Disclaimer: I do not own SG1/SGA or nBSG.

When I first wrote Legacy of Kobol I hadn't the faintest idea of what I was going to do past the first few chapters. It was as the story began to evolve that I realised it was going to be harder and harder to reconcile the two universes and maintain any real sort of drama. Then a nasty computer crash took out the next chapter and part of the chapter after that, and when I got a new computer the inspiration had faded. So this is the rewrite. Different premise entirely, more challenges besides 'cultural' issues, and a real sense of danger. I hope.

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The mood on the Odyssey was expectant and curious. The Asgard had invited them to Orilla, a whole galaxy away. Actually, they had more specifically invited the humans and their ship. They had been oddly insistent about the ship part. The IOA assumed it was because the Odyssey was powered by a ZPM – a zero point module. The potent energy source was both rare and valuable beyond measure. It could be tapped dry eventually, but prior to that it could quite happily provide power to the entire continental United States for over a century – or more. That was even counting the loss from poor efficiency.

Had the invitation come from any other race the IOA might have been suspicious. But the Asgard were beyond reproach. Where the Goa'uld had used advanced technology to subjugate humanity on worlds through the galaxy the Asgard had protected them, enforcing the Protected Planets Treaty. Where the Tollan had refused to help Earth with even simple defence the Asgard had upgraded shielding and weapons aboard the Prometheus when Earth had begun to reach for the stars. Where other aliens would have nothing to do with the fledging Tau'ri, people of Earth, the Asgard acknowledged a debt and great potential.

The Asgard were clones of clones of clones, and the genetic degradation was as a result slowly killing them, a deadline in the future when there would be no new bodies to accept the consciousness of a dead Asgard. It was in humanity that they hoped to find an answer to the problem. They could have pursued more invasive, destructive routes to the answer they craved, but the code of ethics they followed as a collective never faltered.

General Jack O'Neill considered Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet, a friend. The small, grey-skinned and black eyed race that had influenced the depiction of Roswell aliens had an implacable strength about them that he admired, despite the frailty of their bodies. More importantly they lacked the arrogance that most species with superior technology possessed when dealing with Earth – which had distinctly less technological advancement to speak of.

They had even turned to Earth to solve problems in the past. In truth the first time had been an accident, when Thor's vessel had been boarded by machine creatures known as Replicators. The spider-like machines had only one directive, and that was to create more of themselves, and damn anything in the way. When faced with the argument that they were no more evil than a computer virus Jack O'Neill had responded with calling them a really evil virus.

Suffice it to say preventing the ship from landing on Earth had been more of a survival effort than actual altruism. But the effectiveness of simple 'primitive projectile weapons' had struck the Asgard as exactly the kind of thinking they needed. From there the Asgard as a whole had rapidly grown to appreciate that thinking when saving the ship of their Supreme Commander snowballed into saving their homeworld.

Jack O'Neill himself was well known among them as the human who was a step towards solving the problem of genetic degradation because of his representation of an evolutionary step forward. He was more importantly known among them for rescuing Thor – twice. He had developed the anti-Replicator weapon that had allowed them to finally purge their home galaxy of Ida of the mechanical menace. Admittedly he had the whole database of Ancient knowledge in his head at the time, and they were the most advanced race to ever inhabit the stars, but still…

Hell, they had even named the first of their most advanced warship class after him. O'Neill didn't know if they followed the same tradition as Earth had by naming a class of ship after the first produced ship, but if they did he wouldn't be surprised. The fact was he really liked the Asgard, and the Asgard really liked him. So when the invitation had been received O'Neill had quickly pulled rank and replaced General Landry as the resident representative on the trip.

O'Neill shifted in his seat and looked about the bridge as the crew went about their duties. The Odyssey had been in service for around a year now, and it had been through enough scuffles to come out the other end with a fully capable crew. They might not have been through hell and back, but they hadn't been taking a stroll in the park either. The crew moved about, some carrying clipboards or tablets, taking notes from some of the panels and consoles arrayed around the back of the bridge and then moving off again. Occasionally two would exchange notes or have a brief conversation before moving on again.

"Like buzzing, buzzing bees..." O'Neill muttered under his breath as he ran his fingertips over the buttons set into the armrest of the command chair. Most of them were intercom switches of some kind, although he had to admit he didn't know the purpose of all of them. He held out hope that one of them was some sort of seat warmer, but he somehow doubted it.

