The New GateWorld Virtual Fleet

[Davidtourniquet]

part 3:

Spoiler:

Act 3: Time 9:20, Lucian Alliance Naquadria planet:
Mitchell sits in his office onboard the Athens as the ship travels through hyperspace to its target. He is contacted by Carter who is aboard the Olympia.
“Sam, are you all ready for the upcoming battle?” asks Mitchell.
“We are Cam, what about your fleet?” Carter replies.
“We are indeed”, says Mitchell, “What kind of fleet will we be facing?”
“Intelligence suggests 3 Hataks ,16 Alkesh and 4 squadrons of gliders”, says Carter.
“I propose the Olympia plus 2 304s and 3 340s head to take out the base and cut them off from Destiny and the rest of us will secure orbit”, says Mitchell.
“Sounds good to me”, says Carter.
“On to something else: Sam, I want you to answer me something truthfully?” asks Mitchell.
“Sure Cam whatsup?” asks Carter.
“The other generals believe that while Shelton and his team has helped us with upgrading our fleet, they believe they aren’t working to their full potential”, says Mitchell.
“What makes them think that Cam?” asks Carter.
“Sam, they say they are from 50 years into the future”, Mitchell replies, “I mean when we looked at the area where their ship crashed, all we found was a moon that had lost a massive chunk of itself and evidence of multiple meteor impacts on the planet in which it orbits. If their technology could do this, why haven’t they given it to us?”
“When we first stepped through the gate, we came into contact with more advanced races, they refused to give us any technology because we were still primitive in comparison,” Says Carter.
“So are you saying that’s why they won’t give us very advanced technology?” asks Mitchell. “That’s pretty poor considering we are fighting a war, I respect Admiral Shelton a lot, but that doesn’t seem right”.
“To be honest Cam, we are still in our infancy in terms of being an interstellar empire and the Earth has only been together as a single entity for a few years, we are still young”, says Carter. “Shelton has said that at the peak of their empire, they were allowed to enter the council of the great races, but really the Tauri were still too young in some places and after a civil war, the Tauri were kicked out of the council of the great races. It seems greed and mistrust is human nature.”
“So he’s holding back because he thinks we are too young?” asks Mitchell.
“I think so”, says Carter, “Anyway we are nearing the planet”.
Both generals walk to their respective bridges as the hyperspace timer reaches t-minus 5 minutes.
“Ok”, says Carter as she walks to her chair, “We will be exiting hyperspace a few seconds after the fleet led by the Athens, our target is the gate base being used by the Lucian Alliance”. “The Athens fleet will take care of the fleet in orbit”. “How long have we got Charlie?”
“Two minutes General”, reports the helm officer.
“I want shields raised as soon as we exit hyperspace and the defence guns ready to target death glider squadrons”, says Carter, “We don’t know if there is a shield protecting the base, so target the base with energy cannons only and then we can judge what weapons we need to use”. “The aim is to destroy the base, not the planet.”
“30 seconds General”, reports the helm officer.
“Battle stations”, orders Carter
Mitchell’s fleet exit first and immediately starts bombarding the Lucian Alliance fleet. Carter’s fleet exits a second later with four 304s and six 340s transfer to Mitchell’s fleet while the rest of Carter’s fleet moves towards the planet’s atmosphere. The base launches two squadrons of gliders, while the Hataks launch some of their gliders as well.
“Launch missiles at the Hataks”, orders Mitchell.
His fleet launches a multitude of missiles at the Lucian Alliance fleet, which draws them away from the planet.
“Target the base Lieutenant”, orders Carter.
“Firing energy cannons”, replies the weapons officer.
The beam from the cannons impact an energy shield protecting the base.
“There is a shield there General”, reports the weapons officer, “looks like they are using a Hatak shield generator”.
“Ok this might take a bit longer than we thought”, says Carter, “prepare a volley of Mk III missiles”.
“They are on the pad and ready to launch General”, reports the weapons officer.
“Fire!” orders Carter
Several missiles leave the Olympia and joins with missiles launched by the other ships in the fleet. The missiles impact the shield of the base causing the shield to glow orange. However, the resulting explosions damage the ground around the base.
“Shields are at 90% General”, reports the weapons officer, “However there was a lot of damage to the surrounding ground. The base could be lost to the ground if we use missiles again.”
“Ok, thanks for that Lieutenant”, Carter replies, “We’ll stick to energy cannons, order the rest of the fleet to do the same.”
“General Mitchell”, says the Athens’ helm officer, “A Hatak and 4 Alkesh are breaking off and heading towards the Olympia and her fleet”.
“Give General Carter the heads up”, orders Mitchell, “We need to get rid of this fleet before we can assist the Olympia.”
“General Carter”, says the helm officer, “There is a Hatak and four Alkesh heading to us”.
“Order one 304 and two 340s to break off and attack this small contingent”, orders Carter.
“General, we are getting a report from Admiral Shelton”, said the communications officer, “He says they have defeated the Lucian Alliance at Icis”.
“Ok”, says Carter, “Tell him to move his fleet to the next target co-ordinates and we’ll meet him there”.
One of the 304s and two 340s move in to attack the Hatak and four Alkesh heading towards Carter’s fleet. Both contingents start attacking each other. Meanwhile, the Olympia and the planet fleet fire energy cannons at the base causing shield damage of 8%. An explosion comes from above them as the fleet led by the Athens destroys a Hatak and three Alkesh.
“Good job people”, says Mitchell, “Let’s turn our attention to the other Hatak. We have six Alkesh left here before we can move to a lower orbit”.
The base launches the last two squadrons of gliders and the defence guns from the ships attacking the base leap into life and take on the gliders. The fleet fires at the base again bringing the shield to below 70%.
“General Mitchell report they are producing results against the Lucian Alliance fleet”, says the communication officer, “The Churchill reports that the Hatak shield is at 60% with 2 Alkesh left”.
“That’s good news”, says Carter, “order everyone to fire the energy cannons for 10 seconds, once we finish with the gliders, move us to within 30 km of the base”.
“General?” asks the helm officer, “are you suggesting we hover at 30 km?”
“Yes I am Major”, says Carter, “we can use the guns to constantly fire on the shield, may help us damage the shield further”.
As the 304 and 340 left with the Olympia continues to fire on the base, the Olympia enters the planet’s atmosphere and uses its IMG to hover at 30 km. The Olympia fires shells at the shield from the railguns and she also uses pulse cannons on the shields.
“It’s working”, reports the weapons officer, “base shield at 60%”.
“General Carter”, says the communication officer, “We have a report from the Athens that they have the Hatak and three Alkesh left, Hatak shield at 45%”. “The Churchill reports that the Hatak they are fighting is trying to head into the planet’s atmosphere, they are in pursuit.”
“We need to get this finished soon”, says Carter, “Helm bring us to 300km, tactical fire three Mk VI missiles at the base”.
The Olympia fires three missiles at the base along with continuous beam and pulse cannon fire. The shield glows orange and damage is sustained to the base itself.
“Base shield at 45%, hull at 80%”, reports the weapons officer.
The Hatak then attacks the Olympia causing the shields to glow. The Olympia moves around in the atmosphere and returns fire.
“Hatak shields at 50%”, reports the weapons officer.
“The rest of the fleet is entering the atmosphere General”, reports the communications officer.
The fleet fires on the Hatak bringing the shields down to 40% and the hull strength at 80%.
“General Mitchell reports that they have destroyed the final Hatak and Alkesh”, reports the communications officer, “They are coming to help”.
The fleet led by Mitchell enters the planet’s atmosphere and immediately fires on the Hatak. The constant bombardment of both fleets on the Hatak causes the shields to buckle under the strain. Energy filters through to the hull of the Hatak.
“General, the Hatak has lost altitude control”, reports the helm officer.
The Hatak falls out of the sky towards the base. The two fleets start heading towards orbit as the crews realise that the Hatak could cause a massive explosion.
“General Carter”, says the science officer, “we believe that the Hatak explosion could destabilise the planet”.
“Has the connection to Destiny been severed?” asks Carter.
“Energy from the base suggests that they’ve been disconnected for at least 8 minutes”, reports the science officer.
“Hatak impact in”, says the operations officer, “5…..4…..3…..2….1”.
The Hatak impacts the base, destroying the shield and the base, and the explosion causes the veins of naquadria to explode.
“Order both fleets to hyperspace, set a course for the next target”, orders Carter.
The remaining ships of both fleets enter hyperspace just as the planet explodes.
Several hours later….
“Cam how are the repairs going?” asks Carter
“Well we lost a 340, but we should be operating at 90% when we emerge from hyperspace”, says Mitchell, “What about your fleet?”
“We lost two 340s and one 304 was badly damage”, says Carter, “They have returned to Earth”.
“Ok”, says Mitchell, “I’ve just had a message from Daniel. They’ve arrived at the co-ordinates and scouting the area and they have ship numbers”.
“What are they?” asks Carter.
“6 Hataks, 30 Alkesh”, Mitchell replies.
“That doesn’t sound too bad”, says Carter.
“….and what looked like two Gaould motherships”, says Mitchell.
“What?” asks Carter, “That’s impossible; they haven’t been used since Anubis”.
“Maybe, the Lucian Alliance found the designs for the ship”, said Mitchell.
“That’s possible, but where did they find them? How many are there?” asks Carter. “I mean do we have enough ships to defeat these ships?”
“Daniel’s sent us the fleet he has left”, says Mitchell, “The Cheyenne, two 304s and one 340.”
“So our total fleet is: one 320, two 310s, seven 304s and ten 340s”, says Carter. “Hmmm, twenty ships in total”.
“Yeah, including the most advanced ship in the Tauri fleet”, say Mitchell.
Carter looks at the hyperdrive timer.
“We’ve got 10 minutes to prepare”, says Carter.
Meanwhile back at the planet……..
“Generals Carter and Mitchell says they’ll be ten minutes”, says the Cheyenne’s communication officer.
“Good, we are going to need them to defeat this fleet”, says Shelton, “Although I don’t understand why our intelligence services didn’t pick this up, this is massive”. “Unless they did and we weren’t told about it which would suggest that there’s a spy in the command structure of this empire.”
Just then two hyperspace windows open and the fleets led by the Athens and Olympia exit and join Shelton’s fleet behind the moon.

[Davidtourniquet]

part 4:

Spoiler:

Act four: Destiny, 09:10 Scoria time.
“Scott and Greer have just left Destiny”, reports Brady.
“Ok, I’m bringing us round to attack one of the motherships”, says Rush. “Eli prepare main batteries!”
“They are ready professor”, reports Eli, “firing!”
Destiny’s old and new weapons come to life and fire upon the nearest mothership to her; the two shuttles go after the fighters launched from the motherships. The bridge and everyone on Destiny is rocked by the explosions on the shield. Young and Telford are mounting an offense against the Lucian Alliance incoming.
“Bridge, this is Young”, says Young, “How many are there?”
“Looks to be about 150 so far General”, says Chloe, “I would say 100 are military”. “General, Professor Rush would like to remind you that until the stargate is shut down, we cannot jump to FtL”.
“I realise that Chloe”, says Young.
Bullets and staff weapon fire go to and from the Tauri and Lucian Alliance people. There are people on both sides with wounds and dying.
“Telford”, says Young, “I need you to take a team to flank them”.
“Ok, will do”, says Telford whilst signalling about 10 soldiers to follow him.
Several shouts of “fire in the hall” are heard as the Tauri take cover following the standard grenade call. The result is that several members of the Lucian Alliance fly through the air as the grenade explodes. Meanwhile, David Telford and his team are running through the corridors to come up behind the Lucian Alliance team. Another explosion rocks the ship.
“Shields at 70%”, reports Laura Shelton, “Power levels are still good”.
“Ok”, said Rush, “I’m bringing her round for another pass, Eli I need a 10 second burst from all the weapons”.
Destiny pulls round for another assault on the lead mothership and fires her energy weapons. This causes the mothership’s shields to glow. Some of the energy can be seen impacted the hull of the ship.
“Chloe”, says Rush, “How are Scott and Greer doing with the fighters?”
“They are saying that it’s bumpy and if we could point the gatling guns in their direction it would be great”, Chloe replies.
Destiny’s gatling guns rise up and start spinning and firing, destroying some of the fighters straight away.
“Matthew’s saying thanks”, says Chloe.
As Chloe says this, the leading mothership explodes under the barrage of fire.
“One down, four to go”, says Eli.
“We’re not out of the woods yet”, says Rush, “The gate is still active”.
“Young, it’s Telford”, says Telford over the radio, “We are in position”.
As Young hears this, he can hear gun-fire from behind the Lucian Alliance’s position.
“Ok, Telford”, says Young, “Try and keep the gateroom clear, if you can, manually close the iris”.
“Will do”, says Telford as his team continues to fire on the Lucian Alliance.
Suddenly, there is a massive explosion and everyone is thrown to the floor.
“Laura?” asks Rush loudly
“Major damage to pulse cannons three and four, shields at 40%”, reports Laura, “The four motherships just concentrated their fire to one area”.
“We can’t take to many of those hits”, says Rush
“Professor, General Telford has just closed the iris”, reports Chloe
“Ok, order Scott can Greer back to the ship”, says Rush, “The gate should close down soon. I would like to take out one more mothership. Eli, fire all weapons at the nearest mothership”.
“Firing weapons”, says Eli.
Destiny fires all its weapons at the nearest mothership causing the shields to glow and cracks along the hull start to appear. A few seconds later the mothership explodes.
“Gate has been deactivated”, reports Chloe, “Wait, someone is dialling in”.
Telford’s team continues to attack the Lucian Alliance from behind. The iris opens.
“Destiny”, says the voice, “This is Icis reporting in, how goes it there?”
“Icis”, says Chloe, “This is Destiny, we are fine, there are a few Lucian Alliance people here, but we can manage. We need you to disconnect, so we can jump to FtL.”
“Ok Destiny”, says the voice, “Let us know via the stones when you are ready to report in, Icis out.”
The gate disconnects, Rush checks to make sure Scott and Greer are back and then activates the FtL.
Destiny enters FtL and leaves behind the remaining motherships and fighters. It takes another 15 minutes to dispose of the Lucian Alliance members, most are killed, and some are taken prisoner. The main team plus Laura are sitting having a meal in the canteen.
“Well that was a close call”, says Eli.
“Yes quite”, says Rush, “Two things puzzle me though….”
“How did the Lucian Alliance shut down the iris and how did the Nakai know where we were”, said Young.
“Precisely”, Rush replied. “Laura, how long do you think the repairs will take?”
“About a week”, Laura replies, “Extensive damage to four of the pulse cannons and some minor hull damage to repair, power levels remained constant, and so once the repairs are done we could try a connection to Icis”.
“That’s great news”, said Eli, “It’ll be good to get back home, although I will miss this place”.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up yet Eli”, says Rush, “We haven’t tried it yet, no offence Laura, but the last time we tried a connection to Destiny, it didn’t work”.
“None take professor”, says Laura, “But will the power systems repaired, we should just have to fly through a star, get the power and dial once it’s collected”.
“Have we contacted homeworld command to say we are still in control?” asks Rush
“Telford’s doing it now”, says Young, “Now what to do about the prisoners?”
“Remember General there are rules about prisoners of war”, says Rae.
“Oh I haven’t forgotten”, says Young, “But we need to get any information they might have about Lucian Alliance fleet movements, where they will attack next and if possible how they found out the iris codes. Anyway, I am going to take a nap, I’ll see you all in the morning”.

