Chapter 21
Shadowy Figures
***Milky Way Galaxy (Local Spur Arm)***
**P4X-650 (Surface)**
*Alpha Site (Control Room)*
The rupture in the fabric of space that foretold of a hyperspace window opening had the newly relocated Control Room on high alert. General Ervin stepped out of his new office, which had been moved with the Control Room, and took in the situation. There were six ships in orbit, only two of which should've been there, and one of them was the unmistakable form of a Ha'tak.
"It looks like Ba'al finally tracked down his flagship," Ervin mumbled to himself. "Comms, order the Devastator to open fire!"
"That's a negative, sir," the comms officer replied. "Colson's reporting a malfunction in the weapons systems. They can't target the enemy ships."
"What?!" Ervin asked, more than a little shocked. "Of all the times for the thing to stop working!"
"General," CCMSgt Taylor interrupted his rant from his place aboard the Ares. "It's their IFF. The Ares' systems won't target them either because they're reading as friendly."
"Sir, we're being hailed," the comms officer reported.
The image of a three eyed alien appeared on the screens in the Control Room and an alien voice spoke to them. "Running translation software," the comms officer reported. A second later the alien's language became legible words.
"Greetings, people of the Tau'ri. I am Gluk, emissary of the Mimner."
"You jammed our weapons systems?!" Ervin accused the alien.
"You are surprised?" the alien more said than asked. "We delivered to you a warship capable of great destruction. To not modify it to prevent it from being used against us would have been Goa'uld-ish."
"Goa'uld-ish?" one of the technicians next to the comms officer whispered.
"In their language, 'Goa'uld' probably means 'fool.' It's rather clever actually," the comms officer replied with a quiet laugh.
"And how do you explain the Ares?" Ervin demanded.
"I believe your people would call it a 'computer virus'," the alien replied calmly.
"So you crippled our defenses and now you're back? What do you want?" the General asked darkly.
"The Mimner is feeling especially graceful," the alien replied. "He extends to you another act of kindness. This alliance means much to him. You are the one race in this galaxy that opposes the Goa'uld with any measurable amount of competence. He wishes to see this hold true for many battles to come, but he knows that your world is not very well defended."
"You'd be surprised," Ervin practically growled at the alien. "We have weapons capable of eliminating entire fleets of Ha'tak. Just ask Anubis."
"We are well aware of your victory over the forces of Anubis over your world. However, you still suffered losses in the battle that ensured. We are offering you the chance to prevent this."
"How?"
"Sir, we're receiving a data package," the comms officer reported as his terminal beeped. "My God!" the man exclaimed as the designs appeared on their main screen.
"Is this real?" another officer asked.
"Where did you get this?" a third added.
"Why are you doing this?" Ervin asked, his question the only one that would be answered.
"Consider this a gift from the Mimner. May his kindness not be forgotten in a time of need," Gluk replied before the channel was cut and four of the ships in orbit jumped into hyperspace.
"Sir, they're gone," the sensors operator reported.
"What the hell just happened?" Colson asked.
"We just received the technical schematics for a planetary defense shield," General Ervin replied in a stunned tone.
***Milky Way Galaxy (Norma Arm)***
**P7X-938 (Lunar Orbit)**
*Relentless Destruction (Combat Information Center) [thirteen hours earlier]*
Space tore open as the Relentless Destruction dropped out of hyperspace and cloaked to avoid detection. Beside her, two more hyperspace windows deposited her sister ships and the three made their way closer to the planet. "We're entering sensors range," Senior Airman Gigi Hanover reported.
"If you want to call it that," Lieutenant Derek 'Six' Sixo countered with a sigh. "They're jamming almost everything we've got. Subspace sensors are static, thermographic's not reading anything discernable, radio detectors aren't picking up any signals, and radar is a blank screen. If you want a picture of what's in orbit, we're going to have to use the visual scanners and LADAR grid."
"If we pumped more power into the sensors could we get past their jamming field?" one of the Destruction's crewmen asked.
Six looked over his terminal and contemplated the man's suggestion before replying. "We don't have the generator output to get anything useful, but the Savage Annihilation should."
"If we bring them into orbit too soon and they have anything…" Gigi began before trailing off. They had entered range of their less advanced scanners, and what they saw was truly a sight to behold. "That about sums it up," Gigi said with a sigh.
"Hold on," Six said, a note of confusion. "Those aren't regular Ha'tak, and that's not one fleet."
"Then the Lucian Alliance has moved to capture the technology as well," Ry said from his place behind the pilots.
"No, not the Lucian Alliance," Gigi replied as they ran more in-depth scans with what systems could pierce the jamming field. "Well, not only the Lucian Alliance."
"Those are Ba'al's ships," Six agreed. "Looks like his own refits after the stuff that Anubis did, so it stands to reason that their shields are going to be hard to take down."
The Goa'uld, being scavengers, hardly ever had an idea of their own. That having been said, the Ha'tak was a rather unique case in which the Goa'uld had designed and built their own ships from the ground up. The first designs for a Ha'tak came from the Goa'uld Ptah who was, perhaps, the greatest inventor that the Goa'uld would ever know. Everything after Ptah's original designs were modifications to the superstructure or the internal layout. The most effective changes had been implemented by a few of the other Goa'uld over the centuries with the last decade seeing rather radical leaps forward in Goa'uld technology.
Sokar had developed and built an entire fleet with cloaking devices on his Ha'tak, the first Goa'uld to ever do so, but the fleet had been commandeered by Apophis. After that came the advancements made by Apophis himself in the form of better hyperdrives, but those advancements were all lost when the Goa'uld made a move against the Tok'ra and SG-1 blew up a star to destroy the entire fleet. Next came Anubis who used his half-ascended mind to either develop or steal new technologies including better shields, faster hyperdrives, and Asgard beaming technology. After Anubis' defeat at the hands of the Tau'ri, Ba'al had taken over all of Anubis' territory and started implementing more changes. A larger reactor on the ships under his command had the already improved shields of the Anubis Refits made all the stronger. Then, as is their custom, the Goa'uld stagnated.
