I marched onto the bridge of the Leopard-Class dropship, having slept a full 16 hours and eaten a full meal, I was ready to be re-deployed. As I entered, I was surprised to find that both Kaela and Yren had yet to be sent back on mission.
"Arthur." Elder James spoke my name as I entered the room, "Have a seat."
I did as instructed and turned my attention to the Elder.
"Your next mission will be making formal contact with the Dendred Resistance members. Arthur, you will be the team lead. N—"
I interrupted the Elder.
"Respectfully, shouldn't Kaela or Yren be team leads? Both are more capable than I am."
Kaela snorted.
"We both voted for you to lead."
Yren nodded nonchalantly. Elder James continued for her.
"While none of you have been fully trained to the levels of an SLDF Special Operative, in those areas that you have been trained, I can say, with certainty, that you all could put experienced SLDF Special Forces operatives in their places. Arthur, you have proven yourself in two operations so far. You have the most experience with the cloak, and, assuming that the reset code for the Kara'kesh functions as you believe it should, your perk has more than proved its value."
I was silent for a moment. I didn't quite know how to respond to that. Finally I just nod in response. The Elder turns his sight back to his compad and continues.
"Now, you all will have two missions. First, you will be making contact with the members of the resistance; most notably with the man known as Kleon. He is the leader of the Resistance Cell on Mycena and has received communications from an external source on multiple occasions. We believe this external source is the rest of the resistance on the world of Dendred. Once you make contact with him, you are to gain his trust and initiate a dialogue with his superiors."
I furrowed my brows.
"What are we permitted to tell him?"
"Everything."
I blinked a few times as I came to terms with that.
"How much would 'everything' be?" I asked again.
The Elder looked me in the eyes.
"You are permitted to tell him anything you believe would be necessary to earn his trust, permitted that it is not blatantly false."
All of us took that in for a moment before Kaela continued.
"We're not holding anything back then, are we?"
The Elder nodded once more.
"No. We are not. We plan on doing everything we can to overthrow Ares as soon as possible. With that in mind, you will also be taking samples of SLDF technology for the Resistance as proof of our existence. Nothing significant, just some laser pistols and a couple of compads; just enough to prove that we actually exist. Your secondary mission, if it is possible, is to retrieve samples of their technology as well."
Once again, we all froze. I was well aware how tightly the forces of the Hegemony guarded their technology; to hear an SLDF officer outright state that they would be providing technology – even technology that was otherwise readily available – was absolutely absurd.
Yren spoke hesitantly.
"Elder, are you really sure that this is the best idea?"
The Elder responded with an even voice.
"Yes. We have decided that gaining the assistance of the resistance is worth the cost, even if it increases our chances of discovery."
The Elder continued.
"Now, these are the members of the resistance that we are currently aware of. Lior is…"
We spent an hour going over all the known resistance members. Then, the Elder began walking us through possible exfiltration plans. Four hours later, we were finished.
"The gear you will be taking has already been prepared. Your transport to the Stargate will be leaving in two hours. I'll be there to see you off."
We all responded.
"Understood."
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Locust (LCT-1Vb)
Endo-Steel Chassis, Double Heatsinks
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Laser Pistol (Mauser A1)
Power Cell, Focusing Chamber, Firing Mechanism
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Compad (Potter Gen-3 Compad)
Display, Integrated Computer, Internal Data Chip
A bit over two hours later, I was standing before the Stargate and Dialing Mycena. From there, we made the trek to Ares' City without seeing a single other person. It was really leading to some questions about how Goa'uld used the Stargates.
Obviously, Athena used the Gates extensively since her servants and Jaffa would collect the Naquadah our village mined through the Gates, but it seemed as if Ares barely used his; he was much more inclined towards using his ships.
We spent a day scouting the city, ensuring that nothing had changed during our time away. Then, Yren had made contact with Elder Dresden. He got a message to Lior who, a day later, got the message to the resistance leader. That evening, as the miners were returning to their abodes,, I entered the man's tent and waited. A few minutes later someone – either Kaela or Yren – tapped on the tent fabric to notify me that Kleon was coming.
I deactivated my cloak and waited. Soon enough, I heard someone approaching.
—
Pov: Kleon
I had been reasoning over that message for hours; what could "someone will be contacting you" possibly mean? There is the obvious meaning, but that man – Michael Dresden – shouldn't have – I froze.
I opened my tent flap and found a man – he looked to be about 20… no he was younger than that. He hadn't started growing a beard yet – sitting in my tent. I froze and the man smiled at me.
"I believe I was expected,"
He says. His words snap to place in my mind; so this is what the message meant. Who is this? How did they get into my tent? How are they related to… his words just lead to more questions.
Calming my mind, I entered the tent and took a seat.
"I was informed that someone would be making contact with me, though I have not yet been informed of who you are."
The man – no, he was a boy despite his appearance – smiled and replied.
"My name is Arthur. I'll cut to the chase. My village's Elders have tasked me with getting in contact with the resistance against Ares that is originally from the world of Dendred. You're the leader of the resistance here, so you're the best one for us to contact."
Once again, it took a moment for his words to register. They knew; of course they knew. If they had contact with that Dresden fellow then it wouldn't be hard to guess. Even if the man was an idiot he would have been able to tell that we weren't just workers.
Wait; was this what he had meant when he had said "perhaps in time"?
I took a deep breath. He definitely wasn't a Goa'uld; if he was, he wouldn't bother with this charade. We would have all just been executed; that meant there was an opportunity here.
"Alright. What do you have to offer?"
My words seemed to catch the boy – Arthur – off guard.
"I was sent with some of our technology; both to show what we can offer and to provide more credible proof that we're not of the Goa'uld. I'll be honest here; we're willing to just offer it free of charge, but my Elders were hoping to get their hands on a couple of your weapons as well."
I snorted slightly, but inside I was sweating.
"What do you think we can offer in exchange?"
Arthur grinned.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that box underneath your mattress has a firearm of some kind. That'd be a good place to start."
My face remained impassive, but inside I was cringing; these people had been watching us, and watching us closely. Those boxes were only to be removed in the worst case scenarios; they were emergency kits. They shouldn't have had the chance to know about the boxes; let alone what was inside them.
Discreetly gritting my teeth, I moved towards the mattress; Arthur scooted out of my way and I spent a few seconds pulling the gravel aside to reveal a plain metal box. I quickly pulled it out of the ground and opened it. Inside was a sidearm; one of the pride and joy weapons of my homeworld.
I pulled it out and swept my hand over it before turning my attention back to the boy sitting before me.
"This is a Κεραυνός Εκδοχή 3. The Εκδοχή 1 – the first generation of the weapon – was amongst the first energy weapons produced by my people; it was the first to integrate a version of the miniaturized naquadah generators used by the Goa'uld. Εκδοχή 2 – the second generation – integrated an electromagnetic field that extended the effective length of the barrel to a meter and a half. Εκδοχή 3 – the third generation – is considered the best energy weapon ever produced by my people; the engineers behind it took into account the extensive complaints against energy weapons and either removed or highly mitigated all of them."
I handed the weapon to Arthur. As he took the weapon, he froze for a split second before he carefully began inspecting it. I continued speaking.
"It was quickly adopted as the primary side arm of the Dendredian Armed Forces. Within 20 years, that weapon became the single most produced firearm ever sold on my homeworld."
After Arthur had finished looking the weapon over, he pulled his bag off his shoulder and pulled out two objects. One a sidearm and the other a familiar computational device. He showed me the side arm first.
"This is a Mauser A1; a standard issue laser pistol used by the Star League Defence Force and was produced by Mauser and Gray firearms. When it entered the market, it wasn't anything particularly revolutionary, but it combined the aspects of a lot of previous laser weapons into something that worked well in most environments. It is a respected weapon that has been in service for almost 200 years. It also acts as a very effective cutting tool."
He handed me the weapon which I took with some interest. It was smaller than any energy weapon I had seen before; smaller than a lot of kinetic weapons I had seen too, but it still had a decent mass to it.
I turned my attention back to Arthur.
"And that computer?"
He blinked in confusion for a brief moment.
"Yes sir. This is a compad; a portable computer."
He handed me the device; even the interface was very similar to the ones we had created back home. Perhaps a case of convergent design? The 'tablet' design was rather simple.
"Power button is on the top."
I pressed the button once and the device came right on. The screen was touch based, again very similar to what we had before the invasion. It took me a few moments, but navigating the device was relatively straight forward.
"Select that… yeah… and that. There you are. That is a small collection of literature and a rather heavily redacted history of the Star League up until just before the Civil War."
I did as he said and found about a dozen folders. I selected the one labelled history and skimmed through it in silence. They're people – or peoples considering how many distinct cultural groups made up their world – had been in space for almost 800 years. They claimed to have made no contact with the Goa'uld during that time; something I found rather questionable; The Goa'uld controlled most of the galaxy.
Either way, I spent a good five minutes skimming over the text. As I reached the end I finally let my guard down just a little. They claimed to be the inhabitants of the first world; a world which was publicly known to be lost. The Goa'uld were not very creative; I highly doubted they'd be able to come up with such an in-depth history if they tried.
I let out a sigh.
"Alright kid. I'll see what I can do about getting someone to meet you. It'll be a couple of days before we can get any confirmation."
He nodded.
"That's all I was hoping for. When you're ready, just place a piece of fabric on the top of your tent and we'll be there."
I nodded and saw him out of my tent. One moment he was there, then the next he was gone. I would have to make an appointment with. Hopefully Ma'chello wouldn't totally beat my ass for being uncovered.
I groaned. Whatever; if these people were going to help us overthrow Ares, then so be it.