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 Nine

Zentraedi Cruiser

Linkotis Orbit

Standing in his command blister Captain Serval blinked in a combination of surprise and outrage at the report that had just come from the main level of the bridge below. The dropship, which had been returning to the ship after picking up the Terran marines and a prisoner they'd taken, had been fired on without warning or provocation by previously unknown anti-aircraft positions. While the alien explosives were fairly primitive – well compared to modern plasma warheads anyway – they had apparently used powdered sekitan in the warhead making the detonations that bit hotter and more energetic than what such a simple explosive as trinitrotoluene would normally produce.

While unusually energetic the blasts had – according to their sensors – should not have really been a threat to the dropship. Normally they would not have been, but the alien gunners had gotten lucky in that they'd scored a direct hit on the dropships main launch thrusters. While the thrusters hadn't been destroyed it had caused an overpressure wave to ripple back through the plasma stream from the fusion turbine engine causing the engine to automatically shut down to prevent a loss of plasma containment – which would have led to the dropship blowing itself, and everybody aboard, to bits. Being only at most two thousand feet above the ground there had been no time for the flight crew to redirect the plasma flow to another port and restart the turbine letting them continue their ascent.

Instead, the only thing that they had been able to do was deploy their emergency parachutes allowing a somewhat controlled emergency landing.

"What's the status of the dropship," he asked.

"Sir the dropship has crashed back onto the surface of the planet a few hundred meters from its launch position," sensors reported, "curious we are now picking up another vessel impacting the surface a few hundred meters from the dropship."

"Another ship? Where in Zor's name did it come from?"

"Unknown sir. It's like it just appeared out of nowhere, though from the energy residual were picking up it was certainly hit by the same flack shells as our dropship."

"I see. Flight operations begin preparing to launch another dropship with a full fighter pod escort this time. We will send them down to pick up any survivors from the first dropship," Serval ordered. "Pilot move the ship down into a lower orbit. Sensors scan the surface, locate all the native's anti-aircraft guns and, if they are not too close to the crashed ships, feed those coordinates to the gunnery crews. Once the ship is in position, we will destroy the anti-aircraft positions from orbit."

"Yes sir."

As the crew began carrying out his instructions, and the ship began to move down into a slightly lower orbit of the planet so they could be a bit more precise with the upcoming bombardment, Serval considered the attack upon the dropship that had taken place a few minutes ago. He honestly couldn't understand why the natives had fired upon the dropship as to the best of his knowledge neither the dropship crew or the Terran investigation team had threatened or encountered them at all. Thus, it made no logical sense for them to fire upon the dropship. Unless they were actually firing at the other ship, he thought, and our dropship was just hit by accident by their primitive guns.

While it was a possibility, he actually doubted that was the case. Far too much fire had been directed both at the dropships position and along its ascent path for it to have been anything other than someone deliberately targeting them. While he didn't know the reason for that it at the end of the day didn't matter, they would recover the survivors from the crash – hopefully that would be everyone as he didn't fancy telling Commander Breetai or Admiral Gloval that some of either of their people had been killed – but first he would eliminate the anti-aircraft positions, and the crews manning them, that had dared to open fire.

"Captain, ground scans have located all anti-aircraft positions within conceivable firing range of any ships we send down," sensors reported. "Coordinates have been transferred to the gunnery crews."

"How many individual positions are there," Serval asked.

"Twenty-four, sir. We estimate there to be four guns at each position."

Twenty-four that's a bit excessive for such a small area, Serval thought a little incredulous as he did a little mental math and worked out that between those twenty-four positions there would be ninety-six anti-aircraft cannons. It was an almost ludicrous amount of anti-aircraft capability – albeit very primitive capability – for such a relatively small area and was obviously designed to bring any hostile aircraft down through sheer weight of fire if nothing else. "Understood," he said at last. "How long until we are in position to take them out?"

"Approximately sixty seconds sir."

"Very well inform me when we are ready. Flight operations have the recovery dropship and escort launch as soon as our laser bombardment finishes."

"Sir we are in position now. Gunnery crews report weapons configured for planetary bombardment; final targeting calibrations are complete. We await your command."

"Then by all means… fire."

