Chapter 241: Containment Part 3
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Chapter 241: Containment Part 3
In Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 18th, 2002 (Earth Time)
Sam Carter suppressed a yawn as she stepped up to the screen in the frigate's flagroom. She wasn't about to fall over; it was barely after midnight, fleet time, and others had had a far more exhausting day. Both physically and mentally; close-quarters fighting in the palace basements, without lighting and communications, against mind-controlled suicidally brave enemies… It had been a nightmare even though the Alliance had won. And that hadn't been the end of it, of course - the Alliance had to process all the prisoners, the liberated slaves, all of whom had to be treated as mind-controlled, suicidal victims. At least, they didn't have to scan and search the palace for holdouts and all the computers for hidden traps since Adora had turned the entire installation and the maze of canyons surrounding it into a forest of giant trees.
But that didn't change the fact that they hadn't been able to secure all the holding areas with the slaves Delta had been using as human shields. Too many of them had been sent out as suicide bombers by the bot running the battle, and since so many of them had been women and young children… Jack was blaming himself for failing them, she knew, even if it hadn't been his fault; she doubted anyone could have secured that holding area in time, not with the gear and intel they had available.
Although if Sam had been a bit more prepared with the gear, if she had tweaked the scanners a bit more, they might have had secure communications and better intel available…
She shook her head. She could blame herself later. She had to do a briefing now. One that would, hopefully, help prevent battles like this one from occurring again.
She checked that the room was as secured against eavesdropping as the Alliance could manage, even though she had been the one who had secured it with her friends in the first place, then used her remote to start the presentation and turned to face the assembled group as behind her, a rotating map of the sector appeared, with the PT-9499-System highlighted. "We've managed to infiltrate Delta's FTL communication network," she started with the most important information. "We've inserted our own tracking programs into the traffic, and we're now waiting for them to report back once they have identified the location of Delta's core. Provided the programs can achieve that; there's always the risk that Delta will discover them before that point."
"And the risk that they'll move their core afterwards," Catra added; she was sitting next to Adora, and her posture was the kind of aggressive slouch she used when she was really annoyed at something.
"Yes. Still, we expect to gain more information about Delta's forces and territory," Sam went on, "since the agents are programmed to infiltrate all systems connected to the network." That would raise the risk of discovery, but since they had no idea where Delta's core was, they had no choice. They could only hope the additional intel would be worth the additional risk.
"But the main objective is to locate the core. It will likely be mobile, installed in a spaceship," she went on. "And our trackers are programmed to send out updates if the location they found changes. However, they will be forced to transmit the data back through Delta's network, which will cause both a delay and additional risks of being exposed." And if it worked, it would be lauded as a daring and elegant plan instead of luck.
"So… more waiting," Jack commented.
Sam nodded. She knew he would have loved to go straight on to fight Delta. She also knew that wouldn't have worked well.
"It gives us time to recover and prepare," Adora said. "Move more units and task forces forward."
"And go over our gear and doctrine," Catra added. "We need to improve communications."
"Yes!" Entrapta nodded. "We've already been brainstorming ideas. Like relay bots that use laser or hardline communications to avoid being hacked. Of course, with the right gear, both can be hacked, but that would require someone to capture a bot or get very close, at least, and we can prepare anti-tampering devices to destroy them in that case."
"No explosives," Sam added. The risk to their own troops would be too great if the enemy could use their own communication gear as bombs against them.
"Good." Jack nodded, but he was still frowning.
She would have to talk to him about it. After they both had some sleep, though. "However, we have also been able to adapt and update our counter-measures following this battle. We should be able to protect our systems a bit better during subsequent battles, even accounting for Delta's future adaptations."
Glimmer frowned. "Are you sure? Delta's whole purpose is to adapt and evolve past countermeasures."
"Yes. In the long run, Delta will develop different protocols that our current countermeasures are useless against. But that will require them to change their entire doctrine and protocols, and that will consume a lot of resources and weaken Delta's efficiency until they can refine the new protocols, so we expect them to delay such a change until the benefits outweigh the drawbacks." It went without saying that such a radical adaptation would render their agents useless.
Sam really hoped that Delta would keep optimising their current protocols for a bit longer.
Adora nodded. "Good. Now, next point: Prisoners. How far are we in deprogramming them?"
As Entrapta handled that question, Sam sat down and tried to stifle another yawn. It was really getting too late here.
*****
PT-9499, PT-9499-System, Heru'ur's Realm, April 18th, 2002 (Earth Time)
"You know, your Church is campaigning to declare the entire area a holy site," Catra commented as she stood next to Adora on the shuttle ramp, watching the day-old forest below them.
Her love twitched. "This isn't our planet; the people living here are the only ones who can - and will - name their lands and landmarks," she said in a forced calm tone of voice.
"Yeah, that's why the Clones are campaigning amongst the locals," Catra said. Those who had survived the fighting; the Alliance had done what they could, but with how Delta had used the enslaved population as human shields, casualties had been unavoidable.
"What?" Adora turned to stare at her.
"You haven't heard?" Catra shrugged. "It's in one of the reports." Although not one flagged as a priority - she had only stumbled on it because she had overheard two Clones talking about it on the ship and had then run a search.
"They should tell me such things!" Adora grumbled while she quickly went through her tablet.
"It's not exactly critical information," Catra said with a shrug. "And it's not as if you can do anything about it unless you want to tell the Clones and the locals who they can worship." Which was something Adora wouldn't do, of course.
"I know that, but…" Adora sighed. "I should have been told."
"Technically, you were." Of course, the Clones had gotten better about working around Adora - Priest had turned that into an art form. "But, did you really think you could turn an entire desert plateau into a forest and not get worshipped by the people who live there?"
Adora blushed. "It was the best way to finish the battle without risking any more deaths."
"Yes." Catra nodded. "But it's also the kind of stuff goddesses do."
"I'm no goddess!" Adora spat at once.
Catra tilted her head to the side and wrinkled her nose a bit for effect. "Actually, you might be a goddess. Depends on who you ask. I'm pretty sure the Goa'uld would consider you a goddess if they actually believed that they were gods."
"They aren't gods!" Adora insisted. "And neither am I!"
Catra shrugged again. "As I said, depends on who you ask. Daniel has a whole guest lecture about that."
"What?" Adora blinked. "That's the first time I've heard about that!"
"You're the Supreme Commander of the Alliance. You're too busy to track everything."
"You knew about it!" And here came the pout.
"I track down anything about you," Catra told her. She had to, if she wanted to protect Adora.
"But you didn't tell me about it!"
"Because Daniel's right; according to many of the Faiths on Earth, you qualify as a goddess." Catra flashed her fangs for a moment. "You heal people, you protect them, you save them - and you grant bountiful harvests. Or forests."
"That doesn't mean I'm a goddess! I don't hear prayers or grant blessings or do miracles! I just use my power as She-Ra to help those who need it!"
"And that's more than most of the gods do, at least on Earth," Catra pointed out. "The kind of gods the Goa'uld pose as? You are doing what they supposedly did. And if we're including the spirits worshipped as gods in some countries, you're pretty powerful."
"So's Gaia," Adora replied.
"And why wouldn't she be a goddess?" Catra snorted. "Grants favours, protects the land, reshapes the countryside? Sounds like a goddess to me."
"It's not… I'm not a goddess! I'm not all-powerful." Adora shook her head.
"You don't have to be all-powerful to be a goddess. All the myths Daniel told us about show that." Catra lightly elbowed Adora. "Goddesses also don't have to be perfect. That's just the Abrahamic religions."
"Most of Earth worships those," Adora retorted.
"So? Most of the humans off-Earth worship the Goa'uld. Doesn't mean they are right." Catra snorted again. Daniel had tried to explain how those religions supposedly worked, but it didn't make much sense to Catra. If Adora were all-powerful like those gods, she would use that to help people. She wouldn't let anyone suffer if she could help it. Which made her a much worthier goddess than anyone else.
"It is still wrong!"
"Is it? You use your power to help people. That's what gods are supposed to do, right?"
"That's what everyone is supposed to do, Catra!" Adora was pouting again.
