Chapter 102: Prison Break Part 4

Above Evin Prison, Tehran, Iran, Earth, February 20th, 1999 (Earth Time)

From above, the Evin Prison didn't look like much. Adora had seen prefab camps that looked more solid. Which was deceptive; the walls were stable and sturdy - just not as sturdy as she expected from a prison. Then again, the Iranians didn't have to deal with scorpion people or minotaurs.

But inside, the prison didn't look like the Earth prisons Adora had seen in the movies and TV shows. Although those had been mostly American ones. Here, the cells were packed with people. Fortunately, in a perverted sense, a lot of the people they were here to rescue were in solitary cells, so they should be able to get them out easily enough.

She looked at the screen mounted inside the shuttle's bridge. The other shuttles were in position as well. Glimmer and Bow's was reporting ready, as were Scorpia and Perfuma's and Netossa and Spinnerella's. That left Mermista and Sea Hawk's - no, here came the green light. Adora released a small sigh of relief.

"Not even Sea Hawk would set the shuttle on fire," Catra commented behind her. "Mermista made that clear."

"And he wouldn't want people to suffer in prison," Adora said. Sea Hawk wasn't as bad as some people claimed. He just was sometimes, a lot of times, to be honest, a bit too impulsive. But they were ready, their shuttle hovering over their target - which was near a river, so Mermista would be able to use her power to the fullest.

Only one shuttle wasn't ready yet. And it was the one Adora worried the most. In theory, the team it carried should have no trouble with this mission. Between Frosta's power and Castaspella's magic, they should be able to deal with any complications that cropped up. But pairing Frosta with Castaspella was a bit chancy. The princess got along well with Micah, but his sister… On the other hand, the only alternatives would have been Entrapta or Hordak, and everyone was aware of how either would have been a bad choice.

"And there go our problem children," Catra said as the last shuttle reported in.

"Don't call them that," Adora replied. Frosta would take offence.

Catra shrugged. She bent forward and reported to Entrapta and the others in the orbiting frigate providing overwatch and reserves. "All Shuttles are ready."

"Alright! Almost on time!" Entrapta's cheerful voice sounded through the comm. "But that's why we have enough leeway in the schedule! So, it's past midnight, the guards have changed, and the relieved ones have returned to their quarters. We're ready to deploy Blackout!"

And start the rescue. Adora took a deep breath. "Do it!"

"And here we go!"

A moment later, the lights started to go out in Tehran - entire blocks went dark in seconds. The only areas still shining brightly were the ones containing hospitals. And, unfortunately, the prison below them - the Iranians had backup generators for such an event. But this was mostly to disrupt Iranian communications, not to take out the power in the prison.

That was left to the stealthy guard bots dropping from the shuttles. They were supposed to protect hacking bots - but that meant they could wreck power generators just fine.

Half a minute later, the lights went out in the prison as well.

"Go!" Adora announced, stepping off the ramp and jumping down.

She landed on the flat roof next to a guard tower. The soldiers inside were just switching on flashlights. Before they could illuminate the area outside, though, Catra landed on top of the tower and swung over the roof, through the closest window.

Adora heard a startled sound followed by the rapid discharges of a shock stick hitting people.

Her lover could handle this, she told herself as she jumped off the roof and landed on the next one, where the Iranians had installed a heavy machine gun. Its crew was already swinging it around, cones of bright light sweeping through the darkness.

Adora jumped before they spotted her and landed directly on the gun, wrecking it with a swipe of her sword. A swing with the flat of her blade and a kick took the crew out, sending two skidding over the roof for a few yards - she had held back - and one flipping through the air to land on his back on the other side.

She quickly looked around. Catra was dismantling another guard tower. The missile launcher emplacement had the soldiers run away screaming from their own weapons - Melog was having fun with illusions.

Adora jumped again, this time down to the yard, where the Iranians had stationed an anti-aircraft gun. A guard bot had hit its power generator, though, so the soldiers were trying to move it by hand - which was going slow and distracted them enough for Adora to reach them without anyone spotting her.

She grabbed the barrel, crushing it in the process, and ripped the entire gun out from its emplacement before hurling it at its twin on the other side of the yard. A few screams sounded, followed by shooting from the rooftops.

Adora clenched her teeth and quickly glanced up.

