Smite +1701

[Richardson]

Smite +1701

Disclaimer: Blah-blah, I owneth nothing, save for the , no... not even the name of this particular tub-o-smite. Starwars goes to he who is namethed Lucas, and his assorted henchmen/organizations, Stargate is owned by Double-Secret, and the particular name of this certain SD is owned by a company named Paramount.


(Spoilers: Stargate S6 and below, and S7 up to 'Grace', at which point this interesting fic starts off at.)


USS Prometheus, BC-303/1, Approaching Outer Sol System

Most definately another case of SG-1 luck. That had to be what the recent incident had been caused by. A living cloud, alien attackers out in the middle of no-where... at least they were almost home.

"Major?"

Major Samantha Carter turned in response to the question, looking over to the forward consoles. "Yes?" She moved around the captain's chair, looking down at the console, wondering what could need clarification from her. The small screen was focused in on near-Neptune orbit, a small powersource of some kind.

She gestured for the crewman to get out of the seat, and sat down, looking closely at the readings, running a few more scans. What was that? She looked up from the console, looking out the forward screen into deep space, looking at the small dot of light that was Neptune, wondering if she would see anything unusual.

"Sir? There's something we might need to check out..." Carter did not like the idea of something having snuck into the Sol system. They had enough things to worry about as it was, the System Lords, Anubis, Anubis's new warriors. She didn't need more work, she had enough going over the Prometheus.

"What is it, Major?"

"An unidentified object in orbit of Neptune, Ha'tak sized, though the readings are off slightly... we'll need to get closer to get a good reading on it." Carter kept her eyes glued to the readout on the object now, as they started passing into the gas giant's orbital plane. She didn't like the situation, not one bit.

"Alright, then. Helm, alter course for Neptune, max military thrust. Let's see who is sneaking around our back yard." Col. Ronson leaned forward slightly as the low background rumble of the twin ion-thrust engines of the Prometheus kicked up a notch with the ship pulling around to an orbital approach of the blue planet. Crewmembers began moving a little quicker across the ship, hearing the sounds of the enginers fully kicking in. The sounds of a possible battle about to happen.

Carter watched the display, as the readings slowly began to resolve a little more. Fusion power teltales, ion thrust similar to the Prometheus, though on a far larger scale, wait, that silouette was familiar... She blinked, wondering if she was still feeling the effects of the concussion she had recently sustained during the battle with those alien attackers. That couldn't be right... triangular ship, three main engines, large hanger, one mile long... "Sir... I have a tenative identification on the target."

"Let's hear it, then."

"This is going to sound a little strange, but appears to be a Star Destroyer." Carter winced slightly at the sound of it. A little strange? Well, okay, for the SGC, that was a little strange. Near outside the realm of possiblility, but still there. She looked up to several crewmembers on the edges of the bridge looking at her, before she turned around to Col. Ronson.

He looked at her, half-flabbergasted at hearing something so completely off the wall coming from the Major. "Major Carter, are you sure, absolutely SURE that you're alright? Because if I just heard correctly, we have a Star Destroyer in our system."

"Yes sir. Almost no doubt about it. I can't get highly detailed readings, but the hull silouette is unmistakeable, sir." Carter turned back to her display, calling up some of the other sensors, trying to get a better reading. 10,000 kilometers, and closing in. Still not close enough for a good reading on some of the sensors, but the radar would work fine. The results were encouraging, thankfully. "It's adrift, sir! Radar imaging from the targeting radars indicates deformations in the hull. It appears safe to close with, sir."

"Let's not be too hasty about this. It could be some kind of trap." Col Ronson didn't quite know what to make of this. He stood up, heading over to one of the side stations, looking at the radar returns. His heart chilled for a moment, and not because of the cool air aboard the ship. Seeing something so iconic as a bad ship on the radar imaging of his ship shocked him, even more so with the damage that had buckled the hull in multiple spots.

"Communications, get on the line to the SGC, inform them that we have made a discovery. We'll run back to Earth to pick up the rest of SG-1, and if it's approved, we'll have a look at this so-called Star Destroyer..."

[Richardson]

Ch 1: A Most Fitting Coincidence...

"Okay. Everyone who thinks this is absolutely an insane idea, raise your hand. Come on, be honest." Col O'Neill [7.1 - Fallen]



The warble of the phone was not exactly the kind of wake-up Col. Jack O'Neill wanted. He wanted a large pay-check, a nice weekend, a lack of potentially world-ending situations for a full year, was that so much to ask? The warble came again, and he groggily reached out of bed, slapping his hand around on the nightstand, feeling for the offending phone.

There it was. Click. "Col. O'Neill, what is it?"

"Col., we need you at the mountain as soon as possible." The authorative tones of General Hammond was not what he had in mind as a wakeup call. "How soon can you be in?"

Jack blinked as he sat up, his blanket falling away as he did. "Sir, is it SG-1 urgent, or normal dangerous urgent?" He looked over at the clock, the dim green numbers spelling out 100 hours shining out of the clutter of his nightstand.

"I'm afraid it's the kind of urgent that absolutely cannot be discussed Col." General Hammond's slightly apologetic, but demanding voice got a wince of sleepy annoyance out of Jack.

"Right, Sir. Give me an hour, and I'll be in." Jack blinked again as he swung himself to sit on the edge of his bed.

"Good man, Col. We'll be waiting for you. This one ought to make your whole year." General Hammond hung up on that enimagtic note, leaving Jack with his now silent phone. He stared at it for a moment, wondering what in the heck the SGC had found THIS time.

"Probably Danny again... It's him and Mondays..." Jack O'Neill got up, scratching the side of his leg as he sleepily stumbled across the clutter of his room, looking for a uniform he could put on after his shower...

//SGC, T'ealcs quarters//

The knock on his door poked at the edges of the former First Prime's Kel'noor'eem meditation.

"Enter."

Carter opened the door slowly, looking in at the consumate warrior sitting in the midst of his usual sea of candles. "T'ealc, we have a situation, SG-1 has been called up for something we found out in the outer solar system."

T'ealc raised his eyebrows without opening his eyes, nodding as he took in that once again the team's help was needed. "What situation would require our help, MajorCarter? Has Anubis sent a Ha'tak to scout our system for defenses?"

"Not exactly." Sam shook her head as she slipped in, shutting the door behind her as she stood near the entrance.

T'ealc listed in his head many of the odd occurances that he had dealt with since joining the SGC. "A Tel'tac, perhaps, looking to have us grovel before a false god?" He spoke with distain, knowing that had to be it.

"Nope."

"A replicator invasion?" "Sorry, no." "The Aschen, coming to seek revenge?" "I'm sure they're all enjoying the list of stargate addresses that we sent them still, if they're even alive."

T'ealc paused, his brow furrowing slightly as he thought of odder circumstances. "A time-warp rift threatening to destroy the system?" "Interesting, but no." "A form of body-snatcher aliens taking control of the Prometheus?" "Has to do with her, but no." "Cosmic Radiation storm?" "No" "A black hole, perhaps?" "You'd already know if that was the case."

"Indeed." T'ealc finally opened his eyes, looking at Carter, who still stood slightly sheepishly by his door. "I am out of possible occurances that would require our particular brand of expertice that I know of."

Carter smiled, knowing that T'ealc would get an absolute kick out of this one. "You need to come to the briefing, the only way you'll ever believe this one is if you see it for yourself." She opened the door, getting ready to head there herself.

"Then I will be there, MajorCarter. This has intrigued my intrest. It has become rare that we have encountered something this far beyond our experience." T'ealc began blowing out his candles, as he mulled over the possibilites in his mind. "As far as I know, we have encountered most universal phenominon, and some multi-reality phenominon."

"We have had some strange luck, haven't we? But, you finally got part of it. It isn't from our universe, though you'll definately recognize it." Carter shut the door behind her, leaving a bewildered and slightly confused T'ealc in her wake.


//The Confrence Room//

Samantha Carter was still perky from having been on Prometheus time, as she checked over the projector and her data. Jack was jealous. How come she was always perky at these odd hours, creating things to get called in over. He looked over, seeing General Hammond come in, dark circles under his eyes from having gotten a similar wakeup to O'Neill.

"General." "Col. O'Neill."

The two found their seats, looking around. A large number of laptops, data-booklets, was that a Star Wars DVD? "Carter?"

"Yes, sir?" She paused in her work, looking over to the now mostly annoyed O'Neill.

"Why is there a Star Wars DVD in the briefing pile? Is this a mission brief, or a really late movie night?" There was only a slight bite to Jack's voice, the Col. having become used to the odd hours, and even odder briefings of the SGC.

Carter and Hammond looked at each other, wondering if they should wait, or go ahead and tell Jack. The General spoke first. "Perhaps the explainations should wait until everyone gets here. This is one briefing that will go down as downright odd, even for us."

"Right, sir. Where is T'ealc and Daniel?" Jack looked around, not seeing the Jaffa and the spacemonkey. He turned his chair completely around, getting up to look into the gateroom. Nope, no space-monkey there.

The stotic Jaffa choose that moment to make an entrance, striding in purposefully, his normal blank mask on once again. He looked over at the clutter of briefing materials, spotting several of the items that Jack had missed from his point of view, and raised an eyebrow high at that, before striding over to the rich wood table, taking his customary seat. "MajorCarter, I have noticed you have... some rather unusual materials for our briefing."

"Like I said, you'll never believe this one..." She looked up again, noticing Daniel hadn't come in. She blinked for a moment, before realizing she hadn't even told him. "Uh-oh..."

Jack blinked. An Uh-oh from Carter was the equivilent of "Oh, SH-!" for most people. An uh-oh before a briefing could only mean one thing, he hoped. "You forgot to tell Danny again, Carter?"

"Yes, sir."

Jack sighed, shaking his head. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last if he had his way with this mission. He turned to T'ealc, shrugging his shoulders. "Come on, T'ealc. Let's go get Daniel, knowing him, he's probably buried in his lab with a rock or something."

"Indeed, O'Neill." T'ealc rose smoothly, stepping out from the table and following Jack out.

Carter looked to General Hammond, and relaxed slightly at seeing the miscievious look in his eyes. "Wasn't intentional, sir. This time."

"Just remember, intentially misinforming Dr. Jackson to get more time to prepare is not your standard briefing tactic." Hammond smiled in his fatherly way as Carter nodded sheepishly. You play a simple gag once, and no-one ever lets you forget.

"Yes, sir."

//Daniel's Lab//

Jack and T'ealc reached Danny's lair with little problem, and commenced their standard check for booby traps on the door. He had learned a lot since coming, including the importance of a well-defended hide-out. No electric-shock knob, no wires for paint-balloon pulling, door not adjar for tar/feathering... clear. He had to be inside.

Jack nodded to T'ealc, who nodded back in affirmitive. He grabbed ahold of the door-knob gently, before slowly opening it, hoping that maintence had finally WD-40'd it. No betraying creak, good, he looked inside, seeing no initial trace of his favorite space-monkey. He turned to T'ealc, putting his finger to his lips in the traditional sign of 'Be wewwy, wewwy quiet, we're hunting Daniels.'

"I don't see him, he must be his BDC's."

"His what, O'Neill?"

"His Book Dress Camoflauge." Jack slowly crept in as he spoke, looking about constantly for the misplaced archeologist. Not on the bunk, not at his normal desk...

"Over here, O'Neill." T'ealc had found Daniel propped up against a bookshelf, one up upreached to a book, snoring softly.

"Ah, the D section. Dr's, Dancers, for Dummies, and Daniels." Jack walked over, wondering how best to wake him in a non-hostile way. A fluffy feather quill nearby caught his attention.

"Danny..." Sniff, snort. "Dannny..." Snerg... "Danny, for the love of God, will you not wake up?" ACHOO! Sneerrrrgg.....

"Okay, that was kind of gross, but that'll be an acceptable form of 'I'm awake'." Jack looked at the now gunked end of the quill, which the now blinking Daniel had sneezed all over. Jack's favorite archaeologist looked at him sleepily, not exactly sure what was going on.

"Jack? What are you doing on-base during the weekend?"

"It's Monday, Daniel, and we have our weekly crisis to take care of. We're supposed to be having a briefing in the confrence room." Jack looked at Daniel with amusement, before looking up to the once-again blank-masked T'ealc.

"It's not even Monday afternoon, and we've already got one?" Daniel's sleepy question got a shrug/nod out of Jack. "The cycle is speeding up."

"Tell me about it, now come on, we're being wait upon by Carter and General Hammond."


//The Confrence Room//

They all got back fairly quickly, waking up more along the way, to arrive to the surreal sight of...

"Carter, for crying out loud, why is there a Star Destroyer on the projector?" Jack was about ready to go up in a fury of frustration. He wanted sleep, not a movie night.

"Col. O'Neill, there is a Star Destroyer on the projector because we have one in Neptune orbit." General Hammond snapped it lightly, knowing he had thought along the same general lines himself when he had seen it. As the bulk of SG-1 looked at him in surprise, he gestured to the chairs. They slowly skittered over to them, taking seats and looking attentively to Carter. She now had their full attention.

"On the journey back with Prometheus, the sensors picked up anomalous power spikes in the region of Neptune. When we came in close, this is what we found." Carter clicked the remote in her hand, and the image shifted from the classic shot of the Devestator chasing after the Tantive IV to that of a battered and brusied Star Destroyer lounging in orbit of Triton. Holes had been punched in the upper surface of the ship, dark scorch marks littered her multi-colored patchwork hull, extra thrusters adorned the rear end, and the unmistakable small line of kill sillouettes ran below the main port and starboard Turbolaser batteries.

"Well, at least it doesn't seem to be much of a threat." Jack leaned back as best he could in his chair, rather surprised at this revelation. T'ealc turned slowly to face the Stargate, a look of indigestion on his face from the revelation. Daniel sat up straight in his seat, pushing his glasses up as he thought of the possibilities.

"Do we know if there are any survivors?" Daniel was scared of the implications of having such a ship in-system, but this was a cultural goldmine, after all. A whole other history waiting to be looked at. Was it from their universe, was it crossed over? Where, when, how, why did this happen!

"We don't know at this time, but judging from at least minimal power, it is possible that some of the crew has survived, and is either attempting repairs, or is awaiting some kind of rescue. " Carter brought up a sensor analysis of the ship, pointing out on the corrected diagram showing their visitor the various damages that had been incurred.

"From the radar telemetry, and the optics on the Prometheus, we have identified major damages, and the various ways of entrance. On the dorsal surface, there is a major breach along the spine of the ship, which appears to be a weapon impact. It streaches several decks into the ship, and terminates 500 meters from the bow, having started at 323 meters from the bow." The mentioned gash flashed several times in response as Carter continued. "Due to the fact that we don't yet know what the armor is made of, we'll have to come in through gaps to prevent any attempt at Transporters from getting refracted. It will also give us a line of sight, since we don't have sensors yet from the Asgard to back up our transporters."

"Now, on the first step of the superstructure, you can see a lesser impact, possibly a second bolt from the first impact's group. It pentrated at least 50 meters in, and should offer us a way in, provided we can get past blast doors." She shifted to the chunk blown out of the port side of the bridge module. "Once again, likely part of the same attack that caused the previous two impacts, considering the straight line that can be drawn between them. This one, due to the more... fragile nature and thinner armor of the bridge tower, is a bit more severe. As you can see, a large chunk of the portside ventral tower has been blown off, enough that we should just be able to squeeze the Prometheus in under it."

"It looks like someone chewed this thing up pretty bad, Carter. You sure there are any survivors?" Jack rocked slightly in his chair, wanting to just take a look at the ship in person.

"We don't know. Considering that the... literature states that there is at least a 20000 man crew, it certainly is possible that one of them might have survived." Carter crossed her arms in front of her, used to Jack's twitchiness.

"The usual that if there is enough of them, one of them is bound to repeat our luck?" Jack had a deadpan face as he spoke, knowing the ludicrous odds against.

"Probably, sir." Carter turned back to the projection, continuing. "There have been numerous previous repairs. This large patch of blue-white streching from 400 meters from the bow, and going back to 800 meters on the starboard side may be the repair marks after a ramming attack. The entire upper superstructure appears to be rebuilt using the same blue-black materials used in the..." She cleared her throat, rather annoyed by the title, "Super... Star Destroyers, possibly due to having to replace the hull, may be intentional."

Jack winced, thinking of what could pull that off.

"There are several odd structures on insulating platforms along the uppermost level of the superstructure. Judging from the way they are mounted, I would have to say that this ship has been heavily modified with additional sensors, purposes unknown." Carter pointed with her laser pointer to the triple sets of pallets. "Also, there are several notable guns that are not on the replicas or documention of Lucasfilm. These may be standard, but judging from the rest of this ship, are more likely customization."

T'ealc shifted, wondering from the various tidbits if perhaps it was a scout. "Do we know what actually rendered it adrift, MajorCarter?"

"Unknown. Also, you can see various numerous minor scorch marks and bucklings, likely signs of numerous battles and little time in dock. This especially seems to be the case with the killboard under the guns." Carter shifted the view to the underside of the ship, and an even more impressive array of damage.

"Anubis get a crack at this thing?" Jack blinked, the number of holes was... impresive, and jealousy raising. He wished he could get as good of a crack at bad-guys.

"The energy signatures and blast marks do not appear to be consistent with that, sir. They do appear to match the visual appearance of Turbolaser bolts that we have seen, however." Carter started at the bow. "Here we have what appears to be a set of armor that was retrofitted to repair damage. It appears to be from what has tenatively been called the 'Venator' class Star Destroyer seen in the new film. However, it has been well-fitted and patches have matched up the hull between the original hull and this new piece." She shifted her focus from the rather pristine replacement Republic red hull piece to a more dubious observation.

"Here, on the starboard side, is what appears to be a series of impacts from a Turbolaser attack. The impacts regularly have punctured through the hull, 20 counted 30 meter holes going from the bow back to almost the reactor bulb. Whoever was shooting at this ship was out for serious blood." Carter flicked along the 20 actual punctures and the numerous more scorchings that lined the blast corridor.

"Indeed, they have done a remarkable job of damaging the ship from the evidence seen so far." T'ealc was impressed by the sheer beserker rage attack that apparently had been inflicted on the ship. He regretted not having been there to see it, however, but resolved in the back of his mind to view the recordings and find out the ship's tale.

"Right. Now, over here, on the port side, you can see a dark grey patch that has been built up and appears to be a repair that has been on for long enough to get major emplacements put back onto it, streching in a rough 120 meter wide rectangle going from 326 meters back to 769 meters. Also note the several points where definate intentional openings leading to various equipment, possibly gunports." Carter continued on, getting into a babble-mode.

"Now, behind the reactor bulb is an interesting one. It may be part of the previous starboad side sequence of impacts, and an attempt to re-aim to the reactor." Everyone straightened up as they saw just how close the ship had come to blooie. A hole had been blown clear from the starboard surface to the port side, with blank screen visible beyond the wreckage of a hole big enough to fly a Y-wing through.

"Thats... wow..." Jack was sitting on the edge of his seat, looking intently at the hole. At less than 50 meters behind the reactor bulb, there could be no doubt that that was the reason why the ship had stayed in Triton orbit, if not the reason why it was there in the first place.

"Looks like someone didn't like this ship, and decided to take care of it the same way the system lords like to deal with us." Daniel adjusted his glasses again, having been silent to let Sam speak. Everyone turned to him, a little creeped out at what he had thought up. "What? I'm sure there must have been an imperial version of us, after all."

Carter nodded slightly, as she rotated the model to show the rear hull. It was hardly touched, damage-wise, but modification-wise was a whole other story. "As you can see, this is most definately not standard issue. The three main engine cowls are approximately 20 percent larger each, with at least a 15% increase in the thickness of the cowling material. The secondary drive thrusters each have been modified in what appears to be an attempt at vector-thrusting, judging from how they have been squared off, with diagonal secondary vents to their various facings."

Then she pointed to the other two new engines, out on the edges, half the size of the main engines, and big wedges of vroom. "These two, however, are completely new. Judging from their nature, and how they have been split each into halves, I would say these are to allow for emergancy manuvers, likely a measure installed after a previous incident with the ship and one of it's more.. interesting moments. They might provide an after-burn type feature, or several other possibilities. We'll have to look at the controls once we figure them out up there."

"Up there? We're not actually going up there, are we?" Daniel popped the question, as he leaned his elbows on the tables.

"Yes, Dr. Jackson. SG-1 will be part of the spearhead element up to the ship, along with every other SG team currently available. This will be our primary focus for the next month, attempting to salvage it, and begin reverse-engineering on various components. For years, we have been praying for a miracle to even the odds with the Goa'uld, and if we have to steal the devil's own to do it, then we can play that game." General Hammond spoke up, his voice grabbing everyone's attention as they all turned to look at him.

"Be ready in 3 hours, team. This is our chance to fight the pandora's box that we opened 7 years ago. Let's not squander it. Take whatever you feel will help, reference materials of any kind, try and find anything that will help you with command and control of that ship. SG-1, this could well be your finest hour." Hammond stood up as he finished off, saluting Col. O'neill.

"Yes, sir, we'll do you proud, general." Jack returned it, before turning to Carter. He smiled and put on a pleasant face, though he was on the annoyed side of the house. "Carter." He addressed her sweetly, ready for her response.

"Yes, sir?"

"I am never letting you out of my sight again. This has GOT to be the top wierdest and off the wall thing that has ever happened to us. This has topped even space-monkey here's top trouble-making!" Jack started ranting, not happy about this in many ways, though he definately liked the idea of his own lightsaber.

"Well, sir, you always did want big honking space guns, as I believe you said it, sir." Carter put on her sweetest face, with a maniac grin, as T'ealc moved over to glance at the imagry taken of the ship.

"But you have pulled a star destroyer out of your hat, for cryin' out loud! How do you find a star destroyer in OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, of all places!?" Jack continued on as T'ealc picked up the topmost photo, of a 4 letter signage on the side of the superstruture.

"Why couldn't you find the Millenium Falcon or something small and manageable?"

"Because it's not the SG-1 way, Jack. After all, the Goa'uld, Aschen, Replicators, Asgard..."

Jack cut off Daniel in the middle of his listing. "Hey, leave the little grey dudes out of this. They're fairly good."

T'ealc ran the symbols through his head as the team continued slightly bickering, before he raised an eyebrow in intrest. That was unusual. "O'neill, I believe I have deciphered the hull number of the Star Destroyer."

"-after all I- wait, what? Say that again, T'ealc?"

"I believe I have deciphered what appears to be the hull number of the Star Destroyer." T'ealc turned around to face the rest of SG-1 as they came over.

"Are you sure? They use a diffrent symbol system, and we can't even be sure that they use English as their standard spoken language, after all." Daniel didn't know what quite to make of T'ealc so casually deciphering a foreign language, especially one that had supposedly been made up.

"I am quite certain, DanielJackson. I have 'The Big Book of Star Wars' in my room, and have often referenced it in concern to my life here at the SGC. In it, it has the meaning of every symbol. The hull number reads 1-7-0-1. A most... unusual cooincidence, perhaps." T'ealc got eyerolls and head-shakes from all three other members of SG-1. He was a near religious fanatic of Star Wars, and they probably should have seen this comi-

"Wait, 1701?" Jack snapped back from his musing when the number sequence clicked in his head. Nearly every american knew that number... it couldn't be, what would be the chances....

"Indeed, O'neill. It appears that the ship does indeed have our particular 'brand of luck'. Enterprise has been an unfortunate name, according to the annals of 'Star Trek'." Only T'ealc could have pulled off such a realization first without going into a fit of laughter. Jack began to chuckle, before breaking out into all-out laughter. This one was just too much... only here, could something as crazy as the day's sequence have unfolded.

"God really does exist. Big honkin' space guns, and the name I had originally wanted! He just has one hell of a sense of humor proving it!" And with that, Jack O'Neill broke into a half-hysterical fit of laughter. Once again, fate was playing games with him, but this was one he could appreciate!

TBC

[Fiji_Fury]

This is an interesting story you've started. One piece of critical feedback though: wouldn't SG-1 be much more skeptical than you've written them? They seem to be accepting a Star Destroyer from a work of fiction (in their minds) pretty quickly and without any difficulties. For instance, wouldn't Col O'Niel be cracking more cynical comments about this being a baited trap or some kind of screwy simulation than laughing? Daniel Jackson also seems out of character - he's just not appearing worried by the implications of a Star Destroyer showing up (whether as a real artifact or as a trap).

You do very well writing T'ealc mind you. I have no trouble imagining him exactly as you're describing.

Is it really a Star Destroyer from the Star Wars universe? Or would the SGC be more likely to assume its some sort of deception being played by... G'ould, Replicators, some other yet-to-be-idnetified enemy? I'm no expert on the Stargate verse, and understand there have been some pretty silly episodes, but I just don't buy the reactions of the SGC or SG-1 in particular. I think you could "sell" it much better.

[Richardson]

This story is already in it's 11th chapter. Many of the questions will be answered, in a week.

But, it's one of those things that's so rediculous it makes perfect sense. It's a star destroyer, hull 1701, of all of them, clearly beat to hell and back again. Who in the galaxy would even KNOW about SW, or have enough knowledge to fairly well duplicate a ISD? It's very existence validates itself. It gets better as it goes along.

But, I do agree with you, I could have done it better. I prefer to think that they basically had a Heroic BSOD for a bit. A SD in Neptune orbit, just sitting there, fairly tore up. It's so far out of the ordinary that even they're just... WTF...

The snarky trappyness comes next chapter.

[Sky Captain]

This is interesting, Stargate Earth find a damaged Star Destroyer appearing in their own solar system. Even for SG 1 it`s going to be a little strange.

I have a mental image of US Air force searching for Star Wars fans to help them understand that ship.

[Richardson]

Why? They have Teal'c.

[Garlak]

Read this story on SB.com. Loved it.

Without trying to spoil anything: my favorite parts include the bomb with a smiley face on it, and Baal's "Damn you Tauri!" moment. Those two events aren't related btw. Well, except for the headaches caused to Earth's enemies...


I kind of got a little lost, though, and have had a bit of trouble keeping up.

To the great SB.com story-compiling thread!

[Richardson]

It'll get better. And you think you've seen the funniest parts... you have no clue. *Tut-tuts*

I admit it, I can't take myself seriously, and it shows in my writing. It's very very hard to be completely and totally dramatic for me in a story, I have to constantly try to set up jokes and delicous irony. I apologize in advance.

[barricade]

We forgive you.

Mostly.

^_^

[Richardson]

Ch 2: How to B&E a Star Destroyer... FOR DUMMIES!

Maj. Carter: Life-support systems?
Col. O'Neill: Check.
Maj. Carter: Communications?
Col. O'Neill: Check.
Maj. Carter: Inertial dampeners?
Col. O'Neill: Cool! ...and check. Phasers?
Maj. Carter: Sorry, sir.
[6.1 - Redempton]

"The damage doesn't look so bad from here..." Daniel Jackson looked out the forward windows of the Prometheus's bridge at the battered, bruised, and fairly well mugged Star Destroyer. The rest of SG-1 looked at him accusingly, daring him to make up for having just taunted fate. "Well... err, it can't be fully armed and operational, now can it?"

While Jack absolutely loved the assistance that Daniel normally provided, this was that once a month time when he just wanted to strangle the archeologist for his normal tempting of fate. He nearly began spluttering, before taking a deep breath, and turning to Carter. "So, we're here, now what?"

"Well, according to the scans, the shp does still have an atmosphere, approximately standard room temperature comparable to the Prometheus. It's loosing it, though, through the obvious rents, gashes, and buckles in the general hull." Carter stepped forward from the sensor console on the port side, looking out across the scarred ship before them.

"I can see that. Carter, can we just transporter zippidy-do-da over there?" Jack had to cut Carter off before she broke fully into scientific rambling mode. All he needed to know is what it was, what he had to do, and the general idea of how to do it.

"Well... maybe, sir." Carter spoke hesitantly, as she looked over at the console readouts again. "The hull has some kind of alloy in it that may prevent beaming over, sir."

"Now was that so hard, Carter?" Jack put a face of mock sympathy on his face as he put his hat on his heart. Then he slipped on his faithful SGC recon-baseball hat. "So, space-walking is the name of the game, today?"

"Yes, sir."

"Daniel, record this moment in history, I have just bested our resident Astro-whosits. I obviously intend to never let her live this down." Jack turned from his triumphant self-notation back to Carter, who still looked smug. "Yes, Carter?"

"So, if you've decided to spacewalk, how are you going to get over there, sir?" Carter crossed her arms, waiting for the inevitable...

"D'oh!"

"That's why we're still using the transporters, sir. Partially because I don't feel like glaring down any Lt. who wants to start humming the part where the Tantive IV is captured, and partially because we have no idea whether or not the ship is stable." Carter glanced over at a nervous group who had already been chewed out once for annoying the bridge compartment by choir humming the Imperial March.

"The SGC has never quite been what could be described as stable." Daniel glanced over to Jack and Carter as he spoke, a shrug of his shoulders showing part of his mixed feelings on the matter.

"Define stable!" Jack snapped slightly back at Daniel, his temper slowly unravelling from the madness that was his life that year.

"Indeed."

"Teal'c..."

//Triton Orbit, SD 1701 Hull//

"Err... energizing."

The flash of the Asgard transporters would have blinded momentarily anyone who might have seen it, provided they had a suit on. After all, without a suit, their eyeballs would get sucked out of their heads and explode in the near-vacuum of space.

"Jack, did we just get a Starfleet transporter sendoff?" Daniel looked around, at the other members of SG-1, unsure of who exactly had been the one to say 'Energize'.

"It's not energize, it's a multi-dimensional controlled-" Carter shook her head, stopping before she got carried away, still a habit she had, even with Col. O'Neill doing his craziest to break her of it.

"Carter, I say we call it energize. If nothing else than to just work out a few headaches. Now where is that hatch you had located?" Jack playfully lectured, getting back into his rhythm as he looked around for the hatch that had been promised, the bulky SGC EVA suit hampering his movements slightly.

"O'Neill, did MajorCarter not forewarn you that we would be transporting directly onto the hatch?" Teal'c bent over, investigating the pitted and slightly tarnished hull of their section for an access hatch.

"Wait, you mean-" Jack looked around, as Daniel brushed at lettering on the hull, beginning to interpret it from the quick memorization of Teal'cs... reference books.

"I've got a sign saying Cargo Lift 20." Daniel got back up, starting to walk across the hatch looking for anything to help out.

"If we can find a interphase jack, I've got a direct uplink transmitter to the Prometheus that we should be able to fit in with a jury-rigging to get manual control over this lift." Carter stepped slowly across the hull, the dim light of the outer solar system making it hard to read anything. "Major Carter to Prometheus."

"This is Prometheus, go ahead."

"Would it be possible to have a spotlight on the area? It's pretty dark out here, and it's hard to make out changes in the hull." Carter looked up to the BC-303 hanging a little over 200 yards overhead, which had matched the Star Destroyer's slow tumble.

"Confirmed Major, spotlights are being activated now." The landing spotlights of the Prometheus flashed on, bathing the hull in brilliant white light, and throwing everything into contrast.

"Aww, dangit, Carter, I was enjoying the view." Jack's cheerful complaint got Daniel and Carter to look at him. "What? It's not every day that you get to walk around outside, enjoy the fresh air of Triton, and it's lovely view. Look around, look at all the stars you can see out here, and Neptune! That blue puts Carribean beach surf blue to shame!"

Carter smiled, seeing that her CO was at least enjoying the unexpected side-distractions of the event. "Yes, sir."

"Anybody bring a camera? I'd like to get a few pictures of SG-1's first Grand Theft Star Destroyer!" Jack waved his arms in the zero-g, gesturing to indicate the little over a mile long super-warship that they were standing on.

"Hey, Carter, I think I found something." Daniel was hunched over, 10 feet away. One hand was tracing along a line of text on the hull. "Droid access panel. Would this do for you?"

"On one hand, I'm impressed. On the other hand, I am scared, nightlight scared that Daniel has learned a whole new written language in less than 5 hours.", Jack quipped as he looked at the panel recessed into the hull.

"It's not that hard, Jack. Think of it... like internet lingo. LOL and all that. You just need to know the contex, and all will be clear." Daniel stepped back as Carter dropped down and started pressing at the panel, looking for an open button.

"No mystical mumbo-jumbo. I thought the ancients de-asending you taught you that lesson." Jack watched Carter work, as she pulled her space-modified crowbar out to try and pry the panel open. "And where did you learn L33t speak from?"

"I took my first step into a larger world, Jack." Daniel smugly looked at the now blinking zing'd O'neill. Carter just kept tugging at her crowbar, before pulling it out, looking from between it and the panel. In anyone else, that wouldn't have been too much of a worry. With Samantha Carter, it was a problem for even Tim Taylor.

"Teal'c, why have you corrupted him with Star Wars sayings?"

"O'Neill, I find your lack of faith disturbing." Teal'c smiled as well as Jack began spluttering. He had mastered, as Jack would say, the art of Zing. "MajorCarter, do you reqiure assistance?"

Jack looked over to her, seeing the crowbar in hand. "Have you been beaten already so thuroughly that you have resorted to the brute force attack, Carter?"

"Negative, sir. I'd hardly call this a brute force attack. Just proper application of leverage, sir." Carter had repositioned, as she analyzed the hatch, determining that she might have more luck on the other side.

Jacks eyebrows raised as he considered what she had said. "Pray tell us what you would consider brute force, then?"

"A 3 caliber HEAT round fired at .5c from the Prometheus's main guns with the new trinium penetrator using the naquada/potassium mix." Carter pulled at her crowbar again, feeling the hatch give way slightly. The sensors of the hatch noticed the manual opening, and began retracting it the rest of the way to prevent damage to the hatch motors, and to allow what it presumed to be a stranded droid access.

"Carter's mind suddenly scares me more than this ship." Daniel backed away from her slightly, now wondering if Jack was rubbing off on her in the way of his... sometimes pyromaniacal tendancies. The whoosh of escaping air had stopped finally as the hatch finished opening up, a meter-square patch of hull opening into blackness.

"That's my Major."

"Indeed, O'Neill. MajorCarter has proven to be a most impressive warrior when properly motivated."

"You see, sir, science really is good for something!" Carter jumped down into the hole suddenly, causing everyone's heart levels to race, before her head popped back up. "It's only a 5 foot drop to the floor of this. There's a bunch of access corridors, that's why there was such an outgassing."

'I knew that. Didn't I, Daniel."

Eye-roll. "Yes, Jack. Let's all get in there, so we can get captured for the thirtieth time, with added flavor from stormtroopers!"

"My snark-o-meter rates that one a 5, for effort. Let's go."

After they had all crowded in, Carter hit a green button up by the interior part of the hatch, which cranked itself shut. A small bar below it began filling up, and at halfway, the hiss of air made itself known.

"Ah, the recompress button. How did you know Carter?" Jack turned around slowly, taking in the gloomy, barely lit and hyper-cramped corridors.

"It was green. Considering that in the movies, red was bad, and green was good, save for in space battles, it was a safe bet, sir." Carter reached up and removed her helmet after checking the air composition. "The air is fine as well, standard atmospheric mix."

"Righty, campers, helmets off, Carter, are we still in comms with Prometheus?" Jack reached up, and tugged his helmet off, breathing in the metallic air that had been pumped in.

"This is Prometheus, Col. We still read you loud and clear."

Jack raised his eyebrows, surprised the Prometheus was responding before getting called. "Do you have a mic on one of us?"

"Yes, Col, and you said a naughty thing earlier, but we'll edit that out of the log for you."

"Rodger that. As soon as we get to a further interior section, we'll be dropping off these suits for pickup, and we'll need our standard gear beamed over, O'neill out." Jack shook his head, surprised they had picked up his annoyed grumble earlier,

"So, which way, Jack?" Daniel looked around at three diffrent paths to choose from, wondering which way led out.

"Straight ahead, Danny-boy. Straight to the heart of the problem." Jack pointed towards the middle path, perpindicular to the crawlway that led across the hatch.

"As good as any, sir." Carter hung her crowbar back into place on her suit, the magnetic lock on it latching it on for her. She started forward, the magnetic boots clanging even as she turned them off, ducking into the gloom.

"Boys, the lady has led, follow forth." Jack stepped into the semi-darkness after Carter, blinking in the dim light of the emergancy illumination strips.

Dark metal lined everything, a easy-access grating underfoot, red lights everywhere in a metal web of components lining the walls. Far scarier than a goa'uld Ha'tak. Those were too cheezy to be scary. This... this was something that was for show only in one way, that of ripping you to shreds. Jack O'neill wasn't prone to being scared, but this had him uneased in a whole new way.

//Deep in the Heart of the SD, 3 hours later//

At least it had been fairly easy so far. Other than the getting lost in the dark creepy maintence tunnels part. That had been a long, two-hour process of creepy and monotonous trek, until they had burst blinking and surprised into a brightly lit grey-white corridor. They all had breathed a sigh of relief, and taken off the rest of their suits. Thankfully, they had still been close enough to the hull to have them beamed out, and their weapons and gear beamed in.

Was good for cheering them up. But, if there were suvivors... oooh, boy they were going to have some problems. The next hour past by with much walking, and little sign of anyone. Once, 45 minutes after clearing the tunnels, they had seen an abandoned tool kit, left out and scattered in the middle of repairing some kind of piping. No sign of whoever was using it.

Nothing at all, not even a droid.

Even Prometheus had detected no activities on any detectable comm channel. No signs anything was coming online from repairs. Silence... and yet...

"Anyone feel something... odd?" Carter looked around, turning slowly around, P90 at the low ready. The featureless greyish walls held no change, save for the occasional doors they had checked out, leading to empty rooms, some showing signs of having someone living in them, others cargo bays. Her voice was quiet, a tactical whisper.

"An unease, and sense of growing wishes to have us leave, MajorCarter?" Teal'c looked around, his staff weapon primed and gripped at the ready. He felt the same sensations, as he looked down the seemingly endless corridor.

Unlike the Goa'uld, the Star Destroyer was laid out utilitarianly, decorated not at all, built as a ship of war. A ship not built to be a statement of richess, and godliness, but of intimidation by sheer power, built to withstand horrors and live, built to destroy worlds and destroy everything in it's path. Teal'c appreciated that, even if the reasons why were for the same as the Goa'uld. Intimidation, domination, semi-worship of a false god. That he did not like at all.

"A feeling of haunting, of malice and evil intentions, more than standard issue?" Daniel looked side to side, in the middle of the group, a zat in each hand ready to fire.

"I know what you mean..." Jack looked ahead, his P90 ready and cocked, his senses all tingling a dangerously familiar feeling. "It's that sort of feeling that-" The whine of several dozen energy weapons powering up right behind him turned his heart to ice. The cold feel of a barrel rammed into his neck, and he slowly raised up his hands, taking his fingers away from the trigger. "We were being stalked."

He turned around, with the rest of SG-1, to see the corridor lined bulkhead to bulkhead with ominous white and black figures, blasters all pointed at the unlucky team.

"Rebel scum."

"Col. O'Neill? Major Carter? Dr. Jackson? Teal'c? Anybody, was that what I thought we just heard? Anybody?"

TBC

[Richardson]

(In response for being late last week, an early update this week)

Ch 3: The giant mutters

"Your overconfidence is your weakness..."

//Star Destroyer Hull 1701's Detention Block//

"At least it's somewhat well in the way of amenities." Jack leaned up against the bulkhead of the detention cell, looking over at Daniel and Teal'c over on the other side of the small space, the two sitting on one of the bunks, looking grim.

It was one of the better cells he had been in, for sure. The bunks at least had pads on them, there were the ammenities for the unmentionables, the lighting wasn't too bad, and there were no sharp edges, though that was likely to keep Rebels from having a way to commit suicide.

"You just had to say it, Jack." Daniel looked over to the fritzy Col., looking at him harshly as he sulked on the bunk.

"Daniel, you were the one who said we were going to get captured before we even got into the ship. I blame you." Jack crossed his arms over his chest, as he stayed leaned up against the black wall. His sharp eyes got Daniel to look away in annoyance.

They hadn't been beaten by the Stormies, thankfully, though blasters were pointed back in their direction when 4 stormtroopers had come up and grabbed their radios, only to be beamed out a few seconds later. They nearly had met their end right there, though the captain had come on the comm channels and told them to put SG-1 in the brig.

Of course, they decided to preserve the secrecy of the layout of their ship, and had proceeded to stun them several dozen times from medium range with their alternate fire. Firm believers in Rule 37.

According to their watches, which had been left to them, it had been about 5 hours of snoozy time. Almost all of their equipment had been taken, the various scanners they had developed, Carter's Goa'uld crystal-based custom laptop, their vests and tactical packs, everything except the BDUs they were wearing, and their watches. And Jack didn't put it past them to have tampered with those either. Pesky Goa'uld, and double-pesky Imperials. He should have asked to punch a few holes in the ship to make sure they were all dead before coming in, that was what he was beginning to think.

Daniel began to open his mouth to say something, before his eyes went blank, and he stopped, shutting his mouth as he sheepishly nodded. He had, hadn't he? Alright, so Jack did have a point about that. He leaned back up against the wall, the light fixated in the bottom of the upper bunk casting harsh shadows on his face.

"You taunted the Dark Lord Murphy, Daniel, he doesn't like being taunted, you know." Jack scowled at his sometimes annoying space-monkey, but wasn't ready to knock his lights back out again. "Now I'm hoping that they figure out we're not rebels. I really don't want to be on this thing if Prometheus decides that it has to nuke it a couple dozen times."

"If they do nuke the ship, hopefully they'll use the new Mark 8s. Supposedly they have nearly a gigaton on detonation, which might be enough to kill this Star Destroyer if it goes into the breach right behind the reactor or into the hanger." Carter stood by the door, poking her rather uncheerful two cents into the matter. Everyone save for Teal'c winced at the thought of what the Prometheus might be doing, if it was even in their hands still. Those 4 stormtroopers had been beamed over without the Prometheus knowing. Hopefully Zats worked on even them.

"Thank you, Carter. Remember, these are smarter than the average Gould. They're probably watching us on camera. Nothing about our capibilities needs to be revealed." Jack looked around for cameras or other monitoring devices, hidden or overt. Nope, he didn't see any, but he didn't doubt that they were there. Hmm... but, this gave his normally low-gear brain an idea...

"Too bad they don't want to believe we're not rebel scum. The Goa'uld are going to be a nasty shock for them, if they can even get their ship fixed." Jack said it loudly, mouthing afterward, 'Start going on about Gould!'. This could work, if they could convince someone to come in and ask them what they were babbling about, they could stand a chance.

//3rd in command's personal office, 30 Earth Standard Minutes later//

He looked at the holographic representation of the imaging being currently recorded from their intruder's cell, and the transcript of what they had been going on about. Who in the hell were the Goa'uld? Why hadn't the Empire encountered them, if they had this galactic empire?

Who was Anubis, what was a Stargate? And who would name a planet Earth? Were those strange energy weapons they recovered 'Zat's? Who were these people? Or was it an elaborate rebel plot? They knew about the Deathstar, and.. wait, how did they know about the second one? His heart grew cold, when he contemplated the thought that the bulk freighters they had been escorting might have been captured, and the secret of the second try lost.

