Asura Path

Disclaimer, I don't own the Stargate franchise, I don't do this for profit, this is a work of fan fiction.

Chapter Eight

Publicly, it was common knowledge that the Traveler leadership had managed to negotiate ownership of a fleet's worth of Aurora Battleships, all of them fully functional and brand new. What most didn't realize about this particular bargaining point, one that had solidified the Traveler's reputation for being more miserly hagglers that a Zebrian trader, was that there were several problems inherently involved with the deal that the Clan Captains blindly blundered into.

First, although advanced by the standards of many other races the Travelers held only a very basic understanding of subspace physics with the majority of it being half-understood and, unfortunately in some cases, grossly misunderstood gleanings from corrupted computer databases and inert machinery aboard floating wrecks.

The study of the technology left behind by the Lanteans led to breakthroughs in the fields of science related to barrier technology, gravimetric manipulation, FTL capable sensors and communications; however, having a technical understanding of how things were put together and being able to reverse-engineer copies was different from understanding the science involved from the ground up to a degree that allowed not only understanding but innovation and improvement upon designs.

To put the Travelers' problem simply, if the Clan engineers were confident about one thing, it was that they had no idea how the Neutrino/Ion reactors worked much less how to fix them should they be damaged, the Asurans of course were amenable to providing technical advisors to each of the Clan fleet's two hundred Auroras, but then the weapons systems were also a mystery that puzzled the Clans, as did the long range sensors, the power transfer systems, the transporter technology…

Seeing the real possibility of being unable to maintain the majority of the Aurora fleet's systems without heavy aid from the Asurans the Clan Captains were forced to be more reasonable in negotiations, which was what the Asurans had wanted in the first place.

To an outsider's perspective, the Aurora battleships looked no different than before, a fact that would chill the souls of many a wraith commander. On the inside however there were several important changes.

For one, the drone launch silos and storage bays were modified in the case of the former and removed completely in the case of the latter. The research and development labs were also removed and the control sub-systems station was consolidated with the shipboard astrometrics laboratory along with the long range sensors under the control of an Asuran technician who worked with the aid of Clan engineers. This free space, combined with the area occupied by the removed Neutrino/Ion reactors, accounted for a third of the vessel's volume. In its place the Asurans fitted a trio of Fusion power plants which were several generations more advanced than anything the Travelers possessed. However, it was still a well established technology for the Travelers and was thus more easily understood.

Plasma relays and wiring replaced quantum entangled crystal interlinks, missiles replaced drones and basic plasma weaponry for the most part, replaced high powered particle and beam projectors.

The vessels were not the fleet extinguishing bogey-men of the wraith, but they were far from pushovers with battle projections showing them to be on a better than even footing against wraith cruisers. While weapons stocks were low with the emphasis on acquiring resources for Home, most of the Traveler fleet's new Aurora-class spacecraft did carry at least two multi-stage tactical nuclear weapons in addition a smaller than rated complement of atomics, pure fusion devices and a large number of conventional missiles.

Captain Jacobi Deveaux would find that he was remarkably glad for that fact.

At thirty-two years of age Deveaux had been chosen to captain the Sophriniskuus-Cho, renamed Undaunted when its ownership was formally passed over to the Clan Captains. One of a handful of people in command of the new starships with actual battle experience against the Wraith, the former executive officer came highly recommended for the position.

Competition had been fierce for the position, even fiercer than the usual cutthroat race for command authority in the fleet. Although none doubted what would happen should the Wraith stumble upon an Aurora, the risk of being hunted down and killed was seen as preferable to being trapped on one of the older Traveler ships waiting to be caught and culled. It was a counter-intuitive idea given that most of those vessels were being kept at Home or within the systems in Compact space while the Auroras mostly patrolled high risk areas to protect shipping, but people liked the idea being able to shoot back.

Deveaux was sleeping in his quarters when the sound of an insistent chime awoke him. He groaned sleepily before rolling onto his stomach and touching the wrist communicator resting on the bedside table.

"Deveaux."

The voice of Undaunted's XO Lehkti Ro replied in her usual dry tone, the Asuran getting straight to the point in as few words as possible as was her way.

"Captain, the Errant Venture is reporting a radiation leak in their portside hull. It's been contained for now but they'll need to drop to sub-light within the next few hours."

Deveaux sighed, "Casualties?"

"None so far Captain," He noticed that Ro's voice contained only the slightest hint of annoyance, as Jacobi knew that would have been the first thing she would have informed him of if it were the case, still he had to ask and he listened as his executive officer continued speaking.

"The internal radiation screens are helping to limit the problem but until we drop out of hyperspace they won't be able to tell if the problem is a fuel line issue or a breach in the hull, nor will they be able to repair it. What we do know is that the radiation levels are rising steadily."

Captain Deveaux pushed his face into a pillow and softly cursed. Raising his head again he spoke, "Alright, I'm coming to the bridge… no astrometrics in a few minutes, put me in contact with the captain of the Errant Venture when I get there and let me know if the situation changes… also have Gaheris get me a list of star systems along our projected course." He said, referring to the other Asuran technical advisor. Jacobi shifted and stretched before planting his feet on the floor as he gave his orders. As he expected, Lehkti promptly responded to her orders.

"Yes, captain."

The communicator clicked thrice as the call ended.

Jacobi sighed.

"Well, damn."

From the Personal Audio Log of Davin Rexx, General Commander of 22nd Terrestrial Militia of the Interstellar Compact Time Date 72 Post Founding.

It was freedom, a joy that I can't really describe -sob- countless generations of oppression ended, or so we thought. I will say that it was a joyous time for all too briefly that it lasted…

Our blissful ignorance was undimmed even as our brethren from beyond the stars sought refuge from tyranny within the halls of the City of the Ancestors. Their story inspired a call to arms from among the people who had also suffered at the hands of alien aggressors. The Asurans, the great liberators that they were heeded the wishes of the masses.

If only we knew then what we knew now, that our own battles were far from over and that the War of Avalon would reach such a scale so as to be unfathomable to one such as myself, in those days a mere Satedan conscript, serving with the 22nd…

The StaRs sing…sing too…

And wE

Capacitor at 0.000005%

Deep Space

The Asuran stealth battle cruiser, The Nightmares are Real, idled in the void between stars while holding communications in real time. As was usual it was cloaked in stealth mode while communications were being held via an encrypted subspace tachyon signal bounced off of a satellite in a nearby star system.

Motoko and Batō stood within a virtual space modeled after a mountain top grotto. Next to them was Togusa, who was standing behind a seated Noona Tel Soong. Across from this group were two other members of the Good Times Gang, a forum for Asuran covert operations specialists to meet and discuss matters privately on a specially isolated Data Core or rather a series of cores each holding information that was useless until merged on this particular Data Core.

Dietel and Vindel shared a look.

"It's got to be this one." Dietel said, calling up the image of a particular star system to replace the scenery around them. Batō slouched against a gas giant.

"Oh?" He said as the magnification focused upon the image of a Hive ship resting against a mountain while partially covered in soil and dead vegetation, "There's still one left dirtside?"

"This is the one." Vindel repeated, "Unless you've had a gravimetric impulse coil fall of the back of a ground wagon then your Genii are going to be limited to targets either on the ground or in the lower atmosphere from the data you've given me to study."

His 'twin' Dietel seamlessly picked up from where he had left off, "We know from tribal legends that this planet is a known location for finding the Wraith and it's well within the exploration range of the Genii." She finished.

A year ago, Vindel had been among several Asurans caught in a massive explosion that destroyed five sixth of a solar system. Three of the twenty nine intelligences working at the facility had perished without their memories being updated in their assigned data cores.

