Starborn Smith [Massive Scifi MultiFusion / Celestial Forge]

[BlazingHyperion]

I lay on the ground just outside the village of Veyna's Rest. Tonight had been a long time coming. A year ago, I had awakened my memories of my past life as a human on 21st century Earth; along with those memories came a special power; the Celestial Forge.

With the Celestial Forge, came my first perk, or at least that is what you would think; The forge missed my first perk; then it showed me a timer with a 365 day countdown. Apparently, this world has the exact same orbital and rotational period as Earth. Must be why the Ancients terraformed it – or maybe they moved the world into this position?

Anyway, here I am, waiting for that timer to hit zero. Finally, in my mind's eye, I watched as a star fell straight into the fire that I assumed was the Celestial Forge.

— — —
1st Perk: (Previous Points: 400, Subtracted: 200, Current Points: 200)
- Domain: Knowledge: Reverse Engineering
- Title: Dr Shen, I presume?
- Universe: Endless Space
- Description:
- You are really knowledgeable at learning from your foes. You always seem to learn something new whenever you salvage enemy equipment. New weapons, armor, agriculture, the works. Every piece of enemy salvage you obtain gives you new insight into fields of science you had not yet explored. Beating the crap out of a caveman won't teach you how to make new laser cannons, but it will give you new insight into obsidian knapping methods, or animal hide tanning. Knowledge gained is related to what you are looking at.
— —

My breathing became heavy and my mind went into overdrive as I read the description. I could not ask for a more perfect ability. After all, the world – or rather universe – I had been reborn into contained some very advanced technology; the stargates, FTL drives capable of traveling between galaxies in hours, self-guided kamikaze drones capable of entirely bypassing energy shields, galactic-scale brainwashing devices, and so much more.

There was so much technology in just this galaxy. The best part? I could steal all of it while doing a service; after all, the alternative is that the Goa'uld Empire gets their hands on the tech, and that's either genocide in the making or a waste of resources (depending on which Goa'uld gets what).

Slowly, I regained control of my beating heart. The sooner that I could begin testing my new perk, the better. I already had access to two (technically three) pieces of advanced technology that I could use for testing. Standing up, I looked down the valley at the Village where I had lived for the past 16 years. Farther down the valley, the clearing which held the Stargate and Dial-Home Device was barely visible in the dim moonlight.

The culture I had been reborn amongst were servants of the god (the Goa'uld) Athena. While she technically owned the village – the Jaffa reminded us of that whenever they came to retrieve their tribute – in practice, we were a protectorate of sorts. As long as Naquadah (a super-heavy metal that was used for everything from building indestructible alloys to explosives capable of destroying worlds) flowed from this world, Athena ignored us.

Sixty years after the initial settlement, the village, which originally held only about one hundred people, had grown significantly. Now, we just had to hope that she didn't decide to have a census completed. If she knew how much the village's population had increased, I have no doubt that the amount of Naquadah that she would demand as a tribute would increase by at least an order of magnitude.

I began hiking my way down the valley towards the clearing with the Stargate. The Jaffa would come once every three months to gather tribute. The last time they had come had been a little over a week ago, but six months before that one of the Jaffa had left a Zat'nik'tel – a piece of advanced weaponry used by the Goa'uld as a sidearm that the people of Stargate Command referred to simply as a Zat. One villager discovered it, after which the Elders spent several days studying the device, then returned it to where they found it and ordered everyone to pretend it didn't exist.

As I approached the clearing, I located the spot where the Zat had been left. There it was, just beyond the edge of the road between a couple of trees. The design of the device was reminiscent of a Goa'uld Symbiote, its curves and organic appearance unsettling to anyone who was unaware of its purpose. With my heart hammering in my chest, I picked it up. A jolt ran up my spine the moment I contacted the weapon.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Zat'Nik'Tel (Zat) Liquid Naquadah Power Cell

The Celestial Forge had forced about a third of the Zat's schematic into my mind. The schematic omitted the energy discharge and trigger function, but I knew the power source: a small vial of Liquid Naquadah solution kept just above a supercritical state.

I returned the Zat to its place on the ground and began making my way to the other piece of technology I knew of; the Stargate. A short jog, and I stared up at the million-year-old ring of Naquadah Alloy. Reverentially, I touched the device; the instant my fingers brushed against the cold metal, my knees wobbled and I barely prevented myself from falling face first into the ground.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Astria Porta (Stargate) Hyperspace Gradient Shifter

Another slight tingle ran up my spine before being replaced with the knowledge of how the Stargate isolated incoming wormholes. The device itself was suspiciously simple, but its construction was totally beyond me. It was an utterly fascinating device, but it was of absolutely no use to me at the moment.

There was one last thing that I could interact with, and hopefully it would be the more helpful one; the Dial-Home-Device, DHD, or Clavis to the Ancients who designed and mass produced them. The pedestal was about the size of a small coffee table and held the computational power equivalent to a 1990s supercomputer. To say that the device fascinated me would be an understatement. I walked up to the device and touched it. Once again, I felt ice being poured into my brain.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Clavis (DHD) Memory Systems

I completely froze up at the sheer quantity of individual connections within just this portion of the device; within that web of connections was the interface with the processing systems and inputs. If I had a computer of some sort, I now had the knowledge to access the complete list of all Stargates dialed from or to this world.

As the knowledge settled into the back of my mind, I sighed. All of this was great, but it was like knowing how to code C++ while being stuck in Ancient Greece; it might help with problem solving, but the language itself was less than useless. I needed somewhere to start; some way to actually use the advanced knowledge I had gained.

The first rays of sunlight coated the valley as I strode back up to Veyna's Rest just in time to wake the younger children. After the age of six, all the kids lived communally together to make it easier for everyone to watch over them. They spent time with their parents during breakfast, dinner, and village events, but it was easier if there were a few people whose job it was to watch the children while the adults went about their jobs. Entering the communal barracks where the children slept, I began waking some of the younger children.

Before the age of five, children are raised by their parents with the help of a group of villagers who specialize in early childcare. At four, they spend some of their time with the older children to acclimate to the group. By five, they move into the barracks, where they stay until they reach sixteen. During this time, they train in archery, close quarters combat, mathematics, and language. At sixteen, they transition into an apprenticeship or trade, often moving to housing closer to their place of work, though many begin their training much earlier.

I walked over to the cot holding one of the older kids, someone just a year younger than I was. Yren Solvar was unlike anyone else in the village. She had taken up an apprenticeship with the village's Master Smith – Elder Tavik – at seven and had quickly learned all that she could. By the time she turned twelve, the Elder had nothing left to teach, and she had been given her own smithy/workshop. On top of that, she could defeat all but a select few of the village's warriors, and since everyone in the village received combat training from a young age, that was saying something.

There were only three warriors in the village that she was incapable of regularly defeating while in the ring, and that was only if she was actively fighting back; if she focused purely on defending herself, she could defeat anyone else in the village just by outlasting them.

All of that was possible due to three things. First, her drive for learning was fanatical. Second, she had a perfect photographic memory. Third (and most importantly), she barely slept. When I had left the village just a few hours prior, she had still been in her smithy.
Sighing, I grabbed a stick from beside the door and ever so gently poked her with it. Her hands moved faster than I could see and pulled; it was only through the knowledge that this was coming that I knew to drop it.

Blinking her eyes, she stared at me and then sighed. "Alright, I'm awake."
Slowly, she stood up and began stretching. When I didn't leave, she looked at me, annoyed; I chuckled.

"Alright, just don't go back to sleep. I'll go help the others." Leaving her to her stretches, I began making the rounds, slowly dragging the younger kids out of their beds so that we could begin our daily schedule. As the last of them made their way out of the barracks, the group shambled to the training grounds.
Elder James was waiting for us all there; he carried the quiet authority of a man who had seen more combat than he cared to admit – more than should have been possible in a small village like this one – his sharp blue eyes focused on the group as we approached him. "Good morning everyone. We'll begin with pushups. Meryn, you'll be counting." Like that, we began going through sets of pushups, situps, squats, etc. This was how Elder James had us start every morning.

After the warmup, the Elder began handing out safety equipment and paring everyone up. My first opponent was Toren, a kid my age. He was a solid fighter, but not amongst the best – then again, neither was I. As we stepped into the ring, we began circling each other, eyes locked, searching for an opening. He hesitated, and I seized the moment. I feinted with a jab to his side, drawing his guard before following up with a sharp hook. He blocked the jab easily, but the hook caught him off balance.
Toren staggered slightly from the blow. We both stepped away.

It was at this moment that I felt my perk activate again. The entire bout replayed in my mind with perfect clarity, and I knew everything that both of us had screwed up. I paused and indicated for Toren to stop for a moment. "Can we repeat that again in slow motion?" Toren shrugged, then nodded.

We went over the individual steps of the bout and corrected our mistakes, then we continued on. After fifteen minutes, the Elder had us all rotate to new partners. With each bout, I could feel myself improving massively. Things I had been struggling with before were now blatantly obvious. We continued this way for another half-an-hour before the Elder had us all take a break.

"Arthur, come here, please." I blinked, confused, then made my way over to the Elder. "Yes, Elder?" He looked at me funny. "What was that?"
"I don't understand, sir?"
He scoffed, "Your improvement in just one day is unbelievable, as is the improvement of everyone you've sparred with. What happened?"

I considered lying to him, but eventually decided against it. A half-truth will do for now. "Whenever I finish a bout, I can watch the entire bout in my head. I know what I have to fix and what my opponent can do better."

The Elder was silent for a few moments, then began walking to the ring and putting on safety gear. "Show me."

We both entered the ring and took our positions. The Elder beat me into the ground, but with each bout he had me walk him through everything he had done, and he would first ask me about my mistakes; not once did he correct me. After fifteen minutes, we finally stopped. "Fascinating. You say that this is new? My, if nothing changes, you'll be giving Yren a run for her money in just a few months' time."

The kids had English, German, Japanese and Math lessons after sparring. I had tested out of those even before I had unlocked my memories. Thinking back on it, that may have been knowledge from my past life bleeding through, or maybe not considering that I didn't know German or Japanese in my past life. I still attended Goa'uld language class, but the Elders limited what we learned to what they could steal or trade for. I spent most of my free time that day.

That evening, we began our second round of CQC training. Elder James paired me up with Yren for the duration. She spent the time pounding me into the ground, but I knew every mistake I made and by the end I had improved significantly.

I wouldn't have the chance to get any more blueprints until the Jaffa return. Until then I was more than happy to learn from Yren and Elder James. It took me two weeks, but eventually I reached the point where I could defend myself against Yren and Elder James. That didn't mean that I could beat them, only that I wasn't in danger of immediately being flattened.

It was after three weeks that the Elders had organized a large-scale combat drill. Elder James was the primary overseer for the event, with Elder Callum and Elder Elias acting as team overseers. I was the first one to notice a hunter running towards us. Elder Elias, my team's overseer, saw him coming as well. The Hunter approached and immediately began speaking with Elder Callum in a hushed tone. "Elder! The Jaffa have come through the gate, and these Jaffa do not belong to Athena!"

My heart froze at the implications. At the back of my head I always knew this was a possibility, I just never really believed that it would actually happen.
The Elder turned to me. "Arthur, we're canceling the games. Round everyone up and meet at the other team's flag." I nodded to him in response.

The Elder turned back to the hunter. "What else do you know?"
The Hunter immediately continued. "They claimed to be servants of Ares, and that they were rounding up the villagers to take for—"
That was all I heard, but it was enough; I stumbled as I ran off towards my team's flag. Ares never appeared in Stargate SG-1. All I knew about Ares came from Fan-fiction and guessing about what he would be like from what little I knew about Greek Mythology. It didn't paint a great picture. I vaguely remember that there was a rebellion that had grown due to him conquering a technologically advanced civilization somewhere, but I didn't remember the specifics.

My mind went into overdrive. There were only two ways off this planet; ship or Stargate. I hadn't seen any ships land, and any ship capable of carrying the population of the village would have been visible. That meant that they were using the Stargate. If I had access to a computer, then I could interface with the DHD to get the address the Jaffa dialed after they had left, but without that, I would likely never know where the villagers had been taken.

On top of that, this was a massive opportunity. The villagers' destination would almost undoubtedly be the Goa'uld's homeworld or a forward operating base. There would be a lot of technology for me to get my hands on, and unlike with Athena's homeworld, I no longer had to worry about drawing retribution back to the village. All I would have to do is fight off the Jaffa on the other side… yeah, not happening. It didn't matter, I needed that address. Without it everything was lost. With it at least I had a chance to defeat Ares in the future.

With my decision made, I rounded up all of my team members and ordered them to meet up with Elder James. Then I skulked away towards the village. It took me thirty minutes of hiking before I spotted the first home. The Jaffa had already carted off all the stored naquadah, and were still in the process of rounding up the villagers. I wasn't too late. Using the trees as cover, I slowly proceeded towards the clearing in which the Stargate stood.

Before arriving at the gate, I picked up the abandoned Zat. If I was lucky, then I wouldn't have to use it. A few hundred meters later and the Stargate was within my sight. The clearing was mostly empty, except for a few people – presumably slaves – who were all waiting by carts filled with naquadah ore. I crept towards the edge of the clearing where I picked a tree with especially thick bristles and climbed. Then I began waiting.

Slowly, the villagers and their 'escorts' began to arrive in the clearing. It was at this time that unusual things started happening below me. The first thing I noticed was the bending of foliage on the ground, as if someone was pushing the bushes aside, but there was nothing there. I froze up and steadied my breathing as I had done a thousand times before. I watched with rapt attention, afraid to miss any details. Several minutes later, the bushes began moving again and there were suddenly two people in black armor standing below me. They began a brief discussion in Goa'uld.

"What have you uncovered?"
"There are no Symbiotes hidden on this world. The Tok'ra is not here."
"As expected. We will continue to the next address after these Servants of Ares have finished their plundering."
With their brief interaction finished, they both recloaked. To my relief, I could see their footsteps as they both left in different directions.

There was only one group that had access to cloaking technology and who regularly hunted Tok'ra; the Ashrak – the assassins of the Goa'uld system lords. It hit me then; those cloaking devices could change everything. With them I would be almost completely unstoppable; I could walk right into Ares' palace and shoot him in the head; absolutely no one would be able to stop me.

With a newly discovered purpose, I waited. As the last of the villagers arrived, one of the Jaffa approached the DHD and began dialing. The Stargate activated, and I watched with rapt attention as the Jaffa herded the villagers through. After barely a minute, the clearing was devoid of life. Almost immediately, the two Ashrak appeared beside the DHD and began dialing an address.

I struck just before the gate was activated. Two concurrent Zat blasts, one to the backs of each of them, was all it took to knock them down. I ordered the Zat to fire four more times, twice into each of the bodies. The first blast stunned them; the second killed them; the third turned them into a mist that was swept away by even the slightest breeze.

I waited for a moment, but I didn't get any notice from my perk. Maybe it didn't work like I thought it did?
Carefully eyeing my environment, I clambered down the tree and entered the clearing, making a beeline for the Stargate. It was only when I was a few meters away from the DHD that I finally heard the shuffling of gravel behind me. Throwing myself forward, I aimed the Zat behind myself and ordered the weapon to fire three times, each hitting nothing but air.

As I stood from my leap, I turned my head. For a brief fraction of a second, I saw nothing, then I noticed it; the ever so faint imprint of a foot on gravel, then another, and another. Taking aim once more, I fired; once more I failed to strike anything but air. My heart pounded as I shifted my stance, digging my foot into the gravel before letting the gravel scatter in the general direction of my target.

In one particular area, the gravel disappeared, presumably due to interacting with the cloaking field. Again, I fired. And this time I struck. The air shimmered as a third Ashrak fell over in front of me, his cloak deactivating as he fell.

I took a deep breath as I relaxed, only to tense as I heard Elder James yelling at me from my right. "Behind y–" I turned back just in time to see a lance of red light strike a target not feet behind me. In a brilliant flash, I watched as a fourth Ashrak appeared, a hole seared through the left side of his torso and burnt flesh melting from a gaping wound.
The dead body fell forward and my perk activated again.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Zat'Nik'Tel (Zat) Neural Crystal, Particle Emitter

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Zat'Nik'Tel (Zat)

With it came a flood of information about how the fight went, and what I could have done better, but more importantly for me, was the rest of the schematic for the Zat'Nik'Tel. With a great deal of effort, I ignored it and turned to Elder James as he marched up to me.

"Goddamnit boy! What the hell were you thinking?" Again, regaining control of my breathing, I watched the Elder holster a firearm in his belt; that was definitely not something he normally carried around. I lowered the Zat that I had unconsciously raised and replied "I thought there were only two of them."

The Elder scoffed, "What the hell did you think you'd be achieving from killing those two?"

I blinked at him, "Elder, we need their technology."

He scowled. "And what are you expecting to do when these four don't report in with their superiors and someone sends more after them?"

I stared at him, not comprehending his words. "I didn't, I just know we need their cloaking devices." It was at that moment that both of us saw something by the head of the dead Ashrak. It appeared similar to a snake and we watched it – Elder James in bewilderment and me in a brief moment of confusion – as it slowly crawled its way out of the corpse's mouth.

"What in the blazes is that!?"
I returned my gaze to him for a few moments, "Elder, that is a Goa'uld." Thinking quickly, I searched the ground nearby for a large stick. I quickly found exactly what I was looking for.
The Elder appeared thoughtful for a moment as he watched the symbiote crawl, inch by inch, out of the mouth of the dead Ashrak. "Are you telling me that the Goa'uld aren't human?"

I cringed. I should have realized that the villagers wouldn't be privy to the true nature of the Goa'uld. "The Goa'uld are a race of parasitic snake-like-creatures. They burrow into the body of a living creature through the back of the throat or neck, wrap themselves around the spinal cord, and take control of the host's body."

The Elder snapped his head to me, before he realized what I was saying. "So that," gesturing to the snake, "is what a Goa'uld truly looks like?"

I nodded. "You don't happen to have anything you can put it in, do you?"

He frowned. "Not with me. If we can make it to camp, we can get a crate and lock it in that."

I frowned, but I wasn't surprised. "What about some rope?"

The Elder pulled off the sack he carried on his back and retrieved a collection of zip ties. Those should not have existed on this world.

I shook my head; best not to look a gift horse in the mouth; I'd have my answers later. "Alright, we can tie it to this branch. What do you want to do with the other one?"

Elder James froze for a moment as he turned back to the third Ashrak. "Isn't it dead?"

I shook my head, "Just incapacitated. It could be like that for anywhere from five minutes to an hour."

He winced. "Let's get this one first."
With that we approached the symbiote. In one swift motion, I grabbed the now clearly injured symbiote with both hands and placed it lengthwise alongside the branch I had picked up. Elder James then used more than a half-dozen zip ties to secure it to the branch. With the first one secured, we let out a sigh of relief.

Then we turned our attention to the other Ashrak. It hadn't even been two minutes since I had incapacitated this Goa'uld and luckily he was still unconscious. We turned the body over to confirm that he was still breathing. The Elder turned to me. "Well Arthur, what do we need to do here?"

I had been considering this for the past few minutes. "I'll be honest Elder, if you want the symbiote alive, the best bet is to just kill the host and wait for the symbiote to leave the body, but if you want the greatest chance to get information from the Goa'uld, you'll want the host alive. The only way I could see that working is if you manage to trick the damn thing out, and I don't know of any readily available methods for that."

In one swift motion he pulled a box from his sack and removed a syringe. "Well, guess we'll just have to kill him and hope that the thing leaves his body before he suffers from any permanent brain damage." Quicker than I could react, he struck the syringe into the host's heart and injected the entirety of its contents. With that, the elder pulled his sleeve up well past his elbow to reveal a well hidden watch which gave a beep, presumably to start a timer.

I asked, "Elder, what was that?"

"Thanarex—designed to mimic the effects of sudden-onset hypothermia, stabilizing brain function for hours after cardiac arrest. What condition should I expect the host to be in if the Goa'uld departs their body?"

I winced, "I don't know. Maybe he's totally brain dead, or maybe he was trained from birth as a Goa'uld Assassin and is loyal to the symbiote. Best case scenario, he suffers from total amnesia, but he retains access to the Goa'uld genetic memory."

The Elder raised an eyebrow, "Genetic memory?"

I nodded calmly, "The Goa'uld Queens can decide what memories to pass onto their children; it makes the children quite loyal to their parents. As far as I'm aware, the memories don't affect humans quite as much."

The Elder's watch beeped once and he turned his attention away from me and to the Ashrak host; very suddenly, a visible wave passed over the Ashrak, starting from the fingers and moving up the body to the head. He placed his hand on the host's throat and nodded. "His heartbeat is gone. I'm assuming that if that… thing is going to be coming out, then it will be soon."

Placing my hand on the host's wrist, I almost jumped; the temperature must have been well below freezing.
We waited with bated breath for anything to happen. It was about five minutes after the initial reaction that things began. We saw as the skin of the host's throat began to churn in an odd manner.

Suddenly, the symbiote popped out from the man's mouth. So fast that I could barely see him moving, the Elder grabbed the things head with a vice-like grip and ripped it out of the man's throat. The thing screeched like a banshee, but it was unable to escape from his grip.

"Arthur, hold this please." Carefully, he passed the goa'uld to me, first the head, and then the tail. I made sure that I had a proper grip on the parasite, while the elder prepared a second needle and injected the former host with another substance.

With that, he quickly packed away his medical kit and turned to me. I lay the significantly more active Goa'uld against the same stick and didn't let go until the Elder had it well and truly secured.

At that moment, my perk activated again; with it came an influx of knowledge on Goa'uld biology and anatomy.

First Perk Activated. Partial Biology Acquired: Goa'uld Nervous System, Respiratory System

From that knowledge came a reminder of something I had completely forgotten, something that should have been much more obvious.
I groaned. Elder James sent me an inquisitive glance. "Goa'uld are aquatic. They can't survive outside of a liquid for more than a few hours. Even with the right habitat, adult Goa'uld can't survive without a host for an extended period."
Elder James' eyebrows twitched, "That's going to make this even more difficult. Do you know what would be necessary to prepare a habitat?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "I do, but it's not like we have any way to actually prepare an environment for them."
Elder James grabs something from within his robes, and presses a button on the side. The object – a radio very similar to ones from 21st century Earth – produces a short burst of static before the Elder speaks into it. "James to Camp. Come in."

There is a moment of silence before I hear another voice. "This is Camp. Report."
"Preparing to secure primary objective. Found Arthur. We also have prisoners. One human, two non-human. You'll have to prepare special-accommodations."
There is a moment of silence. "Please confirm. You said non-human prisoners?"

"Confirmed. Non-human prisoners."
Another moment of silence follows. "Copy that, I'll have Callum here in a moment."
The Elder turned to me. "You'll have to tell them what they need to prepare."
I nodded. Then I begin stripping the former host of his equipment. The Elder pulls out two pairs of handcuffs, placing one set on his ankles and one set around his wrists.

"This is Callum. Come in James."
"This is James. Have you been informed of the situation?"
I hear a clear snort through the radio. "Something about non-human prisoners. Explain."
Elder James handed me the radio.
I took it from him and pressed the button on the side, activating the microphone. The Elder twitched slightly at my apparent familiarity with the technology. "The prisoners are aquatic-snakes. They can survive outside of water for extended periods, but they will require special accommodations to survive for more than four hours."

The radio is silent for a few moments. "Alright. Tell me what we need, kid."
I took a deep breath, choosing my words carefully. "We need two containment tanks, at least a cubic meter each. 35000 PPM of salt and 1000 PPM of Naquadah. The tanks will need to be constantly oxygenated."
There is a moment of silence before Elder Callum responds. "If that's all, then I can have the tanks completed in two hours."

Elder James takes the radio back from me. "Understood. We'll be getting back around that time. Callum, I cannot stress enough how dangerous these creatures are. Under no circumstances can they be allowed out of containment. Understood?"

Another moment of silence. "Understood. I'll be in contact if we need you for anything."
The Elder clipped the radio to his belt, then turned to me. " I have to grab one thing. I'll be back in a couple of minutes." He threw me a leather sack. "Go grab all of their equipment. Be sure not to leave anything behind."

With that, he strode into the nearby forest and disappeared. I started by stripping the equipment from the body of the surviving host. With every piece of technology I picked up, my perk would activate. When I was done stripping the prisoner, I moved onto the equipment that was now laying on the ground. By the time I was done, my perk had activated almost a dozen times.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprints Acquired: Reetou Karesh (Ashrak Cloak) Neural Crystal, Selkium Crystal Core, Cloaking Field Generator

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Reetou Karesh (Ashrak Cloak)

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Hara'Kesh (Ashrak Hand Device) Emitter Crystals, Control Modulation Circuit, Structural Framework

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Hara'Kesh (Ashrak Hand Device)

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: A'tar Blade (Ashrak PhaseBlade) Neural Crystal, Selkium Crystal Core, Phaser Blade

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: A'tar Blade (Ashrak PhaseBlade)

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Nesret (Ashrak Clothing) Naquadah Fibre Weave, Neural Interface, Visual Interface

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Nesret (Ashrak Cloak)

I now had the complete blueprint for the cloaking device, a high frequency vibrating knife, naquadah fibre clothing (wasn't all that helpful, but it did show me how I could go about creating some more advanced fibre weaves), and most importantly, the Hara'kesh – a miniaturized multitool that only the Ashrak used.

By some massive stroke of luck, of the four Ashrak that I had killed, only the two I had killed in the initial ambush had carried Zats. As I finished with the last of the loot, Elder James returned. He carried a slim, rectangular device with a smooth, reflective surface and a metallic frame. One side was producing a dim light and was covered in changing text.

I stared at him for a moment. "Is that a computer?"

He raises an eyebrow at me, "It is."

"And how long have we had access to those?" I ask him, mildly annoyed.

"I've had access to them my whole life. You shouldn't even know what a computer is."

I grit my teeth as I felt my irritation spike. "If I had known we had those I wouldn't have bothered coming here. Do you have any connectors?"

He raised an eyebrow and passed me the pad and a number of probes. "Then it's probably a good thing that you didn't know. If you had known then we wouldn't have been able to capture these fellows." As I grabbed the computer, my perk activated.

First Perk Activated. Source Code Acquired: Terran Hegemony Operating System (THOS)

So Elder James is from the Terran Hegemony. The last time this device was updated was 2760, so it would have been a few years before the civil war. This could mean anything from this device being out of touch with the Hegemony, or that they simply only updated their software every few decades. Questions for later.

Walking over to the DHD, I pressed my finger up against a hidden latch, causing it to pop open. I pulled out one of the crystals, pushed the pair of probes into the socket, and began trying to get the DHD to cooperate with what I now knew was called a compad. It took me barely thirty seconds; the DHDs were designed specifically so that they would connect with any technological level – even the most basic of computers. When the DHD's internal computer had deciphered the basic text document, I had it unload its internal storage into the compad.

Finally, I gave the DHD an order to always interpret any input from the dialing buttons as the point of origin, meaning that someone who didn't have an interface for the DHD would be unable to dial out.

With that, I handed the compad back to Elder James. He looked at it, and began scrolling down the list of addresses.

"What is this?"
"A list of every single address that has ever been dialed to or from this address."

Elder James froze for a moment. "Ohhh." He looked down at his compad with significantly greater interest, before sighing and placinging back onto his back. "Well, let's get going. We've got a bit of a hike ahead of us."

It was an hour's walk from the gate to the secure caverns, but we didn't stop there. It was a further hour before I noticed what would be our destination; a large empty patch of forest. It wasn't until we were much closer to the area that I finally saw it; a massive building, twenty meters tall, seventy meters long, and fifty meters wide. Except, buildings didn't have wings… or rocket engines.
I turned to the Elder, my face blank.

"Why is there a ship in the middle of the forest? No, more importantly, why didn't anyone know this was here."

"You didn't know this was here; that doesn't mean other people didn't know it was here. You would have been told after you proved you weren't liable to reveal anything." I followed him through the massive twenty meter tall door to the interior of the ship. The moment my foot touched the floor of the ship, my perk activated.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Leopard-Class Dropship Hull Framework

The hull blueprints for the Leopard-class Aerodyne Dropship had been shoved into my head. That confirmed that Elder James was definitely from the Inner Sphere then.

As we entered the ship, the remaining villagers came into view. The kids were wandering around the hangar bay, examining a pair of what I recognized to be BattleMechs. Elder Callum sat in a chair against one of the walls. The first thing I noticed about him was a sense of old age; as if he had gained twenty years of life in the few short hours since I had last seen him. He wore a jumpsuit; a welding helmet and a pair of heavy duty gloves lay on the ground besides him. As we entered the large bay, his eyes first focused on James – presumably on the man he was carrying – and then his eyes shifted to me before narrowing at the Goa'uld parasites.

"These would be our non-human prisoners, then."
Elder James nodded. "Aye. Are the tanks ready?"
Elder Callum stands up. "They are. We had a couple of reinforced tanks from when we first landed. Wasn't hard to move them down to the Brig."
We followed the Elder down several corridors until we eventually arrived at a heavily locked door.

We followed the Elder inside, where we found several cells, one of them containing a set of tanks, each filled with water, air bubbles floating up to the top of each tank.
First, we placed the former host into one of the other prison cells – after swapping his remaining clothing for a prisoner's outfit. Finally, Elder James and I placed the stick holding the two symbiotes on the floor. I held down the more injured one while Elder James removed the zip ties. Then, careful to not let it escape, we placed it into a tank and closed the hatch. The symbiote swam to the bottom where it lay mostly motionless. If not for its tail flicking back and forth we might have assumed it was dead.

We did the same with the second symbiote; this one resisting with a much greater fervor. With our work finally done, we all let out sighs of relief.
Elder Callum slapped me on the top of the head. "What the hell were you thinking, brat? Why the hell would you run off like that?"

I winced. "I wanted to find out the address that the villagers were being taken to."

Elder Callum raised an eyebrow. "And you didn't think to ask anyone else what we were planning?"

I sent the elder a death glare. "Four hours ago, I was under the impression that this village was in the pre-industrial age. I've lived here for my whole life and I didn't know about the dropship in our backyard."

The Elder smiled. "Then we've been doing our jobs! You're not supposed to know about the ship. Means that the Jaffa won't hear about it from anyone in the Village."

I let out a scoff. I could understand their reasoning. That didn't mean that I agreed with it. If I had known we had access to more advanced technology I could have properly started using my first perk weeks ago.

Elder James turned to Elder Callum. "We need to debrief the others."
We followed Elder Callum out of the brig. "They've been waiting for a few hours now. The whole 'non-human prisoners' really put a stopper on all of our current plans."

I followed the Elders down several twisting corridors. We approach one particular round door. It opens to reveal Elders Dorian, Elias, and Tavik all standing together around what I recognized as a Holotank – basically a table which projected holographic images. They all wore their normal village robes, but all three of the Elders had a weight to them, as if they had aged decades in the mere hours since I had last seen them.

"Well James, are you ready to explain these non-human prisoners?"

Elder James chuckled lightly. "It's as unbelievable as you'd expect. Arthur, tell us about the Goa'uld."

I froze. Of course he'd have me do the explaining. Why else would he have brought me here? So, once again, I explained the nature of Goa'uld. By the time I was done with my quick overview, the Elders were looking at me like I was insane.

Elder Dorian turned to Elder James. "Is he serious?"

Elder James nodded. "As far as I can tell. Of the two we captured, one of them slithered out of the corpse of a man I killed. We forced the other one out of the body of our prisoner. We had to stop his heart to make the thing leave his body."

Elder Callum grimaced. "That's horrifying. What happens to the people whose bodies they inhabit?"

I responded. "Some are capable of completely incapacitating their host so they're effectively asleep. Some Goa'uld – like Ra and Apophis – enjoy letting their host's watch what's happening to them. Considering that Ra and Apophis have both had the same host for the past several thousand years…" I didn't finish the thought. I didn't need to.
There was a moment of silence. "What do we know about our Human prisoner?"

"Absolutely nothing. If he ever awakens, I can say that there is a greater chance than not that he will be conscious. The Ashrak practice complete personality suppression, so the host likely has no memory of what has happened to them since he was last awake."

Again, another moment of silence as everyone processed what I had said.
"Alright. Now, tell me… why did you think it was a good idea to attack an enemy that didn't even know we existed?" Elder Dorian's voice was sharp, but beneath it was an edge of frustration.

I looked him in the eye and nodded. "There was good reason." I placed my bag of loot on the table, and pulled out one of the cloaking devices. Pulling it over my wrist and onto my arm, I activated it. All the Elders except Elder James intake a deep breath. I take a step around the table, in that silent method I had been taught by the Elders during training. I tap both Elders on the shoulder – they both jump in shock – before I deactivate the cloak.

"Is that sufficient?"

Elder Dorian shudders. "'Sufficient'? I would gladly walk into Ares Palace for a chance to get tech like that."

I let out a sigh of relief. "The group that uses these devices are called the Ashrak. They're the Goa'uld's Assassins' Guild. They operate either independently or in small groups only."

Elder Tavik spoke up now, "I'm sorry but what is your source?"

I winced, unsure of what to tell him. I pulled off the cloaking device while I thought about how I wanted to answer his question. I couldn't think of any convincing lie I could tell. Actually, why would I lie? I just killed four people because information was withheld from me. Hmmm.. I must have read too many isekai novels.

"About a year ago, I gained memories of another person. That person lived on Earth – Terra – in the 21st Century. In that world, there was a TV-series called Stargate. That show was about a team of 21st century soldiers from earth and ."

Elder Tavik's eyes narrowed. "A show? You're basing all of this on some entertainment program?"

I nodded firmly. "Yes. Everything I've encountered matches perfectly— the Stargate, the Jaffa, the Goa'uld. Some things don't match, but the broader strokes of the Goa'uld Empire's internal politics, structure, and technology. I have no reason to doubt any of that information."

Elder Callum asked the next question. "What things don't match."

"You. Leopard-class dropships come from a completely different franchise."
The Elders stiffened slightly at my recognition of the dropship. Elder James raised an eyebrow. "So you know about the Star League, then?"
I nodded. "I know of the general history of the Inner Sphere from the years 2100 to 3025."

All of them froze. Elder James smiled at me weakly. "You can tell us what happened to Kerensky then?"
Once again, I nodded. "I can. There is more, though. When I regained my memories, I also gained an ability called the Celestial Forge. It–"
Elder Callum scoffed. "Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait! The Celestial Forge? Are you being serious kid?"

Everyone looked at him blankly for a moment. "What? It's a pretty basic concept. There's an extensive list of abilities from different pieces of fiction. Then the main character of a novel buys perks with points or the Forge picks them randomly."

I smiled. "So you're aware of how the Celestial Forge works. My first perk allows me to reverse engineer any salvage I get my hands on. Just by touching it, I get a part of its blueprint. If I get my hands on enough versions of it, then I can get a whole blueprint."
The Elders sat in stunned silence for several long moments as they processed my claim. Elder Tavik was the first to break the silence. "Arthur, that is a big claim to make. With that kind of ability you're spitting in the face of engineers."

"I am aware. I have already proven it to Elder James."
His brows furrowed for a moment before the light of comprehension appeared. "You're saying that's how you managed the interface with the dialing device?"
That got the other Elder's attention. "Wait-wait-wait. James, what are you talking about?" Elder Callum was the first to respond.


Elder James pulls out his compad and plugs it into the Holotank. A wall of text appears in midair. "According to Arthur, this is a list of every address that has ever been dialed from the Stargate on this world."

I nodded. "The perk gave me a breakdown of the dialing devices' internal computer and an understanding of the source code used by the compad. From there, –" I froze mid sentence as Elder Elias started coughing. I turned to him, questioning.

He quickly regained his composure. "Brat, if you got a copy of the THOS source code then you can stop talking. Amaris destroyed all copies of the code when he started nuking worlds. There are no copies left anywhere in the Inner Sphere."

