Star Granger Season 5 - Chapter 16
Thoughts
"speech"
"Goa'uld speech"
SG SG SG SG SG SG SG
February 25th 2004 - Nysa
"Incoming in ten," announces the sensor officer over the comm. "About five Ha'tak class ships. Reinforcement in twenty six."
That's quite a bit of time for the Mermaid to hold alone against these odds. Normally we would have split, or fold and wait for better odds, but then - this tactic wouldn't be able to defend our people here on the surface.
In the last hour and some, engineering has managed to dismantle the repository interface, but it only made it clear that there is more to be found inside the structure? House? Statue?
I have no idea how to describe this place.
Harry and I worked, meanwhile, to hide the corridor the repository was mounted in to the best of our ability. We don't have the means to fold the structure, but every marine section has enough masking plates to hide a corridor. It should buy us the needed half hour.
"Alright, time to head up," Harry orders. Engineering and archaeology teams nod in agreement and transport up. SG chaps look almost mutinous. Actually, Harry and I are also reluctant, but it's not our place to risk orbital bombardment, where we can't truly contribute in a meaningful way.
Finally, it's agreed that Colonel Mitchell and the SG1 team will stay and support our marine group, while the former,
Old?
SG1 team will head up. Jack certainly looks like he got an earwax every-flavour-bean to suck on.
Marines are hidden in three groups, each with its own hovercraft, far enough from the structure to stay hidden, yet close enough to intervene. Last thing I do, before transporting up, is to slap a personal shield stone on Mitchell and his men.
"Please don't do anything stupid?"
Mark me hypocritical.
"Alright, take us some fifty thousand klicks above high orbit" Charles orders helm. "Bricks - stay folded and in formation, some 150,000 klicks from us and at the same altitude. Let's stay folded and wait for the cavalry."
"Roger!" the Bricks are answering.
Bricks can't project the kind of power a ship can, but have proven already the ability to handle a capital ship and offload some pressure from their motherships. They also need to be ready in case our ground force is in need of air support.
"One minute!" calls the sensor station.
"Let's get out of the way," Harry offers, and leads our guests to the back of the bridge. I take the observation post - Harry is formally my superior here, but Charles and I work effortlessly together.
"Incoming through the Port," the marine major updates us from the surface. "About a hundred Jaffa, and some twenty black soldiers.
Then, six hyperspace windows open all around us. Untypically enough, those ships arrive high above orbit. The fleet breaks into pairs and spreads out almost as soon as they drop out. This is fleet tactics never seen from a Goa'uld before.
They are learning!
"Move us back, lieutenant and gain some altitude," Charles orders helm, yet that pair of Ha'tak ships are gaining on us much faster than we can move back and up without dropping back to real space.
"Ten minutes for reinforcements!" announces the sensor officer.
Our biggest issue is that a pair of ships is also gaining on our Bricks' location. Now HMS Mermaid isn't built for close encounters, but has a few options in her arsenal, and very decent shields on top. The Bricks, on the other hand, can't survive an Anubis-class ship at close range. They also can't move back fast enough without dropping their cloaks. On top of that, we have no idea just what might happen if another ship would pass though the exact location of their pocket dimension.
For five long minutes, nothing happens. All bricks manoeuvre, to the best of their limited ability, and try to avoid the ships closing fast on them. The Mermaid, meanwhile, has better luck getting away. Our distance from the ships closing on our general location is far from optimal, but firing solutions are constantly updating, floating in front of the holographic void, which is now cast to replace the bridge around us, and ready to be locked on order. Ships, vectors, scanner info - all clearly displayed.
Neroon would have killed to have this on his flagship!
"They are creating a perimeter around the structure," the marines Major updates us from the surface.
On the other side of the small fleet, two of our Bricks manage to distance themselves from the pair of ships closing on their locations. They'll be able to stay folded and avoid any contact. The third, though, finds itself right at those ships' trajectory.
"Why don't you just shoot them down?" O'Neill finally asks.
Harry is about to shush him, but Charles beats him to it. "So we will not need to fight a small fleet of decent ships, all on our lonesome, when the rest of our division is only three minutes out," he deadpans.
I'm uncertain that O'Neill is convinced.
Sadly, it's the happening on the surface which finally forces our hand. Tactical shows a group of Jaffa and a couple of blacks heading directly towards one of our teams. They stop, not far from the hiding section, and there is some argument going on between them. It ends with one of the Jaffa shooting his staff weapon, in anger, directly at one of our hidden marines.
