I own neither Stargate nor the X-COM franchise. No infringement is intended, no profit is to be made and I'm just not worth the hassle of suing anyway unless you want a share of the wages of an underpaid Civil Servant.
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Cheyenne Mountain – Earth – June 2002
Major General George Hammond narrowly managed to avoid colliding with the skimpily attired and seemingly irate young women who came stamping out of Commander Sharp’s office followed by the sound of raucous laughter.
‘That man is intolerable’ Anise told Hammond pointedly before continuing on her way down the corridor, clearly seething from some slight.
‘Don’t let the rings hit you on the ass on the way out’ Sharp called out loudly after her from his office before resuming his laughing.
Hammond looked in quizzically. ‘Private joke?’ he asked as the Tok’ra stormed away.
‘I don’t think it was meant to be funny but it nearly killed me’ Sharp replied, fighting back the laughter and wiping away a tear. ‘Take a load off George’ he added, indicating a chair which Hammond took after walking into the office, closing the door behind him.
‘So what did Anise say to you anyway?’ Hammond asked.
Sharp grinned. ‘She passed on a message from the Tok’ra leadership’ he said. ‘They say that since we already have one Ha’tak already it would be a nice gesture if we gave them the new one once it’s operational again’ he continued before breaking out into convulsive laughter again. Anise had not appreciated it when his response to her request had been uncontrolled mirth.
Hammond couldn’t help but laugh as well, not just because it was infectious. The notion that X-COM would offer the keys to their shiny new Goa’uld Mothership to the Tok’ra because they asked nicely was ludicrous beyond belief, he himself might have been willing to loan it to the Tok’ra, with an SGC Crew aboard, but they had drastically erred in their reading of the X-COM psyche if they thought that particular organisation would do so much as that, let alone gift the ship to them. ‘I imagine we’ll need to send a more formal reply to the Tok’ra leadership?’ he asked.
‘I’ll have something more diplomatic than derision typed up’ Sharp replied still highly entertained by the. ‘Still it makes the requests we’ve had from the Asgard and Tollan for unlimited access to the ship seem a lot more reasonable’ he decided. ‘Seems everyone wants a piece of that ship’ he said.
‘The technology is way above what the Goa’uld had prior to Anubis showing up’ Hammond noted, ‘it’s not surprising our allies are interested’ he pointed out.
Sharp nodded. ‘As long as they share any findings with us I don’t object to the Asgard, Tok’ra or Tollan crawling all over the thing’ he responded. ‘They’ll probably figure it out a lot faster than we could anyway’ he admitted, ‘as long as they accept once the back-engineering is finished it’s going to have a great big X-COM logo painted on the side of it they can poke around all they like’ he said.
‘What about Thor?’ Hammond queried.
‘We offered to try and download his consciousness into ourselves’ Sharp replied, ‘Carter thinks we’ll be able to do it safely enough, she’s already disabled the self-destruct’ he continued, ‘but the Asgard want to do it themselves’ he said. ‘Heimdall is better at biology than ships apparently so they’re sending a technical expert, he’ll recover Thor from the ship’s computer core onto a portable drive, and look over the new Ha’tak while he’s here.’
‘Anyone we know?’ Hammond asked.
‘New one on me anyway, Heimdall says he’s called Hermiod’ Sharp replied. ‘They all look the damn same anyway’ he observed. ‘Which is too much like Sectoids for my liking’ he added.
Hammond smiled gently, on the occasions he had witnessed X-COM personnel in the same room as an Asgard they all looked hopelessly on edge and wearing a pained expression as they fought back the urge to shoot at it. ‘And the Tollan are sending someone?’ he queried. ‘We don’t often see them venture out.’
‘It’s the shield generators, they’re pretty confident the Heavy Ion Cannon they’re working on will get the job done, even against Anubis, but they want to make certain by checking them out’ Sharp replied. ‘Also the Tollan are using older model Asgard shields on their Ghostriders and this type of Ha’tak managed to pound down the ones on Thor’s Beliskner’ he said. ‘That makes the Tollan as interested in the main guns as the Asgard are, maybe even more because the reason the Tollan have surplus Asgard shields in the first place is because the little grey guys are scrapping their older ships and replacing them with the O’Neill Class so they don’t have to worry as much about the new Goa’uld weaponry.’
