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.
Cheyenne Mountain – Earth – February 2003
Judging from the fact he was so agitated he was practically bouncing up and down Jonas was either very excited, needed to cut down on the coffee, or else he had forgotten where the bathroom was on this level of the base. Given the man’s near-perfect recall O’Neill discounted the bathroom thing as an option. ‘What is it Jonas?’ he asked with a sigh, hoping it was going to be quick because he had a date with a lunch tray and it was Salisbury Steak today in the canteen.
‘Cassie’ Jonas blurted out, ‘I mean me and Cassandra, we’ve been spending some time together and...’
O’Neill narrowed his eyes, it didn’t seem likely but if the next sentence Jonas said included the word “pregnant” the Kelownan was shortly going to be picking his teeth off the floor. ‘And what?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Well it’s about Daniel’s ascension’ Jonas told him. ‘Sort of’ he added.
Okay this sounded less likely to end in violence O’Neill decided with relief. ‘What about Danny?’ he asked. ‘And where do you and Cassie come into this?’ he asked in confusion.
Jonas took a deep breath. ‘Well it’s like this Colonel’ he began, ‘as you know the X-COM psionics people dragged me into their research into Cassandra’s abilities because I’m the best subject for mental sparring available’ he said.
‘She’s way stronger than you but you’re still the best psi-guy around otherwise’ O’Neill interrupted. ‘I know this Jonas’ he stated.
‘Right’ Jonas replied, ‘so part of the last session involved Cassandra trying to selectively pull information from my mind in a more direct manner, trying to work like a high-powered version of the mind-probe device’ he said. ‘They wanted subjects, or topics, that provoked certain emotional reactions to see what difference it made to the outcome, fear or anger for example, so we worked our way through a few scenarios until we came to guilt’ he told him.
‘Guilt?’ O’Neill queried.
‘Yes, each emotion causes a slightly different reaction in certain areas of the brain and guilt is supposed to be interesting because of the way it triggers memories’ Jonas explained. ‘So when it came to guilt we needed a focal point so I decided that thinking about Doctor Jackson would get the right synapses firing’ he said.
O’Neill nodded his understanding. ‘Still harbouring some remorse there then I guess?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘You know you’ve more than redeemed yourself for anything you did, or didn’t do, regarding Danny since you joined the SGC’ he told Jonas sincerely. ‘Hell you’ve died for the cause, only temporarily but you did die’ he said, ‘hard to top that in the earning redemption stakes.’
‘I’d like to think so’ Jonas responded, ‘anyhow like I said I was thinking about Doctor Jackson and then Cassandra started probing my mind telepathically, looking to see what information she could pull out’ he continued. ‘That’s when she made a connection in her mind, I mean she learned something through me that she didn’t know, and that added to her own memories filled in an important gap.’
‘Can we cut to the chase, or else continue this at the canteen?’ O’Neill asked hopefully.
‘Colonel this is important’ Jonas told him with an unusual intensity in his voice. ‘You know I’ve read all of Doctor Jackson’s notes, and his work diaries’ he said. ‘Well among those there were entries regarding the false memories Shifu, the Harcesis child, placed in his mind.’
‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely as they say’ O’Neill quoted. ‘Good object lesson I thought at the time when he told me about it but I still wish sometimes those satellite things were for real not just a figment of his imagination’ he said regretfully.
‘That’s just it Colonel’ Jonas replied in earnest, ‘I don’t think that it was just imagination’ he said, ‘I think that Shifu didn’t make it all up, he was using actual ascended knowledge.’
O’Neill blinked. ‘Say what?’ he asked.
Jonas looked serious. ‘In the fantasy reality Shifu placed in Doctor Jackson’s mind Earth made defence satellites, extremely powerful energy weapons that could shred a Goa’uld Hat’ak’ he said. ‘They weren’t like the typical plasma-pulse weapons the System Lords normally use, they were beams, presumably making them far better able to cut through shields’ he said.
‘Same as how our Elerium Plasma Beams really do a number on them’ O’Neill replied, what was that analogy Carter liked to use, he recalled, an ice-pick not a blunt object, concentrate your firepower at a single point and burn through instead of trying to batter them down.
‘Right, we know the Goa’uld have got small-scale beams, like the Za’tarc weapon, but according to the Tok’ra they ran into problems scaling them up’ Jonas noted.
‘Probably copied a little Ancient gun they found and they don’t know enough about how it really works to make a big one’ O’Neill observed, the Goa’uld were okay at making crude monkey-model copies but innovation, or even improvement of technology, wasn’t exactly their strong suit. ‘Still waiting for the punch-line here Jonas’ he told him.
This time Jonas grinned. ‘The punch-line Colonel is that probably by accident we may now have a way to make the beam-weapons from Doctor Jackson’s fantasy reality’ he said.
‘To repeat myself earlier’ O’Neill replied. ‘Say what?’
Still grinning Jonas crossed his arms. ‘When Cassie was looking into my mind I was thinking about Daniel, trying to stir up that element of guilt the scientists monitoring us were after, this meant that the memories at the forefront of my mind she was reading concerned him and after a while one of those was about Shifu’ he said. ‘I was just sitting there when Cassandra suddenly yells out “AG-3 powered by heavy liquid naquada” and looked like she was going to jump out of her chair.’
O’Neill raised his eyebrows. ‘More explanation needed’ he said flatly.
‘In Daniel Jackson’s fantasy the power-source that made the defence satellites work was something called heavy liquid naquada’ Jonas told him, ‘and the satellites themselves were called AG-3, maybe AG-1 and 2 were prototypes or something’ he wondered, ‘but in any case that was in his diary and the point is Cassie didn’t know that.’
‘She read it out of your mind’ O’Neill replied.
‘No’ Jonas replied, ‘well yes, but the weird thing was she already knew the phrase’ he said. ‘It must have been buried in the back of her mind and when she was reminded of it everything came flooding back’ he said, uncrossing his arms again and starting to wave them about. ‘Right at the moment Doctor Jackson ascended we think he sent her a message, something that only a telepath might pick up.’
‘About a weapon from his dream’ O’Neill queried. ‘I’d have gone with tell everyone goodbye myself’ he said.
‘He was trying to help us, maybe he had to do so in a roundabout way because of some Ascended being rules and he thought this was a way around them or something’ Jonas theorised, ‘the point is that maybe it wasn’t just fantasy, maybe Shifu used real science but because we still didn’t have the resources needed it didn’t matter’ he said. ‘Okay, we know that liquid naquada is an allotrope of regular naquada’ he reminded the Colonel.
‘Little bucky-balls that flow like a liquid’ O’Neill replied, Carter had once shown him a picture after failing to explain the idea verbally, Elerium was the third allotrope of the trio.
‘Yes’ Jonas confirmed, ‘at the time Shifu was here Earth didn’t know that naquada also had a heavier isotope so it didn’t matter if he told us something he shouldn’t.’
‘Naquadria’ O’Neill interjected then his eyes widened. ‘Oh I see where this is going’ he declared. ‘Make the liquid allotrope out of the naquadria isotope instead of the regular stuff’ he realised.
‘Heavy liquid naquada’ Jonas agreed with a grin, ‘or as we would call it liquid naquadria!’ he exclaimed excitedly.
O’Neill laughed. ‘The Harcesis knew everything the Goa’uld knew, and I’ll bet that Ascended chick Oma told him even more stuff, but when you get right down to it he was still just a kid and made a rookie mistake’ he reasoned. ‘Like you said why not tell us what you could do with naquadria when we didn’t have any anyway?’
‘But now you do’ Jonas replied. ‘Doctor Jackson must have discovered this when he ascended and left us a hidden clue’ he said. ‘The sheer instability of naquadria means you wouldn’t want to mount a beam powered that way on a ship because there would be a good chance it could blow up every time you fired, and the probability of overload would go up every shot, but for unmanned satellites in space used as a last-ditch defence it wouldn’t matter so much’ he continued. ‘Even if a few failed with the first firing attempt and the others only get off a handful of shots before they explode they might still take out a small fleet of Ha’taks before they’re all gone.’
‘I’ll take some EMP screwing up the cell-phone network when the satellites go boom in orbit over a Goa’uld bombardment from space any day’ O’Neill responded sagely. ‘Have you run this by Carter?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I went to her first, she’s already talking to Area 51 about it’ Jonas replied. ‘We already know a lot about Plasma Beam weaponry thanks to Loki, this is basically tying together several known fields of research’ he said. ‘X-COM are already on the verge of deploying orbital lasers based on their free-electron designs so the targeting and control systems are practically off-the-shelf.’
‘Jumping the gun a little aren’t we Jonas?’ O’Neill asked rhetorically. ‘I mean this is still a whole new technology isn’t it?’
‘Maybe a little’ Jonas conceded, ‘but if Doctor Jackson thought it was worth telling us maybe it’s not too far away from being something we can actually deploy’ he said. ‘Add in the Heavy Ion Cannon the Tollan are going to supply to defend key installations, and the existing Orbital Weapon Programs, and even a combined fleet from several System Lords wouldn’t want to risk an attack’ he suggested.
‘Sounds too good to be true’ O’Neill commented.
‘Yeah well it would probably be a bit expensive’ Jonas admitted.
‘Care to put a price-tag on that?’ O’Neill asked. ‘Tens of millions?’ he queried, ‘Hundreds of millions?’
‘Tens of billions I’d think’ Jonas replied apologetically, ‘not including start-up costs and R&D’ he continued. ‘This planet only started producing ordinary liquid naquada in quantity in the last year or so and that was with help from the Tok’ra’ he said. ‘We know how touchy naquadria is so the existing industrial process would need serious modification to allow for that.’
O’Neill grimaced. ‘Ouch regarding the money and double-ouch regarding a naquadria plant doing a Chernobyl.’
‘I think the latter would be worth at least three of those’ Jonas replied. ‘Give or take a couple of orders of magnitude’ he joked. ‘Think your Government would be willing to throw that much money at this?’ he asked curiously.
‘It’ll be covering up that much expenditure that would be the problem’ O’Neill replied. ‘It’s already difficult enough to cover up the SGC and X-COM’ he said. ‘Maybe if there was a major war on we could hide the program within the spending there.’
‘Maybe you should just invade someone?’ Jonas suggested, tongue-in-cheek.
‘I’ll get General Hammond to run it past the President’ O’Neill replied in amusement.
Meanwhile in an artificial construct of a Diner on the higher planes of existence the ascended being known as Daniel Jackson was being told in no uncertain terms by Oma Desala that the others were extremely annoyed at him and if he thought he was going to get a second portion of pie while he had that smug expression on his face he had another thing coming.
NID Safehouse – North Dakota – February 2003
Frank Simmons opened the door to enter and immediately spotting the two guards lying dead or comatose just inside he reached for the handgun concealed in his jacket.
‘Naughty naughty’ a woman’s voice chided in an amused tone and he turned to see an attractive blond woman in an expensive and flowing designer dress pointing a zat’nik’tel at him. ‘They aren’t dead, merely stunned’ she told him. ‘Good minions are hard to find on this world so I thought it only civilised not to rob you of yours’ she said.
‘Sarah Gardner’ Simmons responded, taking his hand away from his automatic. ‘Or should I say Osiris?’ he asked rhetorically.
The woman’s eyes flashed. ‘You should’ Osiris replied. ‘Please step inside and close the door’ she told him. ‘We have a few things to talk about’ she said.
Simmons did as he was told and stepping over the prone form of the two NID agents on the floor he approached the goa’uld. ‘I heard through the grapevine that you were on the loose’ he said. ‘The rumours say Loki was thought to be involved?’ he added quizzically.
