Bayfield Wisconsin -O’Neill family lake house
It was nearly midnight when a pair of Black Chevy Taho’s pulled up to a rather large brick and wood house on the shores of Lake Superior. A home that looked like it belonged to some investment manager type, with really the only indication that it belonged to Jack O’Neill being the bronze statue of Popeye about to down a can of spinach at the center of the fountain. “Damn, this thing’s bigger than my neighborhood” The driver in the lead car whistled “How’s a Colonel’s salary net a place like this?”
“Fourth Generation marine, that and old man O’Neill and Jack’s Grandfather was a boot legger and a gun runner”
“Samuels!” Another voice from the car hissed, venom in her voice. It belonged to a woman in her early forties who was the only one in the detail who wasn’t in a Space Force Uniform. “Not the time” she added before swinging the door open and bolting out of the vehicle as if she’d been sitting next to someone with the plague. Colonel Samuels, the ever sullen and annoyed Colonel Samuels exited soon after her and made his way towards an oak door only to be told the Colonel was likely in the observation tower that was built on his private dock at the edge of the property. “He likes to look at the stars as much as he likes to hunt and fish” The woman remarked.
NID Deputy Director Kim Statterfield met Jack O’Neill in Kosovo in nineteen ninety-eight. Back then her name was Kim Seyun, the youngest daughter of a family from South Korea that moved to the US in the sixties. She’d been working as a sort of information broker and fixer, the pair exchanged intelligence and built up a repertoire. Their relationship had been beneficial, O’Neill introduced her to Robert Statterfield, a director of a program in Groom lake Nevada. He apparently was spook royalty and she ended up working for the CIA due to him, she was forty-four now, like Jack she had twin girls and she didn’t think she cried harder than when they buried Charly. What had started as a professional friendship where an older Spec ops vet mentored a dumbass kid in her over her head while using her for his own agenda (not that she minded, she did the same to him at the start) turned into a friendship that had lasted over twenty years.
Jack had been her best man; Sara and her daughters had been in the room when her kids were born. After the General West fiasco, Statterfield suspected the one reason why O’Neill didn’t go nuclear and put brains on walls when he found out that Sandra was transferred from the Florida base to the Mountain Complex was largely due to her (that and Abe Ellis promised to make sure his girls didn’t get into trouble and when the old Fox gave his word it was as good as the word of a god). Not that Jack wasn’t livid, Sasha was something he understood, both his daughters were geniuses (Both Kim and Jack were shocked about this little revelation), but Sasha had a knack for computation and engineering in ways few did. It was obvious Carter was going to poach her from MIT and Jack understood she’d be working at Area 51, way the hell away from the gate. But Sasha, Jack took the transfer of her to the facility as a threat from Kensey and Maybourne and he was probably right to do so. The West fiasco was…She put the thought out of her mind and gestured for the pessimistic asshole to follow her. It had taken a year to mend her friendship with O’Neill after he found out his girl was near the gate and she resented that a bit. She had no control over the military stuff, the fact that he lashed out at her bothered her more than she cared to admit. But none of that mattered now because the earth had been invaded by an alien menace.
Both her and Samuels strode along the wooden walkway that led to the O’Neill family personal dock and the large wood and brick observation tower that rose like a small Lighthouse on a tiny island that was some fifteen feet from the shore near the dock. Accessible by a wooden bridge she played how this would go in her mind. Part of her wanted to exhume General West’s corpse and shoot it for dereliction of duty for what happened, for dismissing Jack’s warnings that there was a chance (However admittedly small, both he and Kowalski insisted Jackson was likely correct that his empire was long dead) this Ra character wasn’t a remnant of a dead civilization but master of a Trans-Galactic hyperpower. He’d insisted what SG-Zero handed them as an after-action report was a jumbled mess of conjecture and hyperbole based off alleged telepathic visions handed to him by a space alien in the body of teenaged cave man. That part alone caused more than a few of the brass in that review to walk out. It was hard enough getting them to understand what they meant by “Ancient Egyptians copied the ruins of their colonial outpost” and most of them had glossy eyes by that point. In the end they concluded that, there was little to no chance of retaliation from Ra’s people because there was a good chance most of the ones who had advance technology either perished aboard ship or they would be too busy trying to recover from the loss of their leader and would be too far into their own decline to do anything.
