Chapter 16

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Mainly SG-1 for this chapter, though it gives some important plot development and information.

– Chapter begin -

The Tauri Space Fleet was hardly the terror of the galaxy. The Liberty was a modern type 2 Ha'tak. These type of ships comprised the core of the system lords fleets. Like all though everyone's type twos were mutating into new ship classes. It was such that Tauri were having a problem identifying all the seperate sub types that were cropping up. Such a thing would never have been tolerated during Ra's regime, but Ra was dead.

At present the Tauri or rather the United States was doing well for itself as far as fledgling space fleets went, and the USAF was getting quite a bit of support from the bureaucrats in light of the recent Thanagarian invasion. Unfortunately due to a mix of infiltrations and other reasons the Goa'uld just weren't being considered a threat to Earth by a number of politicians despite the SGC's statements, and protests that that was a stupid position.

Teal'c welcomed his teacher aboard the Pel'tak, "Master Bratac." The former first prime of Apophis greeted walking forward to greet his predecessor.
"Ah, Teal'c it is good to see you my friend." the older jaffa responded to his student.

Jack O'neill was particularly displeased by the nonsense which was being thrown around by certain senators and representatives to the Congress, but he wasn't going to complain about the additional funding. "Hey Bratac, just in time to see our new ride's upgrade you sticking around to see the launch of our new ships." Jack was quite pleased with this turn of events, even though he knew it signalled a change for offworld command. Congress wanted the SGC to retask to defending earth, and the US as a priority, and scale back anthropological explorations. That'd, Daniel had been promised over and over again, would remain important, but now there were other concerns.

"Indeed I would be honored to witness the launch of you new warships O'Neill." Bratac was pleased that the Tauri now had true space warships, even if he was unsure whether the vessels would be able to go toe to toe with a capital ship of the False Gods. Of course Ha'taks were not quite standardized when it came to technology, some system lords built better vessels than others leading to a tech disparity. This had been true even before Ra had died, now though the Goa'uld knew war was coming.

The Liberty was accompanied in its place in the Tauri Starfleet by a second type two, named the Independence, which had been obtained from Anubis and was undergoing more substantial refits with extensive study of Anubis's modifications to the weapons and shields.
"Exactly how are you updraging the Ha'tak?" Perseus, the Tok'ra leader, inquired "We were under the belief the Tauri hadn't reached such a level of technolgy."

"Well the Asgard have installed sheilds, we've installed better point defense system, missles, and railguns." Carter explained ignoring the barb. "We've also refit the Hangars to better suit our new F-302s and we've also improved the targeting computers. Similar upgrades are being done on the Independence."

"That is the type two the Tauri procured from Anubis is it not?"

The base commander beat the leader of SG 1 to answering the question, "Yes." The Independence as it had been named was a type two procured from Anubis, something that had also increasingly strained ties between the two.
"Don't tell me you still sore we've got those ships." O'Neill groaned, the Tok'ra were really starting to get to be a nuisance, not that they weren't already a nuisance, but seriously they were starting already.
"The Tauri are not ready for such power." the Tok'ra leader argued.

Even the Jaffa was getting tired of the Tok'ra's complaints about this issue. Of course the Jaffa tended to loose patience with the paternalistic patronizing of the Tok'ra even faster than the Tauri, "Friends we should focus on other matters." Bratac interjected, as it was it was foolish to argue about this issue considering how badly outnumbered they were by the smallest of Goa'uld System Lords.

"Yeah guys theres no reason to fight." Doctor Jackson agreed speaking up at last, and really hoping to head off yet another argument between the Air Force and the Tok'ra about the Ha'tak.

"The briefing is at eleven hundred hours at that time we can focus our energy to more productive endeavors." The base commander called.

-scene break-

"As you know the balance of power has been drastically altered, both by the return of Anubis and Raiden's technological revolution." Carter announced, "Raiden's latest weapon is the mobile suit. They are fastly superior to the much more fighter design previously employed by the Goa'uld. His own fleet composistion had also taken a radically different role than any other System lords." This included even his closest ally Yu Huang Shang Ti, " Though the mainstay of these ships are smaller than the traditional Ha'tak," This mainly meant the smaller ships that served escort, and ship killers, "what we are preenting here is all the information we have comprised on all of Raiden's new ships." Carter turned on the projector and brought up the first slide. "We'll start with the Shinku Rai Tatsu these heavily armed battleships serve as Raiden's command ships, we have confirmed there are at least five of these, that we know of." She paused allowing the projector to rotate the holographic image of the ship so the assembled allies and officers of the SGC could observe the ship. "They are approximately twelve hundred meters long they are heavily armed and carry their own detachment of Mobile suits. With regards to numbers we estimate they carry several squadrons." Carter brought up another slide this time of a sleek if small, by usual galactic standards though larger than the Prometheus class, blue vessel.

