Disclaimer: All characters, names, settings etc belong to their respective copyright holders, only much of the convoluted plot, Night Wolf and a few other things are of my own creation (but inspired from many things under copyright, which aren't mine).
Chapter 32
Lethbridge Stewart stared at the paperwork in front of him, both electronic and physical paperwork.
Blowing up a sun wasn't something your casually mentioned and expected it to just go away.
He was keeping it 'In-house' until he had all the facts to go to Geneva, Harry's initial plan 'to blow up a sun' was ambitious, and perhaps he'd been too willing to go along with it…but then again it wasn't as though he was trying to evacuate London for weeks on end, Lethbridge Stewart was pretty sure the Prime Minister wouldn't let him do that nowadays.
On the top of his pile of papers that he'd just finished reading was the beginnings of a plan, or at least a starting point, Harry had visited Professor Tegan Vleugal down in the Gibson Desert Research Facility, he'd sent her a brief memo to expect Harry and a (very) brief outline of his proposal.
Harry had met with her and they'd come up with…an idea.
"This is going to be a trap…" Lethbridge Stewart mused to himself as he read the final portions of the report.
Estimated area of coverage for modified transmat is roughly a 100 cm square, coordinates will have to be locked prior to transmat.
Containment vessel (Harry has indicated the vessel known as Shadow Blaze will be used, (Note modifications to power systems will be required, modifications will also be necessary to enable vessel to hold transmat chamber). Vessel Shadow Blaze will need to maintain distance of 5km or less of the target.
A vessel with transmat ability will also be required in a low orbit to complete the process as described by Harry and in memo.
A trap in the sense that they were going to need to lure Voldemort into it, considering they couldn't re-position these things, which much of the plan hinged on.
Lethbridge Stewart placed the report / memo on a separate pile on his desk, that he'd reserved for documents pertaining to 'Harry's Plan' as he'd begun to think of it as, but it was slowly building up to a complicated plan, one that might just work.
--//
"So…for this…well my plan Brigadier…I'm going to need somewhere that I can lure Voldemort into…"
"Somewhere that can have fixed coordinates so that he can be transmatted into the cage, attached to the Shadow Blaze." The Brigadier mentioned.
"Professor Vleugal…she was quick." Harry said with a raised eyebrow.
"Of course, All the finer points need to be worked out Harry before I go to Geneva." The Brig said to Harry.
"Why?" He asked curiously.
"Because while I agree…" Lethbridge Stewart trailed off. "While I agree that your plan has merit, and is just the right sort of…"
"Crazy?" Harry asked with a smile.
"Ingenuity to work, we are still talking about blowing up a star, I need to convince Geneva that this will work, and that we're not just going to go around blowing up stars until we hit the right one in the right circumstances."
Harry nodded thoughtfully for a moment.
"Birmingham mentioned something a while back about UNIT training grounds…" Harry started, Lethbridge Stewart nodded and reached over the papers littering his desk and tapped a coded search into his computer, behind him a printer started printing out a few pages he grabbed them handing it to Harry.
"That's a list of all the training areas which you could use to lure Voldemort…places he'd be familiar with."
"Such as?"
"Forests, moors, quarries, wastelands…that sort of thing, you should be able to find all that in the library…" He gave Harry a look, Harry smiled.
"Ok so I've been having a look around Brigadier…I might not be Hermione, but it's still interesting reading about…I dunno…Robot Yetis in the Underground, Cyber…robot things in the sewers…time machines…under London…you know you must have got really sick of aliens hanging out under London…"
"I got by Harry, with the support of my teams…"
Harry nodded seemingly thinking about something.
"But of course now we've got more space to play around with, and the aliens aren't just down here…"
"They're up there…sort of puts this whole Voldemort me-with-the-prophecy-guy into perspective when I think about it sometimes…" Harry mused staring off into the middle distance for a moment.
"Yes, however he is still quite a problem…I just need to balance how much he is a problem…down here, with convincing Geneva that we can get rid of him…up there…so to speak."
"I'll get right on it Brigadier…" Harry said and thanked him for the notes and quietly left the Brigadier's office.
Birmingham knocked and stepped in a few minutes later.
"I saw Harry a moment ago, he seems determined."
