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.
Interlude Eleven
Ascended Planes
That Same Time
Standing before his viewing font Zor scowled as he observed the arrival of a fleet of Zentraedi Guardians in this galaxy. There arrival was not entirely unexpected, he had known that the moment that Dolza's command base had started to succumb to the detonation of multiple reflex warheads and an inverted barrier that it would send an omega SOS call to the Robotech Masters. It was an automatic protocol after all that would have been activated in the main computer in the last few seconds of the base's existence.
He had however hoped that, without the advantage of a relay station to boost the signal, that the Masters would not receive it or at least that it would be far too weak and garbled to be of any use to them. It was obvious now that that was not the case and the Robotech Masters had sent a division of one of their Guardian fleets to investigate Dolza's fate. Currently their commander, Xarlez, was focusing on setting up a proper forward operations area but that would not take the Guardians that long – they were far too efficient when it came to such things even more so than regular Zentraedi were – once they were done Xarlez would start looking for the last fold echo of Dolza's base.
Which would take him straight to Earth. Once there it wouldn't take the Guardians long to determine that the Terrans had the protoculture matrix and while between their own slowly improving defences, Breetai's Free Zentraedi fleet – which outnumbered Xarlez forces five to one odds that even the more powerful Guardian ships wouldn't be easily able to take on – and the Asgard any initial attack would be easily repelled. Not that it would be a victory for long as Xarlez would no doubt inform the Masters who would either send an entire fleets worth of Guardians to recover the matrix, or worse they would come themselves.
And if that happened well this galaxy would be in for a very rough time as he knew Nimuul and the other Robotech Elders all too well. He knew that they would immediately want to annex as much of this galaxy as they could get their hands on and incorporate it into their empire. It would be a very bloody affair, especially as none of the other spacefaring societies in this galaxy – especially the likes of the Goa'uld Empire and the Tlak'kahn Empire – would go down very easily but if they had the matrix then there would be absolutely nothing to stop them.
"You seem troubled," a familiar female voice said from behind him before three more ascended joined him at the viewing font. Two of them he immediately recognised as Oma and Janus though the other male ascended was unfamiliar to him, though from his uniform he had been a member of the Lantean Legionnaire Forces when he'd been mortal.
"I am," Zor admitted before gesturing to the viewing font, "take a look. And who is this?"
"Zor this in Bonran," Janus said in introduction prompting both to nod politely at one another, "he's been quietly working with us for a while but until now has remained in the background. However, with the finding of the Aurelius that isn't possible anymore."
Zor raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess you were that ship's captain," he said.
"I was," Bonran agreed, "the conservatives among The Others are really not happy with me over that now, especially given what I left behind in the main computer for my descendant to find… but as he would say screw them. I must admit I like what I have seen of him so far."
Zor chuckled slightly at that. He could indeed see a few of Captain Hunter's mannerisms and sense of humour reflected in the other ascended. "Indeed," he said as the other ascended joined them in looking into the font.
"Zentraedi," Janus noted with some surprise, "but they look different. The uniforms are all wrong in both colour and style and the ships themselves look more advanced."
"That's because they are," Zor answered, "they're Guardians."
The other three ascended blinked in surprise at that having never heard Zor mention them before now. All three, even Bonran who had never interacted with the ascended Tirolian before though he had of course heard of him as he had been the talk of the ascended planes for years now, could hear a combination of derision, annoyance and real concern in his voice as he said the name. It prompted them to exchange a look of mutual concern.
"Who are they?" Oma asked after a moment, guessing this was probably going to be another painful topic for Zor to talk about.
"To properly understand I will need to give you a bit of background information first," Zor answered, "you see about two centuries before my ascension my distain for Nimuul and his siblings – I don't really blame the clone triumvirates they don't know any different – and what they had perverted my discoveries with the Flower of Life and protoculture into reached a fever pitch, so I decided to do something about it. It turned out to be a terrible mistake on my part."
"What did you do?" Oma asked gently.
Zor sighed, he didn't enjoy visiting these memories, but his fellows needed to know so they could understand, before telling them how he had written a treatise criticising the way that the once peaceful, egalitarian Tirolian Republic had been transformed into an imperialistic, expansionist empire and singled out the self-proclaimed Robotech Elders for the harshest of criticism. How said treatise had enraged Nimuul and the others and seen him placed under virtual house arrest on his family estate outside Tiresia when he wasn't working at the Imperial Science Institute. How despite their best efforts the Elders had not been able to stop his dissertation from spreading across the Empire and how it had touched something among the non-clone Tirolian population especially among the colony world's leading to an outbreak of republican fervour. Which had sparked open rebellion when the Elders clamped down, resulting in the next fifty years of civil war with those who believed as he did – now calling themselves the Disciples of Zor – managing to subvert multiple Zentraedi fleets and turn them to their side.
