Chapter 13

ES-2 Stargate. . .

The coolness that Don had become accustomed to with gate travel quickly washed over him as the halftrack came through the gate. Looking ahead, he saw that the tanks had already fallen into a rough diamond formation, at least one tank facing each different direction around the gate. Powell's men were in turn scattering around the area, dismounting from their vehicles with weapons drawn and prepared to engage. Don and the soldiers coming through did likewise, moving to a different point around the gate perimeter and dismounting. Crouching and lying prone, looking in all directions. Behind him, the rest of the task force emerged from the wormhole smoothly, fanning out and securing the area. Once a perimeter was established, the teams had more or less all fallen into position. Looking at his wrist, Don checked the chronograph he'd started when the expedition first set through, it read six minutes and forty three seconds. He grimaced; that was a full minute forty three longer than he'd anticipated the maneuver would take. They'd only had time to drill the maneuver for a week or so at Camp Roosevelt, and as best they could, they couldn't quite simulate the condition of emerging from a gate and falling in, partially because ES-4 had been enduring a pretty severe sandstorm for most of the week, which had scuttled their original practice idea.

Staying put for several more minutes, Don eventually became convinced that there was nothing waiting in ambush of him and the team, at least for the moment.

"Powell, Norwell, Simmons, lets meet up." he said into his earpiece. Looking across the plain, he saw a trio of figures rise and hustle over to his position, as the four met, they all took a knee.

"Well, it looks like the welcoming committee opted for a rain check." Powell said jovially as his eyes scanned the horizon.

"What's up with that sir?" Simmons asked "I'd have though the Eagles would've been keeping an eye on the gate. The gun cart only came through a couple of years ago, and judging by those tracks this gates been seeing plenty of use; where are they?"

"I don't know Simmons, we might have just lucked out and missed one of their patrols, they could have vacated the area, or something else. We don't really have a lot of intel on this and that makes me nervous."

"Are we still a-go for the first part of the plan?"

Don frowned, their initial plan was to have the group wait by the gate while Greyhound and Jeep scouts moved ahead to find the enemy. Looking out over the plain though, he realized that it was significantly more flat than they'd though, the gun camera hadn't done it justice, if they waited by the gate, they'd be visible for at least a couple kilometers all around. He could just make out some ridges in the distance.

"We'll change it up a bit." he said, shouldering his Thompson and pulling up some of the prairie grass until he had a nice flat dirt surface to work with. "We'll send the scout vehicles up ahead over the ridge following the tracks, if they can confirm it's clear, we'll move everything up. We're too exposed out here to make camp and since we know nothing about the enemy's capabilities I don't want to leave any of our task group as a potential sitting duck." Reaching into the dirt, he made two straight lines in the clay like soil with his fingers. "We'll split the group into two columns, Powell and Norwell will take the British detachment on the left, and you and I Simmons will take the rest on the right. We'll stay in line of sight with each other, which should mean several kilometers of distance between the two of us. We go like this for about ten miles and then link up. I realize it's a bit random, but I want to make sure the aliens don't have us zeroed in."

He grimaced. "This way, if for some reason we're marching into a trap, it won't wipe out all of us. . . hopefully."

"Well, that's a jolly thought." Powell said glancing around once more "Let's hope we fall into the 'not blown up' category." he finished with a friendly grin.

"You have that right." Simmons nodded in agreement.

Don checked the compass and verified that it worked. With directions established, the team split up into the two columns, Hammond's half and Powell's half. While they assembled into their formations, the Jeeps and Greyhounds drove ahead over to the ridge and called back just as the convoys readied for departure.

"We're all clear, el-tee!" one of the Greyhounds radioed. "It looks fairly clear over this ridge line, there're some smaller ridges up head that seem to go on for a while, but other than that, it's as flat as the plains!"

"Sounds good, okay, everyone, lets move out!" They two groups split up and moved out towards the first ridge line. The so called columns were more of an arrow- like formation. The deuces and transport halftracks formed the column, while the tanks and armed half tracks formed at the head. Bringing up the rear were several jeeps and other more lightly armed vehicles.

