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Unknown Hat’ak Ship – L5 Lagrange Point (Earth/Moon System) – June 2002
Turning a corner at the junction of two corridors O’Neill threw himself to the deck, the staff-blast barely missing him as he landed awkwardly. His reflexes had saved him again but the next shot wouldn’t miss he knew, he was too easy a target even for a Jaffa using one of those god-awful to aim things.
The black-clad warrior, Anise had said they were the elite of Anubis Armies after he explained what they were wearing to her on the radio after running into them earlier, never got the chance to finish the job. Before he could put a bolt of plasma into the sprawling human a beam of coherent light from behind neatly speared him through the head and he dropped to the deck instantly, his partially destroyed brain leaking from the scorched entry and exit wounds in his skull. ‘Secure the corridors left and right’ a voice ordered and as O’Neill felt a wave of relief flow through him he watched a squad in X-COM uniforms and breastplate torso armour move swiftly to obey their officers instructions. ‘Colonel O’Neill?’ the officer queried.
‘Nice timing Captain...?’ O’Neill replied, waiting for the name.
‘Gaston Sir, Jake Gaston’ the officer told him, giving him a hand up. ‘Sorry we took our time getting up here after being transported over from Enterprise’ he said. ‘Since we got your call that there were still Jaffa aboard this thing, and that they objected to our salvage attempt, we’ve been sweeping up from the flight bays’ he explained. There were several ring transporters on a goa’uld vessel this size and after SG-1 had secured the bridge and reported all-clear, precipitately as it turned out, Colonel Caldwell commanding the Tau’ri flagship had sent additional troops over to secure the rest of the derelict ship. There were a veritable legion of salivating engineers who wanted to get aboard the ship and see how much of its technology was improved from the basic ha’tak they were familiar with, but there was no way Caldwell was going to risk the best and brightest Earth had to offer until the most belligerent and blood-thirsty had secured it to his satisfaction.
‘Better late than never Gaston’ O’Neill replied, getting to his feet. He looked young to be a Captain, O’Neill thought to himself, not too much over twenty-one at a guess, but promotion in X-COM could be pretty fast. You just needed talent, well, that and have enough people above you in the chain of command getting themselves killed in action to free up the ranks.
‘So what’s our next move Sir?’ Gaston asked.
‘There’s an infestation on this ship I want dealt with, think you can handle that Captain?’ O’Neill responded.
Gaston tapped his L2-A2 Laser Rifle. ‘Until last month when I got transferred to Enterprise with my squad I was clearing Muton’s out of Loki’s ships for a living’ he replied. ‘This is what we live for’ he declared confidently. X-COM UFO Retrieval Teams usually worked with smaller vessels than this, even the largest Sectoid ship was only three decks in height and about seventy-five metres across, but the tactics used to clear them were much the same. ‘Where’s the rest of SG-1 Sir?’ he asked. The Captain knew that O’Neill had earlier ringed aboard the ship with his whole team plus the Tok’ra Anise and a couple of human scientists specialising in Goa’uld tech once [i]Enterprise[i] had taken up position next to the new arrival.
‘Teal’c and Carter went to the computer core, Andianov and Jonas are up with Anise on the pel’tak’ O’Neill replied.
‘That’s the bridge right?’ Gaston checked, earning a nod of reply, ‘sorry my Goa’uld is almost non-existent’ he admitted. ‘At least this thing looks like it’s mostly laid out the same as the Enterprise’ the young X-COM Captain continued, ‘we’ve been familiarising ourselves with the layout the last few weeks so we should be okay’ he said.
‘We don’t know how many there are aboard’ O’Neill told him. ‘Life-sign scans showed the ship was like the Marie Celeste but when I ran into that guy and his friend near the shield generators I started to suspect that wasn’t exactly one-hundred percent accurate’ he wryly observed.
Gaston chuckled. ‘I guess his friend was the corpse I passed on the way up here?’ he checked.
‘Looked like a ninja wannabe, big sword lying next to him and a big hole in his chest?’ O’Neill asked. ‘Yeah that was him’ he confirmed after Gaston nodded.
‘We’ll do a sweep and clear deck by deck’ Gaston told O’Neill, ‘we’ll try to take a prisoner alive if we can’ he added.
‘Don’t risk any of your troops just to capture a Jaffa’ O’Neill responded, ‘I know it’s X-COM SOP to take the enemy alive for interrogation but the Goa’uld don’t tell their grunts shit’ he told the Captain frankly. ‘If you can get one safely do it, otherwise just kill them’ he advised, ‘this ship is a better prize than any intel we’ll get from a Jaffa POW’ he said. ‘I already lost one man today’ O’Neill continued, he had been escorting a scientist named Friesen who had wandered off to check out the ships shield generators and ran into the Jaffa holdouts still aboard, ‘and I don’t want us to lose anyone else’ he told Gaston earnestly.
Captain Gaston thought that it would be well worth losing more people if the payoff was a ship like this, but he knew he was operating from an X-COM standpoint which saw it perfectly acceptable to sacrifice large numbers of personnel in return for alien technology and intelligence. O’Neill was the commanding officer on this mission and he set the rules of engagement here. ‘Okay people this is a sweep and clear by the numbers’ he said into his radio microphone, ‘taking prisoners is low priority’ he instructed, ‘don’t get hurt’ he added.
‘I’m going to head out and leave you to it Captain’ O’Neill told Gaston, ‘can I borrow one of your men to reinforce my team just in case?’ he requested.
‘Yes Sir’ Gaston replied, ‘Trooper Kemp you’re assigned to Colonel O’Neill here’ he told the closest squad member. ‘With your permission Sir we’ll get to work’ he addressed O’Neill.
‘Go to it Captain’ O’Neill told him, Gaston and his command minus the single X-COM soldier now left with the Colonel moving off. They would go through the ship professionally and methodically making sure it was safe for other personnel to come over.
The unexpected arrival of an unidentified Ha’tak so close nearby had nearly caused half the guys watching screens at the SGC and various X-COM Installations to have instantaneous heart attacks. If it had arrived any closer it might have been instantly fired upon by Enterprise, but for whatever reason it had dropped out of hyperspace at the gravitationally stable L5 Lagrangian Point following the moon in its own orbit some three-hundred and eighty thousand kilometres from Earth and had simply remained there apparently inert and derelict while a decision was taken to investigate it.
With Anise already present on Enterprise she was the ideal candidate to check out the unknown ship, and after SG-1 was transferred up to join her and a small team of experts the Ha’tak already in Earth’s hands had been moved to within weapons range of its near twin. It stood ready to obliterate the newcomer if required and as an added precaution a high-yield nuclear warhead had been transported across with Anise and SG-1, if they had to destroy the ship they could do so with the push of a button.
O’Neill arrived at the computer core with his escort and they were met by Carter who was working on the core, Teal’c stood ready to defend her and the room from any other Jaffa remnants left aboard. ‘Sir as I thought this is definitely the ship Anubis used to destroy Thor’s vessel and the one he was detained upon’ Carter told O’Neill as she worked on the core. ‘I think Thor may have sabotaged the ships computer when he was connected to it by Anubis’ she theorised, ‘while Anubis tried to hack into Thor’s mind, Thor hacked the ship in the other direction and maybe left behind a computer virus’ she said. ‘We know the computer sealed off the sections that might have been used by the crew to disable the ship and it stopped the self-destruct they tried to set’ Carter noted, they had to blast the door down to get in here, the computer had sealed itself off.
‘Oh you’ve got to love that guy’ O’Neill declared. ‘Way to go Thor’ he added with a mental salute. The Asgard was still in a coma after they got him back from Anubis but it sounded like the little grey guy had managed to screw the goa’uld son-of-a-bitch good before going out. ‘So the reason we found all the escape pods launched was that they couldn’t take back the ship from the little present Thor left them and they had to abandon ship?’ he queried.
‘Most likely explanation’ Carter replied, ‘Anise thinks so too, she’s trying to re-establish control from the bridge while I get the computer working again’ she said, ‘We might need to re-boot the whole system though, a virus might not be able to tell the difference between us and the enemy even if we think Thor left a sub-routine that told the ship to fly here to Earth and then power-down.’
‘Oh yeah, screw Anubis good!’ O’Neill enthused. ‘The shields on this thing resisted the guns on an Asgard Beliskner, Thor would want the design to get back to his people so he sends it to Earth because we’ll make sure the Asgard get to take a look’ he said.
