Robotech: The Stargate Saga

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own demented author amusement – sadly all Robotech and Stargate characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold and MGM respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.

Chapter Forty-Two

Ancient Destroyer Aurelius

Two Hours Later

Captain Rick Hunter would, if asked, admit to feeling quite pleased with himself as he passed through the docking umbilical airlock and began making his way through the corridors of the Aurelius towards the bridge. The idea he had floated with Admiral Gloval to use this mission to recover Vince and free him from that thing controlling him as a chance to reach out to the Jaffa Resistance had paid greater dividends than he had expected. The current leader of the Jaffa Resistance a former First Prime – which if he understood it was the Jaffa equivalent of a very high ranked general or a Zentraedi High Warlord like Breetai – of Apophis called Bra'tac had been quite interested in working with them and possibly looking at a full alliance further down the road. He did suspect however that part of Bra'tac's willingness to work with them came down to their growing alliance with the Asgard. Not to mention the fact that they, or rather there Zentraedi allies, had shown at the Battle of Elysium that they were no friends of the Goa'uld.

As a gesture of cooperation with them Bra'tac had provided them with the full specifications of the industrial complex on Orisa. Apparently, the chief resistance agent on the planet, Moroc, was very highly ranked in the defensive garrison – only behind Marnor the First Prime of Tharos – and gained full access to the base schematics and security arrangements including the positioning of force fields and automated antipersonnel weapons. With them the squad of STORM Commandoes that had already been loaded aboard the Aurelius would be able to infiltrate the complex and, with the aid of Moroc and another Jaffa sympathiser, take control of key areas of the facility as well as capture Tharos. The Tok'ra had already provided them with a drug that they could administer that would put Tharos and his host to sleep for three or four hours.

Which would be plenty of time to get Vince out of there and into a stasis chamber on the Aurelius until he could be turned over to either the Tok'ra or the Asgard so they could remove Tharos from his body. The only thing that Bra'tac had asked in exchange, well beyond handing over one of the two landed Nar'kesh frigates docked at the base as well as supplies, for their help was that Jar'un be allowed to accompany them back to the Jaffa resistance base for debriefing after the mission. Somewhat to Rick's surprise the Defence Council had agreed to that request. He could only assume that they had done so because there was a much tighter timeframe in play now, that the window of opportunity that they had to nab Tharos/Vince without too much difficulty was now much smaller than anyone would have liked.

The reason being that the Goa'uld equivalent of an emperor the Supreme System Lord Ra had intervened in the conflict between Ba'al and the Asgard. While such an intervention was bound to happen eventually, after all there was no way that Ra would ignore such a massive retaliatory attack on Ba'al by the Asgard Fleet for long, they had all assumed that they would have more time. That Ra, distracted by the ongoing war with Sokar, wouldn't be in a position to respond so quickly and decisively. The fact that he had well it had taken everyone from the Asgard to the Tok'ra by surprise. Ba'al had been detained by Ra and was being punished for nearly starting another war with the Asgard and as part of that punishment – well before Ba'al was allowed the mercy of a final death – was Ra would personally dismember Ba'al's domain reassigning worlds and territories to other Goa'uld from his faction of the civil war. Since Orisa was now essentially in Ba'al's territory it was only a matter of time before Ra went to Orisa to both reassign it and to acquire Tharos for his service given that Tharos had already applied some of Vince's practical knowledge of robotechnology to improving Goa'uld weaponry. Which would make Tharos a valuable and high priority prize to acquire.

Meaning it was now essentially a race between them and Ra over who got to Orisa, and Tharos, first. A race that Rick was determined to win as he was not about to let his future brother-in-law remain as he was, a prisoner in his own body, any longer. As it was Vince had been a slave to Tharos for over a month, something that was bound to be extremely traumatic as they knew from Sergeant Reed's experience with Charon that the host of a Goa'uld was fully aware of what was happening to them, what the vile megalomaniacal parasite was doing with their body but could do nothing but watch from the deepest part of their mind. It was a hellish existence and a fate that he wouldn't wish on anyone not even his own worst enemy.