"Bollocks!" sensor officer exclaims.
"On the transporter pad a person appears, then a few more. They hurry up and carry the first one to the ship's hospital. Those personal shield devices means that he is mostly unhurt, yet the auto-evac routine was still triggered.
On the planet's surface, the hovercraft opens fire on the Jaffa group in front of it. All the Jaffa in that group are killed within seconds except for the two blacks. The hovercrafts' heavy phasers were never equipped to penetrate black soldier's armour. Our personal weapons do, but then - the marines carrying those were already transported up to the ship.
The more we prepare, the more things we miss.
All around the perimeter fire blooms. Anubis' Jaffa and inferi have no protection from the marines, who almost encircle them. On the other hand…
"Farthest ship charging!" warns the sensor officer. Thing is, we have no idea where it's aiming. This mystery is short lived though and the first shot lands about a couple hundred metres from where that marine team was hiding. Now, that team was already transported up, but the hovercraft is still on the planet's surface. It is shielded, but was never meant to withstand capital ship's cannon fire. When the fire and smoke clears, the hovercraft just isn't there anymore. Also not there, are the couple of black soldiers it was shooting at.
Sensor officer doesn't wait for orders and starts transporting our men up and out. Ship transporters are limited though, so this will have to be done in three groups and will cost us precious seconds. The two hovercrafts left will need a brick to come and pick them up.
"Hovers - clear off!" the marines Major commands. Unsurprisingly, they didn't wait for his order in the first place. Also fortunately, orbital bombardment is still focused on the other side of the structure from their location. This doesn't help Anubis' remaining men on the surface. They don't have any kind of shields to protect them.
"Alright, fire at that ship, as soon as you have a solution," is the next predictable order. So predictable, actually, that a firing solution is already locked and we fire even before Charles has the time to complete his order. Our ships now have three front double cannons, and three additional side cannons set on turrets.
Well, those which went through an additional refit, that is.
For a year now, ever since that battle over Langara, Albert and Gabriel have been hard at work, optimising our weapons to penetrate those multi-phasic shields of Anubis'. Having Lantean engineers pointing out the few weakness points of these shields certainly helped. Ted and Siya have also returned to the one Anubis-class ship we still have underhand in an effort to recognise weakness points in the ship design itself. Sadly, they are truly built to endure.
Our initial positioning was decent and the farthest pair of ships, those which are shooting down on the planet's surface, are at the rather perfect range of about 120,000 kilometres from us. Our cannons target both ships there, trying for some weakness points in those ships' structure. Both are surprised, but once more they show an unexpected learning curve. Our fire is recognised, and their evasive manoeuvres are well planned and effective. Once more, seconds drip while we wait for that penetration.
"Two minutes!" states the sensor officer. Two minutes can get very long during battle.
"Torpedoes?" Charles asks.
He then relays the secondary weapon controls to my observation post and taps his finger to his temple.
This time, we do have the right mind on board.
Tactical already displays a torpedo solution to the farthest ships. Problem is the blinking point of Brick two is right there in front of the target. Since we know it's there, we might actually hit it, even when folded.
4.2 and 4.7 long seconds pass, before our cannon fire manages to overwhelm those ships' shields. Neither is disabled, and only one is substantially damaged. Now Anubis Ha'taks are clearly resilient, but that's not our main issue here. You see, four point something seconds are a proper eternity during a battle. When one shoots at a moving target and only hits it after four and something bleeding seconds, it goes without saying that one doesn't hit her actual intended spot.
"Power fluctuations on 2. No. 1 is venting some air," sensor station updates the bridge.
"Tell Brick one and three to go pick the hovercraft up," orders the XO.
"Brick two - disengage at once!" Charles orders at the same time.
Right between the two targeted Ha'tak ships, Brick two drops into real space, opens its hyperspace window and flees. Naturally, it is noticed, but thankfully, Anubis' fire control isn't good enough to react in time and this Brick is safe in hyper before the first beam of plasma is headed its way. Our torpedoes are already on their way.
Ship one is the target of a cluster torpedo. Those were greatly improved and tested ever since Langara. Timing is perfect and all warheads are released inside the ship's shields. Warheads are also faster, so most reach its hull to penetrate deep into that ship. The explosion tears a huge chunk of this ship's side, but amazingly enough - it keeps some propulsion, tries to distance itself from us, and keeps shooting down on the planet.
