A/N: I am back. So what a terrible 2018, some of you may not have been following my updates on my profile page, so let me give a bit of summary of the hassle it has been to get this chapter out. As most know, I have been waiting on getting my desktop back which had my only copy (I know...) of my notes, outlines, and rough drafts of this chapter and the rest of the story. Unfortunately I never got to move back in during September due to a ton of additional work needing to be done that was uncovered during the renovations. It has gotten so bad at this point that my mom (Yes I still live at home, never planning to move out lol.) has basically decided that if they have to tear out so much to repair/replace shoddy work done in the past, such as an entire section of foundation wall mission (like 1mx2m section, so a large piece), that she would just get most of the other work she was going to get done down the line done now. That means basically I am now moving back in hopefully in April? maybe even later.
Wow this is getting rambly but I SHALL continue!
So that left my computer packed away in a storage container that you fill up and gets taken away and returned when you move back in. So I had to wait till it arrived back which was delayed till finally I got in on around the 27th of December (they basically brought it back only so I could get my comp out). Que me finding out my graphics card had ripped out the PCI-E slot and it needing a new motherboard... being just after xmas and me tight on money did not help. So here we are after tons of things seemingly going wrong in my life including having to put to sleep my 15 year dog due to cancer on the 23rd of dec, the chapter has arrived... 4 months late.
S/N: I am super excited about some of the stuff I have written for this story. That being said quite a bit of it was written without my notes or outline, so things in the next few chapters may come off as a bit disjointed, but hopefully I have worked most of that out. That being said I wrote a few slice of life or small snippets of Harry's life that take place over Chapter 8, 9, 10 and 11 that I think I may combine together for a different type of chapter, with little plot development, but still important stuff. Such as him developing tech or his emancipation and independence speech he gives to his people, as well as him doing some hobbies and ship building. Let me know what you think about that, but I think regardless I wanna give it at least a try once. I hesitate to call it an interlude, because it still mainly focuses on Harry and is still important to the story in my mind, but some may just want to skim that chapter when it comes along.
C/N: So in this chapter I decided include one or two of those slice of life excerpts from Harry's daily routine over the few weeks covered in this chapter. While this may seem a bit like filler, I wanted to approach some of these developments/discoveries differently than I had in the past were I usually simply listed them. These are there to show a bit more of the process involved and so I am not just telling you the 'results', even if that is not what I prefer most of the time. I hoped this would also give the reader a bit more insight into Harry as a person and the challenges he faces. As well as a bit of his marauder side leaking through his well defined mental shields.
This chapter had not been edited to the degree I usually do, due to me wanting to get it out to the reader sooner rather than later.
Once again thanks to those who helped me quickly do a beta on this chapter and to all those who review. I love reading people ideas and seeing what they think about some of my own. I read every review and try to respond to those that seem to be asking questions or for clarification. If you are a guest with a question, sign up for an account so I can respond, it is so frustrating to see a good thoughtful question only to not be able to respond. So once again THANK YOU to those who review, it give me a bit more motivation to write, especially in the harder times.
This a two part chapter due to length for readability, both parts are posted at roughly the same time!
Chapter 9 Part 1:
Captain Peter Tanner sat in his command chair as he watched his small crew of five prepare for their ship to exit out of slipspace. The system they were travelling to was the last on their list of systems with a planet within the life bearing zone around its star. It was also the last within range of their ship, before they would have to return back to Rena with their heads held low in failure. Most likely they would then be directed to then join the other defenders, to die horribly defending their planet from the Goa'uld who decided that their planet was ripe for the picking and would be perfect as a new addition to their empires.
He held his breath as he could only hope that they had far more luck then the last three systems they had checked. He knew it was a long shot in the first place, to find an advanced civilization that would be willing to help them, but it was their last ditch effort, and a testament to how desperate their people were. If the few ships like his failed, then his planet would most likely be leveled and his civilization wiped from existence.
The slipspace drive quickly dropped them out of space at the edge of the star system. "Start scans of the system and identify were those signals we were detecting are coming from and find any high energy signatures." He ordered his crew as he looked over the view screen as the various planets being detected were automatically put on screen.
"Sir the signals were originating from the third planet from the sun." Ensign Lloyd responded as he worked over his console. "The planet appears to have a breathable atmosphere, but it seems the energy readings we are getting are far lower than we hoped." Martin said as his voice started to lose any excitement it may have had from their arrival.
That was not a good sign, as low energy readings almost always meant low-tech society. They needed to find someone that could help them and it seemed they had failed. A hollow feeling came over him, like a cavity was being formed in his chest as the reality of the situation set in.
"SIR! Another ship just appeared off to our port side!" His tactical officer exclaimed all of sudden breaking him out of his thoughts. "We are being Hailed!" The ship that had just appeared was pulled up on the view screen and showed it to be a sleek beauty as it continued to shadow his own vessel. It was certainly a nice sight, as it even sported some tech he could not identify by look alone.
"Scan that ship!" he commanded his crew. "I want to know everything we can about it! They may just be the type of people we have been looking for." he finished as the excitement on the bridge raised considerably after that thought was voiced.