Arriving on the bridge brought him out of those thoughts. Unlike the last few times he had been here the bridge was now fully manned, with four of the five stations being manned with the fifth – which he knew to be the first officers' station – being unmanned as his default XO was currently standing over by the navigation/helm station at the front of the bridge overseeing the helmsman as he finished plotting their course to Orisa. After a moment, seeming satisfied she turned away and blinked in surprise when she saw he'd come onto the bridge.

"Everything all set Vanessa," Rick asked with a smile, even as he noted the new rank insignia on the uniform of Vanessa Leeds marking her down as a full commander. He had been beyond surprised to find out that Vanessa had the gene though it was something of a relief that Kim and Sammie didn't as he didn't know how he would manage with the original SDF-1 bridge bunnies – also known as the terrible trio – all here on the ship. He knew after all what they could be like, he'd heard enough horror stories from both Lisa and Claudia about them to know that it would have certainly been enough to turn him grey decades early.

"Everything is all set Rick," Vanessa confirmed, still a little amazed at her sudden promotion though very uneasy about being without Sammie and Kim. The three of them had been inseparable since their days at the Robotech Academy, thus it was strange being without them all because she had a gene that they didn't. A gene that let her use the technology on this ship by accessing its data stream via a neural interface, something that was downright amazing to use. "I wish we had more time to get everyone used to the ship, the interface and working together though."

Rick nodded as he made his way to the command chair and sat down. Immediately the data stream interface unfolded in his mind with a systems status display showing that all systems were indeed fully operational. "So do I," he admitted, "I would like a couple of weeks to get everyone used to the Aurelius but unfortunately if we're going to get Vince back, we don't have that time."

Vanessa nodded grimly in agreement she knew how much what had happened to Vince – how he had been taken as a host by a Goa'uld due to the action of an AUL mole – had caused by Claudia and Jean no end of worry and heartbreak. While Roy's sudden return from the dead had distracted Claudia somewhat it hadn't made her worry or fear for her little brother go away, especially given she knew that he would be a prisoner in his own body unable to do anything against the thing controlling him.

"We're going to get him, aren't we?" she asked seeking some reassurance.

"We'll give it a damned good go though it is a race between us and Ra who gets there first," Rick answered, "so let's get a move on are all stations and systems secure for departure?"

"They are," Vanessa confirmed moving to the first officers' station and sitting down, feeling the interface activate for her as well. This is so going to take some getting used to, she thought. While she knew Rick could have found out what he wanted to know from the ship it was nice that he thought to ask. "We can leave as soon as you're ready."

"Alright then let's get this show on the road. Communications request permission to depart as well as a flight vector out of Earth-Luna orbit."

"Aye sir," the communications officer acknowledged. Through his interface with the data stream Rick observed one of the comm arrays come to life and direct a signal at the station. After a few moments a signal came back. "Sir we have been given clearance. A flight vector is being transmitted to us now."

"I have it sir," the helmsman said, "once we're clear of the moon we can jump into hyperspace."

"Understood. Alright disengage all moorings and seal airlocks. Take us out," Rick ordered. "As soon as we're clear of the moon take us into hyperspace."

"Aye sir. Docking clamps released, umbilical's retracting, external airlock doors closing and sealing."

Rick nodded as he could 'see' it so to speak in the data stream. For a few moments the Aurelius floated free next to the imposing bulk of the Robotech Factory Satellite. Then the main gravitic ion sublight engines came to life and the ship began to move. Gravitic pulse thrusters manipulated the drive field bringing the ship around onto their prescribed vector out of Earth orbit and to just past the moon.

The sublight engines increased to full power and the ten thousand year old warship, which somewhat ironically was one of the most powerful military ships currently in Sol, accelerated rapidly towards open space. Moving through the fleet of Zentraedi warships sitting protectively around both Earth and the factory satellite, closing rapidly upon the airless mass of Earth's only natural satellite.

Then they were moving past the moon and into open space. Rick immediately became aware that power from the main gravitic reactors to the hyperspace drive increased, instantly bringing it online. A thrum of power – that was more felt than heard by the entire crew – ran through the ship a moment before the aquamarine vortex of a hyperspace window burst into existence in front of them. Hang on Vince we're coming, Rick thought as the Aurelius entered the window and vanished into subspace on her way to Orisa.

Fifteen Minutes Later

"Captain we are crossing into the target system."