"The Masters ultimately won the war," Zor told them, "though not before they glassed several planets with reflex weaponry as a warning as to the price of defiance, including one of the first planets outside of Valiverre that we ever colonised. The war also showed the Masters another thing and that was that they needed a new elite force to ensure compliance with their rule and to ensure obedience among the Zentraedi."
"And that was the Guardians?" Janus asked.
"Yes. The top science, cloning and war triumvirates were put in charge of creating a new subspecies of Zentraedi one whose loyalty would be both absolute and unshakeable by any method. To accomplish this among other things – such as a specific chemical being automatically included in food and drink from the food dispensers on their ships, it acts a bit like that nish'ta organism the Goa'uld use but is far more advanced – every Guardian is equipped with a bioneural chip implanted into their neo-cortex at the earliest possible moment after conception."
"Horrific," Bonran said with a shudder and a look of distaste on his face that the Masters would take such a step. That they would never allow these Guardian Zentraedi to have any taste of the free will that was the rite of every race in the universe.
"It is but it ensures obedience and that's all the Masters care about," Zor answered. "To make the Guardians even more powerful they issued them more advanced technology and weaponry than is issued to the regular Zentraedi forces including on the capital ships reflex missiles and upgraded particle cannons. Still quite away below the capabilities of the hyper-particle cannons used on the Masters own ships but still about three times the power of regular cannons."
"Nasty," Bonran commented knowing that even by Lantean standards the particle beam weapons used by the regular Zentraedi forces were nothing to sneer at when it came to their destructive power. Yes, they were a million years less advanced than weapons like the subspace enhanced neutron cannons on his former command, but the unique properties of protoculture-generated particle beams made them dangerous even by their standards. "So, what are they doing in Avalon so far from borders of the Tirolian Empire."
"Nothing good though I know what has probably brought them there," Zor admitted, "you see all major starbase and factory satellites built by the Empire are equipped with what is called an Omega beacon. It's designed to in the event of catastrophic damage send an emergency signal back to the Masters informing them that the facility has been destroyed. When the SDF-1 destroyed Dolza his bases Omega beacon would have activated, I had hoped that the signal would be too garbled crossing intergalactic space – especially since there are no fold comm relays near Avalon – for the Masters to even pick it up let alone decode it."
"But they obviously have," Janus commented, "what would this message contain?"
"Very basic data. Just that the base has been lost and any computer logs that could be uploaded in time. It would certainly not be enough to tell the Masters exactly what happened but…"
"…but it would pique their interest," Oma finished. "Which is why they've sent a large fleet presumably to investigate."
"That's just it Oma this isn't a large fleet," Zor admitted, "this is just a single division, Second Division of the Second Guardian Fleet going on their unit markings, with a support base fifteen hundred ships in total. That's small compared to a full Guardian fleet."
"The fleet numbers in the Tirolian Empire are insane," Bonran said with a shudder as like many former Lantean military personnel he had been beyond stunned, and beyond horrified, when he had found out just how incomprehensibly vast the military forces available to the Tirolian Empire were. Even at the height of their own empire they had barely had a tiny fraction of those numbers of warships and troops. With such a vast military – one whose size and collective power was unparalleled in intergalactic history – it was no wonder the Tirolians and their servitor races, like the Zentraedi, had been able to build such a vast empire.
Zor merely nodded in agreement. He knew that the military that had been assembled by the Robotech Masters, and which they have used to conquer and subjugate multiple galaxies, was unmatched in size and scope even before he had ascended. Never before in the history of a known universe had such a vast military force been assembled by any race and when the Robotech Masters and their Empire finally, inevitably, fell it would hopefully disappear into the mists of history.
"The Guardians being here is a threat," he continued, "once they've finished setting up their forward base Commander Xarlez will send a recon force to the last known location of Dolza's base. And when they do…"
"…they'll find Breetai, the Terrans and the protoculture matrix," Janus finished for him with a scowl. "They will try to take it."
"Yes, and if they fail Xarlez will either call in a full Guardian Fleet or worse he'll inform the Masters and they would come to take it themselves. And if they come to this galaxy then you can bet, they will not leave again – not until they have annexed it into the Empire."
