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Stargate – P89-534 – November 2001
‘Alright, I want everyone to keep in mind that this is the planet where Apophis captured the original SG-11 back in ’99 so just because it looks like nobody’s home doesn’t mean a damn thing’ O’Neill announced after everyone had dropped into the standard defensive deployment around the gate after arrival. ‘I want SG-13 to stay here and defend the gate if we have to leave in a hurry, SG-8 is coming with me and SG-1 to recon that village by the ruins the UAV spotted to the East’ he ordered.
‘Yes Sir’ Colonel Dixon the commander of SG-13 responded, ‘but can I request that next time we don’t get stuck with gate-watching duty?’ he asked.
‘It’s the number, everyone thinks we’re Jaffa magnets’ Wells from SG-13 muttered.
‘Why would that be an issue?’ Teal’c queried.
‘Triskaidekaphobia’ Daniel replied. ‘It’s the fear of the number 13 and it’s more widespread in our culture than you might think’ he told him. ‘It dates back to Ancient Babylon at least’ he added.
‘It’s got a name?’ O’Neill asked incredulously, more surprised by that than he was that Daniel would know the word if it existed.
‘Yes’ Daniel confirmed. ‘Fear of Friday the 13th in particular is known as Paraskavedekatriaphobia’ he noted.
‘And this is the reason I don’t play scrabble with you any more’ O’Neill declared. ‘You could be making it all up and I’d never know’ he said.
‘Are you taking the Mighty-Malp along as fire-support?’ Dixon queried, indicating the armed and armoured tracked robot vehicle which had come through the gate first and was now stood off to one side of the stone steps leading to the stargate.
‘Not this time Colonel’ O’Neill replied. ‘They’re sending a prototype through from the X-COM base in Poland they want us to field-test’ he said. ‘Didn’t want to spoil the surprise’ he continued with a grin as the stargate started to fire up indicating an incoming wormhole from the second gate on Earth.
The pseudo-splash of the gate was followed a couple of seconds later by a shape starting to emerge from the event-horizon.
‘What the hell?’ Dixon said in amazement as what looked like a futuristic Main Battle Tank emerged from the gate, the real shock being that it was floating better than six feet off the ground as it went, only gently lowering itself towards the surface of the planet once it was fully through the gate being too wide not to pass through any lower.
‘They’re calling it a Mega-Malp’ Carter explained. ‘It’s basically our version of the Cyberdisk, the automated hover-tank the Sectoids use I mean’ she told the astonished personnel of SG’s-8 and 13. ‘The armour is an improved version of the British Dorchester that adds Trinium to the laminate’ she noted, ‘the main gun is a Laser Cannon from an F-302 and it’s got twin rotary staff-weapons, one on each side of the turret’ she continued. ‘The powerplant is an elerium engine for flight plus a naquadah reactor for the laser and to power the deflector shield.’
‘It’s got a goddamn shield too?’ A Major from SG-8 queried in surprise.
‘Again the same as on the F-302X’ Carter replied. ‘It’s pretty heavy with the armour, weaponry and the heavily upgraded sensors so it can’t go much above a hundred and fifty miles an hour flat out but I’m going to love to see the expression of the first Jaffa that fires a Staff-Cannon at it’ she said, walking over to it and unhooking a helmet hanging from a fastener on the side of the machine. ‘It can run on its own or you can drive it remotely using one of these helmets’ she said. ‘Direct neural interface and an eyepiece that feeds from a camera mounted with the guns’ she told them putting on the helmet.
The hovertank began to glide forward a yard above the ground. ‘It’s got zoom on the camera too’ Carter said with a grin as she flipped an eyepiece in front of her right eye.
‘We’ll all want to have a go eventually Major’ O’Neill told her, ‘don’t get too attached’.
‘Spoilsport’ Carter replied, as the turret on the machine began to sweep the horizon. ‘It’s very intuitive’ she remarked.
‘Just don’t run any of us over’ O’Neill told her. ‘Okay, lets move out’ he ordered, ‘Carter have the thing follow us’ he added as he led off, Teal’c and Andianov to his left and right.