Lethbridge Stewart nodded, Birmingham placed another pile of documents down on Lethbridge Stewart's desk.
"What's this?"
"My report."
"Highlights please Birmingham, you're my second in command for a reason."
"So I can get shot before you?" He chuckled.
"Yes and so I can hand you over when the aliens want a hostage." Lethbridge Stewart murmured causing Birmingham to chuckle.
"I've been with having some conversations with our stellar experts, general space theory boffins and other people…about the genuine realities of Harry's plan."
"Well?"
"It's workable, the star is in its main sequence, and removing some of its mass will cause it to destabilise and explode out…we're not talking super-nova standards…we'd need to remove a lot of its mass, but enough will sill cause a lot of damage…there are a few problems."
"Just a few?"
"We can…supposedly construct through a liberal use of materials and sorcery a missile that will be able to travel further enough into the sun…"
"A sense a but coming Birmingham…" Lethbridge Stewart reached for his tea mug and scowled at it for being empty.
"But we're going to need an element inside the missile to act as the portkey, a strong one."
"How strong?"
"Dwarf Star Alloy." Birmingham said simply.
Lethbridge Stewart shook his head and grabbed at a pile of post it notes and scribbled a note, sticking it to a page that was covered with them beside his desk.
Birmingham raised an eyebrow.
"For my meeting in Geneva." Lethbridge Stewart said as an explanation.
"Which will be?"
"When Harry decided where he wants to set his trap for Voldemort."
Birmingham nodded slowly before leaving the Brigadier to his paperwork.
Lethbridge Stewart stared at the last post it note he'd stuck down, Dwarf Star Alloy, that was, amongst everything else going to be a hard sell.
Dwarf Star Allow was, from their many sources called that because it was dwarf star was compacted under unbelievable force, so much so it would take a 'dwarf star' to do so.
It was incredibly rare, they only found very small bits around some occasional alien sites, but it did have interesting properties; it was pretty much indestructible it wasn't effected by heat at all as far as they could tell, however even the small piece they had was incredibly heavy, it was postulated that a piece 20 cm piece would be beyond a person to carry. It also, and this was going to possibly dissuade Geneva from allowing him to use it; it could also have a nullifying effect on temporally biological organisms…in theory in any case, this was according to a scientific advisor of UNIT's during the late 1980s, someone who wasn't the Doctor, but the woman obviously knew him.
Lethbridge Stewart shook his head and rose determined to deal with one problem at a time, first he'd get himself another mug of tea, then he'd work out how to explain he wanted to let someone under 20 blow up a star.
--//
"Sorry David…" Harry said apologetically smiling to him as he looked around the moor.
"No worries Harry…this is a good reprieve from…you know…" Jones said leaning against the warm bonnet of the Land Rover, this was only the first day, and the Brigadier had given them three to four days to find 'the right place' for a trap.
"I would have offered to mist but…"
"No." Jones waved off the offer. "Makes sense the whole, keeping all magic away from the area, no matter how minor and whatever, can't set a trap if he knows it's a trap."
"Or a trap which he thinks is a trap and I'm just a naïve guy who thinks he's setting a trap but is actually going to be have a trap sprung on him by Voldemort…" Harry paused frowning, Jones raised an eyebrow.
"You know what I mean David…but this…it's way too open…bit too boggy as well, to many places for Voldemort to apparate or port key into…not that that won't happen where ever I choose…but we're really out in the open here." Harry said digging his hands into his jacket further.
"Well, we'll bed down for the night at the pub and head off to the next lot of sites tomorrow morning."
"Right, once we've got there I need to head back…"
"They worried you're going to disappear for 20 days again?" Jones asked with a smile as they climbed into the Land Rover.
"No." Harry smiled slightly. "The only time I do that is when I get rid of Voldemort. They're just…" Harry waved his hand around trying to think of a word.
"Worried?"
"Yeah."
"It's that sort of atmosphere, your plan might be…"
"Mad?"
"Creative I would have said, but it's the best one that any one has come up with, especially since it's your name on the prophecy." Jones said in jest to Harry.
"Yeah, gotta love that prophecy, I'm going to be happy when it's all over." Harry sighed leaning into the leather of the seat as the land rover rocked around the moor before finding purchase on the solid gravel road.