"The next warship is what is known as the Yamato, these high speed destroyers, as its class designation suggest are extremely agile ships and can exceed most ships in both sublight speed and hyperspace, they are about three hundred five meters long they carry around twelve standard Mobile Suits as well as one for the Squadron commander, this class seems to be replacing the two hundred fifty-five meter long already dated Tsuigara Frigates…" Carter changed slides this time displaying a smaller green vessel, which was slightly stubbier and who's 'pod' structures were less defined, underneath the vessel was a larger bulb shaped pod. "…they carry a squadron of mobile suits as well orbital reentry pods to deliver Mobile suits to the surface of a planet." The slide changed yet again displaying a much larger, though still only a little more than half the length of a Ha'tak vessel, warship. The new warship was painted in dark colors, primarily darker hues of blue.

"This ship was been identified as the Skyborne Calamity class Heavy Cruiser they are heavily armed and possess powerful shielding derived from ancient technology." Thor had warned them about these, the newest ships of the class were dangerous, they were Raiden's original dedicated capital ship hunters "Eight of these took out six Asgard Beliskner class without losing any of their own number a couple years ago. They are six hundred eighty meters long and carry a detachment of eighteen mobile suits, there is one known subclass which is twenty meters longer and has pair of wing like flaps added to the wings on the side."

"Wait, okay the Asgard here said Raiden's had them for a while," There was a brief acknowledgement to question, "is this the base line for his new ships, presumably the bigger was a test. So whats the goal? Whats his doctrine"

"We don't think Raiden has formalized a doctrine yet," Another intelligence officer interjected, "Right now he's built a fleet of specialized ships, presumably to counter other Goa'uld," The man gave carter the go ahead to proceed,

Another holographic image was brought up by the device. This ship was primarily white with red highlights. The central body was connected to four separate leg like structures, with wings extending from the upper portion of the main hull along with a 'coning tower' like structure. "This is Artemis's Pegasus class like the Ha'tak it comes in several variations they are all around three hundred meters and carry a large number of mobile suits. They're primarily planetary assault ships," A picture of what had been identified as the Albion came up, which to some extent resembled the Pegasus, though the rear 'legs' had been expanded and fused together, and the forward legs had been made much longer.

"the Albion sub class has been identified as favored by Raiden's main force it carries sixteen Mobile Suits." Carter announced, "According our recent intelligence he plans to lay down a larger capital ship scale design based off the Albion,"

"So are we taking it out, or we just gonna let him build it?"
"Given the signifcance of Raiden's fleet build up, we actually think its better for Raiden to waste the resources exploring dozens of design avenues," Major Davis added, "Military Intelligence, and the Pentagon agree that given that a war is coming Raiden expending so much effort is probably going to keep him on the defensive for a while."

The slide changed to display an Izumo class, which was straight and narrow, with a fins on each side of the main hull mounting weapons, and the same 'coning tower' like structure. "The next ship is the Izumo it posses heavy shields and armor but retains high speed, it seems to serve a carrier, it is two hundred ninety meters long and carries fourteen mobile suits easily, these ships are grouped by coloring though we have yet identified the signifigance of this."

Another vessel appeared as Carter changed slides displaying a grey wedge shaped vessel that lacked the previous vessels obvious heavy weapons.

"The next vessel is the Meanalos carrier it is three hundred meters long they seem to make up planetary defense fleets belonging to Raiden's more trusted underlords, because it lacks offensive striking power, even with their mobile suit compliments." The Holographic display changes again displaying what appeared to be another variation of the Pegasus class, like the Albion class its rear legs had been fused together into the main body forming a larger main body.

"The next warship is the Daitenchi Ausault carrier it's a hybrid between the offensive strike cababilities of a light cruiser and the Mobile suit compliment of a carrier, its four hundred twenty meters long and are cabable of launching three mobile suit squadrons."