"They're shooting at Shadows," Catra said, landing next to her on all fours. "The guards on the roof are out. Melog's handling the troops outside the prison. Let's go break in!"

"Yes." Adora nodded at her lover and dashed forward. Her sword made short work of the door there, and a moment later, they were both inside the prison.

She heard more screaming - from inside the prison's cell tracts.

"The prisoners have woken up," Catra said. "Let's hurry."

They would be scared, not knowing what was going on, trapped in their cells.

Adora nodded again, and both were off towards the solitary cells.

A door barred their way into the general prison area, but Catra passed Adora and shredded the hinges with her claws so she could just pull it down. Then she made a gagging noise.

"What?" Adora asked.

"Just the smell," Catra replied. "Come on."

A few steps later, Adora realised what her lover meant. The smell of so many people forced into small rooms, without adequate washing facilities… She winced. It would be even worse for Catra, with her finer nose. Memories of doing laundry duty as a cadet rose in her, and she shook her head to focus. They were here to save people!

They passed the cell doors, light from her sword illuminating the dark hallway, and the mutterings and confused cries changed to surprised exclamations - and then to more screaming. It was hard to make out what the prisoners were yelling in the cacophony. Some were even rattling the bars on the windows. And the screams grew louder.

Were they begging for a rescue? Adora clenched her teeth. They couldn't stop - they had a schedule. Even with the blackout in the city, the Iranian soldiers wouldn't be held up for too long. And they had to get the solitary cells first. A few political prisoners were held in the general area, in those cells stuffed full of people, but they would have to wait until last - once they opened those cells, the other prisoners would probably try to escape as well, and that could cause chaos.

The screaming grew worse as they passed door after door, and the shooting outside also grew more intense. Two prison guards stormed out of a side door, sticks in hand. Both froze when they saw Adora and Catra, and before they could react, Adora sent them flying back through the door with a swipe of the flat of her sword.

There! The entrance to the special section! But three more guards and one dog were gathered there, weapons ready. Adora bared her teeth and charged. Shots rang out, but she changed her sword into a shield and caught them on it, then smashed into the men, ramming two of them into the steel door behind them and bowling over the third. Catra's shock stick took the man out while Adora slashed with her sword, cutting the steel door into several pieces that fell to the floor - next to the dog that Catra had killed.

Inside the special section, there were fewer screams - but more guards. Soldiers, Adora corrected herself as flashlights and automatic weapons trained on them and gasping yells called - probably - for help.

Once more, her shield protected her and Catra behind her as she charged down the hallway. The men were screaming, emptying their weapons to no effect. Just before she reached them, one of them screamed something about their god.

Then a blast hit Adora, and she almost stumbled as she was pushed back a few steps, sliding to a stop braced behind her shield.

"Damn suicide bomber! Must be Revolutionary Guards!" Catra hissed behind her. She was shaking her head, her ears twitching - they would be ringing, Adora realised.

The guards themselves were beyond help. Not that Adora felt particularly like helping them right now. And they were in a rush.

"Call the transport shuttle in!" she told Catra as she pulled out her pad and checked the cell numbers they needed. "Melog, keep them from shooting at it!"

There was the first cell with a supposed witch! Adora didn't bother looking for a key and simply ripped the cell door open. "Aisha Azar?"

The woman - she looked younger than Adora but was supposedly a year older - cowered in the corner of her cell, staring at her with wide-open eyes. In the light shining from her sword, Adora spotted a bruise peeking out from under the woman's head cover. She was trembling as well.

Adora forced herself to smile at her. "I'm Adora - She-Ra. We're here to rescue you." She held out her hand. "Please. We won't harm you."

"Come on! We're here to help! I'm not going to hurt you!" she heard Catra behind her, talking to someone else.

She was focusing on the woman in front of her, though. "Aisha?"

Slowly, the woman nodded, taking deep, shuddering breaths.

"We're here to save you," Adora repeated herself.

"Shuttle's coming in!" Catra yelled. "I'm making a door here."

A moment and a shriek later, the sound of falling concrete was followed by faint moonlight shining into the cell tract.

"See?" Adora smiled again. "Our shuttle is here. Come on!" Should she heal the woman to show she was here to help? Or would pointing her sword at her frighten her even more?