They'd barely made it over a ridge a couple of miles from the gate before they had their first contact with whoever was on ES-2. It started when Simmons, up front on point, barked over his radio for everyone to shut up.

"What is it, Sergeant?" Hammond asked.

"Hear that?" Simmons said, and Don noticed it too, the screeching sound. A second later, it was Powell who made the guess. "Aircraft!" he yelled, which had everyone's eyes and weapons snapping up to scan the sky for the incoming.

In the cockpit of his Udajeet, an open-air variant of the Death Glider, Kor'us was on patrol, looking for any signs of Apophis' forces. The battle for this world had been ongoing for almost an entire cycle of this particular location, but hopefully the campaign would be completed soon. Ra's forces would be making a surprise push on several of Apophis's positions and by the grace of his god, they would be triumphant.

His orders, and those of his flight wing, were to attack and destroy any intruders on contact. The bulk of the air forces on this world were being devoted to the main assault, smaller skirmishing elements like the Udajeet wings were being deployed on patrol and scouting missions. Kor'us's brother liked to tease him from flying a "junior" craft, but he took pride in his ship and his wing. They might not charge into the main fight like his brother and the main death gliders, but without the eyes of his craft, they couldn't find the enemy. Plus they had the most experience running down and eliminating foes who retreated from the wrath of his god. He smiled as the wing banked and moved to the next patrol sector near the Chappa'ai. He knew that Ra would emerge victorious, of course, his lord had not become Supreme System Lord for being weak. Apophis would pay for his transgression.

As the small wing of craft made their final approach to the sector, Kor'us noticed the signals on his sensors. The readings weren't like anything he'd seen before, at least by Apophis's measure. Calibrating the sensor, he detected twenty nine large heat emissions coming from a location not far from where his wing was heading. Orienting his wing to move to intercept, he calibrated the visual sensors to make the images more clear. Eventually his main image finder pulled up what he was seeing. A large group of strange metal vehicles were moving across the plain, their destination unknown. His eyes widened slightly at the strange contraptions. What had Apophis brought to bear now? He shook his head; it didn't matter, they were just a new set of targets for his wing to intercept. He gave the order to close with the enemy group and attack; once they destroyed the interlopers, the wing would return to base to notify them of its destruction. As the wing flew over the convoy, they began to bank to come in for their final attack run.

When they laid eyes on the unusual vessels again, Kor'us again wondered what they were. They certainly did not seem to be normal Goa'uld craft; he could not recall having ever seen anything like these craft that crawled along the ground. Nor did he recognize the armor worn by the men. It was not normal Jaffa armor. Indeed, it scarcely appeared to be any kind of armor at all. But what else could these intruders be? Surely no other species would be foolish enough to challenge Ra. He'd heard whispers of worlds populated by humans who blindly rejected the gods and even, according to the voices spoken in hush tones in the darkness, had advanced technology that could challenge the divine ones. He always snorted at that assertion, no one was more powerful than the gods; while it was true that other gods out there possessed power too, such as the legendary Asgard, according to myth, they only stuck to their worlds.

Shaking his head again slightly, he brought his focus back to the attack. The vehicles grew closer in his view as the wing dove in for the attack run.

They opened fire against the columns of enemy forces, a single strafing run. Kor'us watched as the gouts of plasma impacted against the plain and sent small geysers of dirt into the air. They'd sent several volleys at the vehicles, yet scored no hits, a few bolts had fallen close, but they weren't used to attacking a foe that moved this fast on the ground. Cursing, Kor'us began to mentally recalibrate his attack run for when they would pass again.

