-SEARCH FILES: (WATCHERS)

-SEND MESSAGE:

TO: Grey L. Shard, Office Liaison, Team ‘Watchers’.

FROM: Goddess First Class Belldandy, Goddess Relief Office.

TOPIC: Operation ‘Rapid’.

PRIORITY: BLACK (Eyes Only).

Greetings, Agent Shard.

As of 1800 Hours, Standard Asgard Time, the situation is as follows:

An unknown individual has kidnapped the main cast of ‘Stargate: SG-1’ and placed them on Alternate Universe LACSUW-02089. They have come into contact with their fictional Alternates and the latter summarily went into Authored Rage. The ‘mild’ case of Rage has (so far) only affected the personnel of Cheyenne Mountain Complex, which has (as for the time of this message) gone into full lockdown.

Your team has only 5 hours before the military moves towards Cheyenne Mountain and the Rage spreads further. My sister says there’s at least a 70% probabilities that the cast will be shipped off to Area 51 for experimentation immediately after.

The mission objectives are as follows:

-Retrieve the cast, alive and unhurt.

As usual, your team has carte blanche to do whatever is required for the mission’s success, but I sincerely expect you to do your best in not inflicting fatalities.

Again, as usual, should you be captured or killed, the Offices will deny any of your actions.

May Father protect you.

-ATTACHED FILES:

-Tapping.jpg

-Shanks.jpg

-Judge.jpg.

-Anderson.jpg.

-Kidnappingcoveragenegotiatiorpassword.txt.

Music. The entire team was listening in to music, to each their own, and right now, the opening part of ‘Klendathu Drop’ was driving me into deafness, God bless Basil Poledouris for the thunderous melody. I checked the rifle one more time and then put it into its open mount on my suit’s backpack. Up front, Grey was checking with the pilot for the ETA.

I sometimes get the shakes before a drop. I suppose I shouldn’t be able to, that with all the stuff I have, but I still get them. It’s one of the small things I like-you know, make you know you’re still human. If you don’t get them, I suppose you’re gone off the end, your mind ain’t on it-or you just can’t anymore.

I finish securing my gear and get up, checking on my fellow soldiers. As I help them with their checks, they check my stuff as well-can’t ever have too many precautions. One of them-Three, Ikari-also has the shakes, but they’re definitely out of fear. I just tap him on the shoulder and walk on, seeing him straighten up and go for his suit.

He's just a kid-fourteen, on the last mission I re-checked his background... It was bad. He has nearly as much combat experience as most of the other vets. His home was a hellhole and now it just wasn't anymore.

Grey came out of the cockpit and checked on everybody’s gear as well, a routine common to all of us. He was the agreed-on leader of this little outfit, and he felt it his responsibility to make sure we all came back home. He didn’t got the shakes-he was one who couldn’t. Too much on his head, I guess.

He wasn’t a bad man at all-extremely friendly, even, once you got over the creepy looks-like the rest of us, he was one with a lousy past and the will to smash things up to make up for it.

He walked up to the end of the cargo bay (which was pretty small for a dropship, and the Marauders were in his way) and turned around to face us. Basil’s thunder drowned out as my suit radio crackled to life.

“Okay, people, you know what to do.” Grey’s voice said “You go by the numbers and out the back door as we go past. Hackett and I will secure the area, Lauren will scan, Ikari and Stingray will provide heavy weapons and Ranma and Ryoga and the guest will provide support as required.

We will move onwards towards the enemy base and go in, rescue the abducted and move out. Shoot to wound only. Y’all know we won’t leave the way we came here, people, and what we’re going against, so raise hell! Scare ‘em off so we can make a safe extraction.”

And then he snorted. “What a bunch of apes! You guys aren’t worthy more than a dime, while the guns, ammo, armor and gear you have-not to mention the freakin’ meal those guys (pointed at Saotome and Hibiki) packed-is worth more than three quarters of a million. So bring them back! We leave nothing behind but a lot of VERY hurt people, get it?!”

He said that on every jump, hop, drop and mission we started. It was his idea of a pep talk, and to tell ya the truth it didn’t worked a lot on this bunch, but it was (his) tradition.