This was a profoundly stupid conclusion, only Ellis, Hammond and Landry really fought it. Only those three and Jack O’Neill, well he finished up his tour, trained the next generation of Space Force Marines and then went on his merry way to retirement. Kowalski took that rough, but Statterfield understood it. There really was no way of knowing what happened out there amongst the stars and what would happen. And he was long overdue to relax, be a father and uncle and wait for the next generation of O’Neill’s to come along. After everything that happened when he returned, he deserved it.
“We should have brought the people in the other SUV” Samuel whispered, Statterfield pushed her auburn hair out her right eye and snorted derisively. “You think those rookies can’t stop Jack O’Neill if he doesn’t wanna come quietly” she asked not bothering to whisper, there was no way Jack didn’t hear them come up the stairs any way.
“Why wouldn’t I wanna go anywhere with you though? We good now!” Jack beamed, appearing almost out of nowhere in the doorway. He’d let his hair grow out again and the minor streaks of gray but otherwise it was almost impossible to tell that O’Neill was a little over fifty. He had a beat-up old flannel on and a led Zeppelin T under it and jeans that were stained with blood and smelled like they’d been inside something. “Deer?”
“Nah, Black bear tried to steal my fish, so taught it right”. From any other man that would have been an absurd boast, but from Jack O’Neill it was, well consistent from the man she knew. The only other person she’d blindly accept that from was Admiral Hammond, the man could command give the earth itself an order to stand aside and she’d shift orbit. O’Neill finally noticing Samuels smile broadly across his action hero looking face. “Who’s the gloomy guy? You didn’t dump Bob for him did ya?”
She rolled her eyes snorting “Fuck no”
Samuels twitched. “We’re here for you, Colonel”
“I’m retired gloomy”
“Not anymore you’re not”
“I retired a full Colonel right Statterfield?”
“Yup”
“Cool, then fuck off bean counter, you’re addressing a superior and he’ll come with you after you’ve had some bear burgers and beer” O’Neill said with a sarcastic grin.
“I thought you said deer?”
“Took the bear back too, what? Meats, meat”
Samuels seemed ready to have a stroke. “Sir…Admiral..Hammond..Requests you”
O’Neill blinked. Why the hell did Hammond want him? He’d been retired, did he want to give some sort of motivational speech to new recruits? Jack sucked at that. He had to know that, so then…wait, his commission got reactivated? Could they even do that anymore? Even to old Spooks like him? Why the hell did they…And then it hit him.
No, no, no, no, no he fucking warned them!
“Jack” Statterfield began, and O’Neill waved her off. His eyes narrowing “Three questions, where are my girls?!”
“With Ellis” Statterfield answered. Samuels tried to interject but she elbowed him into silence.
“Were they involved?”
“Yes” she whispered that out “But they’re fine Jack, they handled themselves well from what I hear”
“Good, that’s real, good, so then question number three. Was it the Stargate?”
She nodded.
“I’ll pack my kit”
…………
Chulak- same time.
Chulak was an earth sized moon orbiting the ninth gas giant of a binary star system. It lay some twenty thousand lightyears from Tau’Ri, deep within the heart of the Domain of the System Lord Apophis, the God of war, defense and expansion. One of the six fathers of the Jaffa, the Human Host Apophis took (and Apophis himself), along with two Neanderthals who impressed Ra and Anubis, Anubis himself and his Ori host’s genetic material had gone into their creation. From them, sprang the mighty warrior race and protectors of the Goa’uld and their Empire of Light. While Dakkara was the birthplace of the Jaffa and the Capitol world of the greatest Empire history had ever known, Chulak held a ceremonial place.
