Robotech: The Stargate Saga Version 2.1
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own demented author amusement – sadly all Robotech and Stargate characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold and MGM respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Chapter Eighteen
Lord Terril's Ha'tak
That Same Time
Lord Terril was nervous as he returned to the pel'tac of his mothership after spending nearly an hour secreted in a private audience room, really ever since they had been forced away from Abydos by the trio of Zentraedi warships. Warships that, if their scanners were to be believed, easily matched a Ha'tak's firepower. He had spent that whole time in communication with Ra filling his master in on the events that had taken place, events that had forced him to withdraw as to stay would have certainly seen the Zentraedi ships destroy him given they had had him outnumbered.
Somewhat to his surprise while Ra had been incensed over the events and the blatant theft of the planet - while Abydos was a relatively minor world in this day and age with most of its easy access naquada reserves depleted it was the principal of the thing - he hadn't been angry with him over it. Which had been something of a relief as Ra was infamous among the System Lords for what he would do to underlords which displeased him - it was one of the reasons they feared him after all. Instead Ra had understood why he had withdrawn and indeed had complimented him for having the good sense to know when to fight and when to run. Apparently far too many young Goa'uld, eager to please their master, would not have done so. Would have stayed, fought and certainly been quickly overpowered and captured if not outright destroyed.
Of course afterwards the discussion had turned to what they were going to do to respond to this outrage. Elements of two fleets - all the ships that Ra and his Fleet Lord Ashur could spare from the front lines - were gathering at Sek'tor'van and indeed would be there when they arrived. Once he had taken on supplies- a process that wouldn't take more than an hour as they only needed more naquada fuel rods for the main reactors, with the longest part of the time being taken up installing them as each reactor would first have to be powered down - he was to lead said fleet back to Abydos. Their goal being to take back the planet or, if that proved impossible, to destroy it and deny its remaining resources, including the still quite sizable population of human slaves, to their admittedly powerful new enemy.
Which was what he was nervous about as he had never commanded a fleet before. He was only three hundred years old for Ra's sake, normally such a task force would be led by a far older, far more experienced Goa'uld. Unfortunately with Sokar and his allies launching a new offensive - aiming to capture several resource rich planets controlled by Ra, Apophis and Heru'ur - none could be spared so it fell to him to do it. It was an opportunity that he would grab with both hands, but that did not mean that he couldn't be nervous about the whole thing.
"Status report," he ordered as he sat down on the pel'tac throne letting none of his nerves show. After all it wouldn't do for the Jaffa to see one of the gods nervous about anything.
"My lord we are coming up on the Sek"tor'van staging area and will be dropping out of hyperspace momentarily," Valok reported from the main console.
"Excelent. As soon as we return to normal space, move us into orbit of the planet and commence refueling operations."
"Yes my lord," Valok acknowledged a moment before the readings on the console's neural interface caught his attention. "We are dropping into normal space my lord."
Terril nodded, not that Valok could see it from his position, a moment before a whirr of sound ran through the ship. Through the viewport he saw the purple and blue tunnel of a Goa'uld hyperdrive generated hyperspace conduit flash and dissolve into a slipstream blur of colour. That only lasted for a few moments before the sublight engines fully powered up and overcame the effects of hyperspace inertia and dropped the ship down to safe sublight speeds and space returned to normal. Ahead of them was the planet Sek'tor'van. Sitting in high orbit of the planet was the fleet of ships that Ra had assembled for the retaking of Abydos.
"How many ships has Lord Ra assembled for our mission," Terril asked, mentally crossing his fingers = a superstition that the Goa'uld had long adopted from their primary host species - that it would be a decent sized fleet. Something told him that he was really going to need it.
"My lord, we are detecting twelve Ha'tak and twenty-four Nar'kesh frigates. All ships report that they are fully armed and ready to leave as soon as we complete our refuelling operation," Valok reported, "ground side facilties report that they have sufficient naquada fuel rods for the operation to be completed on time."
Terril smiled at that. Thirty-seven top of the line Goa'uld warships - including his own ship - was indeed a formidable force. Especially when you added in the fact that each Ha'tak was home to a whole legion of Udajeet fighters as well as a wing of Al'kesh bombers, the Nar'kesh as well also housed Udajeet squadrons. It should be more than sufficient to retake Abydos from the Zentraedi invaders, even if they themselves had received reinforcements in the time since he'd been forced to leave.
"Very well begin the operation when ready," he ordered. "In the meantime instruct the commanding officer of each ship and the most senior Jaffa available to ring aboard this ship for a strategy meeting. Also dispatch an Al'kesh to Abydos. Upon arrival they're to cloak and move to monitor the Zentraedi ships until we arrive. I want to know exactly what it is they are doing."
"Yes my lord."
"Valok supervise the refuelling operations. Ensure that the commanders are directed to the main strategy room," Terril added as he stood up from the throne. "I will be waiting for them there."
"As you command my lord."
As Valok began to carry out his orders Terril smiled and left the pel'tac heading for the main strategy room. Soon the other commanders - which would be a mixture of fellow Goa'uld and high ranked Jaffa - would arrive and he could begin developing the plan that would be needed to retake Abydos. A plan that he would put into motion as soon as refuelling of his ships reactors was complete.
Soon vengeance for the humiliation of being forced to abandon Abydos would be his.
Abydos Orbit
That Same Time
Skaara couldn't help but feel nervous as he watched Selmac guide the Tel'tac closer to the UES Phoenix following docking instructions sent to them. He believed that he had a good reason to be, especially given how their tap of the comm link with the Zentraedi ship had been so easily detected. Detected and used to lock onto the general location of their cloaked ship close enough that any of the alien warships could have hit and certainly destroyed them if Captain Alverez had given the order to open fire.
As it was Alverez had been surprisingly gracious over there eavesdropping/spying. Instead of blowing them out of the sky as most spacefaring races would have done he'd spoken to them albeit with some understandable hostility as nobody liked getting spied on. And now Alverez wanted to meet with them aboard the Phoenix hopefully to give them a chance to properly explain themselves and maybe learn a bit more about these two unknown but clearly technologically advanced alien races in return.
"We can but hope," Selmac said, hearing so to speak his thoughts just like how he could always hear the symbiotes' thoughts. In true Tok'ra fashion they kept no secrets from each other, though they would respect the others privacy if asked to do so. "We have little choice but to comply with Captain Alverez's wishes. We can't run if we tried, then as gracious as he was he would certainly shoot us down long before we could open a hyperspace window and escape."
"I know," Skaara answered with a mental sigh knowing that Selmac spoke the truth, "especially given what our sensors are showing about the Phoenix."
Having decloaked they had been able to get far more in depth scans of the Phoenix. To say that the warship was heavily armed would have been an understatement if ever there was one. This thing bristled with weapons that according to sensor analysis consisted of a mixture of heavy rail cannons, particle cannons - though what kind they couldn't tell aa they were different to Tollan weapons in a few key areas - missile weapons of unknown type and pulse weapons that were arranged in a defensive fire grid fashion much like the plasma repeater arrays that the Goa'uld had begun using with the recent introduction of the Nar'kesh-class attack frigates. Coupled with a terrifyingly high power signature it communicated quite clearly how easily they could swat them out of the sky if they wished to do so.
It made him extremely nervous and he could tell that Selmac was just as uneasy as he was at the less than ideal circumstances of this meeting. Unfortunately there was no putting it off and through the viewports he could see the side of the ship looming ahead of them a massive wall of pale grey metal that looked different to anything either of them had ever seen before.
What was worrying though was the fact that they could see a number of small gun turrets - that from their size and positioning were probably defensive in nature - tracking their every move as they closed in. They were clearly prepared to destroy the Tel'tac the instant they tried anything foolish as going on her power signature even those guns would have little trouble overwhelming their shields and turning the Tel'tac, and them, into a plume of vaporised metal.
Skaara watched silently as Selmac guided them towards a large opening hangar bay on the side of the Phoenix. A soft shimmering across the entrance of the bay confirming the existence of an atmospheric containment field. All in all a pretty standard technology that almost every spacefaring civilization ever encountered used in some fashion or another. A slight jolt ran through the Tel'tac as they passed through the force field - which provided slightly more resistance than the fields on a Goa'uld ship, or one of the handful of space stations the System Lords maintained for various reasons - and were inside a quite cavernous hangar bay.
Ahead of them stood a human in a yellow jumpsuit and holding strange rod-like objects with lights at their tips. He immediately began gesturing and both host and symbiote quickly realized that his purpose was to direct incoming ships and fighters to whatever landing position they had been assigned. Thankfully the gestures were fairly easy to understand and they took the Tel'tac to a part of the deck where a number of shuttles, some of whom were clearly armed, were pqrked each in its own alcove.
Another of the yellow jumpsuited crew gestured with another one of the short light rods to a larger alcove - clearly where they were to land. While it was quite a tight fit Selmac managed to get the Tel'tac into the indicated alcove and set them down on the deck.
"How do you want to do this Skaara," Selmac asked as he powered down the ship and stood their mutual body up. "Do you want me to do the talking? Or would you like to?"
"You do the talking for now Selmac," Skaara answered, "you've got a lot more experience with interstellar diplomacy than I have. I don't want to say the wrong thing and get us lasered or something equally nasty."
"As you wish."
"Should we take any weapons?"
"That would probably not be a good idea. We are on very thin ice with this race as it is right now, taking weapons aboard even something like a kara'kesh would be asking for trouble that we don't need. Plus for all we know they could have something like the weapons detection and disabling technology that the Tollan have."
"Good point."
Knowing that was the end of the discussion for now with his host Selmac made his way to the airlock and, after taking a moment to steal his nerves as while he had done first contact meetings with advanced worlds before it had been a fair few centuries since he'd last done it and it was always a nerve wracking experience, gave the command for it to cycle. Within moments the airlock cycled and the outer doors opened as there was no need to equalise pressure with the outside atmosphere.
Selmac stepped out of the Tel'tac and immediately found himself face to face with five humans. One wore a two piece uniform with a white jacket, with blue highlight panels and red piping and dark blue trousers with a red stripe down the seams. The other four were wearing black body armour, helmets with silvered faceplates and carrying advanced looking rifles. He couldn't help but feel a chill at the sight of them as that armour, which looked to be powered in some fashion, looked intimidating as well and he was willing to bet that unlike Jaffa armour it was fully functional at its job as well.
For a few, timeless, seconds an uneasy silence reigned on the hangar deck then the uniform wearing human stepped forward. "Greetings," he said, speaking with an accent that triggered a faint hint of memory at the back of Selmac's mind as it was one he had heard before but not for a very, very long time. A long time as in centuries if not a few millennia thus he couldn't immediately place it. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Commander Nathaniel Thomas. I'm the first officer of this ship. And you are?"
"My name is Selmac," Selmac replied as Commander Thomas offered a hand in a greeting gesture that was almost universal among human cultures across the galaxy. He took the hand and they shook. "My host name is Skaara. Together we are Tok'ra."
"Some kind of symbiotic relationship?" Thomas asked.
"Yes at least among the Tok'ra. My species requires a host body to survive once we reach maturity as our natural aquatic environment cannot sustain us," Selmac answered, "in exchange for sharing his body with me I provide Skaara with perfect health, long life and access to all my knowledge as well as the knowledge of all the hosts I have had before him."
"Interesting. Please follow me Captain Alverez is waiting for you," Thomas said, starting to turn to walk away.
"Are you not going to check us for weapons," Skaara asked, speaking for the first time making everyone jump slightly at the suddenly normal human voice.
"Skaara I presume," Thomas asked. Skaara nodded. "There's no need. You were scanned the moment you emerged from your ship, if you'd been armed the STORM Commandoes would have disarmed you. Now please follow me."
Skaara nodded in understanding even as he wondered what storm meant as it obviously had some specific meaning. Though he knew what a commando was as some of the more advanced human societies in the galaxy - those who had either long ago thrown off the yolk of the Goa'uld, been abandoned by them after whatever resource the Goa'uld wanted on the planet was exhausted or transplanted by other races altogether like the Asgard - had warriors who used that designation. The Serrakin Commonwealth certainly had soldiers called commandos. They were usually specialist soldiers and in the occasional skirmish between the Goa'uld Empire and the Serrakin Commonwealth they had been known to make Jaffa lives hell.
Something that had amused the hell out of him when Selmac had shown him a memory of one of those clashes one time. He'd met a few since the Tok'ra and Serrakin were friendly to one another though not formally aligned. Though the Serrakin or one of the human inhabited worlds in the Commonwealth had been occasionally known to provide shelter from pursuing Goa'uld ships usually chasing the offending mothership off with either their plasma accelerators or an energy torpedo or two.
He put aside those thoughts and began following Commander Thomas towards an entrance to the rest of the ship. The four armoured commandoes fell into step around them, eerily silent despite the fact that everyone of them was quite big and clad in advanced armour. There was certainly nothing like the metallic clank, clank clank, clank Jaffa armour made as they moved.
"Which is a deliberate design choice by the Goa'uld," Selmac reminded him as they left the hangar bay and began moving through the corridors and hallways of the ship. "Like everything else about their peacetime forces it's designed for intimidation. So everyone knows that the warriors of the gods are coming and you better prepare to bow."
"I remember," Skaara replied, recalling how the sound of Jaffa boots had once filled him with fear. The System Lords were very good at making their forces look intimidating. Though with the ever escalating civil war that was really starting to change with front line Jaffa troops - especially those in service to Ra, Apophis, Heru'ur and Cronus - increasingly stopping using the traditional ma'tok staff in favour of the kel'ta rifle. The fact that Ra had allowed the widespread issue of the previously very rare weapon was telling as it showed how committed the Supreme System Lord was to bring the war with Sokar - a war that over the last six years had claimed millions of lives as entire worlds had burned - to an end. Of course there was also the rumour that some of their operatives in P'tah's ranks had been hearing of new weapons under development that would finally let the System Lords overcome the slightly greater firepower of Sokar's vessels.
"Are you alright," Thomas asked, "you seem distracted."
"We're fine," Skaara answered, "me and Selmac were just talking."
"Huh, interesting," Thomas commented as they reached a lift. A touch of his wrist computer caused the door to open and he gestured for everyone to climb in. While the circumstances of encountering the Tok'ra were far from ideal he had the feeling that there was a lot they could learn from each other. Though he had to admit that he personally found the whole idea of having another sentient being living inside him deeply creepy.
"Where exactly are we going," Selmac asked as they all boarded the lift which, at another command to the wrist computer Commander Thomas was wearing, began ascending through the ship.
"Command citadel," Thomas answered, "Captain Alverez will be waiting there in a conference room as will a hologram of Commander Neleya, she's the leader of the Zentraedi Fleet that arrived with us."
"She has not come over?" Selmac asked.
"There would be nowhere she'd fit outside of the hangar decks."
"What do you mean by that?" Skaara was a little confused by the statement. He wasn't the only one as he could sense Selmac's own confusion. It seemed like a very odd statement to make regarding another being, especially one that at least going on what they'd seen when they'd eavesdropped appeared to be another human-stock species.
"Do you know anything about the Zentraedi?"
"Ugh no. Neither of us had ever heard the name before today but what does that have to do with not being able to fit outside the hangar decks?"
Thomas blinked then shook his head. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you wouldn't know since the Zentraedi aren't exactly from around here," he said prompting the Tok'ra to frown in mounting confusion, "you see the Zentraedi are literally giants. In their natural form they stand anywhere from forty to fifty feet tall with some individuals being able to reach sixty feet."
Both Skaara and Selmac were stunned.
"Is it even possible for life to get that big?" Skaara asked his symbiote incredulously.
"Yes. On many worlds you can find fossilised remains of very large creatures and still find them on a few of the more remote worlds in the gate network but I have never heard of a sentient species so big before," Selmac replied before speaking aloud. "Forgive our shock, it is not everyday that you hear of a sentient species that big. But what do you mean by natural size?"
"The Zentraedi have a technology that essentially shrinks them down to our scale of existence. It's referred to as micronisation - a play on the fact that they tend to call all beings our size micronians - and can be reversed through a process called macronisation. Don't ask me how it works. I have no clue and I wouldn't be allowed to say even if I did know."
"Incredible," Selmac breathed, already imagining how crazy some of the more science orientated Tok'ra, like Anise, would go when they found out about that technology. To say that they would be fascinated would be an understatement.
Before either host or symbiote could speak again the lift came to a stop and the doors opened. Thomas led the way out and into corridors that looked somewhat different to the quite industrial looking corridors around the hangar deck. These walls were a softer cream coloured composite and the floor looked like it was marble but as soon as they started walking both Selmac and Skaara realised that it was a metallic alloy that just happened to look like marble.
