Smite +1701
Chapter 8: Thus do heads turn
"Goddamm! It's like a roman phalanx vs. an armor division!"
/Orbit, Alpha Site/
In near orbit, where the curvature of the unnamed planet of the Alpha site could just barely be seen, it was quiet. Mostly. A massive blue blast rocked near space, as a small Alkesh began it's escape run. Energized plasma streamed away from it's rear weapons, desprately trying to avoid destruction or capture at the hands of the frightening Taur'i craft. HAT blasts rocked space around it as the Prometheus roared past in pursuit, leaving the little Gallileo rather shocked at just how well the first Taur'i craft had done with some worthwhile weapons aboard.
"I have never seen a sight so beautiful as the whipping the Goa'uld are getting right now." Jacob Carter smiled as he stood between the pilots, watching the firestorm in the distance, the last of the Goa'uld resistance in space being crushed ruthlessly by the Prometheus. The former general turned Tok'ra was in awe of the new weapons earth had, though he was worried about the styling that they had taken up lately. They were taking this imperial thing too far.
"Aw, it's nothing but a bit of good imperial engineering crossed with Terran common sense. You guys definitely know how to look at old ideas in new ways." The Imperial pilot's proud statement sent a shock into Jacob Carter. This wasn't all fanboyism, this was the real deal. He turned to his daughter with an outraged look on his face. He hadn't joined the Tok'ra, gone through all that he had, literally fought his way out of hell for Earth to throw away it's freedom to the Galactic Empire of all things.
"Sam. Engine Compartment. Now." His voice went icy, no question allowed. It was time to get answers. The pilots looked at each other, familial over protectiveness and generational gaps easy enough to figure out, in a galaxy far far away, or here close to home. The little things that stayed the same had helped to keep the troopers and crew members of the Enterprise from going insane from despair.
In the back, Jacob turned to his daughter, a look of fury on his face as he let Selmak take over, his Tok'ra symbiont having been filled in on what the Empire was. "Why would the Taur'i ally themselves with a race such as the Empire?" The symbiont's expressing itself made the elder Carter's eyes glow golden, his voice reverberating. The two bowed their head, and the elder Carter continued the berating. "Do we honestly need to remind the SGC of the DEATH STAR? Or all the other nonsense that went on with the Empire!?"
"There is no such thing as a uniform culture, dad. Not that we've seen so far. There have been small diffrences, and not so small ones. They're from a more liberal side of the Empire. They were at our mercy when we picked them up. Running out of air, unable to fix their ship." The younger Carter looked at her father, defending the position of the SGC. It was a decsion well-made, now that they knew as much as they did about the empire. "What were we supposed to do, leave them to DIE?"
"Sam, what part of galaxy-spanning empire do you not understand!?"
"ISD 1701, that's what." Sam's little statement was nearly rebutted before her father's mental transmission clicked into gear, and he started to realize just what ship they had picked up. Sam nodded at the dawning realization, smiling somewhat as she continued. "Yes, that 1701, dad. Her captain is a die-hard 'for the people' type protector. The Enterprise was the cast-off ship for the oddballs and non-conformists of the Empire, those who wanted to actually make a diffrence and uphold the oaths. Not everyone was as bad as portrayed in the movies."
"Enterprise... Enterprise?" At Samantha Carter's nod of confirmation, her father slowly found the engineering console, sitting down in the chair as he tried to reconcile the various bits of information he had been given.
"She's being rebuilt in orbit of Neptune where we found her. Dad, we are still looking for alternatives, but even the Empire is better than complete and total annihilation. We have no clue when or from where Anubis is finally going to be coming from, and we have yet to get any closer to finding the lost city or any means of slowing him down." Carter slowly glumed, the thoughts of just how close they were coming to annihilation again. There was hardly any defense of Earth to be had... even with the triumphant feeling of the Enterprise at hand, that nagging feeling of doom at the back of the mind tended to be a mood-killer.
"There has got to be a better way, Sam. Anything..."
"What, dad? We're running out of ways to combat him. The Prometheus was a flop until the Enterprise showed up, and now we can actually stand against the Goa'uld in a straght fight. Heck, the Enterprise came with specialists in starship engineering, so we've be- wait, the people on the surface!" Sam began running back to the cockpit to get some help for the surface, which was still in danger.
