Author's Notes: this is a sequel to Brother's Betrayal. It's doubtful this story will be comprehensible to those who have not read that story.

Prince Albert took in slow, deep breaths to keep himself steady. The young Virgon Prince had not expected to see action so quickly after basic training, and as he was not given any special treatment within the Imperial Navy that meant that his being deployed was just as likely as anyone else.

"All alert Viper's standby, exiting hyperspace in ten seconds on my mark… mark."

Ten seconds, he was about to see real combat in ten seconds. Even within the comfort of his new Mark IX Viper he was worried. True the new class of Viper has both twin ballistic railguns and a pair of plasma cannons, and was the first to see the addition of a micro shield system for increased survivability, but it was not yet truly combat tested, and he had no experience outside of training.

"Entering real space in three, two, one, now."

He felt the vibration of re-entry into real space, and in less than a second after that he felt himself being propelled forward into the void. Dozens of Vipers around him formed into their wings, preparing for combat against their targets.

Albert took a moment to look over the Battlestar Rhea and its escorts, the first generation of starships from the Human Imperium of Kobol that had been built with discovered alien technology from the ground up. Behind it was a second fleet, three ships in the form of a pair of Earth 304s and a 306 carrier.

"Attention forces of the Warlord Haboreth, this is Alliance Task Force Seven giving you a final warning. We have attempted cease fire negotiations through diplomatic channels, and all have been turned away and rejected by your leadership. This is the last warning we are willing to give, end your attempts to gain territory through the use of military force or we shall put an end to it through our own use of it. You have thirty seconds to surrender or we will interpret your silence as an acknowledgement of a state of hostility and war between our peoples. Your time starts now." The tense silence made Albert feel a deep sinking feeling in his gut. The time seemed to take forever to reach its end, but eventually it did. "So be it. All detachments of the Terran and Imperial Navy, you are hereby ordered to destroy all forces of the Warlord Haboreth."

There were three Ha'tak in orbit, meaning that the Viper complement was outnumbered eleven to one, though with their superior manoeuvrability, shielding and having Earth 302 and 205 interceptors and fighters assisting them that gave them the advantage despite the numerical inferiority.

The outcome of the battle was determined before it had begun, with the only question being who would be casualties in it all.

Brothers in Arms

"It's late." Jennifer McKay was clearly unimpressed with the state of the terminal.

"I know, but the board says half past three so it should be any time now." Rodney McKay was equally unimpressed, but he tried his best to hide it. Travel through the gate always seemed to have delays, the line of cars, buses and trucks waiting for their departure filled with travellers waiting for the gate.

Rodney looked to his left, noticing that the line of cars for the four thirty outbound to whatever place they were going to. To his right cars were going into the terminal, heading in the opposite direction as they were waiting to.

"Mom, dad, when are we leaving?"

"Soon Markus, soon," Jennifer assured the young boy, his younger sister sleeping in the seat next to him.

"Oh, here we go," Rodney stated, the stream of cars heading in the opposite direction as them coming to an end. In the distance the line of vehicles started to move, and within a minute he was driving at near highway speeds amongst the others ahead and behind him.

He knew they were approaching their destination when a series of metal guardrails surrounded their car, nine metal bars creating a metal circle around the them. A second later the bus ahead of them disappeared into the Earth stargate, their car following a moment later. A few moments later they exited the gate on New Acadia, Earth colony home to four million people and growing.

The terminal on New Acadia was similar to that on Earth; a large hanger allowing the buses, cars and trucks approved for interplanetary travel moving freely, having already been cleared before entering the terminal at Earth. The awaiting outbound lines of vehicles on the planet where much smaller than those on Earth, which was to be expected given that Earth was the single largest destination people were traveling to and from.

"When do we get to see Timmy?" Markus asked, impatient to see his older brother.

"We'll see him soon, don't worry," Jennifer assured him. Markus had his attention taken away as their car left one of the hanger exits, revealing downtown New Esquimalt. The terminal had been built on the outskirts of downtown where the downtown core met the regional industrial area. Home to three million of the inhabitants of the planet, the glass towers where a sight that captured the imagination of the young boy, who had his focused captured by the over kilometer tall tower that dominated the downtown area as the heart of business and tourism in the city.

His focus could not be held for long, however, as minutes later their car entered another much smaller terminal that had a low moving but small line. This terminal had only two lanes, one going in, one going out, and a toll for those going in. Travel was marked as five Terran Dollars.

"Are we going to another planet?" Markus asked as Rodney payed the toll.

"No Markus, this is a transporter for another part of this planet," Jennifer replied. "Timmy's working on the other side of the planet."

As she explained it to him, Rodney drove the car deeper into the terminal and into a short line of cars that one by one where directed onto a large pad on the ground, the cars going onto it one by one disappearing in a bright flash of light while a second pad had cars appearing at about the same rate and driving out of the terminal.