‘Heimdall is based on Earth’ Teal’c noted, ‘she is likely the closest Asgard available plus the Tau’ri have close ties with both the Tok’ra and Tollan who would also likely be very interested in the new technology Anubis is using’ he said.
‘And Earth gets ourselves another damn ship into the bargain’ O’Neill added brightly.
‘So this ship is here as a present?’ Kemp the X-COM Private asked, he had been watching the door weapon ready, but was listening in with interest.
‘That and as a hearty fuck-you to Anubis I’m guessing’ O’Neill replied.
‘Colonel O’Neill this is Colonel Caldwell on the Enterprise are you receiving me?’ the radio headsets they were wearing crackled to life.
‘Go ahead Colonel’ O’Neill replied.
‘We’ve been recalled to deal with a major attack by Sectoid ships’ Caldwell reported, ‘They are using a new type of escort fighter that is superior to our F-302’s and there are too many for planetary defence squadrons and the Redemption to handle alone’ he continued. ‘Do you wish to return to Enterprise?’ he asked.
‘Negative Colonel, you get going, we can deal with a few Jaffa’ O’Neill replied.
‘We’ll be back once the enemy have been driven off’ Caldwell told them. ‘Enterprise out’ he said.
‘Fucking bugs probably saw the Enterprise was further out than normal and decided to throw a major raid at us to take advantage’ Kemp hissed.
‘It’s what we’d do if the situation was reversed Trooper’ O’Neill pointed out. The main guns on a Ha’tak could blow a Sectoid Battleship to pieces with one shot, having the Enterprise standing guard made any visits Loki’s forces made to Earth very costly. ‘New fighters too?’ he continued, shaking his head, ‘could be a bad day for our Reaper guys’ he said regretfully.
‘This is Captain Gaston’ the radio spoke up again. ‘We have encountered a number of Jaffa who were heading towards the bridge and are engaging them’ the X-COM officer reported. ‘Suggest the bridge be sealed off until we can eliminate them’ he advised.
‘I am doing so’ the Tok’ra Anise who had been listening in signalled back from the bridge.
‘Andianov, Jonas’ O’Neill transmitted, ‘you keep those Jaffa out of there, but if they get in nuke the ship’ he ordered.
‘Yes Sir’ Andianov responded. ‘We will not permit them the chance to regain control of this vessel so close to the motherworld’ she said with finality.
‘It’s not my motherworld but okay’ Jonas added with an audible gulp, he hadn’t expected to end his first trip into space quite that way but he knew it was the right thing to do.
‘Always have a naquada-enhanced backup plan’ O’Neill told the others. ‘Worst case scenario is a draw, they don’t get to win regardless’ he said.
‘Colonel O’Neill this is Anise’ the radio said. ‘I have just detected several ships approaching which were not picked up by my sensors until they were practically on top of us’ she reported.
‘Goa’uld?’ O’Neill asked, ‘Anubis trying to get his ship back?’ he queried.
‘They appear to be of Sectoid construction which would explain why our sensors did not detect them’ Anise replied, Loki had deliberately designed his vessels to be hard to track with Goa’uld or Asgard equipment, oddly it was easier with the far more primitive radar equipment Earth used.
‘Another wave of ships heading to Earth?’ O’Neill asked.
‘No they are on an intercept course with ourselves’ Anise told him, ‘they are decelerating, I think... I think they are planning to board’ she said. ‘If they were going to attack they would have already, they are well within weapons range’ she opined.
‘They’re going to board?’ O’Neill asked incredulously.
‘Maybe Loki wants the tech too?’ Carter suggested, ‘this ship did defeat an Asgard ship remember.’
‘Well he can’t fucking have it’ O’Neill declared, ‘finders keepers losers weepers’ he said determinedly, if in a slightly childish turn of phrase.
‘Three ships of Sectoid Battleship configuration have latched onto the hull on the lower decks’ Anise reported, ‘they are burning through with plasma.’
O’Neill put on a determined expression. ‘Captain Gaston, I think we’re about to get into a three-way firefight with Anubis boys and Loki’s boys for possession of this ship’ he transmitted.
‘I guess I should have been more specific when I wished for a three-way when I blew out the candles on the cake last birthday Sir’ Gaston replied deadpan. ‘Don’t worry Colonel, nobody goes down harder than X-COM’ he said, ‘Just ask my girlfriend’ he added, the sound of both firing snd laughter near his position audible in the background.
Carter grinned, ‘You’ve got to give them credit’ she said, ‘they know how to laugh in the face of danger’ she said.
O’Neill smiled as well. ‘Trooper Kemp watch out for Major Carter here’ he ordered, ‘Teal’c let’s go lend a hand to the Captain’ he continued. ‘Carter shoot out the computer core if anyone not on our team tries to get in’ he told her. ‘This ship belongs to Earth or no one’ he declared.
‘Yes Sir’ Carter responded. ‘I’ll show the Trooper here where to shoot the core too if I’m incapacitated’ she added as the burst of what sounded like random static or noise came from the ships intercom. It had been periodically doing that since they arrived.
O’Neill got his Laser Rifle ready. ‘Let’s roll, Teal’c’ he said, leading off.
‘This should be a great battle O’Neill’ Teal’c responded, following on behind.
Kemp watched them leave. ‘You don’t think we’re going to miss all the fun do you Major?’ he asked Carter glumly.
‘No member of SG-1 has ever been that lucky’ Carter replied, getting back to work.
Kerguelen Islands (Southern Indian Ocean) – Earth – June 2002
Cameron Mitchell watched his lasers eat into the hull of the new model alien saucer for a brief second before the enemy fighter pulled into another hard turn. ‘What the hell are these things made of?’ he hissed through gritted teeth as he tried to get it back into his sights. It certainly wasn’t the same stuff as the smaller Type 1 fighters, it was too resistant to damage and when it did burn under laser fire it was the wrong colour entirely.
What had started as a small dogfight between a flight of three F-302’s from the base in Antarctica and half a dozen Foo Fighters escorting a trio of battleships had rapidly grown out of all proportion as the unfamiliar new type of craft tore in from above in what seemed like an ambush. Both X-COM and the invader began feeding more and more fighters into the battle as it continued to escalate with now perhaps a hundred and fifty human and alien fighters caught up in what was by far the largest aerial battle of the war so far.
Getting back on the tail of his opponent, if a saucer-shaped craft could in fact be described as having a “tail” it being difficult at a glance to distinguish the front and back of the alien fighter, Mitchell lined up his shot again and triggered both his lasers and this time the two plasma beam cannon his F-302X carried, one slung on a pylon under each wing. With a low rate of fire they were usually reserved for use against the slower, less manoeuvrable alien ships rather than their nimble escorts but he wanted a kill and they packed considerably more punch than his lasers.
The bright green beams sliced into the Type 2 Saucer, only momentarily held back by its armoured hull material before they hit something important and it exploded into a fireball. ‘Hell yeah!’ Mitchell howled in triumph as the debris impacted his shield causing it to flare up as the bubble of energy surrounded his craft deflected away the heat and kinetic energy.
Other human pilots were not having such a good day, close by an F-302X Grim Reaper exploded into fragments itself, shield eventually depleted by multiple plasma hits from the two alien saucers chasing it and the next volley blowing it apart the pilot having no chance to eject. ‘You’re not going home to boast to your buddies about that’ Mitchell vowed under his breath, bringing his fighter around to engage one of the responsible saucers.
Caught up in the middle of the fight a Sectoid Battleship suddenly seemed to stop dead in mid-air and simply fell from the sky with all the aerodynamic grace of a brick. It was still falling towards the ocean when another large ship of a different design tore right through the midst of the dog-fight four large particle beam cannon discharging into another alien battleship gouging holes in its hull.
Forward facing main guns blazing, and now point-defence laser turrets firing in all directions targeting alien saucers to help out the F-302’s Redemption had arrived to add its weight to the battle. First using her teleporter to beam away the elerium engine of one of the three largest alien ships then with shields raised she was now using her particle-cannon to engage a second one.
The Sectoid battleship retaliated, firing back with its elerium powered plasma-beam weapon, more powerful than the ones the F-302’s carried, the beam eating into the upgraded shields on the Redemption. ‘Kill that fucking thing’ Captain Tanner on the Redemption growled as his ship fired again, its own less powerful beam weapons striking the unshielded enemy craft once again. That was the only advantage Redemption had but it was a good one, the deflector shields Loki used didn’t work in an atmosphere.
Smaller than the battleship Redemption was nonetheless the largest human craft engaged in the fight and her intervention had momentarily shifted the fight more towards X-COM’s favour, her point-defence guns putting the hurt on the smaller saucers as her main armament directed its fury on her opposite number. A second blast of plasma-beam fire from the battleship nearly depleted her shields entirely and the third was going to hurt bad, the crew knew, but they were soldiers and this was their job. They had hid from the fight once but never again, this wasn’t their homeworld but it was a human world and that was enough. ‘The moment our shields go down and we can use the transporter again beam the engine of that fucking thing into our hold’ Tanner ordered.
‘Sir when the shield goes those fighters are going to be all over our ass’ Ted the ship’s weapons officer pointed out as he continued to fire the ships guns.
‘Our hull should be able to take a few hits before we have to get out of here’ Tanner replied, ‘support our fighters as long as we can’ he ordered.
‘I guess that leave we were promised is cancelled?’ Martin commented. ‘We’ll have to help fix the ship first’ he said.
‘Crap, I had tickets booked for the fight at Caesars Palace’ Ted complained.
‘Boxing is a barbaric sport’ Tanner observed, ‘the people on this planet are thugs’ he opined. ‘Will you kill that prick already’ he snarled as another beam of green plasma struck Redemption, this time overloading the shields and tearing into her hull, making the ship shudder violently.
‘Teleporter has failed’ Martin reported, ‘that hit cut the power conduits to the system’ he said.
‘Shit’ Tanner swore.
Redemption fired its particle cannon again, this time causing a critical hit and exploding one of the battleships three elerium engines. It lurched sideways, then with a bright secondary explosion that rippled across its hull it began to tumble towards Earth. ‘Got the bastard’ Ted said with a vicious grin.
Cameron Mitchell momentarily watched the second alien battleship plummet as he pulled into a tight turn to try and lose the saucer now on his own tail. He knew that the aliens suffered morale problems too, they could panic and run away just like humans if you put them under enough pressure.
The third battleship was now swinging around to fire on Redemption, it had been busy until now with a pair of Reapers but they had been driven off by the alien ship’s escorts and it was now free to engage the human ship, with shields down Redemption wouldn’t stand up too long under the punishment it could deliver.
A huge thunderbolt from above streaked down from the stratosphere and impacted the battleship, blowing it apart with a single shot. ‘Enterprise’ Mitchell realised with another howl of triumph. Another squadron of F-302’s bearing the markings of those now assigned to Earth’s flagship now came hurtling into the fight too, scrambled from the captured Goa’uld mothership now in orbit directly overhead.
The handful of scientists watching from their biological research station on the Kerguelen Islands nearby had no idea what was going on high above. The French government which owned the islands had been reporting a great deal of unusual meteor activity going on the last couple of years so they guessed it was another of the wave of meteor storms, it all looked very pretty though they thought and made a nice change from the normal routine.
The team manning the satellite tracking station also based on the island knew better but they were affiliated with X-COM too like almost all other agency watching the skies right around the world. One advantage a UN organisation had was that almost every government was already in on the secret and they cooperated to keep it concealed from the entire planet, the pre-X-COM involvement SGC never had that kind of freedom of action.
The firework display eventually died down and the scientists went back to work, one swore later that he saw an aircraft with strange markings swoop down low over the Islands and do what he thought was a victory roll before heading north-west at a phenomenal speed but the others just thought he’d been at the cognac again.
Unknown Hat’ak Ship – L5 Lagrange Point (Earth/Moon System) – June 2002
‘Anise what the hell is going on with the doors?’ O’Neill yelled into his headset as yet another one slammed shut in front of his face.
‘I don’t know Colonel’ the Tok’ra replied from the ships bridge. ‘I think Major Carter repaired the internal sensors, I am tracking Jaffa and three unidentified species the ship doesn’t recognise through the ship’ she said. ‘The doors seem to have a life of their own I have no ability to control them.’
‘I didn’t repair the sensors they just came back on by themselves’ Carter interrupted from the computer core.