On the ventral hull of the Zentraedi cruiser twenty-four particle/laser combination cannon turrets – each looking vaguely like a pair of vampire fangs bared ready to suck the blood from a victim – made their final adjustments before the generator rails crackled with energy. An instant later each cannon fired sending a bluish-white shaft of hyper-charged, compressed photons streaking down towards the surface of Linkotis.

Travelling at light speed the beams sliced into the atmosphere nearly instantaneously and powered down towards the surface. Clouds in the path of the beams simply disintegrated into nothingness as the intense energies simply boiled them away while simultaneously superheating the air around them. Hurricane force winds blasted outwards – tearing apart the normal pattern of Linkotis' Jetstream winds, starting a chain reaction that would disrupt weather patterns all over the planet, weather patterns that had only recently gotten back to somewhere near their norms after the bombardment the planet had endured at the hands of the Goa'uld – even as the beams reached and slammed into their targets.

For the Vallartan anti-aircraft gun crews there was no warning and no hope of escape, in fact none of them even realized that they were under attack as the massive shafts of energy slammed into their positions. Human bodies, and indeed anything organic within several hundred meters of the impact point, flashed to vapour instantly as they were suddenly subjected to temperatures normally only found near the heart of a star. The anti-aircraft guns themselves fared little better for in nanoseconds at most the barrels glowed first red, then white hot before melting and vaporising themselves. Munitions for the guns dissolved into their component atoms as well, being heated so quickly and thoroughly that they didn't have chance to cook off. Superheated shockwaves – much like those produced by nuclear explosions, minus the radioactive fallout – blasted outwards from the impact points obliterating the previously concealing forest for miles around and starting fires that would burn for days.

The beams vanished; their work completed. If anyone had been able to get near the impact points, they would have seen nothing but a scene of utter devastation. Where there had once been large guns, munitions stores and temporary housing for the gunnery crews there was nothing but deep craters in the ground. Craters that smouldered and steamed as though two dozen new volcanic mouths had opened on the surface of the planet. An illusion that would have been helped by the orange glow in most of them where parts of the underlying bedrock had been transmuted into sluggish lava by the intense heat of the lasers.

High above the Zentraedi cruiser briefly surveyed the destruction that its weapons had just visited upon the surface of Linkotis. The cruiser checking for any batteries that might be in range to interfere further in the mission to recover the survivors of the crashed dropship. Soon satisfied that there were none, or at very least satisfied that if any had survived that could potentially engage, they would be too intimidated by the power of robotech weaponry to reveal themselves, the cruiser retracted her gun turrets.

Seconds later from one of her hangar decks launched another Frandlar Tiluvo-class dropship and a full squadron of Gnerl fighters. Quickly but silently, they angled around and shot towards the surface aiming right for the crashed ship with only one thought and one goal in mind…

…saving the lives of their brothers and allies who had been shot down without warning or provocation by the natives.

Crashed Dropship

That Same Time

Colonel Ferretti grunted slightly as he picked himself up from the somewhat padded floor of the crash compartment that the two Zentraedi had taken his investigation team, and their prisoner, too. Like everyone else he had been thrown flying as the dropship hit the surface of this planet, though thankfully nothing was broken – at least according to the medical readout on his helmet HUD – though he was sure he had quite a few bruises that would take two or three days to heal completely.

"Is everyone alright," he asked speaking into the common communications frequency. He was more than a little relieved when everyone responded that aside from some slight, if painful, bruising they were all alright. He glanced at the prisoner they'd taken. "Are you alright?"

"I am fine. A few bruises but my prim'tah is already dealing with them," Jar'un replied even as he blinked in surprise at the question. Generally, when a Jaffa was taken as a prisoner, they were not normally asked such things, if they were asked anything at all it was usually for information on the strength and disposition of their master's forces. Questions that were normally accompanied by brutal torture either with a pain stick or the kara'kesh of a Goa'uld. The fact that he had been asked instead if he was alright, and he could hear genuine concern in the filtered voice of the alien commander, was thus quite shocking. But then the more that he saw of these people the more he realized that they were truly something that no Jaffa had ever encountered before. Oh, there was no denying that they were warriors – and extremely capable ones at that – but there was something else about this race, or should that be races given the two literal giants he had already seen, that said that they could be the ones who could be able to free the Jaffa from their long enslavement to the Goa'uld…

…or the ones who would annihilate them both.

