Chapter 177: Ba'al's Machinations Part 9

Point Velvet, Deep Space, July 4th, 2000 (Earth Time)

Mal'ak's chip's burning out. It's affecting his brain.

Catra drew a sharp breath when she received Sam's report - passed as a message through the Alliance network to bypass the area-jamming focused on the enemy fleet. Her own chip had burnt out as well, but she hadn't been hurt like that. What was going on? What had Ba'al done with the chips? The hardware was supposed to be the same as Horde Prime's chips!

"Oh, no!" Adora exclaimed.

Catra checked the shuttle's position. It was still inside the enemy formation, close to the centre. If they made a run for it without another attack by Alliance forces opening a hole to slip through, they'd risk getting caught by a stray volley - from either side. "They can't escape until they've hacked the chips."

"Almost done!" Entrapta yelled from her corner of the bridge. "Without the control node switching things around every few seconds, it's just a modified version of Horde Prime's programs, and I know those, well, I knew them - they've adapted some, but they're not really adaptive, so it's not a mutating system, but… Here we go! Crashing the chips!"

For the first few seconds, nothing happened. Part of that was signal lag - they had to go through the enemy radio network - but part of that was that even if you took out the captain of an enemy ship, the crew would keep going.

But as Catra watched, she saw the first signs of the enemy formation falling apart - slowly but surely, the coordination that had kept the ships together faded, and the formation became frayed, tattered at the edges. Replacing captains in the middle of a fight was never a smooth operation, and if the replacements lacked the mind control chips, they wouldn't really be able to keep up as before.

Here, a ship was a bit too slow to react to an Alliance squadron's fly-by attack, getting caught outside the cover provided by the rest of the ships nearby. There, a frigate retreated a bit too far from another probing attack, escaping any harm but opening a hole in the defence that exposed two more to withering fire from another squadron. And two ships suddenly turned and tried to flee.

Tried. One was shot down by another frigate as it passed, and the other veered off course, weaving back and forth and alternating speed - directly into the Alliance right wing. "Must have been mutineers," she whispered as the ship was disabled - almost broken in two - when their engines were destroyed by massed fire.

And Jack must have seen an opportunity - or just grown desperate - since the shuttle was hightailing it out of the enemy formation now. Catra held her breath as it flew straight at a defensive formation of enemy frigates, but it took a sharp turn before entering their area and flew underneath them, transponder flaring, towards the Alliance line.

She released her breath when the shuttle was safely behind their frontline and turned to Adora. "We have to push now. When they are at their most vulnerable. Before they restore the chain of command. If we can break them now, the battle's over." But if they didn't, they'd take losses they wouldn't take if they just kept whittling down the enemy numbers.

Adora knew that as well. She pressed her lips together for a moment, then nodded. "Captain, signal the task force to press the attack."

"Yes, Supreme Commander!"

On the holographic projection, the Alliance forces shifted, more reserves called forth as the more damaged ships were left behind, and the lightly damaged ones took point. Catra could see the enemy's formation trying to adapt to the attack they knew was coming, but their chain of command would still be dealing with losing all commanders at the same time, and even for the Clones, that was a huge blow.

Instead of an all-out attack, the Alliance fleet attacked by sections. One section, composed of all the ships in the best state, smashed straight into the enemy formation. And when the enemy centre fell back, the outer parts found themselves enveloping the section but also exposed to the next attacks, which cut through them before they could decimate the first wave.

Four, five enemy ships - half of them not even engaged - turned at that moment. One was shot down by their own group, the others ended up charging straight at another Alliance formation.

Three were wrecked in short order, the last one turned so hard, it flew through another squadron of Ba'al's frigates, almost ramming one as it thoroughly dissolved their formation.

The Alliance forces pounced on the ships left in disarray, and as they quickly died, isolated and without coordination and cover, a hole opened in the enemy formation through which two, three Alliance squadrons pushed.

"It's over," Catra said. The enemy formation was falling apart in front of her eyes. Ships fought by themselves, all coordination lost, as the Alliance frigates quickly focused their fire on one enemy after the other. And with every enemy frigate destroyed, the Alliance's advantage in numbers grew.

A few minutes later, the last handful of enemy frigates were drifting in space trailed by debris or turned into expanding clouds of plasma.

And Jack's shuttle landed on their ship.

Jack O'Neill was very grateful that the life support system of the stealth shuttle was rated for heavy duty; thanks to the filters in the ventilation system, he had barely caught a whiff of the stench of burning skin and flesh from the shuttle's cargo area.

He had heard the noise Ba'al's First Prime had made, even through his gag, when the chip had started burning. It was a good thing that the Alliance navy wasn't a dry navy - at least not the Clone ships - since Jack really needed a drink right now. Unfortunately, he would have to wait until he had landed the shuttle and dealt with the entire mess.

At least, they were ready for them; he saw a medical team waiting with a floating gurney as he guided the shuttle into the frigate's hangar, and as soon as he touched down, the four Clones were rushing to the back of the shuttle.

Jack lowered the ramp and got up. "We've arrived, folks." He almost added: 'Thank you for flying O'Neill Air', but Carter looked too grim to appreciate the joke. "How's the prisoner doing?"

"He's alive," Carter replied as she got up and let the medics grab Mal'ak. "But I can't tell yet what neural damage he suffered."

Jack winced. "I didn't think the chips were supposed to do that - didn't Catra mention that her own had burnt out as well?"

"They aren't supposed to do that," Carter replied in a clipped tone. "And the hardware is the same. Ba'al must have managed to alter the software in a way that allows it to overheat the chip to the point of burning the flesh it's attached to."

"The pain from burning skin should not have caused such a reaction," Teal'c spoke up. "If he could not take molten gold poured into Ba'al's symbol carved into his forehead without flinching, he would not have become Ba'al's First Prime."

Yeah, Jack wasn't about to comment on that. Or glance at the golden symbol on Teal'c's forehead.

"Yes," Carter said. "That's why I suspect that the chip did something to his brain."

"Something more painful than burning." Jack pressed his lips together. "Cooking the brain?"

Carter frowned. "That is not physically possible with the chip, sir."

Learned a new thing.

The Clones had finished loading the trembling - and bound - Jaffa on the gurney and were taking him out of the shuttle. He was no longer Jack's responsibility. Not officially, at least. But Jack had been in charge of the mission - he had carried a prisoner of war into battle to use them against the enemy. Even if Mal'ak hadn't been hurt, that would've been sketchy. Now? Jack was sure there would be an investigation. And 'I was following orders' wouldn't cut it. Not that he'd use that excuse - he had known what he was doing when he had taken command.

"What? A war crime?"

Jack nodded. "Yes. Prisoners of war aren't supposed to be sent into danger like that."

"But…" Adora blinked. "Oh, no! I didn't think of that!"

"It was my plan, sir," Carter spoke up. "My responsibility."

"I was in charge of the mission, Major" Jack retorted. If anyone had to take the fall for this, it would be him.

"I'm the Supreme Commander of the Alliance, and I approved of this. If anyone is to blame, it's me." Adora glared at both of them.

"Who's going to prosecute you? You're She-Ra, Princess of Power," Glimmer said. "And the Supreme Commander of the Alliance."

Adora's glare switched targets. "I'm not going to hide behind that!"

Ah… Jack winced. That wasn't going how he thought it would be going.

"You're a Princess; you have diplomatic immunity," Glimmer shot back. "Besides, what do you think will happen if some idiot tries to punish you for this? Priest will nod along?"

"I'll tell him that I was wrong."

"You weren't wrong," Catra spoke up. "The chips were already hurting the prisoners - they almost killed themselves. This was the only way we saw to hack them and stop them." She flashed her fangs. "Call it emergency medical aid."