Still trembling, Aisha grabbed her hand, and Adora led her out of the cell, towards the opening in the wall, where Catra was all but pushing a hesitating woman in similar clothes as Aisha into the shuttle.

Two down. And far more to go, Adora thought as she looked down the hallway with the many cell doors.


Earth Orbit, Solar System, February 20th, 1999 (Earth Time)

Samantha Carter watched on the split screen as the first liberated prisoners boarded the transport shuttles hovering above the various prisons.

"We're behind schedule," the Colonel muttered.

They were, but they had planned for some slack. "Iranian responses are also behind schedule," she commented.

"Yes! The scrambling of their communication is more effective than expected!" Entrapta grinned. "They're still looking for an invasion at the coast and deserts! Well, not all of them, but many."

"They seem to have expected us to follow the American plans," Hordak said.

The Colonel grumbled something Sam didn't catch. She ignored the grumbling and watched the screens. Iranian fighters were scrambling, at last. She pointed them out to Entrapta, whose hair flew over two consoles, and radar returns appeared on the screens as shuttles decloaked over the Persian Gulf.

The fighters reacted to them, turning towards the coast to meet an air strike that was a feint. That would also draw the Iranian navy into it, but it wasn't as if they mattered for this mission. With the air force - temporarily - taken care of, that left the ground forces. And they were not as easily diverted since they didn't rely on sensors. Hacked communication could only do so much when the troops could just take a look themselves. Sooner or later, they would realise that the prisons were the target.

But even with the delays cropping up, the Etherians should be done by the time substantial forces reached any prison - Sam was tracking the armoured forces and artillery units on her main screen. Those were the most serious threats, mainly because of collateral damage to civilians. Still, even the Iranians would hesitate to shell their own capital. Or so Sam hoped.

She checked the split screens again. Dozens of prisoners, overwhelmingly women, were already inside the various transport shuttles. And more were herded into the shuttle by the princesses. Yes, they could pull this…

Catra's voice over the comms interrupted Sam's thoughts.

"We've got a problem."


Evin Prison, Tehran, Iran, Earth, February 20th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"We've got a problem. The stupid prisoner doesn't want to get rescued!" Catra hissed into her communicator as she stared at the man - Kamran Soroush, according to his files arrested as an enemy of the Iranian regime two years ago. "We're here to rescue you!" she repeated herself. She almost flashed her fangs at the man in wide a smile, but she remembered the reaction another prisoner had had earlier. Her ears still hurt from the shrieks of that woman.

The man shook his head. He stood with his back against the wall, but he wasn't cowering. And his eyes weren't darting around. But he was clearly afraid all the same. Just not as much as others. "No!" he repeated himself.

Perhaps he didn't understand her? She checked her flashcard for the wording in case she had made a mistake - she hadn't! - and told him again, in Persian, that they were here to rescue him.

"I am not going!" he said. He was clenching his teeth - she could see his jaw muscles working.

Catra muttered a curse under her breath. "You want to stay here?" she snapped. "Where you will get tortured?" They didn't have the time for this! The ground troops wouldn't be delayed forever, and evacuating trained troops under fire was difficult enough. Scared civilians? That would be a nightmare.

He swallowed, his lips moving for a second without a sound. Then he straightened, wincing as he squared his shoulder, and shook his head again. "I will not work with witches! Begone, jinn!"

What? She stared at him. "But… You're an enemy of the regime!" He was a political prisoner! She could see the marks torture had left on him!

In response, he closed his eyes and started mumbling - no, praying, she realised. "Fine!" she spat. "Be like that!"

She turned and left the cell, activating her communicator. "Soroush doesn't want to be saved by witches!"

"What?" Entrapta's voice told her her friend was as surprised by this as Catra herself. "Why? That makes no sense!"

"I don't know!" she replied. Should she just club the idiot over the head and throw him into the shuttle so they could sort this out later? Like you did with troops suffering battle shock?

"Adora!" she called out. "We've got a problem!" Where was her lover?

"Yes!" Adora replied.

There! Catra could see her head poking out of a cell.

"She doesn't want to leave!" Adora added.

Another one? Catra blinked. "Have they gone crazy?"

