Almost an hour later the door opened and Jack, Daniel and Sam looked up from the game of poker they were playing with cards that Jack had brought with him to see Shakuntala in the doorway, still wearing the crimson and black uniform of an Angrezi colonel and a turban.
"I hate to interrupt your victory celebration," she told them with somewhat less that total sincerity. "But my father would like to meet you."
"The Padishah?" Jack asked in surprise.
"Well you did suggest that you wanted to open diplomatic channels," she pointed out. "Going into a war, I believe that we might find having another friendly power quite helpful. I think he has some sort of treaty in mind, perhaps the exchange of ambassadors – the usual. Or are you no longer interested?"
"I didn't say that," Jack said, throwing down his cards. "It was a lousy hand anyway."
"You understand that anything we agree to can't be ratified until our government has looked it over?" Daniel asked, rising to his feet. "Which is going to have to wait until we can go through the Stargate."
"Of course," Shakuntala said indignantly as they walked out the door towards the ring transporters. "I'm not a child, Doctor Jackson. My father made a point of making sure that I was well aware of the constraints of interstellar diplomacy."
"Do you have any idea what the Padishah will be looking for in the treaty?" Sam asked.
"Probably some sort of trade arrangement," advised Shakuntala. "We will have to rebuild almost every part of our military industries in the immediate future, not to mention expand our planetary defences exponentially. Anything we can do to offset that cost by bringing in revenue will be something of a priority – Lady Nekhrun recommended that we look for something we can trade on to the rest of the Confederacy to bring in currency from them."
.oOo.
"Colonel O'Neill," Hammond's voice crackled over the radio. "Is there a problem? You're rather overdue."
"You could say that, sir," Jack said, looking in the direction of the Stargate, which was currently surrounded by thousands of Angrezi military engineers working on the foundations of the fortress that was being established to control access to and, more importantly, access through the Stargate. "The Angrezi came under attack by Heru-ur right in the middle of the reception. According to Heru-ur he was working from information provided to him by the Tok'ra so either they have a huge security breach, or they're a serious threat to our own security."
"What's the situation," Hammond asked, his voice concerned.
"The Angrezi were able to repel the attack, sir," Jack replied. "With help from the Confederacy. They're royally pissed though, mostly at the Tok'ra, but since they found out about the Angrezi from us…"
"That's not good, Colonel. Are your team alright?"
"We're good, sir," confirmed Jack. "There is some good news though. We have a draft treaty with the Angrezi Padishah to purchase the designs for some of their military hardware and exchange ambassadors. And we, uh, acquired a Tel'tac from Heru-ur and as far as the Angrezi are concerned it's a matter of finders keepers."
"That's good news," Hammond affirmed. "So will you be returning to Earth aboard it?"
"That's the plan, sir," Jack agreed. "As a gesture of his good will, we were able to persuade the Padishah to release Maybourne's team to us while he was still happy over beating the stuffing out of the Jaffa invasion force. However, he's going to keep the Stargate sealed for a while until he's sure that it's secure against another invasion."
"Excellent!" the General said in a congratulatory tone. "That will leave Maybourne as the only remaining loose end and with the Goa'uld fighting the other System Lords he's not likely to be a problem."
"Ah," Jack said warningly. "Actually there's one more thing, sir."
Hammond paused. "Why do I suspect that this isn't going to be good news, Colonel?"
"Well it could be good news," Jack said honestly. "You see, Nekhrun heard we might be sending an ambassador so he's pulled together the diplomatic staff that were here for the reception and hammered out another treaty package to offer in parallel."
"Well?" Hammond asked when Jack seemed reluctant to continue.
"Well, if we sign this treaty I can see about three likely outcomes, General. Either we get sucked into the war brewing against the System Lords, we wind up a Protectorate World with the Confederacy guaranteeing our independence until we can do so ourselves… or we wind up as part of the Confederacy. And with what he's offering it might just be worth it."
"I don't think that Congress is about to sign off on trading our independence for protection, Jack," Hammond said.
"Full access to their military technology including teams of technical advisors to help us build orbital defence platforms and spaceships. We'd probably have to redesign the ships a bit to avoid lawsuits -"
"Lawsuits?" interrupted Hammond.
"Did I mention that the ships we've seen come straight out of Star Wars?" Jack asked. "Apparently he saw the film during a covert visit to Earth and liked it so much that he described the ships to his engineers when they started designing capital ships and they liked the ideas. I'm surprised he doesn't walk around in a Darth Vader costume."
"I'm not sure that I want to follow that line of thought to its natural conclusion," Hammond decided. "So what do the Angrezi want for their more modest treaty proposals?"
