"It looks like it's my turn to tell you about workaholism," Isara said with a sarcastic intonation.
"It's hard to stick to strict rules in war, but I wasn't planning on staying too long." I smiled at her.
— Was it at least profitable?
"You bet. True, the Alkesh will have to be dismantled and transported for another month—it's 69 meters long and 25 meters high. And then reassembling it is a whole other production hell. If we're talking about pure naquadah, it's enough for another Cheops, like mine. But battleships don't sell well—or rather, not at all—but five Alkesh can be bought. A huge amount of Asura equipment, 140,000 in total. If I had that much Jaffa, it would elevate me to the rank of a high-ranking minor lord. Of course, I don't have any battleships, so that's debatable. Although, eight Alkesh and a Cheops make me a Goa'uld somewhere between a minor and a minor. Then again, the line is always blurred there.
— As between a tax collector from one village or two.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh." The junior I took the Alkesh from cried. He'd been saving up for the planet and the Alkesh for 200 years, putting it all away from his salary. I felt awkward. On the other hand, no one would sell or build Alkesh for me. That's usually done within the System Lord's domain. Mine is Ra, and it would be extremely impolite to order ships from outside. And suspicious. So I'd prefer to do it myself. The Cheops and three Alkesh with that many gliders are also the sign of a wealthy junior Goa'uld. True, there is a problem with pilots, but that can be solved.
"You'll have to think about integrating Urvashi's army into your own one day. You have too few Jaffa."
"I can always find more. However, there's the matter of loyalty and larvae. Besides, the Jaffa are a little more loyal to me than Urvashi herself. The active use of slaves is highly frowned upon by the System Lords, and I shouldn't go against such traditions. They might report me to Ra. So for now, it's best to stick to custom. I need to see if I can buy Jaffa females for breeding."
Isara looked at me for a long moment.
— It's an expense item, not sexism.
— Sexism?
"It doesn't matter. Only Bastet uses women as warriors, and sexism is rampant among the Goa'uld. Bastet simply loves women, and as a 20,000-year-old Goa'uld, she's likely to hear about women's place in the galaxy from only a few people. And even those people don't consider it critical. With wars raging in the galaxy right now, Ra might have a surplus of women who've lost their husbands."
— Knowing your logic, you could buy from Vritra 140 thousand women whose husbands you killed.
— I may be unsocial, but I'm not that stupid.
- This is good.
"By the way, I stopped by Earth and bought some sweets, would you like some?" "I also stopped by Earth because the ship carrying Osiris and Isis was lifted. That's why I picked up those two and the key, generously paying the businessman who did it. Now I have a couple more tape devices to add to my collection. With them, I'm like General Grievous with Jedi lightsabers. And the information from what are essentially the personal computers of two System Lords is invaluable. How long did it take Osiris to obtain a single huttak, maybe even more? From a man with nothing to a man with a huttak, whom Anubis trusts to be his personal emissary, in just a year. That speaks volumes of Osiris's talent, especially considering the Jaffa love to activate self-destruct on huttaks at any opportunity. I even wonder how he got his ships. Incidentally, yes, Osiris and Isis were both System Lords. This was before Ra decreed limits on the queens' power, and they were husband and wife, living happily together for 10,000 years. It's telling: as a family, they formed a powerful alliance that served as Ra's bulwark against Anubis and Sokar. I'd love to have such a subordinate, but he'd only laugh at it. So all that's left is to admire him in his hemp, as if in a museum.
- Of course, earthlings have very tasty desserts.
"Yes, I had to purchase a certain number for these hangers-on," I'm referring to the captive Goa'uld, who had to be kept in isolation while being fattened up. I spared their lives not only for the sake of the legend, but also because I live in a Goa'uld community, and I have no strength to give a damn about the collective. By treating them mercifully, I bound them to rules, so that of all Vritra's subordinates, only she hates me. All the captive Goa'uld treat me neutrally. This is valuable for the future.
- They didn't cause any problems.
"That's because I warned them: if they were too insolent, I'd throw them into space, but if they were meek, I'd release them after the fighting was over. Usually, when a lord promises something, he keeps it. They didn't want to irritate the one who had treated them kindly, and before that, had mercilessly exterminated their Jaffa."
"Doesn't that bother you? That you killed so many?" Isara's eyes were serious, so I put down the cup I was already brewing tea in and turned to my wife.
"No. Because I despise them. People with a low technological understanding may believe the Goa'uld to be gods, but the Jaffa see that this is nothing more than a trick. Besides, they have legends about the Jaffa of Sodan—the ones who killed a Goa'uld 5,000 years ago and wanted to rebel against the tyranny of the Empire. No one supported them, so they went into hiding. The Jaffa know everything, and if they don't know, they guess. They're more comfortable being evil than rebelling. By destroying the Jaffa, I save dozens or hundreds of ordinary people whom they might kill at the behest of their master. It's also empirically observed: the fewer warriors on a planet, the kinder the local leadership is to ordinary people. The Jaffa are also unreliable. Since they were raised in the worship of Ra, if he ordered them to kill me, they would immediately carry out the order. So I have no reason to love the Jaffa." To use, yes, but not to love. And their death does not sadden me.
"It is unusual for a member of the race to reap the greatest dividends from such a thing.
"The System Lords, not me. This is an important clarification. If Egeria had won, the Empire would be different, as would the galaxy. Development would have stopped. I have data on ships from 5,000 years ago. There has been no fundamental development. Shields have become stronger, ships faster, but nothing surprising. Everything is the same. You studied what Earth has done in 200 years.
- Agree.
"Develop like the Goa'uld, and you could have built a far more high-tech civilization. But we have what we have. Speaking of a high-tech civilization, I've acquired enough teleportation rings that it shouldn't be a problem. We could connect the most important cities with a teleportation network. True, we'd need to create a user-friendly interface, but that's not such a big deal. Intercity cabs haven't appeared on your planets yet, so you could exploit the lack of stakeholders who would be hindered by this to introduce innovation. Then, with established production and sufficient energy, we could assign teleportation rings to every district/building. A lot of research is another matter. The main thing is, it's possible."
— What about freight transportation?
"Energy increases exponentially with the ring diameter, and the Goa'uld don't understand the teleportation process well enough. So ground infrastructure needs to be built. Plus, it creates a huge number of jobs."
- Sareh, with all due respect, don't get involved in economics.
"Women! You go to war and you don't like it, you come back and want to do housework and you don't like it again. Now, eat some cake, maybe you'll like it."
"We like that," Isara smiled.