Chapter 1

Jean Luc Picard sat in his ready room pouring over paperwork. He really hated this part of his job but there was no getting out of it. Being in command of one of the most advanced starship in the Federation, the flagship at that, brought with it a plethora of responsibilities. He got up and walked over to the alcove in the wall and asked for a cup of hot Earl Grey tea. With a shimmer of light, the cup materialized giving off an aroma of fresh brewed tea. He lifted the cup and took a sip.

Just then the comm system chimed, "Captain, we are approaching the planet and will be dropping out of warp in a minute."

"On my way Number One." He replied as he put down the cup back in the alcove which de-materialized immediately.

As he walked onto the bridge, he was met by Commander Riker.

"Have we started analysis of the planet yet?" he asked.

"Only long range scans, sir. The planet is a standard M class planet with a nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere. About 60 percent of the surface is covered by water and seems to be uninhabited as far as we can tell."

He turned over to Ensign Wesley who was at the helm and ordered him to drop out of warp.

"Aye sir," came the reply.

The constant hum of the warp drive gave way to the relative quite of impulse drive as the ship dropped out of warp near the planet.

"Thank u ensign," he replied. "Commander Data, you may start a thorough analysis of the planet as soon as we enter orbit. Find out if we can send an away team to the surface for a detailed analysis"

"Yes sir, the away-team is already on its way to transporter room three," he replied.

"I wonder why we haven't studied an M class planet so close to the federation border before?" Deanna Troi wondered aloud.

"Actually we have Councilor," Data replied. "A group of scientist did a preliminary survey of the planet several years ago. However, at the time, we did not have the resources due to the Dominion war."

"Aha, and now that the war is over, we have time to get back to our primary mission objective," she finished.

"That is quite right Councilor."

Everyone watched the view screen, as they drew closer to the planet. It was a beautiful sight, very reminiscent of Earth.

"Power building up on the planet surface, sir. It could be a weapon" Worf yelled jarring everyone out of their train of thoughts.

"Shields up," Riker barked, but before anyone could react, a bolt of energy blasted from the planet surface and hit the Enterprise. It washed over the outer hull in a wave of sparkling energy. Everyone was thrown about as lights went out. Systems crashed ship-wide as the Enterprise floated silently towards the lush blue planet.

SG1 had been on this planet for over a 5 hours now. They were performing a reconnaissance of the planet that had been dubbed P3275, when they came up to an ancient structure sitting in the middle of a clearing. It was the first sign of civilization other than the stargate since they got here.

"It looks like an ancient temple, Colonel" Daniel said as he poured over the writings on the wall. "I don't recognize the writings on the wall. Teal'c, do you recognize anything?"

"I do not Daniel Jackson, I have never come across a form of writing such as this."

"Well then, we can  at least rule out the Goa'uld," he replied as he looked around for a clue.

"Colonel, you should come and take a look at this," Carter called out from an adjoining room.

"What is it Carter?" he replied as they all headed towards Sam. She was staring at an imposing structure that rose all the way up to the ziggurat.

"I don't know, sir, from the looks of it, it is some sort of device."

"Perhaps a weapon of some sort to protect the planet. That would explain why the Goa'uld have never colonized this planet," said the big Jaffa.

"Perhaps. Carter, can you find out what it does? Daniel, see if you can find any clues on those carvings"

"I can try, sir." Carter replied as she walked around the device. There were no visible interfaces that she could see, no clue as to what this device was.

After having spent well over 2 of hours, Carter was on the verge of giving up when she leaned on a part of the wall to take a breather. Suddenly the device lit up. "Colonel O'Neil," she yelled. Everyone came running in to the room to see what was going on.

"Whoa, what did you do Carter?" he asked.

"I don't know, sir. It seems to be powering up. I don't like the looks of it. We better get out before it discharges though." As they sprinted out of the room, the weapon fired a bolt of energy that raced skyward, setting off a blast wave that knocked out the whole SG1 team.

Back on the Enterprise, the emergency systems started to kick in one by one as personnel rushed back to their station to find out the status of the ship.

"Mr Data, what just hit us?" queried a dazed Picard.

"I am not quite sure, Captain. As far as I can tell, we were hit by some kind of energy blast before we could raise our shields. That caused a system overload throughout the ship. I should be able to tell you more once I go over the systems log sir."

"Good, before we do that, we need to get our systems up and running. Number One, I want a thorough report of the ships status."

"I'm on it Captain. Mr. Data, report to engineering to help Geordie. I'm sure he'll need all the help he can get."

"Yes sir."

