Contact of Races

by wilkins75

Sequel to Contact at Kobol (Stargate/Battlestar). The Race has thrived for hundreds of thousands of years and who recently conquered their 5th world are heading toward Tosev 3, Earth believing the conquest to be ease against the sword swing savages. Little do they know that those sword swing savages are now one of if not the most powerful force in the Galaxy, the Tau'ri.

9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 A New Battlefield

The Tau'ri special forces members moved down the hill, they stayed low using the tall crops as cover as they moved toward the farmhouse. Once they entered the field the five of them split up into two groups, one group of 3 and another into a pair. The sixth member of their squad was staying back providing over watch as best as he could and monitoring the recon drone. The recon drone was going to be key to their assault, with it they could see that they were about to take on 55 enemy soldiers in a seven-truck convoy full of child prisoners with two APCs with heavy machine cannons as support. It was a task none of them would have wanted to do but one they had all trained to do. They had some key advantages over their enemies.

First, they had better equipment, training and personal weapons. Secondly thanks to the drone, they knew where everyone was, that the race had spread out, a squad of 10 of them where looking through the house and barn while another squad of 10 headed toward them but they followed a small path through the crops and where bunched together because of it, another squad was doing the same down a second path through the field which lead toward the highway and was heading away from them. That left one squad to protect the APCs and keep the prisoners in lines. Given that the native vantic most advanced weapon that the Tau'ri had seen was a farm scythe to do field work and that the prisoners where restrained it was enough to keep the prisoners there.

The three-member team headed forward passing the advancing Race patrol, to the eyes of the veteran Tau'ri the soldiers of the Race didn't impress them. They had bullet proof vests which would have been acceptable back in the 1990s but was laughable outdated compared to the advanced body armor they were wearing. There weapons seamed about equal to the AK-47 series of family and they were still considered deadly enough to be of concern. They didn't carry them as if they were in a combat area, they had them slung over their backs and some of them looked as if they hadn't even put in their magazines. They had no point man and no one trailing behind them, they were all bunched together as if they were a group of friends on a stroll, they were not paying attention and didn't notice the two Tau'ri trailing them through the field.

The other three Tau'ri headed not toward the two squads by the farmhouse but to the convoy of vehicles. One of the APCs was in the front with the other at the far end with seven large trucks between them. There was a handful of guards moving around but like their counterparts in the search teams these soldiers where relaxed and had their guard down. Each one of their weapons had suppressors attached to the barrels and now it was time to use them. The first one to fall was a diver of one of the trucks who had his window down to get some fresh air. The round went through the side of his head causing the other side to explode out with brain matter and pieces of skull, he never felt a thing. The next couple went down just as easily, with their suppressed weapons and the lack of paying attention by the race they went off to meet their maker as the Tau'ri would call it, or spirits of Emperor's past for the Race. That left only four members of the Race left alive in the convoy, the driver and gunner who also acted as commander in each of the two APCs.

The one in the rear went down first as one of the Tau'ri lined up on the side of the back most APC and pocked his gun around the corner. With the mounted camera on the barrel she could see the interior of the ACP, it was set up with a central area with firing ports for soldiers with a driver and gunner in the front. There was no separation between the fighting compartment and the driving area. She had a clear view of the driver and could have taken him down with ease but the gunner sat in a raised area and she had no shot on him.

"I have to go in." she reported over the radio as she put away her rifle and pulled out her pistol. She entered the fighting compartment having to almost bend in half to do so, the race stood about as tall as a 12 year old boy and they designed everything to fit them.

"By the emperor is it time to go yet sir?" inquired the Driver thinking she must be a member of his convoy. When he got no response, he turned an eye turret around to look behind him. That surprised the Tau'ri and for a moment neither of them did anything then she pulled the trigger blowing his head off and spraying the inside of the vehicle with his brain.

"By the Emperor!" yelled the gunner as he looked down, but it was too late to do more than that as pulled the trigger and ended the gunner's life. The second APC was easier because the gunner was down in the fighting compartment and that gave the Tau'ri an open shot. With that done two of the Tau'ri headed toward the main farmhouse where over twenty-five soldiers of the race where searching either the house, outbuildings or watching the adult vantic prisoners. Here because of their prisoners the race had their weapons out and where on alert there would be no sneaking around here.

"Whatever you do not speak or make a noise." Said the female member of the recon team as she stood by one of the covered trucks. The translator program in her helmet made her words come out as if she was speaking in the hisses and pops of the race. With that done she lifted the flap up of the truck with her other hand on her pistol which remained just out of sight of anyone in the back of the truck. What greeted her was both strange and familiar, there was over two dozen of the Vantic people all cramped into the back of the truck. There arms and legs where restrained and somehow even with their insect face they showed fear at her. The fact that they looked like giant mantises out of some Hollywood science fiction movie was off putting but the image of them coring in corners as the older kids held onto the younger kids for protect could have come from any war in human history.