To tell you the truth, it sounded like something Major Chip Hazard would say.

“Well, people, let’s move out!”, he said, and with that, a small amber light turned on inside my HUD-time to go.

And then the hatch opened up, showing a countryside that was roaring by at 300 MPH and some 60 feet below us. Kas’ “Oh, my!” was expected, and we all turned to look at her with a grin.

“See you down there, apes!”, Grey yelled, jumping from the ship. I followed right after, a split second of weightlessness followed by a rough pull-the small breaking chute of my suit opening up and tearing off almost as fast.

No problem, ‘cause that was it’s job. Now the suit’s jets opened up, a small pre-calculated burst meant to stabilize me and brake me down further. And that meant I was going to meet the ground at a high speed. I took it feet-first and let the inertia push me into a roll, as I’ve been taught, letting the suit take the worst of it. I even managed to draw the rifle as I rolled, coming out in a crouched aim.

Show-off.

Looking around, the suit’s HUD shown my fellow soldiers on its compass point, green dots all of them-they made it all right. The small arrow-shaped profile of the Hornet dropship flew into the distance, vanishing into the sky.

“Okay, people, by the numbers”, Grey said over the radio.

“Watcher Two here. Made it.”, I said.

“Watcher Three here. Marauder 1 on the ground, all green.”, a teen-somewhat shaky-voice said. Shinji would forever sound like a spineless wimp.

“Watcher Four here. Good.”, a cocky voice said.

“Watcher Five here. Ready.”, another teen voice (this one would have been ‘delicate’ a long time ago) said, a slight southern accent on it. (Lauren was a Kaworu-clone, and would sound like him to the grave.)

“Watcher Six here. I’m with the guest. We’re green.”, Hibiki said. (All business, but trying not to think of the fact Kasumi was with him, most probably.)

“Watcher Seven here. Marauder 2 made it.”, a voice somewhat like Three’s said. (Well, they had the same voice actor.)

“Five, check for hostiles.”, Grey said. Jack didn’t answer, going into full psychic ‘scanner’ mode, most definitely.

A minute later, Lauren came back on the radio. “We’re clear. Nothing coming our way.”

“Sure ‘bout that?” Ranma said “You said it yourself, it’s not that reliable.”

“I said we’re clear. I mean it.”, Jack said. Saotome didn’t answer.

I took a deep breath and held it for a second, then said. “Then we move, Marines. On the bounce, towards point 1.” They all acknowledged my call, and I jumped.

The suit’s jets opened up at the peak, throwing me some 20 extra feet into the air-added to the 20 the suit added to my regular hop, it was one hell of a jump. The treetops were under me and the nighttime countryside looked harmless, but I knew better than to not check it with all of the suit’s sensors. As cool as the rocket-hop was, I was a perfect target for its duration, I didn’t liked the idea of getting shot with an AA rocket as I moved, and as soon as I hit the ground, I hopped again-no sense in wasting time.

Point 1 was three hops away, a clearing a mile-and-a-half away from the enemy base (its rear perimeter, Grey had said), and I was the third person to arrive. Four and Six were already there (they were innate ‘hoppers’), and Grey crashed soon after I got there. They were grinning widely inside their helmets.

“What took ya so long, slowpokes?” Ranma said. He was he cockiest of the two, always had been.

“Shut yer hole, Saotome.” Grey said “We don’t have the assistance of ki to make the hops like you two, remember?” He then noticed the two duffel bags the guest had with her. “Where the hell is she, Hibiki?”

“Seven requested help a minute ago-got stuck in some branches on the way down, he said-so she went.” Ryoga said.

Right when he said that, a flying figure appeared, carrying a power armor-the guest and Seven. She let him down with care and landed herself-Stingray’s ‘thank you’ couldn’t have come more stuttered.

“You’re welcome”, she said.

Grey waited for Shinji to land from his hop, and then turned to the guest. “If you please, ma’am?” She smiled ever-so-slightly (it made my knees tremble) and reached for one of the duffels, pulling out a few strange devices. Grey slapped one of them onto his arm and passed them around.

“What’s this?” Saotome said.