He rubbed the bacta-soaked compress over his right temple, his bleached brown hair soaked partially with blood from the attack before the jump, and the wild, near-insane ride that the ship had endured for 5 hours before dropping out, in this dark zone. The Captain and the XO had been lost when the command tower decompressed during battle, and he had taken over command, jumping the ship out of harm's way and out of battle, with the three transports that they had been escorting.

The Imperial Science Directorate said that switching to an Alternate Quantum reality was impossible, due to several problems, but...

The Chief Engineer was swearing up and down that the hyperdrive motivators were out of alignment, with reality, as if they suddenly didn't match up to the resonance of their location. And that green squid-like ship that had been on the edge of the battle, that dark psyonic scream that had terrified the crew... Something far diffrent than a turbolaser bolt had nearly killed the hyperdrives, and the normal drives, and the the corellian engineer had been screaming at him not to make the jump...

Looking back, either way was a bad idea, so he had taken the lesser of two options. And they were now lost, in uncharted space without the three giant freighters they had been escorting to Endor.

He needed some answers, looking at the quartet in the detention block, and the wild stories they had told between themselves, he decided to take a chance. They may be Rebel scum, but they were probably as lost as the lady Enterprise was. The poor girl needed a break from the constant battling she had been in over the past few months, needed a chance.

He needed to be able to give the crew hope, even if it was mutinying against a Rebel prize crew. They couldn't fix her on their own, no-one was answering on the hypercoms, and these four were the only people who had made contact. With everyone away from the slowly cooling hull, he had no way of knowing what was out there. Time to take a chance...

No-one had ever accused Lt. Cmdr. Sheridan of being a coward, or foolhardy. He wasn't going to start being either now. With the good captain and his XO dead, he was in charge now, and he intended to take charge.

Now where did he put his blaster and that spare thermal detonator he had lying around somewhere...

//SG-1's Detention Cell//

The team stopped talking when the door buzzed, the first sign that anyone had bothered with them since they had arrived. They all stood up and watched the door, Carter falling back, standing by the Col, both of whom were ready to burst into combatives moves as they waited for the door to open.

The swoosh was eerily familiar, as it rushed open, a shadowed figure in the opening, with a blaster carbine in one hand, and what looked like a thermal detonator in the other. SG-1 decided that it might not be a good idea to be attempting to wrest the blaster from the interrogator's hand, with that blast-o-joy in the other. They all backed up slowly, so as to give him room to come in without feeling threatened.

"Good. I was hoping that you would understand the general idea behind my armment." Sheridan slowly stepped forward into the harsh light of the cell, looking at the individuals of SG-1 turn by turn. The one they called Daniel, clearly some kind of historian, no other group still had those rediculous glasses in the empire. The strange Teal'c... talked about as a 'Jaffa' by the team, and apparently a near-human who had sided with them against these 'Goa'uld', and one of the 'system lord's right-hand men.

Then the Major Sam Carter... apparently the second in command, and chief science officer for the team, specializing in the estrotic fields... Most interesting, she was the polar opposite of the Imperial Navies policies. A woman who was a scientist, pilot, and the second in command all in one, a versitile, and apparently highly effective package. And the eye did not go wanting with her.

And the Col. Jack O'Niell. He made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but he led. Sheridan had to admit that, he was leading this team, and apparently had absolute obediance when he spoke definatively. The middle-aged man was an enigma, one who had made himself so, who could feed off of his own mystery.

"So, judging from the outfit, and the little color squiggles on your chest, you're the head honcho of this disaster looking for a place to happen." Jack looked over at the dirty-blond man, waiting to see his next move. He wasn't going to bother trying to disarm him now, he'd go suicide bomber if attacked. Better to wait, and try and convince him to let the team go.

"Yes, I'm the current commander of this ship. However, I want some answers as to who you are, why you boarded my ship, and as to just what a Stargate is, everything. Now, we can either do this the civilized way, or, I can get unpleasant, and borrow my regiment's interrogation droids. I'd rather not be unpleasant. The laundry systems are out, and this grey uniform is a pain to clean up." Sheridan spoke in a friendly way, genuinely hoping to avoid a more... displeasurable way of getting the information. After all, he had his predecessor's reputation to live up to.

"Sir, should we?" Carter looked to Jack, getting an approving nod from Sheridan, she knew to follow the command of her leaders, as did the rest of the team. Disciplined, and while having an odd familarity, and havoc-inducing relationship, he used the reference of his own ship for their work relationship. A family, even less likely to be Rebels.

"I think it should be safe. They're dead in the water, and Prometheus has this hurt ship covered nicely." Jack smugly crossed his arms across his chest, knowing that while he was in danger, at least Prometheus had this ship locked onto, and ready to make into small bits.

"Alright then, I guess we'll start at the beginning. Sam, I guess trying to explain what's happened to them would be the first order of buisness." Daniel looked over to the astrophysist, hoping she could best break it to them. He'd handle explaining about the Stargate, and parts of the background on the situation, and together Teal'c and Jack would probably explain the Goa'uld.

"Well, I'd say from various evidence, that you likely have either suffered a massive locational/temporal shift during transit, or you suffered a malfunction in your hyperdrive that transported you through the multiverse." At the increadulous look on Sheridan's face, she continued. "Would you believe me if I told you that there is a 6 series set of movies based around the rise and fall of your empire?"

"Say what!?"

"Carter, might not have been the best of ideas." Jack looked at her, before looking back to Cmdr. Sheridan, who was still blinking somewhat in shock.

"Well, either one is certainly possible. From external evidence, it certainly stands possible. You've got a hole punched clean through your lower surfaces less than 50 meters from your main reactor that's big enough to fly a starfighter through." Carter let that shock sink in as well, Sheridan paleing at that news, knowing at last how close they had come to disaster. "As for quantum traveling, it certainly is possible, we've encountered at least two occasions of it already, though this is most definately several orders greater in magnitude."

"So, you're saying that this is an alternate reality, where the Empire is nothing more than a fairy tale?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Hmm, I can see that if we ever get back, I need to knock some sense into a few egg-heads who think that traveling between quantum realities is impossible." Sheridan shook his head in annoyance, accepting that it might certainly explain why the hyperdrives were de-tuned, something that was impossible normally.

"Huh... okay, so, Daniel, the Stargate..." Carter was rather surprised at his acceptance. Maybe he had other evidence...

"Right... in our year 1928, about 80 years ago, we found an unusual artifact in a region of our planet known as-"


//3 hours later//

Sheridan had ended up on a bunk, somewhat shocked at the sound of it all on the surface. A previous evolution of mankind? Crossing the galaxy, and then some in 3 seconds? A race of god-pretenders?

SG-1 had left him alone, despite having the perfect opportunity to overpower him. This was a better one, a Star Destroyer on their side, fully crewed and trained... a dream come true, the miracle break after all. And, Cmdr. Sheridan seemed to believe them. He finally looked up at them, before standing up, and putting his carbine back into a ready position.

"I assume you have a way of preventing this 'Prometheus' from firing on us? And proving what you claim?"

Jack, Teal'c, and the rest all looked at each other, realizing that they needed comms with Prometheus.

"O'Neill, I have a spare radio in my bag. It may be able to reach Prometheus, and allow for negotiations to begin." Teal'c nodded his head to Jack, waiting for the answer.

Sheridan looked over to the two, who looked back at him. It couldn't hurt, and it didn't matter if they screamed for Prometheus to open fire, if they were right, they'd likely end up opening fire soon anyway, to prevent the Enterprise from trying to attack.

He called into the comms, asking for the prisoner's packs to be brought up. Thankfully, no questions asked, just obediance, as the Empire commanded. Now how to save the last bastion of the empire. The packs took a good 20 minutes to arrive, of tedious, slowly nerve-wracking waiting. The thought of a ship at point blank range with at least 100 gigaton missles was driving him crazy.

The packs all arrived, with everything in them. He watched as SG-1 sighed, going through them to make sure everything was alright, finding things to their satisfaction.

"I'd say that was one of our better first contacts, wouldn't you, Carter?" Jack looked over to her, as he slung his on his back, throwing Teal'c two double-A batteries to power up his radio. They were quickly clipped in, and Prometheus's chatter popped up in mid-squak.

"-eat, SG-1 DO YOU READ!? General Hammond has us on a 30 minute countdown to launch, please respond!"

Jack grabbed the radio from Teal'c, jamming the system to full power and activating the mike, talking fast. "Prometheus, HOLD YOUR FIRE! We've got the captain of the ship with us, and we're ready to beam over! The Star Destroyer has gone neutral, HOLD YOUR FIRE!"

Everyone was sweating, realizing how close they had come to sparkly oblivion now. Daniel and Sam exchanged glances, as Teal'c watched impassively, and Sheridan twitched nervously. The radio finally clicked back on, Prometheus responding. "Countdown canceled, SG-1. When we beamed over Stormtroopers, we feared the worst."

Sheridan got in close as Jack was about to respond. "My troops are alive?"

"Yes, they were just interdimensionally energized/slipped over to the Prometheus, and dropped off there. There will be no side effects other than feeling nausious." Carter stepped up now, as did Daniel. "Would you like to try? Our story is a lot easier to explain once we get over there, we have images and a better record."

Sheridan disarmed the Thermal Detonator, and his Carbine, putting them into his decidedly non-regulation belt holster. "But, be warned, this had better not be a trap."

"Got it, keep the guys with the guns off you." Jack nodded, before turning to Sheridan. "You'll have to temporarily surrender your blaster when we get over there, though. The whole 'letting an armed man in' thing and all."

"Right, I'm ready to see your technology in action." Sheridan hoped they were not planning their deaths, but then again, he had nothing to loose.

"SG-1 to Prometheus, beam everything within a 3 yard radius of the signal up." Jack clicked off the comms, before cursing. "Drat it, Carter, we have got to get some of the little gr-"

"Fwwwhhhooom!" The white light of the Asgard Transporter filled the cell, before it faded away, leaving an empty room.

[Richardson]

Ch-4: Light of Day

"Protect, serve, guardians of the people." Part of the Imperial service oath.

//USS Prometheus, 20 minutes after beamout//

Cmdr Sheridan sat in the currently guarded and mostly empty mess hall of the Prometheus, the strange small ship of these "Tau'ri." At least, that is what they said others called them, the name for them in the language of the Goa'uld, the name of a people who fought like the Rebels, but with just cause.

It was strange, to suddenly be on the flip-side of the coin, to be the Rebel with a cause. So far, the SGC could not pinpoint the Enterprise's start point with their technology, even with the impressive and mighty Asgard computer system that guided the ship. They hadn't even seen the local galaxy group that the Caltania galaxy was. Lost, that was a strange new word for him as well. You got lost on primitive planets, not loose entire galaxies.

He looked out the strange windows, standing before the four formerly captured Stormtroopers, currently in shirtsleeves, watching his battered ship, as the background slowly spun dizzingly. His... several days ago, he would have rather blown out his brains with a full burst from his carbine than think that, would have thought it tratorous. Now... he was responsible to it, and to his oath as an Imperial officer, to uphold justice.

But was the penalties for a... Captain, that worked for an independant world to serve, to protect? He had the defense of his oath for the course of actions he was considering, and the morals of the law. He never had liked Imperial leadership anyway, too violent, prone to rash action. The project they had been escorting supplies to, the Death Star that had met it's maker at the hands of Skywalker, the purges, all the dark acts that had occured... sure, it was less than a quarter of the whole...

The time for second-guessing was over with, and he had ten minutes still to decide what to do. The SGC had given him straight-up terms. Either his ship could surrender, or it could defect into their hands, leave the system, or they could go to hell in 100 gigatons of nuclear massacare.

He believed now. Seeing the ship, the strange materials, the crystaline-based optical computers, beaming over... he believed now. So, what was there to loose? Save for the crew and his life? What would they say if they decided he had sold them out? Could he face their wrath if they decided to go out fighting, to die on their feet, rather than live?

He turned around slowly, the light of the spotlights of the Prometheus reflecting off the hull of the Grand Old Lady backlighting his form, the feeling of lost glory sadly hanging around his form. "Gentlemen, it is not normal for a Captain of a ship of the line to consult the average Stormtrooper, but, I need to have a thought on what the average individual aboard the Enterprise is going to say to what I have in mind." His soft voice carried across the quiet of the room, as he looked at each in turn, wondering what they thought. A strange place indeed.

The four troopers looked to each other, the identical twin clones sandwiching a middle-aged correlian and the leader of the team, a Tattoine man. Seargent 1st class, from the service insignia patch he had sewn on his uniform. His tanned skin stood out in unusual contrast to the normal trooper appearance, as he looked between his men. "Sir, we'll keep an open mind. Now what is it you have in mind, sir?"

"We can't survive on our own, but at the same time, the empire does not exist out here, or anywhere near. Our primary hope is to ally with the local forces, these 'Tau'ri'. But, they will not help us unless we break away from the Empire, they fear it, apparently have heard of it and it's worst excesses. They're not sure how, but they have." He looked at each in turn as they listened to him, going through various thoughts and emotions. Fear, anger, irritation, surprise, shock, thoughtfulness.

"Are we absolutely sure they are not Rebels?" The Corellian pointed out the most obvious, and paranoid possibility, looking around at the strangish design of the SGC ship.

"Given that their technology branches well away from what we would consider the norm, or anyone else in our galaxy, for that matter, yes, I would have to say so." Sheridan had asked himself that same question when he had first met SG-1. But nothing could have explained away their technology, the strange windows, the transporters...

"Well, I never did much like some of the ideas of the empire anyway. Do they promise to rule fairly, should they win, to work for an equal solution for all parties? If so, I'm game to join up. Anything is better than my current retirement plan of getting sent back to the Jutland wastes." The leading Seargent looked over the newly minted captain with a strange grin. Strange indeed.

"From what I understand, anything just about is better than the current galactic rulers, these 'Goa'uld'. Enslavement under a false god." Sheridan pulled a seat out from the window table, gesturing for the troopers to follow suit. They reluctantly did so, the clones turning around partially to watch the door, ready to go hand-to-hand if anyone decided to break in.

"Then let us work to restore justice to this galaxy. Living is better than breathing vaccum."

Sheridan smiled as he picked up the beeper that the so-called SG-1 had given him for calling them, activating it. "They should show up shortly. And then we will see what this new day holds."

/1 hour later/

An hour, in which impossible things had happened. And some very interesting shake-ups between him and General Hammond. The old General was having a hard time believing that the captain of a ISD was willing to step away from the empire, and had nearly ended up annialating the Enteprise anyway, to be convinced to stand down by SG-1 and Sheridan's semi-bodyguards.