"I don't know. I…"

Something - a metal cup - bounced off the back of Adora's head, followed by cursing in Persian. At least it sounded like cursing.

Adora turned around, and the cursing changed to praying.

"Grab her and sort it out later?" Catra suggested, eyeing the cell behind her in case the moron there got any ideas.

"That would be kidnapping!" Adora objected.

"Did you check if they are doubles?" Entrapta asked over the communicator.

How? "No, we didn't!" Catra replied.

"The other strike teams are reporting target people refusing to come with them as well," Hordak cut in. "Should we authorise the use of force?"

Great. Catra clenched her teeth and looked at Adora. That was her call.

Adora stepped out of the cell, her lips pressed together. She turned to look back inside, then shook her head slowly. "No. No, we can't just force them to come with us," she said, grimacing. "Not against their will."

We could, Catra thought. And if it was a friend of hers, she would. But if those people would rather be tortured than be saved by witches… "Let's go get the rest, then!" she snapped. Before they went crazy as well.

She ripped the next cell door off its hinges. "We're here to rescue you!" she snapped. And before she could help herself, she added: "Unless you refuse to be rescued by witches!"

The man inside chuckled as he shook his head. "I'm not a fool who believes those lies."

Catra grinned as she pointed him to the amp of the waiting shuttle. His eyes widened as he saw the clone standing guard there, but he quickly rallied and rushed towards the ramp, followed by a woman Adora had just rescued as well.

That left… "The ones in the general area," Catra said.

Adora nodded. "Let's go!"

But before they reached the door back to that area, the yelling and screaming from the general area changed. "Stop!" Catra hissed.

"What?" Adora slid to a stop, staring back at her.

Catra's ears twitched. As did her tail. "I can hear footsteps. Lots of them. Coming closer."

Adora blinked. But… "Did troops reach the prison?" she asked over the communicator.

Still fighting illusions.

"Melog says they're still fighting illusions," Catra told Adora. But some of the shots were much closer. Inside the prison.

"The column on the way hasn't reached the prison yet," Entrapta reported over the comms.

"We can neutralise the vehicles and troops with orbital fire support," Hordak added. "With minimal collateral damage."

Which was still a lot in a densely-built city in the middle of a blackout.

"No!" Adora snapped. "We need to…"

A man appeared in the doorframe leading to the general area. Not a soldier - but he was armed. And bleeding from a wound on his head. He saw them and raised his rifle.

Catra moved to the side, ducking into an empty cell, and Adora changed her sword into a shield. The shots ricochetted around the hallway. More screams from the occupied cells followed.

Adora charged the man with a grunt, smashing into him. Another appeared, wielding a stick. And behind him, more were coming. "What's happening?" she asked.

Catra cursed. "They must have released the prisoners." All the prisoners.

"But why are they attacking us?" Adora grunted as the first row broke against her shield.

"They might not recognise us and just try to escape." Catra looked around. Or they did recognise them and were promised a pardon if they beat them.

Or they just want to kill witches, she silently added as she looked through the hole in the wall at the city. She could see some lights from vehicles, from what looked like a fire, and tracers from blindly firing guns in the sky.

"We need to leave," she said.

"But…" Adora grunted as she heaved and sent the mob's next row stumbling back. "There are still prisoners to save!"

"We can't find them in the mob." If they were still alive. "Come on, Adora!" Catra jumped on the ramp leading into the hovering shuttle. "The soldiers will be here soon. Melog!"

Here they came, darting around the corner, then jumping up, pushing off the wall and landing on the ramp. Inside, the dozens of people they had rescued cowered, staring at Catra's friend.

Catra ignored them for now and turned back. "Adora!"

After a moment, the idiot finally whirled around and sprinted towards the ramp. Howling, the mob gave chase.

Adora leapt on the ramp, and Catra grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. "Close the ramp and get us out!" she yelled at the pilot. "And engage the stealth system!" There was no longer any need to keep the ramp visible.

The mob reached the hole in the wall right when the shuttle started accelerating and fading out of view. Catra saw several of the men getting pushed through the hole by the mass of people behind them, falling down on the jagged chunks of concrete below.

"I don't think we'll have plausible deniability," she muttered.