If ever asked Jar'un would admit that he had no idea where that particular realisation came from. After all it wasn't like he knew much about these people – the little he had seen so far only really showing him that they possessed a level of technology that had to be comparable to that of the Goa'uld – but he just knew it. It was a very strange feeling to be sure and unlike anything that he had ever felt in all of his fifty-seven years. But it was true, and he got the distinct impression that his actions, and how he responded when he was inevitably interrogated, would be pivotal in determining how they treated not just himself but his fellow Jaffa all over the galaxy. Silently he vowed to do the best he could to secure their help in creating a better future for the Jaffa, a future where they would no longer have to serve false gods.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of the door to the small, padded compartment they'd been put in, opening. On the other side was one of the two giant armoured humanoids that Colonel Ferretti had referred to as Zentraedi. "Colonel Ferretti are you all alright?" the Zentraedi asked.

"Aside from a few bumps and bruises we're okay," Ferretti replied. "What's our status?"

"We have crashed back onto the surface only a few hundred meters from where we first took off," the Zentraedi replied. "All propulsion systems are now offline, the shock of the impact has caused serious damage to the innards of the fusion turbine engine, it is unlikely that it will work again without significant repairs. However, Captain Serval is sending another dropship down to retrieve us along with a full fighter pod escort."

"What about the anti-aircraft positions that fired upon us?" Ferretti asked concerned for the pilots of the ships on their way down from the orbiting Zentraedi cruiser.

"All those positions that would have been in position to potentially fire upon our incoming ships have been destroyed by a precise orbital laser bombardment."

Though it was hidden behind his helmet faceplate Ferretti smirked slightly at that. That bombardment would certainly discourage any surviving native anti-aircraft positions from firing upon their reinforcements – they would have to be arrogant, insane, or generally stupid to try anything knowing that it would be answered by a laser beam attack from orbit. His smirk faded though as he thought about the crews manning the guns crews who would have been killed in the laser assault, though thankfully they wouldn't have known anything as the intense heat and power of capital ship lasers – designed as they were to burn through alloys that made their best pre-robotech armours as effective as tissue paper - would have vaporized them before they even realized that they were under attack.

"I see," he said at last. "How long until the other dropship arrives?"

"They're on their way down now and should reach us in eight Terran minutes," the Zentraedi answered calmly. "However, before they arrive you as the ranking officer here, have a decision to make."

"Oh?"

"Shortly after we crashed another vessel came down two hundred and eighty-four meters to the north-west of us. Sensors indicate two life forms aboard though given that they are not moving they are likely to be unconscious, possibly even injured."

"Another ship! Why didn't we detect it before we took off?"

"Unknown. According to the cockpit crew the vessel didn't appear on any of our sensors – or even our optical scopes – until a second or two after it was hit by the native anti-aircraft fire."

"I see," Ferretti replied, his mind awhirl as he realized that the only reasonable way that could have happed is if, impossibly, the other ship had to have some form of real-life cloaking technology to have hidden from both sensors and visual detection. It was a technology that every robotechnologist he knew of from Dr Lang on down had said while theoretically possible just wasn't really feasible to use. The energy demands needed to create that kind of advanced stealth technology being enormous, potentially being beyond the capabilities of their current power generation methods – as incredible as that seemed given how much power you got out of even the most basic protoculture-based power source – indeed the closest they had come to cloaking was using holographic camouflage in place of the traditional camouflage netting – which was completely ineffective against modern sensors. Clearly whoever the other ship belonged to had solved the power problem either by creating a superior power source, however unbelievable that sounded, or by finding some other work around.

Either way it was something his superiors would really like to know more about if possible. And there was an obvious way to get those answers, even if it just meant taking the alien survivors back to Earth with them. After all, as soon as they were docked aboard his ship Captain Serval was sure to execute a space fold back to the relative safety of Sol.

"I take it the decision I have to make is do we attempt to recover the survivors," he asked, even though he already knew what the likely answer was. Given what he knew of the psychology of the Zentraedi – especially trooper caste Zentraedi, as one thing that many civilians on Earth didn't understand was that the Zentraedi weren't a monolithic warrior race like the fictional Klingons of Star Trek but had a number of biological subcastes among them from low level troopers all they way up to warlords like Breetai and advisors like Exedore – they were just waiting for the official order so they could act.

