Throughout the city Reapers and hulks momentarily froze as they received the data packet from Red Eyes after his engagement with the Asgardian. Inside the packet were data tags for the Titan battlesuits, notably their main weak spots and a recommended engagement strategy. Knowledge of your enemy's weak spots is only a benefit if you are in a position to exploit them. Without the ability to survive the initial engagement with the Titans not one reaper or hulk would be able to target those weak spots. Knowing this Red Eyes had prolonged the fight as long as possible without compromising his own survival chances in order to test what manoeuvres were viable options given the Titan's capabilities.
Ironically the most viable engagement strategy he had been able to determine from the skirmish was the most obvious one, get in close and get in behind them. Hide in the enemies blind spot, get in where they can't defend themselves, and go for the head. The head in this case being the Asgard pilot inside the suit.
Though the allies weren't aware that one of their most powerful land based weapons had just been severely diminished in terms of overall effectiveness there was a silver lining to this particular cloud. Unlike the hulks and the reapers the behemoths hadn't received the full data packet. Relying on an animal brain boosted by cybernetic enhancements, instead of a humanoid brain with cybernetic additions, the behemoths couldn't benefit from an engagement strategy. Their reactions were dictated purely by an enemy/friend identification system, engaging the enemy in a fashion that purely instinctual. Just tagging weak spots on the Titans for the behemoths to target was arguably pushing it.
If the behemoths ever manifested sentience then the allies really were going to be in for a hard fight on the ground, and they already had a hard enough time when the behemoths were just dumb attack dogs.
Earlier in the battle Ullr had asked an important question, namely where had the behemoths gotten too? After the initial skirmish in the docks as the hordes of enemy infantry, with the category being pushed to bursting point to include the living tanks that were behemoths, the behemoths had largely bypassed the defensive wall of Titans and disappeared amongst the twisting streets and back alleys of the Calium capital city. While Thor's group had not had the chance, having been besieged by the largest number of enemy forces and being forced to resort to desperate measures, other groups had fared much better and had actually had the chance to review the sensor data gathered during the battle, namely the life signs count. Pooling their data and physically counting the bodies on the ground they were able to determine that a number of hulks had slipped them by along with the behemoths. With a significant concentration of enemy forces having been directed against Thor's group and the consequent demolition of the docks there was no way to immediately tell just how many hulks, if any had actually made it past them. With the jamming device, or for all the allies knew devices, scrambling their ability to get accurate life sign readings at anything other than close range by effectively masking the signals that would normally be looked for they would have to physically search the city for the enemy.
Information is the key to winning any battle. Knowing your enemy, their strengths, their weaknesses, their capabilities, their positions and their numbers can make the difference between victory and defeat. But, unlike the allies, Red Eyes did know how many opponents he faced thanks to his telepathic and technological connection to his forces, and he knew their location as well. This gave him a decisive advantage over his opponents in this battle of wits.
The board was set, the pieces were moving into position and the game had only just begun.
Zarasian Outpost
Earth is a planet known for its architectural marvels, but an architectural marvel can take many forms. A building designed to perfectly fulfil its function beyond any other could be considered a marvel so perhaps some of Earths most secure maximum security prisons could be considered marvels by some. In which case perhaps the prison, which held the former inhabitants of worlds the Zarasians had silently conquered in the past few years, could also be considered a marvel.
Say what you will about the Zarasians but their militaristic precision when it came to architecture meant what they designed would work with incredible efficiency, which boiled down to the fact that any prison they built that was intended to make sure the prisoners stayed under lock and key was going to be damn good at doing just that.
When Vejovis had set his plans into motion for the extermination of the Wraith all those years ago he had not accounted for the guaranteed pain in the ass that the Tau'ri would prove to be. In just a few short years these people had defeated the Wraith by getting the Wraith to turn against their own genetics, targeting the infection itself. It was almost poetic. But, if anything, all that did was to make things a bit more difficult for Vejovis in the long run, or rather create the possibility for a long run. It didn't matter if the Zarasians conquered a few back water worlds that could be considered strategically important, since they could be seen as the bad guys if necessary. By keeping his children in the shadows they could become the liberators of the galaxy when the Zarasians conquered it. Zarin and his kind would bow before them when they finally emerged and the humans of the galaxy would worship as gods. After all, what else do you call the race that created you?
The ancestors would return and a new age would dawn. So it didn't matter if a few worlds were conquered and their populations imprisoned, they could be released later on. Or if no one knew about them they could be disposed of and wipe the slate wiped clean. The point was that the prisoners should not escape until they were needed, which is where this particular prison came into play. The most advanced prison possible short of storing the prisoner as data and sticking the data crystal inside a fortress, but still pretty good considering what the Zarasians had to work with.
There is one small flaw constant is most prisons however, that they are designed to stop people breaking out and while they are meant to be very good at this they tend to be a lot more susceptible to people breaking in. Of course this isn't usually a problem when the prison located in the heart of a Zarasian controlled outpost, protected by a fleet and numerous surface weapon emplacements. It is however a problem when said fleet has been reduced to an orbiting debris field and the rest of the outpost is burning ruin, with the latter being courtesy of weapons fire from the flying fortress currently hovering over said prison.
The sizeable number of able bodied, armoured and heavily armed Tau'ri soldiers who were now mere moments away from breaching the walls of said facility was a testament to this fact. To say the area around the prison complex was swarming with soldiers wasn't an exaggeration. One might almost think that the Tau'ri were trying to send a message. If one even looked closely enough one might even notice the odd Asgardian dispersed amongst the teams lining the walls.
One such team was being led by Colonel Dixon, who happened to have been placed in overall command of the operation. This same team also featured a Pegasus veteran, namely one newly promoted Captain Laura Cadman who just happened to have been charged with creating their point of entry.
"You know you'd be surprised how many applications there are for explosives," she proudly stated, while sticking what appeared to be a very liberal amount of plastic explosives in a rectangular shape to the prison wall.
"I'm really hoping that one of those includes making a door," Dixon replied, his voice somewhat on edge.
"Good things come to those who wait, sir."
"I'll keep that in mind Captain."
He really did not like being stuck between the prisons high walls and the inferno that represented the remains of the outpost. Sure they had thus far been able to keep the walls clear of enemy troops so there was no danger of being shot at, with the still smoking piles of rubble that had once been watchtowers filled with living reapers being a guarantee of that, but he still didn't like it. His suit's sensors were telling him that there were a lot of reapers waiting in that prison, among others. He would feel a heck of a lot better if he could be shooting at those reapers sometime soon.
Laura continued playing with her explosives before she finally popped the question that had been on her mind for a while. "Sir, is it really true you find this job relaxing?"
Dixon nearly laughed. "You got kids Captain?"
"No sir."
"Well I do. Four of them as it happens, and believe me Captain I love each of the little rascals to bits but, and I stress the but here, put them and you in the same room for ten minutes and your brain comes out extra crispy. In a way it you versus them, much like it's us versus those guys on the other side of this wall and this opposition I know exactly how to deal with. So yes Captain I do find this damn relaxing. There is something reassuring about that knowing that the opposition does actually have ill will towards you."
Cadman thought this over for a minute as she placed the final detonator. "Fair point sir. Oh the answer to your earlier hope was yes." She stepped away from the wall and pressed a button on her gauntlet, causing several shaped charges, followed by the aforementioned plastique, to detonate. The wall, substantially weakened by the initial charges collapsed from the force of the secondaries and suddenly the wall had a new door. "It does include making a door."
Dixon grinned inside his helmet. "All units move in."
At the same time as their entrance had been created more than a dozen others had been created at other points around the facility. The apparently excessive number was necessary given the sheer size of the complex. To anyone watching it seemed that the allies were storming the castle as they poured through the holes they had made, and there were people watching. The allies had easily detected the communication signals coming to and from the facility and though they couldn't decipher them they could make presumptions. Given his past behaviour Zarin seemed to like to observe the battles as they took place, and would sacrifice his assets if it meant taking the enemy with in him in an otherwise losing battle. So they opted to jam all communications coming in and out of the immediate area and simply duplicating the outgoing ones. This way Zarin would see his demise in real time but wouldn't be able to order a self destruct now that things had gone south. A fact that was very comforting to those participating in this prison break, although perhaps prison bust would be more accurate.
The initial breach into the compound was not done with any amount of restraint. Sensors had told them that there were only reapers outside of the buildings, which had thick walls and no windows, so they were free to use their railgun rifles without having to worry about collateral damage. The railgun rifle was truly a masterpiece of destruction, with an effective range measured in kilometres and the likelihood of killing the person standing behind your target it was the most lethal kinetic projectile based rifle in known existence. Lethal didn't even begin to cover it.
Most of the Reapers on the inside of the compound had been disorientated by the blast and those that weren't had their own troops in front of them, which made firing at the enemy pouring through the massive holes that had suddenly appeared in the walls. Reapers were cut down in droves as high velocity trinium tipped slugs sliced through them like a hot knife through butter.