"Sir the readings we are getting are inconclusive, they appear to have advanced shields that are preventing anything beyond basic scans. However the power readings being given off by that ship far exceed our own, even if it is only a bit larger in size by comparison." Ensign Lloyd spoke again in his annoying voice, that had started to grate on most of the crew throughout their journey. There was nothing he could really do at this time beside answer the hail, and if he ignored their attempt at contacting them any longer, then he could possibly put his ship at risk.
"Open a channel and put it on the main screen." he said as he made his decision. A person sporting black armour without a helmet appeared on the screen. He was clearly someone in the military going by the weapons he carried, and the sleekness of their designs pointed towards them being fairly advanced.
"I am Captain Alexander, and you are entering a restricted area under the protection of Lord Hariric. Halt your vessel, identify yourselves, and state your business or you will be fired upon." The no nonsense captain barked over the comm link.
"Engines to stop." he said to his navigations officer, before turning his attention back to Captain Alexander. "We are here in search of allies in our last desperate attempt to defend our planet from a Goa'uld invasion." he said deciding to go with honesty first, as he was not really in any form of bargaining position. The change in the look on the man's face only lasted for a brief second, but Tanner could easily see the small bit of anger that came over Alexander as he mentioned the Goa'uld. He was not quite sure if that is a good thing or not.
"Why have you come to this system is particular?" asked the Captain.
"Two planets in the system were within our calculated zone of life around this star, and had a high chance of supporting an intelligent civilization." he responded, continuing his policy of honesty. "We also detected some degraded signals originating from the third planet as we approached the system."
"These Goa'uld that attack your homeworld, do you have any names or information on them?" once again asked Alexander, not letting Tanner any leeway to ask any questions of his own.
"Yes, we have an information packet on them that we can transmit over." Tanner said as he looked to Ensign Lloyd and nodded to him to do so. "The information we have is limited, but we believe we have identified the Goa'uld participating in the coalition put together to attack us." he answered Alexander's question and quickly asked one of his own before he could be beat to the punch again. "You people are obviously aware of the Goa'uld, but how experienced are you with them?" he asked as we wanted to known if their new friends were even aware of the large threat the Goa'uld posed.
Captain Alexander gave him a somewhat odd look before answering. "We have much experience with the Goa'uld. Now please standby, remain in position and do not power any weapons as it will be taken as an act of aggression, and responded to accordingly. I will relay this information to my Lord and will get back to you as soon as possible." Alexander said before the connection was closed.
Well honestly that had gone far better than he or even the most optimistic of his fellow people had thought. It seemed that they had encountered an advanced space faring civilization, how advanced was still to be seen, but evidence from their cloaking and shielding technology pointed to being more advanced than his own people, even possibly the Goa'uld. On top of that, it did not seem that they were outwardly aggressive to them once they complied with their demands, which were entirely reasonable in the current situation. The only thing the slightly worried him was they seemed to sport symbols similar to those found of the Jaffa the served the Goa'uld. He was broken out of his thoughts by Ensign Lloyd's annoying voice.
"Sir, I have continued to do some scans on the inhabited planet in this system, and it would seem that they are just at the stage of being able to send objects into orbit and to nearby celestial bodies." Lloyd said, confirming their belief about the lack of advanced technologies on the planet in the system, which most likely meant that these people protecting this star system were not the same as those on the planet. "However sir, the most amazing thing is, that there are more than six billion people on the planet, and they will reach seven billion soon." Lloyd said to the shock of the entire crew.
So many people, no wonder someone was up here protecting the planet, even if the people below were none the wiser. It would be worthwhile just for the additional social science that could be done by observing such a large civilization. His own people's reason for first going through the Stargate was to explore the galaxy and had found evidence of civilizations long dead on the few planets they had visited. This just created even more questions for Tanner as he sat there waiting on someone else to get back to him on basically the fate of his planet.
Harry walked onto the bridge and immediately went to his personal station. Pushing a few buttons he pulled up the sensors readings of the newly arrived ship. It had its shields up, but they were a fairly basic design and this meant his sensors could still penetrate to some degree, allowing him more detailed scans. There were only five people on board, and some of the technology from what he could tell was far less advanced than his own. However there were a few systems that were quite complex and he was not able to tell with certainty what they did, but he had a few ideas.
When Alexander, the Captain of the Scout he had decloak and confront the incoming vessel, finally connected with them, they appeared on the forward screen of Harry's flagship. This allowed for him to follow the conversation without giving away himself or the other cloaked Scout. He was quite shocked to say the least when he learned the other ship's crews reason for coming to Earth.
It almost felt like fate was playing with him, as what were the odds of a ship arriving in the same system as him, asking for aid against the Goa'uld. With that in mind Harry immediately started to review the information package that was sent over. This of course was only after Jarvis had scanned it and ensured there was no malware or any other nasty surprises contained within.
It was only slightly surprising that a group of enterprising minor Goa'uld had discovered this group of people, the Rena, and decided to band together to invade rather than sharing the coordinates with a system lord. He understood why they chose to, as any system lord would have taken the benefits for himself and if the minor Goa'uld were lucky they would some minor reward. If they weren't they could even see themselves being killed for whatever reason the Goa'uld came up with.