Still sitting in the command chair Rick nodded, having experienced how quick and powerful the hyperspace drives of this ship were before he wasn't surprised that they had crossed the sixty-thousand light years between Sol and Orisa in such a short space of time. While it was a vast distance it was nothing really compared to what the drives on this ship – made as they were to be able to cross between galaxies in hours or at most days – were capable of. Which was incredible when you thought about it, oh not that it was possible to cross between galaxies as even fold drives could do that but that it could be done so fast. Certainly, much faster, and easier, than such an intergalactic voyage would be using a fold system.

A thought command to the data stream caused an image of their current position and projected course to appear inside his head. They were rapidly closing on the inner system and Orisa which was the third planet out from the systems bright F-type star. Sensors confirmed that there were a number of Goa'uld ships in orbit though they appeared to be fewer in number than what had been reported earlier by the Tok'ra Kigash. Which really wasn't surprising as ships had no doubt been pulled away to confront the Asgard – and while the Asgard offensive against Ba'al's domain had now ended, due to Ra directly intervening and negotiating an end to it with the Asgard – and would take time to return. If they hadn't been blown out of the sky by Asgardian particle beams that was.

Still, he would rather avoid a fight with them, even though the Aurelius between her drones and advanced energy weapons – that put most robotech weapons that weren't the reflex cannon to shame when it came to sheer destructive power - had more than enough firepower to destroy the fleet. Successfully capturing Tharos – so they could get Vince back – would require them to do this quietly. Turning a few Goa'uld warships into plumes of plasma and dust – while it would be satisfying given all the fear and pain those ships brought to so many worlds across the galaxy and had done for thousands of years – would thus be quite counterproductive to that goal.

Though of course, he reserved the right to decloak, and blow said ships to pieces if things went FUBAR.

"Drop us out of hyperspace behind the fourth planet," he ordered after a moment of considering what to do, "we'll then engage the cloaking device and approach Orisa at maximum sublight."

"Aye sir," the helmsman acknowledged before giving a mental command of his own to the navigational controls causing the ship to change her course slightly to come out of hyperspace earlier and with the fourth planet between them and Orisa. A moment later a change in the ship status readings in the stream told Rick that the hyperdrive was beginning to throttle down. Beyond the bridge viewports the glowing blue tunnel of hyperspace flashed brightly and evaporated as the ship transited a window back into normal space, advanced subspace anchoring technology built into the drive ensuring that they didn't have to fight against the phenomenon of hyperspace inertia and instead came to a full stop almost instantly.

The stream changed again as the cloaking device powered up and activated creating a field around the ship that moved the ship and everyone onboard slightly out of phase with normal space-time. Then the main gravitic ion sublight engines came on again and the Aurelius began moving out from behind the fourth planet – a world about twice Earth's mass and covered with dense clouds of carbon dioxide, water vapour and methane – towards the verdant world of Orisa.

"Cloaking devices stable all systems normal," operations reported.

"ETA to Orisa orbit five minutes," the helmsman added.

"Understood. Vanessa inform the landing party that we are five minutes from orbit and that they are to board the assault shuttle. Knowing Max, it will already be primed and ready for launch."

"On it," Vanessa answered before starting to both manipulate the crystalline controls – producing all sorts of crystalline bleeps and chimes – and her station data stream interface to carry out the task. Man, this is a hell of a lot easier to use than my old console on the SDF-1, she thought as the connection to the ships data stream made doing everything she wanted or needed to do so much quicker and easier. She really hoped they reverse engineered this technology quite quickly as it would give them a huge advantage considering some of the threats that they now knew were out there from the Goa'uld to the Robotech Masters and who knew what else.

After a few moments she had a report to make. "Captain Sterling reports that the assault shuttle is powered and ready to launch," she reported after a moment. "Colonel Lorne is reporting that his STORM Commando unit is boarding right now. They'll be ready to launch within four minutes."

"Excellent. Let's take advantage of those four minutes and give our people a bit of a boost shall we," Rick said with a slight smirk. "Sensors scan the Goa'uld facility on the surface and all areas immediately around it. Copy the results to the assault shuttle."

"Aye sir."

As the sensor officer got to work Rick relaxed slightly into both the command chair and the data stream, observing everything around him as well as everything that was going on with the Aurelius from the constant steady output of the gravitic reactors to the cloaking device to the security monitors and life sign detectors monitoring the movement of the crew around the ship as those who were on duty attended to their tasks. Unknowingly like Vanessa he hoped that they were able to reverse engineer the neural interface technology quickly and apply it to their currently in development next generation of ships and mecha. The advantages it would give them were obvious.