"Sir?" O'Neill looked up and his gaze settled on the seat to his right where Major Marks sat, looking at him quizzically. The Major had served tours of duty on the Daedalus and was generally recognised as the best navigator and weapons officer that was familiar with the BC304 line of ships, which was why O'Neill had poached him from the Daedalus itself while it had been resupplying over Earth. He had got an overly polite call from Colonel Caldwell over the whole affair. Actually, it was borderline insubordinate. "Sir, we're about to drop out of hyperspace."

"Thank you, Major," O'Neill said quietly before shifting in his seat again, barely paying attention as Daniel entered the bridge. Daniel Jackson, resident archaeologist, language expert and 'we come in peace' guy. He could read and speak thirty-two languages, although Jack wasn't quite sure if that was all together or each. He wouldn't be surprised if most of them were dead, though.

"I heard we were about to drop out of hyperspace," Daniel offered by way of explanation.

"Yup," O'Neill confirmed. "Let's see what Thor has to say." As if on cue the blue tunnel of hyperspace dissolved into normal space, the stars of a foreign galaxy shining against the gray hull of the Earth-built Odyssey. In the center of the observation window Orilla hung like a green and blue jewel, around which white ships orbited and moved to and fro with an odd grace. "Now that is impressive," O'Neill murmured.

Several of the white ships broke off quickly, moving on an intercept course. As they drew closer it became apparent they were larger than the Odyssey by at least an order of magnitude, the alien and curved shapes of the Asgard vessels looking oddly daunting compared to the blocky and in comparison ugly for of the Odyssey.

Measuring at around 400 meters long the Daedalus-class was a far sleeker design that the prototype Prometheus, with the ship flanked by two hanger pods which each contained eight of the F302 space superiority fighters, which were themselves a blend of alien and human technology. Vertical-launch missile tubes were positioned at the front of the ship, while railguns were tactically located over most of the ship's vital surfaces, providing 360 degree coverage of the surrounding space. Few were the places that the Odyssey could not strike as, though her advantage was in a direct run at the enemy where she could bring all her weapons to bear.

The Asgard motherships seemed to smoothly slide to a halt off the bow of the Odyssey, a musical hum rising into a chime as light filled the bridge in the telltale sound of an Asgard transporter, the light from the beaming technology fading and leaving behind one of diminutive aliens. O'Neill recognised him immediately. "Thor, buddy!" he said cheerfully, rising from the command chair with arms outstretched for a moment in a wave of greeting.

"Sir," Marks said quietly. "There were over a hundred beaming signatures." As if to confirm the words of the Major several Asgard entered the bridge and began to interact with the various consoles against the wall. O'Neill turned a questioning glance on Thor.

"O'Neill," Thor said in that oddly resonant voice which all Asgard had. "We invited you here to upgrade your ship with the latest Asgard technology. Weapons, shields, propulsion. In addition we are installing our entire knowledge base aboard your vessel." There was a moment of stunned silence. Marks looked between both Doctor Jackson and O'Neill in helpless confusion, but neither of them seemed capable of speech.

"Thor," Daniel eventually spoke, voice almost cracking for a second before he recovered. "We appreciate this but...why?" The Asgard tilted its head to regard Jackson for a moment. O'Neill seemed to still be a bit zoned out. Even the Asgard would never give away weapons and technology on that sort of scale without there being something big happening. But still...all that technology...for the SGC and IOA this was the equivalent of giving candy to a baby, then buying it the candy shop.

"We are dying." All the elation instantly vanished. The Asgard couldn't just die. They were the Asgard. They had fought through so much, done so much. It just wasn't right.

"But..." Jack trailed off for a second. "Thor, you said you were taking steps to cure the genetic problem..." The Asgard Supreme Commander turned to once again regard the General.

"We believed we were, but an experiment has rendered the genetic structure of the entire Asgard race unstable." For a moment O'Neill was speechless. He didn't even want to know the specifics, of how something so monumentally disastrous had occurred.

"Our clones are no longer capable of holding our consciousnesses," the Asgard continued. "As such, we have decided to destroy ourselves rather than risk our technology falling into the hands of those who would misuse it." There was another moment of silence.

"And you're giving it to us?" It didn't help that Daniel's voice held a note of incredulity in it, and Jack shot him a glare. But he did have a point. It was exactly the opposite of usual. Earth finds advanced aliens. Aliens don't want to share technology with irresponsible humans...and the most advanced aliens of them all were just giving it away to them.

