Been a while, I know, and I'm sorry. I sorta got a bit burned out a bit, took a breather, and then couldn't regain the muse. Took a while, but I got it back again. Hopefully we'll be getting into the writing groove again here shortly. I've got a couple ideas brewing at the moment, both for this story and for my RvB fic (Another adopted story of BIG Z1776's). So, please enjoy as I get back into the swing of things and leave a review letting me know who all is still out there.

And again, I am sorry it took so long.

Chapter 23

Location: P5Y-464

Date: May 11, 2022

Time: 0440

Major Black wasn't buying the guy's story, not by a longshot. But Tyry was proving himself to not be a fool, at least so far. The man had the good sense to set the Colonials up in an apartment set away from his own group's lodgings, scattered within one of the outlying apartment blocks in the residential side of the city. Now that morning had dawned the Colonial special forces team was in their normal gear, checking and rechecking it for any sort of problems or defects so that nothing happened before it was noticed in the midst of a fight when it put their lives in danger. The group was armed with a unique weapon, a prototype variant of their Army's standard assault rifle made to handle Cylon Centurions which was armed with the new standard 6.5x40mm caseless rounds that were developed to punch through Centurion armor with a built-in 20mm caseless rocket launcher armed with a powerful shaped-charge warhead for punching into light armor or through buildings or fortifications. The weapon these men held had been well-practiced on, with each man mounting a suppressor alongside a standard suite of sights, strobing flashlights, laser pointers, and vertical grips. The men also had the best plate carriers, helmets, communications gear, night vision, and other miscellaneous equipment that the Colonial military could lay its hands on.

But despite all of their gear and all of their training they were still effectively alone, with nothing in the way of support or assistance available to them. And as the sun rose on a fairly crisp morning with fog hugging the ground around them the team was aware of just how vulnerable they were.

"Alright, we should be getting our wake-up call here in a few minutes now that the sun's up," Black said as he looked out the window, seeing the warm glow now breaking into an angled light, "Make sure everyone's had something to eat and that we're ready to move. Navigational beacon set back at the ring?" he asked as he turned to the two other majors he'd come with, who in turn led the other two teams but he was the senior-most of the three majors and therefore was in command.

"Beacon's still broadcasting strong, if we have to hoof it we have a solid waypoint," Major Benson, his second-in-command, replied, checking the padded laptop on the wooden table in front of them.

"And the drone?" Black now nodded to Major Delae, the youngest and third-in-command, who'd been charged with getting their large octocopter laser-scanning drone into the air and working on creating something approximating a map for them to work off of using laser lidar projectors.

"Third flight's up now, should have a decent idea of what we're looking at in the next half-hour."

"What've we gotten so far?" Black asked as the second laptop was spun around, showing him the 3-D map that had been accumulated thus far by their four-foot wide UAV and its powerful mapping lasers and the mapping program that came with it.

"The route we took into the city's been mapped, at least I think so if we're remembering correctly, and the city itself has a good groundwork that we can overlay a basic grid onto and reference if we need to maneuver unassisted. The third sweep is going now, checking the immediate area around the ring. The boys have the other UAV's going now, checking manually for anything of note. But we have noted something interesting. We've got an airport to the north, at least what we're calling north according to our compasses."

"Show me," Black nodded and leaned forward on the table, wanting to see this for himself, and sure enough an image of something odd was before him, "The frak…are those what I think they are?" he pointed at the screen, looking at Major Delae.

"Dirigibles sir, good size too. Along with quite a few planes that appear to be civilian, all propellor-driven. Although the airport has another section to it, this one here," the major pointed to a separate area with blocky buildings and heavily-built hangars in out-of-the-way areas covered in earthen ramparts, "To my eye that looks military, but we have no clear eyes into the hangars to see what's there. But judging by the sounds we heard last night…definitely jet aircraft of some description. But we never saw them, odds are we'll be seeing them soon."