"Yes, sir it is."

"Then you already know my answer trooper. We will recover the survivors from the crashed vessel," Ferretti said firmly. "Not only am I not about to leave potentially wounded people at the mercy of the natives of whatever this planet is called…"

"Linkotis," Jar'un stated startling everyone and prompting Ferretti to break off speaking to the Zentraedi and look at the captured Jafa. "This planet's name is Linkotis."

"Linkotis then," Ferretti replied, "I am not about to leave whoever is on that ship at the mercy of the natives here. I don't suppose you have any idea who the ship belongs to and who is aboard?"

"That depends on if the craft is armed," Jar'un responded knowing it could be any one of three Goa'uld craft especially with the recent introduction of the Nal'kesh long range bomber, "does it have any turrets?"

"No, it's unarmed," the Zentraedi trooper replied.

"Then it is certain to be a Tel'tak – a general purpose cargo vessel that can also be used as a scout ship due to the fact that it has both a hyperdrive and a cloaking device. My guess is that the crew aboard belong to the Tok'ra given that there are only two crew aboard," Jar'un paused before, deciding to take the plunge and offer to help these people. He just hoped he was making the right decision. "Please when you go to it take me with you. I can show you how to access the vessel and from the fact that you said the lifeforms aboard aren't moving the crew are probably in the escape pods. I can show you how to access them. I give you my word as a warrior that I will not attempt to escape or otherwise inflict harm upon either yourselves of the Tok'ra."

Ferretti blinked and looked closely at the captured alien warrior. He was a long-term believer in the old saying about how the eyes were the windows to a person's soul and it was Jar'un's eyes that he now paid close attention to, seeking the truth. Though he naturally couldn't see the other mans face through the opaque silver of his faceplate Jar'un knew, from the body language if nothing else, that he was being assessed for truthfulness. Thus, he met the other man's gaze as best as he could, hoping that this Colonel Ferretti would be able to read his truthfulness.

The tableau held for a few seconds until Ferretti found himself satisfied that Jar'un was indeed telling the truth and was genuinely willing to help them. "Alright you can come," he said at last while gesturing for Captain Chandler to remove the handcuffs binding him. Which the other commando quickly did, waving a specific chip over the cuffs causing them to unlock and fall away. "There your bonds are released. However, know this we will be watching you closely if you attempt to betray us…"

"…you'll kill me where I stand. I understand I would do the same," Jar'un finished for him, even as part of him was offended that this human – as what else could he be – would question his honour in such a manner. He had given his word and he would keep it such was the way of the Jaffa. After a moment he pushed that part of himself away these aliens after all had no way of knowing the honour codes that bound the Jaffa honour codes that were - alongside their physical strength and longevity - one of the gifts/brides to ensure loyalty that the Goa'uld had given the Jaffa. And something that the Goa'uld were actually known to quite respect and had been known to handsomely reward – when it suited them.

"Then we understand one another," Ferretti replied before looking back at the Zentraedi trooper. "Trooper, open the embarkation ramp. And are any of the Regult battlepods still operational? Are there enough of your brothers here to run some of them?"

"Yes, sir there are, and all the pods are functional though we only have enough personnel to operate half of them as we were not expecting a combat deployment," the Zentraedi answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I want you to form both a security perimeter around this dropship and a small escort group. Just in case the natives show up to give us more trouble."

"I understand sir. I will go and arrange the deployment. We will be ready in two or three minutes."

"Let me know when you're ready."

"Yes sir."

A Few Minutes Later

Accompanied by Jar'un, half of his commandoes – he had left the others in the dropship to both watch over the civilians members of their investigation team and to assist with security in case any attacking natives managed to get past the battlepods as he was well aware that it wasn't that difficult for a trained human to slip past a Regult as Zentraedi sensors had difficulty tracking them due to their far smaller size – and flanked by four Regult battlepods Ferretti cautiously crossed the open ground towards the downed alien space ship. It really was a bizarre design, an elongated, slightly rounded pyramid that had its nose firmly buried in the dirt and which was smoking softly from small holes blown in the side of the fuselage by the surprisingly powerful native anti-aircraft guns.