That was… certainly creative. Jack didn't think too many prosecutors would agree, though that would likely not matter - it might be a good enough excuse to sweep this under the rug.

"But…" Adora tried to defend herself - or the opposite.

Catra shook her head. "We had no choice. If we wanted to save the chipped people, we had to hack those chips. And Mal'ak was Ba'al's First Prime - hardly an innocent victim."

Jack glanced at Teal'c. His friend had been Apophis's First Prime and had deserted. But Teal'c didn't say anything nor showed any expression.

And Carter looked torn.

"Still, we're not supposed to treat prisoners like that!" Adora said.

Catra shrugged. "Not even to save them?" She scoffed. "Those chips had to be hacked. We couldn't let them be mind-controlled. And that was the only way."

At least, they hadn't been able to think of a better way at the moment, Jack amended the statement in his head. But it was better to get on with the program. "So… we tried to save them, and the only way that seemed to offer any hope was dangerous but worked - in the end." Well, he had done worse in the past, and it had been buried.

But as everyone nodded, more or less reluctantly, Jack couldn't help feeling as if he were a spook. Or a politician.

Ba'al's Glove, Point Velvet, Deep Space, July 4th, 2000 (Earth Time)

Adora watched on the HUD as the royal marines went through another section of the ship. They had already scanned for ambushes and bombs - Adora herself had taken down a squad of Jaffa trying to hold a chokepoint - but the soldiers still proceeded cautiously through the corridors.

"They're fine," Catra commented behind her.

Adora knew that. But she still worried. They were acting on her orders - and as she had just been pointed out to her, she wasn't perfect. To think she had broken the laws of war!

"We've collected all the chipped people already," Catra went on. "This is just standard procedure."

Adora glanced at her. "What about the prisoners?"

"None of them show any symptoms like Mal'ak does," Catra replied. "Sam and Entrapta are removing the chips as fast as they can."

That was good. Adora felt guilty already for subjecting Mal'ak to this ordeal. They should have considered the risk and taken the chip out before heading in. But the chip wouldn't have linked up with the network if it hadn't been implanted, and… She clenched her teeth. It wasn't an excuse.

"We did what we could and had to," Catra said. "We couldn't let this go on."

Adora pressed her lips together. The excuse rang hollow. They shouldn't have used a prisoner like that. But they shouldn't have let the chipped people suffer longer either… There was no good answer. They just had to do better - much better - next time. "What are their reactions?"

Catra made a scoffing noise. "What do you think? They are traumatised by the experience."

Like Catra had been. Like any host of a Goa'uld had been.

Adora still had to ask. No two people were alike, not even Clones. Some might fool themselves into thinking they deserved to be controlled like that. And some might even consider it an honour. They didn't know what Mal'ak thought about it - the former First Prime of Ba'al still wasn't able to be interrogated.

"They're getting treatment," Catra went on. "We're doing what we can. But we need to find the chip factory and destroy it."

Adora nodded. That, at least, was clear and obvious. "We need to decide what we do about this site," she said. "Ba'al could already be massing ships to attack us."

"He can't just keep counter-attacking - we've defeated every force of his we've met so far," Catra said. "At some point, he has to start worrying about his remaining assets."

"We don't know how many forces he has left," Adora pointed out. It was unlikely that Ba'al could have enough Horde forces to match the Alliance, but not technically impossible.

Catra scoffed again. "If he had enough advanced forces to match us, he'd have done so straight away. He wouldn't have sent half a dozen frigates with a fleet of barely-upgraded Ha'taks after us. And he would have reinforced this site with more ships."

Adora nodded. It was likely that they had destroyed the bulk of the Horde forces that had joined Ba'al. But they couldn't be sure until they knew what forces Ba'al had left. "We need more intel."

"No shit!" Catra growled under her breath. "But the only one who seems to know everything is Ba'al himself. Either we take him out, or we have to wait until our spy bot network is covering the entire sector."

And even then, they couldn't be sure Ba'al wouldn't have some hidden base or yard in another part of the galaxy. This site wasn't in a system, after all - they would have missed it if they had simply mapped all systems in the area. "We still have half the spy bots tracking their ships," Adora said. "But we need to decide whether we hold this site or move everything back to the Alliance."

"Whether we abandon the Glove or not, you mean," Catra replied.

"Yes." They could evacuate everything else, but the unfinished flagship didn't have any engines yet. And while it was far from being finished, it was already too big to be moved by anything the task force had access to.

"We don't need it," Catra said. "It would take far too long to finish it, and even if we did finish it, we don't need a ship that big. Not to mention that it would send a pretty bad message to half of Etheria and any survivors of Horde Prime's campaigns."

She was correct, of course - Adora didn't think anyone who had fought Horde Prime would want to see his flagship again. The Velvet Glove had been responsible for so much destruction in the galaxy. "Some people will be angry," she said. Some people would love to have the biggest ship in the sector. And access to the factories planned to be built into it.

"Let them." Cara shrugged. "It would be a bad idea to focus so much into one ship, anyway. As Ba'al just found out."

Adora agreed with that. Not just because they couldn't afford to lose such a ship but also because whoever controlled the ship would control a lot of the Alliance's fleet strength. And that would influence Alliance politics. Still… "Let's discuss it with the others."

Catra shrugged. "I don't think Glimmer will disagree."

Adora didn't think so either. Jack was a wild card, though.

Point Velvet, Deep Space, July 5th, 2000 (Earth Time)

Samantha Carter suppressed a yawn as she stared at the latest data points from the analysis. The central control node code had to have protocols to link up with a higher authority - anything else wouldn't let Ba'al update the standing orders. And there would have to be checks and tests to validate such orders - data the Alliance could use against Ba'al, even if it wouldn't deliver them the coordinates of another of Ba'al's bases.

Unfortunately, after trapping the control node in Mal'ak's chip - Sam's lips formed a thin line when she remembered the consequences of that decision - it had started to burn out, and so they had barely managed to recover fragments of the code before the chip had died and almost taken Mal'ak with it. All that crucial data lost…

"Alright. I think I've finished restoring that piece of code," Entrapta said. "The advanced control routines would work according to the simulation, though we haven't tested that yet so it's not yet confirmed by empirical data."

"Uh, which won't happen because the Alliance doesn't mind-control people," Bow pointed out.

"Right! Of course!" Entrapta nodded.

Sam focused on the new data. The subroutines to control the carriers were the same as Horde Prime's - they had confirmed that with data from all the chips that they had captured - but anything about the actual advanced control node's directives and decision trees were assumptions. Assumptions based on the data from those chips which had hosted the control node during the battle detailing the orders and changes in behaviour it had left.

And wasn't that a nice, clinical way to talk and think about a chip warping a person's innermost thoughts and desires?

"At least we've managed to streamline the removal of the chips," Bow said after a few moments.

That hadn't taken much beyond Entrapta and Bow remembering how they had dealt with Horde Prime's chips and checking if the basic methods worked. Sam still nodded since it meant all of the chips' victims were now free. Traumatised and in need of help but no longer trapped in their own bodies - or, worse, mentally manipulated to become fanatical followers of Ba'al.

But it had netted them a lot of chips to analyse, which they had been doing for hours. Every little detail, every data point, could add up and allow them to crack Ba'al's defences.

Sam would be more optimistic if she couldn't think of half a dozen ways to avoid any potential weakness she came up with. No one is perfect, certainly not someone as egoistical as Ba'al, she told herself. He has to have made a mistake; we just need to find it.

The key was the floating control node's code. All of Ba'al's orders had run through that; updating the network chip after chip as it jumped around. All the protocols and data would have been concentrated there - and gone when the last host chip had burnt out. Something Ba'al had likely intended.