"Sam, wait! Sam!" The elder Carter chased after his daughter, the conflict between himself and Selmak inside driving him to distraction.
We should warn the Council of this Empire! Selmak's mental shout made Jacob stumble slightly as he ran around a crate in pursuit of his daughter. The symbiont was still reeling from the various things presented to it. The Death Star, being able to glass entire planets with just one ship in hours, everything about the whole concept was setting it's worldview into a death spiral deorbit of a black hole.
And have them do what, exactly? Do we have ships capable of taking out whole planets? Do we have anything bigger than an Al'kesh? No, I didn't think so. We're arrayed against 20,000 imperials who have taken a fancy to Earth and apparently have become indebted to them. Let's just keep this to ourselves, until we can find out more. Jacob started dashing along the starboard aft corridor, making for the cockpit his daughter already out of sight as he tripped again over a crate low to the ground, hopping painfully as he moved on.
The sudden scream from the engines as the little craft was thrown into some form of wild maneuver nearly threw Jacob's heart into his throat, thoughts of another Ha'tak attacking running through his mind as he ran down the cockpit side-passage, grabbing onto the door frame at a lurch of the inertial dampeners as the Gallileo shifted in some form of extremely high-energy turn. The sight of the ground rushing up at him made him grab a seat as fast as he could, hanging on, hoping that it was a power dive instead of a high-speed docking maneuver with the ground.
He closed his eyes at the last second, not wanting to see the crash. The sound of the LRT's of the Gallileo made him open back up, to see the craft close-orbiting the Alpha Site at low altitude, standing up to look over to the starboard side to watch Kull warriors getting blown away from pinpoint shots, their bits and pieces that were left flying away from the explosive impacts that killed them.
The sight of a lightsaber wielding stormtrooper fending off a Kull who was attacking him was somewhat... awe inspiring, seeing the once mythical weapon slicing apart a hardened warrior like he was butter. The scarred armor of the stormtrooper carrying it had seen it's fair share of combat, as the trooper dodged a piece of flying debris, before lunging at another of the still surviving warriors, stabbing him between the eyes and driving him to the ground. The whiteish blade was ripped upwards out of the Kull's skull, slicing through the top, before the trooper looked around for his next victim.
A MAT blast from the descending Prometheus sent a warrior flying by him, as it dropped to the ground, the air whipping about violently as the exausts and antigrav field of the frigate began to disrupt the local atmospheric conditions, turning the base into a monsoon covered wild brawl as the gunners and computers aboard the Prometheus began to pick off the remaining warriors.
Jacob and Selmak looked on, the sheer spectacle of the heavy combined arms defense of the base was something that could not be compared to nearly anything the Tok'ra symbiont had experienced. Jacob had rarely even seen the level of firepower turned against the advanced warriors, who were actually falling to capital-grade impaces against them. Even they were vulnerable to a few well-placed turbolaser shots.
That, Selmak, is what could happen. The Prometheus just ripped two Ha'taks apart with no trouble at all. I wouldn't be surprised if she could take on three or more and survive. The Enterprise is a mile and a half long edition of what she now mounts. I doubt anything short of Anubis's mothership and a whole armada could hurt it. Do you really want to annoy the Taur'i and give Anubis a reason to step up his time... what in the hell... The sight of several dozen troopers rolling out a huge device from a building sent a chill down his spine. Had nothing to do with the already ticking foot-high timer display on the side, mind you, but he was fairly certain it was one of the largest bombs he had ever seen.
"Um... I take it that would be the measured response that Captain Sheridan wanted to implement." Sam looked down to the procession, led by the lightsaber-wielding stormtrooper, who was using it as a guide wand to direct the absolutely massive and armed bomb towards the stargate. She had a hard time reconciling it with what Sheridan had wanted to implement.
"Right. We measured it out to about... oh, an Exaton, wasn't it? Just right for putting the point to Anubis that he's not welcome at any Earth installation. Captain Sheridan decided that if we were attacked by Kull Warriors, that if and when we finished them off, we were to roll this little interesting beauty through the gate. 5 capital grade proton torps around a cluster of concussion missile warheads and a Mrk 8. Plus a shaped cone of naquada and another layer about a decimeter thick around each weapon in the casing." The imperial pilot got a faroff wondrous look in his eyes, thinking of the sheer mayhem that a weapon of that caliber.