"You are the Fifth Race." Thor decreed, and O'Neill knew instantly what he was talking about. The Asgard had been part of an alliance of four Great Races. The Nox were pacifists, but incredibly advanced and universally respected for their neutrality and impartiality. Well, respected by anybody who cared. The Furlings had never been encountered besides some far-flung examples of technology, although Jack had his suspicions. The third race was the Asgard themselves, and the fourth were the Alterans, also known as the Ancients, the oldest of them all who had ruled the galaxy when the others were young. Creators of the Stargates, Atlantis, ZPMs...

When O'Neill had first met the Asgard face to face one of them had said humanity had great potential, and might yet become the Fifth Race, the fifth species to achieve the level of technology and moral code the Asgard believed to be required of them to take a place in the great alliance. Of course they hadn't meant in just under a decade...

"You are the descendents and inheritors of the Ancients," Thor said. "Now you are our inheritors as well. You carry the legacy of the Asgard race. Our technology, history and culture are all preserved aboard this vessel." Thor blinked slowly, turning his gaze back to O'Neill from where it had been resting on Daniel. "There were large elements of the Asgard high council that opposed this action."

Jack opened his mouth to say something when a muted but distinctive screaming noise made him jerk. His eyes flew towards the observation window where he could see the Asgard battleships playing rays of energy over the Odyssey, the slightly transparent white beams looking similar to the beams that had simply disintegrated Goa'uld pyramids into nothing on one of his early missions. He watched in something approaching horror as a long section of the outer hull ceased to exist, revealing what looked like a power conduit.

"Thor?" he asked helplessly, turning to the diminutive Asgard. The alien blinked at him with that infuriating calm with an expression O'Neill could only translate as 'what are you worried about?'.

"The motherships are merely making alterations to your ship's power system," Thor explained, as if trying to talk to a child. The way he said it made Jack feel a flush of guilt for even thinking that something bad was happening. In his defence he didn't really think it think it, just...think it at the back of his mind.

"Sorry," he offered lamely, and turned to look out the window again as more and more beams of light radiated out from the graceful ships hovering about the Odyssey, deconstructing the hull to gain more direct access to vital systems. He tuned out the sombre discussion Sam and Daniel were having with Thor, trying not think much about the impending death of an entire species. He failed.

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The modifications to the Odyssey had barely been complete when five Ori motherships had dropped out of hyperspace. Maybe they had followed them somehow. Maybe they had always known about the Asgard and just chosen to ignore them. But they were there, and the Asgard fled in beams of light as their transport systems whisked them away to the planet of graceful white spires below. Jack O'Neill hadn't even got to say goodbye.

The Odyssey fled. Ori motherships were for all intents and purposes invincible. Shields that had never been penetrated by conventional weapons, a beam weapon that smashed almost instantly through shields and all of it created in the name of a genocidal crusade to unite the galaxy. The destruction of Orilla as iridescent clouds of energy blossomed forth from the surface and the planet cracked destroyed three of them, the massive energy output severely taxing the shields of the advancing Ori ships before country-sized chunks of the planet's crust impacted them. There was no way any ship could survive that, no matter how effective the shielding. The other two motherships pursued the Odyssey as it tried to get far enough away from the disruptive effect of the planet's destruction to open a hyperspace window.

Jack O'Neill had just watched an infinitely noble race die and the Ori try to pick over the remains. He wanted to take a shot at them, and they couldn't leave until the disruption the destruction of the Asgard homeworld had caused in subspace faded, as an attempt to activate the hyperdrive mere seconds ago had proved. "Major Marks," he said quietly, looking to his right where one of the two main bridge consoles was manned by the Major. "Let's see what these new Asgard weapons can do. Bring us about and fire at will." Marks nodded and made the appropriate course changes, bringing weapons online.

So the Odyssey gracefully banked around and made a half-somersault above the Ori ship, blue beams of plasma screaming out of the Asgard emitters mounted on the upper hull. The blue rays struck the white shields of Ori vessel, which flared and billowed around the points of impact. Once, twice, three times. The Odyssey broke off the somersault in a sharp turn downwards, the ship righting itself in relation to the Ori ship as it flew overhead again, this time firing from emitters on the lower hull.

