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Chapter 27 Part 1
=SBS=
Finally, it is clear why Lord Perun has been reluctant to share details of the strategic situation on the Goa'uld. We received comprehensive briefing packages on what the major System Lords are expected to field on short notice earlier today. We believe this happened shortly after Lord Perun launched an all-out assault on Lady Kali's forces in a position to threaten his core worlds. He should be attempting to neutralize her as we speak. We regret to inform you that even if part of what we have now is true, our only chance for long-term survival is a decisive victory for Lord Perun in the war.
We will begin with an overview of what the four most powerful System Lords could mobilize and deploy on short notice. A substantial part of their forces are expected to attack Ra's domain and claim as much industry and resources as possible. At this point, it is anyone's guess what Ra's forces would do.
First, we have Apophis, Ra's oldest brother. He is arguably the most powerful System Lord right now, with Lords Yu,
Nirrti, and Cronus being close rivals, distantly followed by Lord Ba'al.
Each of those Goa'uld can mobilize up to a thousand capital ships of Ha'tak class into combat within two weeks. Lord Perun believes that existing logistics before wartime measures and expansion come into effect could see the deployment of twenty to thirty million Jaffa on short notice. Most of the Jaffa in question will be heavy infantry formations, with a currently unknown number of motorized, mechanized, and armored units. Due to the close working relationship with Lord Yu, Lord Perun believes that Lord Yu currently has the highest percentage of motorization and mechanization within his armies among the System Lords.
We are looking at up to a thousand capital ships flooding the former territory of Heru'ur and Ra's domain from four sides while the rest of the fleets and armies either secure critical systems or attempt a pre-emptive strike while rivals are still mobilizing…
from emergency NID briefing in front of the UN Security Council and IOA
STM (Senator Timothy McGee): We are in a closed session now, Colonel, Doctor. You can now stop dancing around the point and give it straight to us.
CJO (Colonel Jack O'Neill): Lord Perun took on over a hundred and thirty super soldiers in advanced armor by himself in a trial of combat and slaughtered them without even being scratched in the process.
DEW (Dr. Elizabeth Weir): We now believe that some of our estimates of Lord Perun's society and their morals were off the mark. At the very least, we failed to grasp the full implication of what we were seeing, and people told our personnel interacting with them.
STM: I find that hard to believe. I have no doubt that advanced technology can account for much…
CJO: Senator, we were there, and I can promise you, we find it hard to believe what we saw. I now have doubts that what Perun can do is fully technologically based. There were points during the slaughter when he moved so fast that any human would have torn their muscles and tendons and shattered their knees at the attempt. I know that gravity manipulation and perhaps sabotaged armor can account for some of what we saw, yet… I am not sure if it really matters, Senator. It is more important what Lord Perun can do than how he can do it. Either way, whether it is technology or space magic, said technology would likely be advanced enough to be considered magic until we are more advanced. Really, how Perun does what he does is a moot point. His capabilities are very real. What matters is why he did what he did and had us there to watch. We all must keep in mind the implications of how he handled the perceived treason of his new Jaffa.
SMT: How so? Do elaborate.
DEW: What Lord Perun did would be counter-productive for most societies here on Earth. Through the trial of combat, he earned the respect and support of many Jaffa while slaughtering many of their own in the process. He took the children of whole clans hostage and either executed or put their soldiers into a penal legion. Such collective punishment, if applied here on Earth, could backfire spectacularly. Unfortunately, that is another moot point as long as Perun has ships in orbit. There is a limit to what kind of overt or covert resistance he will tolerate, and unfortunately, we don't know how far anyone can push him without catastrophic consequences.
SMT: The warship in orbit. Dr. Weir, are you telling us that you believe for certain that Lord Perun would respond to any perceived treachery with punitive orbital strikes?
CJO: Senator, we don't believe that Lord Perun has even a fraction of the forces needed to begin to occupy Earth or make a similar example here. That would be true even if he wasn't about to fight a war for survival. At this point, he needs the Jaffa on his new worlds more than he needs Earth. His sole means of control are through the technologies he is offering us as a carrot and the threat of orbital bombardment as the stick.
from the records of a closed door Senate hearing pertaining Lord Perun
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Dakara
Milky Way Galaxy
Meditating on the unfolding events left me sensing a rapidly escalating sense of danger. It was clear I was running out of time. I would have to kick off the war sooner rather than later. That really made things simpler than they were. I gave the order to lock down my worlds in the guise of dealing with more spies and traitors among my Jaffa, followed by mobilization orders for my troops. However, before dealing with Kali and setting the galaxy on fire, one critical target was to be secured or neutralized. On Dakara, Ra had a mothership with critical information hidden for a rainy day, and I needed to secure it. Considering what such a raid entailed, it had to happen just before I started the war.
It was a good thing that despite its religious importance, Dakara had been a backwater for a long while. Its location deep within Ra's domain meant that the place didn't warrant stationing Ha'tak in orbit. That was also one of the reasons why Ra hid his mothership there—security through obscurity.
I led my Custodes through the Chapa'ai, drawing heavily on the Force. A platoon worth of local Jaffa clad in ceremonial armor and a priest stood guard, ready to receive pilgrims or anyone coming for a religious ceremony. They were undoubtedly deployed at the Chapa'ai due to the recent 'unpleasantries.' I wasted no time and seized everyone with the Force, freezing them in place. My Custodes deployed behind me and opened fire, blasting apart the unwitting guards.
There could be no witnesses warning people of our raid. I needed all the plausible deniability and time obscurity could buy me.
"Vasil set up the naquadah bombs at the nearby settlements and purge the temple. I will see to the garrison personally."
Due to its religious importance, Dakara retained a proper, if small, garrison complete with an airfield fielding a few Al'kesh and two Death Glider squadrons. In practice, the place acted as a small training base for Ra's forces and a comfortable enough station where loyal Jaffa could come in for light garrison duty after performing well enough in combat. The prestige of guarding Dakara was quite the reward.
Neutralizing the garrison was vital; more importantly, it would give us access to transport. Ra hid his mothership over a thousand kilometers from the Chapa'ai. He intended to fly here with a ship or take an Al'kesh from the garrison when he needed to visit for any reason.
Dakara's status as a pilgrimage site was why we can't leave witnesses behind – sooner rather than later, someone would visit the place, and news of the raid would spread like wildfire. If I couldn't fly Ra's ship out of here and use it to bombard everything but the temple, thus ensuring no one would know what happened, then naquadah bombs would do. That same status meant that I already sent scouting parties disguised as pilgrims, so we more or less knew what we were dealing with here.
Due to the distance from Moloc's domain and the long peace Ra's realm had enjoyed, security around there was nothing like it could have been. I knew that it was so in part to keep the illusion that Dakara was no longer strategically important. That state of affairs played right in my hands, ensuring that we could approach the garrison undetected.
I took point, using the Force to cloak myself while my Custodes and Space Wolves deployed in numbers alongside two companies of IFVs and APCs. My job was to get inside the garrison and neutralize communications before raising havoc. That way, no one would be the wiser about our assault until we were done, and my Jaffa would have a much easier time taking the place. Needless to say, we would be looting it for all it was worth before departing Dakara.
The local garrison was stationed in a typical old-style Jaffa base. There were old earth ramparts around and a few towers with staff cannons at the perimeter. The fortifications were basic but more than adequate enough to stall an infantry assault by Jaffa armed with staff weapons. Placing a few staff cannons on top of the ramparts would give the defenders even more punch, making a direct assault that much harder. Without orbital support, the few Al'kesh and Death Gliders could wreak havoc with impunity.
When all was said and done, Dakara was among the best-defended backwater worlds across Goa'uld space.
To the local commander's credit, he had the towers manned, and a dozen Jaffa glumly patrolled the ramparts around the base. The odds were good that whoever was in charge was a veteran, likely stationed here relatively recently.
The sentries made no difference. They were none the wiser as I stalked past them, relying on the Force to cloak me from detection. I climbed one of the ramparts and spent a few moments observing the base. There were no surprises here. Multiple hangars lined one side of an airfield. The landing strip only existed if an aircraft came down for an emergency landing. An Al'kesh and four Death Gliders were clearly a quick-reaction force, complete with their pilots sitting beside a fire. I would take them out as soon as I neutralized the base's communications.
While the aircraft here were nothing to write home about in the great scheme of things, I would ideally want to take them intact and leave with them on board Ra's ship. Blowing them up would be a waste, yet Dakara was too far to have the Al'kesh fly to my territory. We couldn't stay around long enough to disassemble and carry them through the Chapa'ai.
I looked away from the aircraft, moving my attention to the rest of the base. A set of standard barracks and warehouses stretched along the airfield's other side, and the place's control tower towered above everything else. There should be a communications device there and potentially one in the commander's quarters. This being a small military garrison, the odds were good there was no Goa'uld in charge here. There was no prestige in it for one of our kind, while there was no better place to be stationed for most Jaffa outside a post among their Lord's personal guard.
All things considered, infiltrating a military base with a few hundred super-soldiers in it should have been challenging.
It was anything but. Some, if not all, of the Jaffa here might have been veterans. However, they knew no one would even think of attacking Dakara. The forces stationed here would be near the bottom of the list for receiving new equipment, which made things even easier.
Through the Force, I could perceive that only two people were in the tower, and they positively radiated boredom. We chose the time to begin our raid well, arriving near midnight local time, ensuring most people would already be abed. By the time I reached the garrison, everyone not on guard duty was in bed, as they should have been.
I had to remind myself that I would have more excitement coming my way soon than I would like. Going after Kali in the heart of her domain would be challenging enough because skulking around this place like a ghost was anything but.
Any credit I gave the base's commander went down the drain when I could simply walk into the control tower with no one the wiser. There was no security here to speak of! The Jaffa inside never knew what hit them. All I had to do was stretch my will through the Force, grab them, and crush their necks. When there was no one shooting or trying to stab you, doing so was pathetically easy. The only downside was that such a feat disrupted the veil of the Force, concealing me. Otherwise, this kind of stealth would have been the ultimate assassination and spying technique. In reality, it was close enough.
Instead, I froze one of the Jaffa with the Force before crushing the other. Then I went to my next victim, put a hand on his head, and focused. The man was young and didn't know what was happening when my will slammed into his mind. His mental defense was nothing to write home about – a lifetime of learned obedience made sure of it. A singular demand forced the Jaffa's brain to focus on the base's commander, specifically, the man's location.
A veteran Jaffa Master was in charge. As I suspected, the man was in a recent conflict with a Moloc veteran. His forces got mauled in an assault of a border fortress world, where they distinguished themselves. More than half the garrison was here for rest and recovery, all the Jaffa Master's men. This fellow resented them for further discipline, which the commander enforced, and because Commander No'ver and his men got to distinguish themselves in battle when the youth was stuck here since he completed his training. I shoved those resentful thoughts away, fishing for No'ver's location. He tended to sleep in the same barracks with his men, which made things a bit more complicated. However, he had an office in a nearby administration building where he oversaw the garrison from. If No'ver had his own communication device, it would be there.
I pulled out of the Jaffa's mind as it failed under my brute-force probe. His body convulsed while his brain bled from the sheer amount of energy I subjected it to through my assault. A thought stirred the Force, crushing the Jaffa's head and putting him out of his misery.
With the Jaffa in the command tower very dead, I spent a few moments telekinetically crushing the equipment in the room before cloaking myself again and leaving. I still needed to track down the commander and deal with the pilots before I called in my troops.
=SBS=
Chapter 27 Part 2
=SBS=
Dakara
Milky Way Galaxy
Prime Vasil still struggled to get accustomed to driving around in a combat vehicle. He saw the utility in these machines his God introduced. At the same time, a piece of Jaffa's heart lamented how Perun changed the nature of warfare. While that was his wont as a proper God of War, the Prime occasionally missed the old, simpler days.
However, Vasil wouldn't have it any other way. If all these changes were the price to pay to serve a real, worthy God, then so be it!
Another new change, and a very useful one, was the ability for Jaffa to communicate freely with each other during combat. It wasn't something they could take for granted, so it shouldn't be relied upon for the time being. Nevertheless, this operation served as a field test for some equipment bought from Lord Perun's favored Taur'ri. After a few weeks of training with the warriors from the First World, Vasil was fairly confident that the Custodes and Space Wolves participating in this campaign had a handle on these radios.
"Strike One, deploying," A deep, rough voice announced.
The vehicles suddenly stopped, though their turrets kept swinging, guided by Jaffa seeking targets. Now and then, Vasil heard an odd shot and a confirmation about a dead enemy.
These days, the Prime can rarely lead from the front. Vasil's job was to command instead of fight as a proper warrior. He even had a few of the most dangerous Custodes minding him, assigned to protect him by their God! It was both awe-inspiring and supremely vexing.
Thanks to Vasil's helmet, his comrades couldn't see how he glowered at them when they got out first and spread out, looking for threats. Only then could the Prime disembark and do as his Lord ordered.
"Blade One, deploying,"
"Blade Two, deploying…"
One after another, the Custodes units disembarked, following after the Space Wolves. Vasil found the hard way that one of the more challenging things to keep in mind was which designation corresponded to each unit in the field. Until recently, he seldom had to worry about small units of Jaffa and what they were up to. Due to the challenge of communicating orders, giving his people objectives to take or defend was far simpler and more effective.
Now, Vasil and every other Prime serving Lord Perun had far, far greater ability to coordinate their Jaffa and effectively issue orders. That opened a whole new universe of possibilities as far as tactics and stratagems were concerned. At the same time, the complexity of commanding an army grew exponentially. Vasil had the nagging suspicion that sooner rather than later, he would need a large slew of Jaffa busy collating information, relaying orders, and simply helping him keep abreast of what was happening. It would be the kind of awareness that only a true God like Perun had in the past. Such a thing would be a dream come true for past commanders!
The poor bastards would have no idea what headaches such awareness would cause them, Vasil lamented.
"Command, Strike One, we're breaching into the Temple," The Space Wolves Prime reported.
Vasil looked up the massive row of stairs. The Wolves were already at the doors, with three of them locking shields to their forearms while the others took positions behind them.
Custodes units stacked up behind the assault infantry, preparing grenades they threw inside a moment later. Flashes lit up the temple's main door, followed by a deep thunder.
Storming this of all temples should have been a sacrilege. This place was the origin of all Jaffa. Dakara was the holiest of holy places… and for countless generations, it was under the sway of False Gods. There were few Goa'uld like Perun, and none of them had stepped food on Dakara in ages.
Vasil regretted the death of his brethren defending the holy land. It was not their fault that they were doing something honorable in service of False Gods. Protecting the temple couldn't be anything but honorable.
Unfortunately, Vasil was the commander of his Lord's Custodes. He knew what was at stake. War was inevitable, and his Lord and their people needed any edge they could get, for the opposition was overwhelming. Only Perun's nature as the God of War made victory even theoretically possible.
"Revenant to all units; enemy communications are down," A priority message cut through the constant murmur of incoming reports.
Lord Perun's voice heartened everyone who heard it, washing away any doubt they had. Their God fought beside them, leading from the front, repeatedly proving that he was more than worthy of the Jaffa's devotion.
"I've commandeered an Al'kesh and will provide air support. There is no trace of hostile fighters or bombers."
Vasil turned around and looked in the darkness. Far in the distance, flashes and distant explosions lit up the horizon.
The attack on the enemy's garrison had begun in earnest.
=SBTS=
Guiding a vehicle with my mind never got old. If anything, I regretted not having more spare time to go out and fly to clear up my head and relax. Thanks to the neural interface, it was less about piloting something and more about being the vessel, in this case, a bog-standard Al'kesh.
With its shields and armor, the bomber was virtually untouchable by anything the enemy had on the ground. Only the Death Gliders and other Al'kesh down there could be a threat, and good luck getting them up in the air with me bombing the place to my heart's content.
The sensors were impressive, especially once you knew what you were doing in the pilot's seat. I could see my forces during their final deployment to assault the base below. A thought marked the hangars for the targeting computer to keep an eye on. Markers appeared upon the towers surrounding the base and the barracks.
Needless to say, there was nothing else in the air that the Al'kesh could detect.
I guided the bomber over the barracks and dropped a spread of plasma charged on top of it. At the same time, a thought unleashed the forward-mounted plasma cannons and nailed the nearest tower. Before anyone knew what was happening, I swung the Al'kesh above the base and took out a second tower.
Behind me, plasma engulfed the barracks, melting through the roof and unleashing hellfire inside. The building's alloy was just tough enough to resist a few staff cannon blasts. However, few things could resist the plasma charges for long unless we were talking about hardened structures, ideally with shields.
Standard buildings were cheap and easy to mass produce. They weren't meant to resist this kind of bombardment, which was why you seldom found them in a proper fortress world.
If Dakara had proper fortifications, they were abandoned or dismantled long ago.
While flying around, I used the turret mounted on the bomber's belly for further air strikes, hitting any hint of enemy Jaffa moving below me. Meanwhile, I completed a full circle around the base, servicing its primary defense – the towers with staff cannon turrets on top. Those things really should have been shielded and heavily armored to resist a proper assault. Then again, they were never meant to face anything but infantry carrying the odd staff cannon the hard way.
By the time my Jaffa poured into the base, there was no resistance to speak of – only the odd straggler they had to hunt down. Most of the garrison died in the barracks without ever knowing what hit them, and that was the end of it. It was really considerate of the locals to have an Al'kesh ready to go for me to appropriate and use against them. With the bomber, taking and securing the base would have taken much longer, not to mention costing my Jaffa some lives.
Now, it was time to load all the available Al'kesh with my people and steal a mothership if possible.