Chapter 17

Shenwrab Miwo had three worlds to conquer, Kataki, Sa Dong, and Laska. Of them, Kataki was the Capital World. It was there that all his workshops and cities were, along with his Shipyard. The City of Gser Pho Brang on Kataki was the nerve center of Shenwrab Miwo's Domain, centered around his Golden-Roofed Palace. It was also where the most resistance would occur, which was why I was taking the bulk of my Fleet and Army. Shenwrab Miwo had a sizable fleet, two Ha'tak Cruisers, and six Al'kesh Gunships. They almost always stayed on-station above Kataki unless on campaign, owing to the shipyard there. It was where I planned to lead forces myself, along with Chen, my First Prime, while Generals Yan and Tsao would be leading the efforts to Conquer Sa Dong and Laska.

Of those two, Sa Dong was the technically more valuable world. A Mountainous planet, Sa Dong was flush with resources. Trinium, Naquadah, Various Heavy Metals, and Rare Earth Minerals. It was Rich in resources and the population lived in Dzong-Style Fortress Villages near the mines in the mountains. These were largely connected by terrace roads carved out of the mountainsides by Goa'uld Mining Lasers. The Stargate was likewise located in a Fortress in the mountains, guarded by Jaffa at all times to prevent enemy attack. Unfortunately, our assault coming by ship would allow us to bypass those defenses and largely land troops wherever. General Yan would be leading that attack while I kept Shenwrab Miwo's Naval Forces busy at Kataki.

Laska, by contrast, was a world of plains and rivers, providing a large agricultural surplus. Previously the Domain of the Goa'uld Mokosh, a Daughter of Svarog who escaped her Father's Court as she had been marked as abnormal. She had set up shop on Laska and created a prosperous agricultural society only for Shenwrab Miwo to demand that she become his queen. When she refused, Shenwrab Miwo seized Laska by force and placed Mokosh in Canoptic Stasis as a trophy of his victory. Laska only had one real city, that of Myu Gyu, which had previously been the town of Kiełkować before the invasion of Shenwrab Miwo and the subsequent purge. Of course that happened three generations ago and there were none living who remembered the old language and names. The majority of the population lived in small hamlets around various patches of farmland. General Tsao would be dealing with Laska.

All this meant that when I arrived in orbit of Kataki with the Xiaotian Quan, Opele, Tiānlóng, and Hēilóng, along with the recently repaired Rồng Núi and Mũitên Den, Shenwrab Miwo's Fleet jumped to attention. Two Ha'tak Cruisers, the Mudung, and Ralgri advanced with a spread of Al'kesh behind them. As they did so, Chen looked over at his Console and smirked. Looking back at me, he saluted and began to report.

"We are being hailed, My Lord." He announced.

"I'll bet we are. Four Ha'taks and Two Unknown Ships? Plus they should be receiving reports that all of their worlds are under attack by Al'kesh as well. If they were not hailing us, I would be concerned." I grinned.

"Shall I patch them through, My Lord?" Questioned Chen.

"Do so. I suppose we ought to see what they have to say for themselves. Perhaps we can induce a surrender?" I mused.

Chen moved to patch the hail into my Command Throne on the Pel'tac and the face of a Tibetan Goa'uld in official robes with a small, bronze, and gold, hat of office appeared. His eyes glowed as he beheld me, which belied the fact I was speaking to another Go'auld instead of a Jaffa.

"I am Gyalpo Pehar, Underlord of Sa Dong and Commander of the Fleets of the Great One, Shenwrab Miwo. My Lord asks why you have come here with your Warships and Armies? I have been instructed to ask if there is a way to avoid conflict?" Queried the Goa'uld, Gyalpo Pehar.

"I am Erlang Shen, Grand Chancellor and Nephew of the Exalted Jade Emperor, my Uncle Yu Huang Shang Ti. I have come to conquer your Lord's Worlds, though I am open to gaining them by diplomacy." I answered.

"I fear the Great One will not allow such to happen. However, I must admit, your forces are mightier than we are able to contest. Is there no other way forward?" Asked Gyalpo Pehar.

"I trust not Shenwrab Miwo to keep his word should he be made a vassal. His treatment of Mokosh is all the proof of his vindictiveness I require to withhold that trust." I intoned.

