Authors Note

This is the Prologue for my version of Stargate: Thirdspace. I hope you all enjoy it and please Review. I am writing this with andrewjameswilliams permission. Thanks for any support given. -Spearhead

Stargate: Thirdspace

Prologue

Admiral Jacob Robyns, Commander of the TFS Achilles, sat in his ready room. Jacobs's appearance was textbook for his rank. It was one of strength and experience. His cleanly shaven face and strong jawline didn't give any hint of his age, but his eyes were those of a man who'd seen many years of military service. The crisp blue Federation uniform that he was wearing shone slightly as light hit the fabric. The gold bars and fleet insignia glittered in the light, just like his uniform. His slowly greying, but mostly brunette hair was neat and measured perfectly at the length of two centre meters all over. It was obvious to anyone who met him, that Jacob Robyn's was career military. He'd risen through the ranks quickly and had earned a reputation as a man who could achieve any objective with minimal resources. This amazing talent had earned him the nickname of Jammy Jacob, but only his friends or higher ups called him it and even then it was behind closed doors.

The room around him was typical of Federation ship design, a standard box room with too much lighting. Before Jacob ordered the room furnished, it was nothing more than a grey painted room in need of a lot of improvement. The room now held a varnished oak desk, a glass topped coffee table, a single black leather sofa and several decorations. These decorations mainly consisted of paintings of the Achilles and every other ship in his task-force. Those paintings were fixed to the wall opposite the entrance.

As an Admiral, Robyns had been given command of an entire task-force. Task-force Sagittarius to be precise, the Achilles was the taskforce's Flagship. The Achilles was the task-force's only Proteus-Class Dreadnought that was known as one of the most powerful ships in the known universe.

Jacob sat in his real leather chair that cradled him perfectly as he sat at his real oak desk doing the paperwork that came with command. Both pieces of furniture had been shipped from Earth directly to the Achilles when he took command of the ship a year ago. The top of the oak table had three, neat stacks of data pads standing on it. Each data pad was either a maintenance report, a requisition order or an updated crew manifest. While he needed to sort and sign these documents, the one Jacob was holding in his right hand was very important. He studied it with a look of confusion and astonishment on his face that would have amused anyone watching. His forehead was wrinkled, his eyes scanned the words and his mouth was wide open. He had read the words three times now and still couldn't believe it. The pad displayed the Task-force's new orders. Orders like these came along very rarely.

These rare orders were for a type of escort mission. Certain words on the screen caused bursts of adrenaline and nostalgia that Jacob hadn't felt since taking command of the powerful Achilles. The sense of mystery and chance of adventure, that had pushed him into joining the Federations Naval forces so many years ago, had returned upon reading these new orders.

According to the pad detailing the assignment, Task-force Sagittarius would be escorting the City-Ship Rivendell to her destination and then would safe guard the city and her thousands of on-board souls. One of the reasons that these orders were so rare, was because City-Ship construction was a very expensive and time consuming feat. The Federation's City-Ships were modelled after Atlantis itself. The resources needed to build these massive technological marvels could be used to build an entire taskforce. But when these mammoth cities were built or moved, the taskforce assigned to the mission were recognised as some of the best ships in the Federation Navy. So, these orders were a sign of honour for the Admiral.

Rivendell was heading to a newly discovered galaxy. But this galaxy was as unique and rare as a newly constructed City-Ship. It was a dark matter galaxy. The existence of these strange and unfamiliar galaxies, was only recently verified. It was only through the on-going examinations of the vast Ancient database in Atlantis, that they had learned of their existence. Research into Ancient sensor technology and more detailed searches through Atlantis' database had finally yielded the frequency that could be used to detect these mysterious galaxies.

After making adjustments to sensor equipment, sweeps of Intergalactic space began. Using the specified frequency, the first and closest of these galaxies had been located halfway between the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies. But the dark matter galaxy was at such an angle that it was almost impossible to stumble upon. So that explained why it had remained unrealised for so long. Rivendell was going to this galaxy to act as the base of exploration operations. This was her purpose and why the city had been built.

Jacob ran his left hand through his hair and let out a sigh of disbelief while sitting back slightly, while continuing to look at the data pad.

This mission was the reason that Task-force Sagittarius had been recalled from patrolling the border with the Aschen Confederacy. After all, with over five-hundred years of space travel experience, the Tau'ri Federation Navy knew that new environments weren't always safe. The Federation couldn't risk a City-Ship in a possibly hostile galaxy, they'd made that mistake before and paid for it with lives.