"They want us to buy some of their military surplus when they upgrade to the Confederacy's standards over the next few years, how much is negotiable although I suspect we can pick up some of the manufacturing gear for it as well. And as part of the trade they want to buy books and other cultural goods that they can sell on to the Confederacy."
"Cultural goods?" Hammond snorted. "That sounds like the rugs and whatnot that my in-laws brought back from their holiday in Mexico."
"That might not be far off, sir. We're a long way from the Confederacy and if their claims are true then their standard of living is at least as good as ours."
.oOo.
"Are you sure that this is okay?" Daniel asked Jack, watching the Tel'tac lift off and skim a few hundred metres along the runway of an Angrezi airbase.
Jack shrugged. "Well we need to make sure that it's working okay after we dropped all those rocks on top of it," he pointed out, "So we'd have to make a few test flights anyway."
"Somehow I don't think that the Air Force usually uses 'test flights' to coach members of friendly but not formally allied nations to fly captured spacecraft."
"Only because we don't have enough captured spacecraft," Jack insisted. "Besides, the Padishah's piloting corps took a bit of a beating in the battle. This gives them a bit of a boost."
"Are you sure that it isn't because they agreed to let you have one of their slots for retraining on an X-Wing?" asked Daniel sceptically. While none of the Confederacy's heavy warships had arrived yet, a freighter had stopped to unload the first shipment of the fighter-bombers for the Angrezi's ground-based wings.
"They aren't letting me have one of the slots," Jack replied. "I got two, one for me and one for Carter."
Daniel muttered something that sounded like 'boys and their toys' but surely Jack must have misheard him. "You do realise that if one of them crashes the Tel'tac then we'll be off everyone's Christmas list this year?"
The Tel'tac lurched rather alarmingly as he spoke and Jack hissed, gesturing towards Daniel as if to ward off evil. "Daniel, stop tempting fate. Besides, it's an X-Wing. General Hammond would understand." The Tel'tac lurched again before steadying out. "It'll be okay," Jack said in relief.
"I hope you're right," Daniel told him. "Because unless the Padishah decides that the Stargate is safe to use for something other than radio messages it's going to be a long walk back to Earth."
.oOo.
The room that they were gathered in was almost, but not quite as splendid as their usual surroundings. They all took pains to ostensibly ignoring any lacks while discreetly enough to be noticed sneering at them, pretending that they could do better than their host under the same circumstances.
It was the host who spoke first. "It becomes clear that Heru-ur has failed," he decreed. "It is entirely probable that he is dead, or if not has been captured."
"Surely if he survived he would have escaped to advise us of the circumstances," one of his carefully primed mouthpieces added.
"It was rash of him to lead the attack himself," the host concluded, setting aside the memory of the careful prodding that had provoked Heru-ur's decision. "However, this proves that Nekhrun is even more of a threat than we believed. Nor can there be any doubt of why he has chosen this moment. He believes that we are divided, that we are weak."
"It is time to remind him that he ran like a dog before our wrath," another declared.
Not one of the host's agents. Good, he decided. "Indeed, it is time. But this glory should not belong to one of us. It must belong to all of us, so that all can see the fate of those who turn against us." Apophis' smile was that of a serpent about to strike. "Let Nekhrun gather his strength only to find how short it falls when compared to the combined might of the System Lords!"
.oOo.
It would be nice to say that the X-wing – technically the Confederated Free Systems Fleet designated them as the SF-3(H) Jäger but only pencil pushers called them that – handled like a dream. Actually, Jack noted, it was a balky brute of a fighter that needed all the spacing of the four engines to turn as sharply as it needed to.
"No offence," he mentioned as the training squadron of twelve X-Wings came out of the steep vertical climb that had lifted them out of the atmosphere of Angrezi, "But I've flown Death Gliders and in a dogfight those crates will be all over the six of an X-Wing in nothing flat."
"Six?" asked the instructor pilot, who was flying as Green One.
"Behind, outside the gun arcs," Sam clarified.
"Ah," Green One nodded. "Yes, that's pretty much what happened the one time that Death Gliders and X-Wings did mix it up for real. Didn't do them very much good though."
"Didn't do much good?" Jack asked in surprise.
"X-Wings aren't supposed to mix it up with Death Gliders, Colonel," Green One explained. "Think about it, you're piloting a craft equipped with four energy cannon at least three times as large as those of a Death Glider as well as an internal munitions bay. Does that description sound like an interceptor?"
"No," Jack agreed. "I understand that the main role of the X-Wings is targeting warships that won't be able to out manoeuvre them, but they'll still need to get past Death Gliders to do so. And someone has to keep the Goa'uld from using their Alkesh to swarm over your own capital ships."
"I believe that that is my cue," another voice said, breaking onto the squadron channel. It took Jack a moment to recognise the voice as belonging to Captain Knaak, the commander of one of the Confederacy warships – presumably the nearest of the six ships since it was angling towards them.