[Davidtourniquet]

part 5:

Spoiler:

Act 5: Lucian Alliance Shipyard planet, time: 11:45
The fleets of Shelton, Carter and Mitchell are all hiding behind the moon near the target fleet.
“So guys”, said Mitchell, “Any ideas?”
“I think we should jump out of the system”, Shelton replies, “Say to 3 light years and then jump in above the two motherships and shoot the hell out of them, after the first volley, we then assign the 304s to take on the hataks and the 340s to take on the Alkesh. The fighters can be launched when they launch gliders.”
“hmmmm”, says Mitchell, “What do you think Sam?”
“It could work”, says Carter, “We’ll have the element of surprise but my only concern is getting the ships up in time”.
“Daniel?” asks Mitchell.
“I’ve written a program that activates the shield as soon as the exiting window is active, the shields should be up within a second of exiting hyperspace”, Shelton replies. “Sending it to you both now”.
“Just got it”, said Carter, “Thanks Daniel”.
“Yep”, said Mitchell, “me as well, we’ll meet at the following co-ordinates”.
The three fleets then jump into hyperspace and 30 seconds later, the fleets exit hyperspace.
“Ok”, said Carter, “we have the new co-ordinates, this should put us next to the target fleet”.
“Ok”, said Shelton, “Are we all ready to jump again?”
“Yes”, said both Carter and Mitchell.
“Jumping in”, said Shelton, “Three, two, one…”
The fleet jumps again and 30 seconds later, the fleets exit above the enemy fleet and fire a full volley of missiles and energy cannons at the two motherships. The 304s then break off and attack the Hataks and the 340s attack the Alkesh.
“Lieutenant”, says Shelton, “Bring us about to the following co-ordinates and Major, fire a further volley of missiles and energy cannons at the weakest point of the shields”.
The Cheyenne comes around and attacks the mothership again, the mothership responds and the Cheyenne shields glow.
The Athens and Olympia are attacking the other mothership. Both ships attack the same point on the ship. The Athens is hit by a number of pulses from the mothership’s energy cannons.
“Shields at 90%”, reports the weapons officer.
“We need to move away quicker after attacking the ship”, said Mitchell, “Helm, evasive manoeuvres pattern beta”.
The Athens moves towards the mothership and attacks it again along with the Olympia. The motherships and Hataks launch fighters.
“Spool the guns and launch fighters”, orders Shelton.
The defence guns of the Cheyenne, Athens and Olympia start firing and the Cheyenne launches fighters. The shields of all five ships glow and several explosions happen in the background can be seen as several Alkesh explode.
“Shields at 85% Admiral”, reports the weapons officer.
“What is the shield status of the mothership?” asks Shelton.
“90% sir”, says the weapons officer.
“Fire two of the Mk VIs”, orders Shelton
Along with the missiles, the Cheyenne fires energy cannons at the mothership. The impact damages the shield.
“Shields now at 85%”, says the weapons officer.
“How are the Athens and Olympia doing”, asks Shelton.
“Athens shield at 83%, Olympia at 87%, mothership at 70%”, reports Sarah.
“Ok”, said Shelton, “Bring us round of another assault and fire energy cannons for a 10 second burst, concentrate fire at the weakest point of the shield”.
The Cheyenne fires its beam cannons at the mothership for 10 seconds, causing damage to the shield of the mothership. The mothership responds by firing back at the Cheyenne. The shields glow and the ship rocks a bit from the energy blasts. The Cheyenne comes round and fires multiple missiles at the mothership.
“Mothership’s shields down to 80%”, reports the weapons officer.
“We need to keep up the attack on the mothership”, says Shelton.
Meanwhile, the Olympia and Athens continue to attack the other mothership and their railguns destroy several death gliders.
“Load two of the mark VIIIs, fire energy cannons for 15 seconds and then fire missiles”, orders Carter.
Both the Olympia and Athens fire their energy cannons and then fires missiles at the mothership. This causes a huge amount of damage to the shields and some damage to the hull.
“Weapons have gotten through the shields”, reports the weapons officer, “Shields at 45%, hull at 80%”.
“General”, says the communications officer, “Admiral Shelton isn’t doing as well as us and he is requesting assistance”. “General Mitchell suggests that we move off and they’ll take on the mothership”.
“Ok, tell the Cheyenne that we will come and assist them”, says Carter.
“Admiral Shelton”, says Carter, “we are ready to assist you, how can we help?”
“General”, says Shelton, “There are two weak points on the shields, if we take on one, could you take on the other? We are relaying the hit point positions to you now”.
Both the Cheyenne and the Olympia target opposite ends of the mothership.
“Sir”, says the communications officer, “report from the rest of the fleet, three Hataks left and fifteen Alkesh, we have lost one 304 and three 340s”.
“Ok”, says Shelton, “Looks like they have it contained, what is the status of our fighters?”
“We have 32 fighters left”, reports the weapons officer, “They seem to be containing the death gliders well with the help of the defence guns”. “We can’t keep the guns going much longer, quartermaster says we have half of our shell stock left and estimates we’ll use this up in less than 5 minutes”.
“Reduce the firing rate by 50%”, orders Shelton, “that should make our stocks last longer”.
Explosions are going on all round the fleet and the Olympia, Athens and Cheyenne continue their assault on the two motherships. Now on its own, the Athens is being attacked more by the heavily damaged mothership.
“Shields at 70%, hull at 90%”, reports the weapons officer, “the mothership’s shields at 30% and hull at 50%”.
“Continue to fire missiles and beam weapons at the mothership”, orders Mitchell, “We are almost there”.
The Athens comes round and fires again, the Olympia and Cheyenne continue to fire at the other mothership. The two ships orbit the mothership and are now striking significant damage to the ship’s hull.
“Sir”, reports the Cheyenne’s helm officer, “Multiple hyperspace windows have been detected”.
“General Carter”, says the Olympia’s weapons officer, “We are detecting 16 Hatak vessels and 50 Alkesh. They are Lucian Alliance ships”.
“We won’t be able to defeat that fleet”, says Carter. “Order the Excelsior to deploy the horizon missile and to destroy the shipyards”.
The 304 Excelsior drops the horizon missile out of its bomb bay and the missile heads towards the planet. In the atmosphere the missile separates into 6 mark VII naquadah enhanced missiles. The missiles impact three different sites, destroying the shipyards. The Olympia then fires a mark VIII at the orbital shipyard.
“We have accomplished the main part of the mission”, reports the Olympia’s communications officer.
“Contact the Athens and the Cheyenne”, says Carter. “Gentlemen, can we defeat these two motherships, in say a few minutes?”
“Well the current shield strength of the mothership we are attacking is at 25% and the hull is at 40%”, say Shelton, “I think we can do it, but we are going to be under a lot of fire, I recommend pulling the 304s and 340s out of here and back to their respective planets”.
“The shields of the mothership, the Athens is attacking is down to 20% and the hull is at 30”, says Mitchell, “I agree with the Admiral on the rest of the fleet”.
“Ok”, says Carter, “We are all in agreement. Colonel Martin, contact the rest of the fleet, order them back to Scoria”.
The new Lucian Alliance fleet moves into attack the three ships.
“Shields at 50% Admiral”, reports the Cheyenne weapons officer, “Hull strength at 70%, we won’t be able to stay here long”.
“I know Major”, says Shelton, “Continuous fire at the mothership”.
“General”, says the Olympia’s weapons officer, “Our shields are at 60%, hull at 75%”.
“Fire mark VI missiles at the mothership, along with energy cannons”, orders Carter.
Both ships continuously fire at the mothership, causing the mothership’s shields to buckle.
“One more round and we should have this”, says Shelton
Explosions are now happening on board the Athens.
“Shields at 45% General”, reports the Athen’s weapons officer, “Hull at 60%”.
“What about the mothership?” asks Mitchell
“Shields strength at 15% and hull at 20%”, reports the weapons officer.
“Fire energy cannons and a mark VIII”, orders Mitchell.
Explosions are now occurring on both the Olympia and Cheyenne.
“Minor hull breaches on level 11 and 13”, reports the operations officer.
“Ok Lieutenant”, says Shelton, “Bring us around for a final assault, fire energy cannons for a 20 second burst and then fire our remaining stock of mark sixes”.
“Shields at 45%, hull at 65% General”, reports the Olympia weapons officer.
“Prepare to fire energy cannons for 20 seconds and then five mark sixes”, orders Carter.
Both ships fire energy cannons at the mothership and then fire a multitude at missiles at the mothership. The shield of the mothership fails and the ship is destroyed, the resulting blast wave impacts the other mothership and the Athens.
“Shields down to 30%”, reports the Athens weapons officer, “The mothership shields are at 5%”.
“Fire energy cannons and a mark eight”, orders Mitchell, “Then move us out of range of the blast”.
The Athens fires energy cannons and the missile at the mothership. The Athens then moves away quickly as the mothership explodes. The new Lucian Alliance fleet continues to attack the three shields. Further explosions force the bridge crews of all three ships from their ships.
“Helm”, says all three leaders “Get us out of here”.

[Davidtourniquet]

Part 5 continued and part 6:

End of part 5:

Spoiler:

All are three ships enter hyperspace. The three leaders contact each other once they are safely in hyperspace.
“Good job everyone”, says Mitchell, “We succeeded in our mission”.
“That’s good news”, says Shelton, “How goes the repairs on your ships?”
“We had hull breaches on six levels and the forcefields are holding”, says Carter, “We’ll need to go back to the shipyard to repair the hull damage, and several of the crew are in the infirmary”.
“Same for the Athens”, says Mitchell, “We took heavy damage and used up a huge amount of our missile and shell stockpiles, I don’t think we would have lasted much longer”. “We will need to have a proper debrief when we return to Scoria.”
“Yes we will”, says Shelton, “As far as the Cheyenne goes, we’ve taken a significant amount of damage, our shell stockpiles have been depleted and our missile stockpiles are at a minimum. Again, we have many people in the infirmary, not sure how much longer we would have lasted”. “We are running the hyperspace at 50% as not to overload any systems, so it’s going to be a slow journey back”.
“Well we’ve got a longer journey back here”, says Carter, “At least Destiny was saved and we’ve stopped them from dialling Destiny”.
“That is true”, says Shelton, “One thing concerns me though”
“What’s that?” asks Mitchell.
“Intelligence didn’t tell us about the motherships”, says Shelton. “Call me paranoid, but that sort of information should be there, I mean the ships aren’t exactly small and the shipyard was in orbit, pretty clear to see.”
“It’s possible it could have been missed”, says Mitchell, “I mean the spy maybe could not have seen the orbital shipyard, from the planet or in the data they downloaded.”
“Well it’s something big to miss”, says Shelton.
“Cam, I have to agree with Daniel”, says Carter, “We only had enough missiles for three shipyards. I think we should mention in our reports that the intelligence wasn’t complete, by a long way. Also, that Lucian Alliance fleet got to us very quickly, it’s almost like they knew we were coming and were just waiting for us to strike.”
“That is true”, says Mitchell, “I agree, we should put it in our reports when we get back, we exit hyperspace in 3 hours”.
“4 hours for us”, says Carter
“5 hours for us”, says Shelton. “If we are finished here, I am going to help with the repairs”.
“Ok Daniel”, says Carter, “We’ll talk later”.
“I’ll see you when you get back Daniel”, says Mitchell.
Daniel disconnects and walks off to help with repairs; Carter and Mitchell continue to talk.
“Do you think he is trying to turn us against everyone”, asks Mitchell.
“No I don’t Cam”, says Carter, “I just think he is trying to help, he was right about the intelligence though, it was terrible”.
“Maybe, but we shouldn’t be second guessing our intelligence”, says Mitchell, “Maybe the intelligence service in his time was perfect every time and he expects more”.
“Cam, I don’t think that’s it at all”, says Carter, “When we saw those motherships, I did think that there was something going on with the intelligence, it’s not like us to fail in this way, it’s too big to miss”.
“Sam”, says Mitchell, “It doesn’t sit with me well to start questioning our intelligence. Anyway I must go and help with repairs, talk soon”.
Mitchell and Carter disconnect and help out with the repairs to their ships.

Part 6:

Spoiler:

Act 6: Location:Icis, time= 03/06/2027 12:25:

One week later at Icis, the main base is still being cleaned up after the battle. But today is a special occasion, Destiny is attempting a connection and it could mean that after 17 years the Icarus team finally gets home. There’s a big crowd that’s gathered in the gateroom.
“Ladies and Gentlemen”, says Carter, “Welcome to the Icis gateroom. Today marks the day when the crew of the Destiny could possibly return home. This wouldn’t have been possible without the work from Admiral Shelton and his team. I would now like to turn the floor over to Admiral Shelton.”
“Thank you General Carter”, said Shelton, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to go through the plan for the return of Destiny’s crew. Twelve hours ago, Destiny entered the atmosphere of a star and recharge its energy reserve up to 100%. They have spent the last few hours packing and we are approximately 5 minutes from making a connection”. “The crew will then be debriefed and the new crew will then take over”.
On the Destiny, everyone is gathered in the gateroom and ready for the connection.
“Ok everyone”, says Young, “It has been a while since we’ve seen Earth with our own eyes, it would be good to see our families again, I think Rush has something to say”.
“Thanks General”, says Rush, “I would just like to say thanks to everyone, we’ve all gotten to know each other and been through a lot together, but I would just like to say that I am staying behind on Destiny. This is what I want and besides someone needs to keep the lights on”.
“Professor Rush, you can’t stay behind”, says Eli
“Yes I can, I have devoted my life to this and I’m not willing to give it up”, says Rush.
Everyone is clearly shocked by Rush’s statement.
“Well Rush”, says Young, “I’m sorry to hear that you will not be coming back, I think homeworld command will have to debrief us all when we get back. Anyway, we need to thank the Licentae team led by Dr Laura Shelton for coming and almost returning Destiny to its original state”.
The crew applaud the team and Laura smiles and thanks everyone.
“Are we ready to dial?” asks Young
“Yes we are”, says Rush, “Dialling”.
The Destiny stargate starts to spin and on the other side of the universe, the Icis stargate starts to rotate, the Destiny gate lights up and the Icis gate locks in the first chevron. This continues another seven times and then the ninth chevron locks. There’s a small delay and then the swoosh comes out from both gates and celebrations on both sides start.
“Destiny”, says Shelton, “This is Admiral Shelton on Icis, congratulations on making a connection, and we are looking forward to seeing you all here”.
“Admiral Shelton”, says Rush, “It is good to hear your voice; the team will start walking through the gate on your signal”.
“Destiny”, says Shelton, “We are ready to receive you all”
The crew starts to walk through the gate and several seconds later they appear on the other side, on Icis. The Licentae team are the next group through and the team quickly meet Admiral Shelton. Laura and Daniel embrace and kiss as another group come through the gate.
“It’s good to see you again”, says Shelton.
“And you my dear”, says Laura.
“Sergeant how many groups left?” asks Shelton.
“About 10 left”, says the gate operator.
“Daniel, Professor Rush isn’t coming back”, says Laura.
“Yes he is”, says Shelton, “Rush, this is Admiral Shelton, you need to come through and be debriefed at least. I know you want to stay there, but we need everyone to come back for the moment. I assure you that you will be able to return to Destiny, once the debriefing has occurred.”
“I’ll hold you to that Admiral”, says Rush, “Ok I’ll come through”.
Rush, Young, Telford, Rae, Eli, Chloe, Scott and Greer are the last people to leave Destiny. Rush is the last one out of the group.
“Goodbye for now”, says Rush as he walks through the gate.
Chloe’s mother is there waiting for her daughter to arrive. She originally threatened to disclose the program to the public when her husband died right at the beginning of the mission. The last group comes through and the two women embrace. The gate shuts down behind them and Destiny goes straight back into FtL. The Lucian Alliance prisoners are taken off for interrogation and gate is redialled to Earth, the Destiny crew, General Carter, Admiral Shelton and his team heads through the gate. On Earth, the debrief takes places in a conference hall that can take the number of people that is required, the leaders of homeworld command enter the hall and take their seats on the stage. The door is shut as the meeting begins.

That's the end everyone!

[Crazy Tom]

Modern Marriage

December 25, 2023

By Crazy Tom

Spoiler:

“Welcome to the Asimov International Stargate Terminal. Bienvenue au Terminal International...” The calm female voice cycled through it's multilingual cycle, audible over the low level chatter of arriving and departing travelers as Robert Eaton glanced at the information board.
“Oklunga – Earth; 09:00 PM GST; ARRIVED” It had been 'arrived' for half an hour, and as he looked at it, it slipped off the board entirely. Shifting the jacket he carried over his right arm to his left, he wondered if he should find a seat.
Looking around for the closest bench he turned back as one of the elevators “dinged” and let out a small crowd of travelers. Temporarily suspending his search for seating, he scanned the crowd as they dispersed. He didn't have to wait long. Rebeca Eaton cut a distinctive figure amid the tourists and businessmen, sweaty, dusty and tanned a near reddish brown, she wore a well traveled khaki outfit rolled up past her elbows. The bulging backpack she wore had it's straps drawn tight and bounced not at all.
His iPod clicked as she approached, taking a picture. “The prodigal wife returns, eh?” She greeted him with a smile as he snapped the electronic bracelet back around his wrist. “It's good to see you 'Becka.” He smiled back. In a moment they had their arms around each other in a warm hug. “Long time.”
“Yeah.” Then he grinned, through she couldn't see it. “You're late.”
They pulled apart. “Oh no.”
“What?”
Sure enough, there was a Rebeca shaped dust print on his black trench coat. When she tried to brush it off, she only succeeded on rubbing off the stuff that was on her hands. “I'm so sorry.” She said, looking torn between trying to correct her mistake and knowing it would only make it worse.
Robbert just laughed. “Here, give me your bag for a second.” He handed her the winter jacket hanging over his arm. “You'll need it.” With a few swipes of his hands, the coat became less obviously marred, and seeing further effort would be worthless, he gave it a rest. Acknowledging the lost battle, he hefted the back over one shoulder.
“Umm, yeah, I was held back in customs, they didn't know what to make of some of my souvenirs.” She said, skipping back to his earlier question.
“We have to get going actually, Jim's a smart kind, but I don't know if I can trust him with getting that stuffed chicken out of the oven when he's supposed to.”
They Started walking towards the escalators, Rebeca following her husband in the unfamiliar space of the brand new Stargate terminal. It was almost indistinguishable from any other international airport she'd been through. Last time she'd used Earth's Stargate it had still been in a tiny room under Cheyenne Mountain.
“How is James anyways?” She asked.
“Same old, same old. Still getting good grades, still out of jail.” Robert smiled. “Him and Sophia are still together through.”
His wife gave a low whistle.
“It's not that surprising, they looked pretty into each other, she'll actually be joining us tonight.”
“Still, it's been what? Three years now? A lifetime for a teenager. Speaking of which...”
Oh boy, here it comes again. Robert through silently to himself.
“... I wish I could have come to visit more often, it's a lo easier now with the 'Gate and I know I should have...”
His wife loved her job, she always had, she was good at it too. But it did keep her away from home for months and sometimes nearly years at a time, a fact she regretted immensely. And like every other time she'd come back, she was having a miniature breakdown/apology session for missing all that time with her family. Ah, there! The escalators, and maybe, salvation.
“I'm going to cut you off right there and ask you to close your eyes.”
“I know you say that you're OK with it but- huh?”
He smiled his “amused but patient” smile and got her to get on the escalator a head of him.
“Step.” He said at the top, so she would know when to step off the machine. “What's going on Robert?”
“Just wait.” He led her away from the crowds and to the edge of the building where the hubbub of the terminal seemed to fade away. “Turn, no, this way. Ok, you can open them.”
The first thing she saw was a half full Earth hanging low over the bright gray horizon.
Built on the Moon's northern peak of eternal light, Asimov terminal had an impressive view of mankind's cradle. From so far away, Rebeca could cover Earth with her hand.

“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
She shook her head as it to clear it. “Weren't we late?”