"We'll try to get your team out that way later to get eyes on, in the meantime…airships? Really?" Black scoffed with a smile as he saw the large cylinder-shaped aircraft hooked to several large steel towers and a half-dozen massive hangars which were obviously built for such craft.

"Well…if they're helium-based they're probably pretty safe, not to mention long-ranged."

"And bloody impressive-looking to people who've never seen something manmade be made to fly," Black nodded, recalling some of the tales from his history course of how certain tribes on Sagitarron hadn't seen aircraft before, and worshipped the Gemenese flying machines that overflew their territory as deities for quite some time. The same sort of thinking could be applied here if the tales were true from what they'd been hearing about how quite a few humans were living in primitive conditions, electricity being magical to many, "Any signs of other military presence?"

"Not yet, but there's gotta be more to it than just one section of an airport and a few trucks at the ring building."

"Agreed, let me know if we find something that could be a military presence. I wanna know what's around us," Major Black ordered, following the plan that the three majors had established with this emphasis on intelligence gathering that was beginning with basic map-making techniques developed by colony-building conglomerates pre-Cylon War, "Have we gotten an idea if there's much in the way of wireless activity?"

"Quite a bit," Major Benson nodded, tapping his laptop to show a list of different frequencies that their dish mounted on the roof had picked up activity on, "Most of it seems to be civilian radio type frequencies, music and such, lots of different stuff, no way it's from just one culture. But we're also getting some very-high frequency stuff that doesn't jive with the civilian stuff, radio chatter, multiple radar emissions in the five hundred band, and maybe even aircraft navigation beacon emissions. However…we are getting a few pings in the UHF bands, we got a good bead on it too. It was coming across the two fifty to four hundred band."

"Same as ours…" Black mumbled to himself.

"It wasn't ours sir, ours has a slightly different footprint, and I checked our radio comms, someone is squawking with a high-end encrypted radio system, and it wasn't us."

"I haven't seen anything around here that indicates anything like UHF encryption being in reach, you sure we're reading this right Joe?" Black looked at the man.

"Sure I'm sure. We haven't seen much of this town though Henry, who knows what's out beyond what we can see with our own two eyes. These people are obviously advanced to a degree, otherwise…how else could they have built something like this?"

"Still…those UHF emissions…can you track them?" Black asked, a suspicion forming in his head. UHF frequencies were unique, and anyone or anything that could emit such an electronic frequency was not to be ignored.

"Sure we can, if we can get our other dish set up far enough away, to triangulate the target location, I can have a location in no time if it is staying in one place."

"I'll take my team and track it down, see if it's local or if it's foreign," Major Black sighed as he straightened back up, "We'll get eyes-on and report back and get some video and photos. How long until our meeting with our friends?"

"About three hours."

"Alright, get that other dish up now, we'll get ourselves out and high and maneuver to get eyes on by the time you get that dish up and working. We'll communicate check-ins every twenty minutes, starting…" Black held up his watch, and tapped it to prep for unit synchronization, "Now, synch up."

"Synch," the rest of the officers stated.

"Alright, I'll see you frakkers later."

Beagle Bay Joint Airbase, Australia, Earth

It was incredibly hot here in the middle of Western Australia, deep in the Outback of Kimberly. It was quite the piece of classified real estate for the Stargate Program. It was built five years ago to train pilots on the F-302 as the program's pilot training pipeline grew in scale. So, the vast Outback was tapped to fill the program's extensive set of requirements and a no-fly-zone was established, a cloaking device set up to protect against prying eyes of commercial satellites and passing local citizenry, and construction on a large airbase and a network of workshops, simulators, barracks, administrative buildings, and other necessities of a fully-fledged airbase were erected within the course of a year and a half of secret work.