The beams fired twice more in quick succession, this time hitting the hull itself of the gigantic ship as the shields buckled and failed. Massive explosions burst from the points of contact as the Odyssey flew above the damaged ship. Three more shots, this time to the thicker and more substantial areas, reached out and sliced into the previously impregnable warship. The Ori vessel seemed to slow as the engine output flickered and failed, unable to keep up with the increasing speed of the Tau'ri ship because of the battle damage. Then the reactor went critical and it broke apart in a flash of light, only the toughest alloys making up the armour of the ship failing to disintegrate and instead bursting outwards in fragments the size of large buildings, and some the size of small skyscrapers.

The victory that would usually have been a cause for celebration this time seemed hollow as the Odyssey finally engaged her hyperdrive and vanished, fleeing from the destruction of Orilla and the remaining Ori ship. The Asgard were dead, but they had given Earth hope.

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So now Jack O'Neill sat in the command chair of the most formidable vessel at Earth's command, the seat of the legacy of the most powerful race in two galaxies, and one of the few hopes against the Ori. It had been two days since they had left Orilla, and with both the Asgard modifications and core along with the ZPM aboard they were already back in the Milky Way and on the home stretch.

Then Carter frowned, and it all went downhill from there. She was sitting at the right console, which had privileged access to most ship systems. Usually Major Marks, the navigator, sat there, but he had been relegated to the left console when he arrived for his shift and found the currently-frowning astrophysicist and all-round-genius had usurped his usual position.

"Sir," she said eventually, looking at what seemed to be something with a great deal of graphs and mathematical symbols, which O'Neill instantly disregarded as something he wouldn't understand. The General fixed an eye on Carter instead, leaning over the right armrest of his chair.

"Carter." The short-cut blond which O'Neill 'officially' valued as a member of his former team and as a close personal friend shot him a slightly distracted look which Jack 'unofficially' found kind of hot as well as worrying.

"Sir, I'm seeing some anomalous readings from the hyperdrive. It could be related to the Asgard modifications, but I would like to run a full diagnostic." O'Neill looked contemplatively out the bridge observation windows into the purplish-blue tunnel of hyperspace for a moment, but his decision was never really in doubt when it came to following Samantha Carter's advice.

"Alright then. Major Marks? Drop us out of hyperspace." The general nodded at the navigation officer/weapons officer who hit some buttons with a mumbled 'aye, sir.' The tunnel which had moments ago held O'Neill's attention dissolved away into normal space, stars shining brightly. "Alright, Carter. Run your diagnostic. The sooner we get back to-Marks!"

Major Marks' face betrayed only a slight hint of surprise with the widening of his eyes as he enlarged the sensor screen with a press of a button, the two hyperspace windows that the general had spotted forming in front of the observation window flagged for a moment then fading to leave only the ships that had emerged from them. "Two Ori motherships on an intercept course. Raising shields." The background hum seemed to lower in pitch as the energy output from the naquadriah generators and Asgard core increased to provide the power required to erect the energy bubble which protected the ship.

O'Neill looked helpless for a moment before swivelling the command chair slightly in Carter's direction. She was frowning more strongly now and examining the data displayed on her screen again. "Carter," he reminded her softly. She jerked out of whatever problem she was working on.

"Go, go," she urged, console making a muted beep as she changed the screen again. O'Neill turned to Marks, who was looking at him for orders.

"Engage the hyperdrive." The Major nodded and obeyed, the Odyssey putting on a burst of acceleration and vanishing into the hyperspace window that formed just in front of it in a haze of greenish blue light, narrowly missing a sickly yellow beam fired by the main weapon of the nearest Ori ship. O'Neill relaxed as the view was replaced again by the tunnel of hyperspace travel. "Carter," he said slowly. "What were the chances of that being a coincidence?" The worried look she gave him didn't lift his spirits.

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"It's the Asgard modifications." Colonel Samantha Carter's statement was addressed to a small room consisting of Teal'c, Colonel Cameron Mitchell, Doctor Daniel Jackson, Vala Mal Doran and General Jack O'Neill. Teal'c was looking stoic and impassive as usual, though everyone else at the table looked ill at ease. Mitchell leaned forward, elbows propped on the tabletop.

"I thought you couldn't be tracked in hyperspace." Mitchell looked around as if he expected everybody to be nodding, but the slightly worried expression that seemed to be universally shared didn't change much. Sam jabbed her pointer at the screen behind her and it changed to the graphs that O'Neill had seen her looking at it.