"Don't worry, I am not going to hurt you." reassured the Tau'ri as she dropped the lid of the truck. With one move she lifted herself up into the bed, the vantic backed away from her as far as they could but the chains holding them in place made that next to impossible. She went up to the nearest one and even as he or she, she couldn't tell the gender recoiled back. She reached out and with the help of the power armor, snapped the chain. The vantic looked at her with those dark eyes, before saying something in its own tongue.

"I don't understand." Stated the Tau'ri

"Thank you." Said the Vantic in the hisses of the Race.

"No problem." Said the Tau'ri as she looked around, now all of them had their hands out ready to have their restraints removed. It was an easy process in theory but it did task the power armor to snap all those chains.

"Alright, you come with me I need your help calming down the next truck, of the rest of you can any of you drive this truck?" inquired the Tau'ri

"No, we do not fit in the driving compartment." explained one of them.

"Shit." Cursed the Tau'ri "Alright just stay put, I'll tell you when to run and when you do head to that tree line, do you understand."

They made some gesture with their hands she had never seen before but as one they answered yes.

"Alright, you with me I still need your help calming the rest of them down." ordered the Tau'ri as they headed to the next truck.

Finia stayed low, her legs sprayed out which lowered her profile to the ground she even lied down on her chest to stay even lower. Her ancient ancestors had used such a position when they went out hunting, they and she could now spring up from that position and surprise a target or allow her to get away. Right now, she didn't want to run away, she could see one of these Tau'ri only a few body lengths away however thanks to the strange cloths he was wearing he blended into the grass and trees, not perfectly but he wasn't wearing the multiple colored body paint of the race which made them stand out in the woods and grassland. Even his rifle, she assumed it was a rifle was covered with a strange wrapping to hide the dark grey color of the metal. The weapon while clearly different then the weapon the soldiers of the Race carried was of a kind similar meaning it could fire more than one shot at a time. Those weapons and the metal carts that fired cannons shells along with their flying machines had crushed every army which that her people had sent against them. She shook a little remembering the day they came, she was a little girl and was amazed by the things in the air until she saw the fires of the burning city in the distance, then it wasn't as amazing.

She turned her attention down the hill to where her family's farm was, her great, great grandparents had settled here and built up the farm. She could see her mother, uncles, aunts and older adult cousins lined up by the barn under armed guards. Her father lied where he had been shot not even being paid attention to by the soldiers of the Race, her younger cousins, brother and baby sister had been taken to the convoy of trucks. Her attention was locked on her home until she noticed that all the soldiers of the race around the convoy where on the ground and not moving. One of the Tau'ri was moving between the trucks with a distance neighbor boy.

"How? How can that be possible?" inquired Finia as she looked toward the Tau'ri solider nearby with amazed eyes. She couldn't understand what he was saying but he was saying something to himself or did he have one of these radio things the race had, she didn't know.

Everything was almost in place, the children where free and waiting to run with one of the team ready to provide covering fire. Two of their team where in positions to engage the main body while the other two were behind and to either side of a squad of 10 lizards heading slowly up the road toward them. The main issue was the second patrol squad heading away from them, if they got on their radios that could be a problem.

"Alright, activating radio jammer in three…two…one…executing." said the marksman as he pressed a button on the nearby lap top computer, with that the drone overhead began to jam any radio transitions heading in or out of the area that wasn't Tau'ri. "Alright, team light them up in three…two…one…execute…execute."

Out in the field the squad of dumb lizards never noticed what was happening, they never heard the pop sound of two grenades pins being pulled and the lever falling away. With their enhanced strength from the power armor the Tau'ri special forces could throw their grenades at much greater distance however the two in the field had different ideas. One of them threw their grenade in an arch so that it would land directly in front of the first solider in the squad, the other one had a different idea and threw the high explosive weapon like a baseball. His aim was perfect as it slammed into the back of the head of the solider. Moments after both grenade hit they exploded one in front of the squad and the other in the center mass of the squad. The effects where horrible, body parts ripped off the soldiers of the race, arms where sent flying and those who still had all their limbs had large pieces of metal impaling them. They hissed in pain as they fell to the ground, a luckily few in the squad were still alive but not for long as they were sent off to the next world with a quick burst of fire from the Tau'ri special forces members.

There was no way to hide the sound of explosion as the soldiers in and around the farmhouse all turned toward the sound of the exposition. For a moment they froze in place, one eye turret locked on the location of the blast while the other moved around searching for threats, that was an evolutionary habit but it worked against them, a none moving targets are much easier to hit. Both Tau'ri special forces members located near the house opened with short controlled bursts while the marksman on the distance hill pulled the trigger of his sniper rifle sending a round down range.

