The command deck of the Spitfire thrummed with a quiet tension, the kind that came before a decisive act. Harry stood at the viewport, watching the bright shimmer of hyperspace streaking past. The Tok'ra spies—three in total—waited behind him.
Their joy was quite palpable.
Amshak, leader of the group, had her hands crossed; her golden eyes looked on with glee at the bound Heru'ur, though her host Elsa's human wariness peeked through in the subtle twitch of her jaw.
The real focus of the room, however, lay on the armoured figure restrained in a containment chair. Heru'ur, once the imperious Goa'uld System Lord whose voice had commanded fleets and enslaved worlds, now sat motionless, unable to do anything about what was about to follow. The Heart of Asshera was surgically implanted into Heru'ur, and now the Goa'uld system lord was completely under their thrall.
"You're certain it's stable?" Amshak's voice was calm, but it carried the undercurrent of one who had seen technology fail at the worst moment.
Harry turned away from the sight of bright colours streaking past outside and instead faced the people on the bridge.
"Stable enough that if he tries to resist, the backlash will cook every symbiote nerve fibre from spine to skull before he can draw a breath." he said it plainly, hiding not a sliver of truth from his Tok'ra allies. "If he behaves, it will be no more than a whisper in his mind, guiding his every move."
"Cruel but efficient," Amshak said after a momentary pause. "His kind deserves it."
Heru'ur's lips curled into something between a sneer and a smirk.
"Harry Potter… you are less merciful than the Tau'ri I have fought before."
Harry stepped closer, boots echoing on the deck.
"That's because I'm not Tau'ri," he said, leaning down so that their eyes met. "You've spent a millennium convincing yourself that fear is the only language worth speaking. Now you'll learn to take orders in it."
For a long moment, the Goa'uld said nothing. Then, with a slow tilt of his head, Heru'ur glanced at Amshak.
"You ally with this… creature?"
"Are you going to lecture me about morality?" Amshak asked with palpable amusement.
The ship exited hyperspace, and they found themselves behind the moon of a planet in Heru'ur's domain.
"From here on out, say goodbye to your free will." Harry said Heru'ur before activating the Heart of Asshera.
Harry nodded at Amshak and let the Tok'ra take the lead on the rest of the mission.
He dismissed the bindings on Heru'ur's body and let the Goa'uld regain free movement. Soon, they were hailed by the Jaffa of Heru'ur's throne world.
"Order your Jaffa to welcome the ship into the planet's atmosphere." Amshak ordered.
"Jaffa Kree!" Heru'ur said sharply once a video feed was established.
"My lord, Heru'ur." the Jaffa said with deference.
"Make arrangements for this ship to land. I will be hosting some guests as well." Heru'ur commanded.
"Yes, my lord." The Jaffa said obediently.
The transmission was terminated, and within a few minutes, they were provided with coordinates for landing. The Spitfire entered the planet and landed without any issue.
"We'll stay in orbit and observe. If there is anything amiss, you know how to contact us." Harry said to Amshak and the other two Tok'ra.
Amshak nodded before the Tok'ra escorted Heru'ur out of the ship.
As promised, Harry and the Spitfire crew remained in orbit, keeping the planet under observation for two days. In those two days, they observed the Tok'ra assert their control over Heru'ur's domain.
More Tok'ra operatives arrived through the planet's stargate once Amshak established her dominance in Heru'ur's throne world. The minor Goa'uld administrators in the throne world were quickly rounded up and were now serving as guests in the prison quarters of Harry's ship. With Heru'ur as their personal flying monkey, sweeping the Goa'uld off the planet and his other domains was laughably easy.
All they had to do was make Heru'ur order the minor Goa'ulds to gather at a single location, and the Spitfire used transport rings to snatch them all up, nice and easy.
Once the throne world was secure, they systematically targeted planet after planet, cleansing them of Goa'uld presence using Heru'ur.
Harry was starting to see the wisdom in Councillor Truman's suggestion. The councillor's idea to use Heru'ur against his own kind was quite brilliant. Not a drop of Elysian or Tok'ra blood was spilt in the process.
Harry deployed the newly built Avalonian and Hammerhead to coordinate with the Tok'ra. The two ships picked up Goa'uld prisoners from Heru'ur's planets and transported them all to Elysium, where they were experimented upon. Several Tok'ra operatives replaced their Goa'uld brothers in Heru'ur's worlds, and thus an entire region of Goa'uld space fell into the hands of Tok'ra and Elysium.
All of this happened right under the noses of the System Lords. They remained completely oblivious to the fact that for the first time in thousands of years, an entire quadrant of Goa'uld space came under the control of a foreign power.