‘Heel’ Carter told the machine which started to follow the two teams at walking pace, about ten yards behind. ‘Good tank’ she told it.
‘Have you considered getting a real pet?’ Daniel asked her a few minutes later as they made their way towards the village.
‘I don’t need to take this one to the vets’ Sam replied, playing along ‘and it’s better than a guard dog.’
‘I can see it now’ Daniel replied, ‘a sign on the front of your house saying, “Beware of the Nuclear Powered Flying Robot Tank”.’
‘It would definitely deter most burglars Major Carter’ Teal’c observed thoughtfully.
‘Sir we need to name it’ Carter realised.
‘They won’t let you keep it Carter’ O’Neill replied with a sigh, ‘we only got the job of testing it because they thought you could fix it if the thing breaks down’ he reminded her. Most SG Teams weren’t quite so blessed in the brilliant physicist and applied engineer department. ‘And it’s called Harvey’ he added with finality.
‘Harvey?’ Daniel asked. ‘I guess you don’t mean the six foot invisible rabbit?’
‘As in Armoured Vehicle’ O’Neill replied. ‘Ar-Vee’ he explained.
‘I can live with that’ Carter agreed. ‘You know it’s got a robot arm in there too under a hatch’ she noted.
‘Major we are not teaching the tank to play fetch’ O’Neill told her, causing a lieutenant from SG-8 to start laughing.
‘The fact you said it means you must have thought of it too Sir’ Carter told him with a grin.
‘I do not understand why you are anthropomorphising this machine’ Teal'c stated.
‘That would mean we're attributing human characteristics not animal’ Daniel told him. ‘Zoomorphising would be more accurate’ he added.
‘No scrabble games again ever’ O'Neill vowed.
They left the hovertank a mile outside the village, hoping not to intimidate any locals they might find, but found it long deserted before moving onto the stone ruins of a rather more advanced culture close by. Daniel was starting to decipher a wall of inscriptions in a Phoenician dialect which led him to believe they had found the remains of an off-shoot of the extinct Tobin Civilisation when they came under attack from a companies worth of Jaffa loyal to Apophis.
The Jaffa were slightly confused at the Tau’ri battlecry of “Sic ‘em Harvey” but they didn’t have much time to ponder the meaning of the phrase before a large, floating machine, utterly impervious to their weapons appeared in their midst spitting a continual stream of laser and plasma fire and the situation became very unpleasant for them indeed.
Cheyenne Mountain – Earth – December 2001
‘It was only luck we found out about the asteroid out as far as we did’ Carter told them. ‘Whatever Goa’uld did it they made sure to direct it so it would arrive far off the plane of the elliptic where most of our telescopes looking for objects that close aren’t pointed’ she told the two senior officers who were in confereance with SG-1.
‘Plane of the elliptic?’ Commander Sharp queried.
‘It’s the two dimensional plane where most of the planets and asteroids in the solar system are found’ O’Neill explained before Carter could. Astronomy was the only science he had more than a passing familiarity with, his idea of a good vacation was spending all day fishing by a lake and looking at the stars through his telescope after the sun went down.
‘Right’ Carter confirmed, ‘the asteroid was spotted by an amateur astronomer looking at the Constellation Cassiopeia, declination sixty-one degrees, six minutes; right ascension two hours, forty-eight minutes’ she said, O’Neill feeling smug that he was likely the only person in the room completely following her for once. ‘We determined it was on collision course with Earth and that it was very, very large.’
‘One hundred and thirty-seven klicks end to end’ O’Neill noted. ‘Dinosaur Killer’ he added, miming an asteroid collision with the planet by thumping a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand.
Daniel nodded. ‘On impact it would have been the greatest mass extinction since the end of the Cretaceous’ he agreed.
‘Whole other league to dodging those little falling rocks on Edora’ Colonel O’Neill said, ‘I mean P5C-768’ he explained to General Hammond.
‘Would have been?’ Sharp replied, ‘isn’t that a little presumptuous?’ he asked. ‘It’s still coming as far as I was aware?’ he asked.