Less than a minute of intense firepower later and the all clear signal was given. It was almost strangely quiet within the prison walls. There were no alarms blaring, but that just meant they weren't for human ears. The Reapers communicated without spoken words so why would humans, or even Asgard, ears hear alarm bells ringing. At the moment there was no one left alive to remain any alarms. The Reapers had been truly and utterly overwhelmed, with no casualties on the allied side. Moving with speed and precision the teams split up and moved towards their assigned buildings. Explosive specialists lined the doors with breaching charges, which were subsequently detonated. Before the smoke could even clear soldiers were through the door, railgun rifles shouldered and particle magnums in hand and, for safety, set to stun. They didn't want to stumble on a congregational area and end up accidently killing one of the prisoners they were here to liberate in the ensuing confusion. That certainly wouldn't look good in the debriefing.
The moment they were in and through the door, that was when the trouble started. The Zarasians could have written the book on lockdowns. Trinium doors slammed shut automatically, with no override mechanisms that could be accessed, and sentry turrets activated the moment a non recognised entity stepped into the corridor. The soldiers were forced to duck and roll the moment they entered the initial corridor, three turrets on rails embedded in the ceiling had roared into life in a hailstorm of plasma bolts. There was no warning offered for those who had been deemed to be a threat from the beginning.
A quick switch to the higher of the two lethal settings and the shooting started. Energy bolts and plasma were exchanged in heavy doses but numbers won the day and smoking, blackened pieces of the shattered turrets clattered to the floor. Unfortunately their troubles hadn't ended with just three turrets. The rails set into the ceiling disappeared into open conduits in the walls, out of which three more turrets emerged at high speed to replace those that had been destroyed. The broken remains of the three turrets instantly dropped from the ceiling as though a switch had been flipped and some invisible force holding them in place had been lifted. One particularly unfortunate soldier was floored as a turret dropped on his head. Thankfully his armour saved him from getting so much as a concussion, but without it the end result would have been a broken neck. Instead he was simply knocked unconscious and would wake up at the end of the battle in the infirmary seeing stars, much to his fellow soldier's amusement.
A brief fire fight later and three more turrets clattered to the ground in pieces. This time though Dixon and his squad didn't stop firing, instead specifically targeting the rails at the conduit openings before the next set of turrets could emerge. A series of precise shots warped the rails enough to stop the next set of turrets from fully emerging from the conduits, with the small angle preventing them from attaining a firing solution unless they wanted to shoot at each other. Even with the immediate threat neutralised the men and women of this outfit were trained professionals, and weren't about to simply overlook the potential threat the turrets could pose in the near future. With three precise shots the turrets were disabled and any threat they could offer was gone.
Waving his hand Colonel Dixon gave the all clear signal and he and his squad poured into the prison complex. Communicating with the rest of the teams at the numerous entry points he confirmed that they had also encountered the turrets but had successfully disabled them, with several injured but, thankfully, no fatalities. He knew it was likely that that could change before this mission was over and done with and that the soldiers under his command could be looking at some serious injuries if the defences in this building were anything to go by.
They lined the doors with a low powered, yet effective, thermal explosive designed to cut through blast doors such as this one with startling ease. With the push of a button the detonation charge burned through the thick trinium and the doors clattered to the floor, leaving a gaping hole for them to walk through two by two. As the teams advanced deeper into the complex teams broke off to further explore the interior.
Only a few strides in though and they encountered yet another sealed door. Cadman rolled her eyes at Dixon as she pulled out another reel of explosives. He understood the unspoken message and was already receiving reports from the other teams stating that they too had found their paths blocked almost immediately after breaching their assigned buildings. They were going to need a lot more explosives or maybe even some cutting gear. Explosives though were probably the better option in this case, at least time wise. He did not want to spend anymore time in this place than he needed to. They couldn't say for sure that the Zarasians didn't have something up their sleeve, and given Zarin's previous form thus far it was likely to be something nasty.
"I'm ordering you some more explosives Captain," he said as he took a few steps back from the door, with his magnum at the ready.
"Very much appreciated sir," Cadman replied as she pressed the detonation button.
Another door, another corridor and another turret to be shot before it shot them. Just a standard day on the job for the men and women of Homeworld Command. It wasn't until the next door along that they actually encountered something besides a turret. A lone reaper was waiting for them. Unfortunately for the poor thing the short range sensors built into their tempest battle armour had tagged it the moment it came in range and a hail storm of energy bolts tore into it before the Zarasian cyborg could even get a shot off.
Searching through the various rooms, they discovered a surprising lack of prisoners. Those few rooms that did actually have something in them were filled with crates containing, thankfully, inactive strings. A tactical decision was made and a single grenade containing a microscopic particle of naquadah and potassium rendered the potential threat neutralised.