Though it was not often that a Goa'uld outright killed another one, as they preferred to keep them around to bask in their misery and have someone to show off their superiority too. However a group on six Goa'uld were going to be attacking the defenses the Rena had put into place over the years, and If the information was correct that attack should have already started, which means they may be too late as is.
With that in mind he quickly opened up a communication channel with Gelon. "My Lord, how may I be of service?" Gelon asked as he answered the call.
"Gelon how long till the next batch of Scouts is ready from the OCY(Orbital Construction Yard)?" he asked as he had realized that the two Scouts he had here were not going to be enough to take on six Ha'taks, let alone if they had been upgraded. There was simply no chance of their victory without additional reinforcements from Argensis. And he would not even be able to take his Flagship, as it was still a Ha'tak variant and therefore far too slow for this mission.
From his calculations, it would take the Scouts just under three days to arrive at their destination. Whereas his flagship would take nearly two weeks. "My lord, I have dispatched 6 of the recent eight Scouts that finished construction just recently to your location for additional protection." Gelon said as a large smile started to spread on his face. "It was at the direction of both Lady Ishta and Lady Ana, as they felt you were neglecting your personal safety with so few vessels for protection. The Scouts should arrive in under a day."
Harry was both relieved and a bit exasperated by his lovers attention to his security. He knew for a fact that Ishta had been interviewing and even giving some orders to his personal guards. Mostly it was about ensuring his safety, but at times it felt like they seemed to have forgotten how powerful he really was. Not that he did not enjoy the feeling of them going out their way to ensure his safety because of their feelings for him. It made him feel good on the inside.
"That was well done, as I will have need of those vessels soon. It appears there is a Goa'uld attack going on that may ended up being quite advantageous to us if we can interfere quickly enough." he said while sending over the information packet to Gelon. "I sent you a data burst with the particulars, if you could pass it onto Ana, and Ishta as well that would be great."
"It will be done my lord." Gelon said before asking. "Will there be anything else?"
"No, that is all. I will Jarvis update you on the situation as it develops." he answered ending the transmission. The problem he was faced with was that any ships he sent would be put at major risk, and as much as he felt it was right to help those in need, he was not going to put his people, or his newly built empire at risk to do so without any compensation in return.
That meant for this to truly work, he was going to have to find something that they had that he wanted, and if his scans and his hypothesis on the function of a few of the systems he could not identify were right, then he may have just found the very thing he had been looking for, for quite some time. That being an advanced for of matter reconstruction or teleportation.
There were obviously a few other things he could think of getting in trade, but that was the one thing he wanted the most from these people. It might even be worth taking by force if they were too obstinate about sharing any technology. With that in mind Harry opened a communications channel to Alexander.
"Alexander, tell the ship that you wish to have further talks in person. Then send a shuttle to dock with their ship and bring over their representatives to your Scout." he said when Alexander answered before he could say anything himself. "I will be over shortly to commence negotiations in person."
"My Lord it will be done." Alexander responded promptly as he always did.
Martin was waiting with Captain Tanner as the shuttle from the Alien vessel was docking with their ship's external docking port. The system was going through its compression procedures as he waited to get a good look at their supposed new allies. He was still skeptical, and had clearly noticed the Goa'uld symbol on Captain Alexander's forehead.
When the doors opened Martin could see two guards in the same black armour with gold accents they had seen on the holopromter on the bridge. However these two were wearing their helmets, and Martin was almost certain that the small plasma pistol at his waist was not going to be much help against that armour if something went wrong.
"Please come aboard, we will transfer you to our vessel where Captain Alexander and our Lord await you." the guard on the left said as he waved them through the airlock.
Martin was a coward, but he would not abandon his people when their possible saviors were so close just because he feared for his life. He took a deep breath and lead the way onto the ship ahead of Captain Tanner.
The ship was done in a dark grey colour and contained two benches on each side for sitting with additional space between them and above the seats for storage. At the front there were six standard bridge style chairs just behind the two he assumed were the pilot's, and co-pilot's seats. There were quite a few sharp angles in its design and seemed to go for a fairly functional, but spartan look as there was little to no decorations but another two of those same Goa'uld symbols, which was an almost finished triangle, in a circle, with a line running through it.
The two guards moved to their two pilots seats as they entered through the rear of the shuttle. Martin took one of the nice leather looking seats behind the pilot and noticed that there were little to no controls at the front of the ship. However the pilot simply touched the front and the ship started to close its doors and prepare to take off. For the life of him he could not see where they were controlling it from, and that meant either it was automated, or they were using some kind of interface device built into their armour.
The seat also did not seem to have any seat belts, or restraints, which Martin thought was silly, but as the ship took off he almost felt an imperceptible pull from the seat to ensure he didn't get jostled out. It seemed they had some built in tech to replace the straps that were found on their own vessels for safety.
The trip was extremely smooth and they were quickly disgorging the shuttle onto the Scout from its underside where it seemed the shuttle parked in a small cut out when docked. They were escorted through the ship to a room where they finally came face to face with Captain Alexander and his lord which all Martin could think when he was him was that he scream power, and his presence demanded attention in the room. There was almost something tangible about his aura he let off as they sat at the table. That did not help to calm his nerves, specially not when the man's eyes flashed briefly when he spoke, almost making him faint.
