Chapter 6

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Here is chapter six

– Chapter begin -

Raiden's flagship had carefully taken up its usual high Geo-synchronous Orbit over the planet avoid any unnecessary risk of detection. Not that that was likely, as the Asgard were the only ones likely to detect him at the moment given the Tauri. No the Shinku Rai Tatstu was built for many things, but stealth was not one of them. Stealth had been one of those after construction refinements that hadn't quite matched the rest of the ship. It boiled down to the Tauri definitely wouldn't be able to see, well they shouldn't it was possible one of these new corporations had the potential to. It'd been rather fortunate that none of the other system lords had cared to considered to look at Tauri corporations.

Raiden snarled impotently looking at a shriveled mummy like corpse, he gritted his teeth in irritation at the present course of events. He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and took a deep breath. Complaining about idiot humans, and the damned Asgard treaty wasn't going to help the situation. It'd been a lucky cross check authorized by Aoshi that they'd even thought to look for this.

A jaffa entered the chamber approaching the system lord cautiously. "My lord." The jaffa bowed reverently. This was not the turn of events he had been hoping for when he had arrived in orbit over Earth, obviously he had expected some degree of bad news but this really was a nuisance. Aoshi's report had indicated an actual conflict with Shinso pawns in Japan, that'd been had gotten his attention. The 'blood death', rapid coagulation of as a result of a Shinso's antibodies, had been reported, and confirmed. That they had found the husk boded worse. He'd thought they'd been confined to isolated parts of the Congo, clearly though the humans had been thorough in trying to explore all four corners, as it were of their planet.

One hundred and sixty eight years. The system lord growled. That period of time was dangerous even assuming a series regular hibernation cycles that amount of time meant the population of those creatures would be reaching dangerous levels soon... and unfortunately these things were good at hiding. It'd been a mistake, he'd known it years ago, but back then he hadn't cared, there had been other things he could distract himself with.

The jaffa had little of merit to report, which only reminded him how good things they were at hiding, in all likelihood they were amongst the wizard. The other options was one or both must have been in hibernation. He'd discarded that simply because there had bee too much activity once they'd actually started looking for the usual signs.

Raiden had been thorough in destroying the Shinso. When they'd first discovered them they had ranged in area from the subsaharan africa through Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia and into what humans called the indo china peninsula, as well as the far east. When they'd chosen to throw in with Sokar in large numbers during the terror the system lords had been caught off guard by an large. Most of the young system lords had been ill prepared for such assaults that the Shinso mounted.

Raiden had prided himself on being so thorough about eliminating 'the others', the Shinso, or sealing them away permanently in the shrines. It'd been a campaign that had dramatically curbed their numbers limiting them primarily to the jungles of the congo, and potentially Thailand. The system lord gritted teeth as he looked over the reports. The losses were minor, at least with regard to resources. It'd be easy enough to replace material now that they knew what they were facing. The Shinto kami considered his options leaving the situation unattended would no doubt simply cause the problem to fester until it was even more trouble, but at present there were matters which required his attention. His forces on Earth, and hopefully the native born wizards, could in theory address the issue without interference from him, but they also had tasks they were assigned. Of course he had planned on speaking with Talpa on certain issues anyway, and the same held true that he needed to speak with Saki as well sometime in the near future, plus there were other issues. Still it was better that Aoshi had thought to look into it, than ignoring the issue.

A light flashed on one of command consoles alerting him to another vessel on approach to the system in hyperspace. "Warning Asgard Beliskner class approaching from Hyperspace estimated time until arrival two minutes." Stated the computer's electronic voice.

It was a grievous inconvenience for the Asgard to show up. "All ships withdraw to Hinotama research Facility," He commanded to the officers on the bridge. The protected planets treaty was very specific he could continue with all his established bases, and the Asgard wouldn't object. He just couldn't turn his anti surface guns on the damned infestation below, which would have made things so much simpler.

As far as cloaking technology went most system lords dismissed the ability to cloak Ha'tak size vessels as utter nonsense. Sokar had quickly shown the system lords that'd been a mistake.

The Bairn had been something Raiden had had to repair on his own, the facility a left over from what Sithis referred to as the War in Heaven was no real use to the Dark God but his other half, Raiden, could use the facility. Access to Ancient space ship technology meant also would be able cloak his ha'tak as well but for now Sokar had a monopoly on the trick. It was unfortunate especially if Sokar decided to again employ Shinso in his forces. Of course with the present state of the system lords it wouldn't bode well if Sokar didn't start resorting once again to using monstrous creatures. As it was only time would tell, as proven by Apophis's abrupt downfall even the greatest system lords were not immune to the strife. On the plus side the Council of System Lords was shrinking, as power consolidated between individual established member, there was also the vote to formally readmit Sokar to the council coming up...