‘Might be nice to get hold of some of that second-hand Asgard gear ourselves too don’t you think though?’ Hammond asked rhetorically.
‘Wouldn’t it just’ Sharp agreed. Whilst the terms of the Protected Planet’s Treaty greatly limited the technology that the Asgard could supply to Earth, Tollana however was under no such restriction and was the recipient of equipment that although obsolete by Asgard standards was still better than Goa’uld designs. In a one-to-one fight even an aging Beliskner heading for the scrapyard would readily take down the latest Goa’uld ship with all of the enhancements Anubis had added. The problem was that now only an O’Neill Class likely had the shields and firepower to take on multiple upgraded Ha’tak ships whereas in the old days a Beliskner could single-handedly pulverise several Goa’uld motherships at once. It was perhaps fortunate timing for the Asgard that their war with the Replicators had induced them to introduce a new considerably more powerful warship class just as the Goa’uld almost caught up on the one they had been using for many centuries.
‘So are we expecting our Asgard and Tollan visitors by ship or stargate?’ Hammond queried.
‘Stargate’ Sharp replied, ‘Tollana is on the other side of the galaxy so even with the Goa’uld hyperdrive design we gave them it’s still a hell of a long boring trip and the Asgard can’t spare a ship to taxi this Hermiod around the universe so he’s taking the wormhole express in as well.’
‘I’m surprised the Asgard haven’t offered the Tollan their old hyperdrives too when they rip them out of their retired ships’ Hammond commented.
‘Guess they figure those are too advanced for a primitive bunch like the Tollan’ Sharp replied with a smirk. The superiority of Asgard Hyperdrive designs over that of others was even more marked than their considerable lead in shield technology, even the vaunted Ancients could not boast a comparably sized and powered ship that could haul-ass across the cosmos like an Asgard vessel, a fact the race was very proud of. The Nox did always point out to the Asgard however that they shouldn’t be too smug as their flying city was a lot more impressive than its equivalent Ancient counterpart too, although being Nox they only did so in good humour.
Hammond put on a more serious expression. ‘Have we got a final tally on the losses over the Indian Ocean?’ he asked.
Sharp looked away, any hint of amusement stripped from his expression. ‘We lost over a quarter of our entire fighter strength’ he said, ‘plus eight more Reapers that will be under repair for weeks’ he continued, remembering his dismay when the sealed report landed on his desk. ‘Those new fighters Loki threw at us were... shit I’ll say it, they’re amazing’ he admitted. ‘If we tried to put F-302’s up against them in space where they could use their shields too our people would be slaughtered’ he told Hammond frankly. ‘They’re faster, better rate of climb and acceleration, better manoeuvrability and more durable than the Type 1, and the Foo Fighter already had the edge on the Reaper in a few of those’ he noted. ‘We’re going to classify them the Type 2 Fighter-UFO but the fighter jocks came up with “Spectre” for the things themselves.’
‘Why call it a Spectre?’ Hammond asked curiously.
‘Appears from nowhere and scares the crap out of you’ Sharp explained.
‘Ah’ Hammond responded with a nod of understanding. The advanced electronic counter-measures and stealth technology on Loki’s more advanced warcraft meant that they couldn’t be readily detected or tracked until they were right on top of you. Radar could lock onto the older model Sectoid ships readily enough, the ones that came into land and hence risked seizure by X-COM UFO Retrieval Teams were heavily downgraded in key areas, but the fighters were something else entirely.
‘On the plus side the guys at Area 51 say they’ll soon have a new sensor package built around an OPDAR System that’ll give our pilots something better than their eyes to work with’ Sharp told Hammond in a more up-beat manner.
‘Speaking from the perspective of a combat pilot nothing ever beats the Mark One Eyeball trust me’ Hammond replied, then paused for a moment ‘OPDAR?’ he questioned.