That… made some sense. "Well, as I was saying, it wasn't hard to convince the dialer to disgorge its internal memory. If you want more proof, If you give me an hour, I can transcribe the blueprints for the hull of this dropship."

Elder Tavik smiles, then bursts into a chuckle. "Well, I guess that'll make replicating these aliens' technology a piece of cake."

"Especially if we can steal their industrial technology." I replied. That idea got them nodding.

"Alright. So what would you have us do?" Elder Elias spoke up.

"You've taught me – no, you've been teaching everyone in the village how to engage in military combat. Even the most competent military would be capable of defeating a force of Goa'uld. They enforce their will first through fear and then through power. Their infantry weapons are about on par with what the Star League had, but they use tactics straight from the 1700s on Terra. They stand in lines and fire at targets. As long as we can disable their ships, we will have an absolute advantage on the ground. If you can reteach everyone how to use laser weapons, then we can win."

Elder Dorian closed his eyes. "I have been training the villagers in the art of military combat for the better part of three decades. If what we have to do is give the children weapons of war then so be it. How do you plan to deactivate the enemy ships?"

"Goa'uld fighter craft – at least the ones used by Apophis – have an emergency recall order. When activated, the vessel will fly back to their nearest base. If I can infiltrate the enemy base – which is child's play with the cloaking devices – then I can use my perk to activate that protocol in all the vessels. That will give us a certain amount of time. If I can completely rewrite all the passwords and protocols – the ships will basically belong to us already. After that, capturing Ares will be nearly effortless. Worst case, we shoot him."

Elder Callum raises an eyebrow, "How certain are you that you can access the systems?"

With more confidence than I felt, I replied. "Certain. If it exists, I can use it."
Elder James nods to that. "Alright then. We'll begin preparing the villagers for combat. Arthur, you will write down everything you can remember about this TV-show. After that, you will go straight to Ares' world for recon. Is everyone in agreement?"

Elder Elias chuckles. "Does that mean that I can finally start carrying around a Mauser again?"
Elder James smiles at that. "I suppose it does."

A comfortable silence passes over everyone in the room; the weight of missing family is not quite so great when hope is restored.


--- --- ---
Author's Note:
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[BlazingHyperion]

The Elders spent the rest of the day getting every little bit of information that they could out of me. By the time they were done every little detail about the Stargate and Battletech Franchises had been transcribed and heavily encrypted.

Then it was time for weapons training. The Elders spent the next seven days training the villagers with laser weapons. We simply didn't have the time for me to replicate the THOS source code or any of the Goa'uld blueprints. The THOS source code alone was 8 million lines. At a hundred words a minute, it would take me nearly 60 days of constant typing. We simply didn't have the time.

As for the Goa'uld blueprints, not only did I not have the time to transcribe the intricate detail of the naquadah crystals used in all the devices, we also didn't have any way to manufacture the technology. After a little bit of arguing, the Elders agreed that it would be better to move onto more immediately relevant information.

When the interrogation was completed and the Elders had gotten everything they could out of me, I joined the others. Everyone over the age of 16 was training with Mauser laser rifles. The Elder's training made sure all the kids were in excellent physical shape, and the regularly scheduled "war games" had heavily reinforced all aspects of tactical combat in everyone who had grown up in the village.

The only thing that the Elders had to do now was teach us how to shoot; easier said than done, but a much simpler task than training an infantryman from scratch.

It was a week of hell as the Elders all seared the use of the Mauser 960 into my brain. When they weren't teaching me how to use the Mauser, they were dissecting how to use a Zat. This was much more of a mutual effort as we worked together to discover the weapons maximum range, firing characteristics, and effective distance. Most important amongst those was how far you had to be before you could hear it firing.

Other than weapons training, the Elders and I had spent a significant period of time working out how the cloaking devices actually worked. The most important discovery was that not everyone could use the devices and we just didn't know why. Of the 220 people who hadn't been taken by Ares, 15 of us could actually activate the cloaking devices. The people who could use the cloak were all descended from servants of Nirrti who were captured during one of Athena's raids.

Then, I could use the cloaking devices as well – though I had absolutely no idea why that was. Eventually, I just chalked it up to being part of the Celestial Forge and moved on.

It was a week before the Elders felt my training was sufficient, if only barely. Finally the day came. Elder James and I stood before the Stargate. The Elders had given me what training they could and I was about as ready as I could be given the short turn over time. It would be my job to do reconnaissance; to discover the nature of Ares' forces. When that was done, I would begin making contact with the villagers.

After significant prodding from the Elders, I had remembered that Dendred, a slave world under Ares, was home to a resistance that he had been incapable of destroying. There was also a non-zero chance of Tok'ra infiltrators amongst Ares' subordinates. My final job was to watch for signs of either of these parties and report back to the Elders.

"Arthur. Make sure to come back in one piece."

"I will, Elder."

Then I began dialing the gate. As the seventh coordinate was entered, the blue whirlpool of the event horizon formed within the Stargate. Not wasting any time, I jogged to the gate. I looked back at Elder James; he gave me a slight nod. Then, before I had any second thoughts, I was through the gate. For a brief moment I felt myself passing through an opaque blue tunnel – stars twinkling in the distance – then I found myself in an empty clearing.

The Stargate sat on a large stone altar. The ground around the altar was covered in gravel; it was very similar to the stargate on Chulak. I immediately ordered the cloaking device to activate and heard the sound of the energy field coming into position.

I looked down at my hands that had turned greyscale; a rather unique effect of the Ashrak cloaks and a rather convenient way to confirm the effectiveness of the device.

I slowly examined the clearing for signs of people; there was a massive collection of tracks walking off in the same direction. Other than that, I saw no signs of habitation. I had been expecting it from what was shown in SG-1, but it raised several questions about why the Goa'uld didn't fortify their Stargates.

First things first, I walked up to the DHD and opened it up. My perk activated again.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Clavis (DHD) Wireless Systems

Ancient technology is truly ridiculous. The DHD had more than twenty separate methods for wireless communications, most of which I simply could not understand. In fact, 90% of the device's internal systems are purely devoted to wireless connections. It even contains a small-scale subspace communicator with a range of two light years.

Moving on, I extracted a complete list of dialed addresses; this Stargate had significantly higher traffic than the one at home; the total number of extracted files was nearly 10 times greater. I finally removed the record of my arrival and closed up the DHD.

I began making my way down the well travelled road. The gravel that was used for pathing was heavily compacted, and the areas at the side of the road were heavily worn. With all that together, I was pretty sure that I was in the correct area.

It was a half hour before I made my way out of the valley that contained the Stargate. What greeted me was a vast empty plain, stretching beyond the horizon, but the view wasn't what really caught my eye. No, the first thing I noticed were the seven Ha'tak.

I felt my jaw drop for a brief moment at the massive collection of vessels. When I got a hold of my senses, I began to notice the housing. One typically might struggle to notice one or two buildings from this far off – I must have been at least a dozen miles away – but when there were hundreds of such buildings layed out chaotically over what must have been an area of several square miles, it would have been more impressive if I had missed them.

It was a humbling sight. I may have been a tiny bit optimistic when I believed we could take on Ares, but I wasn't going to stop here; if I could activate the recall order for Ares' ships, then all of those forces would be less than useless.

Off to my right, what would have been two or three miles away from the Ha'tak landing area was a gargantuan quarry. It was easily several hundred meters in diameter. As I watched closely, I could make out groups of what could only be hundreds of people, all mining away at the rock. That certainly explained why Ares was in such a hurry to acquire more manpower.

I took out my compad and began imaging the entire settlement, converting it into a map for future reference. Then, I began the long and arduous job of counting. By the end, I had confirmed a total of 7 Ha'tak motherships, 22 Cheops landing craft, 84 Al'kesh, and over 400 Death Gliders. It was a frankly overwhelming force.

There was one particular Ha'tak that stood out; it was both physically distant from the others and covered in a unique golden iconography. If there was one thing that the System Lords were known for, then it was their excessively gaudy designs; that was likely to be Ares' flagship.

With this knowledge in mind, I had the beginnings of a plan. The best way to confirm the composition of Ares forces would be from the horse's mouth, as they say. While I can't capture a Jaffa and ask them for assistance, what I can do is infiltrate the computer systems.

With my decision made, I began what would be a several hour trek. I walked in the forest just beside the road to avoid any unnecessary contact with Jaffa.

After three hours of walking, I finally approached the edge of what I could only describe as a small city. I examined several of the outlying buildings, but it became obvious that these buildings at the edge of the city were purely for housing and feeding Ares' workforce. There was nothing here but beds, though I did also find a large cafeteria.

Instead, I made my way to Ares' flagship. Something that wasn't quite so obvious from a distance was that this ship was also slightly larger than the other vessels of Ares' fleet; The central pyramid was extended downwards and parts of the outer shell had been filled in at points that were generally left open on other Ha'taks.

I circled the ship once, checking the various entrances on the ship. All the entrances were covered by energy shields that made them impossible to pass through. Luckily, bypassing them was rather simple; I just waited for a group of Jaffa to enter and followed them inside. It was of particular note that my perk did not activate as I entered.

Next, I turned on my compad's mapping function and began wandering around the ship. I walked for hours – seven hours to be exact – as I mapped out the vessel's major hallways, and significant internal spaces.

The top of the central pyramid was especially busy; Jaffa were running from place to place, though I also noticed the occasional servant. Then, as I was wandering around, I found myself at the entrance of what could only be the Bridge.

There, right at the center of the room was a man sat upon a throne. His right hand was covered in a strange golden ribbon-like device, something I instantly recognized as a Goa'uld Kara'kesh; the sign of a System Lord. This could only be Ares; he was in the middle of making out with a woman who wore some particularly revealing clothing.

I quickly diverted my attention and examined the rest of the room. There were two other entrances, each on opposite sides of the throne; only one of them was currently open.

Softening my steps, I made my way to the open entrance. There, I found a small armory. Staff weapons, Zats, and numerous other weapons. As I took inventory of everything in the room, there was one thing that I took immediate notice of. A second Kara'kesh.

The Kara'kesh is the original version of the Hara'kesh that is used by the Ashrak. They are much bulkier than Hara'kesh, but they offer much greater power. They also act as a sign of status for System Lords – though a silver version of the device is offered for important underlords.

They are an all-purpose multi-tools, capable of acting as a weapon, a cutting instrument, an energy shield generator, a neural interface, and – most importantly – as a control device for other Goa'uld technology. If Ares had a recall order for his vessels, then there was a significant chance that the Kara'kesh was either the main method for activating it, or was of vital importance in the process.

Without any thought, I activated the hand device and waited. Nothing happened; I had hoped that Dr. Shen, I Presume, would activate and give me knowledge of the device. Up to this point, when the perk had activated, it had always given me the part of the blueprint that I wanted, even if I didn't know what that was.

As I stood there, holding what was likely to be a key part of any future plan, my heart started to beat faster and faster. I waited. One second passed. Two seconds passed. Three seconds passed. Nothing happened.

I grit my teeth. I needed this device. If I took it, I had no doubt that the repercussions would be immense. Ares would be on full alert. He might not know who took the Kara'kesh, hell, he might even blame one of the other nearby system lords.

Or he might start blaming parts of his workforce and mass executing people? No that's not all that likely. If the rebellion is real then he'll probably blame them; that could cause some significant issues with any future diplomatic talks.

I screamed internally. The risks were great… but I needed this device. Screw it; I'll take it.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Kara'kesh (Goa'uld Hand Device) Ra-Kesh Crystal

For a moment, I froze. Then I instantly changed my mind and placed the device back into its place. There it was, as if nothing had happened. I carefully made my way out of the room. My head was spinning and I felt exhausted, but the knowledge I had gained had been exactly what I needed. That would be an understatement, it was even better than that.

The Ra-Kesh Crystal was a specialized computational device within the Kara'Kesh; it handled a not insignificant amount of information, and it was both designed and manufactured by Ra for distribution amongst his subordinate System Lords.

Ra, being the Supreme System Lord, likely hadn't trusted his subordinate System Lords, so he built a reset into each Kara'kesh. Anyone could use this reset, all they'd have to do is put on the device and think of a particular set of symbols. This would give the new wearer complete access to the device – including its internal memory, though you would need an external device to access that memory.

That code was unique to each Kara'kesh and was literally carved into the device when it was created, meaning that by acquiring the blueprint for the subdevice, I could get access to the code for any particular Kara'kesh I stole.

All I had to do now was defeat Ares and take his Kara'kesh from him… well, I suppose that's better than the previous plan.

---
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[BlazingHyperion]

It had taken me nearly an hour of mindless walking around the lower levels of Ares' Flagship before I finally calmed down.

What was going on with the Celestial Forge? Nothing and then suddenly it activates? It happened right as I was going to steal the device; it must be intent related. I am going to have to do significant testing when I return to Camp.

I had been aboard this ship for almost four hours now, and I had managed to map out all of the major passageways

Compared to the seafaring vessels of 21st century Earth, the hallways on this ship were massive, each could easily accept five people walking shoulder to shoulder. It made not hitting others rather easy.

There was only one thing left to do before I could leave the ship. I needed to find where the Jaffa kept their records; gaining access to them would allow me to quickly get a complete understanding of the composition of Ares' forces.

It was entirely possible – likely even – that such records would be in Ares' throne room, but I didn't plan on going back there. There were only a few spots aboard this ship that I hadn't mapped.

I spent the next hour mapping out what was left of the ship. Unfortunately I failed to locate anything of interest. There were still blank spots on my map, but they were all away from the primary passageways; I found it unlikely that record keeping would be in some place so out of the way… or maybe that might actually make more sense?

Either way, I simply didn't have the time. I could come back and search the rest of the ship when my secondary mission had been completed.

I found a particularly loud group of Jaffa marching towards the exit and followed them out of the ship. It was time to go find the Elders.

— — —
POV: Michael Dresden

It had been one hell of a week. The Jaffa of Ares had been a storm. We barely got 15 minutes of heads up that they were coming, just barely enough time to secure the few pieces of Star League technology we had in the village. Then we had been rounded up and rushed through the Stargate to Ares' primary world.

We all lost our breath at the site of Ares' city. I had heard of the ships of the Goa'uld from those who lived in Veyna's Rest before we had joined the village, but seeing the pyramids really put it into perspective. The ships looked to be about half the length of a McKenna Class Battleship.

As I examined the area surrounding the seven pyramid ships, I counted at least a hundred smaller craft as well as the numerous buildings and the massive manually mined quarry at the edge of the landing site.

As the Jaffa herded us to the quarry and immediately handed everyone pickaxes, it became clear what we were needed for; manual labor. So, we were back to mining Naquadah, just for a completely different warlord.

We were split into two groups. Most of us were taken to the quarry while a small group of the younger women – those in their early twenties – were taken elsewhere. We were provided with more than adequate food, water, and shelter, but on the first day alone we were required to work from the instant we had tools in our hands. The moment I had my bearings, I immediately began trying to make contact with the others who had been taken. It was during this time that I came into contact with Lior.

I had been attempting to make contact with the others for two days, and I hadn't had much luck. The only people I had any real contact with were the miners, and most of them were too busy trying not to gather the attention of the Jaffa to have made any real connections outside their immediate group.

The third day at the camp, a man had sat down with me and some of the other villagers during breakfast.
"I've been informed that you need to send a message."

I had barely even registered his arrival. I wasn't exactly a young man anymore and the constant mining took a toll. Nonetheless, I looked him in the eyes and replied.
"I need to make sure that the people of my village are taken care of."

He nodded, ever so slightly.
"I can confirm that your people are alright. They're being trained to be servants for the Jaffa; those in such a position are well taken care of."

I took in the man's appearance. He was muscular and well proportioned; green eyes with shoulder length brown hair. He was a completely unremarkable young man.

I returned to eating my breakfast.
"While I am glad to hear they are well taken care of, I was hoping to get a message to them."

"I expected as much. Someone will contact you this evening."

I nodded. We ate in silence and went our separate ways as we were directed to the quarry by our overseers.

That evening I waited in bed. I had been expecting to sleep on the ground, instead we were provided with actual tents and sleeping mats. They were too homogenous to be hand woven, and the material looked to be some sort of synthetic fabric. There was also the fact that there were more than 5000 of each and they were all so uniform as to be identical. The only plausible explanation was that Ares was being supplied by some sort of advanced industrial economy.

The more I thought about it the more obvious it became that Ares was being supplied by an industrial society of some sort, something I knew the Jaffa of Athena didn't have.

Now that I thought about it, there were other things that shouldn't have been available for us. The pickaxes that we used regularly during the day were perfectly cast; there were no signs of metalworking and the handles were all perfectly identical, something that could only be explained by a significant industrial base. There was also the lack of nearby farms; the food was being shipped in from elsewhere.

My musings were interrupted by the rustling of my tent's flap. I lay there silently while I listened to the muted footsteps of a man entering.
"Are you ready to send your message?"

The voice belonged to the same man who had approached me earlier that day. He turned on a small light, just enough for me to see his face and the piece of paper he carried in his hand. My contemplations immediately returned. Here was more technology that should only be readily available to an industrialized society.

The man pulled out a pen and looked at me blankly. The pen too; it was obviously not something that was handcrafted; it must have been created through large scale manufacturing of some sort.

In a whisper, I spoke to the man.
"Give me the paper. I'll write it down for you."

I wrote a quick message to those that I hadn't been able to see, along with a note for the message to be passed along to Annelise, one of the Elders. As long as she was doing well, she would undoubtedly be trying to get in contact with me as well.

I returned the letter to the man who raised an eyebrow.

While English was commonly spoken amongst the Goa'uld (for almost no determinable reason) and there were several Gaelic System Lords, those were the only European languages that we had encountered. Languages like German, French, and Spanish were not spoken amongst the System Lords. As such, we had agreed that were we ever in a position where we had been captured we would use German as our primary language for communication.

"Please get that to Annalise. She's the tallest in her group, blonde, green eyes. If you can't get it to her, then any of the people in my group. Just show them the message and they'll know it's from me."

Just like that, the man prepared to leave. As he was getting off his knees I interrupted him.
"I didn't catch your name."

The man froze hesitantly for a moment.
"My name is Lior."

I nodded gently to him.
"Thank you, Lior, for helping. I hope you know that I appreciate it."

It was two days later that Lior managed to get me a response. I threw it in my pocket so as to avoid attracting attention from our overseers.. I only got the chance to read it that evening as we were eating dinner.

All things considered, the news was pretty good. Everyone had been well treated. With my heart at ease and my largest worries settled I could begin to turn my attention to other things.

I spent the next three days gathering information on the other groups of miners. There were five large groups, with those from Veyna's Rest being the most recent and also the largest at almost 1500 villagers.

The second largest group of almost 1200 were slaves who had been taken from Amaterasu. Very few of them spoke a language other than Japanese, which had led to them isolating themselves from the other groups. The few that I had spoken to had all been greatly surprised by my fluency. Just speaking the language created inroads with them.

Then there were the two groups that had formerly been under Athena's rule. One of them had come from her homeworld and had been taken while Athena's Jaffa had been overwhelmed. The other group had come from another village that was very similar to ours; Athena had left them alone as long as they provided their quota of naquadah. Each of these groups was about a thousand people.

Then there were those who had been born and raised under Ares. They were slightly more combative than the other groups I had interacted with. There were about 800 of them in total

Finally there was everyone else. They didn't have a leader, but those who didn't have their own community tended to group together. It was interesting to learn that Ares had, up until recently, regularly purchased slaves from other System Lords; there were former servants of every major system lord and many of the minor ones all working in this settlement.

I was awoken on the eighth night to the soft sound of footsteps. I turned in time to see the tent flap being pushed open, but there was nothing there. Suddenly, I felt a hand over my mouth and Arthur seemed to materialize before me.

"Hello Elder. I'm going to slowly remove my hand and then deactivate the cloak. Nod if you understand."

I look into his eyes and nod calmly. Slowly, Arthur took his hand away from my mouth. As he did, he once again disappeared from my line of sight before again reappearing. I could hardly believe what I had just seen. That was definitely NOT Star League technology.

In a hushed, but hurried tone, I spoke.
"What in the blazes was that?"

He smiled at me, almost smugly.
"That can wait. I'm here performing Recon. My next assignment is to relay any messages you might have to the Elders. Is there anything important that you need me to relay?"

I stared at Arthur for a short moment.
"The work is hard, but we have food, water, and shelter. Some may complain, but everyone will survive."

"That's good to hear. My secondary mission is to find evidence of secondary factions. There are a couple that we believe might be active. This is a bit of a stretch, but do you know anyone who might be working for such an organization?"

I immediately told Arthur about the person who had managed to get a message to Annelise. Arthur raised an eyebrow before chuckling lightly.
"I wasn't actually expecting anything from that. I guess our good luck hasn't run out quite yet. So how have you been, Elder?"

I scowled at Arthur.
"Don't 'how have you been' me! Why the hell did they send you kid? You've barely completed basic training!"

Arthur winced at that.
"They didn't have a choice. Let's just leave it at that."

I ran a hand over my face. If they didn't have a really good reason, I'd be the one to smash James' face in myself for this stunt. I let out a deep sigh before continuing.
"Fine. Now what was that cloaking device? We sure as hell don't have access to that kind of technology."

Arthur perked up.
"We stole it from some Goa'uld. It creates an energy field around the wearer that bends light. Pretty cool."

I let my previous annoyance flow away; that sort of technology was absolutely game changing.
"You don't happen to have an extra one of those I could use, do you?"

"Not on me, sadly. We got four of them, the other three are still with the Elders. I can try and get one of them for you when I check in back home."

I thought about it for a moment. I had seen people being searched by the Jaffa. I let out a deep sigh.
"No, it's not worth the risk. Leave it for someone who can actually use it properly."

"Alright. I'm glad you're doing well, Elder. I still have three more people to check in with before the night is over. If you need anything from me, then leave a piece of fabric hanging from the front of your tent. I'll make contact if I can."

Before he could leave, I grabbed his arm.
"You make sure to stay safe, alright Arthur. It's bad enough that you have to be here at all. Do not let yourself be captured."

He nodded once at me and then he was gone. With that, I lay back down. If I hadn't been physically exhausted from the hard labor I doubt I would have been able to fall asleep.

---
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[WerewolfEros]

I'm not a fan of Battletech and Stargate, but this is actually quite neat. Watched.

 

[Kenji Kage]

Well well this sounds interesting mh it will be interesting how you manage the fusions of the sources as some seem a bit mutually exclusive..... I look forward for more of this

 

[Skrattybones]

The idea that a random dude from the Battletech universe would recognize a fictional prompt. by name, from 50+ years after their universe fully diverged is insane

 

[BlazingHyperion]

I have been on the world of Mycena for five days now. During that time I had only slept once, in the middle of the forest. In exchange, I had managed to produce a digital map of the entirety of Ares' home city, including all the barracks, servant halls, armories, etc.

I had also spent several hours mapping out three of the other Ha'tak vessels for reference. While important locations like the bridge, hangars, reactor, etc were all in the same location on different ships, places like the cabins, galleys, and armories were never in the same place twice.

After examining the ships more in-depth, I had come to the conclusion that the interior design of the Ha'taks were highly modular, meaning that almost any negative space in the ship could and was regularly used for almost any function. It went a little ways to explain why a ship that was so… looked down upon in Stargate SG-1 was so heavily used by the Goa'uld.

Both interesting and concerning was the fact that my perk had yet to activate despite how much time I had spent examining the various Ha'tak class vessels. I would definitely have to do some experimenting at a further date.

The Jaffa were all well equipped, and they made extensive use of logistics. It was impossible to provide food, water, and shelter for a city of this size without extensive record keeping, but I had yet to find the location of any central computer system or record storage location. I knew such information had to be kept somewhere – again, most likely on the bridge of Ares' flagship, but I was hoping not to have to go back there.

Lastly, and most importantly, I had been keeping a close eye on the person that Elder Dresden had pointed me towards. Lior was an entirely uninteresting fellow. He slept, ate, started mining, ate again, and then went back to sleep. If I hadn't been watching him specifically, I would have never noticed his peculiarities.

He spoke with people from just about every group (except for the Japanese group; it appeared the man was incapable of speaking the language and hence couldn't make any inroads with them), something that was already suspicious on its own. Most of the miners rarely made contact with those outside their own group.

Things just kept getting more and more interesting the more I watched the man. Every day as he was heading to the quarry, he would walk past a Jaffa and they would pass each other small slips of paper. Again, I would not have caught the exchange if I had not been following the man in particular.

Finally, I had followed the man to his accommodations on the night of the third day and watched as he removed a box from underneath his mattress. I hadn't been willing to examine the box first hand; the man was obviously paranoid and he would have undoubtedly noticed had I started moving things in his tent.

Now, here I was, following Lior around on his daily routine. He had yet to make any significant deviations, but there was still time. I had two days before I had to return home.

As the sun set beyond the mountains, I watched as Lior returned from the Quarry to grab dinner. I was pleasantly surprised that he joined a different group than normal for his meal. Suspiciously, he had not once interacted with any of these people and the people who surrounded them were all strangely loud.

Lior was the last to sit down at the table and everyone at the table turned their heads down. An older man near the center of the table began the conversation without looking up from his food.
"What do we know about the new group?"

Lior was the one who answered first.
"Much the same as we were told originally. They're from one of Athena's mining villages, but there is something off."

The man continues to eat his food. If I wasn't close enough to hear them whispering to each other, I wouldn't have even been able to notice their exchange.
"What are you referring to?"

"They're all warriors. Even the women. In hand to hand, I doubt I could defeat any but the youngest of them. They all speak at least three languages that we are aware of, English, Japanese, and a third language that I've never heard outside of their circle."

A third voice pipes up quietly from beside Lior. I make sure to note the man down for reference at a later date.
"All of those that I've interacted with also have greater knowledge of mathematics than is normally acceptable for a major population under a System Lord."

All the people at the table paused, for the briefest moment.
"That certainly makes things interesting. What do we know about their world of origin?"

The men look between each other.
"Nothing, sir."

The man put his spoon down to grab some bread from the table.
"Is it possible that this is something similar to the Daedalus Incident?"

There is a moment of silence around the table, before Lior breaks in.
"I suppose it's possible; not likely though. The Daedalus Incident was already a one in a million event."

The man nods gently.
"Very well. Continue providing assistance. When the time comes they may be of great help to us. I suppose there is still no news on the people of Amaterasu's domain?"

"There is actually a change on that front. The people of this new village all speak their language fluently. The Elders of this new village are already speaking with their leaders."

The older man sighed lightly.
"Lior, what are the chances that the people from this new village would be willing to teach some of us Japanese?"

Lior frowned for a moment.
"I doubt they'll say no. Especially if we are continuing to offer them assistance."

"Then make sure to do so. When you get the chance, see what we can do about getting some of them as teachers."

No one spoke any further. They finished their meals and then all returned to their camps.

None of them had said anything, but I was fairly sure they were all members of the Resistance. Though that did bring into question why Lior was passing messages to that one Jaffa.

Also, this 'Daedalus Incident' was an interesting development. I looked down at my compad and confirmed that the entire conversation had been recorded and transcribed.

I still had two days before it was time for me to return home, and I had effectively accomplished all of my goals, but there was still one other group I had to search for; the Tok'ra. Finding a Tok'ra infiltrator would be much more difficult. While there were fewer than a hundred Goa'uld in the city, that just meant that each of them was searched even more heavily. If any of them had outed themselves quite so easily then they would have already been dead.

No, finding any member of the Tok'ra would be much more difficult than finding resistance members.

I spent my remaining two days following the people that Lior had made contact with. All of them were exceptionally ordinary, though I did catch a few of them passing messages, with one significant exception.

I had been sure not to touch anything in any of the suspected resistance member's tents, but I still observed them all carefully, and my effort had been quickly rewarded. I had been lucky enough to watch one of the resistance members pull a small metal box – similar to the one I had seen in Lior's tent – out from beneath his mattress. Inside it had been several images, paper, a pen, and a firearm of unknown design – alongside what appeared to be ammunition for the weapon. I made sure to snap several images of the inside of the box so I could present the images to the Elders.

I had also begun searching the rooms of the various Goa'uld who lived in the city. None of them had anything interesting, but there were a few Goa'uld who had particularly sparse rooms, which – given the proclivities of the Goa'uld – was a bit of a red flag. I would make sure to watch them later.

Then again, there was a part of me that was saying this was a ruse and that any Tok'ra who could survive in a Goa'uld court would know better than to leave anything that would stand out.

Finally, as the sun set on my seventh day on the world of Mycena, I made the couple hour journey to the Stargate. There, I dialed home and stepped through. I was immediately greeted by the completely empty clearing, but something was different…
Ohh wait, that was a mech footprint. I'd have to make sure that someone came to cover that up. Anyone who came through the Stargate and saw it would know immediately that something strange was going on.

I pulled out my Compad and transmitted my arrival confirmation message. Within 20 seconds I had a response, so I sat down and waited. It was ten minutes later that the ground started shaking. From down the path came a mech. I didn't recognize the type; I had yet to use my perk on all of the Star League Era technology; I had been too busy with either training or sleeping.

The mech slowly came to a stop before the Stargate, then it kneeled down from its full 11 meters to just under five and a hatch on the back came open. Elder Callum stuck his head out.
"Good to see you're back in one piece, kid. Get up here!"

I smiled before climbing into the Phoenix Hawk's cockpit.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Phoenix Hawk (PXH-1c "Special") Extralight Fusion Engine (XL Engine)

"So how'd the mission go?"

I quickly pushed through the short wave of vertigo that came with touching the Battlemech and replied to the Elders questions.
"Primary and secondary objectives were completed without issue, though disabling all of Ares' forces will be slightly more difficult than we hoped, but there is a way to do it. The villagers are doing well and I managed to find a possible cell of the Dendred Resistance, but I'm not quite sure."

The Elder seemed to have instantly shed a great burden.
"That is good news indeed. You have no idea how much you stressed out us old men when you told us about Anubis and Sokar and how they treat their servants."

I winced; Sokar and Anubis were two system lords that were known for their cruelty. I hadn't exactly done a good job when explaining how the servants of other system lords were treated, though that was mostly because the treatment of the servants was never brought up unless it was particularly egregious.

We sat in silence for the next five minutes as Elder Callum expertly ran his mech up a mountain and down the other side where we saw the form of not just a Leopard-Class Dropship, but also a second spheroid type dropship.

"That's new. Where did you get that thing?"

Elder Callum looked at the new dropship from the corner of his eye.
"Aye. James wanted access to a mech we could send through the Stargate, so he had us bring down that baby. When we were leaving the Inner-Sphere, we had to modify the thing to carry extra mechs, so that thing was storing 32 Locusts, eight more than you can normally fit into a Confederate-Class Dropship."

A Battlemech capable of traveling through the Stargate would be a significant advantage when the time came to take out Ares; hell, if we used them right they might just single-handedly win us the battle.

"How well do you think the armor on those things will hold up against Staff Weapons?"

"We have no idea. That'll be part of your next mission; you'll need to steal us one or two for testing purposes."

I was expecting as much.
"Best guess then."

"You'll have to ask one of the others for specifics, but we're currently working under the assumption that the staff weapons are primarily targeted towards shielded targets, rather than armored targets. It would explain why they're so effective against capital ships, but have such a limited effect on the ground. All of that of course depends on how accurate your memory of this TV-show is."

Slowly, the Elder brought his Phoenix Hawk into the bay onboard the Leopard-Class Dropship. When the mech was fully onboard we both clambered down and were greeted by the rest of the Elders waiting for us.

James was the first to begin.
"It's good to see that you're back in one piece, Arthur."

I smiled. I hoped the exhaustion I felt was evident on my face.
"It's good to be back, Elder. I would like to complete my debriefing so that I can get some sleep."

Elder Elias chuckled lightly.
"Well let's get to it then."

I followed the others to the bridge, where we sat down and I began. I started with the current state of the rest of the village and then explained the reset codes on the Kara'Kesh. It seemed as if a load had been taken off the Elders' shoulders; all of them seemed much lighter, but they still seemed to have their worries.

Elder Dorian was the first to bring up his issues.
"Are we sure that the Kara'Kesh will have the reset codes you're hoping for?"

I looked him in the eyes and nodded seriously.
"The Kara'Kesh is more than just a shield or weapon for the System Lords; it is a mobile command station. It provides continual feedback on the state of all of the forces that it is slaved to, and is used by a system lord to ensure that someone else isn't impersonating them. Even if the exact codes don't exist, the difficulty of creating a mass-shut down order is negligible."

Elder Dorian smiled.
"That is certainly great news if I've ever heard it."

Elder James continued.
"What of your third mission?"
"I believe I have discovered a cell of the Dendred Resistance, but I don't know for sure." I pulled out my compad and began going over the data that I had compiled. The Elders were particularly interested in the fire-arm that I showed them.

"With all that said, I have yet to uncover signs of a Tok'ra Agent, though I plan to continue looking when I return."

When I was done, Elder James nodded.
"Thank you Arthur. You've done excellently. Go get yourself some sleep. You'll be shipping back out in three days and you won't be going alone this time"

A inclined my head towards the Elders in thanks.
"I'll see myself to the bunks then."

I turned out of the room and left. I beelined my way to the first bed I could find and promptly passed out from exhaustion.

---
Howdy!
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[BlazingHyperion]

I walked onto the bridge of the Leopard-Class Dropship a bit less than 56 hours after returning home. I slept for a bit more than two days, then I spent my time eating and getting caught up with all the other kids.

While I had been gone I had been able to repress the loneliness, but even just a week without any significant social contact had taken its toll. To say that I was relieved to not be the only one going on assignment this time would have been a gross understatement.

I found Yren waiting for me on the bridge. She was holding a compad and scrolling through technical manuals, a habit she had gained the moment she became aware of their existence. She had always been the nerdy type, but now that she had access to more than just the odd math textbook that the Elders 'found' she was memorising everything she could get her hands on. She didn't like being bothered when she got like this, so I quickly found a seat.

"Hello again, Arthur. It's been a while."
Just before I sat down, I heard a voice behind me.

Slowly I turned around to find Eamon Thorne, one of the villages' hunters. He was twelve years older than me, so we hadn't interacted much, but I knew that he was one of the village's best hunters.

Three times a year, the Elders would invite some of the graduates – those who had moved onto their full time profession – to our regularly scheduled war games. Sometimes this would be more so to show how rusty the graduates got, but other times it would be to show us what we could do better. Elder James had invited Eamon to put us in our place; he had waited until it was dark and then one by one picked us all off.

It showed that the Elders were taking the operation seriously, and I was glad that he would have my back.

I smiled back at him.
"It's good to see you, Eamon. You don't visit often; I would have loved for you to come by a second time for the games."

He chuckled good naturedly.
"I've been busy, though even if I had come by again you all wouldn't have lasted an hour."

I nodded.
"Absolutely, but it would have been nice to spend some more time learning from you."

He laughed lightly this time.
"You never change, do you Arthur. Tell me, what have you been doing since I last seen you?"

"Nothing much, I've spent most of my time focusing on the games. I've been meaning to pick up a hobby for a while, but I've yet to get a chance."

Eamon nodded seriously.
"It's always important to have something to do to destress. Have I shown you any of my paintings?"

He painted? That was something I was very much unaware of.
"No, I'm afraid you haven't."

"A shame. Once everyone is back home I'll have to show you some of my paintings. I recently discovered a new blue pigment. The only issue is that I have to travel a month and a half on foot to reach the quarry where I can get the main ingredient."

As interesting as that sounded, the door opened once again and in walked Elder James and another of the villagers hunters.

When I had seen that Eamon was one of the people on this mission, it wasn't hard to figure out who the other one would be. Kaela Arden was second only to Eamon when it came to stealth, but she was the single greatest archer in the entire village. The idea of her getting access to laser weaponry was both utterly terrifying and deeply relieving. We just had to hope that she managed to make the transfer from one weapon to the other. Considering the fact that she was here, the Elders seemed to believe that she had.