"We know the Asgard monitored hyperspace activity around Earth, so it is possible. But I don't think the Ori can usually do it. The Asgard core-" another click of pointer and another slide change, this time to one riddled with Asgard characters "-is interfacing with the hyperdrive and altering the energy output in specific ways to increase speed and efficiency. I think the Ori are somehow detecting something about the energy output they couldn't before."

"Big deal." Heads swivelled to Vala, who was leaning back in her chair. She looked around and shrugged her shoulders. "Let them follow us. Just drop out of hyperspace over Earth and we can destroy them with the Ancient weapons platform in Antarctica. Problem solved" Sam winced a little.

"That isn't really an option," she began, with a tone of voice that suggested she too regretted that was not an option. "The Ori have stayed away from Earth, but we don't even know if the drones fired by the weapon can penetrate their shields or destroy the ships. If they can't and the Odyssey is destroyed we have an Ori mothership parked in orbit capable of wiping us off the face of the Earth."

"No pun intended," O'Neill added, before continuing. "The point is that running to Earth isn't really an option. They might have left us alone before, but they know we at least have weapons capable of beating them now. They aren't just going to let us get away with that."

"So unplug it," Vala said, again chipping in. "Unplug the Asgard core. No changes in the hyperspace thingy, no energy emissions, no Ori motherships following us wherever we go. Everybody is happy."

"Except the Ori," Mitchell noted.

"Well yes, except the Ori," Vala conceded. "But let's be honest, do we really care about them?" All heads turned to O'Neill, waiting. There was a pause of several moments before he eventually spoke.

"Carter, can you disconnect the core?"

"Yes," she said quietly. "But it would take at least thirty minutes."

There was another silence at that, mental scenarios playing out for all those in the room. The Odyssey was formidable with her new upgrades, but the Ori beam weapons were downright lethal. It would only take four or five shots to punch through even the enhanced shields, and thanks to the particularly nasty effect of the beam weapon it would break the ship in two when that happened or punch a hole so large the Odyssey would be for all intents and purposes instantly crippled. It was Teal'c who broke the silence.

"Could you not simply sever the connection between the core and the hyperdrive, Colonel Carter?" All heads once again turned to Carter, who bit her lower lip in a way that suggested she was having an internal debate.

"I could," she eventually admitted. "It would probably only take half a minute, but the Asgard core took over an awful lot of the safety protocols when it was installed. I couldn't guarantee that the hyperspace window wouldn't fluctuate and slice the ship into pieces. Or even be stable enough to enter in the first place."

"Alright," O'Neill said evenly. "So that isn't really an option either. Would plugging the ZPM into the shields buy us enough time to disconnect the core?"

"Probably," Carter said. "But the ZPM is currently powering the hyperspace engines. We would have to come out of hyperspace to interface it with a new system. And then we have the same problem. The Ori would tear us apart before we managed that, let alone disconnect the core as well."

"Okay." Mitchell said. "We find the nearest planet with a Stargate, beam the crew down then at least try to disconnect the core and maybe take out some Ori motherships at the same time. How's that for a plan?" His somewhat sarcastic tone of voice suggested he wasn't exactly thrilled with his own idea.

"We can't sacrifice the ship," Daniel protested. "It has the entire base of Asgard knowledge, an entire culture! If we can't try and save that, at least do it for all the advances on the ship. It could be the key to driving back the Ori!"

"Ya know," O'Neill said quietly, "Daniel has a point. Not to mention I'm not all that keen on the part where we die. Call me selfish. I can only see two options. We either cut the Asgard core off from the hyperdrive and risk dying the second we jump into hyperspace, or we try to fight them off for half an hour while we disconnect the core entirely."

There was another moment of silence. There seemed to be a lot of those.

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious what to pick," Vala said. "Probable death or certain death. It isn't that difficult."

"Vala Mal Doran is correct," Teal'c intoned. "Our best chance lies with severing the Asgard core from the hyperdrive." After that endorsement it wasn't a difficult choice to make for Jack O'Neill to make.

"Carter," he said decisively. "You heard the Jaffa. We take our chances with the hyperspace window of doom. I'll take that over slugging it out with an Ori fleet any day."