As the wing began to fly over the vehicles , the enemy fired back, with weapons Kor'us had never seen before. He felt his craft shake as something impacted against the hull. Looking at the display for his wing, he saw that the other Uda'jeet were likewise reporting similar damages. The one of the ships turned red. Jerking his head to the right, he saw one of his wingmen burst into flames as the craft began to plummet to the ground in a ball of fire. Banking what was left of his wing for another attack, he began to lock onto the targets, the fools would pay for their transgression against his men. But the damage kept piling up. In the twilight of morning, he could distinguish flashes and massive bursts of noise coming from them, but no visible energy blasts. What kind of weapons were these? His question was partially answered as one of the troops jumped off one hof the vehicles, dropped to a knee and raised a cylinder to his shoulder. A large object spat out of the cylinder, and slammed into the udajeet's wings, shredding it and sending hot shrapnel into Kor'us' arm and the side of his helmet. Yelling in pain, he tried to reach the control, but found that the left half of his body just wouldn't respond. The udajeet spiraled out of control, crashing to the ground a hundred meters past the column,. As the craft skittered to a halt, he felt the harness dig painfully into his chest as a spray of soil spread across what was left of his cockpit view screen, until the wreck came to a halt with a painful jerk against a protruding rock, still with enough force to flip over and land upside down, the lopsidedness caused by one of the wings tearing off completely saving him from being crushed between the ground and his seat.

His gaze fuzzy, he could only hear a loud ringing in his ears, a darkness surrounded him, he was awake though. Groggily, he turned his head and still saw only darkness. In the din he realized that his helmet was malfunctioning. Still unable to move his left side, he gingerly raised his right arm, which was bent at an awkward angle and touched it to the side of his helmet. A sharp pain tore into his working arm as he did so, but the emergency release opened his helmet. The emergency power in his ship was working, dull gold lights illuminated the cockpit and what was left of the viewscreen displayed information on his wing. The large gap between cockpit edge and ground let in a few rays of sunlight through the grime.
In dismay, he saw that all five of his craft had been shot down by this foe and telemetry indicated that they were rapidly closing in.

He'd failed his god, worse, he hadn't slain any of these worms who dared to slight their better, and now as they closed in, who knew what they'd do to him, or what was left of his craft.

The last thing Kor'us saw before blacking out was a group of men from the second column moving toward him. The olive drab vehicles he'd worked so hard to destroy all pointed at him unfeelingly.

Five enemy aircraft. That's how many there were. Over three passes, the worst that had been inflicted on Don's men were a few cases of rock and dirt explosions and a couple of near-hits to the armor. The blasts from the craft, apparently larger versions of the energy staff's discharges, had missed. The larger versions were apparently just as inaccurate as the smaller, which could have been because of the circumstances, since it seemed the aircraft were unsure about how fast the convoys were moving.

The two columns had quickly scrambled to get to all five aircraft. It was risky splitting up the task group like so, but the chance to get a look at these things was too tempting to pass up. After about ten minutes, all five had been reached by various groups from the convoy, who were all busy setting up mini perimeters around the wrecks. Don and Simmons took a middle position in the plain to better coordinate the effort.

"This is Powell, we're approaching the cockpit now." the lieutenant radioed. Don could hear him barking orders to his men. "Alright, steady boys, steady, we don't know what's in here, take your positions and keep those eyes forward on there. If something jumps out, take the shots. Remember, careful observation, we don't know what we're dealing with."

After about a minute of silence, the voices picked back up "Okay, looks good. On my mark, we flip this thing over . . . Bloody Hell!" the voice said suddenly fast paced.

"Powell! Whats going on?" Don asked, his finger pressed to his ear piece as he looked to the horizon where Powell and his men were.

"Hammond . . . It's a human! A human's in the cockpit!"

"What? Say again Powell, did you say a human?"

"Yes, a human, a negro gent with a tattoo on his forehead, but yes, a human!"

"Oh my god . . . Powell, is he still alive?"

"I don't know, I'll check his pulse. . . No Norwell, I'll check, you all keep your guns on him if he tries anything funny, if anyone's going to have to poke the strange human bloke, it should be me. . ."

"Keep on the radio Powell, I want it frame by frame."

"You got it, Lieutenant. Just putting my Sten on the shoulder and grabbing the old revolver, just to be safe. Okay, I'm approaching the cockpit now, this front end is buckled bad, I'm going to have to climb up into it a bit. . .Okay I'm edging my way in, close now. . .Fingers on the neck aaaaannnnddd . . . yes, I've got a pulse. This cockpit is amazing, so many lights and. . .ahh, woaaa!"

"Powell!"

"Its alright, I lost my train of thought there for a moment and almost fell in, that'd be embarrassing, , anyways, yes he's alive!"

