Angels of Death

by S093

Jackson opened the Gate, Tabanae created the IS, the Universe cursed the Goa'uld for not reducing earth to a smocking ruin when they had the chance, and they were given plenty of chances.

21. Chapter 15-Beginnings of Change

Chapter Fifteen, Beginnings of Change

Center for HomeWorld Defence, Earth, July 2015

General George Hammond climbed the stairs in the recently christened Center for HomeWorld Defence located just outside of central Washington DC. It was a multinational endeavour with each of the participating countries having their respective offices inside the building. He was currently heading to what was to be the first meeting held inside the building itself rather than at the pentagon, which had been the venue for such meetings for the past few months.

The subject that would mark the start of HomeWorld Defence, whatever had happened to the Prometheus in transit to Harvest. The Prometheus herself was now sitting in the Area Fifty-One hangar with every piece of the ship being looked over, just to rule out mechanical problems and to confirm that no damage was sustained. Carter was on her way back from Japan at the moment now, so he would be able to give her the problem to see what Carter and Jolinar made of it. The Tok'ra symbiote had proven useful over the past several years, and if Dr. Lee was to believed had cut several years of the development and deployment of the Prometheus class ships.

And all it had taken was some faith from the Canadians, and one pissed of Klorel for the SGC to give Jolinar a chance. And it had payed of in dividends, with the entire Goa'uld technology base at their fingertips the SGC had been able to make great strides in building defences for earth. That it had also given them an in with the most expansive intelligence network in the galaxy had just been icing on the cake. And all it had cost them was the use of Carter in the field. Small price to pay for what they had gained in return. He would however never hear O'Neill admit as such.

Opening the door to the meeting room he was greeted by a fairly plain meeting room that would not have looked out of place at any business. The room was dominated by a simple wooden table with office chairs surrounding it. At the far end of the room was a roll down screen, and looking up he spotted an overhead projector in the ceiling. A desk with a computer sitting on top of it took one up one of the far corners of the room. Plain and drab, hardly what you expected when the fate of the world was most likely going to be discussed in this very room. Most likely more than once as well.

He took his seat, which conveniently had a name plate with his name on it in front of it. At least no one would be wondering where they were supposed to sit, and there was no excuse for not knowing someone's name. He set his note-case down in front of him still closed and waited for the rest of the participants for today's meeting. The rest of the military personnel and politicians entered the room in one's and two's, after several minutes they had all arrived and a pair of MPs came and shut the doors.

Major Davis stood up from where he sat at the end of table by the roll down screen. He cleared his throat before speaking, "I believe you have all received the preliminary report concerning the recent incident involving the Prometheus. Here is what we know for sure, during the supply trip to Harvest, roughly ten minutes out from Harvest the Prometheus's shields repelled something. There was a jolt sent throughout the ship coinciding with a slight drop in shield integrity."

"The Prometheus managed to make it to Harvest dockyard where she unloaded her cargo and proceeded to do a full inspection of the ship. No hull breaches or other abnormalities where found in any of the ships systems. The return trip to earth was completely uneventful. Since her return we have been doing a full inspection of the ship, and have yet to find any abnormalities, we are still looking over the ship as well as doing some maintenance while she's in dock. Any questions?"

One of the men across the table proposed one. "Do we have any idea what the Prometheus encountered?"

"At the moment, no. Though when Dr. Carter returns we will be giving her all our current information on the issue to see what she and Jolinar make of it."

"You would trust the Tok'ra on this?"

"With respect sir, the Tok'ra have a lot more experience with hyperspace travel than we do, we will also be asking the Asgard as well. But Jolinar will be back by the end of the week, and we don't know when the Asgard will be stopping by next. And the hyperdrives we're using are a lot closer to Goa'uld ones than those used by the Asgard, so the Tok'ra are the logical place to start. Any other questions?"

"We're going to be sharing information about our fleet to the Tok'ra, that seems a little to trusting of them given how easily they have been infiltrated in the past."