Without speaking again they follow Thomas down the corridor at least until it reached an intersection with other corridors. They turned down the left hand corridor until it ended at a heavy door that was being guarded by more soldiers though these two were wearing lighter armour that was grey-blue in colour as opposed to the intimidating glossy black of the STORM Commandoes heavy armour. Though they were both armed with the same kind of rifles as the commandoes. No words were exchanged, the two marines guarding the door stepped aside and Thomas tapped a control causing the door to open.
Skaara hesitated for a moment before following the other man inside. The room beyond was dominated by an oval shaped table that appeared to be made of wood or at least a metal that had been made to look like wood in much the same way the Goa'uld made some of their metals look like stone. Chairs that looked at least halfway comfortable were spaced equally around the perimeter with some type of terminal set into the table in front of each one.
Sitting at the head of the table was Captain Alverez. He was quite a short man, definitely on the shorter end of the human average, but with a powerful build and eyes that shone with intelligence. But there was something else there as well, some deep lingering pain and sorrow. And now that they thought of it both Skaara and Selmac realised that the same lingering emotions were in Commander Thomas' eyes as well. Clearly something had happened, some catastrophe had befallen whatever world they came from. Something that had inflicted an incredible trauma.
Some type of holographic screen floated in the air next to Captain Alverez. On it they could see what appeared to be a human female with strange mauve coloured skin, vibrant green hair that cascaded over her shoulders in great curly strands and who was wearing a red and white uniform. Though what stood out to host and symbiote alike were her eyes - they were a brilliant purple completely unlike anything either of them had ever seen before.
It was at that moment that Alverez stood up to greet them. "Welcome aboard the Phoenix," he said in greeting, "I apologise for not meeting you in person when you landed but I had to report to my superiors."
"No need to explain or apologise," Selmac answered, "if anything it is we who should apologise to you. We should never have easvedropped on your comms in the way we did."
Alvarez waved him off. "No permanent harm was done and you've shown willingness to rectify your error by coming aboard," he answered, not commenting on the fact that he wouldn't have hesitated to introduce them to the business end of one of the Phoenix's particle beam cannons if they had chosen to try and make a run for it. Which would have certainly destroyed their ship.
"Given you would have certainly shot us down if we had tried to run there was little choice. Still we appreciate the chance to learn more about you even if the circumstances of our meeting are not the most ideal."
Alvarez smiled slightly, the kind of smile that said he knew what they meant. "Well this is how this is going to work," he said, "the exchange of information goes both ways. Either I or Commander Neleya here will ask you a question. You answer and then you get to ask us a question."
"That seems fair."
"As fair as we are going to get anyway."
"Indeed."
"Very well then let us begin. First you can explain exactly what you are as our internal sensors show two completely different life signs and neural energy patterns coming from you."
Selmac nodded and began to explain just what the Tok'ra were.
Several thousand kilometres above the plane of the ecliptic and over five hundred thousand kilometres out from Abydos space abruptly shivered as the barrier between normal space and the subspace domain known as hyperspace came under sudden attack from within. The space-time strata parted and the purple-blue vortex - which many observers over the centuries and millennia had likened to being like a giant bruise in space - of a Goa'uld generated hyperspace window burst into existence.
The window pulsed and a small, extremely fast moving object shot back into normal space. Behind it the hyperspace window folded closed and vanished as if it had never been present at all. The newly arrived ship rapidly slowed to a safe sublight speed and revealed itself to be the Al'kesh bomber sent by Lord Terril to act as an advanced scout for his assault fleet. After a few moments the Al'kesh's outline shimmered with a heat haze like distortion then it vanished from view, and the screens of any sensors that might have been pointed in its direction, as its cloaking field finished forming and stabilized shifting the vessel slightly out of phase with the normal space-time continuum.
As soon as their instruments confirmed the cloak was stable the five man Jaffa crew directed the vessel deeper into the system towards the fleet of thirty-eight vessels that their sensors confirmed were now orbiting Abydos. All of them eager to begin gathering the intelligence that their master would need to punish them for daring to invade and attempt to capture a planet from the greatest of all the gods. To a soul the crew were honoured to be trusted with this task and turned their full attention to their scanners as they closed on the fleet.
They had work to do.
Author's Note: Well another chapter bites the metaphorical dust. I hope you all enjoyed it. Next chapter will see the beginning of the Battle of Abydos which will be a painful learning experience for both parties involved in the confrontation. Until next time.