15 minutes later the sensors were back online. But the rest of the systems were still down, that included the warp core, shields and weapons. Commander Data was pouring over the logs when he found out what had happened.

"Captain, I think I've found what hit us. The blast seems to have originated in the southern hemisphere in this continent. I've run a sensor sweep of that area and have pinpointed where the blast came from. There seems to be some residual energy signature coming from this structure. I'm also detecting 4 life signs although its faint."

"Number One, assemble an away team and investigate what happened down there. I want to know why we were fired upon."

"Yes sir," Riker replied as he headed for the turbo lift.

The away team materialized in the room where SG1 were still unconscious. After a quick sweep of the area, Ensign Weller put away his phaser, pulled out his tricorder and scanned the SG1 team.

"They're human except this one, sir. Looks like they caught the blast when they fired on us. This one looks pretty bad," He said, pointing to Carter. "Maybe we should beam them on board so we can monitor them when they come to."

"That's a good idea. You and Ensign Rogers can stay down here and look around. Riker to Enterprise, I have six to beam up, Ensign Weller and Rogers are staying down to further investigate the device. I have 4 unconscious people to beam directly to sick bay."

"Understood Commander."

Colonel O'Neil was the first to wake up. It felt like he had just woken from a bad dream. He tried to open his eye lids and he could barely move them. It hurt, the brightness of the room overwhelmed his pupils as he shut his eyes. He tried to move but it hurt. Someone came over to him but all he could make out was a fuzzy outline. She administered some kind of medication and he felt a wave of relief wash over him.

Nurse Okawa leaned over Colonel O'Neil as he woke up. She could see he was in pain so she administered some medication to ease his pain. They had repaired all his damages which included some internal injury. He should be able to get back on his feet in another couple of hours. She went over to the next bed. It was a big guy built like linebacker. He was different. They had run scans and it revealed a symbiot in his abdomen cavity which seemed to be repairing his injuries.

Dr. Crusher was standing over the Carter when she started to stir. She groggily asked, "Where am i?"

"You are safe and sound. Please relax," the Doctor replied. Turning around she paged Captain Picard. "Our guest are starting to wake up, Captain. You might want to come down."

"Thank you doctor. I will be right over."

By the time Captain Picard arrived at the sick bay, the whole SG1 team was awake. Other than being dazed and confused they were all recovering well. They were also anxious and asked a lot of questions but non were being answered. Jack was the first one to notice Captain Picard as he entered the room and knew he was the man in charge here.

"Hi, I'm colonel Jack O'Neil, SG1 and you are."

"Captain Picard."

"Well then Captain, mind telling me what me and my men are doing out here. Last thing I remember, we were on P3275."

"Colonel, you are in no position to ask questions here. I would like to know why you fired upon my ship."

"Ship? What ship," he asked looking around at the other SG1 team members. Everyone was puzzled.

"You are onboard the USS Enterprise. We brought you onboard after we found you on the planet, that is after you fired on us."

"Captain, we didn't mean to fire at you. It was an accident," Carter added.

"Wait a minute,"  Daniel cut in. "Did you say Enterprise, like in the aircraft carrier?"

"Yes."

"That can't be. There's no way that beam shot all the way to Earth to hit the Enterprise."

"Dr Jackson is right. Although the weapon was powerful, it could not have reached Earth," added Teal'c.

"What are you talking about reaching Earth? This is the USS Enterprise. We are in orbit around the planet we just picked you up from."

"What?" Jack could not believe what he was hearing. "You mean we are on a starship called the Enterprise that is in orbit around P3275?"

"Yes."

"We don't have a starship other than the X303 and that's still under construction."

Picard was puzzled. What these people were telling him didn't make sense. "Commander Riker to the sick bay, and bring Data with you too, Commander. "

"On my way Captain," Riker replied.

"So, you are telling me that you guys are from Earth military branch called the Star Gate Command?" Riker asked for the second time not believing what he had heard the first time.

"Yes we are. How hard is that to believe?" Jack was getting irritated. Why did they not understand something that simple.

"That can't be," Riker shot back.

"And why is that?"

"Starfleet does not have a branch called Star Gate Command," he replied.

"Whoa! Hold your horses. Starfleet? What do you mean by Starfleet," Jack parried.

Everyone exchanged a puzzled look. Data was the first to speak. "Captain, I think I know what's going on here. I've been scanning the surrounding space and had noticed some peculiarities. Things didn't quite match up but I did not have an explanation until now. I believe I have just found it."

"Go on, Data," Riker urged.

"Yes sir, after running through several scenarios, I have come to a conclusion that we are not in our universe anymore. The peculiarities in the quantum signature of this reality seemed to support my hypothesis and now this."