‘I’m trying to flank the guys trying to flank Gaston and his men but every time I get close a door seals me off from them’ O’Neill complained, Teal’c was getting annoyed too, he looked angry, you could tell by the very slight change in his expression.
‘You should be grateful Colonel’ Anise responded, ‘an airlock just opened and vented the atmosphere in the section ahead of you’ she told him. ‘Several of the creatures that arrived on Loki’s vessels have been ejected into space’ she said.
‘Carter that virus Thor left behind is making the ship go crazy’ O’Neill told her. ‘Get rid of it before I get sucked into space’ he ordered.
‘I’m trying Sir’ Carter replied.
‘This is very strange’ Anise announced curiously. ‘The doors are opening and closing in a distinct pattern’ she said. ‘They seem to be channelling the Jaffa and Loki’s forces towards each other and preventing either of the two groups manoeuvring behind the human troops’ she continued. ‘It’s very unlikely this is random’ she opined.
‘Weird’ O’Neill responded in surprise. ‘Loki’s boys will slaughter the Jaffa, they don’t have the hardware to take on that kind of opposition’ he said.
‘Indeed’ Teal’c agreed, Staff-Weapons would need multiple hits to bring down the more formidable opponents such as Muton’s and the creatures were near-immune to zat’nik’tel discharges thanks to the organic armour bonded to their skin.
‘More doors are opening in sequence’ Anise reported, ‘the Jaffa now have access to the ships main armoury’ she said.
‘The armoury holds portable Staff-Cannon and large numbers of Goa’uld Shock Grenades’ Teal’c noted, ‘those would give the Jaffa a much better chance to acquit themselves well in battle’ he said. ‘This is very convenient turn of events O’Neill’ he said suspiciously. ‘Our enemies may weaken each other considerably, the Jaffa are the elite of Anubis Armies and will surely inflict some losses before we have to deal with Loki’s troops ourselves’ he reasoned.
‘I agree’ O’Neill replied, ‘Carter, Anise, there’s something going on here and I want to know what it is’ he said.
‘Another small group of Loki’s soldiers have been vented into space’ Anise announced. ‘The majority of others are further inside the ship and are sealing the doors behind them to prevent it occurring any more’ she continued.
‘What’s the count?’ O’Neill asked.
‘I make it twenty-eight Jaffa and a combined fifty-seven of the other enemy troops remaining Colonel’ Anise answered. ‘They will encounter each other within minutes at their current rates of advance’ she said. ‘Many of Loki’s forces are still heading for the shield and hyperdrive generators however, they appear to be blasting their way through the doors with powerful explosive devices.’
‘Elerium grenades I’ll bet’ O’Neill supposed, they had more explosive yield than a whole satchel load of plastic explosives. ‘Any heading for the computer core?’ he asked.
‘Not as yet, as Major Carter will be pleased to hear I’m sure’ Anise told him.
‘Colonel O’Neill this is Gaston, I’ve been listening in, do you want us to back off and let the aliens fight it out between themselves?’ the X-COM officer asked.
‘Just stop either group making it up to the bridge, otherwise let them soften each other up Captain’ O’Neill replied. ‘Call it Operation Vulture, swoop in and chew up what’s left afterwards’ he instructed.
‘I hate leftovers but understood Sir, Gaston Out’ the Captain responded.
Across the other side of the great ship, and a deck above the one O’Neill was on, the first Jaffa to see a Muton had no idea what the hell the hulking great creature was but decided that shooting at it was the best course of action. This was in fact an error of judgement as he discovered when the blast of plasma from his staff weapon splashed on its torso leaving a blackened and scorched wound but causing insufficient actual damage to do much more than make the alien scream in pain and become extremely angry.
The genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced Muton soldier retaliated in kind and fired back with it’s own plasma weapon, a more accurate and considerably more powerful Heavy Plasma Rifle. The bright green bolt of energy blew a hole right through the Jaffa large enough to fit the Muton’s own very large fist through and so began a fierce exchange of fire between the two sides which rapidly escalated as more and more got involved.
‘Okay, now this is sweet’ O’Neill stated a few minutes later, as moving through the ship he rounded another corner and in the distance at the end of the corridor saw green and white balls of energy hurtling back and forth as the two alien factions fought for territory. The Jaffa were clearly being forced back but as he watched a Muton was blown in half by a Staff-Cannon blast, the Jaffa much have bought it up after deciding they needed more firepower as Teal'c thought they would so it certainly wasn’t all a one way affair.