"I believe that it is," Green One agreed. "Ladies and gentlemen, for today's training we'll be running a simulated attack on the carrier Sparta. In order to keep things somewhat fair, she will only be protected by her interceptor wing, who should be launching right about now."
The moment that he said 'now', the side of the Sparta seemed to explode like a broadside from one of the old sailing warships that Jack had seen in old swashbuckler movies – line after line of fire blazing away from the flank and it took Jack a moment to realise that what had been launched weren't missiles, they were more fighters – smaller than the X-Wings although with a similar long nose and three engines behind the cockpit and three short stubby wings, one rising as a dorsal fin, the other two angled downwards – and were launching on full afterburners. No, not afterburners, he realised as he recognised the design. Turbo boost.
"Vipers?" Jack exclaimed. "From a Star Destroyer?"
"Ah, I have a message from Lord Nekhrun for Colonel O'Neill," Captain Knaak advised. "He said to tell you, 'Don't be a canon-nazi, Colonel'. I hope that that means something to you?"
"That he's got a smart mouth," Jack groused.
"You hadn't already noticed that, sir?" Sam asked innocently.
"More properly," Green One said in a lecturing tone, "What are approaching us are officially described as the I-2(E) Sternhund, the Confederacy's current model of interceptor. But as Colonel O'Neill has pointed out, anyone who doesn't have ink running through their bloodstream knows to call them Vipers. The standard practise is for the Vipers to clear the sky of Death Gliders and Alkesh while X-Wings deal with larger targets. For today, however, they'll be working to keep us from attacking the Sparta. Are there any questions?"
"Rules of engagement?" Jack asked.
"No close passes," Green One advised. "Your systems are set to simulate weapons fire as in the previous runs, but a collision would seriously damage an X-Wing and more than likely kill the pilot of a Viper. All your proximity sensors are set to fire retros automatically if you pass within ten metres of someone but that won't do more than moderate a collision if you're moving too fast so stay aware. If the simulation programme logs you as disabled or destroyed then it won't register any shots you take, but it will unlock any restrictions caused by simulated damage and you should immediately withdraw and form up more or less where we are now. Alright, check in in descending order."
"Green Twelve, weapons safe, all systems green," the first pilot confirmed.
Jack listened to the repetition of the phrases, checking his own boards. All the LEDs on his primary status panel were green but he had the damage control computer run a separate check before snapping the weapons controls to active and back to safe, seeing the reports confirm that the locks had functioned smoothly. "Green Seven, weapons are safe and all systems are in the green."
Sam, who was flying as Green Six, repeated the words again and the ritual confirmation went on down the line until the instructor reported that Green One had his own weapons safed and all systems were green.
"Right then," the man said with a smile. "Since our valiant opponents confirm that they are also ready, let's go score ourselves a Carrier."
The X-Wings peeled off, Jack holding his position on Sam's wing. "Any idea on how to get past that crowd?" Jack asked, referring to the Vipers, which had split into three squadrons but otherwise seemed content to just stay between the X-Wings and their target.
"Let's try a straight run through them," she proposed.
"Sounds good," agreed Jack. "The major turrets are either side of the command tower. You go along the starboard side and I'll take port."
"Understood." Sam brought her X-Wing into line for the proposed run, Jack moving out a little to leave enough space. "On three?"
"Three," Jack said promptly, shifting his thumb from the trigger on his control stick to the turbo and accelerating rapidly ahead of Sam, engines blazing.
"Jack!" she shouted in annoyance and followed suit, blazing after him towards the Vipers and the mass of the Sparta behind them.
The Vipers, it would appear, had a plan in place for this exact contingency and at least six brought their noses around and opened fire with the cannon that were mounted at their wing roots. The damn things fired a lot faster than the heavier models on the wingtips of Jack's ride and he had to throw a little weave into his course just to evade them. Unfortunately, this slowed him down just a bit more than he really wanted too…
And the next minute the X-Wing was at the centre of a shooting gallery as the Vipers adjusted for the his reduced speed and hammered his shields viciously low by bombarding them from what felt like every angle and try as he could he couldn't get loose from more than one or two at a time.
"And that, my fellow pilots," Green One noted idly from where his own X-Wing was casually staying a good distance back, "Is classic mistake number one for a green X-Wing pilot."
Jack's sensor board went red as his shields failed and the computer advised him that the cockpit had been struck by three simulated plasma bolts that would, if real, have reduced his body to its component atoms in roughly a microsecond. With a humph, he pulled up and headed back to the rendezvous point.
"Never," Green One commented, "never, try to break another fighter's lock by manoeuvre in an X-Wing. Would anyone care to guess what the real solution here is?"