There was a stunned silence. Finally, Picard spoke up. "Explain Mr. Data."

"Well sir, when SG1 were investigating the planet below, they must have accidentally triggered the device they found. It created some kind of energy that shot out into space and tore open a rift that connected it to our universe. Unfortunately, we were in the vicinity when this happened and were pulled into this universe. It could have been an accident or the device could have been created specifically to open a door to other universes. However, I have to run a thorough analysis before I can be one hundred percent sure of this."

"How come we did not detect this rift, Data?" Riker questioned.

"Well sir, when we were hit, it took out most of our systems including our sensors. By the time we had our sensors back the rift must have closed itself."

Picard had a worried look on his face. "Can we recreate this rift and go back to our universe, Data?"

"I believe so, sir. But the device seems to have overloaded when it fired, destroying itself. That's what knocked out SG1. It will take sometime for me to figure out how to recreate the device sir."

"Maybe Carter can help, she's very smart, you know" Jack volunteered.

"Thank you Colonel. We could use all the help we can get. That will be all for now." He headed out of the sick bay leaving a puzzled SG1 to ponder the incident.

Back at the bridge, Picard was busy directing the repairs when Worf called out, "Sir, we have an anomaly forming 50,000 kilometers from our current position. Permission to raise shield sir." He was apprehensive after the previous incident.

What now he thought. "Raise shields."

A weird looking ship poured out of the vortex and headed towards the enterprise. It was built like a pyramid sticking out of a disk like structure that covered its lower surface.

"Hail them."

Tanneth had been in Tollona negotiating with the Tollans when long range sensors indicated a burst of high energy from one of the nearby planets about 5 light years away. Curious as to what it was he decided to investigate.

When he dropped out of hyperspace, they were greeted by a strange looking ship in orbit around the planet. He had never seen a ship like this before. It consisted of two oval section with two smaller cylindrical structure jutting out of the lower oval. The ship was quite large at about 600m in length. Whoever they were, he did not like them being here. He would see to it that they left the area one way or another.

His first prime walked up to him and said, "My lord, the are hailing us. They seem to be the Tauri."

"Tauri? That can't be. They don't have starships, let alone something that big," he said in surprise.

"Yes my lord, but the people on board were definitely Tauri."

"Put them on screen."

"I am Tanneth. Surrender your vessel or be destroyed," he ordered.

A weirdly dressed guy with glowing eyes appeared on screen and gave them an ultimatum. "I am Tanneth. Surrender your vessel or be destroyed," he ordered.

Picard was surprised. It wasn't the kind of greeting he had expected. He looked over at Worf who was standing behind weapons station.

"They seem to be armed with multiple energy turrets and rudimentary energy shields, sir. He doesn't represent much of a serious threat at the moment." Worf reported.

Picard turned back to Tanneth. "I am Jean Luc Picard of the Federation starship Enterprise. We come in peace and would like to open a dialog. However, I will not surrender this ship."

"You dare defy a god?" Tanneth roared back. " You shall pay for your insolence Tauri." He turned to his first prime and yelled, "Jaffa Kree."

The channel was cut off as the Ha'Tak fired at the Enterprise. Much to Tanneth's surprise his shots seemed to hit a shield that glowed softly as it absorbed the bombardment effortlessly.

On the Enterprise, Picard looked over at Worf. "Shields holding sir. Negligible effect on the shields. However, our weapons are still offline so we can't return fire."

"Get us out of here Ensign," he ordered Wesley who was at the helm.

"Aye, sir."

With a flash, the Enterprise warped out leaving a very puzzled Tanneth behind. He had never encountered a ship such as this. He had to find and destroy it before it became a menace to the system lords.

"I want a meeting immediately, Number One," Picard ordered Riker. "All command staff and have SG1 join us."

Soon, they were at the meeting with the SG1 members. Picard turned to the team as he brought up the picture of the Ha'Tak and asked them, "Tell me, what do you know of this?"

The SG1 team were puzzled. "That's a Goa'uld Ha'tak mother ship Captain," Teal'c replied. "Why do you ask?"

"We just had a run in with them."

"You did what?" Jack asked in surprise.

"We just encountered this ship while in orbit around the planet. He wasn't too happy to see us there and fired on us. That is when we left."

"Smart move," Jack replied. "Those snake-heads can be very mean. Its never a good idea to stick around when they're nearby."

"Colonel O'Neil is right, Captain," Teal'c added. "A Ha'tak is a very powerful ship. You did he right thing."