"And the crew," she asked. "What about them?" O'Neill hesitated. On one hand he wanted to save their lives if at all possible. On the other he knew that if the Odyssey ran into more trouble or was damaged it would be almost impossible to repair without the crew aboard. With all the Asgard knowledge and technology on the ship it could define the rest of human history. That was beyond valuable. He wasn't going to pull a miracle out of the fire only for the ship to get damaged and stranded somewhere within spitting distance of Earth and no way to get help.

"We're all in this together, Carter," he said heavily. "We're all in this together." She stared at him for a moment, a heavy look in her eyes. O'Neill was unused to having such scrutiny from somebody who intimately knew him and looked vaguely uncomfortable.

"Aye, sir," she whispered softly. "I'll get right on it." Nobody else seemed to want to speak. They could quite happily sacrifice themselves, but talking about the hundred or more people aboard and deciding their fates for them was a great deal more difficult.

"Dismissed," O'Neill said to the noise of chairs sliding back and the others departing the room. Then he sat there in silence at the head of the briefing table, turning his chair to look out the windows into the tunnel of hyperspace, the lightshow seeming oddly beautiful and suddenly so very deadly.

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It felt like the time to concoct and prepare for a plan that probably meant uncertain destruction never took long enough. Maybe the two things that most bothered him about the idea, namely 'uncertain destruction' and the hurried feeling of the whole thing were somehow related. Those profound and idle thoughts were the exact kind General O'Neill was having as he entered the bridge, his stride turning from the coordinated grace of a soldier to the crisp and authoritarian walk befitting a General of the US Air Force. The effect was ruined when he sighed as he sat down and slouched a little, leaning his elbow on the armrest in a manner that Major Marks commented over drinks with other crewmen was oddly reminiscent of Captain Kirk.

He looked over the armrest for a moment with an expression and idly searching finger that suggested he had no worries in the world before decisively stabbing it down, opening a communications link with engineering. "Carter," he asked, forgoing his regular habit of swivelling the command chair from side to side as he talked. "Is Operation Uncertain Destruction a go?"

Down in the engine room Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter rolled her eyes and leant over part of the Asgard core to reach the intercom. "Almost ready, Sir. Just a few more minutes," she said loudly, before returning to looking at the Asgard heads-up display and slowly making another alteration to her computer program. It wouldn't do to miss a link and destroy the ship anyway. Or make any mistakes, hence the slow pace.

Back up on the bridge O'Neill resisted the urge to say back 'we don't have a few more minutes!', and settled for a 'let us know when you're ready.' He took a deep breath and leaned over the side of the command chair to talk to Marks, who O'Neill noted had once again taken his rightful place at the right hand console. "Marks," he said softly. "When we drop out the Ori could be right behind us. We don't know how many ships or how much time we have. So we keep evasive manoeuvres. But if we get a clear shot with the new weapons, take it. It might slow them down."

The Major nodded and continued doing...whatever it was he did most of the time. True to her word, it only took a few more minutes for the call from engineering to crackle over the intercom. "Ready, sir," Carter's voice radiated through the speaker set into the arm of the command chair. "Just drop out of hyperspace and my program will shut down the hyperdrive and automatically begin deactivating the Asgard modifications. When the hyperdrive comes back online we should jump immediately."

"Understood," O'Neill said, before removing his finger from the intercom and turning to Marks, who had turned enough so he was looking at the General. It was the moment of truth. "Major Marks...drop us out." The muted 'aye, sir' the officer gave in return seemed lost to O'Neill as he just stared out the forward observation window, the comforting hum of the powerful hyperdrive engines fading away, along with a slight vibration he didn't even notice had been there. The bridge felt quiet.

"Hyperspace windows forming, Sir." Marks said, expertly manipulating the sensors the bear on the emerging Ori vessels, which rapidly decelerated as they dropped out of hyperspace and began to move towards the dwarfed Odyssey with a look of inevitability. O'Neill blew an explosive breath out of his nose, leaning forward while he scooted back more firmly into his chair. "Three Ori motherships," Marks noted softly. They had gained an extra pursuer.

"Red alert, ready phasers." There was a pause, just long enough for a suppressed snort of laughter from Marks and a few good natured chortles around the bridge as the lights dimmed and the alarms sounded throughout the ship, contrasting with the sudden burst of amusement. O'Neill cracked a smile. "Maximum military thrust."

The engines of the Odyssey flared a brilliant yellow as the smaller and more agile ship banked to port in a sudden burst of acceleration and away from the three Ori vessels, exposing the underside towards the gargantuan ships for a moment, then righting itself in relation to the motherships and presenting a smaller profile. The nearest Ori ship fired, a yellow bulge of energy bursting out of the main dish-like emitter fixed to the bow of the vessel.