– scene break-

Dumbledore in the meanwhile had finally gotten around to calling Moody back to Hogwarts after the weirdness of last week's order of the pheonix meeting. It was true that Moody believed in keeping secrets, but his brazen deception to the rest of the order had come straight out of left field as the Americans would say. Naturally Albus wanted an explanation. "Now Alastor would you kindly explain what all that was about last week?"

The scarred wizard face twisted a bit as he gnashed his teeth, "Long ago the Dread Father Sithis gave a spell to mankind so grim and terrible that it had the power to kill any mortal, it was not perfect but it was unblockable. He gave the original killing curse to humanity, and over the centuries it was twisted by wizards. The spell does not spare, relents to know known defense, and yet the Dark God of Death's spell was tossed back on Voldemort on Halloween 1981."

The headmaster nodded begin with his usual theory on what had happen. "Well as you know Mad Eye I long suspected that Lilly had found-" Dumbledore was interupted as Moody banged his hand on the desk in front of him.
"Bullshit, bullshit and bollocks, Lily was brilliant, there was never a denying that, but its bullshit. Its a bloody fairy tale to tell the children. Lily Potter was brilliant, but thousands and thousands of years that curse killed without fail." Moody stated, "No we've got to face facts, he's Sithis incarnate, I don't know how or why, but its a lot more likely than your cockamamie theory about Lilly Potter finding some defense when there is nothing in her notes at all about it."

Snape decided now was the prime time to interject. "Perhaps Mad eye should be turned over to the psyche ward at Saint Mungo's." Muttered the order of the Pheonix's chief spy during the last war. "It seems his last screw has come loose at last.

Alastor flicked his wand dangerously, "Shut it death eater, never should have brought you in on this. It would have been better to gut you and be done with it, you backstabbing bastard."

"Severus, Alastor," Albus remarked with sigh, "both of you please calm yourselves."

Moody lowered his wand. "Alright Albus, Lily and James died, Harry Potter vanished into a rift of bright green energy. Now something happened, and it involved Sithis, it had to."

"Now Alastor explain who is Sithis? I remember some of my childhood lessons, but clearly you've spent more time on this than I old friend. So if you would?" Dumbledore asked. Dumbledore was an old pureblood family and Albus was very old, but he couldn't place it offhand. He'd knew he'd read it, knew it was old magic, knew it was a dozen other useless facts.

Alastor Moody frowned and cast a suspicious look at Snape who snorted in response, "According to history that was recorded by The Order of the Nine," He began, "Sithis is one of the collection of Daedric princes of Oblivion." Seeing that they didn't understand he elaborated, "To put it simply they are a group of Dark Gods. Extremely powerful, terribly old gods whose only rivals are the Aedra for none of the new gods can stand against them. Sithis is the god of death amongst other things." Officially Sithis's dominion covered Judgement, Death, Chaos, Eternity and a multitude of other things including snakes. "He was responsible for such things as giving humanity the killing curse, he is responsible for the founding of the Dark Brotherhood who serve in much the role of his high priests," Moody paused but decided against explaining the Dark Brotherhood for the moment, "The Bubonic Plague that ravaged Europe that was the product of one of his sorcerers who lived in China. The list of atrocities goes on of things he or his servants have done and that's only on this world." Ticked off Moody along with a handful of other 'bad things', "Of the Daedra he is the oldest, and most powerful." To support his suppositions Moody laid out a number of supporting documents

"So Potter's a god, right." Snape remarked in a disbelieving tone, a statement he made while rolling his eyes.

"Oooh I remember this it was banned by the Ministry my graduating year for corrupting the public youth of the-," Dumbledore paged through the old book, "I'd like to borrow this Alastor if you don't mind, was such a good read." He remarked thumbing on ignoring the two glaring wizards.

The grizzled auror stared down the potions master. "Its your funeral you bastard, but its like this. Harry Potter doesn't exist at least not the way we thought. The being we associate with being Harry Potter is merely Sithis having shed his skin and assumed a different form, I believe since Sithis hasn't done anything recently he may have gone incognito perhaps creating the identity of the Japanese God Raiden some time in the distant past." Moody paused grudgingly conceding that it wasn't all bad.

"Alastor I don't mean to contradict," Dumbledore spoke up, "however all of these are rather clear for," He paused again, "That the situation is hardly a grim as your insisting. I should think we should certainly have to look into this more, jumping into this without checking our facts is hardly a wise course. I should think that it would be wise that we should review your existing materials."

Moody stared at him,

"So I can borrow this right?" The headmaster asked, "Anyway given the situation we should also perhaps bring young William into this, and expand our pool of research material. Severus perhaps you should look into seeing what resources Voldemort has that could be useful after all leave no stone unturned." Dumbledore wasn't convinced, in fact he was still rather confident of his own plan, but it couldn't hurt, and it wasn't like they had any other leads at the moment to follow up.

