Chapter 182: The Election Campaign Part 4
PB-1763 System, Ba'al's Realm, August 11th, 2000 (Earth Time)
"We've entered the target system and switched to passive sensors."
Catra nodded at Jack's announcement and checked their position on the holoprojection. They were flying on a slightly curved route that would take them around some of the known concentrations of enemy craft and avoid flying too close to the staging points of Ba'al's fleet in the system - at least on the approach; couldn't do anything about having to close in with them when they had to land on the planet.
"Do we have to whisper? Your stealth system is so good, we could hitch a ride on the next enemy ship, couldn't we?"
And Double Trouble was still fishing for information. So, they must have heard something about Alliance stealth ships. Probably some sailor with loose lips - another reason not to let Double Trouble out of their sight on this mission; they already knew far too much about the Alliance.
"It's traditional not to yell when you're sneaking," Jack said.
"Traditional? I thought Earth was all about efficiency!"
"We're traditionally efficient," he shot back.
"I'm suddenly not so confident that this will work," Double Trouble went on - but in a joking tone.
Catra shrugged. "The sensors aren't a problem out here - the real issue is to get down on the planet without the plasma from re-entry marking our position for every ship with a line of sight to us."
"What?" Double Trouble didn't sound amused any more. "I was told this is a routine mission for you!"
"We routinely risk our lives on such missions, yes," Glimmer commented. Catra didn't have to turn her head to know she was grinning.
"We have done this before," Bow, ever the spoilsport, cut in. "Though usually, we didn't have to deal with quite so many ships guarding the planet."
"Really? I'm not an expert - though I could be, in an instant!"
"Don't copy Sam or anyone else here!" Adora interrupted them.
Double Trouble rolled her eyes. "Anyway, how can you avoid being detected when they have ships covering the entire planet?"
"By being very sneaky," Jack replied. "We've got a plan."
"Yes! With a very good chance to work and not kill us all!" Entrapta chimed in, beaming at them. "We got it ready in time for this mission!"
Catra suppressed a wince. Entrapta was as honest as ever, but 'a very good chance to work and not kill us all' were not the kind of odds Catra liked.
That Double Trouble liked them even less helped keep her grin on her face, of course. Anything to rile up them.
"Now be quiet! We're closing in on the first Death Glider network."
"I thought they couldn't hear us in space."
"They can't. But I can, and I need to focus on flying this ship," Jack said.
"Yes," Sha're, the co-pilot added. "This requires our concentration."
Catra could tell how much it cost Double Trouble - their expressions were almost comically clear - but they did fall silent while the Stealth Shuttle continued its approach.
PB-1763 Orbit, PB-1763 System, Ba'al's Realm, August 11th, 2000 (Earth Time)
"That's your plan? Dropping us from orbit? In caskets?"
Catra smirked at Double Trouble's outburst.
"Those aren't caskets." Entrapta shook her head. "Those are drop pods - stealth drop pods. With a bot navigation system. They are small enough and manoeuvrable enough so they can make atmospheric re-entry without creating a bigger thermic trace than a bunch of micrometeorites. So! Unless Ba'al's sensor net is calibrated for tracking micrometeorites, we should be perfectly fine in them! And even if something goes wrong, they wouldn't be caskets!" She frowned. "Mostly because they would be destroyed with the passenger, of course. Although that could be called a sort of cremation if it happens in the higher atmosphere, and they do use caskets for that - even though it's such a waste, burning perfectly fine wood! - so… They could be caskets, I guess."
"You guess?"
"Get into your pod, Double Trouble," Adora spoke up.
"We can always zat them and stuff them into the pod to collect them on the ground," Glimmer added.
"That's… That wasn't the deal!"
"It was. You just didn't care about the details," Catra said.
"Is this your revenge for me teaching you a much-needed lesson?"
Catra shook her head. "This is just for being an asshole."
Double Trouble was about to respond, but Sam stepped in front of her. "We're on a timer. Everyone needs to get in their pods."
Catra checked her helmet seal - not that her suit would help her if the pod malfunctioned during re-entry, but they were going into space - and climbed into her pod. The lid closed with a slight hissing sound, and the inside lit up with a holographic projection that let her see the outside.
"Drop Pod One, ready."
"Drop Pod Three, ready."
"Drop Pod Five, ready."
"Drop Pod Four, ready."
"Drop Pod Seven, ready."
"Drop Pod Six, ready."
Catra listened to the bot voices reporting from the different pods, counting off.
"All pods ready."
"Release!" Sha're, now the pilot in charge, ordered.
Then the bottom seemed to fall out from underneath Catra, and her tail swung wildly as she instinctively tried to stabilise her fall before the pod's inertial compensators kicked in, and she felt gravity again.
Her stomach still protested since, according to her eyes, she was falling forward - head first - toward the planet.
Then she hit the atmosphere, and everything lit up.
Jack O'Neill clenched his teeth as the picture projected on the 'lid' of his drop pod switched to a good attempt at how the sun must look inside, and the entire pod started to shake almost violently. He had gone through many re-entries before, but those had been with his shuttle - protected by armour, shielding and inertial compensators that turned the process into a smooth ride with a nice light show.
Strapped into a small pod, feeling every vibration even with the rudimentary inertial compensators installed, and hoping that Carter, Entrapta and Bow hadn't missed a small but fatal mistake when they had thrown those things together was a very different experience. Of course, he trusted Carter with his life without hesitation, but… it was a bit easier to trust her with his life when he wasn't currently surrounded by plasma and hoping no Death Glider pilot decided to use the apparent micrometeor for a spontaneous target practice session. Damn, he wished this wouldn't take so long - even if the risk of getting detected was higher the faster they were, waiting inside this pod - which the soldiers were going to call 'coffins', Jack knew - was almost torture.
Finally, the picture changed again, now showing the planet below and space above them - they were through the worst part. His holographic display also showed that they hadn't lost any pod on the way - all of them lit up green, and he let out a relieved breath.
Then the turbulences started, and he cursed again. He had flown through turbulences before, and he knew better than most that even modern planes could be wrecked by them. This falling coffin had advanced technology, but just enough to make taking it down to the ground not outright suicide.
His pod started to veer and roll around - he saw it on the display with the artificial horizon, but the way he was pulled into the harness holding him safe would have been clue enough. It was a pilot's worst nightmare - all his instincts were screaming that he was in a flat spin and he was about to crash if he didn't do something.
"Trust Carter; she said that this was normal and planned for," he muttered to himself through clenched teeth as the ground grew closer and closer. "This thing is on autopilot." Had to be - you couldn't really teach ground forces to steer what was a one-way miniature spaceship. Not without turning them into pilots.
But as the pod kept falling, it kept spinning. Was it defective? No! Jack gasped when he realised that the pod was adjusting their course towards the rally spot. And it was slowing down! If only it stopped spinning…
It did stop spinning about a second before it hit the ground, straightening and rightening itself just in time to plant its bottom into the ground - though not deep enough to keep standing; Jack sighed when the pod toppled over, rolling as it fell so it would land on its back.
"Climbing out of a coffin isn't how you're supposed to invade a planet," he muttered as he hit the quick release of his harness and opened the lid. "Then again, you also aren't supposed to jump out of a perfectly working plane, but here we are."
He looked around, rifle ready. Half a dozen pods had landed almost on top of him, all but one - Drop Pod Two - opening. A few were a bit further away.
Catra slid out of hers, crouching on all fours as she looked around, quickly joined by Melog.
Adora all but jumped out, sword out and in full She-Ra regalia.
Glimmer appeared in a cloud of sparkles, grinning wildly. "Hah! This world didn't have a Stargate, so the First Ones couldn't steal its magic!"
Oh. That was good since it meant Glimmer could teleport. But it was also bad since it meant Adora didn't have the 'unleash the world's magic and turn all enemies into turnips' ace up her sleeve. Still, good to have confirmation - with the way some snakes were moving Stargates around, and the data banks being less than reliable, they hadn't been sure.
