"Master Bra'tac, it has been too long," a bald Jaffa said when Bra'tac and Ronon stepped through the gate. Their escorting guards were in a jumper that had arrived right after them under cloak.
"Indeed it has Hal'tar," Bra'tac replied. A small group of Jaffa had gathered at the gate and followed around them as Hal'tar led them down into a valley where a small village could be seen.
"Many rumors suggested that you had been killed in the fighting on Dakara against Lord Enad."
"I fear I would have been killed had it not been for Teal'c. Still we have gained powerful allies who are willing to help the Jaffa against the Goa'uld and to help us find a new purpose as a society."
"What the Jaffa need is not purpose Master Bra'tac, the Jaffa need food." The village was growing larger and they could see even more Jaffa waiting for them.
"They will provide food as well Hal'tar, they only ask that we help them fight a war, something the Jaffa have always done."
"It seems you would have us trade one master for another so I must ask. Is it them or you who are asking us to fight this war?"
"I have offered to ask the Jaffa because I believe that the future of the Jaffa lie with them."
"We will see Master Bra'tac. When you sent word that you would come many thought that you came to led them against Enad, I do not know how they will react. Had Master Teal'c been here too they would all have followed you two to Netu."
"I am sorry that I must say that Teal'c has been captured by Enad. Those Jaffa who are willing to follow me will free him together with our allies. But enough about that, we have traveled long and far."
"I will have a tent put up for you Master Bra'tac and something to eat prepared. We do not have much to offer."
"We will not strain what little you have, we have everything we need with us."
"You do not carry a bag with you yet you have everything you need?"
"Indeed, our allies have provided us with all we need, you need not worry. Tomorrow at noon I will talk to the other Jaffa, in six days we will march to help Teal'c. Until then we will keep out of your way." Bra'tac bowed his head.
Bra'tac broke away from the group of Jaffa with Ronon and walked towards a small clearing on the path leading to the Jaffa village. As long as they could see Bra'tac the Jaffa bowed deeply.
In the back of the clearing a small grey box was sitting well out of sight of the Jaffa. Together they opened the box and removed a large bolt of cloth, while Ronon walked away with it to set up their tent Bra'tac took out the rest of the things in the box and began to prepare the Alterran rations they had brought with them.
"I want to know what's going on," Daniel said when he stormed into the control room of the Alterran outpost on Earth. He had been beamed from the jumper to the outpost as soon as the jumper had cleared the jamming field.
"We're still analysing the data Sir. One of the crafts dropped out of hyperspace inside the atmosphere and our shield. It dropped a package but we lost track of it when it crashed into a Chinese forest close to a S.E.N base that's doing something to jam our sensors. Then it jumped back into hyperspace."
"Show me what the ship dropped," Daniel ordered. Straight away a small hologram appeared in front of Daniell. He gestured in the air and the hologram spun and grew at this command. It was a silver ring the size of a stargate but it lacked any markings or glyphs and there were no chevrons on it either. "Send half the fleet to find that thing, it's looking too much like a stargate to be anything else. Dial the gate to be sure no one can dial in to that gate."
"Dispatching the fleet," someone in the room said. In the background they could hear the gate dialing.
Daniel stood and watched the fleet's progress on a screen until they reached China. "Have them scan for subspace signals, even an inactive gate will be emitting something."
"Yes Sir." There was a pause before the person spoke again. "Sir there's a forcefield forming around the gate, it seems both our gate and the one dropped in China is active. We have confirmed that our gate has successfully connected to another planet."
"Make sure that the ships do not fire on the shield. Have them beam the gate and everything else in the shield that shouldn't be there into space and follow after. If the shield's still online after that I want the gate beamed away from everything else."
"There's a Prior creating the shield Sir. He's been separated from the gate."
"Let's send him a Prior disruptor and a gatebuster, in that order and with a five second delay between. Detonate the gatebuster as soon as it arrives."
"They're preparing a gatebuster Sir, it'll arrive in twenty seconds."
A complete silence fell across the room as they waited. The seconds grew ever longer as they waited until someone finally spoke. "There's no trace of the gate, the prior or any of the soldiers that arrived with him."
"Good work everyone. Send any ships we can spare to hunt down the crafts that dropped the gate. And prepare all our men for a large scale assault against all S.E.N bases we know about. If the Ori are coming we don't have time to take back Earth one or two cities at a time. Make sure to warn all friendly forces to stay the hell away from those bases, we're not going in with soldiers unless we have to, we'll be using drones and plasma cannons to level the bases unless we have a reason not to. I want this done quick, and I expect you to direct our forces as needed so make sure you know which forces you have for each area. I'll be briefing General O'Neill on what's happened here if you need me."
"Yes Sir," the men said in unison while Daniel walked away..
A few hours had passed since Bra'tac and Ronon arrived on the Jaffa planet and night had fallen. Everything was dark and quiet when a loud explosion rang out across the valley, waking everyone up. Bra'tac and Ronon waked up and rushed for their armors which stood next to their field beds, they touched the backside of the armors and they opened up to allow them to step inside, when they did the armors sealed around them. Ronon reached in under his pillow and grabbed his pistol from beneath, he strapped it to his side before grabbing the staff that Bra'tac was holding out for him. Together they ran out of the tent. The jumper was already waiting for them outside, fully visible, with its hatch down.