The large 7.62x51 mm round flew out of the barrel and as the marksman worked the bolt action on his rifle pulling another round up from the 15 round magazine attached to the bottom of the rifle before the 1st round found it's mark. It went straight through what snipers call the T which is an area defined by the eyes and the bottom chin, on a human this shot is deadly 100% of the time because it destroys the brain stem and a person is dead before they hit the ground. While the T was off because of the turreted eyes and the long snot it had the same effect as the round went into the race soldiers head before exploding out the back.

By now the Race was moving and shooting back but this was a battle they had never expected and they were facing something they had never seen outside of training against their own people back on home. The native Vantic's most advanced weapon was a wheel lock pistol or rifle that could fire maybe 4 times a minute with a highly skilled loader and had a max range of around 50 yards for the rifle and half that for the pistol and was inaccurate even then. The standard Tau'ri rifle rate of fire at just under 800 rounds a minute with an effective range of almost 900 yards and they fired a much more powerful and arcuate round then the large metal ball the Vantic weapon fired. The race to their credit returned fire but the Tau'ri where under cover and using suppressors both in the form of sound and flash making it harder to located.

"Move!" yelled the Tau'ri by the last APC in the line as she placed a high explosive charge inside the wheel well of the APC by what looked to be the fuel tank. The Vantic hiding in the trucks jumped out and ran for the woods in the distance. As she passed each truck she double checked to make sure it was clear before placing an explosive charge on the truck. She counted out the trucks and finally reached the first APC and placed the finial charge. She pressed down on her wrist mounted control computer, 15 seconds later the explosive charge on the last APC in the line went off causing the APC to fly into the air briefly before being engulfed by a blue flame. This confused the Tau'ri not knowing that the Race used hydrogen to power their vehicles but there was no time as more expositions filled the air as more of the vehicles went up in fireballs every 15 seconds.

Finia watched on in amazement as the seemly unbeatable Race was being slaughtered like animals by a just three of these Tau'ri and one was firing at them from extremely distance. She watched her mother and family members cower in fear beside the barn where they had been guarded even as the Race fell around them. The handful of living soldiers of the race fell back as more fire came in, they moved back toward the Northern field away from her. They were using her family's home for cover but so was the Tau'ri as the two of them broke cover and advanced on the much larger force while the third keep up the fire. One rushed over to where her family was cowering getting down on one knee behind a stone wall by the barn and firing at the Race. He pointed in the direction of her hiding spot and finally her family ran toward them.

The race for their part had no idea what was really happening, their radios where not working and they were under heavy fire.

"A large group of the crawlers must have gotten their claw less hands on our weapons!" yelled one of the infantry males as he fired in the general direction of his enemy. He could see multiple bodies of his friends all dead before him, their blood sinking into the soil.

"Where is our carriers, they should be supporting us?" yelled another one

"They are gone, I can see the flames they must have gotten their claws on explosives too." cursed a different male as they saw a figure run across a small patch of open ground between the house and where the native vantic where hiding behind a low wall. For a brief moment, they stopped firing they couldn't believe what their eyes showed them, it was as tall as a Vantic but it wasn't a crawler. It ran on two legs like a member of the race but it was clearly not that either. They couldn't make out much details about it, it was wearing wrappings but it was patterned to blend in with the background making it hard to see. It looked like it was wearing a full head helmet like a space suit but it carried a strange rifle in its claw less hands.

"By the Emperor what is that?" asked one of the males as he stood up a little to get a better view only to have a bullet come smashing through his helmet covering his squad mates with his blood.

"NO!" yelled another male as he fired at the wall which began to explode with flying chips of stones but he didn't think any of his rounds where getting through. This was confirmed as the barrel of the gun the unknown attacker was holding poked out and opened fire. Somehow the rounds where actually hitting very close to him, he had no idea that the gun had a camera on it allowing the shooter to aim while behind cover.

Back behind the attack line the female Tau'ri special force member knelt behind a large wooden post on the edge of the field. She pointed the civilians to the rear while watching the rear for her teammates, her eyes where constantly scanning the battlefield. The house was now burning and filling the air with even more smoke, it wouldn't be long until someone on the nearby highway spotted the smoke and called it in.

"Team, the drone shows attack helicopters taking off from the nearest Race military base. Someone saw the smoke and called it in." Reported the drone operator behind the line.

"Time to go!" she yelled as the forward most of her teammate fired a long burst from his rifle before running backwards under the fire of the man behind him. As he ran past he pressed down on the shooters shoulder and kept running past her and past the next two shooters in the line. Then with another long burst the next man pulled back pressing down on her shoulder as he past. She raised her weapon and watched for the race to advanced when one did she dropped him all while counting down from 20. At twenty she turned and ran, past the next shooter before running past the 1st man to pull back and the one who had pressed down on her shoulder. This was an old tactic and a good one to pull back under. It was basically a game of leap frog backwards only with shooting at anyone who tried to follow.