Vindel's jumper had been shielded from the main blast by being in the shadow of a planet but was damaged and left adrift in the resulting asteroid belt. By the time that he had been discovered and rescued a version of him had already been distilled and set to work. Dietel had chosen a female form and while possessing his memories and holding similar thought processes, differed in many other ways both in her approach to problems as well as her form and personal tastes.

It was disconcerting at times…

"I have a question." Togusa smiled shyly under Dietel's attention, the woman smiled flirtingly as she acknowledged him.

"Yes?" She said patiently.

"Why didn't this Hive launch with all the others? Is there something wrong with it?" He queried.

Dietel nodded, "This is the Hive we tested the Cetau particles on, a satellite bombarded different parts of it at varying intensities for thirty minutes a day and then analyzed the results, when they tried to launch, either the escape engines misfired or the antigravity cut out... all we know was that they fell like a rock after rising just forty paces above the ground, set off landslides across the continent."

"So it's dead then?" Batō wondered aloud?

"It's still a viable target." Vindel responded, "We have recordings of darts entering and leaving the orbital gate at regular intervals and the scanners briefly show human readings inside when they do return."

"Also there's this." Dietel said, pulling up a series of scans in the infra red spectrum. "Look at this spot here." She pointed, "And here," She pointed again, "And here," Dietel's finger was on a yellow spot that was gradually growing as the frames changed.

"What are we looking at?" Soong asked as Motoko and Batō leaned forward unconsciously.

Dietel and Vindel shared a look, "We believe that their attempting to grow a new Hive by draining power from the old one." Vindel answered.

"If the Genii don't hit it in another couple of days we were going to ask for an orbital strike. With the rest of the Wraith awake, this queen probably doesn't want to advertise her weakness to rivals, we have a chance to do this quietly." Dietel added.

"So a valid target…" Batō clarified.

"It would appear so, let's hope you're right about the Genii's target, it seems that Lieutenant Radim doesn't have access to the planning stage and they're not discussing it in the open either by using anything other than code phrases." Soong grunted in annoyance. "We'll follow as planned with Project: Advocate if things go as we predict and hit the larval Hive if it turns out not to be the target."

Space is big; there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on any terrestrial beach and some finite fraction of them bear life. One star in particular within the Pegasus Galaxy harbored its own terrible form of life.

Manaan was no longer conscious of his existence as a human, no longer conscious of being a husband and father. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise for Manaan no longer was a father, nor did he any longer have a wife, the Wraith who culled his family had seen to that…

He lay helpless in the throes of fevered dreams. He dreamed of space, of stars. At times voices whispered to him, told him things, listening to these voices took his fear away but he could not help but feel, that he was losing something even more important in the bargain.

Perhaps it was a mercy, that Manaan no longer could see what he was becoming, had become. He dreamed of stars now, sensed the world in strange new ways, as his tentacles grew outward and dug into the Wraith power core. As viscera squirmed and mutated, he calmly ignored the ever diminishing part of himself that screamed and screamed and screamed…

Perhaps it was a mercy…

Genii Homeworld Underground Transport

When the Wraith decimated the Genii Confederation a small section of the planets population took refuge within hidden bunkers built to withstand assaults during ancient wars. Some of these bunkers were built within natural cave systems, and over several generations these underground caverns were into a vast and complex network of tunnels and rooms, in time becoming home to several thousands of Genii allowing their population to advance in secret, hidden from discovery by the Wraith.

Passing through one of these tunnels was a train, it was powered using electricity from a Nuclear power station several leuga away as were the red lights that illuminated the tunnel. Inside the train the red lights illuminated the inside of the train's passenger compartment with a baleful strobing glow. As a compartment designed for troop for troop transport there was little in the way of comfort, just rows of metal benches facing each other.

There were only two people in the passenger compartment as the train rolled on. One was a nervous looking soldier, a boy in his late teens, the other was a man with worn hands wearing a leather jacket and a wide-brimmed hat to hide his face.

The red lights strobed as the train rolled on.

The young soldier nervously clutched at his kit as he tried and failed to hide his curiosity about the man dressed in civilian clothes. This carried on for nearly an hour before the younger man couldn't hold his interest in any longer.

"Excuse me sir," He said, his voice barely audible over the rattling of the compartment and the periodic squeal of metal on metal. The soldier gulped as the older man tilted his head slightly and transfixed him with a look from his single, visible, dark eye.

"Umm… I'm sorry sir but… who are you?"

The older man looked at him for a few moments longer before replying. He dark eyes reflected the tunnel lights, making them seem to be a deep burgundy. He took in the pale, nervous face of the young soldier, a youth still bearing the scars of puberty. Then in a cold tone that brooked no tolerance for any further questions, he spoke.

"Kid,' Acastus Kolya, soldier, thief, extortionist, murderer and lead coordinator of Genii intelligence within the Asuran Compact, answered, "You don't want to know…"

Genii Homeworld Underground Highway

The train ride was followed by a ten minute trip via a private military shuttle, again traversing a military-only underground road. Idly he rubbed at an itch in his left eye, the vehicle kicked up dust from the road as it rolled along. Kolya sighed and tried to make himself more comfortable, that was easier said than done, the ground car's suspension was shoddy compared to what he had grown used to.

In his time working first with the Manarians and then later with the Satedan contacts that he had cultivated within the Compact, Major Kolya had assembled an information network that far exceeded what his superiors knew of, their current lack of success was only due to the Major playing things close to his heart. He knew without a doubt that his superiors would pass down orders that at this point in time would needlessly jeopardize what gains his people had made.

It was a call that Kolya held sole responsibility for, arranging for small gains like those Asuran plasma weapons given to Lieutenant Radim in order to appease High Command. What the people in power didn't know was that the Asurans were going to win the war against the Wraith; he was absolutely convinced of it from the moment that he first stood behind Ambassador Smeadon on that balcony in the Ancestral City and looked out upon a forest of silver spires, stretching from horizon to horizon as far was the eye could see.

His superiors weren't convinced by his reports. They weren't convinced of any of his carefully phrased recommendations. Chief Cowen still saw the Asurans as an exploitable resource and a dangerous rival to the rebirth of the Genii Confederation. People still believed that the Asurans were doomed to the fate of all the other civilizations to clash with the Wraith, annihilation; and Cowen wanted the Genii to grab anything of use to their cause before things went sour.

What Kolya was doing little by little with the aid of carefully hand-picked agents, was positioning people and resources that would allow the Genii to come to the Compact not as beggars, but as formidable partners, a powerful entity in their own right. That was where the plans for project Sinhala had come in, the traveler engineer that he had secretly stolen it from had no idea just how advanced the Genii truly were nor just what his people could do with the schematics for an implosion chamber.

Slowly, a predatory smile, spread across the major's face at the thought.

Undaunted Astrometrics Laboratory

Gaheris already had the relevant information on screen by the time that Deveaux stepped past the security check point protecting the astrometrics lab. There were several such checkpoints aboard the ship each located at key areas and where choke points could easily be set up by defenders. Every so often there were also protrusions from the walls on either side of the corridors that covered small recesses in the areas behind them. These spaces offered cover for defenders while the leaving attacking forces exposed to fire.

Gaheris began speaking the instant the doors closed behind the captain.

"There are three star systems along our path to Compact space. " The towheaded man said. "One is five minutes out, another nine point two, seven, six minutes out and the third, twenty-one point four, four, four minutes away along our current course as of twenty-five seconds ago."

The appropriate star systems were displayed as Gaheris spoke, fingers lightly tapping on the keypads.

"Which of those systems have stargates?" Deveaux asked after a moment of thought.

"The second and third systems on our path, although Captain it should be noted that our exit vector through the second star system is on file as a navigation hazard due to periodic gravity eddies." The Ship's Technical Advisor replied, showing a depiction of twelve giant planets with clusters of moons in formation around a binary star.