Earth Orbit, Solar System, February 20th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"...unconfirmed reports of blackouts and shooting in Tehran and other Iranian cities. The Iranian government has declared a state of emergency and…"

"...rumours of air strikes targeting several cities in Iran abound, though no information…"

"...air raid alerts have been raised according to the Swiss embassy in Tehran…"

"...the United Nations Security Council is assembling for an emergency session following a supposed attack on Iran by…"

Jack O'Neill tried to ignore the rapidly switching TV channels blathering in the background. The news wouldn't have any useful information at his point. It was much too soon - and Iran wasn't a country where the press could get the truth, anyway. It was all rumours and hysteria.

He focused on the feeds from the spybots deployed by the Etherians, the images from orbital observation and the results from Carter's magic scanner. And those didn't paint a pretty picture.

"That's a massacre happening down there," he muttered. A column of ground forces had reached the Evin prison in Tehran and started to fight the prisoners. With predictable results - the Revolutionary Guards weren't as good as the Iranian propaganda claimed, but you didn't need elite troops to massacre prisoners armed with a few guns and sticks.

"But why are they doing this?" Entrapta asked. "We've already left the prison!" Her hair tendrils flew over the consoles, and more feeds opened up, prompting a gasp from her at some particularly gruesome scenes.

"They probably have orders to stop a prison break at any cost - this prison is where they keep most of their political prisoners." Kept, Jack reminded himself - the Etherians had gotten most of them out. And the ones who had chosen to stay behind… He pressed his lips together as he glanced at the scanner's feed. The mob of other prisoners hadn't spared anyone left behind, and they hadn't died quickly or easily.

But the Iranian soldiers were not taking any chances. Or didn't want any witnesses left. Or someone had started shooting, someone had shot back, and things had gone out of control. Jack knew from experience how quickly shit like that could happen.

"But the Iranians released the prisoners in the first place!" Entrapta protested.

"That doesn't mean the soldiers know that," Jack said. Or that they would care.

"A number of prisoners have managed to escape the prison's boundaries," Carter pointed out. "But most of them have been pushed back into the prison."

Or killed. Jack nodded. The blackout would make it easy to hide from the soldiers once you got away from the prison. But come morning, there would be man hunts. The Iranian regime would want to see every witch and dissident captured or killed, and they wouldn't know who might have escaped on foot and who went with the Etherians. And that the Etherians had done this was clear.

He glanced at the screen showing a prison covered with walls of ice. And one covered with plants. And one buried under nets. And one with a new moat around it. And a lake inside it. As soon as they had realised that the jig was up, the Etherians had dropped any attempt at being subtle. Despite Hordak asking, several times, they hadn't used orbital fire support, but that was a small consolation with tanks literally sent flying by magical hurricanes. Or being thrown around like toys. Or swept away by a mini-tsunami.

"Aquaman better shape up," he mumbled.

"Sir?"

"Nothing," he quickly said. "So, the Iranians won't have any trouble proving who did this."

"No, sir."

Jack sighed. "And they'll blame all the dead on the Etherians." That was how those regimes operated.

"They can't!" Entrapta protested. "We have them on record! We didn't kill those people!"

"They'll do it anyway," Jack told her. "And their allies will pretend to believe them and claim our records are fakes."

"But…" Entrapta closed her mouth. "Politics again."

"Yes."

"There will be repercussions." Daniel had stopped staring at the feeds from the massacre. "But I think it's too early to tell what they will be."

"Well, one thing is sure," Jack said, snorting. "The United Nations won't do anything." Whatever the Security Council would decide, someone would veto it.

"Is that good?" Entrapta cocked her head.

"It's business as usual," Jack said, shrugging.

"Iran and their allies - and any countries with similar regimes or policies - will try to use this to attack the Alliance," Daniel said. "The question is how Russia and China will react."

And no one could predict what they would do. Not in this crazy new world. "Just keep your scanners peeled on the entire country," Jack said. "I wouldn't put it past the Iranian regime to kill their own civilians and try to frame you for it."

"They're already killing their own civilians," Daniel pointed out. "In fact, they have done so for a long time and wanted to kill more people - it's what started this, actually."

"Yes, yes." Jack scoffed. "I'm talking about blowing up apartment buildings and claiming they were targeted by us."

"It would be hard for them to fake the effects of our cannons," Hordak commented. "Any such claim wouldn't be believable."