The Race for its part didn't try to follow, it stopped at the barn and didn't advanced into the field, all around them where their dead squad mates, of the 55 infantry males all veterans of the conquest that had come to the farm house only 12 were still alive the rest had gone to meet the spirits of emperors past and of those twelve males, four of them were wounded one badly.

"What just happened here?" inquired the highest-ranking officer to live as he looked out over the death and battle. "What by the emperor was that?"

"I don't know, superior sir." Answered the nearest male. "I wonder if anyone will believe us when we tell them what we saw?"

"I don't know." Answered the officer as he tried his radio again, it wasn't working but over the sound of burning wood from the house and hydrogen from the vehicles he could hear the hissing sound of multiple fire trucks. Maybe their radio systems would be working, that their system wasn't was already strange enough but that was minor compared to what they had just seen. Then he heard approaching helicopters, there was four of them. Three of them where military he could see the guns and missiles they carried on stubby wings and under the front of the aircraft, the fourth was a news helicopter.

"Are you seeing this in the studio?" hissed the traffic reporter, they had seen the smoke and assumed it was an accident. From their view point they could see an entire convoy of vehicles burning, a house on fire with multiple bodies of soldiers of the race lying in the field along with a sing Vantic. "We must have stumbled onto a major terrorist attack, we have never seen this many valiant males of the race fallen at any one time."

The Tau'ri team had reached the tree line and fell back deeper into the woods only to find over 40 vantic civilians most of them children that was now under Tau'ri protection. This raised a new problem, what was the Tau'ri going to do with them. The only thing they could do now is pull back and get the civilians deeper under cover.

The warm Spanish sun beat down on her as she sipped her coffee from the Starbuck's cup, she could smell the ocean and hear the sea gull's overhead. Even with one headphone in her ears she could hear the ringing bells of the nearby Catholic Cathedral as it marked the hour. It's bells where joined by the call of prayer by the nearby Islamic mosque. She lifted her head out of her text book and looked around the busy park. While there were multiple smaller places in the still being built capital city where people could enjoy parks and nature this area where churches, temples and shrines to all the religion of the Tau'ri was located was the largest.

"Hello there how are you doing today?" said a young man about of age with her.

"I am waiting for some friends." Said Samantha O'Neill as she turned her eyes away from the man and back to her medical text boom. Not taking the hint, the young man tried to sit down across from her only to be beaten by Sam placing her foot on the chair. "Like I said I am waiting for friends and I am not interested in you."

"Come on Stan." said his friend who walked up from seemly nowhere to pull his friend away from someone clearly not interested in him and back into the park.

"Well that was fun to watch." said a voice from behind her as Sam let out a resigned sigh.

"Shepard sometimes you need to grow up." said Sam as she turned her head to see, her old childhood friend Torren Shepard, son of Teyla Shepard and step son to General John Shepard Supreme Tau'ri commander Pegasus Galaxy.

"And you need to lighten up a little Sam." said Torren to a women two years his junior however since there hadn't been that many kids in the Atlantis School, the two of them had been classmates.

"I will lighten up after I pass Dr. Chakwas final on Friday on top of the Math one all three of us have." stated Sam as she drank some of her starbucks coffee.

"You are luckily you only have two and you are Dr. Chakwas top student so you shouldn't worry about anything." added a new voice as Sam turned to see Ashley Williams whom Torren had met on the battlefield of Tauron walking up with two cups of coffee. She handed one to Torren before sitting down. "We have three finals on Friday, one in military history, then comes our class on laws and conduct of war and then the really fun one on in advanced math. So fun to be in school even if we will both be officers when this is done."

"You should both consider yourself luckily, a lot of people are leaving the military and looks like you two are on the path to make it your career." Said Sam "Besides Asgard healing technology is not the most easy final to study for."

"You're the one becoming a doctor not us." Laughed Shepard before shaking his head. "Besides it was your dad who roped both of us into this, some top secret program and needed to become officers to have a chance to get into it."

"And then he doesn't have the dignitary to tell us what the hell it is." Laughed Ashley before looking at Sam, unlike almost everyone else in the Daniel Jackson University was not a veteran of the Colonial War. She had enlisted days after the war ended, it wasn't for lack of trying she had been too young to enlist until after the war ended. Sam had followed a tradition dating back to her great grandfather on her father's side and her grandmother on her mother side. Like Shepard, she had enlisted in a different branch from her parents both who were Air Force, she had gone Navy. With luck, she would once she graduated be assigned as a doctor on one of the multiple warships of the growing Tau'ri navy.

"Did you see the news?" inquired Sam "About this lizard race, called the Race?"

"Yes, kind of self-centered to call yourself the Race isn't it. It is like your calling yourself the center of the universe." said Ashley as she drank her coffee.