A familiar feeling in his mind caused O’Neill to wince. ‘Psionics’ he hissed. ‘Carter we’ve got telepaths in the house, if they come calling on that big brain of yours make sure Kemp hits you with a zat’ he ordered into his radio. Carter had very low resistance to psionic attack. ‘Jonas you out there?’ he asked.
‘I’m here Colonel’ Jonas Quinn responded from the bridge.
‘Now would be a good time to try out that Psi Amp Jonas’ O’Neill advised. ‘What are we dealing with here?’ he asked.
On the bridge Jonas unhooked the Psionic Amplifier from his belt and switched it on. Although with the device he was the second strongest telepath ever encountered by X-COM, after Cassandra Fraser, he had never used the ability outside of controlled conditions. ‘Here goes nothing’ he said to Sergeant Andianov as he cranked up the amplifier’s power output and reached out across the ship with his mind.
Alien intelligences were everywhere, he touched each in turn finding Jaffa and Muton’s first, then Sectoid Engineers looking for the upgraded systems Anubis had fitted to the ship and finally he encountered minds that seemed alien but somehow similar to his own. Ethereals, the strongest psionics Loki had yet produced with his DNA tampering.
An Ethereal detected Jonas and fought back mentally, Jonas found he was able to easily keep the alien from his own mind and retaliated in kind. ‘Fear me’ he telepathically told the Ethereal who immediately dropped the weapon it was carrying and collapsed into a gibbering wreck on the deck. Cool, Jonas thought happily, adopting a word he had heard Colonel O’Neill use and he connected to another Ethereal trying something more ambitious.
Near the hyperdrive an Ethereal suddenly stopped what it was doing and turning and raising the plasma pistol it was carrying emptied half the clip into the back of a Muton. The great alien footsoldier fell and the Ethereal then shot dead a very confused Sectoid before finally putting the pistol to the side of its own head and pulling the trigger.
On the bridge Jonas suddenly turned and threw up on the deck. Apparently causing something to commit suicide when you were controlling its mind was a bad idea he had just discovered, the feeling was quite unpleasant in the extreme. ‘Are you okay?’ Andianov asked.
‘Not really’ Jonas replied, ‘give me a second’ he added as the feeling of nausea subsided.
Anise looked none too happy. ‘The Goa’uld have slaves to clear up something like that’ she said, ‘we don’t, try not to do that again’ she requested.
‘Unexpected side-effect’ Jonas replied, taking a swig of water from his canteen. ‘On the plus side I just proved I’m a stronger telepath than an Ethereal’ he said.
‘Do they have stronger stomachs?’ Andianov asked him sarcastically.
In the computer core Carter finally figured out what was going on with the ship. ‘Colonel O’Neill, Thor didn’t leave a virus behind, he left himself behind’ she said.
‘What?’ came the incredulous reply.
‘Thor must have downloaded his entire consciousness into the ships computer, Anubis couldn’t get rid of it so the majority of the crew abandoned ship once Thor took over completely’ Carter told him. The self-destruct was activated so Thor had to shut down certain higher-level systems to stop it and then directed the Ha’tak towards Earth where he might find some help’ she said.
‘You’re shitting me?’ O’Neill replied, ‘no offence Major’ he added.
‘None taken Sir’ Carter replied. ‘We’ve seen the transfer of a complete consciousness to a machine before such as our Android Duplicates’ she said. ‘Sir the Asgard might be able to put in back into a clone, that might have been what Thor was thinking’ she suggested.
‘So it’s been Thor helping us out?’ O’Neill asked. ‘Screwing with the Jaffa and the other alien assholes?’
‘That would be my guess Colonel’ Carter told him. ‘He could be listening to us right now’ she said. ‘The ship did give the Jaffa access to the armoury right after you suggested they needed more firepower, the sound coming from the intercom is likely Thor's garbled speech’ she noted.
‘Excellent’ O’Neill responded. ‘Thanks Thor buddy’ he added, hoping he wasn’t just addressing a computer virus.