A change in the stream caught his attention and he looked to see the assault shuttle had remoted activated the hangar bay doors. A thought caused a combined camera/sensor feed to appear in his minds eye. He watched as the Lantean assault shuttle lifted off the hard trinium-carbon alloy deck and engaged its own cloaking device vanishing from his visual scan but not the sensors. Through the sensors he followed it as it moved across the bay – passing the handful of veritechs from Skull Squadron that were placed along one wall in guardian mode to save space since the Aurelius hadn't really been built with fighters in mind – and out through the force field and into space. Good hunting, he thought before mentally sighing and beginning what was always the longest and most nerve wrecking time of any mission.

The waiting.

Lantean Assault Shuttle

A Few Moments Earlier

Sitting at the controls of the Lantean assault shuttle, and still feeling somewhat nervous about his first flight with a spacecraft that had been built ten thousand years ago by a scarily advanced race that he was somehow related to, Max Sterling observed as Colonel Lorne and his team of STORM Commandoes filed aboard. They weren't on their own as the former Jaffa prisoner, Jar'un, clad in his full armour and carrying that ridiculous plasma staff, was with them as were two Tok'ra in the forms of Martouf and Freya. The Tok'ra were not going to miss out on a chance to raid a state-of-the-art Goa'uld industrial facility like the one on Orisa. It would let them get a more accurate look at the specs of the latest Goa'uld technologies – including the plasma beam weapons that Tharos had created – as well as show their commitment to building both an alliance with Earth and their existence alliance with the Jaffa Resistance.

While everyone was filing aboard, and the last of the equipment they were taking along was loaded aboard by bay staff, Max mentally ran through the preflight checklist. He couldn't help but be surprised by how incredibly easy this was, just thinking things or commands to the data stream and they happened, or the system told him what crystal to touch or slide, or which knob to turn, for whatever he wanted to happen. It was amazing and cool, almost as cool as the first time he had flown a Valkyrie for real and really realized that a pilot was what he had been destined to be. In moments the results of the preflight checks came back, and he wasn't surprised to find that everything was working exactly as it should be, Ancient/Lantean technology seemed to be incredibly durable and virtually idiot proof.

An alert through the stream caught his attention and when he investigated, he saw that information was being sent to the assault shuttle from the bridge. A thought brought it up and the holographic HUD activated showing a ground scan profile of the Goa'uld industrial base on the planet below. The industrial facility was located on a high, somewhat rocky plateau and was split into two distinct areas. The separation being caused by a deep gorge that bisected the plateau. On one side was the Stargate and its dialling device while on the other side was the industrial complex itself. The two were connected together with a wide stone bridge anchored to the sides of the gorge with heavy supports. Two towers on the complex side loomed over the bridge and the scan showed both towers were well armed with plasma weapons and manned by at least two Jaffa.

The entire facility was surrounded by a force field, one powerful enough to withstand quite a bit of punishment from Goa'uld cannons. Surface to orbit cannons could be seen here and there along with numerous anti-aircraft plasma repeater emplacements. Some of which appeared to be still under construction meaning that Tharos was anticipating that someone else would come for the industrial complex and was steadily turning it into a fortress.

If they hadn't known of a weak point in the perimeter from the Jaffa Resistance spy in the base, then infiltrating the facility without being detected would have been extremely difficult. As it was, they knew that the gorge was a weakness in the bases perimeter defences, specifically the outflow channels from the bases storm drains which emerged halfway down the cliff and when flowing emptied into the river nearly a hundred feet below. A narrow walkway, meant for inspection and maintenance ran alongside the culverts heading up into the base. If everything stayed to plan, then Moroc would meet the teams where the maintenance tunnel connected to the interior of the base.

"Formidable defences," Miriya abruptly said from behind him, his wife had insisted on accompanying him on the mission as while she couldn't interface with the ship like he could she could still operate some of the controls if he told the computer to let her. Which let her be his copilot on the mission. She had been supervising the loading and come into the cockpit to tell Max that they were done to see him studying scan data on a holographic HUD.