The Gallileo was slowly brought into a hover nearby the slow progress of the superweapon, before touching down with a surprisingly small thump for a vehicle of it's size. Jacob Carter fought with his co-inhabitant, who was nearly frantic in wanting trying to stop the progress of the superweapon. The Carters were first out, running across the less broken areas of the central courtyard of the facility over to the rather malevolently merry procession.
Jacob, you are going to do something, aren't you?
I'm either wanting to cheer them on, or tell them to stop until we can find out if it's Tartarus on the other side. They are entitled to striking back, though this is a somewhat extreme response. The elder Carter stood watching as the procession continued on, having something to concentrate and focus on. Nothing was quite as scary as the 1701st once they found a target. "Hey, can we hold up for a moment!?"
The lead trooper gestured to the tower from the gate, signalling for them to redial the last destination, before looking over to the elder Carter, stepping around the procession and deactivating his saber. He saluted him, before stopping a few feet from the elder Carter. "How can I help you, sir? We're about to push our retaliatory strike through."
"Are we certain that we're striking at the right target? I'd rather not have to report back to the Tok'ra that we cracked the crust of the wrong planet." The elder Carter watched the nod of comprehension from the stormtrooper, before he turned back to one of the stormtroopers behind him.
"Trooper, bring up a MALP to send through."
"Yes First Sergeant." The trooper turned around, looking over to the MALP building, whistling roughly over. The small ATV MALP was piloted out at high speed, the little buggy-framed robot bouncing across the broken terrain over to the gate, stopping with an electric motor squeal on the ramp up to the gate. The little camera mounted beside a massive E-WEB on the top swiveled, Sam and her father ducking reflexively to stay out from in front of the weapon.
The trooper turned smugly back, brushing off a still slightly smoldering spot on his armor that had taken a repeated number of hits from a Kull Warrior's wrist blasters. "Will this do, First Sergeant, or should we get the one with two E-WEBs and shields?" The small electric motor sounds of the servo moving the repeating blaster seemed almost manically cheerful as the operator back in the primary tower oriented it towards the open gate, waiting for orders.
"Sir?"
Jacob Carter looked from the lightsaber wielding stormtrooper, to the lesser trooper, to the MALP, then over to the gate, blinking and reconciling the totally surreal situation he was in with normalcy. The senior trooper turned to the younger Carter, seeing if she was coherent enough to decide.
She blinked for a moment, before getting back into a semi-coherent state. "Check for a shield on the far side, then send it through." Sam looked between the rippling wormhole and the heavily armed ATV MALP, before the shield test globe was lobbed through by one of the gathered troopers, splashing through the event horizon and through to the other side. They all looked to the control tower for the base, waiting for a yea or nae.
"Negative contact. Shield on the other side. MALP Control, stand by for firing sequence to blow out the shield." The echoing, amplified voice of the control officer up in the tower dropped the troopers hearts as they paused their massive rolling explosive bundle of joy, waiting for the shield obstructing the other side to be dropped.
Sam looked at the gate, then began looking around at the various heavy firepower providers to see what would best punch through the gate on the far side in the 30 or so minutes left for them to hold the wormhole. The ripping wind from the Prometheus led her eyes up to it, as a dangerous twinkle began to shine in her eyes. "Tip the gate over. Get on the line to Col. Pendergast, have him line the Prometheus up for a maximum power turbolaser shot through the gate. That'll clear out the gatekeepers."
Selmak had borrowed control of Jacob's body by that point, looking up at the Prometheus, and over to the assembled troopers, and the younger Carter standing before them, wondering just how much of an influence the imperial troopers were having on the SGC. If this trend kept up, they could end up just as bad as the Goa'uld...
The Tok'ra stepped over to the younger Carter as the troopers angled the gate over, the flexible mount they had replanted the gate in supporting it as they leaned in over into a 40 degree angle, the Prometheus throttling up just a bit to point it's forward HAT turret at the gate. "Major Carter. Is it wise to perform such an action? Could it perhaps be a neutral party that unwillingly hosted Anubis's troops? We should perform reconnaissance to make sure." The symbiont's reverberating voice got a few looks, though the troopers had heard odder things in their lifetimes.
The troopers began pushing everyone back from the gate, rolling their IEW away from the gate to prevent the back-scatter from the blast from setting it off as they all cleared out of the way, the Prometheus's main guns charging up for the shot. A few adventurous troopers looked out of windows with their helmets on, hoping that the 'near miss by turbolaser' rating that they were supposed to have was accurate.