Or so they thought.
"Wait a second," Six said as two of the 'Lucian Alliance' Ha'tak fell to their enemies' weapons. "Those aren't Lucian Alliance ships, those are Ba'al Refits."
"We already knew that," Gigi replied with a look on her face that questioned her counterpart's sanity.
"No," Six shook his head. "Not those ones," he said while pointing to the winning fleet, "those ones," he finished while pointing at the fleet that was getting its ass kicked.
"Then whose Ha'tak are those?" Gigi asked as the smaller fleet of heavily modified ships forced Ba'al's fleet out of orbit, the defeated fleet promptly retreating into hyperspace.
"Are our communications still functional?" Ry asked.
"Yes, sir," the comms officer replied.
"Hail our fleet on an encrypted channel," Ry ordered.
"You're on," the comms officer reported.
"You're seeing the same thing we are, right?" Jeramie immediately asked once the line was open.
"Who the hell are these people?" Andy added. "Anyone advanced enough to keep Ba'al at bay needs to be on our side, not getting hit by a merry band of thieves."
"Anyone who poses a threat to Ba'al with so little a force will require us to coordinate our attacks in a precise manner. We will need our sensors to do so. What information can you provide?" Ry asked his XO who was commanding the last ship in their small fleet.
"We've put everything we can into the sensors without sacrificing the cloak or life-support," Lieutenant-Colonel Dominic 'Dom' Santiago replied. "So far we've got inconclusive scans of the ships, but I can say they're the main source of the jamming field. Aside from that, the planet is inhabited by Jaffa."
"Jaffa?" Andy asked.
"Things just got weird," Jeramie commented.
"It actually explains a lot," Andy said with a nod. "I was wondering how someone could survive long enough to attain technology on this level without being attacked. Now we know."
"What we know is not nearly enough," Ry countered as he walked towards the rear of his ship.
The CIC of the Relentless-class was set up in an ovoid fashion with the pilot sitting at the front of the ship. The cockpit was connected to the CIC by a hallway lined with manned stations where the crewmen who monitored the systems sat. In the CIC, a massive holo-tank dominated the area where the CO could observe the battle from within the safety of the ship with the outlook of a third-party observer. The holographic image was generated based off of sensors data, so, for the time being, it wasn't very clear. During a normal battle, however, it displayed the entire area that the sensors could scan so you could watch the battle from every angle.
There was also a chair, much like the throne on a Ha'tak, for the CO to sit in. Ry took his seat and pulled his helmet over his head. The metal helmet with hermetic seals was rated for both space and atmospheric reentry. It also served as a good mask. In its current configuration, the helmet had three softly glowing circles. Two of them sat over the user's eyes, while the third gave the appearance of the wearer having a third eye. The gloves that accompanied the armor also had magnets in the fingers that would force your pointer and middle fingers to move in tandem as well as doing the same to your ring and pinky fingers thus making you appear to only have three fingers. Over all, it made the person inside the armor look anything but Human.
Thusly suited up, Ry ordered, "Hail the target planet."
When the connection was made, a smug looking Jaffa appeared on the holographic screen that came into existence before the Colonel. "Sending a message to say you give up was not necessary. Your retreat…" the Jaffa began before trailing off as he realized he wasn't talking to Ba'al's underlings. "And what are you supposed to be?"
The Jaffa spoke the only language he was likely to know, so the translators in the Colonel's armor helpfully turned the Goa'uld into English. Then his armor took his own voice, scrambled the vocal patterns, and spoke his words in a language that had been created from gibberish. Another system in the ship took the gibberish the Jaffa was sure to hear, then translated it back into Goa'uld. As far as the Jaffa was concerned, he was speaking to an alien that used a computer to translate his words. Thusly, the illusion of the ship being crewed by unknown aliens was made all the more convincing.
"I am an emissary of the Mimner and you will address me as such," Ry replied calmly. "By order of the Mimner, this world has been claimed. You will lay down your arms or you will be destroyed."
The Jaffa's face twisted into a mask of confusion before he chuckled and countered. "I am Niptahkau, First Prime to Ptah, God of Crafting and ruler of Memphis. You have no claim to this world."
"Personally I may not, but the Mimner will not be denied that which he desires."
"Do your worst, scum. We have weathered worse than the likes of you!" the Jaffa replied angrily before terminating the transmission.
"Did he…" Gigi began before trailing off.
"He did," Six replied, likewise shocked.
"So this is where the slimy bastard ran off to," John mused.
The former Tok'ra host rubbed his chin as he thought over the implications of their discovery. While he held no technical rank in the armies of the Tau'ri, amongst the Tok'ra his symbiote was the Master at Arms and he himself had served as the Chief Trainer. As a sort of honorary title, the man was often called 'Master Chief' by his newfound comrades. He also served as the team's heavy weapons specialist, galactic historian, and field medic thanks to his time spent melded with his former partner and ability to use a Tok'ra healing device. Had the symbiote not sacrificed itself to save his own life after their capture by Ba'al, he would've gladly stayed a Tok'ra, but undergoing another meld with a different symbiote would be a betrayal of what he had, so he left and was welcomed by the people who had saved him from his capture.
"What are we looking at here?" Jeramie asked.
"The answer to a very old question," John replied. "Niptahkau, as he so helpfully informed us, is the First Prime to the Goa'uld Ptah. Ptah is the one who invented the first iteration of Ha'tak. Following that line of logic, he would not only have the most powerful Ha'tak in the galaxy, he would also know every weakness there is in the designs of the Ha'tak the other System Lords use. The Tok'ra started an attempt to hunt him down nearly three-thousand years ago, but we couldn't ever get to him. Even when we managed to find him, Ra had him well defended. He didn't leave the ranks of the System Lords until after Ra was defeated by the Tau'ri during your first trip to Abydos. After that, he just roamed around the galaxy blending in with the local populace while soaking up as much knowledge as he could.
