NationStates Jolt Archive

Here's (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14759906) the OOC and sign-up thread.

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Director-General,

I am pleased to present to you our summary of the information that the Navy's Frontier Surveillance Program has shared with us, and to present a proposed course of action as well. As you are undoubtedly aware, the Frontier is near constantly embroiled in various conflicts and wars, compared to the relative peace and stability of Core regions such as Sol and our own Raumreich. While the League powers have little to fear from a possible (and highly unlikely) expansion of these wars, the fact remains that they are still a threat to our own interests in their own particular way. For the past decade, domestic shipping in terms of tonnage to Frontier systems has increased by an average of 3% a year, while the amount of trade in terms of solaris has increased by an average of 6% per year. In that same span of time, a total of thirty six domestically registered freighters and transports have disappeared, with a total crew and passenger count of 224 (not all of them were our own citizens however).

Admittedly these losses are trivial in comparison to the total amount of foreign trade conducted (or even compared to trade with Sol alone) along with being smaller in comparison to our own average annual losses to regional piracy as well. However, the annual percentage of losses in the Frontier exceeds the annual percentage of regional or Core losses, and this excess risk is discouraging our domestic companies from investing further. The lack of peaceful, stable, and prosperous Frontier nations is undermining the efforts of our corporations to expand into new markets. Furthermore, this constant state of conflict hampers the ability of those who live in the Frontier to invest into regional companies and projects, which ultimately harms both parties and prevents them from a true exchange of products and ideas.

With this in mind, my staff have designed a plan to encourage stability in the Frontier by defeating belligerent governments and leaders and replacing them with more peaceful leadership. Obviously this brings up multiple questions of legality and authority. After consulting with our legal counsel, we have been assured that as long as we do not directly initiate hostilities with a foreign power, we are not exceeding our mandate. As we are a sub-ministry of Foreign Affairs, we have the authority to provide aid and support to those who require it, and provide arbitration and mediation between hostile parties. Our plan, is therefore to hire (and potentially supply) various third parties who will engage in regime change out of dedication to the good of humanity and peace, and then we will provide arbitration between the victorious and defeated powers, along with aid in rebuilding. While this plan is admittedly high risk, the potential for national and personal profit here outweighs that. As additional funding from the Treasury would be required, thus requiring a request to Parliament and subsequent review, I have taken the liberty of consulting our mutual friends, who have agreed to privately fund any discretionary spending on our part as part of this project. They have exhibited much enthusiasm for it as well.

Detailed operation plans along with the shared information from the FSP are included in the attachment.

~Brigadier Thomas Allef

+++

Five years. Approximately 1,095 days since Casey Davis and David Wright had decided to sell weapons to supplement their income. Corporate types loved numbers, and Davis had certainly kept track of them. Five hundred and seventy-nine million solaris worth of merchandise sold, one asteroid base built, five FTL-capable starships bought, and twenty-three underlings hired. Not that there weren't costs. Three assassination attempts resulting in one moderate injury and four dead henchmen. Death warrants in two systems, and trials in absentia (with guilty verdicts) conducted in four others. There was no real way to count the number of personal enemies who shared the same industry that would also obviously delight in their deaths. Black and grey market arms dealing was like that (along with similar occupations). It was safest to either be a big timer that no one could take on, or a small fry that no one gave a shit about. The middle sized fish were the ones in most danger, both from small fries trying to take them down, and big timers that wanted to knock off future competition before it became a threat. Accordingly, the best way to stay alive was to stay the hell away from Sol and the other core systems of humanity. The hundreds of billions of beings accumulated in them presented a great opportunity, but the market was saturated with competition. The smartest strategy was to get your start there, then as soon as you could afford to relocate, to do so. The periphery sectors had their own major systems (though none on the scale of Sol) that were far less dangerous, and the myriad and never ending wars and conflicts between the dozen or so "Galactic Empires" and the countless republics, hegemonies, kingdoms, and megacorps provided sufficient sources of revenue and products.

Vernii and True Hope were seemingly distant memories. They hadn't set foot in the Raumreich since shortly after they began their career. The Imperium considered itself the sole inheritor of the People's Republic's former assets, and had taken a dim view of their looting of an old PNV supply cache, while the Liberation (and the Star Empire) had pursued them for selling supplies to Mesan slave traders. Sol had been their home for a while, though they'd left after an assassination attempt that had required Wright's left knee to be replaced. A world of 2.5 billion people called Persephone was their new home. It was a small sector-level commercial and industrial hub with a temperate climate and favorable exchange rate. Their asteroid base that housed their ships and inventory was located in orbit around one of the system's gas giants, but their true headquarters was a coastal villa on one of the world's southern seas.

It was here that David was relaxing on his veranda while waiting for a potential client to arrive. He preferred his meetings to take place here, it provided a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere that put visitors at ease and showed off that he was comfortable enough with his wealth and power to not require a fortress. This meeting he'd conduct alone, Davis was still at a hotel suite in the capital, recovering from a party the night before. His butler (and bodyguard) stepped out onto the veranda with him, "Sir, Mr. Adelson has arrived."

"Adelson" was surely a pseudonym, most of his clients preferred to be discrete. That was how he preferred to conduct business, no questions asked by either side other than those concerning product requirements, payment, and delivery. Nationality, ideology, criminal record, he didn't care about and didn't want to know. This client, he figured, was probably a representative of some regional warlord looking to gear up for another offensive against a hapless neighbor, or yet another gangster wanting to knock off his rivals with some real firepower.

With these assumptions in mind, David was taken firmly by surprise upon entering his office, saying "hello" to the suited man sitting therein, and being greeted with, "Hello Mr. Wright," in a Verniian accent. David immediately shifted into paranoia, this man was also Verniian, was he from the government? His eyes narrowed slightly, "What do you want?" he asked his visitor.

Adelson smiled "Well, first of all I am here on business, my superiors wish to purchase your services for a certain project of theirs. Not just some weapons in a one-time sale, they want you to resupply their forces as needed for the duration of the operation. Second, yes I am Verniian, and my name really is Nicolai Adelson, remember it because I'm going to be your boss while you work for us."

"What makes you think I'm going to agree to working for you in the first place?"

"Because we'll conpensate you handsomely, and because we can make running your business difficult if you turn us down. Persephone is currently negotiating a trade deal with the Imperium, and if the Ministry of Justice sent them an extradition request they would probably serve you up on a platter. In fact, the Ministry does plan to do it. If you work for us, we'll pull some strings and get you pardoned instead."

"We could always just relocate again."

"You could, but you can't run forever, plus it's expensive and makes you look weak. It'd be bad for your business and you know it. Really your only profitable choice is to work for us."

Wright stewed silently for a moment, knowing Davis would be furious at this turn of events when he came back. He thought things over for a moment, before carefully replying, "Well, let's talk business then."

Similar conversations would soon be held with other groups that the Verniian government had been keeping tabs on.

+++

Three months later, at present.

"Your first target for regime change, gentlemen, is the world of Othrys in the system of Carceri. It's a backwater, estimated population of 520 million with little orbital industry. It's basically like something out of the Cluster back home. What distinguishes it here is it belongs to a Goa'uld System Lord, Amon, which means its a totalitarian theocracy. Not only is it owned by him, but it appears to be one of his personal estates and hunting reserves. It's governor, if our intelligence is accurate, is Underlord Tarterus, a minor nobleman. Long range reconnaisance indicates that the system navy is three Ha'tak motherships, which shouldn't be any trouble for our forces."

"So why Othrys?" The question came from Joran Grul, the former pirate now turned 'rear admiral'. His Ministry handler paused at the interruption for a second before replying, "Two months ago a small Verniian freighter disappeared while scouting out potential trade partners for the company that owned it. Naval Intelligence concluded that this system is the most likely point of disappearance, and that the local Underlord probably seized or destroyed it. This isn't totally a punitive expedition, but that was indeed a factor that was taken into consideration."

"Sounds good to me, fuckin snake heads always have it coming."

The staff officer conducting the briefing frowned at Grul, "Anyway, three Ha'taks are considered only a minor threat by our analysts, and TiberCorp's cruisers alone should be sufficient to deal with them. However, since this is the first joint-operation by the forces we have assembled, we aren't going to take any chances. Our friends back home have seen fit to provide us with some excess production, including brand new multi-spectrum jamming devices. They were designed for use with pod capable warships, so we'll be using one of TiberCorp's Bhakars to covertly insert them into the outer system. Once inserted, the low-thrust ion engines on the jammers will put them into trajectories that will bring them into Othry's cis-lunar space in two weeks with minimal chance of detection. At that point, they will activate and effectively silence communications between Othrys and its fleet units. At this approximate time, Commodore Raevsky's squadron will jump in and engage the target, while your forces, Rear Admiral, wait in reserve. Preservation of capital units is critical, as is not allowing any enemy forces to escape from us."