A grim silence fell upon the group of ascended as they all considered Zor's words. They all knew he was speaking the truth as he was the naturally the most knowledgeable of all of them about the voracious power hungry, conquest obsessed psychology of the Robotech Masters. A lust that frankly rivalled that of the Goa'uld, only the Tirolians backed it up with far more advanced technology and far more devastating weaponry than what the Goa'uld possessed. Even with the new plasma beam weapons the Goa'uld Tharos had made for Ba'al after taking the Terran Lieutenant Grant as a host the Goa'uld only had a faction of the power of the Robotech Masters.
"We have to prevent that," Oma said at last. "Avalon has enough problems with the likes of the Goa'uld and the Tlak'kahn. They do not need to face the Robotech Masters as well."
"Unfortunately given the fact that The Others are watching us like a bunch of Praxian sabre-bats watching a heard of norick I don't see what we can do," Zor admitted referring to one of the most feared flying predators – which despite its name had more in common with the long extinct Pteranodons of prehistoric Earth than modern Terran bats – on the Praxian homeworld and the small deer-like creature that was its favourite prey.
"They're not watching me as intently," Bonran replied after a moment of silence. "Leave dealing with this to me."
Without waiting for a response from any of them he teleported away leaving them alone. Zor watched where the former starship captain had been for a few moments before turning to look at the others seeing his own thoughts reflected in their faces. They were all asking themselves the same thing. How did Bonran plan to deal with the threat to the galaxy of the Guardians without arousing the ire of The Others? It was impossible to say and for ascended beings not knowing…
… was quite vexing.
Goa'uld Pyramid
Orisa
That Same Time
Tharos scowled in distaste as he surveyed the throne room of the minor Goa'uld who had, until his victory, ruled this planet in the name of Sokar. He had spent the last few days aboard his flagship overseeing the transition of power and setting up his own administration of the planet Orisa. Things had progressed rather quickly as the Jaffa were well practiced in changing from the service of one Goa'uld to another and the planet was now secure enough for him to descend to examine the throne room from which he would rule Orisa in Ba'al's name.
To say he was unimpressed would have been an understatement.
The room had a décor style that was very much to Sokar's taste. All dark and creepy with decorations that were so macabre they bordered on being obscene. Red and black were the dominant colours and the fact that the window panels were locked in the closed position made the whole place feel like some dark, demonic grotto and not the throne room of a god. He was so going to have to do some redecorating here and get someone to unjam the window panels allowing the armoured shutters to open and let in the light of the Orisian sun.
The sound of footsteps, that had the characteristic clank, clank, clank, clank sound of Jaffa boots, approaching caused him to turn around and look at the entrance. A moment before Marnor, who now wore the golden mark of a First Prime as well as the symbol he had elected to represent his army, came into the room and bowed.
"Yes Marnor," he asked.
"My lord we have received an urgent message from monitoring stations along the border," Marnor reported, "a large group of ships in the service of Sokar are heading in this direction. Our sentries estimate a force of at least twelve Ha'tak and about twice that in Nar'kesh as well as a larger mothership of unknown design."
"Well, we knew Sokar would react to us taking this planet sooner rather than later," Tharos commented, frowning slightly at those numbers. With the reinforcements sent by Ba'al, as well as the fact that all his own frigates had been upgraded with plasma beam weapons, he had enough forces to meet the counterattack force. He was however a bit concerned by the mystery ship that was with them it's capabilities unknown. "How long until they arrive?"
"At their current speed fifteen hours my lord."
"Very well have all our forces prepare to repel the attack. Is my new flagship ready?"
"Yes, my lord we have finished changing all the codes in the computer. It is now fully under our control, and we have completed essential outfitting."
"Very well take it up into orbit I will join you there shortly."
"Yes, my lord." Rather than leave Marnor hesitated as though he had something more to say.
"Is there something else?"
"Yes, my lord just before I came to see you, we received a second priority transmission, this time from the throneworld."
"And?"
"Lord Ba'al has been defeated in a fight with the Asgard."
"What!"
Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. I know not much happened in this interlude chapter as this is mostly exposition and setting things up for parts of the next arc as Bonran has a cunning plan that will hopefully keep the Guardians occupied for a good long while if he can pull it off without The Others catching on and stopping him. Plus, Tharos is soon going to be in for the fight of his life as one of Sokar's top commanders is coming to evict the 'trespassers' from Orisa and the new ship will have quite a few nasty surprises built into it that will make it a very formidable adversary. Also, next arc we will be catching up with Rick and the little surprise he has planned for Khyron.