Stargate: Genesis
Written By: The Ascended Ancient
Chapter XIV: "Turning the Tide"

On the planet P1C-251, S.G.-1 fought valiantly against the Zetharian ground troops. And, for the first time since this war began, they were winning. The modified wrist-mounted staff weapons that Rodney named Wrist Blasters were shooting the crap out of the enemy. One by one, the Zetharian foot soldiers burst into flames, and the S.G.C. personnel gained ground instead of loosing it.

However, they couldn't advance far before Zetharian fighters began to make strafing runs on the surface. Since the Z-Buster hadn't been finished yet, Zetharian ships still dominated the battles. And when the ground troops were driven back, the ships came in.

On the ground, Daryl Reynolds looked up at the ships as they sewed fire across the lovely grasslands of this planet. Several meters behind him at the Stargate, the last of this planet's refugees had just gotten through. Now that they were gone, Daryl knew he should order the retreat.

But he didn't. He stood up from where he was crouched behind a fallen stone structure and aimed his wrist blaster at an approaching fighter. A stream of golden plasma flew from the device, and struck the fighter head-on. Bit by bit, the weapon damaged its target. But it wasn't enough. The fighter was much bigger than the soldiers, and it took longer to destroy it. Long before Daryl ever reached that point, the fighter began to spew bright, orange balls of plasma at him.

"Get down!" Lieutenant Banks screamed, tackling Daryl to the ground. Moments later, the barricade they were behind shuddered with the impact of the fighter's weapons. Daryl shoved George off of him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Daryl demanded.

"I'd ask you the same thing," George replied. "The civilians are all gone; there's no reason to stay here!" Daryl stared at him for a few moments, then turned on his radio.

"All units," the captain said, "retreat through the gate!"

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Several minutes later, the ground troops stepped through the Stargate into the S.G.C. At the base of the ramp, General Landry was waiting for them.

"I take it the mission was more or less successful?" he asked.

"Definitely," Donald replied as he helped carry a wounded soldier off the ramp.

"The new weapons were extremely effective, sir," Daryl explained. "We were able to do some serious damage to the enemy's ground troops."

Good work," Landry said. "You'll all be debriefed 1900. Dismissed."

The troops filed out of the gate room and walked through the various corridors of the base until they reached their quarters. As soon as Daryl reached his, George grabbed him and shoved him inside.

"Wha..." Daryl started to say, but George cut him off.

"What the hell were you doing out there?" he demanded, closing the door behind them.

"What are you talking about?" Daryl asked.

"You taking on a Zetharian fighter by yourself!" George replied. "You knew you didn't stand a chance!"

"Well, we have to do something!" Daryl argued. "We may be winning more on the ground, but the Zetharian ships..."

"No, this wasn't about our tactical situation," George said harshly. "This was about Leslie." Daryl just stared at him. "We all feel bad about what happened to her, Daryl. But we accept that she's gone."

"She's not gone," Daryl told him softly. "She's still in there, somewhere." George felt a wave of pity wash over him.

"Daryl," he said comfortingly, "Leslie's gone. I know how you felt about her, we all did. Hell, the only two people who didn't know what was going on between the two of you were... the two of you. So I know this is harder for you than it is for us." He sighed. "But Daryl, you need to get over this. You need to move on with your life. And, most importantly, since you're leading troops into battle, you need to be able to set your emotions aside. You weren't able to do that today." George's expression became serious.

"Now, I didn't say anything until now because I didn't want to get you in trouble with General Landry," Lieutenant Banks explained. "But if you do something like this again, I swear to god I will place the safety of the men you're leading over my friendship with you." Without another word, George turned and walked out of the room.

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"You weren't too hard on him, were you?" Major Hailey asked. She, Lieutenant Banks, and Sergeant O'Connor were in the mess having dinner together and discussing the situation with Captain Reynolds.

"I tried to be reassuring," George replied. "But he put the lives of fellow service men in danger today. I had to let him know where I stood on that." Hailey sighed in frustration.

"You really don't know how to moderate, do you?" she asked him. "You're either very cheerful or very angry. You don't know how to do in between."

"No I don't," George replied with a goofy smile, eliciting small laughs from his companions.

"So, were he and Colonel Crawford... involved?" Donald asked.

"No," Jennifer replied. "They've just been very close friends for the entire time we served together, much closer than the rest of us."

"They probably would've gotten together," George added, "if they weren't so damned unemotional." Hailey chuckled. "I'm serious," he continued. "The two of them could deal with hostile aliens and tricky negotiations and ignorant cadets, but they couldn't deal with their feelings towards each other."

"And now Leslie is gone," Donald said intuitively. "And he's finally realized how much he cares about her, hasn't he?"

"I think so," Hailey replied. "I only hope this doesn't destroy him."

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Daryl Reynolds walked into Leslie Crawford's prison. He took a few steps in and stared straight at her. The tall, blonde woman was floating in mid-air, contained in an anti-gravity field so she couldn't infect anything in the base.

"God damnit," she greeted him. "Why do you keep coming back?"

"Because I have to," he replied solemnly, and Leslie just sighed in frustration.

"Haven't you spent enough..." she started to say, but trailed off as an odd look came over her face.

"Daryl," she croaked, and the captain's eyes widened.

"Leslie?" he whispered.