The rest of the trip passed without the dreaded apology session materializing, and Robert gave himself a pat on the back for a job well done. They ringed to Pearson International where Rebeca went for round two with the customs officers, and then emerged from the airport into a howling blizzard to find a cab.
“Oh god!”
“Climate change my dear!”
Quickly finding a free one, they got into the bright orange Toronto taxi.
“And good evening to you sir and madam.” The driver cheerfully greeted them in a South African accent. “Where might you be haded this stormy Christmas day?”
“425 Brooke Street please.”
“Alright, but just so you know...” he consulted his GPS. “Don't expect to be getting there in under forty five minutes.”

True to his word, they were gridlocked five minutes later. “You would think people would learn their lesson. Every year Christmas comes around on the same day, and every year you have people scrambling to get their last minute presents.” Robert said, looking out into to stormy yet packed streets.
“It's Christmas day, why is it so crazy? I thought most of the last minute shopping would be done by now, the presents have already been opened.”
“Yeah-”
“Wait, why are we on Dundas? This is the busiest street in town.” She looked accusingly at the driver.
“Truth is ma'am, it's not much slower than the alternatives this time of year. Besides, Dundas Square's really something to see right now.”
“He's right.” Said Robert. “You haven't been back in a year, you'll really like this.”

Five years behind schedule, one scandal and a not insignificant amount of money later, the Toronto city council had finally completed the hologram system across Dundas Square, successfully following in the footsteps of it's bigger brother in New York. Now as traffic crawled down the intersection of Dundas and Young, Rebeca had the impression of stepping into a Harry Potter novel. Despite the snow's constant interference with the image projection systems, a veritable sea of candles, Chinese lanterns, menorahs, and other symbols of equivalent (through not always simultaneous) festivals floated a meter above head level. Rebeca spied at least one Santa sleigh that seemed to be playing tag with a Chinese dragon (although she was pretty sure Chinese new year wasn't for almost a month).
A sudden realization popped her tourist moment. “Since when do you wear glasses?”
“Huh?” He took them off. “Oh yeah. They're not really glasses.” He pressed a few keys on the wide electronic bracelet. “Here, try them on.” He passed them to her.
She eyed him dubiously for a moment before putting them on. “Whoa.” Sheer sensory overload. It was like a whole new world. Everything she looked at caused a new window to pop open showing something about it. The cab's route was a floating line above the car, Every piece of electronic equipment around her had a menu around it, and the ads, oh my god, the ads!
“Ugghhh!” She took them off to rub her eyes. “How do you stand it.”
He chuckled and typed something else into the iPod. “Sorry, I took the filters down to show you the whole thing. James got it for me for my birthday, it's actually been really useful. We should get you a pair.”
“Mmm, maybe, we'll see.”

As they left the intense celebratory mood of the main streets, the city became more subdued. “I see poverty hasn't been abolished yet.” She said, spotting a homeless police quad-rotor blaring at a homeless man sleeping in in a door in an effort to get him out of the way of the building's residents.
“You can't expect miracles.” Robbert shrugged. “It's getting better every year but...”
Rebeca's lips tightened a bit. “How's the economy? How are you, actually? I didn't have much time to keep up with the news.”
“Been better, been worse.” He looked out the window thoughtfully. “There's been something of a revolution while you were away, desktop manufacturers are selling like hotcakes, James and a few friends pooled their money to get a good one, it's killing the secondary industries.”
She shot him a worried look.
“On the bright side, the cost of living keeps going down!” He grinned in an effort to alleviate the tension.
“It's not so bad, really. Whatever isn't being bought on Earth gets shipped off-world these days, even our outdated stuff is state of the art on a lot of planets, so I'm doing pretty good actually. More and more stuff gets exported every month, and the 'Gate can't handle it so it's pretty hectic at the office right now.”

It was nearly eight when Robert unlocked the apartment door.
“Easy, easy, wait- ok, just... hold it there.” James and his girlfriend were wrestling the Microsoft Surface that doubled as the apartment's wide-screen off the wall and onto it's table stand.
“We're home!” Robert announced loudly as he hung up his coat, causing James to look up and clip the edge of the Surface with his forehead.
“Motherf-unction!” He corrected midway, grimacing in pain. “Mom, you're back!”
“Come here.” She said, hugging him. James did his best to balance the need to let his mother know he loved her with the need to maintain some dignity as a young adult and hugged back for a second before pulling away.
“Good to have you back mom.”
“Good to be back.”
“Evening Mrs. Eaton.” Sophia said. “Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“Yes, yes I did.”
A loud sigh came from the kitchenette.
“Oh come on dad! I can program genetic algorithms but you don't expect me to be able to take the chicken out of the oven on time?” James said turning towards the the kitchenette.
“Alright, how can I help?” Asked Rebeca looking around.
“Well... not to put to fine a point on it mom but...” James tapped the side of his nose. “You could do with a shower.”
Rebeca looked down at her dusty khakis and sighed. “Point. Alright, I'm off to avail myself of the wonders of indoor plumbing.”

[Crazy Tom]

Spoiler:

Dinner was served with the lights dimmed to almost nothing, the fireplace cast a flickering blue light that competed with the aquatic reflection generated by the Surface whose screen-saver they set to a faux Stargate event horizon.
“Mmmmmm.” Rebeca hummed with pleasure as she chewed the sweet and spicy carrot strands. “This is delicious Sophie. What is it?”
“Korean style carrots, popularized by the Russians ironically enough.” Sophia smiled a she speared a few slices of lemon with her fork, happy to have bought her way back into James' mom's good books.
James had a similar reaction on bitting into his share of the carrots. “Mmmmmm, I feel the need to re-iterate how much I love you.”
Robert laughed. “They don't say that 'the way to a man's hart is through his stomach' for no reason.” He said, looking at Sophia.
“Speaking of a certain man, nice job with the fireplace James.”
Her son shrugged. “Actually some British lady made the design, I just downloaded it, fed it to the printer and found a cheap renovator.”
The table was set with a diverse array of dishes. The stuffed chicken held center, while a salad and a plate of pastries flanked it. Thin sliced lemon, cheese and salami along with the Korean style carrots and a basket of olive bread Sophia contributed occupied the remaining free space.
“Out of curiosity Sophie.” Asked Rebeca. “I know you have a large family, how did they let you spend Christmas with us?”
“Mom and dad are Orthodox, Christmas doesn't come until later for them so I'm free today.”
“How are you enjoying first year at UofT?” Robert asked Sophia, cutting himself a piece of the chicken.
“It's been great, beyond hectic, but great. We just got a Galaran neural scanner and it feels like half the software engineering faculty's invaded psych, everyone says a Bachelor's in neuro-psychology comes with a default minor in AI programing these days.” She replied with a grin.
“It's like we're in the same program half the time.” Said James.
“If only the code-heads would quit pestering us about the quantified variables of the, quote, sexiest female voice, unquote, we could actually get some work done.” Sophia grimaced.
Rebeca raised an eyebrow at her son.
James just shrugged. “The senior project is making a muse...” He was met with blank looks. “A personal digital assistant AI that handles all of your stuff, books tickets, makes appointments, downloads the books you tell it to, it's keyed to your preferences...”
“So it's... an AI secretary?” Asked Rebeca.
James made a face. “Yeah, we'll go with that.”
“And they want it to talk in a sexy voice.” Concluded Robert with a grin. Rebeca raised an eyebrow at him and Robert assumed the most innocent expression he could muster. “How was your expedition dear?”
Rebeca cringed. “Difficult, but worthwhile. The Tlalticpacchanehque under Goa'uld rule became a very stagnant people, on the bright side, it means we're likely seeing a society that's fairly close to the one that existed here on Earth, but they're very insular and obsessed with tradition, which made observing them up close difficult. And on a tangent, we've fond strong stylistic and linguistic similarities with the Tollan so they may in fact have come from the same culture initially.”
“Wait a sec.” said James. “The Tollan are like space elves, they have tech that lets them walk throghy walls; and these Tlatchpa-Tkalap-eh, you know who.” James said as they chuckled over his inability to pronounce the consulted name. “They're barely out of the stone age.”
“They've actually developed an incredible level of skill when it comes to working with glass, but it's a stark contrast to be sure, and we haven't confirmed it conclusively, it's just a good hunch so far. Still, it was enough to get us a small grant from the Curia.”
“OK, and did anything... noteworthy happen?” Asked James with a grin, bringing his wineglass up for a sip.
Rebeca laughed as she leaned back. “There was the time at the sinkhole with an Ahuizotl, which by the way turns out to have some basis in reality...” As they shared stories, joked and laughed they finished a good dinner and settled on the couch.
“Well, seeing as it is Christmas day, we may as well unpack our presents.” Said Robert with a smile.
Rebeca's eyes widened a bit. “Oh no, I haven't wrapped your presents yet!”
“Moooooom. Relax.” Whined James from his spot on the corner, one arm around Sophia. “It' still gonna be a surprise for us, we haven't exactly had a chance to peek.” He finished with a smile.
“First thing's first then.” Robert reached under their stunted tree and gave Rebeca a smallish box. “From me and James.”
Inside was a pair of glasses and an iPod similar to Robert's.
“Dad paid for the hardware but I jail-broke it for you and added some pretty nifty stuff, put them on.”
Rebeca did so. “Ummm...”
“Dear...” Robert reached across to power up the iPod.
“Mommm...” James hid his face with his palm as everyone laughed. “You're killing me.”
“Good evening madam.” A miniature late middle aged man in a black suit with white shirt said from the top of the coffee table at their feet said in a British accent.
“Whoa!”
“Mom, I present to you Alfred, your new electronic butler. He's not quite a muse, but he's close. You can give him voice commands and queries and he'll act on them.
After the brief shock, Rebeca looked at her son through the heads up display. “Alfred, really?” She asked with a smile.
“You can change the skin anytime you want, but when we were deciding it was either this or a house elf and Sophie-”
“Hey!” She said, pulling out of his embrace as he chortled to himself.
“She wasn't a fan of the idea.” He finished.
His girlfriend just crossed her arms and turned away with mock offense. It wasn't her fault, ever since she'd read Harry potter and the Chamber of Secrets she'd felt sorry for the fictional elves.
James and Robert gave each other cologne, Sophie and James exchanged a recipe book and another butler program, through Robert expressed skepticism at the thought of James starting to cook. Sophie then gave James a pair of self heating socks so he would stop whining about the weather.
Rebeca came back from her pack with a flower like glass instrument for Robert played by varying the water level within it and the location struck, after filling it in the sink and giving a few experimental taps, Robert was very pleased even through he hadn't a musical bone in his body. James got an onyx cup which he said was cool, and in a bit if improvisation, Rebeca gave Sophia a pair of jade earnings and a complicated looking hair clip that she had to show Sophia how to use.

“Wow, thanks Mrs. Eaton.” Said Sophia sincerely as she looked at herself in the mirror.
“I do believe that's everything.” Said Robert glancing at the tree, whose base was now devoid of packages.
“Not.... quite.” Said James with a twinkle in hie eyes. He beaconed Sophia over where she sat down next to him.
“So, me and Sophia have a surprise for the both of you.” He said, looking guilty and amused at the same time.
Ohmygodshe'spregant- was the first through that flashed through Rebeca's head. But then she thought that would be unlikely, neither her son nor his girlfriend looked... well, serious enough. That would have been a private discussion, not something sprung upon your unsuspecting parents on Christmas day. As James took Sophia's hand, Rebeca put her wine glass down and gave them her undivided attention.
“Mom and dad, me and Sophie are getting engaged!”
Robert made a sound between a snort and a cough as the drink he'd been taking returned to it's container.

[thekillman]

Spoiler:

A light flickered. Xenar looked up, to see one of the many lights for the bridge damaged. She sighed. “Vano, remind me that it should be fixed.” Vano came walking down the stairs of the bridge, slightly taken aback. “how'd you know it was me?” his eyes were small and his hair was poorly done, even for a short military coupe. He had bags under his eyes, and he didn't make a very well-rested impression. Xenar was no better in that regard. “it's your turn to command,” Xenar said, tired, and she walked away. “hey, what about the report on recent events?” Vano questioned. “the same as last time,” Xenar replied as she walked past Vano. Vano walked to the Holotable, and checked the logs. Every day, at precisely the same time, Ha'tak showed up and attacked. Every day the same thing. Every time the same precise moment. Fist, Vano had thought it was just a mental attack, but the more reasonable explanation was that the ships simply couldn't keep up with them faster. “not a surprise when you have billions of dollars of bounty on your head,” Vano muttered but the words barely came out of his mouth. Everyone was tired. The ship was beginning to fall apart from extensive battle damage. The Ha'tak, however, would simply fall back and the next row of ships would attack. The hyperdrive was fast, but needed frequent cooldown and repair to keep functioning. Repair time was what the Ha'tak used to catch up again. They couldn't fall back to a world with sufficient supply and backup without revealing a major shipyard world.


Vano checked the holographic clock. 30 seconds and counting down. “prepare for combat,” Vano announced but it was not necessary. Everyone had been drilled for this by the dozens and dozens of attacks. The clock counted down, the light kept flickering. Ten seconds. The THT indicated shields were up and weapons were powered. Then, four seconds before time, the alarms blared and six Ha'tak dropped out of hyperspace to attack. Vano let out a “what the.” and the ship shook heavily.
“Shields are holding,” one of the officers announced. “at 95% and dropping steadily.”
Vano's heartbeat raced. Had the ship been repaired sufficiently? The Shield counter dipped below 60%. An alarm blared. “sir, we're getting a hyperspace window alarm!”
Vano looked at the THT which displayed just two ships dropping out. The entire device then flickered twice, and died. “shields down to 20%,” one of the shield officers announced.
“what in sokar's name is going on?” Vano asked, perplexed.”
The ship shook heavily, and the damaged light came crashing down in a shower of sparks and glass and light. Vano braced himself from it. In seconds it was over. The ship rocked one last time and a deafening silence filled the bridge.

“sir?” one of the officers announced. “we're being hailed.”
Vano got up, his arm covered in blood. It barely bled, but his arm had been cut by a thousand small pieces of glass. “open a channel. And point me to a working screen.”
The female officer gestured to come over there, and Vano did so. On a 16'' or so screen, a familiar face greeted Vano. “Well well, you sure don't look so....well.”
Vano stared in astonishment. “Omari? No offense but what the Sha'is are you doing here.”
“i don't take offense to words I don't know,” Omari responded calmly. “i actually was tracking your ship and watching it's battle performance. Then I...” Vano cut him off. “WHAT!”
“i said I was watching your...” “YOU BASTARD”
“Vano calm down.”
It didn't come from the screen. Behind Vano, Xenar had appeared again, a slight bit less bad looking than before. “Omari, you're pure evil but you know that. Why now?” Vano breathed quite heavily and he decided it was best to back away. He walked a bit, kicking a computer, and the accompanying screen displayed a 'no signal' message. Xenar ignored him and continued. “why now, if you had the ace card all the time?” “well,” Omari said. “it was fun to watch, but I thought that this should be the threshold, so I sent my Aggregators to clean the place up. So why didn't you call for backup? Pride?”
“come on, Omari. You know i'm halfway to Ne'tu. No backup would be able to catch up. And there's no running backwards,” Xenar defended.
“a choice's a choice,” Omari replied cryptically. “now, can you get onboard my ship. I need to discuss something. The ring codes should show up any moment now.”
there was a sound and indeed, a set of codes appeared.
“Vano, you have the bridge. I'm gonna have a talk with my old friend,” Xenar said with a hint of sarcasm. “can't I come?” Vano asked, but he half knew the answer. “i said I wanted to talk. If I wanted to fight, i'd just take a gun.”

On an even more distant world, the local Stargate activated with a kawoosh. The gate had been placed on a small plaza, with the necessary ornamental pillars, plants and a set of guards. Once the puddle was calm, a figure stepped through. Dressed in a simplistic, but iconic leather outfit with purple stitching, was Lord Za. She looked at the guards, none of them human, all of them about the same height. They looked like typical grunts, although still alien. All had more or less equally red scales, stood about 1.80m tall, were armored in shining, white metal armor with orange-colored undergarment, two rows of eight total. All carried the same, black rifle. Not in assault mode, more like a ceremonial guard. All had two horn stumps on the back head. Za looked around.
“pretty place you have here,” she said but none of the guards reacted, and none of them probably understood her anyway. Before her, there was a slope, paved with what seemed to be marble. And as her eyes followed the uphill road, she saw another figure, dressed in a cloak. Za walked forward, and the figure spread his arms. “Welcome to my planet, Za,” said Lord Machayo. As Za walked up
the slope, the Stargate deactivated and the Guards were dismissed. “Quite a reception, Machayo.” Za said with a smile. She looked around, and it became clear that she didn't walk up a hill, but that the gate plaza was several meters lower than the rest of the place. “join me,” Machayo said.
He turned and the two Lords walked next to each other, away from the Stargate. Machayo clicked a little remote, and a shuttle decloaked a few meters ahead. “I wasn't aware you had cloaking tech,” Za said in wonder. Machayo laughed a bit. “we do not, at least not exactly. I had a Tel'tak stripped and most of the components placed in a personal shuttle. It was a bit of work as you'll certainly know, but it's worth it”.
They entered the shuttle, where two comfortable seats awaited them.

“I did not expect a visit,” Machayo said, “so I was quite surprised when I read your request.”
“Yes, I imagine. I was interested in the production process for the Aggregators. I would like to see how you make them, and how close you are to schedule,” Za said calmly.
“well the project is a blessing for my people. Thousands of employments are it's result, and many companies did massive investments in production technology. It has allowed them to get Forcefield-Casting technology with unprecedented precision and detail, and dozens of other technologies, to produce the Aggregators. It is excellent for our economy.”
Za merely nodded. “any opposition to it?”
Machayo paused. “well there are always those who believe it's squandering of tax money. And our third grade countries are not exactly seeing eye to eye on it. Not that they normally agree with us anyway.”
Za looked out of the viewscreen, as they passed an enormous skyscraper which went far above the clouds. They flew over a tightly packed city.
“It's quite a place you have here,” Za said in admiration.

A ring station activated. There was a bright light, and Xenar appeared. Two guards stood ready, another searched her for weapons. After she was found clean, they went through the narrow hallways. A walk, and dozens of equally boring and metallic halls later, Xenar stood in the nervecenter of the Aggregator. It was similarly cramped, with a central commander chair, equipped with a control interface at either side, and against the walls, several work stations were placed.
The Command chair turned around, and Omari revealed himself.
“So you actually came. How are things?”
Xenar was slightly surprised. “well aside from being chased and battled for days while someone watches from a distance and barely getting enough sleep, things are surprisingly fine.”
“ah well, good to know. Now I asked you here because I need a little...favor,” Omari said as his mood turned more serious.
“what exactly?” asked Xenar in surprise.
“you see, this ship is built wonderfully. So full with all sorts of technologies. My engineers say it has a touch to it they have never seen before, not even with other things Yitaro made for me. It's quite... excellent,” Omari began.
“well you're very flattering,” Xenar replied. “and?”
“The problem is, I want to interface a certain device with this ship, and it's not quite working, even though every name-worthy engineer I have tells me it should.”
“You're not telling me you want to interface a ZPM, do you?,” Xenar asked.
“no, it's goa'uld technology. I want this ship to cloak. But despite my best engineers, it simply refuses to operate, even though the cloak generator itself works fine,” Omari said with a smile.
“the ZPM was a nice one though.”
“yea well... why me?” Xenar asked. “our record isn't exactly shiny.”
“but I know you can keep a secret. This should be a thing between you and me,” Omari said as he leaned forward.
“I was half expecting some kind of 'but'”, Xenar replied. “so I have to keep it a secret from my Lord?”
“No, no, Za can know it. It was more of a thing against Yitaro. If I asked him, half the galaxy would know before I would have his answer,” Omari answered.
“he's not THAT bad,” Xenar replied.
“bad enough,” Omari said firmly.

[thekillman]

Spoiler:

The Shuttle had arrived at Machayo's palace, and landed in a private bay on the 3rd floor. Before it did so, it passed through the Palace shield first.
“Nicely guarded, I like that,” Za said as both walked out of the shuttle. The bay was not very large, and was made of what appeared to be steel and marble, although the steel was a tad too white and the marble seemed somewhat synthetic. About a dozen guards had been placed in the Bay, with similar outfits to those near the gate.
“so what is the real reason of your visit?” Machayo asked.
Za looked around. “no spies, no microphones?” she asked.
Machayo merely nodded. “it's my palace. I know the location of every fly in a 100 meter radius around this building, and everyone inside has a proper security check.”
“good,” Za responded. “i have a plan.”
“many people say that. Yours needs to be quite stellar to be credible.”
Za smiled. “it's more like universal. I have the plan to change the battlefield forever, definitively.
“That's....ambitious,” Machayo replied, and his reptilian eyes looked at Za with interest.
“it requires two components. One I can get myself, but it requires the continued secrecy of the Aggregators. The other part, I need quite a force to acquire,” Za said mysteriously.
“yes?” Machayo simply said.
“i need you to help me get it through the Convocation,” Za responded.
“you didn't tell me the plan,” Machayo noted her.
“the half I need other people for is called Langara.”




Xenar ringed back aboard the Ko'tak. She had barely stepped away from the device when Vano rushed in. “and?” he asked impatiently and excited. “we need to talk in private.”
A short walk later and both sat in Xenar's quarters. There, Vano repeated the question.
“Omari asked me a favor,” Xenar explained.
“Don't we own him one because of, well, an hour ago?”, Vano asked.
“Kind of, yes. Anyway, he wants me to install Cloaking Generators on his Aggregators,” Xenar explained further.
“why?” Vano asked.
“you mean aside from the obvious 'to cloak'? I think his distrust for Yitaro is rooted much deeper than his hatred for me. He could've asked the Lord but she would probably have asked Yitaro anyhow. I only agreed to it because it allows me to see his Aggregators up close. He's quite impressed by them, by the way,” Xenar continued.
“so you are going to do it” Vano said.
“yes. You'll never know when it becomes useful to us.”

One by one, the Holographic pedestals activated. Za was the first, and she had called the Convocation. “Well well, this will be interesting,” one of the lords muttered disinterested.
Za ignored him. “Welcome, welcome,” she said once no more pedestals activated. Suddenly one pedestal flickered, and Omari arrived. “welcome,” she repeated.
The chamber was filled with mumbling, but it quickly died.
“i have called this convocation for a very good reason.”
Za paused.
“i have recently discovered how to permanently change the war.”
“We though the Ko'tak was that already?” one of the lords snapped.
Za smiled a bit. “this is on a much grander scale.”
the interest of the Lords clearly peaked. “the main reason why the war goes the way it goes, is because the tau'ri possess quite formidable shields, complemented with formidable weapons.”
Za paused again, to let the information sink in.
“While the Ko'tak is a successful attempt to match those weapons and shields, and while the Aggregator is meant to complement and support that, both are new ship classes that have to be built and maintained. My solution can be implemented cost effectively on every ship and every class.”
“What is this miracle?” another lord asked, slightly snappy.”
“Using the very Shield Frequency Modulation technology the Tau'ri use to penetrate old Ha'tak shields, we can make our shields far less vulnerable to their weapons, with no extra energy consumption. In fact, it should reduce,” Za explained.
“Since when do you possess such technology?” Kakaro asked.
“I do not. At least, not yet. But it can be done. It requires, however, two rather rare and exotic components.”
Za paused again. She swallowed. The hard part had arrived.
“i need two ships to create the patch for all our ships and shields. I need a Daedalus class, whole, and I need Destiny.”
The chamber exploded in chatter, complaints, shouts, and general disbelief.
“Madness”, “impossible,” and many similar words flew around the chamber, bounced against the walls and came back in full force.
“SILENCE,” Za shouted. After two more attempts, the chamber was finally silent.
Omari was the first to step forward. “so you want us to chase old dreams of Destiny?”
“I don't need full control. What I need should be in the shield generators, so I need one to take back home. And I need a plasma weapon from a Daedalus Class.”
“Why specifically a Daedalus class?” Machayo asked.
“The ship is a middle way between a Valkyrie and an Athens. It's cannons will be quite representative of the entire arsenal,” Za explained.
Another lord raised his hand, but did not await a turn. “How do you intend to get to Destiny, and perhaps even more interestingly, how do you intend to get back?”
“the only existing gateway we know of, is Langara.”
there was a pause.
“Taking langara won't be easy. Ever since they mastered their Naquahdriah extractors, their technology has bloomed. They can match our shields and weapons by pure power,” Omari thought out loud.
“True,” Za replied. “Which is why I need your support in the first place. A proper, coordinated attack on Langara should buy us the time we need. Again, I do not need full control of either Langara or Destiny. We need a Langaran Geothermal Drainage Point and a Destiny Shield Node.”
“And a Daedalus class.”
A shadowy figure had appeared on a previously unactivated pedestal. The voice was dark and deep.
Everybody turned his attention. Omari was the first to respond. “welcome back, Odai Ventrell,” as Ventrell removed his cloak.

An icy silence filled the Convocation Chamber as Ventrell looked around. “well, i'm back. And I heard something big was about to go down, so I thought i'd drop by.”
“The plan,” Za continued, “is to use the Shield technology onboard the Destiny to make all our shields far more effective against Tau'ri weapons.”
“how do you know of that technology?” Ventrell asked. “I didn't know of it, and I doubt anybody else here did either.”
“i recently acquired the last piece of the puzzle in the form of an engineering report of one Mr. Brody. Most of the Destiny mission reports have been...properly stashed away and are extraordinarily hard to acquire. Which is why I only got a copy after nearly 15 years,” Za answered.
“What kind of Engineering report?” Omari asked.
“They are the engineering details of a plan to adopt Destiny's shields against the Drone enemies, which should make the drone weapons nearly useless. Considering all Goa'uld shields are derived from ancient ones, I started to research this possibility for our own use. And the outcome, is that with a few minor modifications, I can change the frequency of our shields to make them more effective against Tau'ri weapons. And I can do the same for Goa'uld weapons, although the patches can not be used in sync,” Za explained further.
Ventrell looked somewhat puzzled.
“I did not know we had found an Icarus-class planet,” he said.
“Langara has always been an option, but it was never deemed worth it. This is a strategic and technological advantage we can not ignore. I only need Langara for a few minutes to dial Destiny, and I only need to be on Destiny for a few hours. We have sufficient understanding of the 9th chevron code to dial back to a world of our own choosing,” Za pleaded.
“Well,” Ventrell replied, “It's certainly interesting.”

Xenar stood on the Ko'tak bridge. She had just repaired the THT, and a holographic Omari appeared. “You can make use of one of my resupply bases,” Omari announced.
“yea, well our Hyperdrive has been fried by your nuclear barrage. Some assistance will be helpful,” Xenar replied.
“A Slipstream jump should do,” Omari simply said and turned off the screen. A few seconds later, and three codes appeared on screen. Xenar opened up the Navigational interface and entered the codes. A few seconds later, and the computer confirmed the codes, then began a synchronized jump calculation. In space, the two Aggregators lined up with the Ko'tak. Within seconds, the individual ship networks joined, and the three ships jumped to hyperspace in a single window. The Ko'tak gracefully made a way through the hyperspace tunnel, flanked by the Aggregators.
“Commander,” One of the communication crew announced. “we have just received a databurst, APCHRON encoded.”
“send it to the THT,” Xenar commanded. Seconds, later, the THT displayed a “request password”, and Xenar entered a long code into the device. The Computer noted that the code was accepted.
Vano took a step closer to the device. “what is it?” he asked. Xenar merely shrugged. “i don't know.” the file unpacked, and a video opened. It was Za.
“Commander Xenar. The Lords have agreed with my plan. Your role and the details are enclosed in the databurst. Good luck,” the holographic Za said.
“What plan?” Xenar muttered under her breath. Za had plenty of plans. She opened one of the files, displaying a simulation. It showed an Aggregator, almost out of power and leaking radiation. The simulation fast-forwarded, and a Deadalus-class arrived. It launched a Scorpion, which boarded the Aggregator. Seconds later, a few ships came from the Aggregator and boarded the Daedalus-class. The Daedalus-class' red halo turned green.
“so that's the plan,” Xenar said with sarcasm.
Vano had opened a text file and quickly read through it.
“from what I gather, the idea is to use an aggregator as bait. The Tau'ri show up, they board us. We kill the boarding party covertly, and board the Tau'ri ship and take it over.”
Xenar contemplated the plan for a few seconds. “how can we be sure a Daedalus-class shows up?”
Vano had already accessed some of the other files. Five different files were displayed by the THT.
“from the looks of it, in five days a Tau'ri battecruiser on a mission will be the only ship by lightyears to respond to our emergency beacon. The coordinates for the ambush are a few hundred lightyears from here.”
“We're being hailed by Lord Omari,” a Communications officer announced.
“open the channel.” Xenar commanded.
On the THT, Omari appeared.
“Whatever plan Za sent to you, I have a better one.”

[thekillman]

Spoiler:

And so the plan happened. Five days later, Xenar stood onboard her Aggregator, next to the Command Chair. She sat down and accessed her controls.
“Putting the ship in sleep mode,” She announced, and she flipped several switches, cutting power to dozens of systems. “Power down the Naquahdriah Reactors completely, make sure we can emergency boot the Naquahdah reactor.”
The ship further powered down, and the lights switched to emergency lighting. The bridge was mostly lit by the computer screens. “Put the computers in sleep mode, so we can quickly reactivate them.”
Behind her, Vano stood at the ready. “I have ordered my and Omari's men to their proper locations,” he reported.
“Good. Sending emergency Subspace Burst, and activating the emergency beacon,” Xenar announced.
Alarms blared for a few seconds, then died again. “Eject the radioactive waste,” Xenar commanded, and an officer issued the commands to the computer. The bridge went silent.
“we'll see when they take the bait,” Xenar spoke softly.”

An hour later, and a BC-304 dropped out of hyperspace a few thousand miles out. It's shields activated as soon as they could, and the weapons powered quickly. On the Aggregator bridge, the tension was high. Xenar and Vano stared at each other without saying a word, barely blinking. The 304's weapons then depowered, but the shield remained active. The ship quickly closed the distance. “they must be hailing us now,” Xenar said, calmly. “They'll be here soon.”
The Daedalus-class cautiously approached, as they had never seen an Aggregator before. After what seemed like ages, a Scorpion moved out of the hangar bay towards the Aggregator docking bay. As it was made for small craft, the Scorpion fit in nicely and landed. Tau'ri troops and medics poured out, panning out to secure the bay, but there was nothing to secure. On the bridge, Xenar silently nodded to Vano, who turned around and ran away from the bridge. He quickly arrived at his destination: a small room filled with heavily armed guards. They carried projectile weapons not quite unlike Earth weapons, but fitted with a small device under the main barrel. There was a clear distinction between two types of soldiers. One group carried the iconic leather suits with a piece of body armor on top, and the other group carried cameo gear, complete with leg and arm guards, plus a helmet. The cameo group carried the modified earth guns, and the leather group carried goa'uld looking, bulkier weapons with a staff weapon head. “They're on board,” Vano announced. “Spread out and take them silently.”

Through the many cramped corridors, Tau'ri forces moved swiftly to scan the craft for survivors. From the core of the ship, the Lucian groups moved out to find them.
Vano quickly moved to the Docking bay. There, he met up with a very different team: all of the 'leather' type, but all carrying a shotgun-shaped device with a clearly visible red crystal. Vano nodded, and the team quickly entered the Scorpion, taking out the guards and the pilots with quick and effective red plasma bolts. Vano took the backseat, as two of his soldiers took the pilot and copilot seats. As the Scorpion undocked, a Tel'tak met them outside, and covered them in it's cloaking field. The radios remained silent however, as any wrong signal could change the whole operation. The two ships quickly made their way to the Daedalus-class, passing through the shield like it was intangible. Both craft touched down on the hangar deck, with plenty of space left.
Vano walked into the back of the Scorpion.
“Once the cloak drops, all hell breaks loose. You know what to do. Backup will follow soon.”
He punched a button, and the back door unlocked and lowered to form a ramp. The soldiers got up, and quickly made their way out. Vano himself carried one of the plasma weapons, and took a step outside. There, the fight had already begun. Red bolts and flashes filled the hangar, as the deck crew dropped like flies with every hit. Some attempted to flee, but were shot in the back as they attempted to do so. Vano noticed a crewmember about to punch an alarm, but his bolt hit first. The man fell on the ground, stunned. One soldier shouted “clear,” and they began to make their way out. Vano signaled to team up again, and the men formed groups. The teams from the Tel'tak had already joined them. Vano could hear more plasma blasts, and gunfire. The first resistance. The Lucian soldiers poured out into the adjacent hallway, and Vano followed. The next target was the shield generator, as it would block other ships from boarding. Vano heard a bullet ricochet nearby, and turned around. Behind him, a Guard had his sidearm pointed at him, but Vano fired first. The man fell down into a heap of stunned meat. Vano then continued following his teams. Then, the alarms began to blare. They had been discovered.

Onboard the Aggregator, Xenar still sat in the command chair, twitching her thumb. One of her officers stood up and walked to her. “commander, several teams have been pinned down by the Tau'ri forces. They request backup.”
Xenar nodded. “then send it.”
The officer walked back to his work station. Suddenly, alarms went off. “what's happening?” Xenar shouted over the alarm. The computer automatically booted. “The Tau'ri are powering weapons,” an officer announced. “Power shields, get us into action NOW,” Xenar commanded, as she undid her earlier shutdown procedure. “on backup power, shields will only be at 10%. we won't be able to take a whole lot,” A Defence officer replied.
Outside, the Daedalus class' weapons swiveled around to target the rather helpless Aggregator. It's nose pointed the other way, putting the 304 in it's weapons weak spot. Suddenly, two other Aggregators appeared, and fired their plasma weapons on the Daedalus class. The 304 rocked, and the weapons swiveled around again to target the new threats. Plasma and railgun fire shot towards the two Aggregators. Onboard the Daedalus-class, Vano stood in the Shield Room. He grabbed a few of the iconic Lucian bombs, put them near the shield generator and shouted for the troops to get out. Just as he arrived in the engineering room to shield from the blast, he noticed the controls.
“Such a shame to waste that technology,” he muttered, and fired on the controls, until no crystal or circuit was whole. The ship rocked heavily as the shields failed, and then it stopped. Almost immediately, Tel'tak swarmed from the two decloaked Aggregators, and in no time they landed in the hangar bay.

“Set the self-destruct,” Colonel Anderson commanded. He quickly entered a set of codes in the left console, while his helmsman did the same on the right one. “Sir, are you sure?” the much younger man asked, but Anderson had a firm look of determination. “I can't let this fall into enemy hands. The millions of lives they could take with this...”
Just as his helmsman finished entering his codes and the Self-destruct sequence began, red flashes appeared in the adjacent hallway. “quick, lock the doors,” Anderson said, but he was too late. Two quick bursts later, and they both decorated the floor. Vano entered with a firm pace. “did they do it?” he asked, as he walked to the command chair. Two engineers had followed him, and took the other two positions. “yes, the self-destruct will activate in 26 seconds,” one of them noted.
“Damn. Can you hack it?” Vano asked. Both engineers looked at eachother. “well we can, just not in...20 seconds..”
Vano thought firmly. “prepare to get my men onboard the AX-1.”
“we're lucky. They didn't have time to lock us out of the system,” the left hand engineer noted.
“how long,” Vano asked. “12 seconds.”
“begin a shipwide beam-out.” Vano commanded.

Xenar watched from her Command chair as the screens displayed the ongoing situation. The two Aggregators from Omari had ceased fire and simply flanked the 304. Her own ship was at combat capacity. Suddenly one of her officers announced “we're getting reports of troops being beamed onboard.”
Xenar sighed. “it has failed.” she slammed the console in anger, which died out for a second and then returned to life. Suddenly, in the distance, her computer noted her of a high-energy event. Seconds, later, a much bigger explosion followed. “we're being hailed,” The communication officer announced.
“open a channel,” Xenar answered, and the face of Vano appeared.
“what the hell was that?” She asked him, and Vano only grinned. “you just watched the ship's reactor and self-destruct blow up, three thousand miles from here.”
“what?” Xenar said. “you did what?”
Vano still smiled. He clearly stood on the bridge of the Milennium, a Tau'ri Daedalus class battlecruiser. “they set the self-destruct. However they did not lock us out in time, so I used the transportation system to beam out the self destruct. I thought beaming out the reactor as well would be a safe bet, as it would be an excellent back-up.”
Xenar's disbelief turned to a grin. “damn it you did it!” she congratulated him.
Vano merely continued grinning.
“Now onto the easy part,” he said, and he ended the video feed.

[blackluster]

Go to Ground Pt 1

by blackluster

Spoiler:

A dull rumble and vibration caused Akila to stir. She groaned softly as she shakily pressed a hand to her temple. Her entire body, every muscle, was aching and she had a pounding headache.

"Where..." Akila croaked. Her throat was dry and her lips felt rough. She was lying on her back and seemed to be surrounded by dull light. Despite being dim it was still bright enough to hurt her sensitive recovering eyes, causing her to wince. Another dull rumble shook her body slightly, before she heard a mechanical servo engage, followed but the grating noise of moving stone. Above her, the light gave way to an opening void of darkness as the top of her sarcophagus slowly swung open. Akila grimaced again before pulling herself up by the rim of the sarcophagus until she was sitting upright. Her eyes throbbed painfully as they tried to adjust to the different light level in the cabin. The only light in the room was that which spilled out from the sarcophagus. Akila had half a mind to simply lay back down and go to sleep when everything suddenly shook violently, causing her to lose her hold on the coffin edge and fall backwards, landing hard on her back.

What the-

It seemed rest was out of the question. She dragged herself slowly and carefully from the sarcophagus, her pain racked muscles protesting all the way. Her bare feet made tentative contact with the hard cold floor and she tried to steady herself. Again the cabin shook violently, but luckily, Akila was holding on this time, saving her from another uncomfortable fall. She wore only a sheer dress which she gently felt between her fingers as she tried to regain her tactile sense and get a handle on where she was and what was happening.

Sarcophagus... shaking cabin... a ship? why... we were after a ship... Dorken...

It was slowly coming back to her, though the most immediate piece of information that forced its way to the foreground driven by survival instinct was the shaking cabin. The ship was under attack. Akila moved gingerly from her hold on the coffin and staggered towards a tiny point of light that she could make out in the darkness. As her movement was detected, the cabin lights came to life, adjusting to a dull setting for a waking occupant. Akila stopped to take stock of her surroundings. She was in the captain's quarters of an Al'kesh, that much was obvious. A number of modifications had been made to the cabin however, incorporating many strange and varying items and pieces of technology. Dorken's personal horde no doubt. Akila had half a mind to peruse the items when the cabin shuddered slightly again.

A near miss...

She tried to make her way to the communication console, though the pain in her muscles made it difficult to move quickly. As she was about to reach the console, the cabin shook again, causing Akila to stumble forward and land awkwardly on the cold panel. She cursed silently as she maneuvered herself into the cushioned chair and hailed the bridge.

"Good morning sister!" came Asim's annoyingly cheerful greeting sounding from the console. "Did you sleep well?"

"What is going on?" Akila groaned. She was not in the mood for her brother's pleasantries.

"Well, as you have no doubt gathered, we have some unfriendly company", Asim replied. The cabin shook once more as though punctuating his sentence.

"Can we get away?" Akila asked as she placed a hand to her head once more, trying to beat back her throbbing headache. Even though she could not remember everything like the details of the plan, she did have the distinct feeling that it was not meant to include them being attacked while they escaped with Dorken's ship.

"Unknown", Asim replied to her question. "It seems Dorken's friends have some sort of hyperspace drive tracking ability. I disabled the subspace beacon on this ship but it seems they were able to lock on to the signature of its hyperspace engine. We're currently in normal space though since the drive seems to have suffered some kind of overload. Since you're up, would you mind taking a look~?" Asim hummed.

"Fine", Akila sighed irritably. As much as she was hurting, it wouldn't mean much if they could not get away safely with the ship. Getting to the engineering space however, would be a tall order in her condition...

***

Many bumps, falls and guttural curses later, Akila stumbled into the hyperspace drive room. The al'kesh took a particularly hard hit as she came through the door, causing her to fly forward and unceremoniously land on the floor with a painful thud.

What is that idiot doing?

Despite her silent curse at her brother, she knew that Asim's piloting ability was unmatched among the 3 siblings. If it were anyone besides him at the helm, the ship would probably have been lost by now. Pulling herself up onto her hands and knees, Akila regarded the malfunctioning hyperspace drive before her. The core seemed fine at a glance, though the acrid smell that filled the room was a clear indicator as to what happened. Remaining low to the ground, she crawled beneath the drive to a low narrow space underneath. A large exchanger descended down out of the window generator and split into 8 massive conduits leading to the emitters. As Akila feared, the conduits were burned black from an overload, rendering them useless. On standard Al'kesh, this was guarded against with a trip system which could temporarily disable the connections and reengage them later. It seemed however that Dorken and his crew had made some sort of modifications to their drive, incorporating alien technologies which bypassed the safeties. It resulted in a faster hyperspace engine, but also left it far less reliable, especially when operating for extended periods.

Akila crawled backwards, out from beneath the exchanger before heading to the control panel and disengaging the entire system completely.

"What happened?" Asim asked over the comm when Akila reached the engine room panel to hail the bridge again. "I'm reading the entire hyperspace drive offline."

"The drive is finished", Akila replied dryly. "Dorken tinkered with it too much. Re-route the surplus power to shields and sub-light engines. Why haven't you counterattacked by the way?"

"The layout on this bridge has been modified," Asim replied. "I can't fly the ship and browse the weapon suite at the same time..."

"Understood, I'll see what I can do from here." Akila replied, hoping that it could be done from where she was and that she wouldn't have to drag her aching body up to the bridge. Luckily, Dorken's tinkering had not infested the entire control system, and Akila was at least able to get partial weapons control. The ship shook violently once more as Akila scrolled through the Al'kesh's arsenal with a bit of urgency. Most of the weapons packages were things she had never seen before and had no idea what they could actually do. Then something caught her eye, 'decoy'.

"Standby", Akila called out into the active bridge comm. link. Noticing that the number of rounds totaled seven, Akila deployed them all. The ship lurched slightly as the decoys leaped free from improvised bay doors on the underside. Asim was quick to catch the trick, and he adopted a similar erratic flight pattern to the daughter vessels that launched. The pursuers totaling three vessels of similar class, were suitably fooled, and pealed off to try and run down the decoys they thought were the target. Asim played it cool, staying close to 2 of the evading decoys traveling on a slightly different heading to the one they had taken.

***

An hour later, the door to the bridge slid open, admitting Akila inside. She had changed into something a bit warmer, although she opted to remain barefooted for the time being.

"Nice of you to join me", Asim crowed. "That was a timely little move with the decoys."

"We were lucky", Akila chided as she slumped into the captain's chair. She continued to nurse her sore body as she huddled a bit on the seat. "If it wasn't for this ship's armament we would not have made it..."

"You should have more faith in me", Asim chuckled.

Akila leered at him for a moment before accessing the ship's systems to get a better grasp on what they had acquired and where they were. With the hyper-drive taken off line, the other bounty hunters would have to use other much slower means to track the ship which had accelerated to significant sub-light velocity. Fortunately, the destination was not too far, about 6 days travel at their current speed. Akila sighed for a moment, daring to close her eyes.

"How does this affect the timetable?" She asked quietly.

"Not much", Asim replied. "It seems Adio anticipated some unforeseen circumstances. Once we are in position, he will be signaled autonomously. Our brother thinks of everything..."

"It seems so", Akila sighed.

[thekillman]

Ladies and gentlemen (i actually think it's mostly gentlemen here, but whater)

i proudly present Chapter 6. yes. i just cut chapter six in half, into chapter 6 and 7.

[thekillman]

Chapter 6
1/2

Spoiler:

In orbit of the planet Langara, a Battlecruiser dropped out of hyperspace. The planet had changed a lot, and from the position of the Battlecruiser, five large space stations could be seen in orbit.
“Langara Orbital command to unknown ship, please identify.”
Xenar stood on the bridge of the Millenium, with her back to the viewscreen. Commander Anderson sat in the command chair, in sight of the camera. “This is Colonel Anderson, I am the commander of the UNE vessel Millenium. IFF should confirm my identity in a moment.”
“Acknowledged.” said the voice. “please state the reason of your presence. No earth ship is sheduled to be here.”
Anderson's face changed to confusion. “i'm sorry? We're responding to your call for help.”
there was a silence. Xenar carried a tablet PC and activated a routine. Slowly and almost passively, the sensors started to scan the surface. She urged Anderson to carry on.
On the link, Xenar could hear scratching, some background muttering, and finally the voice responding. “uhm. Colonel, we know of no such thing. No emergency broadcast is in our logs, or even authorized.”
Anderson grunted. “My own logs state otherwise. Why did you send out an emergency broadcast when there's no emergency?”
there was a pause. “i will inform my superiors of this, please wait a few moments”
Anderson turned to face his helmsman. “get us into a stable orbit.”


“Who are you?”
“Deep Infitration Agent 32, Identification code 248289. Efom's territory. I have an urgent message.”
Anders Schei Looked up at the guard. Impatiently, he glanced at the small box-shaped device on the table. The top was a translucent white, and a blue stone lay on top of it. “ I don't have forever,” he added.
The Guard looked at the laptop attached to the device. “the pattern is correct. Welcome back Agent 32.”
“look, I need to talk to the Colonel as soon as possible,” Schei said.
“what is it?” the guard casually asked.
“something big is about to go down!” Schei exclaimed. “something very, very big.”
the guard raised an eyebrow. “that's it?”
“no. the Lucian Warlords are rescheduling their patrol missions, reassigning their fleets and preparing their forces. They're preparing for some massive attack. I haven't been able to verify the goal, but the rumors are it's Earth.”
The guard kept his eyebrow raised, and grabbed the phone. He dialled a number, and began to speak.
“yes, this is Vanderbelt. I have an Agent reporting a potential attack on Earth. No it's not verified. I know. Yes, the Lords are doing a massive reorganization, and preparing for a large assault. Yes, that's verified. Yes. Ok.”
he looked at Schei. “Good. You can return. Shall I?” he said as he prepared to re-activate the device. “you have no idea of the scope of this attack,” Schei warned. There was a sudden loud noise, and Schei quickly determined it came from the hall. He heard almost an echo. A man was shouting: “No, you don't understand. They're preparing for a massive battle!”
Schei got up quickly and walked to the hallway. The hall had many doors, indicating the room Schei had been was just one of many. Other doors opened, and more agents reported exactly the same thing.




Xenar looked at her tablet. There was a ping-sound, and a small red dot appeared on the screen. “gotcha,” she said. She looked at Anderson, who was talking to the Orbital Guard of langara.
“so you're absolutely positive that no signal was sent?” Anderson asked.
“yes,” the Orbit Manager said. There was a pause. “one sec,” the Orbit Manager said and he audibly removed his headphone and mumbling could be heard. The Helmsman whispered something to Anderson. “the orbital station is increasing it's power output. A huge energy spike.”
Xenar didn't hear it but understood the situation. She stepped forward. “begin the assault. Nuke that station.” she turned around to see the transmission already dead, as the screen displayed a “transmission end” message. “signal is sent, fleet ETA in 30 seconds,” the Helmsman reported.
“nukes are launching.”

From the Millenium, almost a dozen missiles blasted out of their silos, corrected their course and headed off to the space station. The Millenium was parked in spitting distance from it, and within a handful of seconds the nukes hit, just as the first few plasma blasts and interceptor slugs left the station. It lit up, and for a second it was as bright as the stars themselves. Although structurally intact, the Station had intense blast marks on it's hull, and the shield remained active. It had lost it's stable orbit though, and the station began it's long fall into the atmosphere. Then, the plasma batteries started a torrent of plasma weapons fire, a stream of plasma bolts impacting the Millenium's shields. “shields at 97% and holding. Fleet arrival is imminent.”
Anderson turned to his Helm. “What does CON say?”
“CON is still down, otherwise we could be disabled by the flick of a switch. Well not literally, but..”
“spare me the tech talk. Ignore that station, begin the bombardment. Plasma and kinetic only.”
Xenar observed the crew for a few seconds, and then walked towards the hall. “i'll prep for the ground phase,” Xenar announced and walked away.

A hyperspace window opened, and a Ha'tak dropped out of hyperspace. The window did not close, however, and within a few seconds, another ha'tak spat out. All of a sudden, Al'kesh, Tel'tak, four Troop Transports and even more Ha'tak began to drop out of hyperspace at an increasing pace. Plasma fire from the langaran surface reached space, and the other Langaran Space Stations fired as well. Immediately the ha'tak took up a defensive formation and bombarded the surface as other weapons targeted the space stations. On the Ko'tak, Vano observed the battle using the Tactical Table. “Initiate countdown,” he ordered. Two counters appeared holographically. One was a countdown timer, timing down from about two minutes. The other was a percentage counter, which stood at approximately 99%. Vano looked at the central hologram, namely that of the Planet Langara. “the simulation has begun,” he remarked. “fire at the provided coordinates. Maximum firepower.”

lighted by a weak summer sun, the nation of Kelowna lay under siege. Especially the city Barnok, illuminated by a strong energy bubble protecting the inhabitants. A constant torrent of plasma came from above, like a hailstorm. Some of them were a brigher orange than others, but still it was an impressive sight. On the outskirts of the city, elevated on large pedestals, were equally large cannons. Each shot resonated like thunder, and the bolt of plasma coming from it was barely visible, so fast did it go up towards the sky. All of a sudden, an Al'kesh dove from the clouds and unleashed a volley of plasma bombs, unstable overcharged bolts of plasma, so powerful they could only exist for a few seconds. The bolts hit the planetary cannons, and the ground shook from the impact on the shields. Anti-air defences could barely engage before three Al'kesh appeared in formation and unleashes the same bombardment, in three-fold on the same cannon. This time it broke through, and the cannon was hit. It snapped in half, and crashed down in slow-motion. Almost out of nowhere, a series of missiles struck the Al'kesh, or rather it's shields. Although it had little impact, the railgun shots that followed did break through and blasted a hole into the ship, causing it to crash down far away from the city, leaving a fireball to mark the impact site.

“we are detecting a series of missiles coming from the surface.'
“shoot them down.”
Mauric looked up from his left display. He sat comfortably in a chair, surrounded by screens and controls. “power the MAC's. Heavy nuclear payload. I'm giving you the coordinates.”
Mauric tapped his right touchscreen and one of the stations displayed lit up. “fire.”
from the nose of his Aggregator, two heavy nukes launched from their Mass Driver tubes and shot through space at break-neck speeds. It took only five seconds to cross the distance, and two huge flashes marked a successful attack. Meanwhile, the first nuked station was still descending into the atmosphere, firing towards the Lucian fleet in an attempt to at least bring down the attackers. Escape pods were launched every second, like flares launched to counter incoming missiles.
“Dacrus, why is that station still not hitting the atmosphere?” Mauric said to a face on the left screen. The man on the other side appeared to be in a similar chair, and his marine-blue hair matched his coverall nicely.
Dacrus, the man at the other end, smiled. “you'll see in one sec.”
suddenly, the descending station lit up, as two nukes hit it's weakening shield, accelerating the descent. Super-heated hull slowly broke off in pieces, and an unaware hobby astronomer would easily consider it a falling star. Fire engulfed the shields as it hit the atmosphere, and the final descent finally began.

Vano checked the timer. He clicked his radio. “Xenar. The event will begin in about fifty seconds.”
there was a pause. “deviation?” she asked.
“it's 99.something% correct,” Vano replied.
“good.”
Vano turned to face communications. “open a channel to Kelowna.”
after typing in the necessary commands, the lead Communications Officer put up a thumb.
“Kelowna,” Vano said calm but loud. “i give you one offer, and one only.”
He paused for effect. “In a few moments, your planet will be struck by an earthquake, of sufficient magnitude to topple buildings. But that does need to happen. If you surrender now, I command the Lucian forces to hold fire and the situation will be averted. The sooner you surrender, the better.”
On the other end, there was some crackling. For a moment, Vano doubted they had heard it at all. Then, there was a single, clear voice.
“we will never bow to terroristst,” it said firmly.
“Then I suggest you hold on tight,” Vano said equally firmly, and motioned for the link to be severed.
“Commander,” the on-deck Hebridan announced. “i'm detecting a high energy event.”
On the surface, the plasma-lit city of Barnok shook. Buildings moved and the ground trembled as an earthquake struck the city and it's surroundings. The Planetary Cannons remained unharmed, as the pedestals they were placed on were built to withstand worse. The city itself was not so fortunate, as a few buildings collapsed, and people ran into the streets. Almost immediately, fires erupted and cracks appeared on virtually every building. Screams, smoke and dust filled the sky.
Vano checked the simulation. The timer had reset to about five minutes, and the deviation counter turned to 95%. “Xenar, the accuracy dropped by a few percent,” he informed her, and the reply was short. “that's fine. I'll continue my work here.”

[thekillman]

2/2

Spoiler:

Onboard one of Omari's Aggregators, Mauric was coordinating his own forces. “Ha'tak 51 and 64, move in closer. Target the Geotermal Access Point only. Prepare the invasion forces.”
an alarm blared. Mauric looked at Sensors. The Sensor officer checked his screen. “rocket-assisted fighters are entering orbit. I'm prioritizing them for the CIWS.”
“No,” Mauric responded. “they're not my concern. Their damn nukes are much worse.”
as if to prove a point, a series of nukes broke through the bullet torrent and struck the shields.
“shields down to 79, Capacitors to 85,” the Defence officer reported.
“inform me when either is down to 40,” Mauric commanded as he focused on the grand scheme.
From the atmosphere, Fighter craft modified for space operations were entering orbit. Each carried a double booster rocket, not unlike a human Space Shuttle. The rockets detached and the fighters moved on. As soon as they could, missiles launched from the fighters and struck an Al'kesh preparing to move into the atmosphere. It was hit and fire blasted out from the hole created.

Xenar stood in the hangar bay of the Millenium. She stared at the hangar bay doors, which were opening, and she could see a space station slowly soaring down into the atmosphere. She turned around, and walked into a waiting Tel'tak.

Vano checked the THT. The Lucian fleet was intact. Omari had refused to share ship data, so the shield integrities of his ships were guesswork. Other Lords had mixed in their own Ha'tak and Aggregators, but all answered to Mauric, the Commander Prime. Xenar had been tasked with capturing the GTAP, the access point for naquahdriah power. After that, the planet had to be held on to for at least a few hours. He worriedly noticed the Langaran fightercraft.
“Mauric thinks he can take them,” he muttered under his breath. He thought for a second.
“send two escort Al'kesh to Mauric. Get those fighters down.”
“sir.” it was the hebridan.
“Sir, we detected two unknown ships. No IFF. No known marks.”
Vano pulled up the sensor data on the THT and noticed the ships appeared to be upside-down T-shaped ships. Seemingly out of nowhere, nearly a hundred fighters launched from each and they headed into the direction of the Langaran fighters.
“Commander, they're broadcasting to all our ships. Encrypted.”
A face appeared on the THT. It was blurry, and became clearer. It displayed a vague reptillian face.
“My name, is Chiar. I command the forces of the Machai. I have come to your aid.”
The red-scaled creature spoke the words with some effort, not free of an alien, hissing accent.
Vano pressed the reply button. “I thought Machayo did not want to be discovered.”
a few seconds later, the Machai general replied again. “approximately two days ago, a Hebridan scout group came to check out the mystery of their disappeared ship. We have been discovered.”
Vano nodded. “well then, i'd suggest you get those Langaran fighters out of the air.”



On the ground, two Al'kesh broke through the clouds, and bombarded the Geothermal Access Point. Immediately after, two Troop Transports landed, still under Fighter bombardment. The Langaran Planetary cannons could not move fast enough to intercept and in stead it was left to secondary weaponry. Lucian troops poured out of the transports, and quickly and decisively langaran troops were defeated. After a few minutes, Xenar already stood in the GTAP. They had been modernized quite a bit, with better computer and generator technology supporting the hyperadvanced technology. Xenar admired the sheer power of it all, as around her, strike teams fanned out to take out resistance groups. She walked to a console, and checked the status. The systems had been locked down.
“who's the lead engineer?” Xenar asked out loud. A soldier from Omari made a gesture. Xenar walked over to the soldier. He pointed at a body placed against the wall. A bullet had gone through the man's head, and his nametag indicated he was lead engineer. Xenar grabbed a Pain Stick from her bag and gave it to the soldier. “find out who can crack that code.”

Mauric sat in his control chair, commanding his own Aggregator. A screen flashed, revealing a woman. “I speak for the nation of Kelowna. We surrender peacefully.”
Mauric glanced with suspicion. “where is the real president?”
“he's dead. Killed by falling rubble as he tried to relocate to a safer place,” the woman explained.
“ah,” Mauric said. “my condolences. Now shut down your defense grid and order your men to stand down.”
“Kelowna is just one nation among many. I can only control Kelowna's defences,” the woman said.
“it'll be many dead among one nation if you don't hurry!” Mauric threatened.

On the ground, the cannons fell silent. City shields still stood tall, shining from the sheer power pumped in. almost immediately, more troop transports came from the sky and began to capture the cannons.

At the GTAP, Xenar watched a man punch in the right commands, unlocking the system. Fresh gashes were across his face and he limped away from the console. Xenar walked to it, and noticed the systems were unlocked. She typed in some commands. “Is the chappa there yet?” Xenar asked.
A man nodded. Xenar typed in some more commands, and the roof retracted. It had been necessary to maintain the facility, as most technology present simply was too big to fit through any door. Above, a Stargate hung suspended under a Tel'tak. It lowered, and was placed on a Gate Clamp still present from a decade-old dial attempt. Xenar nodded approvingly. “most if not all systems are still present from the 15-year-old dial attempt. In fact, I believe dr. Mckay's modifications are still there if I correctly recognize his work.”
she turned to an engineer who stood next to her. “have you checked for boobytraps?” she asked.
“yes, Commander. Nothing has been found. However, the system can not draw the amount of power we need. It's been built in to prevent anyone from doing, well, precisely what we're doing.”
Xenar turned to watch the Gate being clamped in. she stared at it as she spoke: “Can it be reversed?”
“it's a matter of replacing some conduits and failsafes. Could take about half an hour. If I can get access to the rerouting system, it would be even easier.”
Xenar stepped back from the console. “it's yours to play with.”
she then turned around and walked away, radioing Anderson to beam down the supplies. As she continued to walk, people and boxes appeared out of thin air behind her.

In orbit, Mauric was approached by a communications officer.
“Commander,” the man said. “we detected a databurst from Langara. It's been decrypted.”
Mauric turned his chair to face the man. “and?” he inquired.
“it's a plea for help to the Tau'ri, Jaffa and Hebridan. Plus they know of our plan, and have included the location of the facility and the strength of our fleet.”
Mauric nodded. “so be it. We're all in.”

Planetsided, Xenar had taken a walk around the facility, checked the systems personally and had come to the conclusion that they were good to go. She entered the temporary Gate Room, and tapped the Radio. “Vano, the plan is Green. Send the message.”
There was a pause. “Message sent,” Vano replied shortly after.
Xenar turned to face the gate, anxiously awaiting. The Gate received it's orders, and the inner track began to rotate. As the final chevron locked, it engaged. Xenar admired the puddle, and then a woman walked through, dressed similarly to Xenar and her forces. All she carried was a box, and she walked down the ramp like she held the universe in her hands.
Xenar stretched out her arms and took the box, stroked it once and then opened it a bit. Inside was a semi-cylindrical, crystalline device. She put it on the ground next to her, looked for the Omarian in command and gestured him to come. “use the Stargate for re-inforcements once i'm gone. Under no circumstances can this site fall. It's our only hope of getting back, and it's likely our only hope of escape once I'm back. Guard it well.”
The soldier, with his extremely light-blue hair and bright blue eyes, nodded. “It is what we were trained to do, Commander Xenar.”
Xenar turned around again, and punched in the 9th chevron address. Immediately the Gate began to dial. The first seven Chevrons, nothing special happened. As they approached the 8th, Xenar felt that her heart skipped a beat. This was about the greatest feat anyone could ever do, and she was about to do it. The 8th locked. The gate began to shake, and the generators in the background began to emit a sound increasing in pitch. Out of nowhere, electricity blazed across the clamps attached to the Gate. Xenar felt powerful shockwaves in her stomach, emanating from the gate, and any loose object shook in harmony with it. It seemed to take an eternity before the inner track had rotated to it's correct position. Finally, it was there, and the gate vibrations were like a quick drum. A Kawoosh blasted out further than it should, and all Lucian soldiers stood to watch the event horizon stabilize. After almost 15 years, it was there again. The lead Omarian soldier approached Xenar with a grenade launcher, and handed it over to her. “Commander, the honor of the first shot is yours,” he said as he bowed his head. Xenar bowed her head in return, took the weapon and fired six times through the gate. Behind her, her troops were assembled and headed through.

[thekillman]

Chapter seven:

1/3

Spoiler:

Chapter 7
The next thing was the floor. Xenar got up quickly and looked around. Her soldiers had already secured the room, guards standing at the entrance.
“Allad?”
Xenar looked around. A man hurried to him. In a flash, Xenar noticed someone looking vaguely like Brody lying on the floor, a gash on his face.
“Yes?”
Allad was almost a head shorter than Xenar, with dark brown hair and bright green eyes.
“Get to the shield generator. I need you there,” Xenar instructed him. The man nodded, called his men and hurried out the door.
“Carys?”
A tall female stood behind Xenar. “yes?”
“Get to the Bridge as quick as possible. We need to overrun them now. Narm and Halis should have secured the perimeter by now.”
Carys nodded.
“Yes commander.”
She hurried to the door, her team followed.
Xenar looked around, there were still at least two dozen troops getting up. Behind her, the Stargate spat out some boxes and then shut down.
Xenar finally noticed she was still holding tight to the box. She opened it, revealing the ZPM inside. A nearby engineer noticed and decided to ask. “Commander, what's that?”
Xenar threw him a look, but after a second realized that she needed to explain it at one point anyway.
“It is a ZPM.”
The engineer gave her a blank look.
“The powersource of the Ancients. Our ride home.”

“Receiving a data-burst”
Vano looked up. “On holoscreen” he commanded.
On the hologram table, a Jaffa face was displayed. “Tor'ac” Vano whispered to himself.
“The Republic has received a Langaran transmission and has dispatched their 6th fleet to investigate,” the Hologram announced. It then froze in place.
Vano looked at the hebridanian Bridge officer. “That's it?”
The hebridan nodded.
“How many ships are in that fleet?” Vano asked.
“The most recent reports say 24 Ha'tak class vessels and 13 Al'kesh.”
Vano stared at the frozen holographic face. “So we're screwed.”
The hebridan nodded. “If the Commander does not return in time, yes.”

Allad stormed through the corridors of Destiny, followed by five soldiers. He turned around a corner and was greeted by a hail of bullets. Immediately he was pulled back by one of his soldiers. “Thank you,” he said to the blond man who saved him. The soldier said something under his breath and prepared his weapon. Bullets ricocheted off the walls. Then there was a silence. “Uur turn,” Allad said firmly, took his plasma rifle and fired a few shots around the corner. More bullets were sent his way, and by the sound of someone screaming, Allad knew he had hit someone. He nodded to his men, and they sprinted across the T-crossing, as Allad randomly fired around the corner. Then his team laid down suppressing fire as Allad made it across. He noticed one of the soldiers grabbing his shoulder, red blood between his fingers. Allad stepped towards the man. “I’m fine, I’m fine” the soldier said to him. “it's merely a flesh wound.” Allad took some bandage from his vest pocket and quickly bandaged the man under the flashing and sounds of supressing fire. In no-time they were ready and continued their way, blocking off a door to prevent the Destiny crew from following.

Xenar opened a box lying on the ground before her. Inside were pieces of some device, pieces of a cylinder. On the underside of the lid, a blueprint was drawn, and Xenar began to piece the device together. Near the Stargate, two engineers cut open the floor and others were assembling and installing cables.


“Veridas, is this it?”
Veridas looked behind him. A Lucian soldier had asked the question. Two others kept a close eye on either side of the hall.
“I believe so, yes,” Veridas said as he checked the heavy blast door before them.
He pushed the door opener and a heavy metallic sound was heard. After a complex locking mechanism had unlocked the door, it slowly split in three pieces, each retracting a way.
Behind it was another door. It was an air lock. Veridas looked at it, then signaled his men.
“Let's go,” he said calmly.
They walked into the airlock, and closed the thick door behind them. The door opener in front of them turned green. Another complex locking system unlocked, and the door again split into three pieces, each retracting their own way.
Veridas looked at the opening door, excited, but the only thing it revealed was another door.
Again they walked in, again the door closed behind them and again the door opener in front of them turned green. Veridas shrugged, waited a second. “This has got to be it,” he said.
He punched the opener, and the door slowly unlocked, slowly split in three separate doors which retracted on their own. Behind the door was darkness.
Veridas signaled his men to remain at their position, and slowly took a few steps forward, expecting something. A light turned on, flickered a bit, but it's light revealed the object they came for. In the middle of the room, a device not unlike the Apple Core was illuminated. Smoke slowly sank from holes in the ceiling. When Veridas approached the device, it quickly became obvious that the device was more than three times as big as the Apple Core. “We're at the right place” Veridas said with pride. “We're at the memory of Destiny.”


Carys stood at the Control Interface Room, also known as the Apple Core. Behind her, two guards lay face-down on the ground, and every entry was covered by one of her five Lucian soldiers.
She had pulled out her sidearm and aimed it at the man before her: Eli Wallace.
“You look thinner,” she remarked, as she held the gun trained on a spot somewhere between Eli's eyes. “Do not get your finger near any button.”
Eli looked at her, slightly confused. Then he seemed to realize. “So you are the Lucian alliance,” he said. “I didn't realize it was you, the others had fancy leather you know.”
“Spare me the pleasantries,” Carys said. “I want full control over the Destiny.”
Eli snorted. “You need the bridge, I can't give you anything from here. Isn't the Alliance always well-informed before they do anything?”
“You controlled this ship, from here, for a year. It can be done, it has been done. Do it again, now!” Carys insisted. Then she heard a 'ting' sound, like metal hitting metal. It was as if the world ended in a flash and a bang, and time appeared to slow down. Carys saw something grey and it took a while to realize she was laying on the floor. Loud noises were around her as bullets and plasma bolts flew around, hitting metal, flesh, cloth and bone. She rolled over to look at Eli, and saw him punching in some commands. A single red flash and he lay on the ground for dead.

Veridas slowly walked around the memory core, checking the device. The device was covered by far more wiring and electronic circuitry than the Apple core. He had seen sketches made by Wray, who had used her drawing skills to provide visual reference for the people on Earth.
One of his men looked at the core while pulling a tablet PC out of his backpack. “Sir?,” he asked. “Where do I put this,” as he held a plug in the air. Veridas shrugged. “I'm not the engineer here.”
A young man, perhaps in his twenties, knelt and said “here.” He pulled a Pad from his backpack, and plugged it into the core. After a few seconds a script booted up and a steady stream of data soared over the screen.
“And?” Veridas asked. The man looked at his pad. “The script is just booting,” he said. “It'll take some time before the program has built an interface.”



Carys woke up. She tried to get up, and an excruciating pain shot through her body. She felt something warm in her hand, and realized she was bleeding. She quickly assessed the situation, and found out that Eli was awake with her gun in his hand. “Hello, sleepy” he said in jest, as he pressed some buttons on the console. Carys quickly looked around: the doors were closed, the two guards she took out were still on the ground, and the console Eli worked on was smoking.
“What the..” she said.
“My people tried to free me. But as you can see, a lock-down protocol activated and the console responsible for that sort of thing is...not very operational,” Eli explained. “Are you happy now?”
Carys laughed without joy. “It's YOUR people who wrecked the place.”
Eli tried another console. His efforts were not very fruitful, and he sighed. There was a moment of silence. “How are things back home? I mean, why are you even here?” Eli asked. “Earth gave up hope on us, so did the Lucian alliance.” He turned his head to Carys. Eli seemed disturbed.
“Why bother now? It's been like, what, 20 years,” he thought out loud.
“It might have felt like 20years,” Carys said. “It's been fifteen years. Give or take a year.”
She paused, contemplating how much she would tell. “Things have changed, you know,” she said. “The Lucian alliance you know, is no more. They've been replaced. The fools and petty thieves are gone, replaced by powerful, intelligent people who do know what they're doing.”
“Is this a PR stunt?” Eli said, turning around. A different thought entered his head, and he looked directly at Carys. “Are you, are you trying to recruit me? Is that it?”
“No” Carys replied. “But it is the truth. We're here because of something you have. Something not very important to you, perhaps, but for us it could make quite a difference.”
Eli looked back at the console. He was not very comfortable. “What on this ship could make a difference?”
Carys paused. “I answered your question, now you answer mine.” She paused.
“Why did you break contact with Earth?”
Eli snorted. “They broke contact with us. Not the other way around.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked at her gun, and at Eli.
Eli again paused. An idea seemed to spark.
“Listen,” Eli said. “The trip did not take three years, as planned. I was late.”
“Late for what?” Carys interrupted.
Eli sighed. “The countdown clock. I was too late. The two weeks had already passed by the time I figured out a solution to the stasis problem. It wasn't that..long, but enough. By the time we woke up, we spent four years adrift. Four years.”
He turned to face Carys. Eli became more agitated.“The journey had taken us seven years total, and that was -apparently- too long for Homeworld Command. When we engaged the stones, well there was nobody to answer the call.”
Suddenly the lights went out and the ship plunged in darkness. Carys knocked down Eli, disarmed him and reclaimed her gun. Eli had fallen on his back. There was a click and a red flash, and he screamed in agony.

[thekillman]

2/3

Spoiler:

In the Gateroom, Xenar looked at the cylinder before her. It was a device nearly three times as big as the ZPM it contained, with thick bolts and rings holding it together. Fist-thick cables ran from the device to either side of the Stargate, where tiles had been removed. A blue pulsing light came from something below the floor, illuminating the room. Three laptops monitored the device, one displaying the power levels inside the ZPM. They had risen slightly. Xenar smiled. “It's time for the next phase.”

