Chapter 164: The Clones Question Part 4

PT-9497 System, May 2nd, 2000 (Earth Time)

"Ba'al?" Jack O'Neill asked as he steered the stealth shuttle away from the drifting clone frigate. And away from the two frigates headed there to salvage it. The stealth generator was great, and the clones shouldn't be able to detect them even if they were almost touching their hull, but… the clones also shouldn't be following a snake.

"He's a Goa'uld who rose to prominence during the Second Goa'uld Dynasty on Earth, according to our records," Daniel replied. "He is associated with agriculture and was widely worshipped across the entire Mediterranean and beyond before the Goa'uld were overthrown. His worship continued, amongst other cultures by the Phoenicians, especially Carthage, and associated with human sacrifices, although the sources for that are mostly Roman, and so there's a certain bias to be considered when using them."

Jack checked the radar. No ships were pursuing them, so they should have evaded detection. Good. "I wasn't asking about the myth, but the snake. Isn't he one of the really bad System Lords?" And that took some doing for a snake.

"Although more subtle than Apophis, he's one of the most ruthless Goa'uld," Sha're said. "He kept his followers' loyalty through fear - like Sokar, with whom he was allied during the fight against Ra."

"Must have been the usual alliance amongst snakes," Jack commented, setting course for the outer system. Backstabbing from day one. Almost as bad as Pentagon politics.

"Apophis thought Sokar had dealt with him after Ra fell so he could make a move to succeed Ra as the ruler of the Goa'uld," Sha're said. "Neither Ba'al nor his forces had been seen in a while, and it seemed as if Sokar had absorbed many of his Jaffa."

"Apparently, that was not true," Catra commented. "Looks like he was busy taking control of this Horde fleet."

"Great. Just the thing we needed - a snake with superior technology," Jack muttered. And right when it looked as if Earth had finally caught a break!

"Ba'al has a reputation for ruthlessness," Teal'c spoke up. "It is said that he once sacrificed an entire world with millions of slaves to destroy an enemy fleet."

"Sounds familiar," Glimmer muttered.

"Ah… we always need to consider the source when judging people and, ah, Goa'uld. His rivals and enemies would have had a great interest in discrediting him to undermine his support and galvanise their own followers to fight him," Daniel said.

"Apophis's opinion matches the Tok'ra's," Sha're said.

"Who are also his enemies," Daniel retorted.

"You will be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't consider him an enemy, much less a friend of his," Sha're shot back.

"I admit that the evidence seems solid, multiple sources, but he has been hiding in obscurity for some time, hasn't he?" Daniel said.

"As I said, he has a reputation for being subtle. And System Lords rarely change much if at all."

"Indeed."

Jack couldn't help wondering if that was also how Daniel and Sha're argued over small stuff in their marriage. And if Carter would do the same… Not that that was any of his business.

He cleared his throat. "So… he's the type who would take over a Horde fleet and then use it covertly instead of demanding everyone bow to him?" he asked as he altered their course - a patrol of Horde fighters was coming a bit too close for his taste.

"Yes."

"Indeed."

"The information we have would indicate that, but we need to check with the Tok'ra, I believe."

Great. "So, the fact that he hasn't done it doesn't mean he can't do it? He could have more than this fleet at his disposal?"

"We don't know how large this fleet is," Adora pointed out. "The ships we saw could have been the majority of his Horde forces."

"I don't think a Goa'uld would leave an underling with the majority of his forces," Catra said. "That leads to coups. He would try to keep the majority directly under his command and split the rest up between various officers. So, if this was, say, a third of his available forces, we're talking about half a fleet at the very least. And that's only his Horde ships. He'll have Goa'uld ships as well - and he'll likely upgrade them."

"That must be why he looted the shipyard we found," Adora agreed.

"We'll be fighting Super-Ha'taks," Jack muttered. "Isn't that great?"

"Oh, yes! I'm so curious to find out they adapted Horde technology to Goa'uld designs!" Entrapta cheered. "There are so many possible ways to upgrade them!"