"While he's been absent from the galactic scene for quite some time, he's far from out of the loop. Not only does he know how to beat Ba'al, he also knows about Sokar's death. Sokar was the only ally he had left in the galaxy after Apep and Ra were defeated. He rightly blames you for Ra's defeat, but also blames you for Sokar. Because of this, he has a more profound hatred for the Tau'ri then the other Goa'uld do. He will not treat you kindly if he discovers your origins."
"And what of his forces?" Ry asked.
"Ptah created his own branch of Jaffa known as the Ta-tanen, who were not known for either their speed or intelligence but their ability to weather even the most deadly of battles like a stone in rain. Though these Jaffa were small in number, they were often the only warriors left standing during wars between the System Lords. They will not be easy to bring down."
"So they're not tactically inclined, but they are tough?" Jeramie more said than asked.
"I wouldn't put it that way. They're the only ones left standing for a number of reasons. Ptah is the God of Crafting and he favors his soldiers with advanced weapons and armor. Not only will they be more likely to stick to cover than even Ba'al's forces are, but they'll also have weapons modeled after your own. I wouldn't put it past Ptah to have studied the Tau'ri and emulated them in some way. We need to be prepared for anything."
"First we will need to secure orbit," Ry said. "How many ships oppose us?"
"Fifteen Ha'tak with unknown capabilities," Six replied.
"The most we can easily engage at any given time is twelve," Gigi added. "The SRs can take on two at a time and the Savage Annihilation can handle another six… if they're not too advanced."
"We need to be cautious here," John stressed. "Ptah invented more than just the Ha'tak. Most modern Goa'uld technology is still based off of what Ptah developed all those years ago."
"We're ready when you are," Dom assured them from the Pel'tak of the Ha'tak.
"Begin," Ry ordered.
The Destruction dropped its cloak and channeled the energy back into her shields as her anti-proton thrusters flared to life and sent the small ship hurtling towards the enemy, her sisters flanking her on either side. With a burst of energy, the three ships jumped into hyperspace as the Savage Annihilation decloaked behind them. Another tear in the fabric of reality deposited the Destruction inside of the shield envelope of the target Ha'tak with the golden pyramid structure 'below' them. With a thunderous vibration, the plasma emitters mounted on her wings let loose with a hail of explosive power, scraps of the enemy ship flying into space as the vessel was torn apart.
The Relentless Destruction, unlike the Relentless Flame, had already undergone an upgrade from the old configuration. Where the Flame had eight plasma bomb emitters, the Destruction had only four, but, to add more firepower, the other four had been replaced with a Furling technology they were only just now getting operational; the particle cannon.
While the four plasma bomb emitters fired off their barrage, the particle cannons hummed to life. The bombs targeted the shield emitters on the external hull and the barrier collapsed in the targeted area. With the emitters no longer present, the barrier in that area was practically gone which allowed the Destruction to pull 'up' and break off its assault without fear of crashing into the shield. As the emitters on the half of the target ship that hadn't been hit were fed more power, the shield was restored around the ship as a whole, but, as a result, the entire barrier was weaker.
With a flash of blue-green light, the particle cannons fired their payload. Directed beams of hyperaccelerated particles bypassed the weakened shield barrier with ease and impacted the hull. The razor thin beams of energy each targeted a different area of the ship, the beams slicing through the hull like a hot knife through butter. The Pel'tak, Engine Room, life-support systems, and the main reactor were all pierced by the particle beams and the ship became dead in space as the crew slowly died from lack of air and the Destruction jumped back into hyperspace to strike again.
This time when the Destruction exited hyperspace they had appeared over the black structure with the pyramid 'in front' of them. With its particle weapons and plasma bombs still cooling down, the Destruction opened fire with its other weapon. The dual-barreled, spinal-mounted kinetic energy weapons that exited from her nose opened up with a rapid-fire barrage of hyperaccelerated metal slugs. The specially designed rounds pierced the armor after a few shots to weaken the target then, as the slugs started making it into the hull, the ammo type was switched out. In place of the armor piercing slugs, a 'shredder round' was loaded. This ammo type broke apart on impact with the softer interior of the target ship and sent shrapnel flying into the guts of the enemy vessel. Even if the round did penetrate less, shredding the enemy's power lines and killing the crew was still an effective means of disabling a ship. Then a torpedo flew into the gap that the onslaught at left and the Destruction retreated into hyperspace as the high explosive bomb detonated.
This time the small ship dropped out of hyperspace behind the only friendly Ha'tak in the system and started the process of cooling down its hyperdrive. Using a system designed to get a ship a great distance in a short time as a means of bypassing an enemy's defenses caused a great deal of strain on the system. That strain had to be alleviated before using the drive again or an overload in the core was a very real possibility.
Two Ha'tak now lay dead in orbit of the target world with another four outright destroyed by the rapid attack style the SRs utilized. That left the remaining nine attacking the Savage Annihilation.
Even when outnumbered, the ship wasn't outgunned. The Zeta Initiative only consisted of two-hundred people on its roster. Forty of them were the military ground teams. Another fifty were the specialists that served as the crew on their SRs. With another fifty welders, engineers, and maintenance personnel to keep the ships and facility operating, there was only sixty people left. Of the remaining sixty members of the Zeta Initiative, twenty of them were the technicians that studied and developed the technology available to them after cracking the Black Bunker, and the remaining forty were working the mines that fed the builders the materials they needed to keep everything going.
Because of this, the crew of the Savage Annihilation was only ten people. With all of the extra room in the ship that left available, the thing had been hollowed out and rebuilt from the inside out. The entire superstructure had been filled to the brim with power generators. Enough naquadah went into powering this one ship to construct a small fleet of standard Ha'tak. The only part of the ship not dedicated to power production was the Pel'tak, engines, and weapons. The Pel'tak had been modified to double as the command center for the ship as well as the Engine Room, the engines had been heavily modified, and the weapons system had been both upgraded and expanded.