In the tower, the two Carters looked over the broken and blasted base, the small smoking scars of the 1701st having fought off the Kull warriors and the signs of their brief rampage through the base. The lightsaber wielding Stormtrooper First Sergeant stood behind them, as the various onlookers watched the now rough and ready Prometheus which waited to fire. Sam tuned the radio to the Prometheus's bridge frequency, ignoring a few feedback squeals, before picking up the small mike, watching the probe readouts of the gate.
"Col. Pendergast, we can fire when you are ready." She watched the blast shields on the tower close, as the small signal strength gauge on the main radio panel spiked with Pendergast's response.
"Rodger, Alpha Site. Fire team Alpha, fire on the mark. Mark!" The end of the grainy transmission from the Prometheus was completely drowned in static and the sheer roar of a turbolaser being fired at near-maximum power, shooting through the small apeteure of the gate...
/Tartarus/
Anubis stood on the steps, waiting for the signal for his Kull warrior's return to come through. Strange pangings of unease had been bothering him ever since he had dispatched the Hat'aks a few days before, and now it was compounded and was growing at every moment. He slowly paced back and forth, walking out from before the gate just in time, stepping slowly over to one side, right before the shield flared a blinding white... and completely and totally failing before a 2 gigaton Asgard/Imperial Turbolaser blast.
The concussive shockwave as the blast gouged it's way through the steps that the semi-ascended Goa'uld was walking upon, and then into his base, sent Anubis flying up and away, tumbling in total surprise from the massive attack as he tried to figure out what exactly was happening. He landed heavily several hundred yards away, his semi-ascended nature being the only thing that saved him. He got back upright, shaking off the confusion from the shockwave.
He looked around, seeing the shambles Tartarus had been blown into. The bolt of destruction had punched straight through the gate, gouging out a trench along where it had passed from the heat and violence of it's passing by. It had kept on going, crunching into the Kull complex, a massive chunk just completely blown away from the hit. Anubis howled in rage from the massively effective retaliatory strike, determined to make the Enterprise PAY for giving the SGC phaser technology...
Until the massive bomb merrily bounced out of the gate, ticking rapidly down from 10 minutes, a large smiley face having been slapped on the rounded front as it slowly squeaked to a halt in front of the now completely and totally outraged Goa'uld system lord.
"DAMM YOU, Q!"
Tickity-tickity-tickity... DING! "Hello, this is the Mark 1 Hellfire tactical weapon. I will be detonating for you in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Have a nice explosive day." The cheery voice of the weapon on-board computer did not soothe Anubis's outrage. He stood resolute, no physical presence enough to kill him. The Exaton level detonation, however, was more than enough to severely inconvenience him, as the blast rocked the planet.
The sheer power of the blast sent the whole planet to shaking like a bell, shockwaves rippling through it from the point of the blast. The massive detonation blew the atmosphere of the planet clean off in the local area, a superheated blast wave nearly knocking the orbiting Hat'aks out into deep space. For 200 kilometers all around, the ground was left molten and churning, blasted apart by the blast.
Anubis was left in his standard glowing ball of energy mode, the devices that normally helped to shape him blown away and disintegrated. Luckily for him, he was partially ascended. Few beings could claim to have survived a point-blank blast from a weapon of that magnitude. He began to wisp his way along, heading for transport back up into orbit. They would pay for the sheer mayhem they caused that day.
/Alpha Site/
The various personnel smiled as the gate shut down, the atypical and unstable shutdown of the gate looking very pretty to their eyes. Nothing was quite like scorning Anubis and accomplishing their mission. Up in the control tower, the Carters and various techs relaxed, finding various places to sit down.
And that, Selmak, is probably what will be their primary mode of base-busting. If that was Tartarus, well, it will be molten hell now. I don't think even the gate survived that blast. They no longer know fear, and frankly, they are far more dangerous than any system lord if they decide that they don't like you. They're smart. That is the primary reason they've survived all this time. If they have a star destroyer being refitted in the Sol system, then within a year they should be able to direct an overwhelming amount of firepower anywhere in the galaxy. Anywhere. Jacob looked on as they tried to re-establish the wormhole, the gate failing to engage several times as his symbiont continued to try and re-engage it's mental transmission.