"Mokosh was Abnormal. It is the policy of the Great One that such Goa'uld are only to be given a single chance to kneel before being annihilated should they prove recalcitrant." Frowned Gyalpo Pehar with a brief wince.

That frown and wince were unconscious. They only crossed Gyalpo Pehar's face for a moment, but that one moment of visible uncomfortableness told me everything I needed to know about Gyalpo Pehar's situation. Either he himself was Abnormal and had knuckles under for Shenwrab Miwo, or he had been fond of someone who had died in Shenwrab Miwo's purge of Mokosh's Court, possibly he had even been courting Mokosh herself. There had been rumors of the Queen of Laska having a secret King who had never been uncovered, after all. Either way, I could exploit his situation to pick up an easy win here.

"I will make you a counter-proposal. Your Fleet will not survive against my own. Join with me. Help me to depose Shenwrab Miwo, and I will take your oath of fealty. You will be allowed to keep Sa Dong as its governor." I offered.

For a few moments, nothing happened, Gyalpo Pehar seemed to simply mull over my offer. Then, in a single fluid motion, he pulled a Zat'nic'tel from his waist and fired four pulses into his two bodyguards. The Jaffa both slumped to the ground, dead. Some of the other Jaffa on the Pel'tac pulled Zats of their own only to be gunned down by yet other Jaffa. I noticed all the Jaffa that had been downed bore one symbol on their brow, a swirling Gyonkil, the Symbol of Shenwrab Miwo. The still-standing Jaffa all bore cloud symbols on their brows, which I had to assume meant they were Gyalpo Pehar's own Jaffa. It seemed like he had taken me up on my offer, but I had to be sure.

"Shall I assume that means you agree to my terms?" I questioned.

"Shenwrab Miwo took someone precious to me simply because that is how a Goa'uld should act in the situation he was in. For her sake, and for those of my subjects, I accept your offer." Concurred Gyalpo Pehar.

"Excellent. Call me when you have secured your fleet. We shall take his world from his together." I grinned.

Then I cut the feed. It seemed that while Gyalpo Pehar was not born Abnormal, he had been radicalized to be similar enough to an Abnormal Goa'uld by Shenwrab Miwo's purge of Laska and Mokosh's Court to be able to be worked with. Oh, I held no illusions that his primary motivator wasn't a mix of simple self-preservation and revenge, but there was the beginning of understanding. That was something it would normally take centuries to develop, which spoke of something traumatic that he developed it at his age. After all, if Gyalpo Pehar was more than two centuries old I would eat my Kara-Kesh. Perhaps a Mate Bond severed by Shenwrab Miwo's actions. It may be a dirty move to use those motivations to my advantage, but I would balance those scales by furthering Gyalpo Pehar's enlightenment.

In the end, I only had to shoot down three of the Al'kesh who tried to make a break for it and run to hyperspace. Gyalpo Pehar had managed to secure the remainder of the fleet after a short, three-hour, Civil War. Apparently, the majority of the fleet had been staffed with Jaffa loyal to Gyalpo Pehar. The Shipyard was similar, with us only having to swat down a single squadron of Ptah-class Fighters and send in reinforcements as a boarding party to ensure that the Prime of the Shipyard, a Jaffa named Jinpa who served as one of the Third Primes of Shenwrab Miwo, didn't set the self-destruct to active to deny us the shipyard. Chen handled that personally alongside Gyalpo Pehar's First Prime, a Jaffa named Konchok, and after four hours, we had the orbitals under our control. In the meantime, both Gyalpo Pehar and I sent stand-down orders to our forces on Sa Dong.

Once General Yan returned with his Al'kesh and Jaffa Battalions, we could proceed with the planning for the ground invasion of Kataki. As I waited for General Yan to return, however, I received an encrypted message from Zelida. Apparently, the Tok'ra High Council had agreed to my request to share all technical information from their mission to Si Fa Xaymni. That could only mean that what they found there was more important to them than any of the recovered technology. Something that didn't fall under technical information. I had my suspicions about what it was, but couldn't say for certain. It could just be a trove of old blackmail on Ra or something similar, I didn't want to be too hasty. If it was what I thought it was, however, then they might be on track to get Tretonin Production up and running, which would be very helpful.

