[OOC: Since we're reaching the limit of number of posts for this thread, this seemed like a good place to start the new one.]

Oh, great! She's asking me for instructions!


Hoping she correctly understood Kaspar's intentions, Vasandra responded to Hilda's request.

"Without energy or control crystals, it would be pointless for them to stay in engineering," she said.

"They should be in the pel'tak. We will secure the chappa'ai first, and then proceed upward. Kree!"

In reply to Vasandra Tourmaline (msg # 2):

OOC:

As we all charge up the entry, we surreptitiously allow the Jaffa to slip into the lead.

If I remember correctly, we are entering a wide, long hallway that leads straight into the interior of the ship. About halfway down the hallway, on either side, is a big door that leads into a cargo area. Since our intent was to secure the Stargate first, we would have opened one of the two outer doors that would let us into a hallway that has an entry into the gate room. So...on which side is the gate room, and is the door into it open or closed?

At Vasandra's order, Hilda faced the Jaffa, bellowing her orders. 'Jaffa, shield wall! Tau'ri, rear guard and protect the goddess! Kree!' The Jaffa hustled to their positions, and if they, not carrying shields, misunderstood the formation, then she was quick to shove them into the front-line regardless. 'Now we go to battle our foe, to die for glory and our goddess!' Regardless of the plan to use the Jaffa as cannon fodder, the Cimmerian was marching in the frontline too, on the left flank of the column, shield raised high and staff weapon crooked under her arm like a spear. She needed to be there to command and control the Jaffa, but there was also no way she'd miss this battle.

In reply to Hilda (msg # 4):

OOC: *ahem* So ... on which side of the hallway, relative to us as we enter from outside, is the gate room, and is the door into it open or closed?

Hilda and the Jaffa charge up the ramp and into the hallway on the cargo deck, but there are no orak'tar about.

The door to the cargo bay with the chappa'ai is on the left is open, and there is no one in the bay.

The central spiral ramps are open still. You can't hear any sounds from below or from above.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 6):

Kaspar jogs over to the cargo bay doorway, glances in, then jogs back to Vasandra.

"Goddess," Kaspar bows before Vasandra, "the bay is empty of enemies, the Star-" Kaspar grimaces, then continues, "the, uh, chappa'ai is ours. Would you have your technicians..." Kaspar nods towards Freyda and Gavin, "begin repairs now, or wait 'til a later time?" Kaspar hopes that Vasandra picks up on his emphasis of the word now.

"The Gator-Jaffa..." again Kaspar grimaces, berating himself for the slip, "I mean, the, uh, orak'tar must either be below, in the engine room, attempting repairs, or are up in the pel'tak. Given that we welded the doors, below, it's a pretty fair bet that they are all above. Or, finding the ship sabotaged, they may have returned whence they came."

Kaspar snaps a finger to gain Rajip's attention, and glances over at Hilda, nodding that she should come closer, as he finishes his 'report' to Vasandra,

"Should we rush upwards and attack them in the pel'tak, or check below first? We are yours to command, Goddess." Kaspar barely hides the smirk.

"They'll be in the pel'tak," Vasandra replies to Kaspar, more from her experiences as a pilot rather than her knowledge of these Goa'uld Dragon Lords.

"Jaffa! Guard the ramps upward! We'll secure these levels first then deal with the orak'tar."

"Freyda, Gavan, repair the chappa'ai."

"Rajip, Hilda... clear the lower levels."

"Asherrra, Kaspar... stay alert. The Dragon Lord and his orak'tar cannot return whence they came... not since I control the chappa'ai. They might have had the strength to rotate the ring, but there is still no power."

"I remind you that we are here to salvage the ha'tak. We will not leave without it, or unless it has been destroyed."

She was finding it hard to say what she meant without alerting the Jaffa that things weren't the way they thought they were. She hoped the others weren't really taking her words as serious commands, but more as suggestions... without letting the Jaffa know.

'Old fool! Use the tongue of the gods!' Hilda snarled to Kaspar at his slips, raising the back of her hand, in the manner of a Jaffa overseer she remembered from her time as a serf. She hoped he would not really take offence to her words, but she had to maintain their ruse.

She addressed Vasandra, now Angrboða, but eyed the others 'Yes, my Queen. Shall we take some of these other Jaffa?' Dividing them up seemed the best way to keep them manageable.

In reply to Hilda (msg # 9):



Kaspar grimaces - yet again! - as he bows deeply towards Hilda,

"First Prime is...wise." Kaspar says in shaky Goa'uld, "This Jaffa obeys."