"Oh, many would believe it anyway. Or claim to believe it," Jack told him. "They won't let little things like facts and proof get in the way of a useful lie."

"Then they are fools," Hordak said with a scoff.

"Mh." Jack wasn't so sure about that.


Earth Orbit, Solar System, February 21st, 1999 (Earth Time)

Adora watched as, once more, the holographic projection showed a mob of men rushing through the hallways of Evin Prison. Some of them stopped at an open cell door. One of the men looked inside, at the man standing there, then turned to the others, saying something and raising his fist.

A moment later, people stormed the cell, dragging the flailing man out. Others cheered - and lashed out at him. By the time they reached the hole in the wall Adora had left, the man couldn't walk any more and was being carried. And thrown through the hole. She winced at the way the man's body crashed on top of the sharp concrete chunks below. Then the mob outside rushed in, kicking and hitting him until…

"Stop watching this," she heard Catra say behind her. "He wanted to stay behind. They tortured him, and he still decided to stay in his cell. As did the others. Can't save people from being stupid."

"I should have dragged them with us against their will," Adora retorted. They would still be alive if she had done that.

Catra shrugged. "They chose this. It's their own fault."

"They didn't expect to be killed." And to be killed like this - beaten to death by a mob. Or something worse, in some cases…

"They should have." Catra shrugged again, though it felt a bit forced to Adora. "They lived there. Soroush had been in prison for two years already. The other idiots weren't new to this either."

"And they chose this." Glimmer had arrived on the bridge, followed by Bow. "We have to respect that, even if it's stupid. Even when it's suicidally stupid. As long as they only hurt themselves, we have to respect that."

"What about their families?" Adora snapped. To lose a loved one, especially like this, would hurt. Horribly.

Glimmer frowned. "That's on them as well. They could have gone with us."

"Unless they feared that that would endanger their families." Daniel had arrived as well.

"They would go after the families of prisoners?" Adora gasped. If Soroush, if the others, had chosen to die in order to spare their families… She felt her stomach twist at the thought.

"We would have stopped the Iranians if they wanted to do that," Glimmer spat. "We won't let anyone use hostages like that."

"But would they know this?" Daniel asked. "The prisoners - and the Iranian government, I guess."

"Well, they know they can't stop us," Catra said, pointing at the big screen on the bridge, where a view of Tehran from their air was being shown. She pushed a button, and a man's voice filled the bridge.

"...and while the fires have been extinguished, the damage remains. Power has yet to be restored to large parts of the city, and despite the heavy police and military presence on the streets, there have been reports of looting while people gather for protests against the attack on the city. The Iranian government has condemned the attack as an unprovoked crime against humanity, calling for support from the United Nations against this violation of their national sovereignty."

"That was a raid, not an attack," Catra said.

"I don't think they care about the difference," Daniel told her.

"Their military does," Catra retorted. "They know they can't stop us - or keep us from repeating this if we want to. Do you think they'll risk another intervention?"

Daniel winced. "They might not think there's an acceptable alternative. If those protests turn against the government…"

Adora closed her eyes for a moment. This was… It was crazy! "Would they really risk more attacks just to… stay in power?"

"Yes," Daniel said, nodding firmly. "I mean, they might honestly believe they have no choice, or that they have no alternative because you'll, ah, come back to wipe them out, but many such regimes have shown that they would rather see their country be destroyed than lose power. In the case of Iran, that's complicated by the religious aspect. Significant parts of the government and of the population may honestly believe that their faith compels them to continue with their, ah, chosen course of action."

"You mean, murder all so-called witches," Glimmer flatly stated.

"Yes."

"If they want to commit genocide, we'll stop them," Glimmer said with a grim expression.

Adora nodded, pressing her lips together. Some lines wouldn't be crossed. Not if she could do something about it. And she could. "Yes. But we need to find a way to stop them without hurting innocents."

She looked at the others. Sam and Entrapta - and Hordak - were in their spacelab, Jack and Teal'c had gone back to Stargate Command with the princesses who would return to Etheria, but Glimmer, Bow, Catra and Daniel nodded.

Though they didn't look any more confident that they would manage that than Adora felt herself. And that wasn't a good sign, not with the United Nations emergency session coming up. And the Alliance meeting.

