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Omega Site – PX0-999 (Terra Nova) – May 2003
Kate Heightmeyer had never stepped through the stargate before but her sense of wonder was abruptly replaced by mystification then dismay when she emerged from the wormhole at the other end facing a sheer concrete wall. She looked around and realised she was in a completely empty square chamber ten yards on the side with no visible exits and she was completely alone with only the stargate for company which promptly powered down. ‘They sent me to the wrong planet’ she cried out aghast, there wasn’t even a DHD.
Heightmeyer looked around frantically but then laughter from above caused her to look up and she found she was at the bottom of a twenty metre deep pit with railings at the top and several men and women in uniform looking down at her. ‘Get me out of here’ she called up to them.
‘No can do Doctor’ someone called back, ‘you’ll have to come to us’ they said, laughing again.
Before she could reply Heightmeyer felt the ground beneath her move and then it became obvious that both the stargate and herself were resting on a platform which now began to rise quickly to bring it to the level of the people looking down on her. ‘Some kind of trick you play on every visitor?’ she asked as the platform reached the top of the pit and it became obvious that it was sunk into the floor of the huge underground chamber she had been expecting.
‘Yes Ma’am’ a grinning lieutenant in USAF uniform replied, ‘but technically it’s just a standard security measure’ he said. ‘If you’d care to step off the platform we can send it back down’ he told her. ‘Any uninvited guests to the Omega Site thinking it’s going to be easy to take over are going to find themselves in a hole with grenades being dropped down on them’ the lieutenant explained, ‘maybe Shock or Stun grenades if they’re lucky, otherwise frags or incendiary’ he said. ‘We can put a lid on the top of the pit with a forcefield too if we need to contain something, it seals hermetically’ he added.
‘I thought the Tollan stargate here already had a built-in forcefield for protection itself already?’ Heightmeyer queried remembering reading that in a briefing note somewhere. She got off the platform and it immediately began dropping back down.
‘It does, and one of our trinium/titanium alloy irises just in case’ the lieutenant told her. ‘We just like the extra level of security here’ he added.
‘So I see’ Heightmeyer replied, noting that there were also several automated weapons turrets set up to defend the complex from incursion via the gate and a dozen guards armed with a mixture of laser, plasma and projectile weapons. It was either extreme caution or paranoia at work she thought to herself. She was at least well used to these attitudes after a few years involvement with the military, eventually becoming attached to the Stargate program as one of the small team of psychiatrists who helped look after the mental health of the often stressed or traumatised SG teams.
‘Oh and we can fill the pit with heavier-than-air nerve gas or flood it with boiling oil or acid’ the lieutenant remembered.
Definitely paranoia, Heightmeyer decided after realising he was being utterly sincere.
The round chamber with the pit in its very centre was huge, easily a hundred times the floor area of the gate room at the SGC with a domed ceiling that reminded her of a cathedral. A trio of large hovertanks was parked against a far wall and a collection of Mighty-MALP armed robot probes and standard X-COM HWP’s of various types was nearby. ‘Was this place modelled on the secret lair of a Super Villain from James Bond?’ Heightmeyer joked.
‘Think larger scale, although we do sort of have a dungeon’ the Lieutenant replied with a shrug. ‘If you’d care to follow me Ma’am I’ll take you to the Commander’s office’ he told her, leading off.
‘Aren’t you going to verify my identity?’ Heightmeyer asked.
‘You were scanned for weapons or the presence of a Goa’uld symbiote in the pit’ the officer replied. ‘And you were also subjected to a low-level psionic screening’ he added.
‘Without my permission?’ Heightmeyer responded indignantly.
‘Just a surface scan, nothing intrusive into your memories’ the Lieutenant told her. ‘The Omega Site is run entirely on X-COM security principles now, we all get deep-scanned and checked by a Tok’ra za’tarc detector when assigned here and we’re subject to random re-testing.’
‘That must cut down on volunteers’ Heightmeyer observed.
‘If you’ve got nothing to hide you have nothing to fear Ma’am’ the officer replied evenly. ‘Area 51 might have been compromised and the SGC has been subject to alien takeover but the Omega Site is secure’ he said.
The terminus for a small underground railway was at the exit of the chamber but the Lieutenant told her the Commander’s officer was only a couple of hundred yards away so they wouldn’t need to wait for the next train. The complex had been growing in size for over a year and a half now and between tok’ra tunnel crystals and naquada/potassium blasting charges it was so easy to carve the base out of the rock that the engineers had probably gone a little over the top.
‘How far down are we?’ Heightmeyer asked, intrigued as they walked down a corridor that looked very much like one at the SGC.
‘About two miles below the surface’ the lieutenant told her. ‘Most of the base is down at this level but of course the aircraft hangers and the missile silos aren’t too far below ground by comparison’ he continued. ‘We all try and get up top every couple of days to see the sky and get some sun’ he said. ‘Terra Nova is a very nice planet, great climate.’
Heightmeyer knew that only a couple of hundred personnel were ever based here. It might be an underground bunker but they certainly weren’t crowded in here. The place was already supposed to be considerably larger than Cheyenne Mountain and Area 51 combined and they were now carving out sufficient space for additional barracks and storerooms that could provide accommodation and supplies for thousands of people long-term. It was the ultimate bolt-hole if Earth fell to hostile alien attack, it also housed a considerable arsenal of naquada-enhanced nuclear weapons that would be subsequently dropped on the homeworlds of whoever was responsible as well.
It had been intended originally that the Omega Site would see a large influx of personnel this year, with manufacturing lines established there, but from what Heightmeyer had heard it now looked like they were going to be assigned to Cydonia instead. Loki’s former base had been captured largely intact from a structural point of view and after a preliminary inspection by a team of scientists and engineers they had recommended it was well worth converting the existing large underground hangers and workshops to produce Earth warships instead. Hopefully once Atlas, the second BC-303 being constructed at Area 51 was completed the crews would be able to transfer to Mars and begin to work on subsequent capital ships.
‘So how do you like the new boss?’ Heightmeyer inquired.
‘No opinion’ the lieutenant replied.
‘I was only making conversation, I’m not here to evaluate anyone’ Heightmeyer told him.
‘With all due respect Ma’am you’re a shrink, it’s all mind games all the time’ he responded flatly.
‘What makes you think so?’ Heightmeyer asked.
‘My girlfriend back home is a psychology major’ the Lieutenant told her knowingly. ‘We’re here’ he said, reaching a door and knocking before taking his leave.
Kate Heightmeyer hadn’t known quite what to expect but finding Commander Sharp wearing Bermuda shorts and a khaki t-shirt, stood on a chair hanging a display case on the wall behind his desk hadn’t been high on her list. ‘Does that look straight to you from over there?’ he asked her.
‘Um... yes’ she replied after a pause.
‘Good’ Sharp replied brightly, stepping off the chair. ‘Take a seat Doctor, I haven’t been putting my dirty footprints on that one’ he said dusting his off before pulling it nearer to his desk and sitting down. ‘So how can I help you?’ he asked. ‘If this is a surprise psych evaluation I’m feeling quite sane today’ he told her.
Heightmeyer sat down, she had met the Commander before at a symposium held at Area 51 that was discussing the effects of the severe PTSD that was endemic amongst X-COM Troops but on that occasion his clothes hadn’t been quite so informal. ‘I’m not here for that Commander’ she replied, ‘although this is regarding your mental health and that of your people’ she said.
‘I’m not going to stop taking the drugs and I won’t recommend that any other X-COM soldier does either’ Sharp responded curtly.
‘It’s not about that either, although we’re still not sure about the long-term effects on your minds that will result from all those nootropics’ Heightmeyer replied. ‘This is about counselling’ she said.
Sharp sighed. ‘Of course it is’ he said.
‘I don’t think you’re setting a good example’ Heightmeyer told him. ‘The same is true of all the other high-ranking X-COM officers’ she continued, ‘because you don’t ever seek help dealing with your psychological trauma it means that doing so is almost frowned upon’ she said. ‘It’s a culture which stops people seeking the help they need because if they see someone like myself, or even one of the padres, others in their units mock or deride them for being weak.’
‘Doctor the only reason some of the troops are still functional is precisely because they don’t spend much time being introspective’ Sharp stated. ‘It’s not misplaced machismo it’s good policy’ he opined.
Heightmeyer raised an eyebrow and gave him a disparaging look. ‘Do you really believe that?’ she asked.
‘Yes’ Sharp replied. ‘If X-COM Troopers were totally sane, rational and balanced they’d never get out of the Avenger’ he said. ‘Do you know how many permanent fatalities we suffered taking the Cydonia Base?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘The crazy is what kept us in the game.’
‘We’re no longer in a situation where X-COM UFO Retrieval Teams are going to be seeing that kind of action on a regular basis Commander’ Heightmeyer pointed out. ‘With Loki driven off Mars and the orbital defences soon to be deployed over Earth it’s not going to be the same bloody campaigns any more’ she said. ‘We can start considering the long-term well-being of our men and women in uniform’ she said. ‘Or in garish shorts for that matter’ she added with a smile.
‘Technically I’m off-duty but I also got behind in doing my laundry’ Sharp explained his apparel. ‘Blood is a bitch to wash out’ he said. ‘Little fire-fight over on P3X-367 yesterday, I ended up using a dying Jaffa for cover and he bled all over me’ he explained.
‘Did you lose anyone?’ Heightmeyer asked.
‘No’ Sharp replied, ‘we took a couple of wounded but the base sarcophagus fixed them up good as new’ he said happily.
Kate Heightmeyer smiled. ‘That’s the point’ she said. ‘Fighting the Goa’uld isn’t like fighting Loki’s creatures, you don’t have to treat your soldiers the same way to get them through the next battle’ she noted. ‘With less dangerous aliens you can afford to start acting more... human’ she told him.
Sharp looked at her. ‘Take a proper look at the display case I was hanging on the wall when you arrived’ he told her.
Puzzled the psychiatrist examined the glass fronted wooden box more carefully, it seemed to contain small gold symbols which took her a moment to recognise. ‘Those look a little like the insignia on Teal’c’s forehead’ she said.
‘Each one cut from the dead body of a First Prime belonging to one Goa’uld or another’ Sharp told her. ‘The boys and girls collected them for me’ he said.
Heightmeyer was horrified. ‘That’s appalling’ she said.
‘That’s psychology’ Sharp responded, ‘my kind of applied psychology’ he told her. ‘I want to make the System Lords too scared to fight the Tau’ri’ he said. ‘I want their Jaffa slave armies to fear us like the wrath of god, to believe that if they attack Earth or its allies then I will rain unfathomable death and destruction upon them.’
‘Why?’ Heightmeyer asked, almost shocked by the intensity in his voice.
‘Because Earth needs to punch above its weight’ Sharp replied, ‘we’re still drastically outgunned in capital ships and the Goa’uld still control most of the galaxy’ he continued. ‘The thing we do better than anyone else is ground combat and I’m going to unleash something on the System Lords they’ve never seen before’ he said. ‘Once I start putting veteran X-COM Troopers through the gate in platoon strength, company strength with artillery, armour and air-support then we’ll start to see real results’ he told her. ‘Fighting Loki has moulded X-COM into a sword, it’s been honed to a razor’s edge and while it’s still got that edge, while our forces are still at the very peak of capability, battle-hardened, ruthless and frankly vicious as hell, I’m going to plunge that sword into the guts of the enemy’ Sharp declared, eyes blazing. ‘You can give my people all the counselling they need after I’m finished with them which will be after I’m finished with the Goa’uld.’
Heightmeyer blinked. ‘They’re not tools or pieces on a playing board’ she said.
‘They’re weapons, just like me’ Sharp responded. ‘I appreciate your concern Doctor but it’s been a wasted trip if you were intending to ask me to encourage the troops to accept your help’ he said before his expression shifted to a smile. ‘Now if you’d like the ten-cent tour of the base before heading back to the SGC I’ll happily oblige’ he offered. ‘I will need to detour to the laundry though’ he continued apologetically, ‘I need to transfer my clothes to the drier, they should be finished in the washing machine by now.’
Sharp got up and retrieved a pistol belt with an empty holster which he put on. ‘We all go armed here at all times’ he told her, opening a drawer on his desk and taking out a plasma pistol. ‘Custom job’ he said, holstering it, ‘trinium handle with my rank-insignia embossed onto it, present from the armourers at Yamantau’ he told her. They were making a matching pair of the things for the gunslinging Sergeant Andianov at his request with the XSGCOM 1 badge on them instead, he thought she’d get a kick out of it and he really did care about his people, he was just willing to sacrifice them for the greater good more readily than basically nice, caring people like Heightmeyer would ever countenance.
Ruins of Vis Uban – P4T-3G6 – June 2003
‘This place needs a name change’ O’Neill opined as they trekked from the stargate towards what seemed the most intact part of the ruined city. Jonas had been explaining to SG-3 accompanying them on the mission that Vis Uban translated from Ancient into “Place of Great Power” but looking at the state of it now “Place in need of redevelopment” suited it better. ‘How about “Visitors advise Urban Renewal” instead?’ he suggested.
‘From what we can tell it wasn’t ever finished Sir’ Carter responded. ‘As far as we know this was the last city that the Ancients ever built before the plague destroyed their civilisation’ she said. ‘That’s why it was the very last in the list of gate addresses that you uploaded to the SGC computers when you were carrying their library of knowledge around.’
‘An experience which was only mildly to be preferred to when we all caught the damn plague from that defrosted Ancient in Antarctica’ O’Neill replied, he still wasn’t entirely convinced that they shouldn’t all be wearing hazmat suits for this mission. ‘Jonas are we sure that the Lost City is going to have what we need to beat the Goa’uld once and for all?’ he asked.
Jonas had been taking pictures with a digital camera as he went. ‘It’s the “City of the Lost” not the “Lost City” Colonel’ he replied. ‘I know we mistranslated it from the tablet we found on Abydos at first but after checking with Doctor Jackson’s notes from Heliopolis I’m pretty sure I’ve got it right now’ he said. ‘This was going to the be the new capital of the Ancients so it’s likely all their best stuff was here and if they abandoned the city in a hurry because of the plague there’s certainly a good chance they left a lot of it behind.’
Carter nodded. ‘Considering all the other stuff we know they just left lying around, including almost all the technology that enabled the Goa’uld to dominate the galaxy, Jonas could have a point’ she agreed. ‘They were very bad at clearing up after themselves’ she said. ‘We’ve already got a team scouring the original Ancient sections of the Cydonia Base Loki took over to see if there are any nice pieces of hidden Ancient technology to be found there.’
‘The haul of Loki tech they found was good enough for me Carter’ O’Neill replied. ‘All that Elerium and those new fighters for us to take apart’ he said gleefully. ‘Finally we get Phasers’ he declared enthusiastically.
‘Phase Cannon Sir, they’re calling them Phase Cannon not Phasers’ Carter corrected him, ‘and it could be a long time before they figure out how they actually work’ she noted. ‘Regarding the elerium although we captured the base stockpile intact we still have no idea how Loki makes it’ she said. ‘We might be okay now for a couple of years but all the elerium we burn for fuel or powering weapons is still irreplaceable’ she said.
Killjoy, O’Neill thought to himself. ‘I still think we should call them phasers’ he told the others.
‘You managed to get our first Ha’tak named Enterprise Colonel, isn’t that enough?’ Carter asked with a sigh.
‘Perhaps you are unaware of this O’Neill but in the Star Trek prequel series called Enterprise the ship carries weapons that are themselves called Phase Cannon’ Teal’c announced.
‘They are?’ O’Neill responded, ‘well cool, I can live with that then’ he said in a rather more chipper tone of voice.
Andianov muttered something in Russian that she quickly indicated to Jonas she didn’t want translated, the way she said it and the way she rolled her eyes meant the meaning was fairly self-evident anyway, she prided herself on being the least geeky member of SG-1.
Colonel Reynolds and the rest of SG-3 ignored the banter, it was well known that SG-1 were weird and foolishly getting involved in their chit-chat was the road to insanity. Not so much an exploration team like SG-1 or SG-2 they were the people who the other teams bought along to provide fire-support and they did it very well, earning the reputation that if it was going to hit the fan then you wanted the Marines of SG-3 along to back you up. They weren’t sure why the hell they had been assigned to this obvious cake-walk, and Breytenbach the sole X-COM member of the team was already looking very bored, but at least it wasn’t raining Reynolds decided as they followed O’Neill’s people towards the city.
O’Neill told SG-3 to wait outside the city and scout around while he led SG-1 into the streets and alleyways of what had once been a major metropolis, but now reminded him more of the sort of dilapidated places archaeologists were enthusing about when he went to the wrong channel on cable. They had begun seeing signs of much more recent human habitation as soon as they arrived but towards the centre of the ruins they came across a large number of people that Carter and Jonas theorised were some nomadic tribe that had set up home in the more intact areas of Vis Uban.
‘Greetings’ Jonas began. ‘We’re travellers... from a planet called Earth’ he announced himself to the current residents. ‘Well I’m from another world called Langara and Teal’c here is from Chulak but three of the five of us are from...’
‘Jonas you’re confusing the locals’ O’Neill told him. ‘Hi folks’ he greeted the people now all looking at the interlopers nervously.
‘You came through the chappa’ai?’ one asked, he seemed braver than most and approached them.
‘Yes the chappa’ai, the stargate’ Jonas confirmed.
‘My name is Khordib’ the one who had spoken introduced himself. ‘He is Jaffa’ he added, pointed to Teal’c.
‘I no longer serve the Goa’uld’ Teal’c stated. ‘I am of the Free Jaffa allied to the Tau’ri of Earth’ he declared.
‘We have heard recently of the Jaffa Rebels from traders and other travellers’ Khordib replied. ‘My people have long moved between the worlds fleeing the oppression of the Goa’uld’ he said.
‘Smart move’ O’Neill told him, most primitive peoples avoided the stargates thinking them the source of evil and the System Lords had encouraged the belief because it kept most humans conveniently bottled-up on their own homeworlds. ‘Hey Teal’c your guys must be getting famous’ he told his friend.
‘Indeed O’Neill’ Teal’c replied, pleased at that though his expression didn’t shift. The increasingly numerous Staff-Rifle armed Free Jaffa forces had launched many successful attacks on the System Lords over the last two years, emerging victorious from the overwhelming majority of battles thanks to superior tactics and a basic weapon that was simply much more likely to hit what you fired it at.
A man that O’Neill would have correctly pegged as the tribal elder and leader emerged from a tent looking like he had been enjoying an afternoon nap. ‘Shamda these are travellers like us’ Khordib told the elder.
‘No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust them’ Shamda replied.
‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ O’Neill responded sagely.
‘Enemies promises were made to be broken’ Shamda countered.
‘And yet, honesty is the best policy’ O’Neill observed.
Shamda was not about to let this stranger out-wisdom him. ‘He that has too many friends has none’ he said.
‘Ah, but birds of a feather...’ O’Neill began.
‘I’m unfamiliar with that story’ Shamda interrupted, ‘what lesson does it teach?’ he asked.
It has to do with flocking’ O’Neill replied, ‘and togetherness’ he continued, ‘and to be honest, I'm not that familiar with the particulars myself’ he said. ‘The point is, we're not your enemy. Give us a chance to prove it’ he requested.
‘This place is not our original home’ Khordib admitted, ‘but we have been here for some time now’ he said. ‘If you wish to lay claim…’
‘No we just want to look around and learn a little more about your people if we may’ Jonas told him. ‘We’re explorers and seekers after wisdom’ he said.
‘The only thing worth seeking’ Shamda commented. ‘Lives come to an end, homes and possessions can be lost...’ he said.
‘but knowledge passed to the next generation is eternal’ O’Neill interrupted him this time.
Shamda bowed his head in affirmation. ‘Our people can carry little burden with them when we move on but our minds carry everything else we need’ he said. ‘If you seek wisdom from this place we ask only to share what you may learn’ he said.
‘I’m not sure your understanding of physics is up to it but okay’ O’Neill agreed. ‘Carter do you think we could maybe get one of those UNHCR teams in here to maybe give these people a medical check-up and maybe some relief supplies?’ he asked his second-in-command. ‘They did okay with the Free Jaffa’ he recalled.
‘Good idea Sir, the IOA like the Hearts and Minds stuff’ Carter agreed. ‘When we dial the SGC with our preliminary report we can suggest it to General Hammond.’
‘There’s writing in Ancient all over the place’ Jonas noted, pointing to a nearby column. ‘I might need to call in a lot of help to record it all and translating it could take months’ he said.
‘Months?’ O’Neill responded with a groan.
‘Most of our people that are best at translating Ancient are already earmarked for the Heliopolis expedition’ Jonas told him.
‘Couldn’t we steal a couple of them?’ O’Neill queried. ‘I mean if it comes to a fight between me and the guy they put in charge of that I can take him’ he declared. ‘He’s in his eighties.’
‘Chronologically Sir but when they decided that Doctor Littlefield was clearly the man for the job and took a look in his medical file they thought it might be best to take off a few years’ Carter replied. ‘They’ve been putting Ernest in a sarcophagus for a few hours once a week and once he’s considered fit enough they’re going to inject him with the Aschen anti-aging vaccine’ she said. ‘Catherine Langford is going to get the same treatment, she refused to let him go through the stargate without her again.’
‘Well they owed him a few years back after he got stuck on that rock for half a century’ O’Neill reasoned. It was amazing the poor bastard had ended up as sane as he did after all those years alone.
Colonel Reynolds appeared. ‘Colonel’ he said to O’Neill. ‘We were scouting around like you said and you aren’t going to believe what we found out there’ he said.
A figure wearing the same clothes as the locals was following on behind Reynolds and another member of SG-3. O’Neill stared for a second. ‘Daniel?’ he said.
‘In the flesh’ Reynolds confirmed, ‘I poked him to check and he poked me back’ he explained. On Abydos Doctor Jackson had been far less corporeal.
‘Arrom’ Khordib said. ‘We call him Arrom it means “Naked One” because that’s how we found him in the forest two moons ago’ he explained.
‘He doesn’t remember who he is’ Reynolds announced.
O’Neill frowned. ‘Okay’ he said doubtfully, ‘Jonas could you take a look?’ he requested.
‘Sorry?’ Jonas responded.
‘In his mind, use your Psi Amp’ O’Neill explained patiently. ‘It could be a clone, a robot or something else’ he said.
Carter approached Daniel as Jonas unhooked the Psionic Amplifier from his belt. ‘It’s okay Daniel, we’re just going to make sure you’re okay’ she told him soothingly.
‘Do you not recognise us Daniel Jackson?’ Teal’c asked.
‘I’m sorry’ Daniel replied, he was now watching Jonas and the strange device nervously.
‘Maybe he was kicked out for disobeying the Ascended rules like Anubis was only more thoroughly’ Carter suggested. ‘He said on Abydos the others were basically pissed at him interfering’ she reminded them.
‘With his memory wiped?’ O’Neill queried.
‘Well they didn’t wipe all the knowledge of the Ancients from Anubis’s mind and look where that got them’ Carter replied reasonably.
Jonas scanned Jackson’s mind. ‘It’s a mess in there but I think it’s him’ he said. ‘If anything I’d say his memories are scrambled and disconnected not erased’ he said. ‘He’s not wiped, it’s more like his processor can’t access his hard drive properly if you want an analogy.’
‘But why is he here?’ O’Neill asked.
‘Because the Ascended Ancients knew that Jonas or someone else would eventually translate the Tablet we found on Abydos and come here’ Carter reasoned.
‘Well why couldn’t they have just dumped him naked at the SGC?’ O’Neill asked. ‘Okay, maybe his last request before expulsion from paradise was “don’t dump me off naked at the SGC, let me get some clothes on first before you get me back to my friends” or something’ he surmised after giving it more thought.
Daniel wasn’t quite following much of the conversation but for his part he couldn’t exactly say that he liked being called “Naked One” so the strangers argument did resonate a little.
Sergeant Andianov passed Teal’c her rifle and then walked straight across to Daniel. She kissed him on both cheeks and thinking that Americans clearly had no idea how this was supposed to be done she then hugged him.
A beaming smile on her face Andianov broke off the hug and turned back to O’Neill. ‘Should I stun Doctor Jackson for transportation back to the SGC Colonel?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary Sergeant’ O’Neill told her.
‘It is good to have you back’ Andianov told Jackson before returning to take her rifle back from Teal’c.
Jonas was smiling as well although a little voice at the back of his head reminded him that he had Jackson’s old office and if his memory came back he might want that back too.
Cheyenne Mountain – Earth – June 2003
Sitting at his desk General Hammond watched the holographic projection of Earth spinning on its axis in front of him with a number of red satellites now also being projected around it in a variety of orbits. The projector itself was a modified Goa’uld device which they had been playing with at Area 51 for a while and it could now be used to produce just about any image you wanted it to by simply plugging it into a regular laptop. ‘Deployment of the ZapSat’s will begin tomorrow’ Doctor Bill Lee told Hammond. ‘Since this will require the use of the other stargate and its DHD there may be some disruption of the SGC schedule for a few days I’m afraid but it’s simply the easiest way to get them all up there’ he said. ‘They’re currently transferring the units to the Omega site via the gate in Poland and once they’re there an Avenger will carry the Polish gate into Earth orbit ready to receive the first ZapSat once they’re in position and have plugged in the DHD making that gate the Earth Alpha’ he told the General.
‘Are we really calling them ZapSats?’ Hammond asked.
‘The nickname stuck but officially they’re still L.D.O.’s or Laser Defence Orbitals’ Lee replied, pressing a button on his laptop which changed the image being projected. ‘As you can see each L.D.O. is a self-contained unit about fifteen yards long that can just fit through the diameter of a stargate when they’ve got their solar panels folded in’ he said. ‘They’re designed to look a lot like photo-reconnaissance satellites so if anyone sees them up there they’ll likely just assume they’re not on the official lists because they’re someone’s secret spy birds launched in secret’ he noted.
Hammond nodded. ‘What kind of firepower are we talking?’ he asked.
‘Enough to take out a Sectoid Battleship with one shot’ Doctor Lee replied. ‘It would take several firing together to be a threat to a Ha’tak but we’re launching twenty of them in the first batch so any small scale Goa’uld assault is going to get shot to pieces’ he said. ‘The satellite contains twelve Orbanian naquada generators which power the shield, the capacitors for the laser and the cloaking device.’
‘Cloaking device?’ Hammond asked quizzically, this was the first he had heard of that.
‘Yes, it’s a copy of the one fitted to the Tel’tak we purchased from the Tok’ra’ Lee explained. ‘If an attack is deemed imminent all the satellites will cloak and then reposition themselves’ he said. ‘As soon as they start firing, giving away their location, the cloak will drop and the shield raises instead’ he continued, ‘if the enemy start firing at the satellites they’re designed to automatically increase the proportion of their reactor capacity which is being shunted into the shield.’
‘Reducing the rate of fire’ Hammond reasoned. More power to the shield was less to the beam capacitors taking them longer to charge. ‘Still it’s better than letting them get taken out completely’ he decided. ‘The targeting systems and scanners are taken from salvaged ships belonging to Loki correct?’ he asked.
‘Yes, they tried to use as much off-the-shelf equipment as possible to reduce costs but with the shields and cloaking devices each ZapSat still costs a fortune if you include the R&D expenditure’ Lee replied. ‘The second batch will bring the unit costs down but affording them still means that the third BC-303 definitely isn’t going to get built now, there’s likely to be at least six months break in capital ship production before they start building the first of the intended X-304’s at the new shipyard at Cydonia’ he said.
‘The best defence is a good offence’ Hammond observed. ‘Do we have any news on the naquadria based satellites?’ he asked.
Lee chuckled. ‘Well they say we’ve finally got a reasonably safe manufacturing method for producing liquid naqudria but you can’t exactly mass produce the stuff because the process of changing one allotrope of the stuff into the other requires a very ginger touch’ he said. ‘I heard that the Tollan blew a new crater in their moon trying to come up with a faster method, no casualties fortunately they were smart enough to be running the experiment remotely.’
‘But there’s progress?’ Hammond checked.
‘Let me put it this way, we could be looking at beam weapons that make elerium powered ones look like my laser pointer’ Bill Lee enthused. ‘You’d definitely want them mounted on unmanned platforms, because as we thought liquid naquadria is even less stable than the normal kind, but as a power-source it’s awesome’ he said. ‘It’ll burn through Ha’tak shields in seconds’ he told Hammond.
‘Or blow up on firing’ Hammond replied.
‘Yes that’s also possible’ Lee admitted. ‘The L.D.O.’s aren’t nearly as powerful but they’re much more reliable’ he conceded.
Hammond checked his watch. ‘Thank you for the update Doctor Lee’ he said, ‘now if you’ll excuse me I have to attend a meeting with SG-1’ he told him. ‘If you could give Walter a list of all the times you expect stargate mission activity to be effected by the use of the other gate he’ll make sure it all runs smoothly’ he said confidently.
For some reason although his memories were frankly swiss-cheese and only returning in dribs and drabs Daniel Jackson had discovered he could not only still read Ancient he actually seemed to understand it much better than he had before, soon correcting the translation Jonas had made of the tablet using Jackson’s own notes.
Feeling extremely self-conscious Daniel listened to Jonas as he went through the initial findings of the mission to Vis Uban. ‘Oh, so, uh…There are extensive writings’ Jonas began. ‘All of them are in the oldest known Ancient dialects. All of them have yet to be translated but, uh, so far, we haven't found any signs of any advanced weapons or power sources’ he said. ‘I mean, the original name of the city is Vis Uban which does translate as place of great power but there's no indication that we're going to find any means of defeating Anubis there’ he told General Hammond and the rest of SG-1 sat around the table.
‘You’re not’ Daniel said, looking at the tablet again. ’It’s not the Lost City’ he announced.
‘How do you know?’ O’Neill queried.
‘Uh, because Jonas translated lacun to mean 'of the lost' and it doesn’t say that’ Daniel replied. ‘I know you said you used by notes but I was way off’ he continued, ‘it does say the Lost City not the city of the lost like you thought originally.’
‘But how did the Ancients lose one of their own cities?’ Jonas asked in confusion.
‘They didn’t’ Daniel replied, ‘they made it lost’ he said. ‘Made it so other people looking for it couldn’t find it’ he explained. ‘I'm guessing that they camouflaged it and removed all reference to it from the written history’ he said.
‘The Nox hide their city behind an advanced cloaking field’ Teal’c noted. ‘It is likely the Ancients had a similar technical ability, perhaps they did the same?’ he suggested.
‘So. The lost city is…still lost? O’Neill asked.
‘I’m pretty sure’ Daniel replied. It was odd but the longer he found he was with these people the more flashes of memory he got. It wasn’t anywhere close to filling in the massive blanks but he was becoming certain that these genuinely were his closest friends.
Chief Master-Sergeant Harriman knocked and entered in a hurry. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt General but we’ve just received an urgent message from Langara’ he announced. ‘The major cities of Kelowna, Tirania and the Andara Federation have all come under massive attack by Loki’s forces’ he told them. ‘According to reports ships are landing and thousands of alien troops are attacking civilians, killing them or dragging them off’ he said. ‘The combined three airforces have been completely unable to stop them despite Kelowna launching several of their new Surface to Air Missiles armed with naquadria warheads.’
Jonas Quinn looked shocked to the core. ‘Langara can’t fight a full-scale invasion’ he said, ‘we’re at least half a century behind Earth even with your back-engineered alien technology.’
‘It sounds more like a massive raid than an actual invasion for now but both Tirania and the Andari say they have received an ultimatum via radio that they should surrender and allow their citizens to be taken without a fight’ Harriman told them. ‘They both told Loki to go to hell’ he added.
‘My people will fight’ Jonas declared.
‘It’s bolt-action rifles against plasma weapons Sir’ Carter told Hammond. ‘All three militaries have a few jets and rocket-powered fighters based on technology we gave them but most of their aircraft are still propeller-driven, they’ll be slaughtered if they try to stop Loki’s ships landing.’
‘Would that stop us trying?’ O’Neill asked rhetorically. He was willing to bet that the three militaries on Langara were doing their duty despite the losses, he had read plenty of reports about the casualties their equivalent of X-COM had taken fighting the aliens already not to give them the respect they deserved.
‘They’re asking for urgent assistance Sir’ Walter told Hammond.
‘We can get together a few teams, get the available X-COM people moving but do we have the numbers?’ Carter wondered aloud.
‘Get everyone’ O’Neill said.
‘I’m sorry Colonel?’ Hamond replied.
‘Get everyone’ O’Neill repeated with emphasis. ‘The Optricans probably have whole battalions they can send immediately, and they’ve got plenty of high-tech kick-ass weaponry of their own’ he began. ‘Pangar, Tagrea and Orban have decent enough militaries too, not up to our standards but they’ve all been training them to fight a possible alien invasion’ he said. ‘Hell, ask the Tollan, they’ve got troops and you never know’ he said. ‘If nothing else they can get hold of the Asgard and say we could really do with some ships to keep Loki’s fleet off our backs, the Tollan have got the power-generation to dial inter-galactic whenever they want, right?’ he asked Carter who nodded.
‘Do you think they’d come?’ Jonas asked desperately, ‘all these worlds?’
‘If they ever expect one of the other planets to help them if they’re ever in the same situation they’d damn well better’ Hammond declared, standing up. ‘Walter after you dial the Omega site and tell Commander Sharp we need him and his troops dial up the Optrican’s next, they’ve got the largest best equipped military we know of, they’re already combat-hardened from fighting the Bedrosians and they owe us a favour for helping them whup the Goa’uld worshipping idiots anyway’ he said. ‘Colonel get every SG combat team we can muster ready, I’ll talk to the Pentagon and the IOA.’
‘I’m not sure what’s going on’ Daniel told the others in confusion.
‘Well Danny Boy I might be wrong but hopefully we could be setting a precedent that if you attack one human world in the galaxy you’d better be prepared to fight all the others too’ O’Neill replied. ‘Maybe, just maybe, the United Worlds is about to go to war’ he said.