Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Stargate SG1.
Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted in a while. I'm back at school, freshman year, and I don't have that much time for writing. That and my computer went on the fritz the other week and I had to use my dad's computer to do anything. Anyway, this chapter is more of a filler chapter because of its role. When I said there was going to be a war I meant WAR! Think back to the American Campaign against Voldemort. That's the kind of stuff that you'll soon see in the coming chapters and it'll be believable. I've put a lot of thought into it and have wanted to do it forever.
There won't be much more Earth scenes left for a while. It'll all be Harry and the Hoplites (you'll learn why they're called that soon; if you watched First Contact you'll probably already know) for a couple months. At last, let's get on to the story.
October 7, 1999
"Team two's in position."
"Team three; we're in position too."
"Give me a sec… Yeah, I'm there."
"All teams in position, beginning countdown; ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, now." An explosion rippled across the still night air as the bridge of the landed Hatak exploded from the outside in. Four Jaffa swarmed the room moments later, Staffs open and ready to fire. They split apart slightly, scanning the blackened room as more Jaffa from further down the hall entered. Four figures dropped down in front of the large opening the explosion has made, floating in midair. The air hummed as bullets streaked into the room, slaughtering the Jaffa before they could react.
"Team two, objective complete," one of the four men radioed as they cut the ropes holding them to the ship and dropped into the ruined bridge. Elsewhere in the ship a ring platform activated, depositing a two-by-two block of C4 in a room crowded with Jaffa about to ring out. The resulting explosion blacked the room in soot. The rings activated again, this time bringing four men into the room. The team of humans moved quickly and silently out of the ruined room and into the corridor beyond. A patrol of Jaffa rushed down the corridor, coming to see the cause of the explosion. Bullets streamed out from the infiltration team, slaughtering the foot soldiers before they had a chance to respond. The humans continued on, stopping at a small alcove that held the entrance to the Engine room. They entered with no difficulty, taking one of the most coveted areas of the ship unharmed.
"Team three here, we've taken the objective," the team leader hissed into his radio as he watched a patrol rush by. The rest of the team started setting up C4 charges on each column of the Engine room.
This transmission set another phase into motion. In an unused lab keys started to be pressed with no user in sight. The screen beyond the console flashed to life, showing the process of Gigabytes of information being downloaded into a small crystal. The stealth infiltrator steadied his breath, excited from his first operation. "Jaffa, Cree." The infiltrator tensed as two Jaffa guards entered the room. He backed off slowly as they began to study the console. Seconds later two loud cracks resonated in the room and the bodies fell to the floor. The download completed and the infiltrator pulled the crystal from the console. He tucked it into his pocket and grabbed the radio.
"I'm finished," he said quickly, turning and moving quickly from the room, careful not to make any noise.
A kilometer away the Stargate activated as a platoon of Jaffa guarding a single woman rushed towards it. Coming into the clearing the soldiers believed they were home free. Their assessment proved to be false as a ring of explosions dropped the outer guard to the ground. The Jaffa started shooting wildly into the dark forests around them, desperate to hit their attackers. Bullets returned, unheeded by the Staff blasts. A small green ball dropped into the Jaffa formation and promptly exploded. Cries of the wounded rang in the woods as the attackers moved into the clearing, leaving their cover behind. One man approached the mutilated body of the woman, stared into her glowing eyes.
"You will pay dearly for this," the woman promised. "You will die!"
"I'm afraid you've got that backwards," the man said cheekily. "From here it looks like you're the one that's gonna die. Night, night," he said smiling as he fired his rifle twice into her head. Blood splattered on the ground, invisible in the dark night. The man keyed his radio. "Command, the mission's complete. Now, how about we all get the hell out of here?" Minutes later white flashes covered the landscape leaving nothing behind but crisped craters and bloody bodies. (I like alliteration.)
October 7, 1999
The soft melody of an orchestral performance drifted through the air of the officer's lounge on the third deck of the Einherjar. Each deck had such a room where Team Leaders or Platoon Leaders could relax and get away from their men for a while. The room was lavishly decorated with various tables, chairs, couches and had a small kitchen in the corner where small meals could be created by the automated machines there. While it seemed generous the room paled in comparison to the Enlisted Men's lounges, of which there was also one on each deck. Colonel Potter didn't make any reservations for officers. The Enlisted men actually had better places to relax than officers, but this was mainly due to the large difference in numbers between the two. More people meant better goodies. Of course Harry's generosity in this regard, among many others, drew unwavering loyalty from the soldiers he commanded. Many of them lived better on the Einherjar than they did in their homes on whatever planet they came from.
Regardless, the officers enjoyed their lounges all the same, as shown by Kane Tenant, the leader of the Team sent to assassinate one of Baal's minor Goa'uld overseers. The man had dark brown hair speckled with bits of gray, showing his age of almost forty-seven. His obvious build and the way he carried himself hinted at his former profession before joining in Potter's crusade. Kane had been the leader of a band of mercenaries for several years before. One mission they'd been given turned out bad with their employer turning on them. Only Kane had come out alive. It was part of the reason Harry had chosen him as a Platoon Leader (the original SG-13 Team chose each Platoon Leader based on the skills they possessed in training). The man had experience both as a soldier and as a leader. He knew what men would want and, with his past, would likely never put his men in an unnecessarily risky situation.
Harry's perception of the man proved to be correct. Kane thought of his men as the family he'd always wanted but had never been able to keep. His family had been killed when he was a child and his one-time wife had been on the receiving end of a Staff Weapon for voicing her dissent against the Goa'uld. He cherished the people that served under him. He didn't have anyone else.