At least those won't be a problem from here on out, he thought as he had seen the treeline and beyond it when they'd first emerged from the dropship. The thick plumes of smoke rising from numerous points in the forest had been clearly visible and he didn't doubt that there now quite a sizeable number of fires raging in parts of the forest, fires ignited by the Zentraedi laser bombardment. Thankfully they were in no danger from said fires as the wind was blowing both them and the smoke away from them. Still while the guns themselves were no longer a threat he was cautious, thermal imaging showed a lot of movement in the forest while most of it was likely native animals fleeing the fires, he had to consider the possibility that some could well be native soldiers using the cover to creep up on them.

Ferretti put the thoughts of the natives out of his mind for now as they arrived at the crashed alien ship. "Alright Jar'un show us how we get in," he said to the Jaffa.

"This way," Jar'un replied, casting a wary glance up at the towering battle machines surrounding them. They had been intimidating folded down in their docked positions now, fully deployed and with their weapons systems completely visible, they were downright terrifying. There was now absolutely no doubt in his mind that just one of these things – what was it Colonel Ferretti had called them? Ah yes Regult battlepods – would make mincemeat out on entire column of Jaffa while being virtually immune to their counterfire as they were clearly designed and armed for a completely different style of warfare than the near ritualistic combat generally exercised by the Jaffa on behalf of the System Lords. A prospect that, when he thought about it, was quite frankly terrifying.

Mentally he shook himself, pushing aside those thoughts for now, and focused on leading them all around to the other side of the crashed Tel'tak where he knew the airlock to be. Calmly he walked up to the control panel and tapped in one of the more common entry code sequences used by Goa'uld and Tok'ra alike – due to their long lifespans both were very much creatures of habit where these things were concerned – only for the control panel to flash red in negative. Okay not that sequence, he thought tapping in the next sequence that he knew…

…thankfully this one was correct and with a rattling and whirring the trinium-naquada alloy outer doors opened revealing the airlock chamber beyond. Calmly he led the way inside, tapping the command to keep the outer doors opened even as he opened the inner door. As soon as the inner door opened a puff of smoke, impregnated with the acrid stench of overheated and overloaded control crystals, came from inside.

"This way," he said leading them inside, while wrinkling his nose at the smell. He was almost tempted to redeploy his helmet but resisted that impulse as it could be seen as threatening and he really didn't want to get lasered again. Getting shot once in the arm today was bad enough – though the injury had since been healed by the baby Goa'uld in his pouch the memory of that burning pain wasn't one he would forget in a hurry – he had no desire to get himself killed.

"Sheesh somebody really likes bling," Private Peterson commented over the squad frequency as they entered the interior of the ship – which was being lit by a few pale bluish-white, clearly emergency battery powered, lights. It was enough to see the interior and the gold-coloured walls which were lined with row after row of hieroglyphs. "And I thought my sister was vane. What's with all the gold?"

"We can find out later," Ferretti replied, "though I agree there is a lot of gold. Though these hieroglyph patterns look more decorative than anything else. Make sure your suit cameras and sensors record everything. The intelligence boys back home will have a field day with anything we find."

"Yes sir."

While some of his commandoes spread out to investigate the rest of this cockpit area Ferretti and another two followed Jar'un to where four large pods – that looked like something that had stepped right out of a movie about Ancient Egypt – stood in alcoves two on each side of a doorway that led to a rear compartment. From which he could hear a faint, but slowly increasing and quite ominous sounding whine. "What's that sound," he asked aloud.

"Something not very good if I am right the power core is damaged and starting to overload," Jar'un replied, recognising the sound of a naquada generator in distress. Unfortunately, he didn't know enough about Goa'uld technology – there was only so much a Jaffa could learn without the Goa'uld getting suspicious and paranoid that they were learning too much about how their 'magic' really worked and what it really was, which usually resulted in at least one very slow and painful death for the Jaffa in question sometimes even multiple deaths depending on how sadistic their 'god' was feeling at the time – to prevent the overload.

"How long do we have," Ferretti asked.