The Vipers scattered as Sam blazed forwards, hammering one of them with her own cannon when it didn't get far enough out of the way for her liking. The dart-like little craft died in a (simulated) explosion as she bored in on the Star Destroyer and the return fire from the Vipers failed to break down her shields before she was clear of them. Rather than try for a stern chase they backed off to watch the rest of the X-Wings, leaving her to the tender mercies of the Viper squadron closest to the Sparta, which were moving to intercept.
"The Vipers can generate one hell of a lot of flak," Green One commented to anyone who was listening. "However, unless they are right on your tail they will have a lot of trouble keeping that flack on you when you're moving fast and if they can't keep you under constant pressure then the shields on an X-Wing can take the beating for quite a while. A minute, at least. And when you're on turbo you can cross a lot of ground in a minute."
Sam's X-Wing all but lit up on the scopes as almost every single component on the damage board went red. As far as she could tell, something had just simulated punching straight from the nose of the fighter to the rear end with a diameter of effect large enough to have taken out all four engines.
"Which won't help you if the ship you're heading for has a golden BB loaded in it's main turrets," Green One said after a moment, his voice slightly betraying his surprise. "Try not to get into the main arc, Green Six. You just took a square hit from a gun that outmasses your entire fighter.
.oOo.
"Did you have fun?" Daniel asked the two Air Force officers as they emerged from the air base locker rooms, freshly showered and back in comfortable BDUs.
"Apart from the number of times we got blasted out of the sky," Jack said, "yes, tons of fun. You should have come along, Daniel."
"I'm not a pilot, Jack. I think I can live without flying an X-Wing."
"Your loss," Jack said with a shrug. "Hey, Teal'c, buddy. How are you doing?"
"I am well, O'Neill," the Jaffa said, frowning down at the book he was reading, the same book that Nekhrun had presented him with two days before. "This book is from Earth?"
"Yeah, I think the guy who did it wrote some of the Batman comics," Jack told him. "Why, you like it?"
Teal'c's eyes were lit with something almost like religious fervour. "I must obtain more of these books, O'Neill."
"More?" asked Jack. "I guess the guy's written some more books."
"No, more of this book," Teal'c insisted. "Many copies."
"How many copies of the same book will you read, Teal'c?" Sam asked.
"For the other Jaffa?" Daniel asked, a step or two ahead of the others. Then again, he had spent a fair bit of the afternoon clarifying the historical background to the Battle of the Hot Gates to Teal'c so he had a little more in the way of an idea where the big Jaffa was going.
"Indeed, DanielJackson," Teal'c agreed. "This is a most inspirational story. I shall read it to Rya'c soon. Master Bra'tac will also wish to hear it."
"It's that good?" Jack asked dubiously.
"It is the story of a King who fancied himself a God and possessed a large and powerful army," Teal'c explained. "And of how a few brave men defied him and inspired an army to rise up and defeat him."
"I guess I can see how that would be relevant," Sam agreed. "Interesting that Nekhrun would give it to you."
Teal'c frowned. "He is Goa'uld," he said almost uncertainly. "But he does not behave as a Goa'uld… he." Then he broke off and leafed through the book. "Does this mean what I believe that it means, DanielJackson."
"'Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory'," Daniel read the words of Xerxes. "I could almost hear Apophis saying something like that."
"And Leonidas' response?" Teal'c asked.
"'And I would die for any of mine'," Daniel read. "You think…?"
"What, you think Nekhrun, a Goa'uld who admits himself that the Confederacy is a power play on his part, is making some sort of heroic sacrifice here?" Jack asked.
Teal'c didn't reply but Daniel did. "Don't underestimate the power of a myth, Jack. This story obviously carries a lot of weight with the Confederacy – for that matter, see what an impact it's having on Teal'c - and Nekhrun seems to think about it a lot. Look at the names of his ships: Leonidas, Sparta… and the parallels here. A narrow place, the one planet where the System Lords can strike at him. He's outnumbered, his enemies consider themselves Gods and encourage superstition. It's not impossible that he really does buy into this."
"That would be insane," Jack disagreed. "He's a Goa'uld, you know how powerful that ancestral memory of theirs is."
"Powerful enough to override eight thousand years of life, Jack? Most of the Goa'uld have spent eons pretty much doing the same things, Nekhrun's been doing things that they probably can't even imagine. I'm no psychologist but I don't think anyone could predict how complicated that must make the insides of his head."
"Oh great, you think he's insane?" Jack asked.
"Maybe not insane," Daniel temporised, "But certainly more than a little obsessive, and believe me as an archaeologist I've seen that happen more than once. If he's latching onto this then who knows where it could lead him to?"
"Okay, so there's a serious unbalanced Goa'uld with a fleet right out of Star Wars," Jack said and shook his head. "Great, and I thought I was joking about the Darth Vader costume. I think that would be an improvement over the possibility that he'll try to face off against the Goa'uld wearing a loincloth and a cape."