Carter was gestured to hold up as she pressed the button for the next hologram, "This gentlemen is our real concern, while the bulk of Raiden's new ships are smaller specialized ships, there have been exceptions."

A picture of the Peacemillion appeared. The ship was a massive kite shaped monster three times the length of the typical Ha'tak vessel, and as tall as a Ha'tak was wide.

"This monstrosity is the Peacemillion class Super Battleship it is more than three thousand meters long and is heavily armed, we estimate it possibly carries in excess of one thousand mobile suits. Currently we lack accurate information on Raiden's Mobile suits to create an accurate briefing, this concludes our report on Raiden's Fleet."

Jack started clapping, he was about the only to do so. "Nice job Carter."

"Indeed your briefing was most informative Major Carter."

"Thank you sirs."

The intelligence officer who had spoken up first stepped to the hologram, "Our next concerns are the movements of Raidnen's fleet." A star chart is projected of Goa'uld space with numerous highlighted portions. The Goa'uld controlled a large chunk of the galaxy and despite the capacity of the Ha'tak vessels the Goa'uld preferred sticking around the worlds they had already been colonized with humans. "This chart represents in realtime the individual territories and balance of power in our galaxy. These areas are regions of contest between varying system lords." The man took the time indicate a large Region of space highlighted in an indigo hue. "This region indicates Raiden's controlled space where he has held dominon for several centuries the darker the region the longer it has been in his control or the stronger his force is in the area. Lightning bolts indicate major military locations." From beside him, Carter took a minute to shoot a look at O'neill, since it had been his idea to mark things with lightning bolts. "Raiden's outerworld defensive fleets are known to be comprised mainly of former frontline Ha'tak and Menealos carriers with support provided by Izumo ussually of the Green vairety, as well as orbital defense platforms but that's as far as we know defenses go." The man paused clicking the control, "As you can see from these areas Yu's new Super-class Ha'tak have begun to move into these advances seem to be coordinated with Raiden's forces," And that was true, Yu and Raiden along with their underlords had hit with a suprising amount of ships, overwhelming in both number and firepower against the minor independent lords of the region, "we estimate from current advance rates that these territories will be completely assimilated within three weeks."

"How did you obtain this information?" the Tokra leader demanded, in a tone not dissimilar to a someone very used to always being answered.

Jack crossed his arms of his chest, "I'm afraid we can't disclose that," He stated, "for security reasons." He added sardonically

"As I was saying, on the other side you have Anubis and his allies conquering these forces, his progress is not much slower but he is impaired by the fact his allies lack numbers." That was the only thing slowing Anubis down, and the man took a moment to gesture to the areas on the display highlighted in grey, they had actually considered using black, but the contrast hadn't worked well, partiularly a cluster of Jackal headed icons indicating Anubis primary fleet hub, "The other major group of System lords will play nuetral should conflict break out, but if push comes to shove we have no idea where there loyalties lie."

The man took a moment, and then stepped back. The recent months had been problematic. Heru'ur and Cronus were the strongest of these two and seem to be agreeing to work together, and even had expanded to include Olokun into their little alliance. This group has consolidated a sizable region of space. Still two system lords working together was one thing, three, three was always a tricky thing. Then again Anubis was back, and had allied with Baal.

It was very likely that areas within the next two years war would devour the bulk of Goa'uld space. Even with six system lords nominally neutral, four preparing for war would be enough. The latest system lord sumit had proven that. As had the recent out break in hostilities between Yu and Anubis.

"We believe it is only a matter of time before total war breaks out which is why this allaince is so important," The pentagon liason declared, "it is likely the war will focus between the system lords but there is a chance this conflict will endanger all of our peoples."

Perseus didn't seem nearly as calm. "Endanger us Raiden will not rest untill he has slain every Tok'ra, if we do not insure the System lords remain divided we will all face similair fates, you must give us the source of your information."

"We can't, it wouldn't matter even if you knew." O'Neill stated. "Raiden will target our source of intell and we will lose the only source of intelligence we can depend on." As it stood he didn't consider the Tok'ra as a reliable source of information. There had just been too many screw ups, and as it was, well the Tok'ra were just another group of aliens to Congress.

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's notes: