Disclaimer: I own zilch
The name 'Tok'Kal' is the name on the wiki for those Goa'uld stun grenades, though it was only used as a name in later material than the shows themselves.
As I've said before, Fight Scenes aren't really my thing - and so I did my best. With the Jaffa's tactics here, let's not forget how stupid the Jaffa can be most of the time in Stargate SG-1, when it comes to charging in and uttterly failing to use tactics. Even the Rebel Jaffa take a while to fight smart.
Once in a while the SGC does run up against Jaffa with some tactical skill, but it isn't particularly common. I will try and bring some of those into the story at some point - but these guys aren't exactly the elite of Heru'ur's forces.
The Wiki says that Goa'uld Hyperdrives go at 32,000 times the speed of light - in theory, that means they can go 32,000 light years in one year. This fits with various observed data - such as Apophis needing a staging area distinct from his main worlds to attack Earth, and the attack happening from the same world regardless of whether or not SG-1 went to Chulak. The implication I take from all that is that Apophis may have been planning to attack Earth as early as the death of Ra, sending his ships to that staging world well in advance of anything else, then he gated onto the ships at the appropriate time.
Wikipedia says the Milky Way is anywhere between 100,000 to 200,000 light years in diameter (or more), depending on what counts as "part of the Milky Way galaxy". I'm going with a lower estimate that sits just above 100,000, give or take, since that fits the needs of the story better, long term. That means it would take a bit more than three years for a Goa'uld ship to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other. Obviously, I'm taking various amounts of artistic license with reality here, but given that Stargate-verse and Fallout-verse both bend the laws of reality into pretzels, I'm in good company, no?
Wasteland Gate
By Kylia
Chapter 6: In Over Our Heads
Unknown Planet D Plus 8, Project Blue Book Rediscovery
Underground Heru'ur Base
The bright light of the rings faded and left the seven of them standing in an empty room. Victoria furrowed her brow and looked around, holstering her pistol as she realized there was no one waiting to attack us.
"Nobody home?" Sheppard asked, looking around. "This is a natural chokepoint..." Victoria nodded in agreement. It had been the only way down, but she'd have expected more of Heru'ur's goons to be waiting for them.
Caesar and Lanius would have had people waiting here. And Lanius's tactical instincts were 'throw people at the problem until they all died or the problem went away'
Okay, now you're just being unfair to the big idiot. He had a little more sophistication than that.
"The tide of reinforcements to the surface ended," Teal'c said, looking around as well. The room was plain, the walls unadorned, save for a panel on one wall and a door leading outwards on another. "Any Jaffa that remain will be guarding the central chambers."
"Why not face us here, to stop us from getting in in the first place?" Victoria stepped closer to the door, looking for some sort of opening mechanism - it had no handle - when it slid open, the two pieces sliding apart into the doorframe and presumably the wall - at her approach.
"If control of the rings on the surface has been lost, there is nothing to stop the deployment of explosives via the rings," Teal'c explained. "Or a Tok'kal, in most cases."
"Tok'kal?"
"A grenade-like device that renders any near it unconscious within moments with bright light and sound. All who fall victim to it are temporarily blind for an hour, at minimum," Teal'c explained.
"Neat," Victoria could see all sorts of fun uses of those. There were pre-war stun grenades, but they were never particularly reliable in Victoria's experience. "You wouldn't happen to have any on you, would you?" If these were reliable, and fast...
"I do not. Apophis did not desire any prisoners - he wanted all of Heru'ur's Jaffa here slain as punishment for their attacks on him forces," Teal'c explained. "But there may be some here."
"Point one out if you see one," Victoria said, and she stepped out into the hallway, not seeing any Jaffa waiting for them. The door was nestled into a corner and the Hallway branched off in two directions - straight ahead, and off to the left.
The walls appeared to be made of gold, and they were covered in symbols - at a distance, they seemed as much like shapes and squiggles, but after when she stepped closer, they proved to be more regular, repeating, in patterns that did not seem random. They reminded her of the pictographs of tribals - but they seemed too regularized even for that.
"This writing?" She asked, stepping away and jerking her thumb at the symbols. Teal'c nodded. "What does it say?" And how hard will it be for me to learn it?