"What about the planet?"

"Since the Goa'uld system lords engage in widespread slavery and abuse of sentient rights, the Imperial government does not recognize them as a legitimate government. As such, you are authorized to conduct precision strikes on government and military installations from orbit. No prisoners or surrender will be accepted as the Ministry does not recognize their right to rule the system, therefore they cannot surrender on behalf of it. After they are cleansed from the system, a Ministry transition team will step in to assist the inhabitants of Othrys in self-determination and self-organization."

+++

Payitaht had served three owners during her operational life so far. Built in Morning Star's sprawling shipyard complexes, the several million ton and almost two kilometer long battlecruiser had been orignally commissioned for the Liberation's Silver Fleet. It was then seized in a daring raid by TiberCorp's desperate exiles when they fled the Liberation, along with six other units of the same class and numerous screening warships. It had then gone on to wreak havoc, plundering hapless worlds and seizing merchant shipping as TiberCorp attempted to survive in the Frontier by looting anything that couldn't fight back. Even then, they were fighting a losing battle as machinery broke down, spare parts ran out, casualties rose and manpower declined. The Ministry of Frontier Security had arrived to save the day, giving them an offer they couldn't refuse but at least compensating them for it, and so Payitaht and her crew now served a new owner, but their mission remained the same: bringing about death and destruction.

Carceri was a mere blot of light when viewed from Payitaht's distance from the star, lurking beyond even the outermost planet of the system, where her jump wouldn't have been seen, and the excess energy being radiated from her drives could be safely redirected away from any prying sensors. Captain Yusef Istani stood on his bridge, watching his officers as they went about their post-jump duties with the same hurried efficiency he'd seen countless times over the years, but this time there was an undercurrent of rekindled professionalism among his crew, an eagerness in them that he hadn't seen in years. The Verniians may be using them to do their dirty work, but the Ministry's technicians and engineers had gone over his ship with a fine toothed comb, and for the first time since TiberCorp had seized her, Payitaht was fully operational.

Almost a kilometer behind his position in the bridge, Payitaht's enormous missile bay doors on her stern slid open. Six black spheres trundled towards the end of their launch rails and were gently nudged out into space. Tractor beams caught them and swung them out and around, imparting upon them a new course and velocity that would take them into range of Orthrys in approximately a month.

+++

Commdore Raevsky's entry into Carceri a month later wasn't subtle. Just as Payitaht's children powered up and drowned out communications between Orthrys and her guardians, he jumped straight into intermediate missile range against the Goa'uld system navy, setting off a torrent of alarms and warning tones in their control centers. His force consisted of three armored cruisers, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Moltke with the battlecruiser Tirpitz leading the way. His warships were old by the standards of most navies, obsolete against anything from a first-rate navy like the Solarian or Raumreich nations fielded, but suitable for dealing with the typical forces found away from the core of civilization...and that was before their weapons and control systems had been upgraded by MFS engineers. Stubby modules the size of light attack craft dotted their hulls, using onboard field generators to tractor themselves to the hulls of his starships like parasitic fish to a shark.

Those modules were missile pods, each containing ten of the Imperial Navy's multi-drive missiles. At the press of a button on the bridge of each of his warships, they detached and kicked themselves away from their motherships. Mass drivers spun up, kicking their contents into space, whereupon first stage drive reactors came online and hurled the missiles towards the enemy at a fantastic speed. The range was ten million kilometers, a third of their effective maximum range, and so reactor mass did not need to be conserved. They covered the distance in only a few minutes, hurling themselves upon the Goa'uld ships at a quarter of the speed of light. At 20,000 kilometers from their targets, each ejected a pattern of lasing rods and initiated its own multi-megaton shaped-warhead. For a fraction of a second, the rods absorbed the enormous energy that leapt into existence, re-emitting it in the form of an x-ray band laser at the targets.

Two of the Goa'uld warships hadn't even brought their shields or defenses fully online yet when the first missiles fell upon them. Hull plating shattered under the energy transfer, atmosphere rushed into vacuum, and splinters of hull and other debris scythed through unfortunate crewmen. The brutal stabbing of energy continued, probing further through ruined compartment, each dagger digging a deeper and more serious wound into their armored mass. Capacitors exploded, power relays failed, sensor vanes were simply erased, and weapons were pounded into wreckage under the torrent. Those two ships weren't destroyed outright, but they were hammered into cripples. The third had fared better, keeping its vital systems intact and beginning to run for it. Raevsky's squadron continued their fire, taking three more salvos to pound it into scrap alongside its sister-ships.

There was no cheering aboard the bridge of Tirpitz as the last enemy vessel was turned into a junkheap. This had not been a great or honorable battle, reflected the Commodore. No, it was a murder. We simply surprised and pounded them with missiles from beyond a range that their own weapons could reply to. It was simply an execution of those who opposed us. Well, not quite. We still have to finish off the wounded...

"Manuever the squadron into parking orbit over Othrys. Batteries may fire at will once we come into energy range of the enemy starships. Redirect the point-defenses to eliminate any life pods or shuttles that might make it off of them."

Five Star Republic ships emerged from Hyperspace. Their mission was to explore and colonize this new area of space, towards the edge of the galaxy. These Five ships would locate and tag planets for the Colony ships, which waited a lightyear away, to come and commence operations.

The Lead ship, a Victory-II class ship, took point as the Squadron moved towards the main planet in the system they had jumped into. The Main planet, the only one immediatly life capable grew bigger on the Viewscreen on the bridge. The Planet appeared to be a good choice, the system appeared to be uninhabited and they had detected no ships in the system either.

Aboard the Resiliant, the Captain was satisfied and gave the order for Colony Group One to Hyperspace in. With the Colony Group on the way they moved onto the next system.

Colony Group One

The Colony ships, escorted by a Accalmatior-II class ship, entered the system, they reached the planet and the ships headed down to the colony site to begin construction whilst the Protector Stayed in orbit.

Bridge Ressiliant

On the Bridge, Commadore Johnathan Reed observed the Sensor readouts of the next system. The Sensors indicated a presence in the system, but the size could not be determended. Nether the less the Task Group continued on course and had soon entered the System.

"Contacts!"

Raevsky's swung his attention from the viewscreen and away from the disintegrating wreckage of the murdered Ha'taks. "What do you have? Enemy reinforcements?"

"Probably not sir. FTL translation signature isn't typical Goa'uld origin. CIC is calling it a standard hyperdrive, we've seen it used among dozens of different states and corporations. No positive identification can be determined at this point due to that."

"Range?"

"216 million kilometers, almost 1.5 astronomical units. CIC is uploading it to the master plot now."

A yellow icon representing the new contacts appeared on the holographic map that occupied the center of Tirpitz's flag bridge. They were slightly beyond the system's asteroid belt, well outside even his maximum missile range, and even his sensors would have difficulty determining anything specific. Oh well, he thought. The planet is my first priority, not visitors.

"Dispatch a reconnaisance drone to take a look at our guests. Tactical, start mapping out likely government and military sites groundside, then lay in a precision bombardment pattern. Fire only on my permission."

An ellipsoidal drone was popped into space by one of the battlecruiser's missile tubes a few minutes later. Following a programmed course and approach guidelines, it activated its propulsion field only long enough to put it onto an intercept with the new arrivals, then went dormant except for its onboard sensor systems.

"I've got the Contacts on LRS" Tactical Officer Munro reported.
"What are they doing?" Commadore Reed asked.
"They appear to doing some sort of survey of the planet" Munro replied.
"Alright, take us in a bit closer, lets take a better look"

The Squadron activated engines and began to move further into the system. The Standard CAP of ARC-170's remained in formation above each ship. All ships were running with shields raised and weapons on hot standby.

Alak’tar coughed as he stumbled through the smoke-filled hallway, he had no idea what had happened to the ship. The pounding it had taken indicated a surprise attack, or perhaps some kind of accidental ramming. Either way, he had to get off the ship. Although he was quite content to die for his god, he had no reason to think that there was anything to do with the enemy here. The ship he commanded was ruined, and its sensors weren’t up to much right now anyway, even if he had been of a mind to ram the enemy as a last act of defiance, he wouldn’t have been able to see to do so.

Thankfully, the ring-transporter system was a self-powered independent unit. He knew the system’s controls by heart, well enough to key in the command to activate the rings and take him down to the planet’s surface.

He staggered back, as the ceiling above him opened up and a set of wide rings fell from the ceiling. As he turned, he could see other figures groping in the gloom. Then, there was a flash of brilliant, disorienting brightness, that was inside his very eyes as he was transported to matching rings on the surface.