Ship two is on the receiving side of a spread of four regular torpedoes. As usual, those are targeted at the same spot and hit it one after the other. The first couple bring the shields down, at that spot. The next two gauge deep into its hull, to kill its second reactor. This ship is out, though still drifting.
The Mermaid, on the other hand, now comes under fire from four ships, two of which are much too close for comfort. Mermaid does its regular dance, to put off the Ha'taks' targeting, but they are just saturating space around us with plasma - there's no way to avoid this at such a short range. Engineering display shows systems straining. It also shows our backup reactor coming online to help spread the power load over wider sections of our power grid.
A drone is released, and I take control of it. Sadly, the bridge of the closest Ha'tak to us points the other way. I don't really have the kind of control needed in order to guide this drone round the ship and directly into its bridge. It kinda requires quite a bit of practice, and we truly don't have the drones to practise with.
I've talked about it once with the Tria's chief weapon officer. He told me that by the time he finished his training, he was able to control up to three separate drones and blind-guide those to exact targets aboard hive ships. He also told me that this ability was never in use, since they tended to just launch swarms of about a hundred and let those accumulate the damage. Battleships still found themself depleted and swarmed, when faced with large enough wraith fleets. The Lantean's solution, back then, was to try and develop self guided, smart, autonomous armaments, which have resulted with their version of the replicators, so there you have it.
As effective as the this Lantean practise certainly is, which was clearly demonstrated over Langara, it bears little relevance for us, since HMS Mermaid and any of our other able ships only carry five drones each.
And I don't have any free time to do the actual training.
I also don't have the needed familiarity with the ship's design, to guide the drone towards specific internal targets. What I do is to guide it through the unfriendly giant. Again and again, then again - till something sensitive is breached and the ship breaks into several parts with an impressive explosion. Problem is this explosion is right beside us and adds strains on our shields. Charles doesn't have a choice but to punch a large button on the arm of his seat and folds us out of reality.
We'll have to play this the Klingon way.
We don't have the opportunity, though. Two of the ships around keep sending balls of hot plasma through the vicinity of our last whereabouts. So very logical of them. Most cloaking systems will leave a ship hidden, yet still vulnerable. Another Ha'tak turns its fire towards ship No. 1, turning its wounded retreating hull into a debris field.
There were some three hundred Jaffa still alive on board! And a few goa'uld…
The last Ha'tak still operational turns its fire back towards the planet's surface. The explosion there indicates that there were things to be discovered inside that structure and that those are no more.
At the back of the bridge, the Lantean social attaché's face falls. She was truly looking forward to discovering this part of her ancestor's culture and technology.
All around us, the three remaining Ha'tak ships open their hyperspace windows, and leave - seconds before a hail of invaluable cluster torpedoes passes through the spaces they were at. Goa'uld willing to disengage to fight another day?
Mark me apprehensive!
March 14th 2004 - Brick Ln.
Generally speaking, I'm very much over my 'hot sixties', Emma Peel days, but my lime green, thigh-long coat is just perfect as a posh St. Patrick's day's costume and works great with jumpsuits and the likes.
It's afternoon now and we're about to leave to meet with R and her family, to follow the parade and browse the festival grounds at Trafalgar. Seth will be there with his family too. It's this day of the year when he is reminded of his name's origin, and tries his Irish accent on, saving us all, including his wife and daughter, the need to understand what he's saying for the day.
Nevermind paying attention to it.
"Harry, are you ready?!" I call, as I check my green lipstick and eyeshadow in the mirror. "We're meeting R and Seth at St' James, cross Paul's in half, and there's too many people there to Apparate directly!"
Just as I see Harry coming to the lounge, my mobile buzzes.
"Hermione," I answer curtly. Quite impatiently.
"General O'Neill, SGC, ma'am," tells me the duty officer and connects me.
Bloody Sunday, and St. Patrick's on top!
"I'm sending a video for you to see," Jack tells me, without any pleasantries.
On the lounge's display we watch a video of conservatively dressed people walking to the side entrance to the Woolworth Building in New York and disappearing from sight.
Bugger!
The video is then replaced with another one of similarly dressed people, exhibiting similar peculiar behaviour in front of the gates of a rather dilapidated building in highlands Massachusetts.
Harry turns and looks at me gravely.
"I must ask," O'Neill asks us coldly. "Are you buddies playing on our turf?"