‘Ah yes my new sponsor’ Osiris confirmed, ‘he gave me an employment offer I couldn’t refuse’ she said with a chuckle. ‘Which is of course why I’m here’ she continued. ‘Loki has returned me to Earth to act as his representative on this world.’
‘And is spy no doubt’ Simmons observed.
‘Of course’ Osiris responded, ‘his people are simply not well suited for infiltration’ she said. ‘Too lacking in initiative and intelligence generally, and far too alien in the bug-eyed monsters from outer-space sense’ she noted.
‘Whereas you are human in appearance and have all the knowledge of your Earth-born host to help move seamlessly in our society’ Simmons replied. ‘Although I am wondering why exactly you sought me out?’ he queried.
Osiris laughed. ‘Now don’t be coy Frank’ she responded, ‘it didn’t take too much effort to determine that it was your rogue NID element that sent the communiqué to Loki via hyperwave regarding the Kelownans’ she said. ‘I do hope you’re not going to deny it?’
Simmons opened his mouth to do that very thing but thought better of it. ‘No that was us’ he confirmed.
‘No doubt hoping that if Loki knew of another human world with not only a large population but even more interesting genetics he would cease his operations here’ Osiris theorised.
‘Yes that was the idea’ Simmons told her. ‘Didn’t work though’ he said regretfully.
‘I must say I admire your ruthlessness’ Osiris told him appreciatively, ‘sacrificing the people of another world to protect this one.’
‘X-COM is better than the SGC but even they lack the stomach to always do what’s necessary for the good of this planet’ Simmons stated. ‘So I assume you’re not here to kill me but that rather you’re hoping to use me as a source of information?’ he asked flatly.
‘Of course’ Osiris replied. ‘We can be of mutual assistance to one another’ she said with a smile, putting her zat'nik'tel down. ‘Shall we talk in the kitchen?’ she asked, ‘I was making coffee when you arrived’ she told him, heading that way.
Simmons considered pulling his own pistol and shooting her in the back but the goa’uld was obviously planning to put more on the table than a cup of coffee and he wanted to know what the proposal was going to be here. Ever since X-COM got involved with the SGC his faction of the NID had been increasingly sidelined and undermined in its authority and increasingly power and influence over events was always the primary goal to anyone in his position. ‘White, two sugars’ he told her, following on.
Osiris waited until Simmons had sat down at the kitchen table and after handing him his beverage she indicated the box next to him as she sat down herself. ‘I parked a couple of blocks over and walked the rest of the way so you didn’t see a strange car outside triggering all that paranoia I’m sure you people have in abundance’ she said. ‘I passed a little bakery on the way and picked up some doughnuts on a whim’ she told him, ‘help yourself’ she offered, opening the box and taking one herself.
‘I’m trying to lose weight’ Simmons replied, ignoring the box.
‘Your loss’ Osiris responded, taking a bite of her doughnut, Sarah Gardner had liked these and contrary to Goa’uld disinformation quite a lot of the host remained, including dietary preferences on occasion.
Simmons idly wondered if the coffee was drugged or poisoned but eventually decided that was unlikely and took a sip from his cup, too much creamer he thought. ‘So how did you get here?’ he asked.
‘I stole a car’ Osiris replied after swallowing, ‘don’t worry I killed the driver and hid the body so they won’t be looking for it yet’ she told him, taking another bite.
‘I meant in the wider sense of how did you get to this planet’ Simmons responded, ignoring the utterly dispassionate way in which the goa’uld had informed him of the murder of a likely innocent human being.
‘Cloaked ship’ Osiris explained, ‘I was dropped off in the wilderness and had to reach what passes for civilisation on foot’ she complained. ‘Fortunately my host has the physical appeal to make being picked up as a hitch-hiker pretty simple so I only needed to reach the nearest highway and wait for the first letch to pull over’ she said.