Kane sat in the Officer's Lounge on deck three, alone, listening to the soft melody, drinking from a glass of liquor in his hand. He and his Team had just returned from their mission on one of Baal's outlying planets. The mission had gone off perfectly. No one had been lost or even injured and the objective had been completed. The Goa'uld target had been killed and the Hatak that had been on the planet was crippled. They could have simply bombed the site from orbit but Harry's plan didn't call for outright destruction. It called for the destruction of the Goa'uld, not the Jaffa and an orbital bombardment would have killed over ten thousand Jaffa and human slaves, who had been working in the Naquadah Mines under the planet's surface. By crippling the Hatak Baal would have to commit resources to repair it or risk having a severely weakened ship in his fleet. They'd even managed to download a significant amount of data regarding Baal's fleet movements and other information. All around the mission was a perfect success and the Platoon had been given a commendation by the Colonel himself.
The door hissed open, revealing the Colonel himself dressed in his black SG-Elite uniform. Kane nearly spilt his scotch all over himself as he stood quickly to render a salute. Harry sighed and rubbed his eyelids. "Lieutenant, I'm fairly sure that I decreed that any military formalities would be optional. Why are you still saluting me when I walk into the room?"
"Colonel, you're the commanding officer," Kane replied, dropping his salute. "It's a standard formality for any soldier to do when facing his superior."
"You've watched Platoon one-too-many times, Tenant," Harry chided as he walked over the couch and sat down.
"So sir, what's your reason for coming down here?" Tenant asked, retaking his seat. "It isn't like you to come down to soldier country for no reason at all."
"You've known me for four months; how could you know any of my habits?" When he received no answer Harry continued. "Fine; it turns out that that crystal you got us had a lot more than just fleet movements and Naquadah shipments. Apparently Baal has stumbled onto one of Moros's secret planets that he created almost ten thousand years ago. The planet is completely out of phase from the rest of the universe and inaccessible by ship."
"How do you know that?" Kane wondered, unknowing of Harry's Ancient Data Crystal, had that been the answer.
"Because, we're where the planet should be and there isn't anything here but a bit of empty space," Harry replied smiling. His smile faded as he trudged on. "Baal sent a Black Ops team to the planet to scope it out. It seems that they have a level of technology similar to Earth's, if a few years more advanced. It's about the same size too. Anyway it seems that the planet has relics of Ancient Technology that Moros hid there, which they basically think of as museum items. He's planning to send a battalion of Jaffa there to take control of the planet, maybe more depending on the level of resistance."
"Even a couple of Battalions couldn't seriously stand up to two of our Companies," Kane thought out loud, leaning back against his plush chair. "If we go to the planet and take out the Stargate then they'll never have to worry about the Goa'uld again." He leaned back forward. "Let me guess; this is where we run into the first problem otherwise you wouldn't be telling a Lieutenant about all of this."
"Baal's team made contact with the leaders of the country the Stargate is located in," Harry continued. "It seems that a Socialist Party controls it and just so happens to hate several neighboring countries for their high economic status. They've been building their military for an attack against their neighbors for years. Baal's offered them military support in return for their cooperation regarding the Ancient Outposts and technologies on their planet. He'll have the backing of an entire military to take whatever he wants from them. Given their intentions I bet they'll accept too."
"The more I hear the more I feel you ruined my relaxation," Kane replied dejectedly. "What are we going to do about it?"
"Baal's ally controls the Stargate on the planet," Harry explained, leaning forward for emphasis. "For the moment there's nothing we can do about that. My plan at the moment is to go in a Gateship and try and secure and Alliance with the other nations. If we have a military backing us as well we should be able to counter Baal's aggressions and hopefully keep Ancient technology out of his hands. Without ships Goa'uld military might isn't much more powerful than a human nation."
"So we'll use Gateships to deposit our soldiers and fight with these nations we've never even met before," Kane summarized, taking a hard drink from his glass. "What do you want me for? Why the hell did you even tell me any of this?"
"Your platoon is going to be outfitted our new 'Hoplite' system and you're going to be in the first wave we send, if all goes according to plan."
"I'm not sure if I should be proud or depressed," Kane replied honestly. "When do we leave?"
Harry opened his mouth to speak when he was cut off by his radio. "Colonel are you there?" Harry replied affirmatively. "I've got bad news. Baal's war has started."
(End Chapter)
Well, what do you think? I wrote this in two hours and nineteen minutes and I'm pretty proud of it. Again I'm sorry that I haven't updated in a while but I haven't had a lot of time on my hands… Ah screw it; I've had tons of time on my hands I just refused to write anything simply because I was too bored to do it. You know the feeling and I know you do. Anywho as I said the war has started and it isn't going to be anything like what you expected. Tanks, fighters, attackers, infantry, Staff Weapons, AGR-1s helicopters, Gateships, et cetera. Those are all things that you can expect to see in the coming campaign.
I'm going to be doing something somewhat new. I won't be focusing on Harry and SG-13 so much. Rather I'll be focusing on the war from Kane Tenant's perspective, along with his platoon. Harry will operate more as a commander and a pilot since those are the things that he's best at. The war will be seen from the dirty, gritty realistic perspective of the grunts on the ground. Granted I have no idea what actual war is like but I'll do the best I can to make it seem realistic. Now, it is 12:19 AM where I am right now so I am going to sign off and bid you all a happy good night.
Later,
Atrum