Pentagon, Earth
July 2010
"I say again this is a complete and utter failure that nearly cost us one of the most important cities on the planet, I demand that we be given a more direct say in how our forces are deployed!" shouted someone or other, O'Neill didn't particularly care who was speaking because they all said the same thing only with different voices and different ways. Either way, it was the IOA wanting more power over the Stargate and its forces, still whoever this one guy was he left a pretty wide opening for rebuttal but O'Neill didn't want to make the man look like a fool in front of his colleges, it has been awhile since the SGC and IOA were at eachothers throats, at least… a couple of months since they nearly blew up the Destiny.
"You do have a direct say councilmen, you just need to go through the proper channels, you even have a phone line directly to your head of state or your military voice on the defense council" said O'Neill - he didn't bother letting his logic win out over getting one over the IOA councilmember and it seemed he did based on the number of coughs around the room that were poor attempts to hide their smiles and the glare he got from that specific member.
"And so what? Are we to leave the defense of this planet to people who let a nuke land directly on a world capital!? Who's next? Paris? London? Moscow!? Beijing!? Who is next to take the hit from your inadequate leadership general!?" that specific man shouted back, a bad move O'Neill noted, he let emotion cloud him and showed to the other members that he is susceptible to manipulation through his emotions. Plus he insulted O'Neill himself while that would have gone over fine a couple years ago, but now O'Neill knew that he was beyond reproach across every government based on what he did leading SG-1 and how his leadership and decisions turned out to be the best for Earth over the last couple of years.
"I admit they got one over on us, they appear to have some advanced hyperspace navigation programs that are decades ahead of anything the Goa'uld had as well as the perfected Naquadria energized bombs. The weapon was determined to be five megatons enough to wipe out washington state and leave radioactive fallout across half of nearby states" said O'Neill drawing wide eyes across the room, the whole scope of the bomb wasn't fully figured out till a few minutes before this meeting.
"Thankfully they haven't fully figured out how to make nukes so we were saved from having to fix a hole in the eastern United States" joked O'Neill, he tried to dissuade the negative atmosphere at learning that their enemies had such powerful bombs. "What we also have figured out was who was behind this attack and are prepared to retaliate with the Victory and Kursk, a plan has been drawn up by one of our newer tacticians on retaliation and how to completely remove any and all naquadria in Lucian Alliance hands as well as multiple shipyards across the galaxy"
"I hope that this doesn't involve throwing planet ending asteroids like the last plan?" asked the IOA member from Switzerland and O'Neill flinched, he was really fine with bombarding planets as long as they are not their planets but after that particular mission the IOA wasn't really happy when the full picture of what occurred was brought before them. Sure there was quite a large mess but that was one of the largest shipyards in operation by the Alliance. Then again Alliance shipyards are run on slaves…
"Well... admittedly it is the same tactician" responded O'Neill which resulted in outrages and some groans around the table "But since last time and this bodys change of policy on planetary bombardment it won't happen again unless we approve it, so we are all good right?"
"That's not the problem General we are dealing with a… man?" asked the IOA member and with a nod from O'Neill he went forward "A man who ignores basic decency"
"Basic decency? We are at war with these people councilman"
"A war where we have no rules. The outer space treaty stops half of us from putting weapons in space and yet we still do it. We have been fighting a war that has no precedent and sooner or later we will cross a line that we will be judged for and this tactician has shown himself to be the possible straw that broke the camel's back"
"Well ignoring camels for a moment this tactician has brought forth numerous improvements and shown new doctrine that for over five years and over a dozen others who are paid to do this haven't shown an inkling of the things this man has shown he can do and do repeatedly" responded O'Neill
"With liberal use of asteroid rammings"
"With using advanced tech he only recently learned about and with new equipment that has no parallel available outside Homeworld Command" responded O'Neill
"Gentlemen let us ignore the past and focus on the future. This retaliation you alluded to does it require our specific approval?" asked Mr. Strom
"No nothing that this body has specifically asked for or put into the rules" responded O'Neill and after a second pause "However there is a few additions that were suggested that could go a long way in our multiple wars as well as increasing our ties with longstanding allies"
"Such as?"