"The Tok'ra are already aware that we have our own ships, and we will only be showing this information to Dr. Carter, who worked on and helped create most of the systems. If it hadn't been for her and Jolinar's help we would not have been able to complete the Prometheus and her sister ships in the time we did complete them in."

"Very well then."

"What will we do if Dr. Carter is unable to provide us with the answers we seek?"

"We will put it to the Asgard to see if they have anything, if they don't our current plan is to be on the lookout for more incidents such as this. If more are encountered a scientific survey can be preformed, if no more are encountered then it will be classified as a one off event. With the amount of damage to the Prometheus being non existent we are lifting the restriction on travel for our ships." There was a shifting of papers as the first item was put behind them. "Now, there have been several suggestions for what should be the standard procedure in case this or something similar should happen again. The suggestions were in the briefing you all received."

A British man sitting several seats down from him spoke up, "I believe we should stick to an old British saying, 'Keep calm and Carry on'. It seems to fit the situation perfectly." He along several others present the man an odd look. "It should really be our moto anyways." He couldn't tell if they were joking or serious.

Deciding to get the conversation moving again, "I do believe he does bring up the point that we have contingencies for nearly every situation but one. We have no plan for when things go right, or remain unchanged after an odd situation happens."

"With due respect sir, we haven't needed such a contingency before. Nothing has ever stayed the same after an unusual incident."

"And that is why I'm suggesting we implement one." Several nods of agreement and amusement occurred around the table along with some mutterings about the crazy adventures of the SGC.

"Alright then, moving on to the next item on the agenda. With the recent individual tournament at the IS Academy, several countries have expressed interest in the IS units developed with the Stargate Program. All four third generation units have drawn the eyes of the worlds media, already very pointed questions have started being asked."

"I'm sure stating that any questions concerning the hardware used by the units can be shot down by simply stating that it's classified military hardware. Though if western media wasn't so persistent on clarity it wouldn't be an issue." That had always been one of the big sticking points Russia had with United States, they didn't like the ever present inquisitive media. Still having had to deal with media idiots several times he understood where the Russian was coming from.

"That is the current plan, though it is unknown how long before people start pushing for answers regardless. Then there is Tabanae, we all know she won't take no for an answer, and from our initial reports the units caught her eye."

The German representative put forward a sugestion. "Has anyone considered that it may be in our best interests to offer up the information if she is willing to work with us."

It was the Japaneses representative turn to reply. "I don't think that will work, without any way of stopping her from going to the media the Stargate program will be on the news shortly after she finds out about it. And she isn't exactly someone who we can simply discredit. People will take notice, and people will listen. If we wish to keep the program secret telling her is the last thing we want to do."

"I suppose another question, is going public at the moment or in the near future a possibility." This time it was the Chinese representative who spoke up, surprising just about everyone in the room with his proposal.

"Near term is a definite no for doing disclosure on our terms. One we don't have enough countries on board, two our position in the galactic community is precarious at best, and three at the moment we don't have enough to offer the public that would stave off complete chaos. However we do have some plans for disclosure in the event of an emergency, though those are for an emergency and involve several contingency's we don't wish to use unless we have to."

Davis continued. "That being said, disclosure is still on the table and we should start making plans for when it does happen. There are several prerequisites the SGC has outlined as being necessary for disclosure. The first, having sufficient defences to defend earth in the event of an attack, mainly this involves sufficient fleet assets to counter anything that a single, or even a coalition of System Lords can reasonably send at us. We put that as the limit as there is no way we can hope to take on the entire fleet of the Goa'uld empire in a straight up fight, they are simply to large, and can deploy far to many vessels for us to compete against."

"Second, having technologies ready for dissemination to the general public that would serve to ease them into a post disclosure world. This would mainly include civilian technologies. It would also require having several companies ready to supply the technology in whatever form it comes in. Third, having built up earths infrastructure to be able to take advantage of the technologies we will be disseminating. This also includes preparing manufacturing plants where the newly introduced technology can be built."

