Chapter 36
Lightning Fervor
Helltanz's Notes: Not much to say here.
-Chapter begin-
Latest Intelligence was what the top of the paper had written on it. The SGC was mindful to keep a close eye on the situation between the system lords. What they really needed was a better code name than Predator for the ship design the Celtic Coalition was fielding, but no Jack had had to go make a Star Trek reference when they'd first id-ed the ship. "The technology is well, "The Major stopped talking, "Well they took that trinium encasement technique from Apophis's prototype mothership SG 1 destroyed," and then of course Baal had supplied them with Anubis's technology earlier than he had for the other system lords, along with the intelligence he had on Raiden's weapons and shields. The ship class was nothing to trifle with.
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed, "They manage a capable facsimile of the capability of Raiden's Storm-class dreadnoughts for a fraction of the cost, and material." It was part of the reason they were so interested in them, both Jaffa, and Tauri. They weren't cheap but for overall cost they actually managed to be less costly than building a full Ha'tak. The new class managed to rival Raiden's dreadnoughts because the coalition wasn't fielding fighters, not really, and that freed up space, and alleviated concerns for maintenance. The simplicity of overall hull design, and of course the trinium hull case around the heavy naquadah reactor that was the ship's power plant made the ship design very survivable.
The naval officer who was also present nodded, "Well its good they're giving him some trouble it'll draw this out," The original fear would have been that Raiden's tech advantage was going to let him roll the Celts easy, but apparently Anubis must have done more damage than the Shinto god had been letting on. This little skirmish had gotten the neutral powers attention. "Kali's version is further expanding the hull to accommodate more systems and her yards over Apophis's former worlds are already churning out early blocks." The alliance was actually proving very useful, if only because there was the looming threat of Ra and of course the ever dangerous one side winning the whole she bang. The new ships weren't identical but they were rough copies, without Baal's no doubt modifications they probably weren't as effective, but Kali and Bastet had time to work out the kinks from the looks of things.
It also helped Earth's engineers get practical experience watching the construction of such reactors... of course Earth still needed to be able to build big enough hulls to base such systems. The goa'uld were busy trying other systems, even bringing back older siege systems.
"Ah gentlemen we apologize for keeping you waiting," The senator remarked plodding into the room, "The hill is getting to be such a pain, but you have something for us? Something about the ancients?"
There were a series of nods. They had plenty of information about ancient ships, enough to inundate the officers responsible for cataloging ancient data. That data hadn't been deemed as important, but this was, because it wasn't ancient though the ships were definitely constructed by the race that had built the stargate network. The projector started up, "Unfortunately because of sheer power generation getting an accurate reading on Asgard front line combatants," like the latest battleships the O'neill class "much less these ships, is difficult." On the screen was the massive form of a ship.
"Those are big guns aren't they?" The second senator asked needlessly.
The Major nodded, "Sir this ship out masses entire goa'uld fleets by itself. It appears to be an Ancient battleship," They hoped, given its size and the number of them there was a not unfounded fear that it might be a cruiser of some make. "Unlike the dreadnought," Which was significantly smaller, "ruins we have access to this is substantially more modern, give the fleet its present with, and Asgard review we think its only six or seven centuries old."
"Now by standards thats very young?"
Teal'c nodded slowly, "Senator the Gate builders have been missing since before the dominance of the goa'uld, these vessels sudden appearance is as the Tauri would say a game changer."
"How big are we talking here? Exactly?"
The ship image faded replaced with the backdrop of space, "We counted a fleet disposition roughly equivalent in size to a goa'uld assualt fleet. Ninety plus ships, most kilometer plus in size." Which normally wasn't saying much the Type 2 Ha'tak design had been a standardized one kilometer ship, and the newer version Goa'uld Ha'tak in service tended to be larger. Of course the Ha'tak design itself tended to be that larger to accommodate the dozen plus needs the Goa'uld wanted it to accomplish. A thousand years ago the goa'uld had needed it to carry raw material, fighters, bombers, not to mention slaves, and Jaffa in addition to individual needs today the Ha'tak was approaching the end of service. Even Raiden's Type 4 and the Super Ha'tak were less dangerous against dedicated warships like Anubis's Tuat class. Of course less dangerous didn't mean no threat when the ships still tossed around blasts measures in hundred of megatons every few seconds.
