Chapter 44: Departure

Although Qetesh was a Goa'uld Queen, different from Hathor, she was completely hateful and disgusted by the idea of becoming one of his queens. especially when she heard that he already had so many women in his life. Neither was she lured in by the idea of all the power she could gain through him.

To keep a Goa'uld Queen alive, one who was so against the idea of being one of his Queens, was a bad idea. The loyalty mechanisms of the Magus Queen Symbiote weren't powerful enough to ensure the loyalty of a queen; one with a will strong enough to betray him without any goodwill towards him would be only a recipe for disaster.

But, of course, there was an easy solution for that problem. After all, turning a Goa'uld Queen into a Magus Queen gave him the freedom to choose between the mind of the Symbiote or the Host, who would be very thankful that he freed her from a living hell. All he had to do was wipe the mind of the symbiote with the mind arts before he changed it in the genetic manipulation device. At this point, he was becoming quite experienced with the mind arts, especially destroying whole selves of symbiotes.

In such a manner, Vala Mal Doran, who had served as Qetesh's host for the last few years, joined the ranks of his concubines, expanding his sizable harem—no other word better to describe it—even further. She was a far more pleasant person than the Qetesh that he had met for a short time. At first, she was a bit traumatized and shy, but all the new knowledge and powers she had gained expanded her view and encouraged her to overcome the horrible experience of being a prisoner in her own body. Her actual personality was a humorous and quick-witted, sexy tease, which was quite a pleasant addition to the Royal Family.

But now that Qetesh had disappeared, this would definitely earn the attention of Camulus, since she was one of his most loyal underlords. Vala had already confirmed that Camulus was aware of her travel goals. Since Harry wasn't planning to send a member of the Royal Family to Camulus, pretending to be his follower (after all, he wanted to take the whole Royal Family with him to their next seat of power, Atlantis), the lower Magi could handle the mining operations on the other two planets of their realm and everything else that they had planned on this site while in the Pegasus Galaxy.

After all, the resources on Nimbus Prime were almost completely mined out; there were only a few sparse remains that were too troublesome or ineffective to mine. Right now, most of their workforce on the planet is busy disassembling their structures and machines to transport them to others or preparing for the Atlantis Expedition.

Soon, Camulus would know that something was wrong with this place, once he hadn't heard anything from Qetesh for a long enough time. One of the first things he would do is send a cloaked Tel'tak to scout this place. It would be hard to locate such a hidden vessel, and he didn't want to waste the power of one of his ZPMs to set up a sensor powerful enough.

If that vessel didn't return, then Camulus would be aware either way that something was wrong here. No Nimbus Prime had served its purpose for the last ten months; it had been a mining world of the Goa'uld for thousands of years, so it was no wonder that it was running dry.

Harry had always planned for this planet to only be a temporary base, to build up some power, get resources, and most importantly, get ready for an expedition to Atlantis. Four ships were enough to protect his interests in the Milky Way for now and plunder more materials. At least until the System Lords found a way to be ready for his hit-and-run tactics.

His main human workforce and Magi would continue to operate on the other two planets, while a few thousand Magi would accompany them to the Pegasus Galaxy and man Atlantis. He would take more since he could use an army with the Wraith still around, but with the Gate only active for 38 minutes, there was a limited amount of people that could pass through. They already had an extremely tight and planned order to move through the gate scheduled out.

Completely organized and planned out, with how the personnel and transport vehicles were positioning themselves in front of the gate in Antarctica before even dialing the gate, they even especially expanded the gate room to fit thousands of people and vehicles under the ice. They had planned in which order they would move once the gate was connected and even how they would act on the other side, with everyone having their own task assigned while Harry had drawn a schematic of the city-ship to plan this.

And finally, it was time; they were ready to activate the Gate to Atlantis. Harry and the rest of the royal family were standing in front of a crowd of thousands of Magi; behind them were quite a few familiar faces. Neville, Dean, and some other faces from Gryffindor, or Hanna Abbott and a few more Hufflepuffs There were also some Ravenclaws and even a Slytherin, Daphne's younger sister Astoria, directly standing beside her. She looked quite a bit better than he had remembered her in Hogwarts, where she always looked so pale.

The symbiote had mitigated a lot of the negative effects of the curse, but unfortunately, she wasn't completely healed yet, and the damage to her body was still very severe.

There were many members of the DA, but also other students from Hogwarts from different years or ones that hadn't had the chance to join the DA, like Penelope Clearwater. Of course, there had been quite a few cases of people who wanted to sabotage the expedition or had other ulterior motives, but Harry and Hermione, with their now enhanced Mind Arts abilities, and the investigations of their Magus, had been able to sort these elements out.

Once everyone was in position, Harry began to dial the Clavis that had been connected to the power of the Outpost, which was powered by the Potentia from Praclarush, putting each symbol in from one to eight. With the correct eight symbols input, the Gate having locked onto the address, Harry touched the orange Control Crystal in the middle of the Clavis and activated the Gate.

The familiar unstable vortex manifested itself before receding, and the Event Horizon had formed a stable connection. "Everyone, ready yourselves!" Harry ordered while quickly checking the data that the Flying Eye had sent through the gate from the other side.

There was oxygen, and conditions for life were stable. The city also looked intact, with the Gate Room visible through the screen with the data sent by the Eye. "Okay, move!" Harry ordered as the whole expedition began to orderly move like practiced and planned.

Harry was right in the front of the crowd, approaching the Event Horizon and stepping through the Stargate into a different galaxy. 

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