"Advancing our allies to current level of civilian tech and perhaps a few more advancements in power production and manufacturing from the Asgard database"
And at that the room went silent everyone knows why they never give out modern tech to any allies. It is IOA's attempt to keep Earth at the peak in terms of technology when compared with the rest of the Galaxy. Of course if wouldn't have mattered due to multiple planets and even species that are greater than Earth such as the Tollans, Hebridan, and even the Reetou however since the Ori were able to carry there crusade among the stars in the Milky way for a little over a year there are only ashes where once great cities lay.
"I thought we talked about this already?" asked Mr. Strom
"Well we talked about this three years ago and there was a genocidal crusade between then and now councilor. Earth so far as we can tell is the largest source of advanced technology in the galaxy now that most other civilizations have fallen to the Ori and if we were to advance other ally human worlds we could possibly get these ally worlds to make some of our less important tech without relying on Earth based companies" said O'Neill
"And what we will be relying on planets with no real connection to Earth and no prerogative to help defend Earth?"
"Langara, Edora, Tagrea, and Pangar. These four have been the closest and largest trading partners since we opened up the Stargate and we have been advancing them by decades in the few short years we've known them. Their people are the most open to sudden technological change and they are also very aware that it is the people of Earth who have been helping in their changed lives" Said O'Neill quoting from the proposal
"Yes but…" and so began two grueling hours of back and forth that O'Neill actually didn't have to do much but quote from the proposal as for nearly every reasonable point brought up by the councilmen of IOA there was an even greater counterpoints from the proposal. Really he would've loved to have this guy on the council as many of the counterpoints were so blatantly obvious that it made the councilmen seem dim by comparison. Yet this room was filled with politicians and generals from across the planet, not the best place to have a second lieutenant. Either way after two hours it still ending in them all agreeing to disagree which was a pain for O'Neill, another wasted meeting.
HMS Victory, Earth Orbit
Same Time
William wasn't sure why he was being transferred to the Victory, while Canada was technically in the Commonwealth it kinda didn't make sense, he knew there was a significant lineup of scientists waiting to pounce on him and realistically he is learning entire fields of study in days with his access to the Asgard database. Now he is currently setting up his room where there is five others with him, the barracks on the Victory are different than the Hammond there are now massive bathrooms where the regular bathrooms on the Hammond would service a couple dozen there are now four massive bathrooms that service the entire two hundred man crew. And turning around in his new quarters he can see the ol standby for the British armed forces, a tea kettle.
"2nd-Lt Cole report to the bridge" came the Chief over Williams earpiece, another thing about the Victory that is different than the Hammond the number of officers on the bridge are greater in number, there's the weapons, communications, sensors, Chief for the pilots, and Sergeant for the crew and marine contingent. It seems that British air force is taking a page out of their navy for this one instead of having two officers be the only people that could relay orders. These thoughts and others filled Williams head as he arrived on the bridge to meet General Kassandra James, it seems someone in the British airforce had decided to pull rank a bit and got herself placed as the commander of the UK's first spaceship.
"Ma'am" offering a crisp salute was William when he arrived behind the diminutive woman who was by the side of the bridge speaking with the Chief. Turning around William got the first good look at the woman, in her early fifties yet by no means looking that old the brown haired woman had sharp green eyes that roved over William making him feel small before her gaze even though he was technically over a foot taller than her. He even knew that she was not intimidated by his large form at all, the emotions coming off her easily matched her inquisitive eyes.
"So your the Lieutenant who came up with the war plan" said the General in a soft voice that promised to raise if he didn't do what she said when she said it.
"Yes Ma'am" replied William, he was the man with the plan, well at least this plan.
"And the action over Bastets palace correct?"
"That to Ma'am"
"Well it appears we are now following your plans for this campaign Lieutenant anything that I should fully be aware of?"