And there came Carter and Entrapta! Safe and sound! Jack smiled.
"See? The spins served to slow down our fall as planned! And it was a nice ride, too!" Entrapta beamed.
Jack stopped smiling. So, that had been deliberate.
Carter must have caught his mood since she said: "The spinning also serves to throw off an enemy gunner's aim, should they detect the pods, sir."
Yeah, and it probably saved some power, too - but Jack had a feeling they had picked that system because Entrapta thought it was fun.
Well, there would be time enough to talk about briefing your test subjects more thoroughly even if time was precious once they were done here. He looked around. Everyone was accounted for except the still closed pod.
"They're pounding against the lid. I think we need to let them out now," Catra said.
"Oh, yes!" Entrpata nodded and pointed her multitool at it.
A moment later, the lid opened, and they heard Double Trouble's voice: "...open, you piece of crap! I'm not going to end up as a snake egg incubator because of… Oh."
"Seems like your pod had a malfunction," Jack told them. "Carter, make a note to look into that afterwards. We can't have our troops be caught in their coffins."
"Yes, sir!"
"Really?" Double Trouble narrowed their eyes at him. "That's your story?"
Jack nodded. That was his story, and he would be sticking to it. "Alright, grab the gear from the pods, then hit the self-destruct and let's be on our way. We've got a way to hike before we reach our objective."
"We're going to walk?" Double trouble gasped as if they hadn't known that from the briefing.
Jack ignored them and grabbed his rucksack from his pod, then started the process that would turn the pod into dust in a process that Carter said totally wasn't burning it to ashes… He sighed. There really was no way the troops wouldn't be making coffin and ashes to ashes, dust to dust jokes once they got their hands on the production models.
Wilderness, PB-1763, Ba'al's Realm, August 11th, 2000 (Earth Time)
"This is undignified!"
Adora ignored Double Trouble's complaints. If they didn't want to be carried 'like a bag of potatoes', they should have kept walking.
"You're literally carried by a princess, and you think it's undignified?" Glimmer sounded amused.
"It is! This isn't a princess carry - she's slung me over her shoulder!"
Well, Adora needed at least one hand free if they were attacked, and she already had a pack with a spy bot in it on her back, so that left her shoulders.
"Adora could always just drag you." Catra, on the other hand, wasn't amused, as her snidish tone illustrated whenever she wasn't scouting ahead.
But that couldn't be helped - they had to cover quite the distance, and if Double Trouble was being dramatic - their feet were never in danger of 'literally falling off' - then carrying them was the obvious solution. It kept the group on schedule and also made it harder for Double Trouble to run off.
Running off on a planet held by Ba'al, and which would soon be facing a massive attack by the Alliance forces if this mission failed, wouldn't be very smart, but Double Trouble had done more stupid things - they weren't as smart as they claimed to be, in Adora's opinion. Then again, few people who claimed they were smart were that smart, in her experience.
They were moving through a dense forest - they had adapted their planned route as they approached the planet since they had gotten their best scan of the surface - and making decent time. They would be making better time if they were walking through more open terrain, but that would expose them, and Ba'al had too many Death Gliders up in the airspace for that. Even if many of those were test flights and not patrols, the risk was still too high.
"Hey! Watch where you walk - you almost smashed my face into the trunk here!"
Adora rolled her eyes. She hadn't even come close!
"It's a pity she didn't succeed!" Catra mumbled as she passed them.
"Hey!"
"I wish we'd have the time to build a drop pod for Emily," Entrapta said behind her. "And a stealth module for her, or, at least, a better shielding for her engines so she can better hide from sensors. Then she could carry us through this!"
Adora doubted that - the forest was a bit too dense for a bot the size of Emily to walk through without having to literally cut a path for herself; they had seen that often enough in the war against the Horde, where they had used that to track and ambush the bot forces. And unlike in the Whispering Woods, this forest wouldn't grow over such tracks in a day or two.
Well, she hoped they wouldn't.