But it was also an obvious failure point and a weakness. Take out the control node, as Sam and her friends had done, and the whole network collapsed. Any chip that survived wouldn't have any way to safely link up with another network. No protocols to validate sources and update orders.

Ba'al did like to compartmentalise his forces. Maybe he preferred to write off a network if it lost the central node? Fighting to the death was certainly standard operation procedure for his followers.

But Sam didn't think that Ba'al would go as far as to permanently split up his forces from the start. And even so, he couldn't expect to keep all chips in a network together forever - ships were sent out on scouting missions all the time, task forces split up according to the needs of any given mission, courier work was fairly common and would require the kind of loyalty mind-control chips enforced. So, every chip had to have a way to rejoin a network. Anything else wouldn't make any sense, not even for a paranoid Goa'uld. Protocols to establish contact. Validate signals. Accept new directives. Everything you needed to become part of the network - or infiltrate it.

Sam and her friends just had to find those protocols in the core software of the chips. But they had been sifting the entire code for any trace of such protocols and had only found the routines that handled the technical parts. Not the ones that actually authorised such link-ups. Where had Ba'al hidden them?

Even simulating a network connection didn't reveal them - the chips linked up, but nothing past signal testing data was exchanged. No actual data; it was like the higher functions were missing…

Sam blinked. "Oh, of course!"

Ba'al was a Goa'uld. Goa'uld were parasites, sapient, but they depended on the brains of their hosts to achieve their full intellectual potential. And what use would a chip without a carrier be for any network? It would feel natural for him to link - to outsource - core network functions to a chip carrier's brain, wouldn't it?

"Can we fool a chip into believing that they are hooked up to a brain?" she asked, then groaned at the realisation that she was starting to anthropomise chips.

"We could, I think, but why?" Bow said.

Sam explained.

"...and so we confirmed that the chips use part of the carrier's brain to store data, presumably crucial parts such as network protocols and valuation codes."

Catra felt the fur at the back of her neck bristle at Sam's briefing. Those damned chips not only took over your body - forcing it to keep fighting even when you were unconscious or dead - but they used your brain for data storage? She'd personally kill whoever came up with this.

"That's…" Even Jack didn't seem to have a joke ready.

"That's horrible!" Glimmer spat.

"Can we fix that?" Adora's expression sent a cold shiver down Catra's spine. She hadn't seen her love looking grim like that very often. "Give people back their… brains?"

Sam winced. "We're still examining the victims. So far, we have not yet been able to access the data stored in their brains, though we're working on identifying and duplicating the protocols in the chips. Once we can assess the scope of the changes to the brain, it should be possible to ascertain what was done to them."

In other words, they didn't know and were not optimistic. "So… We can't exclude the possibility that those parts of their brain contain some ways to mind-control the victims?" Catra asked.

"Shit!" Jack cursed. "Sleeper agent protocols?"

"We can't exclude that possibility at this point," Sam confirmed.

"I can try healing them," Adora said. "This… I should be able to restore someone's brain to their control."

Catra wasn't so certain, but she didn't think it would hurt to try. Though if it took She-Ra to deal with this, that would be another burden on her love.

"We'll have to examine the victims more thoroughly first, to establish a baseline," Sam said.

"Yeah! Or we might not be able to tell what your magic is doing to people's brains," Entrapta added. "We don't know yet what the chip did to brains - not in detail."

"It's a very complicated interface," Bow cut in. "We first thought it was merely an, ah, alternate way to safely store data, protect it from access through conventional means, but the chips' protocols are too complex for that. It doesn't help that we can't use the chips directly to access the data."

Catra glanced around, half-expecting someone to ask why they couldn't put a mind-control chip back into a victim to check their brain, but to her relief, no one was that stupid.

"Alright." Adora nodded. "Keep working on that - it takes priority. We need all the information about those chips we can get to stop Ba'al. Now, next item: The state of this site and our task force."