The cover story for the Australian government was that they'd discovered radioactive fallout stemming from the 1950's nuclear tests in the Monte Bello Islands and that it was necessary to lock down the area as a quarantine zone. And with Asgard beaming tech all of their personnel, supplies, equipment, and other items were brought in without even touching the local roads and arousing suspicion. Soon, an two parallel eight thousand foot runway and a ten thousand foot runway were built in parallel with one another and a massive pad was constructed for storage of aircraft on the flight line with massive hangars and lines of sheds protecting the vitally-important F-302's from the beating rays of the Australian sun. And every training cycle more and more of these space superiority fighters were showing up, leading to the base having about as many fighter aircraft as any other in the world.

O'Neill visited here every so often. The different military higher-ups across the world, especially those not from the USA, hated the idea of Homeworld Defense being just another branch of the Pentagon. And there were many who were considering making this place, Beagle Bay Joint Airbase, the official headquarters for Homeworld Defense given its more secure location and separation from politicians and lobbying groups who were almost always the prime source of leaks. He was here now, seeing to the development of the F-302's next iteration, the F/A-302B, its multirole variant and its F/A-302C two-seater training version. The aircraft was slated to fully-replace all current F-302's once it was given a passing grade from its performance evaluations here at Beagle Bay where it would be put through its paces in the role that mattered for the variant, that of a strike fighter. But of course, these events weren't as simple as that, as the base's unofficial convention center, a large boxy building that was currently used to host large Homeworld Defense gatherings, was hosting this summit to showcase a whole bunch of scale models of prospective Homeworld Defense crafts from several bidders for some low-key requirements that the Fleet and Stargate Command had put forward.

Driving from the receiving building, the designated security checkpoint for new arrivals who arrived via beaming, O'Neill and several members of his staff in their convoy of white Chevy Suburbans were shown through by uniformed Royal Australian Air Force Security personnel with their HK416 carbines held at ease. As they continued through the road O'Neill caught sight of the ubiquitous critters of this area, a mob of Red Kangaroos, who completely ignored the secured perimeter and just continued to idly rest beneath shade of the trees planted along the road which wound its way across the rocky Outback, unconcerned with the goings-on of Homeworld Defense.

"Cool, first time seeing those things out here," O'Neill said as the car continued onwards.

"They're new sir, bloody roos don't like to be told where to bugger off to," the driver of the car said with a degree of disinterest, apparently having been well-used to these creatures.

"We tried to evict them sir, but they just keep coming back, roos can smell water from kilometers off, and they like the shade and they like our lawns," the lieutenant in the front explained as she pointed at her nation's most recognizable animal as they entered the roundabout in front of the base convention center.

It was a relatively simple structure, with a glass front and two large main halls and a third smaller hall for use as a makeshift lecture hall. Skylights, industrial air conditioning, and the usual real-world comforts and features of any other convention center anywhere in the world were present, as expected. The building, with its white façade was also like any other building on the sizeable base. But one notable unique feature was that on the pedestal in front of the convention center was a one-to-one model replica of an F-302 bearing the same tail number as the one O'Neill had used to jump a soon-to-explode Stargate into space to save the planet. Below it was a simple water fountain with cascading water flowing from spouts around the edge with a green grass lawn in the center with local Australian flowers on the edges. In fact, the base possessed quite a large amount of greenery and gardening, a product of the base's staff being, like anything in the program, the best at what they did. However, as warned, there were more kangaroos present, these ones smaller Gray Kangaroos, all basking under the shade of the trees around the front of the convention center where a row of flags for each member nation was displayed, idly hanging from their flagpoles.

"Right, let's take a look at some stuff," O'Neill clapped his hands together eagerly as the car pulled up and parked, followed by the others carrying the other nations' generals who were coming to see the expo of various proposals and scale models of potential craft for use by the Fleet or by the SGC itself.