"Prayers to the Glory of Heru'ur," Teal'c said after a moment, looking over the walls. "Most structures of the Goa'uld are lined with such writings, praising the god that reigns there."
"Charming people, these Goa'uld." Even Caesar hadn't been quite that egotistical.
"More important question - is it real gold?" Sheppard asked. That is a good question. Gold was still oddly valuable in the Wasteland, in the right quarters, anyway, as her haul of just three gold bars from the Sierra Madre had proven. Still wish I could have nabbed them all.
"Unlikely," Teal'c replied. "Were this a palace of a System Lord, it might be, but here, it is more likely to simply appear as gold." Victoria watched Sheppard poke the wall with his knife a few times.
Veronica, who hadn't really been paying attention to any of the conversation just now, looked up from the staff-weapon-thing in her hand, "These weapons - do they ever run out?"
"Eventually, yes, the liquid naquadah runs out, but it takes many years, in most cases," Teal'c explained.
"Naquadah - that's the stuff the Stargate is made out of." Veronica mused.
"It is the heart of most Goa'uld magic - it powers almost all that they use."
"And I assume it's not just something you find lying around anywhere?"
Teal'c shook his head, "Worlds with Naquadah mines are among the most prized territories of any System Lord, and the most prized holdings for any underlord to rule on behalf of their master. When a world runs dry, the goa'uld abandon it, and leave the people behind to fend for themselves."
"So very godly of them," Victoria murmured. "And there really are just a few Jaffa who question their divinity?"
"Jaffa are raised from birth to see the Goa'uld as gods," Teal'c replied. From someone else, the words might have been defensive, but Teal'c's tone was nearly impossible to read, he spoke without much inflection, a lot of the time, though it would be wrong to call it 'robotic'. "And the Goa'uld are skilled manipulators - at a distance. It is only after I served as one of Apophis's personal guard that I started to see firsthand his mortal failings, no matter how he tried to mask them."
After a moment, Victoria nodded. She could see that. It would fit with Caesar - the man had purged many of the earliest of his minions, people who had known him early on, and now ensured few of his followers ever got to see him but at a remove. She'd had his Mark and had been able to see him at will - and then shot him in the head like he'd deserved - but from what she'd overheard walking to his tent, few actually had audiences with Caesar outside his innermost circle - Vulpes Inculta, Lucius, Lanius, a handful of others.
Not that his inner circle hadn't seen him as the Son of Mars, but Caesar, for all his flaws, understood people surprisingly well - and he'd probably deliberately played the 'hide away behind guards and ceremony' card for the very reason that knowing him too well could destroy his carefully constructed facade.
But not as much as lead in his brain. Victoria mused again, and she couldn't help but smile a bit. Killing Caesar was never going to get old, as far as she was concerned.
But she only allowed herself to remember the pleasant memory of the sight of the bastard's dead body for a few moments before she shook her head and came back to now.
She looked at her Pip Boy, wondering if it was going to be of any use in mapping this place, but when she pulled up the mapping section of the device, all she got was interference, a fuzzy screen and 'Interference Error' flashing on it for a few moments.
"Fun," Victoria really had been letting herself get too reliant on this thing, especially for navigation. She looked over at Teal'c, "So what exactly where you looking for, when Apophis sent you here? Any high-value targets?"
"Any and all weapons and war making supplies - Apophis always needs more for his armies - as well as intelligence from Heru'ur's systems. We were to retrieve all the storage crystals from the computer systems here and deliver them to him."
"Good places to start," Victoria murmured. If they were going to make any use of this stargate to settle people on fresh worlds, or get resources or just... grow food, then they'd have to fight these Goa'uld, if they really were all over the galaxy as Teal'c seemed to imply. Or at least risk it.
Better to know the enemy. And of course, more supplies were always good. Weapons, tech, any interesting looking raw materials.
"Veronica and I will take point, Teal'c, you're right behind us. Arcade, you're with him." She looked over at Sheppard, "You're okay with watching our backs?"
Sheppard shrugged, "Hey, you want to get shot first, I'm not going to stand in your way." It didn't actually sound as blase as the words seemed - it just seemed to be Sheppard's apparently flippancy at work, based on everything he'd said thus far.