Jacob couldn't help but think back to the Border Wars with the Aschen seven years ago. A City-Ship called Babylon was relocated to the Aschen-Federation border to be used as a resupply station by the patrol groups. The Aschen saw the city as a possible staging area for an attack into Confederacy space. The Aschen military leaders violated the Confederacy-Federation Border Treaty by ordering a pre-emptive assault. This attack caught Babylon and the Federation by surprise. Two fleets, consisting of hundreds of ships, broke through the minimal border patrol groups and began attacking Tau'ri colonies. It took three weeks for the Senate to finally agree to use the Sol fleet to push back the invading forces. Jacob had been in command of the Agamemnon-Class Cruiser Defiant at the time and was now considered a Hero of the Border Wars. Those wars were the reason why an entire task-force patrolled the border and each colony had drone launcher defences now.

Jacob was snapped out of his thought by a beep originating from the small panel on his desk. Robyns sat up and pressed a button on the panel.

"Robyns here." Jacob said while his eyes looked back at the escort orders.

"Admiral, communique from Rivendell. They're ready and will launch momentarily. Estimates twelve minutes until departure point arrival." Captain Josephine Owens informed over the radio channel.

"Alright, signal the fleet. Order them to take a standard escort formation around Rivendell upon arrival at departure point." Jacob ordered.

"Aye sir." Owens replied before the channel closed.

'Not long now.' Jacob thought with a smile on his face.

Control Tower

Rivendell, Ten minutes later

Governor Alison Sheppard stood on the balcony looking out over the artificial lake that Rivendell had been built on. On the edges of the lake, green grass began and stretched all the way back to Jericho city. Cargo freighters were flying away from the city on schedule as they'd just finished unloading their loads. Only a few more minutes and Rivendell would leave Jericho behind for the dark matter galaxy. Rivendell was a beautiful city, the sunlight caused the towers windows to shine and the metal skins to glitter.

Her daze was broken when a cough erupted behind her. She turned to find a young control room technician stood in the doorway with a data pad. Alison couldn't remember the young man's name, she still hadn't had a chance to look over the new personnel list. She hoped there was nothing wrong, it was a huge logistical effort to fill a City-Ship's storage bays. But if anything had gone wrong, the city's A.I. Arwin would have informed her.

"Yes?" Alison asked with a smile.

"We're ready for departure, ma'am. Task-force Sagittarius is waiting in orbit for us." The man informed.

"Thank you." Alison nodded. Even though the city's neural interface told her the young man's name, she felt like it was cheating to use it. The man returned to his console in the control room and Alison took a deep breath before following him in.

"Arwin." Sheppard said, looking around the control room. Immediately a holographic representation of Rivendell's A.I appeared in front of her. Like its namesake the avatar appeared as a beautiful, fragile looking elfin princess. The avatar had long black, flowing hair and was dressed in a flowing white dress of intricate weave. The dress the avatar wore seemed to glow slightly, a purposeful feature designed to make Arwin appear almost angelic.

"Yes Governor." Arwin said with a smile.

"Are we ready for launch?" Alison asked.

"We are. Freighters are clearing launch radius. Zero Point Modules have been installed. All systems are fully operational." Arwin replied.

"Contact Jericho control and ask for launch permission." Sheppard ordered.

"Launch permission granted." Arwin nodded.

"Alright, begin launch sequence." Alison smiled.

"Launching in 10 seconds. Shields raised. Life support online. Inertial dampeners activated. Stardrive powering up. Hyperdrive standing by." Arwin said as a holographic clock counted down beside her.

"Send citywide launch message." Sheppard ordered.

"Message sent. Launching." Arwin said as the clock struck zero. A small rumble signalled that Rivendell was taking off.

The powerful engines underneath the city activated. The city slowly began lifting off of the water. As the powerful engines propelled the city further into the sky, the silvery shield formed a dome over the towers to keep in the atmosphere. As Rivendell headed higher into the sky, the power to the engines increased and the city shot up out of the atmosphere causing her shields to shift to a red coloured bubble. As Rivendell passed into space, her shields returned to their silvery state. The task-force formed a protective circle around Rivendell, with the Achilles in front of the city.

A hyperspace window ripped open and Task-force Sagittarius, along with Rivendell, entered the window in the formation order. The group of ships left Jericho behind and their two week journey to the dark matter galaxy had begun.