Chapter 20

Galactic East, Anubis-Terran border, Graovis Colony [March/25/2003]

LieutenantProclus Vitruvius IanuariusCaptain of the Vaga coughed as some smoke wafted through the air of the bridge agitating his asthma. His ship had seen better days, though they had put out most of the fires and repaired the critical systems the ship was on her last legs, and he doubted she would be out of spaceport again. That battle over that damned planet and the subsequent retreat had burned most of the ship's fuel reserves but somehow they had managed finally reached Federation territory he only hoped he had gotten to this backwater planet before Anubis made a move on any of the important planets.

"Sir, I'm contacting the Federation command center now." an ensign said from the coms station.

"Good we need to tell whoever is in command what happened at Abydos so we can get things moving," he said, not sure exactly who was in command now that Rear Admiral Edmond Tromblay was dead.

(-=-)

Galactic East, Cartam Anchorage, orbiting Cartam[March/25/2003]

Lieutenant Anysus Gisgan of the Fleet Engineers sat at his desk looking out the window into the space around Cartam. He had been assigned to this anchorage to help with the management of the supply craft that brought in the tools and supplies for the construction of the new dry docks. That had been about six months ago and since then they had been able to get four Escort Corvettes out. Not bad but they could be doing better. The main problem was that this planet, Cartam, was too far out of the way for most supply lines. This was something that annoyed him most of all since he was actually a Cartamen. There was not much he could do about it though; the Fleet was too busy with getting most of the planets near the center of the Federation modernized for war. They simply hadn't the time to worry about doing the same with the planet near the edge. However, Cartam was his homeworld. So he was allowed to be annoyed by the Federation's devotion of more resources to the Roosevelt Station, Talmark and the jerks on A'reseya.

Anysus Gisgan sighed as he went to pick up a phone and make a call about a part order that hadn't arrived when the station rocked to the side throwing him from his seat to the floor. "What the fuck was that?" He muttered as he tried to stand up. The station rocked again this time causing the gravity and lights to flicker then shut down and the emergency lights to turn on. Anysus pulled himself to a nearby window and looked out it trying to find out what had happened. What he saw though scared him badly. A black, circular ship had apparently entered orbit and obliterated the defense ships and satellites to the point they were not capable of mounting any type of defense. Now the ship was moving to face the planet. A portion of the ship extended then what could best be described as lightning fired down on the planet. Within moments, a ring of destruction spread out from where it had hit, covering a third of the planet while the rest was soon covered in black clouds of dust and ash. Then the black ship hung there for a moment before it moved away from the planet and out of Anysus' view.

Anysus sat there floating for a moment looking down on the planet that had once been his home. He could have tried to move and find an escape but what was the point. With the gravity out finding his way to an escape pod would be dangerous as there were most likely holes in the hull open to space. But even if he found one he would then have to head for a charred planet. If he did stay on this station and hoped for rescue, what was the point? His wife, his kids, everything he held dear was gone… Anysus' hand moved and undid the snaps on his pistol holster.

(-=-)

Galactic East, Roosevelt Station [March/25/2003]

Sky Marshal Timothy Simpson sat down at the round table in the newly minted but missing, Sky Marshal Edmond's office. He and the other officer to get that the big promotion had decided to meet here and show that even though the former Rear Admiral was missing, they stood behind him and his decisions that lead up to this point. "So I assume you heard about what just happened at Cartam?" Sky Marshal Jonathan Drake said from his seat looking like he wanted to destroy something as much as Timothy did.

"Yeah, my secretary brought me the report just before I came down here. God damn Anubis and his superweapon." he muttered the last bit "Latest reports say most of the planet is dead. But the carrier squadron that had been stationed there was out by the local gas giant refueling and stayed out of Anubis' way or off of his sensors long enough to avoid the same fate. They're now in orbit trying to get as many of the people off the planet and nearby wrecks as possible. But they're not going to have enough room." Tim said feeling sick thinking about the many deaths of civilians and citizens alike on that planet.

"Every bone in my body wants to send every ship we have there to help them." Drake saying what Simpson was Feeling. "But-"

"It's a trap," Simpson said finishing his sentence. "It's an obvious one too. Destroy something… somewhat important to draw in resources and then move in and destroy those resources. It was a favorite maneuver of the Skinnies and the Arachnids back in the South Federation. Anubis has perfected it though. Unlike back home, we can't ignore it even in the slightest. This Federation is a little less stable and we can't risk breaking the trust with the planets under our protection."

Drake nodded in agreement and said. "I believe you're right, in fact, I have been putting a plan together on how we can prevent Anubis to be victorious that way again. Do you mind?" He pointed to a console meaning to bring something up for them to view. Simpson nodded his approval and Drake brought up a map of the local systems around the doomed planet. "Assuming the enemy is waiting to detect more than the six ships currently there, we make sure they are all he ever detects. There is a black hole here where we can station the fleet at, the spatial dissertation that will hide them. As a ship fills up we have it leave the system nearly the same time we have a new ship jump in to take over evacuation. That should give us at least 24 hours of freehand to get everyone we can off-world. But Anubis is no idiot, he can't be the way he's been besting the other Goa'uld. He will figure it out and then go looking for the fleet. Hopefully, it will take a week or so before he comes close to finding it. That should give us plenty of time to get everyone out. However if he does figure it out before we are done, we can jump our ships out before he can fire a shot."

Simpson nodded, liking most of the plan. "Sounds solid but I think I know a way we can make sure you have that week to rescue those people and to make sure Anubis can't do this again anytime soon. Care to hear it?" Drake nodded looking interested. Simpson leaned forward in his chair and said. "We unleash our allies."

"What?" Drake asked confused but intrigued.

Simpson sat back and said. "The Goa'uld know how to run an empire. After this much time, it comes naturally to them. However, their tactics suck. Just look at the way they train their troops. March forward till the enemy is under your boots. It is the simple, "attack till the enemy can't fight anymore" method and it isn't going to work against someone like Anubis. So I suggest we send a military liaison to not only get them working with us to plan out proper counter-attacks but to train their commanders to think outside of that attack strategy Anubis knows so well."

"That sounds like the worst idea out there," Drake said. "Wouldn't that give them an advantage when we end up going to war with them."

"It may… but it's not like we're giving them tech and that's where our major advantages come from. We would be training them to fight their own kind more effectively, not us." Simpson said.

"I don't like it… but if Anubis is busy dealing with attacks on other fronts, it's worth the risk to save those people." Drake said finally agreeing to the plan.

Simpson smiled and said. "I will get that together as fast as possible while you focus on Cartam. Is there anything else we should go over?" He was already working on who to send where mentally. He had left out a few important details but only because he knew how sensitive Drake got about the "Skinnies" and they could not pull this off with their arms tied behind their collative backs.

Drake thought about it and said, "Do you want to come up with a way to deal with the ancient energy being SCO reported now or later?"

Simpson thought about it and said, "I would rather let Edmond deal with that when he gets back. The whole idea that we got some all-knowing being moving about and doing whatever the fuck they want gives me the creeps."

(-=-)

Galactic East, Anubis mining world, Stargate [March/27/2003]

E'mon, Commander of the Jaffa in the area, sat on one of the low stones strewn about in front of the gate looking over the humans who had gathered there. They were the people of this world and they were happy to give them the mineral needed by their god and utterly dumb. They seemed to have lost speech a long time ago, preferring a form of language they developed that required the use of their hands. It was a strange custom especially considering they could speak when forced but according to them, they preferred their method because it gave them an advantage over the beast of this world that they hunted and that hunted them back. It was an oddity but humans had an uncanny ability to adapt to the worlds they lived on, so it was not unexpected.

Looking over, he saw the humans dumping baskets of the mineral in storage boxes for transport through the Chappa'ai and wondered why they just didn't make this a slave world. It seemed to produce a lot for Anubis with just a small local workforce. So bringing in slave workers to mine more minerals seemed to be a good idea. But then he thought about it and realized that if they did that, this planet would become a target. Right now it produced a small amount but was secure. If Goa'uld found out about it, they would not care. However if it produced a lot more, they would come and try and take or destroy the planet. That would mean his god would need to garrison ships here. E'mon smiled as he saw how much foresight his god had when he had decided not to tap this planet's resources fully and instead went for a safe amount that drew little notice.

E'mon stood up getting ready to talk to the clan leader and ask how much more of the mineral they needed to load up when he heard the sound of something entering the atmosphere. He looked up in time to see nine green and yellow fighter craft. Six of them looked like standard fighters and the other three looked a bit larger than an Al'kesh, as he watched them pull out of a steep dive and turn to face him. "JAFFA!" He screamed rousing his Warriors from their complicity with boring guard duty and preparing them for whatever was coming... He hoped.

The fighter darts led the way as panels on the sides of the front pulled back revealing three barrels that began to fire. Metal projectiles, hurled at incredible speed, came from them hitting the ground and destroying stone and man at once as they hit. The force they released was like a small bomb, shredding men nearby be they Jaffa or human. He and his Jaffa tried to answer in kind and he was sure several bolts hit one of the craft causing it to spin as it flew over them. But he did not have time to make sure as the Al'kesh like craft came in low behind them and the bottom of them opened dropping something. At first, he thought they were bombs and they had missed but they were too big for that and they stopped before they hit the ground and hovered uncontrolled across the ground toward him and his Jaffa with several feet of clearance.

With metal clanking noise the three metal boxes unlocked themselves from drop pads there treads digging into the rocky ground as rolled forward. As he tried to direct fire at the metal boxes, they opened up with another with the main cannon sound of hornet filling the air as metal shard turned the field in red with what once had been his warrior. E'mon had never seen such death unleashed in such a short time, and seeing that if they stayed his men would die he yelled for a retreat into the tree line, so they could get cover. He moved to hid in the tree line as the boxes secured the area around the Chappa'ai

From behind the measly cover they had, E'mon watched as the Al'kesh sized craft came to a stop above the gate and mix of tall lanky beings drop down around it without the aid of any device and began to fire their rifles in the woods trying to dive them off completely, there fire deadly accurate compared to his men own. He tried to take aim at them when he took a hit and fell to the ground, pain wracking his shoulder where the bone had been destroyed. He tried to give the order for the full retreat, but he saw that his Jaffa and what humans were left were already melting into the woods, running for their lives. He crawled deeper into the woods for a bit before he felt a large foot land on his back and held him down. Then it kicked him over so he was facing his attackers. The "things" were ugly now that he had a closer look. They had scaly green-grey skin and mandibles they looked like a monster from a campfire tale. The two who were standing over him talked for a while pointing the silver tattoo on his head before one seemed to relent and walk away. Confused by the language, he had no idea what they said till the one that stayed aimed his rifle at E'mon's head and pulled the trigger.

(-=-)

Galactic East Orbit above Anubis mining world, [March/27/2003]

Admiral Mayo Shinya waited in orbit for a report from Lieutenant Colonel Corren T'De, she wasn't really sure about this overall plan Sky marshal had put together. Keeping the enemy distract by attack vulnerable as it sounded good if they were fighting an enemy who cared about those assists, but this Anubis guy. an ascended being who had been hiding for who knows how long meant he most likely had more than enough assist stashed around the galaxy that even if they attempted to glass his main planets, which they just did not have the nukes for, he would just reveal he had more planets waiting to take their place.

They needed to think bigger, their enemy was a malicious Galactic Menace capable of building Superweapons able to destroy planets. If they had any hope of winning they must respond in kind and start production of the planet cracking Nova bomb if need be. Of course, the Nova bomb was such a top-secret, no one at the front let alone in the rejects that were the 7th fleet would know how to make such a device. that being said the bug didn't need Nova bombs Devastate many federal planets… Perhaps a more low-tech brute-force option should be considered. She pondered such thoughts as communication systems that alerted her to an incoming call.

"Colonel T'De, how did your men do on their first planetary assault since Arrival in this universe?"

"They did well Admiral Shinya you can take the Raider out of Hegemony But the Raiders will always know how to assault and secure a landing point, we're simply policing the bodies now seeing if there's anything of use among the dead and putting those who cannot be saved out of their misery. "

Mayo nodded to herself then said " very good, however, Don't get too comfortable down there will be moving on to our next Target As soon your men and the gate are loaded up. That was, in essence, their plan, they could not hold or destroy every world Anubis controlled, but they could steal every gate from every planet. Destroying the infrastructure system and his Empire would have a bit of a problem that would hopefully distract just as much as not getting resources. and even if it didn't, That would leave them with several Gates to play around with, maybe set up some Sanctuary World outside the known stargate system, who knows maybe the gate could be weaponized at least they have the resources to find out.

(-=-)

Galactic East, Jaffa world, allegiance, a Goa'uld loyal to Anubis [March/30/2003]

Colonel Hideaki Umemoto, Commander of the first Fujiwara Infantry, walked through the gateway in his armor. All around the gate, the sounds of battle roared as his soldiers moved street to street attacking Jaffa defenders wherever they tried to make a stand. Hideaki moved away from the gate and saw a group of his officers come forward from where they had been waiting to give a report on the battle. "Lieutenant Colonel Sumida, report on how the battle goes. Have we beaten them as soundly as Lord Drake said it would be?" Hideaki asked Narihari Sumida his second in command for this operation.

"We have not Sir. Though the augmentation of our armor with that anti-plasma coating has given us more protection than we would normally have had, the Jaffa are quite adept at close-quarters fighting. Their weapon of choice, this staff weapon, allows them to switch between styles in an instant." Sumida said with annoyance.

"Are we still gaining ground or have they found a way to stall out the attack?" Hideaki asked, worried that this attack could be doomed.

"No Sir! I found by deploying swordsmen with the Moritamen, we can counter the flexibility of the Jaffa weapons. We are on track to take the city by six o'clock tonight. We will then begin operations to clear the nearby countryside of any resistance."

"Good. How are the Jaffa peasants reacting to our occupation so far?"

"If they're not joining the Warrior, they're running for the countryside. I guess they would rather scratch out a living beyond the safety of this city than live under our rule."

Hideaki thought about it then said. "It can't be helped. Have we found anything of use here?"

"Sir, we found what we think was a death glider factory." Sumida smiled and Hideaki smiled back at the prospect of shipping that tech back home.

(-=-)

Galactic North East, Yu Home World, Yulangon [April /5/2003]

Newly minted Admiral Tatiana Smirnov, now also "ambassador" to the Yu Empire, shifted uncomfortably in her power suit as she waited for the namesake of the empire to arrive. Technically she didn't need to wear a power suit since this was a world that could support human life, but she had orders to end her own life if a Goa'uld tried to take her over… So wearing the suit under those circumstances almost didn't seem like a big deal anymore. Although she didn't really know if it would stop a Goa'uld from getting to her neck, for all she knew they could cut their way through. With that thought firmly stuck there she made a note to request some sort of neck armor to be delivered as soon as possible. She was glad she at least brought some troopers from zebra to guard her. They most likely could handle the situation if it went out of control. For good measure, she was also staying on her ship in orbit instead of the "embassy" they had given her and her staff, just for better security.

Annoyed at the tardiness of her host, she looked back at her life and tried to figure out if this promotion was really worth it. On the plus side, she wasn't trying to hunt down Species 472 or the CyberDemon as the reports from the Thanatos had called it. She was failing at it horribly too because they still had no idea where it had gone. And finally, there wasn't a chance of her ending up a mentally deranged, demon worshiping, pain driven monster. On the minus side, if she failed here, she would end up a mentally deranged person driven by a monster that got off on giving pain and being called a god… Yeah someone hated her. She didn't know who or why but there is no way someone could go from one fire to another unless they had been cursed. That's what she thought at least.

Before she could contemplate who could be the person who cursed her, the second-hand man of Yu, Oshu, came into the room. "Hello Admiral Smirnov. I'm sorry to inform you that Lord Yu will not be attending today's meeting as he is still recovering from the fight with Anubis." Oshu said as he looked over her guards.

"Well… I hope he feels better soon." Tatiana said just being polite though she was annoyed as this was the second time Yu had not come to these meetings. "So have you informed him of the strategy I told you about?" It was a small one which basically took advantage of the weakness the Goa'uld had for banging their heads together in massive fleet actions. Basically they would divide the fleet in half. Then one half would be the bait and attack, drawing Anubis to where they wanted him before it would jump out. The other half would then jump in on the planet that the defense fleet had been taken from and destroy as much of Anubis' ability to make war as they possibly could. It wouldn't get rid of the superweapon, but the plan would make it harder for Anubis to capitalize on his gains, preventing him from making invasions on his time frame. At least for a short period of time. Maybe long enough for them to come up with a way to get rid of that damned capital ship of his.

"I... I have spoken to him on the matter and convinced him it is a worthy effort even if it does seem like a mistake that could cost us half of the fleet. But he wants a guarantee from your people." Talked apprehensively like he was hiding a conflict, this worried Tatiana.

"And what is this guarantee he wants?" Tatiana said almost expecting something as insane as "one of your commanders must become Goa'uld."

"Your people must come and protect the people of Yulangon if they are needed. He does not want the Jaffa and humans here to face the same fate as one of your own worlds faced recently." Oshu said folding his arms across his chest and taking Tatiana by surprise with it not being something … well like she had thought before.

Thinking it over she said. "I see nothing wrong with that, I will inform my Sky Marshals, But I doubt they will say no to a simple request like that." She said noting how Oshu became more at ease.

"Then as soon as you have confirmation, the fleet will be sent out to do as you suggested."

(-=-)

[April /10/2003]

7th Fleet News Network

WAR WATCH

With the final evacuation ships leaving Cartam orbit, the numbers have been released on the devastation unleashed by the vile monster going by the name of Anubis. Over half the population on the planet was killed within the first few days of the disaster. And though the ships and crew worked tirelessly to save as many as possible from the surface of the dying world, only about a fourth of the population could be saved. The Cartam survivors are being resettled on a colony world with little military importance in the hope they will be spared such an attack again.

Would you like to know more? Continue.

With the immediate crisis of Cartam now under control, a question now remains. "How do we deal with Anubis?" To answer this, FNN reporters got a private interview with Sky Marshal Drake and he had this to say about the current predicament. "Anubis has shown us how he thinks with this attack. He looks for weapons to cause fear through mass eradication of entire planets. Well, that may have worked on someone else but we Terran come from a place where fear and eradication are commonplace. We have become adept with not only dealing with it but dishing it out as well. He thought he could break us with his attack either by drawing our fleet into a trap or simply by fear alone. Well if Buenos Aires didn't do that this won't either. And just like we did in our universe, will give the enemy as good as they gave us. That's a promise."

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To be continued