.oOo.
The Tok'ra High Council was not without a history of acrimony as its members discussed the various options available to them in their eons long struggle against the tyranny of Ra and the other System Lords.
There was, however, absolutely no precedent for Selmak, returning to the chamber after having received a communication from his current host's homeworld, hauling Delek up from his chair and slamming the other Councillor up against the wall. A moment later, the former Air Force general brought his knee up sharply, striking the younger host slightly above the pelvis, eliciting a whoop of pain from the other man.
"Out of a slight concern for your host," Jacob Carter hissed to the other Tok'ra, "I didn't just end his future chances of siring children. You fucking imbecile. How long have you been in Heru-ur's pocket?"
"Selmak!" Aldwin protested. "What are you talking about! Release Delek immediately."
"Not a fucking chance," Jacob snarled. "I just got a message from George Hammond. You may remember that Anise and I met him recently, regarding the long missing Nekhrun."
"It would be hard to forget," Anise growled. "But what has this got to do with Delek?"
"Everything," he growled. "SG-1 went back for a follow up meeting a few days. While they were there, the planet came under attack by Heru-ur and thousands of Jaffa."
Aldwin sighed. "Another human civilisation snuffed out by the System Lords," he said bitterly. "I hope at least that SG-1 were able to escape?"
"Escape?" Jacob snorted. "They kicked Heru-ur's ass, captured him and the Confederated Free Systems kicked the Jaffa off Angrezi, which looks likely to be only the first battle in what's going to be a very savage war between them and the System Lords."
"They… won?" Anise gasped. "That bitch defeated one of the System Lords in open battle?"
"They won," confirmed Jacob, "And apparently Heru-ur let slip a few details about how he came to find Angrezi, a civilisation that none of the System Lords knew anything about but that we had learned of less than a week before the attack."
"What are you saying?" Aldwin asked. "That Delek shared the information with Heru-ur? The Council never authorised such a disclosure."
"Heru-ur named Delek specifically," Jacob told them, releasing the still gasping Delek to fall the floor. "Apparently some sort of deal involving Egeria. I also have several messages to relay," he added looking down at the fallen Councillor. "Heru-ur said to tell you that Egeria will suffer for your crimes against him, Delek. Now I was rather under the impression that she was long dead. Do you have anything that you want to tell us? Or should I move right on to persuading you to tell us the dirty little secrets that you've been hiding?"
The tears in Delek's eyes were not a result of the injury. "No…" he whispered. "Damn him… damn them both…"
"Delek," Aldwin said firmly. "Tell us what you have done."
Delek sighed. "Egeria is alive," he confessed. "Ra didn't kill her, he sealed her away in a remote tomb. Heru-ur was the only one that Ra entrusted with the location. He offered to share the information with me and not reveal my allegiances to Ra in return for information on the other System Lords."
"You fool," Selmak said coldly. "Even if he wasn't lying, Egeria would never have wished for one of the Tok'ra to become a servant of the System Lords."
"Dammit, Selmak! Don't get self-righteous with me!" Delek snapped. "We're losing, can't you see that? Every time one of the System Lords is brought down, another Goa'uld simply replaces them. But where are the new Tok'ra? Without Egeria we can't replace our number and year after year, century after century, our own casualties are sapping our strength."
"How do you even know Heru-ur was telling the truth?" Aldwin challenged him. "You know that he would not hesitate to betray you."
"He showed me her," revealed Delek stubbornly. "He took me through a Stargate and showed me the very jar. In return for Nekhrun's location he swore to reveal the gate codes to me."
"And you believed him?"
"He gave me the first two codes," Delek protested. "What does it matter what happens to Nekhrun? Is this anything that we haven't done before, revealing one Goa'uld's weakness to another in order to thin their ranks?"
"Never without the full knowledge and consent of the High Council," Aldwin reminded him.
"And never when it would bring the wrath of both System Lords down upon us!" Jacob snapped. "You utter fool. Do you have any idea how dangerous Nekhrun is? She squashed Heru-ur like a fly and she knows perfectly well that we are the ones who revealed her location. She sent a message through Stargate Command for the High Council as well."
Anise sneered. "Do you really think that anyone cares what that malignant cow has to say for herself?" she spat.
"I think we damn well should care," Jacob answered. "She says that as far as she is concerned we are responsible for every death among the soldiers who fought the Jaffa and she demands that we explain ourselves. If we don't… well if the Confederacy wins, which I admit I don't think is very likely, then they'll hunt us down like dogs."
"As if that's any different from how the Goa'uld treat us?" Garshaw snorted.
