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.
Kelownan Capital – Langara (P2S-4C3) – June 2003
It was a calm day but the low grey clouds resting high over the city threatened rain. The streets were filled with people looking up but not because of an interest in the weather, there were other things to be seen these days in the skies of Kelowna and the two other nations that between them occupied the rest of the planet.
The conspiracy nuts had been right after all, they weren’t alone in the universe and the government had known about it all along. All the stories of alien abductions were true and now they were under major attack by hostile forces that didn’t come from Tirania or the Andari Federation but from the stars themselves.
Stories of strange black government aircraft that could take off and land vertically were true as well, they were called “helicopters” and their design had been provided by other aliens to help Kelowna and her neighbours fight back against the alien abductions. First Minister Valis himself had gone on the radio to announce that the three Great Powers had been conducting joint military operations for months now, combining their resources to better counter the new enemy. The military build up and increases in defence research spending had not been in preparation to fight each other but rather to fight a joint enemy, the people were now told. Combined Special Forces teams comprising the finest soldiers each nation could offer had fought dozens of actions against the invader in secret, taking heavy losses but never giving up.
New jet and rocket powered interceptor fighters had apparently shot down several alien craft in the past, but that was when the enemy came in small numbers and even the combined airforces and very best aircraft the planet could offer had now been easily swept aside. Spaceships now landed with impunity in towns and cities across the whole world, and beings that could easily be described as monsters had begun to slaughter the populations. They were also abducting hundreds of people for what the First Minister described as obscene medical experiments... and for food.
Whilst many hid at home, or tried to find shelter, the more intrepid were looking up watching the continuing efforts of their military to stop the invader. Strange saucer-shaped craft hurtled overhead with primitive propeller-driven Kelownan fighters trying to engage them in futile but heroic attempts to protect their homeland. Bright green beams of energy destroyed the slow-moving fighters with ease but the fighters still continued to try and protect the capital.
Stories circulated that the enemy had been destroying railways to prevent the army from being moved to the cities, tens of thousands of troops based at the border had resorted to forced-marches and seizing civilian vehicles to try and reach the cities at the heart of the nation but it would take days for most of them to arrive. What mechanised units there were in the Kelownan Army had been slaughtered from the air as they raced for the capital, and it was said burned out tanks and trucks littered the highways.
The batteries of anti-aircraft guns that ringed the capital might have provided some protection from Andari bombers but in the current conflict they were only being fired because the government thought it might be reassuring to the public. Even with the recent introduction of radar controlled gunnery and proximity fuses, probably more alien technology the people now thought, they hadn’t managed to hit a single enemy aircraft despite firing tens of thousands of shells. Nevertheless they had continued filling the skies with explosions for hour after hour never letting up until suddenly they all became silent at once.
A trio of small saucers which had been buzzing the city now suddenly veered off and began climbing away at high speed. They had nearly reached the clouds when a ball of bright white came hurtling from above and blew one apart, the other two receiving the same treatment seconds later.
Something impossibly huge appeared as a shadow above the clouds, it continued downwards parting them until it came into view. It must have been fifteen-hundred metres long and had a gleaming surface that caught the light like mercury.
It said something for the speed of an Agard warship that it was actually far quicker to send an O’Neill Class ship all the way from the Ida galaxy to Langara than it was to send a ship there from Earth. This one had in fact performed a “short” detour en-route to pick up some passengers as had the other two identical ships that were heading for the ther two capital cities on Langara.
Accompanied by a high-pitched sound the great ship started to project beams onto the ground, small craft began to appear as if from nowhere in one of the great parks in the centre of the city where the beams set down and with bystanders watching incredulously human figures started to appear beside them in a series of bright flashes. For all their technology the Asgard had no soldiers to fight Loki’s forces in the streets, they could not target Loki’s ships at much more than point-blank range either and with only three ships available they could not possibly hope to drive the invader from the whole planet. What they could do however was provide transportation to those that could.
In a bunker deep under the city Commander Hale of the Kelownan military was briefing the new arrivals, some of whom had arrived via the stargate that was situated inside the complex but the most recent had appeared in a flash of light and with a pained expression less than a minute before.