"Okay, I'm going to check with the other teams and see what going on with the other craft."

It turned out that Powell's aircraft was the best preserved one out of the bunch, funny considering it took a bazooka round right to the belly, but three other craft had their cockpits badly shredded by the machine gun fire, and the other one had its pilot impaled on several large pieces of metal. All in all, two of the pilots had been killed, and the remaining three were injured, two seriously, one with only minor shrapnel wounds. All three were unconscious. Don decided to focus recovery effort first on Powell's craft. Directing several trucks and some vehicles there, he decided to pay a personal visit.

Arriving several minutes later, the four officers met once more and began to talk, as soldiers began to pour over the ship and set up a miniature work shop to look at what could be taken in the next few minutes.

"What do we do now?" he asked Simmons, Powell, and the other officers present.

"Sir, we can't risk losing this opportunity. We've got three prisoners, two bodies, and five alien aircraft. I'd like to take as much of it back as possible." Simmons said.

"I know we came to launch an attack on a potential enemy base, but five aircraft for no casualties is a bit of a windfall. We also don't know if they radioed back to their base. I'd suggest cutting our losses before we have any and taking what we can get." Powell suggested.

Don put his hand to his chin as he though for a moment. There were so many unknowns that he wasn't sure how to proceed. They were already operating blind on this mission, and Powell was right, they'd bagged five aircraft for no casualties, that was a bargain one never got in war. On the other hand, with no clue about the enemy dispensation, he wasn't sure how'd they respond. If they left now, they'd eventually know something took out the aircraft and they'd likely beef up security, so the next time they'd come, would the enemy be stronger?

"I know cutting our losses here would be a net gain for us, but we still know nothing about what the enemy's strength is, and I don't want to bank on getting intel out of the prisoners. We have no clue what kind of culture they come from, or what their beliefs are. We might get a translator in, but we'd have no clue if the intel would be valid. They might try and suicide themselves the first chance they get , like the Japs or they could just not talk."

Pausing for a moment, he saw the three men looking at him, Simmons nodding slightly, Powell resting a finger on his temple and rubbing it gently, and Norwell just looking with a blank expression he couldn't divine.

"Maybe it was only a small garrison, maybe its just a recon wing, or maybe we might have kicked a hornet's nest. Point is we need to know. We'll go, check it out, see if we think we can take it out. Simmons, take two trucks, a squad of men, and one of the tank groups, escort the prisoners back to Roosevelt. If you can, chain up the wrecks to the vehicles, haul them back as well. The rest of us will continue forward, make the assault if possible." Don decided, then looked at Powell. "Do you agree?"

"If we can eliminate all knowledge of who we are, yes. That's the only reason I'm inclined to agree; we can't risk them knowing our capabilities."

Nodding Don gestured to the deuces. "That's why we have the thermite charges, if we need to destroy anything of ours in a hurry, that'll do it right there."
Powell nodded and began to radio his men.

The team split up, with Simmons grabbing Shepard's crew and some others to begin the salvage while the rest went forward. As the main combat group left, Don saw that they'd hogtied the prisoner and were tossing him in the back of one of the space deuces. One of the tank crews was rigging up some chain to pull the aircraft back. Five miles later, they crested another ridge, and things got hairy.

"We've got contact, multiple assumed hostiles, all in a camp of some sort." One of the scouts reported.

"What else do you see?" Don asked

"I've got a couple of towers that have what look like larger staff weapons mounted on top of them, there are several of those flyers in the camp and I can see several patrols and quite a few sentries. Only a few structure though, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say this is some kind of forward operations post, though since we have no clue what the SOP for the aliens are, it's anyone's guess."

"Okay, wait for us, we'll approach from the ridge in the gate's direction."