"What do you recommend?" Deveaux queried.

"The third system is much closer to Asuran Compact space and is likely to be patrolled, or we could make our exit in the expanse between the stars and see to the Errant Venture's repairs there." Gaheris offered.

"But we won't be able to signal for help in the void, the Wraith could home in on the transmission. " Deveaux pointed out.

"There is still the third option or the convoy could modify our exit time to leave hyperspace at the outskirts of the second star system, and make our way in from there, the stargate is located on the largest moon of the fifth planet." The Asuran stated.

Jacobi tapped his communicator, "Captain to the Bridge." The device chirped thrice be Lehkti Ro answered. "This is the Bridge, Captain what can I do for you."

"What's the status of the radiation leak aboard the Errant Venture?" Deveaux said.

Ro's reply was crisp, "The Errant Venture's internal sensors show that the radiation levels are still rising, Captain Gearou reports that there hasn't been any breaches on the starboard side but sensors along the port side of the hull are dead. He respectfully requests that we exit hyperspace for repairs sooner rather than later." Her voice held a fain hint of sarcasm at that last part. "The reactors seem to be functioning at nominal levels but if the damage to the ship's systems cause a malfunction in either the inertial dampeners or the subspace field generators, it would be disastrous." Deveaux's XO finished seriously.

"Alright," Jacobi sighed, "Tell Pater Gearou that we'll be exiting at the location Gaheris will be sending to the Bridge, please confirm these orders with the rest of the convoy, I'll be heading forward to the bridge now."

Turning to Gaheris, Captain Deveauk gave his orders, "Calculate an exit vector into our second option, take care of those gravity wells, we'll make our way to the gate at sub-light." Gaheris nodded and moved over to the com station.

Deveaux rubbed his neck and yawned before leaving the lab.

Kolya quirked an eyebrow at the sight before him, there were thirteen people in the room, none of whom he recognized and…

They were all baby-faced kids.

He almost thought that he'd spoken aloud, when he heard a snort from behind him, as he turned a familiar voice spoke.

"Disappointing isn't it, but it's not that they're inexperienced, we're just old." A man said.

Kolya mock-scowled, but he couldn't hide his grin as he hand-clasped the other man's forearm."Athor!" He exclaimed, "The blazes I'm getting old! How's your son? Idos was it?"

The rugged-looking man that stood before him was in his late forties but seemed to still be in good health, he laughed and answered Kolya, "Almost grown now, kid's a few years from joining up, gives me a lot of mouth too, a smart one he is, just like his mother."

Kolya's smile dimmed slightly, "I'm sorry I couldn't come to Maya's funeral, I was on assignment and didn't hear about it until much later." Athor's wife was a technician at one of the Genii's largest nuclear power plants, she had sickened and died recently.

"It's alright," Athor grinned sadly, "We all have our duty."

"That we do, that we do!" another voice interjected, the two men turned to see Chief Cowen himself standing at the room's entrance with a group of soldiers and scientists behind him. The soldiers stayed at the door, while the chief and the scientists continued on through the room while an aide began setting up a projector near the back.

Cowen turned to the assembled soldiers and spoke.

"Gentlemen, Ladies, please take your seats so this meeting can begin, we will now brief you all on an initiative called Project: Sinhala.

Monitoring the communications station still linked to the cloaked satellites orbiting the Genii home world Aki Okuzaki straightened as the system's intelligence flagged a key phrase. After playing the recorded audiovisual file her eyes widened and she quickly forwarded a message, along with a link to the relevant data stream, from the Nightmares are Real to further up the chain of command.

Minutes later, her network profile registered over a dozen commendations...

At that lonely sensor suite, Okuzaki hummed to herself, "I'm gonna get a promotion, a promotion!"

Star System Designation Pak-la-Ru-ta-Mu-Te-At

Deveaux was seated on the command chair in the bridge, when Undaunted left Hyperspace with the rest of the convoy. Lehkti Ro was seated at the engineering control station behind him on the left. At maximum sub-light it would have taken a little under seven hours to travel from the frozen ice giant at the outer limits of the solar system, to the stargate bearing moon of the fifth planet.

With the damage to the Errant Venture, reactors number two and three had been shut down while the Undaunted's starship remote scanned the portside hull for damage, while injecting particle scrubbers to lower the radiation inside the affected areas. From what could be seen, there was a small breach in the hull, but the vessel's internal shields should have prevented any leakage of hyperspace radiation. That left a fuel leak as the next most probable culprit and it didn't take long to trace the source to the lithium nitride tank that fed the Errant Venture's plasma chamber.

The Errant Venture was one of several ships used by the Compact Space forces for transporting freight between the outer trade worlds and the Compact planets. Like most generational ships, repairs had been made with the aid of the Asurans, however some ships were just to patched up and jerry-rigged to be useful for anything simpler than being scrapped for metal.

Obviously, Captain Gearou disagreed. This was the fifth time that such a problem had come up and while Gearou usually managed to fix things 'as good as new' the convoy was in for a fourteen day trip unless Gearou got another reactor assembly online. As it was, it was probably getting cold on the older ship with only one power-plant operational.

Briefly, Deveaux wrestled with the question of how to offer assistance to the Venture's crew without insulting her captain. Among the Clans, telling another captain to scrap his ship without good reason was could only end in violence, as he had painstakingly explained to Lehkti Ro time and again.

"The Errant Venture is falling behind again." Lehkti observed stoically, "The primary reactor assembly has cut power to a third of the ship and personnel have consolidated themselves within the powered compartments." Then a pause, "Captain Pater Gearou signals his readiness to continue with the convoy." Her tone was slightly mocking.

Jacobi gritted his teeth, Lehkti was one of those Asurans who had taken up a biological base form and frankly the Captain couldn't tell why. Gaheris was a fully mechanical Asuran, a being with perhaps seven percent of his mass being organic in origin. Lehkti Ro was essentially a human with a few cybernetic implants. Yet Gaheris had cracked more jokes in the first three days he had been aboard than Lehkti had in her two years of service as Jacobi's executive officer.

Sourly, Deveaux thought, "But that woman must be the most passive-aggressive piece of work that he had ever…"

Marshalling his thoughts, he spoke with feigned calm, "Coms," He said to the junior communications officer next to Ro, "Signal the Venture's captain of our acknowledgement of his message and tell him it will take…"

"Eight hours," Lehkti said.

"…eight hours before the port side hold is safe for his engineering teams to go in and find to that breach… And remind him that the ten minute rule for radiation exposure is a myth, we don't want him taking any chances so we'll be beaming over hard suits and food supplies to replace what was contaminated." Deveaux finished.

"Yes Captain." The communications officer replied as she repeated his orders from her station.

Deveaux, eased back in the captain's chair as his eyes passed over a few readouts from the command consoles.

"Commander Ro, take the con, I'll be going to officer's dining hall if you need me." Ro stood by the command platform and waited until he descended from the raised dais before stepping onto it; and she waited for him to leave the bridge before sitting in the command chair.

Deveaux left the bridge walking past the open blast doors and past three security stations before reaching the nearest internal transport room. He wasn't scheduled for duty for another eight hours, and he needed something to tide him over what was shaping out to be a very long day.

Genii Homeworld Hidden Underground Bunker

"Gentlemen, ladies, I won't lie to you. What I am about to divulge is the Genii Confederations key strategic weapon against the Wraith. Most of you here have heard at least something about attempts by our science directorate to craft a weapon capable of defeating the Wraith. What you don't know is that the plan our weapon was designed to be a key piece in, has been scrapped due to the unforeseen early awakening of the Hives." The chief said grimly, a chorus of murmurs and muttered curses filled the room, Cowen let their anger play out before he raised his hands for silence.