When it was their turn to be transported, Rodney was surprised that his youngest daughter had managed to sleep through both a trip through a stargate and being transported.

Haida household

Ste-Michael-sur-Yane, New Acadia

"What am I supposed to say to them when they get here?" Timothy McKay asked himself aloud as he paced the room he was renting.

"You should not be worrying about it, I'm sure they will be happy to hear about this." The comment came from Mei Haida, who was sitting on the side of his bed as the young Tagrisian woman watched him walk around the room.

"Yes but you don't understand. My parents aren't like your parents, they're…"

"They aren't my parents," Mei interrupted.

"Right, your sister and brother-in-law. Whatever. My point is that they won't react the same way to this." He let out a sigh and took a seat next to her.

"Does that mean you regret the choice you've made?" As she asked, Mei fiddled with a ring on her fingers.

"No, it's just that I feel more stressed about this part than anything else."

"Even more then when you asked?"

He let out a quiet laugh at her question. "Somehow yes. Call me a mind reader but I knew you wanted this just as much as I did."

"That is where you are wrong," her statement made him give her a questioning look. "I wanted this even more than that."

"Oh my god, if you two are going to be like that, can you at least do it more quietly? You know the walls are paper thin in this place." Takao Haida, fifteen year old son of his hosts, complained from his own room.

"Ah be quiet yourself, you're just playing that VRMMO, it's not like you could even hear them once you start playing anyway." Jeffery Haida, one of the older Haida boys, yelled back.

"They really need to make add an inch to the walls around here," Timothy lamented.

"The downside of lighter, stronger materials being developed," Mei added.

The two let things quiet down in the house, Timothy wondering how he was going to drop the news of his engagement to his parents.

Heliopolis Station

Gravitation dead zone between the four stars of the Cyrannus system

Prince Albert was nervous as he walked the large halls of the station. Five miles from end to end, the station was a testament to the construction abilities of the Systems Alliance, with the bulk of the construction being financed and given both its labour and its materials from Earth, Hebridan, Galar, the Imperium and the Sagittaron Republic.

The station held two purposes. First was as the seat of the Alliance, where the overarching treaties of its members where negotiated and her member worlds represented. The second was the far more important one, the massive hall of nations which housed a representative of every single independent nation, world or groups of worlds in the galaxy which were not isolationist. An effective United Nations in space, appropriately led by United Earth and dominated by its Alliance block.

If there was one thing most of the quarter million humans, near-humans and non-humans hated about the work they did was the fact there was always at least one crisis at hand somewhere that needed to be dealt with. One of those crises was why Albert was there in that moment, his unit having been called to put down a violent Warlord trying to carve out his own empire.

Such madmen where popping up win increasing frequency out of the territory of the Free Jaffa Nation and the worlds they had lost in their war with the Goa'uld, both of which had been seriously destabilized by the conflict. He was there to give a report about the events to a committee.

It was one thing he hated about his title and effective position of ambassador for one of the worlds of the Imperium. In the years since the Great Catastrophe democracy had died down in the Imperium, a temporary state of emergency turning into a permanent position of power for Imperator Belzen and his mixed military and civilian council government.

For Virgon, this had led to the royal family returning to a role of prominence in politics, the surviving family members under the young Queen becoming a symbol of unity for their people during the dark days of reconstruction. Things where far better now, the environment long cleared and much of the infrastructure that was needed to sustain their surviving population rebuilt. Virgon had also returned to the financial and industrial heart of the Imperium while the political centre of the system shifted to Tauron, which also had also stolen the heart of the Imperial military from Picon.

The politics of it all was above him, he was simply a symbol and a soldier, nothing more. It was his older sister who had to deal with the problems of it all.

"Ensign Albert Fer Hedrian, on the date of the seventh of October, 2032 Alliance Task Force Seven entered the system designated P9R-739, officially titles 'Gakorak', in a battle against the forces of Lord Haboreth where engaged in battle. The report states that all space based forces were destroyed and a full half of the forces on the ground before they surrendered. The report as outlined in document C-070932827 leaves this committee with several questions regarding events mentioned. Do you understand the nature of this hearing?"

"Yes sir I do."

"Good."

Debriefings where not his strong suit, but as much as he hated them he had to go above and beyond as a witness in any major events he would partake in. He had known that it was going to happen, but that did nothing to make him feel easier about it. He had no idea how it happened, but he wanted to go back into the cockpit of his Viper more then he wanted to be before the committee.

New Caprica

Kobol

Lee Adama watched over the settlement from the favoured viewing spot of those who called the planet home. The location had been turned into a park, with a stone balcony built to make the spot safer to watch the valley from. The valley itself had turned into quite the town and base, with the near entirety of the space between the cavern which housed the stargate and the Ancient outpost having been turned into urban landscape. The settlement had also grown out to where the two mountains that flanked the valley met, with the opposite side having fields growing food beyond the airfield connecting them to the fleet in orbit.

