Chapter 15
Lightning Fervor
Helltanz's notes: This is definitely one of the weaker chapters, that is indeed in need of a more intensive rewrite.
-Chapter begin -
Michelangelo and Donatello were presently in the lair with Splinter waiting. The prior was at the moment setting up his video wall; a floor to ceiling stack of TVs and computer monitors, while the latter was studying one of the disabled small bipedal robots dubbed by their creator as Mousers.
Donatello hoped that through careful examination of the robot, he could determine its secrets. As with the Tauri's FX 302 Program the mouser was based entirely on the tauri technological base, unlike the 302 it required no exoctic materials that needed to be procured from off world. Thus it just looked like a genius had made robots, unless one looked close at the sensor systems, and the computer systems themselves to a lesser extent. That was when one might get truly suspicious about Stockman's level of genius, after all there was regular genius and then there was super tech.
Their remaining two siblings had arrived a few minutes prior on the SewerSled after gathering the last collection of their belongings from the old, trashed, lair. When Michelangelo finally plugged in the video wall, well the first thing that came on the screen was a yet another TV report about Baxter Stockman and his latest invention, the Stocktronics Mouser. It seemed he was the talk of the whole town, hmph it'd be very soon he'd have lawyers from all the corps coming to buy him out, one way or another.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Splinter watched intently as Stockman continued to talk about the very robots that destroyed their old lair and had almost destroyed them. The TV report was being brought to them by one April O'Neill who was apparently Stockman's assistant. It was apparently her big first time break.
As soon as the report concluded the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles decided they wanted to immediately go find Stockman and put a stop to all of his, obviously continuing, Mouser project.
Master Splinter however was quick to forbid another above ground adventure in light of what had happened the last time they had risked an trip to the surface. "So what are we supposed to do exactly, just twiddle our thumbs while that bastard and his robots trounce around our whole sewers and wreck it all, what if they find this place?"
"Look maybe Splinter's right, given what happened last time, and the fact that Stockman clearly has some kind of back, maybe we should wait."
His most impetuous brother didn't wish to hear it. "I am sick of waiting." He declared, "I don't care who is backing this Stockman's little project."
Donatello pointed to the muted collection of television screens, "Its a major city project, just busting in and breaking stuff"
"Well maybe the city needs to get a new project to work, we've already lost one lair, I'm not loosing another to these things." He responded, "So what we need to do is track them back to their source, and wreck them, and whatever is tied to them. You said they're remote controlled so lets find the source and break that, then we'll get Stockman."
Mikey looked at him a little unsure, "uh and then what bro, I mean we can't exactly nab a major inventor, did you see him he's all over the news."
-scene break-
On the top floor Oroku Saki was growing concerned, "He looks barely nervous," Murmured the master of the Foot clan, "I apparently didn't impress on him the importance of this assignment." Hun snickered rather abruptly drawing his attention. "Is there something amusing Hun? Something I should perhaps be made aware of."
The massive gang leader shook his head, rather quickly "No master Shredder, I was voluntering to impress upon Doctor Stockman the importance of Master Raiden's assignment, sir."
"That will not be necessary Hun." Commented the system lord, even if it was a very tempting offer. Stockman's arrogance was growing to be an incredible nuisance, "I am sure I can come up with something to remind Stockman of the importance of success in this endeavor,"
Stockman was useful, because he was intelligent, and one could never have too many bright minds, but the man's ego rivaled one of the goa'uld and that irritated the god. The city had almost cancelled the project due to Thanagarian's blasted invasion, which really had been a nuisance since it had complicated issues on Earth. The Thanagarian invasion had spread alien technology all over the planet, and that... had been a nuisance. The mainstream Tauri scientific community might actually get somewhere useful in the next decade in understand anti gravity theory now.
Of course things were now beginning to settle on Earth, it had been a year nearly without incident, which meant finally things were getting back to normal. If Stockman's program proved to be a success and he did locate what he was supposed to find it would be very useful. If it wasn't, it would be unforunate, but what would be worse was if they did find them, but the Tauri found out about the Umtrom. The humans were so very vocal, and nervous about their concern about aliens.
It was why they needed to deal with the Umtrom before the NID or another such organization found them. Under the Protected Planets Treaty he couldn't regulate such interactions, it had to be stargate related for him to interfere, and the Umtrom most certainly weren't. Even if they were 'officially' enemies of the goa'uld there wasn't much he would be able to do. On the one hand it was actually fortunate that the Umtrom were really that damned good at hiding. On the other the Tauri actually gaining that technology would potentially make them a very annoying little thorn.
As it was the Goa'uld were busy, Heru'ur, Cronus, and Olokun had formalized an alliance with each other. Svaarog, and Ares had be defeated, with Cronus annexing most of Ares's holdings, though there had been some ill tidings about things going missing. Svaarog on the other hand well his domain had been divided up between mutliple bickering lords.