The rings on the surface fell to the floor of the cargo ship – they’d simply locked onto the nearest target, using the code he’d put in.

Something fell to the floor with a clank-slap, and he looked down.

It was a hand, of one of the crew, who must have reached through the rings imploringly as they activated, to try and grab hold of him, reason overwhelmed by desperation.

He quickly stepped out of the ring-circle, if he were in it when the transporter activated again, he would be swept back up to the doomed ship as it cleared the reception area to prevent two people becoming merged.

He waited for a long moment, before moving into the small cargo craft’s cockpit, intending to instruct it to scan the sky. It was unnecessary. Through the thick windows, he could see pieces of the three ha’tak craft illuminating the upper atmosphere like a thousand shattered pieces of glass.

He bowed his head for a moment, whispering a quick prayer to Amun for the fallen.

What could have happened?

The ship’s scanners showed none of the vessels had survived. That couldn’t be a coincidence or malfunction. They must have been attacked.

That meant, of course, that whatever infidels were attacking would come here. He quickly checked if the ship was one of the few with a cloaking device. Of course, that would be too much to hope for.

He returned to its rear compartment, checking the boxes of equipment. There might be something useful to resist here. Unfortunately, the ship didn’t seem to be carrying arms. Naquadah, Some kind of oils… He quickly checked another container that looked hopeful.

“Oh, religious literature…” he said, taking one of the gold-leafed codex-form books anyway, “how useful.”
He ran from the ship, into the light rain, instructing his elaborate ram-headed helmet to rise as he did so, plates of metal seeming to appear from nowhere, wrapping around his head, its enhanced vision allowing him to see clearly across the ranks of pyramid-like ships at the spaceport.

He knew what he had to do. Resist.

──────────────

A similar invention to the transport-rings stood at the very heart of the governor’s palace. Neither had been devised by the goa’uld, and while they manufactured tens of thousands of the ring platforms each year, they rarely dared try and replicate these.

Standing vertically, this ring used the same mechanisms to dematerialize a subject, but rather than transmitting them across space in a stream of intangible but visible matter, it instead squirted them through a microscopic one-way wormhole at its center.

This device, left by a very neglectful precursor race, had catapulted the goa’uld, in times immemorial, into a space age in the very infancy of their race.

Three guards – each standing eight hour shifts, sat in a small alcove in the courtyard before it, ready to challenge any who passed through it.

As one, they rose to salute with their long staff-weapons as the governor ran by, accompanied by several nobles.

You didn’t usually see the goa’uld run.

He quickly began dialing, depressing a sequence of characters on the pedestal beside the star-gate. To an earth native versed in astronomy, they might have seemed familiar. Constallations.

Sextans - Canis Minor – Lynx – Orion – Pieces – Boötes

These six regions of space described a complex positioning system that locked onto a small area in the distant heartland of the domain of Amun. A unique seventh character confirmed the address, and a firm push to the center of the device flooded power into the star-gate.

It sprang to life and dematerialized the area before it, a not-quite foolproof precaution by its creators to ensure that one could always safely exit such a device.

The destination was one the guards recognized, a world called Samarun. To most it was little more than a hamlet, less than half a million people inhabited the whole world, it was barren but for a mining community. But to the gate guards, it was known more for being a popular address to flee too – as it was only three light years from Mnewer, the capital of Lord Atum’s domain, its stargate saw little traffic, its exports taken by ship.

If one wanted to get to Mnewer, without having to risk waiting for the defenses of the planet’s stargate to be lowered, and the intricate scheduling of all journeys there, that was the place to go.

The governor and his associates rushed through, as though the ground itself was burning their heels.

“This,” said the guards’ leader, “looks bad.”

──────────────

Underlady Nephricana couldn’t contact the governor. This was quite annoying, as she neither knew quite what was going on, or how she was supposed to deal with it.

It occurred to her that the correct thing to do was probably to flee, but without that being an option from where she was, she was left with another option.

Holding a sphere of dull metal up before her, she spoke, “Put me through to them.”

She adjusted the reins of her mount, a genetically altered white horse, shifting her posture in the saddle a little.

“Connecting in five, lady…”


She was on a different continent of the planet, here, it was just past sunrise. She counted down, and then the small globe would be transmitting, via the palace’s systems.

Then, it would transmit a holographic image capture – and a few other, more basic communications protocols, of Nephricana, to whoever was in the system.

“What is the meaning of this attack?” she demanded, “You are intruding upon the domain of Lord Amun!” that last phrase was transmitted with offended dignity that would do any monarch proud, “Explain!”

"Unknown contacts are moving, low acceleration."

The bridge plot updated with a course projection and other figures.

"A cautious approach. They were probably expecting Goa'uld, not someone else."

In that case, are they friends of our enemies or not?

"Instruct the drone to conduct another engine burn, get its velocity up so we get a picture of the situation faster."

"Sir, we are receiving a message from the surface, broadcast in the clear and definitely meant for us."

"Just audio or does it include visual?"

"Multiple formats sir, one does include both."

"Play that one then."

Raevsky leaned back in his seat with his legs crossed in a nonchalant manner as part of the holo plot's display reconfigured itself. It soon showed him the figure of a woman in expensive regalia, regal features darkened by anger and perhaps a touch of hurt pride, situated upon a proud steed in a manner that reminded him of a 19th century warlord or general. Amusing, he thought, that the Verniians regard the Goa'uld as enemies. They look like they would fit in just fine at Calimar's court.

"“What is the meaning of this attack? You are intruding upon the domain of Lord Amun! Explain!" she demanded. Didn't waste any time introducing herself, perhaps out of rushed panic or simple arrogance?

"Odd, the briefing officer told us that an Underlord Tarterus governed this world. I highly doubt that's a woman's name."

"Perhaps the intelligence was outdated, and the governor has been replaced?" his executive officer ventured the guess.

"Perhaps, but its a trivial matter at the moment. Tactical, what's the source of the transmission?"

"A large complex situated in an urban area. It's definitely a government center of some sort, probably a palace, due to its decoration and size."

"Well, judging from the background, this woman appears to either be on its grounds or somewhere in the countryside. Probably transmitting to the complex, then to us. Bump it up on the bombardment priority list, if not near the top already. Communications, record a message for me."

Raevsky adjusted his cap, fitting it more snugly atop his head, smoothing his uniform, and adopting a posture more befitting of the proper naval officer that he once had aspired to be (and still indulged fantasies of becoming). "This is the People's Liberation Navy of Othrys. I presume I am speaking to the illegitimate ruler of Othrys or one of their minions. We are here to free this world's population from your oppressive rule, and restore to them the right of self-determination. I control the orbital space around your world, and can easily bring your vital installations under my guns. I highly suggest you surrender to me at once, and the lives of what is left of your occupation force may be spared."

"Recording complete."

"Transmit it back to the source site then."

The Payitaht, en rout from the system's outer reaches

"Ha!" Captain Yusef Istani let out an expressed laugh as he sat in the Officer's mess, reading over the mission objectives for the fleet as his tray of food cools. "So about now," he summarizes out loud to Leutenant Harold Du'irfan, his second in command sitting to the left of him, "Commodore Reavsky has either completely neutralized the occupying fleet or is at least rounding up the survivors. Meanwhile, and I'm telling you this because it's not in the briefing because he told me himself this is what he'd do: he's actually offering surrender to the Gouls." He pauses a moment, expecting laughter. "Of course, they don't know it's our directive to wipe them off the face of the planet."

Lt. Du'irfan sits and eats his mashed potatoes, far less amused than Istani would prefer him to be. "I'm just glad the ship isn't risking direct combat--since it's finally back in top shape. By the time we reach orbit, this whole thing should be over with."

Just then a Warrant Officer approaches the Captain, delivering a small white sheet. "Reporting, sir. Commodore Reavsky is mopping up orbital opposition and bombardment has commenced. There are, however, five bogeys just beyond the asteroid belt--out of Reavsky's scanning range, he's sent a drone. Given our current speed, we could intercept the bogey before the Commodore."

"Hm." Istani looks over to Du'irfan, who still eats his mashed potatoes. "Leutenant, you've got a point. Let's keep the ol' Payitaht as healthy as we can." He stands and moves to a wall-mounted comm, linking to the bridge. "Attention, this is Captain Istani. Message ahead to the Tirpitz. Inquire if he needs our assistance. Alert me immediately to his reply. Out." He then sits down and finally looks at his tray of food. "So the potatoes are good?"

The Leutenant swallows, "Very."
___

The Payitaht sends out a coded transmission via jumpdrone:
TRANSMISSION...
INCRIPTION VV1nD+4L|<3r
CONTENTS: ATTN TIRPITZ. PAYATAHT INQUIRES. DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE? CURRENT BARING TWO NINE THREE MARK FOUR NINE THREE (293.493) FROM TT PLUS SIX (+6) COORDINATES.* PAYATAHT CAN INTERCEPT BOGEYS IN FOURTEEN (14) MINUTES IF PAYATAHT CHANGES BARING TO TWO SIX FOUR MARK NINE EIGHT TWO (264.982). AWAITING REPLY.

*OOC: As to not give away coordinates, the Payataht refers to the mission's time table which provides where it should be and adds six to say it is six minutes ahead of the time table.

Nephricana visibly smiled, always a worthwhile thing to do when one was actually wrothful. She did actually consider surrendering, unlike for the jaffa, for her, the only concern was whether or not she would survive. It didn’t seem likely. The Ibis guard who had contacted her said these enemies had already been attacking the descent pods launched from the ships before they survived.

She would almost certainly be excecuted, if that was anything to go by:- she probably stood a better chance fleeing into the woods.

So, groveling wasn’t worthwhile, perhaps bluster would accomplish something.

“You are obviously not from this world,” she said, eying the man’s uniform-appearing clothes, “you do not speak for its inhabitants.”

In actuality, she supposed they could have – the inhabitants of this world had been a technologically developed society several centuries ago. That was before they had been conquered, first by the System Lord Seker, then, later, when he had been defeated by Atum in the great war, where this had been his last stand, it had become an Atumite world.

When Atum seemed to have died, he had come to this remote world, after some years, and, adopting the name Amun, with the aid of Thoth, overthrown its ruler, appointed by his erstwhile son Shu.

In time, Amun had returned to Mnewer in triumph, with the aid of Thoth and Ma’at. But here, he was still popularly regarded as Amun, the hidden lord.

No, she thought, two centuries, it was unlikely they came from this world, “The people of Othrys enjoy our protection,” she was quite aware that this was not exactly true, “and given your behavior so far, I do not believe you have sufficient grace to honor any terms of surrender.”

She cut the transmission, sending her image back to the palace instead, the jaffa priest-technician appearing in the globe again. “Send this instruction to all bases and installation. Disperse among the population, raise shields over installations that have them!

“I also want you to set a self destruct countdown in the palace. Use the following authorization code…”

──────────────

Brak’n growled in annoyance as his sleep was interrupted. While many jaffa engaged in the kel’no’reem medative trance instead of sleep, he had never been deemed worthy of implantation with a goa’uld symbiote, and so had to suffer the weakness of human sleep. Then he realized what had woken him. Like most goa’uld alarms, it was speaking, its voice a synthesized replica of Lord Atum’s, commanding them to flee within the next ten minutes.

Who had set the garrison’s destruct code, and why, he didn’t know, and more importantly, he didn’t care much to find out. He threw himself off the upper bunk, where scores of others were also scrambling about.

He seized a blast-staff – a six foot long plasma weapon – and gave thanks to Amun that the barracks was near to the exit from the city’s garrison-base.

Others wouldn’t be so lucky, he was sure.

The whole complex was built in a typical goa’uld style, open flames provided most of the light for the long, gray corridors of the structure, high above, blue lights shone on the very tall corridors of the base, as he rushed down them. Each of the barracks held about fifty soldiers, a whole company of about four hundred quartered in the long corridor, which at the middle led to an assembly room, and doorways deeper into the structure, and up past guard rooms, out, to the night light.

On the reviewing podium at the centre of the barracks complex, the unit’s commander was firing, seemingly for no reason, at the ceiling. Brak’n wasn’t entirely sure what the man hoped to accomplish, but simply ran past him.

Kree Arak sha-mel kelnan! said the voice of god, as they fled.

──────────────

Lesser Lord Tarterus stepped into the cargo-ship’s control center, easing it into the air, and then a few moments later, watching the blue of the sky change smoothly to black, before he had it enter hyperspace, headed for Mnewer, using the standard coordinates. While the hyperdrive could re-enter normal space much closer, the guardians of Mnewer were known to be trigger-happy. Defense satellite related death was one of the leading causes of pilot mortality.

He didn’t want to wait for that, though.

He adjusted the cargo ship’s communication systems, and a holographic screen appeared before him. A rather plump woman with a stern look on her face appeared before him.

Ipet had gone through many hosts over the years, but he found that after a while, they always ended up looking somewhat like her totemic animal: a hippopotamus. Dangerous creatures, but not the prettiest or most intimidating to look upon.

Which was what Ipet was. Despite her pedestrian rank of Underlady, as the head of the Palace Household she exercised important powers in determining who would be placed where in court ceremonies. Often that was the way, he himself had an entirely pedestrian rank, that would not even suffice to give him command of a ha’tak, but as the governor of Othrys, he held far more power than some High Lords.

Another, equally beefy man was with her, Shezmu, the recently released Palace Cook, who seemed to have re-taken his previous position, after a few years thrown in a prison cell for unauthorized travel beyond Atum’s domain. He’d lost all rank, demoted to the ranks of rank-less goa’uld.

“I need to speak to Our Lord. It is important,” Tarterus said, “put me through immediately.”

Ipet frowned, “What is this about? Our Lord cannot be disturbed at this time.”

“He can be for this!”

“And what do you have to say that might possibly interest Him?”

“We’re under attack! The ha’taks over Othrys have been destroyed already.”

“All three of them?” Ipet asked, shocked.

“Yes!” Tartarus said, “I had to flee to bring the message in time!”

"Well, so much for that."

Raevksy sighed, "Commence precision bombardment."

Laser turrets studding the hull of Tirpitz swung around in different directions before firing, each seeking individual targets as the ship's computers calculated out an efficient bombardment program. Targets in urban areas would receive the lightest possible touch, out of desire to minimize collateral damage in the civilian population around them, while targets in the countryside would not be as lucky. First priority structures would be communications, command & control, and sensor installations; to gag, decapitate, and blind the planetside leadership. Following those would be strikes against any ground-to-orbit weaponry, military spaceports or airfields, barracks, armories, and supply depots. Scharnhorst's drive field flared to life on sensor screens as she broke formation to bring the other side of Othrys under her guns.

Government sites in rural villages would be left untouched for now out of simple unimportance.

"Alert the ship's marines, we'll have to conduct a drop it appears."

"Commodore, Payitaht is signalling us. They are offering to provide assistance if needed, and point out that they could intercept the unknown contacts before our drone."

Raevsky felt a small flash of jealousy at the mention of the battlecruiser lurking in the outer system. Tirpitz had been recently upgraded, but she was still an older starship. Payitaht (and the other six Bhakars in the 'fleet') outmassed, outgunned, and outclassed his flagship in every way.

"Hm...tell Payitaht to continue present course, aid is not presently needed. Additionally inform them that we will provide them with the data that our drone receives."

Nearing the Asteroid Belt, The Payitaht

Receiving the Tirpitz reply, the Payitaht begins deceleration. With operations still ongoing, she and her crew would remain in reserve until needed by the Commodore.

In all honesty, the Payitaht's many blessings--more tonnage, newer equipment, more automation--were also curses. For a fleet operating on minimal funding (at least compared to that of a more legitimate Verniian military investment), simply allowing the ship to take part in combat was a serious investment. Her crew knew this, and took a great amount of comfort in it.

Kadan leaned back as the cockpit hinged up into the craft. Death Gliders, the favored fighters of the goa’uld, were quite fragile. They folded up for storage comfortably, though, their wings folding down, and the much of the lower hull of the body folded down to allow access from below.

This made them rather fragile, but easy to transport crucially, for logistics, in their folded form, they could be passed through a stargate. The evacuation alarm had been given, but the inhabitants of this base weren’t prepared to abandon its compliment of gliders. They had a better idea.

As an outlying colony, not to mention one that needed a substantial amount of policing, there were many death gliders on Othrys. Almost a thousand, in all, based in seven installations. They could be anywhere on the planet in a few minutes, with the aid of sub-orbital hops, so were fairly closely clustered in the mountains north of the capital city, on a four-layered pyramid. The gliders nestled under the eaves of parts of the pyramid, and were lowered by cranes, their wings snapping out as they hovered away from it like a swarm of bats.

Kadan could hear his squadron leader talking over the encrypted radio as they shot up out of the atmosphere, “Listen carefully. We don’t know what happened. We were attacked, but there’s nothing in orbit. Keep focussed on your tasks, and set your sensors to maximum capacity.”

Moments later, the sky lit up behind him as the pyramid-base exploded into a thousand pieces of masonry, tossed high into the sky.

──────────────

The same happened across the continent, important government structures being levelled from orbit with casual ease. There seemed to be little protection for most of them. The most curious feature on sensors, however, was that across the planet were hundreds of small shield bubbles, between ten and thirty kilometers wide, roughly, which allowed light through – albeit distorted – but blocked ultraviolet, infrared, and almost every other part of the spectrum. No fire came from these, though, and their function was uncertain. Through them, buildings, but not movement, could be seen quite easily, but what they were was a mystery.

──────────────

Demeter nodded, sitting in the throne room of Atum’s palace, “Yes, my lord,” she said, handing over an elaborately gold plated data-pad to the Supreme System Lord. She’d spent the last two decades journeying across every planet in Atum’s domain, mostly by a cargo-ship, which she’d converted to contain a passable set of living quarters. Not luxurious, but it seemed to be winning favour.

She had been a daughter of Cronos, one of the System Lords who had been destroyed in Atum’s rise to power, and as a result, had few followers and friends. She was a nomarch, the lowest rank of goa’uld in Atum’s system, above only the rankless disgraced or newborn. When she’d heard about Lord Atum’s proclamation that planets were to support one another to keep agricultural production high, she’d tried to secure herself a place in the apparatus that transported food, but she had not even the political clout to secure such a junior post.

Without that, she’d decided that she needed to do something to advance herself – her tiny income from her dilapidated estate hardly sufficed to keep herself and the workers fed. But she at least had a cargo ship, and knowledge from her time as a scout in Cronos’ service. She’d decided to travel Atum’s new domain, talking with his servants, cataloguing their diet. Countless billions, across a hundred worlds, it had been interesting to see the diet, and even experience it. From rices to wheat-bread, the peasantry had a number of staples, and each world – and regions within it – varied considerably. She’d explored tens of thousands of cities and hamlets, some of them had never even seen a goa’uld in their lives.

She’d intended to bring her findings to Lady Renenutet, who had been responsible for the system of harvesting, but had found that the lady had been assassinated by the Tok’ra. In desperation for her work not to have been futile, she had travelled to find Nepri, the Lesser Underlord who ran much of the system in her absence.

She had been astonished when she was sent to report to Sheshat, the great System Lord Thoth’s chief scribe, and then to Thoth himself, and ultimately, Atum.

She sat beside him, intimidated beyond words, as he began reading the compiled results of her work, and her recommendations on dietary supplements and crop-introduction.

“And these are your own ideas?” he asked.

“Yes, Complete One,” she said, quietly, not wishing to offend.

“Really?”

“Well, some suggestions came from village headmen and the like, I am not sure if they qualify, but for the most part, yes, Complete One,” she said, eager to disclose fully.

His reply was stalled, as Meriatum, his infamous First Prime, permitted a large woman into the chamber.

“Yes?” he asked.

“My Lord. It is reported that we have been attacked…”

The overlord put her work down, and left without a word.

She wanted to scream in frustration.

Alpha Centauri

“Rustam, you had the final point on the agenda before we move into the sectional and reg-ops updates—the recent activity in the Ministry of Frontier Security,” Rustam Solarin, Reichsführer in Her Imperial Majesty’s Ministry for External State Security, looks at Anthony Fiske.

Fiske is the senior member of ESS’s Department A, devoted to intelligence gathering and covert operations within the Imperium of Vernii. Rustam and Fiske share one the ESS’s secure conference rooms, buried under its headquarters in New Koln, with two other reichsführers—Lillian Rad and Gene Hermanold. This quartet is tied with Department B—responsible for the Collective Protectorates—as the largest of ESS operations department created by Director Michael Seebach after the Great March War.

Seebach viewed the level of centralization prior to his administration of the ESS as too pronounced for comfort. His reforms saw most departments within the ESS now led by intimate committees rather than a single individual. The change pleased the empress and the Sterling Government with the greater efficiency of the ESS, even if it more than doubled the number of reichsführers on active duty. It also dismantled the remnants of the patronage system in the ministry that had lingered long since its founder—the infamous Director Jack Ziegler—had died nearly two centuries ago.

Solarin nods and activates his n-plant. He uploads the compressed brief he prepared to his peers.

“Our contacts within the various arms of the Verniian government’s procurement, acquisitions and contracts arms have seen a marked increase in the Frontier Security’s activities. It’s within the operational parameters of the budget given to them by the parliament, but MFS generated more activity for logistical services in the last two weeks than it has in the past two years. Most of the material is of little interest—increased small arms purchases, stripped down armaments from the civilian markets, and a marked interest in armor against energy weaponry. But there are some interesting large ticket items, including a few very pre-war decommissioned warships that were on their way to either the scrap yard or the Imperial Navy’s live-fire drill ranges.”

“And it’s not headed toward the FEZ,” Rad mutters, her eyes glazed over while she peruses Rustam’s reports.

“We can be certain of that, but we can’t be certain of where all this material is actually going to. It appears to be part of a hole MFS operations is also hiding a recent shuffle in ministry discretionary funds. I can’t be certain where it specifically headed, but a transfer orders put several freighters on one of the cruisers moving Rimward.”

Rustam looks at the table as the room’s hologram system pulls up a map of the region in question. Scattered colors appear across several systems, noting single system and local multi-system powers. There are clusters of gray where inhabited systems are known, but the ESS has relatively little data on. A cluster of systems are outlined in gold, noting interest by the Verniian government.

“It’s the same backwater area Vernii has been tinkering with for years,” Hermanold leans in toward the map. “There’s nothing here but third-tier powers, if you catch them on a good day, and galactic rejects like those lesser Goa’uld system lords.”

“The Foreign Service reported last month Vernii is moving to conclude a trade pact with the system of Persephone,” Fiske gestures and the system hovers above the rest of the map. Data charts and files spawn around the view of the primary and its planets.

Hermanold waves his hands and several of the data charts move toward his chair, “The Cluster nations make more manufactured goods than this dustbowl in space. Of all the places MFS has gone in the past three years this makes the least since of all, unless they are developing odd tastes like the Vakus’ obsession with modern art.”

“Do we have any additional information on MFS activities outside of their support of negotiations with Persephone’s government?”

Rustam shakes his head at Rad’s question, “We have virtually no operatives or reliable regular channels within MFS operations outside the FEZ, Sol, and a few other key star clusters. Gene is right, as far as we could tell this region of space was a dive even by MFS’s standards until a few months ago.”

“There’s been no need for operatives in MFS since the Verniian bureaucracy created it as the latest broom closet to hide everyone’s mentally deficient nephew two years ago,” Hermanold pushes the screen back toward the map. “But this is a larger amount of activity than I would expect them to sign off on for this region of space, especially since even the more aggressive Goa’uld in the region seemed content to leave the systems they are interested in alone. This could be some ministry manager’s pet project for his family corporation or the proverbial old schoolmate.”

Rad puts a hand in front of her lips, “That would be a considerable favor to hide, given the relatively limited size of the MFS bureaucracy. You think something more is at play, Rustam?”

“I think there are more questions here than we can answer with the sources at hand. The amount of money vanishing into this general region of space suggest someone in the MFS must be watching it from somewhere a lot closer than Gregor. I would recommend establishing an info-op mission to probe into this at the ministry headquarters in Gregor and in the field. Four to six agents would be enough to start with. We can also set an SI and an RI team to shifting through the MFS data we do have to try and find out where this hole is going.”

“I think I can even get us a free rabbit to send down the hole,” Hermanold looks at the newest screen in front of him with a slight smile. “We have an old report from an operative in Sol. Persephone was reported as the last possible destination for a pair of arms dealers who managed to annoy our cousins in the ISS. I don’t think they were actually worthy of the attention they got from the look of this report. They look to have dealt to almost anyone, but they evaded a joint ISS-Cluster customs picket that tried to nail their ship on its way to Mesa before the war—even managed to disable the customs picket’s weapons array.”

Fiske glances away from the map and orders a copy of Hermanold’s window. He reads the Ministry for Internal State Security’s criminal profile on one Casey Davis and one David Wright summaries then looks at Rustam.

“I will have the director’s office pass the report on to ISS with our compliments if you think that will assist your efforts.”

“An ISS agent can have a small team fielded from our department. The Verniian government can’t be bothered to defend someone associated with the slavers. They might even buy in to thinking it would be good PR if they help us send him back to AC or Rembrandt for trial.”

“Consider it done, and I would appreciate it if you would attend to all the other details. Lillian, the sectional updates if you please.”

The palace in the largest city, largest and ‘capital’ primarily for being the location of the stargate, was a rambling structure built on a low hill, overlooking a huge sprawling city of randomly constructed hodge-podge roofs, and constituted the only major military installation there. The bombardment imploded first one part of it, and then another, the entire area shaking under the firepower directed at it.

Inside, the chaos was substantial, as not only the locally constructed levels were impacted, but the substantial excavations below were caved in by the orbital attack. It was there that something unfortunate happened, as the attack penetrated the armoured chamber that held the planet’s supply of Naquadah, brought in from the stargate.

Naquadah was the key element in goa’uld systems, providing the means by which they could boost a power plant’s supply up to useful levels with effortless ease, as well as being used as a component of several other items. The goa’uld even had it in their very blood.

It also enhanced explosions. Instead of the shot they wanted being a few tonnes in equivalence, it changed substantially into a kilotonne-range attack, blasting the palace apart, flattening it utterly and scattering masonry and clods of earth across the entire center of the city. The stargate itself survived, of course, but its control device was shattered, and the stargate flung away from the blast like a discarded child’s toy.

The capital city of Drenkar was, when the invaders’ troops arrived, on fire, where ruins of expensive materials had fallen upon the neatly slated roofs.

Elsewhere, the bombardment went about as well as could be expected, destroying the few military installations – primarily underground bunkers or elaborate pyramids holding troops, with quite effective ease. A few other locations were also hit, food stores, communications and governance centers looked much the same as military installations; and of course, the spaceport Alak’tar had found himself at proved a prime target.

Normally, an Atumite world would have a large number of older pyramid ships upon its surface, but this one was different. A long way from his other holdings, there was nowhere for those ships, with their slow speed of some five thousand times the speed of light, to go in a reasonable time.

The occupying force on Othrys was actually rather small. Certainly no more than a few hundred thousand troops, and thousands of aircraft of all types, in addition to the warships that had hung like the proverbial Sword of Damocles above the planet.

The gateroom on Mnewer was a large chamber, consisting of thick, metal walls with external frescos on blast-resistant ceramics looking towards the portal itself. The chamber was shielded, and some fifty jaffa warriors stood on two levels at all times, looking through vertical doorways into the chamber. Each of these had thick blast doors from the floors or ceilings, and was usually protected by an energy shield, allowing them to shoot into the chamber while being protected themselves, while leaving an attacker nowhere to hide.

A sizeable complex surrounded this, buried under a mountain, accessible only by transport rings and a long corridor to the surface. In it were barracks, laboratories, a whole floor of detention cells, shield generators for the stargate, the chamber it was in, and the complex as a whole. Deep beneath it, generators powered it, as well as a potent trio of heavy-liquid-naquadah generators under construction to increase the base’s power.

Lady Tayet, the commander of the installation, strode from her office, down the short connecting corridor to the command room, guards saluting and then returning to their watch over the stargate. She walked into the chamber, stepping up to the secondary dialling device – pressing the keys to dial the stargate. “Prepare scan-orb,” she ordered.

One of the guards took an orb with a red globe at the end, and walked across the stargate chamber as Tayet activated it. He passed it through the gate, rolling it on the floor.

Three seconds later and almost forty thousand light years away, the orb rolled out into a vision of hell. Fast-blasting acid rains scoured it for a moment, before rolling it into the portal again, destroying it.

Watching its telemetry of freezing, fast acid rain, Tayet frowned. “We are not going there, then,” she said, looking up the next nearest known destination.

──────────────

Alak’tar growled angrily, picking himself up; it was jarring to fall in a helmet, but it was safe enough. The starport was now a smouldering ruin, as he looked back upon it. Ruined tel’tak vessels had been scattered and shattered like the discarded shells of markin nuts.

The town that backed onto the field was next, and obviously the best place to go, now. He withdrew the helmet, the harsh smell of smoking wood assailed him.

──────────────

Nephricana, as the palace exploded, watched the sphere in her hand take on a blank grey surface. She frowned, throwing it onto the ground. It wasn’t an encrypted model, so it could probably be tracked.

“Jaffa,” she said, turning to the nearest guard, also mounted, holding out her hand, “kree.”

He passed the long staff-weapon he carried to her, and she activated it, sighted on the sphere activated the weapon and fired, blasting it, vaporising the communications device.

“Ride,” the underlady said, throwing the weapon back and spurring her mount into action.

──────────────
A stargate opened on a barren piece of scrubland, and from it rolled an orb, which rolled and bounced down the stone stairs around the portal’s base, coming to rest, orienting itself so it rolled with its bottom side down. It emitted a cone of light, and a planar beam as it scanned its environment.

A minute later, a larger, hovering object moved through the stargate’s portal, long legs dangling below it, giving its saucer shaped head a mushroom-like appearance as it buzzed along, legs trailing through the undergrowth.

──────────────

S’Lendra snapped the brown jacket closed, rolling his head back as his squad prepared to embark. Tem himself had ordered standard reconnaissance of all worlds near a specific target, and while S’Lendra didn’t know the specifics, as the foremost scout team based on Mnewer, he would be the one leading the ground team in doing so.

The scout teams were a new upgrade on an ancient goa’uld tradition. Atum had formalised them, added new technologies and support, but essentially, their methodology was tens of thousands of years old.

They consisted of small groups of warriors who would travel through the stargate to distant worlds, and explore them, making contact with their inhabitants, where necessary, or finding and analysing new technologies and other items that the goa’uld would find interesting. Exploration, prospecting, spying, and many other skills came under their remits.

Originally, they had been groups of goa’uld, in the days when the Unas species had been the only hosts. Now, they were usually jaffa, led by goa’uld, like S’Lendra. The chief source of jaffa was from Morrigan’s Raven Guard, already famed for their ideological flexibility, subtlety and human-intelligence techniques.

He pulled a zat’nik’tel pistol into its holster by his side, and slipped it into his belt. The main part of their uniform was actually based on various known tok’ra costumes, one of Atum’s little alterations, adopting the Tok’ra’s rather practical dress policy rather than the heavy armour or robes previously preferred.

A few years back, he’d actually met a tok’ra group on one planet, it had taken them several minutes to realise they weren’t actually allies. Unfortunately, they’d managed to escape.

Over this, the group wore a hooded, chameleonic cloak that changed hue to reflect their environment. From the walls of the preparation room, the jaffa warriors took their heavier staff weapons, and the ornate shoulder-resting collars that created the advanced helms that would give them any number of features.

Next, they had a substantial amount of additional equipment to prepare, and then would only need to wait for the probe’s initial report.

The image on the viewscreen displaying the bombardment of the capital's palace flared white for a moment as the structure exploded and showered debris down upon the surrounding city.

"Shit," Raevsky muttered. "Tactical I thought I told you to watch your firepower."

"That battery was dialed down sir, I must have hit a fuel bunker, magazine, or something of that nature."

Raevsky sighed, Drenkar's central district was burning, with more fires scattered around the rest of its sprawling neighborhoods. He keyed up the communications link with commanding officer of Tirpitz's marine complement.

"Lieutenant Colonel Keegan, Tactical should be sending you updated sensor footage of your sector. Our bombardment has apparently exceeded expectations and the city center is ablaze."

"My troops are not equipped for disaster work sir."

"I know, but hopefully you can come up with a plan for it anyway. It's a secondary priority compared to securing the city, but we need to ensure the city doesn't burn to the ground after we take it. You have my authority to modify your landing zones and target objectives as the situation requires."

"Sir, I have only 1,900 ground troops under my command in your squadron. Securing both vital objectives and suppressing the enemy would be difficult enough, but I simply do not have enough men to toss firefighting into the job as well. I highly suggest you signal for reinforcements so I can get the surface situation under control."

"I will give it serious consideration, but in the meantime I need you to start your landings."

Keegan repressed a frustrated sigh, "Yes sir, at once."

Minutes later, the first wave of shuttles and pinnaces dropped from the hangar bays of Raevsky's warships to unload their contents onto the streets of Drenkar.

+++

"Commodore, what should we do about those shielded installations?"

Raevsky thought for a moment. A shielded installation was most likely military and thus a priority target. However, the accidental carnage in the capital city had spooked him a little. Second, judging by the destruction that his bombardment had caused so far, the enemy occupation was most likely reeling in confusion and chaos. Perhaps they could even be captured? "Keep a close eye on them, if one starts looking like it might become actively hostile, bombard it. We'll take care of them later."

The pinnaces and shuttles arced into the atmosphere like clusters of little comets, apparently without paying much attention to the death gliders already in orbit. It was Kadan’s first look at true infidel ships. They were very different. He called up a display on the screen of his death glider’s cockpit. His copilot locked weapons on one of the smaller vehicles, they’d leave the bomber-gliders to try and deal with the larger vehicles.

“They don’t seem to have noticed us,” he said.

“It’ll likely be because of the destruction of the ha’taks, they may be assuming we’re debris,” another of his group said.

“Well,” their leader said, “Let us cure them of that delusion. In Amun’s name, we go to glory!” he said, and the squadron began to accelerate. Their speed was probably far beyond what was anticipated; accelerating at full power, the six thousand four hundred kilometers – almost the radius of the planet – shot by in less than six seconds. This of course, didn’t do much for the accuracy of the gliders’ fire. The trick in a high-speed attack run, they were taught, was to change vector the instant you fired, or you risked catching the blasts of your weapons and blowing your own guns off as you continued to accelerate and overtook the energy pulses.

The bomber-models had more luck. Piloted by a single jaffa, these vehicles had the same powerplant, but sacrificed a gunner for dogfights to replace him with a small bomb bay containing racks of explosives about the size and general shape of bowling balls. Unfortunately, these weren’t optimized for space flight – rather, they could drop shock grenades that could disable a rebellious crowd. It was possible to re-equip them for attack on space ships, using a different set of bombs, but here, there had been no time. Thus, all these bombers really did was scatter hundreds of high explosives in rough cones around and upon the enemy craft.

The gliders also had a stunning capacity to maneuver, their engines actually removing inertia, with a few deft instructions, they turned on the spot, with an evasive pattern that was likely far beyond what the enemy’s interception systems were programmed for.

However, not all of them corrected their courses for another run. Some of the pilots already had an inkling of how this invasion would go, and had resolved to do as much damage to the god’s enemies as possible, diverting their vessels on courses directly for the enemy. Rather than mere gigajoules, their ships would strike with incredible force, if allowed to collide...

"Sir! We have incoming enemy units, emissions and mass classify them as fighters."

The shuttles! Raevsky felt a flash of alarm as he realized what the enemy was attempting. "Order the landing force to take evasive action now!"

Normally, the situation would have been a massacre for the enemy. The multi-layered point defense systems that were designed to deal with missiles traveling at low c-fractional terminal velocity would have made short work of targets with a velocity of 'only' 320 kps. In this case however, the defense computers and their human supervisors did not have the benefit of several minutes of tracking time and layered engagement zones that were customary in long range missile duels. The Goa'uld death gliders were already within the final point defense engagement zone when they were detected, and were going after much more vulnerable targets than the warships themselves.

The battle computers of Raevsky's squadron began analyzing the situation, predicting courses, prioritizing targets, and automatically engaging them. The location and contents of each shuttle was quickly examined and defense assets were allocated according to priority based upon the value of their cargo. Accordingly those carrying command staff, heavy infantry, and vehicles received the heaviest fire support from their motherships, while those carrying light infantry received what was left over. It was quick, logical, and efficient, but little comfort to those who had been designated as low priority assets by the squadron's computers.

Counter-missiles flashed from their launch tubes, whizzing toward enemy fighters with suicidal abandon, point defense lasers sprayed invisible beams of destruction across projected courses, and electronic warfare systems went active, hammering the enemy's sensors with pulses of electromagnetic noise and energy.

+++

"Shuttle 12, enemy interceptors have you in their sights, take evasive action now."

The suddenly overburdened pilot already knew that, the shrill alerts of his control systems had let him know they were under attack moments before Tirpitz had kindly informed them of the obvious.

He poured more power into his engines, surging forward out of the landing formation in a desperate attempt to get groundside as fast as possible. Behind him, other landing craft began twisting and veering away in an effort to make themselves harder targets, while others followed his example.

A heavy vibration and more screeching from his control panels announced that his attempt at evading attack had failed. His controls suddenly became much less responsive.

His flight engineer cried out, "Main thrusters are gone! Transferring power to secondaries!"

More hits shook them, and their atmospheric descent became impossible to bring under control.

The pilot hit the intercom to the troop compartment in the rear, where over a hundred light infantry, an entire rifle company, were secured. "This is the pilot speaking, we have taken severe damage and are going down. Prepare your counter-gravs, I'm popping the hatches at 6,000 meters."

Other units in his landing formation were not as lucky. Several dozen kilometers behind and above them, a pinnace carrying another rifle company was struck by one of the suicidal enemy pilots, splitting its hull open and spraying its passengers and other debris into the sky as it turned into tumbling wreckage. Another suffered a massive hull breach and was forced to abort its landing, pulling slowly up and out of the atmosphere and turning desperately back toward its mothership, leaving a faint trail of air and water vapor behind it.

At an altitude of six kilometers, the pilot of shuttle 12 jettisoned his passenger and cargo hatches, and a long string of black figures began tumbling out before being snapped away by the rush of wind. Seconds later, counter-grav units powered up and began halting their chaotic, tumbling falls.

The shuttle crew were the last ones to abandon their stricken craft, but soon joined their passengers in their slow, mostly uncontrolled, float to the surface.

There were no whoops or cries of excitement as the first two shuttles were crippled. The battle was far from over.

Counter missiles posed little threat – they were fast, certainly, but they moved in a newtonian manner, lacking the bafflingly advanced motive systems of the death gliders, which could casually change their vectors in any way they pleased. They were banking like aircraft while preserving their speed, as if they were built around some incredible gyroscope. Electronic countermeasures were even more futile, the death gliders’ systems were both quite simple and quite cleverly designed, and relied primarily on optical and thermal wavelengths, having little difficulty resolving the shuttles.

Lasers, however, were much more effective, effortlessly incandescing the death gliders they struck into vapours, first a few, then dozens and hundreds of them. Kadan’s craft lost a wing, and spiralled to one side, the propulsion systems in it unstable.

“I’m hit…” he cried, both exhilarated and terrified.


“Stand by…” the commander said, and Kadan wrestled to bring his craft on an even keel. “Some of the enemy is are landing three miles north of the city. I want you to fly your craft into that area, full speed, I am sending you the location…”

“Commander?”

“Don’t worry. Trust in me…” the goa’uld said, “it will only harm the enemy.”

He turned, and accelerated again, adding a little extra speed to his craft, struggling to keep it on target as his navigator, Doran, locked in their last course. "We die for Amun..." Doran said, and Kadan nodded quietly, holding his trembling hand on the control stick.

The fighter hit the atmosphere like a missile, travelling at over two thousand kilometers each second, exploding sixty kilometers before impact, barely travelling apart, but hitting the ground before the landing humans like some kind of megaton-shotgun, although most of its energy was used in vaporizing much of it, it blasted a hundred craters over about a square mile of ground.

Three miles away, it would be heard, but not felt. But for those humans landing in the area Kadan and Doran had been ‘fired’ at, it could potentially be devastating, as the hundreds of fragments that hit each had a substantial fraction of a kiloton left in kinetic energy.


Meanwhile, high above, as it seemed to be the only effective tactic, more and more of the glider pilots elected to try and ram the enemy. Some missed the now evading craft, while others decided to boldly try their luck and turn upon the mother-ships. One vessel, however, decided to be making a run back toward the fragments of the damaged mother-ship hulks remaining in orbit.

Concluding that the current EW bombardment was having no effect, but not realizing that the sensor and guidance systems of the death gliders were literally too simple to fool, the defense computers of the squadron began rotating through their extensive library of frequencies and EW patterns in a futile attempt to find something more effective. Also concluding that their counter-missiles were simply outmatched by the drive systems of the enemy craft and thus useless, the computers overrid the current defense plan and ceased their launches to conserve costs and ammunition.

Noting that the only effective defense so far were the squadron's point-defense lasers, they automatically began laying in fire control plans to each battery and queried the bridge of Tirpitz for authorization to engage the enemy with the full assortment of energy weapons available to them. Authorization was quickly granted, and the batteries of anti-starship lasers, grasers, and plasma weapons that studded the hulls of Raevsky's warships flared into action, adding their fury to the efforts of the PD lasers. Projected courses for some of the enemy fighters shifted onto collision courses with the starships themselves, and while the computers calculated that they posed no serious threat, neither could they let them actually succeed in their attempt. A few grasers from the assortment of heavy energy weapons available were retrained onto these new suicidal enemies, and swept their invisible beams across them. Suddenly robbed of the guns that were protecting it, another dropship fell victim to a death glider that now had a free shot at it.

"Communications, signal Payitaht that our landing force has met significant enemy resistance, and that their support is requested. Transmit them our sensor logs so they're updated on the tactical situation." Raevsky uttered those words grudgingly, he was infuriated that his ground force had already been mauled, and that he would now have to rely on the help of others to complete his objectives, and of course, share the glory with Captain Istani, who would surely see this as coming to Raevsky's 'rescue'.

A fifth shuttle, this time carrying a field medicine unit and its supplies, broke apart in the atmosphere as another enemy craft collided with it. Raevsky's jaw tightened as he watched its death spiral on a sensor screen, he knew that Keegan would definitely need Payitaht's drones at this rate.

+++

Sergeant McKenzie grunted as he hit the ground solidly as the other soldiers of his squad landed in a similar fashion in a wide area around him. Except for him, they were all members of Martinek's Marauders, a mercenary group that had been bought up by MFS and whose starships were now attempting to save the rest of the landing force. McKenzie however, was actually Verniian. A former member of the Imperial Army, with combat experience fighting the Hegemony, he had signed up with the Ministry as a policeman for one of the Free Expansion Zone's habitats. Then they'd approached him a few months ago with a reassignment offer to actual 'frontier' duty, promising a promotion, hazard pay, and a regular pay raise as compensation. He'd accepted (although now he was starting to regret it), and had been put in charge of this squad as part of an attempt at bringing the Maruaders up to the Army's standards.

Bringing up his helmet's HUD display, he noted the beacons of the company officers and where the other units of the company were located. "Grab your gear boys, our rally point is two kilometers east of us." He unholstered his rifle from his pack and checked it for damage. There wasn't any, and satisfied that it was still in proper condition, he motioned for them to start moving. They'd only made it a few hundred yards when a flaming spear of debris hurled itself down from the sky above them.

There was a sudden thunderclap and he hurled himself to the ground as the earth underneath him shook from the impact, the rest of his unit quickly followed his example. Fountains of dirt and rock sprouted from the earth in the distance, and the trembling subsided. He brought up his HUD again, and was horrified to find that the beacons of the company officers were gone. It'd landed directly on top of his company's rally point, and most of his comrades had simply vanished from the display. A few icons lurched about here and there, most likely wounded survivors.

The sergeant was swiftly standing again, "On your fucking feet now!" His men unsteadily obeyed, "Some goddamn snake just dropped a pile of shit on top of our rally point and it looks like most of our friends are dead or dying. We're going to get there as fast as possible to assist survivors. Move out!"

Cpt. Istani and Lt. Du'irfan, now back on bridge receive Raevky's request. "Alright," the Captain announces toward the helmsman, "Cut forward engines, spool up the auxiliary jump drive and set destination for high orbit at rendezvous coordinates."

"Aye."

"Engage."

Given the nature of human perception, oddly enough no-one onboard the Payitaht can even feel the transdimensional jump drive in operation. At the push of the button, the Payitaht is simply there, at the jump coordinates.

Unfortunately enough, the jump computer was not able to predict the sudden change of course of one of the many, apparently inertia-free death gliders, which had just taken a course directly into where the Payitaht would be. It's engine, as a later analysis by an engineer repairing the boat would say, "the engine of the enemy vessel didn't take a liking to being halfway full of starship hull." The ensuing explosion caused notable external damage to the ship, but thankfully nothing limiting operational ability.

"COLLISION!" shouts tactical," Point Defense didn't even get a crack at it!"

Istani does his best to ignore the bad news, but has to hold his brow in his hand to hold back the sudden rush of disappointment, "Get the fighters out, and God damn it start killing anything that isn't Raevsky's!"

The Payitah's many blessings did include limited drone fighter production capability, albeit one it used reluctantly in order to counter the apparent nuisance of the death gliders. Once into the vacuum of space, the three squadrons (10 fighters each) of Banshee fighters took to their duties of hunting down the death gliders, directed by the Payitaht's AI, Jason. Perhaps not as maneuverable as their adversary, their coordination could not be paralleled as they operated under one intelligence.

Meanwhile firing computer took aim with point defense lasers as well as ship-to-ship grasers and missiles, taking special care not to hit friendly craft, though making a few errant graser strikes on the planet's surface in the first few shots. The Payitaht's targetting computers, the death gliders would find, have far more computing power available due to the ship's far more recent construction.

Until the situation was handled up here, the landing of Payitaht's ground force would have to wait.

Kamron ducked as the area nearby thundered and rumbled with the after-effects of the explosion high above. In the sky, he could see a luminous trail of dust and vapour where a death glider had ploughed into the ground. He had not seen such a thing since he had last been on Edfu and seen the air-combat excersizes go wrong once. The impact had flung the group from their feet, and the forests all around were filled with the sounds of startled animals.

“This way!” he said, clambering to his feet, He’d seen people falling from the sky, perhaps in some kind of descent pods, so it seemed like the best place to go to engage them.

The group of jaffa, without the distinctive helmets on this occasion, pulled themselves back to their feet, checked their weapons, and proceeded onwards. Mackenzies’ group could just about be seen from the edges of the sparse, noisy woodland that masked their approach for a few key moments.

Kamron waved his men to spread out and take cover, wishing he had a pair of binoculars with him to get a better look at the enemy. He settled down behind one of the trees, a little way in, resting his staff on a low branch, trying as best he could to aim down its length, using the open head of it to sight on the general area of the most important looking enemy.

He thumbed the firing stud eagerly, pulling ahead of the enemy an inch or so to account for the time of flight of a plasma bolt over the hundreds of yards between him and the enemy. He kept with the enemy there, and looked around. He could see his men setting their weapons up and aligning them, and took out a bukkehorn, blowing a note on it that meant for the group to all attack the same target, at the same time, pushing firmly on the trigger.

──────────────

S’Lendra stepped out of the stargate, straight into a forest. Clearly the stagate here had been completely forgotten. The blast of unstable energy that preceded a stargate activation had done its job, and disintegrated sizeable chunks of the trees occupying their path. “Find the dialling device.” He said, and the group spread out, clambering over fallen trees. It was dislodged a little, but intact.

“Dial it,” he said, “Where doesn’t matter,” he said, “we’ll need the area before the gate cleared if we want air-power.” The boles of several trees had fallen across the area, and a few more gate activations would clear the area, and a space vertically above it, he hoped.

The forest seemed to go on for miles, at least, and S’Lendra couldn’t find much reason to move out of there. One of the jaffa warriors, on the other hand, had something, beckoning him over in a shimmering distortion of optical camoflage.

“Fabric, Lord. Obviously quite recent.”

It was quite small, a piece of brown material caught on one of the bushes.

“More inhabitants than we thought, perhaps,” S’Lendra said.

“Travelling this way, Lord,” the jaffa warrior said, standing and nodding downhill.

──────────────

Nephricana’s guards rode into a small hunting lodge, and she leapt down from her horse, leaving one of them to take it to the stable built into the building, opening the door, and calling for whatever servants lived here, ordering them to bring drink and food.

She sat down at a table obviously intended for two dozen people or more, and frowned, wondering just what could be done.

──────────────

A very bored surveyor had named the planet of Xenk. He had never expected anyone to live there, for good reason. Most of it was covered in ice, except a band around the equator, which was entirely made up of active volcanoes. It had been orphaned from its parent star over a million years ago when one of the many neutron stars in the region had passed by its system, wrenching it from being a pleasant enough place, to spinning off through the cosmos on its own.

Xenk was dying. But it had a glorious death. For the same pull had accelerated its spin until it was compressed at the pole. The difference in one’s weight could be felt between the ice wastes and the equator, because at the equator. The centrifugal force of its rotation had broken its crust, and forced molten rock in vast quantities up to the surface, so powerful was this effect, it even countered gravity to a degree.

When Atum had conquered the System Lords, he had planned to execute Sokar, but he had wanted to retain the services of his long-term ally Ptah, with whom Sokar shared great affection. So he had allowed Sokar and his court to settle a world within the star cluster around Mnewer, like the other System Lords.

Xenk was Sokar’s highly unorthodox choice. Xenk now had a population of almost two million, many of them skilled workers, some bold risk-takers, and yet others were unfortunates condemned to toil in the unpleasant tasks of secondary mining on Xenk, where they scavenged for marble, jade and other valuable metamorphic rocks.

Tepan, laughed, watching these wretches scurry near a lava flow from the safety of one of the great shielded mineral-skiffs – without protective garments, they could not go too far from the volcanic regions without freezing, nor too close without burning. Their trade with Sokar’s agents was barely survivable for them, and that was how Tepan liked it.

He ordered one of his serpent guards to fire a few shots at the damned, he was having a bad day, so why should they not have one also? The transport rings of the skiff took him down beneath the ground, to the dark-red crystal caverns of Sokar. The guards there were Sokar’s own ominous minions, and, recognizing him, let him pass.

Tepan knelt, and then abased himself before the throne of Sokar.

“My Lord Sokar… The Sovereign has commanded me to tell you that you are to attend him upon Mnewer as swiftly as your ship may travel.”

He dreaded this. Sokar did not like even the mention of Atum, these days. Fifty years was an insufficient amount of time for him to even begin coping with his anger over defeat.

──────────────

Meanwhile, thousands of light years away, the arrival of Payitah swiftly doomed the last of the death gliders, its drones, and the Tirpitz’s lasers, shot down the remaining gliders without further incident.