The nine enemy Ha'tak surrounded the Savage Annihilation and opened fire, her powerful shield holding off the fleet's weapons while her own returned fire. The upgraded Ha'tak had nearly sixty plasma cannons mounted on her hull designed to fire faster at the coast of overheating during battle. To supplement its arment, it also had thirty particle beam cannons and a number of Furling designed railgun emplacements… and all of that power was being focused into a very lethal cone.
Surrounded on all sides as she was, the Savage Annihilation devoted half of her firepower onto one unfortunate ship off of her starboard flank and the other half onto a ship off of her port flank. Dozens of plasma bolts slammed into the heavily modified enemy Ha'tak and still the barriers held, but the stress was causing that barrier to fluctuate. As tiny holes opened in the barrier too big for a plasma bolt to fit through, particle beams lanced out and stabbed deep into the guts of the ships. The first Ha'tak fell to a breached reactor.
A few seconds later the second Ha'tak fell to overwhelming firepower and the weapons sifted to a new target. From behind the enemy that surrounded the twisted creation that Gabi had woke up one night rambling on about, the SRs reminded the enemy that they were not facing only one target. Plasma bombs and particle beams from the Destruction joined the self-same weapons fired by the Relentless Fury and the Flame added her own plasma bombs into the mix. As shields were collapsed under the onslaught, kinetic energy weapons, nuclear missiles, and something the Furlings called 'Dark Matter Bombs' slammed into the hulls' of the targeted ships.
One by one they fell, but they weren't fast enough. The shields on the Savage Annihilation flashed, flared, then failed before rounds started impacting her heavily armored hull. Known weak points of the other System Lords' Ha'tak were targeted and fired on en mass, but the Savage Annihilation had been too heavily modified for such a tactic to work. All they succeeded in doing was knocking out a few of her extra generators before they finally fell to the guns of the Zeta Fleet.
"Damage report," Ry calmly ordered from his place overlooking the battle from the holo-tank in the back.
The holographic image of space around them was promptly replaced by a schematic of their ship with the damaged sections highlighted in flashing red. "The forward shield emitters were stressed beyond the safe levels and are in need of repairs," the ship's lead technician began. "We took a few hits to the armor once the barrier was weakened, but no breaches. We did, however, lose particle cannon three, plasma bomb four, and three of our GARDIAN lasers during the impacts."
The report being done, the Destruction was replaced as an identical image of the Fury appeared in its stead. Different areas of the ship were highlighted and the report was less grave. Then another image appeared of the Flame and the report was minimal damage with no notable hull loss. The last image to appear in the holo-tank was the Savage Annihilation and several of its generators were red while numerous sections of the hull were reported to be missing all together.
"Is the ship still capable of hyperspace travel?" Ry asked. By now, the entire fleet had cloaked to avoid further detection incase the enemy called for reinforcements or had surface-to-orbit cannons.
"If we rewire the system so that it's taking in power from a different generator, then yes. Right now, however, the generator providing power to the hyperdrive is offline. It's a simple fix. Maybe half an hour of work," Six replied after reading over the damage.
"Begin making what repairs you can," Ry ordered as he reopened the channel to the other ships.
When the line was activated, he caught the tail end of a conversation between Colonel Jeramie Jeffers, the Zeta Initiative's strategist, and Major LillyAnna 'Lilly' Holzman.
"The nearest location without interference that I can safely beam you to is on the other side of the planet," Lilly said in response to a question Ry had missed.
"What about an orbital drop into the atmosphere?" Jeramie asked.
"Not an option," Lilly replied while shaking her head. "If I drop you from here, you'll hit the planetary defense shield and you'll be vaporized. I can, however, beam you directly behind the shield and let you drop from there. So, anyone up for a partial orbital drop?"
"Alright, do the calculations to beam us behind the planetary shield. I want us as close to the main city as you can get us," Jeramie ordered. He then looked up, noticed that he was on call, and added, "Sound good to you?"
"Indeed," Ry replied stoically.
**Memphis (Atmosphere)**
*City of Memphis (Outskirts) [ten minutes later]*
The three ground teams were beamed under the shield that covered the planet and got a good look at the truly massive number of satellites that served as the orbiting emitters. Then they were falling. The advanced sensors grid on their individual armors served to keep them aware of their trajectory and any incoming threats, the HUD projected on their visors helped them interpret the data being collected, and a series of subsystems built into the armor allowed them controlled flight.
Being of Furling design like the bulk of their more advanced equipment, each set of armor had a device that harnessed dark matter and used it to reduce the mass of their bodies in a localized space-time field, the micro thrusters developed by the Furlings allowed their reduced mass to be easily controlled in flight, and a liquid naquadah core powered the systems that were monitored by a Virtual Intelligence, or VI, that was essentially a smart computer, or a stupid AI depending on how you looked at it. Thusly equipped, falling from the very edge of the stratosphere all the way down to the surface while wearing armor that was made from the same hull material as a 302 wasn't much of a problem.
Unless you were being shot at by plasma flak cannons.
The first unstable plasma round exploded a few feet below them. The shockwave rattled anyone near it to the bone and was a clear sign that they needed to take evasive maneuvers. Their HUDs, upon detecting the incoming fire, began displaying projected impact sites. The jamming field present on this world prevented their suit's sensors from getting an accurate long-ranged reading, so the best they got was a second's warning before an explosion went off in their faces, but that was better than no warning at all.
Gigi, seeing the round coming right at her, fired the micro thrusters in her armor and swerved off course. The explosion still sent her tumbling through the air as the force washed over her. Her armor took the brunt of the blow, but she could tell she was going to have a pressure-induced bruise along the right side of her body. Before that could be a concern, however, she needed to regain a stable flight. She was out of control and falling fast. If she didn't get her course corrected in time, she'd hit the ground full force.