Jones looked over to the…man, albeit young man who sat beside him, not only had he out done himself in the training he'd done with him a little over a year ago, but he'd come up with an idea that he knew the Brigadier believed in, but it was showing, not as much as he'd seen on the video before Harry'd disappeared.
Harry walked across the dew covered grass to the equally dew covered land rover, today they'd be checking out his last couple of ideas, another woodland site, a quarry and…something else he'd found which hadn't been on the Brigadier's list, but it was in the same section that he'd found the other sites in the library.
Harry gazed in the side mirror as they drove out of the quarry.
"If we don't find anything else it'll be this one most likely." Harry said with a sigh.
"It as open as the moor."
"Yeah, but solid walls, means that they're not likely to apparate in behind me, should be easy enough to set up the coordinates for the transmat…but…"
"But?" Jones asked curiously.
"Don't know, just a feeling, a sense of something being slightly off…you know…"
Jones wasn't sure what to say, he'd had so many occurrences of 'slightly off' feelings, the quarry they'd just been in was…
"It wasn't much of a feeling Harry…it's probably all the alien gear they pulled out of the ground there."
"Oh…that's why no one's using it…"
"Probably. The last time I trained here was with a group training at Night Extraction in hostile territory with and against energy weapons."
Harry's eyebrows went up.
"Sounds exciting, really…Wouldn't mind doing that." He said idly.
"Really?" Jones was slightly amazed, after all…"Would have thought you'd want to put your feet up after all this, hand out in your getaway and escape from all this."
Harry chuckled to himself.
"Perhaps…let's deal with the present before thinking about the future."
"This could work…" Harry said to himself as he walked around the abandoned industrial estate.
Jones let Harry walk around, there wasn't anything dangerous left here, the entire site had been cleaned and cleared out.
The actual site colloquially known as the 'Inferno' has been filled in with as much solid material as the UNIT people could come up with, the complex had been covered in concrete and forgotten about.
UNIT had had the land since the mid 80s after the Ministry of Defence decided they didn't want it or couldn't use it, since then UNIT and Night Wolf had used it as a training ground, though no sorcery weapons had been used at this site, according to the file Harry had procured.
"This really could work…" Harry muttered as he turned back to face David "What do you think David?"
"I've trained here…" He trailed off and then added. "It's a good place for a covert team as well as a head on conflict…"
"Yes…could you hide a team here?" Harry queried vaguely.
"Hide from whom?" Jones asked appraising Harry.
"Friendlies and enemies." He said simply.
"Yes." It would be quite easy with this amount of cover, and would allow for a greater accuracy and hits on targets. "Why?"
"This final confrontation is going to need wand users, not just myself, others…" He said vaguely again.
"People from this Order of the Phoenix?" Jones asked cautiously,
"I think, they're just calling it The Order now." Harry admitted.
"But you're going to have other wand users." Jones stated, clarifying. "Other than Voldemort, and his followers?" He asked.
"It is our fight…" Harry said with a shrug. "But I would like some others around…just in case…"
"Backup." Jones surmised.
"If everything goes pear shaped." Harry said lightly with a slight smile.
"Well hopefully you and your friends are going to have plenty of spaces to use to avoid it going pear, or any other sort of fruit shaped." Jones said with a smile. "There's old gas and piping works, pallets, a lot of sheds and several other areas you, us or they could plan to lead some of Voldemort's forces into or through, and plenty of space to plan an assault." Jones gestured around as they walked slowly around the site.
Jones looked at Harry as they walked, he knew he didn't have to sell the site, Harry had decided on this one.
"And we're a good distance from any population?" Harry suddenly asked.
"Yes. This was M.O.D land with an exclusion zone surrounding it, UNIT got it because no one was sure what to do with it, since even though everything got covered over it's still classified under the Official…"
"Secrets Act…Too bad you can't say it as an acronym OSA, sounds a bit like a fish." He said randomly. "What about explosion, safe to plant some C4 or claymores?"
Jones raised an eyebrow but nodded.
"Also this site has no magical exposure unlike some of the other sites." Jones added.