After the near detonation of a massive bomb in the Pentagon, William as well as others he figured, were contacted and told to immediately begin drafting offensive measures against Masim and his clan, while most of Earth's spies are spread among the more important Lucian Warlords there is still quite a bit of info concerning Masim and his holdings, such as him having half a dozen shipyards for the non-capital ships of the Goa'uld and how there is a single planet where he has most of his logistical people stationed. Which is why at this moment there is a team of SAS on the Victory as well as a team of Spetsnaz on the Kursk. With both ships loaded up a month long campaign will begin with the General incharge.
"There is still quite a large hole in the intel on Masims palace ma'am. We could be walking into a small outpost or a stronghold equal to Goa'uld" responded William, he knew there wasn't that large of a chance but who knows these are paranoid people there dealing with.
"Well what do you suggest we do then?"
"The SAS and Spetsnaz had proven themselves time and again to be up to any challenge ma'am and if I wasn't totally confident in this appropriate force I wouldn't have suggested it"
"That's good to hear Lt, I'd hate to lose any men on our first military action, lest we become a second Sun Tzu" responded the General referring to the Sun Tzu's reputation as something of a bad luck charm, her cheeky smile showed it was a joke that was shared with the Chief behind her that William could see and possibly with the other Officers that heard her around him based on the feelings coming off them.
"Yes ma'am, it does appear to becoming something of a theme around Area 51 and the SGC" he responded.
"So it is…"
"Ma'am we have been given the go by Command, the Kursk responds and the Colonel asks whether you wish to address the fleet before we begin"
"Give me the fleet, get to your station Lt" said General as she walked with powerful strides to her seat. William on his part walked to the back of the bridge, apparently the Brits have been calling it the Command Table, really it was a holographic interface that was connected to every sensor the ship had and could be configured to whatever the Captain wished, for the American ships apparently it constantly showed the local space with stars and gates marked. For the Victory they give the prerogative to who ever was stationed there, as in it was William and the Sergeant.
"Attention all Homeworld forces" the General began, her voice coming over the loudspeakers across the ship as well as - William surmised - 50 kilometers to the port where the Kursk sat waiting to unleash it powerful arsenal "The Lucians think that they can attack us with impunity, they think they can come to Earth and destroy our homes and icons without retaliation. Well we will soon disabuse them of that notion. Together our two ships have some of the most powerful nuclear weapons in existence, together our two ships have some of the most powerful shields known to this corner of the Universe, we'll show the Lucian Alliance that Earth had not stopped after bringing the Goa'uld down and Ori to heel. We will show the galaxy that Earth is and will continue to be the dominant superpower of the Galaxy for the foreseeable future. Helmsmen set course for P5D G3F and prepare for combat, you have three hours"
With a nod to the communications the speech was stopped and she looked to her crew as both the Kursk and Victory jumped together. "You have two hours to do with what you please then I want us prepared before we get close to the planet" With that she walked out, probably to go to her dayroom, another addition that the British air force had taken from their navy, the Captain gets her own office of sorts. Strangely enough William noted that the General has set the Victory's and Kursk's hyperspace engines as full max instead of cruise, it would normally take four hours to get to the planet but it seemed the General wanted to retaliate fast.
As for William he was standing next to the Sergeant not wanting to move a muscle near him, he knew that to rangle marines it takes a special kind of hardass and did not want to even have the Sergeant notice him. "So Lieutenant" came his gravelly voice, 'goddammit'
"Yes sir" William responded
"Why don't you take the first spin of the Command Table and I'll see if it's up to snuff for when I return"
"Yes sir"
"Good" and with that he walked out of the bridge, possibly to go eat, it was technically noon
It was three hours later when the two Earth ships were minutes from dropping out that the first sensor pings came back. As a constant in warfare no matter if it is between two medieval kingdoms or mighty star empires the leg up goes to the side with the most reliable intel on the other, the Asgard knew this and as such spent decades coming up with the most sophisticated sensors and processing software, one of these newer feats was installed on the new Daedalus class ships. Goa'uld ships, or really any ship with artificial gravity always had a 'leak' of sorts onto the local spacetime, one can't expect to have the effects of an entire planet packed into each deck of a ship without some sort of side effect on the local spacetime, usually this 'leak' stopped a few hundred meters out of the ship if they were primitive gravity plates - such as the ones the Goa'uld use - or a few feet if they were as advanced as the Asgard. Still the 'leaks' were enough for the Asgard to recognize them based on their effects on subspace, which the Victory and Kursk were currently flying through.