Trying to think through the panic she was in proved to be nearly impossible. She could see the ground below her, open sky, the stars above her, and then it all repeated. She was too dizzy to count the number of turns she'd gone through, but she felt it when a body slammed into hers. The added weight and the force of the impact slowed her down enough to stop the dizziness from getting worse. Then the figure holding onto her used their own wits to stabilize their joint flight. Finally Gigi could make sense of the world around her and she looked at the armored figure that was crushing her with a hug to keep himself attached to her. The IFF their armors put off was the only way she knew who her savior was.
"Thanks, Six," she said through heavy breathing.
Below them, another round barreled up through the atmosphere to meet them. Gigi was just about to start panicking again when Ry glided through the air below them and punched downwards. The outline of his body glowed with a silver light before an orb of silver slammed into the plasma round. A cloud of black smoke was born in their flight path, but a cloud of smoke wouldn't kill them like the plasma would've.
Once they were through the smoke and their vision was restored, Six let go of Gigi and drifted away from her to give them both room to maneuver. Their plummet finally ended as the teams, forced to abandon their direct course for the capital for fear of death, landed in a swamp a few miles off course.
The antigravity field that the Ancients used as a parachute came online. Coupled with the mass reduction field provided by the Furling tech in their armor, the Humans all flipped over so they were falling feet-first as opposed to nose-down. Then, using the actual thrusters mounted on their backs, their fall was slowed until they landed with a manageable thump. For some it was as easy to handle as taking a few jogging steps forwards to dispel the extra energy. Others rolled for the same purpose while others still just let the impact take them to the ground, one knee and one hand catching their fall, before standing up again.
"Status report," Ry ordered as he reached back and drew his assault rifle from its place magnetically held to his armor. Yet another design taken from the Furling Repository along with the ability of a large, bulky weapon to collapse down into a more easily managed rectangle with smooth edges and clean dimensions.
"Brian broke his leg," Doctor Colt, one of two of the fully fledged doctors assigned to the Zeta Initiative, reported. This particular Doctor accompanied Zeta-5 into the field. As per standard operating procedure, each team had a tech expert, a cultural expert, and a medic. Failing any of these, a team would be grounded until they had these essential members added to the standard military crew. It was one of the first executive decisions Oliver had made once the Zeta Initiative was fully under his control.
"Is it fixable?" Ry asked. His voice was devoid of all emotion, true, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel anything. He was simply incapable of showing that he cared.
"John!" Colt called over to the former Tok'ra.
The man in question jogged over and ran the healing device that had been built into his armor's glove to expediate things over the injury. A soft glow emanated from the small crystal in his palm and Brian's face twisted into a mask of pain behind his helmet as his bone shifted beneath his skin. Ry watched the process until a beep in his ear drew his attention. His eyes instinctively looked to the part of his HUD that warned him of incoming hostiles and his reflexes did the rest.
Even before his conscious mind had fully reacted to the threat, his body was glowing and a protective field sprang into existence behind him. No sooner had the shimmer come into existence than a blast from a staff cannon was shoved off course by the barrier.
The single shot was all the assembled soldiers needed to spring into action. Weapons were leveled in the direction of the hostiles and weapons fire ripped a small tree apart, the trunk incapable of withstanding the hyperaccelerated rounds that tore through it.
In the same instant, Doctor Miguel dove over Brian to cover his body with his own, John stopped the healing process to draw his own weapon, and Doctor Colt had his rifle leveled against the enemy… that wasn't there.
Two more blasts impacted Ry's shimmering silver barrier while more weapons fire targeted those not protected by the power imparted unto him by the Furling machine. Those who could dove for cover. Those who couldn't ran for cover. The doctors grabbed their patient and retreated under the cover of the suppressive fire the others were laying out and the barrier Ry was protecting them with. Once they were behind their own piece of cover, the barrier snapped out of existence and Ry stumbled under the strain of holding back the powerful shots.
"They are not in the trees," the Colonel informed them.
"You're telling me the Goa'uld have snipers now?" Sergeant Michael Camp asked with a frustrated grumble as he switched out his assault rifle for his own sniper rifle. Around him, the other snipers in their group did the same. LillyAnna, Zeta-5's Infiltrator, linguist, and historian drew her oversized rifle, Colonel Andy, Infiltration specialist for Zeta-3, Lieutenant Augustus 'Cole Train' Cole, one of two snipers on Zeta-2, and Six, the Infiltrator for Zeta-2, all drew their long range weapons as well.
"Like I said, Ptah has it out for the Tau'ri. It's likely he's learned everything he could about you in an effort to defeat you," John replied as he finished his work no Brian's leg.
Still grumbling obscenities under his breath, the fiery Sergeant with a head full of flaming-red hair lined up his shot and let his rifle announced his opinion of this new enemy. For six years the man had been a sniper in the US Army. When they tried to promote him to an E6, he quit and could be quoted as saying, "I'll never give up my gun!" Not even three months into his 'retirement,' General Landry had offered him a new deal. Keep your rank, take the pay raise, get a newer, more powerful gun, and work for the Air Force's new division. If he had known he was going to be fighting aliens, he probably would've thought it over more before accepting the offer. As it was, he took it blindly and ended up regretting it. Then he got over the shock of it all and now… well, now the men and women assembled from multiple countries around the world were glad they had never been on the business end of this man's rifle.
Then again, the same could be said for any member of the Zeta Initiative. After working together for so long and fighting the battles they had, it was hard to think of the people around them as anything short of a friend. To be enemies was just too strange a notion.
Now it is relevant for one to know the difference between someone designated as a 'Sniper' versus an 'Infiltrator.' A Sniper carries a high powered sniper rifle into battle and has armor that's coated with adaptive paints that will blend into the environment to better hide them just as the others do, but their armor has a more advanced version of the same technology as their need to hide is greater. To 'one-up' this, Infiltrators are equipped with a Sodan Cloaking Device. To protect them from the radiation associated with this technology, their armor is impregnated with lead making it heavier than a Sniper's and slightly limiting their mobility. Infiltrators, unlike Snipers, specialize in what are known as the 'Extreme Ranges of Combat.' They specialize in both long range sniping and close quarters combat whereas a Sniper typically specializes in long range take downs and midrange combat.