"Still," He said, "There is hope, thanks to the efforts of Major Kolya here we have not only been able to complete our new weapons, but have also gained vital information leading to the heightening of its destructive potential."

"And," Chief Cowen's face gained a triumphant look, "We have not completely lost our chance to strike back against the Wraith. But before we get to that, Doctor Ober will brief you on the basis of how the device works before Commander Prenum briefs you on the mission specifics."

A thin, balding scientist, presumably Doctor Ober, stood at the podium while Cowen sat down, behind and to one side.

"Well, good evening ladies and gentlemen. Most of you will remember from secondary education, that our nuclear reactors use a fissile element designated Q for Quantium, to generate heat and secondary particles, whose kinetic energy is absorbed and also converted into the thermal energy that we use to power our turbines. We do not yet have a complete understanding of how this process works, but we do understand enough to know how to control the amount of power generated by element Q."

The lights dimmed and the projector switched on, displaying a diagram of a pod-shaped device on the wall above the man's head.

"We have also known the potential power when these reactions are uncontrolled and in the past have successfully triggered sub kiloton explosions by assembling samples of enriched element Q into a supercritical mass, resulting in an explosive chain reaction. However, until recently we have been unable to trigger an explosion of greater force that the equivalent of five kilotons of DET."

The Doctor coughed slightly before continuing, "Excuse me, as such -cough- we have been experimenting with other transquantium materials in order to increase explosive yield but until we received two important pieces to the puzzle, that was but a distant dream." The doctor rubbed his eyes. "First, was the data on a device called an implosion chamber, used to rapidly increase the density of an object enclosed within using explosive force. Second was a safe, reliable explosive, that burned uniformly and was inert in the presence of the fissile material."

The man looked up with a thin, bloodless smile, "Both of which have been acquired by Major Kolya and his subordinates."

The slides changed, first showing a group of men and women in white lab gear lowering a spherical object into an oval container with tongs, then a cross-section of the afore mentioned container was displayed.

"I give you Sinhala," Doctor Ober exclaimed, "An implosion type atomic device with an estimated yield of close to eleven kilotons worth of DET!"

The Good Times Gang was back in cyberspace, this time they shared a mental projection in the form of a small bridge across a river with golden morning sunlight playing over their silhouettes. They were watching a replay of events that had happened only minutes before.

"The bastards." Batō muttered.

"They're certainly bold to try to pull this off." Motoko offered.

Soong nodded, giving no indication of which sentiment that he agreed with, "Proceed as planned."

Genii Homeworld, Underground Briefing Room

Prenum took to the podium and began his briefing.

"The mission that I am about to brief you on is called Operation Bicorn. There will be four teams involved in this operation and two primary objectives that must be fulfilled. This is going to be a two pronged operation people."

Prenum paused for a moment then he continued.

"As most of you know from history readings, we once shot down a wraith Dart over the Old City, what you don't know is that the wreckage was salvaged and several pieces of technology recovered. Most of it has yet to be deciphered but we've recently had some success with what we believe to be a memory storage device." He paused with a grin, "It was cracked by a fifteen year old computer prodigy from the Under City."

A series of diagrams were displayed above his head.

"The full contents are still being analyzed but we were able to obtain some of the internal schematics for the Wraith Hive ship that this Dart originated from, specifically the area around the Hive's Dart bay and fuel storage areas. We believe that we have found a weak point, a key area to use Sinhala to maximum effect. "

Athor's hand went up. "Excuse me sir, but I can't see how this helps us when the Hives have all left their hibernation grounds."

Chief Cowen fielded the question, "I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you," He nodded to Prenum, "Commander."

A new set of slides were displayed, this time a series of still photos depicting what at first glance appeared to be the remnants of a mudslide until one saw the exposed hull of a Hive ship near the peak of a mountain.

One of the slides highlighted the largest of a series of cave entrances, which Kolya assumed was either a hanger or an exposed section of the hull. He leaned forward. "It's injured." He whispered. Athor glanced at him before looking at the display again when Prenum began speaking.

"A few weeks ago one of our search parties stumbled across this while attempting to confirm intelligence that the Wraith were on the move. They reported back and since them we've been watching this site ever since." The slides changed showing a dark blur with the label below it, 'dart in midflight'.

"Reports indicate that this Hive seems to have crashed, coming to rest partially on its port-side hull. It's likely that the Dart bay in that location was either damaged or otherwise rendered inoperable. There have been reported sightings of periodic Dart launches from the Starboard bay at predictable intervals but no sightings of foot patrols, even in the immediate vicinity of the crash site." Prenum finished.

"Do we know why it crashed?" Kolya queried.

"At this time no, but if what we plan is successful we'll have that information and more." A ripple of murmurs passed through the assembled officers before Prenum continued speaking, "This, is Operation Bicorn, four teams will assemble on the hostile planet. Team One which is already on location, is tasked with leading the other team through the vegetation to the target. "

A picture of the Hive ship was up on the wall. "Your point of infiltration will be here, in the ruins of the port Dart bay." The spot was circled.

A hand-drawn schematic of the internal area was shown next. "Teams three and four will press on while Team Two will hide the device here." Prenum pointed to a circled area between the back of the port hanger and the central body of the ship.

"This area here is a structural space, designed to protect the Hive's power plant from fire or blast damage in the event that the fuel stores in either of the hangers go up. These two bulkheads separate the port side of the vessel from the central body in the rear of the vessel and can be accessed from here, here or from this corridor here on any of the decks."

More locations were highlighted and the relevant files were being handed out to the officers.

"Team Two will set the device's timer and camouflage the bomb before exfiltrating with Team One to a shielded bunker in a nearby valley. From the point of activation, you will have one hour and thirty minutes before detonation. On foot the bunker is thirty-five minutes away through the foliage at best speed. The location is at the bottom of a ravine whose walls should offer protection from the blast."

Teams Three and Four will progress toward this location, near the center of the ship, where intel says that a Wraith information core can be found. Don't dally, but we need that data, Kolya, you'll be in charge of Team Three, Athor, Team Four is yours, we've narrowed the location of the data core down to these two areas."

The commander pointed to two overlapping spots, "On this deck," He said, "Adjacent to the main power distribution node or one deck down, next to the control room. We want zero presence on this, kill anyone who sees you, and get out of there after you've got what you came for, or if you can't find it. To avoid this raid from being traced back to us you will be using particle magnums and rifles 'acquired' from our Traveler friends. The data core has information on fleet movements, planned routes and schedules for the culling and information on codes and encryption techniques. We need it badly if we're going to survive."

Chief Cowen then took center stage as the lights came back on, "Any questions?"

Undaunted Meditation Room

Deveaux calmly went through a final repetition as he exercised. He did it to help him focus his mind. Pater Gearou was one of his problems, The Captain's ship was clearly on its last legs and he was going to have to have a talk with the man about it. He could understand not wanting to give up on a faithful vessel, but the clans weren't hurting for ships, and things were getting dangerous.

They'd found and sealed the leak only to discover that the Errant Venture had actually lost a small piece of its hull somewhere along the way. There was a man-sized hole that was dangerously close to a power coupling from the number three reactor.

That one wasn't going to be turned on until the problem was dealt with. But the nature of a heavily jerry-rigged ship meant that dealing with one problem quickly lead to another and it had been a series of frustrating setbacks as the convoy made its way toward the fifth planet, cutting down on travel time by half a day each time they used a planet's gravity well to accelerate them toward their destination. They were now on approach to the eighth planet.

