Been a while I know, but life has this funny habit of getting in the way of stuff I like to do, so yeah. Anyway, this chapter took me a while because I knew this was going to be difficult to figure out a way to do what is about to happen.

Chapter 24

Location: P5Y-464

Date: May 11, 2022

Time: 0500

Colonel Albert Reynolds was there, his last off-world mission. It was official, the offer letter from General O'Neill had come in, and he was going to accept it. The old Marine was the wise old man amongst the SG Team leaders who remained and was easily the most senior. In fact the SGC was technically his to command when Brigadier General Carter wasn't present, leading to SG-3 being more of a mentoring and training team now. Bosco, Peterson, and Blake were by now rank-capped, all three being some elite NCO's in the SGC's elite teams. They were known as some serious operators and go-get-'em Marines, being the most Marine Marines that could have been chosen to form the USMC's premier representatives to the SGC. Each was approaching his respective mandatory off-world age cap, and Reynolds anticipated taking them with him to the Delta Site to assist in training the next generation of SG Team members. But they'd begged and pleaded Colonel Reynolds for one last real mission before being sent to the SGC Pasture, a.k.a. the training pipeline as instructors. So, Carter had relented, tasking the old reliable war horses of SG-3 to assist the brand-new SG-40, a team fresh from the training pipeline who hailed from Chile, hand-picked operators chosen from a pool of candidates from the Lautaro Special Operations Brigade whose experience working against cartels in Chile's far north was without reproach.

It was a fairly non-standard mission compared to what SG Teams had done in the past, but SG-40's members' own past expertise in this particular mission type was noted as quite useful. Plus, it was also their turn. The Chileans had yet to work with the Jaffa, which was a requirement of all SG Teams in order to be considered fully rounded as off-world operators, and they were excellent covert recon operators. It turned out that the Marines in SG-3 had found kindred spirits within the Chileans who all wore the same MARPAT uniforms and same plate carriers that SG-3 favored in keeping to their Marine Corps roots. The group had been informed then of what their mission was to be.

The two SG Teams were slated to provide technical assistance to the Free Jaffa in scoping out the suspected terrorist cell which was believed responsible for the deadly bombing on Chulak. Teal'c had opted to take Carter up on her offer of assistance and advisement on this counter-terrorist mission the Free Jaffa Chancellor was set upon accomplishing. So, the eight Taur'i had hitched a ride aboard the Gemini and had been dropped off and rendezvoused with a Jaffa spotter team of six warriors who had a single Tel'tak cargo ship cloaked on a roof a respectful distance from their target building. Reynolds had to admit, the Jaffa here knew most of what they were doing, they just lacked some of the finer technical skills and some of the equipment required for such a mission. The Free Jaffa had quite the human intelligence network here, the gears and tongues of this system of informants lubricated by the copious application of gold and silver and by never once mentioning who they were and why they were asking. The four Jaffa that Reynolds was hanging out with in a purchased apartment across the street from their target building were even competent enough to have figured out that they could use personal energy shields from Goa'uld hand devices turned on at the windows to protect against a possible sniper attack while they had Tak energy weapons aimed at the door linked to a Goa'uld scanning device which would allow them to fire upon anyone who didn't possess a certain kind of control crystal.

The two Earth teams knew that their assignment was sure to be a sensitive one, and knew better than to go getting into trouble. The SGC didn't have much in the way of SG Teams to spare at the moment while the Fleet was set up in defensive stance with most of their ships staying in orbit of Earth itself or setting up sensor outposts in the outer edge of the galaxy to try to catch sight of the Wraith. The Jaffa however maintained three Ha'tak in orbit of this planet with them conducting routine scans of the planet's surface and acting as communication relay to Dakara. So, this was to be one interesting final mission.

"Sierra Gulf Four Zero, Sierra Gulf Three Actual, looks like we've got some activity at the target building," Reynolds said as he tapped the earpiece he wore as he saw some movement through the laptop screen he was looking at which was fed by a high-def surveillance camera up at the window.

"SG-3, roger," the major leading SG-40 responded with a whisper, the four-man team being at another building across the road with two Jaffa.

"Okay…let's what we're looking at here this time," Reynolds mumbled to himself as he hit the scroll wheel on the mouse, zooming in carefully and squinted at what he was seeing, "SG-40, swing your camera onto the alley, see if you can get confirmation on this visual I'm getting."

"What is it sir?"

"Our little friends there are…speaking to someone new, they ain't the usual primitives and they're not locals."

