Pain.
It was not a nice thing.
Yet it served useful purposes. Most importantly, it told you that you were still alive. It also told you that something was hurting you and you needed to do something to make whatever it was stop.
Harry Potter needed the mother of all analgesics if he wanted to get rid of this headache. In retrospect it probably wasn't a good idea to link your mind to a computer system that was about to get a massive jolt of energy. But the fact that he was still alive indicated that he had been successful.
He wearily rose from his recumbent position on the control board of the MEV, looking around he saw that there was thankfully no structural damage to worry about, and they were not in immediate danger of dying in all the remarkably varied means that was available to one when you were in space.
His gaze fell to both his shipmates and found them passed out; Daniel and Jonas were both slumped in their chairs. No doubt from the sensory overload of passing 'through' that shockwave. He let both his friends to their unconsciousness and winced as he placed his hands on the interface pads again, which lit up intermittently and stabilized after a few moments.
It was enough for him to realize that the MEV was not going to fly under its own power ever again, at least not until he found some new engines for it. Both engines had burned themselves out…the driver coils were completely fused and beyond repair. A look at the ship chronometer showed that he had been unconscious for just over two hours.
"Anybody out there?" he murmured to himself, the scanners came online and showed exactly what he hoped for.
"Guys!" Harry kicked Daniel's chair; who came awake with a startled yelp and looked around him in astonishment.
"We're not dead?"
"Of course not," said Harry in an obvious tone, "we wouldn't be having this conversation if we were dead. Wake Jonas up. I'm sure he wants to be conscious when we get rescued."
"How did we survive?" asked Daniel, going over to Jonas and shook him slightly.
"I only want to explain it once, I'm sure our friends and colleagues will be anxious to hear it too," said Harry with a relieved grin. "To be honest, I'm amazed myself that it worked…"
Jonas was just coming around and also coming to grips with their survival when the relatively huge dorsal section of the Deadalus moved into the view port of the MEV.
"Deadalus to MEV, anybody alive in there?"
"We're alive and well, Colonel Pendergast," said Harry, triggering the subspace com. "Though we could use a lift if you don't mind."
"Good to hear, Ambassador, stand by, we're transporting you to the Hangar bay."
The world around them dissolved in a flash of white as the transporter beam snatched them out of space, ship and all. When everything returned to normal the MEV was sitting on a ship slot usually meant for an F302 inside the cavernous Hangar bay. Already tech crews and emergency personnel were rushing towards them.
The rear hatch descended and the ship's medical staff whisked the three men away towards the Sickbay for a standard checkup. Harry tolerated it because it was standard procedure, the Fidelius charm thankfully protecting Egeria from discovery by the ship's physician…it would've been a pain to have to get things verified with Hammond while he cooled his heels in the Brig or they could've removed her with the medical Transporter program he had written for the STO Medical Core.
The mop up operation for the battle only involved retrieving any debris from the 302s lost in action, and finding any pieces of intact technology from the wreckage of Anubis' ship, whilst the surviving Anubis Jaffa on the planet were captured and being talked to by Teal'C, in an effort to throw their lot in with the rebellion.
Prometheus and Deadalus were already on their way back to Earth when Jack, Sam and Pendergast entered the Sickbay.
"Well, well, spacemonkey, hardly a week back on the job and you almost get yourself killed again," said Jack with a smirk, grabbing Daniel in a manly hug and nooging him on the head.
"How on Earth did you survive?" said Sam, shaking her head. "Not that I'm not glad you did…"
"I tried to outrun the shockwave initially," explained Harry. "There was a chance we could manage it…but when I saw that the thing wasn't dissipating and its speed so high…mostly due to the nuke and the power core setting off a cascading reaction…well, I happened on the idea to use the MEVs Cloak."
"How would being invisible help?" said Jack in baffled tone.
"The Cloak makes you invisible by shifting you out of phase very narrowly with the rest of the Universe…mostly because you still need to be able to scan the universe around you, instead of just seeing it. I merely dialed it way up…diverting all power to the Cloak…I essentially pushed the MEV out of this dimension for that briefest of moment when the shockwave would've ripped us apart."
"Amazing," said Sam with her scientist hat on, "the power needed for that must be huge."
"Exactly, much more than the MEV could provide under normal circumstances…so I diverted all power, even life support, we had perhaps a few seconds of safety; the timing was critical…too early, we run out of juice and we would've phased back before the shockwave passed us entirely."
