"Attention!" Krel shouted, and a hundred warriors instantly stood at attention.
I walked past them, stepping into the center of the formation. Here stood warriors bearing the symbols of Ra and those bearing my own mark. It's worth delving into Goa'uld lore to understand the meaning of these brands on the Jaffa's foreheads. Essentially, they are the personal crests of the Lords, similar to those that existed in medieval times. As a minor Lord, I wasn't allowed to brand the Jaffa, but my Ankh could exist for a very simple reason—to identify enemies and allies. Branding a Jaffa is forbidden, but using the symbol as a banner is permitted.
Everything changed when I defeated Pelops: he had the right to brand his warriors, and by defeating him, I acquired his privileges. The Jaffa Ra who remain with me see nothing strange in this, as everything is in accordance with the laws (even though they only know part of the Imperial laws, I constantly keep them under the iron fist of training). If I were to publicly announce Pelops's death, it would elevate me to the rank of lord almost automatically. By right of conquest, but that would attract too much attention. There's a good reason why there's a saying: "Don't declare yourself a lord until you have thirty huttaks." This is the bitter experience of the Goa'uld, and tens of thousands have paid for disregarding this simple rule. I still have twenty-three ships left to go. If my shipyards can produce five huttaks every four years, then simple math suggests it will take sixteen to twenty years.
"You have been gathered because your commander, Krel, has secured a khattak, bringing himself glory, honor, and respect," I declared, my voice amplified by a double echo. "Every one of you is a volunteer. You will regret joining the Space Marines a billion times over, for the tame training that ordinary Jaffa undergo daily is no longer for you. Your task is to capture starships. In small groups, you will defeat entire armadas that stand in your way. In victory, you will bring me ships, and even in defeat, you will activate bombs that destroy the enemy vessel. But I have no use for blown-up ships or your corpses, so you will win... ALWAYS. And to achieve this, the training you will undergo will be far closer to that of my Angels than to others."
Did I imagine it, or did I see a few of them flinch? Yes, me and my legendary training… so they wouldn't see how, behind their backs, their lord simply betrays the Empire every day.
"After these, you will be able to capture any Goa'uld ship, even if you are deaf-blind and mute, or I am not the Lesser Lord Szarekh!"
I've indeed developed a few inventions to support my version of the Space Marines, but frankly, the majority of successful boardings will have less to do with their training than with the luck and stupidity of the Goa'uld themselves. Let's start with why boarding isn't used universally (as they understand it): you need to catch a ship in the brief window when the shields are down and haven't yet recharged. At the same time, boarding tactics themselves require a special approach. A Hattak without shields never stops firing, and this poses a problem with destroying enemy landings. This means you need soldiers with sufficiently good equipment, which the Goa'uld don't usually hand out.
These troops are practically suicide bombers, as they'll be fighting outnumbered and in tight corridors. Now I'll explain why I'll be successful. I'm fighting in a defensive formation, and I can afford to provide supporting fire from captured ships. I can also provide the landing force with my advanced equipment. Plus, the Goa'uld don't have any advanced anti-boarding devices—they're constantly using those SG-1s as if they were right at home. With sufficiently powerful weapons and shields, I can deal with the crew. However, that's not all: Goa'uld network systems are pathetic. Believe it or not, I was apparently the first to think of using passwords as an access system.
I have extremely strict network security, no jokes like, "Put a virus-infected crystal into a computer and there goes the Huttak, unshielded." Connection protocols are paranoid, and there are several isolated systems. For example, shield emitters and turrets are located along the corridors of my ships. And they're not controlled from a single control panel—the ship is divided into sections, each with a security post monitoring everything via CCTV cameras. So if some bastard tries to board me, they'll face the full force of my paranoia. Without following a specific procedure and entering the required passwords, not a single crystal can be changed. If this happens, the armor panels and shields in the corresponding section are automatically activated, and a squad of extremely angry Jaffa rushes into that section. The computer, meanwhile, switches to backup systems. All critical areas of the ship—the main computer, the backup computer, the shield generators, and the main reactor—are heavily fortified.
By the way, here's something I've noticed: the Goa'uld are really bad at computers and programming. Apparently, it's because they didn't develop this technology themselves and haven't formed a digital society to understand what "demons" lurk there. For example, when the Asgard handed me the needle threader program, I realized... A team of thirty programmers could have written it in a month. Maybe a little faster, but it would have taken some time to test. It's simply shameful. Okay, I'm not a programmer, and it would have taken me five years to do it on my own.
So, one of the weapons in my arsenal will be combat viruses designed to penetrate the Hattak's systems and completely disable their functionality. Writing them is a real headache, as it's not so much the virus itself as the subsequent patching of the hole it discovered in the operating system. I wonder if it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to ask Asgard for a good antivirus? No, that's too crazy. It would be better to create a programming research institute when the Tok'ra arrive, and a hacker research institute in parallel. Let them fight. For the sake of my future safety.