"And finally fourth, having the majority of the industrialized nations on earth participating in the program. This is to insure that no one nation feels left out when disclosure happens, the remaining nations, if there are any, can be included after the fact. This will also let each individual nation deal with the after affects of disclosure inside their own borders as well as being prepared ahead of time."

"So we're just leaving the non developed nations out of this, that seems rather harsh."

"It may be, but we are talking about countries which more often then not are barely able to support themselves. And there are some countries which I believe non of us would like to see have access to the kind of capabilities we have at our disposal right now. The first that comes to mind would be North Korea, I think we can all agree on that." All around the table heads bobbed in agreement. "It should also be noted that these ideas are only a start that the SGC came up with, it was intended as a starting point for policies surrounding disclosure. When it was originally created it was understood that it would be amended in the future as the situation on earth and in the galaxy changed."

"Well I for one can't think of any changes to make to it at this hour, though I will be bringing it before my government to see what they think of it. Though I do wonder what made you create it in the first place."

Davis was about to answer when he raised his hand stopping him, causing the other people present to turn to him. "Fairly early on in the programs history, we had several run ins with people trying to go public with the program. Actually if it hadn't been for the Goa'uld we probably would have already gone public. While they never succeeded in going public they did show us that we had no contingencies in place should we need to go public. So we came up with a list of things that we would need to have ready in case we were forced to disclose the program."

Continuing on, "eventually the list made its way to the presidents office, where it got refined into what was the basis of what was showed to you today. Over the years bits and pieces of it were altered or removed, while new parts were added. When Russia joined we began to look at how we could go about a smooth disclosure of the program. And they had their own suggestions to add to it."

Davis took over, "One of the big suggestions they, and the Canadians made was to expand the number of nations represented in the program. Several lists were drawn up of the nations that were put forward to be included, with the reasons for and against inclusion. While we only disclosed initially to the four other nations here we had always planned on disclosing to more nations as time went on. The foremost nation we did not include in the first round of disclosures was France. Second to them was Israel and Australia, more for their locations, as they would allow us to have global coverage in the program."

The German representative posed a question he was sure was on their minds. "Any particular reason we would need global coverage, I assume you have something."

"Yes there is. Ever since we encountered the Tollans and their planetary defence system we have been looking at doing something similar on earth. Now while we haven't any surface to orbital weapons at the moment, we have been looking at what would be required in such a network. Having access to enough points around the globe to prevent any gaps in the weapons coverages was the first requirement we came up with for an effective global defence system."

"That seems quite ambitious, but if I may ask why not simply use orbital defences, then you wouldn't have to worry about having more nations involved just for where they are."

"Well first off having orbital satellite weapons platforms would violate international law on militarizing outerspace." This drew several chuckles from around the table. "And orbital installations are much harder to hide than ground based ones, as well as being easier to disable. Where as ground based installations can be easily hidden, and if constructed right can be extraordinarily difficult to remove from orbit."

"I see, it seems you've put a lot of thought into these proposals."

"That there has." Davis didn't mention that most of the thinking had been done on the political side not the military side.

"Going back to recent events at the tournament, I believe you all saw the effects of the Aile's long cannon, the one hundred fifty-two millimeter I believe it was. Just from observing what the single shot fired did to the Blitz, we just demonstrated a weapon that can destroy or disable nearly all current generation IS units in a single hit. Disregarding everything that alone has gotten peoples attention, and the attention of people we don't want to have the kind of capability that was demonstrated. Would anyone care to explain why such a weapon, was put on display for the whole world to see."

General MacDonald who had been silent until now answered. "That was not our intent, we intended to gain combat data of the one-fifty-two in action, and due to the nature of the weapon the only available unit that could use it was the Aile. Needless to say it surpassed our expectations. It also should be noted that a method of countering it was quickly discovered, that while not perfect does render it less effective."