“Sensor jammers from our dear friend Washu. She said they would jam everything within 10 feet from the user, excluding their own.” Grey said.

“You sure ‘bout that?” Stingray asked “You know how she likes to give out crackpot experimental things.”

“They’re tried and true, man.” I said “Used them myself once or twice. They’ll do the job.”

Kasumi put one of the devices on her arm, turned it on, and flew again, this time well over the tree cover. “We’re going to go over the mountain?” she said after seeing our location. Grey said then that it was from the back-least likely for them to have anything guarding other then electronic measures-and shouldn’t she be putting on her mask for them not to identify her?

She obliged, the black lead-impregnated balaclava and BDU so not her usual style. She looked like a terrorist.

We were on the bounce immediately after, two-on-two formation-two hopped, and then covered as the two behind them hopped, and so on. Grey and I spearheaded, and Basil was on standby.

We went way back, Grey and me. He’s just like me-some random loser that just got fed-up by the bad hands dealt to him by the Gods (sadistic tricksters that some of them resulted to be) and decided to make a living out of dealing payback.

He was a full-body cyborg, originally a Triax VX-500 ‘Man hunter’, and the shell had made its job quite well until he joined the outfit. So he went thru an ‘upgrade’.

Now that VX-500 shell had parts from all over the place-mainly from SICON C.H.A.S. Units and BGC Boomers-and to tell the truth, it was a bestially hap-hazard job. Deadly effective, as well.

And me? I’m just a random guy with a grudge-and the tools to make it happen. Not just the Washu-issued re-engineered SICON Mobile Infantry Trooper armor I was packing, or the M8 ‘Ape’ Marauders Shinji and Mackey packed-which, in and of themselves, were marvels-but some… other things.

Wait up; we made it to our area.

 The final hop had us straight on the top of the small mountain that housed the enemy bunker-like Grey had said, nothing on the rear but electronics, and those we had just fooled. Now we were looking down onto the bundle of soldiers coming and going from the tunnel, just waiting for the noise to start.

For that, we had brought a peculiar party favor. Grey signaled Kas to come crawling to his position, and he reached inside the same bag he had grabbed the jamming devices from.

From the inside, several shrill, squeaky computer voices said (in some alien language ‘cause we didn’t have the time to set the language to English (and not like THAT actually mattered), translation to come): “I’m a thirty-second bomb! I’m a thirty-second bomb! Twenty-nine…twenty-eight…twenty-seven…”

Grey closed the duffel bag and nodded to the guest, who stood up and raised the bag over her head, before throwing it towards the road.

 The bag hit dead center on the middle of the road some 30 feet away from the mouth of the cave. Some soldiers started to run away from the bag.

 The bag exploded with deafening thunder, a flash like the sun, and making a massive crater on the road. Grey yelled into the radio:

“ON THE BOUNCE, TROOPERS! GIVE ‘EM HELL!” before jumping down the mountain.

 Basil Poledouris’ military cadence opened up on my suit speakers as I hopped, suit jets firing to slow me down from freefall, assault rifle blazing at any targets.

 Remember the ‘perfect target’ thing? A few soldiers opened back, bullets hitting my armor and creating a cacophony of metallic sounds as they bounced off (M-16s. Small stuff). I hit the ground and opened up, cutting the legs out of a couple of them, before starting to run.

 Both Marauder suits hit the ground and opened up with their weapons, destroying nearby cover points and making them retreat farther back. I heard someone yelled something about ‘a new Kentucky!’ over the radio intercept, but I think Four got him with a ki attack.

 Guards appeared packing heavier guns-missile launchers, for one-but Lauren took care of them, raising his A.T. Field. The hexagonal psi-shield took the blasts with no problem, and Kas started firing back with a handgun-pretty good shot, too.

 At Grey’s yells of ‘Go, GO, GO!!!’ we ran for the tunnel. The Marauder suits went first, opening up with flamethrowers inside to keep the soldiers running away, and Five’s Field blocked people from coming from the outside. Now all we had to bother with was the massive metal door at the end of it-and Kasumi simply said ‘let me handle it’.

 She grabbed a hold on one side of the massive door and squared her shoulders before starting to pull-almost immediately; the damned thing groaned and started to bend outwards.

