— — —
POV: Arthur
I had spent a bit more than a week and a half watching and examining the various armories in the city. It had taken me two days to discover where my chance would come from.
When Ares had defeated Athena, he had also claimed all of her equipment and warriors. That meant that he gained access to a significant number of excess weapons; weapons that had yet to be inventoried by Ares' men. It was the perfect opportunity. In fact, it seemed almost too good an opportunity.
I had already confirmed that there would be at least 4 more such shipments in the coming weeks. So I had decided to wait and watch for the first shipment, and it was a good thing I did; I managed to uncover something interesting while observing the Jaffa.
The cargo had been brought in on an Al'kesh bomber that had been modified for transport purposes. A large group of Jaffa had arrived at the landing location, then they had unloaded the vessel's cargo and transported it all to a nearby armory. There the equipment was inventoried and distributed to the other armories around the city.
When removing weapons from the ship, the Jaffa brought them out by hand rather than in crates. I had taken the opportunity to take an inventory of recovered weapons myself, but later I had gotten a chance to compare my numbers with those of the Jaffa quartermaster. The number of Zats I had counted was 22. The inventory only accounted for 14 of them; eight had gone missing.
At the time, I had opened up my compad and reviewed the recording to count the number of staff weapons taken off the ship as well; I counted 133, while the Inventory only counted 112. Someone amongst the Jaffa was stealing Goa'uld equipment.
It had now been eight days since the previous shipment had arrived. Just two days ago, Kaela and Yren had sent the short code that indicated a completed mission, and that code would have only been sent when they were back at the Stargate.
They were, without a doubt, back home already.
I daydreamed about sleeping on something that wasn't the ground as I watched the Al'kesh appear out from the cover of the midday sun. I had tucked myself up against the brick wall of one of the armories right by the landing site..
The ship landed, immediately opening its primary ramp, I quickly crossed the gravel road, staying well away from anyone else to avoid being heard, and entered the ship just behind the twelve Jaffa who would be responsible for transporting the weapons to the armory.
I passed the two guards stationed at the top of the ramp and found several hundreds of pieces of Goa'uld equipment – at least five times more than had been in the previous shipment, and luckily for me, none of it had been properly stored; they had quite literally been thrown on the floor of the ship in piles and propped against the walls. Well, that just made everything more convenient for me.
I found my way to the very back of the ship so as to stay out of the sight of the few Jaffa guarding the entrance.
The Goa'uld staff weapon was not a small device, in fact it was almost exactly two meters long, meaning it would extend outside of the cloaking field in most situations. Luckily, Elder Callum and I had managed to find a way to keep the device within the cloak If I carried it on my back and I was careful, then the staff would just barely remain within the invisibility field projected by an Ashrak cloak.
After quickly making sure the Jaffa were not yet on their way back, I got to work wrapping up the shaft, head, and tail of a staff with the fabric before tightly securing a sling around the shaft. I pulled the first staff onto my back. My perk activated, but I repressed the disorientation that came with knowledge being shoved into my head.
Moments later, the Jaffa returned and began carrying the second set of equipment out of the ship. As they left, I placed the staff on the ground parallel to a second staff, and placed the padding on this second staff. Then I tied the two together as firmly as I could.
I repeated the process until I had six staff weapons tightly packed into a neat bundle. The padding between them ensured that they would not make any noise as I moved around. Despite that, the collection of six staff was heavy. I would likely have to take a number of breaks while I was on my way back to the Stargate.
As I examined the rest of the room, I spotted something against the nearby wall. A collection of several hundred small round balls. All just stacked haphazardly against the wall. Grenades. Stacked.
If I could have, I would have punched the idiot responsible for such a total lack of workplace safety… still, if someone decided it was a good idea to leave those for anyone to take, who was I to judge?
I grabbed two dozen of them and threw them into the bag on my chest. My perk activated again. Then, as I was on my way out of the room, I grabbed another few Zats and placed them on the top of my bag. I looked down to see the collection of firearms and explosives sitting in a pile.
…Ehhh. At Least I actually have a reason for doing it. If it kills me then so be it.
With my bag full of loot, I marched off the ship and began making a bee-line out of the city. I spent some time reviewing the knowledge I had gained on the Staff Weapons and the shock grenades.
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Ma'tok (Staff Weapon)
Liquid Naquadah Power Cell, Plasma Generator, Plasma Emitter, Staff Body
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Tok'kal (Goa'uld Shock Grenade)
Liquid Naquadah Power Cell, Discharge Mechanism, Activation Mechanism
By the time I was away from the city I had been sweating buckets. I was lucky that the cloak protected me from sunlight, or I would have been even hotter, and that sounded absolutely miserable.
At a snail's pace, I made the trek back to the Stargate. The whole trip took three times longer than what was normal, and the final hour was all downhill; even with a rather gradual incline I almost fell over a little more than a half dozen times.
I relaxed ever so slightly as the Gate came into sight. Immediately upon my arrival I dialed home and pulled out my Compad. As the blue vortex of the Event Horizon appeared, I sent the "mission accomplished" message — it would be received by both home base as well as those still in Ares' city. Then I stepped through and I was back home.
A few short minutes later, A Phoenix Hawk arrived. I stared up at the massive machine, as Elder James popped his head out to look at me.
"You alright down there?"
Slowly, I pulled myself upright.
"Yeah. I just really need some sleep." I yelled at him.
"Well are you coming up or not?"
I groaned, but slowly hauled myself up the ladder and into the cockpit.
From there, it was a relatively comfortable ride back to the Leopard. As we got off the ship, I handed the equipment to Elder James.
"Elder, I managed to find several Goa'uld shock grenades as well. Please be careful when handling them. Do I have permission to go get some rest?"
He nodded.
"You do. You will be debriefed once you are sufficiently rested."
I nodded to him once then stumbled my way to a quick shower – oh glorious showers – and into bed.
– – –
POV: Michael Dresden
As Lior ushered me towards a table, I caught sight of a man who appeared to be in his mid to late 50s – about my age – though he seemed to be in much better physical condition than I was.
Kaela had shown me this man's face. He was Lior's immediate superior in the resistance.
I moved to take a seat across from him; everyone around me looked at me in suspicion. No, not suspicion. I examined the table more carefully and saw that there was another open seat; they must have been expecting me to sit there.
Ahhh. They had been planning to hide the identity of their leader, but the man himself still wanted to be present. No matter.
I turned my attention to the man and smiled.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'll cut to the chase; I've been told that you need people to help teach Japanese."
The man's face remained impassive.
"We do. We've been trying to start a dialogue with the people of Amaterasu's domain, but most of them have not learned a language other than their native tongue. Those who have are rather hesitant to speak with us."
I had guessed as much.
"Alright, I can offer you teachers, but we will need to figure out how this will work. There isn't exactly a lot of time available for your people to learn from mine. Until you manage to get enough of your own people fluent with the language, I'd like to make an offer. I'll find some people who can act as translators for you."
The man before me raised an eyebrow.
"I would find that more than acceptable. What do you want in return?"
"Well, that depends."
The man narrowed his eyes.
"What would it depend on?"
"It depends on what you want?"
The man leaned back, I saw a fire appear in his eyes.
"I want a lot of things. I doubt you can give me most of them."
I leaned forward, placing my chin on my fists.
"Perhaps, perhaps not. Why don't you tell me."
We stared at each other for a moment before the man moved his gaze up at to the evening sky, seemingly getting his thoughts in order.
Finally, he returned his gaze to me.
"What do I want? I want Ares to watch as everything he cares about burns; I want to place his head on a pike and to let it rot until all that is left is his skull; I want my people to be free; to be more than the slaves he's made us into; I want my people to retake our homeworld; I want our destiny to be our own again."
He growled at me.
"Can you truly give me any of that, Mr. Dresden?"
I could feel the fire in his voice; out of the corner of my eye I could see others at the table clenching their fists. This was a man who was fighting for his freedom. I'd go out on a limb here. Trust can only be earned with trust.
"I can. Sooner than you could believe possible."
My answer seemed to have caught the man off guard. I quickly took a sip of my soup before continuing.
"Now. Enough about that. How are my people going to start teaching yours?"
Quickly the man regained his composure, but he appeared out of sorts for the rest of the meeting. By the time we had finished our meal, I had agreed to send several teachers and translators. I would also begin making contact with the former servants of Amaterasu.
As we prepared to leave, the man hesitated for a moment before asking the question that had been bugging him for the entire meal.
"What did you mean?"
I turned away from the last of my soup to look him in the eyes.
"I'm afraid I never actually got your name."
He froze for a brief moment.
"Kleon. My name is Kleon."
I nodded.
"Well Kleon, all in due time."
He almost burst into laughter before quickly suppressing it so as to not make a scene.
"Can you be any less cryptic?"
"That depends. Best case, we'll know in a couple of days."
The old man relaxed, but the fire in his eyes was burning even brighter than before.
"I will hold you to that, Michael."
I smiled cheerily.
"I better hope I'm right then."
With that, I finished what was left of my meal and prepared to leave the table.
"I expect I'll be invited to your next meeting as well?"
He nodded.
"I'll have Lior find you when the time comes."
We all stood up, returned our plates and dining utensils, and made our way back to our tents. That night I dreamt of Ares' head on a pike; I slept most excellently.