"The weapon itself was originally conceived as a counter Al'kesh weapon that could be issued to our forces. And while it does fulfil that role, it does not do so without restrictions, currently only three of our IS units are capable of using it without having their arms ripped of. Namely the Aile, Mouretsu and the Buster, the rest of our units don't have enough reinforcement in the upper torso and arms to be able to fire it. Using a special penetrator round it can punch a hole through a fully shielded Al'kesh, from about twenty kilometers out any further and the chance of penetration drops."

"That seems to be an awfully potent weapon, though can you please explain to me why we need it, seeing as our current stock of SAMs seem to be doing just fine against Al'kesh."

"They're also bulky, and expensive per shot. Where as the one-fifty-two is expensive to build but inexpensive per shot, not to mention that we are looking at building a turret mount for it. It is however a prototype weapon."

"I see, then any one else have any prototype weapons they would like to share with the rest of us before we find out by it being showed publicly." The Chinese representatives question was met with a series of no. Some of them probably did, but who would actually admit to that.

Several Days Later

Area Fifty-One

Carter was on her way to her lab on her first day back from Japan, she was not looking forwards to the paperwork that had definitely accumulated on her desk while she had been away. The bright side of it was some of what had been on her desk when she left had been completed while she had been away, that at least would make her life somewhat easier. She then ignored the comment Jolinar made about humans and their obsession with paper work and how it served no real purpose.

Before she could make it to her lab she was intercepted by one of the bases MP's. She felt herself groan internally as she really did not want to deal with whatever he had sought her out for, didn't she have enough work to do already. Couldn't they wait a bit before they started bugging her about projects, and couldn't they come themselves rather than sending an MP to get her.

"Can you please come with me Ma'am." While he was polite he made it clear she didn't have an option, well she was already determined to have a chat with whoever sent him in the first place.

"Lead the way." He gave a curt nod before turning and starting down the corridor with her following behind. She followed him into the holding section of the base and she felt her curiosity and level of alertness jump several levels. Something was up, and they thought she or Jolinar could be of use, unfortunately it also meant something had gone wrong and they needed her. She did not think it was that bad or time sensitive as had that been the case she would have been beamed straight here.

So she followed the MP in front of her. He eventually lead her to one of the 'interrogation' or interview rooms that were located on base, she really didn't like where this was heading. The MP opened the door for her and she stepped in.

Inside the room was General Hammond and a AirForce Major whom she didn't recognize, along with another scientist whom she vaguely recognized. The three of them were standing on the other side of a table with a bunch of papers on it situated in the center of the room, with the one way window situated behind them. Hammond was the first one to speak, "have a seat Doctor," indicating to the chair in front of the table just in front of her.

The only thing that kept her clam was Hammonds presence, she knew that he would vouch for her over whatever she had been brought in for. As she had been tacking her seat the other three had taken up seats on the other side of the table from her, with Hammond being directly opposite her. He somehow figured out how anxious she was at the moment. "You can relax Doctor, we just need Jolinar to go over some things we don't want becoming common knowledge yet."

"Just over a week ago the Prometheus ran into something while in hyperspace in between Earth and Harvest. We have yet to find anything wrong with the ship itself, and have been unable to locate anything in vicinity of where the incident took place."

"And you want Jolinar because being a symbiote she has a few hundred years of experience to go on. Am I right." The three nods gave her all the answer she needed. "I also assume you have whatever you could gather here now." Another set of nods.

She lowered her head while she let Jolinar take over. Jolinar immediately began looking over the papers that had been placed out in front of her. There was every thing from shield readouts to the relative velocity of the ship before and after the incident as well as the calculated point of impact on the shield.

Jolinar spent a few minutes going over the information before looking back up at the other three. "Well what have you made of it?"

"At the moment we're not sure, we were hoping if you could tell us if any such incidents have been recorded by the Goa'uld. Or any other hyperspace using race you're aware of."