For it was here, that the first legion of Jaffa engaged the one Ori hermitage that had enough of its old strength left to wage an offensive war. Before them, the mighty Unas were the warrior champions of the System Lords, but their numbers were few. There was doubt among the System Lords that such beings as modified humans could match or even exceed the power of the Unas, but the Ori onslaught forced their hand and after millions of Unas were slain Anubis dispatched his brother Apophis to hold them on Chulak, their backs to the wall and accompanied only by Jaffa Apophis held the Ori fleet for two hundred standard days in a planetary siege that pushed even a System Lords formidable powers to the brink. When they did finally breach and land troops, their mechanized abominations met the first Legion of Jaffa.
One million Jaffa and Apophis met ten times their number in war drones and end stage Ori in battle.
Seven hours later only ten thousand remained, the first of the Primes standing bloody beside Apophis.
The Ori broke from that point on, it was inevitable and under mighty Ra’s command the Jaffa ground the remaining Ori into bones and ash. Chulak, with its vast primeval forests and harsh climate and the natural resources of the stellar system became the heart of the Imperial military.
On Chulak there were no Lotar, no baseline human ever set foot here, save for those hosts to Goa’uld. Everything was done by Jaffa, from menial labor and farming to construction, for Anubis believed that a soldier must be a builder and a simple man ontop of a master of war. Apophis had long continued his tradition, though Apophis was neither Anubis nor Ra.
And Ra was dead.
They weren’t certain when it happened, it was normal for Ra’s Imperial progresses to take a century. He traveled slowly, purposefully slow, stopped in places that had no value beyond sentimentality and to places of great import such as Vorash or Chuulak itself. It was also fairly common to go a year without hearing from him, for his imperial progresses were as much a sojourn from the courts as they were an important function. But five years, was far too long and six months ago, after tracking the Mandjet’s subspace wake a scout ship had found its wreckage floating over Abydos of all places. Abydos! A backwater of backwaters, in his own backyard no less. It was preposterous and at first, the confusion readings from the wreckage seemed to imply there was a fissile reaction near the vessels power plant. That had made no sense to anyone, but Osiris and Horus convened an official investigation which, likewise came up with nothing. Hathor wanted to venture to Abydos and infiltrate the world, walk amongst its people in disguise and examine their minds to determine they knew anything about what transpired there. But her sons and brother talked her out of it. After all, what would those cantankerous savages know about it? Their memories would be utterly useless as they’d be tainted by their own inability to comprehend anything outside of their frame of reference as anything but magic. Perhaps Hathor was skilled enough a mind walker to filter that gibberish out Apophis had explained to him, but it was a pointless risk.
A breakthrough came a week ago when one of Thoth’s researchers identified some of the isotopes involved in the explosion. It was an incredibly rudimentary form of fissile material, something that wasn’t very widely used within imperial space outside of the planets who were forgotten, progressed on their own and then rejoined the Empire. But such societies had ironically, never been a source of rebellion outside of the Cyranus system but that seemed to be more Amaterasu’s fault than anything else. Teal’c sighed, he would have liked to have met those “Colonials” and fought their robots. Artificial life was a rarity within the known universe, mostly because it was even more mentally flawed than natural life and thus tended to destroy itself far more often than non-synthetic societies. The few times he had fought a robot, it had been an exhilarating test of his mind, body and warrior’s spirit. His thoughts turned to Ra who often encouraged Jaffa to look to their souls as much as their bodies. Ra, Teal’c had the honor of feasting with him after the end of the Titan’s rebellion, he was cold, austere but he could sense something noble buried below it all.
Ra, who forged the Empire of the System Lords, whose leadership guided them for nearly one hundred thousand years. Who led them through the aftermath of an apocalypse, Ra the artificer of the golden age they now enjoyed?
What would happen now? The whole of the Empire was in mourning, the System lords were beside themselves, all but Apophis who seemed restless and full of energy as if the death of Ra had somehow freed him from some terrible burden.