"I still don't know why I couldn't have waited back in a safe and comfortable spot for you to reach the palace and then have Glimmer fetch me by teleport!" Double Trouble was pouting behind Adora's back; she didn't have to look over her shoulder to know that.
"Because you'd have been gone the moment we were out of sight," Glimmer replied.
"Don't you trust me?"
"No."
"You could have left someone else with me. Like Daniel - he doesn't look that happy to walk all over this planet himself! I'd change into his wife's form so he doesn't have to worry too much about her being left alone in orbit in a single shuttle!"
Adora clenched her teeth. That was a low blow, even if Double Trouble didn't know about Daniel and Sha're's tragic past.
"Jack?"
"Yes, Daniel?"
"Remember what I said about treating our latest ally with more respect?"
"Yes?"
"I take it back!"
"No one here has a sense of humour! Or a taste for the performing arts!"
"We do. That's why we know how bad you are," Glimmer shot back.
"Well, we don't actually know - we've never seen them on stage," Entrapta commented while her hair tendrils wrapped around a tree branch and lifted her over a tangle of thick roots. "I think, at least - it's not as if we'd be able to tell, would we?"
"Oh, I am sure you have seen me perform in one of my many forms. I captured the hearts of audiences all over Etheria! Some of the best actresses can thank me for their fame!"
"You just made that up when Entrapta gave you the idea," Glimmer said with a scoff.
"How would you be able to tell?" Adora heard and felt Double Trouble chuckle. "In the future, you won't ever be sure if that great performance was me or someone else!"
That was… well, a worrying possibility. Or would be if not for Melog, Adora thought.
"Stop it with the inane drivel!" Catra hissed as she dropped to the ground from the tree ahead of them. "I've found traces of an old campsite ahead."
Oh. They shouldn't be near the outer perimeter of Ba'al's palace yet. Did he have patrols range that far? On foot?
"Let's take a look," Jack said in a lower voice than before.
Catra led them through the woods, past a really dense patch of underbrush - a former clearing about to be grown over if Adora remembered Bow's comments about the woods correctly - and to a huge tree.
And she was correct - there were the remains of a fireplace there and other traces of a camp.
Bow knelt down and ran a finger along a dent in the ground, then looked at the ashes scattered over the ground. "About a few days old, I think. Any longer, and it would have been gone already."
"If we're stopping here, then you can let me down now, you know?"
Adora ignored them again and looked around. If it had only been a few days, then whoever had done this might still be in the area…
"What do you make of it?" the General asked. "Some long-range patrol? Or fugitives?"
"Probably fugitives," Bow replied. "The campsite is not ideal - there are better spots nearby - but it's very well hidden from aerial observation. A patrol wouldn't have had any need to hide and would have picked a better spot for a camp."
Samantha Carter agreed with the logic, though she had to take Bow's words for the reasons - she wasn't enough of an expert on such things to tell.
"If there are fugitives, then there will be hunters," Catra said. "The question is, will they use ground forces to hunt down fugitives - or will they stick to Death Gliders?"
"They have a ton of Death Gliders. Ba'al might think bombing fugitives is good training." The General shrugged. "But they seem to know how to hide."
Or they were dead already, Sam thought. The distance to the palace - the closest inhabited area from here - meant they would have managed to reach this spot if they had fled at dusk and walked as quickly as Sam and her friends were going. If this was a few days old, then Ba'al's forces would have had enough time to hunt them down.
Daniel was going through the ashes. "There's nothing here - no trash, no broken tool, no leftovers from anything they might have crafted or repaired. A nomadic culture setting up a camp would likely perform such activities and leave corresponding traces."
"And what does that mean in non-Archaeologist, Daniel?"
"It means I don't think this was a camp set by indigenous travellers. It would fit a group of fugitives who didn't have the opportunity to make or repair tools," Daniel replied.
"You mean they weren't prepared?" Glimmer asked.
"That is difficult to say. They could have no need yet to repair or craft anything since they set out well-prepared," Daniel said. "Or they had to flee in a hurry and couldn't take anything with them that would require repairs."
"Oh! We can give them what they need - or make it for them!" Entrapta chimed in.
Sam glanced at Adora and saw she was wincing.
"We can't spend the time tracking down a group of fugitives trying to hide," Adora said. "The best thing we can do to help them is to take out Ba'al and take over the planet."
"I wouldn't mind a detour," Double Trouble, still slung over Adora's shoulder, spoke up. "This is not very comfortable. Your shoulders are very bony."
Sam couldn't care less about the shapeshifter's discomfort.
"Shift to a more padded form, then," Glimmer told them.
A moment later, Double Trouble had shifted into a double of Glimmer. "You're right; this helps. You must have spoken from experience."
To Sam's surprise, Glimmer didn't seem annoyed but snorted, apparently amused. "Let's go now. The sooner we reach Ba'al's palace, the sooner we can stop whatever suffering the people here endure."
"Yeah," the General agreed.
Adora still looked guilty but nodded as well.
Near Ba'al's Palace, PB-1763, Ba'al's Realm, August 12th, 2000 (Earth Time)
It had taken them several hours, but shortly after midnight, they had reached their target - or, at least, the vicinity of their target. Usually, a Goa'uld base would be in the middle of a flat, wide area, cleared to remove all cover and concealment. Ba'al's palace differed. The forest had been cleared, the trees cut down, in the entire area, but instead of a featureless plain where hiding would be impossible without advanced technology - and difficult even with such technology, given its limitations - it was surrounded by fields and irrigation canals fed from a lake.
Between the lake and a village - a small town, actually - that housed the slaves working the fields lay the palace. Hidden in the underbrush at the tree line at the outward edge of the fields, Samantha Carter studied the buildings through her binoculars, using the night vision mode, although enhanced to show true colours.
"Interesting," Daniel commented in a low voice. "I would have expected less Egyptian architecture given Ba'al's history, more Phoenician, probably Punic, but the palace shows few such influences - a few ornaments, possibly furniture, but the general layout and building style is almost exclusively Egyptian. This may signal Ba'al's intention to take over as Ra's successor, but why would he go that far on a secret world?"
"He probably doesn't intend to keep it secret once he is the new Emperor," the General replied.
"Oh. Right. That would be possible. Still, it could also indicate a true cultural shift on Ba'al's side. Perhaps it's an attempt to improve his reputation and downplay his past actions so the other System Lords will more likely accept his rule?"
Sam doubted that it would work, genuine or not - in her opinion, the only thing that would make the System Lords accept an emperor was naked strength and power. And even then, they would secretly plot to topple them as soon as they thought they could get away with it. Still, it would be like Ba'al to do something like that in order to gain a small advantage. And, of course, the advantage might not be so small when it concerned the slaves and Jaffa, who would have suffered the most from his past crimes.
Sam hoped it wouldn't ultimately matter - they were here to end Ba'al's reign, after all. And those irrigation canals provided a great opportunity to sneak to the palace - and likely into it, since the palace probably drew water from the lake as well.
She looked the palace over again. Several defensive gun emplacements lined the walls. Dual-purpose, able to engage aerial threats as well as ground targets - and three covered the village. Patrols on the walls and at the base of the walls, probably on both sides of them, and in the fields. Those were pretty standard defences. Ba'al almost assuredly had some nastier surprises hidden in the palace and a few escape routes prepared, but Sam was confident they could deal with that; between Entrapta, Bow and herself, and their experience with Ba'al's systems, they should be able to take over the security systems and sensors easily enough.
"Alright. It looks like we've got a window of opportunity to reach the walls through the canal there as soon as that patrol has passed us," Adora said in a low voice over the communicator. "Be ready."
Sam was ready.
Ba'al's Palace, PB-1763, Ba'al's Realm, August 12th, 2000 (Earth Time)
Passing underwater through the irrigation canals to the palace walls had been slightly uncomfortable but easily handled. The new uniforms and their sealed helmet option helped a lot. If her fur had gotten all wet… Catra shuddered at the thought. There had been a lot of gunk in the murky water, and she didn't give a damn whether that stuff would be good fertiliser for the fields or not, and that the wastewater from the palace had to go somewhere, as Daniel and Sam had explained - they didn't have fur all over their body that would take ages to clean if that filth got on it.
But now they had to enter the palace proper, and that meant diving deeper into the lake here - according to Entrapta and Sam's scans, the pipe that led into the palace grounds was pretty far down there. Something about varying levels of water or whatever. But unlike the spot where the palace's wastewater line fed into the main canal, this spot wasn't guarded by a squad of Jaffa.
It still meant that they had to dive a bit too deep for her taste. Fortunately, the uniforms were rated for space, so they didn't have to worry about pressure effects and things. They only had to deal with security systems, sensors and traps.
"Alright, the sensors covering the lake are currently blind to us," Entrapta reported over the communicator.
"Let's dive and rally at the target," Adora ordered.
Catra was first into the water. No 'cats and water' jokes today for her. She didn't jump, of course - that would have caused a splash guards could hear - but slid into the water and then dived down, the HUD in her helmet showing her where she needed to go. If they had had such a thing in the Horde, a number of exercises and operations would have gone differently. Well, some of the officers would have still managed to get lost, she was sure of that.
Forcing the stupid stray thoughts away, she pressed on, quickly reaching the large pipe that took water from the lake into the palace. There was a massive grate on it, but that wouldn't stop her. Once the others caught up - she made sure that Double Trouble hadn't gotten 'lost' on the way - and Sam checked that the sensors were off, Catra quickly sliced through the metal, and Adora pulled the grate away.
Entrapta sent the spy bot they had brought along ahead, and Catra closely followed its track on her HUD as it entered the pipe. Between the data data from the hacked security system and the stealthed bot, she got a decent picture of the pipe's interior as she looked for traps and other obstacles. It would be just like Ba'al to have some undocumented surprises in such places to catch those who thought that they just had to deal with the computers to get in. Though any trap would have to operate under some limitations, what with the need to let water in, so the trigger couldn't be too simple, and that meant sensors as well.
Ah! She grinned inside her helmet when she spotted a sensor on the feed from the bot that wasn't already marked by the HUD. "There's a trap ahead," she said.
"Got it!" Entrapta's voice answered. "Good bot! Now let's see what… Oh! That's a shaped charge, aimed down the pipe - the pressure probably would… no, the pipe's reinforced, so it wouldn't burst but funnel the pressure wave forward. Quite nasty."
Catra kept smiling even though she couldn't help imagining what would happen to anyone inside the pipe if the trap was triggered. They'd be pulped.
But her friends were already working on it, directing the bot to close in, and then started to disarm it - after the group had cleared the pipe entrance. Just in case.
But the charge didn't go off, and the bot moved on. They detected another trap, a stunning device built into the pipe where it bent to head straight up, but that was easily dealt with by hacking its sensor, and after cutting through a few more grates and filters, the bot reached the main water reservoir of the palace and surfaced in it.
"Jackpot," Jack muttered as the feeds showed rails lining the basin and ladders leading up.
"Multiple sensors that track the water quality," Sam reported. "We have to hack them so they won't report the effects of the bot cutting through the filters."
More delays - but necessary ones. Waiting underwater was getting a bit stressful. Fortunately, it didn't take too long until Sam announced that it was safe now, and Catra was the first into the pipe.
She quickly swam forward, resisting the urge to use her claws to pull herself along the pipe even if it would have been a bit faster, then up once she reached the bend.
Then she hit the surface inside the reservoir and looked around. No guards, no obvious traps.
They had it made inside the palace. Now came the fun part.
Sneaking around in a snake palace never got old! Jack O'Neill bared his teeth in a grin while he peered around the corner ahead - he might be covered by Melog's illusion, but better safe than sorry; nothing was perfect. Certainly not magic.
But the corridor ahead was clear. No surprise there - they were just above the cistern, and it was pretty damp here; Ba'al's contractors must have pulled a fast one on him - according to Carter and Entrapta's scans, the entire level here was useless for pretty much anything that couldn't handle lots of humidity. No provisions, delicate electronics or archives would survive here.