Jacobi was just coming out of his bath when the shipboard com sounded. Lehkti's voice seemed almost urgent as she spoke. "Captain to the Bridge, Captain Deveaux you are needed on the bridge…"

Undaunted Bridge

As usual, Lehkti Ro was already at her duty station when Deveaux stepped onto the bridge, even though it wasn't her shift. The atmosphere in the room was tense as Jacobi seated himself in the command chair.

"What's the problem?" He demanded, and sorely regretted it, when the sensor readings were projected on the main viewer. There were three contacts that were relatively small when compared to the 5 leuga long object detected by scanners, as he watched the computers finished their analysis and confirmed what he already knew to be true.

HOSTILE_CONTACT ALEPH
5 LEUGA X 2.5 LEUGA X 0.5 LEUGA
ENERGY_SIGNATURE MATCH
WRAITH HIVE SHIP 98.9997%

HOSTILE_CONTACT BETH
1.13 LEUGA X 0.68 LEUGA X 0.03 LEUGA
ENERGY_SIGNATURE MATCH
WRAITH ESCORT CRUISER 99.9%….

HOSTILE_CONTACT GIMMEL
1.13 LEUGA X 0.68 LEUGA X 0.03 LEUGA
ENERGY_SIGNATURE MATCH
WRAITH ESCORT CRUISER 99.8%

HOSTILE_CONTACT DALETH
1.13 LEUGA X 0.68 LEUGA X 0.03 LEUGA
ENERGY_SIGNATURE MATCH
WRAITH ESCORT CRUISER 99.9%
….

There was more information on display such as the fact that the contacts moving into orbit around the fifth planet were seven light minutes away or roughly fifty-four hundred thousand leuga from the convoy, startlingly close, he realized, just eight minutes away at maximum safe sub-light combat speed.

The danger of the situation they were in was crushing, but after a moment of furious thought, calm again filled Deveaux. First of all, even though the cruisers would only need fifteen minutes to get within combat range, the Darts were much slower and unlikely to be able to navigate the gravity eddies the way that the larger ships were capable of doing for very long.

Those same hazards would also make any scouting missions hazardous, between the gravity eddies, asteroids and the EM radiation being put out by the Eight planet's gas giants his convoy had a real chance of evaded the Hive and it's escorts if they stayed quiet in the background, so…

Jacobi barked an order to the communication officer, "Send a signal by Line Of Sight, order all ships to power down their engines and enact sensor masking procedures upon time of receipt."

But things just had to go wrong…

"Captain," Lekti said to Deveaux, "Sensors indicate that the Errant Venture's Number Two Reactor is powering up."

At the same time the Com Officer spoke, "Captain Gearou reports that the Errant Venture is ready for Hyperspace jump."

"By the Ancestors!" Jacobi swore, it wasn't too hard to understand what had happened, the missing section of the Venture's hull was adjacent to the ship's secondary communications cluster, the LOS wasn't working, and an older ship like the Venture wouldn't have the means to detect the Wraith group through the interference put out by the gas giant they were approaching.

"Send a focused subspace transmission, a five second burst; warn them of the danger," He snarled.

But Lehkti had more bad news, "Sir!" Her voice was oddly urgent, "Radiant energy readings are spiking, Reactor Two is going critical and the power surge taking Reactor One with it!"

"Beam them out of there!" Deveaux hollered.

The Errant Venture exploded on the view screens.

Jacobi's heart lurched but what was even worse was what the sensor operator reported next, "Sir, one of the Wraith cruisers is turning toward the eight planet and entering an intercept course," Then a heartbeat later, "The others are doing so as well, they're moving in formation, estimated time of arrival is in twenty minutes!"

Jacobi's orders were immediate, "Reactors to maximum safe output! Order the Convoy to cold start their power plants and move out of the debris field surrounding the eight planet. They are to go to hyperspace once clear of navigational hazards! Head for Far Point Defense Outpost." He ordered, knowing that not all the ships would be able to perform an emergency start up.

While the navigational shields and the defensive shielding and armor was more than enough to navigate the debris field of micro meteorites that surrounded the gas giant, there were too many risks involved in ordering a jump under those conditions, hopefully the Wraith would play along and not let him regret that decision.

"Sir," Lehkti's voice spoke from his side, "Would it not be wise to use the time we have available to properly start the convoy's reactors and make it out of here together?" She added, "There are several navigational hazards in the path of the Hive fleet that will impede their movements by several hours, rather than the estimated twenty minutes."

"Noted and dismissed, my orders stand." Deveaux said sharply, before firing a question back at her, "How many did we get off the Venture?"

"Fifteen," came the shocking answer, the Venture held a crew of three hundred! "Captain, I-"

"Look!" Deveaux snapped back at her, "In less than ten minutes that fleet's course is going to take them within line of sight of this convoy!" He snarled, rage and grief slurring his words slightly, "And then they're going to see this ship, and you can bet your bubble butt that when that hive does they'll right fecking well get here in twenty minutes or less!"

He trained a glare on his executive officer's impassive face and roared, "Now either do your job or get off of my bridge!"

Lehkti quietly turned back to her sensor station, and after a brief moment of silence, reported, "Logos, Fennis, and Beauchamps are have their reactors online and are moving out of the debris field. Kannon had a false start and is repeating initiation procedures; Higgs' War just had an engine failure, Treasure Chest has engines online with some minor fluctuations in output- correction, the fluctuations are stabilizing."

The Coms officer was the next to speak, "Higgs' War requests time to fix the problem they estimate full repair in five minutes."

"Denied." Deveaux stated coldly, "Tell them that if they can't get that thing started in two minutes they are to initiate procedure Zeta and scuttle the ship." He was done playing nice, procedure Zeta prioritized keeping navigation records out of the hands of the Wraith above even the lives of the crew. "If I don't see transports headed to the rendezvous points with the other ships inform Captain Butan of my intent to lock on and fire on his ship to ensure that Home's security is maintained."

"Y-yes sir!" the communications officer stammered, sending the message as he was ordered.

"Sir…" Lehkti started.

"Just watch Miss Ro." Jacobi said.

Higgs' War started with nine seconds to spare on the two minute deadline.

"If something doesn't work threaten to shoot someone." He said blandly.

Commander Ro merely turned back to her station.

Seven minutes later, the Hive ship saw what they thought was a Lantean battleship. As Deveaux predicted, they did everything they could to get at them.

Sensors chimed, and Lehkti informed the bridge, "Hyperspace event, Hyperspace window generation detected!"

"Where?" Deveaux demanded.

He got his answer when the Hive ship and its escorts appeared perpendicular to the course being taken by his convoy, on an intercept course for his ship, five light-minutes out. The cruisers were rocked by impacts as they decelerated into the debris field but held together. One of the three cruisers took the point of a triangle formation and headed for an intercept with the Undaunted while a cloud of Darts began to be disgorged by the Hive.

Everyone Deveaux said, "Prepare for battle, cycle the main cannon, open all gun ports, divert power from FTL generators to shields, prep forward missile silos to fire kinetics, rear silos to PF warheads, down angle five degrees, keep that cruiser between us and that hive!"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Captain..." Lehkti said quietly.

"What is it?" Deveaux glanced over at his XO, she seemed conflicted.

In a voice full of emotion she said, "It has been an honor sir."

Jacobi turned back to his console, "Stuff it! We're not dead yet!"

"Y-yes, sir!"

"Same here…"

Planetary Designation Gun-ma-hal-Theo-Ma-ur-At

The cloaked satellite held itself in geosynchronous orbit with its graviton emitters. Its array of fragile sensors pierced through the murky fog and cloud covered planet below. Project Advocate was about to begin…

On the surface of the planet, the air was so incredibly humid that a mist like fog swirled about at knee height, covering the vegetation with dew. A six-legged herbivore paused in its movements through the treetops looking at the ground intently. Suddenly, as if disturbed by something, it darted away through the foliage.

