Alright gents...More chapters out.
Giving you a little more info on what things are like in the protected planet's zone and Hammond decides to lead a band of heroes to fight monsters.
Also as
@Spartan303's been asking me for details on project Constellation, he shall get it.
@Harlock You're about to get your "Ye I shall be the first of men!" moment.
………….
Washington D.C
September 8th.
If a gnat farted in the situation room everyone would have been able to hear it in Maybourne’s humble estimation. Everyone, from the President to NID director Robert Statterfield, to his wife the deputy director, to Ellis and Weir all sat in stunned silence as Doctor Samantha Carter calmly explained that the Tollan had not only warned them of an armada of alien vessels being built and manned for the sole purpose of kicking America’s shit in but also that the Tollan would absolutely not provide them with any sort of technological aid. Sixteen hundred to two thousand ships, which Teal’c said would likely be carrying a quarter of a million Jaffa and likely three times that in mercenary troops. even if only a hundred ships arrived Narim was likely only talking about the warships, he estimated twenty to fifty thousand would be in the first wave.
The size of a corps, but Teal’c had explained once that the Jaffa analog to a corps varied from one million to ten million soldiers depending on the System Lord.. So this wasn’t a full force invasion and it was still a million aliens screaming for Earth. It was unreal, Fifteen Jaffa had nearly taken this base, twenty thousand might be enough to break any world military and that was ignoring the fact that they would likely be occupying a world that would be bombarded from orbit to cripple the ability to mobilize anything before the plasma raining down from above blasted gigantic holes in any cities or bases where things might get organized. “Do..Do they plan to conquer the planet?”
“Teal’c says a force the size of the initial invasion wouldn’t really be enough to hold the planet, but he’s occupied planets of eight billion baseline humans with about a hundred thousand Jaffa before. Granted, he said he did it with support of planetary governments who asked him to intervene to deal with something called Roshna” Director Abraham Ellis answered, and everyone shifted uncomfortably because they knew some world governments and some people within their own would happily comply and augment the Jaffa occupation if it came to that.
If, it came to that was a thought none of them wanted to entertain
that thought. “Roshna?” The President asked.
“Space crack sir.” Kim Statterfield responded. “Apparently it’s a drug addictive enough that it’s considered a type of chemical weapon.”
“Space Fentanyl then.” The President corrected before turning to Ellis. “What’s the progress on Constellation?”
“Constellation itself has become more, helpful of late. But there have been problems with our battleship class and our carrier analogues. Namely in the field of power generation and the artificial gravity prototypes, sir they’re finicky” Ellis responded back, the weight of his age and the immensity of the situation casting a grim shadow over the old warrior. “With Doctor McKay back in the fold we’ve made lightyears worth of progress.” He shook his head “Between him, Carter and the O’Neill twin, but
we need more power.”
“How long do we have?” The President asked, his voice devoid of the usual energy, his language lacking the usual hyperbole, he looked suddenly
old, because he was old. Most here were.
“Teal’c believes it likely be a year and a half before the invasion..Though he says he wouldn’t put it past Apophis to authorize a primary strike to weaken us at some point before that.” Statterfield answered, her voice sounding robotic as she rattled off the figures and did her best not to show any panic.
“So that gives us half that time if not less. To build a fucking fleet that’s capable of fighting that off,
uuyyyy I should have stayed in business.” The President grumbled rubbing his forehead with his palms. After shaking his head, the man’s eyes bored into the director of Constellation and the man who was likely going to end up leading humanity’s first fleet in battle chain of command or not. “What’s holding up the construction of more vessels?”
“Right now, sir? Alloy and power generation. We’ve been using a fabrication devices onboard constellation, but the ship insists it needs more power and raw materials. Frankly Mister President, the AG systems for the ships themselves are proving to be the biggest problem….”
“Why can’t we just throw zero G ships at ‘em?” The President asked, it was still weird to him that the Constellation wasn’t just a super advanced machine but that it was
alive as well. He’d seen it back in 2017, that was the first thing he did after taking office and a few photops. He went down to Groom Lake, met Abe and a twenty-two-year-old lunatic who ended up being one of their foremost experts on weird science and a flagship member of the Stargate Recon teams. Down to area 51 like one of those lame tv shows in the 90’s they always wanted him to cameo on. Down twenty levels, so deep his ears popped to talk to a living spaceship that had a wicked sense of humor.