"Yes we did, but that's not why we left. We could have taken his fire all day without having to worry about it, but I decided it would be prudent  not to ire someone we knew nothing about."

"You mean his weapons couldn't hurt you?" asked an incredulous O'Neil

"That's right, Colonel," Data replied. "Although the Ha'tak is a pretty big ship it seems to be very ineffective and not very powerful. It uses a form of energy weapon which is quite useless against our shields."

"Now that's what I am talking about. Finally someone that can stand up to the snake-heads." O'Niel was positively glowing at hearing this piece of good news.

"So tell me more about this Goa'uld." Riker added.

"Well, the Goa'uld are an ancient race of snake like parasitic creatures that enslave other people. When they enter the host, they take over the host and use it to their purpose." Jack filled in. "They also subjugate other primitive races by pretending to be gods, like in Ra, for example."

"Is it like the one inside of Teal'c?" Doctor Crusher asked.

"Yes it is. The Goa'uld use the Jaffa as an incubator for their young ones. Jaffas also serve the Goa'uld as their soldiers and in return Jaffas get almost perfect health and long life."

"Then what about Teal'c. How come he is not under the Gould's control?"

"The Jaffa only carry the young Goa'uld which acts as his immune system but does not control him. When the it matures, the are taken out and implanted into another host. It then implants itself at the base of the brain from where it controls the hosts body. Now, although the Jaffas aren't controlled directly by the Goa'uld, most of them believe that the Goa'ulds are their gods and are intensely loyal to them, even to the point of death. Teal'c here is one of the very few Jaffa who have stood up against the Goa'uld."

This was interesting information for the Enterprise crew. It was finally decided that that the best course of action was to head for Earth. In the meantime the SG1 team were offered a tour of the ship.

Data was in charge of giving SG1 a tour of the ship.

 "The Enterprise-E is an Sovereign class starship," he told them. "She is 685 meters by 224 meters by 88 meters and has a mass of 3.25 million metric tons. We have a standard complement of 130 officers and 725 enlisted crew members. In an emergency, we can evacuate up to 2500 people."

"Impressive," Jack muttered.

"Work on the ship first began during the Wolf 359 incident but the space trails itself did not start till 2369," he went on.

"2369?" Daniel asked in surprise.

"Yes, 2369" Data replied. "Why do you ask Dr. Jackson?"

"Well, its only 2002 out here."

"Then it seems that we not only jumped universe but also traveled back in time. Very intriguing," Data said with intrigue.

"Go on, Data," Carter implored.

"Yes, as I was saying, the Sovereign class starship was designed with the Borg in mind."

"Who are the Borg?" Daniel cut in again.

"They are a race of highly developed cybernetic beings who are connected by a collective mind called the hive. It is controlled by a single Borg called the queen, kind of like in a bee colony. Anyway, their sole purpose in life is to seek out new forms of technologies and assimilate any culture they come across. They have been doing so for thousands of years and have collected vast amounts of knowledge. This makes them particularly dangerous as they are very adept at adapting to new technologies and using it for their own use. They are so good at it that most weapons become useless against them after only a couple of shots."

"Kind of like the Replicators," Jack added.

"Replicators?" It was Data's turn to be surprised.

"Yes, little mechanical bugs that crawl around devouring all forms of stuff, assimilating technologies and then replicating themselves till there are thousands of them," Carter explained.

"I don't think we have ever run across them, Major," Data replied. He would have to look into that at a later time. If they were anything like the Borg, they could pose a great threat. "Anyway," he went on, "the Sovereign was designed from the start to be heavily armed to defend itself and the Federation against the Borg. To that purpose, we carry, three forward and two aft torpedo tubes and advanced Type XII phaser arrays." By this time, they had arrived at main engineering on deck 16. They were met by Chief Engineer Geordie LaForge, whom they had met earlier. He took over explaining the workings of the warp core and associated system. Pointing to the large column that was pulsating with energy he explained, "This is the warp core, our primary source of power on board the ship. It combines matter with antimatter to produce vast amounts of energy that is fed to the numerous systems of the ship via a electro-plasma conduit system."

"Isn't the annihilation of matter and antimatter violently explosive?" Carter asked hoping to glean as much information out of this tour as possible.

"You are right, Major. Under normal circumstances the amount of matter/antimatter that is currently being annihilated would result in a tremendous explosion that would tear apart this ship and anyone close to it," he said with a smile. She was very bright he observed. Wasn't she a scientist or something? He would have to ask Data later. "However, we control the violent nature of matter/antimatter reaction using dilithium crystals," he continued.