 “Somebody fire inside!” Grey yelled, and I shoved the Morita inside the opening hole and fired the grenade launcher. The explosion of the flash-bang was drowned by the groaning metal, and the massive door was finally bent to the appropriate size-with barely enough space for the Marauders.

For what it was worth, I charged inside and fanned the Morita, wounding any personnel that tried to fire back. I wasn’t here for kills-not today.

As I made a turn, I came face-to-face with a soldier with a massive rifle and… was that freakin’ vehicle armor plates for a vest?

He fired the rifle point-blank on my chest, a burst or so, throwing me back against the wall. Damn it, I couldn’t breathe!. He looked down at the rifle-surprised I wasn’t dead, I guess-and summarily kicked me in the chest. There was a groan as the armor bent inwards.

 The guy was grinning-oh, shit. I just had to get the sadist….

 He didn’t have a clue, but Kas had just come from behind him and slugged him. It was a hell of a blow (I swear I could almost hear a sonic boom) that threw his head to the side and made him spit blood. It was an Insta-K.O., as well.

 She looked down at me. “Are you all right?” Damn. She didn’t even sound mad.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. The damn gorilla there just got me in a bad spot, that’s it.”

“Two, report.” Grey said as he came close.

“Got a slug in the chest and a kick by that guy over there. Armor took it, though.”

I knew Grey was accessing my suit’s med-sensors. “Hackett, you’re with the guest.”

“Grey, you know I can keep the spearhead. Got worse and all…”

The cyborg brooked no arguments. “Stay with the guest. Got it?”

I tried my damnedest not to sigh, but rules were rules-he ordered, so I’d stick with her. “Acknowledged.”

Grey then turned and fired a burst from his arm machinegun to some guy sneaking from behind (caught him in all extremities, too). “Six, I TOLD you to secure the area!” he barked.

“I KNOW!-Ryoga yelled back-But he ran out of the freakin’ elevator like the Roadrunner! I couldn’t make the shot!”

Grey almost seemed to grin. “Anybody near that elevator: shoot back; keep their heads down.” he ordered before turning back to me “Stay with her.”

I grabbed the Morita and followed him, her next to me. “You all right?” she asked with concern.

I didn’t bother to answer. I knew damn well she had seen me with that sight of hers.

 We came to the elevator to find Lauren and Hibiki shooting it out with the guards-they were fitted with the same jacket as the KO’d Kid back there, and weren’t risking going into the corridor.

Yet.

Grey signaled Kasumi to come closer, and made gestures, saying something about blowing on them. She nodded and squared herself for a run.

Grey hollered ‘SUPRESSIVE FIRE!’ on the all-units frequency and then signaled her to go-and go she did, running the gauntlet faster than lightning. And then she took a breath and blew it out into the elevator-the metals screamed, drowned out by a sound like a hurricane, and then human screams as the thing fell back down the shaft. I barely heard the crash.

Grey just dropped a grenade down the shaft (it released a dull green gas-knockout, most probably), opened the radio in all-units frequency and grimly said: “Everybody, rendezvous at Elevator Shaft 5. I repeat-all Watchers, Elevator Shaft 5.”, then turned to Kas.

“If you could, ma’am?”

She nodded and handed him the other duffel bag (had she ever took it off, anyway?), from which he removed 7 grapple guns (five standard and two hi-power for the Marauders) and a last gizmo. He then started to attach the cables to the inside of the shaft. Five and Six took the moment to reload their guns and attach them to their suits.

 Three, Four and Seven came in soon after. Both metal gorillas had been modified shortly before this mission to be made as small as structurally possible, but they were still a tight fit inside the corridors.

The three of them had blood splattered all over them, and both Marauders had dents where people had gotten lucky hitting them with heavy weapons. Ranma had a knife out aside from the Morita, and it also was blood-stained, the grin faded from his face.

The rest of the team decided to not ask him anything, and Grey just passed him one of the lines.

“Our targets are at Level 28. We don’t know what they might throw at us, but if they have anything more dangerous than what we had faced, they would have thrown it at us a long while ago.” he said “Seven and Four go first, the rest after. Two-on-two, search for the targets and go for the briefing room. First team there secures and dials.”