As they progressed deeper into the facility they came into contact with a number of other teams approaching from different directions. Coupled with the fact that they had encountered a few reapers, a lot of turrets, numerous empty rooms, but no prisoners and Pierce started to get suspicious. When he started to receive reports that teams were meeting together in the middle of their assigned buildings that he started to put two and two together.
"Borealis this is Colonel Pierce, come in Borealis," Pierce said into his comm.
Colonel Paul Davis himself answered, "Colonel Pierce this is Borealis, we read you loud and clear. What's up?"
"I need a full scan of this facility. Please confirm human life sign readings," Pierce requested.
"We're getting a lot of static but we can confirm there are human life signs down there, besides your own of course. Are you encountering any problems?"
Dixon almost snorted. "Resistance is minimal but we have encountered no prisoners."
"Say again Colonel?" Davis requested, sounding slightly surprised at what he thought he just heard.
"You heard me Colonel. We have encountered no prisoners."
"Our sensors definitely indicate the presence of human life signs and intelligence shows no people have been moved away from the facility."
Dixon thought about the situation for a moment. Something in the back of his mind was trying to force its way to the front but damned if he knew what it was. He couldn't help thinking how finding these prisoners were like those games that his kids loved to play, digging for treasure in the back yard that wasn't really there but reasoned that was because no one knew about it. They were searching for buried treasure in the dirt despite all evidence to the contrary that it was not there, and then it hit him.
"Glastonbury," he muttered, loud enough to be heard over the still open channel.
"As in Merlin's treasure vault?" Davis asked. "You don't think…"
"We would have missed the vault entirely that time if it wasn't for scanning wide and deep, and it wouldn't be the first time sensors missed something like this."
"Good point. Scanning now…got it. We're detecting a large bubble beneath the surface that our sensors can't penetrate. It's deep underground and completely detached from the surface structures directly above it, which is probably why we missed it the first time and it's where the life readings are coming from."
"So, any suggestions on how we get down there?"
"The Zarasians use an Alteran technology base, so try finding some rings."
"Thanks. How are things on your end?"
"Everything Zarasian around us is rubble and debris, so pretty good," Davis replied, and Dixon just knew he was smirking.
"Good to know. We're going to start to search for ring platforms. In the mean time I'd appreciate it if you could try to get a connection on your end."
"Will do. Davis out."
Dixon switched his comm. back to the battle net. "Listen up people. The Zarasians have an underground base and from what we can tell the only way to access it is using ring platforms. In other words we need to find a ring platform if we want to have a chance in hell of completing op. You find a ring platform report its location immediately and anything that could help us find more. Dixon out."
It was nearly fifteen minutes of increasingly frantic searching before they finally found the first clue. A seemingly un-notable control panel in one of the large empty rooms that they had casually dismissed when they first searched it, which turned out to be more important than they initially suspected. Initially they couldn't determine what the thing was for, since no matter what button they pressed nothing seemed to happen. Further investigation led to the discovery that a certain sequence activated a hidden ring platform set into the floor. Once the team that made the discovery reported their findings they quickly discovered multiple platforms throughout the facility.
Dixon and his team stood on one platform weapons at the ready. Just like when they first prepared to enter this building their particle magnums were set to stun, so that they could fire at whatever at whomever they encountered when the rings deposited them in the underground complex.
Thankfully when they reappeared they didn't encounter any turrets, or reapers for that matter. Just an empty room, save for an inactive ring platform and a heavily armed squad of Tau'ri soldiers. Oh and one very big, thick and heavy trinium blast door that was firmly sealed shut. Apparently the Zarasians weren't rolling out the welcome mat for them. To Dixon this door represented a very dangerous obstacle, and the fact that Cadman was smiling, somewhat gleefully, was not easing his trepidation in the slightest. He had no doubt in the slightest that she could remove this door. However their high temperature charges were not going to cut it in this case. The sheer thickness of the door would last much longer than the charges would, which meant there was only one option available to them, explosives. And this was exactly what had Dixon worried. He may not be an explosive expert like the good Captain but he had enough common sense to know that if the explosion didn't go through the door then it would go in the opposite direction, and they didn't have anywhere to hide if that happened. Tempest armour against high explosives? He didn't like what he imagined were their chances and he really didn't want to personally find out if he was right.
"No," Dixon stated, looking directly at Cadman.
"Sorry sir?" Cadman asked, confused.
"You heard me Captain," Dixon repeated sternly.
"It's the only way sir," Cadman reasoned.
"I know that, you that and the Zarasians probably know that but you are still not doing it."