"Yes…that is useful." Harry admitted. "Very useful. Definitely need to make sure that's maintained until and probably after one of Voldemort's minions."
"Minions?"
"Well Death Eaters or whatever, according to the Order they've been popping up at various locations with other people who don't specifically meet the Death Eater mould, the ideas that have been chucked around is that these…'Minions' are there to bolster the ranks, cause he's lost a lot in whatever recent battles…that I missed out on during my journey across the stars."
Jones filed that away for report or conversation soon.
"Don't worry Harry' you have your own battles to fight."
"And a war to win…I guess we should get back to Night Wolf and give the Brig the good news."
--//
Lethbridge Stewart looked over Harry's proposal for the use of the site for his battle.
It wasn't one of the sites that he'd come up with, but one that Harry had obviously found on his own, which suited what he had in mind.
The 'Inferno' site…
Lethbridge Stewart thought back to those days, with the Doctor and Elizabeth Shaw…and the man Stahlman, not as mad, in the beginning that is as some of the other megalomaniacs he and UNIT went up against, but a driven and quite probably driven mad through work before the ooze from drilling took hold of his sanity.
While the Doctor's initial explanation of his foreknowledge of the events was an 'alternate universe' had been quite unbelievable, subsequent studies both into the ooze and into various others elements did convince the Government that a project like the 'Inferno' should never be attempted again.
The site had been sealed tighter than a critical nuclear reactor, with more sealants, concretes and various concoctions covering the drill head and control room so it would probably take more than a few atomic bombs to get through.
"When do you see this plan happening Harry? The problems are slowly being ironed out however…and how are you going to get Voldemort to Inferno?" Lethbridge Stewart said looking up at Harry he watched as Harry considered the question, which was good, while Harry had some many good ideas, the details he'd been rather vague on, despite all the major points he'd addressed.
"It will be some time…not only because or various things happening in the wizarding world. I want to wait until everything has passed to do with Dumbledore…" Harry paused as he paced the Brigadier's office. "That will catalyse everything, it should also up the ante with Voldemort who will probably increase his attacks." Harry laid out slowly.
"How can waiting be a good thing?" The Brigadier prompted making Harry explain what was going on in his head.
"The Order is in the process of setting up…" Harry trailed off searching for the right word "Neighbourhood watch, small organised groups in towns that can fight off resistance, according to what Remus said the last time I saw him both sides have much smaller numbers ever since…"
"The business with the vampires." Lethbridge Stewart offered as that was the last major battle Harry had been involved in before he'd disappeared.
"Yes…" Harry more or less nodded.
"And getting Voldemort there?" Lethbridge Stewart asked again, Voldemort was after all…Voldemort.
"That…is something I'm going to have to think about." Harry said as though he had an idea already formed.
"You have an idea though?" Lethbridge Stewart pressed Harry Potter.
"Oh yes…I'm going to ask him." Harry admitted calmly.
"You're going to ask him?" Lethbridge Stewart asked slowly and calmly studying Harry, he nodded and began to explain.
"With Dumbledore out of the picture he would see me as the next threat, or maybe the constant threat, if I send him a letter…you know something, something, Dumbledore's gone, something, something, power, power…let's meet…just an idea." Harry said waving his hand around as he said 'something.
"It will look like a trap."
"Yes…but hopefully the right sort of trap." Harry said casually.
"Well now with your site we have the beginnings of the plan, you're goingt o be needed on site for a lot longer though Harry, we need you to get more of your plan, extra training…"
"'How to deal with a madman who you need to kill because of a prophecy'?" Harry asked.
"Exactly." Lethbridge Stewart said to Harry's sarcasm. "Then at some point I should have enough to convince Geneva."
"Sorry Brig…I forgot about Geneva…"
"That is my problem Harry, but you still have your own share of problems, this is your plan after all." The Brigadier said with a chuckle.
"Yeah…and I'm determined it's going to work." Harry said with firm determination.
Lethbridge Stewart nodded and eyed the documentation he had been preparing for Harry to allow him to join UNIT and Night Wolf…
--//
A bit of an exposition chapter, but necessary all the same.
This tracks action from chapters 44 – 46 of Sorcery, UNITed, Independence, Space (if you're trying to place the action).
Thanks for reading.