The group entered, and were greeted with classical feel of an arms expo complete with name tags and brochures. It was a long way away from the simple days of a few generals coming out to Area 51 to see a single craft or mock-up or to have a small batch of officers come to a meeting at Cheyenne Mountain to showcase some of the design requirements and/or specs for a new craft. Today, sitting in the showroom floor, were a half-dozen models. One was an unmanned fighter, a copy of the F/A-302's technologies and placed into a new airframe with swept-back wings, and no hyperdrive generator which was intended for use a ground-based defense interceptor and a faithful wingman for manned Banshees. The second was a variant of the SR-72, a dedicated long-range covert reconnaissance and intelligence craft, which had the ability to fully cloak as well as loiter on mission for extended periods, gathering optical and sensor intelligence and absorb signals intelligence from a respectable distance with a crew compartment able to keep the four-man crew marginally comfortable. There was a unique space-capable UAV which had a powerful rocket booster which was meant to launch it through a Stargate and then help it accelerate up into higher altitudes before a reverse-engineered propulsion system which was derived from the various Death Gliders the SGC had at Area 51 would take into low orbit. Once there it would loiter over the target area in planned formations of a half-dozen to a dozen craft and use LIDAR to map the local terrain and then transmit the raw data to the SGC who'd then transcribe it into a useable terrain map and also help act as GPS satellites for precision munitions to use their positional data in striking their targets.

This was where there was a split between military-exclusive craft and potential dual use craft. One was a cargo transport, a cooperative endeavor from Airbus, Antonov, and Boeing which looked like the love child of a space shuttle, a V-22 "Osprey" and a C-17 "Globemaster" which was just over a hundred meters and fifty long with a mammoth cargo capacity. Another craft was a true ship, a boxy-looking craft that took the form of a sea-going container ship which was meant for strategic airlift and pre-positioning bulk cargoes. It basically used the rear half of the Prometheus and then had a four-hundred meter long spine with a mix of both large and small cargo containers able to be attached to a skeletal frame depending on the mission or the cargo. Now, things were getting into the civilian market, as one model appeared as if the SR-71 "Blackbird" and a Boeing 747 had a baby and that baby decided to identify as a space shuttle. This was a passenger transport and light cargo transport with an Antonov An-225 "Mriya" next to it for scale to show that it was actually twice as long and as wide as that behemoth of a plane. Its purpose was simple, take the concept of an airliner or passenger plane, and apply it to a spacecraft that could travel between Earth and its colonies.

"So, we're finally getting to see some of the potential civilian craft huh?" O'Neill noted as he noticed the nearest model, the passenger craft.

"Yes general, looks like it's finally time to at least begin trying to figure out how we can start the process, don't you think?" the voice of one Senator Jackson said as he and many civilian staff arrived from the IOA's own slightly-later party.

"Senator," O'Neill nodded as the man walked up, reaching a hand forward which O'Neill took and shook politely.

"Wow, quite a spread," Jackson noted as the crowd began to disperse and go check out the main booths which had the more in-depth materials on the various craft and vehicles that were program hopefuls.

"Sure is," Jack nodded in agreement.

"Listen, General…I uh…wanted to say thank you, for giving Brenda a shot at a team lead position for the SG/E teams. I know she's really excited, and I'm excited for her. So, there it is, just wanted to show some gratitude," Jackson said as he put his hands in his pockets once his fellow IOA representatives were gone.

"She's got the chops to handle herself, and our SG Teams are gonna need people like that," O'Neill shrugged, "Whatever she gets, she's gonna earn."

"Still, with her recent experiences offworld she confided in me that she had been worried that the experience of being kidnapped might preclude her from selection. You can imagine her joy when Dr. Jackson arrived at her door with the offer letter. Happiest call I've ever had with my daughter, so thanks."

"Daniel knows people, he really does, if he sees something in your daughter it's probably because she's got something to bring to the table. We'll see how she handles training."

"She'll do fine, she's said so, and she's never wrong about declaring what she's planning to do."

"We'll see," O'Neill smirked, knowing that Brenda Jackson might have been in for a rude shock as to who her opposite number in the SG/R side of the team would be, "So, any news for us from IOA land?"

"Yes, yes we do, funds are about to signed off to award prototype contracts for the transport types," Senator Jackson replied, pointing over at the group of models.