That was her cue. Sort of. Catra sat straighter and pulled her tablet out. "We're still recovering from the battle, but we've used the captured facilities here to repair our ships. A third of the task force's frigates have been restored to full combat readiness, and another third, while still showing damaged secondary systems, have had their shields, engines and main batteries repaired. The last third, though, will require lengthier stays in docks, either here or in facilities behind our lines."

"We lost a third of our task force, then." Jack didn't sound happy.

"Temporarily," Glimmer said. "They will be repaired."

"That still will cost us resources that could go into building new ships," Catra pointed out. Glimmer frowned at her, but she shrugged. "Opportunity costs are still costs. At least the casualties were light." Trained and especially experienced crew was much harder to replace than ships, after all.

"We were lucky there," Adora said. "If the battle had continued a bit longer, we would have been forced to field even more damaged ships, and losses and casualties would have rapidly grown."

Yeah. As long as you could shift ships around to spread the damage taken by the enemy, you could avoid heavy losses, but once you ran out of undamaged ships to rotate into the frontlines, damage would accumulate fast. Catra had seen it happen in the Horde war with ground units. Once a unit had taken so many casualties that it started to break, you could write it off.

"So… we're basically at half effectiveness," Jack summed up.

"Yes. Which means we cannot repel a counter-attack by a force the same size as the force we took down," Adora said. "We need to evacuate the site."

"That would mean leaving the unfinished Glove," Glimmer said.

"No big loss," Catra said. "It's just a chunk of hull at this point. No engine, reactor, shield or weapons of any note. Not even the factories have been completed yet." She shrugged. "Less than a quarter of the entire ship, too."

"What a waste of resources," Jack commented.

"We didn't spend it," Glimmer said. "Ba'al did."

"And finishing the ship would require too much time, too many resources, and too many forces to guard this site," Adora said. "We can't afford it."

"So, we'll loot it of everything we can take and blow up the rest. Or Have Adora turn it into a space plant," Catra said, flashing her fangs.

"I can't actually use magic on that scale out here," Adora said. "I would need a world's restored magic to do that."

"So, we can't leave a message for Ba'al using flower language. Too bad." Jack grinned. "I guess some explosives will have to do."

"And we'll have to pack up the factory ships - and the ships forming their supply lines," Catra said. "They're slower than frigates, so we better get a move on." Digesting everything back home would also require an effort. But overall, this should help with Alliance war production capacities.

Once they figured out who got what, of course. Catra had a feeling that this would cause some issues with Earth.

Alliance Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, July 15th, 2000

"...and surely, General, you agree that moving the, ah, liberated production assets of Ba'al to Etheria is a blatant attempt to present the Alliance with a fait accompli that flies in the face of the treaty that formed the Alliance."

Jack O'Neill resisted the urge to roll his eyes; the Secretary of Defense was, after all, his superior. Sort of - Jack was part of the forces the United States had assigned to the Alliance, and he answered to Adora, but he had not left the Air Force. "Etheria was the closest system under secure Alliance control," he said. "Moving the captured factory and mining ships anywhere else would have both required significant forces to guard them and taken far longer. That would have significantly reduced the Alliance's offensive and defensive capabilities in the war." Something the man should have been aware of!

"Yes, yes, I've read the reports." The other man shook his head almost dismissively. "But we can't just look at this from a military point of view, General - we have to take the bigger picture into account. Those factory and yard ships are the most advanced we have; they are geared to produce Horde-style frigates and supporting craft. To place them under the direct control of the Princess Alliance in Etheria when Etheria already controls the factory ships of the Horde fleets in the Alliance seems like an obvious attempt to cement their monopoly on advanced ship production."

Oh for…! Jack shook his head. "The different Clone fleets control their own fleet trains, sir. The Princess Alliance doesn't have control over them."

"Two of the fleets worship She-Ra as their goddess, and the other two are commanded by Princess Entrapta's consort and a very close friend, respectively; I think we can dispense with the polite fiction that the Princess Alliance doesn't control the Horde ships, General."