Reynolds' team came up to him to see what he was talking about. On the screen he was looking at they could see four men, two of them known insurgents according to the Jaffa, while two more were wearing innocuous gray cloaks that didn't hide their feet, which sported dark sneaker-like boots, the kind worn by special forces. They weren't able to see their faces, or their fronts for that matter, so Reynolds wasn't able to get that good of a look. But one thing was for certain, they were no locals and they were not likely to be the insurgents themselves.

"Possibly that group that they brought back from the Stargate?" Lance Corporal Powers said as he came up behind with a hand holding a cup with some coffee.

"Probably, we know these guys have at least a few modern-ish looking weapons, could be a supplier, black market or some random human government trying to destabilize the Free Jaffa government," Major Baker said from next to the senior NCO with their team sergeant likewise holding a cup of coffee.

"Sierra Golf-3, Sierra Golf-40 Actual, we have eyes on the target, these people are good, no definitive eyes. They look like they're trying to keep themselves hidden from outside surveillance. We've seen this tactic before. Narcos used it all the time, kept us from pinning a face to a wanted poster, and we use it as well to keep hitmen from trying to track our families."

"Think we're looking at something similar?" Reynolds asked, "Some sort of arms smugglers?"

"Unsure, it could be special forces, like a human government's version of your Green Berets, specialists in assisting insurgencies. From what the briefing said this group has at least some form of high-profile support to last as long as they had and to hit as hard as they do," the experienced Chilean officer responded in kind, leaning on his own extensive experience.

"Better see if this matches with the Jaffa's intel, then, Sormac, this is Reynolds, come in," he radioed to the Jaffa station leader who had gone up to their cloaked transport ship on the roof, but received no response, "Oh you better not be asleep. Sormac, come in, Sormac, do you copy?"

"He didn't leave, we would've heard the ship take off," Baker noted.

"I know," Reynolds said as he then reached over to his new weapon, his HK416 with his usual mix of M320 grenade launcher and 100-round drum magazine but with an added EoTech sight and a suppressor, "Sierra Golf-40, Sierra Golf-3 Actual, we're heading to the roof to check on the Jaffa. We're not getting any response, standby to assist us and pop off a Code Red to Phoenix and standby for a Code Black in case we take contact."

"Roger, popping a Code Red, standing by."

Everyone else had a similar loadout, Baker also having a grenade launcher while Powers had an HK417 with a suppressor and a scope plus a bipod and acting as the team marksman. The group was an excellent example of the old style of SG Teams at their best, but this old style was about meet with the reason for the SGC moving on from the four-man team setup. Leaving through the door the four marines carefully maneuvered up the stairwell, thankfully encountering no one as they did so. The team then arrived at the door, careful to pull their cloaks back up over their uniforms so that no one would see the easily-recognized Taur'i running around, instead making it look like locals.

"SG-40, SG-3 Actual, we're at the roof, about to exit," Reynolds advised quietly on the radio.

"SG-3, SG-40 Actual, we're on our way to street level, be there in a couple minutes, we contacted the Jaffa Ha'tak in orbit, they're on standby to provide aerial support if we come under fire."

"The Jaffa are likely to just level half a block," Baker noted to Reynolds, who just nodded in agreement.

"Hopefully we won't need 'em, SG-40, we're gonna move onto the roof, standby. On me."

Reynolds then pushed the door open decisively, raising his rifle to a ready state, and moved rapidly to where he knew the cloaked cargo ship's door was located and started to move along the roof, and noticed the ground, a few drops of blood. It wasn't water, the weather was dark and dreary, but the rain hadn't come in a few hours so this area was still relatively dry making these drops of blood fairly fresh. He pointed down at them and made a movement with his hand to enter the cargo ship and did so, right to the cockpit as he remembered it. But upon entering he was raising his weapon as a canister-shaped object was tossed in at his feet and a terrific bang drowned out all sensory inputs except a white flash blinding him and a ringing in his ears utterly incapacitating the marine officer. His instincts told him what to do though, he'd seen where the flash had come from and disciplined instinct stemming from countless react-to-contact drills ordered him to raise his weapon and fire, ducking for cover as he tried to get out of the doorway's fatal funnel.

He never heard his own suppressed gunshots, nor did he hear the shots that returned at him, but he did feel them punch into his body, the force of the impacts slamming into his vest's heavy plates withstood the heavy force of the armor-piercing rounds but transmitted them into Reynolds's chest, knocking the wind out of him and knocking him off balance. Falling against the bulkhead of the craft to his left Reynolds was hit several more times, almost with ruthless efficiency, but the trinium-backed ballistic plate held, as he lost count at a dozen shots to the chest but his plate didn't cover everything. Three bullets struck his left arm and one shattered his rifle, sending shrapnel into both hands while he sustained two wounds to his left shoulder and another to his right thigh while two rounds snuck into his hip and one to the thigh. One bullet struck his forearm which had his brand-new Mk. III GDO on it, shattering the device.