"No gate to establish to, according to the DHD diagnostic error code. We got' em. Dialing computer is fixing the pos- we have coordinates. We can send someone to investigate our handiwork whenever we want." The gate tech canceled the dialing program, the gate whining lightly as power bled back out into the ground. The thunk of the chevrons disengaging was somewhat audible a hundred yards away up in the tower, as people began to mill about.
"Go ahead and dial the SGC, send a report as to our current status and what happened." Sam turned around as the gate tech nodded and began the dialing sequence for the SGC. The object of her gaze was quickly turned to by everyone free at that moment. The slow hum of the lightsaber wielding trooper reinspecting his weapon, having finally done more than snap it to his belt for the first time in years.
1SG Zeke Cloud looked around at the various people drilling him with their gazes, turning his head back and forth to track all of them. "Can I help all of you?" The snap-hiss of the elegant weapon's deactivation sent a few murmurs about as everyone began to get a good look at him.
"You're one of the first, aren't you? Did you get that off of a jedi you betrayed?" One of the other troopers pointed his weapon at the elder trooper, who looked through narrowed eyes at him. Tension began to grow in the room, as they all looked at each other.
"Yes, I'm one of the first. One of the first batch. I never killed a Jedi. I was saved too many times to even think about it. Order 66 came through to see myself and Master Travaas on a mudball outer rim world that the Sepratists had claimed as a foundry world. We stood as the line against which they broke and burned for 12 days. A hundred thousand of us went in, only a dozen of us came back out. And I'm the last." His old, worn voice whispered like the wind in the small room, the gathered group realizing that they were looking at what could be the real face of one of the legends. In different ways for both sets, they all grew quiet, respecting someone who had gone through hell and back, who was a lookalike for a legend.
"He was killed in battle, wasn't he?" Jacob Carter, slowly stood up straighter, paying respect for someone who might well be as noble as they came.
"A random piece of shrapnel, of all things. They seemed so invincible... but they fell so easily... in the last charge, just a small handful left, most of our weapons had been drained dry smashing millions of droids apart, and I had just been knocked down by a Super Battledroid. I reached for whatever I could find, and found this... little trinket. Chopped that droid into a couple of pieces, the molten metal left these burns on my face, though." He wistfully turned the lightsaber over and over in his hand, the now tarnished casing almost perfectly smooth, save for a few small control knobs and a guard at the top.
The room remained quiet, as Jacob bowed his head to let Selmak take over. The symbiont looked into Cloud's eyes, looking for the same fanatic madness that often inhabited the servants of the Goa'uld. Cloud stared right back, clipping the white-bladed saber back to his utility belt, a haunted remembrance of the hell he had gone through echoing in his eyes. "Like what you see?"
Selmak looked away, knowing that look. "You seem to be somewhat trustworthy, despite what you have said. You have faced much and come away alive. Your exploit would be worthy of retelling by the Jaffa." The symbiont gave control back to Jacob, the strange grey-shaded situation being a bit much at that moment.
"I'll have to apologize for my Symbiont. Selmak... has been fighting against the Goa'uld for a long, long time. The worst of your former empire was far worse than the Goa'uld. But, what he forgets is that there is better in it as well. You don't seem so bad. It's not always the surroundings that make the individual." Jacob frowned as the gate kawhooshed out, remembering Vietnam, and other conflicts. Things had not been black and white there either... Not all of the rebellion was freedom-loving patriots, after all. Couldn't be. It was never like that.
"I hated having to fight fellow humans, the Empire itself. It's not been easy. I almost retired, when the purges started 10 years ago. Captain Sheridan is a good man, his predecessor was even better. We were one of the few freelancing troubleshooter Star Destroyers. Kept away from rebels, went after the true villains, the pirate cartels, the slavers, the oppressors. We were the light that stood for the good in the empire. But even we were not enough to keep it from sliding into darkness." Cloud stood, looking back for a moment, before walking out, the crowd parting before him.
/SGC, later/
Teal'c, Jackson, O'niell, and Sheridan waited in the partially disassembled conference lounge, the SGC logos having been taken down and the normal table removed, a plastic placeholder table in it's place.
"Love what we've done with the place. Government-issue tacky." O'niell looked around, at the somewhat bare room, signs of the impending departure of the SGC to Fort Avalon leading a makeshift feel to the room, as General Hammond stepped in. The normally cheerful general had an annoyed, sour look on his face.