‘Yes Sir but we do have a plan’ Carter told him. ‘We’ll probably need your influence with X-COM to put it into practice though’ she told him.
‘Yeah we’ll need to borrow something for a couple of weeks’ O’Neill added, with a smile. ‘Carter promises not to scuff it up any’ he said.
Sharp was immediately even more paranoid and suspicious than normal which for him meant a great deal. ‘Blowing it all to hell would have been easier’ he commented.
‘Yes Sir’ Carter agreed, ‘but after Captain Tanner intercepted it with the Redemption it became apparent from the gravitational field it was far denser than it had any right to be’ she told him. ‘If Tanner had dropped a Goa’uld-Buster on the asteroid to try and nudge its course it would have caused the asteroid to detonate like a small nova’ she said. ‘Even that far out the effects on Earth would be catastrophic’ she noted. ‘A week closer and it would have sterilised the planet and boiled the oceans.’
General Hammond winced. ‘How much naquadah?’ he asked nonplussed, he had already had a quick briefing before Sharp arrived.
‘Approximately forty-five percent of the asteroid by mass’ Carter told him. ‘It’s only low-grade ore but we’re talking in terms of billions of tons.’
Sharp blinked. ‘Billions?’ he repeated.
‘Yes’ Carter confirmed.
‘That’s a lot of naquadah’ Daniel sagely observed.
‘That’s a lot of anything Danny’ O’Neill responded.
Teal’c looked thoughtful. ‘I am not aware of any System Lord ever possessing even a tiny fraction of that amount of naquadah’ he said. ‘It would represent a stockpile of unimaginable worth.’
‘Well it would solve the worlds energy problems for a few... millennia... anyway’ Carter remarked. ‘Which is kind of where we’re going with this’ she told Commander Sharp.
‘Yes?’ Sharp queried.
‘Well we can’t blow it up, or even use a nuclear device to try and deflect it’ Carter told him, ‘but we can physically push it into a different course’ she said. ‘We reason that the Goa’uld bought it here through hyperspace then accelerated it using a Ha’tak so...’
‘We want to use the Enterprise to push the thing ourselves’ O’Neill finished for her.
Carter nodded. ‘Given the mass of the asteroid and what we plan to do with it it’ll take weeks of constant thrust with the Ha’tak to achieve our objective’ she said.
‘So it doesn’t hit Earth?’ Sharp reasoned.
‘Oh no that wouldn’t be so much trouble’ Carter told him, ‘we want to mine it’ she told him. ‘We can use our Ha’tak to slow it down to a more reasonable velocity then move it by hyperspace ourselves to the outskirts of the Solar System’ she said, ‘out beyond the Oort Cloud so if it did explode it wouldn’t be a major problem’ she continued. ‘We set up a mining operation and use smaller hyperspace vessels like Tel’tacs to haul the ore back to Earth.’
‘The Oort Cloud is the mass of comets and other junk left over from the formation of the Solar System out past Pluto’ O'Neill told Sharp.
‘Okay, that’s... ambitious’ Sharp commented.
‘It’s the motherload’ O’Neill told him, ‘if we could get our hands on a small percentage of the naquadah in that asteroid we’d never have to worry about prospecting and mining other planets for the stuff ever again’ he said. ‘Heck we could give it away... or better yet bribe the Tok’ra with it’ he suggested.
‘We’d have to be crazy not to try’ Carter agreed. ‘The downside is that we wouldn’t have the Enterprise in Earth Orbit for several weeks which opens us up to more Sectoid attacks’ she pointed out. ‘That’s why we need you to put the case to the X-COM hierarchy Commander’ she told Sharp.
Sharp frowned. ‘Our retrieval teams are already taking a hammering from the Ethereals’ he said. ‘We’ve probably got enough Reapers and Firestorms in the air now to intercept the majority of UFO’s we can’t yoink the engines out of with the Redemption but if we haven’t got the Enterprise covering our ass it still means more alien ships getting through’ he told them. ‘We’re short of deployable grunts because we never know if we’re facing Ethereals so the troops with low psionic strength are on ice for now’ he continued. ‘If only we had the hyperwave decoder facilities up and running, at least then we’d know when we could deploy the others.’