"Well I can inform you that this is not the first time something like this has happened, as a matter of fact it is not that rare. When the Goa'uld first encountered the phenomenon there was a period of unease, until it became clear that a ship travelling with functioning shields was completely safe from it. After that it was seen more as a natural part of Hyperspace travel, nothing more. They never looked at it any closer, one due to that fact that it is an uncommon occurrence and two that because it has next to no effect it wasn't worth the effort. Has that answered your question."

Hammond looked at her for a second before replying, "I believe it has. Thank you." She felt herself nod as Jolinar gave her control back.

She looked back up at the three of them. "So what do you make of that?" She asked them.

"Well from what Jolinar said, what the Prometheus encountered was a natural phenomenon, and one that isn't a danger to us. So for the time being we aren't going to do anything about it other than record it, put it on file and see if any other similar incidents like this happen again." He stood up from his chair. "You are all dissmissed."

She gave a quick salute which he returned before turning and heading back out of the room. She gave the MP outside a quick nod before starting the journey to her lab, which was overdue in her opinion. And there was something she wanted to ask Jolinar about on her way. So what where you not mentioning to Hammond, and don't try to deny it. While you were telling him the truth it wasn't the whole truth was it.

True enough, but what was left out is a lot less important than you seem to think.

I'll be the judge of that.

I was onboard a Ha'tak when we encountered one of these phenomenon. The experience was unsettling at the time, though I does allow me to attest to the fact that even though it was unsettling no actual damage was incurred.

I see, though it may have been important, it isn't important enough to go back and inform them. Though next time if you have direct experience with something they may like to know about it.

I will keep that in mind.

Now, I have some work that needs taken care of, hopefully I can get it all done before the Blitz gets here and I'm stuck working on that.

Very, well. I still will never understand your kind's attachment to writing everything down several times.

I don't fully understand it myself. Her only reply was a short laugh. Opening she was dismayed but not surprised to see the amount of paperwork that had accumulated on her desk during her short vacation. Taking a seat behind her desk she began to leaf through it, stopping only to go out to collect some nourishment.

Firing Range

McKay was rather pleased with himself as a one-fifty-two cannon was mounted on a series of braces for a demonstration of a weapon built by him. At almost five meters long it was the largest non fixed emplacement or ship cannon ever used by the SGC or the Stargate Program. Opposite of it was a reproduction of an Al'keshs front hull, complete with a series of shield emitters with the generator itself being out of the line of fire. And behind that was a second set of shield emitters in front of a two dozen meter thick concrete wall forming the rear of the firing range.

It appeared some people doubted his word on what this cannon could do, well today he would prove the naysayers wrong. He was really looking forwards to that part. Truthfully he expected to put another round into the concrete wall to join the dozens of other that had been put there over the years. There had even been an unofficial contest a while back to see who could punch the most holes in the wall. But that had been shut down when the brass decided they didn't like fixing the wall every week.

It had been fun while it lasted.

The test was beginning now, from inside the control area that was protected by a half wall of steel and an energy shield powered from the base. While it may not protect them from a concentrated blast of some of the weapons tested here it would protect them from any misfires or back fires that occurred.

"All shields are on. Weapon ready." One of the techs called out. "Firing in three.. two.. one.. Firing." There was a flash of light from the muzzle of the cannon followed an instant later by the shield around the Al'kesh lighting up for a brief second.

One of the scientists who had come to watch turned to him. "Well, that was certainly visually impressive but I don't think you managed to 'take out the Al'kesh in a single shot' like you claimed."

The tech who had done the countdown turned to the two of them. "Actually the rear wall shield had a massive power drain on it shortly after firing the cannon." He let his best smug smile appear on his face, oh did it feel good to be right. The look of sheer disbelief on the other scientists face was well worth it as well. Who needed the likes of Carter and Ny when you had McKay.

"I believe it's time to go inspect the Al'kesh itself, seeing is believing after all." After receiving the all clear from the tech, he lead the group of scientists out towards the Al'kesh. Aproaching it from a distance it looked fine. But as the group got closer it became easier to see the hole that had been punched into the front hull of the mock up. And if the tech had been telling the truth punched clean through to the back of the mockup and out the other side. A pity he hadn't been able to punch through the rear wall shield as well, that would have been some nice bragging material.