Jack stared. "Have you met Princess Entrapta?" Did the man honestly believe that Entrapta was some… seductress controlling the Clones through Hordak and WrongHordak?

The man frowned. "Despite her eccentricities, Princess Entrapta is a ruling princess - and one of the oldest members of the Princess Alliance's leadership council, General."

"Entrapta doesn't care about politics; she just cares about technology and her friends," Jack shot back.

"That might be so, but that means she will listen to her friends - and the majority of her friends are members of the Princess Alliance, General. How often did the Horde leaders oppose any proposal from them?" Before Jack could answer, the man went on: "And even if we would assume that your view was correct, you have to consider the optics, General."

"The optics?" Jack frowned again.

"It's an election year, General. How do you think the American people think about the fact that we still seem to be playing second fiddle to the rest of the Alliance?"

Oh. "I think they're more concerned about the body-snatching evil alien parasites trying to enslave us all, sir."

"You would think so, but that's not what the polls say. People are concerned about being beholden to aliens, period. They haven't forgotten how America was forced to bend to the demands of the Princess Alliance. The American people expect us to be the leading nation of Earth, not the junior partner of an Alliance led by aliens." The Secretary of Defense shook his head. "We're lucky that they arrived two years ago, and the reports from the invasions we launched did help, but the public isn't stupid - they see all those alien ships in the news, they see the British ships in combat - and they don't care that those were glorified feighters - and they ask where the American ships are in this war."

"Well, if they want a strong fleet, maybe the Navy shouldn't be building lemons," Jack retorted. The US frigates were still not rated for combat outside the solar system.

That earned him a glare. "All new designs have teething issues. I am sure those will be soon ironed out - Major Carter is supposed to work hard on them, isn't she? - but we need more production capacity under American control if we want to regain our position."

"And win the election," Jack said in the flattest tone he could manage.

"You don't change the team in the middle of the game, General. Besides, how do you think the Etherians will react if the US Government is replaced by people who think the gay should go back in the closet?"

Jack hadn't exactly paid a lot of attention to the election campaigns, but he would have noticed any such demand - hell, the Etherians would have asked him about it! "I don't believe that the next president, whoever it will be, will change those policies, sir."

"Of course not! It's in the constitution now! But the press, especially the foreign press, will dig up everything they said about gays and lesbians in the past in an attempt to cut us off at the knees. We can't afford that kind of trouble." The man narrowed his eyes again. "We need to get control of those factory ships before the election, General, so we can show the public that America isn't weak any more and on the way to regain our place as the leader of the free world."

"That seems to be a political challenge, sir," Jack said with all the diplomatic restraint he could muster. "Not a military problem."

"On this level, that's the same thing, General."

"But I'm a military officer, sir." Not a politician.

"And you're an American - the highest American officer in the Alliance. A close friend of the core leaders of the Princess Alliance. Your country needs you, General."

It sounded more as if Jack's government needed him. "And you want me to… talk to the princesses?"

"I want you to give them your honest appraisal of the danger for the Alliance if the production capacities remain as unbalanced as they currently are, General."

Fuck.

Royal Palace, Bright Moon, Etheria, Etheria System, July 16th, 2000 (Earth Time)

"What? They want us to move the entire production line to the Solar System?" Adora shook her head. "That makes no sense - that would take months, not including setting up the mining operations to supply the factory ships and yard ships! We've just finished setting up in the Etheria system, and we already had mining infrastructure here!" Moving an entire space-based shipyard complex took a lot of time and effort!

"Against opposition from our resident isolationists," Glimmer added with a scowl. "They claimed to be worried about the effects asteroid mining had on Etheria's magic!"

Jack shrugged with a slight grimace. "The US government is concerned about the upcoming election."

"They're worried that the opposition party might be exploiting the lingering resentment amongst part of the American population that the United States isn't the uncontested superpower on Earth any more," Daniel said. "At least, the polls I've looked into seem to show that this is a view shared by a not insignificant part of the population."

