Robotech: The Stargate Saga Version 2.1
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 Twelve
Clad in a warm coat, which was keeping out the bitter chill of a winter evening, Brigadier General Jack O'Neill watched as the Zentraedi Frandlar Tiluvo-class dropship descended rapidly towards the large rocky outcrop that would soon be smoothed out to become a runway. Not for the first time the sight of seeing one of these things coming into land brought forth mixed feelings as really it hadn't been that long ago that seeing one of these coming in meant you would soon be buried up to your armpits in six ton of trouble. Thankfully, unlike the handful he'd encountered during the war not that he had been on the field much as he was too old for that kind of thing these days, it was better left for Charlie and others of his generation. Though, and not for the first time, he wished Charlie had gone into the Air Force instead of becoming first a US Marine and then after the formation of the UEDF being recruited to join one of the first STORM Commando units and had taken part in several raids against AUL strongholds and hideouts – especially after the AUL briefly hijacked Armour One – which his security clearance was high enough for him to see the details on.
It made him proud of his son to know he was really sticking it to those who would love to return Earth to the divided, perennially on the verge of annihilating itself, place it had been before the vessel that became the SDF-1 first fell out of the sky back in ninety-nine. But damned it why couldn't he have chosen the Air Force following the example set by not just Jack himself but his grandfather? It would have been so much cooler than being a jarhead. Though I suppose I should be grateful Charlie joined the military at all, he thought knowing Charlie's younger sisters – with whom Sara getting pregnant with had been such a surprise as it had happened only a few months after Charlie accidentally shot himself and scared the pair of them half to death – the twins Alice and Amelia had absolutely no interest in the military whatsoever. For all that they were twins the girls had different ideas on what they wanted to do with their lives with Alice looking at going to medical school while Amelia was more interested in law school. While he frequently pretended to be grumpy about the girls choosing non-military careers, he was pleased that they felt free to follow their own dreams and passions.
The sound of the dropships ventral fusion jets firing brought him out of his thoughts. From where he was sheltering against the light snow that had begun falling, he looked to see the dropship was about to touch down – the plasma from its jets instantly melting the thin film of freshly fallen snow and causing it to suddenly flash to steam – nearby. Wrapping the coat up a little tighter – the amount of snow falling from the clouds that had completely concealed the gas giant from view was increasing and if experience on Earth was anything to go by it would soon turn into a full on blizzard – around himself Jack watched as the dropship landed its fusion turbine engines shutting down a few moments later.
For another minute or two nothing more happened then with a whirring of immensely powerful electromagnetic motors the massive door of the dropship opened and hit the now exposed bedrock with a loud thud. Jack automatically tensed expecting, if only for a few moments, for a swarm of heavily armed, ostrich-like Zentraedi battle mecha to come charging down the ramp-like door spewing missiles, autocannon rounds and energy beams. Thankfully nothing like that happened and a few bedraggled looking figures, escorted by Ferretti and some of his team who were distinctive in their black Tristan powered armour, some of them clearly small children – who immediately put him in mind of when his kids had been small – came down the ramp.
All of them visibly shivered as they encountered the bitter cold air and falling snow. Though the small children stopped and stared, amazement at seeing this strange fluffy, freezing white stuff falling from the clouds overhead. Jack concealed a smile at the innocent wonder at the sight of something as mundane as a light snowfall. It brought back many happy memories of far simpler times.
Shaking himself – there would be time to get nostalgic later – he straightened up and began walking forward his boots crunching slightly in the snow. His new temporary – only until they could use the Stargate to return to their homeworld – new guests react to his presence with a human man and a reptilian-looking humanoid in battered, torn red uniforms turning slightly to look at him.
"Captain Plocspi, First Officer Corr," he said hoping he was pronouncing the names right. "I'm General O'Neill, I am the person in charge of the new base here."
"Greetings general," Kanjon answered with a polite nod. "I understand that I have you to thank for sending someone to pull us off the other habitable planet in this system."
"The Zentraedi are the ones who found you and picked up your distress beacon," Jack reminded him, "they just asked me for directions on what to do about it since I'm the ranking officer from both our races here. They deserve your thanks far more than I do."
"Still thank you," Kanjon replied with a slight smile before shivering in the cold. Due to the fact that they had a primarily reptilian ancestry Serrakin were not best in cold environments such as this, even though at some point in their evolutionary path they'd switched from being cold to warm blooded – the same as they'd started mirroring many mammalian forms in producing live young instead of laying eggs – they still had a deep, instinctive dislike of the cold.
"You're welcome. Come there is a nice warm base for you to shelter in," Jack said glancing up at the clouds to see they were getting thicker and heavier. "This snow flurry is going to turn into a blizzard soon."
"Is it far to walk to the base?" Stebran asked.
"No, we've set up a tram system just inside the cave that will take us to the base," Jack answered, "this way please."
Kanjon nodded in agreement, more than eager to get out of the increasing snowfall and began following the Terran officer as he led the way into the cave system that the Terrans were apparently using to conceal a new base from detection. It was a good move as if there was sufficient quantities of certain materials and ores in the overlying rock then nobody this side of the Asgard – and even for them finding it would be quite tricky – would know there was a base here.
He couldn't help but smile as he heard the children, including little Kaira her near fatal encounter with a razor-crab already forgotten, make astonished sounds as their feet crunched in the snow. It was completely different to anything they would have ever experienced in their short lives. There youthful innocence and fascination with new things always warmed his heart slightly. Though he made it a point to keep an eye on the kids – making sure they didn't wander off as he was not unaware that snows seeming benign white beauty could conceal deadly danger especially from things like hypothermia – making sure that they didn't wander off as they all made their way across the uneven surface of the outcrop to the cave mouth and into the tunnel beyond.
The tram that General O'Neill had spoken of was waiting for them, taking the form of several maglev cans floating above a track that began a short way into the tunnel and disappeared off into the distance. Seeing it Ferretti couldn't help but quickly shake his head in amazement. Even after all this time he still wasn't quite used to the breakneck speed at which you could build things using robotechnology, even when it was only basic systems like construction drones. Just this morning, when they'd come through the Stargate from Earth, there had been nothing here but a wide rock path with a sheer drop off to one side down to a fast flowing underground river fifty or sixty feet below them. Now though there was a fully functional maglev tram set up. He had to wonder if the rest of the base was finished as well or near so, it wouldn't surprise him if it was.
Without needing prompting everyone climbed into the carriages. Once they were all in Jack pressed a button on his wrist computer prompting the tram to come to life with a hum of magnetics. Then with the usual smoothness of maglev systems the tram began moving along the tunnel towards the base rapidly accelerating to its top speed as it did so.
"What's that," Ferretti heard little Kaira comment pointing at something she could see on the wall ahead. Ferretti glanced at it to see a small construction drone – which appeared to be vaguely crab shaped – installing a light fitting.
"It's a construction drone," he told her, "it won't harm you. You'll see quite a few of them here as the base is still under construction."
"How long have you been here," Stebran asked curiously.
"Barely twenty-four hours," Jack answered, "though we were sending construction drones and equipment through the gate for twelve hours before we gated in ourselves. Plus, the Zentraedi brought a lot of the bulkier stuff with them since it wouldn't fit through the gate."
"Stargates while they are an amazing piece of technology can be a major logistics bottleneck," Kanjon agreed, "it is why in the Commonwealth we don't use them that much. Fine for moving people and small high value items quickly but large amounts of cargo…"
"…isn't possible quickly," Jack finished for him with a nod. Though he had heard that they were already working to adapt standard shipping containers, the kind that had been used on Earth ever since the late fifties, for Stargate transport. He hoped they managed it as it would make moving things through the gate a great deal easier and quicker.