-scene break-

As directed Raiden's flagship had moved above the Hinotama Research facility on Mars as soon as it had detected the Asgard battlecruiser on approach to the Tauri solar. As it turned out it was in fact the actual Beliskner, which was in a word suspicious.

The exact wording

'It's the Beliskner and what is this…" The system lord peered over the sensor report, "its not functioning properly, what could be causing that what would interfere with an Asgard warship? Unless,' Raiden smirked he knew about the replicators 'oh my, they are using the Tauri to fight Replicators.' Raiden concluded. He had heard of the replicators, a development of the Ancients from many thousands of years ago, though exactly why an ancient creation warred with the Asgard eluded him precisely. "Well, well this is interesting the Asgard vessel seems to be transporting a Tauri from Cheyenne Mountain." They could determine this because of the sensors around the stargate facility that were there as part of the treaty. The goa'uld had agreed that the Tauri would retain their stargate there had been stipulations worked out with the asgard.

"My lord is that not in violation of the treaty?" One of the jaffa asked of his god.

The system lord nodded smugly, "From a strictly legalistic perspective, yes it is in violation of that System Lords Asgard Protected Planets treaty giving us perfect justification to do this. Ready the ship for non energy combat and engage network protection on the ships computers." Raiden flicked a switch activating the ship hyperspace window generator. Technically the ship did have the usual mind machine interface that most Goa'uld vessels used, but there were manual controls just in case, or if the system lord just wanted to be 'old fashioned'.

There was a rumbling thrum of the engines as they ripped a hole into hyperspace. The trip itself was so short that no one noticed the entry into hyper space, and the flagship arrived in high earth orbit.

Meanwhile aboard the Beliskner, which itself was in high orbit over North America, ultimately centered over Stargate Command, a console had started to

Jack looked aroung the room and Thor had evacuated to after the mechanical bugs had overtaken the control center. "Uh Thor buddy? That blinking light that's not a good thing is it." He inquired,

"It is not, O'Neill." The Asgard concurred, he had cautioned that allowing the goa'uld unimpeded dominance of the galaxy would have repercussions, but the council had been quite obstinate. Raiden had taken care never to give the legalistic Asgard cause to poke at his territory, always taking care to abide by the letter of the Asgard System Lord treaties. It'd been precisely that reason of why the Asgard watched Raiden, and Yu far closer than the likes of Ra, or Apophis, because of what was considered uncharacteristic goa'uld behavior. So naturally the asgard had known about the ancient technology, "It would seem Raiden detected the Beliskner, which more likely indicates he was here," The sensor improvements on the Shinku Rai Tatsu were a recent advance, and still not likely to detect an Asgard vessel beyond ~90 or so light years. Most likely Raiden had been near Earth, as given the speed of the Beliskner unlikely to be much of a warning.

Thor took a minute to go about accessing the sensors which were still available to him. "We had not suspected, the Asgard council that is, that Raiden's development had been progressing on such a bell curve, there is a probably situation that Raiden's flagship," Though not his Ha'tak escorts, "A potentially useful development for the moment."

Jack attempted to make heads or tails of the sensor read out, "Huh what do you mean its Raiden's ship that bad?" O'neill had perked up at the remark from the supreme commander of the Asgard Fleet./

"It is quite the contrary." Responded Thor not understanding the mechanics of the sentence, "O'Neill, the ship in question is many millennia advanced over typical Goa'uld design at least in the realm of firepower, a benefit of ancient technology" The Asgard were by no means stupid but they did honor their agreements. Raiden's lack of progress with cloaking ships "It is this advantage in technology which is most discouraging, though his Ha'tak are unlikely to oppose a Beliskner in single combat, the Shinku Rai Tatsu is a more pure back engineering of Ancient technology "

Jack nodded at the statement, even though it unnerved him. Mainly because from all available evidence 'ancient' tech was not a good sign. "Yeah, Raiden already knows about the bluff." Commented O'neill.

The Asgard had been aware for quite some of the advancements that Raiden had been making, or rather back engineering. Almost Goa'uld technology had originated from back engineered ancient technology to start with, but they'd been all severely degraded or truly dated bits of technology.

The Asgard had confirmed the Bairn's prescence centuries ago, the closest they'd come to ordering an assault. The vote had been narrow. Raiden for whatever reason kept his advanced technology away from the frontlines, or at least that was what he had been doing up until recently, the last hundred or so years. Ra's apparent loosening of his grip, and then the supreme system lord's death seemed to change all that.

By keeping his technology hidden the bulk of the other Goa'uld those who might attempt to attack him remained unaware of his technological advancement, and typically Raiden maintained a clear advantage over his enemies thus bolstering his reputation amongst the other system lords.

