Chapter One Hundred And Ninety-Three

Fortress Palace. Thrax III.

"What do you have to report?" I asked Miranda as she entered my office.

While she could have simply transferred her latest briefing electronically to my omni-tool my third wife preferred to keep me up to date in person. She was good at collecting information and verbally explaining it all to me. Marrying her and letting her take charge of a lot of bureaucratic matters for me had been one of my smarter moves.

"I want to warn you about a man called Gerak, who's taking control of the Jaffa Nation '' the former Cerberus agent said to "Our files on him don't say much, but judging by his policies, it's pretty clear that this Gerak doesn't really care much for non-Jaffa".

The Gerak in the show, if I recalled him correctly, hadn't exactly been a bad guy, but he became a follower of Origin and subsequently a Prior of the Ori. Although in the end he did sacrifice his own life to help the Tauri, so he had to be a good person underneath. However that didn't mean he couldn't be very dangerous.

I was sure he wanted what was best for the Jaffa, or at least what he thought was best for them, and this could be bad for us because in his mind any strong human presence in this galaxy could be seen as a threat to the new Free Jaffa Nation.

Gerak must be concerned about the Imperial expedition because I knew that I would be in his place and Gerak was no fool.

I figured that it might be for the best if I sent Black Widow out into the galaxy on board the cargo ship that the Alliance had traded us that could cloak (and that the Inquisition was sharing with me) with orders to kill the Jaffa leader and to make it look as if another Jaffa did the deed.

That might lead the FJN into a civil war, and that could benefit me in the long run. Or maybe she could pretend to be a Goa'uld assassin so as to keep them focused on the parasites still out there.

While there she could do something about the Dakara superweapon, something I had not forgotten about, and that device could be left for others to use against me. I would talk to her after this meeting and tell who I wanted dead, and order to do something about the Dakara superweapon even if she could blow up the controls.

I felt fairly sure that Goa'uld assassins had special ways of killing their targets and given how much information we'd gathered from our trading partners I must have access to enough information on Goa'uld assassins for Widow to fake their work. It made sense that the Goa'uld would want Garek dead since the FJN having a strong leader was a threat to them as well.

"According to our intel he rose to power quickly because of what he brought with him when he joined the rebels" Miranda told me "As the First Prime of a Goa'uld called Montu before he rebelled, he had almost complete authority over Montu's military and Gerak used that to his advantage, placing those loyal to him in key positions".

Which is what you did when planning a coup and I wondered how far back the coup had been planned.

"When he killed Montu, he brought almost all of Montu's armed forces into the Free Jaffa Nation and that along with what is allies control, represent a significant portion of their navy strength" Miranda told me next "Other Jaffa brought in military resources too, but compared to Gerak's they weren't in good shape due to having to actually fight when they rebelled".

I knew that the Jaffa High Council was divided between Traditionalists, those favoring old-style government based on military strength, and Progressives, favoring some form of republic. The Traditionalist faction was led by Gerak and his second in command called Yat'Yir according to the files, they were both former servants of Montu. It was revealed to me that the former followers of the System Lord Yu tend to be traditionalists as well.

Hopefully his allies would divide up his ships and warriors between them once my assassin struck down Gerak. Even if they made him a martyr that wouldn't stop his followers from all trying to take his place and even end up fighting each other for that spoit.

"He also represents what we can nicely call the more conservative Jaffa" Miranda said "In fact judging by what we can tell from the Lucian Alliance most of the Jaffa don't seem to care much for humans at all".

Which was odd since it really should be the humans of the galaxy who disliked the Jaffa given they'd been the soldiers in the armies of the System Lords for thousands of years. Over the centuries thousands of humans must have had their lives ended for them by a Jaffa holding a staff weapon.

Another issue was that the more conservative Jaffa were very bound by Jaffa traditions which didn't allow for females and males to be equal. I wasn't sure on the details, but aside from that one group of female Jaffa warriors all the rest had been male. Perhaps that was something I could use against them.

Which made me wonder if the female Jaffa were going to put up with it should Garak more traditional views become totally dominant.

"The likes of Bra'tac and Teal'c are more liberal, and much more likely to seek peace with us" Miranda mentioned "But they seem to be a minority that is slowly losing power".

This wasn't surprising if you thought about it, sure it might be the replicators that actually brought the Goa'uld Empire to its knees, but the Tauri had been knocking off System Lords back when the Jaffa Rebellion was in its infancy. The pride of the Jaffa would make it hard for them accept that mere humans had done far more for the cause of freedom then they ever did.

Alas for the Free Jaffa they needed Tau'ri help because without them there wasn't going to be a Free Jaffa Nation in the long run. The FJN had military might, but did they have farmers, miners, labourers? The only Jaffa workers I'd ever even heard of had been prisoners of war on Erberus.

One of their problems was the need for Tretonin . If Garak totally broke off ties with Earth then who would supply the Jaffa Nation with the Tretonin ? Could they make their own? We simply didn't know.