Jack glanced over his shoulder, but everyone was frowning at him as if he had done something wrong. Even Carter.

It wasn't his fault that Entrapta was… a bit too focused on science instead of strategy or politics. Not that that was always a bad thing, mind you!

He sighed. "Well, the guys back in the Command Council won't be happy about that."

"I'm not happy about this either," Glimmer said. "We need to focus on this Ba'al as soon as possible and take him out before he gets even more powerful."

Jack nodded in agreement as he continued to fly them towards the meeting spot where the task force would pick them up.

Alliance Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, May 2nd, 2000

"...and then we took the flagship's Stargate to return to Earth," Adora finished with a nod at the assembled members of the Command Council.

"And the prisoner is still being interrogated?" Admiral Brown-Emerson asked.

"Yes. We've been able to confirm that he worships the Goa'uld Ba'al," she replied. Not that had been hard - the clone had been praying to Ba'al as soon as he had woken up. "We have not been able to gather more intel, though - he is quite stubborn. But our analysts agree that it is very likely that the entire fleet is under the control of Ba'al." If the clone had been an exception, if he had been a spy, he probably wouldn't have carried Ba'al's symbol at all - the Commander had had the two clones who had seen her demonstration killed just for their reaction; he'd do the same or worse to someone worshipping a Goa'uld, Adora was sure.

"I'm sure our specialists will be able to get him to talk," General Naird said.

Adora slightly narrowed her eyes at him. Was he hinting at torture? The Alliance didn't do that!

He blinked when he noticed her glare. "I mean, according to our files, clones have several psychological weaknesses that can be exploited by skilled interrogators," he quickly added.

Ah. She nodded.

"Psychological weaknesses Ba'al must have exploited," General Steiner, a new addition to the Command Council from the Bundeswehr, said. "They were raised to obey Horde Prime without hesitation or question - he was literally the centre of their entire existence. It stands to reason that losing him would have left them terribly vulnerable to a skilled manipulator." He didn't have the German accent his retired predecessor had, Adora noted.

"And the snakes have been manipulating their faithful for thousands of years." Jack snorted. "They're very good at that."

Admiral Biggs, the replacement for the finally reassigned Admiral Kearsy, shook his head. "A weakness inherent to people who were raised without faith. That leaves a hole in their souls that the false gods can easily fill to control them."

Adora frowned again. That wasn't entirely correct, as she understood it. The Jaffa and slaves of the Goa'uld were raised from birth to worship the Goa'uld, at least the System Lords, as gods. And the clones might not have called Horde Prime their god, but they had effectively worshipped him as one.

But he was correct that losing Horde Prime had left many clones adrift, literally in the case of at least one force they had encountered, without direction or purpose. Many had become isolationist, refusing to accept that Horde Prime was dead, and were refusing any contact, driving away everyone, while waiting for Horde Prime to return. Others had become depressed. In some extreme cases, clones had just stopped doing anything, even eating, until they had died. Compared to that reaction, latching on to She-Ra instead to guide them was much better.

Anyway, this wasn't the time to discuss what was essentially semantics, she reminded herself.

"Actually, that's wrong." Of course, Daniel just had to disagree about that. "You can't really claim that they lack faith. The Goa'uld's power is based on faith."

"It's based on trickery and deceit - they are posing as gods, manipulating their followers. But they are false gods," Biggs replied. He was clenching his teeth, Adora saw.

Teal'c nodded. "Indeed."

"I think no one here disputes that they are false gods," Daniel said. "But that doesn't mean their followers lack faith. We have to take that into account when making plans about how to deal with this fleet. Recent converts tend to be fanatical, so we cannot count on them abandoning their new lord easily or quickly."

"And we need to deal with them as soon as possible," Jack added. "The longer Ba'al is allowed to build up his forces even more and upgrade his other ships and armies with Horde technology, the harder it will be to defeat him."

"We have three Horde fleets to his one. If we keep one in reserve, we'll still outnumber them two to one. Those are good odds," Naird said.

"Moving First Fleet into his territory is a challenge already; moving another fleet as well?" Catra shook her head. "Even with the fleet trains reducing our need for bases and supply lines, the sheer distance we have to cover makes this a challenge. It would be much better if we could get them to desert him."

Adora nodded. That would also save a lot of lives, which was an important point.

"Or at least start a civil war in the other fleet," Catra went on.

That would cost a lot of lives.

Steiner looked up from his tablet. "That's an excellent suggestion. We already know that a demonstration by She-Ra was enough to sow doubts among the clones who witnessed it. Another such incident might cause a split in the fleet. At the very least, it should undermine Ba'al's claim to their loyalty."

Adora pressed her teeth together. "We can't rely on people converting because of me," she protested. That was… wrong.

Biggs nodded in apparent agreement.

"It's a possible strategy," Steiner defended the plan. "And it's much more likely to succeed than sending missionaries, isn't it? I doubt the clones would receive them well."

"They've also shot at us," Jack pointed out.

"Though if they're at least a bit like our clones, at least Third Fleet, they might try to convert more clones. That could offer opportunities for covert operations," Glimmer suggested.

"A decapitation strike against Ba'al?" Jack grinned.

"The last such operation was a failure," Naird said with a frown.

"We've learned from that," Jack retorted. "And taking out Ba'al would solve a lot of problems."

"We don't even know where he is and what resources he has - or what kind of bait we could use to lure him into a trap," Naird protested.

"Well, best we start working on that, then?" Catra grinned.

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Biggs asked with a slight snort.

"With our friends the Tok'ra." Catra flashed her fangs.

Stargate Command, CFB Goose Bay, Newfoundland, Canada, May 3rd, 2000

Samantha Carter knew the Tok'ra were sworn enemies of the System Lords. They had been fighting them for thousands of years, never relenting despite facing what seemed to be a hopeless battle. They went as far as to consider themselves another species despite being biologically identical.

And they had a unique culture. According to all accounts, they formed a true symbiosis with their hosts. Daniel even was of the opinion that a Tok'ra was the combination of a symbiont and host, not the symbiont themselves, though that view was contested among both the biologists and anthropologists specialised in aliens.

Sam still couldn't help but remember how she had been possessed by Jolinar when she greeted the Tok'ra delegation. Especially since amongst the three members was Martouf - Lantash/Martouf, she corrected herself - Jolinar's old lover. Or lovers. He said he had accepted that Sam was not Jolinar, even if she had seen some of their memories, and that she didn't share any of the feelings of the symbiont, but the way his polite smile changed just a tiny bit when he saw her still filled Sam with a brief mixture of revulsion and absolutely groundless guilt. She wasn't responsible for Jolinar's death.

"Anise. Freya. Jakar. Mats. Lantash. Martouf," she greeted them.

"Sam!" Anise - her voice gave her away - smiled warmly at her, though Sam didn't miss how her eyes wandered around the gate room.

"General O'Neill couldn't make it," she told her, hiding the small, petty satisfaction she felt at telling Anise that the object of her fascination wasn't here. "His duties at Alliance Special Forces Command keep him busy." Really, the woman should just accept that he wasn't interested in whatever she was offering.

"Duty comes first, of course." Anise nodded.

"Always," Jakar agreed.

"But he will join us at Headquarters, right?" Freya asked as Sam led them through the scanners.

"As the most experienced officer in the sort of missions we obviously are going to discuss, his absence from the meeting would be a surprise," Jakar commented.

Sam hid her annoyance at the presumption as she nodded. "Yes, he'll be at Headquarters. As will Entrapta," she added with a glance at Anise.

"Oh, good!" The Tok'ra nodded with what seemed genuine happiness. "I'm looking forward to discussing a few things with you after the meeting."

"Oh?" Sam tilted her head as they left the gate room. That sounded promising. Anise was a great scientist with thousands of years of experience, and her designs were almost always unique and interesting.