"Nearly perfectly on the dot with what was expected" stated Colonel Drugo the Russian in command of the Kursk, he was currently a hologram at the front of the bridge standing with the General looking at the monitors above them, that showed the estimated force.
"Yup we were expecting at least one more Ha'tak and three less Al'kesh, looks like this is a one up for Earth intel" responded the General
"If I remember the intel correctly it mostly said 'we have no clue'"
"Is that so… Lieutenant" said the General looking behind her to where William was standing at the Command Table
"Ma'am, force estimate was based on what Masim had available in terms of shipyards and resources as well as the size of his territory and the importance of this particular planet" responded William
"Your estimate I guess?" she asked
"Yes ma'am along with intel officers in the CIA"
"Well I'll be damned, that is some good estimation" said the Colonel
"Well we have fifteen minutes to plan our initial foray, suggestions Colonel?" asked General looking at the estimated force dispersion.
"Oh I have a few ideas my good General…" a wicked smile spread across the Colonels face
In the many years of the Goa'uld dominance of the galaxy there are many standards that they have adopted to make war more reasonable between them and to keep their ships in top shape. Some of these standards are not having and iris or something similar on their planets, not throwing asteroids at each other, and having shields at a standard five percent when just sitting over a planet with no known hostiles inbound. With a shield at five percent its normal output against shields that were hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of them at their full output there really was no competition, so when a hyperspace window opened right above a Ha'tak that seemed to be at the center of the formation it was somewhat of a startle. When an Earth ship came out of that hyperspace window with its shields raised it was a scare. When said Earth ship slammed into the Ha'tak at speeds most would consider crazy it was down right terrifying.
About a thousand kilometers from the defending force the Victory also came out of hyperspace.
"We are cleared" came the sensors officer
"Seems the Russians got the first kill, lets make sure they don't show us up" said the General noticing the wreckage of the Ha'tak slowly drifting apart, behind the General William was quite shocked, sure he knew that the Kursk would survive with only a minor drop in shields but it seems that the Ha'tak had also survived as best as it could, in that, there was no explosion when its reactor went. A quick gesture showing the battlefield in front of him brought up the image of the dispersing debris that was once a Ha'tak, a query to the system showed that it seems the Kursk had angled exactly right to have their shields hit every reactor on the Ha'tak and incinerate them before they exploded, a back out of focusing on the single Ha'tak wreck showed the scale of the entire battle. Seven normal Ha'tak raising shields to full power and preparing weapons, twenty Al'kesh coming out of their stupor of seeing a Ha'tak being rammed to death, and a number of Death gliders launching a few at a time from the Ha'tak.
The Command Table had what William figured was what a Command Table should have displayed, the entire local space where the battle was taking place, both the Kurks and Victory's status on display on the table instead of in the air as a hologram, and to the back of the table was an image layout of the Victory with lifesign detectors showing every crew member in their white colour, strangely it showed William as blue. A quick query when setting it up showed that the lifesign detectors were taken from Atlantis which showed the race, white was Human while blue was Ancient.
"Spetsnaz and SAS away, 302s launching" said the Chief
"I want an even spread on targets 3, 4, and 5 with APBs, tell the pilots they are to focus on Al'kesh and Gliders and I want weapons to whenever possible beam mark Ⅸs where they see targets of opportunity" a chorus of 'Aye ma'am's followed and the first battle for the Victory had begun.
