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The Sith Lord stretched his shoulder out. "Blood's alive, you shouldn't complain."
"I thought we talked about your maiming people."
Blood was alive, which was honestly more than Batman should have expected. The Sith Lord had pinched nerve in back that was still hurting, which honestly was to be expected given the fifty storey fall... or possibly that bridge. "Have you gotten him to at least stop babbling on about..." Well whoever his dark master was. Trigon was enough to warrant rather erratic reaction from Raven, which was concerning in itself.
"Trigon? Yes he seemed to be trying to provoke a reaction." Batman replied, acknowledging the change in subject, and moving on seemlessly. "I'd say he succeeded in part. It may however be a partial lead on to why there was a falling out between the supervillians." Bruce had expected a conflict with Apokolips, but even now they were engaged in a lengthy civil war, and that was really to Earth's advantage. The Thanagarians were out there... at war with the Gordanians so they were both potential issues... Trigon hadn't been on his list of likely threats though. It was the kind of dark magic that Bruce hadn't expected, and one that might truly tax the leagues magic users to research in order to combat. "I have apprised the league and we will take steps, in the mean time we believe that Black Manta did penetrate the buried Gordanian ship."
"The more pressing question is whether he found anything." It was a pity that Starfire's technical expertise was lacking, but that was where Shayera came in thankfully. It would however take time to go over any ship... never mind one that happened to be under the sea. "Do we know if Blood happens to assume that Manta acquired anything useful from the ship?" Coercing Blood wasn't an option. The man's mind was like a well provisioned fortress, any mental assault Kratos might have been able to mount very likely would have killed the supervillian or at the very least probably caused permament brain damage. Likewise physical torture was right out... which left social coercion... on a supervillian and Kratos wasn't going to hold his breath. "Do we know how closely connected these things are?"
Sebastian Blood could be managing any number of things at one time. This new information could be utterly banal to the current issue, or pointedly germane to things. This Galaxy was alien to Kratos the dealings of ancient spacefaring people in this galaxy was beyond the schope of his education... and that presented issues. "No, but we'll press Blood for what ever answers we can before turning him over to Waller." The way the League handled things it was likely that Blood would manage to escape. They, the criminals, would inevitably escape, get broken out, or sprung by some legal technicality. There just weren't prisons really capable of holding people past a certain skill level for long periods of time. It was baffling this prohibition on just finishing things, but every now and again some threat would wander along and everyone would get together and save the planet... so maybe it was more about resources for some future rainy day than anything.
"And if he gives up nothing?"
"He's going to Waller, but I wouldn't be suprised if even Strange can get Blood to talk." Batman declared, "We need to cut Ra's off before he can get any further, now that we have Blood in custody he may be able to move more freely without the competition." If they had managed to detain Ra's it would have been better a while Blood could be discrete Ra' al Ghul had discretion to an art form when the mood suited him. "We must prevent him from getting any further along and that means identifying whatever his plan is."
If only mapping the Sahara was quite so easy as it sounded. "Ten thousand years of desert sand is not a waltz," He replied, "The composition analysis is working, but there doesn't appear to be any immediate excavation or other work sites as of yet." That would have made things too easy, and well Ra's when he made his move would probably be hoping to be able to repair everything in one go. "It would help if there were additional seismic sensors in the region to be honest."
"That might be something we can handle," Amanda Waller declared from the doorway, "Bruce I'm sure you've already met Galatea, given the situation I thought the city could do with a bolstering of strength given things."
Galatea... supergirl's clone... if there weren't issues already with the Ultimen this was one more problem waiting... and there was an issue with age to consider with regards to the Titans as well... as far as the League and the Titans were concerned at least.
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Over the course of operations at Stargate Command there had been hundreds of worlds visitted by the some two dozen operational stargate teams. It was true though that most the teams were primary explorers, and it would never be that way. It was still described as the war against the Goa'uld, or the War against Anubis, but few newer members saw it as this. The influx of new blood were not innundated by the conditions of the early years.
It bothered Jack in a way he couldn't describe, but it was beyond helping. When the Stargate program had been reopened under Hammond there had been evacuation plans in the event of an attack... fallback points. It had been an infantile plan, and one they should have known to be wholly insufficent given industry and such. There were too many bottlenecks to deal with, and most of all the issue of keeping the stargate quiet.