Harry was reading the surface thoughts of their new arrivals, as he did with almost everyone he first meets, and could not resist pranking the nearly freaking out Ensign Lloyd by flashing his eyes as he introduce himself. "I am Lord Hariric, god of magic and destiny, formally of the Goa'uld, welcome to my ship." he said to the stiffening posture of his guests. It was oh so fun to play around with those by spouting the typical Goa'uld crap while at the same time claiming not to be a Goa'uld. It confused people, gave him a bit of pleasure, and put them off their game, giving Harry a bit of an advantage in any discussions.
"Lord Hariric. If you could quickly explain what makes you different from those that are attacking our planet, most likely right now?" Captain Tanner asked after working up a bit of his courage and righting his posture.
"Many things Captain Tanner, but mostly I do not wish you dead, nor am going to remove your freedom from you or force you to worship me. It would take far too long to explain exactly what is different between myself and those false gods, but one key difference is true power." he explained.
"Magic doesn't exist, and I see no proof you are a god." Ensign Lloyd said clearly before he could stop himself, if the horror coming over his face was any indication. However it made Harry chuckle a bit as he always loved the fact the most advanced civilizations took his claims as simple false boasting, and most simply ignored them, nicely underestimating him almost everywhere he goes.
"A demonstration then." he said as he waved his hand over Martin Lloyd, concentrating on his goal in mind, as any complex transfiguration without a wand was difficult, especially that of a living transfiguration. However within moments of him exerting a bit of effort, he had turned Ensign Lloyd into a baying goat.
To say that Captain Tanner was shocked was an understatement as his mouth dropped open. "Is he going to be alright?" Tanner asked hesitantly, not appear to be too worked up over the predicament his subordinate was in.
"Yes I will turn him back before you leave, he is probably just getting used to the new and disorientating perspective." Harry said with a bit of humour in his voice, as he tossed a silencing spell over the goat. "Now onto why you are here, and without anymore interruptions from our Ensign over there." he said pointing to Goat Lloyd. Transfiguration was becoming his goto to proving his magic to advanced races, as even he could not even think of where one would have to start to use technology to turn someone into an animal.
"As your captain may have relayed, the Rena people request your aid in defending our planet from the unprovoked attack from this group of Goa'uld. They have given my people an ultimatum, of either destruction or total servitude." Tanner said clearly desperate, as his emotions that Harry picked up on, where that of a man at the end of his rope.
"Not that any Goa'uld ever really needed a reason to invade, and enslave a civilization." Captain Alexander said speaking for the first time since their guests had entered the room. "They are pitiful fools who claim power they do not possess and ruin almost anything they touch." he continued quite heatedly. The level of hate in his voice actually surprised Harry, as he had never seen or sensed any of that ever directed at him. His message about him being entirely different from other Goa'uld must truly be working, or at least he hoped it was.
"While I do sympathize with your people's plight, you must understand that I represent a people as well, and cannot simply send people to battle without in some way gaining something in return for our aid. As terrible as that sounds. So with that in mind what can you offer? I would start with listing any technologies you think your people would be willing to trade for our help." Harry said letting a bit of his Slytherin side through.
"Well I am not sure what technologies you are lacking that we have, as most I see is more advanced than our own." Captain Tanner replied honestly looking around the room and at the various device he carried. With that Harry started pulling up sensor scans of Captain Tanner's ship.
"Could you explain what these systems are?" he said while pointing at a few of the system he was not entirely sure on.
"Well the first one is our portable shield projection array. It allows us to project a shield some distance, though at a quite reduced strength." Captain Tanner said as he looked over the fairly detailed scans of his ship provided by the small holoprojector built into the table they were sitting at. "The other is our teleporter system, and that is a medical scanner." he said pointing out the last system Harry was not sure about.
"Hmm do you believe your people would be willing to trade anyone of those systems in exchange for our aid?" Harry said not wanting to give away which one he was most interested in.
"I can almost assure you that they would agree to that deal, in fact I do have some authority to promise some limited payment in exchange for help, and those systems would certainly fall under that category of limited payment." Captain Tanner said clearly getting a bit more excited, in fact the Lloyd Goat also looked to his direction and had stopped sulking.
"Well I am interested in your teleportation tech, as we do have similar technology, but ours appears to operate on a different principle and would like to add yours to our empires technology." He started as Tanner's excitement clearly seen on his face. "In exchange for said tech, I would be willing to help your people in their defense of their planet against this Goa'uld coalition attack." he finished as smile broke on Captain Tanners face, but then quickly dimmed.
"I will happily agree to that deal, but it is most likely too late. It took us nearly a month to get here and will take too long to return in time to make any difference." Captain Tanner said as his sorrow was clear for everyone to see.
"Well it should only take another day for reinforcements to arrive, and join with the Scouts here, before heading to your planet which at max speed for our Scout ship it will only take three days." he said breathing new life into the flame of hope in his two guests. "Though it still may be too late to stop the invasion, we may be able to do massive damage to the ships there and possibly stopping any further damage from being done."