In the distance Lee could see a transport visibly carrying dozens of cargo crates coming in for a landing. Given the state of trade he knew the only planet such a ship could have come from was with their trading partner of New Acadia. The Earth colony was only one jump away from them, which led to bilateral trade being done through cargo ships that where capable of landing. By comparison those handling trade between the Cyrannus system and Kobol where the far larger orbit only ships that required transport shuttles to ferry their cargo to the planet due to the need for fifty jumps each way between the two systems.

Lee wondered what his future was going to be as he took in the sight for the countless time in the years he had called the planet home. The construction of Heliopolis Station had seen the Cyrannus stargate moved to it for diplomatic reasons, having led to Kobol becoming an even more important part of the Imperial exploration effort in the galaxy.

He, however, had been taken off Recon One after his metamorphic transformation sixteen years earlier during the Genocide of Caprica. His deformity had made him request being taken off the team that was the face of the Imperium in contact. So instead he had been made responsible for all wings of Vipers, Raptors and the 302s that had been purchased from Earth. He was also technically in command of the wing of Earth aircraft of a pair of 205s and eight 302s, though in practice this was only true in emergency situations that had never yet materialized.

After over a decade and a half of that role, he felt it was time to move on. He was thirty nine, reaching the end of his current contract and he was having serious thoughts of going civilian. The settlement had jobs of all nature opening up, and someone with his experience and skills would be considered highly valuable.

On top of it all he had more than just himself to think about, but also the other three closest to him. He could handle another term in the force as a high ranking pencil pusher, but that would put strain on his relationships with his wife and sons.

It was a no win situation. He needed to keep a job down, one that could put food on the table for a family that ate far more than a typical household due to both he and his wife having abilities.

So many choices, something he had never been good at, just following along with what others told him to do.

Galactic Strategic Command Center

The Peak

Jack O'Neill watched over the massive command center filled with thousands of analysts and communication officers at work gathering, analysis or distributing information from all across the galaxy. The massive hundred and fifty meter wide hologram across the cavernous room showed positions and believed positions of their forces, allied forces and other forces in real time, something that in his off time he enjoyed watching.

At that moment he almost felt like he was only in his early forties, though he was physically in his fifties. That was still far better than the reality of the situation, as he was just under two weeks away from his eighty birthday.

Over the years some had questioned his refusal to retire once more, however he had proven that his competence as a leader had not diminished with time, and there was no pressing reason to force him out of service. It was not unprecedented, as his ground based counterpart had just past one hundred years of age and was not only still leading his organization but continued to be active in field operations when the need arose. The miracle of alien rejuvenation technology being applied in Earth society had changed how people began to look at age.

That was why he was still doing the job, and he had no plans of retiring given he had somehow learned to enjoy doing the work he did. Against all odds he did not want to quit, and that seemed to be the same situation his 'son' Jonathan O'Neill felt as the younger man was now a Brigadier General in the Royal New Acadian Marine Corp, and looking to go all the way to the top in the chain of command.

Alarms going off throughout the command center brought his attention off his coffee and towards those around him.

"What's happening? Who's under attack or needs help?" The alarms did not go off often in the command center, and their presence was always a bad sign.

"We have a massive hyperspace distortion coming our way," one of the countless techs informed him. Above their heads the hologram of the galaxy became half its size, moving to one side of the massive airspace it had once dominated to reveal a large red blob being tracked.

"Holy shit, how big is that thing?" Jack asked, never before having seen such a large target.

"Hyperspace displacement is approximately three times the mass of Jupiter. It should reach our galaxy in two months at its current rate of approach."

Jack let out a long sigh. "Well, it was nice while it lasted. Okay people, contact all Alliance governments and militaries and advise them of the situation, and sent a message to Heliopolis making them aware of what we're dealing with. I want all our reservists mobilized and fall shore leave is hereby cancelled."

He looked up at the holographic display again, thinking of what it was he was dealing with. He then remembered what Jay had told him many years ago before he had passed away, and it was only then he realized that the man had evidently failed in his mission. And it was then that he truly understood the scale of what they were dealing with. "God help us."

Author's Notes

Well, that's the first chapter of the sequel to Brother's Betrayal. 16 years later things are quite different, and just like that so is the style of this story. While it will continue the "bit of everyone's perspective" Betrayal had, it will also very much have a main cast in the form of Prince Albert, Timothy McKay and Lee Adama being the most recurring characters.

Thank you for everyone who read that story and wanted to see this one, and I look forward to speculation you all have on the nature and outcome of the threat that has been presented, as well as the others which will be a part of this story (because a single overarching threat is just not how I do things).

Thank you, and stay tuned for more.