But in doing so the destruction of Reynolds' GDO, a new variant that had the look of a MICRODAGR but with the same subspace communication functionality as the iPhone look-alike which the civilians carried. And like the civilian model it had a looping safe signal, which, if destroyed or interrupted, would set off a Code Black back on Earth, necessitating an immediate military response from Stargate Command and the rest of Homeworld Defense. With this device on his wrist destroyed, Reynolds didn't need to call for help, it would be on its way on its own.

As his vision finally cleared Reynolds got a look at what had happened, two figures in black stood in front of him, carrying kitted out assault rifles like his. Baker was laying on the ground to his right, laying still just like Powers who lay just next to Reynolds, slowly coughing up blood. Peterson had made it the least into the cargo ship, having been hit from behind if the torn up back of his cloak he wore was any indication, and he had been hit in both legs pretty badly, and was not moving. SG-3 had not gone out quietly, brass shell casings were everywhere around his team members, and there were bits and pieces of the gold ornate panels shattered everywhere and his opponents walked on the jagged metal laid across the ground along with their own casings. One of them was visibly limping, his calf glistening with blood while he wore a pained grimace on his face while holding his suppressed rifle onto Baker. Two others were also on the ground, trying to apply tourniquets to their legs.

"All teams, be advised, four contacts down, three times friendly wounded," Major Black said on his radio to his fellow teammates.

"Police those weapons and comms," one the Colonial special forces ordered tersely as the SG Team's firearms were removed and then their radios likewise taken out of their reach, but none were in a position to resist.

"Frak…get down here and get triage going," Black said to the rest of his men outside the cloaked ship as they'd now secured their opponents and now took in their weapons and equipment, he hadn't wanted to shoot these guys. But they had come in hot and fast with weapons raised and the rules of contact he had stipulated that he attempt to use the flash to disorient and make a potential neutralization of the threat possible without engaging while, above all else, keeping his team safe. He had only a few seconds to make the call, and so he made it.

"These aren't Jaffa sir," one of the men noted to the Colonial officer as the worst-off of Reynolds's team was gently rolled over and two of his men began feel around, locating the tourniquets which all of the SG Team wore on their appendages and began to sinch them down tightly to stem the bleeding as best they could.

"No, it's worse than that, it's an Earth team," Black said as he kneeled down next to Reynolds who was still leaning against the wall, trying to stay conscious but was fading.

"Who…who are you?" Reynolds wheezed out, trying to focus his eyes, knowing that he and his team had run across someone very, very different this time.

"Someone who didn't mean for this to happen," Black sighed as he began working on Reynolds.

"Why did you engage my team?" Reynolds growled, laying his hand onto one of his leg wounds, the one he knew to be the most dangerous and applied pressure while a tourniquet was applied, the two senior military men, despite being from different worlds and armed forces, knowing what advanced medical aid needed to happen here. Other Colonial operators now entered, careful to keep as much of their uniforms hidden as possible. They wasted little time getting to work so that each of Reynolds's team now had someone conducting medical assistance to them.

"We needed answers, this was the option that provided the least risk for my team as I saw it but allowed us to fulfill our mission objectives. Sometimes you have to roll the hard six. What about you? What's Earth doing stalking a group of their fellow humans with the Jaffa?"

As the man continued to try to stem the bleeding, moving quickly, Reynolds' eyes were losing focus, the breathing became shallow and weak and his head began drooping. Major Black saw this, and shook him by the shoulder, trying to keep the wounded officer talking and conscious.

"Hey, come on, stay with me," Black said as he tried to apply packing bandages as two of his men came over and saw how bad the situation was, unzipping their medical kit.

But as one was pulling on his gloves Black saw that it may not matter, reaching out to the man's neck to feel for a pulse. It was gone.

"No pulse," he stated with a sudden sharp seriousness.

"Get him down, get the plate off and start CPR," one of the Colonial sergeants said rapidly.

It happened rapidly, Reynolds being laid down onto his back while his plate carrier was cut off. He let his two more-accomplished medics get to work, cutting off Reynolds's uniform, as one began to use hard compressions to try to get his heart going while his other used a hand respirator to start pumping air into the lungs. Black however, noticed something.