Glimmer muttered something brief and not very complimentary about democracy that Adora chose to ignore. America, and pretty much every Earth country in the Alliance, was a democracy. That wouldn't change. But… "I thought that blatantly using your power as the government to ensure you stayed in power was considered an abuse of power in a democracy."

"Ah…" Daniel grimaced as well. "It's complicated."

"I sense some hypocrisy coming," Catra commented.

"Well, a democratic government is supposed to implement policies to improve the lives of their people, which, in turn, will, if they are successful, and seen as being successful, gain the voter's support in the next election," Daniel said. "That includes caring about the concerns of the population."

"Appearing to care about them, you mean," Catra cut in.

Adora frowned at her. Catra's cynical views of democracy weren't really helpful right now.

Daniel, though, nodded. "Yes. In politics, perception often is more important than reality."

Glimmer muttered something about democracy again.

Adora focused on the actual issue. "And the US government doesn't want to look weak to their voters, which is why they want us to move the Horde fleet train we captured to Earth and hand it over to them."

Jack shrugged again. "More or less. They were a bit cagey about the whole thing."

"We already could tell because they went through you, Jack, and not through official channels," Daniel said.

"The other countries would protest about such a blatant power grab." Glimmer shook her head. "How do they think this would work, anyway? Those yard ships produce Horde frigates. The Americans chose to build their own designs. Do they want to retool the entire line?"

Catra scoffed. "For their crappy designs? Might as well blow the entire line up and save us the waste of resources and crews!"

"That's a bit harsh, I think," Bow said.

"No, it's not. Just listen to Sam rant about them," Catra shot back.

Adora nodded. The many, many problems with the American ships were well-known. "Leaving that aside, would a change of government really be that bad?"

"Well, if they campaign on more nationalist rhetoric and win, then the new government would likely push for more influence in the Alliance," Daniel said.

"You mean, they'd ask for the same things the current government does?" Catra snorted again.

"Well…" Daniel spread his hands. "In a way, yes."

"I don't think we should get involved in that," Glimmer said. "That feels like meddling in a succession issue in another kingdom."

"Historically, most succession issues on Etheria involved other kingdoms as well," Bow pointed out.

"That doesn't mean meddling is a good idea," Glimmer shot back.

Adora agreed. "Yes. We shouldn't let the internal policies of one country shape the way we conduct this war. Our focus has to be on winning the war against the Goa'uld, not elections." She was sure the rest of the Council would agree - none of the other NATO countries had struck her as particularly happy with the American leadership.

Spacelab, Earth Orbit, Solar System, July 17th, 2000 (Earth Time)

"OK! That should work! Now let's test it!"

Samantha Carter nodded at Entrapta's comment. The latest version of their brain scanner looked promising. Well, it was more of a brain interface, to be precise. Their scanners were already able to scan brains, but they hadn't been able yet to connect them to Ba'al's chips. Whoever had written the software for those abominations must have been both a genius and utterly deranged.

"Connecting the interface," she said as she checked once more that the outside connections were cut before powering up the link between the air-gapped scanner and the isolated chip.

"Protocols… engaging," Entrapta said. "Oh, look - data exchange started."

That was promising, but they had such successes before. If the chip's protocols were not satisfied, it would… The indicators changed. "Successful connection."

"It's looking into the data from the scans!"

Yes, the chip was treating the data as if it were live readings from a brain. Or so Sam hoped. If they could fool the chip, they could get at the reading/writing routines, and then they could access the altered parts of the brains of the chipped victims and find out what data was stored there.

That could be the key to cracking the entire network.

Sam leaned forward as the chip's routines started exchanging great amounts of data with their simulated brain.

"Oh, look at that, Sam! It's trying to alter the brain chemistry! As we theorised!"

Sam nodded. Another piece of the puzzle had been solved. Sooner or later, the whole thing would be open to them.

And then, they could start on tracking down such networks.