America’s best kept secret.
And Donald Trump didn’t trust the silver bitch as far as he could throw her.
But she’s our only hope right now.
Typical..
“Because to accelerate to the speeds needed to be more than sitting ducks against the Goa’uld it would be suicide without it. Our men would get turned into little more than bloodstains and powdered bone..Mister President.” Ellis responded before adding, shaking the President out of his thoughts. “What we need is something called Trinium, apparently if you mix that with a little platinum and carbon it creates an allow that’s almost as light as a feather but is energy resistant and can take a great deal of abuse.” Ellis looked towards Maybourne and the others before adding. “And if you can create a poor man’s Naquadria by making an alloy out of Trinium and Naquadah. It’s apparently extremely energy productive and efficient, but dangerous.”
That caught the President’s eyes and he nodded. “How dangerous are we talking about Abe?”
“Bblow up a small moon dangerous sir, but we’re working with the Kelownans who defected recently and they’re certain they can make some stable reactors for us so long as we provide decent quality material. I…I talked to the Constellation’s AI and she assures me that she can handle the material safely and use to regenerate her own power systems so we don’t need to be connecting her to generators”
Yeah, no that wasn’t happening. The President shook his head, a lot of what ifs to build a fleet on, a lot of what it on shaky intel and by alien “experts” that he wasn’t sure could be fully trusted. Well except Teal’c Trump trusted him. Mostly because he understood the bastard was always going to be a servant of the Empire but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a loyal ally of the United States and her interests.
Which was why he was only going along with this insane plan because the big man seemed to think it was the least retarded scheme.. “Alright, so this Trinium crap, can we get it, and can we refine it?”
“Yes, to the first no to the second. But the Tollan can.” It was Maybourne’s turn to pipe in, he had a rather amused glint in his eyes as he speculated as to who was going to be using who in that pretty arrangement. “Apparently, they don’t consider doing the refining and forging to be a violation of their technology ban, of course we’d have to kick them back fifteen percent of the Trinium we mine as a fee of course.”
“Of course.” The President said, his features glum. “If you’re gonna do something for the primitives, I guess you better get something out of it huh?” He gave a nod signifying the meeting was about to end for the day. “I want these ships up and running gentlemen it’s a top priority, as of now most of the SG teams need to be dedicated to finding technology that will speed up our shipbuilding capacity..” What he wasn’t going to do, was preside over the annihilation of his species or its conquest, the next year would not be the twilight of planet Earth.
He paused before adding.
“I also, want you to arrange a meeting with Teal’c, I want to see if there are any of these Tok’Ra that we could maybe hire as tech consultants and to help us build up our defenses, maybe explore the possibility of reaching out to this Zeus or Horus character to see if they’d be willing to make some kind of lend lease deal if that angle falls through.”
The room went silent again and he could feel the military men glaring at him. “Mister President, with respect, Teal’c described most of the Tok’Ra as like the IRA or worse, ISIS…and he said the Imperium is pretty strict about tech sharing…I...”
“Look, this Tollan guy said most of that fleet is going to be a mercenary force, right? I’m assuming that means Apophis isn’t giving them his best, else he’d just send one of his own battlegroups to come fight us. He’s the head of their military yet he’s outsourcing this shit? I’m gonna assume that means what he's doing isn't technically legal. Maybe that’s the gray area we operate in…in Exchange for say.”
“Handing his political opponents, the means to undermine him by highlighting the illegality of this invasion?” Kim asked, somewhat amused. Every now and then, the President was damn smart, this wasn’t too bad. Evidently a preemptive strike against a nation that hadn't evinced any hostility towards the Imperium for more than a thousand years was seen as a violation of the cosmic law that the Goa'uld themselves imposed and took great pains to show the universe they weren't themselves above. “Maybe even offer to perform certain actions down the line if their political divisions become hot..Like pass along any intelligence we might have, accept asylum applications from any of their minor nobles who lose their domains in the early stages of the war.”
Maybourne twitched. “Assassinate some of his fleet Captains or Primes?”
“Exactly.” Kim answered brightly.
Damn NID, while he loved the paycheck, they sent him for his side ventures on their behalf he couldn’t stand how easily the Statterfields took to the Roman/Renaissance/Sengoku era style political bullshit of the System Lords. “George Hammond isn’t a
Condottiero Madam Director. Nor is the SGC La Banda Nirri or a bunch of Vikings or Puritans willing to take Powhattan fur and venison as payment for a hit against a rival tribe…” He wasn’t even sure he liked the Texan all that much but even he found that idea distasteful.
The President shrugged “Half the world was that for us during the cold war and it paid off pretty well for some of ‘em. I don’t see anything wrong with the US learning from a bigger more successful power if it means our planet isn’t blown up and we actually have a chance at avoiding insterstellar war.”
“A war.” Ellis cut in “that would involve an enemy that rules multiple Galaxies…I don’t like it either. But the President isn’t wrong, we’re going to have swallow a lot of our pride here. Besides, no use in getting angry over nothing, any goodwill we won with Horus at Avalon and any goodwill Shepherd’s been building with Herakles there over the last couple days is still contingent on them deciding that trial they held about us in absentia means we’re worth paying attention to as opposed to just being told to go to hell.”
They had set up mining crews on Avalon over O’Neill’s objection, over the last few days and had found Herakles and one of his half siblings had indeed returned there to hunt and visit with The Morrigan and Leanan when she made her return to Avalon. John Shepherd who had been given command of the garrison on Avalon was surprised to see Herakles greet him less as a potential enemy and more as a friendly rival. Evidently the planet Earth was to be put on Trial for the murder of Amun-Ra Kingsnake of all the cosmos in a year or so but the confrontation with Horus and his glowing endorsement of the conduct of SG-1 had resulted in the trial moving up.
Apophis protested this loudly, accused his nephew of siding with the Tau’Ri and all but implied Horus used O’Neill to eliminate his father for him and that nearly resulted in an honor duel. It was this mega old snake called Garek and Zeus who had calmed the situation down and when Athena another system Lord brought up that her own forensic technologists corroborated the testimony provided by Horus based on their examination of the wreckage of
Mandjet that Apophis vowed that his scribes would not attend the tribunal in protest of this grave miscarriage of justice.
…Which prompted the Goa’uld equivalent of a chief justice of the peace to unceremoniously dismiss the charges against the Tau’Ri as a whole.
All of this had been relayed by Herakles through a teenaged interpreter that hated the English language but court transcripts they provided seemed to confirm the story.
It was sure nice to know that the fate of his entire planet hinged on the amateur hour political machinations of a hundred-thousand-year-old reptile that in all those millennia hadn’t bothered to learn how to pull off the showmanship he was clearly gifted at in the theatre of war in the arena of politics.
It had been a strange comfort to know that the Goa’uld legal system was as ridiculous as so many of the ones on earth. Since then, at least the System Lords of the House of Aether seemed oddly willing to reach out to Earth so far it was only to break the news of their “innocence” of the charges of terrorism and regicide (Odd, since Trump couldn’t remember ever swearing an oath of fealty to a snake in the brain of a caveman.) and to imply that there was a chance either Lord Zeus or Athena the third System Lord of the House of Aether might be willing to purchase some goods from Earth. But that was all vapor wear until it was put to paper and so the old Admiral was right.
They could just as easily tell them to go to hell and he liked the idea of renting out the US armed forces like mercenaries even less than his Generals did but the magnitude of the situation. “Look, we can table the renta spec ops team plan for later, as Director Ellis says we’ve no idea how they’re going to react. But for now, we need something more than what we’ve got.”
The meeting cleared out not soon after leaving the leader of the free world to contemplate how in the
hell they were going to create a fleet of ships able to fight an alien armada in a year. This was starting to seem like one of those Japanese cartoons Baron watched.
The space snake saga.
Nah
The Crazy God arc or some crap..yeah that sounded like something from those animes.
All that was missing was the freaky haired girls and the pointless screaming and men glowing in the dark.