"Based on the sound about fifteen minutes," Jar'un replied even as he located the two manned pods. A few quick commands to the control console for the pods caused them to open revealing the two occupants slumped unconscious inside. One was a male of average height with brown hair whose short cut reminded Ferretti somewhat of the old pre-Global Civil War military haircuts – which he like everyone else who'd had to endure the blasted things over his career had been glad to see the back of – and who was dressed in some kind of brown tunic and trousers combo. The other pod was occupied by a tallish blond woman in a very tight fitting, sexy looking light green dress.

"Shen get over here and scan these two," Ferretti called to his combat medic.

"Right away sir," the young woman replied as she hurried over and carefully began scanning both individuals. "Whoa this is weird."

"What is?" Ferretti asked.

"Sir I'm reading two distinctly different life forms in each of them," Shen replied speaking aloud instead of over the comm frequency.

"They're Tok'ra you're detecting their symbiotes," Jar'un explained. "I recognise them both from Goa'uld wanted posters. The male is named Martouf and is the host of the symbiote Lantash, the female is called Freya and she's host of the symbiote Anise."

"Are they alright Shen can we move them," Ferretti asked.

"Aside from some nasty bumps and bruises they're find," Shen replied, "most of their injuries appear to be healing at an incredible rate."

"That is the symbiotes," Jar'un explained, "it is also why the wound you inflicted upon my arm earlier has healed. The immature Goa'uld symbiote in my abdominal pouch – my prim'tah – has dealt with the wound. Enhanced healing is one of the benefits they give us Jaffa for carrying the symbiote to maturity."

"You will have to tell us more about that later," Ferretti replied, "let's get them out of there people."

Moving forward Ferretti, with a little bit of help from Jar'un, carefully extracted Martouf from his pod. Beside them Peterson and Shen did the same from Freya. They were literally just clearing the threshold of the pods when the radio in Ferretti's helmet crackled to life.

"Colonel Ferretti this is trooper Soraz," the rumbling voice of a full sized Zentraedi reported, "the replacement dropship is coming into land now. The last of our people from the other dropship are disembarking now."

"Understood we will be there momentarily," Ferretti replied, "any sign of native soldiers?"

"We have detected a number of micronian heat signatures moving through the jungle towards us, but I do not believe that they will arrive in time to stop us leaving," the Zentraedi replied, "if you wish we could fire a few warning shots into the trees to discourage them from approaching further?"

"That won't be necessary," Ferretti replied, "just make sure everyone is covered as they board the new dropship after it lands. Once that is done, destroy the original dropship I won't leave it here for the natives to salvage anything from."

"Understood sir it will be as you wish," the giant alien humanoid acknowledged before signing off.

"Alright everyone let's get out of here," Ferretti said aloud, "our new dropship is coming into land now. So let us all get out of here and get aboard. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have seen quite enough of this planet for one day."

"Sir yes sir," the other STORM commandoes acknowledged. Though they couldn't see it of course Ferretti smiled back and, with a little aid from Jar'un – though between his armour's nano-muscle servos and his own genetically augmented strength he hardly needed it – began carrying Martouf/Lantash's unconscious form out of the crashed Tel'tak. Behind them Peterson and Shen followed with Freya/Anise with the other commandoes bringing up the rear all of them having a slight spring in their step. It was understandable as to why as after everything that had happened today it was time to leave this world.

Linkotis Jungle

A Few Minutes Later

Captain Nellin swore softly as he and his team finally made there way out of the jungle in time to see the third alien spacecraft rising back into the sky on a pillar of radiant energy flame with four smaller craft rising on their own pillars around it. It had taken far longer than it should have for his team to get here from their patrol base, they had had to detour around what had been the location of one of their anti-aircraft gun positions. Had been because where the position had been there was now nothing but a smouldering crater, whose floor was covered with sluggish, slowly cooling lava, and burning vegetation. The guns and the crews that would have manned them simply gone – wiped from existence by an energy beam from orbit.

The need to find away around the remains of the site and avoid the fire burning around the edges of the clearing – though it had thankfully been blown away from them towards the river Palancar – had really slowed them down. The shockwaves from the blasts that had destroyed every anti-aircraft position around here had knocked trees down everywhere and thrown car sized boulders around like cannon balls, had blocked their normal paths through the forest. Meaning they'd had to use machetes to hack their way through the undergrowth – while avoiding wildlife panicked by the fire – to get here.