The most notable difference, however, is in the weapons. A Sniper carriers a high powered sniper rifle into battle with an assault rifle as their secondary weapon and a single sidearm for when the enemy gets to close. An Infiltrator typically has several knives on them, either dual sidearms or a shotgun for their secondary weapon, and a smaller version of a sniper rifle. With the same advanced scope that doubles as a special HUD for sniper duty, the scaled-down version of a sniper rifle the Infiltrators use has a shorter barrel which gives it less range and less impact power, but allows it to be used inside of tight spaces more easily.
After the first shot took out the first enemy, the opposing team of snipers started taking potshots at the Zeta teams as they tried to take out the hostiles. Instantly fed up with the lethal game of whack-a-mole, Andy said, "Fuck this shit! Six, Gigi, tag these bastard for us."
"Will-co," Six replied as he activated his Sodan Cloaking Device and moved to scout out the snipers' positions, Lilly fanning out in another direction under her own cloak.
There was a beeping sound in Andy's ear as the data came in from the two cloaked figures ahead of them. Bringing his rifle's scope up to his eye, Andy stared down the advanced scope that displayed wind speed and barometric pressure. Several hundred meters down range, thirteen targets were indicated by red triangles, their location having been marked by the GPS system in Six's and Lilly's suits. Andy lined up his first shot, took a deep breath, squeezed the trigger then immediately repeated the process as the other three snipers joined in.
As the last two triangles disappeared from both Andy's scope, and everyone else's HUD, Six said, "Hostile neutralized, you're clear to come out," to confirm that they really were dead.
**Memphis (Surface)**
*City of Memphis (Throne Room)*
"Intriguing, are they not?" Ptah asked his First Prime as the two watched the battle's progress from the safety of Ptah's private Throne Room. He couldn't even remember how long ago it was that he stopped speaking in the deep, echoing tones of the Goa'uld when in the presence of his First Prime. It was such an unnecessary and draining task.
"That is not the word I would use, My Lord," Niptahkau replied darkly.
"Tell me, who do you think these people are?" Ptah asked curiously.
"They claim to be emissaries to the Mimner, though I have not heard this name before."
"I have," Ptah said smoothly. "I had thought this Mimner would make a fine ally. Now, I know better."
"Where have you heard of them before, My Lord?" Niptahkau asked, obviously confused.
"The Mimner recently stole Ba'al's newest flagship. I had planned on doing so myself, but clearly this organization had better Intel than I did. Their attack was perfectly timed to hit when the ship's shields would be down. I can only speculate on how satisfying it would've been to see the look on Ba'al's smug face when the ship was stolen from right under his nose! To have been denied one of my desires is a travesty."
"You will see whatever look on Ba'al's face you want once he is kneeling at your mercy, My Lord," Niptahkau replied in a determined tone.
"I believe that, if it was up to you, I would've had that opportunity already. As it is, we just lost our fleet," Ptah replied calmly before shutting off the projection and walking back to his throne. "We will have to start over from scratch, and the bulk of our raw materials were consumed by the destruction of what we had."
"Then I will punish these people in your great name," Niptahkau declared.
"My name is not so great as to warrant your self-imposed death," Ptah replied dismissively. "No, we will wait here and they will come to us. Then you may punish them however you please."
"What makes you sure they will come here?" Niptahkau asked.
"They are here for one of two things. Either they want my head as Ba'al does, or they want this," Ptah said while holding up the crystal he had taken out of the computer that belonged to the Ancients. The computer now rest in the same room they had found it in, buried deep within a bunker under the volcano from which the power for the shield was derived, but now it was useless. Only with the crystal would it work.
*City of Memphis (Outside the Great Wall)*
"You weren't kidding!" Six shouted to the man standing practically right beside him. The hail of weapons fire flying over their heads was enough to drown out most other sounds. Still, they wore helmets with built in communicators for a reason.
"Stop yelling in my ear," John replied calmly.
"Right, sorry," the often times annoying Russian said at a more acceptable volume. "You got any ideas here?"
"Nobody I know of that's still alive has fought the Ta-tanen and lived to pass on their knowledge of the encounter. Also, I'm quite certain that the weapons they use are unique to the factories on this world," John answered.
"So Ptah copied our assault rifles, only he made them shoot plasma, and this is all an attempt to destroy Earth for defeating Sokar? We didn't even kill him, Apophis did!" Andy said from his place at the rear of their formation. He and the rest of the dedicated snipers were using the suppressive fire provided by the others to take what shots they could when the fire lessened enough to allow them to act.
"At this point, I don't believe that Ptah cares either way. Defeating the Tau'ri will earn him the respect of the System Lords, and outright fear of the minor lords that serve them. If Ptah conquers Earth, the remaining System Lords will back him in his war against Ba'al. With his advanced Ha'tak, that war will be both short and entirely in his favor."
"So destroying Earth has become a political stepping stone for galactic politics?" Senior Airman Jonathan Carrick asked, more than a little appalled by the thought. The man serves as Zeta-2's linguist and one hell of a fine soldier. He had been pulled from the Airborne Cryptographic Linguist and added to the Zeta Initiative's roaster after the request for more combat-trained linguist went through. With there being two people named 'Johnathan' in the Zeta Initiative, Carrick had started going by his old high school nickname to make things easier. As such, everyone called him 'Jace.'
"Destroying a planet is too easy," John replied casually as he laid into one of the Ta-tanen until his weapon overheated. "If you want to be respected and feared, you have to conquer the Tau'ri and force them to be subservient to you. The people of Earth have a reputation for being a formidable enemy with great soldiers who can lay waste to large numbers of Jaffa with only a few men. To control that is to be feared. To destroy it is to be thanked then stabbed in the back the moment you reveal your backside to the ones you thought your friends."