"It also means I get first claim on all the cool shit," Victoria countered, grinning, then she started down the hallway going straight, hoping this place wasn't too large. She didn't want to still be here if Apophis or Heru'ur sent reinforcements and they had to fight their way back to the Stargate. That did not sound fun, not even a little bit.
Veronica walked up beside her, a slight spring in her step that Victoria hadn't seen in a while. She wasn't quite grinning, but there was a hint of one in her eyes. She knew the former Scribe well enough to know when she was pleased, and she was very pleased indeed.
"What's got you so pleased all of a sudden?" Victoria asked quietly as they walked next to each other, eyes mostly forward as they headed down the hallway. It wasn't all that long before another turn to the right - the hallway so far had no doors, which struck her as odd, but she supposed in a pitched fight, a certain amount of 'empty space' was worthwhile, as it gave you ground to give.
"Just thinking about how envious the rest of the Brotherhood would be, if they knew what was to be had here. I mean, think about it? Plasma weapons that don't run out for years? Keeping the Brotherhood in energy and microfusion cells is always a chore - scavenging or buying ones from outside, recharging and recycling used ones, making a small trickle or new ones..." she shrugged, "And just - there's so much out here. Spaceships and reliable teleportation and those Tok'kal that Teal'c just mentioned - and I'm going to be the one to get to study it all." She laughed, "The Brotherhood was so afraid I'd share our secrets with outsiders they killed those Followers..." her tone lost her mirth almost as suddenly as it had appeared and she shook her head.
Then she laughed again, this time with a harsh, bitter, angry edge, "Now I don't even need their secrets. Everything the Brotherhood thinks they know is getting tossed out the window - and this time, I can actually use anything I learn to help people out there, in the wasteland."
She looked back at Teal'c for a moment, then added, "Help people out here, in the galaxy, if he's telling the truth. An entire galaxy of slaves..." She shook her head.
"So you vote for taking the fight to these Goa'uld?" Victoria voted that way too. "I mean, Earth isn't really equipped to fight aliens with spaceships that can blow things up from orbit." She had to assume that these Goa'uld could do that. At the very least that presumably could if they got closer.
Veronica shrugged, her tone serious and soft, "The people that fled Cheyenne Mountain could have stayed hidden on one world. Buried the Stargate there like the ancient people who did the first time here on Earth. But instead, they're using their technology and weapons for good, outnumbered and outgunned. I don't see why we shouldn't try to do the same."
"Good point," Victoria hadn't thought of it like that. She'd just understood the practical reality that if these goa'uld were a numerous force in the galaxy, then there was a risk of running into them anywhere they went.
Which left the choices as burying the Stargate again, forgetting it was there... or fighting the Goa'uld. And Victoria was a firm believer in taking the fight to the enemy, and decapitating their leadership.
The Legion didn't die when I killed Caesar - but when I killed Caesar, Lucius, Vulpes, Lanius and the rest, it shattered. The same apparently happened with the Goa'uld - Ra was killed, and his 'System Lords' fought amongst themselves and had for the last two hundred years.
So if we kill Apophis, Heru'ur and all the rest, one by one, then their minions will all fight each other. It was a lofty goal - she didn't even know where any of them were - but it seemed the best strategy.
"It won't be easy..." Victoria murmured.
"But it will be a hell of a lot of fun?" Veronica guessed her next words with a laugh, and Victoria grinned, putting a hand to her heart dramatically.
"Oh, you know me so well," she looked at the laughing scribe, and realized just how much she missed seeing the other woman smile or laugh - she'd done it but rarely when they'd first met, but she'd almost entirely stopped after her failed attempt to join the Followers.
At least she didn't smile in mirth or enjoyment. She'd had the occasional satisfied smile, like after Second Hoover Dam, or after they'd finally reached Cheyenne and found the Stargate.
"I forgot how... pretty your face gets when you smile,," Victoria said after a moment, then she realized what she said, that she'd said it aloud...
Shit.
And she'd said it in a flirtatious tone, not just a casual compliment.
Double shit.
Fuck fuck fuck. Now was definitely not the time to be ruining their friendship with her crush!
Veronica stared at her for a moment, as if stunned, and then she started to speak quickly, the words coming too fast to really hear, before before she could say more than a few moments, they heard the sound of something rolling across the ground towards them.
