- "We have a mission scheduled for fourteen hundred tomorrow to a convient dustbowl. From there we'll gate to Ba'al's... Ba'al's fortress. We'll do what we have to do, get the hell out and go bring Henry Boyd home. Any questions?"
- ―Jack O'Neill outlining the plan[src]
The Raid on Ba'al's fortress was a raid conducted by SG-1 on Ba'al's fortress on Asdad in order to get the power source for the anti-gravity shield.
Prelude[]
In 1998, SG-10 got stuck on P3W-451, a planet being sucked into a nearby black hole. During an attempt to contact SG-10 through the Stargate, Earth nearly fell victim to the black hole as well and SG-10 were deemed beyond any ability to rescue.[4]
In 2002, Colonel Jack O'Neill, after temporarily becoming the host to the Tok'ra Kanan, was forced to travel to Ba'al's fortress on Asdad so that Kanan could rescue Shallan, Ba'al's Lo'taur whom he had fallen in love with. Kanan ultimatly fled O'Neill's body when Ba'al's Jaffa found them and was subsequently presumed dead. O'Neill was captured and tortured repeatedly by Ba'al himself before an Ascended Dr. Daniel Jackson inspired his friends to alert Lord Yu to the fortress' existence. Yu launched an attack on the base, allowing O'Neill to escape with [5] while the fortress itself suffered heavy damage and was almost completely abandoned by Ba'al. [3]
In 2003, while on the planet Kinahhi, O'Neill took interest in their anti-gravity technology as a possible solution for rescuing SG-10 from the black hole. Exploring the floating city of Tsapan, the team eventually realized that Ba'al was the Goa'uld responsible for the anti-gravity technology while one of the Kinahhi councilors secretly provided O'Neill with the plans to the anti-gravity shield that Ba'al had once possessed. While Carter was able to construct the device, they realized that they needed the original power source to work it which Daniel deduced was on Asdad from an old legend about Ba'al that Teal'c knew and eventually realized that it was the fortress where Ba'al had tortured O'Neill. Despite the dangers and with a deadline until Senator Robert Kinsey had O'Neill removed from command of SG-1, they agreed to raid the fortress for the power source to save SG-10. [3]
Battle[]
Arriving on Asdad, Dr. Daniel Jackson found a stone nearby that was probably once a part of a temple that once held the planet's Stargate. The stone held part of the story that Teal'c had heard as a child on Chulak, confirming that they were on the right planet although SG-1 couldn't be sure if the power core was still there. Scouting ahead, Teal'c found tracks indicating that they were not alone on the planet, but couldn't tell if they were Jaffa or not.
SG-1 made their way to Ba'al's fortress which was heavily damaged from Lord Yu's attack with no sign of life around them. Though Major Samantha Carter and Daniel advised waiting until nightfall in case the fortress wasn't completely abandoned, O'Neill was unwilling to wait, confident that no one was there and not wanting to risk getting captured to be tortured again. O'Neill rushed across the no-man's land between the forest and the fortress followed by the rest of SG-1, but no one opened fire on them.
SG-1 reached the shattered wall of the fortress, though O'Neill was distracted by memories of his time trapped there. Finding an opening, Carter warned that they would have to be careful inside as the structural integrity was likely shot. Entering, Daniel told the others that according to the Tok'ra map of the place, it was based on a design of concentric circles with interconnecting corridors like spokes on a wheel and Carter guessed that the power core was likely to be in the center in a control room. With limited time, O'Neill split the team up to look for a way to the control room, sending Carter and Teal'c one way and taking Daniel in another.
As Carter and Teal'c made their way through their corridor, they found a doorway and power, indicating the possibility of an enemy presence. Though Carter reported finding the doorway, she chose not to report the power being on in the hopes of finding the power core without O'Neill having to see more of the complex than necessary. At the same time, Daniel noted the lack of bodies which he found strange since the Jaffa appeared to have pulled out in a hurry and so wouldn't have had time to remove the dead bodies. As they continued to move, part of the building caved in somewhere above Daniel and O'Neill, showing that the section was unstable. Carter contacted O'Neill, having found a working ring transporter that she believed could take her to the center of the fortress, but O'Neill ordered her to wait for them to return as backup before proceeding.