"I have shaped charges sir," Cadman argued.
"And no way of knowing if they will actually make it through that door and not back fire."
"I'm pretty sure the suits can take it, sir."
"I'm not. And that's why we will be going back." Cadman looked like Christmas had been cancelled, right up until he added, "Right after you stick a timer to enough explosives to make sure that door is in pieces."
"Yes sir," she replied, somewhat too cheerfully for Dixon's liking, but he couldn't help smiling with her.
As Cadman set to work he relayed the same order to the other squads, who had encountered a similar obstacle. The plan was simple attach a number of shaped charges to the blast doors with a timer that was set to detonate after they ringed away and then immediately ring back in and storm the castle. Tactically speaking it was a good plan and with careful timing would prove devastating, two things he was very happy about.
Two quick ring trips later and they were back in the now smoke filled room, with the formerly pristine blast door now blown to smithereens. The aforementioned smithereens were lodged a good distance down the now accessible corridor, and in the Reapers lying dead on the floor. Dixon had being hoping the explosion would give them the element of surprise and judging by the lack of survivors they had indeed been very surprised.
"Move out," he ordered, and he, along with his and numerous other squads, charged into the underground compound.
No turrets swarmed the ceilings in these corridors, which certainly made things easier for them. Yes the Reapers were tough and hard to kill in a fire fight but if you knew them, if you understood their strengths and weaknesses, then they could be beaten. Combat with the enemy was swift and efficient. Any Reapers encountered were stunned by the squad members on point while those behind them finished the job as they approached with two successive point blank shots to the head. These creatures had all the strengths of Wraith, but Wraith were susceptible to stun weapons and so were the Reapers. And not even the most powerful Wraith could grow back a head.
Eventually Dixon's squad came to series of holding cells, but what they found was not what they expected. The occupants behind the force fields were, quite frankly, aliens and not the seeded human variety they had been expecting. There were three distinct types of aliens in the cells and Dixon couldn't help but compare them to animals he was familiar with, if only to make it easier to comprehend them. One variety was clearly insectoid, with four arms, four legs and large bug eyes. The second was more humanoid, but had way too many feathers, especially on the arms, to be called human. The clawed feet and fanged teeth were a real giveaway. The final species though really caught his attention. To put it frankly, they were snakes. Or rather they had a snake body, snake head and a slightly human torso, if you counted a central area with two arms sticking out of the sides. Why had this species caught his attention? Because one of them was looking at him like it had just discovered something very interesting. Those eyes held more than simple intelligence, they were thoughtful, and slightly devious.
"Hello," Dixon said, somewhat hesitantly. He wondered if he…she…the alien, could even understand him.
"Hello," the snake creature replied.
"So you can understand me then," Dixon said.
"I am familiar with your language, yes," the creature hissed. "Are you here to take us away human?"
"How do you know we are human?" Dixon asked. Their helmets weren't easy to see through at this distance so there was no guarantee they were human, and yet snaky seemed to know he was human.
"You smell similar to the Zarasians, similar but not the same. Those things," here he pointed to the dead Reapers, "smell very different. Humans smell similar but those from different worlds smell different. I have not smelt your kind before though. Where are you from?"
"Earth." Snaky just looked at him like the name meant nothing so Dixon tried again. "Atlantis."
That got a response, but not the one he was expecting. "That city sank long ago," snaky said dismissively. "Where are you from?"
"It rose not so long ago, or haven't you heard?" And now snaky held a hint of sadness in those slitted eyes. "You've been here a long time, haven't you?"
"Too long."
"Why don't we change that?"
Snaky nodded in response.
"Sir we found the local control room and Vidar says he's found the master override for the cell force fields," Cadman reported. Vidar was the name of the Asgardian attached to the squad and Dixon was very glad to have him. The healing device Vidar had in one of his palms had already saved one of his soldiers from what could otherwise have been a lethal injury.
"Tell him to activate it and then come and join the rest of the squad," he ordered.
A few seconds later the force fields briefly flickered before vanishing completely. The occupants inside looked clearly surprised that their cages were now open. At the end of corridor something stirred in a cell that had been overlooked by Dixon because of the lack of internal lighting. As he approached closer he could clearly see that something was lurking in the dark depths. Switching over to night vision mode he could make out a large mass of moving tendrils and what looked like a giant…flower?
He didn't have much more time to ponder what the thing could be though. As he inched closer a long tendril shot out and coiled around his leg, pulling him off his feet and dragging him towards the cell. As he slid closer he could the bud he had thought to be a flower opening like a venus fly trap to engulf him.
"SHIT!"