Victoria looked down, to the corner they were approaching, and the sight of a small, slightly larger than a grenade black ball rolling towards them.
Tok'kal.
She heard a small whine start to escape it, but before it could activate, Victoria once more brought up VATS and fired at the device, once, twice, three times, the heavy .44 caliber bullets cracking open the device and damaging it's internal circuitry,. Even still, the whine had gotten more high-pitched in those precious two seconds, and as the aftermath rang in her ears, Victoria felt numb, her whole body stuff and her ears felt like they might just be bleeding.
She doubled over, and she wasn't the only one, as she saw Veronica do the same
Next time, try kicking it. Or just do the smart thing and cover your ears and close your eyes.
The pain in her arm from yet another use of VATS so close to all the others left her arm throbbing, the numbness from the Tok'kal fading quickly to be replaced by ever nerve feeling like it as on fire. Victoria bit her lip, tasting blood, but she'd had to deal with this before - she could handle it-
Around the corner came three more Jaffa with the bird-tattoos, each one holding some sort of green-gray weapon shaped like one of the snake-parasite things, ready to strike. They fired - Victoria dove, tackling Veronica to the ground and the shot - looking like a bolt of electricity or lightning - going over her head, hitting Arcade - who let out a cry of pain and then dropped to the ground.
Victoria felt her breath catch and her heart pound in her throat at the sight of her friend dropping to the ground - but she couldn't afford to check on him, or worry -or worse - as one of Sheppard's men dropped to the ground as well.
Rolling off of Veronica, Victoria didn't use VATS this time to fire off another three shots from her .44 at one of the Jaffa, rolling again to avoid another electricity blast as she let go of her .44, pulled her police pistol from the Madre, moved it to her dominant hand and squeezed off another two shots, her arm still throbbing furiously, her ears still hurting, but she'd had worse, been through worse, and she had to keep going.
Sheppard and his other soldier were firing as well, though Victoria didn't turn to look at them as she aimed at the last one, who was falling back, trying to get around the corner - Victoria aimed for his leg and fired, but without VATS to guide her -
The aiming took just a second too long and he was around the corner, moving quickly.
Victoria was on her feet, racing after him, turning around the corner, but only long enough to see him run through an open door that closed behind him just ahead and on the left wall.
"Mierda," Victoria muttered, pulling up short, the pain in her ears finally starting to fade. She wasn't stupid or reckless enough to chase the Jaffa into the room alone, especially not with -
"Arcade!" She turned back, hurrying to the rest of the group, to see Sheppard crouched by the fallen form of his man and Veronica checking Arcade's pulse/
"He's alive - unconscious," Veronica said, standing back up. Victoria let out a breath, and she turned to Teal'c, raising an eyebrow.
Teal'c nodded, jerking his head towards the two fallen Jaffa and their snake-shaped weapons. "Zat'nik'tels," he named the items, "A less deadly weapon that the staff, with the first shot. It causes severe pain that drives the target into unconsciousness. A second shot in rapid succession will kill most targets."
"How much longer before Bosworth and this guy," sheppard stood as well, gesturing to Arcade, "wake up?"
"The length of time varies," Teal'c said unhelpfully, "Ten to twenty, perhaps, in some cases longer. Much shorter in others." Teal'c looked at the two, "enduring previous hits over many months or years will reduce the effectiveness."
"So you build up an immunity to it?"
"The pain becomes easier to handle," Teal'c clarified for Veronica, "The device truly does not cause unconsciousness - the Goa'uld designed it as an instrument of torture as much as one of capture."
"Charming," Victoria grumbled.
"What might make a second shot not kill?" Veronica asked, curiously. "You said 'most', but not all?"
Teal'c nodded, "I have heard tell of times when a second shot even immediately after the first does not kill. Unas, those wearing certain rare armors - predatory megafauna hunted by the Goa'uld for sport have been known to take more than two shots to kill. Or even more than one to render immobile or unconscious." Teal'c cleared his throat, and Victoria looked him over, wondering if this guy was used to talking this much.
If he secretly hates his boss and most of his fellow Jaffa don't.. He's probably used to keeping things close to the chest.
Victoria debated grabbing her canteen and offering it to Teal'c, but after a moment, rethought it. She'd either have to untie his hands - she wasn't ready for that - or just pour it down his throat. Somehow, she got the feeling he wouldn't be interested in such an undignified option just yet.