"Tau'ri translates into those of the 1st world, some would call that putting yourself in the center of the universe." countered Torren he paused for a moment before attacking his only counter point. "Then again, it was the rest of the galaxy who gave us that name, not ourselves. Either way, I feel sorry for these lizards. They just walked into likely either the 2nd or 3rd most defended location in the galaxy and if the media is right then they are backwards in technology by decades."

"I heard centuries." countered Sam as she looked around, to someone who had grown up on Earth before the Stargate was revealed all the technology that had come out and was currently around them would have been breathtaking, to Sam who had been born on Atlantis before moving to Valhalla when she was in the 4th grade all the advanced technology was normal. "We are still in the process of integrating all the Asgard and Ancient technology into our new society."

"True, but question I know that the Supergate is the most defended spot in this galaxy but what is the second most if not Earth?" inquired Ashley. The Supergate which currently linked the Milkway Galaxy to the Ori galaxy had been the main path of the Ori Invasion years ago. While the Ori had fallen and their galaxy had fallen into a massive multi sided civil war the threat of invasion from the supergate had meant it was the most defended area in space in the Galaxy. Ships form each of the Free Jaffa nations and each of the Lucian Alliance nations where stationed there along with more Tau'ri defense stations then Earth or Valhalla combined formed a force that would in theory stop anything coming through the gate to them.

"I actually don't know where the second is, but I would imagine it is wherever they store the black hole bombs or the other world destroying weapons." said Torren as Ashley and Sam had to agree to that. Those bombs most of all the black hole bombs which contained a small black hole in a time dalliance field could cause suns to go supernova or swallow up whole worlds if used. They would be heavily guarded and their location wouldn't be broadcasted either.

"Well none of this is getting any studying done." said Sam as the three of them went to work on preparing for their finals.

On Home, an emergency meeting of the grand council of advisors was being held in the palace, a meeting like this happened once every 50 years and was where experts in each field would meet together with the Emperor in attendance. It was here that they would plan the path that the Empire would take they would form detailed plans for the next century with gradually rougher outlines of plans for an additional two hundred years. That way the empire would know what the next 300 years would generally look like, that system had worked and worked very well since Home was unified but now a new threat had appeared and one that none of the experts had ever expected to see.

Emperor Risson sat on his throne as in groups of three the experts entered the throne room, the head of each department stood in the center with a trusted aid to his or her right and another lesser underling holding a banner with the seal of their department on it. Once they entered they made the special posturer of respected reserved for the Emperor himself before moving to stands which had been moved into the throne room. Normally these stands would sit in storage but they had been rushed out and set up for this meeting. Finally, the last expert entered the room, the head of the ocean research department. Given that the oceans on home was so small this department was small and generally seen as pointless but the female expert would have a voice at the advisory council.

With that done Risson stood and looked at the gathered assembly before him.

"I thank you all for coming so quickly we face an issue that was not believed possible by any expert in any of the grand councils in the entire history of the Race. We face contact with another advanced space traveling Empire." Started Emperor Risson "We have these Tau'ri ships over our world and they have shown that they can take a hit by an explosive metal bomb."

There was a rush of whispers as that news sank into the gathered assembly. For his part Risson wanted to hurt the foolish ship lord which had done that attack without orders, however he learned that the ship lord had orders from one of his ministers, the minister of Shipping and Cargo transports of all things. Since the Race had no soldiers outside of a solider time, only police there was no official minister which had control over a situation like this. The department of Shipping and Cargo which controlled ships over Home, the Colonization department which was handling the Colonization process and the law enforcement department all had competing claims over the situation. That meant it wasn't the ship lords fault but the minister which had drafted the orders to shot at any ship heading around home.

"Proceed with the gathering." ordered Risson as he sat back on his throne.

"Our first order of business will be to decide which Minister will assume the primary advisory position to the Emperor over this current situation." said the protocol master, an elderly male who had served the past two emperors. It would be he who would direct the meeting while Emperor Risson would sit and listen to each side and each projected outcome before making the final choice on the path the Race would take. One at a time each of the ministers for the departments would make their case and then take questions from other ministers about their positions and what actions they would recommend. Then they would be asked what would be the results of those actions and what actions would be used to cause as little harm as possible to the citizen and culture of the Empire.

Over the heads of the Race on board the battleship Missouri, they were not waiting not fully anyhow. The powerful sensors of the battleship and other ships in the fleet was being used to good use. They were gathering data on everything they could, they were focused on the lay out the Race's cities and location of key targets like highways, water systems, bridges and power plants. All this information was being put together into a target book, if they were ordered to carry out an assault it wouldn't last long.

