Chapter 197: The Election Campaign Part 19
Staging Area, Outside the PT-9013-System, October 9th, 2000
"Now, doesn't this feel familiar?" Jack O'Neill grinned at the people in the shuttle. "We're about to embark on a dangerous mission against a snake to gather information about an unknown, mysterious alien installation."
"It's not quite the same, Jack," Daniel objected. "We didn't use to have a fleet ready to attack on our command."
"And magic was not yet a concern, O'Neill," Teal'c added.
"Magictech in this case," Carter corrected him. "The Space Station is outside the atmosphere."
Which meant magic didn't work there, but magitech would - not that there was much of a difference as far as Jack was concerned. Whether the fireball burning you was coming from the bare hand of a sorceress or the magictech staff she held didn't matter for the target. But it mattered for using magic against spaceships and at scale. You couldn't scale up magic. But magitech? If you cracked how to build it, you could outfit a fleet with magitech weapons. If Ba'al was experimenting in space, he was probably quite a bit further ahead in whatever he was building there than the Alliance was comfortable with. Or Jack.
"And you didn't have us," Entrapta cut in with a wide smile. "So… It's not really that nostalgic, is it?"
"Nostalgic enough for me," Jack told her. "So… any sign that Ba'al's guard ships have improved sensors that can negate our stealth?"
"They have not reacted to the spy bots so far, sir," Carter replied. "And we've been flying them closer and closer to the guard ships. However, we haven't flown closer to the space station yet."
"But now that the task force's ready, we can risk it," Catra said. "If they can see through our stealth fields, we'll rush them with the fleet."
"And risk running straight into whatever weapon they're working on on that station," Glimmer pointed out. "If they have a dimensional transporter there, like Beta was working on…"
They had discussed that already - it was one of the reasons even the most conservative officers couldn't really object to this mission; no one wanted to see an entire task force get sent into another dimension. But the mission was only a go if the stealth generators kept working.
"Flying closer!" Bow announced.
"Still no reaction from the guard ship," Carter reported.
"No unusual or unknown radiation from the ship's sensors," Entrapta added.
"And we're in close range now… closer… touching the hull!" Bow reported.
Unless Ba'al had instructed his guards to play stupid to lure them into a trap, that was a clear sign that the stealth was working - on the guard ships. But the space station was another thing. If they had magitech sensors…
The spy bot was already disengaging from the guard ship - a Ha'tak - and proceeding towards the space station.
"No reaction at the standard sensor ranges."
"No reaction at close range."
"No reaction at touch range."
It still could be a trap by Ba'al, but Jack didn't think the snake using a dozen clones to throw off his enemies would risk his space station getting destroyed by a stealth bomb. And if it was a trap… well, they had a good track record - OK, a decent one - in turning a trap against the trapper.
Jack blinked. Somewhere, that metaphor, as Daniel would say, had run away from him. Anyway! "Good enough for me." He looked at Adora.
She nodded. "Let's go."
Jack and Sha're, who was serving as his co-pilot, started towards the enemy system. A moment later, they activated the stealth generator.
*****
PT-9013-System, October 9th, 2000
The spy bot had made it there and back again - well, to a spot covering the planet's other side relative to the space station - without any visible reaction. They should be fine then in the shuttle.
Jack still felt very tense when they passed a patrol of Death Gliders. Running in Stealth greatly reduced the range of their own sensors - and even magitech would have to be used cautiously, now that Ba'al was all but confirmed to be working on it - and he would prefer to give all those guards a wider berth.
But that would also mean it would take far longer to reach the station, and Jack hated waiting as much or even more than getting so close to the enemy. At least, they were already passing through the inner ring of patrols and guard ships. Now they just had to avoid the close-in defences.
And hope that this isn't a trap, a small voice whispered in the back of his mind.
He clenched his teeth and adjusted the course a little. The space station was in a geosynchronous orbit, but that only mattered if you were on the planet. Not when approaching it.
Another guard ship, this time an Al'kesh, was getting close, but its course led away from their destination, so Jack just let the shuttle fly on, reducing emissions even further.
Close range now. He could see the runes - huge compared to the data cube's - that covered the station's hull with his own eyes. And what looked like weapon installations. Also covered with runes.
He hoped that that was just a cultural quirk, like all the gold the snakes put on everything, and not some unknown magic waiting to be unleashed.