As O'Neill and Daniel made their way towards Carter and Teal'c, Daniel began studying the map of the facility closer, suspecting that the power core might not be powering the facility as Carter believed but was instead held and protected as a relic due to its role in the myth. Half an hour later, O'Neill spotted a Jaffa and believing it to be an enemy and caught up in his fear of the fortress, opened fire as Daniel realized that it was actually Teal'c. Reacting quickly, Daniel was able to keep O'Neill from doing more than clipping Teal'c's ear with his shot. Shell-shocked by his actions, O'Neill led them to find Carter and the ring transporter, Carter having sent Teal'c to make sure that they found the right corridor.
Joining Carter who was concerned after learning of the incident, Daniel tried to suggest looking for it in a different location than the control center, but O'Neill brushed off the idea. The rings took them to the control center which still had power and, being dust-free, indicated that the fortress was still occupied. Teal'c suggested that Ba'al maintained a skeleton force of Jaffa to protect his stronghold from looting by other System Lords and the rest of SG-1 guarded the doors to the room as Carter searched for the power core. Carter eventually determined that the power core was not in the control room and Daniel suggested that without the other half of the device, it wouldn't work and so might have been used for ceremonial purposes instead.
As SG-1 discussed their next move, they came under attack by Jaffa, cutting Carter off from Daniel, Teal'c and O'Neill as they fled. Carter ordered Daniel to grab her pack containing the anti-gravity shield before Carter tried to make a run for it. However, Carter was hit by a zat blast and knocked unconscious when her head hit the floor as she fell. Jaffa flooded into the control room, preventing SG-1 from going back for Carter while O'Neill, caught up in his memories of his torture by Ba'al, considered killing Carter to spare her the same fate before Daniel snapped him out of it. Coming back to his senses, O'Neill had Daniel and Teal'c fall back, destroying the lights as they went to buy them some time.
O'Neill, Daniel and Teal'c spent the next several hours evading the Jaffa chasing them through the ruined fortress before making camp in an abandoned corridor that hadn't seen life in months in order to rest. Daniel did his best to comfort O'Neill over his trauma from being back, Daniel's time trying to help O'Neill while he was captive one of the few things that Daniel remembered from while he was Ascended. Daniel and Teal'c helped O'Neill see that Ba'al had failed to break him and O'Neill asked about where the power core could be. Daniel suggested a couple of ceremonial chambers in the complex that he'd identified where he figured the power core could be an altarpiece, a focus of worship. Remembering that they needed a ship, O'Neill guessed that if there were Jaffa present, there was likely at least one Tel'tak around and Teal'c figured that there was most likely a landing platform on the roof. O'Neill ordered the other two men to find the power core and to then steal them a ship while he rescued Carter.
Later, as Daniel and Teal'c searched for the power unit, they were accosted by a young Jaffa only a few years older than Rya'c. Recognizing Teal'c as the shol'va, the young Jaffa eagerly attacked him, but Teal'c effortlessly parried his attack and disarmed the boy. Teal'c had Daniel zat the young Jaffa when it was clear that they couldn't change his mind. Teal'c warned that they needed to move quickly as the zat blast would've drawn attention and Daniel stated that the room wasn't far away as long as it was still standing.
Continuing on alone, O'Neill made his way back towards the heart of the complex as he knew that Carter would be held there. O'Neill reached the gravitation chambers where he had once been held and where Carter was now help prisoner, albeit by a metal grate rather than a gravity field like O'Neill had been. However, before O'Neill could try to free her, three Jaffa made their way to the cell first. The leader threatened that if Carter didn't cooperate with them, her friends would watch her die slowly when they were eventually caught, but Carter refused to cooperate, pointing out that they hadn't been captured yet. The Jaffa was unworried, stating that they would be waiting for SG-1 if they came for her, but Carter continued to refuse to cooperate with the Jaffa. The Jaffa ordered that Carter be brought and O'Neill prepared to ambush the three Jaffa, but was interrupted by an impatient fourth Jaffa who would've raised the alarm if O'Neill had killed the other three. Instead, O'Neill followed the Jaffa as they dragged Carter off to torture her. Ambushing two Jaffa, O'Neill them both, hid their unconscious bodies in a storeroom and dressed himself up in one of the Jaffa's armor in order to be able to sneak around undetected.
The Jaffa led Carter to Ba'al's torture chamber where Hadat used the still-functional gravitational field to pin Carter to the rack. Armed with Carter's own dive knife, Hadat demanded the IDC to open the iris at the SGC. However, Carter refused so Hadat sent the knife into her shoulder and promised that it was just the beginning and continued to torture Carter, eventually threatening to drip Tal'vak acid in her right eye as an attempt to get Carter to at least give up one number. However, they were interrupted by O'Neill still disguised as a Jaffa. As Hadat realized that something wasn't right, O'Neill smashed him in the face with the butt of his staff weapon and then zatted the Jaffa, knocking him out.
With Hadat taken care of, O'Neill attempted to deactivate the gravity field, but only succeeded in increasing it by accident. Unable to find the right controls, O'Neill instead shot the control panel with his staff weapon, destroying it and deactivating the gravity field. After reviving Carter, O'Neill stopped her from killing Hadat in revenge for the torture that she had undergone. Instead, O'Neill decided to destroy the torture chamber to ensure that it could never be used again. O'Neill disintegrated the rack with three blasts from his zat and had Carter drop a grenade down the shaft behind it, destroying Ba'al's torture chamber for good.
Reactivating the Jaffa helmet, O'Neill led Carter from the room under the guise of Carter being his prisoner. Encountering six Jaffa, O'Neill and Carter successfully managed to fool them and continue on, eventually reaching the storeroom where O'Neill had left his weapons and the two unconscious Jaffa that he'd stolen the armor from. O'Neill removed the armor and helped Carter treat her knife wound from the torture and she realized that he'd suffered the same kind of torture after Ba'al had captured him. Brushing off Carter's attempt to discuss it, O'Neill told her that they needed to get to the roof where Daniel and Teal'c would be waiting for them with the power core and a ship. Carter and O'Neill made their way up a set of stairs until they reached the doors to the roof. However, hearing only the sounds of idling engines and Jaffa moving around outside, the two realized that Daniel and Teal'c had yet to arrive and decided to wait.
At the same time, reaching the room that Daniel suspected contained the power core, Daniel and Teal'c found it partially collapsed with two pillars in the middle. Examining the pillars, Daniel found a cartouche where Ba'al's name was depicted as Re'ammin the Thunderer, what Ba'al was known as on Kinahhi and while touching it, Daniel accidentally triggered a trap door that opened beneath him. Ending up in a room filled with narrow pillars in concentric rings, Daniel realized that it was an exact copy of the shrine on Tsapan. Remembering that at the center of the Tsapan shrine they'd found the anti-gravity device, Daniel deduced that the Kinahhi must've come up with their own power source once Ba'al was driven off of their world and it had once been the center of his religious power as well as his physical power.
Daniel and Teal'c searched the room for an altar as the shrine on Asdad was only symbolic, not functional like the one on Tsapan. The two quickly found one with a golden statue of Ba'al on it which particularly drew their attention as the statue's eyes glowed. Daniel told Teal'c that it had to be the power core they were seeking since it was at the center of the worship of Ba'al as Re'ammin and something was making the statue's eyes glow. An impatient Teal'c tried to take the statue, but was stopped by a shield protecting it from approach. Teal'c insisted that they needed to hurry as O'Neill and Carter were relying on them to hijack a ship for their escape and Daniel and Teal'c began searching the nearby pillars for a control panel for the shield.
Searching each pillar, Daniel tried pressing the cartouches with the various names of Ba'al that he encountered to no effect. Teal'c drew Daniel's attention to a pillar on his side of the room where he'd found a cartouche, but one that was not in the Goa'uld language which Daniel recognized as Ugaritic Cuneiform. Daniel checked the pillar Teal'c had spotted and translated the name as Lord of Opening. Though Daniel thought it was too obvious, he pushed the cartouche which caused a door to open in the pillar, revealing Goa'uld control crystals.
Teal'c began trying to figure out what crystal to remove to properly shut down the shield without triggering an alarm or a booby trap when the explosion from Carter's grenade rumbled through the facility, dislodging some of the rubble above them and sending tumbling down the stairs. Already made unstable from Lord Yu's attack, part of the room's celling collapsed as a result of the tremor, trapping Teal'c under the pillar which broke. With Daniel's help, Teal'c managed to free himself and the two men discovered that the celling collapse had taken down the shield over the altar, but left it covered in rubble.