And William got to work, he wasn't on the bridge just to watch, when the General had laid out her attack plans ten minutes earlier the weapons officer had told him that since he will be focused on the APBs and railguns he wanted William to find these 'targets of opportunity' and relay him the coordinates for beam out and that was what William had begun to do, using gestures to rotate the hologram of the battle area William found his first target as a fleeing Ha'tak, it seems the Kursk had given it a full barrage before switching targets, so Willum quickly selected the space just above its weakened shields before sending the coordinates to the weapon officers station and a second later the Victory was down one mark Ⅸ and had her first Ha'tak kill, the second came fifteen seconds later when a full APB barrage brought down target 4.
"302s are now outnumbered ma'am" stated the Chief at his station at the front of the bridge
"Bring us around we can give them cover" she responded, still in that soft voice but with more of a commanding tone than before.
William followed the Victory as she maneuvered to the center of the massive fighter engagement, at the beginning of the battle the 302s from the Kursk and Victory had carefully herded all the Gliders and Al'kesh into a large air engagement, with the Gliders attempting to take down the 302s and Al'kesh attempting to leave the zone but any who got too close to an unseen boundary were quickly targeted with missiles. William noted the fall in APBs firing as the weapons officer focused on taking out gliders with the railguns and Al'kesh with missiles, he also noticed the Kursk taking out its second kill after its rather interesting entrance, she also did a side swipe of the fighter battle throwing a few railgun rounds and missiles for good measure before returning to the Ha'tak, a quick look showed her shields down to seventy percent another few hits and the bleed through would begin.
William couldn't really pick out a place for a mark Ⅸ in the middle of the battle due to the dogfighting happening but he could soften up the Kursk's opponents. Seeing she was headed toward a Ha'tak below them William selected just outside the Ha'taks shields directly opposite of the vector the Kursk is approaching, a second later and the Ha'tak had lost a significant fraction of its shields. William winced at the Kursks response, seems whoever aboard over there wasn't expecting the Ha'tak to jump toward them a few meters instead of running the other way as it was attempting to do. They quickly abandoned their dive only able to fire two shots of the APB and a few railgun rounds. But with shields weekend, it was enough and the Kursk got its third kill.
With the numbers evening out a group of Al'kesh broke off from bombarding the Victory and headed for the Kursk who was coming around to take another run at the remaining two Ha'tak. It seems that either the Chief didn't care to send a flight of fighters or figured that the Kursk would be fine with the seven Al'kesh. William didn't want to find out and after they left the zone he targeted the center of the formation, a mark Ⅸ later and they were out of shields or nearly there and decided to not go after the Kursk.
"SAS from the surface, they got the info dump and requesting beam out! Spetsnaz are as well " shouted the comms officer, well that was unexpected William figure with the amount of nukes the Victory is throwing around no comms would be working.
"Why us?" asked the General
"Kursk can't beam through her shields with the fire she is taking"
"We will sort it out later bring them back aboard, helm lets stop moving around"
William wanted to ask why to stop but he figured it out a moment later when two 302s landed and he noticed most of the Al'kesh who were firing on the Victory were fleeing or had a number of missile trailing them. With two more 302s it appeared the birds with low ammo were coming back aboard. A look at the Kursk showed their shields down to 40% and a few of their railguns no longer responded. He brought up an image of the Kursk - after noting it fourth kill - and saw the scorch marks due to the bleed thru of the shields and noticed many of the railguns were no longer there.
After the sixth 302 landed the General said "Get us moving I want that last kill"
"Ha'tak has jumped to hyperspace ma'am" reported the sensors officer
"Ah damn!" she said showing more emotion than he had seen come from her.
"Gliders are fleeing as well should we follow?" asked the Chief
"No let them go bring our birds back, what's our status?" she said aloud as the sound off came back, first was the man next to William
"We had a number of electrical fires across the spine of the ship, had those sorted and only a few minor burns and bruises, all in medical getting treated" he said aloud and one of Williams eyebrow raised, usually a fire was a big enough danger they would at least tell the commander of the ship, but it appeared the Brits had a different idea of danger.