‘Optical Detection And Ranging’ Sharp told him. ‘Cameras connected to computers that look for the enemy just like the pilot does, only with much better magnification’ he said. ‘If you can see the thing then OPDAR will see it too, only much further away, no more only finding out they’re there when they start shooting’ he explained then a smile returned. ‘Technically you could argue that it’s a Mark Two Eyeball’ he noted with amusement, ‘the cameras are based on the eyes of the Android copies of SG-1, their Carter did the R&D, the image recognition software is hers as well, based of the android brains version of our visual cortex, whatever that is.’
‘You’re telling me that the fighter will see like we do?’ Hammond asked him, raising his eyebrows.
‘Yes but in more directions at once because there are cameras all over the airframe’ Sharp replied, ‘if you think that’s a creepy concept in itself the camera pupils dilate, and they can blink’ he said with a grimace. ‘The image recognition AI is supposed to be advanced enough for the aircraft to be able to recognise its own pilot when he approaches’ he added.
Hammond couldn’t help but grimace too, it was an unsettling notion that an aircraft could actually see and was smart enough to know who you were. After that it wouldn’t be long until it politely opened the cockpit for you when you got near, said good morning and asked after the kids when you climbed in. ‘Have our people got anywhere with the Foo Fighter we recovered yet?’ he asked.
‘Nothing substantial according to the last update I was given’ Sharp replied. ‘If we could get a copy of the things engine at least that would help’ he said. ‘They’re calling it a Gravity/Induction Drive over at Area 51, and its supposed to put out twice as much effective thrust as the standard elerium gravity drive we pulled out of Loki’s older ships’ he told Hammond. ‘They just need to get a copy to work properly but the technology is so far beyond cutting-edge it’s not funny’ he continued regretfully. ‘There’s a drastically improved sensor system too which tracks ships by the energy emissions their powerplants and engines put out, but that thing is even more difficult to back-engineer than their drive according to our people.’
‘Some alien technology is fiendishly advanced’ Hammond observed, ‘Goa’uld technology seems to be fairly comprehensible once you’ve got the basics, or at least our scientists seem to be able to but when you take the step up to say even Tollan levels I’ve known Sam Carter admit total lack of understanding’ he said. ‘Loki isn’t using Asgard ships or weaponry but he is working with Asgard understanding of science and we won’t be there for a long time yet.’
Sharp had to concur, maybe if they had another fifty or sixty years to catch up with the theory they might be able to back-engineer Loki’s more advanced ships but they really needed results in that many weeks. ‘We’re pinning our hopes on the Asgard themselves and the Tollan to fill in the gaps’ he said. ‘The Asgard aren’t allowed to give us advanced weaponry because of the Treaty, and the Tollan are still resistant because of long-standing policy, but maybe we can persuade them to enlighten us backward primates as to how our basic physics is wrong.’
‘Understand the theory and the practice follows?’ Hammond reasoned.
‘I hope so George or it’s going to be a long and bloody war’ Sharp replied gloomily. ‘And we’ll be playing catch-up two steps behind the whole damn way through.’
Antarctica – Earth – July 2002
SG-1 and the personnel already assigned to the Antarctic dig site were far too busy to notice they had incorporeal company, even if they could have sensed it at all. Dispatched to the bottom of the world in the depths of the southern polar winter, it was so cold even Andianov complained about it when she had to go rescue some thin-blooded American from the snow outside, the sense of wonderment they had felt when the young woman who had been dug from the ice came back to life after millions of years had all too quickly been replaced by dismay as the disease she was carrying spread through the ranks.
Not actually powerless to help, but still unable to do so, Daniel watched them try and save each other. Additional medical equipment and a small number of volunteer personnel in hermetically-sealed contamination suits had been beamed in via the Redemption but so far they were having little luck. This was the place where the second stargate had been accidentally discovered by Sam and Jack a few years ago, since then a limited number of other finds had been made, including frozen Jaffa who like the girl had presumably perished in the snow heading to the gate, but the girl herself was the greatest discovery of all, in many ways more important than the gate, she represented the answer to a very large number of questions many of which hadn’t even been asked yet.
‘I thought I’d find you here’ a swirl of light that suddenly appeared told Daniel Jackson as it formed into a familiar figure. ‘It’s not healthy to spend so much time watching over friends from your old existence’ the woman told him. ‘Some might even accuse you of voyeurism.... again’ she said, looking around.
Daniel turned to face the other ascended being who turned back to him and smiled, the presence of either of them completely undetected by the mortals going about their tasks. ‘For the last time I had no idea Sam was going to be in the shower when I went to see her a couple of months ago’ he protested, ‘shouldn’t you be off performing witchcraft somewhere?’ he asked sardonically.
‘I’m beginning to deeply regret you knowing that I was once known as Morgan Le Fay on your world’ Ganos Lal replied. ‘your other friends and I were worried’ she told him.
‘So I guess you drew the short straw and had to come find me?’ Daniel asked.
‘Chaya did it last time and Orlin is still annoyed about the shower thing’ the other Ascended being told him. ‘Face it Daniel Jackson, there aren’t really many of us who like you enough to bother’ she said.
Daniel shrugged. ‘I know I’m a pain in the ass’ he admitted, ‘given what Oma told me about you and Moros I’m surprised you want to hang out with me at all.’
‘Over the centuries I’ve gradually drifted away from the hard-line position of strict non-intervention under all circumstances’ Ganos Lal told him. ‘You might say I’m more open to weighing up the pros and cons on an individual basis these days.’
‘So it wasn’t just our recent chats in the diner that did it?’ Daniel queried, with mild amusement.
‘You’re not that persuasive a speaker Daniel’ the other ascended being told him with a smile. ‘Although I do enjoy our conversations as you know’ she added truthfully.
‘I don’t think Chaya believes you’re sincere’ Daniel told her. ‘Maybe she thinks you’re a plant sent to spy on us radical non-conformists?’ he suggested, not that their tiny collective of hardcore malcontents and a few sympathisers was remotely numerous to be a threat to the majority consensus. They were more like a support-group than anything else, drinking coffee in a mental construct of an Earth diner and criticising the status-quo to the only audience that listened.
Ganos Lal, laughed. ‘No, that’s not why she doesn’t like me’ she said. ‘We knew each other as mortals, I was her Elementary School Teacher’ she explained. ‘I also designed educational computer programs for young children’ she told him.
Daniel snapped his fingers. ‘That’s why you remind me of my teacher from 5th Grade’ he realised. Ganos Lal had very precise speech and a certain way about the way she said things, informative but also slightly condescending.
‘If you’re ever in the diner and I walk in the door, anyone that instantly straightens up in their chair used to be one of my pupils’ she told him, ‘that’ll be with them for eternity, you just need to mould them young enough’ she said.
‘Do you know that young woman they dug out of the ice?’ Daniel asked curiously. ‘She is an Ancient right?’ he asked.
Ganos Lal wandered over to where the confused young woman was trying to heal those she had inadvertently infected with the virus that had been dormant in her frozen cells so long. ‘You are right about her identity but no I do not know her, she was around long before my day’ she told Daniel. ‘Our people still thought of themselves as Alterans then, she must have remained behind when my ancestors left on Atlantis’ she reasoned.
‘Is Sam right about that being millions of years ago?’ Daniel queried.
‘When our civilisation in this galaxy collapsed?’ Ganos Lal responded, ‘yes, your ancestors had only just separated from the evolutionary lines that produced the other apes’ she said, ‘with the help of a little genetic tampering from ourselves of course’ she added. ‘A great plague, the one she’s carrying, annihilated most of our population and the others fled.’
‘You couldn’t cure it’ Daniel asked.
‘Only a small percentage of our people had the healing gift and using it weakens you’ Ganos told him. ‘Our medical technology did nothing which is why your friend’s attempts to use their captured goa’uld sarcophagi or healing devices will fail too’ she said. ‘They are simply downgraded copies of our own healing devices made by a Goa’uld named Telchak, if it was that simple we would have done it.’
‘Did the Goa’uld invent anything themselves?’ Daniel asked rhetorically, rolling his eyes.
‘Torture devices of various descriptions and some of the most inaccurate hand-weapons in the universe’ Ganos Lal replied. ‘There’s no way we want those attributed to us’ she said earnestly. Ideally for their reputation no one would ever find out about the exploding tumours device which was theirs, what had Lantian Military R&D been thinking? Ganos Lal doubted any of her class would have come up with such a moronic idea.
‘I guess if I lent her a hand to heal everyone, including herself, that would be a big no-no?’ Daniel checked as the ancient mortal the humans had christened Aiyana continued to go about her work trying to save those she had infected, looking visibly weaker herself all the time.
‘You know the rules Daniel’ Ganos Lal replied with a shrug.
‘But she’s one of your own people’ Daniel protested.
‘And still mortal’ Ganos Lal noted, ‘she may be a Hok’taur, to use that Goa’uld expression your people adopted for those more biologically advanced than yourselves, but she’s still mortal nonetheless.’
Daniel looked away dejectedly, if he tried to go ahead and do it anyway the others would stop him, even if Morgan Le Fay there decided to turn a blind eye. ‘I don’t think I’m cut out for this’ he said. ‘It hurts too much not to help.’
‘You’ve got eternity Daniel Jackson’ Ganos Lal replied, ‘it’ll get easier in time, once those you knew as a mortal are dead and gone you’ll feel less connected to this realm of existence.’
‘So you’re saying it’ll get easier to watch people suffer and not do something about it?’ Daniel asked, his voice hardening. ‘So I can look forward to being an uncaring asshole? What a glowing, wholesome, moral future lies ahead of me’ he retorted sarcastically.
‘Non-intervention is a moral decision, once ascended beings start to meddle, use their powers without restraint, they eventually become self-serving and you end up with something far worse than ourselves’ Ganos Lal told him. ‘You think we do nothing but we’ve been protecting this galaxy and others from the end result of that process for a very long time.’
Daniel frowned. ‘Ever considered there might be a happy medium between those points?’ he asked. ‘Not too hot, not too cold, but just right?’
‘Like the Casa Gruel in the story of Draxius Kol and the Three Unas?’ the other ascended being asked, surprised he’d heard of it. The younger children loved that story she remembered.
‘I think Moros might have changed a few names when he returned to Earth as a mortal and told it himself’ Daniel reasoned. ‘But at least we both get the cultural reference.’
‘But how much intervention would be truly safe?’ Ganos asked.
‘I’ll go with more than none at least’ Daniel replied. ‘She’s fading fast, she can’t save everyone’ he pointed out. The disease was severely degenerative and according to Janet when he listened in on her diagnosis it much resembled cerebrospinal meningitis attacking the brain hence her apparent amnesia. ‘Do you know what will happen to them?’ he asked.
Ganos sighed. ‘Those she cannot save? Coma and eventual death’ she said. ‘My people never encountered a pathogen before or since that was so dangerous’ she said. ‘Some suspected it was deliberately engineered as an attempt to genocide our entire race’ she continued. ‘That could have been paranoia however’ she noted.
Something occurred to Daniel. ‘You do know that if we were to intervene, make the girl stronger so she could heal everyone, nobody would ever know we did anything’ he said. ‘They would just think it was her ancient physiology at work’ he told her.
‘She could never heal herself’ Ganos Lal told him.
‘We could ascend her, she’s more evolved than I was and she’s using the last of her strength to help others that’s got to be worth points even if her mind is mush’ Daniel replied.
‘She can’t ascend like she is, ask Oma Desala if you don’t believe me’ Ganos told him. ‘And in any case that would be a fairly obvious indication that we were, in fact, interfering’ she said.
Daniel felt like punching something but the only viable target was his ascended companion and slugging a woman, incorporeal or not, without serious provocation wasn’t his forte. Actually other than the fact they almost all tended to annoy him to one degree or another, the only ascended being he ever really felt tempted to physically attack was that fat guy that came to the diner sometimes. He had no idea who he was but for some reason Daniel always had a gut-feeling he should be repeatedly driving his fist into the man’s face because he really deserved it. ‘We can’t save the girl?’ he asked sadly.
‘She’s not truly in there anymore anyway’ Ganos Lal told him. ‘So much of what we are is our memores and experiences and the virus has already robbed her of those’ she said. ‘In a way she died five million years ago and we're only seeing her shadow.’
‘She’s in pain, we can help her slip away with more dignity’ Daniel suggested. ‘We can do that surely?’ he asked. ‘Well can’t we?’ he yelled.