After digging through the rubble for half an hour, Teal'c and Daniel uncovered the statue. Searching the statue, Daniel found two lumps on the side that he pressed which released a poison gas a few feet to either side for a brief time, but caused the light in the statue's eyes to go out. Now able to remove the statue's head, Daniel found the power core inside of it. Removing it, Daniel recognized that it was not Goa'uld technology and found an inscription on it in Ancient reading "to bring order to chaos" which suggested that Ba'al had repurposed an Ancient device meant for a more peaceful purpose to make war on his enemies. Having gotten what they came for Daniel and Teal'c departed to steal a ship for an escape.
Teal'c led Daniel to series of small ring transporters designed to deploy flight crews to the landing pad quickly in case of surprise attack. Examining the controls, Teal'c determined that despite the damage the facility had sustained, the ring transporters were still working. Aware that Jaffa would be waiting for them, Daniel and Teal'c each prepared to take a side before Teal'c activated the rings. The rings sent Daniel and Teal'c to the landing pad on the blast damaged roof which was filled with burned-out Death Gliders and at least a dozen Jaffa whom they began exchanging fire with. Hearing the sounds of the gunfight, O'Neill and Carter emerged from the door which was on the other side of the roof as Teal'c ran for a working Tel'tak and Daniel covered him. O'Neill signaled Carter to head for the Tel'tak while he came up on the the Jaffa that were exchanging fire with Daniel from behind. O'Neill took out three with single shots from his P90, causing the remainder to turn on him which gave Daniel the opportunity to them out while they were distracted with O'Neill.
Before Carter could board the ship, she was captured by the young Jaffa that Teal'c and Daniel had earlier encountered. Meanwhile, Daniel and O'Neill noticed the whine of two Death Gliders in time to duck a blast that missed them and hit the roof. Taking cover behind a ruined Death Glider, O'Neill ordered Teal'c and Carter to launch while Daniel fired on the Gliders without effect as they strafed the rooftop. To O'Neill's shock, Teal'c reported that Carter wasn't aboard the ship and he didn't know where she was. Still under attack, O'Neill ordered Teal'c to take off anyway. Teal'c complied and promised to return, drawing off the attacking Death Gliders. Once the Tel'tak was no longer blocking their view, Daniel and O'Neill spotted Carter in a standoff with the young Jaffa.
Approaching cautiously, Daniel tried to talk the boy down as he threatened Carter's life if they came closer. The boy refused to listen to their claims to not be his enemy, pointing out the twelve dead Jaffa they had just killed on the rooftop. O'Neill reminded the boy that if he killed Carter, they would just kill him, but he continued to refuse to back down. Enraged by everything she'd been through, Carter reminded the boy of the option involving endless torture and struggled with the kid over his staff weapon, raising it up near her face. Despite a staff blast skimming near her head, Carter was able to disarm the boy and viscously beat him, forcing O'Neill to pull her off of him and restrain Carter until he and Daniel were able to talk reason into her. As Daniel comforted Carter, O'Neill checked on the unconscious young Jaffa and determined that he wasn't seriously hurt and reassured Carter that the boy would be fine. Knowing that reinforcements would soon be on their way, O'Neill, Carter and Daniel took cover.
Following O'Neill's orders, Teal'c launched the Tel'tak into a steep climb out of the planet's atmosphere, not engaging the cloak in order to ensure that the two Gliders would follow him. The Gliders chased Teal'c across the surface of Asdad's lifeless moon with their blasts rapidly draining the cargo ship's shields. Struck by an idea, Teal'c cloaked the ship, brought it close to the moon's surface and then quickly returned to space after having lost his pursuit. As the Death Gliders searched for the Tel'tak in vain, Teal'c launched one of the escape pods at the moon's surface, making it appear as if he had been forced to abandon ship before bringing the Tel'tak around in a slow circle. One Glider fired a few speculative shots at Teal'c's last position without success while the other moved in on the escape pod. Teal'c brought the Tel'tak to a stop over the Death Glider as it hovered over the escape pod and activated the ring transporter. The rings brought aboard a section of the Glider's canopy and the confused Jaffa pilot which sent the Death Glider into a fatal nosedive into the moon's surface. Teal'c zatted the pilot and restrained him, but discovered that the other Death Glider had broken off and was returning to Ba'al's fortress. Teal'c quickly chased after the remaining enemy ship in the hopes of pulling his friends out before it was too late.