For the SGC getting even a rough idea of what a modern ancient fleet looked like could help answer questions. Of course if the ancients were returning that might not be a good thing. The original ship was back up this time with added highlights.
"Those are mobile suit hangars aren't they?" The oldest senator asked. Things like aviation facilities tended to look the similar regardless if it was the Chinese, or Russians building them so why wouldn't that idea hold.
A brief nod, "We're pretty sure. It seems like they're, and mobile armors are based off ancient technology. The dreadnought crash had mobile armor hangars, but as far as we've seen no hangars for MS units. These ships appear to be have both." Chances were a long time ago the Goa'uld had found ancient facilities and picked them over. Naquadah produced the energy density to power such weapons, and those systems could be micronized without tremendous loss in capacity either. "We estimate that this ship probably carries an air wing equivalent in number to the USN's entire complement."
"So fighters, even if they're these giant robots, are still practical?" The second senator asked, "I thought that was the opposite of what we were seeing.
The Air Force and Navy lamented that with Earth technology fighters for dogfighter roles were for the moment out of their depth. France had been the first to reactivate Air to Air nuclear weapons, and talks were proceeding with the Russians to do the same. Nuclear air launched cruise missiles were hopefully enough to down even shielded close formation mobile armors... well goa'uld ones at least. "Mobile suits are largely used Close Air Support or strike roles, and for fighting other mobile units." It was the first bit that tweaked the air force, who'd been getting demands from the army for years for more Warthogs, and more close air support aircraft now they had to contend with the fact they weren't sure even a nuclear AMRAAM was completely sure to kill the enemy. Congress wasn't exactly jumping to test fighter mounted nukes either the situation in space was already getting complaints a plenty.
"We do have some good news." That monster of a gate builder ship faded replaced by earth's ancient ruins, and segmented by separate pictures. "If we hadn't discovered the drone technology in the way we had..." the sheer difference between them and other examples of ancient tech, "Well they're an anomaly with what we are used to seeing with Ancient technology. Each drone is controlled by a mental link, and from what we've pieced together they're the ancient equivalent of surface to air missiles." The raw difference in power between Ancient systems, allowed large numbers to obliterate even state of the art Goa'uld vessels. "Because of the difference between them well beyond normal ancient tech we can't reproduce them, not until we find a factory or something however," A six sided cube, "This is a tesseract its an Ancient Power source, we think the ancients called them potentia. They work from drawing theoretically unlimitted energy from sub levels of reality which allows us to power the ancient defenses on Earth." because Earth had two of them, and the other ancient power source O'neill had brought back from that volcano hell world. "This is on the other hand is vastly simpler," and the screen highlighted another ancient weapon system, and once again proved the Goa'uld were good about appropriating tech when they found it. "this is an Ancient based continuous beam weapon system and as long as we had the material for the hull we could power it using our naquadah generators."
That got their attention, "I'm sensing a but here. The AG 3 series proposal can be powered by our own generator models."
"We can build our own version and attach it to the Freedom Star space station," From the information that they had on the system the ancients mass produced these systems as low energy deployable systems at the edge of their empire... a similar hull chassis was the basis for GENSIS.
The last of the three looked wary, "But we can't mount it on our ships can we?"
"Not the Daedalus class, the system is too large. The systems from the dreadnought hull can be reproduced but they're still larger than the hulls we have."