The shield around the Al'kesh had been shut off allowing the scientists to get up close and see the hole itself, several went around to the back to find the exit hole as well. Well the shot itself probably wouldn't bring down an Al'kesh on the first shot, it would however do some serious damage to the internal systems. Which might bring it down, but at the very least it would leave it vulnerable to a second shot, or other weapons.

Either way he mused it was currently the only weapon capable of penetrating any sort of shielded unit in a single hit, while still being man portable. Or in this case IS portable. Now if he could only build a weapon that could one shot a Ha'tak he would never have anyone doubt his superiority again.

Ba'als Palace, Renvar

Ba'al looked over the holographic projection of the galaxy with the various domains of the system lords shown. Recent events had changed the map from what it had been a few months ago. What truly annoyed him was that he had very little to do with those changes, instead it had been Anubis taking Sokar's territory, Heru'ur going after Moloc and a dozen other minor conflicts which had truly changed where the power lay in the galaxy.

He supposed he should just be thankful that he had yet to lose territory over the course of this war, a not unimpressive achievment. But even so he wanted to win this war not merely survive it.

He had half expected for Anubis to come after him while he was focused on Sheng'li, instead the Anubis had gone after Sokar and nearly eliminated him. Which had highlighted how outclassed his forces were by those of Anubis. And even with several examples of Kull armour to work with he still had no way of reproducing it or countering it.

Nerus had been working on it around the clock to the point where the fat Goa'uld was actually starting to lose weight, something Ba'al had never thought possible. Still progress had been slow and all they had to show for it was a few cobbled together repeating plasma weapons. Nothing that would truly change the galactic situation, right away at least. He had already come up with several ways to employ this new technology if it could scale. The thought of a single Ha'tak cabable of simply overwhelming it's opponents in a torrent of plasma shots filled him with joy and dread. He would have to be the first and only one to use such Ha'tak, anything less and he may as well resign from his position as system lord.

While that project was progressing slowly at least it was progressing, his other project was currently going nowhere. The biggest problem he was having was trying to either get enough power to use the shields weapons and still be able to move. Or the inverse of trying to make one that was powered small enough to be transported to a planets surface, either by Chappa'ai or by being landed in. a.. ship...

Why did the ship have to land in the first place... Why couldn't he simply drop them from orbit, or high altitude. It was already going to have a shield so why not make the engines stronger so it could do reentry by itself, it's not like it needed to come back up by itself. Though that still left the issue of recovery, though that was of secondary concern right now.

Dismissing the galactic map he summoned up his current notes on his project. He began by selecting one of the larger designs he had been working on, at least for a prototype it would be the easiest to work with. He started by increasing the size of the engine, then he began to refine the design from there. Some room for repeater cannons there and there, smoothing out the bottom for better reentry performance. And while he was at it he added enough space for twenty Jaffa warriors to ride down with it alongside the crew to operate it.

After several minutes of fiddling with the design he came to a design he believed would be ideal, or at least a good proof of concept design. And given how much production he had gained through his reforms, he would be able to churn out at least of few prototypes. Six emplacements for weapons, one in front with two on each side and one on the top. Space for the dozen or so Jaffa to crew it along with up to twenty or so others inside at the same time. And he even had the perfect Jaffa in mind to try them out. Today marked the beginning of his ascent to supreme system lord of the Goa'uld, the others would never expect this.

A cynical point of his mind pointed out that no one had expected the Kull either, and they hadn't exactly won the war for Anubis. He pointed out to that part of his mind that he had a much larger fleet than Anubis to take advantage of his new creation.

And thus the Land Al'kesh was born.

Now he just needed some weapons from Nerus and to figure out how to recover them and he would be all set. He idilly wondered how the Tau'ri would react to his new machine, most likely with fear, and that was how he liked it.