"So how much power are you generating in that thing?" Daniel asked curiously. He did not understand all the intricacies of matter/antimatter reaction but he knew enough to know that it was the most violent explosion in nature.

"Lets just say a lot," Geordie replied. That information was classified and these people did not need to know the details. "Anyway," he went on, "This is not the only source of power onboard the ship. Scattered throughout the ship are various fusion reactors that are used to power secondary systems and also in times of emergency."

"So what do you use all this power for?" O'Neil wanted to know.

"Well, that depends. Most of the time, we use it to power our warp drives. That is our faster-than-light method of travel." Knowing what the next question would be, he continued, "Warp drive basically compresses the space in front of the ship while expanding the space behind it. This way, we don't have to travel faster than the speed of light, which of course is prohibited by Einstein's famous law, in our local space. However, in relation to the surrounding space we will have traveled much faster than the speed of light."

"Wow," Carter replied. "That must require a lot of power." They had never met any species that traveled in real space faster than the speed of light. Not even the Asgard. Every race she knew dropped into hyperspace to circumvent the speed of light dilemma. This could prove very effective in combat.

"It is pretty energy intensive, especially as the warp speed goes up, the power usage goes up exponentially," Geordie replied.

Finally, after a thorough tour of main engineering, SG1 was handed back to Data who continued the tour of the ship. Eventually, they arrived at the bridge.

Stepping onto the spacious bridge Data said, "And this of course is the main bridge. From here we control all aspects of the ship. This station here is helm control, this is the science station, communication is over there. These seats are for the captain, the first officer and the ship councilor. Behind it is the weapons control. Commander Worf is the officer in charge of the station on this shift." He turned to Worf and said, "Would you like to explain the weapons systems to our guests, Commander?"

"With Pleasure," Worf replied with a savage grin. He liked showing off his toys. He turned to the SG1 team and said, "This is the tactical control center. From here I can control all offensive and defensive systems of the ship. Our main defensive system is a regenerative shield system consisting of redundant symmetrical subspace gravitron field. During combat, information on the incoming fire is constantly analyzed by the main computer and the shields are adjusted for maximum efficiency. Normally, power to the shields if provided directly from the warp core through high capacity EPS conduits but in cases of emergency, power can also be diverted from the fusion reactors powering the impulse engines. Our secondary defense is provided by the ablative armor that has high dispersion properties against various types of beam weapons. On the offensive end, we are equipped with the latest Type-XII phaser arrays which has a range of over 300,000 km and is the most powerful type ever fielded on a starship. We also have 5 torpedo launch tubes capable of both single shot or salvo launch of all types of torpedoes and probes including photon and quantum torpedoes. We are currently armed with 325 photon and 175 quantum torpedoes which have a range of about 4 million km."

Carter had a million questions but refrained from interrupting Worf. He did not look like someone who took too kindly to being interrupted. There would be a time for that later she thought. On the other hand Jack had no qualms about it. He did not understand all the mumbo-jumbo of gravitron fields and EPS conduits, neither did he care, but it was clear to him what this ship was capable of doing.  "Wow, that's an impressive amount of firepower and range," he stated. Indeed it was. Although they had encountered powerful alien species, none had demonstrated the amount of firepower and range Enterprise seemed to possess.

"Although we do possess a great deal of firepower, we are not a true warship, Colonel O'Neil," Data added.

"Really?"

"Yes, we could be classified as an explorer class ship. Our primary mission is to explore new frontiers and open contacts with new species. Sometimes, this takes us into hostile territories and we have to be ready to defend ourselves," Data clarified.

"If this is an explorer, I sure would like to see what one of your true warship is like."

"Other than a limited number of starship designs such as the Defiant and the new Prometheus, most Starfleet vessels are in fact multi-role starships like the Enterprise," came the reply

"Oh, I see," O'Neal answered.

Their final stop on the tour was an empty room that seemed anticlimactic. "This is the holodeck," Data explained. "We have 4 standard holodecks such as this and 8 smaller holosuites on board. We use these facilities for both recreation and training." Having said that, he started one of the standard holodeck programs used to familiarize visitors with UFP and Starfleet. SG1 suddenly found themselves floating in space which was disconcerting to say the least. Once they got their bearings back, they realized they were speeding past the outer planets of the sol system, past Saturn and Jupiter as they made their way towards Earth. Finally they settled in orbit around Earth and were greeted by a massive station orbiting Earth. They had never seen a structure that big in space before. Huge starships could be seen entering and leaving it on a regular basis. They then dove down towards the planet and made their way to San Francisco to Starfleet HQ.

After, this impressive tour, the SG1 team were shown to the guest quarters where they retired for the day.