"Then on behalf of the Rena people, Lord Hariric I thank you for you aid, even if it may be to late." Captain Tanner said in an official like voice. Harry quickly had Dobby draw up a magical contract with the terms of their deal, to add a bit more security to their agreement, and made it appear alongside a blood quill; right there on the table making his guests, as well as Alexander start a bit.
"Here is a contract which will bind both of us to the terms of the deal by using some of my own powers." he said explaining it a bit while picking up the quill and signing his name, not even noticing the cut that healed almost instantly. Tanner however did notice the cut after he quickly scrambled to sign his own name after reading the short contract. Though the magic of the quil worked fast and within ten seconds Tanner's own cut was healed, with only a faint scratch to his skin that would fade within days.
"We will have Ensign Lloyd here accompany my Scouts to your planet, as your ship will need to stay here as it is too slow, and it will ensure that if your planet does not wish to exchange the technology agreed upon, we can still gain it from your vessel after the battle. Will that be acceptable?" Harry basically ordered Tanner, confirming that he was going to be essentially putting his ship under guard till their agreement was completed.
"That will work Lord Hariric." Captain Tanner replied with respectful nod, clearly not wanting to drive away their ticket to a possible rescue by being a nob.
"Well there is much to be organized, so I will send you back to your ship. If you could also move your ship to these coordinates that would be extremely helpful." Harry said dismissing Captain Tanner, as he passed over a data pad with coordinates for a distance spot by Jupiter, out of sight of Earth. He also waved his hand undoing the magic on Martin with far more ease than what casting it took. Harry watched them leave with a quick goodbye from Tanners and a glare from Lloyd, then he made his way to ring room and from there to his flagship.
"My Lord." Harry paused to look over at one of his personal guards who spoke. "If would be remiss of us if we allowed you to enter into a battle with such unknown circumstances, and for such little gain, without us first pointing out that your Ladies would be extremely unhappy with you, if you did so." Harry was honestly surprised, this was the first time anyone had ever done something like this outside his tight knit group. However what his guard said did have merit, as there was zero chance the either Ana, or Ishta would allow him to go on this trip for both personal and professional reasons.
It sucked, but Harry knew his guards were right, and there was no reason that he needed to lead the charge and go on this rescue mission himself. In fact doing so would most likely undermine his troops, and commanders, as they would gain little actual experience with him there calling all the shots.
Dammit, he really hated the fact that everyone underestimated his power, as stupid as that sounded, and seemed to think he needed more protection than he did, but in this case their caution may be warranted. "Fine, I can see your point, and I would never hear the end of it from either of them." he said as he walked down the corridor of his flagship. "Well then, I better inform Alexander he will be in charge of the fleet being sent to Rena."
That also meant there was likely going to be less ships sent, as few would need to say here with his flagship to guard it and him. Though he could simply return to Argensis, he was still working on finishing up many of his projects here on Earth with Evans Enterprises, as the first fusion reactors was going to turn on in less than two months time. More problems and more things to deal with, so basically a normal day in the life of the Goa'uld Hariric.
In the meantime he had some tasks he needed to organize with Ana before the ships left for Rena, and it cannot wait if he wanted to possibly have good relations with these people going forward. Maybe even an alliance or trade agreements. Plans needed to be made to ensure they got the best they could, all without giving out truly more than they wanted too. Some basic Goa'uld technology would be a huge upgrade to much of the Rena's tech, but also far from the current tech used by his people. With that in mind he arrived the gate room and dialed home to finalize their 'invasion' plans.
Harry was still waiting on word from the men and woman that he had sent off on the gamble to gain a few advancements in technologies only just yesterday. Of course he didn't expect any word yet, but that didn't stop him from being on pins and needles. He had been able to send five Scouts, which will most likely mean they are going to be outnumbered unless the Rena had more success then he expected from their low powered weapons.
The fact, that for some reason the Goa'uld seemed to be lacking in those particular techs he saw on the Rena exploration ship, did not escape him; so he decided he had to do something to take his mind off the wait, as he far preferred to do things personally, rather than sitting around waiting.
When he had no immediate duties to attend to, and had some extra time to burn, he would often return to the Chappa'ai and study it, as it never seemed to be lacking in something to teach him. Even with all the time he had spent uncovering the secrets held within the ring, and even with the new perspective his magic provided him, he was still nowhere near to understanding even half of the systems included in the wonderful creation.
The dialing devices was another story however. It was by comparison, actually far more primitive, and lacked many of the systems that seemed to be incorporated into the actual gate. This another area where the Goa'uld had made a serious blunder once again, by assuming that the devices where somewhat similar, if not entirely the same in design principle. It should have been fairly obviously with a simple explosives test to show the differences in devices, when the gate would still be standing while the dialing device would be nowhere to be seen or simply a scorched wreck.
This also meant that he felt that he had learnt almost all that he could from the Dialing Device, whereas the gate still held countless secrets waiting to be discovered. Especially in regards to the way it reacts to his magic. A good example of the disparity between the gate and DHD, was the difference in the wireless energy technology used to send energy from the DHD to the Gate. While the DHD's device was extremely advanced, it was fairly simple in its function, whereas the receiving device on the gate on the other hand, was an entirely different beast. Most obvious example of this was the gates stunning ability to be able to receive his magic to actually power itself.