"Yes. I've been working on a way to physically enhance humans, and I've hit a bit of a snag."

That definitely sounded intriguing. But also worrying.

But first things first. Dealing with Ba'al's clone fleet took priority.

Alliance Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, May 3rd, 2000

The more the briefing continued, the more concerned the Tok'ra looked, Catra noticed. It was, of course, understandable - the situation was bad. Not the worst case they could have imagined; that would have been Horde Prime somehow having returned or invading from a different universe, or a Goa'uld taking over Adora, but it was a serious crisis.

Anise shook her head after the briefing on the contact with Ba'al's fleet had concluded. "A Goa'uld with that kind of power - the resources he has access to, the technology at his disposal. He must be stopped at all costs!"

"He and all his followers have to be dealt with," Jakar added. "Before they can adapt and spread Horde technology to other Goa'uld - or leverage this to take over the entire Goa'uld Empire."

"Such an attempt would plunge the Goa'uld Empire into civil war though, wouldn't it?" Admiral Biggs said. "That would weaken them."

Catra rolled her eyes. "Ba'al knows about us. If we try to exploit such an opportunity, he will use us as a threat to unite the Empire under him." Nothing united people faster than a common enemy they couldn't defeat alone.

"We cannot wait and hope our enemies defeat themselves," Adora added. "We must strike as soon as possible. And for that, we need to find Ba'al."

"Or find the right bait to lure him into the open where we can strike at him," Jack said.

Biggs scoffed. "That plan failed against Apophis and Sokar, and you want to try it again?

"Third time's the charm." Jack's smile was very toothy, Catra noted - and she was sure it wasn't just because he didn't like the US Navy on principle.

Biggs scoffed again, "Superstition won't help us. Quite the contrary."

"Actually, as the latest research studies show, this saying might be true as far as magic is concerned - at least in certain emerging magical traditions on Earth," Daniel commented. When both Jack and Biggs glared at him, he winced and smiled weakly. "But this is probably not the time to discuss this."

"Yes." Glimmer nodded emphatically. "We need to focus on how to take out Ba'al."

"A multi-pronged strategy seems most appropriate," Admiral Brown-Emerson suggested. "A decapitation strike aimed at Ba'al, efforts to convert his followers and undermine his rule, but also a fleet operation as a last resort, to break his power before he can consolidate and expand it."

"That would require the majority of the Alliance military," Naird protested.

"It's not as if we're currently fighting major campaigns," Jack told him.

"If Apophis launches another attack, we would be hard-pressed to counter him. Especially if he realises that we fooled him into thinking the Horde fleet is an enemy of Earth," Naird retorted.

"If he realises the extent of our military capabilities, he'll know that he needs allies, and he'll attempt to unify the Goa'uld against us - and under his rule," Sha're said. "That won't happen without us knowing about it," she added with a glance at the Tok'ra.

Anise nodded. "Indeed. We do not have any assets at Ba'al's cort - yet - but a diplomatic move like that from Apophis would be noticed by our operatives. And I have stress again: A Goa'uld with Horde technology - or Ancients technology - is a lethal threat to us all. We have to focus on this menace above all."

Catra nodded and leaned forward. "So, what can you do to help with that?"

Anise hesitated a moment, glancing at the others, and Catra narrowed her eyes. That wasn't a good sign.

As he sat down on the edge of his desk in his office in Alliance Headquarters, Jack O'Neill felt a bit of nostalgia. The room was bigger than his old office in Cheyenne Mountain, even bigger than Hammond's had been, but with over a dozen people inside, it felt as crowded as his old office had with just SG-1 inside. And, of course, back then, whatever they came up with still had to be approved by their superiors.

"So… What are we going to do?" he asked as soon as Teal'c had closed the door.

Anise, who had been unabashedly looking around in his office, no doubt looking for any insight about him that would help her get her hooks into him, or at least a sample of his genes or something, turned toward him. "I was of the impression that we just finished discussing this in the Command Council and had the matter delegated to various planning groups."

"Yep, we did." Jack grinned. "Which is why we now can start actually planning what we'll do."

Adora nodded. "We're not an official planning group, but nothing prevents us from making plans."

"No one can stop us, anyway," Catra added, stretching as she was perched on the edge of the meeting table.

Daniel, who had made a beeline for Jack's imported coffee-maker straight from the door, picked his cup up, took a sniff of the hot air wafting up, and nodded with a smile before turning to face the rest of the room. "I thought that the rest of the Command Council was pretty unhappy with us after the last two missions."

He was right, but Jack still snorted with a careless shrug. "They're looking for someone to take the blame for the current crisis."

Daniel frowned. "To be fair, our missions did have, ah, mixed results."

Catra scoffed. "We were working on the intel we had, which turned out to be missing some crucial facts."

"Such as Sokar's plans, and Ba'al's everything," Jack agreed.

"Both System Lords have been hard to gather information on," Jakar said. "Mostly because they spent so long in obscurity and eschewed regular contact with the rest of the Goa'uld."

"It's annoying when the bad guys show good tradecraft," Jack commented with a toothy grin.

Jakar matched it and nodded. "Indeed, it is."

"But enough of that. We do have a crisis to solve," Jack said. "How do we solve it?"

Adora took a step forward. "We've agreed to use a multi-pronged strategy. We'll reach out to the clones working for Ba'al to… persuade them to reconsider their allegiance."

"To convert them," Catra commented with a grin.

Adora frowned at her for a moment, then went on: "We'll mass our available ships for a campaign against Ba'al's fleet, to overwhelm them before they can build up their strength even more, and we'll launch a decapitation strike mission directly against Ba'al as soon as we can."

"Which means, as soon as we find him," Catra piped up again with a pointed glance at Anise and the other Tok'ra.

Anise frowned a little at that. "As I said in the meeting, we'll send operatives out to infiltrate Ba'al's forces and instruct our spies currently working against Sokar to investigate their supposed ties."

Catra waved her hand rather dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, that's standard procedure. But that won't get us the results we need in time to be useful - you've just started on Sokar, haven't you?"

Anise pouted, but Jakar nodded. "Given the dangers and risks involved, we have to move cautiously when inserting spies, often relying on chance and random opportunities, and that takes time."

Not for the first time, Jack thought that their snake allies had grown a bit too used to taking the very, very long view in their fight against the Goa'uld.

"Yeah, but that means we can't hope for a lucky break - we need to be proactive," Catra said. She slid off the table. "We need to launch aggressive recon missions."

Jack nodded. "Exactly."

"We're expanding the spy bot network into the suspected area under Ba'al's control," Carter said. "Though to accelerate this, we will have to rely on spaceships carrying more bots deeper into the target area. That will increase the risk of being detected and the network being exposed."

"That's a risk we have to take," Jack said. He doubted the spy bot network would last forever, anyway. "We need to find Ba'al's bases as soon as possible so we can infiltrate them and prepare strikes."

"That's good for their Jaffa and the Goa'uld ships, but the clone fleet won't need bases," Bow remarked. "And they can move around."

Which made them hard to find, Jack knew. Saturating the area with spy bots wasn't really practical, given how much time it would take.

"But if they rely on the fleet train to provide their other forces with advanced weapons, they will have to stay in close contact with it," Carter said. "We can use that to track them."

"And if Ba'al is the typical snake, he'll keep a close eye on all his forces, so we should be able to find him as well," Catra added.

"Yep," Jack said.

"I see." Martouk nodded. "But in order to gather this mission without deep cover operatives will be very dangerous."

"Indeed." Teal'c nodded with a hint of a smile.

"Yep," Jack agreed. "We'll have to sneak up on and into enemy bases and look around for any piece of intel we can get without being detected."

"Oh, that sounds familiar." Daniel sighed, but he was smiling a little as well.

As were the others in the room, except for the Anise and Martouf.

Jack grinned - he was feeling nostalgic again.