…….
Cheyenne Mountain
September 10th
“So, what are these guys again?”
“Well Kowalski met envoys of theirs on a mission to
Rax-Pellora apparently, the Governor of the Tollan planet told them we might be able to help them with their little problem.” Daniel Jackson panted most of that out, while living on Abydos has toughened him up, jogging with Jack, Admiral Hammond and Teal’c was still something he kicked for himself for doing whenever he agreed to it. He’d been living for half the month on Earth and the other half with his in laws on Abydos, not shirking his duties to their emerging society nor his duties to the SGC. As time wore on, he hoped to make it a half the year here and there type deal. He hoped to, move on from Shau’re’s….
“Of course, they did, it probably made Governor whateverhisnameis chuckle to recommend us like hired guns.” O’Neill groused leaping over a log, ever since Leanan did whatever she did to his body he’d been determined to strengthen himself. To “put all near forty years of his experience in the corps to good use in a thirty something year old body.” He was certainly enjoying himself, though what amazed the archeologist was that the near seventy-year-old Hammond would keep pace with the younger men without ever really showing any signs of fatigue. Teal’c of course never tired and would likely hit the weight room after the morning jog and bench press eight hundred pounds a couple dozen times. Daniel was glad the complaining distracted him from thinking about Shau’re though. “What’s their story anyway?”
“They’re from a planet called
Vindilas within the protected planet’s zone. Technologically they’re on par with us circa the mid eighteen hundreds. Population about a billion and a half people, one of their trading partners and allies who rules the two main continents on a planet called Hurot asked for help dealing with some kind of alien bandits that are arriving in the hundreds with advanced tech and rampaging across their cities and towns and farms.”
“Snake?”
“Doubtful, no Jaffa no Goa’uld may enter the Protected planet Zones save by special dispensation to do from Thor, Heimdall or one of other princes of the Aesir or Vanir.” Teal’c explained as they ran. “Their Stargates are very advanced, and they are equipped with technology that will detect a Prim’tah or a fully mature Goa’uld upon which the matter stream will be shut down at both ends and the travelers obliterated.” He shook his head, “I have seen it occur once due to an accident with a closed Gate Network, only the matter stream was reversed..What..came back was a mound of material that mercifully did not long survive after.”
O’Neill made a groaning noise and Hammond brought them back to the topic. “So, I take it Teal’c can’t go on this mission assuming I authorize it.”
“Indeed.”
“Actually.” Daniel interrupted. “From what I understand the Asgardians made an exception and encoded Teal’cs DNA into their Stargate networks as a friend.” Jackson murmured. “Something they’ve only done three times before.”
“For Anubis, Hathor and Amun-Ra.” Teal’c almost half whispered.
“Apparently the endorsements of Leanan and ol’Bird man carry a hell of a lot of weight eh big guy?” O’Neill asked with a laugh. The relationship between the Asgardians and the Snakes didn’t make any sense to O’Neill nor did the emerging relationship the Snakes seemed to be forming with the SGC. It was bizarre to him, how enemies that fought each other so viciously for so damn long could end up building bonds of respect enough that even without a formal peace treaty one of the leaders of the other side calling you up and saying “Hey that dude who technically committed treason against us, he’s okay..let ‘em through.” And it wasn’t immediately laughed off the line.
Or how Horus just seemed to forgive O’Neill because he wasn’t willing to put a desire to avenge his team above his species.
Damn Galactic politics was one part sophisticated as hell and one part as simplistic as medieval politics seemed to be at times. Where Machiavellian schemers and men of honor so unimpeachable even sworn enemies would take what was said at face value, it was an insane society, almost as insane as his own. “Well why can’t these guys help with the bandits? I mean, aren’t they a century and a half behind us? A few hundred dudes with ray guns aren’t going to be a match for five thousand riflemen and a bunch of howitzers.” That had been the one thing he learned about fighting more advanced societies. They tended to take longer to die but that was it.
“Their armies are currently heavily invested in a southern expansion, evidently they’ve got a species in the southern continent their nation is connected to that evolved on their world and is very similar to the Comanche and the Mongols. And they managed to get ahold of the other sides guns.” Daniel said.