"Hence why most major cargo transportation is done by ships," Kanjon added a moment before the tram rounded a bend and the base itself came into view. It consisted of a large number of boxy buildings laid out in a series of concentric circles across the cavern with the gate and its dialling device in the middle. The whole central area around the gate was surrounded by a softly glowing force field of some kind. "Impressive and you built all this is a day?"
"Just over," Jack answered.
"Unbelievable," Stebran muttered mind reeling slightly as he got a real hint of Terran industrial capabilities. If they could build a base like this so quickly then what else were they able to do? Hailing from a family that did a lot of business with the manufacturing part of the Tech-Con Group he was well aware of the level of industrial power needed to create a base like this so quickly.
"You haven't seen anything yet," Ferretti said with a grin recalling the sheer industrial might of the factory satellite as even though most of the lines had been non-functional when they'd captured it from Commander Reno the few that had been working had given them a hint of what it could do. And now that it was steadily repairing itself – though to the best of his knowledge nobody had yet figured out what had caused the stations maintenance and repair systems to come back online, especially as whatever had caused it had reset all the security systems as well and given them access to the entire station including parts where the Zentraedi had never been allowed to do – it would soon be back at full capacity. When that happened the level of industrial power that would be at their fingertips would be frankly insane.
"Do I want to know," Stebran asked as the tram came to a stop, and they all climbed out.
"Probably not plus we wouldn't be allowed to give you too much information," Jack replied, quietly shooting Ferretti a look that warned to keep his mouth shut on their current, and soon to be, industrial capabilities. "This way."
Without hesitation he led the surviving crew of the Clarion through the base, the mixture of humans and Serrakin noticing that the whole place was a beehive of activity with robots and humans everywhere. Clearly the Terrans were a highly technologically advanced race and a very industrious one as well. Kanjon decided that when they got back, and after they had been thoroughly debriefed on everything, they'd been through since the Goa'uld had ambushed the Clarion, that he would strongly advise the Commonwealth Senate that they establish a formal alliance with these people.
Something told him that it would be beyond beneficial. Plus given the threats that haunted this galaxy – with the Goa'uld being the biggest one though they weren't the only one, there were others out there like the Tlak'kahn – advanced civilizations needed to stick together even if they only had cordial relations and not a full alliance. Like what his people had with the Tollan as relations between them were cordial if not particularly close as the Tollan found his peoples open attitude to sharing technology and knowledge dangerous.
In no time at all they reached the edge of the glowing green force field that surrounded the Stargate itself. Kanjon watched as General O'Neill entered something into the small wrist computer, he'd seen a few of the Terrans wearing. For a second nothing happened then the section of the force field in front of them rippled and dissolved. Without hesitation the Terran officer led them through to the large open area around the Stargate itself.
It was immediately obvious that this area had been set up to be defensible.
There were a number of substantial looking barricades that could be manned by soldiers within seconds of the gate dialling sequence beginning. In addition, there were a number of large multi-barrel energy weapons of some kind spaced around the perimeter and focused on either where the event horizon of an incoming wormhole would be or on the area immediately ahead of and around it. The firing lines from the barricades were all arranged in a similar pattern, clearly intending to turn the front of the gate into a killing field that any attackers – which would certainly be Jaffa warriors – would not be able to penetrate.
"The dialling device is over here," Jack said leading them over to the pedestal device that housed the control interface for the Stargate. "Do you need us to provide some type of communication equipment?"
"No, I have something," Kanjon replied, extracting a small device from a pouch on his belt. He had put it there before they had left that hothouse of a planet that they had never gotten around to naming. "I just need to dial one of our worlds and then I can send a burst transmission through. If they received it, they'll send one back and then we'll be able to go through."