We all nodded.

And went down the shaft. No-one tried to attack us while we were inside it, and Kas pried the doors at the bottom easily if a little hurried (she was holding her breath).

Guns fired like mad from inside, peppering Kasumi (they did nothing) and us (both Marauders were up front, just in case). The knockout gas took care of the small bunch, and then we all went in and split.

 Kas and I went straight for the holding cells, encountering little resistance-and I knew for a fact that wasn’t good.

And then I made a turn… -WHAM!-I got hit in the chest (AGAIN) and thrown back several feet and into a slide, my helmet sounding like a cathedral bell when it hit the wall.

Some crazy wanna-be superhero in blue and red spandex, blonde with a domino mask. The Superman shield with a star in the middle-God, did EVERYBODY on this town thought they were that MORON?

(And I know THAT for a fact. I once got my teeth loosened thanks for that jackass-for asking his daughter directions, even! SHEESH!)

I drew my sidearm only to have her vanish in a second and then appear in front of me. She stomped on my left wrist, completely flattening the suit and the cyber arm beneath. The gun was still good-I just had to grab it without losing the other hand.

Where the HELL was Kas…?

I got the answer in the form of my Morita, which stuttered like mad in her hands and peppered Ms. Red and Blue with lead. The bullets bounced off her like hail, but it was a good diversion.

She turned to face Kas-her eyes glowing an angry red-I reached for the Deagle and aimed it straight to her knee, fired without hesitation.

The blue was turned into purple, she screamed like a banshee-even more when I fired it to the OTHER knee. She went down holding both knees.

Yeah, yeah, lady. Why don’t you try losing your organs sometime? I did.

THAT is painful.

 Kasumi didn’t try to ask me anything, there was a lot of hurt in her eyes-so I just grabbed the Morita from her hands, no thanks given.

There was one thing you learned fast on this business: Alternates would look like people you love, they sound and smell and act and no one could tell any difference-but they were NOT.

I banged twice on the cell door and called the targets’ names-which they answered quickly and as arranged. I nodded to Kas, and she opened the door.

 Inside were alternate versions of the flagship team of this hole-rather, the actors that represented them. They looked at my now-missing-a-hand-arm, the horribly-bent armor, ‘The Guest’, the mask on the ground yelling her (highly-powered) lungs out.

The blonde woman of the bunch ventured to ask:

“You’re with the insurance company?”

I nodded (it wasn’t a lie… THAT much). The one with glasses muttered something about “Can’t believe that a kidnapping coverage could reach even to a place like THIS”, and they followed us. I got one of them to help me put the blonde on the cell and lock it tight-let the medics deal with her later.

Every corridor we came by was full of hurt people (kudos to the rest of the Watchers for not killing anybody, even if it scared the targets) and we arrived to the gate room with no extra hassle.

 Grey was already working on the Stargate with the last Gizmo, what looked to be a miniaturized DHD with a bulky, WWII walkie-talkie battery pack attached to it. The seven chevrons were already in place, iris open and all, but we still weren’t clear to go. Grey pushed a small button on the mini-DHD and the Stargate closed and opened the chevrons again before starting to spin again. This time, wherever a chevron was ‘locked’, the light just changed to glow a jade green.

“Secondary chevrons are go.-he said-Everybody ready?”

Kasumi shook as if hearing a loud noise and said: “She’s coming.”

The chevrons ended their spin-the address to Earth-and the whole ‘water’ thing happened, with no extra colors or anything outrageously unusual of that sort. Well, the ‘waterspout’ effect was larger than usual, almost reaching to the control room windows.

“All right, people, get to the other side now”, Grey said, pushing the targets forward. Again in twos, one target and one of the Watchers for protection-not that we were that scared of what was beyond. A gun popped out of Grey’s shoulder, a double-barreled contraption like the one from that second ‘Robocop’ cyborg. The ‘small’ BFG, we called it.