This led him to believe that the DHD that was present at each gate was actually the most basic, and limited form of interface with the Chapa'ai. Today he had finally proved that hypothesis to be true with his new discovery in interfacing with some of the systems of the gate. It seemed that the gate had a fairly complex and comprehensive computer system built directly into it. This was not surprising in of itself, as it would need something to connect to other gates, it was just the fact that the gate had so many systems and fail safes connected to it. It caused Harry to take a break in his work to ponder exactly what idiot had setup the factory default settings on the gate network.
The fact was, there were options that an advanced user seemed to be able to toggle in the gate with the right interface, something clearly far more advanced than the simple DHD. However the most startling discovery was that each gate had a built in sensor that could reach out nearly 0.01 of a light year. It actually made some sense if one was to think about it, as there had to a way for the gate to know when to send the fail to connect signal if there was something that would interfere with the wormhole, like any singularity, such as a black hole.
The Goa'uld had long discovered the ability to remotely send gate addresses and power to the gate, unfortunately that was their limit to their ability to interface with it in any meaningful way, beyond that of some minor DHD reprogramming. In fact he was almost certain that no other Goa'uld even believed the gates had any other functions other than the ones clearly on display. He was always dumbstruck by how often the Goa'uld seemed to be so sure of their own superiority, that their arrogance seemed to always be clouding their judgement. It was almost like the darkside of the Force. However what this all meant for him, was that he was not working entirely from scratch to build something to interface with the gate, that being said the Goa'uld tech was not much of a start and was starting to causing him more headaches than it was worth.
It took him nearly a whole day to just get his Armband to interface with some of the more basic and non-secured parts of the Chappa'ai's computer system. He actually had almost as much luck with getting his magic to be able to finally dial out without the help from either his Armband or the DHD. While he did not have unfettered access to the gate's sensors, he was still able to get basic information from the gate. Such as being able to tell the conditions of the environment or basic layout on the other side even before he stepped through. It would also allow to him know if their any obstructions on the other side, such as people or debris. This allowed him to have the gate create a wormhole without the traditional woosh of the unstable vortex, something that seemed to be an option offered by the gate's advanced settings.
He was definitely happy about that, as it would be cool to walk up to the gate and just have the portal appear as he walked through it. Of course it was all to keep up his image as a god and not at all to just look awesome as he went about his gate business. Definitely not. Once he had his Armband talking to the gate, it was just a matter of him interfacing it correctly so he could access some of it's more advanced functions and actually toggle some of the options in the gate without a entirely manual rewrite of certain control crystals. Which was beyond him anyways.
The option that he was most interested in toggling, was the ability for the gate to shut itself down if someone attempt to enter it from the wrong direction. It would only fail to shut down if there was already a traveler in transit from the origin gate. This was obviously a good thing as it would prevent accidents from occurring, if someone say tripped backwards through the gate or something equally stupid. He wanted gate travel to be safe, and to be used on a daily basis sometime in the future for his subjects when there are multiple locations to travel between.
The only reason he could think of for it not being activated already, was that the gate builders must have reset the gate network before leaving the galaxy or before whatever happened to them. And this was the reason he had been railing against the stupidity that the Ancients seemed to show at times, and just after being given examples of their utter brilliance. It was odd to both somewhat idolize a group for their science and engineering, and then think they are morons at the same time for some of the obvious mistakes they made.
One thing he was interested in trying to create was a modification to the program that would prevent the gate from connecting if there was someone in the way of the creation of the unstable vortex. Another idea he was floating around in his head, was to possibly create a network of gates only accessible with a pass code for the wormhole to connect. However that was far beyond him currently and not something that was a priority as his current Chappa'ai facility could deal with the issue of security for now.
The final new function he added to his armbands was the result of his study of the ability to remotely transfer energy to the gate. Therefor he was able to rig up an ability for an Armband to burn through it powersource so that in the case of an emergency it could power a gate. While doing this with the standard civilian issue Armband would mean they could only really open up a wormhole for a brief period, ten to twenty seconds, before it ran out of power. It should still be long enough for them utilize it to escape through a gate when they may not have access to the DHD or it was destroyed by some accident.
Whereas the larger micro liquid Naquadah reactors in the military and personal grade Armbands could maintain a gate connection for many minutes; possibly even for the standard maximum allowed time for a wormhole connection to be active if the power source had be changed recently. This meant that in the super rare instance that he was magically exhausted, then he could still open a wormhole and utilize gate travel. As Moody would have said, constant vigilance, and in this case for him that meant redundancies for the redundancies.
An entirely unrelated boon that came from studying the gate was an improvement to the internal sensors and the computers that monitored them. This meant he FINALLY had a fix to the problem of him using internal expansion charms on the ships and the related issues with the inertial dampeners. One could not understate their importance, if one didn't want to end up as a flattened red smeared pancake on the wall of their ship when they failed during ship movement.
He was not quite sure what this meant for him long term, as any real use of expansion charms would have to almost be planned from the get go to see any significant positive effects. That being said it did mean he could have a decently larger work space and room in his current flagship. He did use the spell on the engine room to make extra space to hook up a few of his CFRs to add an extra boost when needed by his ship.