‘I won’t stop you, if the others do you’ll know your answer’ the other ascended being told him. ‘Be warned though, you might be using up your good will.’
‘So if I help out here it’s more likely they’ll stop me in the future?’ Daniel asked.
‘Of course’ Ganos Lal replied, ‘what you propose to do is a little thing, it took saving whole worlds for both Chaya and Orlin to face the sanctions they did, but the more you interfere the closer you’ll be watched and the less freedom to act you’ll be allowed in the future even if they let you act now.’
‘So you’re saying if I use up my credit now I might regret it later?’ Daniel responded.
Ganos shrugged. ‘It’s a gamble on your part I’m afraid, Daniel Jackson’ she told him. ‘They might even let you help for a while then cut you off leaving one of your friends still stricken.’
‘So how good is your credit?’ Daniel asked her.
‘Getting progressively worse because of spending time with the likes of you’ she replied evenly. ‘If you’re going to do it just do it, I’ll stand here and look disapproving.’
‘Going to put me in detention for this Miss Lal?’ Daniel joked as he prepared to help Aiyana.
‘Just write out “I must not interfere in the affairs of mortals” infinite times and put it on my desk before all the stars go out’ Ganos Lal told him in such as way that he wasn’t sure if she was being serious or not.
Area 51 – Earth – July 2002
Given that everyone else in the audience of fifty or so X-COM and SGC Officers and Scientists was clearly too polite to say it Jack O’Neill decided to step up to the plate himself. ‘Invaders from Mars?’ he queried. ‘Isn’t that a cliché?’ he asked, rubbing his temples. He was still getting headaches like the others who caught the virus from the Ancient girl before she cured them all, expiring soon afterwards. He had been told that if she had failed, and the sarcophagus hadn’t worked, the back-up plan was a Tok’ra symbiote and he was almost as glad he had avoided that prospect as he was death itself. Jonas was in a foul mood because X-COM had dissected the Ancients corpse which he thought was totally disrespectful, he had chosen to remain at the SGC along with Teal’c and Andianov rather than risk running into Nirrti who had been the one that carried the procedure out. The Goa’uld parasite inside it’s human host as effective a defence against the virus as a Tok’ra symbiote would be and she was an expert in Hok’taur physiology so she was the logical choice for the job.
Doctor Svetlana Markov stood at the front of the hall giving the presentation wondered if he was being serious in his comment but decided she had better humour him just in case. ‘They are not from Mars Colonel, it is merely that that have established their main base in our Solar System on that world’ she said.
‘And we’re certain of this?’ one of the X-COM Science Team asked.
Markov nodded. ‘We have been almost positive for some time’ she replied, ‘The Sectoid Commander captured from their Base in South America confirmed our suspicions to a large degree, but increasing numbers of intercepts of their Hyperwave transmissions have confirmed what we thought’ she told the group. ‘Loki’s ships attacking Earth are doing so from a large facility in the Cydonia Region.’
Whilst the news that the Sectoid forces were based on Mars had been greeted with interest the mood immediately shifted with that particular revelation. ‘Cydonia?’ someone repeated through laughter. ‘I suppose you’re going to say they’re right under the Face of Mars’ he said sarcastically.
‘Yes’ Markov replied flatly. ‘The very feature that all the UFO nuts have pointed to ever since Viking 1 photographed the region in 1976’ she said.
‘That’s an optical illusion’ the man replied unabashed. ‘Mars Global Surveyor proved that with the pictures it sent back last year’ he noted.
‘You mean the edited images released to the public?’ Markov replied with a smirk. ‘It was those pictures, by which I mean the real ones which matched the images from Viking 1 though in better resolution, that first made us think there actually was an Alien Installation there’ she said. ‘We simply had no idea of its scale or importance until more recently’ she explained before moving on. ‘Now the Cydonia Region is also known for other seemingly artificial structures photographed by space probes in the early nineteen-seventies, and the reason for those is also now known to us’ she added.
‘You mean the pyramids people say are in some of the pictures?’ the now rather less certain Cydonia sceptic at the back recalled.