‘The Jaffa are in full retreat after taking heavy losses’ Anise reported. ‘And Jonas has regurgitated his full stomach after taking ill’ she added confusingly.
‘Okay’ O’Neill replied, ‘Thor if you can hear me let the big green guys through and then open the doors so our people can get behind them and shoot some lasers up their ass’ he said. ‘With luck we can pin Loki’s jerks in a crossfire’ he said. Muton’s were big and tough but they were dumb as hell.
‘Sir the shield generators are back on-line, I think the aliens have managed to get control of that part of the system’ Carter announced, looking at a display.
‘The Enterprise is heading back in this direction’ Anise told them by way of explanation. ‘If the aliens are able to power the weapons as well this ship will likely be able to destroy our own Ha’tak’ she pointed out, the ship they were on was greatly upgraded from the standard model she knew.
‘Screw that’ O’Neill responded. ‘Gaston we need to kick some ass before we lose a perfectly good mothership, either Enterprise or this one because we blow it up ourselves’ he said.
‘Ready for action Colonel’ Captain Gaston replied, ‘I wish we had a few P3-A1 Heavy Plasma’s though’ he added, mentioning the X-COM copy of the heaviest weapon Loki's forces used ‘You need a few good hits with an L2-A2 to bring down a Muton’ he noted.
‘Do what you can with what you’ve got Captain’ O’Neill told him. ‘It’s time Thor’ he continued, ‘Gaston when those doors open you move’ he ordered.
Captain Jake Gaston got his Laser Rifle ready and prepared to lead his squad into action again, if they timed this right they could take out at least a few enemy soldiers cheaply and level the playing field a little against a stronger, tougher and better-armed opponent.
A door slid open to his right. ‘Up and at ‘em X-COM!’ he yelled and started to move, his troops hot on his heels as they pounded up the metal deck, each door before them opening in turn as they arrived at it.
The human soldiers from half a dozen nations crashed into the rear of the Muton advance against the remaining Jaffa and concentrating their fire cut down the first few they encountered. Laser and plasma fire scorched flesh and burned through armour as the three-way battle degenerated into near chaos. O’Neill and Teal’c threw themselves into the fray as Jonas Quinn regained his composure and once again started to deal with the smaller numbers of Ethereals who had come aboard.
In the aftermath the familiar smell of burned flesh and the sound of moans filled the rooms and corridors where the fighting had been most intense. All of the human wounded and even some of the dead would be saved by hand-held healing devices and the use of captured sarcophagi but the Jaffa and Muton dead would not be so fortunate. ‘There’s still a few of the fuckers left’ Gaston told his troops as they shot and stunned any remaining enemy soldiers. Wounded troopers able to do so used their medi-kits to inject painkillers and stimulants and a trooper trained to use a goa'uld hand-held healing device was treating the most severe injuries in turn. It took great practice to master the device, plus an injection of both naquada and goa'uld genetic markers to operate it at all, but it was a literal life-saver in the field.
‘If we can re-take the shield generator room we can lower them and get reinforcements sent over from the Enterprise to help deal with the rest’ O’Neill told him. ‘What are your losses?’ he asked more quietly.
‘Seven dead, at least three permanently’ Gaston replied evenly, anything short of getting your head blown off was usually recoverable these days so there were different grades of KIA. ‘Pretty light considering’ he added.
‘Too damn many’ O’Neill replied, too damn young he added to himself, looking down at the broken corpse of a blond girl who looked like she should still be at high-school. That could just be his age though, he thought sadly, anyone under thirty looked twelve these days.
‘Alright Troopers, you heard the Colonel, let’s take that fucking shield generator’ Gaston ordered.
‘Teal’c take point’ O’Neill told him. ‘The rest of you follow me’ he ordered.
‘Long way from home to die’ Gaston observed as they double-timed towards their destination.
‘Lot closer to home than where I’ve lost people before Captain’ O’Neill told him. Anywhere in the Solar System was practically Earth’s doorstep when you were used to stargate travel. ‘This is home turf’ he said.
‘Think the aliens will eventually get the idea we don’t like them coming here without an invite?’ Gaston asked.
‘I think we’re doing a damn fine job of getting the message across’ O’Neill replied. ‘Of course they ain’t always that bright’ he added.
‘Depends how much you nuke them Sir’ Gaston observed.