He'd have to remember to reward them somehow, maybe with having them as one of the liason teams to the SGC. They seemed eccentric enough to fit with the somewhat crazy personelle he had seen so far. Though he had yet to bring up that possibility to the SGC commander. No, they, and himself, were far more interested in 3 blips that had slowly drifted into sensor range. Huge blips, that he was unfortunately far too familiar with.

The transport convoy the Enterprise had been escorting before finding herself lost in space. Each was a Gallofree TZ-900, some of the biggest ever assembled. And completely and utterly lifeless, each and every one. When they got dragged along in the unstable hyperspace wake of the Enterprise, their civilian grade shielding hadn't been able to protect the crews, and the bridge crew of the Prometheus and Sheridan's team looked on in horror of the sight of the warped and misshapened bodies, nearly ripped apart from hyperspace radiations.

From examination the only good thing they had been able to say for the crew was that their deaths had been mercifully quick, and had barely a second to register that they were in pain before their brain fried. Luckily, though, their cargo was still intact. Parts and raw materials for the DS II. Enough to completely rebuild the Enterprise at least 5 times over. And then some.

"SG-1, can you determine if the life support systems are intact? If they are, we should be able to solve our problems with the Enterprise leaking air." Sheridan looked at the camera link to SG-1's boarding party, aboard F-1093927. Or, as Col. O'neill called it: Pudgeboat 1. The darkened bridge of the superfreighter was running on emergancy power as the space-suited team investigated, as had been the rest of the ship. Something had drained power, or malfunctioned, so it was quite possible that anything could be wrong with the ship.

General Hammond looked at him with a withering glare, but turned back to the camera view. They'd start discussing the who's and what's of their newfound relationship AFTER they figured out what to do with these massive 5 mile long superfreighters. Wait a minute... hmm... maybe the personelle transport one... yes that could work quite nicely, provided that the life support worked.

The camera wielder moved over to what Sheridan and his squad could tell was the enviromental station, which was blinking in various ways. It looked like everything was working, but the details were too fine until Daniel translated. "According to the master status, everything reads as good."

Sheridan sighed, knowing that the worst two of his problems were solved, short-term repairs of his ship, and someplace to put the crew where they wouldn't be missing that wonderful substance known as 'air'. "Well, good news is always welcomed, I guess, no matter where it comes from. General, would you be willing to make a trip back to the Enterprise to pick up a set of crews for these ships so we can fly them back and start evacuation procedures for the Enterprise and begin repairs?"

"What? We haven't even decided who will own them!" General Hammond was rather surprised that Sheridan would just even try something like that. Then again, technically...

"General, would you even know how to fly these ships? Or, what about my crew? The chief engineer estimated less than 5 days before we lost atmosphere altogether. If you want our help, the crew has to stay alive, and that means these freighters and the opportunity they represent." Sheridan pointed at the superfreighter hanging outside the window, drifting along slowly. "I know for a fact that you should be able to construct a makeshift spacedock using those things, we once ran into a pirate cell using a setup that would be viable."

"Say what?"

The troopers nodded amongst themselves remembering fondly taking that spacedock. One of the few times that the Enterprise had seen serious action against Rebels, that particular cell having actually committed certain dasterdly crimes that the Empire often said that Rebels committed. The Enterprise, Vengance, Acclimator, and Grand Master had all gone in after it, taking on close to half a million Rebels in a rather nice living space. Of course, they wouldn't tell the SGC that they actually were Rebels, since they were nervous enough as is around them.

"Sure, it would give you an outer system presence, besides just this one corvette that you have," Sheridan let the murmurs of annoyance die down before continuing, "and act as an outer defensive post, drydock which we can eventually expand, and as perhaps the new home of your 'Stargate', maybe with some kind of two-way transporter setup between the old SGC and here. This way, a foothold situation, as you call them, is contained, you have nearly unlimited expansionary space, and everyone is happy."

"Alright, SG-1, hang tight, we'll be back in an hour or so, with a crew from the Enterprise to start picking these ships up and bringing them back online to move to Neptune." General Hammond swiveled his chair back to the forward position as the helmsman began plotting in a course back to the Enterprise. A large frown was stuck on tight to his face as he looked ahead. Until the Enterprise and her crew proved that they would actually work for Earth, and the US in particular, he was going to remain skeptical, and highly suspicious of them.

"Sir! Why not latch onto them and include them in the hyper-field of the Prometheus? Since we're only going to Neptune, less than a lightyear away, she should be able to handle the strain." Carter called out quickly, knowing of what she had done recently using the hyperdrive. She moved in front of the camera, mounted on Daniel's helmet, hoping that the General would approve.

"You can do that!?" General Hammond and Captain Sheridan turned and looked at each other, surprised at their near identical timing and tone. Captain Sheridan mostly because he had no clue what exactly their hyperdrive was, having seen several diffrences between his and theirs, the biggest being jumping out from right beside the Enterprise, deep in Neptune's gravity well; and General Hammond because he didn't know you could tow in hyperdrive.

"Yes sir, we could probably tow all three ships in one go, if we can hook them together. We might need to overhaul Prometheus's drive afterwards, but it is possible." Carter looked around, wondering what all she would need for her plans.

"It should be possible, from what I remember of the class, but the need is not quite that pressing, all we need is one at a time, starting with the personelle one you're on. It's too bad about what happened to the crew and the people aboard, but we need it first." Sheridan watched the slow float of the superfreighter below them, as General Hammond turned between the helmsman and the video feed of Carter.

"How quickly could you set this up?"

"The alternate hyperdrive program should already be set up, sir. Just load it up, lock onto the freighter, and go." Carter started moving as quickly as possible, grabbing onto the frame of the ship in the background as Daniel started doing the same, as well as Jack and Teal'c. They knew better than wonder what Carter might be doing, just to follow her example and do the same thing when it came to ships.

"You heard the Major, latch us onto it." General Hammond turned to helmsman, watching as he searched quickly, finding the alternate drive protocols in a newly added application for the ship. With a few quick manuvers, he snuggled the Prometheus down into a recess in the ship, and nodded to the Operations officer, who latched the landing gear into it, then nodded back to the helmsman.

"We're ready to go, sir."

"Very well, jump us out." General Hammond settled down into his seat, waiting for the slight surge of acceleration and the minor disorentation of the hyperspace slipstream. After a few seconds he looked over to the helmsman, not quite sure what was going on. "Is there a problem?"

"The hyperdrive is powered up, sir but it's not generating a hyperspace window for the jump... Give me a second, and I'll boost the power sl-" The rest of what the helmsman wanted to say was lost as the Prometheus suddenly surged into hyperspace, catching the unprepared standees by surprise and knocking them over. And it ended just as quickly, the Prometheus crossing that lightyear in a few seconds as the slightly overcharged hyperdrive raced to it's destination.

"Need to work on your compensators a little..." Sheridan got back on his feet, pulling up the leader of the trooper squad with him. He looked ahead to the forward windows, seeing his... his now beloved Enterprise hanging, still wounded, in Triton orbit. Well, somewhat seeing it past the massive bulk of the superfreighter below them. O'neill was right, it is sort of pudgy... It would have made a better spacestation... "But very, very nice. Could you beam me back aboard, preferably somewhere in the engineering spaces, so I can hunt down the Chief Engineer, and get him ready to go on getting things set up."

"Alright, I fully understand the urgency, but I want you to take a SGC radio with you, and we will beam you back in approximately one of our hours to begin formal negotiations. We'll also beam up anyone in the room with you to begin docking procedures with.. Pudgeboat 1..." General Hammond shook his head at the oddity of the name, and vowed inwardly to never let O'neill name anything ever again. Ever.

Sheridan chuckled as he thought of what the name invoked. "Somewhat approprieate, but there has to be something better. Ever have a place where people gathered from all across the globe to discuss things, or just to exist together?" He turned to one of the aides, who handed him and the stormtroopers the standard SGC team radios.

"A handful, Babylon, New York, Paris..."

"Babylon... sounds like a nice name... Well, I guess that will be the name of our new station, Babylon. Should be interesting to see if we can work together, like your own civilizations." Sheridan looked between his men, as they all nodded ready. They could get their equipment back in an hour. And from the look of their captain, he had something special for them. "Transport us over."

The fhwoom of the Asgard transporters filled the room, and Captain Sheridan and his troopers were gone.

[Richardson]

Ch 5: The rumbling of distant thunder.

"Smile and wave boys, smile and wave... RUN!"


//1701's Main Engineering Section.//

The large chamber was what the unitiated would call a monument to sheer Imperial arrogance, a 400 meter long chamber leading from the main reactor to the engine distribution nexus, divided into compartments partially by the currently sealed blast doors meters thick, and 50 meters tall.

To those who worked the trade of Engineering, it was far more than what outsiders saw. It was a cathedral to raw power, tamed and tapped into a normally awsome and humbling show as raw plasma pumped from the massive mini-sun of the main reactors into the ion thrust drives of the ship.

Right at the moment, the Chief Engineer Gale Averre could only see the ashes of past glories, as the Enterprise slowly bled out her heat and air from gashes that he couldn't repair without help. Or at least access to a generous quantity of Durasteel. Even with the emergancy repairs in so many of the areas of the ship, she still was springing leaks like a bug net trying to stop mynocks. The room was mostly quiet, and dark, with the structural damage. To the fore, the room was shuttered and atmospherically sealed against the breach that clipped the area.

His poor engines... worked on so lovingly for so long, and now silent, lest they rip themselves apart from their damage. The cold, the silent conduit under the platform he stood... the dark shadows overhead... the sudden bright light and harmonic c- wait, that wasn't right...

Sheridan clamped his hand down on Chief Averre's shoulder, eliciting a semi-girlish scream from the rarely excitable engineer. Perhaps too many gloomy thoughts of future ghost stories of the Enterprise. He turned to his captain and the shirt-sleeved Stormtroopers behind him, the Eisley Enforcers.

Captain Sheridan turned around, crisply nodding to the troopers, who split, running diffrent ways to the far reaches of the ship to gather troops and pilots for getting the Pudgeboat 1 portion of Babylon station up and runninging, and for clawing the Enterprise into a close embrace with it's host.

"Mr. Averre, I know we have not gotten along in the past, but we now have a mission. I want you to have a compliment of engineers ready within the hour to hook the Enterprise up to one of the TZ-900s were were escorting, and to prepare for extended repair and rebuild operations using off-spec tech without assistance from Corellea Construction or the Imperial Core of Engineering. I know you will treat this operation with the utmost importance and urgancy, and will have it done properly and on time." Sheridan turned around to start on getting together some of the protocols on negotiations and other issues that would be coming up in the coming months, including the never-really-used joint force protocols and rulings.

And Averre looked on, completely confused as to what was going on. The flash of light, what was that all about. "Sir! Wait, what was all that? The light, the hum th-"

"Mystical jedi altering the space-time continuum and providing me a transporter. Now go on... I've got plans to make. We're mostly alone out here." Sheridan turned around and left before Averre could ask anymore questions. He couldn't easily explain, and he intended to let the situation explain itself. It was fairly uncomplicated after all. He had bigger fish to fry, like getting started on a new galactic goverment. And Gale was fun when he got flustered.

"But, but... THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC!"

"Then I'll let you have fun denying, then!" Sheridan shook his head as he moved for the lift back up to his quarters.

//Enterprise, Section 15 Deck 46//

Jacob Stari slid across the corridor on the still somewhat fresh coating of wax, before his boots caught a grip on the deck and regained traction, his momentum in his choosen direction building again. There were times when he regretted the somewhat ill-thoughtout lift system of the Enterprise, and having to make a run from the engineering compartments forward to the pilot's lounge.

The sound of his boots skidding along the floor as he slid to a stop in the Echo Squadron pilot's lounge got the pilot's attention, a game of sabac halting to look up at the intruder

"Hey, what are you doing here, Gank?" Echo Lead looked up to the familiar, and somewhat liked trooper. He had earned their respect somewhat, and his nickname at the same time. The Eisley Enforcers had been on a infiltrate and annialate mission in support of one of the Enterprise's anti-pirate missions 2 years back, about a year after Yavin. In the middle of it, a wing of starfighters was preparing to launch from the station to take down the bomber wings.

Stari had been in position to see a rebel starfighter, one of the rumored H-wings, being prepped as a gunship, and had decided to do something about it. No-one was quite sure how he managed to secure it, given his propencity for tall tales, and the lack of evidence at the scene for the most part, but it was generally agreed that he had snuck up on the guards, and had proceeded to stab one in the throat, whispering, "You've been ganked." in his ear. The rest of the fight had been quick, bloody, and left pieces of dead pirates and rebels scattered everywhere. Then he proceeded to grab the rest of his squad and make off with the already once-stolen fighter-gunboat, and give the pilot wings a surprise they never forgot as the foursome proceeded to start shooting down pirate uglies and generally flew around making a nuisance of themselves humming the imperial anthem.

The Enforcers had kept the H-Wing, eventually getting help from the engineers in the off-periods to rebuild it into a infiltrator dropship/gunship. It had taken 6 months of work and several head-scratchings, but it could fit a 8-man squad not-so comfortably, had heavy duty TIE engines to replace the old ones, with a set of the TIE systems solar exchange units to help out it's systems, along with weapons upgrades, a modified shield generator, hyperdrive upgrades, and a whole bunch of other goodies that had been scrounged together from wherever they had been found.

And the pilots, well... anyone who could figure out how to fly that big hunk-a-junk through a battle deserved at least a little recognition. And the fact that he sometimes let them borrow it for gunship missions meant that he could get them to do what he asked for.

"We need as many shuttle and transport qualified pilots as can be found. We've got rescuers!" The demolitions expert clone pointed towards the door, only slightly breathing hard as the pilots started jumping up, datapads, sabbac cards and other items that had been getting used flying everywhere in their haste to jump into rescuing themselves. The depressurization of the hangers had been a major pain, but... "Just grab your equipment, and be back here in under an hour for the briefing!"

//Enterprise, Combat Engineer's bay//

The bay of the combat engineers for the Enterprise was a war-geek's dream. Near anything developed by the Empire for war on the ground could be found in it. From remote turrets of all types to massive walker parts, to the base prefabbed for setup, and some of the best trooper engineers that the empire had ever developed in the opinion of Dran Toral, the Corellian engineer of the Eisley Enforcers. They had formed up at seeing the venetrable engineer, who had been aboard for most of the ship's life and was considered one of the leaders for the companies of miracle workers.

Between himself and Averre, the Enforcer's custom ship had been rebuilt out of their trophy they had unoffically kept. He could have just as easily gone into starship engineering, only joining up with the Stormtrooper core because he preferred to give things that personal touch. He was just about the most senior engineer, but he was definately regarded as the engineer with the most experience.

"Gentlemen, as of right now, we are going into full combat readiness. We will shortly be engaged in a war the likes of which we have never seen before. We will be given the ability to cross the galaxy on foot through a narrow 4 meter wide gate, armed only with what we can bring ourselves. Our objective, is to save the ship, and to throw down an Empire that makes our own look like a benevolent democracy." Toral's blunt statement got a few growls and gasps out of the swarmed formation of engineers, the loyalists who would have to be watched making themselves known.

He nodded, his face remaining serious as he started taking mental notes to get with the captain or someone in charge to discuss the problems that would crop up from the die-hard imperialists. "I will also say this, we are alone in the galaxy, cut off from the Empire, pretty much permenantly from what I understand. But, we have the fortune of being in the solar system of an emerging human power, who has garnered favor with an old race that has technologies far beyond anything I have ever seen. Who will allow us to borrow those technologies for ourselves, provided we behave and help them in freeing this galaxy, and forging a new order."

The bay went from a dead hush, to frightened grumblings, to the mighty roar of ready and able engineers who intended to follow through with that promise. They all looked at Toral, ready to follow his commands, the respected old trooper smiling slightly with pride over the troops he had helped to train.

"Get whatever supplies you will need, and be back here within half an hour. We'll be taking a transporter back." At the confused stares, he nodded sagely. "Yes, they have point-to-point transporters." The sudden rush of individuals going to fill personal bags for an extended stay off the ship. Of course, in the case of engineers, this involved equipment instead of clothes. Equipment like pieces for E-webs, base scanners, hull cutters, generator parts, everything that you could carry by yourself to set up your very own ground-base.

He'd trained them well. At least this SGC that he'd heard about had sense to be underground and buried in a mountain. Though from the sluglaunchers they carried, which apparently were all that they had, other than a few captured energy weapons, they didn't have too much time to advance their sciences. Maybe after they got set up he could get the SGC to let them do some home improvement.

//Main Firing Range//

Jacob Dell, the sharpshooter of the Enforcers, and the second of the two clones, looked down the range, at the various leaders and sharpshooters of the Echo Company, 2 Battalion, 1701st Regiment. A few were practicing, trying to keep themselves occupied, but many were listening intently to him, explaining what had happened, what was going to happen. The midset red-headed clone was gesturing wildly with his drink, explaining the whole fight against the Goa'uld.

"So, you're basically telling me that these things, as far as our unproven new allies can tell, and I do stress unproven, can take you over, infiltrate, destroy, and have a god complex the size of a deathstar?" The squad leader was rather dubiously listening, but Dell had his attention.

"Yeah, from what I understand. The squad we caught down below was their flagship team that deals with the same kind of wierd phodo we do. Those energy weapons we took off of them were developed by the enemy. From what I understand, they fight a lot like our more rabbly bottom-scraper counterparts." Dell, took a swing of his drink, before gesturing back towards the aft of the compartment, ostenably towards their home galaxy, wherever in corellian hells it was.

"So they can't shoot for phodo at 50 meters, have little to no grasp of tactics, generally are cannon fodder and don't understand the concept of 'DUCK'?"

Dell nodded, shrugging. "Sounds about how they described them. Pretty encouraging. Though these new 'Kull' warriors that recently appeared sound more worrying. Should prove to be an interesting fight, provided we can shoot at them from a reasonable distance. 5k sounds good." The laughs of knowing individuals filled the local area. Dell was known for making outragous shots, usually involving the biggest gun he could find in the most complicated fashion when allowed to. Well, when the command staff didn't yell at him afterwards.

"So we've got 40 minutes to gather together troops? Sounds like it's time to ruin some wanna-bies' day."

"Sounds like a plan. I'd say be back in 37 minutes to be on the safe side, with a good compliment of weapons. I don't know if we'll be back until they fix the ship." Dell chuckled as he thumped his mug onto the table. He wondered if he was a force sensitive that had slipped through the cracks. Certainly he shot well enough to have been accused of using it once or twice. "And bring friends, too!"

"Shoot 'em where it hurts, Dell!"

"Shoot 'em every time!" The clone got up, looking down the range as the group began gathering people up to get ready. His story was pretty unbelieveable, but the Enforcers were one of the best, though the single most unconventional squad. They had gone through enough strange missions that if they said that a planet was made out of cheese, or that time was looping, they would be instantly believed, and the science department that the ship had would be jumping to figure out more.

The clone gestured to one of the shooters, who handed over his weapon to let the sharpshooter have at it. He took a stance, and fired off 10 blasts to see if he still had it. Even with his loose, casual shots, he punched 10 holes in the rebel-shaped target's center of mass. Wasn't the smiley he was going for, but they were close enough together at 50 meters that he was fairly confident that the jaffa wouldn't be able to tell the diffrence when, or if he met them. He gave the weapon back, and headed for his quarters to grab a few shirts and pants, along with the few personal effects he had.

//Prometheus Main Bridge//

"Are we sure they'll work with us? I would rather not take any chances with an organization that was willing to destroy an entire planet, and that has been shown to be far more destructive and inventive than the Goa'uld." General Hammond watched the radio beacons aboard the Enterprise, 4 of which that marked the stormtrooper squad converging back on a single location.

"Their captain seems a lot like me, with a bit of Teal'c and Danny thrown in for rounding out. I say trust them, and find out the die-hard imperialists in the crew and watch them. The fact that Sheridan seems to be embracing new ideas seems to me like he's one of the better guys." O'neill was back in his shirtsleeves uniform, watching the progress as the Prometheus lined up another of the Pudgeboats next to the other two, lining them up to provide a triangular drydock enclosure for the Enterprise, which they had been assembled around.

"Imperialists, embracing? Jack, your vocabulary is growing." Daniel smiled as he watched Jack scowl, and turn around to face his cheeky alternate.

"A one time deal, Daniel.." Jack turned back to the now shadowed front windows, as the small form of the Prometheus slowly manuvered on it's RCS thrusters into the makeshift bay, hovering very very carefully over the forward side of the Enterprise, inspecting it at almost hull-kissing range. At the close range, the crew of the Prometheus could look out, seeing the myrad micro-damages that had been inflicted. Smaller defensive emplacements sheared off, little pittings from various incidents... the ship was a mess, pure and simple.

"I'm disinclined to trust them, but I'm willing to risk it if you can vouch for them." The uneven lighting of the Prometheus's overhead lights cast strange shadows on Hammond's face as he turned around, facing SG-1.

Teal'c looked dispassionately to Carter and Daniel, raising an eyebrow. He was willing to trust them, now it was a matter of the rest of SG-1 trusting them.

"I'm willing to trust them. The captain well knows now that we're not rebels, and as they pointed out, they have no choice but to trust us. There is no way we can opeate that thing without them, and frankly, they could well be our last hope for stopping Anubis. It's only a matter of time before he comes for Earth again." Daniel knew bits and pieces of the full power of Anubis, a scant few of his ascended memories rising to the surface now and again in his dreams. Horrible memories as bad as seeing Alderann go the way of the dodo.

"I have to agree, sir. Anubis's ships outgun and massively outmass the Prometheus. The technology of the Enterprise might allow us to close the outgunning gap. I hope that she's got enough firepower to stand up to Anubis's mothership, because we still don't have any clues as to the locations of any weapons of the Ancients." Carter was rather dissappointed at having to take this forced relationship of forces. The thoughts of a former bunch of imperialistic brainwashed crazies joining forces with the SGC struck some bad vibes with her, like the aschen had.

"You know me, sir. This is our big chance to score with something that will put the fear of god into some Goulds. Plus, I like the guy. He seems a lot like me. With a crazy ship that has more guns than the entire US navy." Jack smiled like a maniac, wondering what he could do if they ever built a second one. Once they got the first one repaired. His mind was nearly exploding with potential strategems that were possible with the massive mile long super-battleship.

"Somehow I don't think this is going to go over well, though... however, if we don't have much of a choice, then I suppose I can live with your reccomendations. Time until beam-back?" General Hammond turned back to the fore of the bridge, looking to the operations console. The operations officer looked at his running clock, which was half-over.

"24 minutes, sir."

"We'll have to see what they bring..."

//Echo Enforcers Bunk Room//

The small bunk room of the four troopers was a whirl of activity as three of them gathered together all their gear. Duffle bags were tossed fully loaded around, lettering marking them as the troopers personal belongings and gear. Dell's trunk full of sniper gear and low-profile armor slid across the floor, bumping into the rucksack with Stari's pilot alternate helmet and flight-suit and Toral's giant toolbox of goodies.

"I hope they don't mind us taking the presumption of taking up residence in their base of operations as a peace offering." Dell locked the glove of his backup armor into place, the alternate armor being his sniper gear, ligher, with a camo covering that could be shifted between a few default patternings. The angular armor looked little like standard stormtrooper armor, the dark shade-visor over the wide faceplate having a completely diffrent feel than normal trooper armor. The curved faceplate was intimidating in a whole diffrent way from the skull-like standard stormtrooper masks, machine-like, efficient, deadly.

"They won't have much choice, there are too many of us to just be cooped up on the station-freighters. They probably want cannon fodder too. We'll just have to prove them wrong, now won't we?" Stari had on his own backup armor, which was pilot modified like his primary armor. Thankfully, the cockpits of their Tie-H was big enough to take a normal stormtrooper in armor. And detonators, cutting devices and other goodies of all descriptions. The mix of demo man and pilot was odd, grenade launchers and all.

"Heh, they'll probably drool over Imperial base defensive systems. After all, if an enemy gets past this Stargate of theirs, a few dozen e-webs, and other little tricks of the trade will come in handy." Toral thumbed the sharp edges of his massively oversized wrench, easily the size of a Great Axe. It actually worked as a wrench, too, of all standards and sizes, though it was more suited for melee combat. Wrench slayer, he had been called once. He smiled, remembering good ole' times practicing with smashing various large fruits with it, back in the old days. After he had joined the Corps, and gotten senior enough to customize his field loadout, he had taken leave, gone home, and brought back the MOAW with him.

His armor was pretty much standard, save for the equipment bandoliers that covered it, filled with various goodies that he had developed over the years. Remote spy devices, miniaturized grenades, hacking devices, auto-turret pieces... you ought to be prepared for any situation after all. He popped open his toolbox, the light of the various equipment status blinkers shining forth like a declaration of glory. It was keyed to only open for him, and he always tried to make sure no-one else was around to see his full arsenal. He scowled as he felt the gaze of the clones over his shoulders, and he shut the toolbox, looking at them with a withering gaze. "Do you mind?"

The two clones sheepishly backed away and averted their eyes from Toral's toolbox, and the sometimes reculsive combat engineer shut it back tight, locking it with his thumbprint. "Lousy whippersnapper clones..." The laughs from the duo behind him got him to smile, knowing that their goofballishness was part of what had kept the Eisleys from loosing it on some of the worse missions they had been on.

The sound of the hatch opening caught all of their attention. Trik Khaar, the leader of the Eisley Enforcers and a Lietenant in the Stormtrooper core entered in, looking at his troops oddly in the strange tableu. They all stood up for their commander, the crusty and still tanned silent stickler looking at each in turn.

"The captain agrees with our plan, and many of the officers are willing to believe the story. If we can get them to let us join into their efforts, we will be the flagship team for our efforts." Quick as possible and to the point. He headed over to his own bunk, which was already half-packed as it always was. He was one of the liasons between the trooper core and the upper decks and the dampener on the madmen that were the Eisley Enforcers.

The rest of his coworkers shouldered their loads as they headed for the armory for their other weapons. It naturally wasn't good to have their weapons 24/7, too easy for a lone trooper to go crazy and go after some poor victim. Some of the problems with only needing a power pack and some easily stolen gas is that it was way too easy to power up and kill someone. Time for the hand-cannons.

//Prometheus Starboard Landing Bay//

The flash of the Asgard transporter faded away to the sound of Captain Sheridan's voice in a thunderous call. "Atten-hun!" The sound of over 600 pairs of combat boots snapping to attention cracked across the brightly lit bay, the pilots of Echo Flight, and the various troopers of the Echo Company 2 Bn 1701st.

Jack's jaw dropped at the sheer variety of various fun weapons and possibilities that were offered by the troopers. And the absolutely massive sniper rifle of the Eisley Enforcer sniper. It was nearly taller than he was, with a muzzle bigger than a fist. Sheer intimidation in a way that the Jaffa had nothing on.

"Sweet holy hanna..." Carter's astonished shock was worth the annoyance that the imperials had brought aboard so many weapons. Though he could see why they were so feared. They knew the definition of rule 37. Sure, a lot of them had the carbines, but... they had some nasty other weapons...

"Captain Sheridan, what is the meaning of this!?" General Hammond was not happy that 600 crazies had brought aboard the Prometheus the biggest damm weapons he had ever seen, with some other weapon, packs, base equipment, everything save for food to feed them with.

"If you're going to support us in refitting and saving the Enterprise, then the least we could do is provide you with a set of troops well-used to plain out wierd that your tales have informed me of. Ones that don't have to answer to allies, or be recruited clandesenly. Free for you to use as you need." Sheridan stepped forward, documentation on the abilities of Echo company on several data-pads under his arm.

"For anything we choose?" General Hammond was skeptical about this free offer of manpower. There was always, ALWAYS a catch.

"Well, so long as you take my best squad for use as the liason team with the SGC. They are the best I have ever found, and you already beamed them out once. Eisleys, forward!" Sheridan called forth the bodyguard squad of before. The one with the craziest gear. The giant blaster sniper rifle of doom, one absolutely loaded down with engineering equipment and turret components and that wrench! Then the one with the detonating equipment and some other kind of equipment, which looked somewhat like pilot survival gear.

At least the leader was somewhat normal, in a normal stormtrooper armor, though his weapon had a grenade launcher under the barrel and other small changes. Though there had to be something about him.

"They have gone through hell and back again, and will follow your orders. They are crazy and they are at your disposal."

General Hammond could only blink, as Jack O'neill smiled evilly, thinking of the nightmare teh Goa'uld were about to experience. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, looking over to Daniel, who looked back past a semi-catatonic Carter who was already thinking of what she could do with the proven energy technology and Goa'uld varients...

The rules have changed. Bigtime.

[Richardson]

Chapter 6: A settling sensation

"Aww, come on, you can see it now, a few shrubbaries, an E-web in a tower overlooking the driveway, the Imperial Flag fluttering in the breeze...."
"The flag might be overdoing it."

//Somewhere in the Rockies//

Dawn... birds chirped and overlooked the construction site of the Air Force's newest base. Deep in the upper reaches of the rockies, high up in Montana, the new base was more than just an R&D facility. After all, so far away from society, it was perfect for the 1701st to settle their roots as the start of their new life. No empire and rebellion, well, a whole new definition of it, with them in the unexpected, and unexplored realm of being the dirty little terrorist fighters themselves.

The birds flew in, skittering amongst the large block of buildings, the temporarily makeshift road leading into the base busy with military traffic, of the current age, and the more advanced hovercraft of the 1701st... and then the tranquility shattered, as did one unfortunate bird, at a nearby near-sonic transit of an F-302, followed close-behind by a TIE-Interceptor giving practice chase. Various individuals looked up, watching the two give merry hell to their opponents, before screaming back over the horizon and up into suborbital territory to continue their match.

Not a worry in the world at the moment, not a soul within 100 miles that wasn't either directly a part of the SGC, or working for an organization that knew about it. A safe haven for the crew of the Enterprise, and what would become the SGC's future home when they began work on the underground portion of the base. Everything was going well, and his good fortune kept Captain Sheridan with a smile on his face, as he overlooked his crew's work like a proud father watching his children build themselves a new toy.

The sprawling mostly 3 story fortress formed the heart of the base, FTL hypernode comm arrays, sensor dishes, radar turrets and all manners of interesting devices for monitoring what would eventually become a galaxy-wide struggle for freedom and liberation. The gray durasteel of it's prefabbed central core was surrounded by the beginnings of native-built complex that would concern itself with more mundane aspects of the battle, logistics, personelle, fun toys involving superheated plasma...

The president of their host country hadn't really wanted to allow a base to be set up at first, until the SGC had shown him the rather... wrecked state the Enterprise was in at the moment. The crew could have survived on the impromtu spacestation alone, but that would have been rather hazardous, and the offer of a defensive outpost capible of striking back at the Goa'uld from the surface in his country swayed his mind, eventually. Col. O'neill had made the point the best, actually...

"If we're going to make a deal, why not make the deal that lets us SHOOT BACK!?"

The next week had been spent frantically finding the quickest location that they could set up in. Montana had eventually been picked, being one of the most remote and uninhabited states in the continental 48, and within a thousand miles of the original SGC site. A huge strech of land had been for sale, and the Air Force proceeded to snatch it up. The cover story for the new base under construction was that it was being used for a new joint-forces experiment, having all of the combined forces of the US working together closer than ever before to try and develop new joint-forces technologies and strategies.

A truth within a lie, like the Deep Space Radar Telemetry of the SGC. It did look at such things, but more of as a side-result of it's operation, not the actual operation itself. As such was it with Ft. Avalon. After all, they were experimenting with new joint-forces strategies and technologies, along with trying to make all the branches of the armed forces get along. Though it was all a side effect of it's real purpose, the primary ground base for the 1701st, and the crew of the Enterprise, along with the construction facility that would work on the new Prometheus refit that the spare engineers from the Enterprise were working on with the SGC's starship development department.

Sheridan had heard rumors that they were also developing a cruiser class, based off of what had been supposed to become the BC-304 class, and applying the raw talent and ideas of the SGC to the proven ideas of the techniques of the Empire. The Enterprise had found itself now, once it's own refit plans were finished, as a flagship, a battleship, a destroyer of stars indeed. Some of the things he had heard about the plans for his ship frightened him. This EU that had been developed around the stories told of his galaxy, told of a fellow Star Destroyer mounting a Super Laser... and with the new naquada generators and various technologies the SGC had, they expected to be able to fit one spinally on the Enterprise, giving her a fearsome main gun. They suspected that it potentially could get enough raw power from 8 naquada generators to match the original Death Star's primary weapon, though they were not holding hope on that.

It had been... rather interesting, that day when he had tried to get into the design center aboard Bayblon, only to find the various scientists blocking the door with a fairly large human wall. That had not stopped him from catching a glimpse of the new planned shape of his ship, far more graceful and smooth, with what looked like a 303's hanger arrangement on the underside, and landing bays on the dorsal superstructure. Add in a far expanded bridge section that looked almost like a saucer, likely with interesting surprises in store, and what appeared to be the whole ship being expanded, he was worried he wouldn't even recognize his ship at all when they were done...

His ship... the thought was still mind-boggling. Him, the captain of the single most advanced Star Destroyer that had been as of yet, a monster that he suspected would pack far more of a punch once the SGC got done with it and their adding of new technologies. He never would have thought of himself as captain of anything greater than a Dreadnaught, being too much of a maverick, free thinker, and sticking too much to his oath to protect the people. That oath was more for show than actual following, it had seemed like in those dark days before he was swept into this strange new galaxy.

Now, there was hope for his misplaced ideals, of having made a diffrence, to ensure that he actually worked for something worth working for.

He looked back out over the fort that was growing, watching the dust plumes from various vehicles traveling along the unfinished roads. An outdoor theater was going up at the moment, a temporary measure to give the crew something to watch in the nights, as the night-crew worked. He had talked to Col. O'neill to ask about what had been picked out for the beginning run for the theater, and he had replied cryptically, "Star Trek." Then he'd smirked and walked off. What in the heck did he mean by Star Trek?

// Fort Avalon, Montana, Outdoor Theater, 1900 that evening//

The Eisley Enforcers had finally found their way back to the home camp of the 1701st, after a short stint working with SG-1. Not too much had happened there during their stint, odd considering SG-1's luck combined with their own. General Hammond had been glad when they had left, due to the bad influence they had been on the various SG teams, in the way of dealing with jaffa attacks and packing.

And, just in time for the beginning of the introductory series of entertainent to help make it easier for them to adjust to the new world they had found themselves in. They scooted along the aisles, finding SG-1 already sitting down and enjoying the speculation going on amonst the various individuals in the audience and proceeded to squish in beside them, the infamous squad's status quickly convincing people to scoot over. Teal'c passed over a 2 gallon sized tub of popcorn, which found itself centered between the Jacob's as the outdoor lights began to slowly dim.

"So, what exactly is this 'Star Trek'? I've heard it discussed by a quite a few people in rather reverant tones." Stari leaned around the giant bucket of popcorn in his lap, looking at the smirking SG-1 to his right. The primitive screen that had been set up began to glow from the projection reflecting off of it, re-illuminating the area faintly.

"Now why would we spoil that when you can watch right now?" Jack leaned back in his seat, having watched the film a few times with Teal'c, who had found the series almost as... fascinating, as Star Wars.

The sound of the opening credits beginning focused everyone's attention on the screen, and the assorted stormtroopers, pilots, and personelle learned a segment of the history of the original ship named Enterprise, and began to understand why they looked up. A ship of hope, a name of hope, that is what was implied in the Enterprise.

They smiled at the sight of her leaving dock, some loving her looks, hissed at Kahn, cringed at the sight of her mangling by the Reliant. Stood in awe, humbled by the power of the Genesis Device; and chuckled viciously at Kirk's most infamous line, loving how sneaky the Admiral could be still, despite starting to loose his grip. Cheered the Enterprise on as she evened the odds, and proceeded to lay the smackdown on the Reliant. Booed Kahn as he decided to try and take the Enterprise with him, and went silent, at the spectacle of the Genesis Planet, and the last gasp of Spock.

Nothing the Empire had was that good, almost everything the Empire had being gutted by the Intelligence and Security divisions to be 'compliant' with the Emperor's vision, which was to say: more boring than watching a Tatooine dunescape. But, the sheer magnitude of what the Earthers had thought up astounded them all. A single torpedo that could simply make an entire planet, and fill it with life? An astounding tool... and a far more terrifying weapon than the Death Star. After all, if you could program in a planet, what was to say that they could not put into the matrix... oh, say a planetary level mass worth of ships? Fully crewed and staffed by whoever and whatever you wanted, totally loyal and ready to die at your whim?

The engineers took notes, the ideas of what the Federation had sparking ideas for their projects, as they saw what had inspired some of the design choices of the SGC designers who were working on the Enterprise. Their Enterprise, not the Federation one in the movie. As it was, they had begun to understand what they were driving at, and some of the toys of the Enterprise, especially those 'photon torpedoes' had been interesting. A ship could look beautiful and deadly, after all, which is what the SGC had been starting to go at.

The Eisleys looked over to SG-1, having found the movie to be fantastic. And this popcorn stuff was pretty interesting, too! This whole planet had a fresh look at ideas, a new perspective that was starting to make them wonder why in the hell they had ever considered the Empire a good option.

Toral was the first to speak up, his accent described already by Earthers as 'southeastern country'. "Nice ship, even if a bit impractical. Too bad she was ripped a structurally superfulous new one." He grabbed a handful of popcorn over the objections of Dell, popping a piece into his mouth. Tasty. "And she does prop up some interesting ideas and concepts that I never thought of. Or that we just haven't been able to master. For all that we have a 'disentigrate' setting, it doesn't work very well. Sort of 'burn your flesh from your bones', rather than actually doing the job it claims."

"Remind me to introduce you to a zat, sometime." Jack slurped at his mostly gone slushie, settling back for the second half of the double header. There was number 3 to see next, with 4 and 6 tomorrow. He wouldn't get to see those, having to go back to base tomorrow for another mission.

"What's with those big pylons and the outboards mounted on them? Doesn't seem like a good design." Stari looked around the popcorn bowl, stealing a handful himself, earning another annoyed look from his clone brother.

"The warp drive they were talking about. It warps space to put the ship into a bubble of an alternate space-time where the speed of light is far faster." Carter had studied the series some in order to know what in the heck some of the other geeks in the department sometimes babbled on about. "There are a lot of ideas the SGC has been wanting to try, but we only have a limited understanding of many higher forces."

"Sounds like a project for industrious individuals to work on so we can proceed to confuse and discombobulate some poor fool." Toral smiled and looked over his engineering goggles that he usually wore, an interested and maniacal gleam in his eyes.

//Goa'uld Territory, Anubis's flagship//

The dark god stopped in his tracks, as something far away caught his attention. The game he had been playing had been shifted. He could feel a blind spot, where that meddlesome fool had blocked his vision. Earth... the Taur'i... they had something which could hurt him. It was as if a terrifying force had cried out in anticipation, and had been told to be quiet before it could give away anything.

He turned to his first prime, annoyed still that he could still not move against Earth in any close time-frame. So what if it was a ship of the Federation, from the symbol that the annoying meddler had choosen? 20 Ha'taks and his mothership would be enough. After all, it wasn't like he had summonded a ship from that dammable Imperium of Men from that alternate universe, or any number of other worse case scenarios.

The technologies he could get from the wreck, though... it was a bad day when Q summoned the starship Enterprise to be destroyed...

Too bad it wasn't the StarSHIP, but rather a Destroyer of the Stars... Anubis began plotting, laying out new plans to his First Prime, ripples spreading out from the great game. It would be longer now, though, before Anubis begins his march against Earth. All the better to prepare with. Whispers are constantly heard throughout the galaxy. The Taur'i have new equipment, new ships, at least one more...

An expidition to Earth Space by a system lord finds itself blown away almost as soon as it leaves hyperspace, by something out there. The system lords chalk it up to the Asgard, and decide to leave Earth alone, lest they bring the wrath of the Asgard down on their heads. Every whisper comes back to the dark ascended who has been pulling the strings.

His intrest grows, as he listens to the growing confusion regarding Earth, the growing forces that they field, wielding plasma weapons now, powerful enough to hurt anything the system lords have, and his own Kull warriors. That little surprise quickly caused Anubis's primary focus to shift back to the Taur'i from his quest for the Ancient cities. They should not have been able to come close to doing that.

If he still had a physical body, he would have smirked as he directed a whole legion of Kull warriors to the small outpost the Taur'i called "Alpha Base". It was time to find out what they were up to.




(Am I just that uninteresting?)

[fusion]

Well, it is your style of writing and many here would rather believe that wars was more powerful... Also the way you present some information might annoy a few.
Anyways don't give up... Rift, one of the great fics of this forum had very few replies until the thirtieth chapter... So just keep writing....

[Richardson]

It is somewhat powerful, but some of the things going on are a... bit bigger, than I've revealed to anyone yet.

And I haven't even put up the chapter where the Prometheus kicks 2 Ha'taks to the curb with turbolasers yet.

[barricade]

Some of us from over at SB have already read through this, up to where you paused there, so don't think you're not getting readers/reviewers. We just happened to have spotted it elsewhere first already. I -would- however like it that when the 'light freighter' & 'happy bomb' show up (and I'm not saying a word more about that, no matter the torture) I'd like to see you do a little revising and go into a little more background for the 'grunts'.

[dragon]

Like Barricade said some us posted reviews at SB.

[Richardson]

True. And be looking for an update... oh, right now...

[LadyTevar]

I however, have not seen this, and thus I am wanting the next update ASAP.

That means I like it, and I want MORE!

[fusion]

I however, have not seen this, and thus I am wanting the next update ASAP.

That means I like it, and I want MORE!

If the lady likes it, it means that your fic is in good shape... So that means keep up the good work!!!!

[Richardson]

Chapter 7: Looming in the night

"The cold and overreaching fingers of the dark can be found everywhere, and only the light of dawn can bring hope to the night."

//Fort Avalon, Hanger 51//

Captain Sheridan looked at the giant beaming smiles on the guards for Hanger 51, which had been picked for the R&D hanger as what the American hosts for the 1701st called an ironic and had to be done joke. He swore to himself that the instant he understood their humor that he would shoot himself as having committed a crime against the universe. He didn't know how they got away with their oddities, possibly this whole nonsense with Anubis, the Enterprise, and everything else was caused as their punishment.

"So, what has summoned- ooooooooohhh..." Sheridan was about to start interrogating the engineers who were waiting for him in the cavernous prefab hanger, before they parted from the massive gaggle they had been standing in to show their masterpiece that had been 2 months in hasty and slapdash development. The sleek black fighter looked like the specter of death as it stood on the pavement, glossy black Carbonat plating gleaming menacingly in the bright overhead lights, sucking in the light like a spectral omen of death.

"I told you we'd break him."

Sheridan stepped over to the spectral looking craft, running his hand along the sleek glossy paneling of it's fuselage. A dark, intimidating craft, but beautiful. The angular structure was rounded ever so slightly, comprimises between the TIE engineers and those of the 302. He squatted down, looking at the small-sized twin gatling mounts that dissappeared into the the underside of it's nose.

"Slugthrowers?" The engineers looked at each other over the hesitant question, the captain beginning to look at them suspiciously.

"We took the best of both craft when the F-302 beat several TIE Interceptor squads with one of their own. For a primitive craft,-"

"HEY!" One of the 302 engineers looked over annoyedly at counterpart.

"It is extremely capible. So, they suggested that we combine the best of both worlds. And... they started scaring us when we showed them how TIE technology works. And, the result stands before you. The F-302/B prototype, the TIE Spitfire." The Engineer calmly stepped up over the annoyed exclamation of his collegue, standing proudly beside his captain over the best thing that had happened since TIEs themselves. Everyone agreed, no-one was going to enjoy having this on the other side.

"You didn't answer my question." Sheridan looked over to the engineer annoyedly, wanting a few straight answers about this.

"No, no I didn't. She has twin .3 caliber gatling pulse blasters, courtesy of these 'Lockheed Martin' people who have so graciously provided us with a few bits and pieces that they have improved upon. They were originally supposed to be standard chin blasters, but they brought us these instead. We didn't really understand how they were supposed to be put together or work until our friends showed us the principles behind gatling technology. They are downright sneaky, inventive, and firepower obseessed individuals." The TIE engineer shuddered at the thoughts of some of the ideas the American and British engineers had come up with, and wanted nothing to do with whatever had caused them to start thinking in those terms. Madness!

"Thanks. We've been working at it for millenium. Call us primitive if you want, we still know how to build stuff that can make nearly anyone else weep. She is designed to be able to turn 180 degrees at 5000 kps in under 3 seconds, along with pulling manuvers that would leave nearly any other starfighter in pieces, if they could musted the sheer engine power needed to perform them." The American engineer looked smug as he walked around the fighter, showing off the far more massive than standard Ion drivers. American overengineering at it's finest was easily applicable to the little monster of a starfighter.

Sheridan followed, able to look straight into a drive exaust port big enough to fit himself down. "Hells, do you think you have a big enough exaust port?" The good captain looked up along the dorsal surface of the craft, the two sets of RCS thrusters outset of the stabilizer tails.

The American engineers and British engineers looked at each other, before laughing hysterically. The flight engineers of the Enterprise looked at each other oddly, still not sure what exactly had gotten loose in their counterpart's heads. Sheridan edged over to his batch of engineers, keeping away from the crazy Earth ones. "Are they always like this?"

"Usually. We're not really sure what is wrong with them. One of the medical staffers thinks it's something in the water. We've been living off of the ship's recycling plants ever since." The engineers looked nervous, as they gingerly patted their mad creation. They found it fascinating, but treated it gingerly. The way that their counterparts designed it had them wondering if it could sustain normal combat operations.

"Ooohh, that was a good one. Got another? But, seriously, ya'll take too much effort into overthinking your craft. Granted, we've been doing that ourselves lately, but this stuff let's us go back a bit to the old days..." The engineers looked nostalgic for a moment, before shaking it off.

"But, anyways, this puppy has been put into the ring with a full squadron of TIE Interceptors and knocked all of them silly. Especially with her missile loadout, and other wonderful little features." The American spokesperson ducked under the wing of the fighter, patting the side of the fusalage lightly, the hatch under there open and ready to load. "She can load 8 Sidewinders in the expanded missile bays, has lockon range out to 6000 miles, which we're working on expanding, and whole bunch of nifty features that are nearly too numerous to list."

"Why would you waste perfectly good ordinance on another fighter?"

"Why would you waste a perfectly good life in an ansine close-range dogfght when you can kill 'em all from long range and save the cannons for something that has a hard time moving? Waste stuff, not lives. Easier to make a missile than a life, after all." The engineers inspected the missile brackets inside the mounting bay, checking them motherly for damage from the test series. "Plus it's a bit easier to be sneaky when your opponents are all dead before you even get into visual range and your craft leaves almost no sensor signature."

Sheridan blinked as he tried to understand why the strange cultures of this world had taken up ordinance loving over proper fighter techniques... He was getting frustrated with the strange ways of this backwards and upcoming planet. Every time he thought he had grabbed ahold of how their culture worked, it slipped out of his grasp like a rock slug...

//Alpha Site//

The Alpha Site was calm, quiet, wasn't expecting any havoc. No organization besides the SGC and it's allies knew where it was, and they had shifted it from their old Alpha site due to the Rebel Jaffa and Tok'ra knowing the old site, which was still being mantained as the Beta Site. The Imperials had advocated that course of action, wanting to protect the research being developed there.

It didn't help much. After all, Anubis was a semi-ascended being, capible of reaching out with his mind to search the cosmos. Then all it took was telling a Ha'tak to patrol nearby, and wait for it to find his prey...

Carter and her father, as how it was supposed to have been, were working on their new weapon when the fight began. The sound of quad cannons lighting up the skies against death gliders sent chills though staffer's hearts, and stormtroopers rushed from guard positions to do battle with landing troops.

"We've got to go!" A trooper leaned through the door, wildly gesturing with his blaster towards the door. The alarms began ringing as the AA guns outside continued to blast away on their long-range scanner control, trying to stop as many of the incoming Death Gliders and Alkesh as they could.

"Come on, Sam!" Jacob Carter started grabbing as much of the equipment as he could, taking one of the prototype modified blasters to save it, as his daughter took the other. The ground shook heavily as the orbital shockwave of a Mrk 8 detonating in close orbit reached the surface, the Prometheus joining the battle above with it's heavy new arments.

"We'll make for the Galleo, she's got the new model Hyperdrive aboard, we can get out on her!" Sam ran for the door, the prototype blaster in one hand, and a DC-12 carbine in the other. It was make or break time for the defenses of the Alpha site. She hoped the Prometheus could hold against whatever forces the Goa'uld or whoever it was had sent against them.

Outside the prefab Quioset hut, the base was in pandemonium as a contingent of Jaffa was doing battle with Stormtroopers. Plasma crossed paths as the Jaffa did battle with their new counterparts, green and brown camo'd Stormtroopers ripping into their less competent new rivals. A quartet of troopers broke off from guarding the lab, taking up flanking positions around the Carters as a light flashed overhead, brilliant and blinding.

SGC personelle who were taking up arms, and the gunners of the defensive positions all hoped that the flash wasn't the death knell of the Prometheus, that she was still alive and fighting for their survival. If she was gone, what chance did the Enterprise stand?

//Bridge of the USS Prometheus, now SCC-1//

The flash of a Ha'tak going up brought a cheer to the crew of the Prometheus, as the HAT fireteams shifted to the second Ha'tak that had dropped out over the Alpha site. The very interferance that had made it so hard to find the planet also had meant that they couldn't see their attackers until they were right atop of them. It had been a lucky look out the window that had saved her from being crippled in the first volley, and the new firepower given to her by the Enterprise's donated and rebuilt heavy batteries had given her the power to smite back.

The newly promoted Col. Pendergast smiled savagely as his ship swung about, the forward HAT battery on her bow ripping into the Anubis uprate Ha'tak with savage fury as the port and starboard batteries came to bear, the light computer controlled batteries ripping new ones from their various mounts on the defiling ship. The little frigate rocked from a nearby blast, as the Ha'tak desperately manuvered to remove the minature daemon from it's tail.

It flew across the atmosphere of the unnamed planet, bright flashes going up between it and the Taur'i frigate as it savagely pursued it larger but now more primitive foe. The Prometheus screamed overhead in close pursuit, her newly doublelayered shields straining only slightly under the suistained barrage of the rapidly fleeing Ha'tak, which was attempting to pull out of the comm jamming of the planet.

"Fire for her engines when the batteries come to bear." Pendergast held onto his chair as the Prometheus rocked slightly, a trio of Mrk 8's leaving the tubes and streaking across space, rocking the Ha'tak. He frowned ever so slightly, as it came clear of the nuclear maelstrome, and he wished once again that the Hellfyre Torpedoes that the SGC was developing would hurry up and come out of the development cycle that had sprung up.

The flash of brilliant blue light as the altered heavy batteries fired again filled both sides of the forward windows, before the Ha'tak's shields flared and failed, the impacts of the main guns spinning it around, trailing atmosphere from the gravitic drive arrays, the ship drifting as it lost all momentum. The Prometheus closed, before her own drives cycled to a halt, drifting in close, before picking off the Ha'tak's guns carefully and methodically. This time, they wanted prisoners.

"It's adrift, sir. Deathgliders and Al'kesh still flying, though."

"Clear the skies."

The light guns and point defense of the Prometheus opened up at full capacity, Terran penchant for overgunning a ship once again playing into the Prometheus's favor in the fight, as 5 Al'kesh bore down on the now confident little ship, which was tractoring the Ha'tak into a more stable orbit as it fought on, intending to have a talk with whoever thought to try and take on the Alpha Site.

//Alpha Site//

Sam ducked under a staff blast, the whump of plasma slamming into duracrete fortifications continuing as Jaffa and a few Kull swarmed out of the still active gate. The E-Webs on the main control center were holding them back, though, a massive array of bodies lining the main courtyard, which was ringed by various defensive positions with hundreds of blasters. An unbroken rain of plasma bolts was slowly glassing the ground before the stargate, as the sizzling smell of burning flesh filled the air.

It took all of Sam's fortitude to keep from spewing her guts from it. She had been in hellish situations before, hell, she had visited the literal representation of hell on Netu, but nothing had prepared her for this. Occasional screams could be heard from behind, as a Kull Warrior occasionally caught an unlucky stormtrooper, pulling spines from bodies and heads from necks, blasting holes in the unwary as the troopers continued to rain death from above.

The Snawphoooom of a lightsaber igniting convinced her to finally turn around, to see one of the crack troopers holding a prize lightsaber he had captured in the early purges, standing against a Kull Warrior, screaming defiance as he prepared to do battle. She kept going, intending to let his sacrifice mean something. The small landing pad which housed the Galleo was just in sight.

The ship, a freshbuild YT-1300, which had been built from the specs of an old manual in the engineering spaces of the Enterprise, a bit of back engineering, some of the rather infamously handy Asgard tech, and some guesses from the two parties of Engineering personelle. Her sleek white hull was still unmarred by impacts and weapon scoring, a testiment to her having just been finished the week before.

"I hope this thing works, or else we'll be in for a very painful time." Jacob ran around the landing gears, running up the boarding ramp with many of the SGC researchers, all carrying various projects of theirs that they had been working on, along with a few stormtroopers as his daughter caught up, ducking into the ship as the whine of the sublight drives started up.

The clanking of a Kull warrior's boots sent chills into the Galleo's passengers, as Sam charged her anti-Kull weapon, the strange whine reminding her of the Zats as she took aim, and blasted the being off the boarding ramp. "Dad, we've got to go NOW!" Carter dropped into a firing stance, continuing to fire down the boarding ramp as the engines powered up, the whine going into a full-out roar as the intertial dampeners of the custom-built transport lurched.

Carter hung onto the internal braces as the boarding ramp closed, the dizzying view of the ground below swirling as the ship pulled up and away from the continuing battle with it's precious cargo aboard. As the ramp thunked home, she made for the cockpit, the lurching of occasional evasive manuvers bobbing her in the corridor. The grating on the floor rattled as the little ship floored it to take advantage of a shield drop for her launch, the sky turning from blue to black rapidly as SGC and Imperial antigravs lined up together, rapidly shoving the small freighter up and out of the gravity well.

Sam ducked through the cockpit door, sitting down beside her father, her stomach still lurching from the leftover unrecycled air. That smell would haunt her for the rest of her days. She looked up to the SGC pilot and Echo flight copilot, who were busy making checks on the various systems they didn't have time to preflight on the ground. The SGC pilot reached over, charging the shields as the ship continued on. A few lances of bright light burned across the sky, sending relief into the various personelle.

"Oh, thank goodness, they didn't send much against- is that a Ha'tak?" The Echo flight pilot chuckled at the sudden shock of his counterpart, pressing the signal for the gunnery crews to take their stations. It was going to be an interesting battle. He loved these Americans and the way they designed cockpits. A nice HUD, multiple multi-display reprogrammable touchscreen panels, easy to use and intuitive controls, very very nice...

The multiple guns of the Galleo came into play as she closed against the Deathgliders and Al'kesh desperately trying to play a game of keep away with the Prometheus, doing their dammdest to keep out of her 1000 mile range on her main guns, which continued to practice their small-target aqquisition skills and work on their gunnery.

Packing a total of 10 emplacements, the tough little craft began by simply flying into the midst of the deathgliders, supporting the F-302's and TIE-Interceptors flying about with her primary set, the Repeater Quad Cannons mounted along her central core, while the smaller blaster emplacements manned by four individuals in the small compartment next to the core worked on discouraging the deathgliders from coming too close.

//Somewhere else//

Anubis frowned as the felt the presence of his invasion force end. That wasn't supposed to happen... he had sent two Ha'tak against the forces of the so-called 'Alpha Site'. Nothing the humans had should have defeated them. Well, he would have frowned, and did a reasonable approximation given his energy-being status. The jaffa on his bridge shrunk away from their lord, who began growling annoyedly as he plotted what he would do to Earth when he was ready. 30 Ha'tak and his own flagship ought to be enough, though if they already had ancient weapons, things could be problematic...

Damm that Q... FWHO-SNAP!

"You rang?" The smug interdimensional part-time Lord of Chaos looked over to the dark ascended, who was attempting with all of his will to keep from using his powers to try and strangle the self-righteous popous ass. "Now now, that's not a very nice description of me, surely you aren't feeling mad because my Queen is putting your great plan in check, now is it?"

"The Enterprise will not stand before me, and your veiling of the Tau'ri forces will not protect them for much longer. I will see what you have done soon enough." Anubis's low and hate-filled voice sent chills into his servants, who began fleeing to avoid the coming storm. He stood up, looking down at the uniformed higher meddler. What Q saw in allowing the humans their 'free will' he would never understand. He didn't want to understand. He knew of what the Ori could do, he wanted that power for himself, to strike down the Ancients who currently restricted his own power.

"Oh, give it a few months, sure, but the grand strategy is already in place. It's rather hilarious to watch the little hairless monkeys go, they have such a way with weaponry. Oh, wait, that's right, you don't like them and want to do away with all of them. Aww, now that's too bad." Q mocked the dark ascended, pretending to give him pitying looks, before shining his fingernails and looking up to him with a mischevious grin. "Oh, and Lorien says hi, check your board."

FWHO-SNAP!

"Q!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The bellow of Anubis's rage could be heard echoing throughout the Mothership, sending Jaffa scurrying to avoid their lord's wrath.

[phred]

I normally don't read fanfics, but this is funny and interesting.

One minor thing. Please invest in a spellchecker of some sort. Please?

[Richardson]

*Grrs, and he beats the hell out of the one he already has.*

Unfortunately, the funny count is decreasing, while the badass oh-shit count is slowly increasing as the fic is going along.


It Gets Worse.

[Darth Nostril]

How the hell did I manage to miss this one until now?
Just read the whole thing and eagerly awaiting more