 Only Grey, Kas and I stayed on the room when the blonde charged in, flying and eyes blazing. We opened up on her to distract her from the BFG (and it’s hard to fire a Morita with only a hand and a stump, lemme tell ya). She looked my way and I put the stump in the way of the heat beam, seeing (rather than feeling) the stump melting under the heat, all the way to the elbow (personally, I’d rather not have my Morita melted, thankyouverymuch).

Grey’s shoulder gun tracked her and fired both barrels, the slugs throwing her backwards and into the Gate control room thru the window.

 Damned cyborg looked like he was swaggering when we went thru the Gate (Kas left one of my grenades behind to ‘dissuade’ folks). No wonder, since he was usually the ‘beat-up’ guy (a position I’ve recently taken over).

 The Gate on the other side was massive-you could easily taxi a medium private jet thru it-and the room was just as big-you could roll said jet to it with no fuzz. The Hornet was there, ready for another mission.

The targets were looking around the room in shock as we walked down the ramp.

“Whoa.”, the middle-aged man (well, he had white hair on the sides) said. “Guess you’re not the conventional kidnapping coverage-issued negotiators.”

“And who said we were?” Ranma said, back into his cocky mode (or was it mood?).

“We’re a specialized unit for trans-dimensional retrieval, defense and attack. We’re called ‘the Watchers’.” Grey said “And if you’re going to give me Buffy jokes and/or Highlander ones in return, please keep them to yourself.”

Have you ever tried to argue with a Boomer, especially one on combat mode? It is one of those things listed universally as ‘only by people with mental illness, death wishes, or both’. The middle-aged guy was not under any of those (can’t say the same about his character, though), so he just nodded in agreement.

Ikari took the initiative “If you could follow me, then, you have to follow some forms-non-disclosure and all that. It’s just something to please our boss.”

The four people obediently followed the power armored teen thru the exit of the room, leaving me to look down at my missing forearm (and it was good it wasn’t real-I would have spilled blood all over by now), still smoking.

None of the Watchers said any questions, so I lost my arm, big freaking’ deal. Only Kasumi was concerned. Grey noticed that and told her to move me to the med bay, and then dismissed us all (well, after I went there) until next mission-maybe in a couple of days or so, with our luck.

The Watchers were out there for one reason-make sure crap like this never happened to anybody. Me, Grey, Four (Saotome)… we had all been kidnapped from our home dimensions. My own experience had been hell (and Grey’s too, I don’t know anything ‘bout Saotome, but he hates some Alternate versions of himself a lot). It was mostly out of a ‘never again’-kind of vote that the outfit had been created (or rather, we accepted when given the chance to make it).

 The rest of the Watchers had joined in out of a sickness of being treated like losers and desire to try to make a change they could be remembered by. And Kasumi, well, we were still looking for her home dimension (but it was one somewhat like the one we just left, so it kind of trimmed it down a little… I hoped).

 Once on the med bay, I walked towards one of the scanners on the side. It was built like those weapon detectors on ‘Total Recall’ (good movie, that one), capable of scanning even thru the power armor-which was good, because missing one arm didn’t make it easy to remove. I just powered it up and walked thru, not missing her gasp (guess X-ray vision only gives fractures away-I, for one, can’t guess).

“T-this thing says that part of the internal armor is completely caved in the chest area. I-internal hemorrhages and the arm…” Guess she was flabbergasted.

“The arm is nothing. Just a prosthetic, metal, plastic, some cloned skin to not freak out people.” She immediately asked what about me. Tell ya the truth; I’m the last guy she should ask. I can’t understand even half of the comic-book science behind WHAT I am (and I get dizzy thru the Cliff’s Notes version).

All I can guess is that they started wanting Captain America, Nick Fury, Superman, the Master Chief and Jack O’Neill together in one guy and they conformed with Jason Voorhees-meets-Yusuke Urameshi (early series, none of that ‘half-demon, heir of Raizen’ crap). With a head on his shoulders.

Kasumi understood, apparently-at least, she stopped looking at me like I was going to drop dead any second now. “Hey, once we’re outta here, how about going to that ice cream place Grey’s friend attends? My treat.” I had a ‘recurring client’ discount coupon I wanted to throw away, in any case.

She said ‘yes’ immediately after (that soft voice of hers always made my knees shake). You gotta love a girl who accepts sweets.