Once all the administrators were changed on Heru'ur's planets, the policies also began changing.
The new Tok'ra administrators were quick to issue new directives to pull the human population out of naquadah mining and slave labour camps that were the backbone of Heru'ur's empire. The stargates on all the planets were modified with the latest Elysian defences. No longer were the stargates left undefended and out in the open. They were moved to secure bunkers and, in some cases, placed in orbits of the planets.
The mining planets with large deposits of naquadah were the first to be claimed by the Elysian Federation. The humans on these planets were transported to other planets.
Instead, the High Council decided to turn them into giant bio reserves and vacation spots.
Of course, the mines were kept functional but only as strategic reserves for Elysium's consumption. They were also heavily warded to keep the mines safe.
But that was not all.
Once the takeover was complete, Harry pushed for the accelerated buildup of automated defence platforms and ion cannons to protect the newly acquired planets. It was one thing to claim they had established control over the planets, but it was an entirely different beast to maintain that control for the foreseeable future. With the constant infighting within the Goa'uld empire, he saw the need to keep their newly acquired planets under Elysian ownership in case a rival of Heru'ur starts encroaching on their newly acquired possessions. Depending on the Tok'ra alone was a bad strategy.
Therefore, Harry initiated the construction of Lantean automated defence platforms to enhance the protection of several planets of strategic importance.
******
The Spitfire slid out of hyperspace with a ripple of distortion that shimmered across the black expanse, revealing a golden desert world beneath. Abydos hung in the void like an amber gem, its swirling sands and rocky mountains framed by a faint blue haze of atmosphere.
Harry stood at the forward view screen, arms folded behind his back, watching the planet grow larger. The mission was to scour Abydos for any remaining Ancient technology or artefacts and retrieve a list of known Goa'uld relics, particularly those tied to Ra.
"Approaching geosynchronous orbit above the Abydos Gate coordinates," came the calm voice of his second in command.
"Keep us high," Harry replied. "Sensors active, maximum sweep. I want every subspace signature, energy field, and thermal anomaly marked. And watch for Naquadah spikes—that's our best bet for any Ancient or Goa'uld relics."
"Yes, sir. Scans commencing." Officer Parks said.
As the telemetry in the Spitfire started scanning the planet, Harry stared at the desert planet with a frown.
Truth be told, he never had much hope of finding anything the Ancients left on the planet. As far as he knew, the planet was not anything special. It was not a planet teeming with resources or rare elements.
So, its value was far less than most planets he had seen till now.
But there was something valuable that only he alone knew in Abydos. Besides, there was the fact that Abydos was closer to Earth than Elysium. The hyperspace drive could arrive at Earth in less than an hour from Abydos.
He planned to set a remote supply depot and oversight station in this sector of space precisely for this reason. But looking upon the arid planet below, he became less inclined to put a base there.
There were two major landmasses on the planet and a few scattered islands in the vast ocean. His scanners already picked up three massive sandstorms wreaking havoc across the two continents. There was also a perpetual thunderstorm surrounding a chain of islands in the middle of an ocean. His scanners also picked up lunar data that, when plugged into his climate model, predicted massive tidal waves in the coming week. The readings also revealed some less-than-appealing magnetic field interference on the planet due to high lunar activity.
All of these revelations made him dismiss Abydos as a good place for a supply depot or even a military base.
Instead, his attention went elsewhere.
"Pull the visuals of the moons." Harry ordered.
The three moons of Abydos came to the screen before Harry.
"Scan them for energy signatures. Send jumper crews to study their composition. I need to know whether they host water." Harry ordered.
In the bay of Spitfire, jumper crews boarded their Jumpers and set off towards the three moons. As the survey of the moon progressed, Harry turned his attention back to Abydos.
"Sir, we found a strong energy reading and some less dormant."
"Where?" Harry asked immediately, standing behind the officer who discovered the energy signature.
"Sir, it seems to be coming from an underground chamber close to a pyramid. We focused our scans on structures mentioned in the SGC files about Abydos."
Harry stared at the screen where the officer pulled up the live feed of the pyramid and the location of the energy signature picked up by their scanners. Other feeds also joined, but the energy signatures were significantly less compared to the first one. He drummed his fingers on the table in thought before coming to a decision.
"Do a structure analysis of the pyramid. See whether this chamber is connected to its core structure through a tunnel." Harry ordered.
As his people continued to work diligently, Harry stared at the lone energy reading that stood above everything else.
'The Eye of Ra. This has to be it.' Harry mused.
"Sir, there is something else you need to see." an officer said, pointing to his screen.