‘That can’t be good for you’ the Optrican officer stated as she got her bearings. Less than an hour ago she had still been trying to get his unit together but since then she had been teleported aboard an alien spaceship, flown across a fair chunk of the galaxy at ludicrous velocity and had now been teleported once again straight into a conference with several humans born on different worlds throughout the Milky Way. ‘Brigade Leader Husn, 2nd Optrican Air-Mobile Brigade’ she introduced herself. She was wearing a helmet with a clear visor that was currently flipped up, a black uniform with some kind of flexible body armour and had a bulky pistol and some other unidentified equipment on her belt.
‘I am Commander Hale, Chief of the Kelownan Defence Staff’ the ranking local soldier responded with a nod. ‘These officers are Commander Sharp and Colonel O’Neill of Earth’ he continued, indicating his companions. ‘The Pangaran has yet to arrive although we are told they are preparing to send an infantry regiment and the senior Orbanian and Tagrean officers have yet to escape our First Minister who insisted on speaking with them’ he explained.
‘You’ll want to avoid that’ O’Neill whispered to the Optrican, Valis the head of the Kelownan government was nice enough but it was a time to get things done not deal with gushing thanks for being here.
Brigade-Leader Husn had known that Langara was fairly primitive, at least two hundred years behind Optrica technologically, but seeing that they were monitoring and coordinating the defence of their world by having men and women push tiny models around a huge map of the planet whilst being handed notes of scraps of paper by runners really bought that home. ‘First Regiment is being unloaded up there at the moment’ she informed them, pointing at the ceiling. ‘Once we’ve made sure everything still works we’ll be ready to deploy as requested’ she said.
‘How many gunships have you got?’ Sharp queried.
‘Gunships? You mean our Assault Craft?’ Husn checked, earning a nod. ‘Only two Regiments worth in total, the third in the Brigade is still stuck in Bedrosia along with most of the rest of our Army’ she explained.
‘How many per Regiment?’ O’Neill asked.
‘Fifty Assault Craft, one squad of infantry each’ Husn replied.
Commander Hale looked at the map as another model was pushed into place above the Andari capital city. ‘That must be another Asgard ship arriving’ he said.
‘That should be carrying our Second Regiment’ Husn told them.
‘And what of the additional forces from Earth?’ Hale asked Sharp and O’Neill pointedly.
‘Hey, we told you that towing Prometheus slows down an Asgard ship’ O’Neill responded before Sharp could say something unpleasant. ‘It’s still the only way we could get her here quickly’ he continued, ‘our hyperdrives would take days, maybe weeks to get here.’
Husn was still looking over the map, the situation was entirely too weird but staying professional and military was the safest way to stay sane, her government said that they were sending Optrican boys and girls to fight aliens on another planet and they gave the orders. The Asgard on the ship had helpfully projected holograms of their opponents during their brief voyage from home which at least gave the troops an idea what they should be shooting at, beyond that they were relying on their training, hardware and combat experience.
‘Seen much action Brigade-Leader?’ O’Neill asked the woman, he guessed she was in her early forties but with better medical technology she might be older of course.
‘Yes’ Husn replied. ‘Fighting Bedrosians not aliens though’ she admitted.
‘Just kill the things trying to kill the local civilians and yourself’ Sharp advised. ‘And shoot them a lot because they take quite a bit of killing’ he added.
‘So we were told’ Husn replied. ‘We think our pulse-guns should be able to handle them but if not we’ve got a particle beam thrower per squad’ she told them. ‘We use them to take out armoured vehicles normally’ she said, ‘bitch to carry, the backpack weighs a ton’ she said.
‘Particle beam thrower?’ Hale queried.
‘Think “Death Ray” if that makes it easier’ O’Neill advised.
‘The governments here are telling everyone we’re on their side and not to shoot at the people in the strange uniforms right?’ Husn asked.
‘Via radio and telegraph’ Hale confirmed.
Husn grinned. ‘Telegraph?’ she repeated. ‘How quaint, do you use signal flags too?’ she asked.
‘Don’t mock less advanced societies’ O’Neill cautioned as Hale scowled. ‘You don’t want to lose the moral high ground when the Tollan patronise you’ he told her sincerely. ‘Which they will’ he added.