“You’re contemplative tonight my love” the silky voice belonged to a woman with copper skin and thick green hair and eyes that were the color of the night sky a deep indigo. Drey’ac, the mother of his son, one of the nine Captains of the Fleet, the equal of any First Prime, though Teal’c was no First Prime, he was War Master, one of only two living. And of the two, the only one who could command the forces of any System Lord. That Teal’c was the second First Prime of Apophis to win that honor in the last two centuries was a point of pride for the entirety of his master’s domain. Drey’ac walked behind him, threading her arms around his waist, and leaning into his back. Her hands were warm, despite the cold of Chulak’s autumn, like Teal’c she didn’t look a day over twenty-five, but like Teal’c she was one hundred and seventy years old. Like Teal’c she had held her position for eighty of those years, making them both the youngest Jaffa to reach those posts.
But that accolade paled in comparison to one hundred and fifty years of marriage and a son who was everything Teal’c could never be and everything he was. “Are you pondering Apophis’ actions again? Or the strange weapon you brought home” She whispered as a new moon rose into the sky and the night sky’s color shifted from indigo to a gentle purple as they passed a hurricane upon the gas giant’s surface larger than the planet itself. “Both” he murmured.
Teal’c was First Prime, the vast farmland and immense palace they occupied was a testament to that. That meant he was in charge of the entirety of his lords armed forces, more than that. His duty as War Master meant he was involved in the holdings of every System Lord and their defense. It was insanity to be involved in the kinds of raids and skirmishes he’d participated in back when he was a new warrior. Worse that Apophis was conducting himself like some, grotesque caricature of a System Lord, raiding backwaters for Lotars as vain Amunet sat inside Shaun'ac refusing any and all hosts that were offered to her, like some spoiled child. Klorel was another oddity, a System lord in power though not in rank, conceived by Apophis on another Goa’uld of a breed so low their larva weren’t even used as
Prim’Tah’s . Forty years ago, he’d taken his first host, he’d taken four since then. One each decade, for it seemed that he could not maintain them for long, likely an artifact of his low birth.
Apophis couldn’t control his lusts, he’d been dangerously bored this last century and the System Lord Teal’c had once respected, admired and loved was now acting like a drunken thug. “I do not understand why he does this. Engages in such bestial conduct, why he debases himself and places himself in such risk and why he would have me play the part of a common bandit” It was worse than that, Apophis seemed to genuinely enjoy this lunacy, as if indulging in his baser nature and feeding Amunet’s capricious nature were the only two things that brought him any peace, disgusting. And this world, the coordinates were on none of our databanks and yet he conjures them from memory but does not say where he learned them or how he knows them? We went into an unknown and fifteen of his personal guard were slain and for what? A child?!” he spat.
“That child is the lady of Domain of night, my love and while Ra refused to accord her the full status of a noble wife or mistress, she shall still rule in our domain to some degree. Have a care my love, we do not know what her abilities are, only that she tested for the potential to manifest as one of the peers”
The “peers” referred to the unique sub species of Goa’uld called the System Lords, the most powerful and oldest of them, the ones who possessed abilities far more extraordinary than the already remarkable gifts of the Goa’uld. They were rare, Teal’c doubted more than two dozen existed, each with a baseline set of gifts and the strongest amongst them with some gifts unique to their nature. Of that two dozen, only ten were true System Lords and ruled the three Galaxies. Not counting Yu, the youngest sibling of Ra and his heavenly Kingdom which Ra permitted to be semi-independent of the Empire of the System Lords. Yu acknowledged the authority of the House of Ra and paid him tribute, but Teal’c had no authority over his Jaffa. His borders were his own and he was recognized as a King not a Lord. Though Teal’c supposed the title of Emperor made sense then, for a king yielded to Ra’s will. The relationship between Yu and Ra was a mystery and subject to much gossip, no one knew why Ra allowed this, but he had stayed out of the politics of the Empire, obeyed its edicts, and acted as a sort of shield against threats from outside their farthest frontier. Excluding Yu, only ten were true System Lords, those like Klorel who possessed the power but utterly lacked the ability to use it properly would never account amongst the Peers and if Ra, Zeus, and Osiris had their way, neither would Amunet due to her humble origins, though it seemed she too lacked the discipline.
