FFnet censors Baal's name in PMs but not in story posts. The more you know!

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The man known as Gaius sat and listened as Chapeyev gave a briefing on the various companies and units of the Program across the stars. Chapeyev had been in command of the Stargate Regiment's troops during the Battle of the Beasts on Elysium, and had subsequently been promoted when the Program expanded following Vulcan's defeat. The SG teams were still the elite, but the Regiment were the second echelon, soldiers joining that formation and then being promoted into an SG team whenever a vacancy appeared. They were well trained, and subsequently had been training up the allied troops which Chapeyev also had command of including the two Roman regiments as well as the Cimmerians.

"Following this," Chapeyev was explaining, "over the last two years we've hit 20 enemy bases, relying on the good relationship with Bra'tac's cell to supply us with intelligence and tactical advice. Each time the Regiment has supported SG teams on point, with all troops disguised in Jaffa armour, usually the enemy Jaffa of whichever god we're fighting. During this we've taken losses, but have left neither survivors nor casualties behind. Any gun shot wound has been disguised by close-range Ma'tok fire, which is good enough as autopsies are not practiced by the Goa'uld."

The man known as Gaius shifted uncomfortably, he could still remember the terror of his flight and the destruction of his beasts as the Soviets annihilated everything he'd built over thousands of years. The Tau'ri were effective, whatever else one said about them.

Chapeyev continued, "Now, Ba'al's Jaffa are less well trained than Apophis', but Apophis has apparently become suspicious that several of his bases were destroyed in unusual manners, for example," he directed the projection officer to the next slide, "Here we have the aftermath of one of our 'Hedgehog' attacks, in this case a continuous rocket barrage through the Stargate for 10 minutes. The Jaffa on the base couldn't do anything about it and we went in afterwards and captured the survivors without resistance. This is not a standard Goa'uld tactic, and in general we know we haven't been entirely successful in disguising our attacks as Goa'uld ones. However, we also know Apophis, and therefore likely Ba'al suspect a third party. Various other Goa'uld have been contributing forces, notable Cronos on Ba'al's side due to the rivalry between Cronos and Apophis, meaning the battlespace is most confused at times, to say nothing of the potential for Tok'ra sabotage which is a constant fear of the System Lords."

The man known as Gaius sneered. It had been one of their failings, teaching their slaves to obey anyone with glowing eyes… Too often the Tok'ra just wandered in without challenge, leaving chaos as they went. One had been his cellmate before he'd managed to escape his former master.

"To follow up on the points other comrades have covered regarding our allies," said Chapeyev, "The groups offering active resistance to the Goa'uld including the Tok'ra and Ma'chello's faction are aware of us, but have yet to contact us. We believe they're waiting for us to prove ourselves, or at least waiting for us to demonstrate a consistent animosity toward the Goa'uld. Our current actions might indicate an advanced population controlled by a Goa'uld, for example Vulcan.

The man known as Gaius restrained a smirk.

"Please detail the current operations further Colonel." Ordered Zhukov, clearly more interested in the military discussion than he had been in the more theoretical matters previously.

"Principally we've acted as raiders, or as a 'reconnaissance in force'. If you'll take note of these slides sir," Chapeyev again gestured to the projectionist and the board lit up again, this time upside down before the officer fumbled to correct the slide depicting a blasted forest, two landing platforms broken and bullet-ridden, Soviet armour in the foreground while the soldiers posed with their trophies. "Here's the aftermath of another battle, I had a platoon march up and down the tank tracks till they'd disappeared and we hauled everything we could through the Stargate back to one of our bases. During these missions we've recovered several thousand Ma'tok staff weapons, as well as a similar number of the bullet-resistant armour the Jaffa use. As the war's developed the Goa'uld have allowed more weapons to be used including grenades which can stun, a single communication orb, as well as the Ma'tok cannons which we provide all the power of an artillery gun in a man-portable form. Further to this we've found a great deal of other equipment, for example a large quantity of naquadah, both liquid and what we're calling 'weapons grade' refined. While these raids have furnished our main sources of alien technology, we've also received support from Bra'tac's cell, apparently he was preparing for something like this and thinks we'll make better use of his things. For example, the 'Needle Threader'" the slide showed a strange circular craft, Soviet technicians examining an opened panel near the engines.

The man known as Gaius seethed. There wasn't anything wrong with the Chappa'tak, it was just the slaves who couldn't fly them. They'd told him to design a craft capable of flying through a Stargate and he'd delivered!

"It appears the Goa'uld came up with the same idea we did regarding a 'Gatefighter' and this was the result. We've used it in combat once, or rather, Colonel Durov was inspecting one of our scientific bases and we had a report of a Goa'uld bomber coming into land on a different planet."

Durov smiled easily, "It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, I jumped in and took our its engines before it could take off. I would have been better to have gotten the whole ship but we managed to rip out a few of its critical systems like the hyperdrive generator and carry them back to the base for study."

The man known as Gaius couldn't help but feel jealous of Durov. When he'd ruled on Elysium he'd bred his slaves for intellect and ability to emulate the mental strength and clarity required to operate the telepathic interfaces on Goa'uld technology. The Colonel, being one of the more evolutionarily advanced of his species and obviously possessing the Ancient genetic markers, and managed to 'cheat' his way to mastery as effective as a Goa'uld. He didn't have naquadah running through his veins like a true Goa'uld, but the gene almost made up for it. It was a good thing the Tau'ri hadn't discovered the secret chamber below the Palace holding most of the Ancient technology he'd taken with him when he fled from Ba'al.

"While we couldn't get that ship we did managed to get two others." Said Chapeyev, "Firstly, a Goa'uld 'Tel'tak', a cargo ship, was damaged in the war and Teal'c managed to 'lose' it, claiming it as destroyed. We've been advised not to push the engines past 80% capacity, but as I understand a broken piece of technology can be more informative than a fully operational one sometimes. The second is another cargo ship which happened to be resupplying a base when we attacked. This one is slightly more advanced than the other, and obviously can go to 100% capacity and therefore faster."

Zhukov laughed, "We had to take the moon rock off the Boss after people kept asking why he had it on his desk and what it was!"

The celebrations following the Tau'ri's first visit to their satellite moon had been one of the few times the man known as Gaius could really enjoy himself in the new society he found himself in. He hadn't ever really enjoyed ruling, he was a craftsman and a scientist so he'd been able to sympathise with the spirit of discovery that had infected the base.

The conference briefly degraded into a renewal of the celebrations before Chapeyev called them to order again.

"In addition to these material gains, the campaign has also given us significant experience in the operations of the Goa'uld in general, and we've made significant gains in intelligence matters. For example," another slide was loaded, "Here you see one of the Goa'uld motherships landed on a planet."