favor. As they haven't released any official findings yet you didn't hear this from me but I would expect them to authorize a doubling of fleet strength" confidently stated Davis.

"That's very generous of them since building these vessels no longer costs us a single dime. Have I mentioned just how much I dislike the IOA" asked Jack.

"Several times over the year's sir" answered Davis.

"Then it looks like the Navy is about to get a larger piece of the intergalactic pie" stated Jack.

"One last thing sir. The Alterran ambassador informed me the installation of planetary shielding will begin next week. It's basically a system of shield emitters similar to those on Atlantis only larger. The power requirements for this are enormous though. Remember when we were ecstatic when we located a single ZPM? This thing is going to need fifteen of them" said Davis in an exasperated voice.

"True, but well worth it to stop another group of morons out there from crashing a bomb laden space ship into the building we are now sitting in" wisely stated Jack.

"That's all I've got for now sir, and I have a briefing with the President in an hour" said Davis.

"Enjoy that Colonel. Dismissed"