"What is it?" Harry asked, rushing to the man's side.
"Our subspace scanners have picked up a hyperspace launch."
"A ship… where?" Harry asked.
"Outside the cislunar space, sir. It'll come up behind that moon in ten minutes." the officer pointed at one of the moons of Abydos.
'A Goa'uld ship? I cannot take any risks.' Harry thought while hastily coming to a decision.
"Recall our Jumpers from the moons. Also, engage our cloaks once they return." Harry commanded while staring out into the black void of space.
At the same time, alarms blared across the ship, warning all personnel to report to their assigned stations. The Spitfire was now on high alert and its crew moving to battle stations.
'Ten minutes will be more than enough.' Harry mused, his eyes straying to the energy signature down on the planet.
******
Harry took a cloaked Jumper down, the heat of Abydos' atmosphere flaring orange against the shields before fading to shimmering distortions. The desert below stretched endlessly, dunes rolling like waves, broken only by the occasional ruin half-buried in the sands.
He landed near a jagged cliff face near the pyramid, where the energy signature from what he hoped to be the Eye of Ra.
Harry disembarked with Fleur and a couple of curse breakers. They immediately went to work clearing up the area of desert sand and unearthing the chamber below. It was a massive stone pit covered by a monolithic stone slab bearing Egyptian glyphs.
"What're you looking for?" Fleur asked, after studying the chamber with many detection spells for traps and any surprises. "It's not something magical, is it?"
"Did you feel something magical in the chamber?" Harry asked curiously. "Any traps to be wary of?"
"No, but we picked up on a resonating energy from the chamber. It definitely has a highly enriched naquadah." Fleur said, while casting a bubble of energy surrounding the stone chamber, which helped her scan the individual items for any hidden threats like toxins or other harmful substances.
Harry waited patiently for the team to give the green signal while keeping track of the time they had left.
"All right, it's safe." Fleur declared after a few minutes.
The rest of the curse breakers also agreed.
Harry ordered them to put up wards to ensure the sensors of the incoming Goa'uld ship did not pick up on their activities. Their Jumper also engaged its cloak, disappearing from all scanners.
With their position secured, Harry went in with the curse breakers into the chamber. There was a lot of gold and artefacts stored inside. There were massive gold-studded bronze pots and an entire gold-plated chandelier inside the chamber. There were also paintings, sculptures, dusty old scrolls and even stone tablets with Alteran writing. There were chests full of gold and silver coins. There were gems and ornaments stacked on shelves.
"Sir, I found a door." one of the curse breakers said.
Harry lit his right hand with light and held it against the door they found. There were detailed drawings and glyphs extolling Ra's greatness and whatnot on the stone walls. Some of the curse breakers, well-versed in Egyptian hieroglyphs, told the story carved into the stone doors and walls.
Harry turned that away and looked straight at the section where he could feel the energy signature coming from the Eye of Ra. He reached out with his hand and pulled with his magic. The stone broke apart, and from the cavity, a medallion on a chain came flying into his hand.
Once the medallion fell into the palm of his hand, he could see clearly what it was.
"Crystallised naquadah in highly enriched form with far greater yield than even naturally formed naquadaria crystals." Harry whispered.
He could see why the Alterans deleted details about it from their database before their ascension. The crystal in his hand interacted in all sorts of ways with his magic. He could feel he was capable of augmenting his magical power using the power in the crystal and maybe force ascension if he so wished. The power inside the Eye was extremely compatible to give a push in the direction of ascension to those who were capable of wielding cosmic energies.
Harry stared at the crystal for a long moment before he started laughing.
'To think the Goa'uld had this and they used it as a weapon.' Harry mused with a wide smile.
That smile slowly bled away, replaced by a thoughtful frown. He wondered whether any Goa'uld had deduced the true purpose of these crystals made by the Alterans.
Suddenly, his wrist device warned him of a notification from the bridge of Spitfire. Harry read the message carefully before swiping it away.
"Have the treasure moved to the trunks. Don't leave anything." Harry ordered.
The crew started doing just that while Fleur came towards him with a questioning look.
"A goa'uld ship with Apophis' symbol has positioned itself near one of the moons. They're sending a squadron of Tel'taks into the planet." Harry said calmly.
"Is it an attack on the Abydosians?" Fleur asked with worry.
"We'll see." Harry said with a frown.
"What will you do?" Fleur asked, her expression telling that she was all for breaking cover and helping the people from the Goa'uld.
Harry eyed the medallion in the palm of his hand and then at the treasure around them.
He took a deep breath and came to a logical position in the current situation.
"We wait and observe the Goa'uld."
AN:
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