Orbit Above Etheria, May 6th, 2000 (Earth Time)

"Your Divine Highness! Welcome to the Herald of Salvation! The newest ship in your fleet!"

"Hello, Priest." Adora smiled politely as she stepped down the ramp of the shuttle. "Did you choose the name?"

"It was chosen in light of her first mission, Your Divine Highness," Priest replied as he straightened from his bow. "I found a more martial designation, such as chosen for our older ships, would not fit as well given that her mission is to save as many of our enemies as possible by showing them the light of Your Wisdom and Mercy."

"And the fire of her improved beam cannons if they reject you," Catra commented from behind her. "Can't let the hard work of Entrapta and the others go to waste, can we?"

"As the last resort," Priest acknowledged, nodding his head at her. "We fervently hope that reason will prevail, and that our lost brothers will see the light. But we are aware of the challenges this mission presents us with, and we will do our duty in Your service, Your Divine Highness."

Adora had already heard all the 'Divine Highness' she could stomach, but she knew from experience that telling Priest to call her anything else would only encourage him to come up with an even more ostentatious title, as Daniel had described it. So she nodded and tried to ignore it by focusing on the task at hand. "Yes. A fitting name for the flagship of the future Fourth Fleet."

"Indeed, Your Divine Highness! She will be a shining example for the rest of the fleet, and for the galaxy at large, of Your Grace and Courage!"

"Once she and the rest of the task force are crewed and worked up," Catra said.

"I have chosen the best and brightest from Third Fleet for this task, Your Divine Highness!" Priest replied. "They are well aware of the responsibility they have in shaping the core of Fourth Fleet's cadre so that our new brothers will serve you as faithfully as the other fleets."

"We will serve you with our lives, Your Divine Highness!" Padre, the clone chosen to lead this force, and the future Fourth Fleet, if he worked out, said, bowing deeply.

"I know you will," Adora told him, smiling gently. "All of you," she added, looking at the rest of the clones lined up to greet her. "You have my trust and my confidence."

"You honour us, Your Divine Highness!" Priest beamed at her, as did everyone else in the hangar except for Catra, who smirked.

Adora couldn't help feeling a little guilty and embarrassed at the display. She didn't deserve their worship. But they did deserve her trust. The Command Council had questioned this mission, voicing concerns that the ships of the recently founded Fourth Fleet should work up their crews, new clones mixed with veterans, safely inside Alliance space, in a training command, but Priest had argued that the people forming the core of the crews for Fourth Fleet's first flotilla were all taken from Third Fleet's best and so they would be ready for deployment. Catra had agreed that getting actual field and combat experience as soon as possible would be better in the long run for the fleet's morale and esprit de corps. The sooner they were accepted as equal to the other Fleets, the better.

Adora had agreed. First Fleet and Second Fleet would provide most of the ships for this mission, anyway, so Fourth Fleet's small contribution wouldn't see action too soon - they still had yet to find the enemy's bases and deployments. So, the new fleet's new crews would get to train hard for the time being.

Still, she couldn't help worrying a little. Not only about the new clones serving on the new ships, fresh faces with new gear always meant problems in the field, she had seen that in both the horde and the Princess Alliance, but about the mission itself. Reaching out to the clones in Ba'al's service wouldn't be easy. Turning Horde soldiers had been hard enough in the Horde War on Etheria, and in space, the opportunities to make contact with potential deserters were far less.

And the danger for everyone involved was even higher, she reminded herself, remembering the two clones shot by their own bots after Adora's demonstration had shaken them.

No, Priest might be as confident as ever, but converting the clones following Ba'al wouldn't be easy at all.

But they would still try it, and give it their best shot. The clones manipulated by Ba'al deserved the chance to gain their freedom. And the Alliance would do their best to make it happen. Adora would ensure that.

