Chapter 157: The Double Cross Part 3
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Chapter 157: The Double Cross Part 3
Alliance Forward Base, PU-9841, February 8th, 2000 (Earth Time)
"So, what's the verdict, Carter?"
The General sounded flippant, but Samantha Carter could tell that he was at least a little nervous behind his wide, cocky grin - his eyes gave it away. She knew him too well to be fooled.
"Well, sir…" she started to say, then wanted to wince when she saw his expression grow serious at once. He knew her too well not to catch on that she didn't bring good news.
And then he was grinning again. "If I am mutating into a dog, I'll need to know so I can make arrangements to get my uniforms altered."
She snorted at that. "You're not turning into a dog, sir."
"I sense a 'but' coming."
"Your vitals are all good." Great, even, for his age. Or for any age.
"Still not feeling reassured. Come on, tell me the bad news."
She winced and sighed through clenched teeth. "I've detected some changes in your body on a cellular scale." She took a deep breath. "Your DNA is… changing."
"That sounds like a mutation." He was dead serious now. "Unless X-Men lied to me."
She didn't bother laughing at his joke. "It's not a mutation - it's more an… optimisation. I need to run it past an expert to confirm, but my preliminary estimate is that minor faults and defects in your DNA are being…" Don't say 'fixed', she reminded herself. "Corrected."
"By magic." He was pressing his lips together with such effort, they formed a thin line.
She nodded. "That needs to be confirmed as well, but it is the most likely explanation."
He scoffed in return. "So, someone's cleaning up my genes. I guess I won't have to worry about all the radiation I might have picked up in places I never visited in the first place."
Sam shook her head. "Any such lingering or potential health issues were already taken care of when Adora healed you the first time, sir:"
"Ah." He narrowed his eyes. "So, what exactly is happening now?"
"I have yet to confirm it," she said. "But my best estimate after using the most detailed magictech scanner I have access to here is that your, ah, Ancient heritage has been rendered more prominent."
"I'm turning into an alien?" He stared at her.
"Not quite. It's more that your, ah, Ancient genes are becoming more dominant," she explained.
"That sounds like I am turning into an alien, Carter."
"The Ancients were, as far as we know, and as far as DNA tests have confirmed, our ancestors, sir. They were and are, in Adora's case, close enough to humans to have viable, non-sterile offspring, according to Alpha's data. That means we're the same species."
"That sounds like semantics."
"Scientific definitions aren't semantics, sir," she reminded him, frowning slightly.
"That's what a semantic would say."
"You're not turning into an alien," she repeated herself. "And you won't suddenly sprout, ah, tentacles. As far as we can tell, you're simply becoming a bit more… like your ancestors. DNA-wise."
He snorted. "Still sounds like turning into an alien. Will I get a magical sword or tiara?"
She hesitated a fraction of a second, but it was enough for him to pick up. "Don't tell me I'm turning into a princess!"
"There's no sign of that as far as I can tell with my current equipment, sir," she retorted.
"That's not a 'no', Carter."
"It's as much as I can do here. We have to travel to Etheria and have you examined there."
"By the crazy Frankenstein AI on the moon, you mean." He scoffed and looked at the screen on the wall showing muted news from Earth on a lagging loop.
"And by the experts from Mystacor," she added.
He turned to stare at her. "Right. Forgot about them. So, I'm turning into a witch?"
She winced again. That this would strengthen what, according to Castaspella, was already a high potential for magic was her best hypothesis. "I think the correct term would be 'sorcerer', sir. Though unless you start training in sorcery, you won't be able to actually work magic."
"And that's how I like it!" he snapped. "Not a word to anyone with magic about that, Carter!"
"Sir! It's just a hypothesis so far. It could be something else. We need to have you examined by experts to be able to exclude the possibility that this might be a threat to your health." She met his eyes with a firm expression. "I cannot condone that risk." And he should know better.
He stared at her for a moment, then sighed. "Alright. Let's get the Frankenbot to peek at my genome to check that I'm not turning into an alien."
Sam didn't smile but merely nodded. But she was relieved. If she had to decide whether she would follow the General's orders or her conscience, with his health potentially on the line… whatever the choice, she wouldn't have been happy.
"So?" Catra turned away from the one-way window into the interrogation room where Kul'et was sitting - secured - at a table and looked at Melog.
Awe. Guilt.
That didn't tell her what the Jaffa was feeling guilty about. Spying for Apophis on Adora? Or that he failed Apophis? He had been grateful, earlier, Melog had said - but that had been right after Adora had saved him from the poison he had taken.
She shook her head. "Looks like you'll have to talk to him, Adora."
Her love sighed but nodded. "I don't know what would be worse - that he's still faithful to Apophis or that he worships me."
Catra rolled her eyes at her. "Stop whining. Every Jaffa that converts to the Church of She-Ra is one less Jaffa we have to fight."
"I'm no goddess!" Adora clenched her teeth. "No one should worship me!"
Catra shrugged. "They do it anyway. Freedom of religion."
"No one should be worshipped like that!" Adora retorted. "That kind of blind faith is what the Goa'uld want - and what makes them so evil."
It was just a small part of why the snakes were evil, in Catra's opinion. You didn't need blind faith to get blind obedience. The Horde had shown that. And Earth had plenty of other examples. But it usually made it easier, of course. "It's not exactly blind faith," she said, grinning. "Priest certainly isn't always listening to you. Well, he's listening, but he doesn't just do what you want." Like when Adora wanted him to stop worshipping her.
Adora groaned. "That's not a good thing either! I'm still responsible for him and his people!"
Catra scoffed. "You'd be responsible for them as Supreme Commander of the Alliance anyway."
"It's not the same!" Adora insisted. "This goes far beyond the military chain of command."
Catra shrugged again. Sure, the clones would likely ignore any rules if Adora really wanted them to do something, but… "As long as they listen to you when it's important, it's a good thing," she said. "Would you rather have them converting to an Earth religion? I'm sure many of their religious leaders would love having fanatical converts at their disposal."
"Of course not!" Adora shuddered. "But… It's just not right. And I don't like to burden the next She-Ra with this responsibility."
Catra pressed her lips together. The next She-Ra would only be chosen if Adora died. And Catra would do anything to prevent that from happening. But there was no need to go into that. She slowly shook her head. "She-Ra will do fine. Mara and you both had to deal with worse responsibilities."
"And Mara died," Adora spat.
Alright, Catra had been wrong. There was a need to get into this. "I'm not going to let you die. And if you're trying to get killed, I'll kill you!"
Funny.
Adora blinked. "What?"
"You know what I mean!" Catra said with a deep frown aimed at both her love and Melog.
Adora smiled even as she shook her head. "I'll go in now." She turned to the door leading to the hallway and left the room. A moment later, Catra saw her entering the interrogation room.
"Goddess!" Kul'et tried to jump up, but the chain fastened to his cuff stopped him. A moment later, he tried to bow but only managed to press his head against the top of the table.
Catra snorted - the Americans had installed the interrogation room, as a 'provisional measure', as they had called it, since they didn't want to move Kul'et to a standard P.O.W. camp until they knew whether he had ditched Apophis's faith or not, but they had done good work anyway.
She glanced at Melog for a moment.
Awe. Gratitude. Love. Guilt.
That sounded promising. Still, they had to be sure.
"Sit," Adora said.
"Yes, Goddess."
Catra saw Adora frown for a moment before smiling again. "How are you doing? Are you being treated right?"
He better be, Catra thought. If They couldn't ensure P.O.W.s being treated correctly in a tiny forward base under their very noses… Well, technically, Kul'et was a spy, but since the Alliance had pulled off the same plots already, no one would make a fuss about that. No one who mattered, anyway.
Kul'et took a deep breath and bowed his head again. "I am being treated better than I deserve. I have done the bidding of a false god and attempted to deceive, to betray you, a true goddess. My life is forfeit!"
Guilt. Shame.
"He has been too long near Apophis," Catra muttered. "That's where he picked up all the drama."