Commander Sharp looked over the map himself, it was a big step down from the “Geoscape” system of interactive electronic displays X-COM used on Earth to do this job but it had a nice retro Second World War feel about it that would only increase once the third Asgard ship arrived. It was bringing not only Prometheus but a cargo of F-302’s and a couple of Avengers as well and it might be fun to order squadron scrambles much like it was done during the Battle of Britain he decided. ‘I might give First Minister Valis a few pointers on a speech he might like to give on the radio’ he said randomly.
‘A speech?’ Hale repeated, looking confused.
‘There’s a good one about fighting them on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets and never surrendering he might want to borrow’ Sharp replied, ‘he can credit the man that said it first later’ he suggested.
City of Penticton – Langara (P2S-4C3) – June 2003
Standing just inside the alley between two brick apartment buildings the Kelownan Sergeant worked the bolt of his rifle then leaned out and took aim with his rifle, lining up the crosshairs of his telescopic sight. The damn thing stood in the middle of the road next to a burned-out car had its back to him less than half a block away and he was never going to get a better shot so he made sure to make it count.
Only the day before he had watched an officer empty a full drum of ammunition from a sub-machinegun into one of these creatures only for it to shrug off the bullets, turn around and blow him practically in half with a single shot from his own weapon. The green suited behemoths wore armour that easily deflected mere pistol bullets, and even full-power rifle rounds were woefully inadequate the sergeant knew from experience but sometimes you got lucky and if he hit the alien in the head it might get the job done.
Behind the sergeant the rest of his platoon, or rather the three that were left of them, hoped he knew what he was doing. They had been skirmishing for the better part of three days practically non-stop and they were tired and short of ammunition. They still had a couple of rifle-grenades left, which had at least proved reasonably effective, but they were saving them for when things got truly desperate.
The sergeant pulled the trigger and was rewarded almost instantly by the sight of the alien stumbling forward as the copper-jacketed supersonic bullet slammed into it. It didn’t go down at first, merely staggered, but at least it didn’t return fire and the Kelownan soldier quickly worked the bolt again to shoot it again, this time right in the face as it turned towards him dazed.
Whether the second shot was fatal or not the sergeant didn’t know, but at least the enemy dropped and he ducked back into the alley. ‘Got the prick’ he said. ‘Let’s get moving before more turn up’ he told them.
‘I’m hurting sarge’ one of his men told him, the bloodstained bandage tied around his right thigh showing where he had been injured by flying debris earlier in the morning.
‘I already gave you a shot and you aren’t getting another for an hour’ the sergeant replied. ‘Any more painkillers and we’ll have to carry your ass back to our lines’ he said.
‘Do you expect me to hop?’ the wounded soldier asked.
‘You can crawl instead if you want but you’ll have trouble keeping up’ the sergeant told him.
Before they had lost their radio, along with the poor bastard carrying it, the squad had at least been able to find out what was going on not only elsewhere in the city but across not only Kelowna but the whole planet. Hostile aliens armed with ray-guns had invaded, just like in those stupid serial adventures shown at the cinema, and the armed forces of Kelowna, Tirania and the Andari Federation were fighting them with help from other aliens.
All the UFO nuts had been right after all and the stupid alien abduction stories in the tabloids were true which made the sergeant wonder if the naquadria bomb was really an original Kelownan invention or was alien technology.
As he led his men through the back streets trying to avoid the enemy the sergeant heard a rumbling. ‘Artillery in the distance’ one said.
‘No’ the sergeant said with a groan. ‘Just thunder’ he told them, looking up as it started to rain. ‘Oh hell, at least it’ll put out the fires’ he observed, parts of the city were burning, especially to the north where the fighting had been particularly heavy.
Soon soaked to the skin the four of them continued to make their way towards where they knew the company headquarters had been the day before yesterday. Most of the civilians had fled to the surrounding countryside once the fighting started but there were enough left in hiding across the city to ensure that the Kelownan army couldn’t simply pull out, they had to do their duty and try to protect the people as best they could even if it meant sustaining losses of over ten-to-one for much of the fighting.
Half a mile further on they reached the site of an earlier battle. Thirty or forty corpses in Kelownan uniform were scattered around, several looking like they had been ripped apart by claws but most had clearly been killed by the incredibly powerful balls of green energy the alien weapons fired. Their weapons and equipment lay beside them and the remnants of the squad began sorting through looking for more ammunition and any grenades.