"And that's what your church teaches!" Catra grinned widely. Before Adora could claim that it wasn't her church, she went on: "Don't get hung up on the 'goddess' title. You're the protector of Etheria. Chosen by Etheria. And you do all you can do to live up to that. That does inspire others." Hell, they had learned that - kinda - in Horde cadet training.
"They pray to me!" Adora spat through clenched teeth.
"Well… nobody's perfect?" Catra grinned again, and Adora scowled some more.
But she felt that she had made some progress. It would be better for Adora if she stopped getting so hung up on being called a goddess. What mattered was what she did, and what she stood for.
And Catra was the first to say that Adora deserved all the praise for that.
*****
Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 19th, 2002 (Earth Time)
"...and reports from the worlds in Heru'ur and Hathor's realms that were attacked by Goa'uld forces are not promising. Roughly half the attacks failed, the attacking forces suffering heavy casualties. A significant part of those casualties were subverted and are now under Delta's control." Major Lila Sabeh from Analysis pointed at the various worlds that lit up on the holoprojection in the frigate's flagroom.
Jack O'Neill groaned. Even when they were nominally not fighting the Alliance, the damned snakes found ways to make a mess of things. "Why don't they switch sides right away if they're delivering more troops and ships to Delta?" he muttered.
He caught a glance from Sam and grinned lopsidedly back; he was fine. He didn't like that they hadn't managed to save everyone in the fighting, but that happened in a war - and Jack had a lot of experience with war.
"Yu's three attacks, prepared for the threat and the expected tactics, succeeded all, as did Bastet's, but the latter only launched one attack. Morrigan and Olokun's attacks failed, Svarog's offensive had mixed success - though Tok'ra intel claims it was mostly because one of the two worlds he attacked had only recently been subverted and, therefore, had not been fortified accordingly. And Kali succeeded with two attacks, but both her forces and the defenders and civilians suffered massive casualties," Sabeh went on. She grew very serious. "Further, according to our intel, confirmed by Tok'ra operatives, with the exception of Yu, the System Lords didn't take any prisoners and killed all mind-controlled victims on sight, both Jaffa and humans."
Jack clenched his teeth at that and tried not to make an angry noise. Drowning the enemy in bodies was one thing - sometimes, the only way forward was straight into the teeth of the enemy, and snakes weren't the only ones to use human wave attacks. But to massacre everyone, civilians and soldiers alike, because they had been mind-controlled? Fucking snakes! He couldn't wait for the truce to be over to deal with the scum!
"Do the System Lords who managed to conquer worlds show any indication of handing control over them back to Hathor or Heru'ur?" Glimmer asked after a short pause.
"Not to our knowledge, although they only recently finished their attacks," Sabeh replied.
Which didn't say good things about the snake's effectiveness; most of the attacks had been launched shortly after the Alliance had started their own offensive. Normally, Jack would like that, but under the circumstances… "So, is Heru'ur bothering them as much as he is bothering us?" The snake was sending requests daily.
"We lack sufficient information to determine that with any degree of certainty, sir," Sabeh told him. "Based on past information, both Heru'ur and Hathor likely wish to make such requests in private to avoid a public rift - or humiliation."
Jack shook his head. It was always about saving face for the snakes. "And they're bothering us openly because they think we'll act differently?"
"They probably expect the Asgard to pressure us into handing the worlds over," Glimmer speculated. "Or they want to use our refusal to gain other concessions."
Probably both, in Jack's opinion. Whatever worked - many snakes could be very pragmatic when they had to be. Could; their pride often got in the way of their own interests, but that was a good thing as far as Jack was concerned.
"We've refused their requests, citing military necessity and the need to deprogram Delta's victims; neither has the forces to occupy, much less hold the planets anyway," Adora said. "But as we continue to free the victims of Delta's mind-control, we expect many of them will request to return to their 'gods'. We have been prioritising the freed slaves so far instead of the Jaffa, despite the security concerns that keeping mind-controlled prisoners poses, but that is only a temporary measure. Sooner or later, we'll have to address that."
"Any Jaffa we free and send back to the snakes will end up fighting us later," Jack said.
"But we're currently in a truce with them," Adora replied. "Keeping them prisoner would clearly violate it. We won't send anyone back who doesn't like to, though."
"Such as those freed slaves who aren't fanatically loyal to the Goa'uld," Glimmer added. "Many of them have switched their allegiance and loyalty following their freedom."
To Adora, Jack knew. But that was a touchy topic.
Glimmer went on: "But even so, we either evacuate them from their worlds, making them lose their homes, and hand the worlds back to the Goa'uld, or we keep the worlds and break the truce."
Jack was pretty sure he knew what Glimmer preferred. He did the same - handing over worlds that the Alliance had freed - had bled for - back to the snakes was wrong, no matter what the treaty said. "As long as the other snakes don't give away the worlds they took, we don't need to do anything." And he had a feeling that the other snakes would keep those worlds forever if they could.
"They will claim that that was an internal matter of the Goa'uld Empire," Glimmer replied. "And they will want their troops back; we're the only ones who took prisoners at all."
Jack didn't need the reminder of what the snakes had done. "Let's stall as long as possible and hope that we find Delta and deal with it before the Asgard start making serious noises about the truce." He didn't think Thor was very eager to deliver more victims to the snakes. But he also didn't doubt that the little guy would only bend so much before adhering to the treaty.
"That seems the best course of action," Adora agreed.
"Least bad, more like," Catra commented.
But there weren't many alternatives.
*****
Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 20th, 2002 (Earth Time)
"Your Divine Highness?"
Adora looked up from her latest report, this one detailing another front and smiled at the Clone officer approaching her. Even if he called her a goddess, she was glad for the interruption, if she was honest. The Alliance communications were hindered by the new countermeasures to prevent Delta from tapping into them, but that mostly affected real-time communications; whether a report arrived a minute or two late didn't change anything for paperwork. "Yes, officer?" He wasn't a regular bridge officer, so she wasn't familiar with him.
"I've been checking the area affected by your power, Your Divine Highness." He stood what Jack called ramrod straight. "And after careful checking and verifying the data, I have concluded that the Holy Forest is spreading far more quickly than biologically possible. Further surveillance has shown rapid, if sporadic growth of new trees at the edges of the forest."
That sounded concerning. Adora frowned and stood up, walking over to the main screen in the flagroom. "Show me."
He used his tablet to project the data and recordings on the screen.
It didn't take her too long to skim the data and watch the first recordings. The view of a tree sprouting from the ground, then growing to its full height of ten metres in about ten minutes, made her wince. "That shouldn't happen. I've spent the power from unleashing the world's magic already. We've also analysed the trees' biology, and they cannot reproduce that fast - or in this way."
"Yes, Your Divine Highness. It's a miracle. They are growing fruits as well!" The officer beamed.
"Fruits?" She dimly remembered that the trees were fruit trees according to the analysis Entrapta had done, but the season was supposed to be off for that - she hadn't really paid attention after hearing that the trees were harmless.
"Yes. I've identified three different types so far, albeit I haven't taken samples, of course. Not from the Divine Grove." He bowed his head.
Adora swallowed a curse Catra would have been proud of. "Go take a sample," she told him. "With my blessings," she added when he hesitated.
He jerked a little as he bowed, very deeply. "I am honoured with this task, Your Divine Highness!"
She was tempted to add that he should only take samples, not souvenirs, but that would either insult him - and probably make him feel unworthy or judged - or give him the idea in the first place.
So she nodded and only started scowling at the screen, which was still depicting various trees growing in minutes, when he had left the flagroom.
What was going on?
*****
Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 21st, 2002 (Earth Time)
"...and after careful analysis with Alpha's help, we've concluded that the fruits are not only harmless but very beneficial for consumption! Not only do they provide all nutrients between the four sorts we have identified so far - we haven't found a fifth, but since we discovered the fourth type only today, we cannot exclude the possibility that there will be a fifth in the future - but they also have different healing properties. The blue peaches have anti-infectious properties, sort of like antibiotics, although we still have to thoroughly test their effectiveness, the green apples do the same for viral infections, or so we assume - again, extensive clinical testing is apparently required before we can use them, according to Alpha - and the yellow lemons seem to accelerate the healing of wounds, though we couldn't test that either, so that's mostly conjecture. The dark blue berry types apparently reduce pain. All in all, this is a great find!"