Simmons nodded, Sarah Gardner was very attractive. ‘How did you find me?’ he queried.
‘It’s just a case of knowing the right person to mind-probe’ Osiris replied, ‘specifically the NID people who came to talk to me while I was incarcerated at Area 51’ she said. ‘They shouldn’t have used their real names, I found them in the telephone book.’
‘Did you kill them too?’ Simmons asked.
‘They suffered tragic accidents’ Osiris replied with a smirk, ‘but enough about my long quest to find you, lets talk about something more interesting to both of us’ she said.
The NID operative pushed away his coffee. ‘What do you want and what do I get in return?’ he wanted to know.
Osiris nonchalantly finished her doughnut before deigning to reply, the Goa’uld making sure that he knew who was in charge here. ‘Firstly I know you have access to the alien technology being stored or researched at Area 51 so I would very much like one of the Mimetic Imaging Devices used by the aliens that infiltrated the SGC in 1999 so I can move around more easily without having to switch hosts’ she began.
‘We can’t reprogram them, you would be stuck looking like one of the SGC personnel whose image was originally copied’ Simmons interrupted.
‘Just get me one for someone low-ranking and obscure, preferably somebody that has died or left the SGC since then’ Osiris replied. ‘Loki might be able to figure out a way to change it for me in any case.’
‘Stealing top-secret government property and handing it over to a hostile power is treason you know’ Simmons pointed out. ‘What can you possibly offer of equal value in return?’ he asked.
‘Goa’uld, Asgard and Sectoid technology’ Osiris replied, ‘the ability to go it alone without X-COM and the SGC’ she continued, ‘plus my friendship and that of Loki’ she added.
‘Friendship’ Simmons repeated sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
‘Think of it as having a conduit to us then’ Osiris suggested. ‘You scratch our backs, we’ll scratch yours as they say on this primitive parasite-infested planet’ she said.
For a second Simmons considered pointing out that the Goa’uld itself was a parasite and that most planets controlled by the System Lords were medieval backwaters but he restrained himself from going quite that far. ‘Or I could turn you in and become a hero’ he said instead.
‘Somehow I see you as preferring to be the man that pulled the strings from the shadows not the one in the limelight’ Osiris replied.
‘Fortunately we’re not all showboaters with delusions of godhood’ Simmons responded sardonically. It had long been apparent to him that the Goa’uld were obsessed with the trappings of power whereas it was the power itself that mattered whether or not people knew who had it. Having been recruited and trained by Harry Maybourne Simmons was perfectly aware of what really mattered, leave it to egotists like Kinsey to get the press coverage while others controlled the flow of events.
‘What makes you think that it’s a delusion?’ Osiris asked with a wry smile.
‘The number of your kind currently floating in formaldehyde at Area 51 hints at it’ Simmons told her. ‘So you said the Mimetic Device was your first request’ he said. ‘What else do you want?’ he asked.
‘An occasional piece of intelligence, the ability to use your contacts and resources to help aid my goals’ Osiris replied, ‘perhaps other trinkets from the dusty storerooms of Area 51 on occasion’ she said. ‘I know from my interrogation of my former interrogators that your group within the NID has been forging links with several industrial conglomerates to build a power-base outside government circles’ she continued, ‘I’d very much like a piece of that action’ she said.
Simmons leaned forward over the table. ‘High price for just a promise of goodwill and undefined offers of technology in the future’ he said. ‘I would want something concrete before making any kind of decision’ he told her, ‘for one thing I would have to convince others to go along with this.’
Osiris reached for another doughnut. ‘How would you like your own spacecraft?’ she asked. ‘More advanced than anything X-COM or the SGC can boast’ she said. ‘Loki has his own hyperspace capable transport ships, add in a cloaking device and the NID can start to operate independently again.’
Frank Simmons usually had a good poker face but he raised his eyebrows at the offer. ‘Elerium powered like the rest of his technology?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘I presume so’ Osiris replied.
