And here we go with the rest of Chapter 7, making this the longest chapter yet. Chapter 8 should be out sooner than it took between 6 and seven, but maybe longer than between 7 part one and part 2.

Anyway, like usual, I don't own SG-1 or Starwars.

Gamma Site Orbit: Now

An alpha strike from 13 Star Destroyers is not something to ignore, even when you knew it would be coming. Luckily, the Asgard are known for the strength of their shields, or else, well… All the same, even accounting for misses, and ECM, the number of hits that the science vessel took did considerable damage, but didn't manage to drop the shields in one volley.

On the Cardia's Bridge, it was a satisfied Captain Yamato that ordered his flotilla to, "Unleash the full power of the fully operational Ion Cannons!" He had figured, and High Command had agreed that if their enemy already knew of your weaponry, well, why hold back and hide it anymore? With the icy-white blasts streaking towards the beleaguered Asgard vessel in the company of their slightly faster turbolaser cousins, they formed a formidable wave of death and destruction.

As pretty as this was to observe, those on the receiving end were not nearly so appreciative. "The Ion blasts are super-effective against our shields. Now trying to compensate for the unexpected power involved."

"What went wrong?" The Commander asked.

"Even though we knew that the Empire used Ion weapons, we underestimated the level of refinement that we've seen." The tech mentioned as the ship shook after taking more hits. "We could not have expected this. Even the Tollan weapons weren't on this order of magnitude."

Grimacing slightly, the Commander opened up a channel to the Tau'ri base below. "Commander, I regret to inform you that we will be forced to leave shortly. Our shields can't take firepower of that magnitude for very long. I wish you the best."

Down on the surface, the base commander nodded in response. "I understand. But before you leave, can I ask a favor of you?"

"If it is within our power to do so, we will."

"Then could you transport all of the F-302 crews to your ship and return them back to a Tau'ri base? Otherwise, they will all die here in vain."

The diminutive alien nodded stiffly. "We will do so. I hope that you escape unharmed." With that, the small Asgard vessel turned away from the incoming Imperial Flotilla and accelerated towards the battle between the F-302s and the TIE fighters. Just as more of the imperial support ships were lining up their firing solutions, it opened a hyperspace window and departed, leaving the remains of the F-302 wings behind which were quickly destroyed at little cost to the Empire.

Seeing the flight of the main source of worry, Captain Yamato re-opened communications with the Tau'ri base. Standing proudly on the raised deck of his bridge, he idly observed the flustered base commander's final delaying action.

"How DARE you violate your word. You said we had two minutes to decide; yet you opened fire after only one! What kind of treachery is this?" Pausing to breath briefly, he continued. "How can we trust your word if we clearly see that you don't keep to it already?"

Captain Yamato calmly responded, "The timer was for you, not the Asgard oppressors. If you notice, we didn't target your fighters until after the time limit ended. However," and he elongated the word, "the Imperial navy see no such reason to extend the same courtesy to the oppressors that are the Asgard."

In the face of that statement, even the base commander was stunned, albeit briefly. The same could not be said for the rest of his command staff. They ran around busily within the mountain complex with the final evacuation preparations, and destroying critical data. "…How the HELL do you come up with the idea that the Asgard are oppressors?! They've been this galaxy's only hope—"

"Yes, yes, I know," Yamato interjected, "The only hope against the Go'uld. Regardless, that's the designation that has been placed on them at this time. But back to the matter at hand, I'm giving you one final chance. Hand over the Aschen leadership, and you will be spared a meaningless death here defending plague mongers. Refuse us again, and we will be forced to land troops to retrieve them by force."

Straightening up, the commander paused a moment before answering, "We refuse to accommodate your demands, imperialist scum. Come and get them if you dare!" Then he cut the communication link. Quickly checking the progress of the evacuation, he found that the last report from the radar scanners was an incoming landing force, escorted by fighters.

Gamma Site: Assembly Point

Sara looked down from gazing at the sky where she could just make out the explosions and blasts from the space battle above as she felt Pelleon approach the extraction zone. "You're late." She says.

"I know, sorry," Pelleon replies as he fully enters the clearing. "I felt it would be better for us to split up in order to avoid detection. As you can see," he swept his hands in a motion encompassing the clearing, "we did get here fine."