His comment about predatory megafauna suggested that a Deathclaw might take more than two shots to kill - still, even if it took three or four or five to take one down, it would be a huge improvement over the 'fuck if I know just keep shooting!' it took for one with any weapon she'd ever heard of.
On the other hand, I don't exactly want to find a deathclaw just to test it out.
She wasn't worried about another attack just yet - these Jaffa seemed to have the tactical instincts of Raiders once they'd been beaten back the first time - attack intermittently and in usually small groups, rather than really swam the enemy or go after them nonstop.
Can't assume that'll always be the case, though. She crouched, and carefully, in case the symbiotes inside the fallen Jaffa came out to play, grabbed the two Zat'nik'tels from the dead Jaffa, tossing one to Sheppard and handing the other to Veronica.
"Probably a good idea to have a ranged weapon against these guys, Veronica." The former scribe hesitated for a moment - she really wasn't that good with her aim, though she could hit the broad side of a shed - but then nodded. At least if she missed, friendly fire would be less harmful.
Sheppard caught the one thrown to him and raised an eyebrow. "No loot for you?"
"Major, we've got an entire base filled with bad guys to kill and loot. And hopefully an armory. I think the problem will be carrying it all back, not making sure there's enough for everyone." Chuckling, Sheppard nodded in agreement. "I don't want to stand around waiting here in the hall until Arcade and Bosworth wake up, but we can't leave them behind."
"Not the best place to wait, no," Sheppard agreed, drawing out the last word a bit, obviously wondering where she was going.
"I think You and I should head into that room, clear it out, while Teal'c, Veronica and Wells stay behind to watch Arcade and Bosworth," Victoria suggested. "Clear it, take Arcade and Bosworth in and wait until they recover."
Sheppard considered for a moment, then nodded. "Anymore of those - Tok'kal? - on those two?" Victoria checked the two bodies, then shook her head, "Nope. So I guess we just have to go in." She reloaded her police pistol and her .44, wondering what she was going to do in the future about this. She wasn't terrible with rifles - she was no Boone, or even close, but she wasn't bad with a sniper rifle, and she could use an assortment of others if need be, but the fact remained that she was much better with pistols than anything else.
And none with better stopping power than her .44. She had an emergency holdout gun - a silenced .22 - but she hadn't brought anything else.
Back at the Lucky 38 she had a whole assortment of rare weapons she'd found and not sold, but didn't carry around - a couple .45 auto pistols she'd gotten from Zion, some 12.7mm pistols, and an assortment of rifles and other weapons.
But Victoria had always preferred her revolvers. Which rather threatened to bite her in the ass now - the rate of reload was a little slow for most, though her police pistol took the preset things, making it a bit faster.
If I ever get back to New Vegas, I'm grabbing all my shit and taking it here. She had no reason not to, really. She didn't foresee herself moving away from Cheyenne - from the Stargate - any time soon, if she could help it.
Hell, maybe I'll settle in on some nice little planet somewhere, build a house, have a farm. Retire.
The image only held in her head for a few seconds before shattering under the unyielding weight of reality.
Yeah right, she scoffed mentally as she took a position on one side of the door, Sheppard taking the other side.
I'll be at this until I get in over my head one too many times and die. She couldn't imagine herself actually retiring from being a courier - or at least, from being an explorer, constantly searching for new places, always walking the frontier.
Life in a city, or in the relatively safe parts of the Wasteland, like the heartlands of the NCR, just wasn't for her, and she couldn't see herself settling down anywhere to live some peaceful, normal, humdrum daily life, even on the edge of civilization.
"Cover me," Sheppard murmured, and Victoria raised an eyebrow for a moment before nodding. Sheppard moved in closer to the door, letting it open, and Victoria looked around the corner - they opened fire immediately on the four Jaffa within the largish room within. The Room had a small table with a few chairs, a large screen displayed on one wall, filled with more of the characters that had been on the wall - Goa'uld writing.
Two of the Jaffa showed something resembling tactical instincts and took cover behind pillars, but another two just sort of stood there, firing a zat'nik'tel - probably better to call it a 'Zat' - and a staff weapon. But with the cover of the door, Victoria and Sheppard were able to avoid getting hit.