"Cool," said Jonas with a smile.
Jack raised an eyebrow at the Kelownan in a very Teal'C like fashion before asking, "Did you guys manage to see if we got Anubis?"
"Yes, and no we didn't get him," said Harry shaking his head. "Our little blooper with the nuke codes gave him a window to get to an escape ship, he shot into Hyperspace seconds before the nukes went off."
"Damn," said Jack, punching his own hand in frustration.
"Even if we got him with the nukes, he would've still survived, I'm still working on a way to get rid of him once and for all," pointed out Harry.
"Keep us in the loop on that, will ya?"
"When I figure it out," affirmed Harry with a nod.
P3A-194 Volia
"C'mon, we have to move!"
Harry shouted to the three men of SG9 and popped out of the flimsy wooden fence he'd used for cover and brought his PR7 to bear to shoot down the dirt road towards the line of advancing enemy.
Nasty green energy bolts were returned as answer, but it had given SG9 the time to pass him. He continued to pepper the enemy; even scoring a hit that flung the enemy soldier off his feet, leaving a smoking hole through his chest. It was the first dent they had been able to make in their hunters' numbers; since they saw fit to use a form of portable energy shielding that seemed to come from a gauntlet on their wrists. The only drawback was that they couldn't keep them up indefinitely…hence why he could score a kill.
Harry turned and sprinted with all his considerable speed to join SG9 in the woods. He breathed a slight sigh of relief now that they were in the somewhat less exposed area, other than the miles of farmland around the Stargate. They could sure use the cover.
By the time he reached the SG team, there were already zipping green bolts speeding through the trees in an effort to cut them down. The five of them vaulted over a fallen rotting tree and hunkered down with a mental command from Harry.
He concentrated hard holding out his hands, which glowed ethereally and began to weave various Wards around their location. It would hide their life signs, place them under invisibility, and put a Notice-Me-Not effect on their little bunker.
"Is that going to help, Ambassador?" said Colonel Everson, the leader of the de facto diplomatic team of the SGC.
"It will," said Harry grimly. "But it won't keep us safe forever. If they are determined to get us then they surely have a weapon that could annihilate this entire forest if they were so inclined. But it's pretty big, they'll search for us probably before that."
"I'm sorry, Ambassador," said SG9's XO, Captain Hernandez, his eyes full of self-recrimination. "Their minds and thoughts it's…horrible. I couldn't believe the things they're capable of and I lost control…"
Harry shook his head with a sigh, "You're still not fully experienced in the Mind arts, Captain. Seeing things like that was bound to give you the creeping horrors…I experienced the same thing when we were sitting at the conference table on that flying Harvester."
"But you didn't reach across the table and want to murder them with your bare hands for what they've done to this planet's people and others," said Hernandez, his shoulders drooping.
"No," admitted Harry. "But what if I told you that when I was young and just starting to learn the Mind arts, I also lashed out unconsciously at the prompting of violent and horrible thoughts I was exposed to. Treat it as a learning experience, Captain."
The man only nodded, but the self-recrimination remained.
"I doubt we can just sit here and wait for rescue, Ambassador," said Everson after a brief moment of contemplative silence. "We've got to rescue ourselves."
"You're right," nodded Harry. "But they've got an entire squad guarding the Gate. Evading the patrols looking for us is one thing…assaulting a fixed fortified position with only PR7s…"
"Not to mention those damn personal shields of theirs," said Hernandez.
"Ah ha…now you're talking Captain," said Everson with a grin, a plan seemingly forming in his mind, "those shields…Ambassador, think you can nab some for us?"
Harry raised an eyebrow in consideration. "I could do it, and it may work, if the shields aren't biometric. But I have to do it alone…I can't be sneaky with company."
"Will our 'bunker' be safe with you gone?"
"Of course, hang tight," grinned Harry and stood before vanishing from sight.
"How long you think it's gonna take him, Sir?" asked Lieutenant Van Eis.
"A while, maybe a day, we should check our MREs in the meantime, we've no idea how long our escape might take."
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Briefing Room 1, SGC, Earth, 24 hours previously…
"Our initial contact with the Aschen seems very promising, General," stated Harry with a smile. "The coordinates they gave us when we encountered them with the Deadalus is actually a planet called Volia, that's part of their confederation."