Well, they would find out, he thought as the shuttle touched down on the hull and the magnetic clamps engaged.
"Showtime!" he said.
*****
Alien Space Station, PT-9013-System, October 9th, 2000
It took longer to open the closest airlock than usual. Adora had expected that - it had taken them longer than usual to find the airlock in the first place - since they were dealing with an unknown alien species' design.
At least it seemed that the aliens were about the same size as Etherians or humans; the door of the airlock was familiar, although Scopria would have to bend over a bit to go through.
Though when the airlock slid open - Adora rolled her eyes with a smile at Catra's 'Finally!' - the chamber was roomy enough to fit the entire group inside - which was all of them except for Sha're, who would be staying in the shuttle.
"Alright, we've cracked the door codes, so this shouldn't take too long!" Entrapta announced as the airlock cycled, and air filled the chamber.
"Atmosphere composition matches standard human habitable," Sam said.
One less worry for Adora. Her friends wouldn't be in danger of suffocating should their suits lose integrity, as Sam described them getting holed.
"Melog says they're ready to hide us and the airlock opening," Catra said.
Adora nodded. Melog couldn't do anything about the sound, but that was OK. People were more likely to ignore a sound than a sight. At least people Adora knew. Aliens might be different, but with how everything - the hull, the doors and the walls in here - was covered with runes (or scribbles), Adora thought they were likely also favouring the eyesight over their ears. But this was a station taken over by Ba'al, and Adora didn't think there were any aliens present, so this should work.
If not, then this would be a very short infiltration mission, followed by a hopefully successful boarding mission or a hasty escape. Or both.
But the door opened, revealing a hallway with the walls, the floor and the ceiling covered in runes.
"Are those runes magical?" Jack asked.
"Magitech," Glimmer replied. "But they're currently not charged," she added.
"The magical scanner confirms it," Sam said.
That didn't mean that the runes couldn't be charged, though. As long as the magictech converters worked, any power source would be enough - and the station had powerful reactors. Best not waste time.
"Let's go before that changes," Jack echoed Adora's thought.
They moved down the hallway to an intersection, Jack in the lead, followed by Adora. Jack checked around the corner, Adora taking the other side, but both hallways were clear.
Behind them, Entrapta, Sam and Bow went over their tools and scanners. "We're trying to map the station, but there are areas that are blocked from magic scans. And from our other sensors," Entrapta said.
"Marking them."
On Adora's HUD, a holographic map appeared, showing the interior layout of the station - but with three huge dark spots. One in the centre, one next to the reactor in the bottom half relative to the artificial gravity, and one at the 'top', all three covering entire decks.
"So… would Ba'al be at the top because his ego can't accept anything else, or in the centre, where it's safest?" Jack asked.
"Ba'al has shown a remarkable pragmatism compared to other System Lords," Daniel said. "And a more pronounced paranoia than his rivals. I think he would be in the centre, if he's present. Though the top section might offer an easy way to escape."
"Centre first, it's closer," Adora decided. "But we need to cover the section near the reactors as well - especially if we need to shut them down." She looked at the others. "Entrapta, Sam - check if there's a safe route to the reactor. If there is, head there with Teal'c while the rest move with me to the centre." Melog couldn't hide two groups.
"Alright!" Entrapta announced, with Teal'c and Sam nodding. "We've just finished the scan for life forms, and…"
The reason for her trailing off was obvious - the entire station seemed empty of any human, Jaffa or alien life. Outside the dark areas, at least.
"That's… unusual," Daniel commented. "Are there any automated defences or security?"
"We haven't found a sensor network so far," Bow said. "Much less any bots."
"Doesn't seem like Ba'al to keep his alien station unguarded," Jack commented.
Adora nodded. The Goa'uld wasn't the type to skimp on security, especially internal security.
"It could be a trap," Daniel said.
"Ba'al would have added guards if it were a trap, to make it seem less suspicious," Catra told him.
Adora agreed - Ba'al didn't care about the lives of his followers, be they slaves or guards. "Let's proceed to the centre area. Carefully."
"Yeah." Jack moved ahead, carbine at the ready, and Adora followed him, with Catra on her heels.
They moved to the closest emergency stairs, route mapped out on their HUD.
"Still no sign of any internal security sensors," Sam said.
"And no sign at all of any work having been done here to convert the station for use by Goa'uld forces," Bow added. "Either Ba'al has only recently discovered it or isn't planning anything with it - but he's using the alien tech for mining the gas giant in the system - or everything here is happening in the shielded sections."
"Three guesses and the first two don't count," Jack replied as they entered the stairs and started up towards the blocked area in the centre of the station.
Adora took the lead this time. She had a bad feeling about this.
*****
Enemy space stations were not supposed to be this empty. At least not if they were still in use. Samantha Carter had boarded quite a few Goa'uld ships and installations, and the lack of guards and workers - or any activity in the areas their sensors could scan - was very unusual. Eerie, she would say if she were superstitious.
Of course, the fact that she and her team were moving through hallways covered in magic runes that were merely one switch away from being powered up and releasing unknown effects on everyone didn't help. Sam was, without false modesty, a very talented and experienced scientist, but she had not as much experience or knowledge about magic or magitech as she needed to understand the setup here, so she couldn't even prepare any countermeasures. That Entrapta, Bow and Glimmer lacked the knowledge as well was no consolation - quite the contrary; all they could do was to hope that they could shut down whatever was going on here, and based on the regular deliveries of mined elements from the gas giant in the system, something was going on in the base, before it took effect.
If she ever mentioned that she was missing having to dodge enemy guards and enemy fire, the General would never let her forget it.
They reached the floor leading into the shielded sector in the centre of the ship. The door was, as expected, covered in runes. The force field covering the metal, though, was unexpected. But what was really surprising was that the force field projector was located outside the protected area - the force field was projected against the door from this side.
"It's not meant to keep intruders out but to keep whoever - or whatever - is behind the door
in," she half-whispered.
"Great. Talk about ominous," the General said. "But that doesn't change that we need to know what's going on inside. Quite the contrary."
"I can disable the force field from here, easily," Sam told him. "It's a standard Goa'uld design."
"Good. Then we…"
"The runes on the door are active," Glimmer cut in. "They're powered."
"That must be how they block our scanner!" Entrapta sounded far too happy for the circumstances, but Sam hadn't expected anything else.
"Can you identify what they do?" Bow asked.
"No. It's a completely different magical tradition," Glimmer replied. "No similarities to Etherian magic, Earth magic or First Ones magic. We can only observe the effects to draw conclusions about how it works, and we don't have enough data for that yet."
"Could the door have some way to use magic to detect intruders?" the General asked, eyeing the door with a frown.
"If it had such functions, Ba'al would have had to adapt the spells for his uses. That's… not very likely. Goa'uld lack the magic talents other species have, and he wouldn't have trained sorceresses amongst his followers - not when magic is still missing from his worlds," Glimmer replied.
"So… if his Jaffa and slaves are passing through, the alert would be disabled or ignored. If it exists in the first place." The General nodded.
Sam bit her lower lip. That was a logical deduction, but… they were dealing with a paranoid System Lord using alien magitech. Just because it was sound logic didn't mean it was correct. Though Sam had no better alternative.
"They might have figured out a key to open the door that we still lack," Bow said.
"We could open the airlocks fine," Entrapta pointed out. "But the runes there were not active." She checked her tool, and Sam saw she was glancing at pictures taken of the airlock's doors. "And the runes are different!"
So, the runes could do anything. Sam eyed them warily. She could disable the forcefield projector, but she couldn't do anything about the runes - the power supply was built into the door, as far as she could tell. "They're on a different network than the rest of the ship. The area behind the door has an independent power supply," she said.
"Like a snake panic room?" the General joked.
"Or a citadel," Catra said. "Or an escape vehicle."
Magitech drastically widened the range of possible functions for such a shielded area, Sam knew. Though… "Based on the station's structural composition, the shielded area isn't prepared for separation."
"One less thing to worry about," the General said with a wry grin. He looked at Adora.
Adora slowly nodded. "We need to get through this door. Disable the forcefield and open the locks."
Sam nodded and moved to the projector. Disabling it - and installing a remote controller; depending on what they found they might want to have a quick way to reseal the door - didn't take longer than a few minutes. By the time she finished, Entrapta and Bow had already prepared the devices to crack the locks, and as soon as Sam switched the field off, they went to work.
"Standard - well, for those alien devices, and we don't have enough data points to know if it's really standard or just common in this particular station - encryption," Entrapta reported. "We should be done with it in… About now!" she announced with a wide smile.
A moment later, the door started to open.
*****
Catra clenched her teeth, baring her fangs in a snarl when the doors slid open. Finally, after sneaking through an empty alien station with magical runes ready to be charged
everywhere, they would find out what Ba'al was doing here. Hell, she would welcome a fight despite that ruining the stealth mission, just to cut loose at last!
But the door didn't reveal a waiting formation of Jaffa into which Adora would charge, leaving Catra to follow on her heels and slash and rake her claws into anyone left standing, but another empty corridor - only this time, the runes covering the walls and ceiling and even the floor were glowing.
She cursed and glanced at Glimmer.
"Those are…" Glimmer trailed off. "Similar runes like on the door. Just… there are other runes as well. All of them active."
Well, duh, anyone could see that!
Careful. Block magic.
Shit! "Melog said they block magic," she told the others.
"Magitech," Bow said. "We're in space."
"Yes!" Entrapta agreed, and Catra rolled her eyes. That wasn't the point! "That's why our scanners still don't cover the area - it's not just the walls surrounding it, it's the entire area!"
"Will they sound an alert?" Adora asked, narrowing her eyes at the floor.
"The ones on the door didn't, though we had the codes to unlock it cracked," Glimmer said.
So, she didn't know. "Let's find out," Catra said, pushing past Adora before her love could react and stepping into the corridor.
"Catra!"
Her ears twitched inside her helmet, but she heard nothing. No sound of alarm, no footsteps rushing towards them. The runes didn't change either. Smirking, she turned to grin at the others. "Let's push on."
"Catra!" Adora hissed through clenched teeth when she walked past her, and Catra felt a brief pang of guilt for worrying her. But someone had to do it. And she was sick of waiting around and feeling like every moment, a trap would be sprung on them.
Careful.
"Yeah, I know. But sometimes, you have to take a risk," she told Melog.
Adora walked along the corridor, to the corner, and Catra and Jack trailed behind her. Catra did her best to appear unbothered by the glowing runes she stepped on, but she couldn't help tensing every step. It was just too unnerving not to know if you were walking over a magitech landmine or just a light show.
"No effects other than light emissions," Entrapta, who was carried by her hair, reported. "At least as far as I can tell."
"Well, we can…"
Catra's ears twitched again. Was that…? "Quiet!" she hissed. "I've heard something!"
While everyone fell silent, she focused. Yes, those were… "Chants?" She blinked.
"Oh, hell! Does Ba'al have a bunch of people here for his experiments, like Apophis had?" Jack snapped.
"Three guesses, and the first two don't count," Catra told him. The chanting sounded
very familiar.
"But…" Adora shook her head. "Let's find them!"
Catra nodded and took point, leading them past three junctions in short order until they reached a door twice the width of all the others they had seen so far. "It's coming from behind this door," she said.
Adora nodded. "I can hear the chanting."
"I can also hear it," Daniel said. "It's not just chanting… It's praying. Singing Ba'al's praises. Begging him to bless them. To spare them and their families." He sounded disturbed.
Adora turned to the others. "Open it."
"Are you sure? If those people…" Jack trailed off.
"We need to know who they are and what Ba'al is doing with them," Adora said.
Hide as Jaffa?
"Melog can hide us as Jaffa," Catra informed the others,
Adora nodded. "Do it."
Done.
Catra didn't want to know what she looked like now. But as long as it prevented a bunch of slaves from trying to kill them for their god, she didn't mind.
Entrapta, Bow and Sam worked on the door - which took a bit longer; the codes were different - but a minute later, it opened.
And Catra's ears hurt when the chanting changed to shrieking for a moment, then resumed, now being shouted.
She saw dozens of people - more than a hundred, easily - who were on their knees, face pressed against the floor, yelling prayers. They were trembling in their rags, and all looked thin and weary.
And the runes on the floor and walls were glowing brightly. More than outside. And… She narrowed her eyes. Not quite even. The runes glowed more around some of the people, less around others, and some flickered a little.
Catra looked around. There were some… facilities. She could see pillows and bedrolls. And what looked like remains of food - cheap dishes and plates. And the people were still praying, desperately, frantically. Deeply afraid, she realised.
What was going on?
"Fuck!" Glimmer cursed behind her. "The runes… they react to their prayers."
"And it's powering the runes," Bow added. "They're powering the magitech runes."
"We're in a prayer powerplant?" Jack sounded as incredulous as Catra felt.
*****
Jack O'Neill stared at the mass of kneeling people. They were pressing their faces against the floor and almost desperately chanting and singing. He didn't get the words, but he didn't miss how hoarse they sounded - and how haggard they looked. And how they had grown louder and more desperate when the group, looking like Jaffa, had entered.
"It's… It's not powering the runes," Glimmer said behind him.
"But the runes are generating power," Bow objected.
"Yes!" Entrapta nodded. "The scans show that clearly."
"But that's not…" Glimmer stepped forward, past Jack and Adora, and knelt down, staring at the closest flickering rune. The man praying in front of her whimpered and prayed louder, but she seemed to ignore him. "That's… The runes are reacting, but the power is generated by the runes."
Jack didn't quite get the difference. If the magic runes generated power if you prayed at them, that was still a prayer powerplant, in his book.
But Carter gasped. "You're right! This is…" She stared at her computer. "The power generation is a side effect - the runes are generating a metadimensional effect!"
"Oh!" Entrapta perked up. "Yes! The power source is a higher dimension!"
"If they aren't turning prayers into power, then what are the runes doing?" Catra asked.
"I can't tell - I've never seen such spell effects," Glimmer said.
"Me neither!" Entrapta sounded enthusiastic.
"It's… I need to run a quick comparison," Carter said.
"With which data set? Oh, Beta's records! Yes, I see what you mean!"
Jack looked at Bow, who had fallen silent staring at his tablet. That was a bad sign. Bow was the most grounded of the three. More like an engineer than a (mad) scientist, not that Jack would ever tell Carter that.
"If the prayers aren't needed to power the runes, then they must have another purpose," Bow said. "And if this station is really experimenting with metadimensions…."
"...then Ba'al might be trying to use them to change a dimension of his own!" Catra hissed.
Damn! Another Goa'uld trying to become a real god? Or as real as a god in such a dream dimension could get? The Apophis copy that his slaves had created with their imagination had been bad enough. A Ba'al version of this… Jack gritted his teeth. "Where do the prayers go?"
"The runes are still messing with our scanners," Bow replied. "But… we didn't detect them outside this area, so… it must have a receiver here."
"And since we know what we're looking for, we should be able to track it!"
"Get on that," Jack said. He turned to look at the kneeling people again.
"They're terrified," Adora commented next to him. She hadn't stopped looking at them, he realised.
"They're praying for their lives," Catra added in a tight voice. "Anyone wanna bet that Ba'al kills those who don't pray enough to motivate the others?"
"That would fit Ba'al," Dnaiel said.
Jack agreed. He knew that System Lords saw their slaves as mere tools and possessions, spending their lives on a whim, but Ba'al was even worse than that.
"We have to stop him," Adora said.
"We have to find him first," Catra said. "Also, those people were expecting Jaffa - are expecting Jaffa - so there have to be guards around."
Guards they hadn't seen yet. It wasn't like Ba'al to keep such a station almost completely unguarded. So, where were the guards?
Suddenly, the runes flared red. A moment later, the chanting started to grow even louder, the people screaming and yelling. The noise dampening in Jack's helmet had kicked in, he noticed.
"The metadimensional power level is rapidly increasing!" Carter snapped. "The runes' power output is building a charge!"
A charge for what? Jack shook his head. His first instinct was to leave the room, but…
Then the runes flared up, and even the flare compensation in his helmet's visor was overpowered for a moment, rendering the visor dark while a projected image of the surroundings appeared in his HUD.
But he had barely started to react to that when things returned to normal, and Jack saw the runes had stopped glowing - and the praying people collapsed in exhausted heaps.
"Oh! That was… a huge metadimensional transfer effect! A lot of energy was used!" Entrapta said.
"For what?" Glimmer asked.
"We don't know," Bow replied. "But something was transferred. Look at that sensor data!"
"Right! That's… It has to be a portal. The similarities are striking."
"But there are key differences - look at that."
"Oh, yes! That's not a standard transfer like Beta did. That's different."
"They're still transferring something, though."
"They're transferring energy," Carter said. "The energy converted from this room."
"Where? Where are they sending this power to?" Catra asked.
"We don't know yet," Entrapta said. "But we should be able to find it if we…"
"Someone's coming!" Catra hissed. "Metal boots. Multiple people."
His HUD was not showing anything - the sensors were still being blocked by those runes. But metal boots meant… "Jaffa guards," Jack snapped. "We have to hide!"
"Melog!"
Right. The magic cat could hide them. But they still had to get out of the way of the guards. The best illusion wouldn't do much if a guard ran into you. Jack looked around. "How close are they?"
"Already in the corridor leading here," Catra replied.
"Let's hide among the people here," Jack said. The slaves were on the floor, panting with exhaustion. He doubted that they would notice anything in their state.
"Yes. Lie down, everyone!" Adora said.
Jack picked a spot nearby, getting down next to an unconscious man.
No, not unconscious, he realised as he took a closer look.
The man wasn't breathing anymore.
Then the Jaffa entered the room and started to spread out. Jack risked glancing at them and saw they were prodding the people on the ground with their boots. Checking if they were still alive, he realised when he saw one of them kicking a woman, then drawing his Zat when she didn't react.
"Don't play dead! Don't play dead!" he whispered into his helmet's communicator while the Jaffa fired three times, disintegrating the corpse.
*****
Adora stifled a gasp when she heard the shots and almost jumped up to lay into the Jaffa.
"They're disintegrating the dead."
Jack's whisper over the communicator held her back. And filled her with guilt. She had been there while they died. She hadn't done anything to help them, to stop whatever was going on here.
Three more shots rang out near her. Another corpse gone. Their loved ones wouldn't even have a body to bury and grieve over. If their loved ones were still alive…
She clenched her teeth and tensed. This couldn't go on! They had to stop it!
"They're almost done," she heard Catra whisper.
Adora turned her head a little, lifting it slightly, and watched as the Jaffa walked towards the door. One stopped, prodding a figure on the ground with his boot - kicking them in the side - and then walked on when the man groaned.
As soon as the door closed, Adora heard sighing from everyone around her, and when she stood, she saw that the slaves on the floor looked even more exhausted. Most had collapsed completely as soon as the Jaffa had gone. She could barely imagine how they must be feeling, fearing for their lives like that - it hadn't been the first time; they had known what was coming.
She wanted to help them, but she couldn't heal them without magic around. And they were on a mission. She clenched her teeth as she saw a few of the people start dragging themselves to the corner where some food was laid out, others trying to follow them. Though more than a few remained lying on the ground, still breathing heavily.
Ba'al had been doing this for some time to reach this point, where people worked - or prayed - themselves to death. And what were the odds that this wasn't the first group of his slaves?
"We'll stop this," she said. "Whatever Ba'al is doing with this, we'll stop it, and then we'll deal with him."
"Yeah," Jack agreed. "But speaking of whatever he is doing - what is he doing, Carter? Where is this 'prayer power' going to?"
"We're trying to track the power, sir, but… the runes interfere. We'll have to adapt the scanner to get around that, and that's taking time," Sam replied.
"Let's get out of here before they notice us," Catra said.
"Yes." Adora nodded. They were hidden by Melog, but with most of the slaves here trying to get some food - and water; they must have been chanting for a long time without water! - they had to move before someone bumped into them.
"We'll be back," she whispered as they left the room. She wouldn't let them down. And she wouldn't let Ba'al escape.
*****
Samantha Carter wanted to curse when the scanner still failed to map the area. She didn't; she was a scientist, and setbacks such as this were expected. But it was frustrating - especially since it was magic runes blocking the sensors, and, apparently, Sam's knowledge and experience with magitech weren't enough to solve the issue.
That Glimmer, who was a trained Etherian sorceress, was stumped as well, was no consolation - especially not after what Sam had seen in that prayer prison. They needed to solve this problem to stop whatever Ba'al was doing, and the longer they took, the greater the chance that something went wrong.
"Alright! If we identify the blocking effect, we should be able to bypass it," Bow said. His optimism sounded a bit strained, though.
"Yes! But there are too many magic effects affecting our sensors," Entrapta pointed out the problem.
"And I can't identify all of them." Glimmer sounded as if she blamed herself for this. "There are just too many different runes, and all of them are active. It makes no sense to use so many magical effects."
"They must have a reason for this, though," Entrapta said. "If we find the reason, we can solve this!"
"What if the reason is that they wanted to add as much magic to their design?" Daniel asked. "If their society was based on magic and magitech, that could have been a cultural norm. The more magic added to something, the more prestigious the design, for example."
"Or it's redundancy," Bow said. "They might have added different effects in case some runes failed."
"The effects are different, though - I can tell that much. And very minor," Glimmer disagreed.
"And the station uses a conventional life support and station-keeping engine arrangement," Entrapta added. "Our sensors picked up the main reactor and the support systems just fine. That wasn't installed by Ba'al; not unless he copied their design and added magical runes to it."
If they had to sort through decorative magitech, they would take far too long to solve this. Sam focused on the map of the blocked area in which they were again. Why was it so empty? The corridors, the decks… The Jaffa had been staying in their own section, she had noted - they hadn't waited outside the prayer room. The entire area had been unguarded. If this was an important part of the station, and everything pointed to it, why hadn't it been guarded?
She blinked. "Let's look at the parts where we know people are staying, and compare them to the rest of the area here."
"Oh, right - that's a difference that could be important!" Entrapta cheered. "Let's take pictures and see if we can compare the rune designs!"
A bit later, after asking Catra to help - her ears could find the Jaffa's locations even through doors, and she was quick to take pictures - they started to analyse the designs.
Sam smiled when both the prayer prison and what turned out to be the Jaffa guard quarters showed designs which were missing on the sections of the station that were not blocking scanners - and much less prominent on the parts of the blocked area that weren't housing people.
Then she stopped smiling when she realised that there was usually a good reason when living quarters were using stronger shielding than corridors.
*****
"We've managed to penetrate the blocking runes, sir."
Catra saw the map on her HUD update and change as Sam spoke. Still not complete - she made out a few areas that were still being blocked from scans - but the majority of the three dark areas were now accessible.
"The areas that are still blocking our sensors are likely the areas that contain the quarters and work stations of the crew and slaves of the station," Sam explained. "They have stronger and more runes shielding them. I suspect that this is a safety measure."
Catra drew a sharp breath. She knew what that meant.
"You mean we're in danger outside those areas? Like, where we are right now?" Jack voiced her fears.
"Yes, sir. Although we haven't detected any serious threat so far, we should go through a thorough health check after this mission."
"I'll heal us all!" Adora said. "But we need to stop this. Now."
Catra studied the map. The formerly blocked area near the main reactor didn't have big shielded areas. So, probably working stations, not living quarters. But she couldn't make sense of the rest. "What's that? she asked, marking it on the HUD.
"It's a metadimensional projector," Entrapta said. "Not the same design, or even design principles, as Beta uses, being magitech based, and magitech from an alien civilisation that developed differently from the First Ones, but the parameters we could isolate are clear. But! It's not projecting to space - it's aimed at this area."
The formerly blocked area at the top of the station lit up.
"The runic power lines - well, we think they are power lines even though they don't really transmit power like we would expect, but another form of energy - from the prayer room also lead there," Entrapta went on.
"So, everything points at that area. And the entire two decks at the very top are still shielded. Any bets that Ba'al is there?" Jack asked.
"I don't take sucker's bets," Glimmer commented. "Let's storm the place and shut it down!"
"We have to be careful," Bow cautioned. "We don't want to run into a trap and get sent into another dimension."
Catra clenched her teeth. Like she had, back on Beta. "Let's sabotage the projector, then. Without it, Baal can't send anyone into another dimension."
"We'll have to split up for that and time it, or he'll be warned and flee," Jack said. "Or place bombs there and detonate them remotely - if we can send signals there."
"There's no reason we shouldn't," Entrapta said. "We've adapted to the blocking magitech - well, the weaker ones."
"The ones we know. Ba'al might have more powerful options in reserve," Catra pointed out. It was what she would do in his place.
"Even if we split up, we'd still be cut off," Bow said. "We could place explosives with a remote detonator - and a backup timer."
"Good idea. Let's do that," Jack said.
"Yes." Adora agreed. "We won't split up. We'll go down to the projector - and the reactor - and then we'll go up and take out Ba'al."
That would allow Melog to keep hiding their entire group. "Let's go," Catra said. The sooner they moved, the sooner they would be done. Preferably before Ba'al started another death prayer.
The route to the reactor and projector areas lit up on her HUD, and they started moving.
*****