Carys activated the holographic screen, and made it display the power systems. The main capacitors were empty, and only the reserves used to get to the nearest star were available. She heard a noise, pulled a knob from her uniform and put it in her ear.
“Yes?” she said loudly.
“This is Veridas. We have a problem. Destiny uses Cloud Computing. The files are fragmented and spread over several databases and we can't access entire files from here. Are you at the bridge?”
Carys signed. “No, i'm at the control interface room. One sec, I could find you the files and send them.”
She brought up another screen, displaying a library of some sorts. Enormous amounts of data scrolled down the screen. Carys typed in some words, and received the search results in the form of thousands of files. She started a data transfer and a progress bar appeared on the bottom of the screen. “Transfer has been started,” she said. “It'll take a minute or three.” it was at this moment that Carys noticed a small blue light in the corner of her eye. She turned to face the hologram, and noticed that, in fact, there were two blue lights flanking Destiny. From what little ancient she understood, Carys noticed that the stardive protocol had engaged, and indeed the two blue dots were quickly falling behind on Destiny. She thought for a few seconds, then looked at Eli. He was still unconscious from the blast of her side-arm. Had they found allies here on the edge of the known universe?

Xenar observed the ZPM interface. Within no-time, Destiny's reserves had been transferred to the device. It meant that Lord Za had been successful in getting a ZPM to recharge.
“It does not seem to be very efficient,” Xenar thought out loud. The Lucian engineer walked over from the console. “It isn't?”
“Unless there is a huge flaw in the energy monitoring system, only about 30% of the energy has actually been put in the ZPM,” Xenar said. “It is far less than I expected. We might have to stardive twice.” She glanced at the engineer. “If we can hold ground for that long,” he said.
“Exactly.”

Veridas impatiently walked about the Memory Core. He almost tripped over a wire, angrily stared at it and then looked at his lead engineer. “How much longer?” he asked.
“Just...about......done,” the engineer replied. He checked his screen. “I actually think we have all the data we need,” he said. He unplugged his tablet from the core. Four memory devices had been plugged into the core as well, and the engineer unplugged them too. He took one device, about the size of an external harddisk, and handed it over to Veridas. “The data is evenly split over these four devices. If we all carry one, we minimize the risk of losses.”
Veridas took the device, put it in his backpack and looked around the chamber one last time. “Let's go.”

“Commander, we have a problem.”
Xenar looked at her radio, placed on a crate at the side of the room. She walked over and grabbed it.
“Say again?”
“Commander, this is Carys. I'm locked in the Core room. The crew has allies.”
Xenar frowned. “Did you really say allies? Out here?”
In the core room, Carys stared at the hologram. The two blue dots were further and further away, as the Destiny approached the star. A countdown timer was active in the lower left of the screen.
“Yes. The Crew has allies. Two allied ships. We're currently getting away from them, towards the star. We'll reach it in a minute or three, by the way.”
“Three minutes, noted,” Xenar said over the radio. “Any indication of ship size, type, firepower, anything?”
“Not a clue,” Carys said, her finger pressing on her ear plug. She noticed something on screen.
“One sec,” she said. Carys quickly typed in a few commands, and the hologram zoomed in. Destiny was covered by eight small blue dots, spread across the ship, both on the bottom and top.
“Commander, I am detecting small ships on the outer hull of Destiny. Whoever their allies are, they're counter-invading,” she reported.
“Damned,” Xenar cursed. “A team is under way to extract you. Once the star-dive is complete, we're out of here.”

Destiny came in at an angle, it's shields already glowing from the energy emitted by the star. It came out of the photosphere and adjusted it's angle, then dove into the surface of the red dwarf. It quickly disappeared in the superheated plasma.

Xenar looked at the laptops surrounding the ZPM recharger. “Beracis,” she said, “I could use your help.”
The engineer behind the console looked up. “There won't be anyone to check if the Tau'ri are getting through our firewalls,” he warned.
“I know, I know. Quick, the dive has already begun,” she said, as she knelt before the laptop.
Beracis walked over to one of the laptops. “I'll begin the dial sequence,” he said. He entered a command, and the stargate began to rotate. Quickly, it locked chevron after chevron. The lights in the room flickered as power flowed back to Destiny. The 8th chevron locked, and the room shook as the gate rotated for the 9th chevron lock. Electricity arched from the orb above the stargate, and the blue pulsing light coming from below the floor at either side of the stargate increased in frequency and intensity. The arching got worse, the crackling sound got deafening. Xenar noticed the ZPM power levels increase slowly. The stargate did not lock the 9th chevron, in stead it kept rotating.
The light show was impressive. “It's working faster than I thought,” Xenar shouted over the crackling. Beracis nodded, talking was difficult at these noise levels. He put up a thumb. On his laptop, the stargate dialing simulation was displayed. Xenar noticed that the light on her radio was active. She got up and headed over. She could barely hear the sound of static over the crackling of electricity. Xenar picked up the radio and walked outside the room. She closed the gateroom door behind her, significantly reducing the noise levels.
“Yes?”
“this is Halis, we captured a high-value target,” a voice reported over the radio.
“Can you specify?” Xenar said.
“I am not sure you will believe me commander. It's best if you look for yourself,” Halis reported.
Xenar frowned, then clicked the radio again. “I'm on my way.”
She opened the door again, and the crackling thunder greeted her again. She grabbed a plasma rifle from a rack near the door, and signaled Beracis that she would be gone for a short while. Before he could acknowledge, she turned around and ran to Halis' position.

[thekillman]

3/3

Spoiler:

Carys looked at the door. She was sure she had heard something. Three quick knocks. Then, a voice shouted “get back!”. Carys instinctively jumped behind the console for protection, as the door seemed to explode. Soldiers entered, shouting, their flashlights illuminating the room and the dust in the air. Carys looked up, and only could make out people dressed in blue, with white chest armor, white helmets and shin protection. She quickly raised her hands as she was surrounded by the soldiers. One of them checked the two guards near the door, one checked Eli. “Two dead!” the first shouted, as the second called out. “This one's alive! It's Eli”
One of the eight soldiers Carys counted, presumably the leader, quickly went over to Eli and mildly slapped him. “Crap, he's unconscious. Get him out of here”. He then turned to Carys. “So, you're the lady causing all the trouble?”
“Glad I could help,” Carys snapped. “So, you are the blue dot?” she asked, looking at the still active hologram. Two soldiers got her up, and the leader looked at the Hologram. He touched the area where his ear would be under his helmet, and spoke. “Colonel Young, this is Mark Wallace. I have control over the Apple Core, and I got Eli. Cleaning up now.”
Carys could not hear the Colonel's reply, but she took the time to assess the situation. Then, there was the sound of metal hitting metal. Recognizing it, Carys knocked out one of her captors and covered her ears, as the flash-bang went off. As a puff of smoke rose up, Lucian soldiers entered, opening fire on the white-armored soldiers. The White soldiers did not seem to be particularly affected by the flash-bang, and quickly returned fire. Carys took the opportunity to grab her side-arm and shoot several of the soldiers, the cross-fire overwhelming them. As sudden as it had started, it was over, and Carys greeted the five remaining soldiers. “Just in time,” she said with a smile. Her ears still ringed, but she knew there was no time for that. She signaled the soldiers to secure the room, then she removed the body armor from Mark Wallace.

Xenar had arrived at Halis' position. Someone sat against the wall, bleeding, and she noticed it was a familiar face. “Like I said commander, you had to see this for yourself. We captured Odai Ventrell,” Halis said, his face a mix of pride and confusion. The man sitting against the wall looked up at Xenar. “Please tell these idiots i'm not Vettel, or whatever. My...name...is...Varro”
Xenar looked at the man, her eyes widening. Her rifle made a click-sound, and she pulled the trigger. Varro fell on his side, unconscious. As Halis protested, Xenar's radio activated.
“Commander, this is Carys. I got rescued just in time,” Carys' voice informed her.
“Good,” Xenar replied. “Get to the gate room. Any word on Veritas or Allad?”
“No commander,” Carys said. “But there's more. The invaders are human. They carry white armor, and it's quite resistant to firearms and plasma weapons. Flash-bangs have little effect.”
Xenar paused, as she looked at Varro. She changed the setting on her radio.
“This is Xenar to all Lucian personnel. The radio silence is lifted. We have intruders, and they're armored. 3rd perimeter, fall back to the second perimeter. Hold it until my command.”
She still looked at Varro. “Bandage him, make him unrecognizable. I don't want a stir among my soldiers.”
Xenar looked sternly at Halis. “And get him to the gateroom. Alive.”
There was a silence. Xenar began to walk away.
“Good work,” she said as she turned around the corner.

Xenar arrived at the gateroom, only to find the stargate deactivated.
“Is the star-dive already completed?” she asked.
But there was no reply. The entire gateroom was empty. As Xenar hurried to the computers, she found them still active, and the ZPM charged to a little over 80%. She noticed the smell of fire and as she looked over, she noticed a badly burnt body behind a flight case. As she got up, she took in the environment, and it became more and more clear what had transpired. Something had gone wrong.
Xenar felt disturbed, and began to walk around. About ten people had been in the room, and as she walked around, she counted the dead. Ten bodies. All of them were badly burnt. The hardware was sufficiently protected, but the people were not. Xenar looked around. As she checked the debug coding on her laptop, and the ZPM charging history, she found nothing wrong. Xenar walked over the the console, softly cursing as she stepped over a dead body. The console displayed Destiny's course, and it had already left the surface of the star. In two minutes, they would be sufficiently far for gravity to no longer have a significant effect on stargates. In two minutes, they could go back home..

Carys ran through the halls of Destiny, closely followed by the soldiers that rescued her. Suddenly, a door to the left opened. Coming to a quick halt and drawing her weapon, Carys nearly shot Veridas.
“WHOAH!” Veridas shouted. “WHOAH! Don't fire!”
Carys looked at Veridas and his five other team members. “You got what you need?” she asked.
Veridas nodded. “Yea, yea, we have it. Now let's move.”
Carys grinned as she walked past him. “Yea my thoughts exactly” she muttered.

In the gateroom, Xenar stood lonely by the console. She tapped her radio.
“This is Commander Xenar to all lucian personnel. Fall back to the final perimeter.”
She looked at the screen. The timer had hit the one minute mark.

Carys and Veridas ran through the halls of Destiny. The sound of gunfire became apparent, slowly rising in volume with every door they went through. In no-time, it sounded like cannon fire.
Carys looked at Veridas.
“Flank them,” she said, and she went left. Veridas took the right. Quickly they made their way to the white armored soldiers. Carys sneaked up on a soldier, and broke his neck. A plasma blast shot past a second later, barely missing. Not that far from her position, Veridas appeared, quickly downing two soldiers, his men downing several others. Two lucian soldiers appeared from behind cover. The plasma blast struck the wall behind Carys.
“Don't fire!” she shouted. The soldiers looked at each other.
“Shiny armor you have there,” one of them said. Carys threw the soldier a look.
“We should quickly join the rest at the final perimeter,” Veridas said. “I kind of have important stuff on me.”

Xenar walked to the ZPM charger. She looked around. How different it could have been. She heard the sound of guns in the distance. Suddenly, the door opened.
Allad walked in, alone. Xenar looked at him.
“Alone?” she asked.
Allad nodded. He remained quite silent, walked forward and put a bag on the ground. Xenar looked at him, then at the bag, and opened it. It contained a device not much bigger than a vase, with eight white crystals in it, and plenty of wiring. The bag contained some more pieces of technology. “It's all...we... could get,” Allad said. His face had a gash, and he seemed absent-minded. He walked to the side of the room and sat down on a box, burying his head in his hands.

It didn't take long for Carys and Veridas to arrive. Veridas opened his backpack and showed the harddrive. “We got it,” he said with a grin. He then noticed Allad sitting, and a burnt corpse on the ground. “What in Ne'tu happened here?”
Xenar knelt besides the ZPM recharger and tapped the enter-key. The stargate began to dial. She sighed, then looked at Veridas.
“An accident,” Xenar said absently. She got up, and tapped the radio. “This is the Commander. It is time.”
She looked at the floor, as if to gather strength, then at the ZPM charger, and then turned to face the stargate. As Lucian soldiers retreated to the Gateroom, the stargate spun, locking chevron after chevron. The eight chevron locked, and the stargate shook mildly. Electricity blasted from the dialing orb. A dozen soldiers stood by as the stargate locked it's final chevron, and the kawoosh blasted out. Behind Xenar, the ZPM energy bar began to decrease quickly. “GO!” Xenar shouted, and the Lucian alliance began it's retreat. Veridas went through, but Carys stayed behind, next to Xenar.
Xenar's face was stern, unmoving, the light of the stargate reflecting in her eyes. From both gateroom entrances, soldiers rushed past, half-jumping into the event horizon.
Carys looked at the laptop. A countdown timer ran, with only seconds to go. Xenar turned around, glanced at the laptop. The ZPM charger powered down, and she unplugged it from the stargate. Xenar pulled out her side-arm and shot the lid of the recharger. The bolts holding it in place snapped, and she removed the lid. Xenar quickly pulled out the ZPM, put it in the flight case it had been transported in before, and closed it. As the gunfire drew closer, the air rushed out of the gate-room, quickly muting the sounds. Xenar and Carys quickly ran to the stargate, and jumped through.

[Gormagon]

Tale of Gindoaw Hiati chapter one.
By Gormagon

Spoiler:

Gindoaw gazed out at the stars, their beauty, majesty, and especially their mystery calling to him.

The year was 725 A.R During the the rule of Shogunate Akidaro. (1475 A.D) 25 years after the the existence of underspace had been proven. He remembered the broadcast on the com net and the excitement of the space riders. Soon, transit through the void would not take months or years and be far less costly, even with all the mining operations.(for naquadah/trinium, diamonds, iridium, palladium, germanium, gallium, tungsten, molybdenum, and other relatively rare things.)

He remembered their expansion phase. Now, with f.t.l capacity, the blueprints for generational colony vessels could be scrapped. They could really venture out into the universe. It was something Gindoaw had not expected to happen in his lifetime. Although, it had to happen in someones lifetime he mused.

"Gindoaw, they are waiting for you in section 12." He heard a voice come from behind him. He turned and saw Shakekio, his secretary.

"I know. I was just enjoying the moment. Inform them I am on my way." He said.

" Yes Karkari Gindoaw. " She replied as he walked down the corridor. He had made his way to section 12 of the first Seken space station.

When he passed junior officers they saluted him, even superiors gave him an acknowledging nod. He was going to be the first Houjin to face the large void around the edge of their territory. Years of testing with probes had finally given his team the data they needed to build the first probe which had successfully made a two way transit through the void in a reasonable amount of time. Refinement had allowed them to build a probe which passed the void as well as could communicate with homebase. Now, the first manned craft would be launched, with himself as the pilot.

The honor for him and his clan was immense. And if he did not survive, his family would be well compensated. He had reached section 12. He saw his vessel, named Arashi sousha, meaning Storm runner sitting in its birth, being looked over one last time by teams of technicians. Security forces held back eager reporters. Good he thought..he had already given countless hours to interviews. Daimyo Houjira the commander of the station, who was standing near Storm runner turned approached him.

"Karkari Gindoaw. I know your training has been extensive and that you yourself designed much of the technology being used for this mission. But how have you prepared yourself personally for the journey ahead? " Houjira asked. He himself was unsure if he would be willing to undertake such a mission. Of course, he could not show that to this Karkari.(Karkari-noble, official, overseer.)

"I have. I have offered the ritual prayers to the Sora kamigami at the temple of Kokoro. I have meditated in the inner chambers of Kokoro and had my soul purged by the monks. I am prepared as I ever shall be." Gindoaw replied.

"Very well. All the preparations are made. You have clearance to board your vessel, the Arashi Sousha, and begin pre-flight procedures." Houjira said. Gindoaw gave a half bow in respect and approached his vessel.

Part two of chapter one.

Intro- This part introduces the Kaizoku Karuteru, a offshoot of the Houjin. They are a group of pirates, smugglers, and remnants of dishonored noble houses. The main adversary of the Houjin people for many years.



Light years away from Gindoaw, deep in the heart of a highly ionized nebula.... Kaizoku Mikiko stared at the man in front of her desk with disdain. The whelp had recently lost an entire shipment of liquid form Ahenahtu. He had been in command of a small group of drug freighters bound for the outer world colonies. A Houjin destroyer had ambushed them from behind one of the moons of their first drop off planet.

"Mistress, we ran three sensor sweeps of the region, scanners did not pick up any unusual e.m or subspace fluctuations. I deemed it safe to proceed with the deal. We had no intel about any large warships in the region...." Kortari began.

"You should have been more patient Kortari. If you had been for thorough in checking the system with probes before you entered you would have found that warship waiting for you. " Mikiko said to him.

"I did not launch probes because of the time it would have taken for them to return! We are already behind on all of our shipments because of the Houjin navy's desire to destroy us. Their vessels pursue us all over space. I have failed in my duties. I have failed the Karuteru. I have failed you house mistress. I beg your mercy, provide me a chance to reclaim my honor! " Kortari pleaded.

"And why should such a chance be given you? " Mikiko inquired of him.

" I have always served the Karuteru to the best of my abilities! I have been loyal to you and your house! " Kortari replied.

"I see. And yet with the first wave of missiles the destroyer launched at your fleet you turned tail and escaped in your personal craft, abandoning the slower cargo ships to the Houjin. You are gutless. A coward without resolve or honor. " she stated to him as she pulled out a Wakizashi.(Small sword) as fast as a snake, she was over her desk and holding the blade to his throat. He gasped, he had not even had time to blink.