"Well, you are right about that," Kyp filled the silence following those words. "But on the bright side, that base is about to get ground into bantha fodder! Look, the landing craft are dropping."

As the rest of the team turned to look at the incoming landing craft, Sara instead narrowed her eyes at Pelleon, deep in thought. Just before she could question him, their commlinks went off, signaling that their ride was just about there. 'Fine then, you're saved for now, but I'll figure out what's gotten you so disturbed sooner or later.'

Gamma Site: Defensive Line

Like all of Earth's off world bases, the Gamma Site had a defensive detachment that was tasked with external security. Unfortunately for the Gamma Site, it was one of the mostly hidden research facilities, meaning that the estimated attacks would come from the gate or from orbit, so there wasn't much in the way of armored vehicles for land deployment, or even much weaponry that could take out tanks.

This may not have seemed like that much of a bad thing, due to the size restrictions that the Stargate network enforced, especially when the gate itself is underneath a mountain, however, these measures did mean that the Gamma site lacked the weaponry with which to defend itself against the Imperial ground offensive.

Captain Yamato and taken no chances this time. The ground forces were back up with both stormtrooper regiments and standard Army units as well, each bringing their respective armored components as well. Their advance was nearly unimpeded due to the strength of their armor and in some cases shielded vehicles. Wherever the defenders took a stand, they were quickly flanked until they had fully retreated to the base itself.

During the fighting retreat, the rest of the personnel were busy evacuating via the Stargate, starting with the non-combat types. SG-20 was not assigned to the active defense, and was instead tasked with chivvying scientists and their projects down to the gate room.

"-I can assure you Commander Vimes, that yes, I do require the sequencer to be moved with us, as it's essential for my work! Not to mention what could happen if those—"

The scientist's tirade was rudely interrupted by said Commander Vimes as Angua bodily dragged him out of his lab, assorted papers falling steadily out of the sheaf he clutched close to his chest, "I know that, but there isn't going to be room for your machine in the elevator, not to mention that we've got bigger problems than the Empire getting access to the remains of your research." He paused outside the elevator and handed the reedy scientist over to the small detachment that was covering the elevator on this floor. "Here, make sure he gets to the gate. And don't let him come back here for anything he 'forgot'." After they nodded, and took custody, Vimes moved towards a stairwell, his team following. "Before you ask, we're headed back to General Adams to check to see if there's anything else he wants us to do now that we've done clean up for him." He turned back around as they descended.

General Adams was waiting them at the command center. "We have a slight issue for you."

"What is it? Do you need us to take down some AT-STs, sir?" Vimes responded, the rest of SG-20 settling into positions out of the way of the last of the control room techs.

"No, that's not it. I'm actually ordering you to fall back now," he held his hand up to forestall Angua's retort. "We need you alive. As an SG team, you're going to be playing a large role in the coming war. We can't beat them on the ground in a strait up fight, just like at the start against the Goa'uld. This is going to be mostly a guerrilla war until we can find some way to hold off their fleet."

"Understood sir."

"But like I said, I do have one errand for you to do on your way out. I want you to escort Minister Arlin back to the Alpha site for ongoing negotiations. He should be coming soon with the last of the Aschen diplomatic team." As he finished, the entire mountain shook. With the first faint traces of dust beginning to fall from the ceiling, General Adams ordered them to move out.

They moved swiftly though the seemingly chaotic frenzy to the gate, and met up with the last of the Aschen leadership and their guards. Carrot tried to make sure that everyone was there, but after hearing that the base was compromised, everyone had to hurry through the gate. 'But I know we're missing some people' Carrot thought as he stepped through. It wasn't until later that he realized that Sara and her unit weren't on with them.

Cheery was wondering just how had the Empire found the Gamma Site so quickly.

Gamma Site: Bridge of the Cardia

"Sir, reports are coming in from the leading elements that the defenders have collapsed the turboshafts. They're fearing that they might be trying to self destruct, sir." Captain Yamato nodded his thanks to the tech. 'They had a way out, so why not seal themselves off and evacuate.'