The Eagle fighters would go in first but they would mostly be going after ground targets like fuel trucks and other road vehicles. The Race had no fighters so there would be no Air-to-air kill outside of cargo targets which wasn't that hard to do. Behind them would come the Taita fighter bombers to carry out bombing runs on smaller targets while the heavy condor bomber to go after larger targets like fuel centers. The Ospreys ground attack aircraft would follow next, it was the slowest of any of the Tau'ri attack craft but that allowed it to carry out ground attack missions like its Earth bond ancestor the A-10 Thunderbolt better known as the A-10 Warthog. There would be attacks carried out by the ships in orbit in the form of beam, rail gun and missile attacks.

They even had a plan to beam in marines to take the palace and the Race's Emperor. In total computer estimated the entire operation would take between an hour and 90 minutes from start to end. The total death toll among the Tau'ri would be max out around a dozen if they assaulted the palace, if they didn't then the number was likely zero. The race had no air defenses and outside of the police the closest thing they had to soldiers was this palace guard to protect the Emperor and he had multiple highly trained special forces teams in the fleet and thousands more marines. The races civilian deaths was the issue and so far at the moment that option was shelved but ready to be pulled to be used.

Admiral Hackett for his part was looking over this Lieutenant Moreau file, his grades where top of his class in almost every field with only two classes in which he was second in. The only two black marks on his records, one was his medical condition which was out of his control and the other was that he had a habit of breaking rules and talking back to his instructors. He often showed up the instructors in the simulator.

"Admiral Hackett, we have General Everett Young on the line for you." said one of his staff as Hackett turned to the computer only to see his screen saver change to the image of a much younger man. He looked half asleep and looked as if he was in her personal home office not his official office.

"General, sorry for waking you up but we have a situation that you may find interesting." said Admiral Hackett

"What is that, Admiral." yawned General Young the commander of all forces on Valhalla.

"We have a possible line of the element you have been looking for Zephyr." Reported Hackett as sleep left Young's eyes. "We don't have a confirmed size of the despot yet and it is on a planet under the control of a race which calls themselves the Race."

"You mean those lizard aliens which arrived by Pluto? They have Zephry?" inquired Young "They have the one element we are missing to make ZPMs?"

"On a world they have conquered yes." confirmed Hackett "A world currently in the middle of revolt. This raises an issue about what we are going to do, if we go in we are basically declaring war on an empire which can't fight against us and that wouldn't make us look that good to the other powers in the Galaxy."

"What do you want me to do." inquired Young

"There is nothing you can really do, but it is a situation that you should be made aware of." explained Hackett "I also want to send your RND department someone I think could be useful in the Normandy Frigate Project."

Both high ranking officers knew of that even after the end of the Colonial War, research and development of new warships had never stopped. Along with upgrades to the ships in the current fleet four new ship classes where currently under development in the Valhalla shipyards. One of them was the Prometheus Deep Exploration Ship but that massive ship wasn't the only ship being designed. The other three ship classes would take flight long before the Prometheus would launch, the classes would fill in roles in the Tau'ri fleet that hadn't been filled yet. One of those ships under development was the Normandy Class Frigate. The other two ship classes in development was the Druga class Corvette and the Houto class Pocket Battleship. The pocket battleship would have upset the Colonials considering it was basically going to be the Tau'ri version of their battlestars. There was other projects in the works as well, updated Eagle fighters and different kinds of Owls along with others where all in the work.

"Send me the file, I will pass whoever it us to the team in charge of the project see what they think of your idea." Said Young as Hackett nodded his head.

"Alright, I will let you go." said Hackett as Young nodded his head before cutting the connection. Young for his part thought about calling Rush to tell him about the discovery but designed against it, instead he went back to bed.

Medea woke up in her hotel room and checked the clock in the center table between the two beds, she still had about an hour before she had to get up and get ready to meet her best friends, boyfriend family and go to this Disney World Valhalla. Deciding that she would rather take her time then rush, she got out of bed and got her cloths and other items from her bag. She looked toward Acacia and Robert who were currently sleeping together, with her head on his chest and both of them had a peaceful look.

"They do really look good together." admitted Medea as she moved toward the shower and got ready. Because she was already ready she didn't have to rush around like Acacia and Robert did when they got up, instead she was sitting on the edge of the bed watching the TV.

"Robert what is this Second Big Bang Show?" inquired Medea as Robert waited for Acacia to get out of the shower.

"Sequel to a show called the Big Bang, focusing on the kids of the main people from the first show." Explained Robert, "Not as good as the original, they pushed it into the future to make the kids teenagers."

"Seams good to me." said Medea "I don't understand the references but…"

"Robert, it is all yours." interrupted Acacia as she came out of the bathroom and took a position in front of the mirror. Robert moved in and within moments the sound of the shower running filled the air.

"Acacia calm the frak down." advised Medea to her best friend as Acacia worked out any knots in her long red hair. "You have meet parents of your boyfriends before, so this shouldn't be an issue."