It took another round of technical explanation and more up close pictures, "You say we can mass produce these and the AG 3 for Earth." The oldest remarked, and nodded, "Well I guess we'll approach Wayne about the contract." Earth might not have been able to field a fleet to compete with the Goa'uld, but with the right work around they might be able to field something other than massed nuclear missiles. "Now what can you tell us about the Chinese acquisitions from the goa'uld ruins they managed to excavate?"
... Carter suppressed the urge to groan. As if Earth didn't have enough problems China's new 'ancestral' discovery was just another problem to exasperate the situation with their neighbors particularly India, and Japan. Of course if hadn't been China it would have been Russia, what with the latter busy piecing over various mish mash of alien technology. These were of course the priorities of Congress.
-scene break-
Phobos crossed his arms. He couldn't find what in this town was so interesting to Cedric oh sure the raw number of books was impressive, but the topics were so droll. Here he was stuck watching over the guardian of the heart. Hearts plural, the prince of Meridian ground his teeth. It made no sense, more than that it wasn't fair. True he hadn't expected to be given the heart of a world, he wasn't so avaricious, but to give one so frivolously to someone who was so objectively an enemy.
Will sat up, flailed and rolled out of her bed with a solid thump on the floor, "Ow... wait how'd we get back here? How'd I get home?"
Phobos snorted, and she was a clutzy idiot that just made it worse. He really hoped there was actually constructive plan and Sithis just wasn't deciding to make a scene to draw attention from elsewhere. Phobos hated being left out of the loop.
"Ah thats good you're up we were so worried. I mean Sithis left, and you were still out cold," The guardian of wind spared the prince a look, "and Phobos has been here the whole time, and we didn't know when your mom was going to show up, and then you were twisting and turning," Hay-lin ran her hands down her face, "and Cornelia has been trying to explain things to Ellyon." She stopped to take a breath, "and Caleb's knocked out on the couch still. We got him an ice pack though, but I mean what if we need to take him to the hospital, he hit that wall pretty hard."
Phobos rolled his eyes. The man was a rebel, an enemy of the crown... ugh. He wondered where Sithis had gone, but there were countless galaxies out there. The dread father could be anywhere, and unlikely to be anywhere on this miserable planet. He'd taken the time to check in around the house, even watch the television to scry on events that happened elsewhere. Elijiah's city was north of here, filled with rampaging warriors called metahumans, which would be interesting if he could figure out where Dakota was other than some vague idea on a map. For some reason the guardians didn't have maps in the house to navigate to such an interesting place. Well Cedric might now, surely he had a map of the local counties.
"We made sandwiches," Ellyon declared barging into the guardian's room replete with a platter of food. Phobos's sighed well at least that was taken care of Sithis had been clear that the guardian of the heart, and the others would need to eat... it also didn't hurt Phobos was actually rather hungry.
Will eyed the food, and took one, "Yeah my mom is on a business trip hopefully she won't be back until Monday afternoon she had a real-estate conference in Dakota."
Phobos's head snapped to the side, "As in the place on your television?"
"You know what a television is?"
He stared at here, "Why wouldn't I know what a television is?"
"Caleb didn't know what it was, he thought it was a magic, what was it he called it a scrying box?" Will asked, Hay Lin nodded... Phobos stared and shook his head, well it was kind of accurate... maybe just a little...
-scene break-
New York was raining today. Shredder settled back listening to it. He took a moment to enjoy the sound of the rain pattering off the Foot Headquarter's windows, as he relaxed on the mat laid out in the penthouse. His city, it was still loud of course, but today it was just raining. There were still concerns about mutants, and aliens, but for right now it was peaceful
Half way across the world things were calming down. In a decidedly pleasant turn of events the Ronin were being less annoying than usual. That was really the only way to describe them, and the information gathered had proved useful. With regards to that situation Talpa was rather testy about waiting but would go along with his master's wishes without much objection. On the other hand the warlords were quite vocally disagreeable about leaving the Ronins alone. It was just the way of things, especially in the current climate... nothing to be done, but wait.