Another boon of his work with the gate, was that he was finally making some headway with his computer technology to compliment his various other pieces of tech. As he had determined fairly early on, the Goa'uld were actually fairly primitive when it came to some aspects of their computing. Even with his understanding, and examples from his Earth, he clearly still lacked the knowledge and experience to make any major changes to the machine code of his systems. Those skills he had now gained thankfully through some difficulty, a lot of hard work, and trial and error while trying to understand some of the technology in the gate.
It was almost poetic in how so many different technologies were coming together to make each other better, and now even including magic. It will make his proposed from scratch 'flagship' he had been planning all that more of a fortress. After spending hours tinkering away at the gate, he decided he needed a break from science and instead wanted to delve back into some magic. He often liked to switch between the two as it gave him new perspectives, and refreshed his mind when it came to each topic.
With that in mind he moved towards a Ring platform and transported directly into a secure room at his manor just outside Colorado Springs. He moved to his Library which was more for show than anything else, and sat down to lounge and burn some time reading a few new tomes from his LIS (Library Index Stone). Even Voldemort did not known even a quarter of the magic that was stored within the LIS. This meant that when he was tired of people, or technology, and wanted a break, he would take out a new tome to learn something new about magic. It was nice to be able to claim some magical knowledge as his own and not belonging to Tom.
The book he was currently in the middle of reading, was one of the few Celtic books remaining that had any examples of their writings. Thankfully it was in English, as he was only actually reading a copy of the original made by the LIS. The copping mechanic was to increase ease of use, and obviously to protect the originals from ever being damaged, as the LIS was nearly indestructible. Actually now that he thinks of it there would be a fairly good chance that if his entire body was destroyed the LIS would still be there untouched, just slightly drained. He would have to work on a recovery method in the future if he figured out his immortality plans.
The book he was reading was explaining some of the Druidic rituals used at the time, and helped also explain why the Celts had such a vibrant society. This was definitely contrary to what he and Dobby had experienced from movies. According to the reference book he was also referring too, they were actually one of the first people to use iron and extremely primitive steel in their armour and weapons. Beating most of the world to the punch, even if pop-culture likes to depict them running into battle only painted in blue war paint.
However, what was most interesting was the fertility ward that the Celtic Druids had used for centuries. Not only was it more effective than what he had being trying to cobble together with his wards, and potions on his throne world. It was more controllable, and a single ward could cover all life as designated under its control, all the while not helping along pests either. This was just one of the incredibly powerful spells, rituals, and wards that he had learnt from this book, and almost all of them were related to increasing or recovering the health of the land, or people. These may come in very handy if he ran into some more planets that had been made into wastelands during conflicts with the Goa'uld or natural disasters.
Anyways, it seemed to make sense that they would also be fairly advanced in certain respects with their magic as well, if one looked at their mundane advances. His reference book also discussed how much of the magical world was influenced by the Celts more liberal stance on women's rights, which made the Wizarding society more socially progressive than the muggle world for over a millennia. It was also kind of nice to read about what seemed to be progressive wizards who were constantly advancing their craft, rather than the stagnant, slowly dying wizarding world he had been born into.
With that in mind he made updates to his massive 4.9m heptagonal planet wide ward stone he had designed in the past. The effect of the first ward he is going to add was to reduce crime by making it difficult to perpetrate, but not impossible for someone to with enough drive to still commit one, as it did not take away free will. The same went for many of the other ward schemes he decided to adopt from the Celts, such as a ward that fosters community unity, and hopefully loyalty to himself, fertility, and a powerful area-wide anti-scrying barrier. Hopefully this would reduce much of the everyday crime, and would certainly come in handy for any new planets he starts adding to his domain. The fertility ward alone would reduce the house elves workload by a large margin, which means he may need to find them more jobs... again.
He had twenty of the crystal pillars started quite quickly by using his runic carving tool, and shaving off small parts of the crystal, as it only took him a few hours to add on each new rune sequence to those he was already using before. He really did like the looks of the pillars, as they were a nice shade of pink, and glowed subtly with all the raw magic they contained, as they had been slowly accumulating magic due to the environment of his trunks. He had decided against placing the wardstones on planets that he did not have populations on them yet, as they did take time to grow and effort to carve, and were mainly designed around benefiting people, rather than being planetary protection.
However now that he had a bunch on hand he may change his mind, as any additional protection for a planet under his control would be ideal. That being said he would prefer it being an ace up his sleeve and kept secret for as long as possible, rather than being uncovered during a raid on an unused mining planet. Meaning that he would most likely still accumulate more of the wardstones, and only place them down when civilians started to be moved to a planet. He would rely on his Chappa'ai facilities to provide the planetary protection for simple mining, research, and holding planets for now.
Using his laser etching tool he got back to work on the pillars as a grin crossed his face in admiration of the Celtic wizards, and druids that had created these complex and yet simply elegant ward schemes. It was times like this where his appreciation for elegant magics came through and brought a smile to his face, distracting him from his worries.