"I see," Jack answered, making a mental note to recommend that they develop such a system themselves for when they started to explore the gate network. It would come in handy especially if other members of Vosegus race were somewhere out here among the sea of stars. The more he thought about it the more he realized that it was a really good idea, he would write it up as soon as they were done here and send to the Defence Council for consideration. "Do you want any privacy while you dial?"
"No, its fine," Kanjon replied as he approached the dialling device and began entering the sequence of symbols that would open up a wormhole to Hebridan. The gate rumbled and whirred as one by one each of the seven symbols was locked into place until the commit dome in the centre of the dialling device lit up. Without hesitation Kanjon reached out and pressed it causing the gate to roar to life with the usual initial ka-woosh of an unstable vortex that quickly stabilized.
As soon as it did so he raised the small beacon device and pressed the button to send the signal. The device immediately reading and accepting his DNA before sending a highly compressed subspace data burst through the wormhole. For several minutes nothing happened, beyond the event horizon glowing and rippling softly then just before the gate would auto-shut down due to no traveller the beacon bleeped as it received a response from the other side. Kanjon checked it and smiled.
"We're clear for transit," he said prompting the survivors of his crew to emit a small cheer at the knowledge that after four long, gruelling years they were finally going home. Kanjon smiled slightly before turning to the waiting Terrans. "General O'Neill, Colonel Ferretti," he said formally, "on behalf of the Serrakin Commonwealth I thank you for coming to our rescue. Hopefully the next time we meet it will be under much better circumstances."
"We hope for the same Captain Plocspi," Jack replied just as formally prompting the alien officer to smile before he addressed his crew.
"Alright everyone let's go home," Kanjon said prompting another cheer from his crew, then he moved away from the dialling device, walked up to the shimmering event horizon of the Stargate before disappearing through it. One by one – except in the case of the children who were guided through by their parents – all the surviving members of the crew of the Clarion walked up to, then passed through, the event horizon of the wormhole being nearly instantly teleported thousands of light years to the planet Hebridan.
Jack and Ferretti watched them go until the last of them disappeared through the event horizon. For a few more moments nothing happened then with a whoosh and a flash of ethereal vapour the Stargate powered down, its task completed.
"Do you think we'll see them again, Jack," Ferretti asked, taking off his helmet so he and his old friend could talk face to face.
"I think so," Jack replied turning to look at Ferretti. "They're certainly going to want to salvage the remains of their ship if nothing else which means we will see them again even if they just come by ship."
"True. What's happening with their ship by the way?"
"I told Captain Eilxan to put a guard around it. As I understand it, he deployed a squad of Regult battlepods to surround the wreck after your dropship rendezvoused with Captain Serval's cruiser. I know no one is likely to come along and try to take it especially given how long it's been here but…"
"…it's better to be safe than sorry," Ferretti finished for him.
"Yeah," Jack agreed. "So, what are you going to do now? You're supposed to be going off duty."
"I know. I'm going to get out of this armour, shower, then go and head to get a bite to eat before finding where I'm billeted and going to sleep."
"Before you go grab a bite come and find me and I'll join you. We can catch up."
"I'd like that."
"Okay I'll be in my office."
"You're actually going to do your paperwork?"
"Ha-ha yes," Jack replied with a smirk as he remembered how he had used to avoid doing his paperwork like it was the plague. Something that had changed ever since the incident with Charlie prompted him to leave field ops and take a teaching position at the then US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Ferretti blinked. "Okay who are you and what have you done with Jack O'Neill," he asked humour in his voice.
"Blame having been an instructor at the academy for over a decade," Jack answered, "go on get out of here. I'll be waiting in my office."
"Yes sir," Ferretti replied teasingly before turning and walking away. Jack watched him go smiling at how easily they had slipped back into their old banter even though it had been years since they'd last worked together, back before Ferretti had moved over to the STORM Commandoes when they were formed which had obviously been good for him. It certainly had been good for Charlie.
When Ferretti was out of sight, he began walking away himself, heading for his office. He had a bit of paperwork – or rather its modern electronic descendant – to do and he wanted to write up that thought he had just had for defence council consideration. So, it would be best to get started.