She fired off two shots at a time, every time she tried to get the Jaffa to keep their heads down, but without time to aim and refusing to risk using VATS again right now - not with her arm still throbbing - she wasn't able to more than wing the armor of even the Jaffa just sort of standing around, or get them a grazing shot on the arm or leg. It might actually throw off your average Legionary or Raider or the like, or even take them out of the fight, but it wasn't doing much to these Jaffa.
Which meant she wasn't doing a very good job of giving Sheppard cover, which showed, because it was proving difficult for him to find an opening to get inside the room. After several seconds of making no forward progress, he gestured towards her - she should go in, and he'd cover her. He pulled a fresh clip for his assault carbine from his belt and switched his current one out.
Victoria nodded, lowered her gun, dropped into a crouch and then rolled into the room, a staff and zat blast flying over head, and then she was behind another pillar, with better angles on the Jaffa in the room - unfortunately, the two with tactical sense were able to move as she straighted back up into a crouch. The two idiots though, were still idiots.
The better angle giving her an opening, Victoria took aim and fired - she had gone without VATS for years, and she could actually shoot without again, if she had to...
Firing off all six shots in rapid succession, she aimed for the head and neck of the two idiot Jaffa - she missed with three shots, but to connected with the head of one, blowing the back of his head off in the process, and the other missed her target area and got him in the chest, not getting far, but getting enough in through the armor to make the Jaffa stagger back in pain. Which gave Sheppard a chance to lay down more fire and come in, a hail of bullets hitting the Jaffa, punching through the armor in several places and dropping him, leaving just two more in the room when he joined her behind the pillar.
"Count of three?" Victoria suggested, reloading her .44. She'd have to switch back to the police pistol after this. "I'll take left? You cover mine, I'll cover yours."
"Makes sense to me," Sheppard agreed.
Still crouched, Victoria moved out from behind the pillar's cover, firing off two quick shots to keep the jaffa further from her behind cover, while a spray from Sheppard's carbine kept the one closer to her with his head down. Victoria fired off a third for good measure, then jumped to her feet, grabbing onto another pillar and combining the momentum of pulling on the pillar - and thus herself forward - and the jump to land on the other side from where she'd started, right next to the Jaffa - to his credit, he turned when he saw her, trying to bring the cumbersome staff weapon around to swing at her or shoot her, but not soon enough to stop the bullet smashing into his face, shattering his teeth and flying out the other side of his head. The Jaffa collapsed to the ground, moments after Sheppard's target took a second burst to the chest and dropped.
Breathing heavily, Victoria leaned against the wall, her arm still in pain, adrenaline still pumping through her, but after a few moments, she straightened up and picked up the dropped Staff weapon of the Jaffa she'd just killed.
It took her a few monents to figure out how to shoot it, but once she found the trigger, she fired at the abdomen of the Jaffa in front of her.
"Well, that works too," Sheppard mused. He just went with the expedient of firing a burst into the stomach of the rest, while Victoria picked up a Zat from one of the other fallen Jaffa - one of the idiots.
"Let's get out friends," Sheppard suggested, and Victoria nodded. It was a relatively quick matter for the still unconscious Arcade and Bosworth to be carried into the room, Teal'c following along quietly.
"What does all that say?" Victoria asked, gesturing to the screen.
"Intercepted communications," Teal'c said after a minute to read over the screen. "It would appear that Heru'ur was indeed using this base to spy on Apophis's armies." Which meant there could be all sorts of useful information on there - the tactical stuff, maybe not, but potential places to explore to steal more tech or places to avoid or...
Anything.
When you were as outgunned as Cheyenne - hell, the entire planet - was looking to be...
Every scrap of information counted.
Victoria started to fiddle with her pipboy, about to pull out the data connection cord, but then...
Fuck.
There was no way that her Pipboy would be compatible with this computer.
"You said something about memory crystals?" Victoria asked, looking to Teal'c.
"Indeed."
"And you'd need another Goa'uld computer to read them?"
"Indeed," he confirmed.
"So we're not getting anything out of it that we don't learn now," Victoria grumbled. And since only Teal'c could read Goa'uld writing for the moment...