Surface ships, despite some rather outlandish claims but futurists, were in fact going to stick around... the were too cost effective logistically for a variety of reasons, and there was too much political capital invested to ditch them overnight. It was also true that you couldn't magic a fleet of ships up over night.
Jack fingered his old SG-1 Patch. That was the other thing that had changed. New patches, not for the teams, but for the larger Stargate Command. NATO, and well technically the UNSC, had formed the first skeletons of an Earth Defense Advisory Command, and Extra Solar Defense. There in lay the problem, because the UN wasn't really involved. It was the five permanent members, and their respective allies, and that was already causing problems.
The moonbase, and the inevitable Mars base, weren't involving the UNGA, but had Russian and USAF people instead. As for Stargate Command, well the SGC was a US facility, but there were now significantly more foreign personel on loan. The NATO people were easier to explain than having Russian VDV traipsing around on weekend passes in Colorado Springs. "So Chekov how long do you think we have?"
"For the Stargate or for our ships?"
"till we have to spill the beans on the gate?" O'neill grunted, "How long do you think until the cat gets let out of the bag?"
Chekov seemed to pause to consider the prospect, "We must consider with our numbers being what they are," Hammond had commanded the SGC with the rank of Major General during his tenure, and right now the SGC was by no means a division sized command even with the influx of personel from allied countries. Then of course there were the regulars at NORAD to consider as well. It was that that truthfully but them at size. "For now we at least have the excuse, that in every attack that touches Earth's soil the aliens have hit certain facilities. We are just reinforcing things officially at least... how long will that hold? I could not say general, maybe the charade will be over by christmas?"
"IF we're that lucky you need to buy a lottery ticket." O'neill snorted. Until they could admit that NORAD was apart of this new 'Earth Defense' the funding spickets would remain tight,and even then the SGC would be hard pressed to get more funding until it could start foisting things back from offworld. That was the new SGC mandate. "We'll be pinching pennies until then." Most of the unlabelled funds were now going to ships... or rather the hulls of ships to be. The navy was getting one of the 'carriers', which was why they even had the funding enough in the first place though so there was at least some silver lining in the clouds.
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When the Clone Wars had 'ended', officially at least, there had been a lull for about a year, as people wondered what was next. What had followed the Subjugation conflicts in the post Clone Wars era, and dealing with the aftermath of the destruction of the Jedi Order had in many ways demonstrated in hindsight how the Rebellion would play out in many ways. It wasn't identical, and what was coming wasn't likely to be identical either. The Rebel Alliance was effectively defunct now, but really all that did was given the various sector moffs a swelled head... no doubt even beyond what their egos had been before hand. There was no helping it though.
If things got out of hand Kratos knew he'd be expected to return, and it wouldn't be an unreasonable expectation. "Its important to remember that this isn't our Galaxy, Admiral." He reminded. Far from Imperial power were they, and that tremendously limitted their ability to act. "The situation with these goa'uld is unfortunate but outside of our purview." It was annoying enough having to deal with the Earth... Kuat's various noble houses at least played on a galactic scale... there was nothing on the galactic scale here except the fighting. "We cannot commit to this fight."
The logistical hurdle would be too great to do much at this stage but defend their chain of outposts, and monitoring facilities. "There are not sufficent ships to fight."
"Or fighters to provide screens either." The Goa'uld relied on a rather modest corvette called an alkesh to carry out bombing raids. They were ineffectual for the most part, but a Ha'tak could carry several of them along with scores of the goa'uld fighter, and thus it was better to err on the side of caution at this stage. "We are not at War with the Goa'uld, and we should hope to avoid open conflict for the time being." There would be no cause for objection if ships built by the Star Forge were deployed to this galaxy for 'shake down' cruises, the problem was not the hulls themselves, but the manpower required to crew them. It was there that the larger issue lay. "It will not change any time soon, we have insufficent regiments available to deploy in any campaign, and too much to do back home." Every time they returned, rotated back home, there was logistical work, and deployments to be managed. The vast size of the Harrow allowed it allow Kratos's people to manage the responsibilities of command and control for the fleet. It was Harrow's command deck that allowed Kratos to evaluate the effectiveness of designs, and how best to employ them, but there was always a need for real combt. "The strike cruisers are inordinately useful, both here and at home as patrol, and pickets." Loronar would be delighted, but the Emperor remained inistent on the role of the Super Star Destroyer, and the lower admiralty insisted vehemetly that they needed more Imperial-class star destroyers and that complicated things. "We remain locked in this foul competition over resources, Daala." That was the truth, the vast size of the Super Star Destroyers required for each ship a commitment of resources from the Imperial Navy, and that was one thing, but smaller ships did not command the respect an SSD did. Being posted even temporarily to an SSD looked good on a record there was never a shortage of personel for those normal lists. "Kuat continues to produce SSD, and Battlecruisers, despite the need for more patrol vessels in particular." The reasoning was obvious of course... command and control over battlegroups, and prestige... probably more of the latter to be honest.