Of course, Ba'al being Ba'al, he still found a use for it - the cold humidity was perfect for some good old-fashioned dungeon, as long as you don't mind that your prisoners died from pneumonia or inhaling poisonous mould or whatever. And Jack hadn't yet met a snake who would mind that. In fact, knowing Ba'al, he might have micro-managed construction to ensure he got mouldy cells in his dungeon…
Of course, anyone with a symbiont wouldn't die from a bit of mould and cold. And the prisoner they had detected with their scans had a symbiont inside them. The only question was whether they were a Jaffa or a snake.
As he moved down the corridor, to the cell tracts projected on his HUD, Jack hoped they were a Jaffa; you couldn't trust the snakes.
He reached the door barring the way into the dungeon proper and stepped to the side, letting his carbine drop, caught by the sling, to draw his zat while Carter and Bow dealt with the lock. There shouldn't be any guards inside. Entrapta was monitoring the hacked security system and hadn't spotted anyone behind the door who wasn't in a cell. And the magic scanner hadn't detected any symbionts outside the one in a cell, either.
But it wouldn't hurt to be ready to stun someone before they could raise the alarm.
"Oh! That's interesting…" Entrapta muttered.
He glanced at her, then at Carter. Carter would be able to tell if whatever Entrapta was talking about was important enough to share with the class, right?
"Entrapta?" Carter asked.
Or not.
"Oh, it's just the camera layout. It's quite complex - you know that already - but there are some blind spots that are cleverly hidden!"
Oh? "Maybe Ba'al's IT guy isn't as good as he should be," Jack said.
"No, no, that seems deliberate - there's a subroutine that alters the coverage angle without reporting it to the controls. Hm…"
"So, someone infiltrated this system before us? I guess the Tok'ra will feel even more embarrassed," Jack commented. Would serve them right, actually.
"But who could have done this? A rival? Sokar, maybe? Or a third faction we don't know yet?" Daniel speculated.
"Or someone planning a coup," Catra said.
"Well, I'm looking into this!" Entrapta announced - her face was almost completely hidden behind all the displays in her helmet, Jack noted. It didn't seem like she could see through it.
But before he could say anything, Bow spoke up. "Finally! That was harder than we expected! But we managed it!"
It has taken longer than I expected, Jack thought as he turned around and aimed his zat at the door. A moment later, it slid to the side, revealing an empty room - empty of people, that was. There were lots of torture devices. Some of them wouldn't have looked out of place in a fantasy movie, and some looked like someone misused a dentist's tools.
"Guess our pal Ba'al is a torture connoisseur. No one-size-fits-all torture device for him; he wants variety and all the classics," Jack joked and managed not to wince at what he recognised as a flensing knife thanks to one of Daniel's bloodier lectures.
"Oh. You think that's Ba'al's personal torture chamber?" Double Trouble bent over a rack. "How interesting!"
They sounded far too happy about this.
"This is so inspiring!" they went on.
Jack wasn't the only one narrowing his eyes at them, and Double Trouble looked annoyed when they noticed. "To better play his role, of course! This gives crucial insight into his character! Really, what do you think I meant?"
"That you like to torment people," Catra replied.
"Really! How long will you carry a grudge? It was good for you!"
"I can think of a few things that would be good for you too." Catra flashed her fangs.
"According to the security records, there is currently no cell occupied, sir," Carter interrupted the brewing clash from the closest console. "Our scans confirm that one is occupied, though."
"But the cell's not under surveillance," Bow added.
"And no guards are supposed to be here."
"And there are no guards. So… this is either the planet's most harmless prisoners… or someone no one is supposed to know about," Catra said.
Adora nodded. "Let's find out."
Jack went in first, just in case. Adoa could fix him if anything happened. But he couldn't fix her if Ba'al had cooked up something nasty enough to harm She-Ra.
He reached the cell marked on his HUD easily. There was no window in the door to peer inside either. More sloppy design?
Carter and Bow went to work on the lock of the door while the rest secured the area. Once again, it took them longer than expected - Carter seemed both annoyed and impressed, Jack noted.