Melog sent her a spike of amusement.
"No!" Adora shook her head, and Kul'et actually flinched at her tone. "No one is going to die for Apophis - or any other Go'auld - if we can help it. That includes you!"
"Your mercy is as vast as your power, Goddess."
Honesty. Relief.
Adora winced. "That's just doing the right thing. You were raised to believe in an evil cause. So was I. And others." She leaned forward, putting both hands on the table. "We understand. And we don't judge you for it."
Kul'et blinked. "I don't understand…"
Confusion, Melog confirmed.
Catra sighed. In theory, Kul'et could still be feeling all this and be loyal to Apophis. Relieved that they were treating him well, guilty for failing - or for having torn loyalties, maybe.
This could take a while. Maybe they should have called for professional interrogators. No - they wouldn't hold the same respect as Adora did.
"...and so Melog came to the conclusion that Kul'et has honestly changed sides."
Jack O'Neill nodded at Adora's summary. "You mean he converted, right?"
Adora frowned at him, but Catra nodded. "Yes."
"That was likely the key reason he switched," Daniel cut in. "Adora saving his life in extremis, and changing a significant part of the planet at the same time, would have shaken anyone, of course, but Kul'et was especially receptive due to his background."
"The Goa'uld depend on power, both real and fictive, over their followers to keep them faithful," Sha're added. "But that means that should they be defeated by a rival, their followers might switch allegiance and faith to the victor because they might seem ascendant."
"And dear old Apophis has suffered a few humiliating defeats." Jack grinned. Some of them, like the losses of two fleets, he would have been able to keep secret from the general population, but Kul'et would have been aware of them since he was supposed to become a double agent. And Apophis hadn't been able to hide the raid on his palace. Now the Alliance just had to keep the pressure on, and Apophis's entire empire might crumble…
Of course, having the snake's faithful convert to worshipping Adora had some drawbacks as well, but they could deal with those once the snakes were done. "We've got Apophis fooled into thinking the Horde is about to attack Earth, and we turned his spy. How do we exploit this?" That was a question for the brass and spooks at Headquarters, but it never hurt to come back from the field with a few ideas and proposals. Especially if you were discussing it with the Supreme Commander of the Alliance.
"Kul'et had orders to gather what information he could, pass it back once he had the opportunity, and then wait for further orders," Catra said. "So, we don't have to decide right now what misinformation he can pass back. But Apophis will have stealth ships on the way to Earth to watch the expected Horde attack. He might even move a fleet there in case there's an opportunity after the Horde and Earth destroy each other. We need to decide how to handle that."
Sha're nodded. "If Apophis thinks the battle was very costly for all involved, he won't be able to resist attacking the exhausted victor. Not only will he hope to recover Horde technology no matter who supposedly won, but taking Earth will enhance his prestige amongst his peers - and add a massive population to his realm."
"A population who will resist his occupation," Jack pointed out. "And we're rather good at making any occupiers' lives hell." Especially if they wanted to impose their religion on Earth. Hell, this would make Afghanistan look like a pleasure cruise!
"I doubt that Apophis would consider this," Daniel said. "That's not how it works in the Goa'uld Empire."
"He would expect the humans to bow to him once he has dealt with their leaders and armies," Sha're added.
"Then he'll be disappointed," Jack said. "We don't submit easily."
"His response will be brutal," Sha're replied. "He'll do anything to crush resistance. And Earth has so many people, he could kill a billion or more and still consider it a great addition to his power."
"Indeed," Teal'c said gravely.
"The loss of so many people would wreck Earth's industry," Carter objected. "The supply chains would already be in tatters after the Horde invasion, murdering more people…" She shook her head. "Earth might not recover in decades from such a blow."
"Fortunately, that won't happen," Catra cut in with a snort. "So, we have to fool Apophis into believing that either the Horde won easily or Earth easily defeated the Horde."
"If Apophis thinks Earth is strong enough to easily defeat an enemy who wrecked his own fleet, then he'll see us as much more dangerous than he thought - maybe a danger to the Goa'uld Empire," Daniel said. "At the very least, he could portray us as such to his fellow System Lords."
"He would try to set them on Earth in order to weaken both, just as he did with the Horde," Sha're agreed.
"Guy's got no imagination," Jack muttered. And the snake probably thought he was being clever instead of obvious.
"So, if Earth suddenly appears to be a great power in the galaxy, or at least tough enough to defeat the Horde remnants, that might cause the Goa'uld to address us with a united front," Adora summed up.
"We don't want that," Catra said.
"But a seemingly easy defeat of Earth at the hands of the Horde could have the same effect on the System Lords," Daniel retorted.
"That would only mean a return to the status quo," Sha're disagreed. "When Horde Prime was still alive."
"But he was occupied with the First Ones back then," Adora pointed out. "At least for the longest time. That wouldn't be the case now - if the Horde struck at Earth, the Goa'uld might expect them to strike at their own holdings next."
Jack nodded. "And Apophis will try to use that as well to save his own neck."
"It's still better than the alternative," Catra argued. "The snakes won't know what the Horde might do, and how many are left, so they will be cautious until they find out more. So, we gain more time to prepare."
"But the Goa'uld will prepare for a Horde attack. That means we'll lose the element of surprise anyway," Carter said.
Catra shrugged. "That would happen sooner or later anyway. This way, especially with Kul'et on our side, we can control what Apophis will know, and through him, the other System Lords."
It wasn't perfect by any means, and the brass and politicians back home wouldn't be happy, but that was war for you. Jack nodded. "So, let's think about how we can fake a Horde victory and occupation of Earth. Preferably one that makes Earth look like it's not worth another attack."
"I don't think that's going to be possible," Daniel said. "Earth has such a great symbolic value as Ra's ancestral seat, holding it, even if it lays in ruins, would benefit any System Lord."
Jack frowned a little. "It's still better if Earth only has symbolic value rather than symbolic and economic and military value. So, any ideas?"
Carter suddenly stiffened. That was a bad sign - Jack was asking for ideas, not more problems. "Sir, I just realised there's a problem with those plans."
Alliance Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, Earth, February 9th, 2000
"...and so we can fake an occupation of the Solar System by the Horde." Adora smiled at the assembled Alliance leaders. "Since the majority of the ships protecting Earth are Horde frigates, we won't have to change our troop deployments. We'll have to be more careful with how we deploy Earth-made ships, but since the Goa'uld haven't encountered them yet, even if they are observed, they won't be associated with Earth." And all of them were descended at least partially from Horde designs, so anyone analysing them without access to a captured ship would likely focus on the similarities.
The British Secretary of State for Defence nodded. "We might have to cover the ship's name and pennant numbers, though. And the flags, of course."
"Yes." Adora nodded. But that was standard procedure for any deployment anyway - at least until Earth's part in the Alliance was revealed. "We thought about using some of them to fake a naval engagement in the system to fool the stealth ships from Apophis which will be observing the Solar System." Kul'et had confirmed that part. " But that would hamper later deployment of the ships, and we don't want Apophis to think that Earth has naval yards - and that the Horde has taken them."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"Not that Earth has too many working naval yards to begin with," Catra muttered next to Adora.
That was a bit unfair. Earth had many working naval yards. It was just that, with the exception of the British Flower II-class, they hadn't actually finished and commissioned any spaceships yet. The Americans were close with their Constitution II-class of frigates, though Sam had mentioned that their design still had some issues to be ironed out, and any fixes had to be applied to the other ships on the slips, delaying their completion. And the ships wouldn't be ready for deployment until they had enough space fighters to fill the hangars. The French were a bit more behind, but they were working closely with the British and last Adora had heard, they didn't expect too many troubles with their first design. The Germans were not quite as advanced, but they were both working on a stealth corvette and adapting the British transport design, so they had split their efforts. And, unlike the United States, the Europeans were all working with at least another, usually smaller country, which complicated matters a bit.