"Anubis suspects. The Alpha site was attacked today, though the advanced technologies that we have been equipped with thanks to your people, Captain Sheridan, repulsed the attack. Unfortunately, even blasters are ineffective, though turbolaser blasts and lightsabers have proven to be surefire ways to disable their shielding. Have a seat, gentlemen." He sat down at the head of the table, eying it suspiciously when it wobbled.
The quartet of the SGC's top personnel sat down, uncomfortably settling into the fold-up chairs that had been substituted until the move. The news was mixed, the fact that Anubis had somehow penetrated the security of the brand new and secret Alpha site was worrying, cold thoughts trickling down their spines, though the news that they had repulsed the attack somewhat well was encouraging that they could win by overwhelming Anubis one bit at a time.
"Was there any space combat? From what I understand, the Prometheus is just too fragile at the moment to handle a Ha'tak." Sheridan straightened up as he looked over to General Hammond, who slid over a data-tablet over to the captain. He looked down at it, his eyes narrowing as he began to read, confusion and uncertainty blinking as he tried to figure out if he had underestimated the little ship.
"The Prometheus completely destroyed one Ha'tak, and is in the process of salvaging another right now. The Asgard technology used in uprating the Turbolasers proved effective, getting double the predicted yield. And the TIE Interceptors proved to be able to handle death gliders. We won't produce any more, thanks to the TIE Spitfire coming into production, but we will keep them in service." General Hammond looked around, reading the various looks on the faces of SG-1 and Sheridan. He laid his hands down on the white plastic of the table, moving a foot to hold the wobbling leg in place.
"She waxed two Ha'taks? Captain, I think I owe you a drink. Imperial engineering doesn't seem to be too bad after all." O'Neill reached across the table, shaking hands with Sheridan. The two men smiled at each other, before sitting back down, looking back towards General Hammond.
"They also managed to fire a turbolaser blast through the Alpha Site stargate, to clear out the shield that had been erected on the other side. From the camera footage we got, it does appear to have been Tartarus. They proceeded to send through what they called an IEW through, and said that Captain Sheridan would know what they were talking about." General Hammond furrowed his brow as he remembered that anomalous, mysterious mention in the report, which had never been made clear.
Sheridan got a far-off gleam in his eyes, before chuckling slowly. "Excellent. They say whether or not the blast was big enough to destroy Tartarus's gate?" He looked through the files on the pad, looking at the survey report photos, wincing ever so slightly at the melted slabs of duracrete, and the crispy damage from Prometheus's close fire support. "And will your people be attempting to salvage the Ha'tak for Earth's use, or will it be donated to the Tok'ra?"
"We'll donate it to the Tok'ra, Captain. As for Tartarus, we have been unable to establish contact since we sent the bomb through. I'd have to assume that whatever they sent was enough to destroy the gate on the other side." General Hammond looked pointedly at Captain Sheridan, intending to have a few words with him. "Now then, we have to decide whether or not to abandon the Alpha site now that it is compromised. I would prefer to do so, however I would like a few opinions as to whether or not it would be safer to leave it there."
"Anubis may well attack again, to determine what exactly has transpired at the Alpha Site. If we were to re-enforce the garrison to withstand further attack, we may be able to use it as a stronghold to lure him away from attacking Earth." Teal'c looked around to the others, who pondered the worrysome problem.
"A few ground-to-orbit turbolaser emplacements that we could borrow from the Enterprise could help re-enforce the Prometheus. From the reports, the shield held against fire from orbit without any strain at all. Put an iris over the stargate, and it should be relatively inpenetrable. From the reports, the biggest problem was once he got Kull Warriors on the ground." Captain Sheridan slid the pad across the table to Col. O'Neill, liking the idea of getting more time to finish the Enterprise's refit.
"Do we have a spare iris? If so, I'm all for it. Nothing like removing a few Goa'uld from the list. It should be easy to give him a splitting headache." O'Neill looked around the table before looking down at the pad, ignoring most of the more heady sections of the reports, and going straight to the imagery of the fight, and of broken Ha'taks in orbit, with the Prometheus hovering very closely to one, a transporter beam caught mid-stream between the two craft. "Very, very nice, sir. Remind me to send my compliments to Col. Pendergast the first chance I get."
