Stargate: Genesis
Written By: The Ascended Ancient
Chapter XII: "Plans"

To elitenova: I'm sorry, but I honestly have no idea what you were trying to say in your review.

Deep beneath Cheyenne Mountain, in the base known as Stargate Command, Brigadier General Samantha Carter walked into a research lab, only to collide with Doctor Rodney McKay as he ran out.

"McKay," Carter greeted. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"Briefing," McKay explained. "We're about to deliver our findings to General Landry."

"What did you find?" Carter asked. McKay answered her question, and the general's eyes widened.

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"So, you're telling me that there is a way to kill these things?" Landry asked the four scientists gathered before him. Though she had no part in this discovery, General Carter was joining Major Hailey and Doctors McKay and Jackson in this briefing.

"Well, yes, sir," McKay replied. "Albeit, it's not an easy way, but it is a way."

"What is it?" Landry asked McKay.

"Well," McKay began, "we've analyzed data from every battle so far, trying to determine why the fighters didn't repair themselves. Now, we developed this analysis program that..."

"Just give me the bottom line, doctor," Hank interrupted, slightly annoyed by McKay's long explanation.

"Seventy percent, sir," Hailey said. "Every fighter that had more than seventy percent of its total mass destroyed just... combusted."

"So you're saying that if we destroy seventy percent of a cruiser or foot soldier, it'll just blow up?" Landry asked her.

"Most likely, sir," Hailey replied.

"The Ancient Database talked about a maximum tolerance point for Sallium," Daniel explained. "There is only so much it's capable of regenerating."

"I see," Landry said. "Well, then, how do you all suggest we destroy seventy percent of these cruisers and soldiers?" The four of them looked at each other.

"We're not sure yet," Hailey replied. "But just the discovery of that seventy percent limit is a step in the right direction."

"I am very much aware of that, major," Landry told her. "Now I want you working on finding a way to make some sort of practical use of this discovery. Dismissed." The four scientists turned and walked out of the room. Before they had finished walking down the stairs, alarms went off, and the voice of the gate operator could be heard announcing an unauthorized off world activation. Landry raced out of his office and into the control room.

"Receiving IDC, sir," the operator announced. "It's Teal'c."

"Open the iris," Landry ordered. The large, metal disc that covered the event horizon of the Earth Stargate spun open, and Teal'c was able to step through. General Landry left the control room and walked into the gate room to greet him.

"Teal'c," Landry said as the massive Jaffa walked towards him. "I hope you come bearing good news."

"I do, General Landry," Teal'c replied. "The Jaffa High Council has voted in favor of assisting the people of this world in the war with the Zetharian."

"That certainly counts as good news," Landry told him with a smile.

"The council has assigned me to remain on this world and coordinate our joint efforts," Teal'c added.

"Good," Landry said. "Now, if you'll join me in my office, I was about to set up a conference call with General Hammond."

"I believed General Hammond to have retired," Teal'c said, arching an eyebrow.

"He's doing us a favor," Landry explained. Teal'c merely nodded and followed the general out of the room.

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"I'm telling you, there is absolutely no way she could've spoken to you," Doctor Carolyn Lam explained to Captain Reynolds.

"I'm telling you, just for a moment, it was her!" he insisted. "Somehow, she's still in there."

"Look, I'm no expert on this kind of condition," Carolyn admitted, "but everything I've seen so far indicates that Leslie Crawford's consciousness has been completely destroyed by the Zetharian." Daryl shook his head, not wanting to believe what she was telling him. "Look, in my opinion," Lam continued, "it was wishful thinking. If you want to see something so badly, you sometimes do, even if it isn't there."

"Maybe you're right," Daryl mumbled, a sad look coming over his face.

"Daryl, you need to see someone about this," Carolyn told him. "And you need to stop seeing her."

"Maybe," he said before he turned around and walked out of the infirmary.

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"No, no, no!" Rodney said, extremely agitated by the others' ideas. "There is no superweapon we can build to stop them!"

"Then what do you suggest we do, Rodney?" Carter demanded. "Just keep shooting until we do enough damage?"

"Why not?" McKay asked. "Look, just listen to me for a second. We now have the Jaffa on our side. We know that the weapons on a Jaffa Mothership have a wider blast radius than our own. We include them in a battle group of, say, fifteen ships, all concentrating their fire on one Zetharian Cruiser. That many hits by railguns, missiles, and plasma fire will definitely destroy more than seventy percent."

"I'm not arguing that it won't," Sam replied. "I just think that by the time you manage to destroy one enemy ship, our losses will far outweigh our gains."

"Even if we do loose one or two ships along the way," McKay argued, "our fleet vastly outnumbers the Zetharian's. We can afford those losses."