Jacob shook his head. "How long would the Tok'ra have lasted without the support of human communities?" he asked rhetorically. "Not long. And if the Confederacy wins then they won't oppress the System Lords slaves. They'll liberate them, and tell them of all the times we've had to abandoned humans to face the wrath of System Lords that are hunting us. It would seem that that's where those communities that Nekhrun swept off wound up, indoctrinated until there are entire societies that see us as nothing but those who used them and then threw them aside."
.oOo.
The Angrezi star system was relatively small, with only two terrestrial planets besides Angrezi and a single huge gas giant further out from the sun. It was not large enough to have hidden the sudden arrival of even one starship from the watchful eyes of the Confederated Free Systems Fleet now that they had been alerted. Not that the System Lords were particularly trying.
"Multiple hyperspace windows opening," reported a sensor operator on the bridge of the Leonidas. "Location is twenty million miles insystem of Angrezi, one point three million miles above the ecliptic plane."
"How many?" Fumizuki asked.
"More than twenty," the young woman reported. "And they're still coming."
Fumizuki nodded. "Sound general quarters."
A deep booming sound filled the compartment as the General Quarters alarm, modelled on a very large gong, sounded. Everywhere aboard the powerful ship and her smaller cohorts, bulkheads slammed closed crew scrambled for their battle stations.
"Situation?" Ayodhya asked, bursting into the bridge, fingers still working to close up the flies of his trousers.
Fumizuki tactfully didn't look back. Basantapurian culture, even muted by several generations on Heinessen, was considerably less body-shy than that of the Captain's native Fukuoka. "A large force is exiting Hyperspace at a range of roughly twenty-six million miles. In excess of twenty vessels."
"Past forty, sir," the sensor operator advised.
"Damn," the Admiral noted. "That son of a bitch Heru-ur managed to drag along an alliance. What's the status of the Onyx Ghost?" he added, in reference to the freighter that had delivered the Angrezi's new fighters.
"Departed on schedule three hours ago," Fumizuki reported. "The Dilios flew back and forth across the point of departure, which should muddle any hyperspace traces they might be able to get after all this time."
"I realise that it was never very likely," Ayodhya agreed. "But then again, I hadn't thought that Heru-ur would have a new twist on a ring transporter either and cold as it is, I'd rather that the System Lords don't have anywhere else that they know of to attack us for the moment."
"The Angrezi are tough people," Fumizuki said.
Ayodhya shook his head. "They haven't had a war in a hundred years. That skirmish over the Stargate wasn't enough to blood them seriously. This will be the real test." He shrugged. "Well, the dice are thrown and all that."
A tactical display lit up. "They've stopped coming, sir. Final count is sixty-two ships, power signatures all flag them as Ha'tak-class ships. I don't recognise the formation but they're heading this way, estimated time of arrival is in twenty-eight minutes."
"Show me the formation," Ayodhya ordered. A holographic image, each ship nothing more than a pin-prick, appeared in front of him and he gave a short laugh. "That's no formation – that's every blasted one of those damn fools bunching their own ships together and trying not to get too far into their 'ally's' firing arcs."
"The Tau'ri's captured Tel'tac is approaching, sir," the flight officer observed. Without any fighters out at the moment, he had been relegated to local traffic control.
"What do they want?"
"To come aboard, apparently."
"It would seem to be your day for meeting people," Fumizuki observed.
"You've got a smart mouth, captain," Nekhrun observed, taking over from the Admiral. "Sario was wise to choose you as his flag captain. Since the Tel'tac has a ring transporter, let the Tau'ri come aboard."
The operations officer saluted and then touched his headset, murmuring commands. "They're aboard, sir."
"Interesting," Nekhrun mused, watching as the Tel'tac wheeled and suddenly headed out of the system. In a flash of light it disappeared, entering Hyperspace in what, off hand, he would have thought to be the direction of Earth. "Looks like their ride deserted them."
"Not quite," Jack said, walking onto the bridge, followed by the rest of SG-1. "I told the guys on Maybourne's team to take it back to Earth and make contact with Stargate Command."
"And you're sure that they won't say, take off and start plundering other helpless planets?" Nekhrun asked sceptically.
"I'm reasonably sure that they won't be able to navigate to any helpless planets," Jack explained. "Carter had to set up the hyperspace route for them to get back to Earth."
The Goa'uld shrugged his shoulders as if to emphasise that those hapless individuals were no longer his problem. "And so you decided to come here and keep me company? I knew I had a winning personality but don't you think that you might be taking matters to extremes?"
"Very funny," Jack told him and looked at the display of ships. "That's a lot of ships. Friends of yours?"