‘Hyperwave Decoder?’ Andianov asked curiously, for the most part she kept quiet in these briefings knowing her input would be unlikely to be helpful as a rule, her skills lay in shooting things not strategy or science.
‘The Sectoids use a Faster-Than-Light communication System which we think is based on the same basic principles as the subspace transmitters and receivers the Asgard use for real-time communication across lightyears’ Carter told her. ‘We’re calling it hyperwave’ she explained, ‘all their transmissions are heavily encrypted so even after we worked out how to listen in it made no sense but by putting together a few super-computers we can decode enough of the message fast enough to be useful’ she continued. ‘The hyperwave transponder signal Loki’s ships generate tell you what type of vessel it is, where the ship is going and what mission its on and the race aboard.’
‘If the hyperwave tells you it’s a ship full of Ethereals you send in a Skyranger full of troops with known high psionic strength like O’Neill here’ Sharp added. ‘If it’s a bunch of Muton’s with the telepathic ability of a cabbage you send the low psionic strength grunts after them’ he continued. ‘The problem is our detection net isn’t anywhere near finished yet’ he said sadly.
‘How are you doing with our own use of psionics?’ General Hammond asked curiously. ‘I know the program has been underway for some time now’ he said.
‘They think they finally have a workable Psionic Amplifier design that’s usable in the field but it requires months of training and we’re only gradually getting our troops up to speed with it’ Sharp replied. ‘It works just like the Sectoid or Ethereal psionics, eventually we’ll be able to panic, mind-scan or even control the bastards’ he said then chuckled, ‘and they think they’ve also got a custom Psi-Amp for Cassandra that she won’t melt’ he announced.
Major Carter pursed her lips. ‘What does Janet have to say about that?’ she asked.
‘I won’t repeat all the words used, she may have taught me some new ones, but suffice to say Doctor Fraser expressed a clear hostility to the continued role Cassandra is playing in our psionics program’ Sharp replied wryly.
‘If I ever hear that Cassie is anything but a completely willing participant you’ll hear some choice phrases from me too Russ’ General Hammond told him seriously.
‘I don’t think that attempting to force Cassandra with a psionic amplifier to do something against her will would be all that wise anyway but I’ll note the warning George’ Sharp responded. ‘As for the asteroid I’ll talk to the powers-that-be and give you an answer within an hour’ he said.
‘Even if we don’t go through with the mining we’ll still need the Enterprise for a couple of days to deflect it off-course’ Carter noted.
‘Billions of tons of naquadah?’ Sharp verified.
‘Yes, with a b’ Carter confirmed.
‘We’d be able to nuke the Goa’uld all the way back to P3X-888’ Sharp said happily. ‘Someone remind me to send a note of thanks to the dumbshit that gave it to us’ he requested.
‘It was only luck that we saw it coming and even luckier that we didn’t blast it without checking first Sir’ Carter pointed out. ‘If we’d only spotted it when it was looking right down our throats we might have just shot first and never got the chance to ask questions afterwards’ she said. ‘It was a clever way to try and circumvent the Protected Planets Treaty when you think about it’ she opined. ‘The Asgard would send a ship to fight a Goa’uld invasion fleet but not a big rock.’
‘Don’t underestimate luck Major’ Sharp replied, ‘Napoleon considered a lucky officer more valuable than a good one.’
‘It seems to work out for Jack’ Daniel responded. ‘Not that I mean you’re not a good officer too’ he added quickly as O’Neill gave him a look.
‘Do you consider yourself lucky or good Commander Sharp?’ Teal’c asked him out of interest.
Sharp considered the question. ‘Wilfully determined would be a better description than either’ he decided.
Free Jaffa Camp – P8X-987 – December 2001
‘There has been some friction between our own forces and those newly arrived with K’tano’ Bratac informed Teal’c as they watched a number of Jaffa practice the martial art used by the warriors of the Goa’uld Imhotep called mastaba. K’tano had arrived here on the planet Hanka three weeks earlier supposedly seeking to ally his own Free Jaffa faction, but it had become apparent he had a fierce desire to take on the mantle of overall leadership.
‘It is to be expected’ Teal’c replied. ‘K’tano was First Prime of Imhotep before slaying him and leading his Jaffa in rebellion’ he said. ‘He is used to command and many Jaffa from the armies of other System lords have already flocked to his cause’ he continued, ‘he likely feels he is chosen by destiny to lead.’
‘Destiny perhaps’ Bra’tac responded, ‘but he will need to demonstrate wisdom and humility as well to prove his worth’ he stated. ‘He did not react well to the easy defeat of his warriors in the training yesterday’ the Jaffa-Master commented.
‘Indeed’ Teal’c replied, with the hint of a smile.
‘You need not look so smug Teal’c’ Bra’tac chided mildly.
‘His forces outnumbered mine three to one and were soundly defeated’ Teal’c replied. ‘Perhaps now he will realise that equipping our warriors with the Tau’ri Staff-Rifles, and by using some of their small-unit infantry tactics, the Free Jaffa can be far more effective soldiers’ he said.
‘A valuable lesson it is true’ Bra’tac conceded, ‘but I feel you would have kept the moral high ground, as well as holding the tactical high ground in the exercise, if you had not shot K’tano in the backside with your Intar when ambushing his advance’ he told him.
Teal’c nodded. ‘I sometimes suspect I have spent too much time with O’Neill’ he replied sadly. ‘On the other hand perhaps his temporary difficulty remaining comfortable when sitting down will aid K’atano learn some of the humility you believe he requires’ he suggested.
Bra’tac couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘Perhaps you are right’ he said. ‘K’atano’s willingness to throw lives away cheaply in suicide attacks certainly necessitates a shift in his thinking’ he opined. ‘We are still too few in number to waste the Jaffa we have’ he said, as they turned and headed towards the firing range. ‘You say that the reason Major Carter is not with you is that she is moving an asteroid?’ he asked.
‘Yes’ Teal’c confirmed. ‘We believe that one of the System Lords bought it to the Tau’ri home system and launched it at their world in an attempt to destroy it whilst not risking the wrath of the Asgard Fleet’ he said. ‘With the assistance of the Tok’ra scientist Anise she is using the humans captured Ha’tak to accomplish the task’ he continued. ‘The Tok’ra have also offered their tunnel crystals to aid in mining the core of the asteroid which is particularly rich in naquadah’ he told him.
‘And the price the Tok’ra asked for this assistance?’ Bra’tac queried.
‘Several hundred tons of weapons-grade naquadah every year in perpetuity’ Teal’c replied.
‘Tons?’ Bra’tac gasped.
‘The asteroid is truly massive’ Teal’c told him. ‘The Tau’ri are already making plans to use the naquadah from it to power orbital defences the likes of which would make many System Lord’s tremble in fear at the thought of coming up against them’ he continued. ‘Imagine one of the X-COM Laser Rifles scaled up so that that the barrel barely fits through a stargate’ he said.
‘A fearsome image is certainly conjured’ Bra’tac responded. ‘Although the shields of a Hat’ak could easily absorb such energies for some time’ he noted.
‘The Tau’ri are great believers in mass-production’ Teal’c told him. ‘It would not be a single such beam striking the shields but instead many’ he continued. ‘Only a great fleet arriving all at once could overwhelm such defences and with the bulk of the armies of the System Lords at war with each other the Tau’ri reason none could spare so many for the conquest of a single human world.’
‘For now perhaps but eventually either Apophis or the System Lord’s opposed to him will emerge victorious’ Bra’tac replied. ‘The stories I have been hearing from newly arrived Jaffa about the new vessels Anubis is using are disturbing’ he said. ‘They are superior to even those of Baal which themselves are beyond anything the Goa’uld have used previously.’
‘The Tok’ra informed us that Baal obtained the technology for them from Anubis though it appears he naturally kept the very best designs back for himself’ Teal’c replied. ‘We are not certain how he came by such advances however.’
‘As a child I remember my own grandfather telling tales of the evils perpetrated by Anubis before he was banished and thought dead’ Bra’tac remarked. ‘That even the other Goa’uld reviled him must be a cause for major concern now he has returned.’
Teal’c nodded. ‘Nirrti apparently turned quite pale when informed of Anubis returning and said she hoped the other System Lord’s had the good sense to immediately turn on him once Apophis was vanquished.’
‘With yet more Jaffa falling in battle in the process’ Bra’tac replied. ‘Throwing their lives away for false gods’ he said sadly as they neared the firing range where O’Neill and the female warrior of the Tau’ri Andianov was teaching a class made up of K’tano’s Jaffa how to use a Staff-Rifle properly.
Another small group of K’tano’s men freshly arrived through the chappa’ai was approaching and Teal’c instantly recognised one with a degree of shock. ‘We may need to intervene to prevent violence’ he told Bra’tac, starting to hurry.
‘You!’ a Jaffa exclaimed, recognising the Tau’ri female. ‘Thanks to you I was banished for my failure and had to flee Chul’ak’ he cried out. ‘It was months before I found a new home and allegiance with K’tano’ he said.
Lyudmila Andianov turned and faced the Jaffa, transferring her Staff-Rifle to her left hand. ‘I would think your inability to walk properly for some time after our last encounter would have been your major grievance’ she replied, recognising him easily thanks to the scarred forehead.
‘Friend of yours Sergeant?’ O’Neill asked, walking over, the Staff-Rifle in his hands ready for action.
‘Intimate acquaintance’ Andianov responded. ‘This Jaffa was the one working for Heru’ur that tried to capture Teal’c as an offering to Apophis’ she told him.
‘Tau’ri bitch’ Rak’nor snarled, reaching for the zat’nik’tek on his wrist holster but stopping before he could draw his weapon because he was barely there before the woman’s pistol was already aimed right between his eyes.
‘Alright everyone calm down’ O’Neill ordered as the rest of K’atano’s Jaffa nearby started to react to one of their own having a gun pointing at him.
‘Rak’nor’ Teal’c exclaimed as he arrived. ‘You do not wish to do this’ he said.
‘Ah the famous Teal’c once again we meet’ Rak’nor responded, eyes remaining locked with the female. ‘Perhaps you seek to once again stand idly by while a Tau’ri strips me of my honour.’
‘It was part of your clothing I stripped’ Andianov pointed out. ‘If you had just told us what we needed to know I would not have needed to interrogate you like that’ she said flatly. He had in fact held out far longer than she would have expected, Jaffa were stoic in the extreme, even under torture.
‘Oh so this is the guy you zapped with the stun-rod’ O’Neill realised, remembering the mission report she had made with a grimace as he thought about it. ‘Okay I can see how you might hold a grudge’ he told him ‘but...’
‘She will kill you Rak’nor, you are Free Jaffa now and the Tau’ri are our allies and we should not kill each other’ Bra’tac told him. ‘We heard of your exile after the death of your master Heru’ur, that Terok sought your death because the plan to capture Teal’c failed’ he continued, ‘at least now you realise that the Goa’uld are truly false gods and that now you fight for the freedom of all Jaffa.’
‘It was nothing personal’ Andianov told him honestly.
‘What is going on here?’ K’tano asked loudly as he arrived to see what the commotion was about. ‘Why is this Tau’ri female aiming a weapon at one of my Jaffa?’
‘He went for his zat first’ O’Neill spoke up. ‘She’s just... really damn fast’ he told him.
‘It is true K’tano’ another Jaffa confirmed.
‘I will holster my pistol if he takes his hand away from his own’ Andianov offered.
‘There you see, everyone calms down and then nobody gets shot’ O’Neill said.
‘How can I be expected to be calm?’ Rak’nor exclaimed.
‘Sergeant, say you’re sorry’ O’Neill told her.