As for the Foot's little reptilian problem, well the ninja had resumed their nightly vigilante patrols with only minimal incident. They were assisted in this 'endeavor' by some distant relation of O'neill, not surprise given the size of his clan after all, and some other human. The latter was some vigilante in a hockey mask. All that had drifted up to the Kami was the fool was named Jones, and that Hun apparently had a problem with this one.
It was all Raiden needed to know though for now. He had plans to deal with the problem if it got out of hand, but really the bigger problem for the Shredder was Norman Osborn. OsCorp was not something to be underestimated. Not on the legitimate business front, or on the less than legal side of things. Now Norman was barking up Connor's tree, something about mutagenic formula and accelerating the program. It was things like that that but the Shredder on edge. Vigilantes hardly mattered, but a rival toying with those kind of things, and rushing it? Yes. Then of course there was the Justice League, and that Hok'tar school that the news was causing such a fuss over.
The Shredder relaxed his artificial body's muscles loosening, he could deal with Norman that wouldn't be difficult. Then again the man had emphysema so really there wasn't much to deal with either. There was always a trip to Japan he supposed.
Down the avenue in another colossal high rise Norman Osborne was coughing. "More testing he says," The old man growled, "I don't have time for more testing, tell him to move up to human testing." He stopped long enough for another fit of coughs, "Tell Connor's he has until the end of the week to start human testing, or find some one who will start," The business magnate tossed the newspaper in the trash. The reports out of Dakota were promising of course the mutagen worked in ways beyond simple regeneration of tissue. Norman Osborne had been diagnosed as terminal some time ago, but he had promised not to go down without a fight.
Across the street SHIELD special agent Barton adjusted his, totally not reversed engineered from one of Batman's, listening devices as he monitored the OsCorp headquarters with his team of professionals. It wasn't like OsCorp was the only major corporation SHIELD watched, they just happened to be at the top of the list.
-scene break-
Sithis eyed the display of the fleet mildly irritated at the distraction. Every so often one of the Daedra would get out of hand preparing to spark a war. Sithis was tied to the very concept of death by the arcane workings that had transformed the Aedra and Daedra into what they were in this era. He was bluntly death itself given form. The master of Death, and well that had consequences. There were others who'd undertaken similar rituals but none so far as he. For all its benefits the consequences of being death strained his hold on the material plane during galactic wars.
A war between the Daedra, or worse a war between the Aedra and Daedra would kill trillions of people in the span of a few years. The goa'uld stared at the masses of humans on Earth unknowing that the whole population of the planet was insignificant to the Ayelied arcologies which wars would destroy when they came. "Lucien," The listener bowed.
"My lord?" He'd been in the brotherhood for thousands of years, and yet the last hundred years had been a stark contrast to what had been normal for so long. Before he'd died he'd seen Mehunes Dagon, and Akatosh die, not personally of course, but it had happened during his mortal lifetime. He had the same uneasy vibe about this coming era.
Sithis turned, "Yes chances are your fears are not unfounded." At some point very soon there would be a great upset in the balance. "This era is dying, and worse still the gods both great and small grow restless. In the end it was bound to happen, it is why regardless of what happens others crops cannot be left untended."
"What are your orders?" Lucien had lived a long life, and while not even close to being amongst the oldest of the brotherhood he was considerably old by human standards even within the standards of the fraternity. The petty skirmishes of the goa'uld meant little if the fleets of the Daedra went to war.
Sithis was silent, and his fingers moved across the console. Earth appeared, "Terra was just a tiny backwards world, a curiosity at the end of the empire. Alterran focus on the world fell away when they fled this galaxy to others. There are still lines of Alterran blood there, and that blood is the key to access to technology." The genetic markers of the ancients was irrelevant to the Aedra and Daedra, who possessed it already, but for the goa'uld, or humans or countless others it was the key to unlocking massive caches of weapons that even now could tip the scale's in their wars. "Take Mephisto with you and join forces with Tepes,"
The goa'uld and humans weren't the only ones who were after ancient technology. That much was true, but even if other half breeds and monsters could use the systems it was not normally an issue. Provoking an attack on the Daedra could not be permitted, because it would let things loose on this galaxy that were best kept tucked away at least for a little while longer. Lucien departed his new mission in hand.