"According to this the Volians are at an agrarian stage," said Hammond, looking at the report.
"Yes, but they're seemingly quite content to remain that way."
"The Aschen didn't want to reveal the location of their homeworld out of security concerns, at least until we have a treaty," explained Sam.
"They're a little paranoid," provided Jack mildly.
"It seems appropriate since they don't have an Iris or Shield currently installed over their Gates," said Daniel.
"We do know that they've created a secondary star in the Volian system by igniting a gas giant, thereby doubling the Volian's growing season," Sam reported with that excited and impressed tone to her voice.
"They took Arthur C Clarke's idea and actually made it happen?" said General Thompson, in amazement, from his position next to Hammond.
"I doubt they've heard of him, but yes," nodded Sam. "Theoretically, if you increase the density of a sufficiently massive gas giant until a thermonuclear reaction can take place…you can do it, no problem."
"This, combined with the scans of one of their ships by Deadalus, clearly shows us that they could be formidable allies in the fight against the Goa'uld, perhaps even allow us to go on a proper offensive," suggested Harry.
"If the Aschen are Stargate capable, why haven't we heard from or of them before?" asked Thompson.
"Their representative, a man named…Borren, said that they only have two Gates, on Volia and Aschen itself, but no DHD was ever recovered," explained Daniel.
"Naturally, the Aschen tried dialing numerous combinations into the Gates, but without a DHD to compensate for stellar drift, they were stuck like we were," Sam continued.
"We could only go to Abydos," nodded Hammond.
"Exactly. It was only after Daniel's discovery of the cartouche on Abydos that we were able to make the drift calculation to successfully dial out to other planets. Add to that the database that Colonel O'Neill retrieved from the Alteran Repository, and we could offer a whole galaxy of worlds to the Aschen that they never knew existed and gain in return their allegiance and technology, and perhaps even go on a full offensive against the Goa'uld."
"The news of all those new worlds must have come as a shock," said Hammond.
"Oh, not really," Jack said sarcastically.
"What the Colonel is trying to say is that if they were surprised they'd never show it," intoned Jonas, looking troubled.
"They don't get excited," said Jack, explaining himself, "it's like a planet full of accountants."
"Colonel O'Neill, mistrusts the Aschen," provided Teal'C stoically.
"I never said that," retorted Jack.
"Indeed you did…on several occasions."
"No! I didn't. What I said was: I didn't trust people without a sense of humor. Especially that boring guy."
"Borren," corrected Teal'C.
"I know his name," bit Jack out in frustration. "He was boring."
"The Aschen have agreed to meet us on P3A-194 tomorrow. Ambassador, you and SG9 will make the trip and begin preliminary negotiations to bring them into the alliance. At the very least try to get them on board, a technology exchange while helpful is not essentially required," said Hammond and turned to his superior. "Anything you wish to add, General?"
"With Apollo and Odyssey being launched tomorrow, and the Edison nearing completion" said Thompson thoughtfully, "I don't have to tell you how nice it would be to have a fleet of allies out there to watch our backs in offensive operations. So please, don't muck it up."
"I shall endeavor not to disappoint, General," nodded Harry seriously.
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P3A-194
Unfortunately, everything was mucked up before Harry and SG9 had ever gotten on the scene. It could only be the worst luck in the Universe that they meet up with a race of advanced humans that fully had the capability of taking on the Goa'uld on an even keel, and then have those same humans basically behaving like Goa'uld themselves and on some levels even worse.
The negotiations had been held on what the Aschen called a Harvester; it was roughly just under a hundred meters long with a beam of twenty, with a polished black colored hull and was very elegantly designed for its purpose, collecting the grain from the fields it hovered over. It was curious that the Aschen had converted the Harvester as a place to hold diplomatic negotiations in, but they had yet to see a house or any structure on Volia.
The meeting room on the Harvester was painted a dull gray and the table integrated into the floor with a holographic plate in its center; it also held an open balcony of sorts that allowed you to stand and look out over the vast farmlands that the Harvester ship slowly meandered through.
Harry, wearing his traditional white and gold Alteran robes for the occasion, sat at the table with SG9 staring at the two Aschen opposite them. Their names were Borren and Mellon; they had inscrutable stoic expressions and wore similarly dull gray and black clothing. Their hair was slicked back severely against their heads, and both were rather small and skinny.
"Ambassador Potter," began Borren, "allow me to introduce your counterpart from our federation…Mellon."
Harry merely bowed his head in acknowledgment. The Terran custom of shaking hands was one that was not often found out there in the Galaxy, Daniel and Jonas could probably write a rather fascinating book on why.
"I offer greetings from our governing council and hope that we can forge a friendship that can enrich both our people," opened Harry.
Enrich is such a nice word; unfortunately it was not what the Aschen had in mind. They wanted the access to the Stargate network oh yes, and would give a lot for that access; technology, they would attack the Goa'uld in concert with them, and they would perhaps even join the alliance formally after testing the waters for a few more years. But Harry and indeed, all of SG9, were growing increasingly unsettled by the surface thoughts they could occasionally pick up when their gazes met with the two Aschen.
The Aschen had very organized minds; they had emotions but seemingly did not express them at all. Mellon's thoughts were about the typical things any diplomat was thinking about…how to get advantage without giving too much away in the process, his fellow Aschen was thinking about much the same thing, but then occasionally they would get flickers of dark thoughts that bubbled to the surface despite the Aschen's control.
Thoughts of expansion…domination…the Stargate network the tool to achieve this…then the methods they used…
Harry inwardly winced as that thought settled itself in his mind…he followed the mental thread back to Mellon…
By the Creator!
It was enough. His broke eye contact with Mellon and immediately turned his mind to figuring out a way they could extricate themselves quickly from the negotiations and leave without the Aschen becoming the wiser. Of course, it just had to be at that point that Captain Hernandez had asked about the Volians and what the Aschen thought of them…when the young Hispanic man suddenly paled as he stared at Borren; his mouth almost gaping in horror.
The next thing anyone saw was Hernandez suddenly standing over Borren with the Aschen's neck between his hands and squeezing with his significant Terran strength. A light of near mania was in the Captain's eyes as he throttled Borren.
Mellon produced a small energy weapon of sorts that he began to aim at Hernandez.
Harry launched himself out of his chair and pivoting with his hands flat on the table, kicked the weapon out of Mellon's hand with his left leg, following it up with a kick on the jaw with his trailing right leg as his momentum carried him further. Mellon was launched out of his chair and crashed against the nearby wall, slumping into unconsciousness.
Colonel Everson and Lt Van Eis had in the meantime pulled Hernandez off Borren; who was slumped on the floor looking deathly pale. Everson had to slap the furious Captain into the here and now, as his mind's eye was still clearly fixated on what he had seen in Borren's mind.
"Oh shit," said Hernandez, looking aghast with himself.
Harry kneeled down next to Borren and felt for a pulse…there was none.
"He's dead," declared Harry grimly.
"What…but…" stuttered Hernandez.
"We can't speak in more detail here, but you broke his neck…he didn't have enough time to suffocate. But we have to get out of here…"
Of course, they didn't trust the Aschen transporter since the meeting had to have been under surveillance; you just didn't send an Ambassador with no backup, and there had to be an Aschen garrison force on Volia. So Harry led SG9 out onto the small balcony and made use of a skill that Voldemort had mastered and the Alterans considered pointless beyond showing off. He didn't Apparate because pulling four people into subspace would be a bit of stretch and he didn't want the Aschen possibly recording it happening.
Harry had SG9 stand on either side and behind him; all with a firm hand on his person…his mind reached out to the gravitons around them and suddenly they were all airborne, rising into the air above the Harvester and literally flying with no apparently visible means. SG9 had been rather skeptical of Harry's suggestion that it was possible to do this…it was straight out of comics after all.
Harry steered them awkwardly and descended safely to the ground a hundred meters away from the Harvester. Flying yourself was one thing; doing so for another three people was a strain.
SG9 shook off their amazement and began to sprint with all due speed for the Stargate. The Aschen were waiting by then, as they had coming poring out of the transport platform near the Gate.
Volia was the worst place in the Galaxy for a skirmish. No cover, just flat farmland and rolling hills…they might as well have returned to the rank and file musket era of armed warfare. Then there was the Aschen soldiers themselves.
They were a galaxy apart from Mellon and Borren – clearly selected for their physical prowess or perhaps the Aschen used eugenics on themselves - standing over a head taller and strong, wearing a form of gray plastic segmented armor suits that seemed to dissipate energy weapon fire over a greater area than normal…almost like the PR8 AW system, but with one key difference, the Aschen soldier could also bring up a personal force shield that harmlessly absorbed their plasma fire. They didn't work forever, and their armor was not perfect, but it was enough of a disadvantage that Harry and SG9 had to make themselves scarce.
And now here he was alone and invisible in the small forest crawling with Aschen troops trying to catch and subdue a soldier without his buddies finding out. Not an easy proposition, since the squad tactics of the Aschen seemed pretty good; they kept themselves within sight of each other at all times, formed a staggered search line and if he didn't miss his guess the squad was using an interlacing search pattern. It would've easily herded and cornered a 'normal' foe, but Harry and SG9 were far from that.
He spotted his first target of opportunity on the flank of the squad, a burly brown haired soldier was approaching a tree cautiously, it was wide enough for someone to hide behind and the soldier carefully advanced with his weapon raised and sidestepped carefully to circle around it…he was out of sight for less than two seconds, but it was enough for Harry to fling a disillusionment, followed by a silencing field and finally a Stunner, on the soldier.
Also invisible, Harry hovered the insensate man well away from the position his comrades had last seen him and got to work. Using the soldier's actual armor and clothing was out – since it seemed the things were made personalized to the wearer's body dimensions – learning to adjust clothing with directed energy matrices had not been a priority for him, and there was no way to be sure the Aschen hadn't placed anti-tamper devices or booby traps in it to kill any enemy that tried to remove it from their soldiers.
What he did risk to get was the gauntlet around the man's left arm, it took a bit of quick thinking and recalibrating his Alteran scanner to disengage it from the soldier. He next attempted to do the same with the armor and finally after twelve minutes of tapping the scanner to disengage the armor interlocks, was rewarded with success. He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out a miniaturized Alteran Transcendental 'trunk', expanded it, dumped the armor, shield gauntlet and the soldier's energy rifle into it and pocketed it again.
He settled for adopting a camouflage over himself, not wanting to chance donning the armor until an extensive scan on the thing was made – and a moment later to the outside observer the prone Aschen soldier suddenly had a twin standing over him.
He altered the parameters of the Stunner on the soldier so he would wake in twelve hours and left to waylay another. He figured he had another fifteen minutes before the enemy squad would realize that one of their number was not responding to coms.
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Colonel Everson held his arm out like he'd seen the Aschen soldiers do it – as if they were actually carrying ancient bronze shields – and triggered the energy shield; blue light blossomed in an oval shape that would protect him from head to toe. A bar indicator on the inside wrist of the gauntlet slowly receded – indicating how much shield time he had left – and he thumbed the small pressure pad in his fist to deactivate it. The bar slowly scrawled itself back to being full, recharging the shield.
"This is like being back in the Classical era," mumbled Van Eis, with his shield engaged and poking his PR7 around it carefully whilst keeping his body behind it. "Except with plasma weapons and energy shields."
Harry chuckled at the analogy.
"Aren't you going to use a shield, Ambassador?"
"I don't need a gauntlet to raise a shield, Colonel."
"Oh," Everson checked the charge on his PR7, still good.
"What are your thoughts on getting to the Gate, Colonel?"
"Well, I figure even if we defeat the squad around it, there's no DHD for us to use to Gate home quickly…we'd have to use manual dialing and that takes time; something we will not have since the Aschen still in the woods will be onto us."
"I can mentally interface with Gate itself, so no DHD shouldn't be a problem."
"You mean your mind will take the place of a DHD?" Hernandez blinked in astonishment.
"Somewhat," admitted Harry. "But not in the complete sense, a DHD has countless wormhole safety protocols, I can't duplicate that. Manual dialing without DHDs is something that is only done in emergencies for a good reason."
"OK, that's fine for when we get there, but what about on the way there? The Aschen might spot us if they have satellites or a ship in orbit," queried Everson.
"I can render myself and you temporarily invisible until we get to the Gate."
"Umm...Ambassador, tell me if I'm out of line, but just what can't you do?" asked Van Eis incredulously.
"A great many things," grinned Harry. "But remember, anything that I can do, you can too with the right training, determination and experience. Didn't you get the memo for the new Metaphysics class I'm going to teach for SGC personnel?"
"Umm..." Van Eis looked uncomfortable.
"What the Lieutenant is trying to say is that he absolutely hates paperwork," grinned Hernandez in what was no doubt a inside team joke at their most junior member.
"I can't help it if those things practically make me fall asleep, can't we bring in a novelist to teach a class on descriptive writing in memos and reports?"
"I'll send a memo, Van Eis," grinned Everson.
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Walking under disillusionment and silencing fields was a decidedly odd experience for SG9. Van Eis had excitedly remarked, 'I'm like a Predator!' when he looked at his arms and body taking the exact texture, colors and hues of the forest scene around them. Not to mention that it was rather pointless now to run and the issue of no cover on the flat terrain was rendered moot. Harry had also tweaked the disullisionment to mimic the natural infrared spectrum too, just in case there was an Aschen satellite in space over them.
What was a serious issue though was the Aschen around the Gate. There wasn't just a squad of them but a whole platoon of forty soldiers all arrayed in a tight defensive perimeter around it. Clearly they didn't want those who had killed the Ambassadorial aide to get any chance to escape. The Aschen had also set up four versions of a squad assault weapon; the high energy that Harry sensed in those weapons clearly meant that they had either an extremely high firing rate or used it to discharge the equivalent of a Goa'uld Staff cannon.
Neither proposition was very enticing for a textbook assault on a fixed position.
Harry grumbled to himself uncertainly...he was now in a bit of a conundrum. There was no way that he and SG9 was getting through the Gate using 'conventional' force. Using 'unconventional' force opened a can of worms that he really didn't want to. It would be exposing the Aschen – who were now essentially an enemy of Terra – to Metaphysics and Harry could only imagine what they would do with that information. It could either cause them to back down or they would throw their all into assaulting Earth and Terrans to perhaps obtain such power for themselves.
Harry gathered his three fellow Terrans and making sure their individual silence fields overlapped, explained his concerns.
"I see," murmured Everson thoughtfully. "But perhaps...we can use a mixture of both. Throw the Aschen off the scent somewhat. We only have the light loadout of field gear; meaning four blocks of C4 per team member...can you render the explosives invisible as well?"
"Yes, there's no essential difference between any matter that I choose to render invisible."
"That means twelve fist sized blocks of C4 to take out forty tightly clustered bad guys, should be easy. We can mop up any survivors with PR7s."
"Not so fast Hernandez," said Everson. "This has to be timed right, otherwise we'd run the risk of getting our asses handed to us by the squads stills searching for us."
"And lets not forget about the Aschen transporter near the Gate," Van Eis chirped helpfully.
"We'd need to use a C4 charge on it, it's made of pretty sturdy stuff," Harry advised.
"So eleven charges for the soldiers, one for the Transporter, take out the survivors with PR7 fire, the Ambassador gets in position to activate the Gate and we're home free."
"I doubt it will be that easy, Colonel," said Harry.
"Plans never survive first contact with the enemy. We'll just have to improvise."
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Harry carefully maneuvered amongst the perimeter of stoic Aschen soldiers; he had to admit, he was impressed with their intensity and professionalism, in the twenty minutes he had carefully laid the C4 charges (he was invisible not insubstantial, if one of the soldiers unexpectly moved and bumped into him...) they did not chatter with each other, communicated with brief hand signals, and kept eyes up and to the horizon at all times. Their Commander, whose armor had red colored shoulders to distinguish him, moved amongst his men effeciently and without fail demanded check in with the hunter teams in the forest every ten minutes. It did not bode well for a future conflict with them.
When Harry returned to the spot where Everson had hidden himself about a hundred and fifty meters away from the mouth of the Stargate...he had to stop the Colonel from pulling out his remote detonator and commencing the attack.
"The radio signal to the explosives will be canceled out by the metaphysics used to render them invisible..." he explained.
"Then what on earth did we do all this for?"
"...at the moment," finished Harry pointedly. Everson nodded slightly sheepish and handed over the detonator as the Ambassador held out his hand for it. Harry turned it over in his hands and after closing his eyes and mumbling something under his breath, handed it back. "Try it now."
Everson took back the detonator, unlatched the red safety catch; exposing the metal stub which when flicked would begin the show. He waved over to Hernandez' position on the left flank of the enemy, and to Van Eis on the right. They waved back and immediately fell prone to the ground and aimed their weapons on the enemy.
"Two and one..." the switch was flicked and a slight beep preceded...
...the loudest, deafening roar this side of a dragons' right next to your ear. Thankfully the ear plugs helped a lot, and what they couldn't the silencing fields took care of the rest.
The massive exothermic reaction of escaping gases at over eight kilometers per second washed over them...straining the personal shields considerably, but managing to deflect the shock wave to prevent them from being picked up and flung ungracefully through the air.
The gases moved outward so rapidly that they sucked most of the gas out from the "middle" of the explosion. After the outward blast, gas rushed back in to the partial vacuum, creating a second, less-destructive inward energy wave.
All this happened in less than a second.
Dust and debris filled the area with a haze that obscured their sight rather completely, but they didn't have time to wait for it. As soon as they maelstrom had died down and they had their wits again, with PR7s leading the charge, they rose and waded into the mist of dust toward the Stargate. Visibility was barely two meters and it made walking in a straight line rather difficult with no reference. Harry homed in on the massive energy of the Stargate with his senses and as a result both he and the Colonel were the first to arrive at the base of the Gate.
So far they had not found a single Aschen survivor.
The high pitch of the a firing PR7 was heard a few moments later while they waited for Hernandez and Van Eis. It died down and a few seconds later the Captain emerged out of the gloom.
"Good of you to join us, Captain," Everson commented dryly.
"Only found a single survivor thus far, sir." It was left unspoken that they didn't need to worry about that survivor any longer. They waited for another thirty seconds and still no sign of Van Eis.
"He better hurry up, the Gate isn't going to be obscured for much longer."
Harry pulled out his scanner and looked into it for lifesigns...he found theirs around the Gate, but saw another actually moving in a rather erratic fashion.
"Van Eis is disorientated, he's bumbling about in completely the wrong direction."
"Ambassador, give the scanner to Hernandez, you get the Stargate working so long."
Harry did as instructed and placed his hands on naquadah surface of the Gate, again closing his eyes. The Gate felt in good condition, the 'alien Aschen' control circuitry connected to its base clearly didn't like being overridden, and attempted to retaliate with a virus to repel what it saw as a foreign system. The said system was obviously Harry's mind.
He deflected the attack easily by using the internal Gate mechanisms and computers to create what a Terran would call a Mandelbrot Maze attack program and launch it at the virus...completely fooling the offensive program into trying to solve the problem the Mandelbrot attack wrote into its base code...and since the specific problem was unsolvable (asking it to calculate Pi to its conclusion, which could not happen, not at least until the end of the universe). The virus as a result imploded in on itself.
He returned his mind to the Gate and a few moments later the chevrons began to light up. He hurriedly backed away and just then the kawoosh of the unstable vortex occurred within the mouth of the Gate.
A sheepish Van Eis emerged from the clearing gloom with Hernandez.
"Got lost Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir...sorry, sir."
"Well, I think we've overstayed our welcome," said Everson, tapping the keypad of the GDO strapped to his wrist, and received the green light to indicate it was safe to come through two seconds later.
As Harry stepped into the event horizon; he couldn't help but feel the failure of adding another enemy to Earth's list of bad guys who wanted their blood. They had gone into this hoping to get a space capable ally to take on the Goa'uld with...instead they walked away with another enemy reaching for their necks.
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Briefing Room 1, SGC
Anyone walking into the room would be rather confused.
If they were privy to General Hammond's schedule it would indicate that there was supposed to be a debriefing going on from the diplomatic mission to Volia. However, there was not a single soul currently in the room in question. The chairs were still pulled out haphazardly as if the people meeting had left in a hurry.
The only activity in the room, came not from a person, but from a large silver chrome bowl on the conference table, that anyone in the SGC would recognize as having the language of the Alterans inscribed on it ornately. Inside this bowl was an eerie substance of blues, whites and silvers, that pulsated and writhed. Any scientist would on the base would call it 'eerie' because the state of the matter within the bowl seemed to be a bizarre blend between a gas and liquid.
For almost thirty minutes this scene continued until abruptly people were distorted and spat out of the large bowl to what looked to be positions that had their noses touching the eerie liquid. Most of them abruptly jerked back, seemingly rather startled at the change in their positions relative to wherever they were.
"That was most, odd," said Teal'C, one of those who had reacted as if he had just done something boring and had not just actually been inside an all immersion projection of someone's memory.
"Was that also transcendental? It had to be," Sam shook her head to clear it.
"From our point of view, yes," answered Harry with a nod. "This Pensieve is used to revisit memories, usually of critical events that has happened to you, or to help organize your thoughts. It's especially useful, when you consider how much information your consciousness actually filters out for you...one never knows when you might miss something that could be essential. It also helps to spot patterns in events."
"I can easily imagine its usefulness," General Thompson stared at the bowl, "considering everything that gets put on my plate."
"And it's especially that usefulness that makes these such a rare commodity," Harry patted his Pensieve. "This one I fashioned myself, by hand and mind alone, it's not easy to do. Another reason why they're so valuable."
"Ok, getting to the matter at hand," Hammond folded his hands together thoughtfully, "what we just witnessed was the memories of yourself and SG9, and those others were the surface thoughts and memories of Borren and Mellon."
"Yes, General."
"Yes, sir," nodded Colonel Everson.
"And can you confidently state that you didn't...just see a passing idle thought or that this was just what either Mellon or Borren had themselves seen somebody else do?"
"This was direct, General," said Everson firmly. "Mellon and Borren were actively considering a way to get past our Stargate defenses to deliver a bioweapon secretly onto Earth. They would then miraculously come up with a cure for us, which we of course, would not refuse."
"This cure would have a side-effect of preventing us from reproducing," said Harry darkly. "Of course we wouldn't realize that until it was too late, and our gratefulness to the Aschen would've perhaps left us blind to the signs that they were 'bad guys'."
"It seems this is the Aschen's MO when trying to expand their territory or to get what they want," said Everson. "They don't necessarily go for straight up military options, they're patient, they seemingly give technology away for nothing. But those technologies become like chains on the society that its given to."
"The bioweapon scenario is exactly what seemingly happened to the Volians," explained Harry further.
"I knew I didn't like those guys for a reason," grumbled Jack.
"So the Aschen knows we are on to them now, does that mean we should expect an incursion into Sol space soon?" General Thompson raised his eyebrows in question.
"Not in the immediate future," Sam said. "I've been going over our sensor data on the Aschen Battlecruiser Deadalus encountered. Their Hyperspace window events are considerably on the lower end of the scale with regards to relative speed achievable for them. I would rate them as having the same FTL ability as the Tollan's had. Which is good news for us, as it means that it would take a Battlecruiser roughly a year, perhaps eighteen months to make the journey from the Confederation to Sol. So unless we ourselves run into them..."
"Understood, Major."
"The Confederation's position relative to us in the Galaxy also means that we can deploy a trip line of sensor satellites to act as an early warning system of sorts," suggested Harry.
"Like the SOSUS nets in the Atlantic," nodded Thompson. "Rather fitting, considering we might as well be in a state of Cold War already with them."
The briefing was interrupted at that point with the alarm klaxon's starting to ring and not two seconds later the Stargate began to light up and lock in coordinate chevrons.
"No teams are due," said Hammond. That prompt was all everyone needed to rise out of their chairs and descend into the Control room as the Iris was closed and Shields raised. "What do we have Walter?"
"Visitors for the Ambassador," stated the Stargate controller.
"Ah, I've been expecting them for some time now," said Harry with a grin and twinkle in his eyes.
"Receiving Aiyana's IDC, sir."
"Lower defenses."
"Yes, sir."
Just moments after the wormhole was open, the event horizon 'slurped' as Aiyana stepped through, but she had company...as moments later, Apollonia and Hermione also emerged on either side of her. Harry found it suddenly hard to breathe for some reason. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that all three were in chromesuits...a brief glance at the largely male dominated environment around him confirmed that his fellows were also rather...stupefied by the beauty that just walked in. Harry didn't know if his wife and her two friends would be irritated or flattered to know that they had the same effect as a flock of Veela on men.
"Minds out of the gutter, gentlemen," grinned Harry, and walked out of the room. He shared his usual enthusiastic greeting with his wife, who decided she had missed him and wanted a bit more. Hermione and Aiyana were greeted with tight hugs, and he was surprised when Hermione initiated the 'feeling-sharing' with him during it...clearly she had been learning from both women well.
"General Hammond," said Aiyana eventually with a small bow, "allow me introduce Hermione Granger."
"Pleasure to meet you Ms Granger," nodded Hammond, "the Ambassador has briefed us on your situation...in light of that, you are always welcome in this command."
"Thank you, General."
"So..." said Jack with a smirk, "to what do we owe the...pleasure of your visit, ladies?"
"We have found the first sign on the road to the Lost City of the Alterans."
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