"Not us, mate. I swear down!" Harry answers him in a placatory tone.
"Can I ask where this video comes from?" I add.
Naturally, he can't elaborate. It was forwarded to him and the SGC by the Pentagon, thinking it probably falls under their jurisprudence.
Twenty-three nineteen! We have a Twenty-three nineteen!
"General," I go on softly, just to emphasise the graveness of the situation. "Clearly, I can't tell you what to do."
Jack hums lightly at this.
"Do you have a direct line to the President?" Harry asks and Jack hums again.
"Best action, on your part, would be to declare this 'Top Secret', then call the President, ask him to clear his office, show him this video, and tell him it relates to 'the other congress'," I suggest. The silence over the line demonstrates well Jack's thoughts regarding 'the other congress' thing.
"Tell him the Prime Minister and we will be glad to help, but that discussion will have to happen at our offices." Harry adds.
For a long moment, after O'Neill disconnects, Harry and I stand in silence. "Everything at once," Harry finally sighs.
"Go meet the guys." I tell him. "I'll update the Minister and will join you."
Both Ministers…
March 18th 2004 - Atlantis
"This is it?" I ask, holding one of the medium sized crystals in my hand.
It's fully charged and pulsating soft pink. Nothing to distinguish those from any other charged power crystal we grew, except for the small piece of duct tape posted on each, with a small script handwritten upon. The one I'm holding says 'Alterans'. The one in the small tin box on the table says 'Ori'. It's a box of C&A baubles left from Christmas, which is fitting in a way.
"It's so small!" I finally say out loud, what's on my mind.
Ganos rolls her eyes at me, but it's Miss blonde who can't stop herself from dressing me down.
"You humans," she tells me scornfully. "When are you going to learn that size doesn't matter?"
I smirk a little.
Must have been a long time for her…
The grownup thing is to ignore her, but it was never my thing. Still, Harry beats me to the response.
Again!
"We interrupt this program to annoy you and make things generally more irritating," he tells me, conversationally, and earns a loud snort from Jeremy. By the look of things, the pretentious blonde didn't get it. Surprisingly enough, Ganos did.
Curiouser and curiouser!
"Potentia are grown around an artificially created pocket of subspace dimension the size of…" Captain, sorry - acting High Chancellor, Hellia tries to explain to me, and I almost find myself making a very O'Neill-like sound and motion.
I know all that!
"So, the ascended pillocks will not know they're inside a pocket dimension?" I ask instead.
"Oh, we will know alright." Ganos answers, "since Harry here will summon us all in. But, without knowing where the exit is, we won't be able to do anything about it."
Surprisingly enough, or maybe not surprising at all, that 'way out' remarkably resembles that arch, which stands disconnected in the bowels of the British Ministry of Magic, in a somewhat sleek and modern way. Moros and Genos were limited by the availability of local materials, when they built their Port to the ascended dimension, back then.
I understand that Ganos considers asking Harry to disperse her, instead of going in with the others. She wasn't stoked on ascension in the first place, and doesn't fancy having an eternity with the others. Blonde, on the other hand, truly fears oblivion.
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
"Walk us through the plan again?" Rear Admiral (Finally!) Penrose asks patiently.
We've been through this already dozens of times.
Harry, the lovely person that he is, isn't willing to off all Ascended. Also, dissipating souls turns out to be quite a laborious task, meaning that even had he wanted to, Harry couldn't have been able to dissipate more than a couple of souls a day, making it a lifelong chore. He can't direct the souls to a certain place as well.
"I go in, call the berks to me, then leave," he explains, as if it is the simplest task in the universe.
"Was it tested?" R asks.
"It was," Blonde answers. "Ganos and I couldn't find the portal out without Harry showing us the way."
"Power crystals can last for dozens of millions of years, if not drained. There is also a time dilation effect on the inside. The ascended can live inside for a practical eternity." Helia explains.
Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
"Just, be careful with these things," Ganos remarks drily. "With all the ascended inside, having it set for cascading failure might turn this cluster of local galaxies to dust."
April 6th 2004 - Camelot
"On second thoughts, let us not go to Camelot. It is a silly place," Harry remarks dryly, looking for a mud-free piece of gravel to step on.
I don't even want to think about what else is in this muddy mixture.
Whoever built this place made the resemblance of this quaint mediaeval English town a wee bit too convincing.