The fleet of six Scouts dropped out of hyperspace, one at a time within the span of a second from start to finish. They had arrived at the location given by their new friends who had called on lord Hariric for aid. As soon as Alexander's ship entered normal space, still cloaked, the automated alerts started blaring due to the space battle that was occurring right before their eyes. The many layered defenses that the Rena people had built in preparation to defend their planet, were falling one by one to the five Goa'uld Ha'tak vessels still present in the system. It was only a matter of hours or possibly at most a day before the defenses would be breached, if what his sensors were telling him was true.
From the information they had been provided by Captain Tanner and his crew, this coalition of minor Goa'uld that had somehow gained knowledge of the Rena people, and their advanced technologies. The group of six Goa'uld had decided to take the planet together, then if successful probably fight each other for the spoils; well that was what all his experience was telling him they would do.
There was already a partially broken apart Ha'tak wreck floating further from the remaining defenses, and ships that were currently surrounding the planet still exchanging fire with each other. It seemed that the Rena people had some success with their defense, if not nearly enough. It was also quite evident that while the Rena were having major difficulties breaching the powerful shields of the Ha'taks, and defending from their weapons, it was an entirely different story when it came to the Gliders and Alkesh.
There were possibly two hundred or more Glider wrecks spewed across the space surrounding the planet, and out in solar system were some of the forward defenses had to have been stationed. There were also Alkesh carcasses dotting the battlefield, and there were none currently flying around according to the Scout's sensors. Likewise the number of Gliders still moving under their own power were small, and growing smaller by the minute as the Rena's anti-fighter weapons took its toll on their enemies.
Alexander took all this in quickly as it popped up on the main screen, as their fleet moved through the empty space towards the raging battle. His guest on the bridge, a one Martin Lloyd, gasped when he saw the destruction over his planet and how close their defenses were to failing. It seemed that Martin's people had reached his lord just in time, or perhaps it was his lord's power at work, unseen ensuring they made it on time. Either way after a hard battle things should look up for the Rena people.
"Captain, it appears that one of the vessels has detected the hyperspace window, but does not appear to have found our ships." reported the tactical officer to Alexander, as the Scout detected intensive sensor scans from one of the motherships sweeping the region space they had arrived in. "Energy readings of the enemy vessels are within normal Ha'tak ranges of output." the tactical officer said, letting everyone know that these Ha'taks had not gone under any major upgrades, at least none too noticeable.
"Have all ships move forward, and position themselves behind the Ha'taks." he commanded. It was a vain hope to sandwich them between their ships, and those of Rena and their defenses. How effective that would be is still in question, as it was nearly impossible without ample weapons fire to prevent another ship from entering hyperspace. Although he had heard that his lord was working on developing just such a device. Though the arrogance of most Goa'uld often prevented them from attempting to escape before it was to late anyways, making capturing of vessels not a huge issue in the past.
He was glad that he served his god, Lord Hariric, and not one of the many false gods that plagued this galaxy, and enslaved his fellow Jaffa with false promises of divine salvation. He also understood, that it was fairly likely that something major had changed to transform his own god from one of those very same false gods, into a being of true power. It was awe inspiring watching him perform even some of the minor feats he seems to perform on a daily basis. He was blessed to have the opportunity to work closely with his lord and see some of those displays in person from time to time.
Of course there were many such displays that had been recorded by some Jaffa on their Armbands, and posted onto the E-NET (Empire-Net) in some of the various forums dedicated to such things. It was interesting that his lord had created, and posted to the very first such forum in the past, sharing information on his familiar The Great Holy Bird Hedwig. From there many Jaffa, and even some of the humans, had started sharing just about anything that was of interest to them, or even about their stories, and experiences from many generations of battle.
It had become a great place for those who wished to further their skills and learn, or just to pass time. However he scolded himself as he was getting far too distracted from the battle at hand. Even with their extremely fast engines, it still took time to transverse the great voids that even made the space between planets in a solar system seem daunting. His own personal understanding of the scale of the galaxy had been improving greatly with all of the mandatory officer training classes that were required to maintain his rank as a Captain, or in this case Fleet-Admiral.
The other issue was that unless something unexpected occurred, his command crew on the bridge would be able to handle just about anything. That meant that while he held an important position being the Captain, he often felt like he was truly doing nothing. However when something did go wrong, that was when it always felt like he was being run ragged. Thankfully such things occur rarely, and while following his lord there had been fairly few battles to speak of.
"Sir we are at optimal weapons range." his tactical officer prompted him bringing him out of his musing. His lord had also increased the distance with which they first started their engagement with enemy ships in battle. This meant that fighters, especially Gliders, would play far less of a critical role in the battle as ranges increased, allowing for their improved computers and targeting sensors to shine. Concentrated glider fire could overcome a Ha'tak's shields if not dealt with in a timely manner.
"Contact the fleet. Have them decloak, concentrate their fire and engage the enemy." he gave the simple command following his lord's orders to exchange weapons fire before verbal niceties with your enemies, and only save introductions for those you wish not to shoot. It was a huge change from practices in the past, but actually made sense to many Jaffa. Today was a great example of why this was, as their alpha strike from the fleet totally annihilated the first Ha'tak before they could even respond. Unfortunately that was the easy part of the battle.
CHAPTER 9 PART 2 COMING SOON! IN 1 MONTH!
JK Next chapter should be up within 30mins of part 1.