Kaspar straightens up and gestures towards Asherrra,

"You! Come with me." Kaspar says in Goa'uld - unsure if Asherrra even knows any Goa'uld, he also makes an expansive 'come with me' gesture, then walks over towards the DHD, as if to provide protection for Freyda and Gavin, while they work on replacing the crystals taken from the device.

Vasandra just shrugged at Hilda's question. She figured Hilda was supposed to be the First Prime (wait... wasn't that an oxymoron?), so she'd make those decisions. A god wouldn't be expected to make that sort of decision. Do this, do that--how it got done was the First Prime's responsibility.

'You are no Jaffa! You are a Tau'ri slave!' Hilda corrected Kaspar, aware his slips could expose their ruse. 'Remember your place!'

She bowed to Vasandra, then selected four Jaffa – enough for her and Rajip to deal with alone, with surprise, if it came to it, while also weakening their numbers here – 'You, you, you, and you, with us to the lower levels. Kree!' She let the march ahead, then followed with Rajip.

Hilda and Rajip escort some Jaffa down to the engineering deck, and quickly discover that the door has been forced open, probably with the use of staff weapons. It is otherwise empty. There are no signs of the orak'tar or the Dragon Lord.

Some of the panels have been removed, but when it was discovered that the control crystals have all been removed, nobody bothered putting the panels back in place.

After quickly surveying the engineering deck, making sure there were no Jaffa in hiding, Hilda returned to the Stargate and the rest of the team. She bowed to Vasandra, reporting 'Great Angrboða, the lower levels are clear, the enemy abandoned the engineering deck. If you wish, we shall now advance and seize the pel'tak.'
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 08:41, Mon 25 Sept 2017.

He could have figured it out eventually, by trial and error, replacing each of the crystals in their proper place in the DHD. Fortunately, Freyda knew exactly where each one went, although Gavan wasn't sure if he just knew it or remembered where each one went from when they removed them. In any case, they'd kept the crystals from the DHD separate from the engineering crystals just so they wouldn't get them confused, even if many of them were otherwise identical.

Freyda told Gavan where to put the crystal, and Gavan complied. Three of the crystals were the power storage units that automatically got recharged every time the stargate was activated. This is what enabled the stargate to rotate to the proper symbol align ments.

Gavan was intrigued by the placement of the crystals, since this triangular DHD was a lot different than the circular ones back in the main part of the galaxy. Still, the core was apparently the same.

"The chappa'ai has been repaired, O Mighty Angrboda," he informed Kaspar by way of Vasandra.

Once more, she was in an awkward position, having to judge what her team leader, Kaspar, wanted to do... wanted her to do... all without any communication that might tip their hand to the new Jaffa recruits.

To be honest, she wasn't sure that anything they said would matter to the Jaffa. They were like a ship without a rudder. There had been no indication that there was anything like the Free Jaffa out here. They didn't seem to be capable of much thinking on their own, no doubt due to years of enforced obedience.

"The Slime God was able to survive on the enclosed ha'tak without any problem," she announced, "so there is no reason to think that the Dragonlord and his orak'tar cannot do the same."

She had not been aware of it, but there appeared to be some sort of osmotic function of the hull that allowed air in when needed or necessary, yet kept out the vacuum of space, and it did so without power.

And then there was the sarcophagus. It must have some sort of internal power, rather than crystals, that could not be tapped to run the ship, or else the Dragonlord would have used them already. Unless he did not know about them. The Goa'uld could be clever and cunning, though, so no reason to assume this Dragonlord wouldn't have thought of that.

No matter how she looked at it, the Dragonlord and his orak'tar had to be eliminated... one way or the other.

"Hilda, Rajip... take the Jaffa and secure the pel'tak. Either the Dragonlord must surrender to me, or else he must be destroyed!"

Her people knew all too well the heel of the Goa'uld overlords. Force is all they knew.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:18, Mon 25 Sept 2017.

In reply to Vasandra Tourmaline (msg # 16):

Off to the side, as Vasandra was issuing her orders, Kaspar was nodding slightly in approval - and hoping that Vasandra was seeing it!

Also, as Kaspar stood near the odd triangular DHD with Freda and Gavin, he had his hands resting on the P90 suspended from his combat vest, and was making slow, surreptitious circles with his right index finger - with himself, Gavin, Freda and Vasandra, herself, in the circle - then pointing at the floor in front of the DHD, before repeating.

The old man raised his eyebrows slightly, and gave Vasandra a significant look.

Hilda had hoped her counsel and requests for orders had been leading enough for Vasandra Angrboða to get the idea what she wished to do. Since what she wished was invariably battle, perhaps that just went without saying. 'I obey!' she saluted, then turned to her Jaffa. 'Jaffa! We go to confront the Dragon Lord, in the name of Lady Angrboða! Form up and march to the pel'tak. Kree!'