"And I thought Human politics were bad," Lieutenant-Colonel Kimberly Tara Strauss, more commonly known by 'Tara' to help avoid confusion between her and Kimi, said. She served as the Executive Officer for Zeta-5 and one of three defacto 'shrinks' for the members of the Zeta Initiative as a whole. While she didn't have any training in the subject, she just had one of those personalities that let you know you always had someone to talk to.
One of the many heavy staff cannon emplacements mounted on the walls above them managed to hit Jace square in the chest. The man not only fell back with a smoking crater in his armor, he also slid backwards out of cover. With a flick of his unnatural power, Ry sent a tendril of silver out to the man's body. It landed on his leg, and, with a jerk as if he were fishing, Ry pulled him back towards him. With another flick, Jace's course was altered mid-air and he landed in the waiting arms of Doctor Miguel. Both he and Doctor Colt were at the very back of their formation behind the snipers. This kept them close enough to help, but far enough away to not be an obvious target.
"We need to get past this barricade," Ry said simply from his place at the head of the assault line.
His HUD displayed the relative condition of his teammates, and, as the leader of the assault as a whole, he had access to everyone's vitals. He was, therefore, relieved when Jace's heart rate stabilized and his condition slowly improved as Miguel and Colt applied burn cream to his charred torso as well as administering pain meds and stemming the bleeding. With a bit of luck, he'd live long enough for them to get him to the dedicated medical facilities on their ships.
They were forcing their way up the hill that the city was built on. This gave their enemy the high ground and had them working against gravity as they climbed the steep, cliff-like face. It also gave their resident strategist an idea.
"Ry, can you move dirt?" Jeramie asked.
Their armor, to better portray them as aliens, always scrambled their words and amplified their voices so that it was if the aliens were shouting orders to one another in their native tongue. In reality, they didn't need to be heard at all. When performing a stealth op, that function of the armor is shut off and all communication is run through a heavily encrypted battle-net to avoid detection. This time, however, they wanted to sell the idea that unknown aliens had taken a city held by a rather legendary Goa'uld.
"Indeed," Ry replied as he returned fire with his weapon.
The enemy was using a rapid fire rifle that shot plasma rounds. A rather strange weapon for a Jaffa to have, but it made sense given that Ptah was the greatest inventor to the Goa'uld species. They also had armor more in line with what the SG teams wore as opposed to the utterly useless decorative armor worn by the other Jaffa.
The Zeta teams, on the other hand, had weapons based off of a Furling design. It used a miniature railgun-like catapult to accelerate small kinetic projectiles to greater speeds. This improved their range, but the design had been imperfect when found. The original design used bullets the size of a grain of rice. Needless to say, this didn't leave very large wounds in the target's body so the Zeta Initiative's scientists had altered the weapons to fire larger bullets. This, however, came at a cost. Not only did the weapon run off of an ammo clip, it also overheated if the propulsion system was pushed too hard. This limited the number of rounds that could be fired from the weapon, but several modifications could be used to customize the guns carried into battle to better suit the users.
Modified propulsion systems could fire with more impact force at the cost of faster overheating such as what they used in the sniper rifles. Another modification included a more advanced heat-sink at the cost of physical-clip capacity. Scopes could be added at the expense of extra weight and bulkiness. The number of modifications that could be made to a Furling personnel weapon were so extensive that the odds of any two guns being used by the Zeta teams being the same was actually rather slim. Unfortunately, however, they were still working out the kinks in the modified ammo systems that the Furlings used. With any luck, they'd see incendiary, cryogenic, radioactive, and other such ammo types in a month's time as opposed to the basic shredder and armor piercing ammos they were using. It would certainly help against the Ta-tanen.
"This hill is pretty unstable. Why don't you go ahead and help it along?" Jeramie asked, his tones revealing the smile that was surly plastered on his face.
Ry simply stood up out of his cover and pulled on the power stored in his modified genetics. A silver aura surrounded his body before he lashed out with that power and pulled on the dirt that was under the feet of his enemy. With a rumble like an avalanche, the ground gave out under the modified pull of gravity and the Ta-tanen were swept away and down the hill. Their path now significantly less guarded, the Zeta teams stormed the weakened defenses at the gate into the city, weapons blazing.
*City of Memphis (Throne Room) [thirty minutes later]*
The last of the defending Ta-tanen fell to the guns of the invaders and Ptah held back the curse as it formed in his throat. "They have arrived," he said to his First Prime.
"What are your orders, My Lord?" Niptahkau asked.
Ptah studied the images on the screens around him and slowly shook his head. Even with several of the aliens wounded, they had pushed through his defense like a great wave against the shore. Slowly but surely his mighty Jaffa had fallen. "These… emissaries of the Mimner. They interest me," Ptah finally replied.
"They fight better than even the Tau'ri," Niptahkau agreed.
"Their equipment is far more advanced," Ptah said dismissively. "You have witnessed firsthand how much that matters."
"And I ask again, My Lord. What do you wish of me?" Niptahkau asked, clearly concerned for his master's safety.
"Ready the vessel for launch. We will leave either when necessary or after I have spoken to these ambassadors."
"My Lord, surely you wouldn't…" Niptahkau began.
"I am not a fool, Niptahkau," Ptah assured him. "I will speak with them, and they will hear me. Their master has demanded this of them, I am sure."
"Very well, My Lord," Niptahkau replied with a bow. "I will ready the vessel."
The aging Jaffa walked into one corner of the room where a set of rings took him to Ptah's personal ship. No sooner had the last ring risen then the enemy entered the Throne Room. Niptahkau had only the chance to glare at the gathered invaders before his view was terminated in a flash of light. With but a single button, Ptah locked the rings and prevented the Jaffa from returning.