After another few minutes the convoy arrived, sheltered by the large ridge, apparently the aliens hadn't posted any of their sentries to face that direction, if that indicated anything about their training or whom they were fighting though was up in the air. Crawling forward with several of the men, Don borrowed a mirror rigged to a knife with bubblegum the scouts made and stole several peeks at the camp. Sure enough there was a small fortified location of aliens. After watching the camp on his own for a bit, he called his soldiers to formulate a strategy. Once again, tearing up some prairie grass to expose the dirt, he quickly etched a rough outline of the camp with his fingers and began to formulate a plan.
"Okay, they have the numbers and air power, so if we want to do this, we need to maximize surprise for us. The trick is, we need to fight in a condition favorable to us. I don't know if those helmets help them see in the dark or something, but I don't want to engage and find out the hard way. On top of that they have their two emplaced positions with heavy support." he said drawing two small squares in the dirt.

"We need to take out the air and ground support in one go if we want to have a chance a this. What we do is this. When the attack is about to commence, the tanks will wheel up to the ridge and fire on the base, their main goal will to be to take out those two high value target groups. After that, they'll go to the wings of the base to cut off any reinforcements and to pop smoke to conceal themselves and confuse the enemy." Don indicated with several lines around the base, creating a semi circle.

"Meanwhile, the infantry will be moving through the grass prone, getting closer to the camp. We'll engage at a distance with rifles and try and pick off some of the sentries and outer soldiers. They'll be piping smoke too." The ground force was indicated with a pair of triangles.

"With all this confusion, the main attack thrust will begin. The halftracks and carriers will charge towards the camp and off load their soldiers, the ones with more close ranged weapons and combat engagement weapons. Jeeps, Greyhounds and empty tracks will circle around the camp and hose down anything they see with machine gun fire as we sweep through. The disgorged troops will hold this phase line in the camp until he rest of the infantry can link up with the rest of the group. Once that happens, the circling vehicles will slow down and sweep, making sure nothing gets out. The rest of the infantry will march through the camp and take out anything not human. . .er, I mean anything wearing their weird armor and not on our side." Don finished with several arrows.

"Any questions?"

"What's the signal to attack?" Powell asked.

"We'll attack as sunset starts to happen, it's already beginning to dip down, once the sun is halfway down the horizon we'll launch our attack on the base. With how its falling ,the sunlight will be at out backs, which will help immensely. This might make problems for our circling forces, so make sure you have your sunglasses on and avoid blue on blue."

"What do we do if the weapons we brought don't cut it?"

"If that's the case, we'll go to plan B, hose the area down with tank shells and mortars. I'm holding off on that as our initial plan because I have no clue how delicate some of those weapons and tools can be under combat conditions or damages. We've only run limited tests on the ES-5 staff, so their tools are still an unknown, I'd like to take as much back as possible so we'll know more."

"Okay, sounds a bit risky, but with this plain we really don't have many avenues of approach. I'll get my boys ready."

Meanwhile, at the Stargate, with two unconscious prisoners and two of the least-damaged wrecks in tow, Simmons was involved in a discussion with Samuel at Roosevelt Base. Normally, they'd be paying a visit to ES-4 before dialing home, but given the salvage they had in tow, Simmons reasoned they'd likely want to take it directly to base and not drag it around in the sand.

"We've got two live captives, three bodies, and five wrecks, two of which are ready to go." he summarized. "The ones we have in tow are in one reasonable piece, though we're going to need to cutting tools to get them through, they're pretty wide, and even with the bits of the wing that broke off, we'll still need to slice a bit off."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do about that on this end, we still have a lot of tools laying around from the base construction. Lets talk a bit about these prisoners. First, have they seen the address?" Samuel asked.

"Negative. They've been unconscious and kept away from the pedestal just to be sure. The ones that are alive are hogtied in the back of a deuce."

"Casualties?"

"A few injuries, none serious, and no fatalities. The prisoners are in pretty serious condition, though."

"Bring them through, we'll let the docs take a look at them." Samuel said. "I'll send some boys through with equipment to cut the wrecks up once everyone else is here."

"Should we break off and try and rejoin the el-tee?"

"Negative, I'll need you and your boys to guard what's left of the wrecks and the salvage teams, if we're spread out over five wrecks security is already going to be a nightmare, we'll need all hands on deck for this one, Simmons."

"Sounds good Sam, what's the ETA on the gear?"

"Everyone is scrambling around now to get things loaded into the spare deuces we have around the base. I'm also sending the M25 through as well, that should be able to help with the towing. The M2 tractors are ready to go also."