As someone who played Cyberpunk 2077, I know what a good hacker is capable of. Sure, it's just a game, but it reflects reality. In my time, every normal nation had fully-fledged military hacker units tasked with both attacking and defending information vaults. Cyberpunk explores the "what if?" theme of cyberspace combat on an unimaginable scale, not to mention the power of skilled hackers depicted there is practically on par with ravers. And Bartkos destroyed the Internet, not to mention the existence of combat AIs in that universe whose sole purpose is to destroy their enemies. There, most network systems are infected with millions, if not billions, of AIs created by ravers. In that universe, software can force a person to commit suicide or turn them berserk. It's a good thing the Goa'uld didn't play Cyberpunk, otherwise they would have had too many bad ideas.
I'll have a sufficient number of boarding weapons, both software and infantry. I've also developed landing pods based on various Goa'uld technologies. When the landing ships arrive, there will be somewhere to store them. There's a design for a gate jumper, but I'm having trouble making it compact enough. A standard jumper has two engines, while I have one large one, located entirely in the aft section, which could pose problems with the number of troops I can carry. Something like that will take more time.
But I can boast of a significant improvement to the Alkesh. What's a typical Alkesh? It's a flying ten-story building with a dual-cannon huttak and a plasma bomb generator. Seriously, it's 69 meters long, 54 meters at its widest point, and 25 meters high. And such an extremely expensive tool is used as a short-range bomber—an example of the Goa'uld's inefficient use of resources. Sure, it's a good patrol craft and space bomber, but only MLAs, which cost a thousand times less (not to mention the labor involved), can shoot them down en masse. So I immediately corrected this oversight by adding twelve turrets with railguns covering the rear hemisphere.
The plasma turret is poor at shooting down fighters. Two plasma cannons are mounted on the wingtips, on rotating mounts that can be folded into the hull (for repairs or calibration, for example). On the upper decks, well above the cockpit, was a large railgun capable of firing a ten-kilogram projectile at ten kilometers per second. With this weapon, I can at least keep this expensive bomber off the planet's surface, where it could be shot down with MANPADS. Generally speaking, it's a very bad idea to use a large warship in an atmosphere and then use it as a frontline bomber. In a normal state (i.e., in space), it can withstand a few shots from a Hattak, but in an atmosphere, it's destroyed by the light cannons of gliders. One, not dozens. So it's better to come up with something else for the frontline bomber or dropship functions, like a Teltak. When I have proper missiles, I'll install them too, for good measure. Incidentally, I passed on all the data on railgun weapons to the Tollans, pointing out that if a Goa'uld smart enough like me were to come along, they could build a larger cannon and begin bombarding Tollans from a distance, within a couple of light minutes. Railguns are completely useless against ships, as Goa'uld shields can withstand upwards of ten to fifteen gigantons of damage.
My Asgard-enhanced shield is 30. At the same time, unless it's a pistol shot, any ship can evade it. Planets are much more predictable targets, and no one has planetary shield technology. Furthermore, according to the general principles of simple profitability, orbital bombardments of planets are a rare event. The Goa'uld species wouldn't have survived if they did it often. Perhaps it would be worth installing a couple of large-caliber weapons as a defensive measure. Ships exit hyperspace either outside the system or by using the planet's gravity as a guide. Exiting near a full-fledged defense network is a fool's errand, but there's a small chance you can catch enemy ships before they activate their shields. Thanks to the station's systems, you can determine the hyperspace exit point. Unless it's abruptly changed, of course—a risky trick, but possible if you need to conceal your exit point from the enemy.
My upgraded Alkesh's crew, originally ten, can now accommodate an additional twenty. These additions are primarily landing parties, ready to disembark and head to their target at a moment's notice. I'm implementing a new management style across my entire team, and the Alkesh is no exception. It now has a captain's chair, as well as workstations for a sensor operator, chief gunner, engineer, and technician. I even had to train some Jaffa in the basics of ship repair. Of course, I didn't forget the thousands of hours of training. McVay, a veteran sea dog and ruthless commander, strove for perfection. His aspirations are justified, and I have confidence in the combat readiness of the fleet, which tirelessly hones its skills. Incidentally, thanks to these training exercises, I discovered asteroid deposits of naquadah, and now I'm puzzling over how to mine them.
"Now it's time for you to familiarize yourself with your new gear. Appreciate it and be deadly."
Let's see what becomes of these Space Marines. The ideas are extremely promising, but their implementation will decide everything. I feel death breathing down my neck. Or rather, not me—thanks to the Goa'uld consciousness, my sense of self-preservation is dulled. My home is in danger. It's infuriating, and I'm not even entirely sure whose consciousness it is—a human or a Goa'uld. The Goa'uld are very territorial, after all, and attacks on their worlds truly infuriate them. Indeed, if such attacks irritate them so much, why don't they invest in the development of their own worlds? I still can't understand these Goa'uld. But it doesn't matter: anyone who encroaches on my planet will be destroyed.