SG-1 took cover in the bombed-out remains of a storeroom on the roof and quickly became surrounded by Jaffa reinforcements on three sides. Close to being overrun and with Daniel nearly out of ammo, Carter came up with an idea and O'Neill ordered Daniel to cover her as she enacted it. Ordering Carter to go, O'Neill used his last grenade as a distraction and then shot the two Jaffa that spotted Carter making a run for it and then drew the attention of the remainder to himself.
Carter ran to a ruined Death Glider that was tipped up on its back and still had its staff cannons intact. Carter climbed the wreckage into the cockpit and attempted to start the ship without any success. Instead, Carter began searching for the manual release for the Glider's staff cannons, but she was knocked out of the cockpit by a blast from the returning Death Glider that hit the roof of the fortress. As the Glider continued its attack, O'Neill called Carter over the radio and ordered her to flee to the Stargate as he and Daniel could no longer hold off the Jaffa. As Carter made it back up onto the wrecked Glider and the enemy Death Glider flew away, she discovered that Daniel and O'Neill's position had been overrun and they had been captured. Drawing on her memories of the X-301 Interceptor, Carter managed to find the manual release and moved quickly to secure the staff cannon, knowing that she would have to be out in the open to retrieve it and would likely only have around thirty seconds to get it detached, aimed and firing.
Prisoners of the Jaffa, Daniel and O'Neill were led away, but Daniel spotted Carter moving around the wrecked Glider and realized that she was up to something, deliberately slowing his pace to buy her some time. As they approached a set of doors leading into a stairway, Daniel spotted Carter making her move and tackled O'Neill to the ground. Carter fired the staff cannon at the Jaffa, taking out five with the first blast. Carter fired twice more, taking out even more Jaffa and even as one moved to pull Daniel to his feet, Daniel used a move Teal'c taught him to knock the man unconscious with a single punch.
However, the victory was short-lived as the remaining Death Glider returned and opened fire on the roof again. The damage caused a section of the roof to cave in, sending three Jaffa through the hole. O'Neill and Daniel attempted to make it to safety as the Glider returned and a second pass of fire from it widened the hole even further. Daniel and O'Neill barely managed to grab hold of the parapet surrounding the wall of the fortress before the roof collapsed beneath them. As the two clung to the wall, a Jaffa desperately tried to hold on to the edges of the wall before another shudder sent them plummeting. Though the far side of the roof remained intact, Daniel and O'Neill couldn't reach it and the Glider returned for another attack on the two helpless men. However, Carter fired on the Death Glider with her staff cannon, hitting the Glider in the left wing. The Glider crashed, one wing clipping the building as it went down and was destroyed.
Abandoning the weapon, Carter rushed to aid O'Neill and Daniel who were the only ones left on the roof aside from three Jaffa who were trapped close to the stairs that she and O'Neill had climbed. Reaching the edge of the hole, Carter tried to find a solution to help her friends, but the section of roof she was on gave way. However, Teal'c returned in time to catch Carter in mid-fall using the Tel'tak's ring transporter, saving her life. With Carter safe, Teal'c retrieved Daniel and O'Neill using the rings as well.
From the Tel'tak's cockpit, SG-1 watched as Ba'al's already-unstable fortress was consumed by an inferno caused by the damage that had been done in the fight between SG-1 and the occupying Jaffa forces. As SG-1 continued watching, the remainder of the roof collapsed as did the wall that Daniel and O'Neill had clung to, leaving Ba'al's fortress smouldering and destroyed.[3]
Aftermath[]
Having successfully gotten the power supply for the anti-gravity shield, SG-1 set out in their stolen Tel'tak for P3W-451 to rescue SG-10. Though the mission was successful, sabotage done to the plans by the Kinahhi meant that SG-1 was ultimately gone for five months rather than just a matter of days as they had originally planned on.[6]