Orbit Above Etheria, May 8th, 2000 (Earth Time)

Inside the office they had appropriated on a yardship of First Fleet that had stayed in the system to keep building ships for Fourth Fleet, Samantha Carter was looking through Entrapta's latest proposal for a "science ship". It was a far more practical design than her first one. Instead of a copy - at least in appearance - of a Miranda-class ship from Star Trek, it was a modified Horde frigate with the main beam cannon battery replaced by a greatly expanded version of the Spacelab Entrapta had built with Sam. Quite workable, in Sam's opinion - it shouldn't take long to alter the base schematics used by the Fleet Trains' yardships; they had done that for a few improvements so far, the latest the beam cannons and shield projectors.

But the Spacelab part - it wasn't a module since it would be a permanent addition - would require more work. It would be quicker to custom-build it in a workshop instead of creating a prototype followed by the schematics for a yard… No. Once the war against the Goa'uld was over, there would be a need for such ships, so it was better to design them properly so they could be mass-produced easily and cheaply.

Which reminded her that she needed to go over the latest Fleet Transport schematics they had received; the British were planning to add some changes to the next block after the first block had started actual field deployment. The changes looked good, but Sam wasn't quite sure if the relatively small increase in capability would be worth the added logistical and maintenance demands two versions of the same ship would cause. She would have to calculate that.

"So, what do you think?" Entrapta asked.

Sam felt a little guilty for having had her mind wander. That they both had a lot of tasks to do was no excuse in her opinion. She focused on the design again. "You've removed two-thirds of the beam cannons but left the power generators in place. That will allow more options during an emergency." Such as the ability to shunt power to the engine or shields. Or to overload the beam cannons. With the main battery gone, the ship couldn't focus her firepower; the remaining cannons were more a deterrent to attacks by swarms of fighters - a more potent point defence battery, actually. But overloaded, even those could, for a very short time, provide the ship with significant firepower at the cost of burning out the main focus crystals of the cannons involved.

Entrapta nodded. "Yes! And it will provide ample power to the lab for experiments!"

Right. Sam flushed a little - this was a science vessel, after all, not a military design. "And the shields will be able to withstand extreme conditions for longer." That was a capability the latest Horde frigates had as well, but as with the enhanced beam cannons, trying to upgrade all existing ships would take too much time and yard capacity. They would have to stick to those ships undergoing regular maintenance or battle repairs, and the odd refit slipped in.

"Yes! Not enough to fly into a star's corona - not yet - but we could dive quite a way into the atmosphere of a gas giant!" Entrapta beamed. "And if we overload the engines, we can get closer to a black hole!"

"I think disposable drones would be better for that," Sam told her, smiling a little wryly. "Replacing drones is cheaper than overhauling the engines." Or replacing them - or the ship, should the engines fail before the ship was in the clear.

"Right!" Entrapta's head bopped up and down as her hair tendrils flew over two keyboards at the same time. "Anyway, we can start building the prototype as soon as the fabber in section two finishes with the latest batch of cannons. I've checked it with Hordak; we've got five hours!"

That would be enough for a lot of the parts - the ones not requiring more advanced manufacturing, such as sensors. Though those they could get from the spy bot factories in the system; most of them had been retooled for ship sensors anyway since the spy bot network had spread so far, it was often more efficient for expanding the networks to build automated factories further away than shipping bots from Etheria or Earth; those were mainly used for scouting and communication by task forces sent into areas not yet covered by the network. Such as Ba'al's suspected territory.

"Then let's get started," Sam said. "I didn't find anything I'd change." Though they would find a lot of things that would need changes once they actually used the prototype. No matter how good the design software and simulations were, some things you only noticed in actual use. A lesson the Navy sometimes seemed to forget.

"Yes! Now let's…"

Entrapta was interrupted by a beeping noise - a priority alert. Had something gone wrong? A new attack? Sam quickly changed the feed on her screen, and Entrapta swung over, carried by her hair, to look over her shoulder.

It was from the spy bot network. The bots had found a base in suspected Ba'al territory.

"That was fast," Entrapta commented, cocking her head to the side. "Faster than we expected. We're lucky!"

Sam wasn't sure about that. It could also mean that Ba'al had more bases than expected - or at least, more bases closer to Alliance territory than they had expected. Either wasn't good news.