"We have long suspected as much, Yu as well,"

O'neill nodded, and looked back at the 'screen', or projection display of the sensors. He figured he had a rough gist of what things represented, "So what about these?" He tapped the console on top of a white blur that a run had popped up beside. "This should be empty space correct?"

"Yes originally I suspected they were the sensors managing to faintly get a hold of what might have been Goa'uld surveillance dones, however this may yet prove advantageous, in the event and if Raiden fails these will undoubtedly destroy the Beliskner ensuring the Replicators are not allowed to spread in this galaxy." Thor stated. "Long ago O'neill when the Four Races explored galaxies far beyond yours or ours, the Ancients were divided and from the civil war new factions emerged. Before that though the Ancients colonized your solar system your world, these were the Alterans. What remains of them may yet be of help to us in this time." Then the beliskner started rattling sharply

Raiden's flagship was specifically constructed to be beyond even typical Goa'uld mothership variant Ha'tak vessels. That had been the story he'd told the other goa'uld, that he'd told the system lords. He'd told them that he'd build a ship no Ha'tak mothership couldtake in single combat.

The Beliskner, venerable cruiser and work horse of the Asgard Fleet, was like the Ha'tak a beast of a warship that had few competitors. The Beliskner though was an old design, its upgraded engines, and some of the newer weapons had been built for newer hulls. Beliskner was a good design, but it was old, there were stresses on it new designs wouldn't have.

Thor knew that one day Raiden's new ship designs might pose a danger, but as it stood for Raiden's regular Ha'tak, of the second configuration, a Beliskner would have to be outnumbered by a factor of three to destroy the Asgard ship. Ten thousand years ago an Asgard corvette could have killed ten flight 1 Ha'taks. Progress marched one. Five hundred years ago, 5 of the brand new Ha'tak flight 2s would have been needed to take an Asgard Light Cruiser. Now it was 3 of the new Flight 2s to kill the Beliskner, but at least that was dubious.

"Uh yeah," The Air Force colonel began, "lets make sure we are win I don't particularly like the idea of being blown up." He remarked.

The Asgard bobbed his head in agreement. "That is a sentiment we share O'Neill." Agreed Thor. "Once we do survive though it is time we spoke about how the goa'uld development got so out of hand. According to Asgard intelligence he's begun to replace those vessel in favor of other craft."
"Those new Ha'tak right with the larger superstructure ring," Yu had been using them as well. They'd gotten to see one slugging it out in orbit when SG1 had gotten caught in the middle of a fight between rival system lords.

Thor nodded in confirmations, even as a chunk of the Beliskner exploded in the space above the earth. These were the flight threes, bigger to carry bigger engines, and more armor, better shields and weapons, and larger hangars. Heru-ur was supposed to be rolling out his own version.

The replicators had probably started trying to fire back. There was more rattling, probably Ha'tak adding their fire to the fray.

A hologram of Raiden materialized in the room. The System Lord looked as far as Jack was concerned even more smug than usual. With probable good reason it wasn't often that System lord got to trash an Asgard ship in a fight. "O-hayō gozaimasu, Tsumaranai mono desu ga."Raiden held out a hand, "I can yet offer you safe passage back to the Earth. The Beliskner must be destroyed though." The hologram vanished as did both the Asgard and the human. The flash of light were ancient trasnporters, functionally similiar to to Asgard versions. The transporters safely dropped the asgard, and the human back on earth.

Aboard the Shinku Rai Tatsu one of the Jaffa looked up from one of the primary weapon stations of the Shinku Rai Tatsu, "My lord we are prepared to destroy-" Raiden held up his hand to silence the man's announcement.

"Good" He commented, "Hold your fire though," Ordered the System lord settling into his own station, as the flagship shuttered as it's shield flared under fire from the Beliskner "I want to test something. I'm authorized authorize the use of the new prototype MKX91 Positron cannon. If worse does comes to the worst the main gun will be used." Raiden stated.

As with most flagships the SHinku Rai Tatsu featured a 'Main Gun' a weapon that was far more powerful than any of the other cannons on the ship. The Flagship of a System Lord was built with the best of everything the System Lord had available and its weapons were the most advanced that the System Lord could procure or build. This was how it had been since establishment of the system lords.

Against any other ship the Shinku Rai Tatsu's main gun was what a Tauri would call over kill when used in Ship to Ship confrontations the Gun was mainly used to destroy multiple warships, on lower power settings, or annihilate entire, shielded, cities or fortified structures from orbit. Against an Asgard battlecruiser? No this was the perfect target for it.

There was a humming of power in the ship. The Beliskner could not escape, Raiden had carefully had his first barrage aimed at the engines just in case. He'd figured that it was possible Thor had attempted or suceeded in disabling the engines, but there was no point in not being sure.

– Chapter conclusion -

Helltanz's notes: Its as good of a rewrite as I'm able to do.