Tok'ra operatives meet again.
"Report," Malik said, looking around at those present.
"A certain mercenary lord has appeared," Mirra began, her voice even, but already tinged with tension. "The domains of Agni and Sunya are engulfed in flames. There's a chance they'll fall within a week, becoming vassals of Indra and Vritra. This will create an additional vector of power in the region, challenging Nirrti herself."
"Why didn't we react in time?" Malik clenched his fists.
"The forces involved in the offensive were colossal," Myrrah replied. "No less than seventy thousand Jaffa, reinforced by squadrons of highly trained Threader pilots. The attack was carried out with low-yield bombs, but they were enough to reduce any Jaffa concentration to ash. The world to which Agni retreated with a portion of his Jaffa came under intense attack, but they were able to repel the Coggorth. The mercenary lord himself retreated, but it wasn't defeat, but rather an unwillingness to waste his forces. When he focused on one world, that world was doomed. Any survivors would undoubtedly fall to Vritra."
"Who hired him?" Malik turned back to Mirra.
"Indra," she explained. "She planned to use him against the Agni-Surya-Vritra Alliance, to ascend to the position of Elder Lord herself. But she conspired with Nirrti to discover the identity of this mercenary lord. Indra sent him to Nirrti's planets, where an ashrak was already waiting for him. The ashrak was destroyed, but the mercenary lord would not tolerate such betrayal. Now Indra will never be able to hire him. He contacted Vritra himself, offering his services. In response, Vritra contacted Indra, manipulating her into an alliance. Together, they decided to divide the captured domains.
"He managed to kill the ashrak?" Malik couldn't believe it.
Mirra activated the projector, showing a video feed apparently captured from Jaffa helmets. The Tok'ra were particularly drawn to the security systems deployed by the mercenary against attacks from invisible enemies.
"Nirrti? Can she do anything?" Malik asked when the video ended.
"Her chapaai are blocked by the incoming tunnel," Mirra replied. "The only way to transport troops is by ship, but the situation is developing too quickly. Even if she were to stop this carnage, she would only do so to subjugate Agni and Surya, not make them vassals, since they only have a small number of troops left."
"Are there any details about his troops?" Malik asked again.
"Yes," Myrrah extracted the crystal and inserted it into the projector. "Agni interrogated the Jaffa who fought the mercenary, even employing thought-visualization technology. But Vritra obtained this data." The image of a Jaffa in skeletal armor appeared on the screen. Instead of chainmail, these warriors wore cloth underarmor, and the armor itself had more elements than a typical Jaffa: a cuirass, greaves, sabatons, groin protection, and gauntlets. Someone had enough resources to equip every warrior with such equipment.
No one had ever seen these Jaffa without their skeletal helmet. Their working arm held weapons resembling a Z-wing, grenades, a staff, and a shield. The shield possessed energy field technology, just as it had several years ago, but now all Jaffa wielded it. The accuracy of the Jaffa mercenary lord remained just as legendary. One or two shots—and another corpse appeared. Then came tracked vehicles with cannons. They carried troops and covered the advance, destroying enemies with heavy plasma charges. Light antigravity vehicles, each carrying a single man, followed. They were used as light cavalry, scouting and shelling the enemy's forward positions. Myrra suspected that it was thanks to them that her defenses had been so easily breached. And then a terrifying beast appeared: a four-wheeled, single-man vehicle with a large protruding pipe. It was a flamethrower, capable of firing from a hundred meters.
"This…" Malik began.
"A flamethrower," Myrrah continued. "There weren't many of them in the first wave, so they weren't decisive. Plus, the stream was very narrow, about half a meter, so we had to burn the enemies one by one. There were likely more of them in the second invasion, and they burned everything. And, of course, there's the standard tactic of burning the corpses of slain enemies. The Vritra Jaffa also determined that every enemy warrior has a self-destruct system inside them that makes it impossible to identify their House by their larva or forehead tattoo. They take their own, and blow up those they don't take.
"An extremely large and well-trained army, and completely unknown to us in its capabilities," Malik frowned. "This is unacceptable. We have unconfirmed reports that this very mercenary lord killed Lord Raiden. His ship exploded, and his neighbors have laid claim to his territory."
"Interesting. Isn't this the same fool who added thunder to his weapons?" Myrrah asked, then glanced at the weapon crafted by the mercenary lord's scientists. "He clearly wasted his resources."
"He is," Malik confirmed.
"I don't think that will be a problem," Mirra chuckled. "This Goa'uld's neighbors and followers will tear his territory to pieces. Standard situation."
"What's interesting is something else," Malik returned to the main topic. "Raiden made Khattak his residence; there were chapaai there. No one knew exactly when he would arrive on the capital planet."
"There's not much of interest here," Myrrah replied. "The mercenary lord's standard tactic is to block the enemy's hyperspace gate with a tunnel. He probably has some kind of speed-dial technology. He dialed constantly, and once the tunnel was established, he dropped the bomb. It's ship destruction, after all, so protocol isn't violated. And he respects it. Despite all the destruction, it would take the client less than a month to restore any planet the mercenary conquers. Human losses are generally kept to a minimum—they don't interest him. Even my servants, his Jaffa, were simply stunned with intars."
"He spent months, maybe, recruiting?" Malik asked.
"This one could," Mirra shrugged.
"The Council wants to send an agent to the mercenary lord," Malik said. "Do you have any useful information?"
"No," Mirra shook her head. "He changed the planet where he could be contacted because of Indra's betrayal. And asking for an address where you can hire an army is a very quick way to the grave."
"Good, your data was valuable," Malik said. "I'll pass it on to the Council, and we'll analyze it in detail."