"Yes, but this is different back on Libra I knew both of my high school boyfriend's parents for years and Robert is much more serious than either of those two were." explained Acacia as she started brushing her teeth. Medea had to admit she had a point, Acacia's two boyfriends had started out of friends before going out on a few dates and school dances, Robert was different in more ways than he was a Tau'ri that added complexity to the situation.

"Well yes, I know but still if you are so worried you make yourself look foolish it will not make you look any better." advised Medea before turning away from the TV and toward their planned schedule. "Just calm down, we are going to spend 10 days with his family so better to relax and calm down."

Acacia did calm down a bit as she began to finish up getting ready, she was nearly ready when a knock at the door caused Medea and Acacia to look toward the door.

"Who is that?" inquired Acacia as she moved toward the door, while pulling back her red hair into a pony tail. She opened the door and came face to face with a woman who was maybe 8 years older than she was, so maybe 28 or 29, 30 at the most. The woman was tall at an even height to Acacia who was tall for a Colonial woman, she had deep dark long hair and brown eyes similar to Robert. With a large purse over her shoulder and was dressed in a red blouse with a short jean jacket and blue jeans so looked like a normal woman but something was different.

"Can I help you?" inquired Acacia not sure what else to say. The woman seamed to look past her for a moment before smiling.

"You must be Acacia." Said the woman with a warm smile.

"Yes, do I know you?" inquired Acacia, wondering how someone on Valhalla knew who she was is.

"I see how much the monkey puts up those photos I send him." stated the woman which only confused her more.

"Ah, shut up toad." Said Robert's voice from behind Acacia as she raised an eyebrow.

"Is that how you talk to your favorite older sister?" laughed the woman as Acacia's mind went racing as she realized who was at the door.

"You're my only older sister." countered Robert with a laugh as he moved and embraced one of his two sisters. "Now what the hell are you doing here so early? Your train through the gate…."

"Was pushed forward due to military matters, that is the problem with traveling by Gate the military comes first." explained the woman with a shrug. "Mom, Dad, Lisa, my husband and the kids are down stairs in the lobby and so are grandma and grandpa. We thought why not find a place to have breakfast before going to check in at our resort."

Acacia's worried gulp was clearly visible to the woman, who smiled and offered her hand. She had expected more time to prepare, now she had no time at all.

"Where are my manners, I am Stacy Wright, Robert's big sister." Introduced Stacy as Acacia took her hand.

"Acacia Drivas." Introduced Acacia

"I am her friend Medea." Said Medea from the behind the little group in the doorway. "If I can ask a question, Monkey and Toad what was that all about?"

"Childhood nicknames our father dropped on us." explained Stacy with a slight resigned sigh knowing the two younger woman wanted more details. "I once tried to turn a toad into a prince by giving it a kiss, I was 4 or 5 and I thought toads…frogs same thing and I had seen too many movies. Robert got his nickname because he climbed a tree and pretended to be a monkey when he was a kid."

"And Dad never let that go for either of us." laughed Robert. "Just like he never let it go when Lisa, thought the skunk was a cat and wanted to pet it."

"But Dad, didn't call her skunk he called her Cat not as bad as Toad. Toad, Monkey and Cat what a strange man our father is." laughed Stacy with a roll of the eyes talking more to her brother than anyone else, before turning toward Acacia with a smile. "Don't worry he will not give a nickname like that to you, mom would skin him alive for that, they are looking forward to meeting you. He saves those for his three children plus his grandchildren."

"They…do know I am Colonial, right?" inquired Acacia as Stacy looked at her for a moment as if it was a stupid question.

"Unless colonial is a whole different species you are as human as me, what the hell do I care about where you are from." said Stacy before seeing the real concern in Acacia's eyes. "Yes, they know mostly, my two-year son old is too young to really understand it but I have told him."

"Thanks, we had a little misunderstanding with my father and it wasn't the best." explained Acacia

"I understand, but don't worry about it." reassured Stacy "You don't have to worry about anyone down stairs carrying about where you are from and what faith you practice, come on let's check you out and find a place to get some breakfast before we head to our resort."

"I still need to get ready." added Robert as he noticed the glint in his sister eyes, she knew that and had planned on it.

"Well, why don't I take Acacia and Medea down and you can follow when you're ready." offered Stacy and before Acacia knew it she was heading out the door to meet Robert's family without even Robert there. When they got into the elevator Stacy turned to her as they waited for the car to arrive.

"Please tell me my brother did warn you about our grandmother?" inquired Stacy with concern in her voice.

"No." said Acacia as her mind went racing. "What am I in for?"

"Well, Robert isn't just the oldest grandson on my father's side of the family, he is the only grandson." explained Stacy "All three of my Uncles all had girls and let's just say, my grandma really and I mean really wants to make sure that the family name goes on. Robert is the only one that can do that in her eyes, she doesn't really count it if one of my cousins or my little sister keep the name when they gets married she is old fashion that way. She will be asking if or when you and Robert plan to get married."