"Start reading off what it says" She walked behind him and untied the rope. It was a risk, but she trusted the guy enough for that. His disgust for the Goa'uld seemed entirely genuine, and so too did his apparent willingness to help them. "Here," she added, handing him her half-full canteen. He accepted it and took a sip before handing it back to her. Then he started to read off the information. Victoria slipped a holotape into her PipBoy to start recording.
Most of it was contextless, something she had no frame of reference for - mention of supplies or troops being moved from location to location, ships being moved from various planets. During all this, Arcade and Bosworth woke up and were filled in on what had happened.
"It also has a map of the latest changes in the lines of battle, such as they are," Teal'c said after he was done. He tapped at the console underneath the screen and brought up a map of a disc-like shape, with two... bits spiralling out from the middle on the sides.
The right half of the map was a riot of colors - mostly twelve colors and a number of smaller ones.
"The territory of the System Lords in the galaxy and notable lesser Goa'uld." Teal'c explained. He set two of the colors - green and gold - to glow slightly, "These are the territories of Heru'ur and Apophis, respectively." The two territories didn't seem to border each other much at all, and yet, they fought.
And yet, not all the territory was contiguous. Inside the various domains were little 'islands' of other colors, and even though the Goa'uld seemed clustered on the left side of the 'galaxy', there are various islands of color further away.
Planets owned just through the Stargate? That made sense. The Goa'uld had ships, but the Gates meant you could cross vast distances instantly.
"And where are we, in relation to all this?" Victoria asked. She almost asked where Earth was, but rethought it - she didn't trust Teal'c that far, yet. She had already resolved she was going to make sure he didn't see them dial the address to Earth yet either, in case he was hostile and, god forbid, got away through the Stargate anyway.
"Here," he zoomed the galaxy map in close to the gold-colored area - Apophis's domain - and one star system flashed not far from the edges of it. "This world has nothing of interest to Apophis, and so it has been ignored."
'But he knew about it to know that Heru'ur had a base on this world." Victoria mused. "Which makes this pretty useless to us." The world was so... green, and really, so much less warm than most parts of the West Coast and the NCR - though it wasn't much cooler than Colorado.
The thought of the food that could be grown here. She was no farmer, so she was sure it was easier said than done, but still. Cheyenne wasn't at any risk of running out of food, and neither was the Refugee Camp at Fort Carson, but food was always in demand. All too many people starved or lived on the edge of starvation...
Plus, it would be a place to send more refugees.
But this world is too close to Apophis to be of any use. If they could manage it, they should probably try to stay away from the 'left' side of the galaxy in general. Even if a planet was not actually controlled by the Goa'uld... too much risk.
Most of the time, anyway. If they wanted more staff weapons and Zats and everything else they could steal from the Goa'uld, they'd have to go to planets under their control anyway.
Maybe figure out the lightly defended worlds, with smaller garrisons. Might not be much with each one, but it adds up.
"Is there any way to know where a planet is just from the address?" Victoria asked, turning back to look at Arcade.
Arcade had already pulled notebook out of his coat and started scribbling something down. Not looking up, he said, "Should be, yeah," Arcade nodded. He looked up at Teal'c, "You wouldn't happen to know?"
"The Goa'uld teach us how to use their devices, not the means by which they work," Teal'c said with a shake of his head. "As I said - knowledge of Goa'uld magic is forbidden."
"Right," Arcade nodded, waving his hand a little, "Sorry, forgot." He looked over at Victoria, "I'm going to repeat that we really should try to shake Dr. Carter loose from the OSI. She is going to have a much easier time with all this than I ever could."
"It's on my to-do list! Talking the NCR into just handing over a top scientist - and maybe a lot more resources and manpower - isn't exactly going to be easy." Victoria protested defensively. Teal'c said nothing, but she could tell from the way he arched one eyebrow that he was curious what they were talking about. "Long story," She waved a hand at Teal'c, "If we take you back home, I'll fill you in myself."
But given the sheer size and scope - the need to get the NCR to send... something. The CDV wasn't that large, and of course, it could only spare so much men for the Stargate - it needed to defend itself from raiders, from the Legion's splinter groups...
And Cheyenne itself was well off, but it could only put so many resources to this project. In time, she hoped it would pay for itself, but still...
No matter how much we try to avoid confrontation, we're stepping into a galaxy at war.