The alliances had been drawn up, and while there were independents, they'd pick sides or they'd end up being destroyed in the coming war. It was becoming increasingly like that the war would come before Earth could defend itself, or the Asgard fixed their problems. Sooner rather than later the system lords would go to war, and earth would become a very valuable piece on the board.
-scene break-
Stockman had decided to pad his pockets and use his creations for a little side job of robbing banks and stores. The results, well he was impressed with them especially when the Mousers deposisted cash and jewels in front of him. It was a rather quick payoff. It wasn't like he'd done anything like this before. He was abrubtly cut from elation when, a hologram of both the Shredder and Raiden appeared. For Stockman this was a bit unexpected one could say. "ah what are you doing here, this is my facility you can't just barge in like this I need some advance notice for when you people come over," He ranted irritably at them.
For Raiden this was a nusiance, so he left the matter to Oroku Saki, "The price of your failure will be most severe Stockman, far more than the prince of a mundane failure,"" the leader of the foot ninja proclaimed. It didn't help Stockman's attitude any, and the man turned off the communicator, angrily. His alarm went off, though strictly speaking he was relieved that it wasn't fanatical jaffa coming through his front door, "I don't quite understand your species, but I can always find out from the corpses," He declared upon confronting his latest intruders; the turtles. The Lasers defending his assembly line were actually the most blatantly alien technology in the whole facilty, having been back engineered from Goa'uld tech. It was merely bad luck that the mountings were still Tauri derived systems, which primarily allowed the turtles to manage to destroy the weapons.
Poor luck for Stockman considering that the first turtle to reach him was Raphael. "Break into our home, wreck our house will you!" The turtle growled angrily, throttling the man.
"Look, Raphael I know you're angry, but look," She gestured to the accumulated evidence, "There is enough evidence here to ensure he goes away for a long time,"
Raphael dropped the man, which just happened to be enough of a prompt for him to call his Mousers and escape their clutches. Stockman was too busy running away to care that the Turtles were wrecking their way through his mousers at least until the massive blast door slammed and he was then confronted by Hun"Having trouble doc? Huh, imagine that you'll never guess who happens to want a word with you, hmm,"A meaty hand clapsed around Stockman's shoulders and lifted him up, "Why don't you come with me, eh we'll get this straightened out."
Stockman was not so confident about being grabbed by Hun and frog marched up to the top floor. On the plus Oroku Saki had taken one look at the security photos of the turtles, and slashed through them with his prongs, "So it appears we have yet another group on Earth," He muttered normally he liked this planet's diversity but now it was beginning to grate on him. "find who they align with, if they are allies of the Umtrom kill them."
"But, but, the turtles they're the reason I failed." The good doctor protested fumbling with the excuse.
"No thievery seems the reason you failed, for all I know these are yet more miserable Tauri heroes. Your greed bears the brunt of your failure that you attracted unwanted attention likely for it your burden," Raiden hissed eyes flashing. "I leave this too you Oroku, do nothing that cannot be undone," The system lord vanished hastily departing to his orbiting flagship.
The shredder was not in any better mood than his liege lord, "Your idiocy has placed us all in a problematic situation," He hissed, more than Stockman probably realized, the loss of Stocktronics could be written off as a hostile competitor going too far, but the loss of the technology that they couldn't show the public that was painful. Oroku Saki however knew he had other pressured, Talpa's recent fuck up should have been an opportunity to curry additional favor with the system lord. Stockman's failure however would be his failure, and that would not reflect well on him to the system lord. "Our lord has decided no permanet damage, Hun I leave such too you, take him with you and leave,"
The man nodded, even as Stockman screamed and flailed as he tried fruitless to get out the huge tatooed man's grip.
Oroku Saki, the Shredder sat back and rested his other hand on the top of his prongs, this was... unfortunate. He had seventy two hours of surveillance footage to review, he needed to know more about these turtles, as if he hadn't had enough to deal with before this. He hoped that perhaps would be right, that these were just yet another group of Tauri superheroes coming onto the scene, but at the same time he knew ninjas, and he didn't know this group, but he could recognize the style. It didn't bode well. To an extent he regretted that Aoshi's was otherwise occupied, it was true that the other Shinobi master might be able to spare resources to assist, but the price was perhaps not worth it. Itf Aoshi was truly needed then Raiden would be further annoyed, and then there was the fact he'd end up still owing Aoshi a favor. Not something he really wanted, it was a pride issue
-scene break-
Aboard the Sun Tzu development of technology was continuing for the coming conflict. "What is the status report on the Mobile Doll project?" Raiden asked. The Goa'uld already had 'basic' automation systems, but strictly speaking they tended to prefer relying on living pilots. It was for a mutlitude of reasons really, but simply put well most system lords didn't like the idea of AI. Apophis had some time ago toyed with such systems, but whatever he'd found he just must not have liked it.