"Swing above and give us cover," Bra'tac ordered two men. "The rest of you give us cover fire."
The soldiers simply nodded and vanished from sight, the jumper cloaked. Leafs in the trees shifted and branches snapped when it forced itself up through the foliage. Apart from a few straws of grass that moved there were no signs that the cloaked soldiers were around Bra'tac and Ronon. The two began to run towards the village, from where the sound had come.
When they came down the path to the village everything was in flames. Some Jaffa rushed from their houses in full battle armour with weapons while other Jaffa rushed out into the forest with their weapons and armors in their arms. Teal'c and Bra'tac rushed in between the houses, blue plasma bolts came flying down the streets and they hurried to find who was firing. A large group of Ori soldiers were marching down the street with their staffs lowered, firing wildly at everything.
Bra'tac took cover behind a house and started firing back with his staff, Ronon on the other hand stepped straight out into the fire that was flying down the street. He was firing down the street with his pistol in one hand and the staff lodged under his other arm. He made sure to evade each bolt as best he could, but a few of them was stopped by his personal shield instead, until he reach the other side of the street where he took cover and fired back with his pistol. A group of Jaffa came rushing past Ronon straight into the street and were cut down. Ronon swung out with the staff and forced the few survivors to stop, five Ori soldiers were chasing after them but Ronon picked them of before they could fire.
"Fight back coward or I might as well cut you down myself," Ronon shouted and pressed his staff into the hands of the first Jaffa. It took the Jaffa a few seconds of hesitation before he grabbed the staff and fired down the street towards the large group of Ori soldiers. The other Jaffa hurried to grab the dead Ori soldiers staffs before joining Ronon and the Jaffa. By the time the Jaffa had made their decision the cloaked Lantean soldiers had already circled around the Ori soldiers and disposed of them from behind.
-Sir we've located a group of Ori soldiers coming from the gate,- a voice sounded through the com system in both Ronon's and Bra'tac's armors.
"Fire drones on any hostile forces that's in the clear," Bra'tac ordered.
-Yes Sir.- A large explosion bloomed up in the distance a split second later. -Target neutralized. Going to seek new targets.-
"Gather up any Jaffa you can find in the forest," Ronon ordered the group of Jaffa next to him. "Bring them to the gate and guard it in case anyone tries to come true."
"It will be as you command," one of the Jaffa said. They all bowed before hurrying away.
"You have already earned their respect Ronon, it will greatly help us," Bra'tac said next to him. "Come, General O'Neill needs to know this." He led the way back to their tent. The grey box was sitting inside the tent but they brought it outside and Ronon pulled the four pins. The sides fell down and a holographic keypad showed up above it. Bra'tac input a code on the keypad and the hologram changed to a flashing and pulsing blue and white orb. It kept flashing and pulsing for a few seconds before it changed again to show Jack standing bent over a terminal.
-Master Bra'tac, Ronon. What's going on?- Jack asked.
"We have just turned back an Ori attack on a Jaffa settlement," Bra'tac said.
-Good work guys. I take it you only faced footsoldiers and perhaps a Prior?-
"Indeed, we killed some fifty soldiers but we did not see a Prior."
-That's both good and bad. Daniel had to dispatch of a Prior and some sort of Ori gate on Earth, it seems the Prior tried to collapse the planet into a singularity, like they did with the first supergate. So far his ships have picked of three more Priors and their gates, which most likely means that you still have a Prior and his gate pumping troops into our galaxy. I'll have Sam back track the last connection.-
"They do not come by ship?"
-As far as we can tell they've sent a small number of ships here, they're no bigger than a jumper but much longer and each one carries a number of Ori gates. The gates are somehow different from the normal ones because both gates can have an established wormhole at the same time. It'll make it hard for us to find all of them and stop them, I doubt even the ascended would have an easy time with this. If they can collapse six planets that means that they can construct just as many supergates and have six entry points into our galaxy that we have to find and somehow destroy. I don't think I have to tell you just how much trouble that would put us in even with the Jaffa on our side.-
"I will have Jaffa sent out to all known Jaffa worlds to alert them of the coming threat. I do however believe that we will have to get Teal'c sooner than we planned."
-Send out your Jaffa and have them tell the rest that if they wish to fight with you against the Ori they shall come to your side in five hours. We have already launched from Pegasus and are in the void between the galaxies at the moment. We know of three worlds where the Ori may have dropped gates and we will go there to see what we can find before coming to you. In six hours time we will be standing by in orbit to rescue Teal'c. The city's far from fighting condition but against the Goa'uld our shield and drones will be all we need.-
"I thought it would take longer to reach us," Ronon said.
-We've repaired and refitted the entire stardrive already and we're pushing it to the max. Plus we've been on our way ever since Daniel reported the incident a couple of hours ago.-
"We will gather up all the Jaffa we can in that time General, it may not be the numbers we hoped for but we can use this war to rally more Jaffa to us," Bra'tac said.
-Well get going then.-