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There were bodies strewn everywhere. The only time Hermione had ever seen so many people was in visiting London... muggle London... except these ones were all dead laying discarded at all angles across the ground. There was fire everywhere, and broken buildings... shattered by artillery, and attacks by strafing aircraft. There were still people fighting though; street to street.
Previous memories had established that the long era of peace had weakened severly both Jedi, and Sith... once long ago the Jedi Knights had command much wider magical abilities. Now they were a shadow of themselves, their grasp on magic having weakened seemingly over the centuries... and yet not a sign of wands. Bill had noticed that, but for what they did, what Harry and others called weakness was not what wizards on earth might call it. Sith, and Jedi alike didn't use wands it seemed, but they also didn't bother with complex transfiguration either. There was an abundance of direct effects, or occasionally various illusion charms, but very rarely did they bother with transfiguration. It was curious.
Dumbledore watched pensively, quietly observing the battle. He had noticed the lack of complex transfiguration a well, after all he was a master of the subject, and had taught it at Hogwarts for years. Transfiguration was a decidely complicated area of study that required exceptional control to use effectively. "Without a wand I imagine trying to use transfiguration would be very difficult never mind attempting it in a pitched fight." Harry had made effort, in other memories,, to reconfigure things into a useable state or anything coherent rather than simply breaking them, but in the midst of this charnel house that was enough. The glowing dome over the city was forcing the countless, probably muggle, soldiers to fight to street to street.
For the wizarding world who had no real military to speak of having largely cut themselves off, or at least begun the progress, about the time of the protestant reformation this kind of scene was beyond an English wizards experiences. Hermione had seen footage on the television, but only Dumbledore had seen anything quite like it in person. It wasn't the same though. When he had been a younger man... before Gellert had fallen to the dark side, and before the latter's defeat, the Great War had been a meat grinder for divisions of muggles to be fed into. The second world war was like that, but more like this as well. There were easily several thouand men here bodies strewn, a mix of white plate armor, and anassortment of others, but there were beastmen dead, and walking metal things who had also been blown to pieces.
The city's district was a sprawl of buildings, and roadways, with even the smallest of the vast towers dwarfing anything in London... or rather would have if any were still upright. Smoke trailed from them, as flying machines evaded hostile fire from ground and air alike... or didn't and went crashing into the structures. Still men continued to pull themselves over the debris and attack. It was madness as hundreds threw themselves over the top long black rifles clutched tightly.
"General." Harry remarked to the Jedi.
"We are taking severe losses, but we have breached their defenses."
"They are of Mandalorian stock," He replied, "and the Kaminoans didn't teach them to fear death, just to not sell their lives cheaply."
"Even so can we really sustain these losses?"
He looked noncommittal, before speaking up, "That is a difficult question to answer. The damage inflicted to man and material will slow the advance against the separatists." He paused as another wave of artillery, followed by counterbattery, crashed around the battlefield, "We can endure those losses for the forseeable future, but then so can they. It is much easier though for them to simply build new droids."
"What of General Grievous..."
"And his magna Guard?" The Jedi, and Sith watched the battle even as the question floated in the air amongst the carnage ongoing, "There are too few of them to affect our strategic calculus, but we should be glad that they are not present." A white armored soldier approached, "Trooper?"
"Admiral separatist reinforcements are approaching from light speed."
Harry nodded, "General good luck."
"May the force be with you."
"And with you." There was a brief exchange of salutes all around, and Harry departed the battlefield his memory following up to massive starship in orbit, with its fellows flanking it. The war amongst the stars played out...
It however raised the rather frequent question about whether the ships in the desert where disks, or wedge shaped... and what if any significance that held.
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Incomplete rewrite