Still… some things had to be stopped no matter how much it cost you.


Spacelab, Earth Orbit, February 21st, 1999 (Earth Time)

"...and so the Hacking and Guard Bots performed according to our projections. They accomplished their missions in support of the main mission. With their limited armament, even striking from ambush would have been unlikely to be effective for directly dealing with the organised military response if the Iranian government to our incursion, but they proved sufficiently effective in electronic warfare and for temporarily disabling key Iranian infrastructure. I would suggest developing a variant as a platform to deliver more lethal ordnance - it should be quite effective for surprise attacks against enemy positions, although we would likely have to improve the stealth system when facing more advanced sensors such as those the Goa'uld use."

Samantha Carter nodded as Hordak finished his take on the mission's debriefing. Unsurprisingly, he had, rather coldly, focused on the military aspects of the entire affair. And, equally unsurprisingly, he was thinking of developing more effective weapons.

"Oh! Do you mean Bomber Bots? Stealth Bomber Bots? I think that should be possible! Between the Spy Bots in space and the Guard Bots, I think we have the base for a fitting control matrix. Although we will have to finetune it, of course, once we have finalised the bot's capabilities."

And, also unsurprisingly, Entrapta enthusiastically reacted to the engineering challenges such a stealth bot would pose. Of course, Sam had a few thoughts about such a project herself, based on what she knew about the Stealth Bombers of the Air Force, and now that the mission was over, she didn't have to restrict her involvement to mere observation any more. Hordak was correct in his opinion that a stealth bomber bot would be very useful for the war against the Goa'uld. It would certainly save lives when bots could replace recon and special forces. At least for a time. "And we will have to continue improving the stealth system," she pointed out. "To keep up with whatever the Goa'uld develop once they are aware of the bots."

"Of course," Hordak said. His habitual frown didn't change much, but his tone clearly indicated that he thought this obvious.

"We need to ensure that other scientists can take over that, then," Sam told him. "Since we might have to deal with other projects." The number of projects she had to put on the back burner just to deal with the most current crisis was far too high already, and she didn't expect that to change.

"Are scientists of sufficient skill and experience to take over the continuing development of such bots available?" Hordak asked.

"And can we trust them to treat the bots right?" Entrapta added. "It's a moral question as well."

"Currently?" Sam shook her head. "No." The stealth system used some of their most advanced technology. Most of the top scientists in the aerospace field were working with conventional shuttles - well, conventional for advanced technology. "Even with personal instruction, It will take some time for any scientists we might choose to reach the level of competency necessary to contribute to our work here, much less take over developing such bots." And they would have to be vetted and read in first.

"OK!" Entrapta was undaunted. "So, we should start looking for a good scientist! We could ask Bow, I guess, but he has his own projects."

And missions to run. Bow was very skilled, but - like Sam - he would be needed for a variety of tasks.

"And we need to prepare a guide so people can catch up without us having to teach them!" Entrapta went on.

Hordak nodded. "Yes. Teaching the basics to others wouldn't be a very efficient use of our time. We cannot afford to neglect our other duties."

Sam narrowed her eyes. This made sense and mirrored her own thoughts, but… There was something else as well that Hordak wasn't saying out loud.

"Could we construct a teacher bot? Not like our bots, more like Alpha." Entrapta wrinkled her nose.

A bot like Alpha? That would certainly be a great help for many tasks, including instructing new scientists. On the other hand, more artificial intelligences like Alpha might also cause trouble. Especially if they shared some of Alpha's attitude and views.

But they couldn't use the sapient bots like Emily for this - they had adapted for combat, not for teaching, and even sapient, they were still quite limited and alien in some of their views.

"We probably should look into this," Sam said. They needed to regularly check with Alpha anyway, to ensure Loki was behaving.

"Yes!"


Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, February 22nd, 1999 (Earth Time)

"...and my country calls upon all peaceful, civilised countries to condemn this unprovoked aggression. Hundreds of people - civilians - were killed during this attack. Its transgressors and their allies have blood on their hands, and…"

Catra rolled her eyes as the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations droned on. "Couldn't even send their minister?" she mumbled. "Does anyone believe their lies?

"Shh!" Adora hissed. Her lover, of course, was sitting straight in her seat, paying attention as if this was an important briefing instead of some rehearsed performance.