Turning to the armored figures before him, Ptah smiled. "You must be the emissaries of the Mimner. Welcome to my personal chambers."
The alien before him tilted its head to one side then the other. Its three eyes looked him over, judged him, then, finally, it spoke. Its voice was slightly distorted as its alien language was translated to Goa'uld, but at least he wouldn't have to try to learn a new language just to threaten these people.
"You are Ptah?" the alien asked, clearly unimpressed. "I was expecting… more."
Ptah's eyes flashed briefly before he regained his composure. Then he smiled. It was a sick, twisted smile, but a smile nonetheless. "You are brave, Emissary, to come into my home and insult me. Brave, and very foolish. If you leave now, I will allow you to live."
The alien laughed at his words, the others in its group maintaining a more serious composure. "If I leave now, I might trip over all of the dead bodies I left in my wake," the alien chuckled. "You are but one, and those under you were no harder to kill than any other enemy we have faced."
"True as that may be," Ptah countered coolly, "you have yet to face my personal guard."
"Niptahkau? The one who has already fled?" the alien asked. "Or do you refer to the ones hiding in the shadows?"
As if on cue, three of the people standing amongst the group of soldiers flickered out of existence only to reappear in the corners of his Throne Room, their weapons pressed against the flesh of his most well trained Jaffa. The holographic copies of the armored figures that had accompanied the group in had only been a diversion. The real threat were the three amongst them that, like his own elite warriors, had cloaking devices… but they had only brought three.
"That was just to show you that we can see your soldiers," the alien before him said before drawing a smaller weapon from his leg and firing at an empty spot in the room. The wall behind the targeted area was instantly coated in brain matter as another of his elite fell to the ground in a limp heap. "That was to prove that your personal shields aren't going to protect you."
"Interesting," Ptah mused while rubbing his chin. "I have watched you march through my home with impunity. I have seen your men suffer injuries that would kill a lesser creature. None of the wounds that were inflicted upon you were stopped by personal shields, only your armor. So tell me, how do you have the technology to counter a personal shield, but still do not possess one yourself?"
"We need only the Mimner's grace to survive the likes of you," the alien replied.
"Then I do hope your God is as powerful as you believe it to be!" Ptah roared as his personal guard dropped their cloaks, raised their weapons, and opened fire on the group of aliens. A push of a button on his wrist device had Ptah smiling smugly… until he failed to beam out. With a look of shock on his face, he quickly unlocked the rings in the room and moved to the platform.
Behind him, the aliens formed a tight circle around one of them that projected a shield over their group. Plasma bolts failed to hit their targets, the barrier pushing the projectiles off course, while the weapons of the emissaries tore into his most loyal and loved Jaffa with impunity. Ptah took one last look at the carnage in the room as the rings surrounded him. In a flash of light he was gone from the danger, but the images would stay in his dreams for years to come. If he lived that long.
As the last of the elite Jaffa warriors fell to the guns of the Zeta teams, Jeramie looked to the only person other than Ry to have not fired a single shot since entering the Throne Room. Ry had been busy protecting them. Major Brian Hail, the Combat Engineer and pilot for Zeta-5, had been busy wirelessly interfacing with a device that had no power. It was not a task most people would consider possible, but the Furlings had found a way.
"Did you…" Jeramie began before Ry dropped to the ground in the middle of their cluster. Both of the doctors with them were instantly looking him over so the Colonel went back to getting answers. "Did you get it?" Jeramie asked.
Brian didn't answer right away which had Jeramie nervously tapping his foot. Finally the man looked up, a smile on his face hidden under his metal helmet. "Damn right I did," he replied as he turned his wrist so that his palm was facing down. The holoprojectors built into the armor worn by the Combat Engineer flared to life. Where they had just been being used to fool the Goa'uld into thinking they were all present, it was now displaying the designs for a network of satellites that pulled on the energy of a planet's natural electromagnetic field and twisted it into something more potent while adding more power to sustain the changes. The galaxy's first fully operational planetary defense shield. "Earth just got a hell of a lot safer."
"Not until we have transmitted the designs to the Alpha Site and the technology has been implemented. Until then, they are still exposed," Ry countered as the doctors helped him sit up.
"You alright?" Jeramie asked.
"Physical exhaustion," Doctor Colt replied. "He'll be fine after he eats."
***Local Cluster (Sol System)***
**Earth (Surface)**
*Stargate Command (Control Room) [present]*
"They showed up with a small fleet, exchanged a few… pleasantries, I guess you could say, transmitted the designs and said, 'Consider this a gift from the Mimner. May his kindness not be forgotten in a time of need'," General Ervin reported, a shake of his head indicating how unbelievable this whole situation was.
"And you said that they disabled the weapons systems on both the Devastator and the Ares?" General Landry asked.
"Yes, sir. The Devastator couldn't even get her weapons online and the Ares wasn't able to lock target on their ships. The computers kept registering them as friendly."
"Purge the computers on both ships. Reinstall the operating system from the ground up and make sure this can't happen again. If the Mimner can do it, then it's possible the Goa'uld will find a way," Landry ordered.
"I was thinking the same thing, sir. I had the techs start the process before I dialed in. Sir… what do we do with this?"
"Scan it extensively. Make sure there aren't any viruses in the data then start producing the design. I'll get Area 51, the Beta Site, and Gamma Site to put their industry behind it and get whatever companies on Earth we can to build the individual components. This is the first major breakthrough for Earth's defense since the discovery of the Arctic Weapons Platform. I want an operational system in place by the end of the month," Landry gruffly retorted.
Internally he was smiling. This was what the Zeta Initiative was for; stealing designs from people that, if Earth had moved against, would have declared war against the planet. Now they had a conceivable way to protect Earth from an orbital force and surface to orbit weapons capable of destroying entire fleets. His day just got better. Then he remembered that the Daedalus was finally undergoing true repairs and that the Odyssey was on its way to Ida. Things were finally looking up for them.