The forest was pervaded by a strange electronic tone that continued for a time before terminating with a -Kawoosh- of sound akin to flushing water down a drain.

Eldritch blue-white light filtered through the trees and animals fled the area.

In a clearing not too far from where the herbivore had grazed, there sat an active stargate on a plinth with steps leading up to it. From the device men poured out in groups of five, racing for cover as soon as they came through, not for once breaking their stride. After the third group came through, the stargate deactivated, and again for a moment, the early morning forest was quiet.

Save for the warbling call of birds.

But this planet was barren of avian life…

A second birdcall, alien to the planet answered and where before there were three groups of five there now were four.

Kolya wasn't familiar with the leader of Team Two, which held the specialists trained to prep and arm the device, she was a hard-faced woman named Revi and she'd opted to take a pair of particle magnums rather the pistol and rifle setup that the other teams were using.

Granted the pistols were closer to what they were familiar to than the particle rifle in both weight and function; and they would also prove useful in the closer quarters of unfamiliar corridors but it could just have easily be that she was posturing, a rifle had better stopping power and range and with all four other members of her team occupied protecting the device and when not carrying it, Kolya, personally might have chosen to take the rifle.

Still from what little that he'd seen of her, he was assured that the woman at least wasn't completely incompetent from the way that she directed her men.

He wasn't being sexist, Kolya's job demanded a healthy amount of paranoia and he was ill at ease conducting an operation like this with people he hadn't ever worked with before.

Fortunately a recognizable face or two was to be found among the members of Team One, Ivor Lanko and Cassel Massan, were comrades from old scouting missions that Acastus had been on in the past. He also recognized Tyrus, although knowing the man mostly by his reputation as a scientist specializing in Wraith technology.

The party moved away from the stargate and under cover before pausing to introduce themselves.

"Good to see you sirs." Lanko greeted, while Tyrus eyed at the bundle wrapped in netting and a thick, rubbery fabric painted the purple and grey of Wraith structures.

"So that's it." He said.

Athor nodded, "Revi's team and mine will be carrying it in by hand on foot. We'll take our time and do things properly, but I hope the path that you've picked out doesn't have a lot of obstructions, this thing weighs as much as seven grown men and I'm told that's after they pared it down to the bare essentials, as it is it takes eight of us to lift the thing by hand." The bundled object steamed slightly in the morning air, it was warm enough on its own to evaporate the dew that gathered on its covered surface.

"We found a game trail, worked it over as much as we could without letting the Wraith know that we were here, not that there have been any patrols so far, eh." Lanko informed him.

"The important part is the foliage see," The soldier continued, "The canopy over head is thick enough in most places that you don't have to worry about being seen by a dart, if the Major has no objections sir, I'll have Lita lead on point," Lanko gestured to a tall, lanky woman, "While I'll lead the main group in, we'll show you where to find our exfil point and then take you up to the entrance. Massan takes left flank, while Hashim follows behind to clean up the tracks."

"That leaves me on the right flank," Tyrus observed.

"We'll pair up then," Kolya decided, turning to his men, "I'll take the right flank with Tyrus, group together with a partner and proceed under cover."

He turned to Tyrus and spoke to the other man, "I'd like you to tell me what you can about this hive as we go."

Tyrus nodded, "Yes, major."

Undaunted

The Undaunted seemed to be the main focus of the Hive, fleet's attack almost to the exclusion of everything else. As a former clan Warship, the Logos trained its rear turrets on the fleet firing purple bolts of helium plasma at any Wraith Darts attempting to close with the Higgs' War.

The other ships in the convoy made their way at best speed for the edge of the asteroid field while the Undaunted stayed behind, its intent to either cripple the Hive fleet in order to give the convoy time to escape, or as was proving the case, to draw and hold the attention of the Hive ship.

Within the bridge the atmosphere was one of tightly controlled chaos, a sparking energy that buzzed in Jacobi's nerves even as he struggle to call out his orders and input more complex commands without error.

For the moment Undaunted's tactics were simple, their aim was to keep the lead Wraith cruiser between them and the Hive ship; and the Hive ship's capital weapons cluster. The situation at least in this event seemed to be in their favor with the Hive ship content to hang back with its flanking cruisers while it disgorged several squadrons of Darts in an attempt to overwhelm and destroy the perceived Lantean warship.

"Launch from forward silos," Deveaux ordered his weapons officer, uploading the necessary targeting data, then after typing in a few more commands he waited a heartbeat, watching a timer before ordering, "Launch Fusion missiles."

Due to his vessel's relative movement to the Wraith cruiser, the sixty-four missiles arrived at roughly the same time. The ones armed with pure fusion warheads were shielded as part of their function, a measure taken in order to both protect the launch vehicle from interceptor fire as well as to maximize the usage of the warhead's fusion capsule by reflecting high speed neutrons back into the reaction chamber.

The Wraith cruiser's sensors detected no radiation due to the Traveler designed shield and its capital ship cannons continued to hurl clusters of anti-Baryon particles upon the Traveler ship's shields. The Darts spilt their focus between the incoming missiles and the enemy ship.

The conventional missiles were primarily kinetic kill vehicles, launched vertically from silos or dumb-fired from the bow these missiles possesed dense composite warheads accelerated by simple, single use gravimetric impulse coil. Painted a non-reflective black and capable of accelerating to 0.1 c without the aid of Undaunted's own considerable velocity, the destruction of a conventional missile's casing did little to disrupt the weapon's course besides turning them into ballistic weaponry.

Against the Wraith Cruiser, the missiles would do little more damage than the asteroid field had when the Wraith warships had decelerated into the asteroid field surrounding the eight planet. The conical warheads were designed to penetrate a Wraith ship's hull and a naquada-based chemical charge set into it's base would then hopefully explode within the vessel. No one believed that this was possible with a Hive but the missiles were too effective and easy to construct to not use against the cruisers.

"Up angle, ten degrees, load atomics, Fire on my mark…" Deveaux commanded.

On the surface of the ship, three hundred and twenty rotary plasma cannons upheld counter-dart fire. The nearly one hundred and forty cannons with firing solutions blasted any craft within range. The cannons were fed packets of frozen hydrogen, fusion was induced using powerful electrical surges and the energetic projectiles were accelerated away magnetically using the power provided by independent liquid naquada power cells.

"Mark!"

Firing at over seven hundred rounds per minute and refilling the ammo bins with the ship's internal transporters Undaunted's fire was fast and unrelenting. Yet for all of that fact, Wraith Darts still dived into the incoming weapons fire, attempting to close range for the tiny vessels own weapons to come into play.

It was not to be…

With no way of telling which missiles if any held nuclear warheads, several previously ignored five hundred kiloton PF missiles, all seemingly off course entered their engagement envelopes and detonated. The Darts that could have destroyed them were all concentrating on the conventional missiles aimed at the cruiser and the Hive ship behind it.

Fireballs, each a little more than a leuga in diameter, blossomed into massive spherical flowers. The local space was awash with intense bursts of gamma radiation and electro-magnetic pulses that ruined unshielded equipment, roasted pilots alive with absorbed radiation and incinerated those too close to the points of detonation to hope for survival.

The yield of the PF missiles was variable, with the option of modifying the type of destructive energy produced; in this case, the missiles emitted strong pulses of gamma radiation.

Waves of Darts perished in an instant and the lead cruiser, sensors temporarily blinded, was left facing off against a charging warship, preceded by a swarm of more than sixty, twenty-five kiloton atomic missiles.

Forest Game Trail

As they had planned, Lita and Romme, one of Kolya's men, acted as scouts while the rest of Team One with the exceptions of Lanko and Team Three with the exception of another of Kolya's soldiers formed a perimeter guard that watched the flanks for ambushes from under cover and followed behind to do the same as they erased the tracks left by the eight men that carried the nuclear weapon under the cover of a canopy that was in some places cleverly woven together to form a continuous domed roof of greenery.