Hammond shook his head ruefully. “Every damn time you give repeating rifles to horse nomads it always ends the same way. Their boys in blue equivalent are going to be tied up fighting those guys for the next forty damn years and whoever’s in charge of the SGC at that time might have to be making diplomatic entreaties to them not the
Vindlanders.” That settled that, but it didn’t fully explain why he should waste the blood or treasure of the SGC on repelling some brigands. “What do we know about the people in charge of Hurot?”
“Well, its like Kelowna, a planet with a lot of rare minerals and material potential and crops galore. It was also until recently a planet with eighty petty medieval like kingdoms spread across three continents. Some King a century ago started a sort of unification war and his son named Hethrir succeeded him and is in his nineties and ended the wars with control of an empire spanning the coastland of two continents and a few dozen Taiwan sized islands. “It still bothered him just how much the Tollan were able to learn about earth to even make that comparison.
“So that’s why we should intervene then? To protect this Hethrir’s interests?” Hammond asked calmly. “Son, are we really strapped that badly for Naquadah?”
“No, but we
are strapped badly for Trinium and Hurot apparently has the largest deposit of Trinium outside of Nineveh, Ba’al’s crownworld. In, well the known universe sir and from what I understand they mean whole mountains made of the stuff.”
“There’s another consideration.” Teal’c added “They are peoples whose cultures are very similar to Viking culture of your dark ages, assisting them in their quest to rid their world of what they would logically see as monsters would go a long way towards earning prestige among the Protected planet’s zone. Prestige in a martial culture means alliances and it is believed by the Ashraks of Apophis that Hurot possessed a munitions depot that survived bombardment in the early days of the war.”
That caught the Admiral’s attention. “Are you sure Teal’c?”
“That the planet in the reports was so named Hurot yes, I remember well because of the risk and cost of managing to get a Llempiri Ashrak onto Hurot I was not in favor of the decision. That the munitions depot would possess anything useful or that could be transported through the gate I cannot be certain. They would be eighty thousand years old by this point, it may not even be intact.” Both the Goa’uld and the Asgard built their things to last, but that didn’t exactly mean a volcano erupting and burying it a million tons of rock or erosion or continental drift couldn’t have its day.
“And did Charlie speak with anyone form Hurot?” Hammond asked.
“No, only that one of the Vindlander Ambassadors would meet one of our teams at
Rax-Pellora and from there we would head to Hurot. My understanding is that they’re both very close allies and that Vindilas would consider this a favor to us as much as it would be to Hurot. Admiral, I know this isn’t what the Space Force is about, but two resource rich worlds indebted to us potentially?” Daniel implored, not particularly liking the idea of going on a Viking hero quest himself given how those usually ended in bloodshed and death for everyone involved but hundreds of thousands of some of the finest soldiers in the known universe were on their way and they couldn’t afford to say no.
“Hurot, that’s similar to the name of the hall of King Hrothgar in Beowulf isn’t it?” O’Neill asked out of the blue.
“Indeed, it is O’Neill.” Teal’c answered.
“Cool, so long as I don’t have to fight a fucking Dragon..I’m all for it Admiral, providing you are…err sir.”
Hammond laughed. “Fine but take Carter with you.”
“You sure?” O’Neill asked suddenly. “Tomorrow’s..”
“That’s exactly why I want her out there, I’m also assigning Colonel Makepeace’s team and SG-6.” As they neared the main entrance to the facility Hammond added. “And I’m coming with you, that makes thirteen which from what I recall of my history class was a lucky number in Viking culture, lets hope that holds true for them.” When O’Neill went to object, pointing out that there was no guarantee the Tollan weren’t just going to assassinate them the moment they stepped through the
Rax-Pellora Stargate Hammond silenced him with a stern look.
They weren’t going to step through the Stargate to fight someone else’s monsters in order to obtain the means to fight Earth’s own without their XO. The risks were too great and if his men were going to sometimes act as peacekeepers then by Jove, Admiral George Hammond would lead them into it.
Besides, how often could a US armed forces officer say they got to participate in a good ol’fashion hero quest.