‘Pyramids?’ O’Neill exclaimed. ‘You’re not trying to tell me that the freaking Goa’uld are there too?’ he asked incredulously.
‘No Colonel, our interrogation of the Sectoid Commander revealed that the famed Pyramids of Cydonia were constructed by Loki not the Goa’uld, although for the same reason the latter do on their own worlds’ Markov responded. ‘They are intended as landing platforms for Ha’tak ships in both cases’ she said.
‘Why?’ someone asked in confusion. ‘Why would Loki want to make it easy for Goa’uld ships to land?’
‘Loki has only fighters and relatively small warships’ Markov replied. ‘We know he has deliberately avoided building Capital Ships for fear of attracting the attention of the Asgard, but if he was to need them to fight the Replicators, who are the enemy his forces are intended to combat after all, a ready supply of suitable vessels already exists in the Milky Way.’
‘The little grey bastard was going to steal the damn things off the System Lords!’ O’Neill realised.
‘So it seems from our intelligence’ Markov confirmed. ‘Converting the hanger bays to carry his own fighters and adding additional elerium-based weaponry would be far quicker than building a six-hundred metre, multi-million tonne mothership from scratch’ she said. ‘We have done something very similar to the Enterprise after all with far less scientific knowledge at our disposal.’ she pointed out. ‘Asgard modifications to the existing Goa’uld hyperdrives and shields would greatly enhance their fighting potential as we know the upgrades Anubis has made to his own ships have done.’
‘If he had any you’d have to admire the cohones on the evil little shit’ an X-COM Colonel commented. ‘So when are we nuking the place to oblivion?’ he asked.
‘We’re not’ a new arrival responded before Markov could. ‘Keep your seats’ Commander Sharp told the military personnel who had started to get up. ‘Sorry I’m late Doctor’ he apologised to Markov before addressing the group. ‘After agreement from the X-COM IOC and the Governments of the Contributing Nations the decision has already been taken not to reduce the Cydonia Base from orbit’ he announced.
‘Why not Sir?’ The X-COM Colonel asked in confusion.
‘Long term necessity’ Sharp replied. ‘Loki might be a pain in the ass but basically his attacks on Earths are pin-pricks designed to obtain samples of genetic material from our population and test his latest military hardware’ the Commander said. ‘He has no interest in full scale invasion, planetary conquest, or genocide, he’s a thorn in our side not a threat to our very existence’ he continued. ‘The Goa’uld are the greatest danger we face and if we blew Cydonia to hell we could be throwing away our greatest advantage.’
‘Elerium’ Carter stated, jumping ahead.
‘Correct Major, our greatest military advantage over the goa’uld at the moment is that elerium powered plasma-beam weapons mean our F-302 fighters, and the new Avenger Corvettes coming into production, hit far harder than any comparable Goa’uld platform’ Sharp responded. ‘In the longer term I’m told we’ll eventually have elerium powered hyperdrives that unlike naquadah ones will be compact enough to fit on a fighter giving us another huge tactical advantage’ he continued. ‘The bitch of it is that the only source of is captured from the Sectoids because we cannot make it ourselves.’
‘X-COM isn’t going to let Loki continue to kidnap and experiment on people just so we can steal his wonder-fuel are they?’ O’Neill asked with rising anger, he had seen pictures of the results taken on captured craft.
‘Of course not’ Sharp replied with a snort of derision. ‘We’re going to build up our forces, go to Mars, land assault troops and take that fucking base away from them’ he declared, ‘seize their fighter and ship production lines and capture their entire elerium stockpile’ he added. It’s only a pity Loki isn’t there too, he thought bitterly to himself, according to intel the base was run by a computer with a copy of his consciousness on it, not the real thing unfortunately.
A ripple of surprised reaction went across the room. ‘You’re kidding’ O’Neill said eventually. ‘I saw in the reports how many of them were at their base in South America, that Cydonia place must be even bigger, a lot bigger’ he said. ‘It could be crawling with thousands of Sectoids, Ethereals and Mutons protected by hundreds of fighters and warships.’
Sharp shrugged. ‘Well I didn’t say I thought it would be easy’ he said, not adding he did think it was going to be fun.