Lanko, Athor, Revi, and Rock the man assigned by Major Kolya, formed a close in guard force, which escorted the eight burly men whose hands were full heaving their package toward the crash site. A warbling call caused the group to slow down and then after a few minutes, their four teams gathered under the shadow of a large boulder set at what looked like the beginning of a deep ravine.

"Remember what this looks like," Lanko said, " From this rock, turn left and head down this ravine, the bunker is hidden behind a small waterfall at the end of it. The walls alone should let you survive the blast if you can get here in time so don't worry, just don't lose your way, this rock is a twenty minute run from the Hive, once you make it here you're more or less safe from the blast.

Athor nodded and Revi chose this moment to speak up, "Did you get a look at what the inside of the entrance was like? From the pictures it seemed like it was on an incline."

Tyrus was the one who answered, "My daughter was the one who cracked the code, but I've also taken the time to study the internal schematics in detail. I'll lead you in, and I've already told Major Kolya what to expect. The Hive ship is at a thirty degree incline, it seems that the Hanger was cleared out before it was abandoned, and there are only a few breaches on the decks, but that's all we could tell using the field lens. "

He showed them the contents of his back pack, "I brought some pulleys, enough rigging equipment and rope to allow us to lift the device into position if it comes to it."

Revi nodded as she looked through the contents of the bag.

Kolya nodded to Athor, "Alright," He said, "Let's get going people."

Undaunted

The attack was executed flawlessly, the Wraith Darts still being launched from the Hive ship, should have been more than able to intercept the atomic missiles launched from Undaunted, unfortunately for the Wraith Cruiser and conversely fortunate for the Traveler warship, the light craft were woefully out of position to take on the speeding projectiles traveling at a velocity of just under 0.9c.

Blinded and alone, the Wraith Cruiser could do nothing more than impotently fire at where the Undaunted would have been had Deveaux not changed his vessel's course after the fusion missile detonation. The bluish white bolts, passed harmlessly under the track that Undaunted took, while the atomic missiles drew ever nearer.

The first two missiles punctuated their arrival with nuclear detonations that imparted enough force to bend the bow of the cruiser ninety degrees upward. The pock marks and hull breaches caused by the asteroid impacts and conventional missile strikes were points of failure that turned out to be even more fatal when the virtual intelligences that controlled the missiles' movements began to decelerate and deliberately target those spots.

It took just one twenty-five kiloton atomic missile sailing into a breach amidships to split the cruiser wide open, leaking burning atmosphere, equipment and crew. Two more targeted the cruiser's engines before the missile V.I.'s registered a kill and re-tasked their selves to go after a different target, altering their courses. The atomic missiles' drive coils had an effective range roughly equivalent to the distance of Lantea from her sun. The Hive ship was less than a light second away.

Watching the schematic of the Hive ship looming in the distance, Deveaux began typing a series of commands before passing a command to Lehkti Ro. "I want the main storage pod, evacuated of personnel after current missile load outs are replenished."

"Yes sir." Commander Ro affirmed, "Ordering evacuation of main storage pod." The Asuran technical advisor worked with her accustomed efficiency.

"I want you to do this as quickly as you can." Jacobi said to her as he passed another set of orders to the Engineering console.

"Sir!" His sensor operator called for his attention, "The Hive is firing!"

And so it was, no longer obstructed by the now destroyed cruiser, the massive biomechanical weapons cluster began firing enormous bolts of energy which, in spite of the interference caused by the radiation awash in the local space was surprisingly accurate.

The force of the impacts weren't felt through Undaunted's defensive systems, especially on the vessel's bridge but it was more than evident by the way that the ship wobbled slightly in its course each time the weapon's fire struck true.

"Shields are at eighty percent and falling," Lehkti noted calmly after the initial salvo.

The Wraith cruiser on Undaunted's starboard bow was turning in to center its main guns on Undaunted, even as Deveaux watched two swarms of Darts head for Undaunted on the screens. One swarm was attacking head on, while the other curved around and over the Hive ships' starboard hull in an attempt to strike from above to port.

"The main cannon has finished its charging cycle and is ready to fire." Undaunted's Weapon's officer informed him.

Jacobi Deveaux grimly smiled.

Dormant Hive

The first step, getting the device inside of the hanger proceeded smoothly without interruption. The deserted area of the Hive ship really did seem like an abandoned cave, but the men, Tyrus especially, seemed on edge and looked about cautiously, peering suspiciously at shadows with their particle rifles out and at the ready.

Kolya put a hand on Tyrus' shoulder, feeling the man jump slightly. He met the man's nervous eyes with a calming look and sent him to help Lanko and Revi find the access shaft for the inner bulkhead. Sighing slightly, he gathered together his men and grouped together with Athor who was doing the same.

"This is where we'll split up," He said quietly, "From what Tyrus has told me, we'll rappel down that elevator shaft, and make our way to Location Aleph, while the way to Location Beth is through a corridor to the back of the Hanger like in the mission brief."

Athor nodded and hung back with Kolya for a moment, "Acastus," He started, "If… the worst happens, Idos…"

"Done," Kolya cut him off, "You didn't even have to ask, I stood witness at his naming didn't I?" He said quietly. "You just focus and getting back, your time on Cowen's staff has been getting you fat." He mocked without any real heat.

"Says the one living in the lap of luxury for the past five years..." Athor threw back, "I hope prancing around those hoity-toity Asurans haven't dulled your skills, don't be careless my friend, or I'll be lighting a candle to the Ancestors," He finished his suddenly serious warning with a light note, "And I can't be bothered to waste good candles on the likes O'Ye!"

The two shared a quiet laugh before parting, "My claws are still sharp," Acastus commented dismissively as he turned away.

"I hope for your sake they are old friend." Athor muttered softly, his words unheard…

Undesignated Star

From the depths of a certain star, life stirred; great seeds, each over five Luega long were catapulted into interstellar space, escaping their suns tremendous gravitational pull seemingly without effort. An armored being, looking down upon the ruins of a vast city, stirred. Blank eyes watched as vessel after vessel began to rise. They would be patient for a little longer. It was almost time…

In fitting with the spirit of self-reliance, the Travelers had made sure that Undaunted's main cannon was of purely Traveler design. The interface systems and materials had been provided by the Asurans but that only served to make it all possible.

"Target that Hive ship, aim for its weapons!"

The Compressed Hadron Mega Particle Cannon collected thermal neutrons and plasma from the reactor it was tied to and then compressed the mass into superheated packets several times their original density. The energetic matter was then launched at a target using gravity manipulation at near relativistic velocities. The combined damage done by the kinetic impact and thermal energy made the cannon the most powerful weapon on Undaunted even if charging the weapon took precious time.

"Sir, the Cruisers are attempting to intercept!"

Energy loss and dissipation over distance was significantly less than in a normal plasma canon, so with a range of a little under six light seconds Deveaux conceivably could have used the weapon from much further away. However, as the dual barrels were released from lockdown against the hull, it was the bulk of the Hive that blocked incoming fire from the other wraith cruiser, leaving Undaunted to come in under the guns of the Hive ship and the ranging shots from the port side cruiser.

"Deactivate peace-bond on the secondarys! Fire phasers at target GIMMEL!"

At this time the two key weapons in Undaunted's came into play. The traveler ship was augmented with six type four medium phaser banks with emitters located at strategic points on the vessel's hull. The three emitters with a targeting solution opened fire on the cruiser to starboard from outside of the other vessel's engagement zone at the same time that the main gun opened fire.