‘The machine-gun over here looks okay and there’s still a couple of belts for it Sarge’ one of the soldiers told him, inspecting the weapon he had found.
‘Great, you just volunteered to carry it’ the sergeant replied, stuffing stripper-clips for his rifle he found on corpses into his pockets.
‘Just be grateful you didn’t find a mortar’ one of the others said, laughing as the soldier dejectedly slung his rifle onto his back and first hanging the ammunition belts around his neck he picked up the supposedly “Light” machine-gun which was anything but.
The rain started to peter out as they approached the park in the centre of the largely deserted city. Sounds of firing were getting louder and were coming from several directions which meant that there must still be more than one other group of soldiers still in the fight at least which gave them some degree of hope. ‘Oh fuck me’ the one with the wounded leg exclaimed as they found there was a grey alien spacecraft three stories high landed in the park and they spotted several aliens nearby, presumably defending it.
‘Okay so do we go around or ask them to surrender?’ the sergeant asked wryly as they ducked behind cover.
The sound of metal clattering on the roadway mixed with the dull roar of a large diesel engine caught their attention, they turned and watched as a tank appeared, rumbling down one of the main roads leading into the city centre, it’s turret turning as it trained its main gun on the alien craft.
The tank fired and a shell hurtled through the air to explode against the side of the spaceship. It caused no damage but the tank fired again, this time with an armour-piercing round which bounced off. ‘Oh you poor bastards’ one of the watching infantry muttered as two of the aliens returned fire with their rifles, the green bolts of energy going right through the front of the tank. After a few seconds the tank started to burn and it exploded as one of the crew tried to bail out.
A second tank appeared, rolling past the wreckage of the first. Instead of firing at the spaceship it opened up with its heavy machine-guns on the aliens and then fired a high-explosive round at a small group of them blowing a pair of the invaders into bloody chunks before they could fire.
‘We’ll give them the support we can’ the Sergeant ordered as a third tank appeared along with what looked like some infantry support following behind. ‘If we set up a crossfire from here we might attract away some fire at least ’ he said moving to a position where he could fire his rifle from to best effect.
‘Well if I use up all the ammo at least I can leave this thing behind’ the soldier with the light machine-gun said with a grin, setting it up.
‘Didn’t want to walk any further anyway’ the one with the wounded leg announced, working the bolt of his rifle to chamber a round.
The fourth Kelownan soldier shook his head, they were about to die he thought bitterly. ‘I’ll feed the belt’ he said after a pause, moving to help set up the machine-gun. If you didn’t have someone to help guide the links through, the weapon had a tendency to jam.
A door opened up on the alien ship and more of them started to come out to fight the approaching tanks and infantry but as they did so the machine gun opened up spewing hundreds of bullets at them from an unexpected direction.
Caught by surprise the aliens rallied fast and were soon firing back. As the second tank exploded after being hit the soldier who had been feeding the belt into the machine-gun was hit by one of the blasts of green energy which killed him instantly. Ignoring the death of one of his men the sergeant continued firing his rifle, working the bolt as fast as he could. Every five shots he loaded another stripper-clip from his pockets and resumed shooting, years of practice taking over.
It seemed like sheer weight of numbers was going to win the day as more tanks and hundreds of infantry moved up, tracks tearing up the roadway not that anyone cared about that. Just as it looked like the aliens were beaten several much more powerful energy bolts hurtled from the sky and exploded a number of tanks heralding another alien craft tearing overhead as it gave close-air support. It must be one of their fighters the sergeant assumed, the radio had spoken of the Kelownan airforce trying to intercept the things in vain.
The alien fighter banked and was coming around for another pass when it was struck by bright beams of light that seemed to rip through its hull, for a second it lurched sideways and then exploded, showering pieces of metal over the park. ‘What the hell?’ the sergeant exclaimed as another strange aircraft shot overhead, this one at least having recognisable wings if not the propellers you would expect to see on a Kelownan fighter.
Two more small craft of a third design appeared above the rooftops, hovering in mid air. It soon became evident what side they were on when they started firing volleys of blindingly bright spheres like ball-lightning at the aliens on the ground. They poured on the fire until they ran out of obvious targets and then dropped ropes so that the people who had been inside could abseil down to the ground.
The Kelownan soldiers watched as the black-uniformed and helmeted strangers began deploying, they carried odd weaponry but moved like they were well trained and they were soon engaged in a firefight with the remaining hostiles around the ship. One of the strangers was hit and fell to the ground but the others didn’t let up. ‘Come on’ the sergeant yelled, ‘we’ve got them licked’ he declared, starting to run to join in.
The strangers weaponry didn’t seem as powerful as the ones carried by the enemy but they were clearly better than Kelownan rifles at least. Firing smaller charges of the “ball-lightning” they kept on shooting firing hundreds of shots and the sergeant wondered if they needed to reload at all before he saw one of them eject what he assumed was an empty magazine, or maybe some sort of battery, and load another before firing again.
‘I’m not going in there’ one of the strangers declared, pointing with his weapon at the door. ‘Get some of those Earther specialists in here’ he said, looking up at one of the still hovering craft like he was talking to it. Perhaps he has a radio in his helmet the sergeant wondered as he approached them. ‘Who are you?’ the stranger who had been talking asked, keeping his weapon ready. He had been told that some of these aliens could take over human minds.
‘Sergeant Tomis Crake, Sixteenth Infantry Regiment, Kelownan Army’ the sergeant replied, ‘who are you?’ he queried.
‘Captain Mallin, B Company, 1st Regiment, 2nd Optrican Air-Mobile Brigade’ the stranger replied, raising a hand to flip up the visor on his helmet.
‘You’re an alien right’ the sergeant asked, ‘one of the aliens that First Minister Valis said were coming to help us?’
‘I’m human just like you but from another planet’ Mallin replied. ‘Where the fuck are those Earthers?’ he exclaimed.
‘Earthers?’ Crake queried, his three remaining soldiers had come to join him since the fighting seemed to have stopped for now. Other Kelownan soldiers and a tank were approaching more cautiously.
‘These guys’ the Captain told him as a weird shimmering light effect suddenly started a few metres away and began to coalesce into distinguishable forms. ‘Teleporter from their big ship, it’s up there somewhere’ he added pointing up as four new people in different uniforms from the black-clad “Optricans” appeared from mid-air. ‘I thought you all had powered armour?’ Mallin asked them, utterly unfazed by their means of arrival.
‘Not enough sets to go around, we had too many destroyed or damaged fighting this assholes when we drove them out of our own Solar System’ one of the new arrivals replied. ‘Still got better armour on than you though’ he added, tapping his grey metal breast-plate. ‘Captain Jake Gaston’ he introduced himself. ‘Sectoid Battleship, very nice’ he said. ‘We’ll lead on but we’ll need you to follow us in there because we’re short-handed’ he told the Optrican officer. ‘Just watch what we do’ he added.
‘Done this before?’ Mallin asked him.
‘Oh yeah, dozens of times’ Gaston replied, looking around. ‘Another day, another UFO retrieval mission’ he said nonchalantly.
‘This local’s hurt’ a woman with him said, indicating the Kelownan soldier with the wounded leg. She reached into a pocket and put an odd looking device onto her hand. ‘Hold still’ she told the nervous looking soldier as she bent down and to his initial horror some kind of light came out of it and it made an odd sound, after a moment he realised his leg wasn’t hurting as much however and then not at all. ‘You can take the bandage off I’ve fixed your leg’ she announced, putting the device away again.
‘Stop showing off Eitam’ Gaston told the Israeli medic, ‘they’ll probably think that was witchcraft’ he added, starting to psych himself up before leading his X-COM team into the ship.
‘If your technology can be distinguished from magic it’s not advanced enough Sir’ Eitam replied with a grin, getting her Heavy Plasma Rifle ready.
Mallin noticed the expression on the Kelownan Sergeant’s face. ‘Don’t look too impressed’ he told him. ‘They didn’t invent most of the really good stuff’ he said. ‘They just stole it from what I’ve heard.’
‘Spoils of war’ Gaston corrected him. ‘Okay, let’s show these things why you don’t fuck with the human race’ he said loudly. ‘Welcome to the New Galactic Order, take on one of our worlds and you take on them all’ he declared, heart starting to pound in his chest as the adrenaline began to flow.
By the time Tagrean and Pangaran soldiers began to arrive through the gate in numbers most of the fighting on Langara was already finished but they still got to see some action, helping to mop up the remains of Loki’s armies along with the soldiers from Earth, Optrica and the three nations of Langara and a small contingent from Orban. With Prometheus and the three Asgard vessels taking too high a toll of his fleet Loki was forced to give up the fight and pulled his remaining fighters and other ships out well before the end leaving his ground troops behind to their fate.
It was a quiet revolution of sorts unless you were actually on the scene, most of the galaxy including most of the Goa’uld System Lords were unaware it was even happening when it did, but as the fires were put out on Langara and rebuilding began with the assistance of aid from other worlds a new strategic paradigm was emerging. The “Fifth Race” was coming to maturity and they weren’t going to be enslaved, fed upon, abducted, patronised or used in experiments any more, those days were over.
As recorded images of some of the atrocities that had been committed on Langara by the invaders were shown on Tollan broadcast media the Curia found itself at the centre of a seismic political shift. Increasing contact and ongoing trade with humans from other worlds had already begun to chip away at the once deeply entrenched Tollan isolationism and watching cities burn and corpses lying in the streets was appalling in a way that abstract knowledge of the goa’uld enslaving primitives was not. Langara was centuries less advanced than Tollana but they weren’t really all that different as people, they had hopes and dreams and they lay at the mercy of hostile forces without batteries of mighty Ion Cannon to protect them.
Two days later, after an electronic referendum was held, Tollana formally declared war on Loki and requested the designs for faster hyperdrive engines from the Asgard whilst doubling their military budget in order to expand the Tollan fleet.
Loki finally realised the enormity of the mess he had created for himself when a Tollan “Ghostrider” warship arrived over an uninhabitable world between Earth and Langara where he was mining trinium. It effortlessly shot several of his ships and orbiting factories to pieces with its Heavy Ion Cannon and then blew a crater the size of Australia in the planet with a UFT warhead fitted to a phasing missile, his mine having been where the epicentre of the explosion was. The final campaign of the Sectoid War was beginning, the humans were on the offensive and they weren’t screwing around.
Cheyenne Mountain – Earth – July 2003
Jonas was staring blankly into space, eyes unfocused. The verified count of casualty figures for his homeworld was even worse than he had been expecting and the fact it had taken several weeks to put together had already braced him for something horrific.
General Hammond blinked. ‘And this is considered accurate?’ he asked Dreylock the Kelownan Ambassador who had arrived less than an hour ago along with representatives from Tirania and the Andari Federation. They were due to meet representatives of the IOA later to request increased military and humanitarian aid but presently they were updating the SGC on the situation, General Hammond joined by Colonel O’Neill and Jonas sitting in on the meeting since it was his homeworld they were discussing.
‘Tirania is still pulling bodies out of the rubble in two of their major cities and my own nation Kelowna is still trying to finish eradicating a chryssalid infestation in the western provinces that is increasing the toll daily’ Dreylock responded, ‘but the count is at least thirteen million dead and wounded at present’ she told him.
‘The Andari Federation took the smallest losses but the destruction of several dams has destroyed hundreds of square kilometres of our best farmland’ Lucia Tarthus the Andari representative told them. ‘We are hoping that Tirania will provide some of their harvest to see us through to next year’ she said, giving Vin Eremal the Tiranian ambassador a look.
‘As we have told you, we are willing to sell you food at a reasonable price’ Eremal replied.
‘You have a surplus and yet you would let my people starve?’ Tarthus responded angrily. ‘We cannot afford the price you ask for’ she said.
‘We expect a surplus only because we have less mouths to feed, our cities are laid to waste and we have millions homeless’ Eremal retorted.
Jonas snapped out of it and slammed his fist down on the briefing table. ‘Stop playing politics, our people are hungry and need shelter, they need help not rhetoric and old grudges’ he told them.
‘Our people Kelownan?’ Eremal retorted.
‘Yes, our people’ Jonas told him. ‘Do you think that Loki cared where we draw our borders on the map?’ he asked, rolling his eyes. ‘Tirania has food and the Andari Federation has more of its infrastructure intact, you feed them and they’ll help put a roof over your heads, it’s easy as long as you aren’t arguing about things that happened hundreds of years ago’ he declared.
‘The Andari are not likely to forget the last people that invaded and occupied us’ Tarthus said flatly.
‘The only thing you suffered under Tiranian rule was peace and good government’ Eremal responded.
Tarthus glared at him. ‘And mass arrests, summary executions…’
‘In response to terrorist acts against innocent civilians’ Eremal interrupted her.
‘Enough!’ Jonas bellowed. ‘The enemies we need to fear aren’t the other side of a river or a mountain range, they’re on other worlds’ he said. ‘If we don’t think of ourselves as Langarans first and Kelownans, Tiranians and Andari second then the next time some alien race decides to conquer us we might not be mourning millions of dead it could be hundreds of millions’ he declared.
O’Neill raised his eyebrows and looked at Hammond who looked equally surprised at Jonas’s passion and intensity, normally he was all smiles and laid-back attitude.
Ambassador Dreylock found herself nodding agreement. ‘We’ve already seen how far behind we are technologically’ she said. ‘If the goa’uld had come to our world instead where would we have been?’ she asked rhetorically.
‘They’d have destroyed all our cities from orbit as soon as they arrived’ Jonas said. ‘Even if our allies had been willing to fight them, by the time they arrived it would have been too late’ he noted. ‘We need to rebuild, we need to cooperate and we need to catch up fast’ he told the three ambassadors. ‘We can do it too’ he said confidently, ‘we’re smarter than these people’ he added, indicating Hammond and O’Neill. ‘No offence Sirs’ he added awkwardly to the two Earthers.
‘None taken son’ Hammond replied, it was true anyway he knew. A few random genetic mutations generations before had resulted in the humans of Langara being notably brighter on average than people on other worlds. They were a race of hok’tar or “advanced humans” in the goa’uld parlance which was precisely why Loki was so interested in experimenting on them. This did in fact have an interesting side-effect when they were invaded since psionic attacks by Ethereals were nowhere near as effective as they had been against Earth military units, the Langarans were made of sterner mental stuff.
Dreylock looked directly at Hammond. ‘Perhaps now we will have less trouble obtaining advanced military technology from our offworld allies?’ she said.
‘Now you know we only restricted your access to modern weaponry because we weren’t sure if you’d use them on each other’ O’Neill pointed out.
‘Something you always complained about the Tollan doing to you’ Jonas muttered.
O’Neill frowned, Jonas wasn’t usually like this. ‘I think we’ll probably be more forthcoming on the hardware now’ he reasoned. It wasn’t exactly likely that the nations of Langara would be fighting themselves for the foreseeable future, they had been given a nasty insight into the threats that lay waiting for them in the galaxy and border disputes and historical grievances probably looked pretty trivial now.
‘They’ve got designs for fusion reactors they picked up on Euronda not so long ago, if we had those it would enable us to rebuild faster and help accelerate our development, they only need Heavy Water we can get from our oceans to power them’ Jonas told Dreylock. Unlimited and relatively cheap electricity would go a long way towards dragging Langara several decades ahead technologically in short order he knew. ‘The Aschen are usually looking for an opportunity to improve their image, see if they’ll provide agricultural tech and advanced crops’ he advised.
Dreylock nodded. ‘Orban has offered naquadah reactors as a stop-gap measure to replace all our lost power-plants but we wouldn’t want to end up completely reliant on imports for our energy needs and we know our naquadria isn’t stable enough to replace it’ she said.
‘What we could really do with is a few of those fighters the Earthers use’ Eremal opined.
‘They’re still replacing the ones they lost driving Loki off the fourth planet of this system’ Jonas told him.
‘Jonas when did “they” replace “we” when you’re talking about us?’ O’Neill asked, indicating General Hammond and himself.
‘This isn’t my homeworld Colonel’ Jonas told him, ‘if it’s the human race versus Loki or the goa’uld then it’s still “us” but right now I’m with them’ he said, indicating the other Langarans.
‘We’re not saying we disapprove of your patriotism son’ Hammond told Jonas. ‘It’s just that maybe we forgot where your loyalties lie’ he admitted.
O’Neill looked thoughtful. ‘Yeah I’ve done that with Teal’c before too’ he admitted. The Jaffa was perfectly open about the truth that he regarded the Tau’ri as friends but that his cause was freedom for the Jaffa first and foremost.
Jonas looked away for a moment. ‘We don’t have much to offer the more advanced societies right now in terms of technology, or resources other than naquadria, but I know what we do have and how we can contribute in a way nobody else can’ he said.
Dreylock looked intrigued. ‘What are you thinking Mr Quinn?’ she asked.
‘Psionics’ Jonas told her. ‘The X-COM organisation already recruits from every nation on Earth but what if there were people from our nations too?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘If you tested every member of our own armies we’d be bound to find plenty of soldiers with psionic strength and skill much higher than anyone on Earth has’ he said.
‘Your people in X-COM units?’ Hammond queried.
‘Why not?’ Jonas asked rhetorically. ‘We could make a big difference in the fight against Loki and the System Lords’ he said. ‘A psychic soldier in every squad, think about it’ he told O’Neill.
‘First Minister Valis did comment that he worried that the public might be unsettled by the thought that we were nothing but recipients of foreign aid who needed other worlds to rescue us’ Dreylock recalled. ‘He was concerned it would lead to resentment and a culture that didn’t respect itself’ she said.
‘Our soldiers taking the fight to the enemy alongside our allies changes that perception’ Tarthus observed.
‘We need to think of ourselves as something other than victims dependent on the charity of others’ Eremal agreed. ‘I doubt we would have any difficulty finding volunteers to fight on other worlds’ he decided, ‘I cannot speak for the Kelownans or Andari but what remains of the Tiranian military is out for blood’ he said.
O’Neill turned to Hammond. ‘I like the proactive mindset but I don’t know what the IOA or the Joint Chiefs will think about it’ he said.
‘Politics’ Jonas said with derision.
Lucia Tarthus leaned forward in her chair. ‘My government is interested in your intelligence regarding the whereabouts of Loki’ she told Hammond.
‘As for Loki himself we don’t know for sure but we’re gradually getting more and more intel out of the copy of his consciousness we captured at the Cydonia Base’ Hammond replied. ‘The location of the trinium mine and orbital metalworks the Tollan recently destroyed was just the start’ he said. ‘We believe that Loki has been operating out of a star cluster between Earth and Langara and that his manufacturing facilities are there as well as most of his resource base’ he said.
‘None of the stars have habitable planets or a stargate’ Jonas said, ‘it’s away from goa’uld controlled territory and fairly isolated’ he told them. ‘The trinium mine the Tollan destroyed is at the edge of the cluster, it’s not known how many more installations Loki has in there and the Tollan are wary of just heading straight in because Loki does have access to Asgard technology and enough of his ships would be a threat to any vessel in space.’
‘We’ve also asked that they don’t just blow everything he has in there all to hell because we’re hoping that his elerium is made in there somewhere’ O’Neill added. ‘The damn computer on Mars didn’t know how he made it, the little grey bastard erased that part of its memory’ he said in annoyance.
Jonas sighed. ‘Elerium gives us an edge over the goa’uld in energy weapons and small-craft propulsion’ he said. ‘If we can learn how Loki makes it economically from regular naquadah we’ll be in a much better position when we have to take on the System Lords’ he explained. ‘Like the trinium he used to make fighters on Mars all the elerium was shipped in to Cydonia on transports’ Jonas continued. ‘One of them was captured there’ he noted.
‘It’s being back-engineered along with the Type 2 and Type 3’s we took intact’ Hammond told the Langarans. ‘Loki still has better fighters than we do, the only reason our F-302’s trounced his birds in your airspace like they did is because they can’t use their shields in the atmosphere’ he said. ‘In space we don’t think our fighters would do anywhere near as well.’
‘We think his Type 3’s would kick our butt’ O’Neill admitted. ‘We already know from looking at them that Loki has fitted them with better engines, shields and weapons’ he said. ‘He’s always coming up with something new.’
‘Then perhaps we should try and wipe him out before we encounter a future “Type 4” fighter then?’ Dreylock suggested.
O’Neill grimaced. ‘The way he keeps coming up with new hardware I don’t know about the Type 4 but the Type 5 could probably give a goa’uld mothership a spanking all on its lonesome’ he said. ‘At least his pilots aren’t so good though’ he added with relief.