"Oh…" said Acacia with a blush clearly visible on her face.

"If you feel unconformable about it just let me or my mother know we will tell her to stop poking her nose into it. This is a vacation not an interrogation after all." offered Stacy with a smile as the elevator arrived and she got on for the ride down to the lobby. The lobby was semi full with people heading out early. Waiting in one area was a small group of eight people, they were clearly all related in some way or another. There was two couples at least a generation apart, the older couple sat on a bench with the older man holding onto a cane. Standing nearby was a was a man who looked like an older version of Robert, clearly his father while the woman looked a lot like Stacy, that would be his mother. A young woman stood with her head down looking into one of those wrist mounted cell phone/computers, that had to be Robert's little sister, if she remembered correctly she was almost 7 years apart and Robert was 24 so she would be 17 to her 20. The other man was taller and had a more muscle built but also had two kids running around him, that had to be Stacy's husband.

"Here we go." Said Stacy as she walked forward with Acacia and Medea in tow.

"Robert was still getting ready, so much of Military efficiently." greeted Stacy with a laugh but all eyes were on Acacia and Medea mostly on Acacia.

"You must be Acacia." said Robert's mom with a smile as Acacia offered her hand.

"Yes, I am…" started Acacia before getting pulled into a hug by the older woman. She returned the hug not really knowing what else to do but when she pulled back, she eyed her for a moment before giving her a warm smile.

"Well you sure do have red hair, that is something my son didn't joke about." Said Robert's father with a booming laugh which caused a sense of ease to come over everyone.

"Her hair kind of me of Ariel." Said the little girl, Robert's niece who appeared at the most to be six or seven.

"You know." said Acacia as she got down to the girl's eye level. "She is my favorite Disney character."

"Really, Elsa is better." said the girl in the tone of an all knowing seven year old.

"Elizabeth, that is rude." said her mother Stacy as the whole family had a small laugh as Robert finally walked up and put his hand around Acacia's shoulder.

"Sorry for taking so long." Said Robert slightly out of breath.

"You ran down the stairs didn't you instead of waiting for an elevator didn't you." Laughed Lisa before giving a playful grin. "Worried about what we would tell your girlfriend and her friend, big brother."

"No." said Robert

"You should be. We know stories you wouldn't her to know about." answered his little sister before taking a drink of what smelled like coffee.

"Come on let's get something to eat, I saw a what looks to be a good breakfast place just down the road. We can sit and talk we can't really check in for two hours anyhow." offered Stacy as they headed out the door.

The fire which had engulfed the farmhouse had been put out and multiple APC and troop transports had arrived from the nearby Race Military base. Teams of experts had been assembled to gather the fallen and seal them up in plastic before they could be cremated.

"By the Emperor what happened here?" asked one of the commanders as he took in the line of the dead.

"No idea, the living males say they saw something which is impossible." reported another officer "They reported taking fire from an unknown creature which stood as tall as one of the crawlers but on two legs and fired weapons equal to our own."

The commander rolled his eye turret a sign of how much be believed that.

"I agree, likely a large group of crawlers got ahold of our weapons and used them against us." stated the commander as a low-level investigator moved forward and waited until he was allowed to come forward.

"Excuses me superior sirs, but I thought you needed to see this." said the investigator as he held out a clear plastic bag holding a shell casing.

"I see it, what of it?" inquired the commander

"Superior Sirs, this shell casing is different than any caliber we use." Reported the investigator "This wasn't fired from one of our weapons."

"Then what gun fired it?" inquired the commander

"Superior Sir, I don't know." Admitted the investigator as they looked toward the woods. "Also, there was no banners left behind."

"What?" inquired the Commander

"At every other terrorist attack the terrorist leave one of their families' clan banners behind as a sign of who did it." explained the Investigator "Here none was left behind."

"What are we dealing with?" inquired the officer

"No idea sir." Admitted the investigator "We have two highly trained tracker and five squads of highly trained infantry males coming, they will be here in a few hours. When they arrive, we want to send them into the woods to find the source of these weapons. With your permission superior sir, we will send them after nightfall the Vantic can't see well in the dark and we have the technology to see in it very well, we will have the upper hand."

"Draft the paperwork, when you present them to me I will turn both eye turrets on it and then give you an answer." stated the Commander something wasn't right, he turned his eye turrets toward the woods wondering what was waiting in those woods. "We will go in darkness falls, the crawlers are not active at night we will go in after them then."

"A wise plan superior sir." confirmed the lower officer "With our night vision equipment we own the night, the crawlers will never know what hit them."

Well I hope you liked this chapter and the short firefight with the Race, more is on the way. Now I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.