"We already know what they're going to say - they've been spreading it all over the news," Catra retorted. And the media had jumped on it like some famished animals on a scrap of food. Catra still disagreed with Glimmer's insistence that they waited for the United Nations emergency session to release their own data. A concerted effort to flood the media with the material that they had on record would have been better. It would also have let them do something before today - waiting and watching the smear campaign had been extremely annoying.

"...and we demand that the creatures and people responsible be held accountable! We demand their extraction so they can be tried in Iran and that reparations be paid for the massive damage my country suffered." With a nod and a glare, the ambassador sat down.

Catra frowned as the ambassador of Saudi Arabia stood to speak next. "They're calling us creatures now?" she whispered. The Iranians really weren't bothering to hide their views.

But neither were the Saudi Arabians, it seemed - their ambassador's speech was almost a copy of the Iranians, with a few 'past disagreements notwithstanding' and 'fundamental principles of international law' being thrown in. If even a traditional enemy of Iran was supporting them, this didn't look good. Of course, they had expected that since both countries had the same policies regarding magic.

Catra checked the list. Half a dozen more countries from the 'Middle East' were on it. She sighed. This would be a long day. At least the Security Council meeting had been short once it became clear that any decision would be vetoed.


"...but there is one more part to discuss. This wasn't merely an intervention by an alien power. The Etherians who violated the sovereignity of Iran were supported by NATO forces."

Catra narrowed her eyes. This was new. The Chinese ambassador, so far, had been going on about national sovereignty and internal affairs but had not as much supported Iran's position as he had criticised the intervention. And now he was attacking their allies?

"While the Alliance was described as aimed at an alien Empire bent on conquering Earth, and the Alliance leadership had released a statement that they did not seek to meddle in International politics, Alliance forces provided intelligence and active support for the attack. China is concerned about this duplicity. It looks like the West is using the opportunity to, once more, engage in colonialist interventions in other countries to impose their values on others. This cannot be tolerated!"

Catra's ears were hard-pressed to pick up individual sentences from the murmuring this caused, but the way many ambassadors were nodding at those words showed what they thought about this well enough.

Glimmer stood up. And she looked as angry, or even more, as Catra felt. "This is an outrage!" she began. "I cannot believe the lies spread by members of this assembly. First, we - the Princess Alliance - clearly stated that we wouldn't intervene in Earth politics as long as it didn't involve genocide and other grave human rights violations. Rights the United Nations themselves have enshrined. That national sovereignty provides no excuse for such crimes against humanity has been an accepted principle on your planet for decades!"

"My country has not committed any such crimes!" the Iranian ambassador interjected.

Glimmer sneered. "You declared magic a capital crime. That's a clear intent to commit genocide against everyone with the talent for magic - something you are born with."

More protests were raised, drowning out her next words until the Secretary-General managed to calm things down.

"I don't care about your excuses," Glimmer went on. "You persecute people for something they were born with and can't help. Of course, we would intervene."

"Interventions have to be mandated by resolutions of the United Nations. Without such a resolution, any intervention is illegal," the Russian ambassador replied.

"That's your opinion," Glimmer retorted. "We don't share it. And we have the data to prove our claims - and to disprove the accusations levelled against us and our allies. None of them provided any support for this, by the way. They merely observed." She pushed a button, and the big projection behind her was filled with a picture of the Evin Prison taken with their most advanced scanner, quickly zooming in. "We have documented the entire mission and the abuses committed by the Iranian authorities in prison," she went on as the picture changed to a video showing the beating of a woman in a cell. "We also have detailed recordings to prove that we didn't fire on any civilians and that the deaths that were suffered during the intervention are the fault of the Iranian authorities and individual Iranians." More pictures and videos appeared. A lot of them were rather brutal.

The assembly erupted in whispering, muttering and outright gasping and yelling. But, Catra realised with twitching ears, the outrage - of those ambassadors from countries not in the Alliance or associated with them - wasn't directed at the actions of the Iranians. It was directed at the 'spying' and 'surveillance' by the Etherians.

It seemed most Earth governments hadn't understood just how good their sensors were, and how much they could detect, until now.

She glanced at the Secretary-General. The man was smiling.