"Yes, we're looking at them too, with more and more bases with more people needing more stuff we're reaching the limit of what gate travel can reliably provide without endangering SGC operations itself. It's no stretch to say Homeworld Defense will be willing to back the infrastructure development on these," O'Neill said in agreement, "Although with the Wraith confirmed en route I can't back an effort to dedicate any resources to these projects that'll detract from the fleet's buildup until that threat is dealt with."

"I know, I know, it's not a request I'm going to waste time on," Jackson said in agreement, "We're looking into making these as close to civilian-only as we can. Long term, we're hoping we can lean on the civilian industry to come through on their own without having to build every little thing on the taxpayers' dime. With the experience they've had in developing and building components for the Fleet it might be time to let them swim on their own."

"Well that's a fine notion, but I still have a situation with five major offworld facilities and a non-existent logistics system without the Stargate and our warships while a fleet of life-suckers from Pegasus is licking its chops. And you're still tying Carter's hands by cutting her teams and personnel while still expecting us to try to intercept the Wraith and keep close tabs on the Cyrannus System and the Colonial Fleet."

"To be honest with you the IOA's less concerned with the Colonials at this time, seems like the novelty of them is starting to wear off as the deadline for disclosure approaches and the enormity of what we'll be up against comes into focus. Jack, we need to know, can Homeworld Defense withstand the scrutiny and the uproar that'll happen in 2023 when the announcement's made?"

"We're in better shape than you guys, that's for sure, militaries don't have to worry about elections, our enemy is a bit easier to deal with than what yours is. With you, you gotta negotiate and politic, we find shooting the problem tends to be a pretty definitive solution, most of the time. Don't worry about us, just make sure the world we're trying to protect doesn't go up in flames when the time comes."

"We're doing our best, not easy to change the world when it doesn't know it's being changed," Senator Jackson crossed his arms, looking down at the group of models, "But stuff like this…hopefully it'll help."

"Yeah, I hope so too."

"Oh also, the heads-of-state all gave their sign-off to begin prep work on the Moon and Mars colonies with the caveat that these ship designs go into production. Apparently there's a concern that we're taking too big a step with the Phase One colonies at the Alpha through Delta sites. To many we need to prove we can support colonies in our own system with ships alone before we go and try to support ships lightyears from home. The IOA's hosting a summit on that next month, I trust you'll be there?"

"I'll see if I can make it."

P5Y-464

Night was falling, and the Colonial team was now working its way into position. They'd seen enough of this city to know that it held no technological value to them. Sputtering coughing cars, many horse-drawn carts and wagons, and wood and coal-fired stoves and primitive electricity didn't inspire confidence. They'd also seen what were probably the planes that they'd thought they'd seen, but these weren't propellor-driven antiques. These were silver-skinned jets, old by the Colonials' standards, but oddly satisfying to see them zooming overhead. They looked like shining ghosts, rumbling through the sky as they went. Another sign of what things were truly like elsewhere to Major Black was that he and his men had seen a convoy of trucks rolling through with open tops and in the back were the local infantry, men wearing a domed helmet with long primitive-looking assault rifles which appeared as though they were made entirely of stamped metal held in front of them with magazines inside with each man holding a simple. Each man wearing an olive green uniform and webbing with red markings on their shoulders was clearly a soldier and the Colonials knew to steer clear to avoid issues. Their guns were ancient, but they weren't harmless. However, they were looking for another group, one which might prove to be more dangerous.

"Team One in position," Black said over the radio to his fellow team leaders as his men got up on top of the building above their target building.

"Roger, our unknown bird is chirping right now, location is confirmed," his opposite number replied, watching over the shoulder of his radio operator.

"They're within ten meters of the center of that roof," Black told his team of six operators, "I'll take a peek and see what we're looking at, stay here and cover me."