Daniel took ahold of the pad as soon as Teal'c had quickly looked it over, blinking several times at the image of the Prometheus hovering next to the broken Ha'tak. "General, whatever we do, I recommend we keep it secret. Ba'al will turn on us just as quickly when he finds out we can so easily destroy Anubis uprate Ha'taks, he'll come for us in a hurry. Anubis is going to come again for certain, though. His forces have been handed a blow, and he'll want to see what new weapons we have."
"Alright then, I'll make my decision in an hour or so. I want all departments on standby for a possible attack. Anubis may well turn his gaze towards Earth, and I want us to be ready as we can be." General Hammond stood up, before clearing his throat. "Dismissed."
The rest of the group got up, congregating together to talk about their fields. Captain Sheridan looked at the trio of SG-1, staying just outside as they laughed and mingled. He didn't really want to break up the dynamic that was existed. He could watch.
"So, Teal'c, gotten any more of the Jaffa to chant 'down with the gould' and wave torches and pitchforks?" O'Neill smiled at the stotic Jaffa, as Daniel fixed his glasses, looking like he was about to say something.
"No, Col. O'Neill. They have been more willing to trust in their current masters with Anubis posing a threat to them." Teal'c looked at his friend, listening to him grumble ever so slightly at his reaction-less response.
"Well, technically, Jack, they don't have pitchforks... they-" Daniel began to speak, picking up his notes and tucking them under his arm, before smiling some in familiarity as Jack cut him off.
"Daniel, is this a long-winded talk about how the Jaffa don't use pitchforks, and a historical study of how they got to whatever those freakish tools are that they use today?" Sheridan chuckled somewhat as Jack looked over at Daniel, wistfully rambling along at the archaeologist.
"Yes, Jack."
"Good. I was afraid I was loosing my Daniel sense." Jack waited a beat, before Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and Daniel began chuckling as well. "We know each other waaay too well, don't we?"
"Yes, Jack, we do. I think it was sometime between blowing up Apophis in Netu and blowing up that star that it happened." Daniel chuckled as Teal'c nodded, the trio remembering the good times and the bad.
"You blew up a STAR?"
"We always get that, don't we, Teal'c?" Jack looked over to Sheridan, who had not read that particular report yet. The trio of SG-1 opened up somewhat, making space for the imperial officer to squeeze in.
"Indeed."
"Come over, join us. We're not contagious crazy." Jack held out an arm to the former imperial captain, inviting him to join into the group. Daniel turned to him, smiling somewhat, and Teal'c looked over as impassively as ever, though a humorous twinkle resided in his eyes.
"My staff meeting is not for a couple of hours, I think Jack's briefing is in three... Teal'c isn't scheduled for anything as far as I know, I don't have anything to translate for once, so, why not?" Daniel shrugged, setting his paperwork back down on the table. He wanted to find out a bit more about the still somewhat mysterious captain of the Enterprise. Any cross-cultural anylization would be strictly secondary, of course.
Sheridan adjusted his still somewhat uncomfortable modified imperial uniform, brushing at the shoulder pads with their US naval equivilent rank on them, the insignia of captain burnished and polished to a shine. "Oh, no... I couldn't interfere with-"
"Nonsense! Come on, we've got some things in common. Big Honking Space Guns, living on Earth, wanting to annoy the daylights out of a certain semi-ascended annoying black-light snake... Switching sides from an oppressive backwards regime to go between you and Teal'c..." Jack ambled along, rolling his shoulders a little as he spoke, before resting his hands on two of the chairs around the table.
"Surely you have... diverting tales of various warriors amongst your command that you wish to share, much as we have of ourselves and our exploits. A fair trade of such stories would be acceptable." Teal'c spoke, his voice neutral as he crossed his arms behind his back, standing at a sort of modified parade rest.
A smile grew on Sheridan's face, as he squeezed into the group, dropping his pad on the table. "Well, I might have a few."
"Well then, by all means, o' crazy captain of a crazier ship, do tell." Jack looked to be almost painfully smiling at that point, as he waited for a bit of dirt on the crew of the Enterprise.
"Then let me tell you the tale of a particular trooper named 'Sergeant Slaughter'" Sheridan settled back, having fun as he gruffed out the name of his favorate instructor way back in the academy, relaxing for that little moment in time...