Nekhrun snorted. "No, Colonel O'Neill. Like any of you, I can choose my friends but I am given no choice when it comes to my family. Those are the combined forces of... my goodness, I hadn't realised I'd upset quite so many of the System Lords. I do believe that that's some of Heru-ur's ships there, trailing behind Apophis' little fleet… Moloc, Ares… Morrigan and Cronus… Hathor? What did I ever do to her? And what damp rock did she crawl out from under? I haven't heard a whisper of her for twenty centuries…"
Jack raised his hand somewhat sheepishly. Hathor wasn't one of his proudest memories.
"I should have known," Nekhrun sighed. "In any event, it would appear that the Heru-ur shared his discovery of my survival with quite a number of my old adversaries and now they have come to destroy me."
"Can you stop them?" Daniel asked.
"With six ships?" the renegade Goa'uld asked incredulously. "Not unless they do something truly stupid… of course, we are talking about my idiot siblings for the most part so that's entirely possible."
"Is there any likelihood of reinforcements arriving?" Jack asked.
"Not in the immediate future," Nekhrun admitted. "If everything went completely to plan then the first of the strike forces from Operation Mount Niitaka will be just finishing up their strikes, which means that they can't get here for at least another day."
"Do you think you can drag out the battle that long?" Sam asked, eyeing the advancing mob of ships. Death Gliders and Alkesh were beginning to spill from their hangers. There were a great many of them.
"There are a lot of variables," the Goa'uld shrugged. "If I can sting them badly enough then possibly. But I don't want to bloody them enough to make them run. It'll be a tough balance to manage."
"You don't want them to run?" Daniel asked.
"No," Nekhrun said, eyeing the little diagram that floated in front of his command chair. "I want them here. I want all of them here. I want to pin them against Angrezi and when the reinforcements arrive I want to grind them to dust and leave the System Lords short several of their most bloodthirsty fellows and the cream of a dozen fleets. And that won't happen if they run away from me."
.oOo.
The Ha'tak were straggling as they closed towards Angrezi, the individual flotillas of each System Lords moving with little co-ordination between each other. They all seemed to have the same general plan however, which meant that they were all moving directly towards Angrezi and the little battle group of ships that protected the planet.
"That's interesting," Nekhrun noted as he saw the ships hold to the same course. "Normally I'd expect them to spread out to prevent me from leaving, which would of course give me the chance to pick them off a few at a time. Instead they're threatening the planet. That's cleverer than normal – if I abandon Angrezi after swearing to defend it then at best they'd give the Confederacy short shrift in the future."
"You think that there's one person in charge of that mess?" Sam asked.
Nekhrun nodded. "They're moving in the same direction, Captain, which at least means that someone is herding them. Expecting them to form an effective formation would be like wishing for the moon on a piece of string. Still, if they want to close in with Angrezi then I'll let them. It'll bring the orbital defences into play which will help a little."
"Sir," the operations officer advised. "We're receiving a transmission from the incoming fleet."
"Oh?" asked Nekhrun. "What do they have to say for themselves?"
The operator paused and frowned. "We've been invited to 'surrender and die', Admiral."
"Isn't that supposed to be surrender or die?" Daniel enquired.
Nekhrun, Teal'c and most of the bridge crew gave the archaeologist amused looks. "No…" Nekhrun said slowly. "Knowing my kind, I'm reasonably sure that they said what they meant to."
Sam rolled her eyes. "How very Klingon." Now it was Jack's turn to direct an amused look at Sam. "What? I'm just trying to get into the spirit of things."
"I suppose it would only be polite to say hello," Nekhrun sighed. "Put the no doubt infantile ranting onto the speakers Ensign."
"…the wrath of the gods! Grovel before us and beg for our mercy! Surrender the vile Nekhrun or suffer the consequences…" demanded a familiar voice. "Our Jaffa are without number…"
"He only thinks that because he can't count past ten without taking his shoes off," Nekhrun commented to Jack, who smirked.
"Our ships shall blot out the very light of this star," declared Apophis.
"Honestly, he couldn't have set up a better straight line if he'd been reading from a script."
Teal'c nodded his agreement and then raised an eyebrow.
"By my guest," the Goa'uld agreed and stepped back, gesturing for the operations officer to transmit Teal'c's words.
"Then we shall fight in the shade," Teal'c declared.
"HUA!" shouted the crew on the bridge, Nekhrun as loudly as anyone.
There was an astonished silence from the Goa'uld and then: "Shol'va!" Apophis screamed in fury. "You dare to defy me! You dare to stand with even the treacherous Nekhrun!? I will see you suffer for an eternity for this temerity!"
"Goodness, do you think he recognises you?" Nekhrun asked. "Why hello, Apophis, were you saying something?" he added.
The Goa'uld was all but incoherent with rage. "Enough!" he managed to shout. "There will be no mercy, no quarter. Burn those pathetic excuses for warships from the sky and this filthy planet to the ground."
