Author's Note: This is likely to turn out to be the longest fanfic I've ever written when it's all said and done. I will try to get out at least one or two chapters a week. I intend for every major character from SG1 and SGA to have a major role, and we'll also see a lot of familiar minor characters as well.

All copyrighted work is the property of its respective owners. This fanfiction is not written for monetary or profit making purposes.

Backstory Note: For those that may not remember, the Asurans were the human-form replicators from Stargate Atlantis.

Chapter 1

"Lieutenant, report," Colonel Steven Caldwell said, strolling onto the bridge.

"It's as we expected, sir," Lieutenant Terry Rose said. "It's a shipyard."

The USS Daedalus sat in geostationary orbit around M3V-544, a Wraith world. Thanks to the ship's ZPM, they remained cloaked and off enemy sensors.

Damn good thing too, Caldwell mused.

M3V-544 was a fairly unremarkable planet except for the massive Wraith shipyard. The entire system was crawling with Wraith cruisers and hive ships. If Daedalus's cloak were to fail, the life expectancy of the ship, even with its Asgard derived weapons and shields, would be measured in seconds.

With Atlantis landed in Earth's Atlantic ocean and with its hyperdrive disabled, neither the US nor any of its allies had been able to establish any permanent bases in Pegasus. The Ancient-built city had the defensive and offensive firepower needed to serve as a base in a Wraith controlled galaxy. Several attempts had been made to set up defensive fortifications on remote worlds, but the Wraith always attacked before sufficient defensive fortifications had been put in to resist a determined attack.

The Wraith's timing was good. A little too good, perhaps, in one Colonel Steven Caldwell's opinion.

Caldwell had no direct evidence of a security breach within the SGC, the IOA, or the US military in general, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that they had a mole somewhere. What really confused him is who a mole might be and how such a person might be turned to actually work with the Wraith.

As bad as all that was, what he was looking at on his sensor readout was worse.

"Are we detecting any vacuum energy fluctuations?" Caldwell asked.

ZPMs operated on the principle of drawing power from vacuum energy, also known as zero-point energy. As Caldwell best understood it, "virtual" particles could sometimes form in pure vacuum but were annihilated immediately. ZPMs harvested these virtual particles as energy before that annihilation occurred.

The Wraith didn't possess such technology. Or, rather, they hadn't until recently. It had been six years since the Second Battle of Earth where Atlantis engaged an experimental hive ship in space combat above humanity's homeworld. The hive had been refitted with ZPMs and was many times as powerful as any other hive. Given what had happened to Daedalus when Caldwell had engaged the new hive ship, he was convinced that that one hive could've single-handedly engaged and destroyed every other Wraith hive ship in Pegasus.

Lieutenant Rose's eyes told the story before he even spoke. "Yes, sir, we're getting significant vacuum energy fluctuations from many of the partially completed ships."

Caldwell released a pent up sigh. "Any idea of numbers and strength?"

Rose nodded. "I'm detecting forty ships in various stages of…construction, if you could call it that." Hive ships weren't built so much as they were grown. "On a good note, sir, the vacuum energy fluctuations from each ship are far lower than those from the hive ship that attacked Earth."

"Any opinions on why?" Caldwell asked.

"A little out of my league, Colonel," Rose replied.

Caldwell hit his comm button. "Dr. Novak, I assume you've been watching the sensor feed?"

"Yes," she replied. "I think they aren't using ZPMs, not as we know them. They probably reverse engineered Asuran ZPMs and have managed to build their own. Much less capable, but available in greater numbers."

"I suppose we should assume these ships will be able to reach Earth?" Caldwell asked.

"I think that's a pretty safe [hiccup] assumption….sorry, sir," Novak replied.

Caldwell rolled his eyes. Novak was brilliant, but my God, she was a hazard. "Thank you, doctor. Lieutenant Palmer, set a course for Earth. Take us to the outer system on sublight before decloaking to go to hyperspace. I'd rather the Wraith not know we were here at all."

"Yes sir," his helmsman answered.

"The IOA is just going to love this," Caldwell muttered.