"We have three railguns non responding, diagnostics think its an electrical overload, a reset and q check of the wiring and they should be back on" said Weapons
"Shields are down to fifty percent, have some singes on the under belly and nothing else of note" said Sensors
"We lost seven birds, four ours, three Russian. We emergency beamed ten pilots, gotta return five back to the Russians and their Spetsnaz" said the Chief
"Russians report two railguns completely gone and a few singes as well, overall they are good"
"Alright collect our tech and birds then retreat to the fall back point, Second-Lieutenant Cole to my ready room please" said the General as she walked out, feeling like he was a condemned man walking to the noose William followed her.
Area 51, Earth
Sametime…
Mitchell was quite interested in why Daniel was back at Area 51, after the mess that was Cole's SG training Mitchell decided it was best to not go off world till after training. Really it was all Kavanagh's fault but best be safe than sorry. Daniel was suppose to be in Washington getting ready a proposal to the IOA for the next month but now he was back here for some reason, he didn't know. After stealing a conference room overlooking the Sun Tzu Mitchell, Vala, and Hailey were waiting for Daniel to show up. Vala in particular was looking at the Sun Tzu and the men working on it.
"I really do see the appeal. Looks much better than the Prometheus" she said
"Why are you just saying this now?" asked Mitchell, this wasn't the first Daedalus she had seen, let alone the tenth.
"I haven't had much time to look at one of your ships from the outside yet, only the inside" she responded
"Like when you attempted to steal the Prometheus to sell to a spaceship equivalent of a chop shop" pointed out Hailey
"Yes, ah good times"
"Not really for me" said Daniel as he entered and sat down
"Daniel! Have you come to see me?" smiles Vala
"Uhhh… No" he said sorting out the papers he had spread around the table ignoring the pout from Vala
"What you doing back here? Aren't you supposed to be in Washington?" asked Mitchell
"Yes but after the whole fiasco with the Pentagon I figured I'd give them time to rebuild the building"
"So we gonna go back to being SG-1?" asked Mitchell, he was really hopeful one doesn't want to be stuck as SG trainer for the long time it will take them to rebuild the Pentagon.
"No, I'm currently accessing the Asgard Database looking into their more recent history about the war with the replicators" said Daniel
"For?"
"Making sure that the replicators are truly gone" responded Daniel which caused a grim look to come over Mitchells face
"You think there still out there?"
"Well no… maybe. It's hard to tell. I have a number of pages through different points in Asgard history that says the Replicator War ended at a certain date, but then I find that paper again but dated again a few hundred years down the line"
"Makes sense" said Hailey and when everyone looked at her she explained "Replicators can rebuild from only a single bug form. The Asgard, I'm sure, had hundreds of planets and thousands of outposts. If a single one of them had a replicator bug then they were never truly gone and after a few hundred years of rebuilding their numbers the war began again"
"Well that isn't a very happy thought" said Vala
"Down-right terrifying to be honest" added Mitchell
"Right, so at the moment I'm trying to figure out if ever Heliopolis ever had fallen, however I'm not finding anything referencing it and the Replicator War together"
"That's good right? It could still be fine untouched by the Replicators"
"That or it was abandoned or destroyed years before the Replicator Wars" countered Hailey
"The Alliance was effectively dissolved when the plague hit the Milky way a million or so years ago, and the Replicator Wars started four thousand years ago, so it probably was abandoned" said Daniel
"Right I forgot why we call them Ancients…" said Mitchell
"So now what?"
"Now we figure out the last entry with Heliopolis mentioned and find out how long it's been and if it was destroyed. Hopefully we can convince the IOA to send an expedition" said Daniel
"The last expedition brought the Wraith, I'd highly doubt they would like it if we brought the Replicators" stated Vala
"Which is why we also find any notes on how the Asgard wiped out the Replicators before they committed race suicide"