While there were some Jaffa mercents, a few had sold some minor bits of Goa'uld tech at the trading post, it had been human labourers who'd done most of the work when the System Lords ruled.

Now the liberated human slaves didn't have their gods telling them to grow food for the Jaffa armies, so where were they going to get food from? Would they start growing their own?

With someone like Garek in charge I could see the Jaffa enslaving or raiding human worlds for their supplies. Allowing that to happen could play into my hands as then humans worlds across the galaxy would need protection, but I wasn't sure that I could defend them or that it would be worthwhile.

"Any other news?" I asked.

Now that I had plenty of trade deals that my underlings could oversee and a pleasing amount of Naquadah coming in I could focus my attention elsewhere.

I wanted to hunt down and destroy the Goa'uld who were still holding onto power or to dig them out of hiding. There were those who would wait for the day they could return to a position of authority, and I no wish to see that day.

Not because those Goa'uld we're much of a threat to me, although Ba'al certainly was, mostly I was doing it because I wanted a change from what I'd been doing so far. Over the years I'd learned to be very patient, but that had its limits and waging war against the Goa'uld was an action the entire expedition could get behind.

Also this course of action could lead to me acquiring much more in the way of riches while making the rest of the galaxy see that the expedition was a force to be feared. I couldn't let the factions out there think that we Imperials were pushovers.

"Yes" Miranda replied "There's now some UN group called the International Oversight Committee, they have sent an ambassador to the trade outpost, he's called Richard Woolsey".

I wasn't surprised to hear any of that, not even the slight name change caught me off-guard.

"The nations involved in the Stargate Alliance must not have liked finding out that I'd sold the American licenses to produce our basic power armour and some slightly better lasers" I said to my third wife "The Americans can use the licenses as an excuse not to share the technology with the other nations and this IOC is the UN's way of appeasing their allies".

I knew that the Americans would never give up the Stargate and that they would always keep the best tech for themselves. Even when the other nations started building their own ships the Americans would always control the most ships.

"Woolsey is American but he answers to the new IOC" said Miranda "He wants to meet with you as soon as possible".

Now that I had what I'd needed from Earth there was no need to give them too much attention. They were sending me tech for the Ad-Mech to gush over and I was acquiring new sources of information that didn't depend on the SGC. As for the IOC, if they wanted something from me I would just point out that I couldn't sell them any technology as long as the SGC controlled the gate and all the Tau'ri warships.

Although I could sell other nations licenses to use Imperial technology, or at least Fallout technology, they wouldn't be able to pay for it as I had what I wanted from Earth. Hopefully this would cause the other Earth nations in the know about the Stargate to become more hostile to the Americans.

"I'll send for him when I have some time" I informed Miranda "Anything else?".

As it turned out there was interesting news.

"According to an after action report a Sisterhood of Steel squad who were scouting one of the worlds under the control of Ba'al got into a fire fight with a Jaffa patrol that was also under attack by some Free Jaffa lead by a woman called Ishta".

I knew that Ishta was a Jaffa high priestess, who once served the Goa'uld System Lord Moloc, until she formed and led the Hak'tyl Resistance (Hak'tyl being the Goa'uld word for liberation), they were a group of female Jaffa who saved adolescent female Jaffa from being slaughtered by Moloc who'd gotten into his head to increase the size of his armies by only allowing male Jaffa to live long enough to grow up. Which made no sense at all.

I'd just been thinking about how I could use the gender inequality of the Jaffa to my advantage and yet again the universe provided me with what I needed. Sometimes it seemed as if reality itself was under my influence.

"After the Sister in charge of the squad made her introductions they got talking, and now this Ishta she wants to meet with you and create an alliance" Miranda mentioned "Ba'al rules the worlds that used to be under the control of Moloc, but the Hak'tyl still have a large fighting force and holding on to their seat on the High Council".

In the show Ishta was played by Jolene Blalock, who was best known for her role as T'Pol in Star Trek: Enterprise, and since the appearances of the characters often matched that of the actors, at least in this universe, I wouldn't mind checking her out.

"When does she want to meet?" I asked.

While Jaffa and Humans couldn't have children together, which meant that Ishta wasn't suitable wife material, and with her being an abhuman that made sense, I wouldn't mind having a Jaffa consort. As long as she didn't carry a symbiote in her oouch and I could get her alone for long enough, I should be able to bring her under my control.

Thinking about it some more, I didn't know any woman in this galaxy who was worthy of becoming wife number four, at least no one I had access to, so I'd just have to settle for acquiring a couple of new consorts while in this galaxy. Having a Jaffa warrior under my command could be interesting,

"She's willing to come to the trading outpost to meet with you" Miranda let me know.

Now even the abhumans were showing me more respect than the Tau'ri. I really ought to find some method of humbling them, but I come up with anything yet that would disrupt my plans. I was thinking about showing off my battlecruiser but that would only work if they could see it in action.

"I think this Ishta can be of use to me" I said to Miranda.

Already plans were forming in my mind.