"Indeed," Max agreed with a smile, "if we were having to attack head on then they might even have been able to repel us – or just force us to destroy the base from space – but thankfully we won't have to do that."

"Indeed not," Miriya answered, "everyone and everything is aboard Max, and the hatch is sealed."

"Alright then let's get this show on the road," Max replied before giving a thought command to tell the bridge that they were ready to depart followed by a second command causing the hangar bay force field to power up before the bay doors began opening. Clearance to launch came from the bridge and he brought the anti-gravity wave generator online lifting the assault shuttle into the air, another thought command engaged the cloaking device and then he eased the slides that served as throttles forward and the shuttle began moving.

In seconds they were passing through an atmospheric containment field and out into open space. Passing through the cloaking field surrounding the Aurelius with scarcely a ripple to betray that the destroyer and them were there. Man, this cloaking tech is major cool, Max thought as he increased power to the engines and began guiding the shuttle down into the atmosphere.

"This is damned cool," he commented.

"How so," Miriya asked curious.

"Just the way this reads my mind," Max admitted, "I just need to think something, and the ship does it."

"Neural interfaces can be like that," Miriya agreed. "They are not an unknown technology to the Zentraedi, the Robotech Masters and most of the other spacefaring races like the Karbarrans, Perytonians and Spherisians have similar technology. We were just never issued it by the Masters why I don't know it would have made our jobs easier."

"Though it might have also encouraged you to think outside the box they wanted your minds in," Max pointed out, "not to mention you would have certainly started to learn exactly how the robotech systems on your ships and in your mecha worked."

"Point," Miriya agreed before checking the co-pilots instruments. "We're entering the upper atmosphere."

Max nodded but didn't reply as he had to focus now on guiding them down safely. Even for Ancient ships and shuttle atmospheric entry was a tricky process, one which would not be forgiving if you made even the slightest of mistakes or miscalculations in your angle of entry. Amazingly no plasma sheath formed around the shuttle as it descended, the cloaking field preventing it from forming and indeed preventing any sign forming to show that there was a vessel entering the atmosphere.

After a few moments they reached the lowest layer of Orisa's atmosphere and Max began guiding the shuttle towards the entrance to the gorge that they would have to fly up to reach and enter the base without being detected. It didn't take long to find it and Max grimaced slightly as he saw that the shuttle wouldn't have much clearance either side so manoeuvring would be tricky. But let it never be said that he wasn't up to a challenge. After doing the mental equivalent of rolling up his sleeves Max began flying up the gorge.

The next few minutes were somewhat nerve wrecking – even for someone who half the airwing on the SDF-1 had referred to as the snowman since he was so cool under pressure – as the gorge narrowed and broadened out at seeming random intervals, not to mention there were a couple of quite tight turns. But eventually Max reached their destination – coming to stop underneath the arch of the great stone bridge that spanned the gorge. The black holes of the drainage culvert outflow and its companion inspection tunnel were on their port side. With a few careful thruster movements – which were beyond tricky in the confined space under the bridge – Max brought them around until the embarkation ramp was in line with the inspection tunnel and got them as close to the wall as he dared.

"Nicely done," Miriya commented impressed once again by her husband's skills as a pilot. Skills that had let him defeat her, the greatest ace of the Zentraedi, every time they fought one another.

"Thanks that was tricky," Max answered even as he mentally set the antigravity wave generator to keep them stationary, "go back and tell everyone we're in position and to disembark."

Miriya nodded, stood up and left the cockpit. After a few moments the system alerted him to the combined hatch/ramp at the back of the shuttle opening. The computer automatically reconfiguring the cloaking field to maintain integrity and keep them all from being detected. He brought up both an internal and external camera feed watching calmly as his passengers carefully disembarked, all having to jump the last meter or so between the edge of the ramp and the narrow walkway cut into the rock. Once they were all across, he gave the command to close the ramp and watched as the commandoes, the Jaffa and the two Tok'ra vanished into the narrow tunnel up into the base.

Good luck and godspeed, he thought before settling back to wait and see what happened next.

Author Note: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. Next time we will have the fun of the infiltration of the industrial complex on Orisa and some other familiar SG canon characters will be making their first live – so to speak – appearance in this fic. Will they succeed in their mission to nab Tharos and get away with him or is something going to go wrong. You'll find out. Until next time.