Regardless, I was given free rein to reverse engineer all of the equipment found on the sunken Ha'tak. That in and of itself would be a boon, especially as word of Ra withdrawing to Abydos in anger after a failed assassination attempt on Mirey that had caused him to raze Moloc's Capital City of Qart to the ground from orbit. The first part of that was more interesting to me than the second. Molecules would just be replaced, but Ra going to Abydos quite literally precipitated the fall of the Empire the first time around. True, there had been a grace period before anyone had confirmed Ra's death, but it meant that time was catching up with me and my window of time to play conqueror in the borderlands was closing.

After all, these Minor and Abnormal Independent Goa'uld would be the first targets of any System Lord looking to expand. A whetstone to sharpen their blades on before attacking their rivals. If I wanted to consolidate any more worlds under my auspices, I would have to do it quickly, preferably within the next few months before the first hints of something going wrong with Ra happened. If I spent the Grace Period building up, I could be in an excellent position once order fully broke down in the Empire. That would only happen if I could keep these victories flowing, though. Things would only get harder from here on out, after all. My early victories would need to snowball if I had any chance of survival.

Of course, on the heels of that message came another. My Uncle had decided to come visit me. Apparently, he'd heard of my success in the Borderlands and wanted to take possession of the tributes he was owed from the conquests as my Overlord. It seemed he planned to turn that into a longer visit, using the concerned uncle approach. He would be arriving on Taiji in three weeks, roughly seven days from the end of the month. I would have to cut any campaigns short at least a week in advance of that date, just in case, which meant I had two weeks of campaigning left before I had to call it quits. That being so, it behooved me to finish Shenwrab Miwo as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, not one hour after reading that message, General Yan arrived from Sa Dong. We could finally lay out a plan for the ground invasion of Kataki. Once we'd won on the ground, all that would be left would be to ship troops to Laska to back up General Tsao if he wasn't done there. Then we could hit the next stretch of worlds under Tengri. That would likely be that until I could convince my Uncle to leave Taiji. As I made my way to the conference room, I figured that this would be plenty of worlds for now. Between the six I already had and the fourteen I would add from the Borderlands, Ten without Tengri's worlds, that would put me at twenty worlds, sixteen without Tengri. That was just enough to match Camulus and Svarog, who had nineteen and twenty-one worlds respectively and mine would be a lot more built up.

All I had to do was finish my conquest early and somehow convince Lord Yu to allow me to keep them. Maybe I could offer him other worlds in exchange? A conquest for conquest deal as I'd proposed with Olokun? It might work, especially since my Uncle would not be the one bearing the expense of building up the Borderlands conquests. It was certainly something to think about, and perhaps adding in a Tel'tak in Attack Configuration or some Prometheus-class Fighters as a sweetener would help. Either way, there was one thing that was certain. If I wanted to get there, I had to take the next step in front of me first. Entering the conference room, I looked around at the faces seated around the table. Chen, General Yan, Gyalpo Pehar, and Gyalpo Pehar's First Prime, Konchok.

"Gentlemen, let us plan the end of Shenwrab Miwo." I intoned.

I then sat down and we got to work. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, here's the next chapter. A bit of wheeling and dealing from Erlang Shen nets him another Vassal and the Orbitals of Kataki. Now he has to actually get to the hard work of planetary invasion. Honestly, he's going to have conquered ten worlds by the time Shenwrab Miwo goes down, and may conquer another four before having to leave for Taiji to meet with Lord Yu and offer tribute. He'll have twenty worlds if he can pull it off. That's actually more worlds than Camulus has, though it's one less than Svarog. That would make him eligible for the title of System Lord.

He'll have to negotiate with Lord Yu for that, though. Not only would Yu be losing the recently-conquered Borderlands Worlds, but also the six worlds of Taiji Province if he accepted. While Yu is more willing to allow that than any other Goa'uld in the Empire, he's going to need an incentive to do so. More benevolent doesn't mean he does shit for free, after all.

At any rate, the next chapter will be the start of the ground invasion of Kataki.

Stay tuned. . .