It streaked out like a comet, bulbous and elongated head followed by mile-long trail of discharged energy as it lanced past the small Earth-built ship. O'Neill tracked it with his eyes as it overtook the fleeing Odyssey and continued onwards into space. "That was a close one," he murmured, sparing a quick glance to Marks whose focus was entirely devoted to the screen in front of him before continuing to stare out the forward viewport.

The other two Ori ships fired in quick succession as they too closed into an effective weapons range, one of the shots straying off to the port of the BC304 as it made an extreme turn to starboard before the ship rolled to present the underside to the motherships and moved across and to the side of their line of fire, trying to manipulate the slow turning speed of the massive Ori ships to her advantage. That was when the second Ori beam smashed into the shields.

There was a muted and almost distant thump that reverberated round the ship. It sounded almost nonthreatening, but the sudden lurch that sent a few members of the bridge crew sprawling proved it was anything but, the shields, strong though they were, having difficulty in deflecting the sudden and massive influx of destructive energy.

Marks looked like he was almost sweating as he made rapid and constant course changes, the Odyssey suddenly making a brutal turn upwards, giving O'Neill a prime view of another Ori beam missing the ship by only a few hundred metres, striking where it would have been if not for the sudden course change. "Jesus," he breathed, indulging in a rare moment in which his smart-ass attitude turned into complete lack of decorum. He stabbed his finger down on the intercom, yelling into it. "Carter!"

Down in engineering the blonde-haired Colonel could only helplessly watch as the progress bar on the program continued a march across the screen. Seventy five percent and rising, it said. "A few more seconds, sir!" she shouted back, wishing she could do something to speed it up. Anything.

"I don't know if we have a few more seconds!" O'Neill yelled back, withdrawing his finger from the intercom and recoiling as if burned when the stars turned into streaks of light for a moment as Marks made another drastic change in direction. Another Ori blast glanced off the back shields of the Odyssey, the protective energy field flaring a bright greenish blue as it absorbed the impact and the sudden lurch nearly throwing O'Neill from his chair.

Down in engineering Carter was thrown across the main board of the Asgard core, collecting herself for a moment with a deep breath as her eyes strayed to one of the computer screens that indicated shield strength. Her eyes promptly flicked back as the progress bar of her program suddenly surged forward and hit the hundred percent mark. The hyperdrive came back online with a deep hum that reverberated through the ship before it calmed and became the comfortable background noise most of the crew had been used to without realising it.

Up on the bridge Marks almost yelled as he stabbed down on a button which confirmed the latest change in course, the Odyssey swerving around to avoid a point where two Ori beams suddenly converged. If those two had hit...his attention to punching in another course change was suddenly distracted as there was a loud beep and a window unfolded in the bottom right of his screen, indicating the hyperdrive was back online. He didn't bother to punch in a course, he just activated it.

One of the Ori ships fired at that exact moment, the yellow beam lancing towards the rear of the Odyssey as she slowed, sublight power decreasing to feed the sudden demand from the hyperdrive, the window forming in front of the ship like a tear in the fabric of space. With a sudden burst she accelerated into the window, vanishing. That was when the Ori beam caught up, the sickly and virulent yellow of the beam clashing with the greenish light of the hyperspace window just before it closed, sending a pulse of destructive energy straight along the wake of the Odyssey.

On the bridge O'Neill slumped in relief, and Major Marks was smiling the faint smile of somebody who was rather surprised he had managed something rather difficult. The General let out a short laugh and clapped the Major on the shoulder, congratulating him. Then the shockwave hit, the hyperspace tunnel seeming to pitch through the observation window through the sudden chaos as the Odyssey went into a wild spin, the calm serenity of the tunnel seeming to warp and almost tear as Jack O'Neill tried to struggle off the floor– then everything went black.

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As before I will answer specific questions in reviews in the postscript of the chapter, or just generally address comments. Though it helps if you make some constructive criticism and give some support. I want to thank especially Jack Daniel Higgins for his advice on how to write dialogue and helped crush a nasty habit of mine. I hope it is easier to follow this time around. Enjoy!

I, Sayle, do solemnly swear to review all the fics I enjoy, regardless of the number of reviews, its age, or anything else.