"Oh, Daryl, please..." she begged. "Please... help..." Suddenly, the pained expression vanished from her face, replaced by the hard irritated appearance she had before.

"Time here," Leslie finished, spitting out the last two words like a curse. But Daryl wasn't dissuaded. He had once again seen evidence that Leslie was in there somewhere, and he wasn't going to give up on her.

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Leslie Crawford resisted the urge to break out laughing. This fool was so easy to manipulate.

Of course, she had more important things on her mind than screwing with some human's mind. The humans of this world were dangerously close to developing a weapon that could deal serious damage to the Zetharian space fleet. She couldn't allow that to happen.

And yet, she couldn't step in and stop them. Because she only had one shot at interfering with their work, and she couldn't waste it now. No, she'd let them build their weapon and start to use it. Then she'd make sure that the Zetharian learned everything it needed to make that weapon completely useless.

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"So, it's ready?" General Landry asked. Standing before him were Colonel Carter, Doctors McKay and Jackson, and Major Hailey. They had just placed a folder on his desk with the final schematics for the Z-Buster weapon they'd been working on for so long.

"As ready as it'll be without being tested," Carter replied. "We recommend a prototype weapons system be built and installed on a BC-303 immediately."

"And both I and the director agree with that," Landry replied. "You'll have everything you could possibly need, Colonel. Dismissed."

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Twenty-Eight Days Later... (A/N: Nice little pun, if I do say so myself)

The Prometheus, flanked by a dozen 303s and Jaffa Motherships, dropped out of hyperspace over the Jaffa world Galanda. This planet had been attacked by fifteen Zetharian vessels just two days ago, finally falling several hours ago. Now, the Prometheus was here to exact revenge for that attack.

On the bridge of the oldest human warship, Colonel Cameron Mitchell stared out the forward viewport at the enemy armada spread out before them. The fifteen vessels didn't look too intimidating, but they'd all learned that looks are definitely deceiving.

I hope this works, he thought.

"Bring the new weapons array on-line," Mitchell ordered, the insecurity he was feeling banished from his mind. "Helm, bring sublight engines to full power. Take us straight at the closest Zetharian ship. Instruct all the other ships in the armada to do the same." The bridge officers quickly complied with his orders. "The moment that ship's shields go down," Cam continued, "hit it with the new weapon." And pray for a miracle, Cameron added silently. He didn't have much faith in this new weapon. He'd been in too many battles for that. He'd watched as the Zetharian took everything they threw at it and kept on coming.

But they needed this victory. They needed to start turning the tide. Because if they didn't, things would get worse. Moral was low; the troops were beginning to feel that there was no way to win. And as long as they felt like that, they were less effective. So this had to work. It just had to.

But whether or not it would, they were committed to this attack.

The Prometheus and its fellow warships closed in on the lead Zetharian vessel with frightening speed. The moment they were in range, they started to shoot at it with every rail gun and plasma cannon they had. The shields of the enemy ships glowed for a brief time as it resisted the barrage, but eventually they failed. As soon as they did, Mitchell gave that one, crucial order, and crossed his fingers.

From the nose of the Prometheus, a single missile launched out at the Zetharian ship. It struck the hull, but didn't detonate. Instead, it burrowed its way into the ship, going through several decks. Then it exploded.

And what an explosion it was. The entire front half of the ships went up in one big fireball. But seventy percent of the ship hadn't been destroyed yet.

"Fire a second one!" Mitchell ordered, and weapons officer replied. Another one of the Z-Buster weapons was launched. It too, struck the ship and penetrated the hull. And in one massive, resounding explosion, the entire Zetharian ship exploded.

The cheer that rose from his fellow officers was so loud Mitchell nearly lost his hearing from it.

"Ok!" he shouted over the commotion. "Let's keep hitting these guys until we're all out of ordinance. Then we go back to Earth and tell 'em the good news."

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"Thirteen Zetharian ships destroyed, you say?" Director O'Neill asked.

"Yes, sir," Colonel Mitchell replied. "We would've destroyed the other two as well, but we were out of Z-Busters."

"Z-Busters?" O'Neill asked with a smile.

"Doctor McKay's name for the new weapon," Mitchell explained. "It kinda stuck."

"Yeah," Jack said nonchalantly. "I can see why." He searched through some papers on his desk for a moment, then looked up at Cameron. "Good work, Colonel," he said. "Dismissed."

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In her cell, Leslie Crawford analyzed the data being sent to the S.G.C. from the warship Prometheus. All of it was very interesting, and all of it provided her with a very interesting view on the problem. The traditional Zetharian reaction to this would be to strengthen shields and hull integrity, but the next weapons, the ones that would be mass-produced would be fifteen times as powerful. Sallium was a very versatile substance, but it had limits. However, the humans' technology used a variety of substances with different and adjustable limits. No, they would continue to adapt long after the Zetharian lost the ability to do so. The only to do in this situation was think outside the box. She had been doing that for an hour, and believed she had come up with a solution.

The only problem, she thought, is getting what I know to the rest of the Zetharian. Oh, well. She'd find a way. It was only a matter of time...

End of Chapter XIV

A/N: Yet another chapter done. We're somewhere between two-thirds and three-fourths of the way through this story, by the way. My goal is to be done by January 6 (The day new episodes of S.G.-1 and Atlantis begin airing in the US). So, hopefully I'll make my deadline.