But they managed to unlock the cell. Jack aimed his zat with one hand and opened the door with the other, revealing…
… Ba'al?
"Colonel O'Neill… and She-Ra, Princess of Power, Protector of Etheria. I have to say that it is a surprise to see you two together, but I really should have seen this. The clues were all there."
Adora stared at the smirking man. Ba'al? In his own prison cell? That made no…
Catra's laugh interrupted her thoughts. "So, are you the original Ba'al who fell victim to a coup or a clone who failed to coup the original?"
Ah! That would explain it - of course, Catra would think of this, given her past.
Ba'al, who was wearing pretty plain clothes, not a glimpse of jewellery visible, shrugged. "Does it matter? What matters is that I am an enemy of your enemy, as my current circumstances clearly prove." He smiled at them, his eyes seeking out Adora's. "We are natural allies."
"If you say: 'join me, and together we can rule the galaxy', I'll have to shoot you," Jack said.
"Indeed." Teal'c was glaring at the Goa'uld.
Ba'al, still smirking, tilted his head slightly as he looked at Jack. "I would not make such an offer, Colonel O'Neill, since you aren't a fool, and neither am I."
"It's General these days," Jack replied. "Just for the record. Wouldn't want to confuse people."
Right. This Ba'al knew about She-Ra, which meant he had had access to the intel the Commander must have shared with Ba'al back in May this year. So, his imprisonment would have been a relatively recent event.
"General O'Neill." Ba'al nodded with what looked like genuine respect, even if he was still smirking. "Of course, your people would promote you, given your many victories over the Goa'uld."
Jack shrugged. "I just do what is needed. You know, pest control."
Ba'al nodded again and looked at Adora. "But none of those victories were as impressive as defeating Horde Prime and taking his realm for yourself."
That… wasn't exactly what had happened. Not like that. And shouldn't he know that? He had recruited the Commander and his fleet, after all. Adora narrowed her eyes. Was he fishing for information?
"Flattery won't get you anything," Catra spoke up.
"My experience would contradict that," Ba'al said.
"Of course it would - your people always flattered you, didn't they?" Glimmer cut in. "And the only peers you met were other System Lords - or yourself."
"You make a good point, Miss…? Or should that be Princess?"
That was a good guess. But no one had ever called Ba'al stupid.
"It's Queen these days," Glimmer said.
"Ah." Ba'al looked from her to Adora and back before smirking at Jack. "You keep interesting company, General. It seems you've become a bit more tolerant of other forms of government. Unless this is merely a temporary alliance and you intend to settle your ideological differences once you have taken care of your common enemies."
"We're not like you!" Glimer spat.
"So it may seem." Ba'al laughed. "But trust me on this - you won't have the measure of someone until and unless they are in a position to betray you and either do it or don't."
Was that a subtle claim that he was the original? Well, every clone thought they were the real Ba'al, didn't they?
"Well, we found out who's in this cell, and I think you'll keep. We can continue this talk once we've stopped kicking your other version's ass," Jack said.
"I wouldn't be so hasty, General," Ba'al said - a bit too quickly for his confident tone. "You've managed to sneak into my palace, but you are undoubtedly aware of how many forces I have amassed here - and how their weapons have been upgraded. My help would allow you to take this system without suffering huge casualties. Or causing them," he added with a smile while looking straight at Adora. "I think you are familiar with my standing orders for my forces - this will be a bloodbath even if you had overwhelming numbers, and the fact that you are currently here, in a covert and likely desperate attempt to decapitate my forces, tells me that you would prefer to avoid an all-out battle. I can help you there - and all I am asking for is a temporary alliance where you'd be holding all the cards."
He was good, Adora had to admit. Even a bit charming. But he was right - they were holding all the cards. And he was Ba'al.
She turned to Double Trouble. "Do you think that's enough?"
They smiled and nodded - and turned into Ba'al.
The expression on Ba'al's face when he saw this almost made Adora laugh out loud.
Jack and Catra didn't show such restraint.