The hull of the Hive ship seemed to writhe in pain as vivid crimson bolts slammed into the main weapons cluster. Secondary explosions caused by destroyed ammunition storage organs caused the rate of anti-capital ship fire to slacken. At the same time, thin bands of electric blue energy seemed to materialize in space, connecting the Wraith cruiser to Undaunted. Each emitter could only fire sparingly with the main cannon active, but the two shots that each was capable of, were highly accurate at a range slightly beyond the cruiser's own.

One of the phaser beams passed through the cruiser's ventral hull under the bow, and exited the dorsal surface astern. Another beam perforated the bow and was dragged down the length of the ship, before losing power. A third and then a fourth beam, passed through the cruiser's bridge before the fifth and sixth beams caught the burning vessel dead on and exited through the cruiser's engines, hitting something vital and triggering an explosion.

The weapons' fire from the cannon trailed along the Hive ship's surface leaving a dozen burning craters, six of them forming a flaming breach at the main weapons cluster.

The darts were attacking the shields almost constantly and Undaunted's counter-interceptor fire was turning the barrels of the rotary cannon a cherry red.

Deveaux winced as a dart tried to cut across Undaunted's bow and was crushed against the forward shield. "Shields are at sixteen percent power." Commander Ro reported.

"Deactivate the main cannon, shunt the power to the shield capacitors." Deveaux ordered. "Target the Hive ship's hanger! I'm authorizing the deactivation of internal missile safeties, fire conventional missiles and particle lances at will! Fire! Fire! Fire!"

The particle lance was a high precision proton beam that was limited to less than a light second in range. It was the Hadron cannon's predecessor and sixteen of the weapons saw use as the Undaunted closed range with the Hive ship.

"Activate evasive pattern Zeta at time two zero!"

Rotary plasma cannons sputtered and died as the heat that they generated overcame coolant systems. Yet Undaunted leveled enough weapons at the Hive ship's hanger to break through the screen of sacrificial dart cover and hit the lightly shielded hanger through sheer weight of fire. Dumb-fired kinetic kill missiles smashed through the hanger's atmospheric shield and into the bay, opening it to vacuum. Several more volleys followed only stopping when Undaunted's magazines were empty. The particle lances followed, burning through fighters and armor to lick at the hanger's fuel stores triggering an explosion.

Then Undaunted dove under the Hive but before it did so explosive clamps released the main storage pod containing fuel storage tanks and the two multistage fusion-fission missiles that had been kept in reserve for just this moment.

The explosion in the Hive ship's port hanger wasn't a fatal blow. But it was the equivalent of being stabbed in a kidney. Already, internal measures were being taken to mitigate the damage and prevent the fire from reaching critical areas of the ship. At this same time, the last remaining Cruiser, peeked over the burning side of the Hive seeking revenge on the running Undaunted.

Aboard Undaunted, Lehkti and Deveaux watched as the Ship grade remote assistant, the one that had conducted initial repairs on the Errant Venture, gallantly pilot the storage pod into the breach created by the destroyed Hanger.

The multistage devices used fast neutrons generated by a pure fusion device, to trigger fission in twelve capsules containing weaponized liquid naquada. Each released the explosive equivalent of fifty megatons of DET and the fireballs were fed from the fuel storage tanks, setting the Hive aflame, destroying many internal systems including the bridge and at least partially crippling the remaining cruiser with shrapnel damage.

Cheers filled Undaunted's bridge as the Traveler warship cleared the edge of the asteroid field. They were low on fuel and out of missiles but With the Hive ship and cruiser crippled they were free to go for hyperspace with no more opposition than six dozen darts that were rapidly left behind. The rest of the convoy was already gone and they were preparing to leave too.

Collision alarms sounded and a large dark shape exited hyperspace ahead of Undaunted. Seeing the imminent collision, Deveaux roared, "Go to hyperspace!"

Major Kolya's five man team had adopted a standard technique for progress through the Hive. Two men would take up firing positions down the corridor, while the other three continued single file in a crouched walk guns sweeping the area for threats. Part of the way along, two of the three men took up firing positions while the other three continued the process.

It was a tactic that worked as Kolya's men attempted to leave the hive while under fire from Wraith drones. They had found the Wraith data storage device in the control room and downloaded everything their data retrieval specialist could get her hands on. Somewhere along the way an alarm must have triggered because they were forced to leave quickly to avoid a group of drones armed with stunners headed for their position.

They hadn't been able to cleanly break contact and on the unfamiliar ship, even with its schematics, they somehow had gotten turned around and time was not on their side.

Suddenly there was a flurry of red bolts that hit the drones down one corridor from behind. Team Three made a staged withdrawal under the covering fire of Team Four.

"Athor!" Acastus breathed, "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you, I could almost kiss that butt-ugly face of yours!"

"Please don't!" Athor responded wryly, "Just shoot some Wraith and we'll call things even."

Over his shoulder he called, "Vika, lead them out! We'll deal with these here and follow after!"

Unclipping a device from his belt, Athor gripped the handle of a grenade as he pulled the pin, then holding the handle and careful to stay under cover he tossed the explosive down the corridor. Kolya cut his covering fire and ducked behind cover just as the grenade exploded. The two popped back up and unloaded their particle rifles into the sprawled warriors.

Kolya grinned as he turned to his comrade, "That was clo-"

-Blamph!-

-Blamph!-

Acastus gasped as he slid back, eyes staring accusingly at his killer.

Athor trained the particle magnum at the major's chest, eyes sad, "By order of Chief Cowen and the Genii High Command, you, Major Kolya are to be executed on the charge of treason against the Confederation."

"No!" Kolya mouthed.

"We know all about your efforts to thwart our efforts to acquire alien technologies, how you were hoarding weapons and placing traitors into a position that would allow you to sell us out to the Asurans, Lieutenant Radim told us all about the operation you've been running, Acastus haw could you be so stupid!" Athor hissed. Then he closed his eyes and sighed, "I choose to believe that you thought what you were doing was right, all Idos will ever know is that you died here so that our people's efforts would not be in vain, a hero like you should have been. Goodbye old friend!"

Major Kolya could only stare with dimming eyes at Athors departing back; his ears could not hear those parting words as his world filled with darkness.

His brain suddenly felt strangely cool.

And then…

The Seed trained its sensors on the damaged Wraith ships. The other prey was gone but this would do just as well. Slowly impulse generators pushed it toward its first meal.

His brain suddenly felt strangely cool.

And then…

He awoke, senses strangely muffled, he couldn't feel his body and wondered if he was paralyzed.

Then a voice, crisp and feminine spoke to him. It seemed vaguely familiar but he could not place it yet.

"Acastus Kolya, you are guilty of the murder and collusion in the murder of Compact citizens, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, theft and spying for a foreign power."

Where am I, he thought.

As if in answer to his unvoiced query the woman said to him, "You are in a medical facility under control of the Asuran compact, you were shot to death by your comrades and your body incinerated by an atomic blast.

Hu-what?

"Your mind was transferred at the moment of death to this facility to serve a candidate for Project: Advocate. You deserve to die for what you have done, but Asura needs your ruthlessness, your vicious, instinctual cunning. Agree to participate and we will restore you to a body, refuse and we will have no further use for you, Major Kolya. Your intelligence is now little more than a sentient program, you will be deleted and we will move on."

No choice then, I'll agree, and bide my time for a chance to escape, to get revenge.

The voice was cold, "No you won't, once you agree your life, your ruthlessness, will be ours, Advocate for Evil."

Slowly, the cold truth sunk in, that this woman could know his thoughts.

Omake

Acastus Kolya, unrepentant thug. A man barely alive. "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first artificial man. Acastus Kolya will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster..."

AN: at thirteen thousand plus this is the longest chapter I've ever written. Read and Review