Only to be too late.

The aliens who had dared to trespass on their planet were escaping. The original dropship that their anti-aircraft guns had brought down was shattered and burning, though they apparently had left the Goa'uld ship completely alone. Maybe they weren't friends of the Goa'uld after all, he thought with a mental grimace. If that was indeed the case, then it meant that their anti-aircraft gunners had really jumped the gun when they'd opened fire upon that first dropship – and gotten themselves killed for it when what had to have been an orbiting alien warship rained gods forsaken lasers down upon their positions annihilating them in a few seconds.

"Sir what your orders," his second, lieutenant Sarna asked as they watched the alien spacecraft become distant points of light as they ascended towards orbit. "Should we try and salvage something from the wreckage of the first dropship or the crashed Goa'uld ship?"

"We won't get anything from that burning wreck," Nellin replied gesturing to the burning dropship. "And I won't risk boarding a Goa'uld ship with just a small squad like this. Everyone, return to base, we'll summon reinforcements and then come for the Goa'uld."

Sarna scowled and was about to suggest that they try anyway with their small force. After all the vessel was small and couldn't have a big crew but before he could begin to speak an ominous whine carried on the wind reached their ears. Frowning in confusion and concern both Vallartan Imperial Guardsman looked around for the source of the distressing sound.

Nellin's eyes landed on the Goa'uld ship just in time to see it light up from within before a fireball took its place and a wall of energy surged forth enveloping him and his men bringing with it a wave of intense heat and searing pain…

…before everything went dark.

Zentraedi Cruiser

That Same Time

Captain Serval blinked when abruptly his tactical feeds reported an explosion, comparable in size to a heavy anti-ship missile warhead, on the surface of the planet. A planet that, according to Colonel Ferretti – who he had just been speaking to – was called Linkotis.

"Report where did that explosion come from," he asked.

"Sir sensors indicate that it came from the alien vessel that crashed near our first dropship," sensors reported calmly. "Naquada based explosion, blast yield approximately twenty kilotons. It's caused another, much larger, fire to begin in the area. Thankfully the nearest native encampment is some distance away and protected by a large river. They should be safe from the flames or at very least have plenty of time to escape."

"Understood," Serval replied relieved that the natives would probably be alright, yes, they had attacked there first dropship – prompting him to destroy their anti-aircraft positions to protect the second one – but he did not hold any malice towards them. He certainly wouldn't have wished the horrific death that they fire would have given them if it had been too close on anyone – not even the thrice damned Robotech Masters deserved that horrific fate. "Where is our dropship now?"

"They're just landing in the starboard hangar bay now sir."

"Very good. Pilot move us out of orbit, navigation begin plotting a hyperspace fold back to Earth."

"I already have the fold plotted sir," the officer at navigation reported. "As soon as we're fully out of the gravity well we will be able to safely execute the fold."

"Excellent. Initiate the fold as soon as you are able to."

"Yes sir."

For another two or three minutes the Zentraedi cruiser headed out into open space, moving farther and farther out from the gravity well of Linkotis. Finally, they cleared the gravity well and came to a complete stop. Seconds before a gyroscopic flash of blue eldritch energy surged around the ship before transforming into an energy bubble that to an observer would have looked like a ball of frosted glass giving the ship within the sphere the appearance of being inside a giant snow globe. Then the outline of the cruiser blurred as though becoming a ghost a few nanoseconds before the sphere – and the ship within – began to shrink reducing in size till they were no bigger than a tennis ball. Then the sphere shot off into the distance and vanished into the infinite realms of subspace on course for Sol.

The first Terran and Zentraedi foray through the Stargate was over…. It would not be the last.

Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the dust and the Linkotis arc of this story is completed. I hope you all enjoyed it. If anyone is wondering both Tok'ra will not wake up for a while but when they do, they will be aboard the Robotech Factory Satellite over Earth. Hopefully the next chapter won't be quite so long in coming as this one was but naturally, I cannot make any promises, you know how real life can be. Until next time.

Edit (22/09/2022): After feedback reduced the size of the explosion created by the overload of the Tel'tak's power core.