‘I was only doing my duty and will not apologise for it Colonel’ Andianov replied. ‘If the situation had worked out differently Rak’nor knows that it would have been Teal’c being interrogated by torture instead because of his actions’ she said.
Rak’nor opened his mouth to retort but realised it was true. Terok had planned to torture Teal’c with a pain-stick and had boasted to him of this. ‘If you were a man I would challenge you to a fight to the death’ he told her.
‘It is a good thing for you that I am not then’ Andianov responded, though she knew in the hand-to-hand or quarterstaff-style combat the Jaffa favoured she would be at a severe disadvantage.
‘There is no honour in killing a woman Rak’nor’ Bra’tac told him, offering him a way out.
‘True’ Rak’nor agreed and slowly moved his hand away from his zat’nik’tel, Andianov lowering her pistol as he did.
‘Okay show’s over, everyone go about your business’ O’Neill said with relief.
As everyone dispersed K’tano approached Teal’c. ‘The Tau’ri do not keep their women under sufficient control’ he observed. ‘Their ways are not ours and I do not believe the Free Jaffa are well-served by aligning ourselves so closely to them’ he said.
Teal’c looked to where O’Neill was having a quiet word with Andianov. ‘They are skilled warriors with much to offer our cause in weapons and new ways of thinking’ he replied.
‘Their ways of war lack honour’ K’tano declared. ‘The Jaffa you trained in their methods fight like bandits’ he said disparagingly.
‘When it is called for’ Teal’c admitted. ‘In battle they do however triumph over superior numbers of Jaffa fighting in the traditional manner almost every time’ he noted.
‘The humans do not even provide the best weapons they have’ K’tano complained.
‘That is true and I have often raised this matter with their leaders’ Teal’c replied. ‘Even so the Staff-Rifle has proven itself in the field to be a superior weapon to the Goa’uld Staff it is based upon.’
‘For shooting accuracy at least’ K’tano conceded.
‘It could be worse brother’ Bra’tac told him. ‘If the Tau’ri had provided their older projectile weapons we would be dependent upon them for ammunition’ he said.
‘It is amazing they were using such primitive technology so recently’ K’tano remarked.
‘And yet even those were superior in combat to what the Goa’uld have given the Jaffa to carry for so long’ Teal’c said, ‘weapons of war rather than weapons of terror and intimidation.’
Bra’tac looked around. ‘Daniel Jackson is approaching from the direction of the stargate’ he said.
‘O’Neill sent him earlier to fetch a device from Earth as a gift of sorts for you Master Bra’tac’ Teal’c told him. ‘It is called a Mind Probe.’
‘A Mind Probe?’ Bra’tac queried.
‘A device invented by the renegade Asgard Loki that enables you to read the surface thoughts and intentions of another’ Teal’c explained. ‘With our recent surge in recruitment O’Neill fears we may be infiltrated by Jaffa still working for the System Lords’ he said. ‘They may not even be aware of it, the Goa’uld have used brainwashed zatarc agents before, but the Mind Probe detects such unwitting tools of the enemy.’
K’tano’s eyes widened. ‘I do not think my warriors would submit to such an invasion of their mind’ he said. ‘I will have to talk to them about this’ he said, turning and leaving in a hurry as Daniel arrived.
‘Hey Teal’c’ Daniel greeted them holding a silver metal sphere in his hand. ‘I picked up the mind-probe, they said not to lose it, they’re expensive’ he said.
‘Daniel Jackson what is the range on that device?’ Teal’c asked, as both he and Bra’tac watched K’tano hurry away suspiciously
‘A couple of hundred feet I think’ Daniel replied, ‘why?’ he asked in confusion.
‘Please scan the Jaffa heading towards the stargate in a hurry’ Teal’c requested.
K’tano, or rather the minor Goa’uld Imhotep, was half way through dialling the gate when Teal’c ran up and shot him in the back with a zat’nik’tel. When he woke up they let Rak’nor question him before turning him over to the Tau’ri for more in-depth and mentally invasive interrogation back on Earth, it was thought that the scarred Jaffa might benefit from blowing off a little steam and it did seem to improve his mood quite a lot.