But that wasn't a topic for today's meeting. Adora forced herself to keep smiling as she went on: "But that won't help with the real problem: The radio waves Earth has been transmitting."
She could see the assembled ministers react as they realised, some more quickly than others, what she meant.
"We've been broadcasting for years - including coverage of your arrival and the forming of the Alliance…" the American Secretary said, grimacing.
Adora nodded. "We've plotted how far the transmissions have spread, and while they haven't reached any systems occupied by the Goa'uld, and won't for decades to come, at which point they won't be discernible any more, any ship sent to observe Earth from close by will be able to receive and understand them."
"Like a radio telescope," another minister said. "They'll be able to look into our past."
"Yes." Adora nodded again. "And we can't expand our sensor network fast enough to cover all that space. Not if we want it dense enough to spot their stealth ships." Entrapta and Sam had been clear about that. Deep space was just too vast even for their magitech sensors.
"So what can we do?" the French minister asked. "If we couldn't do anything, you'd have started with that."
"We can't count on spotting Apophis's stealth ships in space, and we can't stop the transmissions that were sent already. But his ships will need time to reach the Solar System. So, we need to ensure that when they arrive close enough to pick up the radio transmissions covering our arrival on Earth, Apophis cannot use whatever they receive any more." She smiled as confidently as she could. "We're planning to create a distraction so tempting, he won't be able to resist, and then we strike."
"You want to take him out?" the German Minister asked. "A decapitation strike?"
"Yes." Adora nodded firmly. "He's already suffered several defeats and is increasingly desperate. If we offer him a possible solution to his troubles, he's unlikely to resist."
"And what are you planning to use?" The American Secretary was leaning forward.
"A Horde superweapon," Adora replied. "One about to be used against Earth." She saw their reaction, and clarified: "A fictive Horde superweapon constructed by us." Leaking intel about it to Apophis would be tricky but not impossible with Kul'et's help.
"Ah."
Spacelab, Earth Orbit, February 9th, 2000 (Earth Time)
Samantha Carter brought up the latest schematics of Project Fortitude - she wasn't calling it 'Project Death Star' no matter what the General said - on the holoprojector inside the Spacelab. "This is what we currently have. If we use the Horde fleet trains manufacturing pipeline, we can build the hull from parts intended for the Velvet Glove mounted on a standard frigate. It would take a few days if we use an existing frigate, a bit longer if we purpose-build a frigate, though in that case, we could also adapt the structure and power generators for the project, which should enhance its effectiveness."
Entrapta scrunched her nose while she studied the schematics. "Hm…"
Hordak tilted his head, then nodded. "It seems feasible. However, someone not familiar with the Horde would realise that it's not an original Horde design - Horde Prime would have never allowed such an aesthetically imperfect vessel to be produced."
Samantha Carter pressed her lips together. She didn't think the design was that bad or ugly. "It's meant to be a prototype," she defended her project.
"Horde Prime fixated on perfection. He wouldn't have shown, much less deployed, an imperfect design such as a prototype," Hordak retorted. "Although I assume that Apophis is not as familiar with Horde Prime's character to know this, so this might work."
"But it wouldn't work!" Entrapta blurted out.
Sam turned to look at her. "What's wrong with it?" she asked. Had she overlooked something? Missed a critical point?
"It wouldn't work! The 'Core Cracker Cannon' doesn't have enough power to actually crack a planet's core!" Entrapta shook her head. "It's just an upscaled regular beam cannon. But it's not upscaled enough. And the beam isn't focused enough to penetrate a planet's crust to the depth needed - in fact, the focussing crystal lenses are widening the beam. All this would do is create a hole in the ground, and not a very deep hole, either - the beam would lose cohesion way before it reached sufficient depth. You could continuously fire it for days and it wouldn't do much more!"
Sam cleared her throat. "It's supposed to be a decoy, not a working superweapon," she reminded Entrapta. And a rush job. And it's still more functional than the Navy's frigate design, she added in a fit of pique. At least this design would be ready to use sometime this year.
Entrapta frowned at her. "But if it obviously won't work, it won't fool anyone either!"
"I doubt Apophis would be able to tell that from the information he'll get," Sam explained.
"We shouldn't underestimate our enemies!" Entrapta nodded at her own words. "Everyone says that."
"We should not overestimate them either," Hordak said. "I suffered a few setbacks early in my campaign when I misjudged the Alliance's response and had positioned my forces for a counter-attack that never came because they withdrew, and I had no forces ready to exploit that."
Sam nodded, though she did feel a little torn about Hordak supporting her using his past as a warlord. "We can't exactly build a working superweapon for this," she said - not for the first time.
"Well, we could, if we used an unstable dimensional portal, but deploying that from space is a bit of a challenge. It would be more like building a flying portal and landing it on the surface before activating it. And finding a way to replicate the dimensional interaction that allowed the portal on Etheria to almost destroy the planet would be tricky even with Beta's support," Entrapta said. "And that technology is banned, of course, because it's so dangerous," she added.
The last line sounded a bit like Entrapta had learned it by rote to Sam, but that might just be her imagination. Still, better safe than sorry. "It was banned for a very good reason." If research into something could destroy a planet - or more - if it suffered a mishap, you'd be insane or desperate to do it.
Or an Ancient, though their sanity obviously was in doubt.
"I concur. However, you said we could build a working superweapon?" Hordak sounded interested.
"Well, it depends on what kind of superweapon you want. If we combine the dimensional portal projector with the spy bot network for targeting, we should be able to compensate for the firing delay, but we would need to develop safe ways to quickly recharge the projector - it wouldn't be very impressive if you couldn't fire it fast enough to destroy a fleet. It would need a larger housing and a lot more power than we can fit into the hull there, though." Entrapta nodded. "And it wouldn't be able to destroy a planet unless you could keep at it until all parts were transported into another dimension, which would take a loooong time. It would be faster to just have a fleet bombard a planet, I guess, even if that wouldn't crack the core either. Anyway, it would probably not qualify as a superweapon. But! What if we combined a Naquadah-enhanced superbomb with a mass driver? Detonate it in the liquid part of the core of a planet, and the shockwaves should wreck the tectonic plates from below!"
Sam felt her stomach drop at the proposal. That was… theoretically possible. Building a bomb powerful enough to achieve that wouldn't be too hard, but finding a way to deploy it to a planet's liquid core would be nigh impossible. "The bomb would never reach the core without being destroyed by the force needed to reach that deep," she said. "And that kind of force would wreck the planet anyway."
"Yes, that's the problem," Entrapta agreed. "But if we manage to adjust the dimensional projector so the bomb is phased out of our dimension just long enough to pass through matter at the speed of a mass driver, it should phase back in just in time to detonate. The timing is tricky, and the speed needed is a bit above our current projections for such cannons, but if we focus on it, I think we could do it!"
"That would take a lot more time than we have," Sam reminded her - and herself. "And we only need something that looks like a superweapon to bait Apophis." Even though he already had a fleet to wreck planets with sustained fire. But a superweapon would appeal to his ego, according to the General. 'They always go for the Death Stars,' as he had put it.
"But it should look convincing!" Entrapta insisted. "So it needs to at least work in theory!"
Hordak nodded.
Sam sighed. "Let's see what we can do."
This reminded her a bit too much of the US Space Navy design process.
Royal Palace, Bright Moon, Etheria, February 10th, 2000 (Earth Time)
"So, Entrapta and Hordak wanted to build an actual superweapon?" Catra snorted as she closed the message and looked at Adora. "To better fool Apophis?"
"Yes," her love sighed.
"A Core Cracker Cannon?" Glimmer had found the message as well.
"Sam's supervising," Bow said - a bit hastily, in Catra's opinion.
Justified, of course - Glimmer looked quite disturbed. Which also was justified - she knew, as did Catra, of course, how close Etheria had come to destruction because of 'superweapons'.
Catra pushed the memory away. "It's being handled. Besides, not even those three can build a superweapon as quickly as we need it. Just building the decoy will take a week if we screw up the logistics of our fleet."
"You sound remarkably unconcerned about that." Glimmer narrowed her eyes at her. "Especially after telling everyone how crucial those supply chains are."
"It'll be good training for when we launch the first offensive," Catra replied with a shrug. "Teach the Alliance to deal with the chaos of a campaign." Most of the Alliance members had never fought an interstellar war, much less on that scale. The clones had, of course, but it had been a while for them as well, and they would have to adjust to fighting in an Alliance. And without Horde Prime jumping into bodies to handle things in person. She flashed her teeth. "But, speaking of crucial things for the war…"
Glimmer scowled at her. "We haven't decided yet."
Catra rolled her eyes for a moment. "You mean you haven't decided yet if you want to stay queen."
"It's not that simple!" Glimmer defended herself. "Mom and Dad are still working things out."
Meaning, Angella was still trying to learn how to fit in after her return to Bright Moon, Catra mentally translated. She didn't say that out loud, of course. Instead, she smirked. "So, that's what you're calling it in Bright Moon. 'Working out'."
"Catra!" Adora was blushing.
Glimmer, though, snorted. "They haven't seen each other for over a decade and thought the other was dead."
Bow looked a little embarrassed, but Catra nodded. "More seriously, though: We need to sort out our chain of command before we pull off a major operation."
"I know," Glimmer spat.
"And if Angella is too 'busy' with Micah to rule…" Catra trailed off.
"Nothing's going to change for now," Glimmer stated the obvious.
Catra shrugged and let the matter drop - for today. She'd return to it tomorrow, and keep at it until things were settled.
Adora cleared her throat. "Anyway, we've done preliminary planning with Priest for the space battle - a skirmish, actually. We'll make a light show and have Kul'et leak that Earth has driven off an attack, but the Horde is bringing in a superweapon."
"Why would we know that?" Bow asked.
"Because Hordak bragged about it to scare Earth into surrendering," Catra explained. "But they won't surrender, of course. Horde Prime probably wouldn't have bragged like that, only after the deployment, but it would fit an underling trying to fill his shoes."
"Priest wanted to write the dialogue, but Hordak declined," Adora added with a wry smile.
"Is Priest working on the fake space battle?" Glimmer asked.
"Yes. Faking the weapons is easy - we'll just power down the beams some. But ideally, we'll need empty frigate hulls to blow up," Catra said. Or actual frigates, but blowing up a working frigate while Earth was struggling to build smaller warships and the Tok'ra had to make do with what small ships they had managed to scavenge and steal probably wouldn't go over well with the rest of the Alliance.
"Fake ships and a fake superweapon? That's a lot of effort and resources to fool Apophis," Glimmer said.
"We're not just fooling him - if all works out, we'll capture him," Adora said.
Or kill him, Catra added. Apophis wouldn't escape.
"You think he will visit the fake superweapon himself?" Glimmer frowned.
"He won't be able to resist," Catra said. "And then we'll get him."
"Ah." Glimmer nodded, then looked at her tablet again. "I think that's all the important stuff we had to cover."
"There are several important memos and reports left!" Adora protested.
"That can be handled by the staff," Glimmer said. "I'm not dealing with altercations between clones and Earth nutcases over religion. Not unless they turn into riots or someone gets seriously hurt. Or they become more frequent than once every two weeks. We're not going to run the war according to what Earth media are screaming about on any given day."
Adora pouted, but Catra nodded. Glimmer was right.
Alliance Base Lübtheen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, February 11th, 2000
"...and protestors have been gathering outside the local military base. They demand that the, and I quote, 'heathen aliens' are banned from visiting the county. So far, the commander of the base has not responded to our requests for a statement."
Jack O'Neill rolled his eyes. "That's because the whole incident has nothing to do with him or the base, you moron!" The clone whose proselytising had started all hadn't even visited the base. Nor had the 'Alliance military police unit' that had responded to save the clone bothered to check in with the base before breaking up the mob. No wonder the base commander was doing his best to keep out of the line of fire of this mess - no matter what he said, someone would take offence.
And it wasn't a big deal, anyway. The clones hadn't killed or seriously hurt anyone, even though they hadn't been gentle in dispersing the lynch mob. Not even the preacher who had riled everyone up. Jack wasn't sure if one of his commands had been able to do that, especially one that had only recently - as in five minutes before deployment, and Jack wasn't checking too closely if that had been backdated - been converted into a military police reserve unit. For once, Priest's skill at politics had come in handy.
Though Jack also couldn't shake the feeling that the clone missionary hadn't visited that particular town by chance. The clones usually stuck to big cities, at least in the USA. Or to the towns and cities outside the major Alliance bases - Brussels was about to build the first church for the Church of She-Ra, last he had heard, and the only reason Hamburg wouldn't beat it was that the German bureaucracy took longer to issue building permits.
Either way, it wasn't his problem. Or much of a problem at all. Despite the best efforts of certain members of Congress and parts of the media, those things never lasted long—something else Jack didn't really want to examine too closely.
He switched the channel and leaned back in his chair.
"...The United Nations General Assembly debated another resolution that would demand that control over the Stargate passes to a 'multi-national committee', as of yet not defined. It is not expected to pass but has the support of most African and Middle Eastern member states as well as Russia and China, and…"
In other words, no news from the United Nations. Some people just couldn't accept that they lost. As long as the sore losers stuck to trying to pass resolutions in the United Nations, nothing would come of it. And if they didn't and escalated… well, you'd have to be a suicidal moron to start anything with the Alliance if you didn't have a fleet of spaceships with big honking guns of your own. So far, even the Iranians had behaved rationally in the face of that.
"...the announcements of extensive naval exercises near Earth have raised concerns about the state of the war. The Alliance has not been very forthcoming about their operations, and rumours about a failed invasion continue to spread despite several statements of the Alliance Headquarters refuting them."
"...people demand the truth! What is happening out there? Where are our boys fighting? And whom?"
"...with the Alliance refusing to reveal where our tax dollars are going, fears of widespread corruption are common. Several experts have cited historical and current examples of how vulnerable autocratic governments such as absolute monarchies are to systematic corruption and voiced concerns about the Etherian members of the Alliance, especially in light that the vast majority of funding for the Alliance comes from Earth, and…"
Yeah, Earth funded the lion's share of the Alliance's costs - provided you didn't count all the spaceships. Or the frankly priceless support by their magical princesses.
Jack clenched his teeth. Damn! He didn't want to think about magic. He sat straight and gripped the closest memo on his desk. Already handled. As were the next two. He was actually up to date with his paperwork! And it wasn't a good thing.
He switched the channels again, but the report about local and global businesses profiting from the war was just rehashing things he already knew and did so in a particularly boring, buzzword-filled manner.
Not enough to keep him from thinking about magic. And Ancient genes. And subordinate scientists taking time out of their very busy schedules doing important research for the war to bother Jack about it. How often did he have to tell Carter that he was fine? No mutations, no weird magical effects happening - magic didn't start 'leaking' if you didn't use it. He had asked Castaspella that long ago. Besides, it wasn't as if Jack had magic. He had the talent to use magic if he wanted to. But he didn't want to.
Learning how to cast spells would take too long, anyway, even if he wanted. Jack would have to quit his post and move to Etheria. And that would mean leaving his people in the middle of the war, and good officers didn't do that.
Someone else, someone not Jack, someone who wanted to, could learn to do magic instead. It wasn't as if Mystacor had unlimited teachers, anyway. So, it was better to let others with the talent, younger people who weren't generals, learn magic.
Even if they didn't have the same potential as Jack.
He nodded at his reasoning. Not learning magic was the right decision.
A beep from his computer alerted him of another message arriving. Work!
Smiling, he opened the mail. Another proposal from R&D for special equipment for Special Forces? Those always were fun. "Let's see what they cooked up this time…" He blinked, then frowned. 'Special magitech equipment' sounded good, but 'dependent on a user's magical potential' sounded…
…like Jack had to ask a few people in the know a few questions about confidentiality. Pointed questions.
Alliance Forward Base, PU-9841, February 8th, 2000 (Earth Time)
"So, what's the verdict, Carter?"
The General sounded flippant, but Samantha Carter could tell that he was at least a little nervous behind his wide, cocky grin - his eyes gave it away. She knew him too well to be fooled.
"Well, sir…" she started to say, then wanted to wince when she saw his expression grow serious at once. He knew her too well not to catch on that she didn't bring good news.
And then he was grinning again. "If I am mutating into a dog, I'll need to know so I can make arrangements to get my uniforms altered."
She snorted at that. "You're not turning into a dog, sir."
"I sense a 'but' coming."
"Your vitals are all good." Great, even, for his age. Or for any age.
"Still not feeling reassured. Come on, tell me the bad news."
She winced and sighed through clenched teeth. "I've detected some changes in your body on a cellular scale." She took a deep breath. "Your DNA is… changing."
"That sounds like a mutation." He was dead serious now. "Unless X-Men lied to me."
She didn't bother laughing at his joke. "It's not a mutation - it's more an… optimisation. I need to run it past an expert to confirm, but my preliminary estimate is that minor faults and defects in your DNA are being…" Don't say 'fixed', she reminded herself. "Corrected."
"By magic." He was pressing his lips together with such effort, they formed a thin line.
She nodded. "That needs to be confirmed as well, but it is the most likely explanation."
He scoffed in return. "So, someone's cleaning up my genes. I guess I won't have to worry about all the radiation I might have picked up in places I never visited in the first place."
Sam shook her head. "Any such lingering or potential health issues were already taken care of when Adora healed you the first time, sir:"
"Ah." He narrowed his eyes. "So, what exactly is happening now?"
"I have yet to confirm it," she said. "But my best estimate after using the most detailed magictech scanner I have access to here is that your, ah, Ancient heritage has been rendered more prominent."
"I'm turning into an alien?" He stared at her.
"Not quite. It's more that your, ah, Ancient genes are becoming more dominant," she explained.
"That sounds like I am turning into an alien, Carter."
"The Ancients were, as far as we know, and as far as DNA tests have confirmed, our ancestors, sir. They were and are, in Adora's case, close enough to humans to have viable, non-sterile offspring, according to Alpha's data. That means we're the same species."
"That sounds like semantics."
"Scientific definitions aren't semantics, sir," she reminded him, frowning slightly.
"That's what a semantic would say."
"You're not turning into an alien," she repeated herself. "And you won't suddenly sprout, ah, tentacles. As far as we can tell, you're simply becoming a bit more… like your ancestors. DNA-wise."
He snorted. "Still sounds like turning into an alien. Will I get a magical sword or tiara?"
She hesitated a fraction of a second, but it was enough for him to pick up. "Don't tell me I'm turning into a princess!"
"There's no sign of that as far as I can tell with my current equipment, sir," she retorted.
"That's not a 'no', Carter."
"It's as much as I can do here. We have to travel to Etheria and have you examined there."
"By the crazy Frankenstein AI on the moon, you mean." He scoffed and looked at the screen on the wall showing muted news from Earth on a lagging loop.
"And by the experts from Mystacor," she added.
He turned to stare at her. "Right. Forgot about them. So, I'm turning into a witch?"
She winced again. That this would strengthen what, according to Castaspella, was already a high potential for magic was her best hypothesis. "I think the correct term would be 'sorcerer', sir. Though unless you start training in sorcery, you won't be able to actually work magic."
"And that's how I like it!" he snapped. "Not a word to anyone with magic about that, Carter!"
"Sir! It's just a hypothesis so far. It could be something else. We need to have you examined by experts to be able to exclude the possibility that this might be a threat to your health." She met his eyes with a firm expression. "I cannot condone that risk." And he should know better.
He stared at her for a moment, then sighed. "Alright. Let's get the Frankenbot to peek at my genome to check that I'm not turning into an alien."
Sam didn't smile but merely nodded. But she was relieved. If she had to decide whether she would follow the General's orders or her conscience, with his health potentially on the line… whatever the choice, she wouldn't have been happy.
*****
"So?" Catra turned away from the one-way window into the interrogation room where Kul'et was sitting - secured - at a table and looked at Melog.
Awe. Guilt.
That didn't tell her what the Jaffa was feeling guilty about. Spying for Apophis on Adora? Or that he failed Apophis? He had been grateful, earlier, Melog had said - but that had been right after Adora had saved him from the poison he had taken.
She shook her head. "Looks like you'll have to talk to him, Adora."
Her love sighed but nodded. "I don't know what would be worse - that he's still faithful to Apophis or that he worships me."
Catra rolled her eyes at her. "Stop whining. Every Jaffa that converts to the Church of She-Ra is one less Jaffa we have to fight."
"I'm no goddess!" Adora clenched her teeth. "No one should worship me!"
Catra shrugged. "They do it anyway. Freedom of religion."
"No one should be worshipped like that!" Adora retorted. "That kind of blind faith is what the Goa'uld want - and what makes them so evil."
It was just a small part of why the snakes were evil, in Catra's opinion. You didn't need blind faith to get blind obedience. The Horde had shown that. And Earth had plenty of other examples. But it usually made it easier, of course. "It's not exactly blind faith," she said, grinning. "Priest certainly isn't always listening to you. Well, he's listening, but he doesn't just do what you want." Like when Adora wanted him to stop worshipping her.
Adora groaned. "That's not a good thing either! I'm still responsible for him and his people!"
Catra scoffed. "You'd be responsible for them as Supreme Commander of the Alliance anyway."
"It's not the same!" Adora insisted. "This goes far beyond the military chain of command."
Catra shrugged again. Sure, the clones would likely ignore any rules if Adora really wanted them to do something, but… "As long as they listen to you when it's important, it's a good thing," she said. "Would you rather have them converting to an Earth religion? I'm sure many of their religious leaders would love having fanatical converts at their disposal."
"Of course not!" Adora shuddered. "But… It's just not right. And I don't like to burden the next She-Ra with this responsibility."
Catra pressed her lips together. The next She-Ra would only be chosen if Adora died. And Catra would do anything to prevent that from happening. But there was no need to go into that. She slowly shook her head. "She-Ra will do fine. Mara and you both had to deal with worse responsibilities."
"And Mara died," Adora spat.
Alright, Catra had been wrong. There was a need to get into this. "I'm not going to let you die. And if you're trying to get killed, I'll kill you!"
Funny.
Adora blinked. "What?"
"You know what I mean!" Catra said with a deep frown aimed at both her love and Melog.
Adora smiled even as she shook her head. "I'll go in now." She turned to the door leading to the hallway and left the room. A moment later, Catra saw her entering the interrogation room.
"Goddess!" Kul'et tried to jump up, but the chain fastened to his cuff stopped him. A moment later, he tried to bow but only managed to press his head against the top of the table.
Catra snorted - the Americans had installed the interrogation room, as a 'provisional measure', as they had called it, since they didn't want to move Kul'et to a standard P.O.W. camp until they knew whether he had ditched Apophis's faith or not, but they had done good work anyway.
She glanced at Melog for a moment.
Awe. Gratitude. Love. Guilt.
That sounded promising. Still, they had to be sure.
"Sit," Adora said.
"Yes, Goddess."
Catra saw Adora frown for a moment before smiling again. "How are you doing? Are you being treated right?"
He better be, Catra thought. If They couldn't ensure P.O.W.s being treated correctly in a tiny forward base under their very noses… Well, technically, Kul'et was a spy, but since the Alliance had pulled off the same plots already, no one would make a fuss about that. No one who mattered, anyway.
Kul'et took a deep breath and bowed his head again. "I am being treated better than I deserve. I have done the bidding of a false god and attempted to deceive, to betray you, a true goddess. My life is forfeit!"
Guilt. Shame.
"He has been too long near Apophis," Catra muttered. "That's where he picked up all the drama."
Melog sent her a spike of amusement.
"No!" Adora shook her head, and Kul'et actually flinched at her tone. "No one is going to die for Apophis - or any other Go'auld - if we can help it. That includes you!"
"Your mercy is as vast as your power, Goddess."
Honesty. Relief.
Adora winced. "That's just doing the right thing. You were raised to believe in an evil cause. So was I. And others." She leaned forward, putting both hands on the table. "We understand. And we don't judge you for it."
Kul'et blinked. "I don't understand…"
Confusion, Melog confirmed.
Catra sighed. In theory, Kul'et could still be feeling all this and be loyal to Apophis. Relieved that they were treating him well, guilty for failing - or for having torn loyalties, maybe.
This could take a while. Maybe they should have called for professional interrogators. No - they wouldn't hold the same respect as Adora did.
*****
"...and so Melog came to the conclusion that Kul'et has honestly changed sides."
Jack O'Neill nodded at Adora's summary. "You mean he converted, right?"
Adora frowned at him, but Catra nodded. "Yes."
"That was likely the key reason he switched," Daniel cut in. "Adora saving his life in extremis, and changing a significant part of the planet at the same time, would have shaken anyone, of course, but Kul'et was especially receptive due to his background."
"The Goa'uld depend on power, both real and fictive, over their followers to keep them faithful," Sha're added. "But that means that should they be defeated by a rival, their followers might switch allegiance and faith to the victor because they might seem ascendant."
"And dear old Apophis has suffered a few humiliating defeats." Jack grinned. Some of them, like the losses of two fleets, he would have been able to keep secret from the general population, but Kul'et would have been aware of them since he was supposed to become a double agent. And Apophis hadn't been able to hide the raid on his palace. Now the Alliance just had to keep the pressure on, and Apophis's entire empire might crumble…
Of course, having the snake's faithful convert to worshipping Adora had some drawbacks as well, but they could deal with those once the snakes were done. "We've got Apophis fooled into thinking the Horde is about to attack Earth, and we turned his spy. How do we exploit this?" That was a question for the brass and spooks at Headquarters, but it never hurt to come back from the field with a few ideas and proposals. Especially if you were discussing it with the Supreme Commander of the Alliance.
"Kul'et had orders to gather what information he could, pass it back once he had the opportunity, and then wait for further orders," Catra said. "So, we don't have to decide right now what misinformation he can pass back. But Apophis will have stealth ships on the way to Earth to watch the expected Horde attack. He might even move a fleet there in case there's an opportunity after the Horde and Earth destroy each other. We need to decide how to handle that."
Sha're nodded. "If Apophis thinks the battle was very costly for all involved, he won't be able to resist attacking the exhausted victor. Not only will he hope to recover Horde technology no matter who supposedly won, but taking Earth will enhance his prestige amongst his peers - and add a massive population to his realm."
"A population who will resist his occupation," Jack pointed out. "And we're rather good at making any occupiers' lives hell." Especially if they wanted to impose their religion on Earth. Hell, this would make Afghanistan look like a pleasure cruise!
"I doubt that Apophis would consider this," Daniel said. "That's not how it works in the Goa'uld Empire."
"He would expect the humans to bow to him once he has dealt with their leaders and armies," Sha're added.
"Then he'll be disappointed," Jack said. "We don't submit easily."
"His response will be brutal," Sha're replied. "He'll do anything to crush resistance. And Earth has so many people, he could kill a billion or more and still consider it a great addition to his power."
"Indeed," Teal'c said gravely.
"The loss of so many people would wreck Earth's industry," Carter objected. "The supply chains would already be in tatters after the Horde invasion, murdering more people…" She shook her head. "Earth might not recover in decades from such a blow."
"Fortunately, that won't happen," Catra cut in with a snort. "So, we have to fool Apophis into believing that either the Horde won easily or Earth easily defeated the Horde."
"If Apophis thinks Earth is strong enough to easily defeat an enemy who wrecked his own fleet, then he'll see us as much more dangerous than he thought - maybe a danger to the Goa'uld Empire," Daniel said. "At the very least, he could portray us as such to his fellow System Lords."
"He would try to set them on Earth in order to weaken both, just as he did with the Horde," Sha're agreed.
"Guy's got no imagination," Jack muttered. And the snake probably thought he was being clever instead of obvious.
"So, if Earth suddenly appears to be a great power in the galaxy, or at least tough enough to defeat the Horde remnants, that might cause the Goa'uld to address us with a united front," Adora summed up.
"We don't want that," Catra said.
"But a seemingly easy defeat of Earth at the hands of the Horde could have the same effect on the System Lords," Daniel retorted.
"That would only mean a return to the status quo," Sha're disagreed. "When Horde Prime was still alive."
"But he was occupied with the First Ones back then," Adora pointed out. "At least for the longest time. That wouldn't be the case now - if the Horde struck at Earth, the Goa'uld might expect them to strike at their own holdings next."
Jack nodded. "And Apophis will try to use that as well to save his own neck."
"It's still better than the alternative," Catra argued. "The snakes won't know what the Horde might do, and how many are left, so they will be cautious until they find out more. So, we gain more time to prepare."
"But the Goa'uld will prepare for a Horde attack. That means we'll lose the element of surprise anyway," Carter said.
Catra shrugged. "That would happen sooner or later anyway. This way, especially with Kul'et on our side, we can control what Apophis will know, and through him, the other System Lords."
It wasn't perfect by any means, and the brass and politicians back home wouldn't be happy, but that was war for you. Jack nodded. "So, let's think about how we can fake a Horde victory and occupation of Earth. Preferably one that makes Earth look like it's not worth another attack."
"I don't think that's going to be possible," Daniel said. "Earth has such a great symbolic value as Ra's ancestral seat, holding it, even if it lays in ruins, would benefit any System Lord."
Jack frowned a little. "It's still better if Earth only has symbolic value rather than symbolic and economic and military value. So, any ideas?"
Carter suddenly stiffened. That was a bad sign - Jack was asking for ideas, not more problems. "Sir, I just realised there's a problem with those plans."
*****
Alliance Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, Earth, February 9th, 2000
"...and so we can fake an occupation of the Solar System by the Horde." Adora smiled at the assembled Alliance leaders. "Since the majority of the ships protecting Earth are Horde frigates, we won't have to change our troop deployments. We'll have to be more careful with how we deploy Earth-made ships, but since the Goa'uld haven't encountered them yet, even if they are observed, they won't be associated with Earth." And all of them were descended at least partially from Horde designs, so anyone analysing them without access to a captured ship would likely focus on the similarities.
The British Secretary of State for Defence nodded. "We might have to cover the ship's name and pennant numbers, though. And the flags, of course."
"Yes." Adora nodded. But that was standard procedure for any deployment anyway - at least until Earth's part in the Alliance was revealed. "We thought about using some of them to fake a naval engagement in the system to fool the stealth ships from Apophis which will be observing the Solar System." Kul'et had confirmed that part. " But that would hamper later deployment of the ships, and we don't want Apophis to think that Earth has naval yards - and that the Horde has taken them."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"Not that Earth has too many working naval yards to begin with," Catra muttered next to Adora.
That was a bit unfair. Earth had many working naval yards. It was just that, with the exception of the British Flower II-class, they hadn't actually finished and commissioned any spaceships yet. The Americans were close with their Constitution II-class of frigates, though Sam had mentioned that their design still had some issues to be ironed out, and any fixes had to be applied to the other ships on the slips, delaying their completion. And the ships wouldn't be ready for deployment until they had enough space fighters to fill the hangars. The French were a bit more behind, but they were working closely with the British and last Adora had heard, they didn't expect too many troubles with their first design. The Germans were not quite as advanced, but they were both working on a stealth corvette and adapting the British transport design, so they had split their efforts. And, unlike the United States, the Europeans were all working with at least another, usually smaller country, which complicated matters a bit.
But that wasn't a topic for today's meeting. Adora forced herself to keep smiling as she went on: "But that won't help with the real problem: The radio waves Earth has been transmitting."
She could see the assembled ministers react as they realised, some more quickly than others, what she meant.
"We've been broadcasting for years - including coverage of your arrival and the forming of the Alliance…" the American Secretary said, grimacing.
Adora nodded. "We've plotted how far the transmissions have spread, and while they haven't reached any systems occupied by the Goa'uld, and won't for decades to come, at which point they won't be discernible any more, any ship sent to observe Earth from close by will be able to receive and understand them."
"Like a radio telescope," another minister said. "They'll be able to look into our past."
"Yes." Adora nodded again. "And we can't expand our sensor network fast enough to cover all that space. Not if we want it dense enough to spot their stealth ships." Entrapta and Sam had been clear about that. Deep space was just too vast even for their magitech sensors.
"So what can we do?" the French minister asked. "If we couldn't do anything, you'd have started with that."
"We can't count on spotting Apophis's stealth ships in space, and we can't stop the transmissions that were sent already. But his ships will need time to reach the Solar System. So, we need to ensure that when they arrive close enough to pick up the radio transmissions covering our arrival on Earth, Apophis cannot use whatever they receive any more." She smiled as confidently as she could. "We're planning to create a distraction so tempting, he won't be able to resist, and then we strike."
"You want to take him out?" the German Minister asked. "A decapitation strike?"
"Yes." Adora nodded firmly. "He's already suffered several defeats and is increasingly desperate. If we offer him a possible solution to his troubles, he's unlikely to resist."
"And what are you planning to use?" The American Secretary was leaning forward.
"A Horde superweapon," Adora replied. "One about to be used against Earth." She saw their reaction, and clarified: "A fictive Horde superweapon constructed by us." Leaking intel about it to Apophis would be tricky but not impossible with Kul'et's help.
"Ah."
*****
Spacelab, Earth Orbit, February 9th, 2000 (Earth Time)
Samantha Carter brought up the latest schematics of Project Fortitude - she wasn't calling it 'Project Death Star' no matter what the General said - on the holoprojector inside the Spacelab. "This is what we currently have. If we use the Horde fleet trains manufacturing pipeline, we can build the hull from parts intended for the Velvet Glove mounted on a standard frigate. It would take a few days if we use an existing frigate, a bit longer if we purpose-build a frigate, though in that case, we could also adapt the structure and power generators for the project, which should enhance its effectiveness."
Entrapta scrunched her nose while she studied the schematics. "Hm…"
Hordak tilted his head, then nodded. "It seems feasible. However, someone not familiar with the Horde would realise that it's not an original Horde design - Horde Prime would have never allowed such an aesthetically imperfect vessel to be produced."
Samantha Carter pressed her lips together. She didn't think the design was that bad or ugly. "It's meant to be a prototype," she defended her project.
"Horde Prime fixated on perfection. He wouldn't have shown, much less deployed, an imperfect design such as a prototype," Hordak retorted. "Although I assume that Apophis is not as familiar with Horde Prime's character to know this, so this might work."
"But it wouldn't work!" Entrapta blurted out.
Sam turned to look at her. "What's wrong with it?" she asked. Had she overlooked something? Missed a critical point?
"It wouldn't work! The 'Core Cracker Cannon' doesn't have enough power to actually crack a planet's core!" Entrapta shook her head. "It's just an upscaled regular beam cannon. But it's not upscaled enough. And the beam isn't focused enough to penetrate a planet's crust to the depth needed - in fact, the focussing crystal lenses are widening the beam. All this would do is create a hole in the ground, and not a very deep hole, either - the beam would lose cohesion way before it reached sufficient depth. You could continuously fire it for days and it wouldn't do much more!"
Sam cleared her throat. "It's supposed to be a decoy, not a working superweapon," she reminded Entrapta. And a rush job. And it's still more functional than the Navy's frigate design, she added in a fit of pique. At least this design would be ready to use sometime this year.
Entrapta frowned at her. "But if it obviously won't work, it won't fool anyone either!"
"I doubt Apophis would be able to tell that from the information he'll get," Sam explained.
"We shouldn't underestimate our enemies!" Entrapta nodded at her own words. "Everyone says that."
"We should not overestimate them either," Hordak said. "I suffered a few setbacks early in my campaign when I misjudged the Alliance's response and had positioned my forces for a counter-attack that never came because they withdrew, and I had no forces ready to exploit that."
Sam nodded, though she did feel a little torn about Hordak supporting her using his past as a warlord. "We can't exactly build a working superweapon for this," she said - not for the first time.
"Well, we could, if we used an unstable dimensional portal, but deploying that from space is a bit of a challenge. It would be more like building a flying portal and landing it on the surface before activating it. And finding a way to replicate the dimensional interaction that allowed the portal on Etheria to almost destroy the planet would be tricky even with Beta's support," Entrapta said. "And that technology is banned, of course, because it's so dangerous," she added.
The last line sounded a bit like Entrapta had learned it by rote to Sam, but that might just be her imagination. Still, better safe than sorry. "It was banned for a very good reason." If research into something could destroy a planet - or more - if it suffered a mishap, you'd be insane or desperate to do it.
Or an Ancient, though their sanity obviously was in doubt.
"I concur. However, you said we could build a working superweapon?" Hordak sounded interested.
"Well, it depends on what kind of superweapon you want. If we combine the dimensional portal projector with the spy bot network for targeting, we should be able to compensate for the firing delay, but we would need to develop safe ways to quickly recharge the projector - it wouldn't be very impressive if you couldn't fire it fast enough to destroy a fleet. It would need a larger housing and a lot more power than we can fit into the hull there, though." Entrapta nodded. "And it wouldn't be able to destroy a planet unless you could keep at it until all parts were transported into another dimension, which would take a loooong time. It would be faster to just have a fleet bombard a planet, I guess, even if that wouldn't crack the core either. Anyway, it would probably not qualify as a superweapon. But! What if we combined a Naquadah-enhanced superbomb with a mass driver? Detonate it in the liquid part of the core of a planet, and the shockwaves should wreck the tectonic plates from below!"
Sam felt her stomach drop at the proposal. That was… theoretically possible. Building a bomb powerful enough to achieve that wouldn't be too hard, but finding a way to deploy it to a planet's liquid core would be nigh impossible. "The bomb would never reach the core without being destroyed by the force needed to reach that deep," she said. "And that kind of force would wreck the planet anyway."
"Yes, that's the problem," Entrapta agreed. "But if we manage to adjust the dimensional projector so the bomb is phased out of our dimension just long enough to pass through matter at the speed of a mass driver, it should phase back in just in time to detonate. The timing is tricky, and the speed needed is a bit above our current projections for such cannons, but if we focus on it, I think we could do it!"
"That would take a lot more time than we have," Sam reminded her - and herself. "And we only need something that looks like a superweapon to bait Apophis." Even though he already had a fleet to wreck planets with sustained fire. But a superweapon would appeal to his ego, according to the General. 'They always go for the Death Stars,' as he had put it.
"But it should look convincing!" Entrapta insisted. "So it needs to at least work in theory!"
Hordak nodded.
Sam sighed. "Let's see what we can do."
This reminded her a bit too much of the US Space Navy design process.
*****
Royal Palace, Bright Moon, Etheria, February 10th, 2000 (Earth Time)
"So, Entrapta and Hordak wanted to build an actual superweapon?" Catra snorted as she closed the message and looked at Adora. "To better fool Apophis?"
"Yes," her love sighed.
"A Core Cracker Cannon?" Glimmer had found the message as well.
"Sam's supervising," Bow said - a bit hastily, in Catra's opinion.
Justified, of course - Glimmer looked quite disturbed. Which also was justified - she knew, as did Catra, of course, how close Etheria had come to destruction because of 'superweapons'.
Catra pushed the memory away. "It's being handled. Besides, not even those three can build a superweapon as quickly as we need it. Just building the decoy will take a week if we screw up the logistics of our fleet."
"You sound remarkably unconcerned about that." Glimmer narrowed her eyes at her. "Especially after telling everyone how crucial those supply chains are."
"It'll be good training for when we launch the first offensive," Catra replied with a shrug. "Teach the Alliance to deal with the chaos of a campaign." Most of the Alliance members had never fought an interstellar war, much less on that scale. The clones had, of course, but it had been a while for them as well, and they would have to adjust to fighting in an Alliance. And without Horde Prime jumping into bodies to handle things in person. She flashed her teeth. "But, speaking of crucial things for the war…"
Glimmer scowled at her. "We haven't decided yet."
Catra rolled her eyes for a moment. "You mean you haven't decided yet if you want to stay queen."
"It's not that simple!" Glimmer defended herself. "Mom and Dad are still working things out."
Meaning, Angella was still trying to learn how to fit in after her return to Bright Moon, Catra mentally translated. She didn't say that out loud, of course. Instead, she smirked. "So, that's what you're calling it in Bright Moon. 'Working out'."
"Catra!" Adora was blushing.
Glimmer, though, snorted. "They haven't seen each other for over a decade and thought the other was dead."
Bow looked a little embarrassed, but Catra nodded. "More seriously, though: We need to sort out our chain of command before we pull off a major operation."
"I know," Glimmer spat.
"And if Angella is too 'busy' with Micah to rule…" Catra trailed off.
"Nothing's going to change for now," Glimmer stated the obvious.
Catra shrugged and let the matter drop - for today. She'd return to it tomorrow, and keep at it until things were settled.
Adora cleared her throat. "Anyway, we've done preliminary planning with Priest for the space battle - a skirmish, actually. We'll make a light show and have Kul'et leak that Earth has driven off an attack, but the Horde is bringing in a superweapon."
"Why would we know that?" Bow asked.
"Because Hordak bragged about it to scare Earth into surrendering," Catra explained. "But they won't surrender, of course. Horde Prime probably wouldn't have bragged like that, only after the deployment, but it would fit an underling trying to fill his shoes."
"Priest wanted to write the dialogue, but Hordak declined," Adora added with a wry smile.
"Is Priest working on the fake space battle?" Glimmer asked.
"Yes. Faking the weapons is easy - we'll just power down the beams some. But ideally, we'll need empty frigate hulls to blow up," Catra said. Or actual frigates, but blowing up a working frigate while Earth was struggling to build smaller warships and the Tok'ra had to make do with what small ships they had managed to scavenge and steal probably wouldn't go over well with the rest of the Alliance.
"Fake ships and a fake superweapon? That's a lot of effort and resources to fool Apophis," Glimmer said.
"We're not just fooling him - if all works out, we'll capture him," Adora said.
Or kill him, Catra added. Apophis wouldn't escape.
"You think he will visit the fake superweapon himself?" Glimmer frowned.
"He won't be able to resist," Catra said. "And then we'll get him."
"Ah." Glimmer nodded, then looked at her tablet again. "I think that's all the important stuff we had to cover."
"There are several important memos and reports left!" Adora protested.
"That can be handled by the staff," Glimmer said. "I'm not dealing with altercations between clones and Earth nutcases over religion. Not unless they turn into riots or someone gets seriously hurt. Or they become more frequent than once every two weeks. We're not going to run the war according to what Earth media are screaming about on any given day."
Adora pouted, but Catra nodded. Glimmer was right.
*****
Alliance Base Lübtheen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, February 11th, 2000
"...and protestors have been gathering outside the local military base. They demand that the, and I quote, 'heathen aliens' are banned from visiting the county. So far, the commander of the base has not responded to our requests for a statement."
Jack O'Neill rolled his eyes. "That's because the whole incident has nothing to do with him or the base, you moron!" The clone whose proselytising had started all hadn't even visited the base. Nor had the 'Alliance military police unit' that had responded to save the clone bothered to check in with the base before breaking up the mob. No wonder the base commander was doing his best to keep out of the line of fire of this mess - no matter what he said, someone would take offence.
And it wasn't a big deal, anyway. The clones hadn't killed or seriously hurt anyone, even though they hadn't been gentle in dispersing the lynch mob. Not even the preacher who had riled everyone up. Jack wasn't sure if one of his commands had been able to do that, especially one that had only recently - as in five minutes before deployment, and Jack wasn't checking too closely if that had been backdated - been converted into a military police reserve unit. For once, Priest's skill at politics had come in handy.
Though Jack also couldn't shake the feeling that the clone missionary hadn't visited that particular town by chance. The clones usually stuck to big cities, at least in the USA. Or to the towns and cities outside the major Alliance bases - Brussels was about to build the first church for the Church of She-Ra, last he had heard, and the only reason Hamburg wouldn't beat it was that the German bureaucracy took longer to issue building permits.
Either way, it wasn't his problem. Or much of a problem at all. Despite the best efforts of certain members of Congress and parts of the media, those things never lasted long—something else Jack didn't really want to examine too closely.
He switched the channel and leaned back in his chair.
"...The United Nations General Assembly debated another resolution that would demand that control over the Stargate passes to a 'multi-national committee', as of yet not defined. It is not expected to pass but has the support of most African and Middle Eastern member states as well as Russia and China, and…"
In other words, no news from the United Nations. Some people just couldn't accept that they lost. As long as the sore losers stuck to trying to pass resolutions in the United Nations, nothing would come of it. And if they didn't and escalated… well, you'd have to be a suicidal moron to start anything with the Alliance if you didn't have a fleet of spaceships with big honking guns of your own. So far, even the Iranians had behaved rationally in the face of that.
"...the announcements of extensive naval exercises near Earth have raised concerns about the state of the war. The Alliance has not been very forthcoming about their operations, and rumours about a failed invasion continue to spread despite several statements of the Alliance Headquarters refuting them."
"...people demand the truth! What is happening out there? Where are our boys fighting? And whom?"
"...with the Alliance refusing to reveal where our tax dollars are going, fears of widespread corruption are common. Several experts have cited historical and current examples of how vulnerable autocratic governments such as absolute monarchies are to systematic corruption and voiced concerns about the Etherian members of the Alliance, especially in light that the vast majority of funding for the Alliance comes from Earth, and…"
Yeah, Earth funded the lion's share of the Alliance's costs - provided you didn't count all the spaceships. Or the frankly priceless support by their magical princesses.
Jack clenched his teeth. Damn! He didn't want to think about magic. He sat straight and gripped the closest memo on his desk. Already handled. As were the next two. He was actually up to date with his paperwork! And it wasn't a good thing.
He switched the channels again, but the report about local and global businesses profiting from the war was just rehashing things he already knew and did so in a particularly boring, buzzword-filled manner.
Not enough to keep him from thinking about magic. And Ancient genes. And subordinate scientists taking time out of their very busy schedules doing important research for the war to bother Jack about it. How often did he have to tell Carter that he was fine? No mutations, no weird magical effects happening - magic didn't start 'leaking' if you didn't use it. He had asked Castaspella that long ago. Besides, it wasn't as if Jack had magic. He had the talent to use magic if he wanted to. But he didn't want to.
Learning how to cast spells would take too long, anyway, even if he wanted. Jack would have to quit his post and move to Etheria. And that would mean leaving his people in the middle of the war, and good officers didn't do that.
Someone else, someone not Jack, someone who wanted to, could learn to do magic instead. It wasn't as if Mystacor had unlimited teachers, anyway. So, it was better to let others with the talent, younger people who weren't generals, learn magic.
Even if they didn't have the same potential as Jack.
He nodded at his reasoning. Not learning magic was the right decision.
A beep from his computer alerted him of another message arriving. Work!
Smiling, he opened the mail. Another proposal from R&D for special equipment for Special Forces? Those always were fun. "Let's see what they cooked up this time…" He blinked, then frowned. 'Special magitech equipment' sounded good, but 'dependent on a user's magical potential' sounded…
…like Jack had to ask a few people in the know a few questions about confidentiality. Pointed questions.
*****