"Makes one think about just what the Roman Empire actually did for us Britons." The Marines sergeant accompanying us agrees.
"Energy readings are that way," his officer brings us back to the task.
We're an eclectic and rather large group, visiting here today. Bill and Fleur are here with us, doing what they were trained to do. Atlantis sent an engineer here, and the cultural officer. Helia wanted to join us, but there's just no reason. She will be there when we go and meet Moros. Also here are a section of marine commandos, and the SG1 team, who were invited to join us in this visit.
"This is going to take a while," tells us the engineer, after an initial scan of the rather sophisticated force field surrounding the place.
Time to mingle with the natives - how lovely.
A short walk around town located a familiar sword stuck in a block of stone.
"Illusion," Fleur tells us.
"Some ZPE readings," I tell the boys, looking at my tablet. "Better not touch it before further investigation."
"Wanna grab for it?" I hear Colonel Mitchell asking Harry, as I turn to walk after the others.
"Already am the king of the Britons, mate. No worries," he answers.
Local pub offers a home-made stew, which is making the point of reminding me just why world cuisine is so popular in London and the Isles. Locally brewed, warm old ale isn't much better. Local crowds are much more accommodating, though. They certainly know about Merlin's place, but argue that it is cursed.
"Exactly the reason for our visit, gov" Harry answers the governor of the village with a smile that makes the local crowd take a step back from our table. "They," he adds, pointing at Fleur and Bill across the table, "are professional curse breakers!"
"Alright," says the engineer, after scanning the 'key' the local village historian handed him. A press of a key on his scanner disables the force field protecting what the locals call 'Merlin's library'. What we find inside would have given poor dear Irma Pince a cardiac arrest.
"Eww, spiderwebs," SG chap No. 3 says what's on all our minds.
It takes us a few moments to have the place well lit. I look around at the shelving and tables - all covered with books and scrolls and get a soft introverted smile on my face.
Beatrix would have so enjoyed this place…
Fleur walks by and gives me a hug, then goes on to examine one of the corner bookcases closely. Soon enough we are in the cellar, looking at what is clearly a piece of Alteran technology.
"What in the stars made Moros use this ancient interface," the engineer mumbles to himself.
Frightened shouts are heard from outside.
"The curse!" cries the librarian.
"Turn it off," Harry orders the engineer as we both rush out to the street.
Outside are a bunch of locals hiding while a knight in late-mediaeval, mat-black armour is walking about and attacking whoever is in its way.
"Hard illusion!" Fleur warns us.
It has a shield protecting it well from both bullets and phasers. Apparently, the thing's sword is actually an energy weapon of some kind, and not a physical blade. The Lieutenant's voice in my ear tells me to be careful. Also, that our personal shields can handle it.
"Don't be daft?" I call after Harry, as he rushes to grab for the sword in the stone. It's too late, actually, since one of the village girls is already there to pull it out and helpfully throw it towards Colonel Mitchell.
Mediaeval women who successfully wielded swords tended to end at the stake…
The sword, though, makes Mitchell the target of the knight's focus.
"Let's lead it out of town?" the Lieutenant offers. It works like a charm. Harry calls his sword and together with Mitchell retreat slowly to the sheer astonishment of the locals. They have never heard of 'he of pure heart and true spirit' willing to give ground in a battle. Once outside the gates I throw a mobile shield module behind the knight's back, to stop him from returning. A couple more modules from the marines trap him nicely.
"Any progress?" the Lieutenant asks over the comm.
It will be a while…
It's late at night now. The device is powered down, disassembled, and packed for transportation. The curse is broken. A treasure appeared, out of the storage patterns of the device.
Must remember to tell Kazuko.
Locals are delighted with us leaving the gold with them. They are also delighted with the lifting of the curse. They treat our curse breakers as heroes, much to Bill's amusement and Fleur's annoyance. We will have to come back here and take a more thorough look at this library, though.
I stand in front of a bookcase to browse a little, while the others are preparing to leave. I open a book to find the marking of a familiar coat of arms inside the cover. Book after book: Physics, Maths, Chemistry, Poetry - are also found to carry the same mark.
"Bill," I call out. "Have a look - all these books here are from the Hogwarts library."
Huge shout, once more, to flyboy38, my beta, who takes the time to make sure the story is a much better read.
Also to Dalwolf For doing Brit-Picking for, well - you all, and help my British characters stay British.
I am eternally grateful!