"That's a lot of our assets that are going out here Sam."

"I know, but that's currently an active combat zone with an unknown number of hostiles in the area, the sooner we can get that shit broken down and stored the better. Docs tell me the medical suites are ready, send the prisoners through now along with any salvage you already pulled, the rest of the recovery team should be through in just a few minutes."

"Sounds good. You heard the man, trucks one and seven, go through!"

Simmons watched as the two deuces ramped up the stone steps to the gate and vanished with a small woosh through the gate. After a minute, Samuel came back on the radio.

"Trucks have been received, we've got the prisoners strapped to some gurneys and are wheeling them in now. We're ready on this end to send stuff through, shutting down the gate."

A loud whoosh marked the closure of the connection to Camp Roosevelt, which was punctuated by a brief moment of silence before the sound of locking chevrons interrupted the din. After several moments the gate cracked back to life. Shooting out quickly were several trucks, as well as four tracked tractors, and finally a massive wheeled vehicle with a long trailer, which slowly made its way down the stairs to the prairie. Simmons winced slightly, it was going to take some finessing to get the M25 back through, but it could be done, they'd have to potentially cover the steps with dirt to make a more gradual incline back up, though.

"All right, the two flyers we towed back are here, the other three are further out and in larger pieces, we'll work on these two first before grabbing the rest. Team one, you're on overwatch, team two, I need you to work with one of the M2s to start piling up dirt to get the M25 back up, team 3, help with the cutting. . ."

Fort Roosevelt. . .

Kor'us felt a sharp pain in his head as he stirred awake, his vision was blurry and he couldn't move his limbs. He took a breath and felt a sharp pain in his chest. He'd failed his god and was now being punished, he body broken in the cockpit of his udajeet. All he could hope was that his brothers would find his body and save the young god in his pouch, then he might find some redemption.

Yet, after several more moments, he noticed that the light in front of his eyes was brighter than the planet he'd been on earlier. Was he already entering paradise, had Ra forgiven his failure? Voices seemed to beckon him closer, he blinked more furtively trying to focus, the voices became clearer. It was then he noticed that his still functional right side could still move. As he tried to shake his arm once more though, he found it difficult to move. Curious, he tried to work his arm once more, he still had feeling, but it wasn't moving. What was this?

Closing his eyes and reopening them more intently, his vision began to clear. He realized that he was moving, he was laying back on something soft which carried him across where he was. Shaking his head slightly, the cloudiness faded and he saw that he was passing beneath several lights. Blinking, he looked to his left and right an saw that his arms were strapped to pieces of metal. Looking around he saw he was surrounded by several beings covered in white and wearing masks, they looked like humans, but what were they doing with him. Shaking, he began to groan and try and remove his shackles, when they noticed him and began to speak in a strange tongue.

"Doc. . .he's waking up!" one of the voices said.

Who were these humans, and how did they dare to take him and shackle him like a prisoner? He felt a surge of energy coursing through his body and he began to work his shackles one more. Shaking, he shouted: "Who are you? Where are my brothers?! How dare you shackle me, unhand me at once!"

"What the hell is he saying?" one of the masked figures yelled as the group jumped back with a start.

"I don't know, but we gotta sedate him, he's got a compound fracture on his left arm and at least seven broken ribs."

Kor'us didn't know what these words meant, all he knew was he had to get free. The metal was weak, he flexed his still working arm and pulled the shackle closer to himself, he felt its bonds weaken.

"Shit, he's going to break out of that strap!"

"Get in there now, 30 ccs of penathol! Do it!"

He felt a sharp jab in his neck and a warmth flowed over him, he felt tired, after a few moments, he began to slacken at his grip, perhaps rest would be good. . . NO! These humans were trying to trick him, befuddle his senses somehow, he had to get free. Yelling he renewed his effort to break free.

"Fuck, he's still going at it!"

"What the hell, its been almost a minute now." Kor'us felt another sharp jab in his neck, this time the warmth overtook him more than before and he slackened his pull on the straps. He felt tired so tired.

"Tell Agent Marcus that putting the strap around the neck was a good idea after all." was the last thing he heard before drifting off to sleep once more.