" If it were up to me, your head would decorate my ships bow. However, it is not. " Mikiko moved the blade away from his throat and slowly walked back behind her desk. Kortari collapsed on the floor.

Just then, the doors to Mikiko's chambers opened up and a procession of noblemen strode in. "Son, are you all right? What did you do to him?! " the man in the lead of the group demanded to Mikiko.

"Nothing. I did nothing to this nothing."she said, gesturing at Kortari. " Your families financial support is still key to our operations. Because of this, I grant your request to spare your sons life. " She finished.

" Yes. Yes it is. Do not forget that without our help, the Houjin would have closed their noose around your houses neck decades ago! I take my leave of you now." the man finished.

Mikiko said nothing as all the men left with the whelp. What was happening to the Karuteru? The Houjin were tightening the net. It was becoming harder and harder to pull a profit, to survive. But were could they go? The void prevented them from leaving this region of space for greener pastures. How would the Kaizoku survive....

End part two.


" All systems ready. All lights are blue. I repeat, all lights are blue. Requesting final authorization to proceed with operation Defiance. " Gindoaw Hiati spoke through the com.

" Authorization granted. Docking clamps released. You may proceed. " came the reply.

"Acknowledged. " Gindoaw said as he activated his ships sublight drive. The Storm Runner bounded forward out of the station and into the vast void of space. As soon as Gindoaw cleared the planets gravity well he would activate the ships F.T.l system, his course set for the disturbance.

His mind wandered. He thought about his mother and how she would be praying to the Sora kamigami. She was among the Houjin that still believed in the gods, that they watched over the Houjin people. He thought about Lady Kioto Kusabana. His head of house wished him to marry her and join the Kioto and Hiati houses together. He enjoyed spending time with her. They had interesting discussions.

His control console beeped. He had cleared the gravity well. Now the jump into underspace would be easier on the drive. Gindoaw entered the proper coordinates and activated the ships F.T.L system. Power throbbed through the ship as the reactor reached maximum output. Gindoaw braced himself. Underspace travel always made him nauseous. A hole was torn in space, and Storm Runner leaped into the inter-dimensional rift.


Kortari Oukoa sat at his desk reading shipping data. He had been reassigned to data review after his failed mission. His father could only do so much for him after all. At least he was still alive. If you could call this life.... That blood bathing hag Mikiko....Kortari imagined her dying slowly from Vilshi venom, or perhaps having an accident the next time she took her yacht out.... How dare she threated the life of a son of house Oukoa! She would have to pay. Somehow. But even if he did mange to kill the whore, Kortari knew it was likely she would have sealed orders for her own people to kill off her rivals, just to make sure of her revenge.

Just then the door of his office opened and a Musha came in, escorting a courier. An actual courier? Kortari thought. This was uncommon. Couriers were only used when there was extremely sensitive information being transported, so sensitive it could not be risked even over a secure data link.

" Why do you disturb me Musha? " Kortari asked the warrior.

" This man has a data crystal for you. He says it is from your father, I had it scanned for dangers and found non. " he replied.

" Alright, give it here then. " Kortari ordered. The courier stepped forward cautiously, gave a half bow and handed the orange crystal to Kortari.

" You are dismissed. " Kortari said, the two visitors bowed and left. Kortari picked up the crystal eyed it.

Whatever information was on this very important. He slid it into a data port on his desk. A hologram of text appeared and he began reading. His pulse quickened. " By Milshu's katana...." Kortari muttered.



Gindoaw looked out at the blue tunnel of underspace. His ships F.T.L system was the most robust and powerful ever devised by his people, it would not take long to reach the eighth boarder outpost. Although the eighth boarder outpost was heavily fortified, the Shogunate and his council had felt it best to keep project long haul based at Arata Seken, for supply and security reasons. Gindoaw felt they were being paranoid..who was going to attack him? Why would anyone attack him? The Kurohayamimi had not been heard from since he was a boy, the Kaizoku would have to be mad to attack a fortified target like outpost eight, and the Aobozu were busy trying to rebuild and prevent total anarchy in their solar system.

Gindoaw believed everything would go off without a hitch. They had retested and retested and run countless simulations. He closed his eyes and went to sleep.

[Gormagon]

Tale of Gindoaw hiati chapter two.
By Gormagon.

Spoiler:

So, the Houjin had finally done it. Invented a drive system that could allow one to leave this part of the galaxy without dying from old age or boredom...who knew what wealth lay out in the universe! Being able to leave their prison....he had to give credit to Houjin engineering. The data on his crystal had told him all about the research that had been conducted over the past few decades, who was involved in the project, and most importantly, when and where the test ship, the Storm Runner, would emerge. Now he understood why the heads of their organization had been calling in every able ship and blade from all over the kingdom.
All of those men were being promised a big haul. And it was a valuable target. With the ability to leave the kingdom the Kaizoku could get away, far away from the Houjin and finally be free to do as they pleased. No more raids on their drug storage facilities and arms depots, or surprise searches of their cargo vessels. And he, Kortari, would be a part of the assault on border outpost 8, and not just any part, he was one of the four Raptor class vessels going after Storm Runner. His father had managed to barter back his old ship for him, the Dawnblade, and put together a crew of his own family house as well.

Retrieving Storm Runner and its drive intact was vital, the pilots life preferred but optional so that he could be interrogated. Well his attack force saw to that, the rest of the fleet would distract the warships in the area, as well as border outpost eights weapon systems.

He should be leaving anytime now....

" Kortari Oukoa, report to docking birth 12 immediately. " came a voice over the com.

Kortari pressed the com button. " I am on my way." he replied. Kortari left his office and made his way to docking birth 12.


Part two chapter two. Storm Runner excited subspace in a blaze of color and light. Gindoaw opened a subspace com channel to border outpost 8.

“This is Karkari Gindoaw Hiati requesting permission to dock. Clearance code blue 11879 Kioto 78. “ Gindoaw said into the com.

“Granted. Proceed too docking birth 3 . Welcome to outpost 8 Karkari Gindoaw. “ Came the reply .

“Thank you.” Gindoaw said. He powered Storm Runner forward towards the base. A few minutes later docking the procedures were finished and Gindoaw entered the outpost. A fellow Karkari official and an aid were waiting to greet Gindoaw.

“Gindoaw, we have eagerly anticipated your arrival. Storm Runner will be refueled and checked over again for malfunctions or other problems, should take a few hours. Feel free to use the rec room on floor 5. You have been assigned quarters on deck 4, room 20.“ he said to Gindoaw. "Sarasha, show our honored quest to his quarters." he finished.

“Thank you. “ Gindoaw said hefting a backpack over his shoulder. The servant led him down the hall. Gindoaw hopped he would have time to meditate before he left.




“Attack wing B through D set your helms to assume base assault formation as soon as we excite underspace . Wing A, wait 30 seconds a short jump away from outpost 8 and then go for Storm Runner. ” Korkari heard Hioko order over the com.

“ Jilkar! Jilkar! Get a handle on that faulty guidance array…you want to shoot down one of our own ships?! “ Korkari said addressing his T.O. The missile targeting and guidance system had been having what Jilkar called “hiccups” lately. If Jilkar was not so good with ordinances he would have had him shipped to a naquadah processing plant for incompetence in his maintenance duties.

“ Yes Lord. “ Jilkar said and he bowed well hurrying to do his masters bidding.

“ All wings, initiate pre jump procedures.” came the voice of general Hioko. Hioko had been banished from the Houjin military for unknown reasons. Well, unknown to Korkari. Hioko was among the best tactical minds the Kaizoku had at their disposal.

The assault fleet moved in unison. Power surged in all the vessels, and they leaped forward into hyperspace.

Korkari sat in his command chair. He could not wait to get into the thick of things. It would take hours to reach the outpost, more then enough time to finish getting the bugs out of his ships systems . He had thought about reporting them to get a larger a larger maintenance team but he did not want to risk being left behind. He was not worried. The bugs were not that big of an issue anyway.



In the control room of outpost 8, everyone eagerly awaited the test of Storm Runners F.TL system. The said vessel was currently making its way away from outpost 8, a safe distance away incase something went wrong with the ships drive. Large amounts of energy were being manipulated here after all.


“Kokiara, what do you make of this? “asked the officer stationed at one of the sensor monitoring consoles. He pointed to a mass of subspace fluctuations nearby.

“Hmm. Could it be related to the Storm Runner? “ Kokiara asked.

“No mistress I doubt that, one, they are in the wrong area, secondly Storm Runner has not activated its drive yet. “ he replied.

“Activate the defenses and prep the weapons systems, this may be an attack. Alert Storm Runner to return to this base.” Kokiara ordered.

“Yes mistress. Who would attack outpost 8? “ he asked her.

“Fools with a death wish.“ she replied.

“Gindoaw, come about and re-dock with the station by order of Shuseki Kokiara. “ one of the com officers said to Gindoaw over the subspace com.

“May I humbly inquire as to the reason? “ Gindoaw asked.

“There may be an attack force closing on the base. If it proves to be nothing the test will continue, but I want your ship safe within my outposts shields. “ Kokiara replied herself.

“I see. Coming about.“ Gindoaw replied. Storm Runner started making its way back to the base.

“Mistress, the subspace fluctuations continue to close on our location. “ came a report.

“Alert the Destroyers. Have them surround the base, overlapping fields of fire. “ Kokiara ordered.


Meanwhile…“We will arrive at our location in 15 seconds. 14…13….” Came a countdown from Kortari’s helm officer.

“Battle stations! All hands brace for jump into normal space! “ Kortari yelled into the ship wide com.

The Kaizoku assault fleet leapt out of hyperspace bristling with weapons, shields powering up.

“Target acquired. All wings initiate the attack plan!” Hioko ordered over the com. The fleet sped towards outpost 8.


Part three of chapter two.

“Mistress, we have multiple contacts closing fast on our location. They are not transmitting any IDF signals, however sensors are detecting energy spikes from each vessel as well as active sensor scans directed at this base. The vessels are approaching in pincer formation.” The T.O reported to Kokiara.

“Then regulations direct us to consider them hostile and begin firing as soon as they are in range. Arm all weapons systems. Alert headquarters to this attack also inform any nearby vessels as to the situation. “ Kokiara commanded.

The com officer typed at his consol for a few seconds. “Mistress, I am unable to transmit a strong enough signal to reach headquarters, the enemy appears to have brought along a group of subspace E.W vessels. The combined power of their interference is too much for our f.t.l transmitters. I shall attempt to break through the interference mistress. “ the com officer said as he continued working fervently.

“Work quickly. Deploy half of the stealth bomber drones to take out the E.W vessels. With all the interference those ships are emitting our stealth drones will be even more difficult to detect using subspace sensors. Let us use their tactics to our advantage.“ Kokiara ordered.

“Mistress, I believe a group from the aft side of the pincer has broken off from the main group, their trajectory shows them to be on an intercept course for Strom Runner. There are approximately 4 vessels. If I had to guess as to what class, I would say class 2 Raptors. “the T.O reported.

“Acknowledged, dispatch 2 destroyers to take care of them.” Kokiara told him. Something troubled her, this attack style was familiar. A surprise attack with a flamboyant main assault, but along with it a secondary goal. Throw in a long range com blackout. She had seen it before.

“They will be within weapons range in under a minute.” The T.O stated.

Kokiara knew that the attackers must be Kaizokou, pirates, robbers and thieves. They must be after the new drive developed for use on the Storm Runner. Stealing what they could not devise themselves. In this case , a way out of the Houjin navies tightening grasp. An ancient warrior poem came to her mind.

Why can’t they seem to get it?

The same thing that I learned?

That anything you accomplish

Must be fought for and earned?


Part four chapter two.

Hioko sabashi watched the target outpost eight seem to become larger on the holographic view screen. Outpost eight had been built into a large asteroid which was almost solid nickel-iron. The base was reinforced with nano armor and force fields. Outpost eight was a solid fortress , his fleet would take devastating losses before breaking it, especially with his daughter commanding the defense out outpost eight. Fortunately, that was not the goal of this attack.

The fleet knew that once the splinter group had acquired Storm Runner it was all ships fall back. Just a matter of acquiring that vessels technology now and then he and the other Kaizoku leaders could be safe from the Houjin navy.



Gindoaw was feeling perturbed. Not only had he been called back because of upper echelon paranoia, but now no one was telling him anything. He could not get a clear signal through to outpost 8 and his sensors were not giving him any useful data. He rubbed his temples, he was getting a migraine. He tried to contact outpost 8 again. “This is Karkari Gindoaw calling outpost 8 please respond. What is going on? Can you hear me? “he transmitted.

The response was in the form of a peppering of rapid fire auto-cannon rounds across his hull.

“Surrender your vessel and prepare to be boarded Gindoaw.” he heard over his short range com. “Repeat message, who is this?” Gindoaw transmitted back.

“Shutdown your drives and prepare to be boarded you Bakayarou!” was the reply.

“How about no? ” Gindoaw said in return as he raised shields, kicked his drives into overtime and began random evasive maneuvers.

“This is your last warning you ketsunoana. “ the mysterious voice said over the com again.

Gindoaw sped away as fast as his little ship could go, but his sensor readings showed whatever ships were pursuing him seemed to be keeping up with Storm Runner. Storm Runner shuddered, sensors registered hundreds of impacts from explosive auto-cannon rounds, his shields were being drained. Storm Runner only carried a few blaster lasers and an X-ray laser cannon for shooting down asteroids, these were obviously warships pursuing him, he was no match for them. Warning lights came on, signaling his shields were losing integrity. He saw only one way out. He flipped the f.t.l drive activation switches, power hummed through the ship. Here go’s nothing.

On board the Dawnblade…. “Kortari, sensor readings of the Storm Runner show a major power level increase.” Jilkar stated.

“Is it a weapon?!” Kortari asked worriedly.

“I do not believe so, it is a similar energy reading given off when we power our f.t.l system.” Jilkar responded.

“No! No no no no….your not going to escape you little worm! Charge the towing field emitter! We have to try and stop him! “ Kortari leapt forward towards the helm consol threw the posted officer over his shoulder and punched in a direct intercept course. He was going to stop Gindoaw from escaping…he was not going to escape and ruin Kortaris mission! This was his mission! He deserved this glory and would not be denied it by a whelp like Gindoaw!

[Gormagon]

Little bit more, ran our of room for ^

Spoiler:

Dawnblade came up very close to Strom Runner, auto-cannons blazing, subspace towing field generators powering up. Storm Runners f.t.l drive kicked in the exact same moment that the Dawnblades field generator activated. Both vessels disappeared in a blaze of light.

[Gormagon]

Chapter three part one.

Spoiler:

“Deploy the Vokami and the Makasui to assist the Kokoto, it is under heavy fire. Divert power from fusion cells…7 through 15 to reinforce plasma lance arrays. Tighten the beam coherency and direct the targeting computers to lock onto the highest concentrated energy emissions those should be the main power cores of the Raptor class vessels. Shoot down those retreating bakas. And tighten up sector 4! There is a hole in our point defense fire.” order after order came from Kokiara and her officers responded with clockwork precision to make sure each one was carried out.

“Casualty reports coming in.” she herd someone say.

“The Lakoio is dead in the water and requesting assistance.” someone else said.

“Mistress, the pair of destroyers you dispatched to aid Storm Runner managed to get a garbled report through the interference, they say that one Raptor was destroyed, two fell back and one disappeared along with the Storm Runner. There was more detail but the transmission is distorted.” A com officer reported.

That would explain why the Kaizoku were falling back. The mission had been accomplished. The Kaizoku must have towed Storm Runner away. Kokiara closed her eyes. Outpost 8 had been severely dishonored this day. She took a deep breath and her eyes shot open, they could reclaim their honor by rescuing Gindoaw, retrieving Storm Runner, and killing as many thieving Kaizoku as they could find.

“Open a channel to Arata Seken. Inform them of what has transpired. Begin rescue operations for our own men and vessels, and dispatch ships to bring in any surviving Kaizoku they can find. We need information.” Kokiara ordered.



Gindoaw was quite worried about his survival. He had activated his vessels drive at the same time that the enemy ship had activated its towing field, and now they were hurtling through the chaotic energy tides of underspace together. The mass and other “contaminations” caused by the other vessel was seriously disrupting Storm Runners highly tuned f.t.l field making for a very unstable ride. Gindoaw had already bit through his lower lip on accident.

He had already tried to “dislodge” the other vessel from his own without much success, he had tried a kiron pulse from his reactor but it had had the opposite effect. He had tried exciting underspace but somehow the other vessels towing field would not let his f.t.l. field be destabilized, so he could not excite underspace. Now he was trying to cut power to Storm Runners drive but the safeties and securities he had designed were stopping him. If he cut power flowing into the active drive then it could create a feedback pulse of energy into other systems or the reactor, causing an overload surge. So, he had to shut down the naquadah reactor. Stop power from being produced. He was finishing the final shutdown procedure now.

His finger paused over the button…..but what then? It would take time to restart the reaction and power up the drive. He had activated Storm Runners drive in the heat of battle, with no time to reset the travel coordinates. He was hurtling through the void towards his mission target. No help around. Outpost 8 had been surrounded by warships according to his sensor data logs when he left. Would they be gone if he managed to evade the ship attached to him if he dropped out into the void to reset his trajectory? He had no idea. Besides, how would he evade the ship in the void long enough to power up again with nothing but space particles and radiation around? He could not fight the ship. Gindoaw saw only one logical course of action. Finish his mission. Cross the void. There was a star system on the other end of this journey according to his science team’s lab calculations. Perhaps he could hide in an asteroid belt or some such stellar phenomenon until his ship powered back up. It would take a few days to finish the journey.

Gindoaw entered a meditative state in which he would finish the trip.