"Have all forces fall back, bring any prisoners with them. If they don't self-destruct, we'll just wait them out from orbit." With that commanded, he turned command of the mop-up to his subordinates and retired to contact High Command.

Minutes later, the report came that the base had exploded, and collapsed in on itself, the entire mountain sagging in places. While some in the command staff wanted to descend on the remains and examine the technology left in the base, they were overruled due to the fact that their position was known. But as a concession, a small listening base was set up in the outer reaches of the system to check to see if anyone did respond to the attack.

Imperial shuttle returning to the Cardia

The smoking base was visible as they ascended up into orbit. Sara could just overhead Pelleon mutter something under his breath, "Is this what we need to do?"

Turning to face him overtly, Sara couldn't quite hide her surprise. "What? Of course this is what we need to do."

"You really think so, don't you?" Smiling sheepishly he continued. "I'm not quite so sure High Command is going about this the right way."

Now quite alarmed for her friend Sara leaned in closer. "I wouldn't start talking like that. We're just carrying out the Emperor's Will here, just like we would back home. Nothing more, and nothing less. You can't expect—"

"I know, and that's exactly what I mean." After that, he wouldn't respond at all to anyone until they got back to the Cardia.

Super Star Destroyer Tyrannus: Deep Space

Grand Admiral Neebs strode in to the impromptu meeting. Checking to make sure that every one was here, he sat down at the head of the table. "Good, you're all here. I have some very disturbing news for you all." He paused again before resuming. "I've just heard back from one of the first Recon teams we've sent out. They discovered something very dangerous to our position from one of these, 'Tau'ri' bases."

"What do you mean, dangerous? I thought we had decided that there was nothing here that could stand up to us?" Admiral Mutabi interjected.

"You should see for yourselves." Neebs hit a key on his armrest, causing the central holoprojector to light up. As the shocking clips of footage played out, the assembled admirals and general grew pale, shocked to their very core. As it finished up, Neebds spoke again. "I can assure you that this is real. Apparently we are well known here by some factions."

Mutabi had shaken off his shock and worked his way quite swiftly to the only possible outlet for his anger, "This intolerable rebel propaganda! I'll hunt down whoever made this and kill them myself!" A round of agreeing noises spread around the table.

"Well, then I'll leave this matter to you, Rear-admiral Mutabi. You have my best wishes in this." And he did indeed wish him luck. The situation was very alarming to have a breach of this magnitude. "Now if there's nothing else?" But there was he saw, one of the Army generals. "You may proceed General Hardin."

"While shocked like many of you were at this rubbish, I did notice something interesting. While at first glance it appears that many of our tactics have been revealed to our enemies, there are some major differences between what I saw and what doctrines we actually put in practice. Now before we drop all appearances of these tactics, I'd like to suggest that we instead play up to the notions that we've seen. Yes it makes us more predictable, but it also should give us the chance to spring a major trap in a land engagement down the line."

After weighing the idea, Admiral Neebs nodded, "I agree. But I think we should inform at least the recon teams we have in place about this discovery. They're bound to find out sooner than later, so we should inform them at a time of our choosing." After General Hardin sat back down, he glanced at his notes and continued. "Now we should move on to more routine reports."

The rest of the assembled officers or their subordinates delivered their reports on items varying from the spread of the Empire, "—mostly to food colonies so far sir," to the state of the Holonet rollout, "On schedule sir. No major errors so far," to the ongoing efforts to map out the hyperspace routs with captured local craft and probe droids, "Very tedious, but relentlessly continuing. We know the importance of this. The local's vessels are very useful for mapping out gravity conditions around the galaxy," to the development of bases and factory worlds, "We have plans drawn up, and beginning in several locations so far. They're not urgent due to our space based industry, but they do bring jobs and other assorted benefits to new systems."

All in all the only concern that was going through Admiral Neebs' mind was how to differentiate the new ruling class from just the Admiralty. "Your Excellency," did sound much better than "Sir" after all.

Undisclosed location: Now?

"They're here. Reports have indicated this. Luckily we still can act now, and save everyone. You have your orders, just don't get caught!"

The lights in the darkened room flared to light, the assembled leadership stood up and ambled out of the room.

Last Updated: 5/18/09