Their bullets had every reason to have punched at least some major back-side deformations into the plate carriers that the Earth team was using. But here, he noted that there wasn't anything of the sort present on the plate, which he saw had taken very little visible damage. Using a small folding knife he kneeled down and cut a hole to extract this odd piece of protective equipment, and examined it. Sure enough, an olive green-painted metal plate with military markings was in his hands. The bullet marks had merely scoured away the paint on the plate, leaving a shimmering metal polish underneath which showed no signs of machining, it had been cast into this state and was very light compared to his own protective chest rig. Realizing something, Black turned to his other men, knowing that something important was in their hands.

"Get those chest rigs off, scavenge anything and everything," Black ordered sternly, and kneeled down next to Reynolds, and removed the device strapped to his left wrist which had a series of buttons and a second digital device with a bullet having been shot through, but possibly of value.

The other members of SG-3 had the same treatment done, with radios, GDO's, and other electronic gear being policed and gathered as well as their weapons, ammo, grenades, and two Zats. They had just finished removing the final piece of gear SG-3 possessed when there was a sudden bright light that appeared to envelop the four, and then zipped them away into thin air. It was a realization that Earth's reach was far greater than he'd realized that made Black note something to himself as his men stood up in confusion and slight panic. Meanwhile, Tyry walked in, led into the cloaked ship by two of his men and followed by two more, each was holding a short submachine gun with a long stick magazine and wooden stocks or a long rifle.

"What happened?" Tyry asked as he looked at the ground littered with shell casings, bandages, and puddles of blood smeared and streaked with bootprints across the polished floor of the cloaked cargo ship.

"Came across two Jaffa, they were with an Earth team. I suspect that you and your people were under surveillance."

"I thought we might be, where's the Taur'i?"

"They're gone," Major Black stated firmly, "Vanished in a flash of white light."

"If this is true we need to go, now," Tyry said as his eyes and those of his men went wide and he looked around, "They'll probably send a bomb to the last coordinate, to destroy this ship so it is not taken into our own use. Lucky for you…" Tyry said as he sat at the controls and reached out to grasp the odd red glass control device, "I can fly this."

"This…this is a ship?" Major Black asked immediately, his interest spiking instantly alongside his men.

"Yes, a Gou'ald cargo ship, almost all have a cloak of some kind. It is among the few things that the Taur'i supposedly cannot detect with their sensors. At least…that's what I remember from my time in the Ori Army. I learned to fly one during the war for covert interplanetary travel, so I know how to stay low with one of these," he said and walked over to a panel on the wall behind the cockpit and opened it, revealing a tray of crystals in the wall and removed one of them before flipping it back into place. He then sat into the pilot's seat and powered the vessel up, and the door closed and the ship hummed to life, "I'll take us to our safehouse roof on minimal power just to be safe. Shouldn't be an issue, right?"

"And then what? You've just had your safehouse blown, if what you're saying about Earth being in league with the Jaffa is right then retaliation is sure to follow. You gotta get the frak out of here so that these people don't suffer for it," Black told him as the ship hovered up and slowly crept across the wide street.

He knew that safeguarding civilian life was priority number one for his government, no matter who it was. The Twelve Colonies were no strangers to suffering collateral damage to their own populace during the Cylon War it had galvanized their people in ways which could scarcely be quantified or even put to words. It had made them a formidable enemy to the Cylon menace. But beyond that, the Colonial people remembered all-too-well the suffering and hardship this presented to their people. And there lay the most important facet to Colonial soldiers and officers which Major Black meant to embody to this man. If he ignored it, then he knew that his government and people would never accept siding with him.

"I know, and it'll take time, we can't just pick up and leave. If we don't do it deliberately then the Jaffa will track us down, as sure as the sun rises. And with their blood being spilled here, you can bet that Taur'i vengeance will follow with them. You have now seen to that. But there is a way we can both come out of this without harm to this place and its population and get what we both need."

Black knew where the man was going with this. It was obvious, he was asking for asylum. This was where his judgement would be put to the test. The Twelve Colonies had no shortage of moments in their histories when they had to make a hard decision to further the interests of their people. Some of those moments were morally objectionable, many were dangerous. This moment was one such decision. Here, he had several items which could assist his people in developing technology that could help protect them and further Colonial interests. But he also had a massive security risk and potential liability in the form of this man Tyry. He had to make a decision, and made it.

"You know where our system is, my second in command will go with you. The rest of my men will take your people through the ring and you will be granted asylum, temporarily. That is until you can find a new place to hole up."

The Colonials had now chosen a side.