‘Then no deal because we can’t get hold of the stuff’ Simmons told her.
Osiris pursed her lips. ‘How many tons of elerium in advance would it take to sweeten the deal?’ she asked.
‘Did you say tons?’ Simmons gasped, a few pounds of the material was priceless.
The Goa’uld smiled. ‘Shall we say five as a down-payment, loaded into the cargo bay of the ship and an ongoing arrangement to provide more?’ she asked. ‘Maybe a few crates of Sectoid weapons and ammunition thrown in?’ she suggested.
Simmons leaned back in his chair. ‘Okay, I’m interested’ he told her, reaching for a doughnut, he could always run it off later.
Bedrosian/Optrican Border – P2X-416 – March 2003
The lead elements of a full brigade of Bedrosian Air Cavalry riding armed shuttlecraft were already twenty-five miles into enemy territory and landing to secure the main road towards to regional capital before the Optrican Ground-Attack Aircraft arrived on the scene and started an abortive series of bombing and strafing runs that was soon abandoned when a squadron of Bedrosian Air-Superiority Fighters moved to counter them in turn.
The fighting at the border itself was already vicious and getting worse all the time, hundreds of thousands of soldiers on each side were immersed in what Bedrosia hoped would be the knock-out blow which would finally bring its rival to its knees, and with long-range bombers from both sides starting to hit targets deep into the others territory it might only be a matter of time before conventional warfare degenerated into an exchange of battlefield nuclear weaponry or worse.
Being as much an ongoing holy war as merely a clash of nations the intermittent decades-old fighting between the two powers had often been characterised by grim determination and willingly high loss of life for little gain but this time the stakes were much higher. The Bedrosian Leadership knew it had to grind the Optricans under quickly at any cost because this could very well be the last opportunity it would ever have to beat them, although they had been telling their population that the latest propaganda broadcasts from Optrica were nothing but a pack of lies the upper echelon of the government knew better They had in fact known for a number of years now that the other side was right and that the book of Nefertum, the foundation of their belief system, was false but they had opted to keep the discovery of the gateway a state secret hoping that if the truth was buried, figuratively and literally, then it didn’t really matter and that order and continuity were more important than inconvenient facts.
The only land bridge between the two warring continents was a narrow isthmus only a hundred miles wide and being heavily mined and fortified all the way across any advance along it was bound to be a hard-fought bloody slog even if things went well. This was the reason why Bedrosia had thrown its elite air-mobile units into the fray en-masse seeking to disrupt supply lines and prevent reinforcements moving to the border. Both sides used similar anti-gravity shuttlecraft for military purposes but the Optricans still lagged behind in using them effectively giving the Bedrosian High Command a tactical edge they hoped was large enough to win a quick decisive war of manoeuvre.
As the fighters duelled overhead the Bedrosian troops wondered when they too would face the enemy. The rumbling sound of distant artillery could be heard from the direction of the border as thousands of howitzers and field guns pounded each other and vapour trails in the upper atmosphere indicated that strategic bombers of both sides were heading towards their targets hundreds or thousands of miles distant.
Clutching his energy rifle in a manner reminiscent of a child and its favoured toy a young private of the 5th Bedrosian Air-Mobile Brigade watched entranced as a fighter exploded overhead. ‘Think that was one of ours or one of theirs?’ he asked the closest soldier who was doing likewise.
‘No idea, sure was pretty though’ the other soldier replied.
‘The Top Brass say the campaign will be over in six weeks’ the first noted. ‘Think that’s true?’ he asked.
‘My grandfather was told that during the Third Border Campaign’ the other one responded, ‘that one lasted eight years and a year later he was called back to fight in the Fourth Border Campaign’ he noted.
‘Fucking Optricans’ the private swore then grinned. ‘Did they really think we’d fall for that bullshit about people coming from the “other planet” they think we came from?’ he asked then laughed. ‘It’s like a whole country full of people following some weird cult made up by a science-fiction author.’
‘My Mom always said that the reason they’re so damn twisted is because atheists can’t be moral’ the other one told him. ‘If you don’t have the teachings of Nefertum to guide you what’s right and wrong where’s your moral compass?’ he asked rhetorically.
‘Makes sense’ the other agreed, the Book of Nefertum was the cornerstone of Bedrosian society, how the Optricans even functioned as a working civilisation without it was almost unfathomable although their heresy that Nefertum was in fact an evil monster who had enslaved their ancestors on another world and bought them here was truly sickening. Such blasphemy against the creator was proof of the righteousness of this war, they had to defeat the enemy once and for all so that another generation didn’t have to share this beautiful world Nefertum had created with the wretched heathens.
‘Oh oh, it’s the Old Man, we’d better grab a shovel and look busy’ the first soldier declared as he saw Commander Rigar approach, his limp unmistakeable as he barked out orders to his troops, berating some of them to dig-in and prepare to meet the inevitable Optrican counter-attack and praising those who had already done so. Although they did carry some heavy weapons with them in the transport shuttles they were mainly light-infantry and holding this position against more heavily armed enemy forces would be a hard-fought battle he knew.
Rigar looked around, he knew that if it wasn’t for the High Command being afraid of what he knew a man with his physical injuries would never have obtained a battlefield command again. They probably hoped he would be killed in action he decided as his troops readied themselves to face the Optricans.
The disheartening thing was he knew the damn enemy were right, he even knew that the gateway which had been buried during the Great Upheaval and later dug up by a small team of archaeologists was being studied by the top scientists and engineers Bedrosia had, but nonetheless he was here fighting to maintain a lie. In his heart he didn’t want to accept the truth, accept that the beliefs he had been raised with were false and that so many of his people had died for nothing, but he could never forget what he had seen no matter how much he would want to. Still a patriot he would fight for his country, and he didn’t want to let down the men and women under his command, but underneath he was an empty broken shell.
He still carried his well-worn copy of the Book of Nefertum in his pack, he still pretended to offer his prayers and devotion, because it was expected of him and good for morale, but it was just a myth and instead of offering comfort it just made him want to throw up every time he heard the Brigade Chaplain talk about the rightness of their cause and how victory was certain because Nefertum was on their side.
‘Sir, I think our guys have driven off the enemy aircraft’ one of the NCO’s called to Rigar, pointing into the sky where jet trails were now heading back towards the Optrican heartland. ‘Run you bastards’ he called out to them with a grin.
Rigar nodded with satisfaction, if they could maintain air-superiority then the campaign might conceivably go as well as the optimists at Military Intelligence were promising assuming of course that the Optricans didn’t start throwing nukes out of desperation. He watched a Bedrosian Fighter break off pursuit of the fleeing enemy and come in low performing a stylish victory roll that had most of the brigade cheering, the cheers being instantly silenced when a bright green beam of energy neatly speared the aircraft, effortlessly overloading its shields and blowing it apart.
‘What the fuck?’ someone exclaimed as thousands of Bedrosian soldiers watched the beam strike out again and again, destroying fighter after fighter.
Rigar looked in the direction the beams were coming from and as a massive shape approached through the sky the beliefs of his youth came to the forefront once again. ‘Nefertum protect us’ he gasped as a boxy aircraft of entirely unknown configuration and perhaps two hundred yards long moved towards them firing what must be some form of plasma or particle beam from its bow.
Fighters started to engage it but their own fire splashed harmlessly on a bubble-like shield that came into view for a brief moment every time it was struck. Both the Bedrosians and Optricans had force-field technology but nothing remotely that resilient and as the huge craft continued on its way it started firing other weapons from several turrets placed along its hull, laser beams perhaps but with the kind of wattage behind them you would only expect from the most powerful of the orbiting missile-defence satellites both nations had deployed. Seemingly less overwhelmingly powerful than the mysterious green beams the lasers nonetheless packed enough of a punch to deal with the Bedrosian fighters and they started to fall in greater and greater numbers as they attempted to fight back against the floating behemoth.
‘What the hell is it Sir’ a junior officer called out to Rigar.
‘The truth’ Rigar responded quietly, the Optricans had said in their propaganda broadcasts that people from the world they said was their home had arrived in a great starship and now here it was, fighting alongside them.
Aboard the USAF Prometheus Colonel Ronson watched with satisfaction as his ship knocked the Bedrosian fighters from the sky, they had given the Optrican government a Tollan built stargate only hours before the enemy attack and it’s first use had been to contact the SGC and request orders as to whether or not to intervene. The reply had come quickly, drive them back to the border and if they resort to nuclear, biological or chemical attacks head straight for the nearest command bunker known to be used by the enemy and beam a naquada-enhanced warhead into it repeating this action at bunker after bunker if necessary until they declared a ceasefire.
‘Sir there are Bedosian ground troops below us along with a large number of grounded shuttlecraft’ Major Gant reported. ‘Request permission to start taking them out’ she asked.
‘Hit the machinery not the men, no need to slaughter them’ Ronson replied.
‘Yes Sir’ Gant responded and two of the underside laser turrets swung around and started taking out the landed shuttlecraft which had bought Rigar’s brigade in. Firing every four seconds the laser cannon were overkill for the task, they were effective against armoured targets at over twenty kilometres and this was practically point-blank, with dozens of the shuttlecraft soon blazing wreckage, their crews and any nearby soldiers running away from them for dear life. A couple tried to take off but they barely got off the ground before they were flagged by the targeting computer on Prometheus as a priority target and taken out immediately.
With the ship now hovering directly above close enough to be in range of even their hand-weapons the Bedrosian soldiers started firing at it with their energy rifles. The act was clearly futile, the great ship did not even seem to think it was worth firing back and after the last fighter was shot down and the last shuttlecraft destroyed it simply resumed its course towards the border.
Rigar and his soldiers watched it leave, burning wreckage littered the area and thick smoke rose from the destroyed shuttlecraft as it went on its way. It had already passed out of sight when a blinding flash, heralded a Bedrosian tactical nuclear strike against Prometheus and Rigar watched a mushroom cloud rise over the horizon. The men started cheering again but they were soon cut short in their celebration by a transmission shortly afterwards that said the damn thing hadn’t even been scratched and that it was now heading across the border into Bedrosian territory at high speed laying waste to anything in its path.
The order to lay down arms and surrender arrived fifteen minutes later as the Bedrosian Government agreed a ceasefire after one of its most heavily fortified installations was destroyed by a nuclear device at least ten times more powerful than anything they had ever deployed. Rigar ordered his brigade to comply then walking away out of sight put the muzzle of his service pistol in his mouth and blew his own brains out.
Three days later the brigade was back in Bedrosia under arms enforcing martial law as the government fell into collapse with the story of the discovery of the gateway and the cover-up that followed soon leaking out. Religious leaders claimed it was all a trial set by Nefertum to test their faith and denied the existence of the gateways, radical groups then soon proliferated with terrorist attacks multiplying in short order as Bedrosian society collapsed into anarchy. Within the year Optrican peacekeeping troops backed by smaller contingents from Earth, Orban, Tollan and Pangar were the only thing holding the country together and the United Worlds was considering a formal request by Optrica to annex Bedrosia outright given that it was a failed state incapable of running its own affairs and that a longer-term solution than military occupation was needed.
The large crater which had been created by the underground detonation of a 1200 megaton warhead ended up on the maps as Lake Prometheus. Jack O’Neill inquired as to the fishing, given that he suspected the radiation might lead to giant trout or whatever the local equivalent was, but the Optrican Tourist Board advised that given the ongoing chaos on that side of the old border he would be better off trying elsewhere and sent him a brochure for a very nice resort in the mountains instead.