Major Black had made his name as a solo recon scout, surviving in incredibly difficult terrain, thriving while undercover, and accomplishing the mission despite inherent risks of being tasked for such training. Colonial operators received such training as standard once they reached the Special Purpose Unit, and even amongst all twelve colonies there were startlingly few men, numbering barely a thousand, who were active in this classified detachment. So him moving ahead alone was not an unusual move, at least to him. He shimmied his way down a drain, landing on the roof of the building below him a floor and then made his way forward, right hand inside his cloak on the pistol grip of his rifle. Black knew this would look strange to walk quickly, so he made his way slowly, moving in a relaxed manner as if he were just looking around and enjoying a stroll above the street in private.

However, as he was about to reach the door into the stairs of the building he bumped into something. It was solid, unmoving, and sounded metallic. But nothing was in front of him, at least nothing he could see. Looking back at his team who were watching from behind and above with piqued interest Major Black lifted his hand and knocked on this invisible wall, receiving a solid metallic sound in return. Being very intrigued by now he started feeling around, and then, there was a sound, like a hissing door opening with sharp slide and then banging into place. This immediately caused him to back away, just in time to see two men wearing metal armor holding odd-looking snake-like pistols rush out facing him with weapons aimed. Both appeared to be roughly Black's age, and had odd tattoos on their foreheads. These were Jaffa, Tyry had given them a description, as did his kids, and as did Kelsey Adama in her debrief when describing what was described to her.

"What are you doing here Human?" one of them demanded of him.

"Just…taking a stroll," Black said, lifting his carefully, "Why? Am I interrupting something?"

"Leave this place, and speak of this to no one," the second Jaffa demanded with cold dangerous tone evident immediately.

"Oh? And uh…why would I stay silent about an invisible wall and two…Jaffa?" he asked, not sure of course if he was right, but played it off as well as he would any other bluff. He was now leaning back, acting like he was expecting something, a bribe, remembering the role that corruption seemed to play here in buying silence.

"You expect payment?" one of them said quickly, smirking at the human and reached to a bag he had on his belt, fiddling around with it, allowing Black to draw slightly closer but then the Jaffa pretended to remember something, "Wait…there are other ways to insure silence."

He smiled and then lifted his hand with the strange weapon. Major Black reacted instinctively to the threat, knowing that his team was keeping low, out of sight, avoiding a threat to their cover. The threat was his to deal with, and deal with it he did. The Jaffa bringing his weapon up at the Colonial was to his left with his weapon in his right hand to Black's far left. His move was swift and decisive. Grabbing the Jaffa by his wrist with right hand he spun around, picking up speed and momentum, and drove the back of his left elbow into the nose of the Jaffa warrior with a crack which broke his nose and staggered the Jaffa backwards onto the ground. The second Jaffa was already trying to back away and lift his weapon back up but Black had his own assault rifle up and pointed from the hip. His three-round burst couldn't have missed and his shots landed with a handful of sparks that blasted the Jaffa backwards onto the ground, where his boots seemed to just materialize. Taking this in for a split second the major turned around as he heard the shuffle of the other Jaffa lifting himself back up but heard the sudden popping of his men's suppressed weapons like his own and saw the Jaffa crumple forward.

"On me!" Black snapped down to him as his men began to scramble to join him, everyone throwing off their cloaks and rushing with weapons raised and took up a full three-hundred sixty degree security posture as they stacked up behind him.

With a quick breath the major stepped through the area he saw the body of the Jaffa just poking through the cloaking field and saw a golden and richly decorated interior. There was no one else present as the Colonials quickly swept in, securing the ornate vessel, a Tel'tak Cargo Ship. However something appeared missing, even to their uninformed eyes.

"Sir, no way this is what our scanner picked up," his team NCO noted quickly, "As cool as this…all is…" he motioned around them.

"Agreed, someone else is here, get those bodies hidden, cover the blood with gravel or something, hide the evidence and take your section and get back onto the roof, Jules, with me, we're staying here to wait for their buddies. This time, we take them alive."