Sithis stared at the evening star, and let the moon keep him company. He'd had worlds laid at his feet. The era was dying there would be no more peace soon, just a storm of bloodshed.
-scene break-
Gotham was pretty busy. The batcave was a mass of constantly running computers monitoring transmissions from all over, tracking shipments, and running down information. Wayne Industries had been brought in for a massive energy weapon the US wanted to mounted to build on the Freedom Star. If Earth hadn't been threatened by consecutive alien invasions, including one that SHIELD told him just recently was soon to happen he'd never have considered building these kind of systems. They were evident weapons of mass destruction, but after the Thanagarian invasion there was not much choice. The other invasions had only hammered that home.
Ace plodded up the large chair Bruce occupied staring at the screen. Between SHIELD and the rash of metahuman disturbances the Justice League was having trouble coping with its current staff. Certainly outside of a few major natural disasters the League had always been focused on America, a result of the first 7, and then Europe. The roster on paper said there were 50+ members in the league, but not everyone could be on call or patrolling. Add to the fact response times weren't instantaneous, well the League was fairly short handed most days.
"You should consider growing your hair out," Talia commented to Galatea setting the brush aside, "give it time to lengthen up it'll-"
The kryptonian rolled her eyes, "I don't want to look like supergirl 22." and adjusted the tablet computer, "besides we've got more important stuff like your dad screwing around in Springfield, and those anomalous energy signatures coming out of New York. We can worry about how I look in a business suit when we've got breathing room."
"Ra's maneuvering is an issue," Bruce rumbled, unfortunately the league couldn't spare the investigation assets to look into whether there was anything immediately maniacal about Ra's investments in the town. The League couldn't really afford bad publicity at the moment. "Where are we that?"
Now it was Talia's turn to roll her eyes, "Well beloved besides that my father has completely and utterly subverted the town's government, economy, and has his own pet senator from the town there is nothing to say." She shrugged, "All I know is that involves a new avenue for the league something involving militia training, and technology development, and," There was a pause, "father knows there is an alien attack coming and all I've gotten out of him is the vague phrase that the cobra will rise." If that wasn't classic Ra's al ghul phrasing...still yet another alien invasion they were yearly, and at times almost seasonal affairs these days.
"So do we know anything about the new aliens besides Odin apparently snatched up an Army Colonel to deliver the warning personally," Galatea asked. Sure there were plenty of advantages to getting paid with high energy weapons at Wayne Industries High Energy Science Lab but some details about the enemy would be nice. "or that the military is stockpiling energy weapons from both us and Luthor Corp by the bushel."
Bruce tapped a couple of keys, and brought up the production manifest. Fox had warned him about this, still it was a nice padding to both R&D and the general bottom line. Of course refusing wasn't really an option either. "The weapons might not be the biggest issue, their ordering of high end composites and armor materials has also increased by massive degree," Over 1200% since last quarter's order. The whole issue with gods, aliens and other dimensions though might have been the excuse, and real reason, but those kind of orders didn't make it any less concerning. "SHIELD is preparing for a war. That is fairly obvious."
"Wayne Industries, back during the 40s, was one of the primary suppliers of the Strategic Science Reserve."
He nodded, he'd known that. Wayne Industries wasn't the only one. Luthor Corp hadn't been around then, but Stark Industries had. Luthor Corp had only gotten its break during the cold war under Lex's father, but Stark had slipped off since Howard Stark had died.
-scene break-
-Chapter Conclusion-
Helltanz's Notes: The Tauri and the Goa'uld are about to start their own build up. The System Lords are preparing to take the rest of the galaxy, the Aschen are in trouble and the Tok'ra won't be much better because of limited numbers.