We all took a seat, Yren put away her compad, and Elder James began the briefing.
"Alright. You all will have three missions. Kaela, Yren, you two will be performing reconnaissance on our suspected resistance members. You will either check back in a week's time or whenever you confirm who we believe they are."

Next he turned his attention to Eamon.
"Eamon, you will be looking for signs of a Tok'ra infiltrator. This won't be like a normal search mission. We do not know what sort of technology they might have access to. As such, you are not to search the rooms of any of the Goa'uld, you are just there to observe them for suspicious behaviour."

Finally he turned to me.
"Arthur, your primary mission will be to infiltrate and retrieve at least two of the Goa'uld staff weapons for testing. Your priority is not getting caught and not putting undue pressure on possible future allies. This could take you two days, it could take you two months. If you cannot achieve your goal while remaining completely unnoticed, then you are not permitted to do so."

We all responded as one;
"Understood."

Elder James nodded.
"Good. Now, we will begin reviewing operational contingencies."

Elder James spent the next four hours drilling us on the various security measures that the Elders had devised for the village's safety. Using the captured Ashrak host – who was still unconscious – they had devised a way to detect the naquadah-based protein that signified a person being a Goa'uld host. From there they had modified a device that would activate should it detect that compound in the wearer's blood.

They had also added protocols for wireless communications; namely, the tried and tested "don't do that" protocol. The only time wireless communications were to be used was during moments of extreme distress, or when a mission was accomplished, at which point the mission lead would ping the other compads in the area and return home.

So, with all of that complete, it was time to head out. We got a quick ride to the Stargate on a pair of Locusts; the kids who were piloting them were having the time of their lives

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Locust (LCT-1Vb) Extralight Fusion Engine (XL Engine), Locust Frame

From there, it was a quick dialing. With the gate activated, Kaela turned to the rest of us.
"Well, I hope I see you guys soon."
Then she was through the gate. The rest of us followed suit, activating the cloaks the instant we were through.

I waited for about ten minutes for the others to get well ahead of me before I turned my attention to the DHD. The Elders had wanted me to devise a way to confirm whether or not any of us had been caught, and I had devised a few possible options. The DHD was likely to be one of if not the single most powerful antenna in the world. I simply had to add a subroutine for it to search for a radio signal and dial a particular gate when it received that signal. Then it would send a signal through the gate.

It didn't work, at least not as I was hoping. Luckily I had been expecting just that, and the Elders provided me with a few microcontrollers that I could attach to the input sockets on the DHD. Now, all I had to do was tell the DHD to send a signal to the microcontroller and then have the microcontroller produce the Stargate Address which it would dial. Then the microcontrollers could send a short radio signal.

It took me almost three hours of work, but I had just barely managed it. I did a test dialing to confirm it functioned and quickly got a reply back from Home. I had not been bothered once during the entire process and it really brought into question why the Goa'uld didn't fortify their home Stargates. I would have to ask if I ever got the chance.

With the backup completed, I began the trek back to Ares' City. The view was just as breathtaking the second time I saw it as it was the first, it was only ruined by the fact that most of the people who lived in it were slaves.

I spent the next three days checking every armory in the city. Each of them were well maintained and stocked, and all of them were sealed tighter than an airlock. I already knew as such from my initial reconnaissance and I was not at all surprised to learn that I would likely be waiting for a while.

—
POV: Kaela Arden

I found my way to Elder Dresden's tent and entered. The Elder was already looking at the flap, so the moment I was inside I deactivated the cloak.

"Hey, old man. I need some help. You up for it."

He raised an eyebrow.
"Unlike you, I like to know what I'm getting into before I agree to it."

I chuckled lightly then began to explain my mission to get into contact with the Dendred Resistance and the possible nature of Lior as a member. Luckily, I had run this by the captain before making contact, or Dresden would have never agreed.

He furrowed his brows.
"So what do you want me to do?"

I smirked.
"I want you to ask him!"

He looked at me, unamused.
"I am not going to walk up to the man and ask him straight up if he is in the resistance."

I sighed theatrically.
"A shame. That'll make getting in contact with their leadership so much more difficult. I may have to do something drastic, like kidnapping one of them."

He looked at me like I was an idiot.
"You can't be serious."

I nodded emphatically.
"Totally and completely serious. Even got Elder James' approval and everything."

The man fell back onto his mattress.
"Fine. I'll ask him tomorrow. Just make sure you're nearby."

"You got it, old man."
With that, I reactivated the cloak and left his tent.

It was the next day when the old man decided to get on with it. During breakfast, he sat down across from Lior and his conversation partner, both of whom immediately turned completely quiet. The Elder grabbed a slice of bread and began eating as he talked.
"I was under the impression that you would want something in return for sending that message."

Lior's face remained completely passive as he responded.
"I will, but I don't need anything from you at the moment."

The Elder placed a piece of bread in his mouth and slowly chewed away, slowly, as he watched Lior. I stood off to the side and recorded the conversation. Finally, the Elder swallowed and continued.
"Let's cut to the chase. You're part of the resistance."

Lior's eyebrows twitched ever so slightly.
"I am unaware of any resistance."

The Elder took another slice of bread and continued speaking.
"Well you see, I heard some interesting information recently. Let me know if it rings any bells. A while back a world by the name of Dendred was invaded by Ares. They were a pretty advanced civilization, and the world's inhabitants – led by a fellow going by the name Ma'chello – started a resistance to fight against Ares. Any of that rings any bells."

Lior's face was unnaturally blank, the guy next to him was much the same.
"I would very much like to hear where you've learned of such things."

"A little birdy told me. Though their words line up with what I've seen. The tents, the pickaxes, none of this is hand made. It could only really be created by an industrialized society. So tell me, are you a member of the resistance?"

Neither Lior nor the Elder moved. Lior stared into the Elder's eyes while he asked a question.
"What do you want?"

Elder Dresden grinned like a shark.
"I want to help, and I want a meeting with your superiors."

Neither of them moved, except to grab a piece of bread. Finally, Lior turned his eyes away.
"Can you teach Japanese?"

The man sitting to Lior's right snapped his face at him, his face remaining blank, before he turned back to the Elder.

The Elder raised an eyebrow.
"Easily. It isn't a quick process though."

Lior turned his attention to his food.
"Then give me a few days and I'll have an answer for you."

The Elder nodded.
"Then you have my thanks."

"You can thank me by not stabbing me in the back."

They both chuckled lightly. The man to Lior's left had completely frozen stiff, but he quickly shook it off and returned to his meal. They both finished and went their separate ways. As he started his walk to the quarry, Elder Dresden spoke into midair.
"Did you get what you wanted?"

I chuckled, speaking loud enough so that only the Elder could hear me.
"Hopefully. Now we just have to wait and see what happens when the hornets nest hits the ground."

His face remained neutral.
"Shouldn't you be following them?"

"Yren is handling that. I have other things to do."

The Elder sighed.
"Alright, take care of yourself."

"You know I will. You do the same, Elder."
With that I left the Elder to his own devices. I had a lot of people to watch, and possibly some tents to search.

---
Author's Note:
If you want more right now, chapters on Discord [LINK]

 

[BlazingHyperion]

Author Note: If you've seen Stargate SG-1, then you can probably skip this. This chapter is a discussion amongst the Elders -- which turned out fine; could have been better, could have been worse -- on how to use Arthur's (limited) knowledge of the Stargate SG-1 show... which gets some what sidetracked a few chapters from now anyway.

I did try to put some of my own thoughts into the chapter, so maybe you'll find that interesting.
— — —
POV: James Cromwell

I watched as the team exited the bridge. They'd catch a ride to the Stargate and then they'd be on Mycena, Ares' world.

As the door shut, I brought my hands up to my face and groaned. It had been bad enough that we had to send a kid of Arthur's age out on such a mission. Now, Yren insisted on going as well; she had defeated everyone else who wanted to go, and they'd all acquiesced; we'd had no choice but to send her.

Looking back on it, we'd spent entirely too much time engraving the importance of strength into the kids; it almost makes sense that the clans turned out the way they did if this is what our teaching style results in. I'd have to get the trainers together to discuss how to remove the "might-makes-right" mindset from the others.

I spent thirty minutes contemplating new training methods before the other Elders began streaming into the room. Callum was the first to arrive – as he always is – followed shortly by Dorian and Elias.

Elias looked around the room.
"I'd like to bring something up before we start."

I nodded for him to begin.
"We need to start bringing the other Elders to the meetings."

I blinked in confusion before letting myself consider it. Joran Tavik and Ralos Veylan were two of Veyna's Rest's original inhabitants. They had been among the group that Athena had initially brought to the world. All the Elders were aware of our origin. When we had arrived in the world we had shown them around the Leopard and started training them, but they weren't members of the SLDF and thus we hadn't considered inviting them to our debriefings.

Callum frowned.
"They're not SLDF. Are we sure we want to do that?"

Elias snorted.
"I stopped caring about the SLDF decades ago. I care even less now that we know what happened to the Exodus fleet. The only SLDF that exists anymore is in name and in memory. We have lived in this village for thirty years; we shouldn't be thinking as officers but as the village's Elders."

Dorian pulled himself out of his contemplations.
"I agree with Elias. It was short sighted of us not to include them. Both of them could have unique viewpoints that we might not have considered. More importantly, leaving them out of any meetings might very well lead to resentment building among the others."

I nodded at that; Dorian was always the voice of reason.

Elias nodded once again.
"Come on guys, we've lived with these people for 30 years. They took us in when we had nowhere else to go. We should be providing them the same courtesy. Hell, the fact that this was our default is almost sickening."

Callum sighed, a look of shame passed over his face.
"I can't argue with that. Want me to go grab them?"

A round of "ayes" passed around the table. Callum walked out of the room, and the rest of us sat in silence as we contemplated our actions; it was good that Elias had brought this up now rather than later.

Ten minutes later, Callum returned with the other two Elders.
"And here I thought we'd been forgotten about." Joran was the first to talk

I nodded to the two of them, though internally I was wincing."
"I'm sorry about that. We've all been stressed and I hadn't considered bringing you two into these meetings. Elias was kind enough to point that out and I hope you can forgive me for my actions."

Joran blinked in surprise at my response while Ralos nodded in understanding.
"Thank you. We appreciate that you're willing to bring us in. Now, can you tell us what this meeting will be about?"

I nodded and let myself relax.
"We will be reviewing what we currently know of the state of the galaxy and how we plan to interact with the other interstellar polities."

Ralos simply took a seat whale Joran raised an eyebrow;
"Politics then?"

Callum snorted.
"Got it in one."

I coughed lightly, glaring pointedly at Callum.
"We'll be starting with the Aschen. We know nothing about their government, population statistics, or industrial base. All we know about their navy is that they have ships; fleet composition and ship capacity are unknown. Their army is also completely unknown. What we do know is that they have a penchant for sterilizing the populations of other worlds as a means of subjugating them."

Callum is the first to give his opinion.
"I know what we should do! Let's not ask them for help."

Elias chuckles.
"Aye. Best if we leave their section of space alone."

Dorian brings in a more practical opinion.
"They aren't as bad as the Goa'uld. These Aschen will initiate diplomacy before they kill us. I'm not saying that we should be joining them with open arms, but they are still there, presuming we can find them at all."

I raised an eyebrow.
"So what would you suggest?"

Dorian thought about it for a moment.
"Leave them as a back-up if we end up at a point where our immediate survival is at stake, then asking the Aschen for help is possibly better than the alternative."

Joran jumped in.
"It would certainly have to be dire circumstances. If we ever get to a point where we need to ask help from such people, we might be better off just opening the gate to some random world."

I nodded and turned my attention to Joran.
"And your suggestion would be?"

"Just ignore them. We should only make contact with them when we're in a position to actually do more than beg them for scraps."

Elder Dorian shrugged and nodded in agreement.

"Alright then. All in favor of ignoring the Aschen until a later date."
A round of "Ayes" passed around the table.

My eyes moved down the report to the next interstellar polity on the list.
"Next up we have the Hebridians. They're a highly advanced civilization coexisting peacefully with an alien species called the Serrakin. Their technology rivals the Goa'uld, and their society is heavily influenced by corporate entities, notably a 'Tech Con Group'. Unlike the Goa'uld or Aschen, they appear to be genuinely open to trade relations."

Ralos furrowed his brows.
"And the Goa'uld are aware of their existence?"

I nodded. I saw where he was going with this.
"So why haven't they been wiped out," he asked.

"I have no idea; Arthur didn't either. As far as we can tell, it's because they have a sufficient military presence to fight off the Goa'uld."

Ralos furrowed his brows even further.
"I've heard stories about the overwhelming fleets of Ra. While I was a servant of Athena, I was fortunate enough to watch footage of Ra's fleet in action. He alone controls thousands of Ha'tak vessels. If these hebridians had the strength to fight off Ra's fleet, then there would be more news about this."

I froze at those numbers. Arthur had indicated maybe two thousand Ha'tak in the entire Goa'uld empire, though that had been pure estimation. Ralos' words had thrown that into question.
"How sure are you of those numbers?"

He grimaced.
"Not nearly as certain as you're hoping. Athena claimed it had been a battle against another System Lord named Cronus, and that Ra had provided aid in the form of seven-thousand Ha'tak vessels."

That changed things. That was, at bare minimum, 3 times greater than previous estimates, and all from a single System Lord. I foresably calmed my breathing. 100 Ships or 100,000 ships. The difference to us was zero. A single Ha'tak could annihilate the Manassas, and a dozen Ha'tak could feasibly reduce the Inner Sphere to atomic ash.

Dorian's face was deadly serious.
"You're saying that these Hebridians couldn't have fought off the Goa'uld?"

Ralos tilted his head at that.
"Ohh, it's certainly possible. They just have to have a fleet of sufficient scale. I just find it hard to believe that they aren't more well known. It is more likely that they are still unknown to the System Lords at large. Perhaps they managed to defeat a single system lord before he got reinforcements from the others. Alternatively, they could still be a hidden world."

Callum sighed.
"And if it turns out that they are a well known species, then they have almost certainly been infiltrated by the Goa'uld. Yeah."

I acknowledged his words before continuing.
"Alright. I propose that we do the same for them as we would for the Aschen – "

Dorian interrupted me.
"No. Ralos has brought up a good point. With the Aschen we know exactly what we're getting into and we can prepare for that. With these Hebridians we have absolutely no idea what we're getting into. We might find ourselves a super-power that rivals the Goa'uld Empire or a civilization that doesn't even realize it is a puppet. We shouldn't be interacting with them until we know for sure what we're getting into."

I stroked my chin before bringing it up for a vote.
"All in favor say Aye." Another round of Ayes passed around the table.

Onto the next one then.
"The Tollan are another human civilization, notably more advanced than even the Hebridians and the Goa'uld. They're governed by a democratic council called the Curia, and historically, they've held a strict isolationist policy due to past experiences of their advanced technology being disastrously misused by other cultures. Despite their pacifism, they're more than capable of defending themselves; their Ion Cannons can destroy a Goa'uld mothership in a single shot—though apparently the former System Lord Annubis is developing shields that can defend against their weapons. The Tollan pride themselves on their technological superiority and refuse to share it, a stance that has brought them few allies and left them isolated."

Ralos furrowed his brows again.
"Same issue as with the Hebridians. Why have the Goa'uld left these Tollan alone?"

Arthur had actually provided an answer this time.
"The more powerful system lords are capable of wiping them out, but doing so would result in a significant loss of manpower and assets which would make them easy pickings for their rivals. Accounting for their aforementioned isolationism, the System Lords see them more as an irritant, but not one worth losing their position over."


"That is a fine line to walk. One wrong step and they're entire civilization will be gone." said Dorian as his eyes roamed over the screen of his compad.

Ellias nodded.
"Putting it that way, their reluctance to share their technology makes a lot more sense. If they started providing it to everyone who asked them, the Goa'uld would have immediately wiped them out."

Ralos sat back in his chair.
"All of this just brings up even more questions regarding the Hebridians and how they've managed to stay independent; these Tollan can only remain independent by the use of a policy of total isolationism, and we know for a fact that they are more advanced than the Goa'uld."

Dorian looked up from his compad.
"According to Arthur, those Tollan that made contact with outsiders were regularly shown degrading the culture of less advanced civilizations. That sort of behaviour could easily be explained away as a defense mechanism. They project an air of absolute superiority; doing so is likely to intimidate any Goa'uld into ignoring them even further."

"Aye, but then why would they provide their technology to their neighbor world – "
Callums pulls up his compad and searches for a moment
" – Sarita?"

We all think for a moment before Dorian offers a rebuttal.
"Maybe it was meant as a power play? We can't really know without more information about their situation at the time."

Callum tilts his head, before speaking again.
"Alright then. I'd recommend that we make contact with them as soon as possible. I'm pretty confident that they will not inform the Goa'uld of our existence. They are unlikely to provide us any assistance, but we might end up getting lucky. Hell, Arthur seemed to believe that the destruction of Sarita occurred just before the start of SG-1."

Dorian interjected.
"It is also in our best interest to make contact with them as soon as possible. The quicker we can start to form a rapport with these people, the better. I'd also like to recommend that we simply provide information about the eventual destruction of their homeworld and leave. These people are likely to simply ignore us if we go to them begging for aid."

I nodded.
"Alright then. All in favor." Again, a chorus of "Ayes" passed around the table.

"Very well. Next we have the Asgard – Callum, if I hear you so much as snicker."

The man smiled cheekily in response.

I continued.
"The Asgard are a hyper-advanced, multi-galactic nation. They have had wars with the Goa'uld on multiple occasions. They were an ally of ancient humanity –"

I glared at Callum as his snicker arrived.

"– as well as several other advanced civilizations. They're likely the single most advanced species active in the Milky Way and have been at war with the Goa'uld at least once. They are currently in a time of relative peace, though that is more so because they have been dealing with a threat in another Galaxy. They uphold a treaty with the Goa'uld that protects about thirty worlds in the Milky Way from Goa'uld aggression. The Asgard are ruled by a High Council which includes both military and scientific leaders. Their civilization is currently in the midst of a collapse caused by genetic degradation brought about by the excessive use of cloned bodies."

I stopped and scrolled down a bit.
"According to Arthur, they are both receptive to diplomatic relations and likely to offer us assistance should we request it. Furthermore, we have information that could be vital to not only the survival of their species, but our own as well. Their current war is with a highly advanced collective of von Neumann probes they refer to as the Replicators. These Replicators will devour any advanced technology they discover and are capable of doing so on a galactic scale. The knowledge of how the Replicators were defeated in the alternate timeline would likely be worth a considerable amount to the Asgard."

Callum snorted.
"Well, I say we make contact. Quite frankly, even if they don't provide us anything substantial in return, just providing them the necessary information to defeat these Replicators is already a significant help to us. If they're as advanced as you're claiming we won't have much else we can provide them."

Dorian didn't disagree with him.
"Indeed. Getting in contact with these Asgard should be our first priority."

Joran, who had remained silent for the entire briefing other than to affirm a vote, spoke next.
"I hate to be the one to ask, but are we really so sure that Arthur's knowledge is accurate? What can we really confirm?"

"At the moment, not very much. Once we have access to Ares' records we can begin to confirm more of his information." I replied to Joran.

Joran sighed before leaning back in his chair ever so slightly.

I looked around the table. When no one said anything further I brought it to a vote.
"All in favor of immediate contact." A round of 'ayes' passed around the table.

I turned my attention to my compad once more.
"Last of the Interstellar polities, we have the Nox. They were among the races that were allied with ancient humanity – shut up, Callum – alongside the Asgard. They adhere strictly to absolute pacifism and non-violence, even to protect themselves; their only known defence is through the extensive use of invisibility. They have demonstrated the ability to cloak entire cities from view. As far as we are aware, the Goa'uld lack any knowledge of their existence. Individually, they possess strange psionic abilities and possess the ability to even resurrect the dead."

I turn my attention away from the compad and towards the table. Joran is the first to ask a question.
"If they're able to cloak themselves then what are the chances that we can actually make contact with them?"

I replied immediately.
"Good. Almost certainly better than most of the other civilizations on this list. They call a world known as Gaia home. It is an entirely unremarkable world, but it is well enough known that a System Lord would take a hunting trip there."

Dorian stroked his chin.
"That sounds… convenient."

I nodded.

Callum interjected.
"So what is the worst case if we make contact?"

"They offer us nothing and turn us away," I responded immediately.

Everyone looked between each other. Dorian was the one who spoke.
"Alright then. I propose we make contact immediately."

I smiled.
"Very well then. All in favor." Once more, a round of 'ayes' passed around the table.

"Alright then. Next we'll be discussing the few planetary scale polities that we know of. There aren't many of them that Arthur remembered, but he assured me that they significantly outnumbered the number of interstellar nations. To start, we have the world of Pangar…"

The debriefing only continued for another hour, though by the end we had spent a considerable amount of time discussing the histories of the galaxy we had opened our eyes to. The number of societies that the Goa'uld had simply forgotten was rather staggering. At the end, the others all felt much more sure of what we had to do. Even if we couldn't get any aid from a more advanced nation, trading our technology to the less advanced worlds would benefit both of us. Now all we had to do was defeat Ares. Easier said than done, but no longer looking quite as impossible as we believed.

 

[BlazingHyperion]

— — —
POV: Arthur

I had spent a bit more than a week and a half watching and examining the various armories in the city. It had taken me two days to discover where my chance would come from.

When Ares had defeated Athena, he had also claimed all of her equipment and warriors. That meant that he gained access to a significant number of excess weapons; weapons that had yet to be inventoried by Ares' men. It was the perfect opportunity. In fact, it seemed almost too good an opportunity.

I had already confirmed that there would be at least four more such shipments in the coming weeks. So I had decided to wait and watch for the first shipment, and it was a good thing I did; I managed to uncover something interesting while observing the Jaffa.

The cargo had been brought in on an Al'kesh bomber that had been modified for transport purposes. A large group of Jaffa had arrived at the landing location, then they had unloaded the vessel's cargo and transported it all to a nearby armory. There the equipment was inventoried and distributed to the other armories around the city.

When removing weapons from the ship, the Jaffa brought them out by hand rather than in crates. I had taken the opportunity to take an inventory of recovered weapons myself, but later I had gotten a chance to compare my numbers with those of the Jaffa quartermaster. The number of Zats I had counted was 22. The inventory only accounted for 14 of them; eight had gone missing.

At the time, I had opened up my compad and reviewed the recording to count the number of staff weapons taken off the ship as well; I counted 133, while the Inventory only counted 112. Someone amongst the Jaffa was stealing Goa'uld equipment.

It had now been eight days since the previous shipment had arrived. Just two days ago, Kaela and Yren had sent the short code that indicated a completed mission, and that code would have only been sent when they were back at the Stargate.

They were, without a doubt, back home already.

I daydreamed about sleeping on something that wasn't the ground as I watched the Al'kesh appear out from the cover of the midday sun. I had tucked myself up against the brick wall of one of the armories right by the landing site..

The ship landed, immediately opening its primary ramp, I quickly crossed the gravel road, staying well away from anyone else to avoid being heard, and entered the ship just behind the twelve Jaffa who would be responsible for transporting the weapons to the armory.

I passed the two guards stationed at the top of the ramp and found several hundreds of pieces of Goa'uld equipment – at least five times more than had been in the previous shipment, and luckily for me, none of it had been properly stored; they had quite literally been thrown on the floor of the ship in piles and propped against the walls. Well, that just made everything more convenient for me.

I found my way to the very back of the ship so as to stay out of the sight of the few Jaffa guarding the entrance.

The Goa'uld staff weapon was not a small device, in fact it was almost exactly two meters long, meaning it would extend outside of the cloaking field in most situations. Luckily, Elder Callum and I had managed to find a way to keep the device within the cloak If I carried it on my back and I was careful, then the staff would just barely remain within the invisibility field projected by an Ashrak cloak.

After quickly making sure the Jaffa were not yet on their way back, I got to work wrapping up the shaft, head, and tail of a staff with the fabric before tightly securing a sling around the shaft. I pulled the first staff onto my back. My perk activated, but I repressed the disorientation that came with knowledge being shoved into my head.

Moments later, the Jaffa returned and began carrying the second set of equipment out of the ship. As they left, I placed the staff on the ground parallel to a second staff, and placed the padding on this second staff. Then I tied the two together as firmly as I could.

I repeated the process until I had six staff weapons tightly packed into a neat bundle. The padding between them ensured that they would not make any noise as I moved around. Despite that, the collection of six staff was heavy. I would likely have to take a number of breaks while I was on my way back to the Stargate.
As I examined the rest of the room, I spotted something against the nearby wall. A collection of several hundred small round balls. All just stacked haphazardly against the wall. Grenades. Stacked.

If I could have, I would have punched the idiot responsible for such a total lack of workplace safety… still, if someone decided it was a good idea to leave those for anyone to take, who was I to judge?

I grabbed two dozen of them and threw them into the bag on my chest. My perk activated again. Then, as I was on my way out of the room, I grabbed another few Zats and placed them on the top of my bag. I looked down to see the collection of firearms and explosives sitting in a pile.

…Ehhh. At Least I actually have a reason for doing it. If it kills me then so be it.

With my bag full of loot, I marched off the ship and began making a bee-line out of the city. I spent some time reviewing the knowledge I had gained on the Staff Weapons and the shock grenades.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Ma'tok (Staff Weapon) Liquid Naquadah Power Cell, Plasma Generator, Plasma Emitter, Staff Body

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Tok'kal (Goa'uld Shock Grenade) Liquid Naquadah Power Cell, Discharge Mechanism, Activation Mechanism

By the time I left the city I was sweating buckets. I was lucky that the cloak protected me from sunlight, or I would have been even hotter, and that sounded absolutely miserable.

At a snail's pace, I made the trek back to the Stargate. The whole trip took three times longer than what was normal, and the final hour was all downhill; even with a rather gradual incline I almost fell over a little more than a half dozen times.

I relaxed ever so slightly as the Gate came into sight. Immediately upon my arrival I dialed home and pulled out my Compad. As the blue vortex of the Event Horizon appeared, I sent the "mission accomplished" message — it would be received by both home base as well as those still in Ares' city. Then I stepped through and I was back home.

A few short minutes later, A Phoenix Hawk arrived. I stared up at the massive machine, as Elder James popped his head out to look at me.
"You alright down there?"

Slowly, I pulled myself upright.
"Yeah. I just really need some sleep." I yelled at him.

"Well are you coming up or not?"

I groaned, but slowly hauled myself up the ladder and into the cockpit.

From there, it was a relatively comfortable ride back to the Leopard. As we got off the ship, I handed the equipment to Elder James.

"Elder, I managed to find several Goa'uld shock grenades as well. Please be careful when handling them. Do I have permission to go get some rest?"

He nodded.
"You do. You will be debriefed once you are sufficiently rested."

I nodded to him once then stumbled my way to a quick shower – oh glorious showers – and into bed.

– – –
POV: Michael Dresden

As Lior ushered me towards a table, I caught sight of a man who appeared to be in his mid to late 50s – about my age – though he seemed to be in much better physical condition than I was.

Kaela had shown me this man's face. He was Lior's immediate superior in the resistance.

I moved to take a seat across from him; everyone around me looked at me in suspicion. No, not suspicion. I examined the table more carefully and saw that there was another open seat; they must have been expecting me to sit there.

Ahhh. They had been planning to hide the identity of their leader, but the man himself still wanted to be present. No matter.

I turned my attention to the man and smiled.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'll cut to the chase; I've been told that you need people to help teach Japanese."

The man's face remained impassive.
"We do. We've been trying to start a dialogue with the people of Amaterasu's domain, but most of them have not learned a language other than their native tongue. Those who have are rather hesitant to speak with us."

I had guessed as much.
"Alright, I can offer you teachers, but we will need to figure out how this will work. There isn't exactly a lot of time available for your people to learn from mine. Until you manage to get enough of your own people fluent with the language, I'd like to make an offer. I'll find some people who can act as translators for you."

The man before me raised an eyebrow.
"I would find that more than acceptable. What do you want in return?"

"Well, that depends."

The man narrowed his eyes.
"What would it depend on?"

"It depends on what you want?"

The man leaned back, I saw a fire appear in his eyes.
"I want a lot of things. I doubt you can give me most of them."

I leaned forward, placing my chin on my fists.
"Perhaps, perhaps not. Why don't you tell me."

We stared at each other for a moment before the man moved his gaze up at to the evening sky, seemingly getting his thoughts in order.

Finally, he returned his gaze to me.
"What do I want? I want Ares to watch as everything he cares about burns; I want to place his head on a pike and to let it rot until all that is left is his skull; I want my people to be free; to be more than the slaves he's made us into; I want my people to retake our homeworld; I want our destiny to be our own again."

He growled at me.
"Can you truly give me any of that, Mr. Dresden?"

I could feel the fire in his voice; out of the corner of my eye I could see others at the table clenching their fists. This was a man who was fighting for his freedom. I'd go out on a limb here. Trust can only be earned with trust.
"I can. Sooner than you could believe possible."

My answer seemed to have caught the man off guard. I quickly took a sip of my soup before continuing.
"Now. Enough about that. How are my people going to start teaching yours?"

Quickly the man regained his composure, but he appeared out of sorts for the rest of the meeting. By the time we had finished our meal, I had agreed to send several teachers and translators. I would also begin making contact with the former servants of Amaterasu.

As we prepared to leave, the man hesitated for a moment before asking the question that had been bugging him for the entire meal.
"What did you mean?"

I turned away from the last of my soup to look him in the eyes.
"I'm afraid I never actually got your name."

He froze for a brief moment.
"Kleon. My name is Kleon."

I nodded.
"Well Kleon, all in due time."

He almost burst into laughter before quickly suppressing it so as to not make a scene.
"Can you be any less cryptic?"

"That depends. Best case, we'll know in a couple of days."

The old man relaxed, but the fire in his eyes was burning even brighter than before.
"I will hold you to that, Michael."

I smiled cheerily.
"I better hope I'm right then."

With that, I finished what was left of my meal and prepared to leave the table.
"I expect I'll be invited to your next meeting as well?"

He nodded.
"I'll have Lior find you when the time comes."

We all stood up, returned our plates and dining utensils, and made our way back to our tents. That night I dreamt of Ares' head on a pike; I slept most excellently.

---
Author's Note:
If you want more right now, chapters on Discord [LINK] (Seriously, I mean it. I've posted up to chapter #41 on Discord)

 

[BlazingHyperion]

I marched onto the bridge of the Leopard-Class dropship, having slept a full 16 hours and eaten a full meal, I was ready to be re-deployed. As I entered, I was surprised to find that both Kaela and Yren had yet to be sent back on mission.

"Arthur." Elder James spoke my name as I entered the room, "Have a seat."

I did as instructed and turned my attention to the Elder.

"Your next mission will be making formal contact with the Dendred Resistance members. Arthur, you will be the team lead. N—"

I interrupted the Elder.
"Respectfully, shouldn't Kaela or Yren be team leads? Both are more capable than I am."

Kaela snorted.
"We both voted for you to lead."

Yren nodded nonchalantly. Elder James continued for her.
"While none of you have been fully trained to the levels of an SLDF Special Operative, in those areas that you have been trained, I can say, with certainty, that you all could put experienced SLDF Special Forces operatives in their places. Arthur, you have proven yourself in two operations so far. You have the most experience with the cloak, and, assuming that the reset code for the Kara'kesh functions as you believe it should, your perk has more than proved its value."

I was silent for a moment. I didn't quite know how to respond to that. Finally I just nod in response. The Elder turns his sight back to his compad and continues.
"Now, you all will have two missions. First, you will be making contact with the members of the resistance; most notably with the man known as Kleon. He is the leader of the Resistance Cell on Mycena and has received communications from an external source on multiple occasions. We believe this external source is the rest of the resistance on the world of Dendred. Once you make contact with him, you are to gain his trust and initiate a dialogue with his superiors."

I furrowed my brows.
"What are we permitted to tell him?"

"Everything."

I blinked a few times as I came to terms with that.
"How much would 'everything' be?" I asked again.

The Elder looked me in the eyes.
"You are permitted to tell him anything you believe would be necessary to earn his trust, permitted that it is not blatantly false."

All of us took that in for a moment before Kaela continued.
"We're not holding anything back then, are we?"

The Elder nodded once more.
"No. We are not. We plan on doing everything we can to overthrow Ares as soon as possible. With that in mind, you will also be taking samples of SLDF technology for the Resistance as proof of our existence. Nothing significant, just some laser pistols and a couple of compads; just enough to prove that we actually exist. Your secondary mission, if it is possible, is to retrieve samples of their technology as well."

Once again, we all froze. I was well aware how tightly the forces of the Hegemony guarded their technology; to hear an SLDF officer outright state that they would be providing technology – even technology that was otherwise readily available – was absolutely absurd.

Yren spoke hesitantly.
"Elder, are you really sure that this is the best idea?"

The Elder responded with an even voice.
"Yes. We have decided that gaining the assistance of the resistance is worth the cost, even if it increases our chances of discovery."

The Elder continued.
"Now, these are the members of the resistance that we are currently aware of. Lior is…"

We spent an hour going over all the known resistance members. Then, the Elder began walking us through possible exfiltration plans. Four hours later, we were finished.
"The gear you will be taking has already been prepared. Your transport to the Stargate will be leaving in two hours. I'll be there to see you off."

We all responded.
"Understood."

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Locust (LCT-1Vb) Endo-Steel Chassis, Double Heatsinks

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Laser Pistol (Mauser A1) Power Cell, Focusing Chamber, Firing Mechanism

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Compad (Potter Gen-3 Compad) Display, Integrated Computer, Internal Data Chip

A bit over two hours later, I was standing before the Stargate and Dialing Mycena. From there, we made the trek to Ares' City without seeing a single other person. It was really leading to some questions about how Goa'uld used the Stargates.

Obviously, Athena used the Gates extensively since her servants and Jaffa would collect the Naquadah our village mined through the Gates, but it seemed as if Ares barely used his; he was much more inclined towards using his ships.

We spent a day scouting the city, ensuring that nothing had changed during our time away. Then, Yren had made contact with Elder Dresden. He got a message to Lior who, a day later, got the message to the resistance leader. That evening, as the miners were returning to their abodes,, I entered the man's tent and waited. A few minutes later someone – either Kaela or Yren – tapped on the tent fabric to notify me that Kleon was coming.

I deactivated my cloak and waited. Soon enough, I heard someone approaching.

—
Pov: Kleon

I had been reasoning over that message for hours; what could "someone will be contacting you" possibly mean? There is the obvious meaning, but that man – Michael Dresden – shouldn't have – I froze.

I opened my tent flap and found a man – he looked to be about 20… no he was younger than that. He hadn't started growing a beard yet – sitting in my tent. I froze and the man smiled at me.

"I believe I was expected,"
He says. His words snap to place in my mind; so this is what the message meant. Who is this? How did they get into my tent? How are they related to… his words just lead to more questions.

Calming my mind, I entered the tent and took a seat.
"I was informed that someone would be making contact with me, though I have not yet been informed of who you are."

The man – no, he was a boy despite his appearance – smiled and replied.
"My name is Arthur. I'll cut to the chase. My village's Elders have tasked me with getting in contact with the resistance against Ares that is originally from the world of Dendred. You're the leader of the resistance here, so you're the best one for us to contact."

Once again, it took a moment for his words to register. They knew; of course they knew. If they had contact with that Dresden fellow then it wouldn't be hard to guess. Even if the man was an idiot he would have been able to tell that we weren't just workers.

Wait; was this what he had meant when he had said "perhaps in time"?

I took a deep breath. He definitely wasn't a Goa'uld; if he was, he wouldn't bother with this charade. We would have all just been executed; that meant there was an opportunity here.
"Alright. What do you have to offer?"

My words seemed to catch the boy – Arthur – off guard.
"I was sent with some of our technology; both to show what we can offer and to provide more credible proof that we're not of the Goa'uld. I'll be honest here; we're willing to just offer it free of charge, but my Elders were hoping to get their hands on a couple of your weapons as well."

I snorted slightly, but inside I was sweating.
"What do you think we can offer in exchange?"

Arthur grinned.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that box underneath your mattress has a firearm of some kind. That'd be a good place to start."

My face remained impassive, but inside I was cringing; these people had been watching us, and watching us closely. Those boxes were only to be removed in the worst case scenarios; they were emergency kits. They shouldn't have had the chance to know about the boxes; let alone what was inside them.

Discreetly gritting my teeth, I moved towards the mattress; Arthur scooted out of my way and I spent a few seconds pulling the gravel aside to reveal a plain metal box. I quickly pulled it out of the ground and opened it. Inside was a sidearm; one of the pride and joy weapons of my homeworld.

I pulled it out and swept my hand over it before turning my attention back to the boy sitting before me.
"This is a Κεραυνός Εκδοχή 3. The Εκδοχή 1 – the first generation of the weapon – was amongst the first energy weapons produced by my people; it was the first to integrate a version of the miniaturized naquadah generators used by the Goa'uld. Εκδοχή 2 – the second generation – integrated an electromagnetic field that extended the effective length of the barrel to a meter and a half. Εκδοχή 3 – the third generation – is considered the best energy weapon ever produced by my people; the engineers behind it took into account the extensive complaints against energy weapons and either removed or highly mitigated all of them."

I handed the weapon to Arthur. As he took the weapon, he froze for a split second before he carefully began inspecting it. I continued speaking.
"It was quickly adopted as the primary side arm of the Dendredian Armed Forces. Within 20 years, that weapon became the single most produced firearm ever sold on my homeworld."

After Arthur had finished looking the weapon over, he pulled his bag off his shoulder and pulled out two objects. One a sidearm and the other a familiar computational device. He showed me the side arm first.
"This is a Mauser A1; a standard issue laser pistol used by the Star League Defence Force and was produced by Mauser and Gray firearms. When it entered the market, it wasn't anything particularly revolutionary, but it combined the aspects of a lot of previous laser weapons into something that worked well in most environments. It is a respected weapon that has been in service for almost 200 years. It also acts as a very effective cutting tool."

He handed me the weapon which I took with some interest. It was smaller than any energy weapon I had seen before; smaller than a lot of kinetic weapons I had seen too, but it still had a decent mass to it.

I turned my attention back to Arthur.
"And that computer?"

He blinked in confusion for a brief moment.
"Yes sir. This is a compad; a portable computer."

He handed me the device; even the interface was very similar to the ones we had created back home. Perhaps a case of convergent design? The 'tablet' design was rather simple.

"Power button is on the top."

I pressed the button once and the device came right on. The screen was touch based, again very similar to what we had before the invasion. It took me a few moments, but navigating the device was relatively straight forward.

"Select that… yeah… and that. There you are. That is a small collection of literature and a rather heavily redacted history of the Star League up until just before the Civil War."

I did as he said and found about a dozen folders. I selected the one labelled history and skimmed through it in silence. They're people – or peoples considering how many distinct cultural groups made up their world – had been in space for almost 800 years. They claimed to have made no contact with the Goa'uld during that time; something I found rather questionable; The Goa'uld controlled most of the galaxy.

Either way, I spent a good five minutes skimming over the text. As I reached the end I finally let my guard down just a little. They claimed to be the inhabitants of the first world; a world which was publicly known to be lost. The Goa'uld were not very creative; I highly doubted they'd be able to come up with such an in-depth history if they tried.

I let out a sigh.
"Alright kid. I'll see what I can do about getting someone to meet you. It'll be a couple of days before we can get any confirmation."

He nodded.
"That's all I was hoping for. When you're ready, just place a piece of fabric on the top of your tent and we'll be there."

I nodded and saw him out of my tent. One moment he was there, then the next he was gone. I would have to make an appointment with. Hopefully Ma'chello wouldn't totally beat my ass for being uncovered.

I groaned. Whatever; if these people were going to help us overthrow Ares, then so be it.

- - -
Author's Note:
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[BlazingHyperion]

It was two days later that we finally figured out how the Dendred Resistance was getting in contact with people off world. A member that we previously hadn't known about had a Goa'uld communication orb, similar to the ones seen in SG1.

A couple of days later, Kleon got a message from the rest of the resistance; a member of the resistance leadership was on their way to make contact and confirm our claims. We waited a bit over three hours for news on when and how the resistance leader would be arriving. It was only when resistance members started slipping into the forest that we noticed that something was happening.

As I followed the half dozen resistance members – Kleon and Lior amongst them – deep into the forest and out of the way of the sight of the Jaffa who were watching over them; there were a few Jaffa in particular who I was certain caught them heading into the forest, but didn't say anything. That was either worrying or a sign that these people were much more entrenched here than I had initially believed. That was fine. I would think about that later.

Eventually, about a mile away from the Quarry, the group approached a clearing and I watched in shock as a Goa'uld Tel'tak landed and uncloaked. After a moment, the door opened and out walked a very familiar face; the face of an older Michael Shanks – the face of the man who had played Daniel Jackson in SG1.

I stood there, flabbergasted for a brief moment, but then I heard the other resistance members begin to speak and it all snapped into place. Kleon, as the leader of the group, was the one who spoke first.
"Ma'chello! Why would you risk coming!?"

I barely remembered that Ma'chello had been played by Michael Shanks; it made some sense that a much younger Ma'chello would look like him. This was also an important sign for where we were in the timeline; we were much earlier than I had initially believed.

The Man chuckled as he scanned his surroundings. His eyes lingered on my location for just a fraction of a second too long; I was pretty sure that he had seen me, though I don't know how.
"You know me, old man. I'm not going to leave an opportunity like this to someone else. Especially if they're as advanced as you claim. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make a useful laser weapon? I can't just let go of that sort of chance."

Kleon responded by throwing up his arms and shouting.
"What if Ares discovered tha–"

"Ohh please. Ares wouldn't notice if I was pissing on him; Arktos has made sure of that. Now, I believe our guests are here."

He turned to me, fully this time. Once again, he spoke.
"I'm already here. No need to keep those cloaks active."

Deciding it was best not to keep my cloak activated, I deactivated it and walked forward.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, sir. My name is Arthur."

He nodded to me.
"The pleasure is all mine. I am Ma'chello. I apologize for getting to the point, but how are you activating those Ashrak Cloaks? Last time I checked, using those requires a unique protein that only appears in Goa'uld hosts."

I really should have been inspecting that question. Everyone around Ma'chello immediately appeared on guard as the words came out of his mouth.
"That protein stays in the blood after a Goa'uld leaves the host."

My words caught Ma'chello off-guard, but I continued before he got the chance to ask.
"But no, as far as we can tell, I am able to activate the cloak due to some genetic anomaly. Genuinely, we do not know why I am able to use the device. There are several others from my village who can use it as well and all of them are descended from former servants of Nirti."

Ma'chello appeared to have dropped his guard somewhat at my answer, though those around him definitely had not.
"Something for another time then. Now, let's not stand out here. It's hot enough as it is. Please come aboard."

I nod.
"That would be much appreciated. Would you mind if another comes with me?"

He raises an eyebrow, but nods; Yren walks out from the edge of the forest. Ma'chello squints slightly at her, but eventually gives her a light nod.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, young lady."

Yren nods in return, but doesn't say anything. We follow Ma'chello onto his ship. The hatch closes behind us and I take in the ship's interior. The exterior is indistinguishable from a standard Tel'tak, but the interior is a completely different story.

The decidedly utilitarian interior was a stark contrast to typical Goa'uld aesthetics. The cockpit had been transformed into a functional meeting space, with a wide central table surrounded by numerous seats, clearly designed for large strategic meetings. The walls were lined with what I could only assume were Dendredian displays, new text constantly flickering over the display in what appeared to be greek. The standard Gold decals had been totally stripped from the walls. This vessel was tailored for the resistance's needs.

Ma'chello took a seat at the head of the table – a spot he was clearly used to occupying – and gestured to a spot across from him.
"Please, have a seat."

I did as requested; Yren sat down beside me. The seats were exceptionally comfortable despite of – or perhaps due to – the utilitarian design.

Was the seat Utilitarian if it was comfortable? On the one hand, you wouldn't really think so; on the other hand, the purpose of a seat is to be sat on and if it's not comfortable it's not doing its job. Am I misunderstanding utilitarianism?

I refocused my mind on Ma'chello and found him to be staring at the two of us with mild interest.
"So tell me, what is it that you offer?"

I placed down my backpack and pulled out a couple of objects, sliding them down the table to Ma'chello.
"As you have undoubtedly already heard from Kleon, the firearm is a Mouser A1 and the computer is known as a Compad."

Ma'chello inspected the A1 for several moments; making sure not to look down the barrel. Then he picked up the Compad and inspected the outer casing. He dragged his finger over one of the metal edges that was noticeably dented.
"This thing is very well used."

I nodded.
"Compads have been in use for several centuries and outside of the first few decades, their designs haven't changed all that much."

He chuckled.
"Just from the metal fatigue on this casing, I'd say this one is almost a century old."

I raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to hand me the compad. He did so and I quickly opened the settings and found the device information for when the OS had been installed; 11th of October 2332. The device was over 400 years old… What the heck was something like this still doing inservice?

I handed the device back.
"That particular device has been in service for a bit more than 400 years, depending on the date."

He raised an eyebrow.
"Depending on the date?"

"We aren't entirely sure what the date is back home. Had a bit of a mishap getting to where we are right now."

Ma'chello slowly placed the compad down. He stared at me in contemplation.
"Alright. What is it that you want from the resistance?"

Straight to the point it is.
"We are planning an assault on Ares' force and would like your assistance."

A couple of the other people at the table nearly choked; one of them was the first to reply.
"Are you mad?! Even if you could defeat his Jaffa, his ships would just destroy us from space. All you'd do is give him warning that the resistance is greater than he could imagine! Do you have any idea how much work we've put into making Ares complacent? How many people we've had to le –"

I could hear the pain in the man's words, and luckily I had a way to allay his worst fears.
"We can neutralize his ships."

Everyone froze in shock. Ma'chello quickly let it pass, and in its place was an expression of utmost resolve. He said just one word.
"How?"

For a brief moment, I considered keeping it secret. How did I know if he was trustworthy? I quickly put those thoughts aside. Ma'chello was definitely different than he appeared in SG1, but not greatly so. He alone was the greatest proof that this was the resistance I was dealing with and not some hidden cell pretending they were – though that idea was ludicrous even by my tinfoil hat standards.

I had seen how Ma'chello acted in his final days. If nothing else, I knew this man would work against the Goa'uld.

I needed his trust, and trust is earned with trust.
"The Kara'kesh has an override code that can be used to reset the device's owner. If we capture Ares, we can override his Kara'kesh and use it to ground all of his ships."

Ma'chello sat back in his chair. He was silent as he considered my words. Finally he let out a deep sigh.
"I need to speak to your superiors, but if what you say is true, then we stand a good chance of defeating Ares' forces within a month's time."

While that was certainly earlier than I had been expecting – earlier than I could have even hoped for – there was still a lot to complete.
"Of course. I have been asked to invite any resistance leaders to our home base so that you can speak with our Elders and see everything we are offering. We'll just have to take a trip through the Chappa'ai."

Without any hesitation, Ma'chello nods; though the other resistance members seem less sure in the action.
"Very well, I can have my ship land near the Gate. We'll be able to make a short trek from there."

I motioned towards Kleon and the others.
"Will there be an issue with all the resistance members going missing?"

Ma'chello raises an eyebrow.
"Let's just say that we have friends in high places; friends who see the Goa'uld for what they are and aren't willing to blindly kill at the whims of … false gods. The Jaffa who know will not say a word of it."

Was he saying that there were Sodan amongst Ares' men? I can't think of any other groups that would call the Goa'uld 'false gods.' No… they would have had access to the Sodan Cloaking Devices if they were Sodan. So there is a group of Rebel Jaffa amongst Ares men then. I'd inform the Elders later; Elder James would kick my ass for missing something like that.
"Before we take off, I have to grab one more person."

Ma'chello chuckles lightly before reopening the hatch.
"Be my guest."


I nod in thanks, then exit the ship to wave Kaela over. She uncloaks and approaches, laughing boisterously as she enters the hatch.
"Howdy friends! Hope I'm not causing too much trouble."

Ma'chello matches his laugh good naturedly.
"Not at all, young lady. In fact, I believe you all have made my day."

Once again, the hatch closes and moments later we are flying around Ares city and to the location of the Stargate. Midair, my compad receives a ping. Checking the notification, I find a mission successful notice from Eamon; that could only mean that he had found conclusive evidence of a Tok'ra infiltrator amongst the ranks of Ares' subordinates. I'd let the Elders know to expect him when we were through the gate.

Ma'chello landed his ship about a mile away from the Stargate. As we approached, the gate was still unoccupied. I decided to ask Ma'chello if he knew why.

He chuckled lightly in response.
"I believe it is due to Ra's influence. Ra has claimed all of the Stargate's as part of his domain and thus considers it to be one of the greatest betrayals if a system lord places defences around a gate."

That was utterly nonsensical. Ma'chello chuckled before I even got the chance to ask anything further.
"Between you and me, I'm fairly certain he does it to allow his agents to regularly search the lesser system lords for signs of mutiny. With a claim over the entire Stargate Network, he can send his spies to any world, and as long as the gate is undefended the other System Lords will have no way of knowing his people were ever there."

That made a disturbing amount of sense. It was no wonder infiltrating Ares' city was so simple; it was designed to be.

We approached the gate, and I quickly began dialing home. Ma'chello watched me input the sequence; obviously putting the address into the back of his mind. The final symbol locked into place, and we walked through the gate, arriving in the same empty clearing we always did.

Ma'chello and the other resistance members scanned their environment. They seemed to relax slightly when there was no sign of hostile forces, but several of them had their eyes linger on the massive footprints that were imprinted onto the gravel.

I activated my compad and sent the arrival notice. Confirmation arrived not even ten seconds later.
"Transportation will be here in a few minutes."

"What should we be expecting?"
He asked while staring intently at the massive footprint of the Phoenix Hawk.

I smiled at him, feeling particularly smug.
"You'll know when you see it."

We waited for a few moments, before the ground started to shake in that way anyone who'd ever seen a mech move would recognize. Looks of mild confusion and panic appeared on the faces of the resistance members, but they quickly gathered themselves when they saw Kaela, Yren, and me not reacting.

Suddenly, the head of a mech appeared from over the hill; Elder James' Phoenix Hawk. Behind it, a Marauder and eight Locusts followed behind. The members of the resistance watched as the behemoths of metal stomped their way over the crest of the road and towards us, all of them travelling at a good thirty miles an hour.

Ma'chello watched on in fascination as they came to a sudden stop not far away from the gate. The hatch of the lead Phoenix Hawk opened up and the resistance members gazed up in stunned awe as Elder James clambered down.
"Well Arthur, you going to introduce us?"

I nodded.
"Elder James, this is Ma'chello. Sir, this is James Cromwell, of the SLDF."

Elder James quickly corrected me.
"Formerly of the SLDF… And you say you're Ma'chello. Well sir, I've heard a lot about you, though I was expecting you to be much older. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Ma'chello raised an eyebrow, sneaking a quick peak back at me.
"No, the pleasure is mine. I was unaware that my name was so widely known; you'll have to tell me how that came about."

The Elder chuckled.
"Another time. I do believe we have more serious matters to discuss first. Care for a ride." The Elder gestured at the Battlemechs, standing there menacingly.

"More than you could possibly imagine. If I wanted further proof that you weren't with the Goa'uld, then this would more than do it. What are these machines called?"
Ma'chello gestured to the Mechs.

Elder James nodded.
"They're Battlemechs. That one – my mech – is a Royal Phoenix Hawk. The small ones are Locust's, and the really big one is a Marauder."

Ma'chello examined the now named machines for a moment.
"If you are willing to offer such machines in the battle, Ares' forces will never stand a chance."

The Elder chuckled.
"I wouldn't go that far. We can't get the big ones through the gate; when the time comes, the only support we'll really be able to provide is with the Locusts."

Ma'chello frowned in confusion.
"Do you not have ships of your own?"

The Elder shrugged in resignation.
"We do, but our FTL drive is disabled, and everyone who might know how to fix her is dead."

Ma'chello winced slightly.
"You have my condolences."

The Elder just smiled at the man.
"It's been over thirty years now. Nonetheless, I appreciate the sentiment."

Ma'chello continued.
"Do you think it would be possible for us to get a look at your ship at some point? We might be able to do something about getting your drive functioning given some time."

The Elder gives it a moment of thought, before answering.
"Eventually, perhaps. That'll have to be in the future, however. At the moment we both have greater concerns. Would you like to ride her?"

Ma'chello and the Elder grab a ride in the Phoenix Hawk while the rest of us find open seats in other Mechs. A few minutes later, we arrived at the Dropship landing site.

As we hop out, Ma'chello looks at the massive dropships in confusion. The Elder seems to anticipate his question.
"These are dropships. They're too small to have one of our FTL drives. They usually dock to an FTL capable vessel and then disconnect when they arrive at their destination."

Ma'chello stared up at the massive 33 meter tall Confederate class dropship.
"Your FTL systems must be quite large to be unable to fit them into such a vessel."

The Elder nodded.
"Aye, quite large indeed."

The resistance members and the Elders quickly found their way to a conference room where they began discussing the nature of their upcoming cooperation.

Six hours after we arrived, Eamon returned from the gate with a video and audio recording of a Goa'uld sending an audio recording to one Jollinar of Malkshur– a name he quickly recognized as belonging to a rather famous Tok'ra.

The resistance members stayed with us for three days while they and the Elders worked out the nature of the upcoming cooperation. By the end, a formal declaration had been signed. Along with it, we would be providing excess laser weapons and training to the resistance. There would also be a personnel swap – which I had been selected to be a part of.

Finally, we had a date for when we would begin our assault on Ares force. Two months; that was how long we had before we would wipe the slate clean of Ares men. I was ready, and so was everyone else.

- - -
Author's Note:
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[BlazingHyperion]

I sat in the copilot's seat within Ma'chello's custom Tel'tak. I had been staring out the window into the swirling seablue of Hyperspace for the entire day and a half long trip. The strange dimension absolutely fascinated me.

Was this hyperspace the same hyperspace that was used by Jumpdrives and the HPG system? I vaguely remember reading on a forum somewhere the Battletech Hyperspace being inhabited by giant squids, so probably not, but did that mean there were multiple parallel dimensions? I had no idea.

Ma'chello who had been watching his display for several minutes finally spoke.
"Exiting Hyperspace in 3… 2… 1."

We emerged into orbit of a rocky moon. I heard the sound of the cloak coming online. Furrowing my brows, I asked Ma'chello about the sound.
"Do you know what produces that noise?"

He responded absentmindedly.
"Ahhh? No idea. I hadn't really thought about it. I'll have to check. It's likely to be some sort of resonance with the ship's internal structure."

Ma'chello started accelerating and quickly the world of Dendred – which had been hidden behind what I now recognized as a moon – came into view. I could just barely make out two continents (three if you counted one particularly large island) and a multitude of islands that were barely visible from this distance.

I briefly turned to Ma'chello to find him staring longingly at the pale ball of blue and green held before us. A moment later, he turned his attention back to the console.
"We'll be landing in ten minutes."

We watched on in silence as the world approached. The ship had apparently decelerated, so there was none of the effects I was expecting for reentry. As we passed through a cloud layer, we found ourselves above a mountain range. The ship floated there for a moment, seemingly waiting.

Ma'chello pressed a button and spoke in his native tongue.

A moment later, what I assumed to be the comms system came to life. Once more, someone spoke in the same language.

Ma'chello quickly replied and the ship moved towards a rather large mountain in the distance. As we approached, a portion of the mountain near its base opened up. The ship approached the now open doorway. The inside of the mountain – what I now recognized as a hangar – held two other Tel'tak, as well as three other ships. Two of those other ships were long and angular, clearly not produced by the Goa'uld.

The final ship was… odd. It was worn, with a dull metallic hull that looked like it had survived more than a few battles. The forward section featured a wide, rounded canopy reflecting the dim lights of the hangar. It felt oddly familiar — though I couldn't for the life of me say why.
He turned to me.
"Here we are."

I nodded. Ma'chello stood up and exited the ship. I waited for a moment while he talked to the people in the hangar.
"Alright, you can come out."

I did so, behind me was Lior, Elder Elias, Yren, and six of the village's former hunters who all looked around at the massive internal cavern in awe.

Ma'chello had been talking to a man who appeared about thirty years of age, who led a group of a dozen others. They're uniform consisted of a thick leather jacket on top of an undershirt made from a cotton-adjacent woven fabric, all of it dyed in browns and dark greens.

The man in the lead spoke first.
"I am Kaden Varris, commander of this facility. We will be escorting you to the medical hall for testing."

I nodded, none of us offered any argument. We had been informed beforehand of the security measures put in place by the resistance and had already agreed.

The group of men surrounded us and we walked behind the commander down several long hallways before we found ourselves in a grey room filled with metal frame beds. Waiting for us there was a woman, who I presumed was a doctor, wearing a similar uniform as the guards except for having her underclothes undyed.

All of us – including Ma'chello – were directed to take a seat on a medical bed where we waited as several nurses walked around the room drawing blood from all of us and throwing it into a machine for testing.

Eventually, the doctor walked over to the commander. They spoke to each other for a moment before nodding. The commander walked over to Elder Elias and myself.
"You two are cleared. The resistance leaders are ready to speak with you."

We both stood up and followed the man down several hallways into a conference room of some sort. Waiting for us inside were three people. Elder Elias and I sat down across from them, while Ma'chello took the seat at the head of the table. He began the meeting immediately.
"Everyone this is Elias Raines, formerly of the SLDF, currently an Elder of the Village of Veyna's Rest. He is here to provide training on the weapons systems that his people are providing us. With him is Arthur–"

One of the people at the table – a man about Elder Elias' age – interrupted Ma'chello.
"He's a kid." he said, gesturing towards me with incredulity written on his face.

Elder Elias nodded.
"Aye, and I guarantee he could defeat anyone you put him up against."

The man was about to respond, but Ma'chello cut him off.
"I understand your reservations. Arthur was the one who made contact with me and I have seen him in some of their training exercises."

The man and Ma'chello looked at each other, before the man eventually sighed.

Ma'chello continued.
"Elias, Arthur. This is Ariston Pyrros, he is the leader of the resistance on our southern continent. To his left is Elpir Stavrou, she is the leader of the resistance on our Northern Continent. Then we have Eudora Cassia; she is the leader of resistance special operations. Finally, you've already met Kaden Varris. He is the one responsible for the safety and security of everyone on this base."

Ma'chello turns to the other resistance leaders.
"I have an agreement with Elias' people to provide us with weapons. In exchange, in two months' time, we will begin a joint assault on Eris' base here on Dendred, before we use the Stargate as a platform for an assault on Ares' City on Mycena before we take on Enyalius and Phobos."

The resistance leaders fell silent at his words. It was at least a full 10 seconds before they seemed to have understood his words.

"How are we dealing with Ares' aerial superiority?"
Eudora asked, a look of contemplation on her face.

"Our friends here have a way to override all Goa'uld aerial assets."
Ma'chello replied, a look of pure joy on his face.

Eudora narrowed her eyes.
"What's the catch?"

The look of joy somehow intensified.
"We need to capture Eris."

Eudora's face hardened. She tapped her fingers against the table. After 30 seconds of silence, Elpir burst into laughter,
"Alright then. Even if we die, it's better than waiting in these damn mountains for Ares to decide he's bored and get off his ass."

Ma'chello bursts into laughter.
"Well said! Indeed."

He takes a minute to gather himself before continuing.
"The tentative plan is to begin an assault on the Sanctum – that is what the Jaffa call the facility which was constructed to house the Stargate – from without–"

I interrupted Ma'chello quickly.
"I was under the impression that Ra had claimed all of the Stargates. Why would Ares put such a facility around a Stargate?"

Ma'chello nods at me.
"Good; you were listening. That is the case for world's that are public knowledge among the System Lord's, but if the other's don't know of a world's existence, then they can't exactly punish him for it."

I let that settle for a moment.
"So the other System Lord's do not know of Dendred?"

Ma'chello nodded.
"And Ares prefers to keep it that way. Ra does not permit industrialized societies to exist in any measure; all System Lords are required to destroy such civilizations the moment they are discovered. The instant the rest of the System Lords learn of us is the moment we lose what little freedom we do have."

I nodded in understanding and gestured for Ma'chello to continue.
"Our people will assault the Sanctum from outside while Elias's people dial their gate and begin an assault from the Stargate."

Eudora sat back in her chair.
"Capturing Eris is going to have to be the very first objective of the Assault. That simply is not feasible. She is very well guarded and I highly doubt she'd let anyone get to her."

Ma'chello nods.
"Our friends here will be using the Ashrak Cloaking devices we recovered a few years back. As soon as they have grounded Eris' forces, the rest of the assault will begin."

Everyone at the table furrows their brows. Ariston is the first to ask the question obviously on everyone's mind.
"How is it that they're capable of activating Goa'uld technology?"

Elder Elias answered for me.
"It is likely some sort of genetic anomaly. We have several dozen people capable of activating Goa'uld technology in our camp, and most of them are related."

Unsatisfied, but unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, the resistance leaders move on. Eudora lays back and nods.
"Seems to me like we really have a chance, huh."

Ma'chello nods. Once more, a moment of silence passes over the table before everyone is dragged into discussing the minutiae of the next two months.

The meeting continued for almost 12 hours as we discussed – in excessive depth – the nature of our alliance. Much of the information had already been discussed with Ma'chello beforehand, but the addition of the other resistance leaders increased the complexity of the agreement.

As we approached the end of the meeting, Ma'chello brought up another topic, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Now, are your people familiar with a civilization by the name of Οι Ηνωμένες Αποικίες του Κομπόλ?"

Elder Elias raised an eyebrow.
"No, I don't believe I have."

Ma'chello frowned.
"Are you sure? The name should translate as something similar to 'The United Colonies of Kobol.'"

I froze at the name. Freaking Battlestar Galactica? Am I in a crossover… yes… yes I am. Why not add another one. Wait a second… that third ship in the hangar was a Colonial raptor! No wonder it looked so familiar.

Everyone at the table immediately caught my hesitation.

I spoke to Elder Elias – in German.
"The nation they are asking about appeared in another show. Also, do you remember that third ship in the hangar – the smallest one – that was a ship from the Colonies."

Elder Elias stared at me blankly before letting out a deep sigh.
"Go ahead and tell them what you know."

I turned back to the other resistance leaders at the table.
"As far as we are aware, the Twelve Colonies are… well, fictional. We do not have any proof of their existence. That being said, they apparently created sentient machines which they called Cylons. The Cylons rose up for their freedom and fought a ten year war before signing an armistice."

I was hesitant to say any more than that, since I had no idea where they would be in the timeline. If they actually exist in this universe, then let's hope they haven't wiped themselves out yet. I continued.
"May I ask where you heard of them?"

Ma'chello turned to Eudora once more. The two looked at each other for a moment before Ma'chello began speaking.
"Several decades ago – this was a few years after the beginning of Ares' occupation – a ship appeared at the edge of our system. Their ship experienced an issue with their Faster-Than-Light drive. The few survivors landed on our world and have been instrumental members of the resistance for the past thirty years."

I raised an eyebrow, while Elder Elias spoke.
"So why haven't you asked the colonies for aid?"

Eudora was the one to reply.
"We have no idea where the Colonies are. We've been searching for their home system for years, but it isn't within a thousand light years of us."

Elder Elias chuckled lightly.
"Well, I'm afraid we're not going to be much help either. We have not had any contact with these colonies."

Ma'chello sighed.
"So it is truly just us then?"

Elder Elias nodded lightly.

Ma'chello continued.
"Well, I believe that is everything. I'll have someone show you to your barracks."

"Thank you. When will we begin training your men?"

Ma'chello turned to Eudora; she thought for a moment.
"I can have my men ready in five hours."

"Then we'll start then."
Elder Elias and I exited the room, following behind a resistance member that we were shown to follow. It was time for some training.

- - -
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[BlazingHyperion]

For two months, we drilled the resistance using SLDF Technology. We covered everything we could, and the resistance members had done quite well. During that time, we had pulled out all the stops.

The Elders had provided more than just weapons, they had also provided radios and reconnaissance equipment. The only thing not provided by the Elders was the armor. As it turns out, Ma'chello very much lived up to his title as an inventor. The Resistance armor was capable of entirely blunting a full on blast from a staff weapon.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Radio (Star League Standard Issue) Receiver, Transmitter, Encoder/Decoder

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Blast Resistance Jackets Naquadah Weave, Ceramic Plating, Leather

Now, here we were. Our assault on Eris' forces were underway. She commanded a single Ha'tak which sat atop a pyramid to rival those of Ancient Egypt. The Pyramid itself was a maze of corridors and empty rooms, we were lucky the resistance had a map, else we would have likely spent an entire day getting to know the interior of the entire construct..

I watched as Eris' lounged upon her bed, totally unaware of us. Still cloaked, I gently knocked twice on a pillar near the entrance to the large room. A moment later, I felt a hand on my shoulder; it felt like Yren's hand. I whispered.
"Ready?"

I heard her whispered reply.
"Ready."

I nodded and let out a deep breath, keeping my nerves calmed.
"Flash bangs."

I pulled an irregularly shaped cylinder off my chest, and readied to pull the pin. I took another deep breath.
"Remove the pin."

I pulled out the safety pin and held down the lever.
"3…2…1… away."

And just like that, two separate flash bangs flew into the room. I turned around, closed my eyes, and prepared my Zat.

Within a fraction of a second, several bright flashes went off; I couldn't hear anything, but I had been prepared for just this.

Turning the corner, I fired my Zat at the Jaffa on my right, while Yren who was just behind me fired her Zat at the Jaffa to my left. The two already disoriented Jaffa slumped to the ground. Rushing over to Eris, I approached her.

She looked up at me, her face shadowed with confusion.
"You…"

As she saw me, she seemed to realize what was happening. She began to lift her Kara'kesh, but it was too late. One quick blast from the Zat and she was unconscious. As she fell, I was rather surprised that my perk activated.

First Perk Activated. Partial Biology Acquired: Goa'uld Musculoskeletal System

I ignored that information for the moment; I didn't have much time. Without wasting a second, I picked up her Kara'Kesh.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Kara'Kesh (Hand Device - Underlord Variant) Neural Interface Lattice

Immediately, my mind was flooded with information about the device's Neural Interface. The Kara'kesh had a significantly more sophisticated interface than other Goa'uld technology I had come into contact with.

While the Zat'Nik'Tel and Reetou Karesh both had an interface, they were only capable of understanding commands for toggling the device. The Kara'Kesh could transfer large quantities of information between the central processor and the wearer.

I quickly threw the information into the back of my mind and sent the reset code into the device.

The result was instantaneous. Information about the current state of Eris' forces inundated my mind. I began making inquiries about grounding all of Eris' forces on the world. Once again, everything lined up just right. There were several commands I could give that would do just that. Without any hesitation, I grounded all of Eris' forces.

The Kara'Kesh confirmed my orders and I immediately moved on. I pulled my radio off my chest and began speaking.
"Goa'uld forces have been grounded."

Not even a second later, I got a response.
"Confirmed. Assault is beginning."

I reattached my radio to my chest and turned my attention to Eris. I quickly pulled out a pair of handcuffs and attached them around her wrists, injected her with a solution specially prepared by Ma'chello to keep her unconscious, and threw her over my shoulder. As I turned back, I saw Yren waiting for me.

I nodded at her.
"Let's go."

We both reactivated our cloaks and began making a trek out of the vessel. I was rather surprised to find that the Jaffa didn't notice that Eris was missing until we were well away from the her quarters. It was only when we reached our chosen exit that I understood why none of Eris' forces had realized that something had happened to her.

Outside the ship was a warzone.

What had been clear blue skies less than an hour ago was now punctuated with plumes of thick black smoke. I saw several Goa'uld plasma bolts fly into the distance. Most notable was the complete lack of aerial support, a sign that the grounding command had worked as intended. Despite that, it was obvious that the Jaffa were still providing a fierce resistance.

I pulled out my radio.
"This is Arthur. We're clear of the flagship."

A moment later came a response.
"The Sanctum has been captured. Proceed."

So began our trek to the Sanctum. As we approached, the number of Jaffa we saw decreased steadily. As we made a turn, a large wall came into view. Occasionally, I could just barely make out a bright flash from the top of the wall – a sign that an SLDF laser weapon had been used – along with figures that would quickly return to cover.

As we approached the entrance to the wall, I pulled out my radio once again.
"This is Arthur. We are approaching the entrance."

"Understood. Locust's will be exiting in 30 seconds. You are to enter once the Locusts are through."

Moments later, the massive metal entrance opened and three Locust's marched out. We strode through, and just as we passed the door, I heard the firing of several Jaffa staff weapons behind us. I turned just in time to see a dozen Jaffa all open fire on the Locust's. I hadn't seen where these Jaffa had come from, but it didn't matter. Moments later they were all reduced to steam and slag as the pulse lasers mounted on the Locusts boiled them alive.

Within seconds, almost fifty Jaffa were gone and the locust's continued forward. The Sanctum entrance closed behind me and the sight of almost a hundred dead disappeared from my sight.

I deactivated my cloak, and a moment later Yren followed suit. With Eris slung over my shoulder, I made my way toward the heart of the Sanctum, where the Stargate rested atop a raised stone platform. The Sanctum was a massive open-air enclosure, ringed by a stone wall nearly five meters thick. At its center stretched a wide, open field—easily a hundred meters across. The entire space was a killbox; anyone stepping through the gate uninvited would find themselves exposed to fire from every angle.

The ground of the sanctum was covered in craters and I could see dozens of corpses strewn around the walls. Near the center of the Sanctum stood six Locusts, two of which were heavily damaged. Near them, several tents were being erected to serve as temporary shelter.

I saw Elders Elias, James, and Callum alongside Ma'chello and Eudora standing over a table. Surrounding them were dozens of Resistance members as well as many of the older Hunters of Veyna's Rest. Ma'chello had been staring at me – or, more accurately, at Eris – since I had entered his line of sight.

Elder James turned his attention away from the map on the table and up to me.
"Status."

"Primary and secondary objectives both completed. None of the Jaffa even noticed our presence until we were gone."

He nodded at me.
"Get her transferred to the medics. Hopefully we'll be able to remove the parasite soon."

I nodded in return. After handing off the Kara'Kesh – which was placed in a padded box and stowed away safely – I made my way to the medical tent where I left Eris in the care of the same doctor who had been responsible for testing us at the Resistance Base.

Over the course of the next three hours, 98% of the Jaffa in the city were either captured or killed. I was rather surprised to discover that nearly 200 Jaffa had been working with the resistance; many of them for years, a few of them for nearly a decade.

Ideally, the resistance would have taken the time to consolidate their control over the gate and the world, but we simply didn't have the time. Every second that was spent was a second that Ares could realize that the Resistance was actually fighting back.

Three hours later we began readying ourselves for the next part of the plan. Ma'chello and the Elder's approached as we were prepared to head through the Stargate.
"Once you have captured Ares and grounded all of his ships, you will be approached by Arktos, Ares' First Prime. He is working with us."

That… made a surprising amount of sense. Many of the inhabitants of Veyna's Rest had lived under other Goa'uld – namely Amaterasu, Nirrti, Cronus, Morrigan, and Ra. Athena bought many of the villagers from these Goa'uld and settled them in what would later become known as Veyna's Rest..

I had heard horror stories from those who had lived under Nirrti, Cronus, and Ra. It occurred frequently that groups of slaves would be forced to work for days straight without being provided food or water. Every single person who had come from those domains had multiple close friends and family who had starved to death.

Compared to that, Ares' treatment of those living in his city was vastly dissimilar. They received three full meals a day, regular supplies of water, and more than sufficient shelter and sleeping accommodations.

Ares' Jaffa treated the laborers with exceptional care. It also explained why the Resistance members were so certain that no one would care about their absence when Ma'chello came to visit Ares' world.

Hell, with that sort of advantage, they likely could have captured Ares without our assistance. So how the hell did the resistance end up succumbing to Ares' forces in the original timeline?

I furrowed my brows.
"Sir, are you really sure you can trust him?"

Ma'chello nodded without any sort of doubt.
"The man has had the opportunity to capture me and end the resistance on multiple occasions; more than that, the man has saved my life several times and it is only with his direct aid that our Resistance has survived as long as it has."

His words didn't quiet my own doubts. I turned to look at Elder James, but he simply nodded at me. The Elder was also aware of how Ma'chello ended up in Stargate SG-1, but if they were willing to put their trust in him, then so be it.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Astria Porta (Stargate) Dematerializer

The gate dialed, and we found ourselves on Ares' world of Mycena. Once more, we made the trek from the gate and into Ares' city. The trip had become almost routine, though I had only made it a few times at this point. With any luck, I would only have to make it twice, maybe three times more.

The sight of Ares' severn Ha'tak motherships still managed to take my breath away, and before I knew it, Yren and I were standing before Ares' mothership.

We used the same trick as before – simply following behind another group of Jaffa – to get inside. Within ten minutes I was looking at Ares' throne room.

If I didn't know any better, I would have said the man hadn't moved since I had last seen him. He was still lounging in the exact same place, being waited on hand and foot.

Yren and I didn't waste any time. We readied our Zat's and a pair of Flash Bangs.

"Ready?"
I asked, in a whisper.

"Ready."
Came the reply.

Like that, we threw our two flash bangs into the room, turned around, and closed our eyes.

With a bang, I opened my eyes and entered. There were eight Jaffa in the room, all of them kneeling. All but two had been incapacitated, but that wasn't what worried me most. The first thing that caught my attention was Ares standing before his throne, snarling at me.

Yren and I each fired one Zat blast and then another into one of the still standing Jaffa, before Ares finally managed to do something.

He seemed as if to roar at me – though my hearing was still recovering from the dual flash-bangs – and he raised his hand, the jewel at the center of his Kara'Kesh lighting up.

I immediately took cover, rolling out of the way. When I turned back, I saw that Yren had made it to cover against another piece of furniture in the hall.

We moved onto Plan B. Quickly, I pulled a smoke grenade off of my belt, and removed the pin. Yren meanwhile pulled out a second flash bang and threw it. I covered my eyes and ears and not even a second later another massive blast went off.

I now threw my smoke grenade. In a massive puff, a second shock wave ripped through the throne room. SLDF smoke grenades were completely different from those used in the 21st century. They were capable of filling a large area with dense aerosol in a matter of fractions of a second. Within three seconds, I could barely see more than 5 feet in front of me.

I fired my Zat at the spot that Ares had been just moments later. Moments later I saw a second Zat firing. Rushing forward, I found Ares collapsed on the floor with Yren also unconscious beside him.

Kara'Kesh are capable of forming powerful energy shields which could stop fast moving projectiles and energy blasts, so our plan should Ares manage to activate his energy shield was to just bum rush him and shoot him from within his shield.

The issue was that we didn't know how close we would have to be in order to bypass the shield. The only surefire way was to just make sure that the Zat was touching him when it fired. Thankfully, it had worked, and Ares was now out cold.

I pulled a syringe off my chest and stabbed it into Yren's leg. This was something especially prepared by the Elders, tested against the effects of Zat blasts. Quite frankly, I had no idea what it was, but apparently it had been tested and worked to immediately awaken those who were under the effects of Anaesthesia.

Not even fifteen seconds had passed since we entered the room. I quickly found and targeted the four still conscious Jaffa, leaving them all unconscious. I had now been in this room for thirty seconds.

Finally, I turned my attention to my primary mission; the Kara'Kesh.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Kara'Kesh (Hand Device) Emitter Crystals Complete Blueprint Acquired: Kara'Kesh (Hand Device)

In a rush, I pulled the device off his arm and provided the codes for a reset.

Just like with Eris' Kara'Kesh, the device immediately reset. I ordered all of Ares' forces to be grounded and turned my attention to Ares.

I gave Ares an injection and began to restrain him; to my side, Yren's eyes snapped open. As I finished restraining Ares' nose and mouth, Yren was awake.
She moved to restrain his legs, but froze for a brief moment, almost moving to take her Zat from the ground.

I turned to find a giant of a man standing at the entrance, pointing his staff weapon at the two of us. His most easily identifiable trait was of course the golden mark of Ares upon his brow, but the knife scars covering the left side of his face were almost as noticeable. His thick black hair was braided into a ponytail that ended somewhere in his armor. His bright green eyes stared at us, appearing confused for just the briefest of moments. This was Arktos.

Finally, he pointed his staff at the ceiling and spoke.
"It would have been nice to know that the Resistance was making their move. I will have my followers begin dealing with Ares' supporters."

I nodded at him and Yren moved into the nearby armory. Pulling up my radio, I spoke into it.
"Primary secure. Moving to secure secondary. Tertiary has made contact."

I replaced my radio and spoke to Arktos.
"We will be sending support through the Stargate. All of Ares' forces have been grounded. Can you hold out for a couple hours?"

He raised an eyebrow; the action was so reminiscent of Teal'c that I almost thought I was looking at Apophis' first prime for a moment.
"If I do not have to worry about Ares' ships being used against me, then I can have all still loyal to Ares captured within an hour."

I was rather surprised, but if the man had been preparing to take action anyway, then I suppose it made sense that he would be prepared for a proper assault. I nodded once to the man and threw Ares over my shoulder. Yren walked out of the nearby armory and nodded at me – a sign that she had secured Ares' backup Kara'Kesh.

We both activated our cloaks and exited the room. As we exited Ares' flagship, I once more sent a radio transmission, informing the resistance that we had made contact with Arktos.

All the Jaffa still acted as usual, and it was only when we were well outside the city that I began to notice the intermittent fire of staff weapons.

While that certainly hadn't gone as well as I had hoped, we had completed all three of our assigned objectives – even if the last one had been rather tense. While I couldn't say for certain that the man was trustworthy, he showed absolutely no interest in saving Ares and I could only take that as a good sign.

Now there were only two more Underlords to capture before we would be truly safe.

- - -
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[BlazingHyperion]

It was an hour into our trek out of the city that I first spotted the Stargate. That alone was rather odd, but even stranger was that it was being dragged along the ground by a pair of Locusts running at full speed, with another two locust's running behind – one of them wearing the DHD like a hat.

I pulled up my radio.
"This is Arthur. Whose dragging the Gate?"

The radio crackled a fraction of a second later.
"This is Callum. Last minute idea. It's working out pretty well if I do say so myself."

I stood there, in a stunned silence for a brief moment before regaining my witts.
"We're about a kilometer ahead of you. We are carrying our primary and secondary objectives. Any chance you can stop to pick us up?"

"Joshua, pick them up. We'll be continuing."

The locusts managed to clear the kilometer of distance within a minute, once they were nearby, we decloaked and one of the locusts stopped to pick us up. Once we were onboard, he continued onward.

A minute later, we caught up with the other Locusts. The Stargate had already been planted back into the ground and the DHD was being lowered from the third locust.

Yren and I dismounted – carefully lowering Ares to the ground while we did so – before making our way over to Elder Callum.

"Right there! And… drop it."
With a slight thud, the DHD was on the ground.

"Alright. The gate will be dialing in…" The elder looked down at a watch on his left arm, "two minutes."

Next, the Elder turned to me and Yren.
"Glad to see you two. James will be arriving in a minute. Just wait for a bit and we'll have Ares out of our hands. What happened to the Kara'kesh?"

"It's in my bag."

"Will the rest of the plan work?"

I had completely forgotten to even check. Quickly, I placed Ares on the ground and equipped the device. Immediately, I got a list of Ares subordinates and what I could do with them.

I smiled in relief.
"We're good. As long as there is a sufficient connection, I can revoke their authority as Underlords."

A weight seemed to leave the Elders shoulders at my words.
"Good. Make sure you're ready to move. The Elder will want you there when we begin the next stage of the Assault."

I nodded lightly and got out of the way as I put the Kara'kesh back into my bag.

Barely a minute after the Stargate had been reset, the gate began dialing. Once the wormhole was stable, my radio activated for a brief moment.
"This is Callum. The plan is a go and the gate is in position."

My radio sparked to life a moment later.
"Understood. We're coming through."

Moments later, resistance soldiers and villagers began making their way through the event horizon. Over the next few minutes, soldiers swarmed from the gate. By the time Elder James and Eudora stepped through the gate, there were more than 600 well armed soldiers.

The Elder and the resistance leader immediately spotted Yren and me alongside Elder Callum. With a hurried stride, they made their way towards us; the Elder's eyes immediately focused on the heavily bound form on the ground beside me.
"So this is Ares?"

"Yes, Elder."

Elder James snorted.
"He's shorter than I was expecting." He waved for a group of soldiers to walk forward. "Alright. You know what to do with him. Make sure that he remains sedated until we are ready to interrogate him."

The soldiers carefully placed the fainted false god onto a stretcher – being careful to tie his already excessive restraints to the metallic frame.

With the Goa'uld prepped for transport, Elder James turned to Callum.
"Dial the gate for Dendred."

Elder Callum saluted sarcastically before making his way over to the DHD which had been placed on the ground nearby.

"Report."

"The flashbangs failed to do anything to Ares. Yren had to use the Zat at close range which finally knocked him out. We also made contact with the First Prime; he had a chance to both save Ares and capture us. He let us both leave with little issue."

Eudora nodded and turned to Elder James.
"Is that enough proof for you?"

The Elder sighed.
"It will have to do. What will his next course of action be?"

Eudora turned to look towards the road.
"He should have seen your men dragging the Stargate; he'll be sending men to contact us soon."

James looked down the road for a moment, but when he saw nothing he turned to us.
"Yren, you'll be escorting Ares back home. Make sure he is properly sedated and watched over.

Yren responded simply. "Yes, sir."

The Elder turned to me next.
"Arthur, you'll have to stay a while longer. You're the only one with experience using the Kara'Kesh and we'll need your expertise to ground Enyalius and Korybas' forces."

I nodded in acknowledgement while the Elder and Eudora made their way towards one of the Locusts. Yren nodded to me once before heading towards the Gate. Moments later, the event horizon opened in a whirl of blue and I watched as a group of resistance soldiers carried the heavily incapacitated Ares through the gate, followed shortly after by Yren and a small number of others.

Taking a deep breath, I sat down and waited; I had gotten annoyingly good at waiting over the last few months. Not even 15 minutes later, we got notice of Arktos' approach.

By the time I could see the approaching Jaffa – nearly 500 of them all marching in perfect formation – most of the soldiers had taken cover in the nearby forest while Elder James and Eudora waited before one of the Locusts. I had been ordered to wait with them since the First Prime already knew my appearance.

The mass of Jaffa approached us down the road, they didn't stop until they were a few dozen feet away from us, at which point they all came to a stop. Arktos marched out from the front of the formation and stood before us in silence.

The mass of Jaffa was a formidable sight, but hints of fear showed on the faces of some of the Jaffa as they stared up at the metallic frame of the Locusts. Both groups stood in silence for nearly 30 seconds before the First Prime finally spoke.
"I have long pledged my aid to the people of Dendred for when the time came to strike against the false god Ares. Now, you have struck him down. His main force is defeated and all that remain are two of his Underlords."

Eudora stepped forward.
"We move against Ares' Underlords; Enyalius and Korybas. Are you willing to join the fight?"

A bloodthirsty smile graced the scarred face of the former First Prime.
"Korybas has been an enemy of mine since the first moment I laid eyes on him. Permit me to bring you his head as a token of friendship."

Eudora responded while offering her arm to Arktos who took it.
"I hate to ask this of you, but we would prefer it if you captured him alive. While Korybas himself may deserve to die, his host is innocent."

Arktos raised an eyebrow.
"A noble sentiment. I cannot make any promises, but I will do what I can."

Next, the giant of a man turned to Elder James and myself.
"I am Arktos, now the former First Prime of Ares. You know who I am, but I do not know you."

Elder James stepped forward and offered his hand in greeting.
"James Cromwell, at your service."

Artkos smiled lightly, shaking the Elders hand before returning his attention to Eudora.
"A pleasure, as your people say. I do not wish to tally any longer. When will you permit me and my men to attack?"

"Just a moment. While we can handle diplomatic matters later, there are a few things we must handle immediately. Firstly, what has become of those Goa'uld who served Ares?"

"They have been captured."

Elder James nodded.
"Good. We have been watching them for several months, and we believe that one of the scientists is a Tok'ra."

Arktos' eyebrows rose.
"A Tok'ra? In Ares' own court?"

Elder James just nodded; Arktos continued.
"What do you wish for me to do with them?"

"At the moment, nothing. Have some of your trusted subordinates keep watch over them, but do not let them make contact with anyone and make sure any jewelry they may be wearing is confiscated."

Arktos called a couple of his men over and passed them some orders.
"What else?"

Elder James continued.
"I'd like to send some of my men to watch you defeat Korybas."

Arktos didn't even lift an eyebrow.
"Watchers then. I can agree to that. In exchange, I'd like to send some of my own men to watch your battle with Enyalius."

The Elder turned to Eudora; she thought for a moment.
"I can agree to that, but your men will not be allowed to fight. You'd be there as watchers, just as my own men will be."

"Agreed. Anything else?"

"None."

Arktos waved for one of his men to come forward.
"Good; then let us stop wasting time."

Elder James yelled over to Elder Callum.
"Dial the gate."

Elder James called over Elder Elias.
"You're going through as the liaison. Once you have things completed on your side, dial the gate and contact us. We'll do the same once we've captured Enyalius."

"Yes, sir."

Eudora spoke to Arktos as Elder Callum once more began dialing an address.
"You're free to go through once we've confirmed that the enemy vessels have all been grounded."

Arktos nodded once and turned back to his men. I pulled the Kara'kesh from my backpack, and put it on. Once more, I felt the connection of the neural interface. I could feel Ares' seven Ha'tak and numerous support craft in the city just a mile or so away.

It was a rather disconcerting feeling. When I focused on the ships, I was able to confirm that all of Ares' ships remained in lockdown, though several of them had become damaged – presumably during later fighting.

Turning my attention to the Stargate, I watched as the final chevron locked in and the blue puddle materialized before briefly exploding outwards and then stabilizing. Immediately, I felt the addition of several more connections.

I was rather surprised at the makeup of Korybas' fleet, among which were three Ha'taks. I put that out of my mind and began the process. Quickly, I revoked all of Korybas' authority over Ares' vessels, and grounded all his ships. Immediately, I felt multiple queries coming from what I assumed was Korybas.

I turned my attention away from the metal device on my hand and up towards Elder James. He had been joined by Arktos while I wasn't paying attention. He needed to hear this information anyway, so I began.
"It's done; I'm pretty sure he knows that something has happened."

Arktos seemed lost in thought for a moment, before he regained himself.
"You have my thanks. If all goes well, then we shall meet again soon."

With that, Arktos and his men left. As the Stargate deactivated, there was a small contingent of Jaffa who had remained behind.

Elder James called out to Elder Callum once more.
"Next address."

Again, Elder Callum began dialing a new address. The resistance soldiers and villagers from Veyna's Rest began to prepare. As the final chevron locked into place and the gate burst to life, I once more felt several new connection forms; most obvious was the connection to Enyalius' Kara'kesh.

Immediately, I revoked all of Enyalius' authority and ordered all vessels to remain deactivated. I turned up to Elder James.
"Done."

He nodded to me and turned to Eudora. She nodded and yelled to the assembled crowd.
"Let's get going."

Next, she turned to the remaining Jaffa contingent.
"You are to stay with us for the duration of the battle."

The lead Jaffa replied.
"We will follow your commands."

The first group of resistance fighters and heavily armed villagers marched through the gate. After the first group secured the other side, the Locusts went through. Finally everyone else passed through.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Astria Porta (Stargate) Buffer

I was greeted by something rather unexpected; barely a mile away, I could just make out the tips of three Goa'uld Ha'taks. The Stargate was situated in the same type of clearing that I had come to associate with Goa'uld controlled worlds, but Enyalius had landed his vessels much closer to the gate than I was expecting.

Eamon approached us as we made our way out of the gate.
"My group is ready to move out, Elder."

The Elder nodded at him once.
"Good. Get what information you can. Your primary target is Enyalius. If you have the chance, capture him alive. If not, then leave him to us."

Eamon nodded once before gesturing at two other villagers to follow him. The two rushed off before suddenly disappearing from my sight with a shimmer characteristic of the Goa'uld cloaking devices.

As the last group of soldiers rushed out of the gate, Eudora spoke up.
"We've practiced for this. Stick to the forests and do not fire unless spotted or ordered to do so. The mechs will follow up in the rear."

I stayed with the Elder and watched as the soldiers quickly joined their squads and disappeared into the forest. It was a rather impressive sight as several hundred men simply disappeared into the thick foliage.

Within a matter of a couple of minutes, the only groups that remained were a group of about 60 soldiers, the 4 Locust's and the Jaffa group who were sent to watch. Now, we just had to wait for everyone to get into position.

- - -
POV: Eamon Thorne

Enyalius' complex was rather different from Ares' city. While Ares' city had obviously been assembled over a very short period of time, this fortress was much older. The internals were effectively identical in appearance to the hallways of a Ha'tak class vessel – making it hard to tell the age of the structure – the exterior meanwhile was covered in truly ancient stone bricks that together formed a complex of almost a dozen massive pyramids.

Atop three of these pyramids sat a set of Goa'uld Ha'tak vessels. Judging purely from the appearance of overgrowth on the remaining pyramids, the entire facility must have been centuries if not millennia old.

Once we were inside the facility, navigating was relatively simple. The layout was very similar to that of a Ha'tak and I had spent several months learning to navigate such ships like the back of my own hand.

As we explored the complex, we quickly discovered a large contingent of Jaffa were congregating in the primary hangar. It was there that we discovered Enyalius; he was busy tearing open the innards of a Tel'tak. He had removed several dozen control crystals and just dumped them into a pile.

He and his ship were surrounded by more than 50 Jaffa. Some were attempting to assist with repairs, but most of them were simply standing guard. I watched as the target rushed around the interior of the ship. There was no way for us to get in and extract him. We'd have to wait for another opportunity.

A voice spoke through my earpiece.
"Alpha entrance secured."
"Beta entrance secured."
"Gamma entrance secured."
"Hangar entrances secured."
"All entrances secured. Report current status of primary target."

I moved towards an empty portion of the hangar and spoke.
"Target discovered in the primary Hangar. He is currently in the process of tearing apart a Tel'tak."

There were several moments of silence before I heard someone speak.
"Hangar teams, prepare to move in."

I spoke quietly into a separate channel.
"Infil team, move away from the ship. We don't want to get caught in the crossfire. Be prepared to capture the target if he flees."

I turned my eyes to the hangar entrance; I saw nothing but the short runway and the dense forest foliage beyond it. It was barely a couple of minutes later when the order to move in was given.
"All teams, move in."

No warning came for the Jaffa as two dozen of them burst into steam. In an instant, half of Enyalius' guards were dead. The armor now looked bloated, it was not a pleasant site.

The remaining Jaffa were frozen in confusion for only a brief second before they jumped into action.
"Enemy Attack!"

It was at this moment that Enyalius seemed to realize that something was wrong. He rushed out of the ship, screaming at his Jaffa. He turned to the entrance where resistance soldiers had made their way out of the forest and begun firing at those now in cover.
"What are you waiting for! Bring me their heads!"

There was a brief moment of hesitation, before one took the lead.
"Jaffa, kree!"

The rest seemed to break out of their hesitation and stood up straight, determination burning in their eyes.
"Jaffa, kree!"

The Jaffa rushed from cover; immediately, four more plumes of steam erupted from those in the lead, but those behind them carried on regardless. My attention was drawn to the Goa'uld as he activated his energy shield and began rushing from the room.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled out my Zat and approached Enyalius. As he rushed out of the hangar entrance, I followed closely behind him.
"I'm taking out the target. Confirm position?"

Two quick replies came.
"Confirmed." "Confirmed."

I immediately walked right up to him and grabbed his shoulder. He turned to me in confusion, but that was short lived as I blasted him at point blank range. The last thing I saw was the electric blue of the Zat blast.

- - -
POV: Arthur

My earpiece crackles.
"Target captured. Beginning Extraction."

I let out a sigh. I had been rather worried that Enyalius would be able to bypass the controls of the Tel'tak. Luckily we had been fast enough to keep that from happening.

Eudora beside me let out a deep sigh.
"Everyone move in. The primary target has been captured."

Over the next twenty minutes, the resistance members swept through the entire facility. The Jaffa outnumbered the resistance almost 4-to-1, but that advantage was effectively negated by the resistance's specially produced armor. By the end, only about 30 resistance members had died (though many more were injured) while nearly a quarter of the Jaffa had perished.

It was about an hour later that I felt a star fall from the Celestial Forge.

Perk 'Gadgeteering' missed due to insufficient points. (Available Points: 0, Required Points: 300, Points Doubled, New Point Total: 100)

Special Achievement: Completely Neutralize a System Lord and all his subordinates (Ares) Targets Captured Alive No Escapees Choose a perk: 1: Diagnostic Tools (Outlaw Star, 50 Points) 2: Stockpiles (Girl's Frontline, 50 Points) 3: Art Set (A 'Happy' Harry Potter Fanfiction, 50 Points) 4: Electronics (Star Wars - KOTOR, 50 Points) 5: Satisfactorio Crafting (Satisfactory Factorio Gauntlet, 50 Points)

I took a deep breath. I turned to Elder James beside me.
"Elder, I've just been offered some new perks."

"More than one?"

"It says I can choose between them."

The Elder nodded.
"Leave it for now. We'll discuss this later."

Elder James turned to Elder Callum.
"Dial the gate to Korybas' world. Unless I'm mistaken, all of Ares' forces have been neutralized."

"You got it."

At this moment, Eudora walked over to us.
"The remaining Jaffa have agreed to surrender. We're in the middle of confiscating their equipment."

Elder James nodded.
"Excellent. We'll need to start transferring them to Dendred as soon as possible."

The Stargate opened with a woosh as Elder Callum dialed Korybas' world.
"This is James. Enyalius has been captured. How are things on your end?"

There was a short moment of static, before a reply came.
"This is Elias. Korybas has been captured alive and his men have been neutralized."

Elder James seemed to relax as a smile came over his face.
"Understood. Is Arktos with you?"

"He is."

"Hand him the ear piece."

Another burst of static comes over the radio, before a gruff voice speaks.
"This is Arktos."

Elder James is silent for a moment, before he speaks.
"The Resistance has housing for any surviving Jaffa. We will ensure that none who surrendered will be mistreated. Are you willing to let us handle your prisoners?"

A moment of silence follows.
"I can agree with these conditions."

Elder James lets out a breath.
"Good. We'll be transferring our prisoners first. Once they've all been moved, we'll send someone through."

"I understand. I'll begin gathering the prisoners."

"Give us a couple of hours. We'll make contact soon."

With that, the gate shut off. Eudora began speaking over the radio.
"Start transferring the prisoners. Groups of 50 at a time."

With that, Ares and his subordinates were totally defeated. Through sheer, dumb luck, we had managed to defeat a system lord without allowing a single one of his servants to escape. I was, quite frankly, amazed that it had gone as well as it had.

If I ever got the chance, I would have to thank the one who placed the reset code into the Kara'kesh; without that, this entire endeavor would have been impossible. Now it was time for cleanup and negotiations.

- - -
Author's Note:
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[BlazingHyperion]

It took many hours to get all of the Jaffa transferred to Dendred. By the time all of the prisoners had been safely secured and provided for in the camps, it was well past dark. The day had been long and all involved parties agreed to reconvene the next day.

That night, I followed the Elder's back to the Village. With us were all the villagers who had been taken several months prior. Those who had stayed behind had worked pretty tirelessly to keep the village in order, so everyone was able to just move back into their former homes.

What really surprised me was how few of the villagers were shocked by the presence of the Leopard and Confederate Dropships near the gate. Nearly everyone was surprised to see the vessels there, but only about a quarter of the village's inhabitants seemed unaware of the ships' existence.

With a frown I decided to ask Elder James about it.
"He chuckled. Most of the villagers were aware of the dropship. During our first couple of years in the village, we had to use the mechs for naquadah mining. It simply wasn't possible to keep anything hidden during those times."

I frowned, but the Elder continued.
"The standard policy was to keep the ship hidden until someone turned 18, at which point we'd introduce them to Star League era tech and begin providing more advanced education."

I nodded and left it at that.

That evening, as the villagers were all resettling in their homes and reuniting with family members, the Elders all gathered on the bridge of the Leopard. Elders Callum, Elias, Dorian, and James along with Elders Ralos and Tavik were all there. More importantly, the Elders who had previously been captured by Ares had also returned. As such, we had three new people joining the meeting; Elder Annalise, Elder Dresden, and Elder Moretti.

Elder James closed the bridge's massive door and immediately began the meeting.
"We sadly do not have a lot of time at the moment and we have some rather large decisions to make."

He turned to the returning Elders.
"Have you three read through the provided material."

They all nodded. Elder James continued.
"Good. Arthur here is the source of this information. He has… awakened memories of a past life in which all of this is fiction."

Elder Annalise almost choked.
"Are you fucking with me?"

Everyone stared at her, dead serious. She stared back.
"Alright. You're not fucking with me then. How trustworthy is this information?"

Elder James continued.
"So far, everything has been spot on. Of course, we can't corroborate anything about the current state of the inner sphere, but everything about the Goa'uld Empire that we have learned has been accurate."

There is a moment of silence as everyone processes his words.
"Beyond his memories, he also has a unique ability…"

He proceeded to explain the Celestial Forge and my first perk to the Elders.
"Now. Arthur, you said that you were offered new perks. Can you please explain."

I began reading off the notification.

Special Achievement: Completely Neutralize a System Lord and all his subordinates (Ares) Targets Captured Alive No Escapees Special Achievement: First Defeat of a Goa'uld System Lord (Ares) Choose a perk: 1: Diagnostic Tools (Outlaw Star, 50 Points) - Description: A small data display with numerous connectors and scanners, capable of letting you know what is wrong with simple technology and what advanced technology that has been programmed into it. * Portable, can detect what's wrong with simple tech and do the same for advanced tech that you program into it. * Keep in mind 'simple' is a lot higher than modern tech for this scanner, it's from a space fiction. 2: Stockpiles (Girl's Frontline, 50 Points) - Description: We can't let you set off empty-handed; here's 5000 Ammo, Parts, Rations, and Manpower to get your army started (it takes 30 of each to make a baseline T-Doll, while the most consistently powerful Dolls cost something like 600/400/100/600 for a reliable chance of getting them). Each purchase gets you another 5k. * This is not just normal ammo, parts, rations and manpower, you can combine them to make T dolls which are AI-piloted android fire platforms for military operations. Plus the ethereal 'manpower'. 3: Art Set (A 'Happy' Harry Potter Fanfiction, 50 Points) - Description: A full art kit stored in a small expanded carry case for all your drawing or painting needs. Comes with a small paint can that can change to different colored infinite paint, both indoor and outdoor options, never dries out if left open, and doesn't get contaminated by dirt or other colors left on the brush. Chalk, pencils, and crayons won't break, require sharpening, or be used up. Drawing pages or canvas can be changed to other types and will never run out with the finished picture being saved to your folder, and brushes will never degrade or get bent, broken bristles nor run out if they're lost or pulled. The brushes come in a range of sizes from the wide indoor wall painter to the tiniest canvas detailer. Pencils, crayons, and chalk are much the same as are the colored varieties. A pack of special white erasers are included, ranging from small to large, that don't wear down or spread the erased material but can nevertheless undo any of your drawn or painted projects if necessary. The case and all its inventory can be found in your warehouse if lost, stolen, or destroyed. 4: Electronics (Star Wars - KOTOR, 50 Points) - Description: A large supply of computer spikes and repair parts that can be used with nearly any modern machine in the galaxy. Computer spikes overwhelm electronics with junk data and are used by hackers to aid them in bypassing electronic security doors and terminals. Repair parts are packages of universally adaptable components that can be used to fix or upgrade droids, vehicles, and other machines. 5: Satisfactorio Crafting (Satisfactory Factorio Gauntlet, 50 Points) - Description: You can make automated equipment for extraction and processing of raw resources. You can make automated industrial equipment out of simple items, similar to the items in the games.

Elder Callum snapped his fingers.
"So that's how you know Arktos succeeded."

Elder James nodded.
"Arthur, do you have a specific perk you'd like to choose?"

I shook my head.
"I was hoping to discuss it before choosing."

Elder James nodded.
"Alright then. Could you please summarize your options for us."

I nodded once then began to summarize each of the available perks.
"First is a scanner of some…"

Elder Elias interrupts.
"A scanner? As in a physical object?"

"Yeah. The exact wording is "a small data display.' I would assume that means it is a physical object."

Elder Elias seemed rather stunned as he sat there.
"So you can be provided with physical objects as well? How the hell does that work?"

I just shrugged in response. Elder Elias let out a light chuckle of incredulity; Elder James motions for me to continue and I do so.
"The device would be capable of finding faults with any system as long as it has the schematics. It says it can scan simple devices, but I don't know what 'simple' means in this context."

Elder Callum lets out a deep sigh.
"Something like that would be an absolute godsend. We have the schematics for all the Star League tech. If it works as advertised, we can just feed it the schematics for the Manassas' prototype KF drive and immediately know how to fix it."

The others in the room immediately straighten. Callum continued.
"Don't get me wrong, it would be a lot of work, but we'd know what actually needed to be fixed. That's certainly better than where we are now."

Elder Elias nodded.
"Do you think you could replicate the device using your first perk?"

I hadn't even considered the option.
"I suppose it's certainly possible. I would like to say yes, but I do not know how perks interact with each other."

He nodded. Elder James nodded for me to continue.
"Certainly a strong option. Arthur, please continue."

"The second option is parts for creating T-Dolls – I'm not super familiar with this fiction, but T-Dolls are humanoid shells for AIs."

"Absolutely not."
"No. It's not worth the risk."
Elder Dorian and Elder Annalise immediately denied taking this perk.

I frowned. Looking around the room, I could tell that all the members of the Manassas Crew agreed with the two of them.

I turned to Elder James. His face had hardened the moment I had spoken the word AI.
"Arthur, any form of autonomous unit is out of the question. If you take that, I will not permit you to use it."

I was rather taken aback, but I decided to leave it at that. I moved on, pretending nothing happened.
"The third option is a magic art set with an infinitely refilling case of supplies."

The mood immediately shifted from a palpable tension to incredulity. Elder Callum burst into laughter, everyone let out a light chuckle.

I continued.
"I wasn't originally thinking about skipping this possibility entirely, but I hadn't considered how the supplies might interact with my first perk."

A hush fell over the room. Elder James spoke.
"Are you thinking that you could reverse engineer this… magic?"

I shrugged.
"I don't know. It's the same issue as with the 'Diagnostic tool', not to mention, this is magic not technology. I have nothing to base my intuition on without already having examples of it."

Elder Callum's laugh had disappeared and he let out a deep sigh.
"Kid, as awesome as being able to see actual magic would be, the choice is too risky."

Everyone at the table nodded. I let out a deep sigh but continued anyway.
"The fourth option is rather niche. It is described as 'a large supply' of 'computer spikes' and 'repair parts'. The 'computer spikes' are used for bypassing security systems. The 'repair parts are packages of universally adaptable components' that can be used to fix virtually everything. I would like to point out that the description explicitly states that these are meant for use 'with nearly any modern machine in the galaxy'. That galaxy being the Galaxy of Star Wars. It is possible that the tech might be compatible with Goa'uld tech, but I can't guarantee it."

Elder Callum frowned and butted in.
"I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. These 'computer spikes' sound like they emulate some of the more common THOS bypass methods. Not to mention those 'repair parts'. If they are really universally adaptable, even if we can't use them to repair our own technology, they would provide an invaluable source of computing resources. Not to mention any interactions with your first perk."

I frowned.
"I still think that the 'Diagnostic Tool' would be a better option than this one. Worst case with the Diagnostic Tool, we'd still know what to fix. Worst case from the repair parts? We get nothing at all."

Elder Elias seemed to agree with me.
"I agree. The first option is safer. On top of that, we have no idea how many 'a large supply' is. That could be a crate, it could be an infinite supply. If we choose either of these two, we should choose the tool."

Elder Callum thought for a moment before nodding. Elder James gestured for me to continue.

I looked at the last one. I already knew this would be what they would want me to choose. Sighing, I began reading the short, two sentence description, verbatim.
"'You can make automated equipment for extraction and processing of raw resources. You can make automated industrial equipment out of simple items, similar to the items in the games.'"

The room went still. Elder James was the first to break the silence.
"Define automated in this context."

"If it's anything like the games I'm thinking of then it would effectively be conveyor belts feeding material from simple repetitive machinery. Completely different from the T-Dolls."

I thought for a moment further.
"I think it would be most like Star League Era automated factories."

Elder Callum took a deep breath.
"You have to choose that. We could reduce the time it takes to build up an industrial base from decades to years."

Elder Dresden leaned forwards.
"We're not even starting from nothing. We have industrial supplies ready. Hell, the Dendredians probably do as well. All we'd need to do is start training people to assemble the material. Absolute worst case – assuming the perk does as it says – we could have a complete supply chain ready to go in two years."

Elder Callum nodded.
"You can't fix what you don't have. I hate to say this – I really wanted that diagnostic tool – but this is absolutely the best option."

The Elders were all in agreement. Elder James turned to me.
"Well, you have our collective opinion."

I looked around at everyones expectant faces. Without any further hesitation, I chose Satisfactorio Crafting.

Then I felt nothing.

- - -
POV: James Cromwell

I scowled down at the kid. The moment we had come to a decision he had blacked out. No one had the foggiest idea what had happened. Dorian – the closest thing we had remaining to a medic – had suggested we take him up to the Manassas and use the ship's medical suite to check him over.

It was a take off and several hours later we finally gave him a once over. Elder Dorian was dumbfounded to find that major parts of his brain were being rewritten. Using his words, "it's like his brain is speedrunning the changes that would come with decades of experience."

Other than that, however, we discovered a rather large issue. A brain tumor and lung cancer; both in the early stages. Very quickly we began bringing everyone in for full checkups. We found similar illnesses in the early stages in multiple others. The common factor; heavy use of the Reetou Karesh – the Ashrak cloaking devices.

Arthur had told me that using the devices supposedly had extreme health consequences. At the time, he hadn't known what the consequences would be, but we really had no choice.

Luckily, Ares had a Sarcophagus. At the moment it was still in the hands of Arktos, we would hopefully be able to negotiate its use.

I didn't have time to wait for him to wake up. I returned to the Leopard for the trip back down to the planet's surface. Initial negotiations would begin in a few hours. It was time to get to it. I would have to dress up properly, time to pull out the old uniform.


- - -
Author's Note:
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[BlazingHyperion]

I was truly astounded by the breadth of knowledge that had been shoved into my brain. The first thing I had done when I woke up – other than marveling at the advanced medical suite around me and the fact that I was in zero-g – was ask for paper.

I just couldn't help myself, I had to start working. I began by sketching the blueprint for the basic constructor. The device was – relatively – simple. Of course, that was "simple" when compared to some Goa'uld tech that I had the schematics for. It was effectively just a collection of presses and spools all wound up in a single device.

I got lost in my work. It was two hours later and I still wasn't done with the base schematic. Luckily I wouldn't have to write any code, the whole device had been designed to be analog – so no computers included.

It was at this moment that Elder James arrived. He wore a sleek white knee-length coat over a set of purple pants. On his collar were two Cameron Stars.
"Arthur, how are you doing?"

I turned away from my paper.
"I feel great. The perk… gave me a lot of knowledge."

The Elder nodded.
"Arthur, I have news. You have a brain tumor and lung cancer."

I sputtered.
"What!?"

He nodded.
"Well, you had a brain tumor. Your 'perk' ate it when it was rewiring your brain. It's still a good thing you blacked out when you grabbed that perk. If you hadn't then it might have been too late by the time we found the cancer."

I sat in silence, totally stunned.
"Then I'm not the only one?"

The Elder shook his head. My stomach dropped.
"When we found the tumors on you we immediately began screening others. Everyone who has used the Reetou Karesh for more than a day has developed a brain tumor. Among those who used it for more than a month, 75% have some other form of cancer as well."

I winced. Those were not pleasant numbers.

The Elder smiled lightly.
"Don't be so worried about it. I've negotiated for the use of the Sarcophagus. Arktos was quite thankful for your assistance in defeating Ares."

I let out a sigh of relief.
"Understood. How are the negotiations going?"

Elder James pulled up one of the chairs. A look of exhaustion passed over his face for a brief moment.
"Well, that depends. Tell me about the effects of this perk."

I looked down at the blueprint before me. I was barely a third of the way through drawing it up. I would still have to do machine tests, and if I got my hands on more advanced Goa'uld tech then I might be able to improve the functionality of things like the automated smelter which I was planning to work on next.
"It's a lot more than I was expecting. The information for a lot of machinery was shoved into my brain."

I gestured down at the schematic.
"This is an automated multi-roll constructor. It takes a single material, copper, steel, or iron – for example – and reshapes it into just about anything you might need."

Elder James smiled in satisfaction.
"If that is the case, then the negotiations are going quite well."

I frowned and waited for him to explain. Instead he just smirked at me and moved onto another topic.
"Ares is no longer a threat. You'll be going over every piece of Goa'uld technology that we have access to."

I squinted at him but eventually decided to move on as well since he didn't wish to discuss it.
"Anything in particular that I should start with?"

"The Ha'tak; I was speaking with Arktos about how heavily the Goa'uld monitor their capital ships. He seemed certain that there would be a tracking device on board somewhere."

I furrowed my brow.
"We have Ares. Who would be tracking those ships?"

A grave look came over the Elder's face.
"Ra."

That could definitely be a problem. I nodded.
"Alright. I'll get to it."

Elder Dorian entered the room.
"You're good to go. There's no reason to keep you here any longer."

Elder James turned to face the Elder.
"Thank you, Dorian."

Dorian winced.
"I'm just glad you don't have to use it anymore. If you had to keep using the device I can't guarantee how much worse it would be."

"Is it really that bad," I asked.

Elder Dorian nodded.
"I really hope that sarcophagus is as impressive as I've been told, otherwise most of those who used the cloaks will be dead within a year."

I winced. Elder James shrugged.
"I spoke with Arktos about the sarcophagus. If it doesn't work, we'll figure out what to do from there."

He turned to me.
"Come. I have some things to show you."

I said goodbye to Elder Dorian and found my way out of the medical bay. I followed Elder James to the Elevator where he took us down several floors. The door opened to cables haphazardly bolted to the floor.
"Deck 21; this floor contains all of the KF-Drive controls."

I followed in silence. We very quickly arrived in front of a door. The inside of the room was a mess. Panels had been pulled off of nearly every console and wires laid across the floor in no discernable pattern.

I placed my hand down on the console. Immediately, a flood of information rushed into my head.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: KF Drive (KF King LXIV) Experimental Field Initiator

The KF Drive consisted of four sections. The Field Initiator which generated the field for the jump, the Drive Core which expanded the size of the Hyperspace Field to encompass an entire ship. Third is a massive tank of liquid helium which is used to keep the Drive Core at a safe temperature. Fourth is the drive controller.

I sighed.
"Who was it who did all of this?"

"It was the ship's chief engineer."

I frowned.
"What happened?"

Elder James smiled a melancholic smile. It was the smile of someone thinking about friends who'd long passed on.
"We suffered a misjump that fried a lot of the ship's systems. It took her almost six months of work to get the ship back into a state where it could jump again. The next jump, something went wrong. I don't know what, but everything in the rear end of the ship got blasted with ionizing radiation. Those on this deck were dead almost instantly."

I looked around. If the bodies were in decent condition, it might be possible to revive them with the sarcophagus.
"What did you do with the bodies?"

"Frozen. We didn't know what to do with them at the time, but we didn't want them to rot. We still haven't gotten around to giving them proper burials."

I could hear the hurt in his voice; I wanted to ask, but I knew it would be better not to continue with the subject. I looked around the room once more. The walls were covered in dozens of panels and screens.
"I can look through all of this, but it'll take me days. It's better if we go over it all with Elder Callum."

He frowned.
"Did the forge not activate?"

"It did. I got the schematic for the Field Initiator. That just isn't all that helpful when trying to figure out what's going on with this mess."

He was silent for a moment before letting out a deep sigh.
"I guess she won't be going anywhere any time soon then."

I nodded in return.
"What next?"

Elder James gestured for me to follow.
"Stasis pods."

"Stasis pods?" I asked in confusion.

The Elder closed the door to the Drive Control Room.
"The Stasis Pods we have on board were designed for use by humans. I need to know whether we can use them for holding Goa'uld Prisoners. You happen to be our expert on Goa'uld physiology. In a moment you'll be our leading expert on the Stasis Pods as well."

Once more, we took the elevator. Down three decks this time. Once off the elevator, I followed the Elder through a door marked "Hold K". From there we approached a door marked "Hold J" where the elder stopped for just the briefest of moments.

His apparent hesitation passed quickly enough and I entered the massive storage room. Massive crates – reminiscent of 21st century shipping containers – dominated the room. I followed the elder to a collection of containers where he opened one of them. Inside, row upon row of human-sized tubes sat tied to the wall.

I walked to the nearest one and placed my hand on the glass cover.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Stasis Tube (Star League) Cryogenic Chamber

The tube was cold. I slowly removed my hand to see the face of a woman. She must have been a member of the crew. I turned to the Elder.
"Are you sure that they're dead?"

He gave a sad smile and nodded. I didn't say anything further and moved onto the next pod.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Stasis Tube (Star League) Life-Support, Control System, Emergency Power

I removed my hand and thought for a minute.
"It should be fine. You'll just have to make sure that the Goa'uld is properly sedated while it's freezing. If it awakens before the freezing process is complete then there is a good chance it'll die."

I turned my attention to the pod again. Inside, was the fourth pristine body. If I didn't know otherwise then I would expect the corpse's eyes to open at any moment.

My thoughts turned to the Sarcophagus. I knew the device had a limited ability to bring people back from the dead. Some fanfiction even had preserved corpses brought back from the dead years after their hearts had stopped.

I really didn't want to get Elder James hopes up, but it was better to try it than let their bodies rest here.

Taking a deep breath I turned away from the capsules.
"Elder, It's possible that the Sarcophagus could revive these people."

The Elder immediately froze, though he quickly regained his wits.
"I thought you said it was a healing device."

I nodded.
"It is, but it is also capable of reviving the recently deceased. If a body is sufficiently intact, then it might just work."

Elder James stood there stunned for a few more moments.
"It seems I might owe Arktos several more favors."

I looked at the agitated Elder.
"Sir, you shouldn't get your hopes up. It is a vague possibility at best. I really cannot confirm anything."

He almost seemed to deflate before getting ahold of himself.
"Yes. Thank you for reminding me."

I nodded and followed the Elder out of the Hold.
"What next?"

He chuckled. His formerly unpleasant mood had seemingly faded quite a bit.
"I was planning to show you around the ship to see what you could use, but I'm a bit too excited to do that at the moment. We're heading back to Dendred. Hopefully Arktos arrives early as well."

As we rode the elevator back up, I realized something.
"How long was I unconscious?"

Elder James smirked.
"You were out for three days."

I winced.
"Well, if we're still in negotiations then things can't be going too badly."

I boarded the Leopard with the Elder. As the docking collar detached, and we pushed away from the Manassas the Elder turned us around to get a good look at the ship. A couple of minutes later, the sun appeared from the other side of the world and I got my first proper look at the Manassas. She was a beauty.

On the dorsal docking collars I saw one confederate class dropship and another Leopard class dropship, but there was something else that really caught my attention. On the ventral side of the ship just aft of the radiator was what appeared to be a fifth aerodyne dropship. One that I didn't recognize.

I turned towards Elder James.
"The dropship on the back, what is that?"

The Elder smiled.
"Funny you should mention that. That's actually your father's ship. And it certainly isn't a dropship. That's a Bug-Eye Class. The SLS Cobalt Eye."

"I'm not familiar with the Bug-Eye Class."

The Elder almost seemed to shrug.
"I guess that shouldn't be all that surprising. They're recon ships. Our mission before we got separated from the exodus fleet was to provide support for the Cobalt Eye and its crew."

"What were you doing that would require that support?"

"We were scouting for pursuers. The Cobalt would jump into a system's oort cloud and search for signs of pursuers. We would be there if any were ever found."

I frowned.
"Elder, how often is it that two Warships misjump to the exact same location."

He chuckled bitterly.
"They don't. That doesn't mean we know what caused the problem. We maintained protocol through the jump. Hell, the Manassas was jumping with a jury-rigged drive; we made damn sure that every possible measure had even more wiggle room than normal, not that it ended up doing any good."

I let out a sigh. Slowly the Manassas turned into a speck in the distance before that too slowly faded from view. I sat in silence as we went through reentry. I'd have to start looking through the manual for operating the KF Drive if I wanted any chance of understanding how to fix the ship.

I also had to worry about getting all of the schematics now in my head onto paper. The Constructor was the simplest of them. Just the smelter alone was an order of magnitude more sophisticated – who knew that processing raw ore into a standardized format was so hard. God, that wasn't even considering the higher end assemblers.

I also needed to begin scouring the Ha'taks for a tracking method. There was so much to do. Luckily we weren't on a time crunch anymore.

 

[BlazingHyperion]

I followed behind the Elder as we once more arrived on the world of Dendred. It had been barely a few days since I had last been here, but things already looked significantly different. Vibrant colors decorated the walls of the Sanctum – the large, colosseum like structure built to house the Stargate.

Unlike before, the large metal entrance was held open and a constant stream of people approached the Stargate. Many of them were bringing food, but just as many were simply walking around – as if to get a view of the Gate itself.

A Resistance member I didn't recognize walked up to us.
"Welcome back, Elder James. Is there anything I can help you with?"

The Elder smiled.
"No, we're just back early. We'll be heading over to the Sanctum to wait for the others."

The man nodded.
"Then let me escort you there."

"That would be much appreciated, Andreas."

We silently followed behind him as we made our way through the streets. The crowd dispersed somewhat as we gained distance from the Stargate. Eventually, the site of Eris' Ha'tak came into full view. Just a few days prior I had been leaving this ship. Now I was back, and this time it was under new, much more pleasant, management.

We followed Andreas into the ship and to the bridge. To my surprise – and the apparent surprise of Elder James as well – we found Ma'chello, Eudora, and Arktos at the table. Ma'chello was the first one to notice our entrance.

"Arthur! It's good to see you're among us once more. I hope you're doing well."

I smiled.
"I am, especially with Ares, no longer a concern. Thank you."

Arktos remained stoic and turned to me.
"You have done me a great service, and put yourself in serious harm while doing so. If there is anything you require of me then do not hesitate to ask."

There was a surprising amount of sincerity contained in his voice. I nodded to him once – which he returned in kind – and found a chair to sit in alongside Elder James.

Arktos was the first to speak.
"Now that all of you are here, my people have come to a decision. We will be leaving Mycena."

Before anyone could get a word out, he continued.
"It will be soon. Some time in the coming days."

There was a moment of silence at the table. Everyone suspected that this would be coming. Ares might have been a minor System Lord, but he was still a System Lord. It would only be a matter of time before someone realized that he had disappeared. When people started searching for him, the first place they would look would be his first world; Mycena.

"Where do you plan to go?" I asked

Arktos remained stoic as he replied.
"We hope to find the Sodan."

I leaned back in my chair while Elder James nodded in understanding. Meanwhile, Ma'chello and Eudora seemed rather confused.
"I am not familiar with these 'Sodan'."

Arktos nodded.
"I would be more surprised if you were." He gave myself and Elder James a glance; "legend goes that they were once mighty warriors in service of Ishkur. One day, they declared the Goa'uld 'False Gods' and fled."

Ma'chello raised an eyebrow.
"It sounds like you don't really have any idea where you're going."

A smile graced Arktos' face.
"You could say that, yes, but it is better to die following a dream than live as a slave. Ares is no longer a concern and I am free. I will not return to the Goa'uld – not while I am still alive."

He continued.
"I must ask for a favor from everyone at this table. Ares often spoke about his mistrust of Ra; about how Ra always seemed to know the location of every ship in the Goa'uld Empire's Fleet. I have no doubt that part of that was simply paranoia, but I cannot discount that he was correct."

Ma'chello's jaw was visibly clenched.
"We will need to start stripping the ships apart. That is the only way to know for sure."

Arktos nodded. They both knew; if the ships were being tracked then Arktos' followers would not be the only ones in danger. It would mean that Dendred was compromised as well.

Elder James nodded as well.
"While my people do not have much knowledge of Goa'uld technology, we will help how we can."

Arktos let out a deep sigh.
"Good. Onto the second subject."

He turned to Elder James.
"You claimed that one of Ares' Goa'uld was a Tok'ra. The one you spoke of has denied this and I have no proof – other than your word – of your claim."

Elder James nodded.
"One of my men recorded her sending a message. During the conversation she specifically mentioned failing to meet with a Jolinar of Malkshur."

Arktos narrowed his eyes.
"Indeed? May I hear this recording?"

The Elder pulled out his compad. The short recording began to play.
"...Enyalius and Korybas have begun to ramp up their attacks on other Goa'uld holdings. Athena has lost all known vessels. Contact with Jolinar of Malkshur failed. She was likely captured…"

Silence fills the room before Arktos nods.
"That is sufficient. Even if she is not a Tok'ra, she is still an infiltrator for another Goa'uld."

I hesitated for a moment, before speaking to Arktos.
"If they are a Tok'ra as we suspect, then they might be more comfortable speaking to someone who isn't a Jaffa."

He seemed to think for a moment.
"A reasonable suggestion."

He turned to me.
"Would you like to speak to them?"

My eyebrows shot up. I turned to Elder James who nodded lightly at me.
"If you'll permit it. I'm rather curious about the Goa'uld and I haven't exactly had the chance to speak with any of them yet."

Arktos turned to the two members of the resistance.
"Would you two be interested in participating?"

Ma'chello shrugged.
"I am afraid I have other matters to attend to. Eudora, this is more your field of expertise anyway."

She nodded.
"If you'll have me I'll be coming as well."

Arktos looked around.
"Very well. If we are all in agreement then I see no reason to remain here."

Once more he turned to Ma'chello.
"Would you please inform your men that we will be making a return trip to Mycena?"

Ma'chello nodded and saw us off. With the meeting over, we began the walk back to the Sanctum. Elder James spoke to me in a hushed silence as we walked – he made sure we were outside of the hearing range of Arktos and Eudora who were ahead of us.
"Is there anything else that you can remember about the Sodan?"

I thought hard, but there really wasn't all that much.
"They worship the Ancient's as Gods, live on a world that was probably once an Ancient outpost, and heavily use Ancient personal cloaking devices. That's all I remember."

Then it struck me, something that might actually be helpful.
"They semi-regularly raided Goa'uld Strongholds for young symbiotes."

That finally got the Elder thinking.
"If nothing else, it'll be useful for when they start searching."

We soon arrived at the Sanctum. Soon enough, all seven chevrons were dialed and I found myself once more on Mycena.

The Stargate had been moved into the very center of the city. At least 50 Jaffa surrounded the gate, pointing their Ma'Tok Staffs at us. The moment they saw Arktos, all of them raised their staff and as one shouted.
"Jaffa, Kree!"

Arktos nodded and gestured for one to come forward.
"Have our guests prepared. We'll be interrogating her once more."

The Jaffa immediately ran off towards Ares' former flagship and Arktos gestured for us to follow. The city itself appeared much emptier than when Ares was still in command. Whereas there had once been a significantly larger number of servants, tending to the Jaffa, the number had decreased by about half. I spoke to Arktos as we walked.
"I'm surprised so many of those who stayed are not Jaffa."

Arktos nodded.
"Those who follow me do not mistreat those who take care of us."

He let out a dark chuckle.
"Tell me, do you know of the System Lord Apollo?"

I shook my head.
"Just legends. He was a god of Music and the brother of Artemis."

Arktos nodded.
"My first mission as a Jaffa of Ares was to hold a world that Apollo had set his sight on. Apollo rushed in and defeated our commander. I knew the bastard though; the night after the battle, as they were celebrating, I provided poison to his most trusted servants. The very same night we took his head and killed all of his warriors as they slept."

He stopped and looked up at the flagship looming over us.
"Apollo forced those who he chose as servants to kill those closest to them. If they refused, then all of their family would be killed alongside them. He was an extreme example among the Goa'uld, but it is still best not to tempt fate. I earned Ares' favor by returning to him with Apollo's head."

He turned to me.
"Those who make enemies of those who they command will not be rulers for long."

For a long moment he stared at me. I gulped once but nodded. This was a man who had clawed his way to the top in a world that he hated. He had learned how the Goa'uld functioned; he had learned how to exploit it for his own gain. We were just lucky that he considered us his allies.

He patted me once on the shoulder and we continued into the flagship. The gilded hallways were the same in every Ha'tak. I followed Arktos to a set of rooms near the middle of the pyramidal ship. Dozens of doors lined each hallway, with a Jaffa standing before every single door.

Arktos approached one of the doors and turned towards me.
"She's in there."

I nodded.
"Are you really sure that I should be the one going in?"

Elder James chuckled.
"It's fine."

Arktos nodded encouragingly as well. Before I entered, I had a thought.
"Would it be alright if I saw the materials you confiscated from her first?"

Arktos quickly ordered a Jaffa to go fetch the He returned with a bag filled with various knick knacks and pieces of jewelry. After shuffling through the box, I quickly found what I was looking for. Attached to a necklace, was a purple and blue ring with a black gem mounted on the outside.

Carefully picking it up, I turn once more to Arktos.
"I need this."

He raises an eyebrow, but nods soon enough.
"Very well. Keep it as a gift."

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Mirin‐Nal (Hidden Ring) Beam Focuser

I nodded my thanks to Arktos and prepared to enter the room. He motioned for the Jaffa at the entrance to open the door and I walked in.

Sitting at a table was a young woman who appeared to be no older than 20 or 25. She was dressed in rather ordinary clothes – something I knew most goa'uld would despise wearing. Her eyes immediately turned to me and I took a seat across from her.

- - -
POV: Isetri and Ren

We stared at the boy who sat before us. He was strange; he had naquadah flowing in his blood, that much was certain, but it wasn't the normal sensation you'd feel from someone who had once been a host.

Things had already been strange when all those working under Ares were thrown in cells. It became even stranger when the Jaffa claimed they had overthrown Ares; what was worse was that they believed I was a Tok'ra.

The boy before me placed something on the table. I looked down to see my ring. Ren's heart clenched. We sat in silence for a moment.
"You are a Tok'ra, are you not?"

I knew how I had to act.
"You dare accuse me of being one of those…"

As I began to speak, he pulled out a tablet of black metal. A light green light flashed from the device and I heard a voice – my voice – begin to speak. I froze mid-sentence.
"...Enyalius and Korybas have begun to ramp up their attacks on other Goa'uld holdings. Athena has lost all known vessels. Contact with Jolinar of Malkshur failed. She was likely captured…"

I was stunned. How could they have possibly… they must have been watching me. My eyes narrowed on the boy in front of me. He continued from where he left off.
"Ares, Enyalius, and Korybas have all been captured. We know that you are Tok'ra," he picked up the ring, "let's pretend we didn't have that recording. This is enough to identify you."

The ring… how did he know about the ring? I clenched my teeth. There was nothing else I could do. Either they would kill me, or I would sit here. We stared at each other for nearly two minutes before the boy finally spoke again.
"Excuse me for one moment."

It was about three minutes later that he returned. We hadn't moved as we waited. Calmly, he returned to his seat and looked me in the eye. His words would have made me stumble had I been standing up.
"We know where to find Egeria."

 

[BlazingHyperion]

To her credit, Lady Isetri was a master of hiding her emotions. I could not, for the life of me, tell what was going on through her mind. As the seconds ticked by, I almost believed that she wouldn't react. Finally, after almost thirty seconds of an entirely blank stare, a snarl came over her face.
"What do you want?"

I had her.
"Ares has been removed. It is only a matter of time before someone comes looking for him. We need allies. At the moment, you're our best hope for that."

Her snarl turned feral.
"Tell me where our queen is."

I smiled and nodded.
"She is on a world known as Pangar. It was originally ruled by an opponent of Ra's but he conquered it from him. He imprisoned Egeria on the world and has not returned sense."

"That is almost nothing."

A light smile graced my lips.
"It is a lot more than nothing."

Silence filled the room for several more moments. Suddenly, she seemed to shift.
"I need to see Ares."

"He is currently rather indisposed."

"Then I need to see his corpse."

There is a brief moment of silence between us.
"One moment then."

I exit the room to find Elder James.
"She wants to see Ares."

Elder James nodded.
"I should have expected as much."

He turned to Arktos.
"Would you be willing to let us take her?"

Arktos nodded without any hesitation.
"If she is Tok'ra, then she is not a prisoner. You are welcome to take her, though I would like to request that myself and several of my men come along. I find myself rather curious of Ares current state at the moment."

Elder James seemed hesitant for a moment, but that quickly faded and he nodded.
"Of course. It would be rather hypocritical of me to stop you from seeing him as well."

Arktos bowed his head slightly.
"Then you have my thanks."

At Arktos' command, a pair of Jaffa escorted Lady Isetri out of the interrogation room. As she left the room, she seemed to scan everyone. Some slight surprise seemed to show on her face when she saw Eudora and Elder James, but it quickly returned to impassivity. Finally, she turned to Arktos.
"First Prime."

He smiled lightly at her.
"First Prime no longer, Lady Isetri. Had I known you were of the Tok'ra I would have been more courteous in our meeting."

Her face remained impassive as we left the ship and made the now rather short walk to the Stargate. I dialed the Gate, Elder James contacted the other side to inform the village of our arrival, and then we were through the gate. Eudora, Arktos, and Lady Isetri gaped up at one of the massive 11 meter tall Phoenix Hawk standing over the Stargate.

Eudora let out a nervous chuckle.
"I thought you were joking when you said you had bigger ones."

Elder James raised an eyebrow.
"I was completely serious. The Locust was one of the smallest Battlemechs ever created. It was the only one we had that could get through a Stargate"

Elder Callum approached, seemingly out of nowhere.
"It's funny you should mention that. I might have a way to get a Phoenix Hawk through."

A smile lit up Elder James' face.
"Really?"

Elder Callum nodded.
"Aye, I've checked the measurements; you'd just have to lay it down and then slide it through the gate horizontally. It would require some preparation, but it is definitely doable."

Arktos and Lady Isetri seemed to physically shudder at the concept.

As we left the clearing, the landed form of the Leopard came into view. Lady Isetri's face remained completely devoid of expression as we entered. We passed through several corridors before we arrived at a locked door.

At the Entrance, Elder James inputted a rather lengthy code after which the door slid open. Inside were a collection of several Stasis Tubes. Most of them were empty, but inside three of them lay the goal of our little excursion.

Inside Elder Dorian seemed to be at work on a noteputor. He looked up at Elder James, before closing the device. He nodded once to Arktos and Eudora, before turning his head to Lady Isetri.
"You must be Lady Isetri. I have been told that you are here to see Ares."

She nodded, but her attention was already focused on the contents of the Stasis Tubes. She looked over the faces of both Korybas and Enyalius once, before focusing on Ares. After a moment, she turned her attention back to Elder Dorian.
"Is it possible for them to escape from these devices?"

Elder Dorian replied, a faint smile on his lips.
"You can never know when encountering novel alien species, but I'd say it's rather difficult to escape when unconscious."

Finally, she turned her attention to the fourth stasis tube which contained the Ashrak host. She seemed to study the face for several moments before her view suddenly snapped in Elder James' direction.
"Where did you find him?"

Elder James looked rather confused for a moment, but quickly recovered.
"He was among a group of four Ashrak we ambushed." The Elder is quiet for a short moment; "do you know him?"

Her face resumed the same blank look that I had come to expect from her and her eyes returned to the man's form.
"I know of him. He was a Tok'ra host for many years. How have you removed the symbiote?"

The Elder shrugged.
"Dumb luck." He refused to elaborate any further.

She nodded and returned her attention to the other's in the room. Her eyes glowed for a moment and her voice changed to that of a Goa'uld.
"I cannot provide you information about the Tok'ra, but I will aid you how I can. In exchange, when you leave and I am no longer a threat to you, you will allow me to take a ship and leave. Are we in agreement?"

From then, Lady Isetri was much more communicative. We managed to confirm much more clearly that she was a Tok'ra through asking her about their history – something that was very much not common knowledge, from its beginnings with Queen Egeria through modern day.

After that rather lengthy exchange, Elder James had a thought.
"Lady Isetri, do the Tok'ra operate any Ha'taks?"

Her face remained rather blank as it always did.
"We do not. We have captured such vessels on numerous occasions, but Ra would always send a fleet to destroy it."

That was exactly what we had been expecting, and it was not good news.
"Do you know how he tracks the ships?"

She raised an eyebrow.
"If we did, then preventing it would have been simple."

From that point, we moved onto information about the current state of the Milky Way Galaxy and the Second Goa'uld Empire. While Ares – and by proximity, Arktos – knew much about the current state of the Empire, their information was quite limited when compared to what even an undercover Tok'ra operative knew about the other System Lords.

As an aid, Arktos pulled out a flattened map of the Galaxy with the official territories of each System Lord painted over top. Immediately, something caught my attention.
"Why does Ra control so much territory?"

"He is the Supreme System Lord," Lady Isetri replied simply.

I raised an eyebrow.
"I don't understand."

"Do you believe that the title of Supreme System Lord is empty? Ra is the law within all territories of the empire. He is the final say on all that happens. No one is capable of denying him, and attempting to do so only leads to death."

Apparently, Ra in Stargate was not given the respect he deserved. The Second Goa'uld Empire was Ra's creation from beginning to end.

For every Ha'tak constructed by a System Lord, another had to be provided to Ra as tribute. Only a single System Lord, Lord Yu, was free of this tax..

On top of that, Ra had total control over the industrialization of all worlds within the Empire. Only with Ra's express permission was a System Lord permitted to industrialize a world, and it was usually only after that System Lord performed a great feat in Ra's name.

All of this meant that Ra's fleet was larger than the fleet of every other System Lord combined. Even worse, no one knew where his fleet stayed or even its true power. Ra rarely ever used his might – preferring to instead let the other System Lords fight between each other, but when it was truly necessary, a fleet of ten thousand Ha'tak was amongst the smallest that Ra had ever fielded. It was claimed that in the war against the Asgard, Ra fielded a fleet of 50,000 Ha'tak.

The Goa'uld Empire was a game that Ra had won millenia ago. The other System Lords were simply fighting over the scraps that Ra allowed them to have.

In Stargate SG1, the Goa'uld Sokar amassed a fleet of several thousand vessels so that he could defeat Ra. Despite his fleet, he did not believe he could defeat Ra and only acted once Ra had been killed by Jack O'Neil on Abydos.

In the show, we never had any word of what happened to Ra's forces after his death, but it was clear to me now that whether it be Sokar, Anubis, or Ba'al, all of them must have been delusional, because none of them could have possibly defeated Ra in his prime without millenia more of buildup.

It was a sobering thought, and it underlined just how truly lucky Stargate Command was when they killed Ra.

That evening, after several long hours of further discussion, our guests began to return through the Gate. While we had a tentative agreement with Lady Isetri, it was by no means set in stone. The Villagers of Veyna's Rest were not prepared for a guest and – despite the Jaffa's hospitality – she had no desire to return to Mycena. Instead, she returned with Eudora to Dendred where the resistance provided her with Guards.

While Eudora and Lady Isetri left, Elder James pulled Arktos aside before he too prepared to leave.
"I have a request I must make of you."

Arktos raised an eyebrow, but nodded for Elder James to continue.
"You told me before that the Sarcophagus could heal most wounds. Can it revive the dead?"

Arktos face grew slightly hardened; nonetheless he nodded lightly.
"It can, though there are limits."

Elder James nodded slowly.
"When I came to this world, nearly all members of my crew died. Their bodies have been in stasis. Is it possible that they could be revived?"

Arktos looked into the distance for a moment.
"I don't know."

His eyes focused on Elder James.
"If you are willing to try, then I shall not stop you. You shouldn't get your hopes up. If a body has started to decay then it is likely too late, and even then, if they awaken, then they may not be the same people you once knew."

Despite Arktos' words, a fire had appeared behind Elder James' eyes. It was like I was looking at a completely different person.
"If there is the smallest, most minute chance that any of them could be revived, then as their commanding officer I am obliged to try."

Arktos nodded once.
"Then have the bodies ready and I will permit you to use the device."

Relief flooded off Elder James and he gave a gentle smile.
"Thank you."

With that, the Elder saw Arktos off and I found my way to a bed for the night. The next day would be a long one; I would be in Enyalius' fortress deconstructing his ships and searching the Ha'tak for that tracking device.

---
Author's Note
Howdy! I'm going to be releasing two chapters a day until I have my current stockpile of chapters released.

Read all of that (and more) RIGHT NOW: [ LINK: https://discord.com/invite/dbVKfqYw5T ]

 

[BlazingHyperion]

I woke up the next day, early in the morning and prepared to head out. I, alongside a lot of the villagers, would be tearing apart – piece by piece, room by room – the Ha'tak that we had captured from Enyalius. It would take several days – if not weeks – to complete the entire process.

Today, I would be arriving several hours ahead of the main work force and using my first perk to gain the blueprints for all of the ships and any other secondary technology that we acquired from the site. So, at 0400, I arrived at the Stargate and found Elder James and Elder Callum both waiting for me.

"Elders." I spoke to them in greeting.

They both turned to me and returned my greeting. Next, Elder James called for the gate to be dialed out. The DHD had been moved into a locked room within the Leopard in order to prevent unauthorized dialing of the gate. Once I was through the gate, I rectified something that I had forgotten the last time I was on this world and quickly touched the DHD.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Clavis (DHD) User Interface

I was dumbfounded at how unnecessarily complex the User Interface was, but I quickly moved on. The Stargate had been moved much closer to the fortress in order to make it easier to defend and to decrease the time it took to get to the fortress.

The moment I stepped into the fortress, the perk activated.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Zeus' Vacation Complex

The blueprint was interesting, but I didn't have anything that I could compare it to. Examining the documents now in my head, I spoke to the Elders.
"Elders, I just got the blueprint for this facility."

Elder James raised an eyebrow.
"Well, anything interesting," asked Elder Callum.

"I'm not sure. There are a bunch of secret entrances and I'm not sure if you're aware of them or not," I spoke with a shrug.

Elder Callum's eyes lit up.
"Ohh, hidden passages are always interesting."

He turned to Elder James, his previously excited eyes faded to a much more serious face.
"We need to check those passages immediately. You never know what might be inside."

Elder James snorted once in answer but nodded nonetheless.
"Agreed. This takes priority over the Ha'tak. I'll gather some of the squads and have them prepare for the worst case. You two go find all the entrances and mark them. Under no circumstance are you to open any of them."

I nodded, though after a quick look into my memories I thought it worth specifying something.
"Elder, I don't actually know where any of them go or how to open them."

Elder James frowned.
"And how many of these passages are there?"

Some simple mental arithmetic later, I replied.
"Seventeen."

Like that, the initial plan of searching the Ha'taks was put on hold. Elder Callum and I spent the next two hours walking the entire length of the fortress and checking on the locations of the various hidden passageways. By the end of it, nearly a hundred people had congregated in the entrance, among them were Ma'chello and Arktos.

Elder James' face remains impassive as he shakes hands with both men.
"Thank you both for coming so quickly." He turns his attention to Arktos, "Are you aware of the secret passageways within this stronghold?"

Arktos nods lightly.
"I am."

The Elder continues.
"Then are you aware of how many of them there are?"

"Last I was informed, there were 14 such passageways."

"We believe we've discovered 17 passages, but we are unable to open several of them."

Arktos raises an eyebrow.
"If they have been kept hidden, then they likely require a Kara'Kesh to open."

Elder James turns his eyes to Elder Callum who nods slightly and runs off before he returns his attention to Arktos and gives him a nod of thanks.

Next, the Elder turns his attention on everyone and yells once.
"Explosives teams prepare for sweeps. Guard teams, full load out. You have one hour."

He returned his attention back to Arktos.
"Would you be willing to show us those passages that you were already aware of?"

For the next hour – while Elder Callum rushed off to go grab Ares' and Enyalius' Kara'Kesh – Arktos showed us around and pointed out all of the hidden entrances he was aware of in the facility. Elder Callum and I had marked all of the entrances. It took an hour, but by the end, we had once more gone over all of the entrances.

As we return to the Hangar, the different teams are all ready to go, as was Elder Callum with the Kara'Kesh. Elder James called to the room.
"Alright. Bomb squad, you're going in first. Guard teams spread out to 20 meter intervals from the doors. Under no circumstances are you to lose line of sight with the team in front of you."

As I was the only person currently available who could operate the Kara'Kesh, I was required to put it on. A damper was immediately put on this when the very first door required close proximity to open. As such, another 15 minutes was spent getting me into proper defensive equipment.

From there, things progressed smoothly. We started by checking all of the passages that Arktos was aware of. According to him, 11 of the passages were simple escape paths while the remaining three were meant as hidden storage rooms.

Finally, I was ready. I approached the first marked wall and sent a mental command to the Kara'Kesh; it answered by opening the door before me. The passage on the other side was pitch black. I couldn't see more than a few feet beyond the door. Suddenly, lights began to activate at regular intervals along the ceiling and wall. The entire passage quickly became visible.

A simple staircase – though heavily decorated with the standard Goa'uld gilding – led down almost twenty meters before flattening out and continuing for a considerable distance. When consulting a map, it became clear that this passage led straight to the location of the Stargate, and Arktos confirmed that this was the case. A team was sent to scout the passage – after Arktos confirmed that there would be no traps.

The next three passages were all more escape routes, all leading to hidden doors just outside the fortress. The number of hidden passages was truly excessive. It was more of a security hazard than a defence mechanism at this point. If even one of them was discovered, the fortress would effectively be compromised.

The fifth hidden doorway was supposed to be a hidden storage room. Sure enough, when we opened it up we found a rather small square room, with walls approximately 2 meters wide. The room was filled with about a hundred crates, stacked to the ceiling. Opening up a crate revealed several dozen metal bricks. I attempted to pick up one only to utterly fail.

Arktos entered the room and after looking at the bricks gave a light nod.
"High Grade Refined Naquadah. There is enough in this room to purchase several Tel'tak."

After moving all the crates out of the room and confirming there was nothing else hidden within, we closed it up and moved on. It required four people just to move one crate, which went quite far in showing how dense Naquadah is as a material.

We continued to sweep through hidden entrances. The second storage room was totally empty, but the third one contained an emergency weapon supply. There were several dozen Staff Weapons alongside a dozen or so Zat's, but that was it.

By the time we had swept through all the known passages it had been nearly 17 hours. Next was the more worrying entrances, the ones that not even Arktos knew of.

We stood before a completely ordinary wall at the bottommost layer of the fortress. I had tried to use both Ares' and Enyalius' Kara'Kesh to unlock the door, neither had worked. Ma'chello had been able to confirm that there was indeed a mechanism behind the wall, but not even he had found a way to open it.

Next, we tried everything we could to brute force the door open. From continuously blasting it with staff weapons, to laser cutters, nothing worked. Finally, we gave up on the brute force and called in our last hope; Lady Isetri.

When she finally arrived she spent several minutes inspecting the wall before coming to a conclusion.
"I've seen this type of door before. It was designed by Hephaestus. Give me a few hours and it'll be open."

A few teams stayed to watch and provide assistance while the rest of us continued on towards the next hidden entrance.

This one was no simpler to unlock. Once again it refused to respond to any form of command from the Kara'Kesh. Luckily this wall was not immune to damage and it melted open after a minute when under fire from a set of Mausers. As one particularly large chunk of door fell to the floor, a massive plume of dust rose into the air. No one had been through this entrance in millenia.

Inside was rather disappointing. It appeared to simply be another weapon storage room. The room contained crates upon crates of Ma'tok Staffs, Zats, and even several Tacluchnatagamuntoron (I almost started laughing when Arktos said their full name in one go without breaking a sweat).

I was almost disappointed by the materials in the room, that was until I opened a crate and noticed three ceramic jars. Immediately, I closed the box.
"Elder!"

Elder James immediately came over. I leaned over and whispered in his ear.
"There is a possibility that there are live Goa'uld in these."

His eyes narrowed and he quickly brought over Arktos.
Arktos looked at the jars and furrowed his brows. "I am unfamiliar with these… devices."

That didn't make any sense… I figured they'd be pretty common, or maybe not?
"They're stasis Jars," I explained, "they allow for a Symbiote to be stored effectively indefinitely."

We put the crate containing the three Stasis Jars away in another larger crate and locked that one. No one had touched the Stasis Jars to prevent them being deactivated – not even me.

The final entrance was another secret entrance. This one quickly accepted the command from Enyalius' Kara'Kesh and opened to reveal an empty room with a Ring Transporter on the floor.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Shenu Nefer (Goa'uld Ring Transporter) Dematerializer

I compared the dematerializer of the ring transporter to that used in the Stargate. They were basically the same, just one was active continuously, while the other activated for only fractions of a second.

On the nearby wall was the control panel for the ring transporter. I quickly touch it.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Shenu Kar (Goa'uld Ring Transport Panel) Wireless Systems

There was nothing else in the room, and activating the ring transporter simply took the user to Enyalius' single Ha'tak. Now there was only a single unopened door left. We returned to the bottommost layer where we waited for Lady Isetri to complete her work. She had been busy while we were gone. Multiple walls had been blown out revealing some sort of conduit.

The rest of the group sat by and began waiting. Finally, after an hour, Lady Isetri informed us that she would be opening the door. All the teams got into position and prepared. She activated the opening mechanism and immediately retreated to safety.

Once again, we were greeted by a rather lengthy tunnel, except it wasn't what I'd come to expect from Goa'uld construction. Instead the walls looked as if they had just been dug out, completely lacking any adornments whatsoever.

Two squads of guards took the lead with the rest of us following behind. It quickly became clear that this tunnel was much longer than the rest. Nonetheless, our guests were both too engrossed in finding out what was at the end of the tunnel to give up. Both groups sent messages back to their subordinates and we continued onwards.

The tunnel finally ended after five miles. At the end we found a massive stone room, in the center of which sat a landed Tel'tak. Upon looking upwards at the ceiling I could vaguely make out the appearance of a seam from which the room should slide open to allow the ship to leave.

On the ground to the right of the ship was a Ring Transporter, which Lady Isetri was kind enough to activate for us so we wouldn't have to make the trek back through the tunnel. After the ship had been checked for any traps we all entered to examine the vessel. I was the second one inside after Elder James.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Tel'tak Neural Interface

Upon entering the Tel'tak, Lady Isetri made to quickly look around before bee lining to the vessel's controls. I felt both Arktos and Elder James tense slightly while she spoke.
"This ship is at least 4,000 years old."

Elder James nodded tensely.
"Do you know who it belonged to?"

Lady Isetri touched the control crystal in the front seat and the interior lit up.
"Zeus." She turned to Arktos questioningly, "I do believe this fortress was originally built by Zeus, correct?"

Arktos nodded in response.
"I believe so. This was a vacation retreat."

Lady Isetri nodded.
"Then it makes sense that he would have an escape ship here. Zeus was notorious for his paranoia."

After a moment, she began to depower the vessel and everyone inside began to relax.
"The ship's last activation was 4,233 years ago."

We exited the ship and walked to the Ring Transporter. I tapped the device once with my foot.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Shenu Nefer (Goa'uld Ring Transporter) Wireless Systems

Once again, I was unsurprised to find that the Ring Transporters used effectively the same technology as the Stargate.

Next, I turned my attention to the control panel against the wall.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Shenu Kar (Goa'uld Ring Transport Panel) User Interface

A smirk appeared on my face; the panel had been modified slightly. I found the release mechanism hidden along the edges and pulled the panel off to discover a collection of crystals. I removed two of the crystals and swapped their places. Instantly, the nearby wall began to slowly grind open to reveal another doorway.

Turning back, I noticed that Lady Isetri and Arktos were both giving me rather strange glances. Elder James was looking at me like I was an idiot.

…

Right. I probably should have thought about what I was doing. Coughing into my hand in embarrassment, I spoke.
"The uhhh… panel didn't seem right."

Lady Isetri's gaze became much more contemplative. Arktos on the other hand simply smiled and clapped me on the shoulders.
"Arthur, you are a man of many talents."

I once more coughed awkwardly and Elder James let out a sigh.
"Explosives team, move in and check for traps."

Soon enough, the explosives team was out and we could see what was behind the second hidden door. Against the far wall was a Goa'uld Display – something which I had only seen on the bridge of Ha'tak vessels. That didn't catch my attention, however.

No, far more interesting were the set of six robotic bodies placed side by side on a massive table in the middle of the room. They looked strangely familiar. I approached the table and was about to touch it when I thought better of it and turned to Elder James first. He nodded very slightly at me and I continued.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Cybrex Chassis Computational System

- - -
Author's Note:
Thanks for Reading! Two more tomorrow!

 

[BlazingHyperion]

Eudora, being the last one to enter the room, hissed in irritation at seeing the Cybrex Chassis.
"Fracking toasters."

Lady Isetri nodded.
"Members of a Precursor Civilization. Some Goa'uld like to keep them as trophies."

I turned my attention away from the Cybrex Chassis and to the Goa'uld Terminal. I approached it to find a completely unique input system. I touched it and my perk activated again.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Narep Tok (Goa'uld Research Terminal) User Interface

I instantly knew what every button on the device did. I almost turned the device on, but I decided against it. Turning to Lady Isetri, I called out.
"Can you please come take a look at this?"

She quickly walked over and I stood aside. The terminal and display both came to life and Lady Isetri began to navigate through the various entries, and I read them as they flew by.

It seemed that whoever constructed this facility – almost certainly Zeus – had found records of an ancient battle fleet that had been active in this area of space several hundred thousand years ago. His most recent discovery had been a terrestrial base inside which he had discovered this mechanical chassis.

Due to my perk, I had a much greater understanding of the technical aspects of Goa'uld language, but that certainly didn't mean I understood everything. There was one particular word which kept appearing that I had never seen before. As Lady Isetri continued to skim through the entries, a frown appeared on her face.
"That can't be right…"

Finally, she arrived at the earliest set of entries. They were taken from a damaged vessel whose rather primitive hyperdrive had failed between Star Systems. The ship had then drifted for hundreds of thousands of years before being captured in the gravity well of a nearby Star System in an elongated elliptical orbit.

Zeus had found the ship by sheer luck and decided to take it as a trophy when he discovered that the vessel was in nearly perfect condition. That all changed when he found something in the vessel's internal computer network. A video of their final mission.

Finally, Lady Isetri started the video. It was weeks in length, so she significantly sped it up. The video started from a distance well away from a star; in the foreground, thousands of different ships were visible, but they slowly began to separate. As days passed in the video, the fleet began to approach the star. For brief moments, a ring was almost visible in the foreground before slowly disappearing from sight.

As the fleet approached the sun, I finally realized what was being displayed in the video. A massive band of metal stretching around an entire star. I remembered these from my time playing Stellaris in my last life. Now I remembered why the word Cybrex was so familiar. This was a recording of Cybrex Alpha, one of at least two such worlds that the Cybrex – an ancient machine race – constructed in order to hide themselves from the rest of the galaxy.

I almost started to hyperventilate at the thought. I took several deep, shuddering breaths at the newly awakened possibilities this presented. Did the End Game Crisis exist too? What about the Fallen Empires?

I turned away from the screen and examined everyone else in the room. They were just as transfixed on the screen as I had been just moments ago. They were lucky that they didn't understand the implications.

Arktos finally broke the nearly reverent silence.
"Who could possibly construct such a thing?"

The silence hangs in the room, how could anyone answer that question. Instead, Lady Isetri speaks.
"Zeus was searching for the location of this… what do you call it in your language?"

"We would call it a Ring World," replied Elder James.

Lady Isetri nodded.
"An apt description."

As the video continued, the side of the ring facing the star came into focus. It was beautiful. Continents covered in green with oceans that stretched for an unimaginable distance. I turned to Lady Isetri.
"Can you tell how… tall that is?"

She pressed several buttons; glyphs covered the screen. Everyone in the room took in a deep breath. A collection of glyphs on the screen indicated a height of nearly thirty thousand kilometers and a radius of 130 million kilometers.

I shuddered at the sheer scale. Some basic mathematics gave me an estimate of nearly 25 trillion square kilometers of surface area.

Then the ships began to bombard the world from orbit. We watched as days and weeks flew by on the video as the surface of the Ring World was turned to rubble, the oceans boiled, and the continents were flattened. It was a humbling sight.

The recording finally ended as the ship left the star system.

The screen returned to the standard Goa'uld interface. I turned away and looked down at the table. No one said a word; I don't think anyone was cognizant enough to say anything. What could you say after watching… that?

Finally, it was Arktos that regained his wits enough to speak.
"Did he find it?"

Lady Isetri shook her head.
"No. If he had found it then he would not have been capable of hiding it. We are the only ones who know of this now."

Everyone just stands in silence for several moments, before Elder James orders one of the guard teams to enter.
"Grab some secure storage units and pack these up. Gently."

He turned his attention to the others in the room.
"We cannot do anything with this information right now. We will bring this up at a later date."

Slowly but surely, the others nod in agreement.

Elder James escorted the others from the room leaving myself and Elder Callum to assist with the cleanup. The guard team returned shortly bringing six crates with padded internals. I assisted with storing each of the chassis, making sure to touch each one for its partial blueprint.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Cybrex Chassis Frame Structure, Cybrex Armor Plating, Living Metal Myomer, Cybrex Naquadah Battery

First Perk Activated. Complete Source Code Acquired: Cybrex Source Code

The Cybrex Chassis was fascinating, but it wasn't the most interesting thing. The sixth and final Cybrex Chassis had provided me with the entire Cybrex Source Code. Most of it was effectively a highly advanced learning algorithm – and Elder James had already told me not to touch those – what was more interesting (and useful in this case) was the control and interface algorithms for Cybrex technology. If I ever came across surviving Cybrex technology in the future, I would be much more capable of interfacing with it.

The Living Metal Myomer was also rather fascinating. The Living Metal only provided the force for contraction and expansion, and due to the apparent nature of Living Metal, the Myomers used effectively no fuel. The only thing that required actual energy was the Computational System.

It was a fascinating set of designs that I would have to explore at a later time.

It had now been 29 hours since I first stepped foot into this… vacation resort. I needed sleep. I took the ring transporter back to the Fortress and escorted the Cybrex Chassis' back through the gate and to the village where they were safely locked away.

I found my way to my bunk where I quickly passed out.

When I woke up, I had slept for almost 24 hours. I still had another 24 hours before work was scheduled to begin on the Ha'tak, but I decided to get to work early by beginning to inspect the smaller vessels that were available.

With the return of the rest of the villagers, guard duty no longer fell just to the kids. Many of the adults and former hunters had trained with the Elders for extended periods for infantry duty, many of those who could had even been trained as Mech Warriors.

As I entered Enyalius' main hangar, I found a few people just loitering around. I was most surprised to see Elder Callum working through the internals of a particular Tel'tak. If I remembered correctly, this was the one that Enyalius had been modifying when we began the assault.

At the time, we were uncertain about whether or not he would be able to bypass the ship lockdown we had implemented, so we had moved a bit earlier than was advisable. Despite that, everything had gone off without a hitch.

I approached the ship and touched it once.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Tel'tak Subspace Field Initiator

Elder Callum turned to look at me.
"Ahh! Arthur. You're early."

I nodded.
"Elder. I figured I'd get started."

He nodded.
"Well, you should probably start with the Death Gliders first."

I nodded once. He knew this stuff better than I did.
"Alright. What hangar are those in?"

He chuckled good naturedly and got back to tearing through the Tel'tak computer crystals, organizing them and religiously marking what port they had come from.
"Secondary Hangar #2 and onboard the Ha'tak."

"Thank you, Elder." I responded as I walked off. First stop, the secondary hangar it is. It took me several minutes to find my way to the secondary hangar. Inside, exactly as I had been told, lay almost four dozen individual Goa'uld Death Gliders.

The ships are VTOL craft, so a surface like a runway is unnecessary. Starting from the gliders in the front, I begin touching the hull of each of them until I've gained all the knowledge that I'm looking for.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Udakher (Goa'uld Death Glider) Neural Interface, Goa'uld Targeting Computer, Gravitic Pusher, Inertial Dampeners, Staff Cannon (Medium), Udakher Power Cell

Just the Death Glider had six major components. I knew that just the KF Drive on the Manassas had more than one component – viewing the Field Initiator in my mind, I assumed there were at least three more components – I didn't even want to imagine how many the Manassas in its entirety would have. I could only assume that the Tel'tak and Ha'tak would be even more complex.

Anyway, it was time for me to move onto the Tel'tak. I returned to the primary hangar where Elder James was once again.

"Elder." I said to him as I approached.

He turned to look at me for a moment, before continuing his work.
"You finished with the Death Gliders?"

"Yes."

He nodded again.
"Well don't let me hold you up."

I nodded and began the same process of touching each of the vessels.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Tel'tak Goa'uld Hyperdrive, Hyperdrive Computer, Gravitic Pusher, Inertial Dampeners, Subspace Field Distorter (Cloak), Shield Emitter

I let out a sigh. Even eight Tel'tak didn't give me the entire schematic. I returned to Elder Callum to give him a hand. I knew for a fact I was still missing the sensor suite, power source, and the Ring Transporter platforms… though I wasn't sure whether those would be counted as part of the ship.

All together that meant I would need at least two more Tel'tak before I could fully understand the ship's internal workings. I wasn't sure whether the ship's hull would need a partial blueprint as well.

Approaching Elder Callum, I spoke.
"Elder, are there any more Tel'Taks?"

He looked at me, his eyebrow raised.
"No. These are all we have. I take it you didn't get everything you wanted then?"

I nodded curtly, my eyebrows furrowed.

He snorted.
"Well let's put to work what you've got. Help me sort these. We still need to figure out what the heck that bastard was doing to this ship before we captured him."

So, I did just that. I began inspecting the various crystals and luckily for me they were all easy to differentiate for someone who knew what they were looking for; key words being "knew what they were looking for." Differences between individual crystals could be major such as color, diameter, or shape; alternatively they could also be differentiated by things like the shape and size of a cut out. Luckily, I didn't need to learn the differences since a lot of the information had simply been dumped into my head.

Unfortunately, there were still a lot of crystals that I didn't recognize. Most blatant was a set of black crystals that sat near the command interface that were totally unfamiliar, though the blueprint in my mind indicated that that section of the ship was for the main sensor suite.

It took us four hours to realize that a set of crystals had been swapped between the Hyperdrive Computer and the main Command Interface, bypassing the lockdown and activating the navigational subsystem. Even if the gravitic pushers, Hyperdrive, and Subspace Field Initiator were still inactive, it meant that whatever Enyalius was doing wasn't for nothing.

We spent a considerable period of time documenting how Enyalius had gone about bypassing the lockout before moving on.

Next, Elder James had me begin documenting the uses of all the crystals, starting from the Hyperdrive. It took seven hours just to document the purposes of all the crystals in the Hyperdrive alone.

That evening, I used the Stargate to get back to the village and slept. The next day was when we got to work searching the interior of the Ha'tak. 500 villagers – nearly half of Veyna's Rest would be searching and clearing every single inch of the village.

I took a deep breath just at the entrance of the ship, before stepping foot, for the first time, in a Ha'tak.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Ha'tak Goa'uld Capital Hyperdrive

The Hyperdrive was about what I had expected; for the size had been significantly increased and that was about all that had changed. I quickly moved on and began to sweep through the ship with the others. I would only be working on this for a single day – though the rest of the villagers would be searching for at least two considering the fact that every single device would be removed from the ship – since I would be meeting with Arktos in order to get my run in the Sarcophagus.

 

[BlazingHyperion]

My eyes flew open and I found myself staring at the roof of a Goa'uld Room. It felt like just moments had passed since I entered the sarcophagus. I slowly sat up, finding that the room was empty. I took a few seconds to gather my bearings before slowly standing up and getting out of the sarcophagus. Several people began to enter the room as I slowly lowered my feet onto the ground. Looking up, I saw Elder James, Elder Callum, and Elder Annalise alongside Arktos and several Jaffa all entering the room. With them was a stasis tube on a wheeled cart.

Elder James nodded at me. "Arthur. How are you feeling?"

I smiled. "Like you should be worshipping me," I replied with some cheekiness.

The Elders stopped and looked me over. Elder Callum chuckled lightly "Man, was it really that good?"

I stopped and considered his question. "I feel really good. It was like I had the greatest massage of my life, but cranked up to 11. All of my muscle aches are gone and all of my worries don't seem quite so… unmanageable."

Shuddering, I continued. "Yeah. I can see why someone would get addicted to this."

Elder James nodded. "Then it is a good thing that you will not be using the device any more."

Nodding, I carefully stepped out of the way as Elder Dorian and Elder Callum began typing away on a pair of noteputors. After about 30 seconds, Elder Dorian put down his noteputor while he and Elder James put on a pair of gloves. With a hiss, the tube opens to reveal the frozen form of an asian woman with short cropped black hair. Together, Elder James and Elder Dorian carefully lift the woman out of the capsule and place her within the sarcophagus.

With the gentle rumbling of stone, the lid of the Sarcophagus closes shut. Elder James looks over to Arktos. "What now?"

Arktos stared at the sarcophagus with slightly furrowed brows. "Now we wait. Even if she is not revived, her body will be brought back to peak condition."

Elder James let out a deep sigh and sat down on the ground.
"Any guess on how long it will take?"

"None." replied Arktos succinctly.

The Elder nodded.
"I'll wait here then. Callum, Arthur, you two return to the Ha'tak to manage the work. They're running out of places to search, so they're going to start the dismantling soon."

Arktos nodded.
"Then we will leave you in peace to wait."

Elder Callum and I left the room alongside several of the Jaffa while Elder Dorian and Elder Annalise stayed behind with Elder James.

We quickly arrived back at Enyalius's fortress. To find stacks upon stacks of crates all placed together, presumably by object type. As we returned, Elder Dresden found us.
"Callum, Arthur. We've searched everything. We've cleared out every room, hallway, and air duct. We've got nothing."

Elder Callum let out a deep sigh.
"A shame it wasn't that easy. Time to start tearing her apart. Call everyone up."

A little over thirty minutes later, all 500 people had congregated near the front of the fortress. Yelling as loudly as he could, Elder Callum began.
"Alright people. We're going to be taking this ship apart. You are to go through each crystal one at a time and document. I want everything about each crystal; shape, diameter, height, color, if it looks like it has a dent or a scratch, then make sure to mark it down. When you're done with that, you are to completely check every single port and document its appearance and shape. Do not lose any of the crystals. "

With that, Elder Callum let out a deep sigh.
"We are going to be here for a while."

I nodded. He looked at me and gestured for me to follow.
"Come on. The more hands the better."

We each grabbed an internally cushioned wooden crate and entered the ship. A short walk later, we arrived at a room filled with a half dozen pillars. Each pillar was covered in retractable tabs which could extend out of the pillar to reveal the control crystals for the ship.

I beelined to a particular pillar – the primary control crystals for the Hyperdrive – and opened it up. Inside were 63 such crystals. Starting from the activation crystal, I began carefully removing and labeling each of the control crystals, with Elder Callum there to help me.

Once I was finished with the primary control panel, I moved onto the secondary panels, and then the backup panels. If all I had been doing was removing crystals and throwing them in a box, then I could have been finished in thirty minutes. Unfortunately, I was going through the painstaking process of identifying the shape and original position of every single crystal for the Elders to later reference.

By the time I was done, it had been almost eight hours and there was still no sign from Elder James or the others. The Sarcophagus really struggled with fixing brain injuries. Healing those with Brain Tumors had taken nine hours on average. I expected that reviving a person would take at least that long.

It had been a full day, and I retired to bed that night.

I was awoken early the next day by one of the Villagers; Elder James had returned and requested I join him. As I entered the Leopard's bridge, I was surprised to find a meeting of all the Elders and someone new. Someone who had previously been a corpse.

"Arthur, let me introduce Andrea Sarti, Chief Engineer of the SLS Manassas."

My eyebrows shot up. Quite frankly with how long the Manassas' crew had been dead, I hadn't expected the sarcophagus to work; shows you what I know.

She reached out to shake my hand; I almost didn't realize what she was doing before I quickly took her hand and shook it firmly.
"Captain Cromwell has asked me to begin making repairs to the Manassas." Her voice remained professional and courteous through the entire conversation. She continued, "I have been told that you have the greatest understanding of KF Drive Physics of those currently available to assist me."

I raised an eyebrow. "I believe Elder Callum will have a better understanding than me, ma'am, but I've read the manual and I have the schematics for the Field Initiator memorized."

She frowned and turned to Elder James who just nodded at her before she turned back to me. "You will be working with me while the rest of my crew is… revived."

I nodded. "Understood."

She frowned. "While you are working with me, you will respond to me as ma'am. Am I understood?"

I quickly responded. No reason to anger probably the only person who could get the Manassas working again. "Yes, ma'am."

She turned back to Elder James. "I'd like to see the ship. When is lift off?"

Elder James looked down at his watch. "Three hours."

She saluted once and turned to leave the room, leaving me with the other Elders. Elder James walked up to me. "Go get your stuff ready."

I nodded and left the room. I returned from the village several hours later and the Leopard once again launched into orbit. From the moment that the Leopard launched, it took barely an hour for us to get within visual range of the Manassas. From there, it was another 15 minutes of careful maneuvering before we were docked with the Hardpoint.

Elder Callum called me over to help unload some cargo. A set of Transportation Rings. Apparently, a set of them had also been set up down below on the planet. Touching it, I was rather surprised to find that nothing happened.
"Where did you get this," I asked as I carefully turned towards Elder Callum.

"We pulled it out of one of the Tel'tak. Why?"

Cautiously, I replied. "My first perk didn't activate."

Elder Callum stops for a moment before continuing. "So your perk doesn't work on something you've already used it on… what if we removed the Transport Rings before you used your perk?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. We'll have to test it later."

He nodded and we proceeded with locking down the set of Transport Rings so that they wouldn't float off. Finally, Elder Callum got out his radio. "Transport Rings are secured. Send the confirmation."

A moment later a reply came. "Response confirmed. Ring Activation should begin momentarily."

A few short seconds later, the ring activated. Placed in the center of the ring was a piece of paper that slowly began to float upwards and away from the rings. Grabbing it, Elder Callum read off the paper. "Message reads… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5."

Another few seconds later came a second reply. "Understood. Elder James will be… beaming up momentarily."

As he finished speaking, the rings activated and standing in the center was Elder James. He seemed to look around for a moment before turning to myself and Elder Callum. "Just as described. Where would the Chief Engineer be?"

Elder Callum nodded. "She's still preparing her equipment."

"Good." Getting out his own radio, Elder James began speaking. "Inform the ground team that they are free to join us. Just make sure they're off the pad ASAP once they're up here."

"Yes sir." Came the short reply. Shortly after, villagers began teleporting in using the Transporter Pads. In a matter of a couple minutes, eight more people had appeared in the hold. Elder James turned to me. "Arthur, you're coming along."

We took the elevator down to Deck #24 and into Hold J where the large collection of Stasis Tubes were stored. Elder James once again opened up a container to reveal dozens of activated Stasis Tubes. With as much care as they could, four of the devices were lifted and carried to the elevator.

Myself and Elder James didn't get on. Instead, we entered a separate hallway which was labeled as "airlock." I immediately stopped and asked what I thought was a rather important question. "Elder, do we need a space suit here?"

He looked at a panel against the wall as he replied, "If we do, then something has gone wrong." The panel came alive, the words "atmosphere detected" legible on the screen.

"No, we won't need a space suit." Opening the airlock revealed a large door, and a corridor leading to a second large airlock. As we passed through and my hand touched the edge of the Airlock for support, I felt my perk activate.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Bug-Eye (Cobalt Eye, Experimental Platform) Terran Hegemony Computer Core (Experimental)

This computer was the largest and most complex computational device I had come across yet, though only arguably the most powerful. Goa'uld computer tech – when they chose to use it – was significantly more effective, and that wasn't even mentioning the highly optimized computer architecture of the DHD. A quick mental glance through the schematic left me slightly confused. This device ran on custom software that was only technically based on the THOS operating system. I would have time to explore that later.

We entered the Bug-Eye's forward storage room and took an elevator up a couple of levels to what I presumed was the bridge. Upon an elevated platform was a Holotable around which were 4 chairs. Against the walls were room for another eight terminals, presumably for the members of the crew.

As we floated towards the Holotable, the room seemed to come alive around us. Looking at the bridge, I failed to find anything of real note. I found the Elder fiddling away at the Holotable.
"Elder, why are we here? My perk has already activated."

The Elder didn't acknowledge me for a moment. "I'm doing a favor for an old friend."

On the Holotable, the 3d projection of a face appeared. It spoke. "Thank you, James. This video will continue in 60 seconds. This is private, so please leave the room."

I frowned, and Elder James patted me on the shoulder. "Your father asked me to show you this recording when you turned 17. It's a bit early, but it will have to do. I'm returning to the village. Go Find Lieutenant Sarti when you're done here."

I was totally stunned. I didn't even realize the Elder had left until the video continued from where it left off.
"Hello, Arthur. I hope you never have to see this recording, but if you are, then I am dead. This ship is all that I have, it is now yours. The crew were aboard the Manassas during the missjump, so I'm afraid you'll have to find a crew for her yourself."

He took a deep breath.
"Now for the big issues. These names likely won't mean a thing to you, feel free to ask James about them if you feel like it. Your name is Arthur Isadora Cameron, son of Alistair Cameron, the bastard child of Simon Cameron and Isadora Sinclair, first cousin once removed of Richard Cameron II, the final First Lord of the Star League and Director General of the Terran Hegemony."

I had a single thought on my mind; "well… fuck."

- - -
Author's Note:
As you can tell, I have no original ideas.
Anyway, tell me what you think. I didn't outright say it, but I wasn't really hiding that this was the case.

 

[BlazingHyperion]

The video continued before I could get my mind wrapped around what I had just been told. "If you ever return to the Exodus Fleet or the Inner Sphere, those names might carry some weight. If you can use them for your own gain, then do so, but do not let them hold you down or define who you are. James doesn't know, so I leave it up to you whether to tell him or not."

The man on screen chuckled lightly. "Take care of yourself, son, and know that I will always love you."

The video ended there, and I was left in disbelief. "That can't be all…"

I spent almost 10 minutes trying to access the terminal to no avail. I bit my thumbnail; I could try resetting the main computer… no, that would erase everything. If I wasn't in zero-g, then I would have slumped into the chair.

"God damnit!" I smashed the table; I nearly pushed myself off the ground but I managed to grab a railing just before I was too far off the floor. I was pissed. No matter what that man had said about 'not letting it define me,' that wasn't exactly up to me. Anyone from the inner sphere who knew would constantly compare me to my predecessors.

Even worse, I couldn't just let this slide. While House Cameron hadn't been the ones responsible for the creation of the neo-feudal status of the Inner Sphere – no, that had been James McKenna – the people who were apparently my ancestors had been more than happy to take the reins of power for personal gain. Now, for some, god forsaken reason, I felt responsible for that.

To make matters even WORSE, the Cameron name came with advantages. Using the name would give me resources; people, hell, entire worlds would be at my command.

Suddenly, the terminal changed. The original request for a password was replaced with simple text requesting a confirmation of identity. "What the hell does that mean?"

A slot popped out of the side of the holotable, a green, thumb sized light sat on the top. I stared down at it for several moments. "Sure, why not."

Upon placing my finger in the slot, it blinked red several times before returning to a standard green color.

Another face suddenly appeared on the holotable. This one was much less expressive. "Identity confirmed; Arthur Cameron. Greetings. You may refer to me as XI-02."

It hit me then; that was why the computer core had been so weird. The Hegemony must have a separate software platform for creating Artificial Intelligences, especially on the limited computational technology of the inner sphere.

Being rather curious, I began with the basic questions. "What is your purpose?"

The AI immediately responded. "I am an experimental Hegemony AI meant for rapid information coalition and processing."

"Who is your current commander?"

"Arthur Cameron."

I groaned. There was no way Elder James knew about this; he was going to be so pissed. "Right. Well, don't do anything. I'll be back in a few minutes… scratch that, it'll probably be a few hours."

I took the elevator back down to the cargo deck. From there, I floated down the length of the Cargo Access tunnels to get back onboard the Manassas. I went straight back to the secondary cargo hold which contained the set of Transportation Rings. I found it currently guarded by two of the villagers.
"I need to get back to the village."

He nodded and grabbed his radio. A moment later he nodded for me to get on the ring platform. I did so and he activated it. With a woosh, I found myself gently falling onto the ground. I steadied myself for a moment before looking at the nearest guard.
"Where did the Elder go?"

He blinked, but pointed off towards the nearby confederate dropship. I rushed over and found him talking with Elder Annelise. He saw me coming.
"Arthur? You're supposed to be assisting Lieutenant Sarti."

I waved him off. "You need to see the recording, Elder…" Another idea came to me quickly, "Actually, can you perform an ancestry test?"

Elder James frowned. "We only have records for a few noble families…"

I simply nodded at him and he got the idea. Grabbing his radio, he spoke. "Dorian, come to the landing site. I need some assistance"

Barely 10 minutes later, they had drawn some of my blood and Elder Dorian was running the tests. The device beeped once. I turned to the Elder to see him freeze, confusion, disbelief, and something else all running over his face before it fell away to a calm indifference.

He handed his compad over to Elder James who looked at it. He stared for almost ten seconds before he let out a deep, guttural sigh.
"Your father sure kept his secrets close."

He handed the compad back to Elder Dorian. "What else did your father's message say?"

"Just to use the name as I saw fit, not to let it define me, and that he was leaving me the Cobalt Eye."

He nodded. "I knew about that last one at least."

I chuckled nervously. "There is… also something about the ship."

Elder James squinted at me. "What?

"The Cobalt Eye was an experimental platform. You know how the Star League was stuffing automation into all of their tech… well, they shoved an AI into the Cobalt Eye to aid with data processing."

The Elder froze, his eyes narrowed. For several long, tense moments, he was silent. Finally, another sigh left him as he slumped over and started rubbing his temples. "You always cause me so many problems, Arthur."

After a moment, he turned to Elder Dorian and Elder Annelise. "Dorian, Annelise, you two are going to the negotiations in my name. I'm going to be gone for a few hours."

They both nodded, and I followed Elder James to the Transportation Rings and back up to the Manassas. We found Elder Callum and Lieutenant Sarti both in the Drive Control room. "Callum, I need your help, and possibly your advice."

Callum simply shrugged and nodded, while the Lieutenant nodded for them both to leave her to her work. We once more made our way down to the cargo access bay that was used for docking with the Cobalt Eye and entered. From there, we rode the elevator to the Bridge.

Once more, the holotable lit up. "Greetings."

Elder James looked at the face. "Who is your current commander?"

The impassive face replied instantly. "Arthur Cameron."

Elder James continued, "Have you ever been under the command of anyone who fought against the people of the Star League or its interests?"

The AI responded. "My only commanding officers have been Arthur Cameron and Alistair Sinclair née Cameron."

Elder James frowned. "What was your year of commissioning?"

"This vessel was commissioned on the 3rd of June, 2756; Maiden Voyage was on the 18th of November, 2766."

The Elder continued to frown. "Why did construction take so long?"

"My designers struggled to fit a sufficiently powerful computational device into the hull. A total of seven years were required to design and build the experimental computer core that I run on."

Elder James continued asking the ship's AI questions for almost twenty minutes. By the end he seemed much more at ease, though I couldn't really understand why.

Moving away from the questions about the ship's construction, the Elder started asking about more recent information. "What was your last assigned task?"

The AI responded in the same neutral tone that it had been using for the last 30 minutes, "I was tasked with watching nearby star systems for signs of any human civilization. Before that, I was assigned to find Terra using previously mapped stellar data."

Elder James actually scoffed at that one. "That prick. He said that he was the one who found Terra."

The AI – though its voice remained neutral – sounded almost annoyed. "That would be incorrect. I was the one responsible for finding Terra's location."

I stared back and forth between the two. "Wait, we know where Terra is?"

Elder James snorted. "Of course we do."

The AI continued for him. "I have used 13 different stellar navigational techniques to confirm the current location of Terra."

I continued, "So why didn't you return to the Inner Sphere?"

Elder James let out another deep sigh – fair I suppose; it was a rather long day for him. "The Inner Sphere is over 30,000 light years from our current location. It would take us 22 years to make it back, and that's assuming that the Manassas' drive was fully operational and in perfect working order."

I raised an eyebrow. "Okay, but that's with Inner Sphere tech. What about a Goa'uld ship – one of the Tel'taks. Those things can travel at 32,000 times the speed of light. It'd be back in less than a year if it travelled non stop. Or maybe one of the Colonial Jump Drives. We saw that the Dendredians have some Colonial ships. Those things have a recharge time of like… 30 minutes."

Another thought hit me, "Or what about we just use the Stargate. Terra should have two Stargates, and I can practically guarantee that some of the nearby worlds will have Gates as well."

Elder James nodded. "We'll have to try, but not now. I'm not sure a lot of the villagers will want to return to the Inner Sphere."
A thought hit me. I turned to the impassive face floating above the Holotank; "Approximately what year is it in the Inner Sphere."

The reply came immediately. "Accounting for distance to the target and speed, it should be sometime in the middle 30th century."

Elder James nodded. I looked at him strangely. "Why didn't you tell me what year it was?"

He shrugged. "You never asked. We don't even know the specific year; we just had an estimate, a rather unreliable estimate at that."

I let out a sigh but nodded. "What do we do now," I asked the Elder.

He turned to Elder Callum who was watching in silence. "Callum, do you know anything about AI systems?"

Elder Callum rubbed his chin. "Just some first hand experience with combat drills against Casper's before the war. I'm pretty sure that anyone with any technical expertise relating to AI are dead."

The AI confirmed Elder Callum's words. "That is correct. All of my creators have been confirmed dead. Any who survived have likely died of old age."

"What about the Cobalt Eye's former crew? The message said they were onboard the Manassas when the missjump happened."

Elder James shook his head. "I need to get the technical crew back first. It'll be weeks before I have enough Engineers revived to even consider reviving non-essential crew members."

Several moments passed and Elder James let out a deep sigh. He turned to me, his voice more grave than I had ever heard it. "Arthur, you are this ship's commanding officer. The AI is your responsibility. Am I understood?"

I nodded. "Yes, Elder."

He nodded back. "Good. Let's go."

The Elder left me in the Drive Control room with Elder Callum and Lieutenant Sarti. The KF Drive was an absolutely monstrous device. It had a massive quantity of things that had to be checked and confirmed before we even got around to power it up. With just three people, just trying to figure out all the changes that had been made would likely take weeks if not months. Luckily it would only be a few more hours before another Engineer would be back amongst the living and able to help us with our work.

By the end of the day, everyone was exhausted. We use the Transportation Rings to get down to the planet's surface. They were effectively instantaneous and the Leopard had already returned to the Planet's surface since it was being used as the Elders' main base.

The entire day felt like one massive roller coaster ride. I didn't even know where to start. Luckily, I didn't have to; the moment I was in my bed, I was fast asleep.

 

[Deus Ex Mima]

I really hope he get GFL stuff now, not enough fics with that tech. Plus, while short term it was a good idea to refuse it (because local ai hate), long term it was dumb given the possibility of prosthetics and (relatively) disposable troops that can be revived. He'll need that for what he's likely going to face.

 

[Skrattybones]

So is the Inner Sphere actually there, or is this a full on Stargate universe? IE: it's the 1990s or earlier?

 

[BlazingHyperion]

I woke up early the next day with a realization; Immediately, I went to discuss it with Elder James. I sat down across from him – having grabbed some bread and soup – and began to talk. "Elder, if I went through the materiel aboard the Manassas, then I could be doing a lot more."

The Elder stopped for a moment. He seemed to almost deflate, but he quickly agreed with me. "Alright. I'll take you through the ship."

I blinked, rather surprised. For some reason I expected him to deny my request. "May I ask why we haven't already?"

He seemed to think for a moment, before letting out a light chuckle. "Most of the primary holding bays have been locked out. I'll have to bring her fully online to unlock full ship access."

That very much felt like a half truth. Well, if he needed to tell me then he'd tell me.

An hour later, we took the Transporter Rings up to the Manassas alongside Elder Callum and Lieutenant Sarti. This time, we took the Elevator to the bridge. The room slowly lit up as we entered. Elder James began by activating several terminals. "Fuel… is at 80%. We're going to start reactivating the secondary fusion reactors."

That was odd. According to protocol, you were supposed to light a single secondary reactor, then the primary reactor, then the remaining secondary reactors. "Elder, what about protocol?"

He continued typing away at a terminal. "The main reactor is damaged. We can't reactivate it in its current state."

I winced but nodded. That would do it.

We spent the next hour ensuring that all of the vessel's secondary reactors were all within nominal tolerances. Finally, as we were preparing to activate the engines, Elder James stopped. For several long seconds he was frozen in place, seemingly deep in thought. I was just close enough to hear him mumble, "to new beginnings."

The Elder hit 'Enter' and the startup procedure began. One reactor would activate, the computer would confirm its operational status and continue to the next one. It took five minutes to activate all twenty six of the Manassas' secondary reactors. With each reactor to come online, it almost seemed like Elder James seemed to change even further than he already had.

Where there had once been a jolly old man who helped raise me – help raise everyone in the village – there was now a man who radiated an aura of almost smug superiority and desire. Then, just as swiftly as the change had come, it had left.

Half a minute passed in silence as the final confirmation of all secondary reactor function was confirmed. Finally, Lieutenant Sarti broke the silence, "Sir, all secondary reactors online and nominal."

Elder James nodded. "Excellent. You and Callum are free to return to Drive Control and continue performing maintenance. I'd like to know what caused the original drive failure before using it again. While we are no longer on the clock, that does not mean you have all the time in the world. You are dismissed."

The lieutenant saluted and left the room. Callum stood there.

Elder James snorted, "No need for that Callum. Go."

Once both of them were gone, Elder James sighed. "I need to have a talk with that woman; no matter what remains of the SLDF, I barely count as a soldier anymore."

He turned once more to his terminal, "Arthur, this ship isn't going to be going anywhere for a while. Are you aware of grav deck readiness procedures?"

I quickly pulled out the printed manual I had been borrowing and flipped to the correct page. "Yes Elder. I have it open."

He nods. "Good you make sure all the seals are in working order. I'll do the motor and alignment tests."

We spent thirty minutes ensuring that all grav deck parameters were within acceptable limits. Then Elder James once more hit the 'Enter' key on his keyboard. I was expecting to feel a jolt, but nothing came. Over the course of ten minutes, both grav decks slowly sped up to a speed of 4.46 revolutions per minute.

After some final checks, the Elder nodded and got out his radio. "The grav decks are operational. Move the Ring Transporter to Deck #09."

A confirmation quickly came and Elder James nodded for me to follow him,"alright. Time for the external inspection."

Finally we left the bridge and took the elevator to Deck #23. This deck appeared similar to all the other storage decks, but there was something else here as well. Several massive grey blocks dominated the room. I approached one and touched it.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: S-7A Bus (Orbital Shuttle) Burster M-100 Fusion Engine

The Fusion Engine in the shuttle was quite unique compared to that of a mech. Where the Mech Engine was focused purely on electrical output, this one had slight vents for the RCS systems and the main engine.

The Hangar had another type of vehicle as well. Where the S-7A Bus was a shuttle purely for use in orbit, the ST-46 was a sub-orbital shuttle. Only thing was, we couldn't really use it since it required a runway.

The shuttles themselves were pretty large. They had been stuffed into the cargo bays to make room for other equipment as well. There were four more of the S-7A and three of the ST-46 within the cargo holds. The Elder had me inspect them all for their blueprints.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: S-7A Bus (Orbital Shuttle) Reaction Control System, Ferro-Tile Hull, Atmospheric Regulation System

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: ST-46 (Sub-Orbital Shuttle) Entech 200c Fusion Engine, Ferro-Tile Hull, Avionics & Navigation Suite

I followed the Elder down a large corridor that had been totally filled with and to an airlock. This was one of the two launch catapults for the Manassas' "small craft". Each of these had been used as storage for another pair of two S-7A Busses since there wasn't any further room in the deck for more shuttle craft.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: S-7A Bus (Orbital Shuttle) Docking/Cargo Assembly

The avionics in the Bus were very similar to those on the ST-46, so I helped the Elder get everything started up. Then, with a light jolt and a hum, the catapult gently pushed us out of the Manassas.

For a brief fraction of a second, the Elder burned the main engine to get us away from the ship. Then he turned us around and I once more caught sight of the Manassas. This time was different than the last. We were in the shadow of the world this time, but the ship was entirely illuminated by its external lighting.

I could barely make out the spinning of the grav decks – though only a small section of each was visible. Slowly but surely, the Elder began to make his way around the ship, examining the condition of the hull.

We spent two hours floating around the exterior of the ship before the Elder was satisfied. Then we spent another hour examining the Cobalt Eye. Neither had any serious damage, though there had apparently been a few asteroid strikes which I had barely even noticed.

Finally, the Elder took us back into the catapult bay and docked with the Airlock. It had been a fun experience to just look at the exterior of the Manassas.

Elder James got out his compad while I spent a few minutes walking over to the floor's other launch catapult so that I could examine the remaining S-7A.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: S-7A Bus (Orbital Shuttle) Avionics & Navigation Suite

I was pleasantly surprised that everything came together. There were just enough examples of the S-7A to fill out the entire blueprint.

In a pleasant mood, I returned to find Elder James searching through a shipping container. As I entered, the inside was filled with even more smaller crates. Opening one, he nodded and looked at me. "We'll start with these."

I picked one up and a chuckle escaped my lips as I quickly moved my hand across the top of all of them.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: LGB-46T Paint Gun Pressure Container, Paint Canister, High Pressure Nozzle

That nozzle was actually really good. It had exceptional durability and was basically impossible to clog. I could definitely use that later.

"Do you have any examples of the paints?"

He nodded. Soon enough, I also had the complete chemical structure for the various paints and chemicals that were commonly used. Though I quickly realized this wasn't nearly as useful as I was hoping. The chemical structure did not include the synthesis process, and none of these were chemically simple.

First Perk Activated. Complete Chemical Structures Acquired: Star League Multi Use Fluid Kit

From there we just continued along, opening one crate after another. The next several crates contained Star League Uniforms for every branch (Naval Officers, Mech Warriors, Pilots, and Infantry). This included extra rank insignias and the like. Not all that useful, but I have them now I guess.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Star League Vacuum Suit

First Perk Activated. Complete Knowledge: Star League Defence Force Uniform Design

At the end of that, I got a new system notification; "Complete Knowledge". I didn't really know what was different about it, but it was certainly interesting. The most immediately useful tech of those was the Pilot Uniforms which, by necessity, were capable of keeping the wearer alive in vacuum.

Everything else on this floor was perishable goods, shuttles, or clothes, so we moved on to Deck #06. This deck was where the Marine Contingent regularly stayed. We found our way to the Magazine; there were a LOT of guns. I already had the blueprints for the Mauser A1, and the Mauser 960, but that wasn't all that was here.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Soo, if I wrote down everything, then I would be here for a thousand words of JUST system notifications. Gonna cut it down a lot].

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Man-Pack Particle Projector Cannon (M-PPC) Accelerator Chamber, Capacitor Bank, Cooling Assembly, Focusing Chamber, Control Assembly

The most insane of these was a portable Particle Projector Cannon. The thing was basically the size of a minigun. From there, I spent a minute walking around and touching every single weapon in the room. From Auto-pistols, to anti-material rifles, from Blazer Rifles to Pulse Lasers, from grenade launchers to anti-mech missiles. There was… a lot.

That wasn't even mentioning the explosives… so many explosives. The most common was the C-8 Charges, but there was also a lot of ammunition, especially for the grenade and rocket launchers.

By the time I left the room, I had once more received two more rather unique notifications.

First Perk Activated. Complete Knowledge Acquired: Star League Standard Issue Infantry Ammunition

First Perk Activated. Complete Knowledge Acquired: Star League Standard Issue Infantry Kit

Next was Deck #07. The Manassas had Six Docking Hardpoints – two more than a standard Block I Aegis. Two of the Docking Hardpoints were empty as both those dropships – a Confederate Class Dropship and a Leopard Class Dropship were both currently landed in the Village. The remaining four Hardpoints were occupied by more Confederate Class Dropships.

We entered the first storage bay and I was immediately blown away. Locusts! Locusts Everywhere! So Many Locusts. It seemed like they had done everything they possibly could to fit as many Locusts into the bay as Humanly possible.

Checking the manifest, I was dumbfounded. 31 Locusts! Just in this bay! The Manassas Secondary Bays were designed to hold either 12 Battlemechs or 24 secondary vehicles. I stared blankly at the room.
"That's a lot of Locusts."

Elder James nodded.

I continued. "Who the hell got this many Locusts in here?"

"That would be our Quartermaster, Lieutenant Markus Voss," he replied.

Looking through the room, I found 22 completely intact Locusts' and 9 that had been partly or entirely disassembled to fit them in. I remembered there being at least 20 Locusts onboard the Confederate that was taken down to the planet. Disassembled mech parts were strapped down literally anywhere they could fit.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Locust (LCT-1Vb) LTV 160 Fusion Engine, Garret T-10B Communications Suite, O/P 911 TTS Suite, Ferro-Fibrous Armor, Locust Weapon Hardpoints, Gyroscopic and Actuation system, Neural Interface

We moved on. Deck #08 was one of the ship's two grav decks, so the next deck was Deck #09. This deck stored a collection of 12 fully assembled and six disassembled CRB-27b Royal Crabs. I stared at the room. Every conceivable tie down and locking mechanism had been used to make sure as many mechs as possible were stored away, that wasn't even mentioning the six more mechs onboard the docked dropship.

Also of note was the names of each of the Dropships docked with the Manassas. In order of what Docking Hardpoint they were at were the SLS Maresias (that was the one that was down on the planet), SLS Bannerfall, SLS Somerset (that was the Leopard), SLS Artemis' Reach, SLS Cinder, and the SLS Claymore.

Once more, we passed through all the mechs. I got the complete blueprint after looking through nine of the things.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Royal Crab (CRB-27b) Hollis Mark 1A Chassis, Magna 250 Fusion Engine, Dalban Series K Communications Suite, 650 RND TTS Suite, Paulina Ferro-Fibrous Armor, Double Heat Sinks, Crab Weapon Hardpoints, Gyroscopic and Actuation system, Neural Interface

I also smacked the docking collar of the Confederate SLS Bannerfall so that I got a partial blueprint from that.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: SLDF Confederate Dropship Thordan 650X (Fusion Engine)

Deck #10 was the Docking Hardpoint used by the Leopard SLS Somerset. The Ring Transport had been moved several hours prior and was now on the grav ring. The storage bay was mostly used for ammunition storage, but there were also a pair of Phoenix Hawk's in this room.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Phoenix Hawk [PXH-1c "Special"] Earthwerks PXH Endosteel Chassis, Snubnose PPC

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Gauss Slug

First Perk Activated. Complete Knowledge Acquired: SLDF Standard Autocannon Ammunition

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Arrow IV Arrow IV TTS Suite, Arrow IV Mini-Fusion Engine, Universal Payload Acceptor, Arrow IV Guidance System

Surprisingly, it was only here that I gained my first individual mech scale weapon. Every other mech scale weapon was only added to the mental blueprint when I gained the final major component and the subparts were being filled out. Maybe it was due to the fact that the PXH-1c was experimental? I would consider that another time.

There was also the Arrow IV Missile System. I remember that this system became Lostech in the Inner Sphere during the succession wars, but before that they were highly favored. They weren't even that complicated – relatively speaking. Of course, the electronic components were still the most complex part. I would have to design an electronics assembly line before we would be manufacturing these things.

Now, all of that was great, but the really big thing were the five, 100 ton White Shark Capital Grade missiles. These things were absolutely massive. I didn't waste any time and grabbed the blueprints for them.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: White Shark Capital Grade Missile White Shark Frame, White Shark TTS Suite, White Shark Fusion Engine

Deck #11 was surprising; a total of eighteen mechs of three different types were stored here, plus an additional ten Mechs stored aboard the docked confederate. Ten marauders, nine Warhammers, and Nine Atlas IIs. Once again, spare rooms had been taken up wherever possible to make room for every single mech they could fit. It was the same, even onboard the Confederate SLS Artemis' Reach.

The SLS Artemis' Reach, like all (if you ignore the specially modified SLS Maresias) Confederate Dropships, was designed to hold 6 Battlemechs total. They had managed to get it up to 8 by disassembling parts, and literally bolting them to the walls, but there had been a couple of mechs left. The people on board had worked together to completely disassemble the machines and stuff them into literally any open space you could find onboard. Somehow, they managed to store an extra pair of Warhammers in the crew quarters and mess hall. I didn't know if it was genius or insane.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Royal Atlas II [AS7-D-H2] Foundation Type 10X Chassis, Vlar 300 Fusion Engine, Army Comm Class 5 Communication Suite, Army Corporation Type 29K TTS Suite, StarSlab/2 Ferro Fibrous Armor, Double Heat Sinks, Atlas II Weapon Hardpoints, Gyroscopic and Actuation system, Neural Interface

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Royal Marauder [MAD-2R] GM Marauder Chassis, Vlar 300 Fusion Engine, Dalban Micronics Communication Suite, Dalban HiRez TTS Suite, Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment, Double Heat Sinks, Marauder Weapon Hardpoints, Gyroscopic and Actuation system, Neural Interface

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Royal Warhammer [WHM-7A] StarCorp 100 Chassis, VOX 280 Fusion Engine, O/P 3000 COMSET Communication Suite, O/P 1500 ARB TTS Suite, Double Heat Sinks, Ferro-Fibrous Armor, Warhammer Weapon Hardpoints, Gyroscopic and Actuation system, Neural Interface

I also grabbed the partial blueprint for the Confederate Dropship when I entered SLS Cinder.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: SLDF Confederate Dropship Confederate Dropship Frame

Deck #12 stored a total of 14 King Crabs. The King Crab, being a rather wide mech, was much more difficult to fit in the bay. Nonetheless, the Quartermaster had managed to stuff an extra pair of the things – disassembled of course – onboard. Then there were another six of the things onboard the SLS Cinder.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Royal King Crab [KGC-000b] Hollis Mark II Chassis, Vlar 300 Fusion Engine, Aldis X Ferro-Fibrous, Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment, Dalban Commline Communications Suite, Dalban HiRez-B TTS Suite, Artemis IV Fire Control System, Gyroscopic and Actuation system, Neural Interface

Also onboard the SLS Cinder were three Barracuda Capital missiles; each weighed nearly a hundred tons. If they had been around in my past life, they would have outmassed a minuteman ICBM almost three times over. I also got the Confederate's Landing System while I grabbed that blueprint.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Barracuda Capital Grade Missile Barracuda Frame, TTS Suite, Barracuda Fusion Engine

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: SLDF Confederate Dropship Landing System

Deck #13 was the other grav deck, so we skipped it and moved on.

Deck #14 was the final Docking Hardpoint. I was amazed to discover an absolutely massive assortment of non-mechs. Everything from a pair of submarines to six VTOL aircraft. It was a lot. I quickly walked through them with Elder James, inspecting each of the vehicles and grabbing their blueprints.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Manta Fast Attack Submarine Pressure Hull, Royal Nelson Drive System

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: SLDF Mobile HQ TharHes HQ CommSet, Diplan-IX SideSweeper, Holotable

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Fury Command/Support Vehicle M-9 Gauss Rifle, Nirasaki-400X computer, Tread System, Pitban 320-rated fusion engine, Fury Chassis

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Chaparral Missile Artillery Chaparral Chassis, Arrow IV Launcher, Nissan 200 Fusion Engine, TransComm WDS40A, TransComm 12 Communication System, Sapphire Medium Laser,

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Cobra Transport VTOL Cobra VTOL Chassis, VTOL Wing Assembly, Hermes 100 Fusion Engine, McArthur Anti-Missile System, Datacomm 100 Comm System, Tarmac Quasar V

The SLS Claymore, was carrying top secret equipment and couldn't be accessed without getting approval from the vessel's senior officer. It was only a matter of time before such officers could be revived, so Elder James and I decided to wait, but I didn't forget to slap the Docking Collar as we left.

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: SLDF Confederate Dropship Docking Collar

Next was Deck #19 which was one of the crew quarters levels, though most importantly, this deck contained the ship's medical wing. Last time I was on this level, I was unconscious, so I hadn't looked all that closely at the technology. At the same time, there was and wasn't a considerable amount.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Automated Surgery Table

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Medical Scanner Suite

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Medical Computer

[AUTHOR NOTE: I'M GETTING REALLY LAZY!]
The most incredible advancements were the Automated Surgery Table and the Suite of Medical Scanners that were available. The Medical Computer was interesting. It was a single, massive Custom Integrated Circuit. Some parts of it had been designed by an algorithm, but most of it was designed by hand. It must have taken decades of iteration and optimization to get a computer this highly optimized.

Deck #20 was the deck that housed the Mechwarriors and Fighterjocks onboard the Manassas. Most of the stuff on this floor was crew housing, but there was one very useful piece of technology.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Nirasaki Training Simulator Mk.II

The Training Simulators were only slightly more advanced than the simulators used in the late 90s in my previous life. Despite that, they were amazing. They could be used for both mech or fighter training. They had worked with every major corporation in the Hegemony to make sure that every mech and fighter aircraft operated exactly as it did in reality.

I could probably do a lot to increase its technical specs, and I could absolutely integrate Goa'uld inertial dampeners to increase the immersion in the simulator.

Next was Deck #22. This was one I had been really looking forward to; the housing for the Aerospace Fighter Contingent. In total, the Manassas' Hangar could carry 3 squadrons of six fighters for 18 fighters total – though it could technically carry more in the Storage Bays, they just couldn't be launched readily like those stored here.

The Manassas was currently assigned two squadrons of Royal Sabres and one squadron of Royal Eagles.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: EGL-R6b Eagle Heavy Aerospace Fighter ImStar Eagle Frame, Datacomm 26 Communication Suite, Dynatec 990 Tracking Suite, Vlar-300 Fusion Engine, RCS Systems, Atmospheric Control Surfaces

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: SB-27b Sabre Light Aerospace Fighter Sabre Frame, XL Engine, Ki-II TS Tracking System, RCS Systems, BipStar 49-G Communication Suite, RCS Systems, Atmospheric Control Surfaces

I barely got the entire blueprint for the Eagle, so I was rather glad about that. While it was fun looking at the Aerospace Fighters, we quickly moved on.

Deck #24 was the primary storage deck. With that, came a unique addition; a pair of detachable cargo pods. These were Hold F and Hold J.

Hold J was filled with a LOT of medical equipment. I got a look at the cargo manifest, and it was something. The main cargo was 2200 Stasis Tubes; There were more than enough tubes for the entire crew of the Manassas as well as all the Dropship Crews many times over, but there was more, a LOT more. There were a large number of automated surgical tables and medical scanners. I had already seen the same equipment in the ship's medbay, so there was nothing too surprising there.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Myomer Implantation Device

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Medical Grade Myomer

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: MASH Truck MASH Truck Chassis, Vox 80 Fusion Engine, HICK-4 Communications Suite, Compact Automated Surgical Table, MASH Core, Pharmacy/Dispensary

First Perk Activated. Complete Knowledge Acquired: SLDF Field Medic Equipment

The most surprising thing was the six MASH Trucks that were all stored in specially modified cargo containers. Then there had also been the absolutely massive quantity of field medic kits and medical supplies.

There was one thing that really stuck out, however. A group of containers carrying 120 prototype "Cradle Life Units."

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Life Cradle Unit Biocontainer, Nutrient–Perfusion Bioreactor, Respiratory Exchange Module, Environmental Regulator, Waste Processor, Health Monitor

I'm pretty sure that these were Iron Wombs, or at least an early prototype. These could come in handy. I remember the mention of moral implications of such devices, and I had never really been able to understand the issue.

Nonetheless, I'd have to discuss what we were going to do with these later.

Next was the other detachable Cargo Pod. This one had industrial equipment, both for mining and for agriculture. All of that was interesting, but the main attraction was the six massive water purifiers that took up almost half of the cargo pod.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Jamerson-Ulikov Water Purifier

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Dig King Industrial Mech Frame, Fuel Cell Engine, Drilling Equipment, Actuators and Gyros

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Harvester Ant Mech Frame, Leenex 60 internal combustion engine, Farming Equipment, Actuators and Gyros

Even though there were only four of each Industrial Mech, I still got the complete blueprint for both which was very nice.

Lastly, Hold I and Hold K mainly contained more infantry equipment. However, Hold I also contained a lot of antique Terran Hegemony Furniture – stuff from the 20th and 21st century, now almost 800 years old. Wasn't of much real use, but it would definitely be nice at a later date.
Hold K, in the meantime had something much more useful; prototyping equipment. Lathes, powerhammers, grinders, even specially designed 3D Printers. That would all be incredibly useful when the time came to start creating and testing my own blueprints.

First Perk Activated. Complete Knowledge Acquired: Basic Prototyping Equipment

The fact that the knowledge was "Basic" led me to check something. Sure enough all of this industrial equipment was also antique. In all honesty, I had been kind of disappointed when I thought that this was Star League state of the art tech for the 28th century, it was good to see that I was wrong.

The secondary cargo hold on Deck #25 was used for non-perishable food stuffs, but the hold on Deck #26 contained a lot of portable computing equipment, including multiple unopened boxes of Compads and Noteputors.

First Perk Activated. Complete Knowledge: Star League Portable Computational Devices

Once again, the notification told me I had "Complete Knowledge" rather than an individual Blueprint. I'd have to explore the differences in the future.

That was just about everything. I'd seen every piece of unique or interesting technology that was available onboard the Manassas. The Elder began to take us back to Deck #09 where we could ring back to the surface when I remembered something, "what about equipment on the Cobalt Eye."

Elder James shook his head. "Nothing but perishable food stuffs and the like."

I stared at him for a moment, "Are you sure?"

The Elder seemed to consider it for a moment, before selecting Deck #24, where the Cobalt Eye was docked to the Manassas via the Cargo Access bay. We quickly made our way to the Cobalt Eye's bridge. As we entered the bridge, everything came to life and a rather placid face once more appeared above the holotable, silently waiting.

I spoke to the AI. "Do you have a complete manifest of all ship equipment available?"

The AI quickly responded. "Of course." The terminal just beneath the Holotable came to life and started scrolling through the equipment available onboard. As I looked through it, I noticed that it was indeed as Elder James had said. I frowned and turned towards the AI's projection. "And this is all the equipment aboard this ship?"

"That is the official manifest," the AI replied in its neutral voice.

I stopped. "Is there any unlisted equipment aboard?"

The AI was quiet for a moment. "The ship's effective mass is greater than would be expected from the current cargo manifest."

Elder James stopped and looked up, "by how much?"

"There are approximately seven tons unaccounted for."

I smirked. That was a lot. "Are there any locations that you are unable to monitor?"

"Personal Quarters and the Gym."

We both nodded and got started. The first thing we did was check the crew quarters of every crew member. Luckily the Bug-Eye only had a total crew complement of 48; the Cobalt Eye, being an experimental vessel, had an even smaller complement of just 32 since a lot of the jobs handled by enlistees could safely be handled by the onboard AI.

It quickly became clear that there was nothing suspicious in any of the crew quarters, so next was the Gym. The Bug-Eye had no grav deck, so the Gym was incredibly extensive – it had to be in order to prevent the symptoms of extensive time in Zero-G. The walls were mirrors – like I'd seen in a lot of Gyms in my past life, there was everything you could imagine; advanced resistive equipment, stationary bikes, even several zero-g specialized treadmills.

There didn't appear to be anything off about the Gym, though Elder James did comment that it was somehow larger than the Gym on the other Bug-Eye he had been on – this was despite the decreased crew complement. We spent an hour checking all the possible spots in the gym, then we searched all adjacent rooms. It became clear that there was a negative space just below the Gym.

We quickly called both Elder Callum and Lieutenant Sarti over to the ship. I didn't know how she did it, but the Lieutenant managed to discover a terminal that was hidden within the wall. When activated, the display would be projected onto the mirror along with what appeared to be a touch screen keyboard. I hadn't seen anything like it, but it wasn't really all that advanced technologically and the display still ran on the THOS operating system.

Unfortunately, using the computer required resetting the Cobalt Eye's current user passwords. I had already been onboard the Manassas for nearly nine hours. Elder James got called away to greet the first of the revived engineers. He had apparently been much closer to the Drive Core when the jump occurred and had thus been far more heavily affected and thus taken much longer to revive than the Lieutenant.

That left me alone for another nine hours trying to get the ship's codes reset without accidentally destroying the ship or wiping the AIs memory. Finally, it was complete. I called the Elder to inform him that the process was completed and he arrived twenty minutes later with Elder Callum and Lieutenant Sarti in tow.

We once more returned to the Gym and activated the display. Carefully, I inputted my new identification and the screen activated. A new option appeared. "Open door." I quickly selected it and a portion of the floor quickly moved away to reveal a ladder.

Climbing down, I was immediately dumbfounded. Two dozen full sets of Nighthawk Light Powered Armor. Elder Callum took in a deep breath in shock; while Lieutenant Sarti and Elder James looked impressed, they didn't seem to know what was before them. Besides the Nighthawk Armor, there was a wall of what I assumed were some sort of concealed weapon, as well as several mannequins which had some sort of black skin-suit covering it as well as a closet at the back of the room. I didn't waste any time and immediately got to it.

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Nighthawk XV (Light Powered Armor) Nighthawk Exoskeleton, Nighthawk ECM Suite, Broadspectrum EM Absorption Coating, Total Noise Canceller, Armored Gloves, Nighthawk Power Pack, Vacuum Sealed Inner Layer

First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: M-11C "Cloaking Suit" M-11 ECM Suite, High-Capacity Power Pack, Myomer Underlayer, Ceramic Mesh

First Perk Activated. Complete Knowledge Acquired: HCIB Concealed Weapons

The main prize was absolutely the Nighthawk power armor, but the Cloaking suit was incredibly powerful. Whether it would work against Goa'uld scanner tech was another question entirely. That and the knowledge of the Hegemony Central Intelligence Bureau's concealed weapons, I would certainly use those blueprints as reference when I started designing my own firearms.

Finally, we approached the closet at the back of the room. I opened it up to find a large collection of black colored uniforms. Each one had a nametag, rank insignia, and numerous metals attached to the collar.

All of us were surprised to find that among the crew, five of them were Majors. When we found my father's, Elder James took a deep breath. On his uniform was the insignia of a Naval Rear Admiral, another insignia for a unit known as the Blackhearts – though I didn't know what the Blackhearts were, one insignia which I didn't recognize, one insignia which identified the wearer as a Duke of the Terran Hegemony, and finally, a Cameron Star of Amethyst.

---
Author's Note:
Forgot to post a chapter yesterday evening, so there will be another chapter in 2-3 hours time, as well as a third this evening.

 

[WerewolfEros]

Wow! that was an info dump, I hope you won't be too mad that I skipped most of the chapter BlazingHyperion.

 

[Rakaan]

To be perfectly blunt, every chapter is filled with blueprint notifications, and all of it feels like word count padding. Are we going to get a chapter of him building a truck? I doubt it.

 

[BlazingHyperion]

To be perfectly blunt, every chapter is filled with blueprint notifications, and all of it feels like word count padding. Are we going to get a chapter of him building a truck? I doubt it.

Click to shrink...

Every chapter I have written so far has at least 2000 words, not including the Notifications. Chapter #20 had I think 4400 if you remove the notifications. There are several chapters of slow development for building the first prototype fighter craft.

Wow! that was an info dump, I hope you won't be too mad that I skipped most of the chapter BlazingHyperion.

Click to shrink...

Acceptable. Chapter #20 was really a "Get it out of the way" chapter. I'm pretty sure most people skipped it. I probably would have as well.

So is the Inner Sphere actually there, or is this a full on Stargate universe? IE: it's the 1990s or earlier?

Click to shrink...

The Inner Sphere is actually here. Stargate Earth has been replaced with Terra and the Inner Sphere.

I really hope he get GFL stuff now, not enough fics with that tech. Plus, while short term it was a good idea to refuse it (because local ai hate), long term it was dumb given the possibility of prosthetics and (relatively) disposable troops that can be revived. He'll need that for what he's likely going to face.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Probably would have been a good idea to get that, especially with what appears in the coming chapters as well.

 

[BlazingHyperion]

- - -
POV: James Cromwell

Here I was. The Cobalt Eye's bridge. This ship had a lot more secrets than I had ever thought possible. Maybe even more secrets than its owner.

The lights began to come on and the Holotable in the center lit up with an unnatural face. "Greetings, Captain Cromwell."

The more I heard others refer to me as Captain, the more nostalgic I got. There was a time when the word Captain almost threw me into a blind rage. That had been decades ago now.

I nodded to the AI. "I was informed you have a recording for me."

"That is correct. This video was only to be played should you perform an exhaustive inheritance test of Arthur Cameron"

I narrowed my eyes. So that damn bastard wasn't leaving me totally in the dark at least. "Show me the damn thing already."

The Holotable display changed to show a rather foggy recording of Alistair, the prick. "Hello James. If you're seeing this, then I'm dead and you know of my parentage. This video will only have been played after my recording for Arthur. What I left out of that video was my own mothers parentage, and the likely reason that you are here. A copy of this video is hidden in a secret compartment in the gym. You are free to do with the extra recording as you see fit."

I scowled as I waited in silence for the smug bastard to continue. The inheritance test had been damning. "My mother was the bastard child of Takiro Kurita."

I growled, I already knew – I obviously knew – but this made everything so much more damn complicated. It also brought up a lot of questions that I wasn't sure I wanted answers to.

Alistair seemed to almost laugh – he probably knew I would be close to having an aneurysm. "My mother was raised as a maid. She never knew who my father was; she simply woke up one morning and found that she was pregnant. The very next day, she was suddenly forced to move to the Hegemony at the whim of her employer."

He seemed to let out a deep, frustrated sigh. "I was born and grew up thinking I was a completely normal kid – I was a completely normal kid. It was only when I turned 16 and tried to join the SLDF that they ran the Inheritance test. One minute, I'm going through the sign up procedures, and the next thing I know my mother and I are both on a Dropship and heading straight for Terra."

He seemed to chuckle. "There I was, a completely "normal" person, in a room with Aleksandr Kerensky, highest military officer of the SLDF, and Simon Cameron, the First Lord of the Star League."

He seemed to stop and let himself think. "My mother was provided with a sum of money and retired to Terra. Me on the other hand, I wanted to serve. When I had first signed up, I expected to join the infantry. Instead, they sent me straighot to Sandhurst, and from there I went straight into active service."

He seemed to be slightly melancholic. "There were some hiccups. When Simon Cameron died, I was recalled to Terra at Kerensky's behest. I was under pretty strict scrutiny for a while when they believed that Takiro might have been responsible. In all honesty, I can say with some confidence that he did it. It just comes down to proof. I made it very clear to everyone that knew me that I had no interest in the position of First Lord, and Kerensky had me shipped right back out to the periphery."

He let out a bitter chuckle. "The next 15 years seemed to pass in a flash. I was on my way back to Terra for a leave of absence, I got back just a few weeks before the New Vandenberg Uprising. Of course, I immediately shipped right back out. Kerensky gave me my own command and the option to do whatever I believed was necessary."

His face grew even more melancholic than it already was. Everyone from the Hegemony knew what happened next. "Then Amaris decided to kill the First Lord and took the title for himself."

His melancholia seemed to disappear, replaced with a look of disgust. "Not long after, I got a call from Kerensky. Takiro Kurita, wanted to speak with me to negotiate for his entry into the war on the side of the SLDF. He said that he would enter the war under one condition, that I name myself Director General of the Terran Hegemony."

A sneer marked my face. That would have given House Kurita an actual claim to the position of first lord.

Alistair continued. "At the time, we didn't know that I was the only Cameron to survive. We had confirmation that Richard Cameron's two children had been evacuated. The Coordinator knew of their escape as well."

Alistair seemed to smile in a slightly more pleasant mood. "I told the bastard to go fuck himself. The look in his eyes… it was something else. Like decades of plans had gone down the drain with a single word. The prick died a few days later. You know how the rest goes. The Rimworlders had access to a lot of Kuritan equipment, but we could never pin anything on the Draconis Combine. I could spend an hour going over all the coincidences that point at the Kuritans supporting Amaris, probably a lot you weren't even aware about."

He let out a deep sigh. "We found out that the vessel that had been taking Amanda and Ian Cameron to safety had gotten extraordinarily unlucky. They were ambushed and confirmed destroyed by an RWA fleet, we even had part of the wreckage. By then, it was too late for me to change my mind. Every one of the Great Lords had already nominated themselves for the position of First Lord. When Kerensky decided to fuck off, I decided to follow. Then we ended up in this mess. At least Arthur was born out here, away from the bullshit of the Inner Sphere.

Now he turned wistful. "I wonder if they're still at each other's throats?"

If Arthur was right, then yes, they were. More than we could have ever imagined to be possible.

"That's everything. Well, everything of importance. This recording will be deleted as soon as it is over, but there is a copy in my quarters. Feel free to show that to Arthur should he ever need it."

Like that, the holotable deactivated. I closed my eyes. I wouldn't tell Arthur about this yet. He already has enough on his plate; he didn't need even more bullshit to worry about. I left the bridge and returned to work. There was a rather vital meeting in a few hours.