Adora wasn't quite so sure if she agreed with Entrapta's enthusiastic conclusion. "You need further testing?"
"Well, Alpha said that according to the Alliance rules, we can't use the fruits unless we're not only sure that they are safe but have tested that in clinical trials. Unless it's an emergency, then we can use them as a clinical trial if you sign off on it. Is there an emergency?"
Adora frowned. That was like Alpha - trying to work around the rules. And they were trying to use Entrapta for it. "We don't have an emergency," she said. "The task force's stocks of medical supplies can handle the needs of the local population."
"Ah, OK." Entrapta nodded.
"But back to the forest. You said they have four different fruits? Even though the trees look the same?"
"Yes! They produce different types of fruit per tree, even though we haven't found any genetic reason for that!" Entrapta nodded again. "It's fascinating how that works - Alpha said it defied all biology and genetics. It must be a direct magical effect, but we haven't discussed it with Castaspella yet."
A magical effect…. Of course. Adora suppressed a sigh. The Alliance was still preparing to fight Delta as soon as they finally found the bot's core, the Goa'uld were trying to put diplomatic pressure on them to hand over worlds and people, Earth politics were as annoying as ever, and now they had to deal with an unknown magical effect. And unknown magic on other worlds was always a potential danger. At least, they weren't dealing with another magical protector, unless… She pressed her lips together. "We need to contact Mystacor and get a sorceress to analyse the entire forest. This is a priority."
If her turning the palace into a forest had somehow awakened another planetary protector, they needed to know at once. The risk of starting a conflict by mistake was too great.
"Alright!"
Adora was almost grateful that the Clones' attempts to declare the whole area a holy site had worked out as a sort of quarantine so far. Almost - this new discovery would just make them more eager to worship her.
*****
PT-9499, PT-9499-System, Heru'ur's Realm, April 22nd, 2002 (Earth Time)
Sam Carter wasn't the first through the Stargate. She left that to others in this case. She wasn't a biologist. Nor was she a Sorceress. She was a physicist first, although she did have more experience than most in a few other fields when it came to advanced or alien technology. Which included magitech.
Still, she was happy to leave examining the expanding magical forest to Castaspella and her team from Mystacor and focus on tracking down Delta. That didn't require her to travel to PT-9499, especially with all the computers present having been turned into trees, but since this was the world where Sam and her friends had managed to insert their own tracking virus into Delta's command and control network, it was a sound choice to conduct her own work. It helped, of course, that the system had not only turned into a staging area for a task force preparing for either the next wave of attacks on Delta's world or, preferably, the attack on Delta itself, provided the bot's core was within striking range of this system, but that Adora's continuing presence here, due to the Magical Forest phenomenon, had also resulted in the system becoming a command hub and, arguably, the temporary command centre for the entire war. Which meant that Jack was also staying here for the time being.
Not that Sam would ever admit to taking her private desires into account when making military decisions, of course. It was merely a nice thing when both aligned.
So, she was smiling contentedly when she walked down the Stargate's ramp, past the bots and soldiers standing guard, and saluted Jack, who was waiting at the bottom. "General."
"Major. Good to see you."
"Good to be here."
She fell in next to him as they headed to the gate that separated the secure Stargate area from the rest of the base. Which, according to the slightly haphazardly mounted sign above the force-field emitter for the gate, had been named "Base Sherwood Forest". With a picture of a bow and arrow, in case anyone missed the reference. She raised her eyebrows as she glanced at Jack.
"I don't know who put it up," he said.
That meant he had his suspicions, at least. Probably one of his special forces. Or a group of them - this looked like an organised effort. She tilted her head slightly.
"Someone thought that since the Brits did most of the fighting here, they should be 'honoured' by the base's name," he added. "And they seem to be a fan of Bow's."
Ah.
He shrugged. "So far, no one has made a fuss."
Well, such antics were a sign of good morale - at least, as long as they didn't result in an escalating rivalry or prank war that ended up hurting both readiness and unit cohesion. But she trusted Jack to keep things from deteriorating.
They passed through the gate, the force field opening and closing smoothly, and entered the base proper - or, rather, the above-ground parts, mainly weapon emplacements and bunker entrances; most of the base was being built as bunkers, thanks to the tunnelling devices the Tok'ra had lent them for the attack on the palace. Force fields might have been deemed sufficient protection for a temporary fire or forward base, but with Delta's hacking abilities and the growing importance of the system, a proper bunker had been deemed essential.
Sam was struck by a slight bout of nostalgia as they took a lift down; the interior reminded her of Cheyenne Mountain.
"Brings back memories, huh?" Jack must have read her mood.
She nodded.
"Wait until you see the labs. They expanded the section as soon as they noticed our magical weed problem."
She narrowed her eyes at him; even for Jack, that was a bad joke.
He grinned. "Rumours of magical trippy fruits are making the rounds."
Oh. She sighed. Of course, news of magical medical fruits would sprout such rumours… and now she was doing stupid plant puns as well.
At least, she hadn't said that out loud. "I hope those rumours are being dealt with."
"Oh, yeah. Can't have soldiers pissing off the local magical forest protector by stealing their tree's fruits." Jack grinned again. "And no, we haven't found any sign of that protector yet."
Or they had, but failed to realise it, Sam mentally added. The forest might be the protector, the trees forming a hive-mind-like organism. Although preliminary scans had not shown any evidence for that, it might be a magical effect that the scanners couldn't detect. Well, that was a problem for Castaspella and her team; Sam was here to track down Delta with Entrapta and Bow.
"And here we are!" Jack opened a door labelled 'Lab 01' with a smile.
"Sam!"
"Hey, Sam!"
Inside, Entrapta and Bow were working on a console - a couple of consoles, actually; Entrapta's hair tendrils were handling two more keyboards.
"Entrapta. Bow." Sam nodded at her friends, but her attention was already on the main screen, and the map - network nodes, not a stellar map, she realised - displayed on it.
"The tracking agents have sent back the first batch of data, and we've just started analysing it!" Entrapta announced.
Sam smiled. That was exactly what she had hoped for.
"So… I'll leave you to your work. See you later," Jack said, and Sam didn't have to look at him to know he was smiling.
She did it anyway, of course, flashing him a smile of her own, before she turned to focus on her work. She had a rogue bot to track down.
*****
PT-9499, PT-9499-System, Heru'ur's Realm, April 23rd, 2002 (Earth Time)
There were upsides to having to deal with a magical and slowly growing forest, Catra knew. Investigating it meant you didn't have to deal with lobbyists and annoying officers - especially American admirals - on Earth. On the other hand, it also meant fewer eyes on said annoying officers and their schemes.
And that meant more stress for Adora. Even more stress, actually - she was already stressed by feeling responsible for the forest.
Catra frowned as she turned away from the forest and tilted her head towards Adora. "It's not your fault; you didn't mean to do this, and nothing like that has happened when you used your power for similar things. Like the space plant."
"I could also have made a mistake here," Adora replied.
'Could have' instead of 'must have' - Catra counted that as progress. "Did you?"
"I don't know!" I didn't… do anything differently. But it's not exactly, uh, science. I just… guide the magic, I don't micromanage it."
"Auftragstaktik," Catra grinned.
Adora frowned at her. "Officers usually follow orders better than this."
"So, something must be different here," Catra said. "It's this world's magic that you guided." She looked at the group next to the latest tree that had grown. "Let's go check on Castaspella and her team."
Adora grumbled, but she followed Catra down the hill.
The ground was changing as well, Catra noted - or confirmed the report she had read. Where it had been sandy before, with lots of rocks, now it was turning into the kind of soil found in fields. Scanners had detected changed groundwater tables as well, though that had been tracked to Adora's use of magic; they didn't have magical springs here. But if the weather adapted to the spreading forest as some models predicted…
"If this keeps spreading, and if the Clones can get the area declared as a holy site, the whole planet might end up a holy site," Catra joked as they reached the foot of the hill, where grass was already growing quite dense.
Adora didn't laugh. Catra counted that as a loss.
"Adora!" Castaspella called out as soon as they stepped closer to the tree. "Perfect timing!"
"Oh?" Adora tilted her head to the side, Catra saw. "What do you need?"
"We're about to test a hypothesis, and we need She-Ra's power to compare."
"To compare?" Adora asked. "You want to test if the forest is a protector?"
That was the most popular theory here, but, so far, the forest hadn't shown any reaction to various attempts to contact a suspected entity, as Sam had worded it.
Castaspella nodded. "Yes! We hope that She-Ra's magic will cause a reaction we can measure."
That explained all the crystals and magitech sensors nearby. "You're focusing on a single tree?" Catra asked.
"Yes. We can use a far more detailed scan that way, and we hope to detect reactions we would miss with a broader scan. Which we're still doing in addition to this, of course," Castaspella explained.
"What do you need me to do?" Adora asked. Eager as always to be useful.
Catra pressed her lips together so she wouldn't make a comment about it.
"First, transform into She-Ra so we can see if that provokes a reaction. Some protectors have shown some territorial tendencies."
"Oh, right." Adora nodded. "Just say when."
Catra wasn't looking forward to finding out how a magic forest the size of Bright Moon would react if it turned out to be territorial. At least, they had frigates on standby in orbit, if the worst case happened.
Castaspella and her fellow sorceresses tinkered a bit with the crystals before nodding at Adora. "Whenever you're ready!"
"For the Honour of Grayskull!"
Watching Adora turn into She-Ra was a beautiful sight, as always. Catra couldn't help smiling when the transformation finished. Such a sight!
And the sorceresses were already discussing the results. In a very excited manner.
"Oh! There was a reaction!"
"Territorial?"
"Might just be sympathetic magic. It's too weak to indicate a sentient or sapient reaction."
"Sympathetic magic would be an indication that the forest shares some aspect with She-Ra."
"Even a crystal can show a reaction to magic worked nearby on that level just because it's powerful magic."
"But our crystals didn't show such a reaction."
"We didn't attune them to She-Ra's magic."
"So the tree is attuned to She-Ra's magic!"
"I didn't say that!"
"It's the logical conclusion of this!"
Adora cleared her throat. "Uh. Do you need me to do anything else?"
Castaspella turned to look at her. "Ah, yes. Could you… heal the tree? Or otherwise use your power on it?"
"Best not blast it," Catra said with a wry grin. "That could be seen as an attack."
"I wouldn't do that!" Adora protested. "I'll heal it. Even though it doesn't need healing - does anyone else need healing, by the way?"
Catra rolled her eyes.
No one did, though, and Adora pointed her sword at the tree, then used her magic.
"Oh! That was a much stronger reaction!"
"Look at that - the magic leads underground!"
"The roots?"
"Past the roots… somehow."
"But the roots aren't connected to each other - we checked!"
"Yes, but it spread anyway, but how?"
"The water! Scan for water!"
"Right! It travels through water!"
"Scan the aquifer!"
"On it!"
"Oh!"
"Wow!"
"Check this!"
Catra glanced at Adora, who was staring at the sorceresses, who were all bent over the screen attached to one particularly large crystal, then back at the sorceresses. What were they… Wait - that tree was new, wasn't it? And that one…
"The water's magical!"
"But we scanned for that before!"
"We scanned for new water that would be magically created, not for magical water."
"That shouldn't make a difference!"
"Whatever the reason, the whole aquifer is magical!"
"And it's influencing the trees through the water they need!"
"And the forest is showing a reaction!" Catra snapped.
"What?" Castaspella turned around.
Catra pointed at the three - no, four now - trees that had sprouted up around them.
"Oh."
And there was a fifth. Behind them.
Catra cursed under her breath. This had been a bad idea.
"Move back!" Adora yelled, stepping forward. "Leave the area!"
Fortunately, the sorceresses didn't try to argue whether or not the trees were hostile, dangerous or just misunderstood and quickly left the area - though Adora had to yell again when two tried to grab all the devices and crystals spread out.
But that had been enough that two more trees had grown. And the underbrush was filling in. "Don't try healing the trees again," Catra commented as she stepped up to Adora.
"I won't!" Adora looked around, sword at the ready. "But I don't want to hurt them, either."
"The trees aren't magical; it's the water," Catra said.
"Maybe we should call Mermista," Adora said.
"So she can control the magical water? I'm sure the water's gonna like that!" Catra scoffed while looking around. They were almost surrounded by trees now, the devices left behind had vanished under dense foliage, but the underbrush didn't look that tough, and she was sure that, if she had to, she could literally carve a path through those trees. Unless, of course, the magical water had another surprise. Cutting water wasn't going to do much. At least for Catra; She-Ra was something else.
"Uh…" Adora turned. "Let's fall back as well."
"Good ideAH!" Catra yelped when Adora grabbed her around the waist and jumped.
They crashed through the canopy that had grown to cover the area, Adora using her weapon to shield Catra from the branches and twigs that got smashed in the process. She also switched her grip mid-jump, so when they landed outside the forest, Catra was held in a princess's carry.
Fortunately, neither Glimmer nor Bow or Jack were present.
Catra scrambled out of Adora's arms and faced the forest. "Any change to the growth?"
"Without the devices we left behind, we can't tell for sure," a sorceress Catra didn't know replied.
"The trees seem to have slowed down compared to the first reaction," Castaspella said.
Catra scoffed again and used her communicator to call the frigates in orbit. With all the computer security protocols added to keep Delta out, it took half a minute for her HUD to show the results from the orbital surveillance.
And they weren't good. "Growth across the entire treeline has sped up," she told the others. "Not as fast as here, but quite faster than before."
"We need to contact whoever is doing this," Adora said.
"It must be the water!"
"It could be another entity using the water as a medium."
"Or a host!"
"What kind of entity? The scanners didn't detect anything!"
"An entity of pure magic!"
"A dimensionally-shifted entity only partially present in this dimension!"
Catra clenched her teeth as the sorceresses started to argue again.
"Whether it's the water or something using the water, it's the only obvious way to contact the potential protector," Castaspella said. "And we need to use that."
Preferably before the forest covered the entire planet, Catra thought.
"But how?" Adora asked. "When I used my power on the tree, it caused all this."
"Let's track the magical water," Catra suggested. "So we know which water is safe." She didn't want to drink magical water that might be alive - she shuddered at the thought. If whoever was doing this could use water to control people…
"Our equipment is covered by the forest," another sorceress pointed out.
"Then let's get new ones!" Castaspella said.
Adora shook her head. "I can recover the devices!"
And before Catra could say anything, Adora charged into the forest.
Catra was so going to kill her for this.
*****
Jack O'Neill had expected some problems to crop up as soon as he had heard about Castaspella's arrival. Magic always caused problems. Even when it solved problems. But he hadn't expected things to go sideways as quickly as they had this time.
"Sitrep!" he snapped when he reached the group gathered far too close to the growing magical forest.
"Magic water is controlling the trees, which are growing faster than before, and Adora charged into the magic forest to recover the magic devices we need to study the stuff," Catra reported without taking her eyes off the forest.
"It's a bit more complex than that," Castaspella added, "but that's the gist of it." She glared at the rest of the sorceresses who had arrived with her, and, to Jack's surprise, they didn't try to correct or argue with her.
He used his communicator. "Adora?"
"Give me a bit. The trees can't touch me, but the devices are stuck in plants, and I don't want to break them! Either the devices or the plants."
So, she was OK. Well, the fact that Catra was waiting instead of shredding the trees in front of them had already told him that.
He still kept the frigates above the forest on standby for orbital bombardment. And he ordered everyone to seal up - with magical water, he wasn't taking any risks.
But short of charging into the forest himself, there wasn't much he could do here. And that would be so stupid, even Daniel would call him out for it.
Still, as much as he hated waiting, it seemed they had the situation under control. Mostly.
Then the ground started to tremble.
And a few seconds later, a huge geyser appeared in the middle of the forest, towering over the entire area.
No, not a geyser, Jack realised with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Geysers didn't just float in the air like that.
Or started to change into… was that a copy of She-Ra, made out of water, and over a hundred metres tall? That could move?
Next to him, Catra cursed.
*****
In Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 18th, 2002 (Earth Time)
Sam Carter suppressed a yawn as she stepped up to the screen in the frigate's flagroom. She wasn't about to fall over; it was barely after midnight, fleet time, and others had had a far more exhausting day. Both physically and mentally; close-quarters fighting in the palace basements, without lighting and communications, against mind-controlled suicidally brave enemies… It had been a nightmare even though the Alliance had won. And that hadn't been the end of it, of course - the Alliance had to process all the prisoners, the liberated slaves, all of whom had to be treated as mind-controlled, suicidal victims. At least, they didn't have to scan and search the palace for holdouts and all the computers for hidden traps since Adora had turned the entire installation and the maze of canyons surrounding it into a forest of giant trees.
But that didn't change the fact that they hadn't been able to secure all the holding areas with the slaves Delta had been using as human shields. Too many of them had been sent out as suicide bombers by the bot running the battle, and since so many of them had been women and young children… Jack was blaming himself for failing them, she knew, even if it hadn't been his fault; she doubted anyone could have secured that holding area in time, not with the gear and intel they had available.
Although if Sam had been a bit more prepared with the gear, if she had tweaked the scanners a bit more, they might have had secure communications and better intel available…
She shook her head. She could blame herself later. She had to do a briefing now. One that would, hopefully, help prevent battles like this one from occurring again.
She checked that the room was as secured against eavesdropping as the Alliance could manage, even though she had been the one who had secured it with her friends in the first place, then used her remote to start the presentation and turned to face the assembled group as behind her, a rotating map of the sector appeared, with the PT-9499-System highlighted. "We've managed to infiltrate Delta's FTL communication network," she started with the most important information. "We've inserted our own tracking programs into the traffic, and we're now waiting for them to report back once they have identified the location of Delta's core. Provided the programs can achieve that; there's always the risk that Delta will discover them before that point."
"And the risk that they'll move their core afterwards," Catra added; she was sitting next to Adora, and her posture was the kind of aggressive slouch she used when she was really annoyed at something.
"Yes. Still, we expect to gain more information about Delta's forces and territory," Sam went on, "since the agents are programmed to infiltrate all systems connected to the network." That would raise the risk of discovery, but since they had no idea where Delta's core was, they had no choice. They could only hope the additional intel would be worth the additional risk.
"But the main objective is to locate the core. It will likely be mobile, installed in a spaceship," she went on. "And our trackers are programmed to send out updates if the location they found changes. However, they will be forced to transmit the data back through Delta's network, which will cause both a delay and additional risks of being exposed." And if it worked, it would be lauded as a daring and elegant plan instead of luck.
"So… more waiting," Jack commented.
Sam nodded. She knew he would have loved to go straight on to fight Delta. She also knew that wouldn't have worked well.
"It gives us time to recover and prepare," Adora said. "Move more units and task forces forward."
"And go over our gear and doctrine," Catra added. "We need to improve communications."
"Yes!" Entrapta nodded. "We've already been brainstorming ideas. Like relay bots that use laser or hardline communications to avoid being hacked. Of course, with the right gear, both can be hacked, but that would require someone to capture a bot or get very close, at least, and we can prepare anti-tampering devices to destroy them in that case."
"No explosives," Sam added. The risk to their own troops would be too great if the enemy could use their own communication gear as bombs against them.
"Good." Jack nodded, but he was still frowning.
She would have to talk to him about it. After they both had some sleep, though. "However, we have also been able to adapt and update our counter-measures following this battle. We should be able to protect our systems a bit better during subsequent battles, even accounting for Delta's future adaptations."
Glimmer frowned. "Are you sure? Delta's whole purpose is to adapt and evolve past countermeasures."
"Yes. In the long run, Delta will develop different protocols that our current countermeasures are useless against. But that will require them to change their entire doctrine and protocols, and that will consume a lot of resources and weaken Delta's efficiency until they can refine the new protocols, so we expect them to delay such a change until the benefits outweigh the drawbacks." It went without saying that such a radical adaptation would render their agents useless.
Sam really hoped that Delta would keep optimising their current protocols for a bit longer.
Adora nodded. "Good. Now, next point: Prisoners. How far are we in deprogramming them?"
As Entrapta handled that question, Sam sat down and tried to stifle another yawn. It was really getting too late here.
*****
PT-9499, PT-9499-System, Heru'ur's Realm, April 18th, 2002 (Earth Time)
"You know, your Church is campaigning to declare the entire area a holy site," Catra commented as she stood next to Adora on the shuttle ramp, watching the day-old forest below them.
Her love twitched. "This isn't our planet; the people living here are the only ones who can - and will - name their lands and landmarks," she said in a forced calm tone of voice.
"Yeah, that's why the Clones are campaigning amongst the locals," Catra said. Those who had survived the fighting; the Alliance had done what they could, but with how Delta had used the enslaved population as human shields, casualties had been unavoidable.
"What?" Adora turned to stare at her.
"You haven't heard?" Catra shrugged. "It's in one of the reports." Although not one flagged as a priority - she had only stumbled on it because she had overheard two Clones talking about it on the ship and had then run a search.
"They should tell me such things!" Adora grumbled while she quickly went through her tablet.
"It's not exactly critical information," Catra said with a shrug. "And it's not as if you can do anything about it unless you want to tell the Clones and the locals who they can worship." Which was something Adora wouldn't do, of course.
"I know that, but…" Adora sighed. "I should have been told."
"Technically, you were." Of course, the Clones had gotten better about working around Adora - Priest had turned that into an art form. "But, did you really think you could turn an entire desert plateau into a forest and not get worshipped by the people who live there?"
Adora blushed. "It was the best way to finish the battle without risking any more deaths."
"Yes." Catra nodded. "But it's also the kind of stuff goddesses do."
"I'm no goddess!" Adora spat at once.
Catra tilted her head to the side and wrinkled her nose a bit for effect. "Actually, you might be a goddess. Depends on who you ask. I'm pretty sure the Goa'uld would consider you a goddess if they actually believed that they were gods."
"They aren't gods!" Adora insisted. "And neither am I!"
Catra shrugged again. "As I said, depends on who you ask. Daniel has a whole guest lecture about that."
"What?" Adora blinked. "That's the first time I've heard about that!"
"You're the Supreme Commander of the Alliance. You're too busy to track everything."
"You knew about it!" And here came the pout.
"I track down anything about you," Catra told her. She had to, if she wanted to protect Adora.
"But you didn't tell me about it!"
"Because Daniel's right; according to many of the Faiths on Earth, you qualify as a goddess." Catra flashed her fangs for a moment. "You heal people, you protect them, you save them - and you grant bountiful harvests. Or forests."
"That doesn't mean I'm a goddess! I don't hear prayers or grant blessings or do miracles! I just use my power as She-Ra to help those who need it!"
"And that's more than most of the gods do, at least on Earth," Catra pointed out. "The kind of gods the Goa'uld pose as? You are doing what they supposedly did. And if we're including the spirits worshipped as gods in some countries, you're pretty powerful."
"So's Gaia," Adora replied.
"And why wouldn't she be a goddess?" Catra snorted. "Grants favours, protects the land, reshapes the countryside? Sounds like a goddess to me."
"It's not… I'm not a goddess! I'm not all-powerful." Adora shook her head.
"You don't have to be all-powerful to be a goddess. All the myths Daniel told us about show that." Catra lightly elbowed Adora. "Goddesses also don't have to be perfect. That's just the Abrahamic religions."
"Most of Earth worships those," Adora retorted.
"So? Most of the humans off-Earth worship the Goa'uld. Doesn't mean they are right." Catra snorted again. Daniel had tried to explain how those religions supposedly worked, but it didn't make much sense to Catra. If Adora were all-powerful like those gods, she would use that to help people. She wouldn't let anyone suffer if she could help it. Which made her a much worthier goddess than anyone else.
"It is still wrong!"
"Is it? You use your power to help people. That's what gods are supposed to do, right?"
"That's what everyone is supposed to do, Catra!" Adora was pouting again.
"And that's what your church teaches!" Catra grinned widely. Before Adora could claim that it wasn't her church, she went on: "Don't get hung up on the 'goddess' title. You're the protector of Etheria. Chosen by Etheria. And you do all you can do to live up to that. That does inspire others." Hell, they had learned that - kinda - in Horde cadet training.
"They pray to me!" Adora spat through clenched teeth.
"Well… nobody's perfect?" Catra grinned again, and Adora scowled some more.
But she felt that she had made some progress. It would be better for Adora if she stopped getting so hung up on being called a goddess. What mattered was what she did, and what she stood for.
And Catra was the first to say that Adora deserved all the praise for that.
*****
Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 19th, 2002 (Earth Time)
"...and reports from the worlds in Heru'ur and Hathor's realms that were attacked by Goa'uld forces are not promising. Roughly half the attacks failed, the attacking forces suffering heavy casualties. A significant part of those casualties were subverted and are now under Delta's control." Major Lila Sabeh from Analysis pointed at the various worlds that lit up on the holoprojection in the frigate's flagroom.
Jack O'Neill groaned. Even when they were nominally not fighting the Alliance, the damned snakes found ways to make a mess of things. "Why don't they switch sides right away if they're delivering more troops and ships to Delta?" he muttered.
He caught a glance from Sam and grinned lopsidedly back; he was fine. He didn't like that they hadn't managed to save everyone in the fighting, but that happened in a war - and Jack had a lot of experience with war.
"Yu's three attacks, prepared for the threat and the expected tactics, succeeded all, as did Bastet's, but the latter only launched one attack. Morrigan and Olokun's attacks failed, Svarog's offensive had mixed success - though Tok'ra intel claims it was mostly because one of the two worlds he attacked had only recently been subverted and, therefore, had not been fortified accordingly. And Kali succeeded with two attacks, but both her forces and the defenders and civilians suffered massive casualties," Sabeh went on. She grew very serious. "Further, according to our intel, confirmed by Tok'ra operatives, with the exception of Yu, the System Lords didn't take any prisoners and killed all mind-controlled victims on sight, both Jaffa and humans."
Jack clenched his teeth at that and tried not to make an angry noise. Drowning the enemy in bodies was one thing - sometimes, the only way forward was straight into the teeth of the enemy, and snakes weren't the only ones to use human wave attacks. But to massacre everyone, civilians and soldiers alike, because they had been mind-controlled? Fucking snakes! He couldn't wait for the truce to be over to deal with the scum!
"Do the System Lords who managed to conquer worlds show any indication of handing control over them back to Hathor or Heru'ur?" Glimmer asked after a short pause.
"Not to our knowledge, although they only recently finished their attacks," Sabeh replied.
Which didn't say good things about the snake's effectiveness; most of the attacks had been launched shortly after the Alliance had started their own offensive. Normally, Jack would like that, but under the circumstances… "So, is Heru'ur bothering them as much as he is bothering us?" The snake was sending requests daily.
"We lack sufficient information to determine that with any degree of certainty, sir," Sabeh told him. "Based on past information, both Heru'ur and Hathor likely wish to make such requests in private to avoid a public rift - or humiliation."
Jack shook his head. It was always about saving face for the snakes. "And they're bothering us openly because they think we'll act differently?"
"They probably expect the Asgard to pressure us into handing the worlds over," Glimmer speculated. "Or they want to use our refusal to gain other concessions."
Probably both, in Jack's opinion. Whatever worked - many snakes could be very pragmatic when they had to be. Could; their pride often got in the way of their own interests, but that was a good thing as far as Jack was concerned.
"We've refused their requests, citing military necessity and the need to deprogram Delta's victims; neither has the forces to occupy, much less hold the planets anyway," Adora said. "But as we continue to free the victims of Delta's mind-control, we expect many of them will request to return to their 'gods'. We have been prioritising the freed slaves so far instead of the Jaffa, despite the security concerns that keeping mind-controlled prisoners poses, but that is only a temporary measure. Sooner or later, we'll have to address that."
"Any Jaffa we free and send back to the snakes will end up fighting us later," Jack said.
"But we're currently in a truce with them," Adora replied. "Keeping them prisoner would clearly violate it. We won't send anyone back who doesn't like to, though."
"Such as those freed slaves who aren't fanatically loyal to the Goa'uld," Glimmer added. "Many of them have switched their allegiance and loyalty following their freedom."
To Adora, Jack knew. But that was a touchy topic.
Glimmer went on: "But even so, we either evacuate them from their worlds, making them lose their homes, and hand the worlds back to the Goa'uld, or we keep the worlds and break the truce."
Jack was pretty sure he knew what Glimmer preferred. He did the same - handing over worlds that the Alliance had freed - had bled for - back to the snakes was wrong, no matter what the treaty said. "As long as the other snakes don't give away the worlds they took, we don't need to do anything." And he had a feeling that the other snakes would keep those worlds forever if they could.
"They will claim that that was an internal matter of the Goa'uld Empire," Glimmer replied. "And they will want their troops back; we're the only ones who took prisoners at all."
Jack didn't need the reminder of what the snakes had done. "Let's stall as long as possible and hope that we find Delta and deal with it before the Asgard start making serious noises about the truce." He didn't think Thor was very eager to deliver more victims to the snakes. But he also didn't doubt that the little guy would only bend so much before adhering to the treaty.
"That seems the best course of action," Adora agreed.
"Least bad, more like," Catra commented.
But there weren't many alternatives.
*****
Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 20th, 2002 (Earth Time)
"Your Divine Highness?"
Adora looked up from her latest report, this one detailing another front and smiled at the Clone officer approaching her. Even if he called her a goddess, she was glad for the interruption, if she was honest. The Alliance communications were hindered by the new countermeasures to prevent Delta from tapping into them, but that mostly affected real-time communications; whether a report arrived a minute or two late didn't change anything for paperwork. "Yes, officer?" He wasn't a regular bridge officer, so she wasn't familiar with him.
"I've been checking the area affected by your power, Your Divine Highness." He stood what Jack called ramrod straight. "And after careful checking and verifying the data, I have concluded that the Holy Forest is spreading far more quickly than biologically possible. Further surveillance has shown rapid, if sporadic growth of new trees at the edges of the forest."
That sounded concerning. Adora frowned and stood up, walking over to the main screen in the flagroom. "Show me."
He used his tablet to project the data and recordings on the screen.
It didn't take her too long to skim the data and watch the first recordings. The view of a tree sprouting from the ground, then growing to its full height of ten metres in about ten minutes, made her wince. "That shouldn't happen. I've spent the power from unleashing the world's magic already. We've also analysed the trees' biology, and they cannot reproduce that fast - or in this way."
"Yes, Your Divine Highness. It's a miracle. They are growing fruits as well!" The officer beamed.
"Fruits?" She dimly remembered that the trees were fruit trees according to the analysis Entrapta had done, but the season was supposed to be off for that - she hadn't really paid attention after hearing that the trees were harmless.
"Yes. I've identified three different types so far, albeit I haven't taken samples, of course. Not from the Divine Grove." He bowed his head.
Adora swallowed a curse Catra would have been proud of. "Go take a sample," she told him. "With my blessings," she added when he hesitated.
He jerked a little as he bowed, very deeply. "I am honoured with this task, Your Divine Highness!"
She was tempted to add that he should only take samples, not souvenirs, but that would either insult him - and probably make him feel unworthy or judged - or give him the idea in the first place.
So she nodded and only started scowling at the screen, which was still depicting various trees growing in minutes, when he had left the flagroom.
What was going on?
*****
Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 21st, 2002 (Earth Time)
"...and after careful analysis with Alpha's help, we've concluded that the fruits are not only harmless but very beneficial for consumption! Not only do they provide all nutrients between the four sorts we have identified so far - we haven't found a fifth, but since we discovered the fourth type only today, we cannot exclude the possibility that there will be a fifth in the future - but they also have different healing properties. The blue peaches have anti-infectious properties, sort of like antibiotics, although we still have to thoroughly test their effectiveness, the green apples do the same for viral infections, or so we assume - again, extensive clinical testing is apparently required before we can use them, according to Alpha - and the yellow lemons seem to accelerate the healing of wounds, though we couldn't test that either, so that's mostly conjecture. The dark blue berry types apparently reduce pain. All in all, this is a great find!"
Adora wasn't quite so sure if she agreed with Entrapta's enthusiastic conclusion. "You need further testing?"
"Well, Alpha said that according to the Alliance rules, we can't use the fruits unless we're not only sure that they are safe but have tested that in clinical trials. Unless it's an emergency, then we can use them as a clinical trial if you sign off on it. Is there an emergency?"
Adora frowned. That was like Alpha - trying to work around the rules. And they were trying to use Entrapta for it. "We don't have an emergency," she said. "The task force's stocks of medical supplies can handle the needs of the local population."
"Ah, OK." Entrapta nodded.
"But back to the forest. You said they have four different fruits? Even though the trees look the same?"
"Yes! They produce different types of fruit per tree, even though we haven't found any genetic reason for that!" Entrapta nodded again. "It's fascinating how that works - Alpha said it defied all biology and genetics. It must be a direct magical effect, but we haven't discussed it with Castaspella yet."
A magical effect…. Of course. Adora suppressed a sigh. The Alliance was still preparing to fight Delta as soon as they finally found the bot's core, the Goa'uld were trying to put diplomatic pressure on them to hand over worlds and people, Earth politics were as annoying as ever, and now they had to deal with an unknown magical effect. And unknown magic on other worlds was always a potential danger. At least, they weren't dealing with another magical protector, unless… She pressed her lips together. "We need to contact Mystacor and get a sorceress to analyse the entire forest. This is a priority."
If her turning the palace into a forest had somehow awakened another planetary protector, they needed to know at once. The risk of starting a conflict by mistake was too great.
"Alright!"
Adora was almost grateful that the Clones' attempts to declare the whole area a holy site had worked out as a sort of quarantine so far. Almost - this new discovery would just make them more eager to worship her.
*****
PT-9499, PT-9499-System, Heru'ur's Realm, April 22nd, 2002 (Earth Time)
Sam Carter wasn't the first through the Stargate. She left that to others in this case. She wasn't a biologist. Nor was she a Sorceress. She was a physicist first, although she did have more experience than most in a few other fields when it came to advanced or alien technology. Which included magitech.
Still, she was happy to leave examining the expanding magical forest to Castaspella and her team from Mystacor and focus on tracking down Delta. That didn't require her to travel to PT-9499, especially with all the computers present having been turned into trees, but since this was the world where Sam and her friends had managed to insert their own tracking virus into Delta's command and control network, it was a sound choice to conduct her own work. It helped, of course, that the system had not only turned into a staging area for a task force preparing for either the next wave of attacks on Delta's world or, preferably, the attack on Delta itself, provided the bot's core was within striking range of this system, but that Adora's continuing presence here, due to the Magical Forest phenomenon, had also resulted in the system becoming a command hub and, arguably, the temporary command centre for the entire war. Which meant that Jack was also staying here for the time being.
Not that Sam would ever admit to taking her private desires into account when making military decisions, of course. It was merely a nice thing when both aligned.
So, she was smiling contentedly when she walked down the Stargate's ramp, past the bots and soldiers standing guard, and saluted Jack, who was waiting at the bottom. "General."
"Major. Good to see you."
"Good to be here."
She fell in next to him as they headed to the gate that separated the secure Stargate area from the rest of the base. Which, according to the slightly haphazardly mounted sign above the force-field emitter for the gate, had been named "Base Sherwood Forest". With a picture of a bow and arrow, in case anyone missed the reference. She raised her eyebrows as she glanced at Jack.
"I don't know who put it up," he said.
That meant he had his suspicions, at least. Probably one of his special forces. Or a group of them - this looked like an organised effort. She tilted her head slightly.
"Someone thought that since the Brits did most of the fighting here, they should be 'honoured' by the base's name," he added. "And they seem to be a fan of Bow's."
Ah.
He shrugged. "So far, no one has made a fuss."
Well, such antics were a sign of good morale - at least, as long as they didn't result in an escalating rivalry or prank war that ended up hurting both readiness and unit cohesion. But she trusted Jack to keep things from deteriorating.
They passed through the gate, the force field opening and closing smoothly, and entered the base proper - or, rather, the above-ground parts, mainly weapon emplacements and bunker entrances; most of the base was being built as bunkers, thanks to the tunnelling devices the Tok'ra had lent them for the attack on the palace. Force fields might have been deemed sufficient protection for a temporary fire or forward base, but with Delta's hacking abilities and the growing importance of the system, a proper bunker had been deemed essential.
Sam was struck by a slight bout of nostalgia as they took a lift down; the interior reminded her of Cheyenne Mountain.
"Brings back memories, huh?" Jack must have read her mood.
She nodded.
"Wait until you see the labs. They expanded the section as soon as they noticed our magical weed problem."
She narrowed her eyes at him; even for Jack, that was a bad joke.
He grinned. "Rumours of magical trippy fruits are making the rounds."
Oh. She sighed. Of course, news of magical medical fruits would sprout such rumours… and now she was doing stupid plant puns as well.
At least, she hadn't said that out loud. "I hope those rumours are being dealt with."
"Oh, yeah. Can't have soldiers pissing off the local magical forest protector by stealing their tree's fruits." Jack grinned again. "And no, we haven't found any sign of that protector yet."
Or they had, but failed to realise it, Sam mentally added. The forest might be the protector, the trees forming a hive-mind-like organism. Although preliminary scans had not shown any evidence for that, it might be a magical effect that the scanners couldn't detect. Well, that was a problem for Castaspella and her team; Sam was here to track down Delta with Entrapta and Bow.
"And here we are!" Jack opened a door labelled 'Lab 01' with a smile.
"Sam!"
"Hey, Sam!"
Inside, Entrapta and Bow were working on a console - a couple of consoles, actually; Entrapta's hair tendrils were handling two more keyboards.
"Entrapta. Bow." Sam nodded at her friends, but her attention was already on the main screen, and the map - network nodes, not a stellar map, she realised - displayed on it.
"The tracking agents have sent back the first batch of data, and we've just started analysing it!" Entrapta announced.
Sam smiled. That was exactly what she had hoped for.
"So… I'll leave you to your work. See you later," Jack said, and Sam didn't have to look at him to know he was smiling.
She did it anyway, of course, flashing him a smile of her own, before she turned to focus on her work. She had a rogue bot to track down.
*****
PT-9499, PT-9499-System, Heru'ur's Realm, April 23rd, 2002 (Earth Time)
There were upsides to having to deal with a magical and slowly growing forest, Catra knew. Investigating it meant you didn't have to deal with lobbyists and annoying officers - especially American admirals - on Earth. On the other hand, it also meant fewer eyes on said annoying officers and their schemes.
And that meant more stress for Adora. Even more stress, actually - she was already stressed by feeling responsible for the forest.
Catra frowned as she turned away from the forest and tilted her head towards Adora. "It's not your fault; you didn't mean to do this, and nothing like that has happened when you used your power for similar things. Like the space plant."
"I could also have made a mistake here," Adora replied.
'Could have' instead of 'must have' - Catra counted that as progress. "Did you?"
"I don't know!" I didn't… do anything differently. But it's not exactly, uh, science. I just… guide the magic, I don't micromanage it."
"Auftragstaktik," Catra grinned.
Adora frowned at her. "Officers usually follow orders better than this."
"So, something must be different here," Catra said. "It's this world's magic that you guided." She looked at the group next to the latest tree that had grown. "Let's go check on Castaspella and her team."
Adora grumbled, but she followed Catra down the hill.
The ground was changing as well, Catra noted - or confirmed the report she had read. Where it had been sandy before, with lots of rocks, now it was turning into the kind of soil found in fields. Scanners had detected changed groundwater tables as well, though that had been tracked to Adora's use of magic; they didn't have magical springs here. But if the weather adapted to the spreading forest as some models predicted…
"If this keeps spreading, and if the Clones can get the area declared as a holy site, the whole planet might end up a holy site," Catra joked as they reached the foot of the hill, where grass was already growing quite dense.
Adora didn't laugh. Catra counted that as a loss.
"Adora!" Castaspella called out as soon as they stepped closer to the tree. "Perfect timing!"
"Oh?" Adora tilted her head to the side, Catra saw. "What do you need?"
"We're about to test a hypothesis, and we need She-Ra's power to compare."
"To compare?" Adora asked. "You want to test if the forest is a protector?"
That was the most popular theory here, but, so far, the forest hadn't shown any reaction to various attempts to contact a suspected entity, as Sam had worded it.
Castaspella nodded. "Yes! We hope that She-Ra's magic will cause a reaction we can measure."
That explained all the crystals and magitech sensors nearby. "You're focusing on a single tree?" Catra asked.
"Yes. We can use a far more detailed scan that way, and we hope to detect reactions we would miss with a broader scan. Which we're still doing in addition to this, of course," Castaspella explained.
"What do you need me to do?" Adora asked. Eager as always to be useful.
Catra pressed her lips together so she wouldn't make a comment about it.
"First, transform into She-Ra so we can see if that provokes a reaction. Some protectors have shown some territorial tendencies."
"Oh, right." Adora nodded. "Just say when."
Catra wasn't looking forward to finding out how a magic forest the size of Bright Moon would react if it turned out to be territorial. At least, they had frigates on standby in orbit, if the worst case happened.
Castaspella and her fellow sorceresses tinkered a bit with the crystals before nodding at Adora. "Whenever you're ready!"
"For the Honour of Grayskull!"
Watching Adora turn into She-Ra was a beautiful sight, as always. Catra couldn't help smiling when the transformation finished. Such a sight!
And the sorceresses were already discussing the results. In a very excited manner.
"Oh! There was a reaction!"
"Territorial?"
"Might just be sympathetic magic. It's too weak to indicate a sentient or sapient reaction."
"Sympathetic magic would be an indication that the forest shares some aspect with She-Ra."
"Even a crystal can show a reaction to magic worked nearby on that level just because it's powerful magic."
"But our crystals didn't show such a reaction."
"We didn't attune them to She-Ra's magic."
"So the tree is attuned to She-Ra's magic!"
"I didn't say that!"
"It's the logical conclusion of this!"
Adora cleared her throat. "Uh. Do you need me to do anything else?"
Castaspella turned to look at her. "Ah, yes. Could you… heal the tree? Or otherwise use your power on it?"
"Best not blast it," Catra said with a wry grin. "That could be seen as an attack."
"I wouldn't do that!" Adora protested. "I'll heal it. Even though it doesn't need healing - does anyone else need healing, by the way?"
Catra rolled her eyes.
No one did, though, and Adora pointed her sword at the tree, then used her magic.
"Oh! That was a much stronger reaction!"
"Look at that - the magic leads underground!"
"The roots?"
"Past the roots… somehow."
"But the roots aren't connected to each other - we checked!"
"Yes, but it spread anyway, but how?"
"The water! Scan for water!"
"Right! It travels through water!"
"Scan the aquifer!"
"On it!"
"Oh!"
"Wow!"
"Check this!"
Catra glanced at Adora, who was staring at the sorceresses, who were all bent over the screen attached to one particularly large crystal, then back at the sorceresses. What were they… Wait - that tree was new, wasn't it? And that one…
"The water's magical!"
"But we scanned for that before!"
"We scanned for new water that would be magically created, not for magical water."
"That shouldn't make a difference!"
"Whatever the reason, the whole aquifer is magical!"
"And it's influencing the trees through the water they need!"
"And the forest is showing a reaction!" Catra snapped.
"What?" Castaspella turned around.
Catra pointed at the three - no, four now - trees that had sprouted up around them.
"Oh."
And there was a fifth. Behind them.
Catra cursed under her breath. This had been a bad idea.
"Move back!" Adora yelled, stepping forward. "Leave the area!"
Fortunately, the sorceresses didn't try to argue whether or not the trees were hostile, dangerous or just misunderstood and quickly left the area - though Adora had to yell again when two tried to grab all the devices and crystals spread out.
But that had been enough that two more trees had grown. And the underbrush was filling in. "Don't try healing the trees again," Catra commented as she stepped up to Adora.
"I won't!" Adora looked around, sword at the ready. "But I don't want to hurt them, either."
"The trees aren't magical; it's the water," Catra said.
"Maybe we should call Mermista," Adora said.
"So she can control the magical water? I'm sure the water's gonna like that!" Catra scoffed while looking around. They were almost surrounded by trees now, the devices left behind had vanished under dense foliage, but the underbrush didn't look that tough, and she was sure that, if she had to, she could literally carve a path through those trees. Unless, of course, the magical water had another surprise. Cutting water wasn't going to do much. At least for Catra; She-Ra was something else.
"Uh…" Adora turned. "Let's fall back as well."
"Good ideAH!" Catra yelped when Adora grabbed her around the waist and jumped.
They crashed through the canopy that had grown to cover the area, Adora using her weapon to shield Catra from the branches and twigs that got smashed in the process. She also switched her grip mid-jump, so when they landed outside the forest, Catra was held in a princess's carry.
Fortunately, neither Glimmer nor Bow or Jack were present.
Catra scrambled out of Adora's arms and faced the forest. "Any change to the growth?"
"Without the devices we left behind, we can't tell for sure," a sorceress Catra didn't know replied.
"The trees seem to have slowed down compared to the first reaction," Castaspella said.
Catra scoffed again and used her communicator to call the frigates in orbit. With all the computer security protocols added to keep Delta out, it took half a minute for her HUD to show the results from the orbital surveillance.
And they weren't good. "Growth across the entire treeline has sped up," she told the others. "Not as fast as here, but quite faster than before."
"We need to contact whoever is doing this," Adora said.
"It must be the water!"
"It could be another entity using the water as a medium."
"Or a host!"
"What kind of entity? The scanners didn't detect anything!"
"An entity of pure magic!"
"A dimensionally-shifted entity only partially present in this dimension!"
Catra clenched her teeth as the sorceresses started to argue again.
"Whether it's the water or something using the water, it's the only obvious way to contact the potential protector," Castaspella said. "And we need to use that."
Preferably before the forest covered the entire planet, Catra thought.
"But how?" Adora asked. "When I used my power on the tree, it caused all this."
"Let's track the magical water," Catra suggested. "So we know which water is safe." She didn't want to drink magical water that might be alive - she shuddered at the thought. If whoever was doing this could use water to control people…
"Our equipment is covered by the forest," another sorceress pointed out.
"Then let's get new ones!" Castaspella said.
Adora shook her head. "I can recover the devices!"
And before Catra could say anything, Adora charged into the forest.
Catra was so going to kill her for this.
*****
Jack O'Neill had expected some problems to crop up as soon as he had heard about Castaspella's arrival. Magic always caused problems. Even when it solved problems. But he hadn't expected things to go sideways as quickly as they had this time.
"Sitrep!" he snapped when he reached the group gathered far too close to the growing magical forest.
"Magic water is controlling the trees, which are growing faster than before, and Adora charged into the magic forest to recover the magic devices we need to study the stuff," Catra reported without taking her eyes off the forest.
"It's a bit more complex than that," Castaspella added, "but that's the gist of it." She glared at the rest of the sorceresses who had arrived with her, and, to Jack's surprise, they didn't try to correct or argue with her.
He used his communicator. "Adora?"
"Give me a bit. The trees can't touch me, but the devices are stuck in plants, and I don't want to break them! Either the devices or the plants."
So, she was OK. Well, the fact that Catra was waiting instead of shredding the trees in front of them had already told him that.
He still kept the frigates above the forest on standby for orbital bombardment. And he ordered everyone to seal up - with magical water, he wasn't taking any risks.
But short of charging into the forest himself, there wasn't much he could do here. And that would be so stupid, even Daniel would call him out for it.
Still, as much as he hated waiting, it seemed they had the situation under control. Mostly.
Then the ground started to tremble.
And a few seconds later, a huge geyser appeared in the middle of the forest, towering over the entire area.
No, not a geyser, Jack realised with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Geysers didn't just float in the air like that.
Or started to change into… was that a copy of She-Ra, made out of water, and over a hundred metres tall? That could move?
Next to him, Catra cursed.
*****