"Well that should put paid to any thoughts of surrender," concluded Nekhrun, ordering the communications channel cut off with a slashing gesture across his throat. "Now, let me see… how stupid can Apophis be…"
A sizeable force of Ha'tak began to pull ahead of the formation. Twelve, thirteen… fourteen ships almost a quarter of the assembled force.
"Pretty stupid," Jack agreed. "He's got to be pushing his engines pretty fast to move that fast."
"And he's going to be facing us with only a two to one numerical advantage for at least five minutes," Fumizuki noted. "That's extremely promising."
"Isn't it…" Nekhrun mused. "I suppose I'd better do something about Mayburn," he added, using Shakuntala's mispronunciation of the name. "Get him up here
"Ah, it's Maybourne actually," Daniel pointed out.
"But May-Burn suits him so well," Nekhrun protested. "And it keeps his mind on his prospects, such as they are."
"What are you going to do with him?"
Nekhrun shrugged. "Is he actually good for anything?"
Jack hesitated. "Well, he is a trained Air Force Officer with a background in special ops. He could probably fly a fighter if you were inclined to trust him."
"Not on his own," Nekhrun said after what seemed to be honest consideration.
A moment or two later, Harry Maybourne, somewhat flustered almost scurried onto the bridge under the guard of a pair of von Pinn's soldiers. Shakuntala sauntered in after him, a mischievous look on her face and a moment later Harjit joined her.
"I knew that I'd have cause to regret the two of you putting your heads together," Nekhrun complained to the two women. Do I want to know what you were doing to him?"
"Hmm, probably not," Harjit said, smiling sweetly.
"Jack!" Maybourne said hopefully. "I don't suppose that you've got a handy escape route do you? Or failing that, a suicide capsule."
"Sorry Harry," Jack said insincerely. "We're just finalising selling you to Nekhrun as a harem guard. Of course, there's some mandatory surgery, but you're adaptable. I'm sure that you'll make a wonderful eunuch."
Maybourne's eyes went wide for a moment and then he shook his head. "You really had me going for a minute there, Jack. We both know that the US government wouldn't go along with that."
"The US government doesn't have any say in this," Nekhrun observed. "However, with some reluctance, I've decided that you will have a little bit of say." He held up two fingers quite close together. "Just a little." He gestured towards the holographic display. "Out there, there is a sizeable Goa'uld fleet. In the next ten minutes or so, they're going to start shooting at me. Now, you have a choice to make. Choice number one is that I send you back to Angrezi and you can go home to Earth under SG-1's guard. After that little bit of surgery that Jack mentioned."
Say what you will about Harry Maybourne, he was a good judge of character. He paled. "And choice number two?"
Nekhrun shrugged. "Jack tells me you can probably fly one of our fighters in a pinch. I don't think I'd trust you with one though. But if you man the helm, under supervision, then I will consider you to have redeemed yourself – and more importantly, the reputation of your homeworld. The latter, I might add, stands quite tarnished by your misdemeanours."
"You say that as if I have a choice," Maybourne muttered. "I'll fly your damn ship. But can you at least protect me from your women? They're worse than Afghan widows!"
"I think something can be arranged," Nekhrun promised with a slight smile and gestured towards the helm.
"What do you think they did to him?" Jack asked as Maybourne went towards the helm and took over the controls, listening to the instructions that the helmsman he was replacing provided as if his life depended upon it. As has been mentioned, he was a good judge of character.
"Colonel," Nekhrun admitted. "I'm eight thousand years old. I've founded civilisations that have reached the stars and I've burnt civilisations to the ground. But I must confess that I would rather lead an army of newborn ducklings in an all out offensive against Ra at the height of his power than I would try to predict the workings of those two's minds when they are bouncing ideas off each other." Turning, he glanced at the display again. The Death Gliders were beginning to get close. "Launch all fighters. Final warning to all hands."
A chime rang out in every compartment of every ship in the battle group, alerting them to the message of their commander.
"A new age has begun. An age of freedom from the Goa'uld. Many of us will die to give it birth. Perhaps all of us will die. But we are not men, not ships, not a battle group. Today, we are a dream given form. And dreams…" he paused to emphasize his words. "Dreams never die."
There was a great silence that filled the ship. Doubt filled Nekhrun's eyes.
"hua."
It began as a whisper.
"Hua."
Then louder.
"Hua!"
Teal'c added his voice to the roar.
"Hua!"
Every voice on every ship raised until everyone, even Harry Maybourne, had joined the chant.
"HUA!"
The shout seemed almost to rock the very ship as Viper after Viper rocketed from the sides of the ships and the forward decks of the carriers opened to reveal rank after rank of X-Wings and Skipray torpedo boats.
"HUA! HUA! HUA!"
And the first shots of the battle were fired…
By the Goa'uld.