The Mobile Doll program was a 'next generation' combat automaton though a skilled pilot would still be irreplaceable these 'dolls' could be used to supplement that pilot in battle.
She looked at him "The mobile dolls are operating at a high level of efficiency."
A lot had changed, and Raiden no longer had much interest in having to deal with the politics and attempted coups from underlings, something the other system lords had grown tired of.
"High Level of Efficiency? He questioned, an irritable tinge to his voice, "Then what precisely is the problem?" The system lord pressed.
"Well untill we can complete an efficient Ally Identification code they well not every," The scientist trailed off, "Well not everyone uses the new model ships so..." The underling trailed off not so discretely jerking his head at the 'window'.
Raiden frowned, "You mean they attack Ha'tak that don't have our Identification Codes." He remarked getting some of his allies to install such devices would be easier said than done for some. Yu wouldn't be the issue, the Jade Emperor hadn't even bothered to install cloaking technology on his Ha'tak, but almost every other major update had quickly been adapted.
"Yes."
The Shinto Kami made a show to grit his teeth, "Wonderful." He remarked sarcastically the Goa'uld had never been big on electronic warfare and sensor countermeasures, which was something that was becoming necessary. "Any additional reports?" Though a part of that whole issue with the matter of electronic warfare was just because of all the energy Ha'tak gave off.
"Well they do perform glowingly in combat situation the average Jaffa pilot even with the new supplementary Operation System," He announced, the Jaffa hadn't been meant to pilot mobile suits since they were living incubators, and there were other issues. "two to three shots they'll destroy most fighters, including phase one Mobile Suits, except the Type Zero." The underling leaving off the obviously to the end of the sentence. "The new Taurus Mobile Dolls and the Virgo Mobile Dolls' beam cannons will destroy an Alkesh in one shot with some minor improvements. Yet if the enemy is using the same units as our allies they will target both units, more than likely they would target our units if not for the IDC transmission units on the Older units which distuingish them from the units used by the other System lords. The Average Jaffa or any average pilot is unable to rewrite the command sequence in enough time to prevent friendly fire."
Raiden nodded that was to be expected computer programming was a rare skill to find amongst even his Jaffa. Ptah was the only Goa'uld who could boast such, and that had always irritated Ra, "What about in civilian areas?" He inquired, he like Sokar had rather large major industrial complexes on his worlds, not to mention there was the issue of deploying Mobile Suits on Earth if it came to that.
"They have demonstrated the ability to alter the firing controls on their weapons to minimize collateral damage," Was the response to his inquiring, which was good news, "and their flight capabilities are easily cabable of navitagting cityscape areas."
"Well at least somethings going ahead as planned. Transfer a team to Hinotama and set up a Mobile doll base there. The Tauri codes are rather easy to identify so they shouldn't destroy any Tauri units."
"Understood."
The invasion of the Tauri by the Thanagarians was something which hadn't been expected, and could lead to complications, whether if the Thanagarians decided to launch a follow up attack for revenge or if another threat that was off the grid came along. In any case keeping forces near earth would at least slow down any attempts. Actually he kind of hoped the Thanagarians would attack, it might help the situation on earth.
- scene break-
The current Tauri base, their Alpha Site, was located outside the usual Goa'uld Stargate network, on forrested planet with numerous mountains and large reserves of Naqudah and trinium. Strictly speaking the SGC was quite pleased at the find, "Welcome to the Alpha site Gentleman." the Base commander greeted as the Free Jaffa and Tokra step through the Stargate. "The Alpha site is Earth's primary frontline base in preparing to fight the Goa'uld. We are currently nearing the completion of two new Prometheus cruisers so security is a little on the tight side. SG-1 will probably like to see you folks. They are currently aboard the Liberty which is at undergoing a scheduled series of upgrades. In any case go ahead and make yourselves comfortable." The base commander stated indicating the Type Three Ha'tak that was 'docked' planetside.
Establishing this base had taken some effort, the Ha'taks which comprised the present backbone of their fleet, and even the Prometheus had all been carefully gone over with Asgard scanning technology to make nothing was on the ships to track them. It had yielded an extra subspace transponder on one of the Ha'tak, which the SGC had quickly gotten rid of. It'd later, after they'd found another one, been determined to be Tok'ra in origin.
"We are thankful for the Tauri's hospitallity." Bratac bowed to the air force officer.
The base commander nodded, "It's perfectly alright Master Bratac what are friends for after all. Just make yourselves comfortable, we'll make sure any necessary medical aide is avaible if its needed."
-Chapter Conclusion-
Helltanz's notes: