I have been on the world of Mycena for five days now. During that time I had only slept once, in the middle of the forest. In exchange, I had managed to produce a digital map of the entirety of Ares' home city, including all the barracks, servant halls, armories, etc.
I had also spent several hours mapping out three of the other Ha'tak vessels for reference. While important locations like the bridge, hangars, reactor, etc were all in the same location on different ships, places like the cabins, galleys, and armories were never in the same place twice.
After examining the ships more in-depth, I had come to the conclusion that the interior design of the Ha'taks were highly modular, meaning that almost any negative space in the ship could and was regularly used for almost any function. It went a little ways to explain why a ship that was so… looked down upon in Stargate SG-1 was so heavily used by the Goa'uld.
Both interesting and concerning was the fact that my perk had yet to activate despite how much time I had spent examining the various Ha'tak class vessels. I would definitely have to do some experimenting at a further date.
The Jaffa were all well equipped, and they made extensive use of logistics. It was impossible to provide food, water, and shelter for a city of this size without extensive record keeping, but I had yet to find the location of any central computer system or record storage location. I knew such information had to be kept somewhere – again, most likely on the bridge of Ares' flagship, but I was hoping not to have to go back there.
Lastly, and most importantly, I had been keeping a close eye on the person that Elder Dresden had pointed me towards. Lior was an entirely uninteresting fellow. He slept, ate, started mining, ate again, and then went back to sleep. If I hadn't been watching him specifically, I would have never noticed his peculiarities.
He spoke with people from just about every group (except for the Japanese group; it appeared the man was incapable of speaking the language and hence couldn't make any inroads with them), something that was already suspicious on its own. Most of the miners rarely made contact with those outside their own group.
Things just kept getting more and more interesting the more I watched the man. Every day as he was heading to the quarry, he would walk past a Jaffa and they would pass each other small slips of paper. Again, I would not have caught the exchange if I had not been following the man in particular.
Finally, I had followed the man to his accommodations on the night of the third day and watched as he removed a box from underneath his mattress. I hadn't been willing to examine the box first hand; the man was obviously paranoid and he would have undoubtedly noticed had I started moving things in his tent.
Now, here I was, following Lior around on his daily routine. He had yet to make any significant deviations, but there was still time. I had two days before I had to return home.
As the sun set beyond the mountains, I watched as Lior returned from the Quarry to grab dinner. I was pleasantly surprised that he joined a different group than normal for his meal. Suspiciously, he had not once interacted with any of these people and the people who surrounded them were all strangely loud.
Lior was the last to sit down at the table and everyone at the table turned their heads down. An older man near the center of the table began the conversation without looking up from his food.
"What do we know about the new group?"
Lior was the one who answered first.
"Much the same as we were told originally. They're from one of Athena's mining villages, but there is something off."
The man continues to eat his food. If I wasn't close enough to hear them whispering to each other, I wouldn't have even been able to notice their exchange.
"What are you referring to?"
"They're all warriors. Even the women. In hand to hand, I doubt I could defeat any but the youngest of them. They all speak at least three languages that we are aware of, English, Japanese, and a third language that I've never heard outside of their circle."
A third voice pipes up quietly from beside Lior. I make sure to note the man down for reference at a later date.
"All of those that I've interacted with also have greater knowledge of mathematics than is normally acceptable for a major population under a System Lord."
All the people at the table paused, for the briefest moment.
"That certainly makes things interesting. What do we know about their world of origin?"
The men look between each other.
"Nothing, sir."
The man put his spoon down to grab some bread from the table.
"Is it possible that this is something similar to the Daedalus Incident?"
There is a moment of silence around the table, before Lior breaks in.
"I suppose it's possible; not likely though. The Daedalus Incident was already a one in a million event."
The man nods gently.
"Very well. Continue providing assistance. When the time comes they may be of great help to us. I suppose there is still no news on the people of Amaterasu's domain?"
"There is actually a change on that front. The people of this new village all speak their language fluently. The Elders of this new village are already speaking with their leaders."
The older man sighed lightly.
"Lior, what are the chances that the people from this new village would be willing to teach some of us Japanese?"
Lior frowned for a moment.
"I doubt they'll say no. Especially if we are continuing to offer them assistance."
"Then make sure to do so. When you get the chance, see what we can do about getting some of them as teachers."
No one spoke any further. They finished their meals and then all returned to their camps.
None of them had said anything, but I was fairly sure they were all members of the Resistance. Though that did bring into question why Lior was passing messages to that one Jaffa.
Also, this 'Daedalus Incident' was an interesting development. I looked down at my compad and confirmed that the entire conversation had been recorded and transcribed.
I still had two days before it was time for me to return home, and I had effectively accomplished all of my goals, but there was still one other group I had to search for; the Tok'ra. Finding a Tok'ra infiltrator would be much more difficult. While there were fewer than a hundred Goa'uld in the city, that just meant that each of them was searched even more heavily. If any of them had outed themselves quite so easily then they would have already been dead.
No, finding any member of the Tok'ra would be much more difficult than finding resistance members.
I spent my remaining two days following the people that Lior had made contact with. All of them were exceptionally ordinary, though I did catch a few of them passing messages, with one significant exception.
I had been sure not to touch anything in any of the suspected resistance member's tents, but I still observed them all carefully, and my effort had been quickly rewarded. I had been lucky enough to watch one of the resistance members pull a small metal box – similar to the one I had seen in Lior's tent – out from beneath his mattress. Inside it had been several images, paper, a pen, and a firearm of unknown design – alongside what appeared to be ammunition for the weapon. I made sure to snap several images of the inside of the box so I could present the images to the Elders.
I had also begun searching the rooms of the various Goa'uld who lived in the city. None of them had anything interesting, but there were a few Goa'uld who had particularly sparse rooms, which – given the proclivities of the Goa'uld – was a bit of a red flag. I would make sure to watch them later.
Then again, there was a part of me that was saying this was a ruse and that any Tok'ra who could survive in a Goa'uld court would know better than to leave anything that would stand out.
Finally, as the sun set on my seventh day on the world of Mycena, I made the couple hour journey to the Stargate. There, I dialed home and stepped through. I was immediately greeted by the completely empty clearing, but something was different…
Ohh wait, that was a mech footprint. I'd have to make sure that someone came to cover that up. Anyone who came through the Stargate and saw it would know immediately that something strange was going on.
I pulled out my Compad and transmitted my arrival confirmation message. Within 20 seconds I had a response, so I sat down and waited. It was ten minutes later that the ground started shaking. From down the path came a mech. I didn't know what its make was -- I had never been into the Mech aspects of Battletech -- but it was the same kind that I had seen in the bay of the Leopard. I had yet to use my perk on most of the Star League Era technology; I had been too busy with either training or sleeping.
The mech slowly came to a stop before the Stargate, then it kneeled down from its full 11 meters to just under five and a hatch on the back came open. Elder Callum stuck his head out.
"Good to see you're back in one piece, kid. Get up here!"
I smiled before climbing into the Phoenix Hawk's cockpit.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Phoenix Hawk (PXH-1c "Special")
Extralight Fusion Engine (XL Engine)
"So how'd the mission go?"
I quickly pushed through the short wave of vertigo that came with touching the Battlemech and replied to the Elders questions.
"Primary and secondary objectives were completed without issue, though disabling all of Ares' forces will be slightly more difficult than we hoped, but there is a way to do it. The villagers are doing well and I managed to find a possible cell of the Dendred Resistance, but I'm not quite sure."
The Elder seemed to have instantly shed a great burden.
"That is good news indeed. You have no idea how much you stressed out us old men when you told us about Anubis and Sokar and how they treat their servants."
I winced; Sokar and Anubis were two system lords that were known for their cruelty. I hadn't exactly done a good job when explaining how the servants of other system lords were treated, though that was mostly because the treatment of the servants was never brought up unless it was particularly egregious.
We sat in silence for the next five minutes as Elder Callum expertly ran his mech up a mountain and down the other side where we saw the form of not just a Leopard-Class Dropship, but also a second spheroid type dropship.
"That's new. Where did you get that thing?"
Elder Callum looked at the new dropship from the corner of his eye.
"Aye. James wanted access to a mech we could send through the Stargate, so he had us bring down that baby. When we were leaving the Inner-Sphere, we had to modify the thing to carry extra mechs, and the thing was already carrying six more Locust's than normal. We cut out a lot of the crew quarters to make room for another eight Locusts from there. We also disassembled six and managed to find space for those. All together, that's 26 Locusts."
A Battlemech capable of traveling through the Stargate would be a significant advantage when the time came to take out Ares; hell, if we used them right they might just single-handedly win us the battle.
"How well do you think the armor on those things will hold up against Staff Weapons?"
"We have no idea. That'll be part of your next mission; you'll need to steal us one or two for testing purposes."
I was expecting as much.
"Best guess then."
"You'll have to ask one of the others for specifics, but we're currently working under the assumption that the staff weapons are primarily targeted towards shielded targets, rather than armored targets. It would explain why they're so effective against capital ships, but have such a limited effect on the ground. All of that of course depends on how accurate your memory of this TV-show is."
Slowly, the Elder brought his Phoenix Hawk into the bay onboard the Leopard-Class Dropship. When the mech was fully onboard we both clambered down and were greeted by the rest of the Elders waiting for us.
James was the first to begin.
"It's good to see that you're back in one piece, Arthur."
I smiled. I hoped the exhaustion I felt was evident on my face.
"It's good to be back, Elder. I would like to complete my debriefing so that I can get some sleep."
Elder Elias chuckled lightly.
"Well let's get to it then."
I followed the others to the bridge, where we sat down and I began. I started with the current state of the rest of the village and then explained the reset codes on the Kara'Kesh. It seemed as if a load had been taken off the Elders' shoulders; all of them seemed much lighter, but they still seemed to have their worries.
Elder Dorian was the first to bring up his issues.
"Are we sure that the Kara'Kesh will have the reset codes you're hoping for?"
I looked him in the eyes and nodded seriously.
"The Kara'Kesh is more than just a shield or weapon for the System Lords; it is a mobile command station. It provides continual feedback on the state of all of the forces that it is slaved to, and is used by a system lord to ensure that someone else isn't impersonating them. Even if the exact codes don't exist, the difficulty of creating a mass-shut down order is negligible."
Elder Dorian smiled.
"That is certainly great news if I've ever heard it."
Elder James continued.
"What of your third mission?"
"I believe I have discovered a cell of the Dendred Resistance, but I don't know for sure." I pulled out my compad and began going over the data that I had compiled. The Elders were particularly interested in the fire-arm that I showed them.
"With all that said, I have yet to uncover signs of a Tok'ra Agent, though I plan to continue looking when I return."
When I was done, Elder James nodded.
"Thank you Arthur. You've done excellently. Go get yourself some sleep. You'll be shipping back out in three days and you won't be going alone this time"
A inclined my head towards the Elders in thanks.
"I'll see myself to the bunks then."
I turned out of the room and left. I beelined my way to the first bed I could find and promptly passed out from exhaustion.