"Ok," Carter said softly, trying to keep her rage contained, "skipping over the fact that you just called thousands of men and women expendable assets, there is one more major flaw in your plan. The Zetharian creates its ships out of Sallium. And every planet its conquered has had its natural resources converted into Sallium. So, if it needed to, I think it could definitely increase the size of its fleet over a very short time."

"But what if it can't?" McKay asked. "What if the dozen or so ships we know it has are all it can produce?"

"And how could you come to that conclusion?" Carter argued.

"Because if it could produce more, why hasn't it?" McKay demanded.

"Because it doesn't need to!" Carter shouted. "Its handful of ships has been able to defeat us at every turn. There's no reason to build more."

"Alright!" Hailey interrupted. She and Daniel had been off to the side, listening in every-growing frustration as the two scientists argued. Finally, Hailey had decided to intervene. "Now, I'm sorry, Rodney, but I'm siding with Sam on this one."

"Me too," Daniel said, stepping forward. Rodney looked at the three people standing before him, stuttering as he tried to get out an argument. Finally, he just sighed and gave up.

"Ok," he told them. "What do you guys think we should do?"

"Develop a weapon that can destroy seventy percent of a Zetharian Cruiser faster than continuous bombardment," Hailey replied, walking over to a computer. "And, on that note, I already have an idea for that." She pressed a few buttons on the keyboard and brought up an image of some sort of bomb or missile.

"A bunker-buster?" Carter asked.

"A what?" Daniel asked her.

"A bomb designed to burrow a certain distance underground before exploding," Sam explained. "The military uses them to destroy underground bunkers, hence the name bunker-buster."

"If we could modify one of these to burrow its way inside a Zetharian ship," Hailey continued, "and packed it with a large explosive..."

"It could take out a huge chunk of the ship from within," Carter finished. Jennifer smiled.

"Exactly," she replied.

"Well, this is something," Sam said, sitting down next to her. "Now let's just make it work."

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Two days later, they were still working on the design for the Z-Buster, as McKay had coined it. They were making progress, but it would take some more time before they were truly finished. As they worked, the phone rang. Carter walked over and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" she asked. "General, how are you? Yes, our work is going... No, I didn't authorize any... What?" Carter was absolutely livid. "General, you need to get in touch with those ships now! Get them back here!" Carter hung up the phone and stormed over to McKay.

"What the hell were you thinking?" she demanded.

"Sam, what's going on?" Daniel asked.

"This weasel went over our head to General Hammond!" Carter shouted. "A battle group of 303s and Ha'taks are on their way to engage several Zetharian vessels."

"The Zetharian is spreading throughout the galaxy!" McKay argued. "While we sit here designing this weapon, more and more worlds are falling! We need to show the Zetharian that we aren't going to sit back and let it happen, maybe slow down its advance a bit."

"Or convince it that it needs to build more ships!" Carter told him. "Until we have a good countermeasure against them, we need to keep the odds in our favor. And so far, we have been able to hold off Zetharian battle groups with minimal casualties. What you have just done, Rodney, may have upset the balance of power in this war so severely that we may not be able to recover!"

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In orbit over P3Q-976, three Zetharian Cruisers fought against five BC-303s and ten Ha'taks. The 303s and the Ha'taks concentrated their fire on the lead cruiser, ignoring all the others. The target ship's shields failed almost instantly, and the hull started to get torn apart. However, the Zetharian ships weren't just giving up. They were firing at the attacking vessels, and inflicting some pretty heavy damage. But, as one of the 303s exploded in a massive fireball, the target Zetharian vessel split in half. Fires broke out on the hull, sweeping across it until the entire ship had been engulfed in one massive fireball.

Unfortunately, the other two Zetharian ships were still attacking. Before the fourteen remaining ships in the allied battle group could bring their weapons to bear on another one, three additional ships had been destroyed, and two more were suffering heavy damage. On the bridge of the Constantine, the flagship of the battle group, Colonel Mitchell knew that they couldn't take out another ship without suffering heavy losses. With a sigh of resignation, Mitchell ordered his ships to jump into hyperspace. They had inflicted damage on their enemy, but it wasn't enough.

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On P4X-337, Jeremy Spalding felt the pain of one of his ships being destroyed. Once more, rage filled him. His small battle groups had been doing well so far, but now, it seemed, the enemy was becoming more organized. And they had enlisted the aid of the Jaffa nation, quadrupling the size of their fleet. This was not going as easily as he had hoped, and it was likely to get worse before it got better.

And so Jeremy decided to begin producing more warships. He needed them now. If they were beginning to find ways to counter his advanced technology, then he'd have to beat them through superior numbers.

End of Chapter XII

A/N: To all you McKay fans out there, I'm sorry, but I couldn't go a whole story without having his ego get him in trouble.