Stargate Command, Earth

"What's going on?" Carter asked as she walked out of the elevator, returning to work after an urgent call-up from her technical third-in-command, Dr. Lee.

"We uh…got a Code Red from Colonel Reynolds, they were helping the Jaffa with observations and said that they'd lost communications with the Jaffa team in their cloaked cargo ship and were investigating. The Phoenix, as had already been arranged, was on standby and jumped to hyperspace. But…" Dr. Lee said and looked down, emotional as he adjusted his glasses and waited for the two to be as alone as they could be in this corridor of the SGC.

"Bill?" Carter asked, having a bad feeling about all this.

"They came out of hyperspace to a Code Black, two of their subspace status devices were not transmitting and Colonel Reynolds was not responding to SG-40's radio calls. The Phoenix located SG-3's transponders, and beamed them out. But it was too late."

"Too late?"

"Colonel Reynolds…and the rest of SG-3 were declared KIA by the Phoenix's medical staff. They're saying that it appears to be bullet wounds."

"And SG-40?" Carter asked immediately.

"I uh…had the Phoenix evacuate them and the Jaffa that they were with, just in case they were compromised. The Jaffa Ha'tak in orbit said that they were unable to establish lock on the cargo ship's ring platform, it was likely disabled," Dr. Lee nodded, being smart enough to know this was about all he could have done, "I also sent a message to Teal'c. He said and he'll contact us after he consults with his commanders in the area to see if there was something that could help figure out what happened."

"Okay, I'll need to call General O'Neill and we'll need to alert all of our offworld teams and installations," she said as she now straightened her back and tried to maintain her composure.

Colonel Reynolds had been her senior, albeit he had not been promoted ahead of her nor chosen for the role of commanding the SGC despite being Landry's technical second-in-command. She felt a pang of guilt that if he had been chosen then he would still be alive. This was not a productive train of thought for the battle-hardened Carter, she would not allow herself to dwell. A time for mourning would occur, but the SGC had a job to do. Their fallen demanded it, just as they always had.

Walking into her office Carter sat down, and steadied herself for the first call of this kind she had made as the SGC's commander, and knew that there would be others in the coming years. The phone felt like it took forever to dial. For her, when O'Neill picked up, it was just as hard to know she was breaking some really bad news.

"O'Neill," her boss greeted her.

"Sir, it's Carter…I'm sure you got word already on Reynolds's Code Red and Code Black alert but…we have an update, Colonel Reynolds and SG-3 have been declared KIA, the Phoenix managed to arrive and get them beamed aboard along with SG-40, but…their wounds were too great for the medical crew to save them. Two Jaffa were also declared MIA, likely…KIA as well. Teal'c is being informed, I'm requesting he come over as soon as possible to help coordinate the investigation."

There was silence on the other end of the line, and she knew that O'Neill was digesting this news carefully. Reynolds was a close colleague and to an extent he was a friend.

"Get SG-40 back to the SGC and debriefed immediately and recover all surveillance files from the teams' stakeout from the planet. I want to know what happened to those Marines," O'Neill replied with a degree of authority she rarely saw or heard, "Has the IOA been informed?"

"No sir, not yet," Carter replied.

"Copy that, I'll handle up on that, alert all off-world personnel and update all ships. As of now, the SGC's on a manhunt. I'll try to get the IOA to clear us to recall six teams to your command. What do we know so far?"

"Reynolds was with SG-40 trying to help the Jaffa monitor a possible insurgent cell that was suspected to be responsible for the bombing on Dakara. His reports indicated a definite armed presence of humans not from the local population. Yesterday they received visitors, a couple dozen individuals, he never got definitive eyes on face or weapons but stated that they were possibly military. SG-40 confirmed that theory with their own observations shortly before the Jaffas' cloaked cargo ship went silent and Reynolds sounded a Code Red and investigated. Shortly after that, a Code Black was sounded, SG-40 went to respond along with four Jaffa but were unable to get there. Local military was already on site and the Phoenix was on-station immediately afterwards, SG-40 reported that they heard the cargo ship lifting off before they were extracted, it's probably gone by now, the Jaffa attempted to lock on with a ring platform but got nothing, and as you know sir even our Asgard sensors can't detect a cloaked cargo ship when it doesn't want to be found."

"So we have a cloaked cargo ship in the hands of known hostiles with the blood of SG-3 and Jaffa on their hands," O'Neill sighed, "And we have Wraith bearing down on the Milky Way in the next couple months, yep, just another day in the office. Get those files combed over, asap. And let me know when Teal'c gets there."

"Yes sir."