Ascended Planes
That Same Time
Standing at his viewing font Zor smiled as he watched the Serrakin disappear through the Stargate back to the Commonwealth world of Hebridan. His smile only grew as he listened to the discussion between General O'Neill and Colonel Ferretti after the Serrakin had left. He could tell, in the way that all ascended beings could, that they would indeed meet with the Serrakin again and do so sooner than they realized. With the civil war in the Goa'uld Empire growing ever worse – as both sides were getting increasingly desperate to break the now six yearlong stalemate – the Serrakin and the other advanced neutral worlds would need all the allies and help they could get.
Especially as waiting in the shadows of that conflict was Anubis waiting to pounce on the weaker of whomever ultimately won the war.
"You seem pleased," Janus said from beside him making him yelp and jump in surprise.
"Damn it Janus how many times have I told you not to do that?" Zor demanded giving his friend a good natured glare. "What are you trying to do scaring me like that? Trying to see if ascended can actually have heart attacks?"
"Nah it's just fun to surprise you."
Haydon give me strength, Zor thought in minor annoyance at that response. Really for all that he was a brilliant man, and one of the most prolific inventors the Lanteans had had during their war with the Wraith, Janus could at times be extremely annoying. Still, he decided to answer his question.
"And yes, I am happy," he said, "things seem to be going well for Earth at the moment."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Janus admitted, prompting Zor to look at him with a frown.
"What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.
"May I," Janus said gesturing to the viewing font.
"Oh sure," Zor agreed stepping aside and allowing Janus to walk up to it. Janus reached out and touch the water and made a gesture with his hand, breaking the image that had been there and bringing up a new one. They were somewhere on Earth, and it was very dark indicating that it was midnight.
Zor watched in confusion as what looked like a limo pulled up at what was definitely a border crossing of some kind, the high fences, razor wire and warnings of landmines and guard dogs were dead giveaways. A figure appeared out of the darkness of the night and went up to the front window and said something to whoever was inside, then passed them something, before walking away. A few seconds later the border was opened, and the limo drove through disappearing into the night.
"Who's that," Zor asked feeling cold as he knew that this couldn't be good. Janus brought up an image of the interior of the limo and Zor resisted the impulse to groan as he saw Vosegus sitting there. His lotaur Elana nearby and holding out a file for him to take that Zor realized was what had been handed through the window to his new leader of the Jafftari.
"That's not good," he commented as he saw Vosegus open the file and suddenly grin evilly his eyes literally lighting up in the parasite's glee. "Whose file is that?"
"I believe it is the file of the highest ranking military officer in the EBSIS block," Janus replied, "if I am right then Vosegus is about the infect him with nish'ta if his agents haven't already done so."
Zor cursed knowing that with that kind of access Vosegus could do a lot of damage whenever he got to his new base.
"My thoughts exactly," Janus commented as the image zoomed out and they followed the limo as it moved along a lonely road through the skeletal remains of a once vast forest that had been incinerated when the firestorms triggered by Dolza's brief reflex cannon bombardment of the planet had swept over the area.
"And there is nothing we can do to warn them."
"Unfortunately," Janus agreed prompting the ascended Tirolian to sigh again. "But there may be a way we can give them a little help, without The Others catching on and stopping us. It will be tricky but it's doable. Are you willing to help me?"
"Tell me what you've got in mind then I'll tell you, my decision."
"Okay now here's what I've got in mind…"
Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. I am honestly surprised at how quickly this chapter came together after I started writing it, still its great when that happens. So now things are gong both good and bad for our heroes as on one hand they have a potential new friendship with the Serrakin to look forward to and on another Vosegus is almost in position to begin making his first vengeance move against the UEG for thwarting his attempt to capture the Stargate. As for Janus will his plan to provide a little help to our hero's work? You'll find out soon. Until next time.