Orbit Above PT-9511, PT-9511 System, May 17th, 2000 (Earth Time)

Jack O'Neill couldn't help clenching his teeth when the stealth shuttle approached the planet. A dozen frigates were covering it, arrayed in three groups covering both poles and one in a geostationary orbit above the planet's main settlement - and his and his group's target.

If these were Alliance Horde frigates, they would have been detected already - this close, the stealth generator wouldn't be able to hide from upgraded sensors. But Ba'al's Horde lacked magitech. At least as far as we know, he thought, tensing up a little more.

Neither the frigates nor the patrols of Horde fighters flitting around between the three forces reacted to their presence, though. Hidden by their stealth generator, they were invisible. Unless one of the fighter patrols, which were coming a bit too close for comfort, literally flew into them, Jack could probably fly circles around them for shit and giggles.

"Passive sensor sweep concluded!" Entrapta announced cheerfully from the back of the shuttle. "Oh… You were right! Those are shipyards down there, but no ships are being built right now."

They had known that from the spy bots that had discovered the system. Though they hadn't approached that closely; unlike their smaller infiltration versions, the space-capable bots weren't built for that. And Jack wouldn't have trusted a bot to do this, either. Too much could go wrong on close recon missions. And too many opportunities could be wasted for lack of initiative - hacking computers, sabotaging enemy plans, taking out critical targets, freeing or taking prisoners… No, this mission needed people on the ground. The best people available.

"No ships? Are the yards finished?" Glimmer asked.

"The buildings are," Carter replied. "Though passive scans are limited - we can't tell if the machinery and fabrication lines are set up and if the storage houses are full of the materials necessary for production."

"If they aren't building anything they aren't ready," Catra stated. "We wouldn't let them sit idle, and neither would Ba'al."

Jack agreed and would have said so if they weren't about to enter the atmosphere and he had to focus on piloting the craft. This was the most dangerous part of the mission. No matter how well you could fool enemy sensors, a ship entering a planet's atmosphere turned the air around it into superheated plasma, and that tended to be quite noticeable from afar.

The stealth generators tried to compensate for that, and did to some extent thanks to Carter and Entrapta's work, but even with magitech, you just couldn't hide all the light and heat.

So, Jack had to carefully follow a course that avoided the bulk of the enemy fleet and stayed as far as possible from patrolling fighters, and even so, there was still a risk that someone caught a glimpse of them and didn't mistake it for a meteor burning up in the atmosphere.

He kept a careful eye on the enemy while he took the shuttle down, but the Horde fighters stuck to their routes like glue - one of the disadvantages of using bots as crew, Jack guessed. Their own faced the same issues, but they simply didn't have enough trained pilots to crew all their fighters.

A few tense minutes later, they were low and slow enough so they were safe from passive detection, and Jack changed course toward their target. Still no pursuit or any sign that they had been detected.

He grinned. If he wanted to, he could land the shuttle right next to the base on the planet. Not that he would do it, of course. He was no fool. The risk of being spotted by ground patrols was too high. They wouldn't see them, and as long as the shuttle kept hovering, the ground wouldn't be flattened either, but if a patrol found tracks ending in nowhere, or dead birds that had flown into the invisible shuttle, or any other possible clue, it wouldn't take a genius to put two and two together and realise that the Alliance had much better stealth capabilities than the Goa'uld or Horde had. And that would be a major hindrance to future missions in addition to threatening one of their biggest advantages, the spy bot network.

Halfway across the planet's biggest ocean - he was flying low enough to avoid most sensors, just high enough not to leave a wake in the water - he keyed the intercom. "Hello, everyone! We're about to land at our destination. The weather is cloudy with a chance of Jaffa and bot patrols, both on foot and in the air, so dress accordingly, and thank you for flying with O'Neill Air!"

A round of chuckles from everyone and a sigh from Carter answered his joke, and he grinned. Nothing like a joke to lighten the mood before things got serious.