The NCR was the proverbial 'Big Kid On The Block', and with the Legion gone, there was no one to threaten them. Sure, Kimball would be demobilizing a lot of the Army now that they'd taken the Mojave, but still.
Arrange an equal split of the tech and resources and... everything else. Cheyenne hosts the Gate - possession is 9/10s of the law, and the NCR is in no position to steal it across this distance...
And the NCR could provide manpower, resources.
Victoria was pretty sure she had enough credit with the NCR that if she showed them some proof, and made a good case... she might just be able to pull it off.
Of course, even with the NCR's help, we'll be in over hour heads so far we'll never claw our way back to daylight.
"I can't think of anything that would annoy the most conservative factions of the Brotherhood more than the NCR getting their hands on some of this stuff," Veronica said, with a chuckle that was both genuine and bitter. "Or any of the others, really." She didn't sound entirely comfortable with the idea either, but that didn't surprise Victoria - Arcade didn't look thrilled either, once Veronica mentioned it.
Both of them had good reason to look in askance a bit at the NCR. But for Victoria...
It was still home. Still her country. As Cass had said - the NCR might be the dumbass little brother, the family fuckup, but it was family. And I think they have every chance to get better, now that the Legion is gone and they have electricity and water from Hoover Dam...
"One thing at a time," Sheppard said. He looked at the map, "Just how many planets to the Goa'uld have?"
"Many hundreds, perhaps more." Teal'c said. "The number varies - worlds abandoned, worlds reclaimed. If a world has no use to the Goa'uld - no resources, no large mass of slaves, no strategic position - then it will be most likely abandoned without ceremony in due time."
"How long would it take a Goa'uld ship to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other?" Victoria mused. "Days? Weeks? Months?"
"Several years - at least three," Teal'c said after a moment's thought.
Hopefully Earth is far enough away that we won't be worth sending ships to.
"Good to know," Sheppard seemed to be picking up on the same thoughts as her, hopefully. "We should get on with clearing out the rest of this base, then we can come back here and take all the intel we can."
Clearing the rest of the base proved to fairly quick - there weren't that many more chambers. Various living spaces - spartan bunks, mostly - for the Jaffa, as well as a more ornate chamber that Teal'c said would be the place for a visiting underlord - subordinate Goa'uld of high rank - sent from Heru'ur might reside. They did have to fight another half-dozen of Heru'ur's Jaffa, but
During the fighting, Teal'c had, as far as Victoria was concerned,proved they could trust him. Because more of Apophis's Jaffa had arrived on the surface and entered the base while they explored it, and Teal'c proved entirely willing to trick several into letting their guard down, and even punching two in the face in the process. Sheppard seemed to agree with her - she had to admit a lot of it was gut instinct, but still.
And, most valuably, they found an armory - it wasn't massive, nor the best stocked, but it contained dozens more staff weapons - Ma'Tok was the proper name for one, apparently, - Zats and Tok'Kals. They also found the Jaffa equivalent of MREs, and an assortment of minor technological toys - communication devices that worked over great range, albeit only as far as orbit to a device paired to the same frequency, a torture device known as a 'Rod of Anguish' that Victoria left behind, and a few other odds and ends.
They couldn't carry all the Staff weapons, but they did manage to get a good number of them, and stuffing the Zat's into their packs had been easier. Teal'c did show them how to remove the liquid naquadah cores from the Staff weapons, which let them take those as well, for experimenting with plasma weapons back home.
Finally, though, weighed down with loot and ready to go, they returned to the surface. Fortunately, it was only one more firefight against a few lingering "Serpent Guard" as they were called later that finally allowed them to make the trek back to the Stargate, and back to Earth. As she'd planned, she had Teal'c look away, and used her PipBoy radio to send a signal through to Cheyenne Mountain, to tell them they were coming back.
She had a pack full of loot and a head full of plans.
Starting today, the Wasteland is going to change for good. The Stargate would change everything, in a way almost nothing else had before it. Not since the Bombs, anyway - and really, in some ways, the Stargate was almost - almost - bigger than nuclear annhilation.
And Victoria Fernandez would get to be there, right front and center. Pushing the edge of what was known, seeing all there was to see out there in the wider galaxy.
I can't wait to see what happens next.