“Our second son warns me of her often” Drey’ac said breaking the embrace to walk to the edge of the balcony. Leaning against the cool brass railing she smirked at him. Teal’c had long grown accustomed to his wife referring to the Prim’tah she carried as their other son. Most Jaffa, like Teal’c carried infant Goa’uld that were bred to never mature, to remain in their larval state forever. They were mindless, possessing intelligence comparable to that of a beast of burden and they existed only to bestow the healing powers and longevity of the Goa’uld on the Jaffa. A Jaffa could live to be four hundred (Teal’c grandmother knew a temple priestess who lived to be five hundred), the Prim’tah simply died with them when old age finally claimed them, presuming they weren’t killed in battle in the millions of skirmishes Jaffa faces across the known universe as they had become keepers of the peace more than soldiers since the empire hadn’t expanded in ten thousand years. Occasionally, a Jaffa would achieve deeds worthy enough to be implanted with a Prim’tah that would mature, it was a rare honor though it probably happened to a thousand Jaffa each century. Jaffa trusted with this task would have a hand in the psychological development of the infant, their shared experiences and thought processes. It was a risky venture, but it was done to seal the bond between the warrior caste and their masters. To ensure that the Jaffa served willingly and that it was not a wholly one-sided affair. Teal’c had not earned the honor himself quite yet, Drey’ac’s maneuver during the battle of Corlet in the Andromeda Galaxy was remarkable. Teal’c was a rare Jaffa indeed to know two Jaffa who had received this honor. The “child” growing inside his wife’s pouch was powerful, he felt it touch his mind once and there was a chance it would be accounted among the peers, which made him fearful.
Yet oddly, Apophis could not sense it, nor could Klorel. It was as if the young one concealed his presence. Drey’ac insisted he was a kind soul, likely cut out to a scribe or a law master or one of Thoth’s researchers than a mighty lord. Teal’c concurred with the assessment, what he felt from that one was nothing like their Lord. “He warns you?” Teal’c asked and she nodded.
“Though more of late, as if your adventure into that world that you took the crude projectile weapon from has heralded something”
“I see” Teal’c said troubled, Prescience was an ability Amaterasu and Hathor possessed, but it was exceedingly rare. Though, perhaps this was merely instinct from the little one? Feeding off the experience of two battle worn veterans. “I too felt…a stir when I set foot upon that world, though I cannot explain why”
She looked from Teal’c towards the snow-covered rolling hills and fields that stretched on seemingly forever, Apophis ruled a domain of nearly eleven thousand thousand lightyears. Some of which lay in the Andromeda Galaxy. It was the largest of all the domains within Imperial space, but hardly the wealthiest. Yet here, on Chulak they had found prosperity and in the service of a worthy God, or one that had been they were younger. But at what cost? “Teal’c, I know what you are planning”
He looked away “You can go to the Realm of the Osiris or Set. Thoth would welcome you for your insights into space combat. His scribes are ever searching for newer designs”
She chuckled softly “Be a test pilot as I was when we were children” she reached out and traced her fingertips along his bald scalp. “I thought perhaps Ba’al, his wealth is beyond any of other System Lord, and he has many problems with piracy”. Ba’al was also the youngest system lord, he was devious, cunning, and adventurous yet he had a sense of fair play that was fast becoming legendary. Under his service, Drey’ac and their son could establish their own Warrior house, perhaps even a school of aerial and spatial combat that she had always dreamt of. Amaterasu was off the table, even after all this time she still hated Apophis and would turn away any Jaffa born in his lands. Hathor and Horus would be the best choices, yet there was tension between the House of Ra and Apophis. It was a sad conversation, a sad thing to entertain and yet, if he did not, how long would this madness keep? “I must think on it, perhaps our departure would not even reach him. Perhaps if we stay”
“Teal’c! Stay?! Apophis was talking about expanding the fleet, training more Jaffa, he ordered my southern fleets to the border with Horus! Teal’c” Drey’ac’s pleading tone surprised Teal’c but what she was suggesting.
“You speak madness woman! No System lord would dare!” Teal’c seized her, horror in his eyes and then he nearly flinched the instant those words left his mouth. Had Bra’tac not become a legend for crushing the forces of the rebellious Cronus? Had Teal’c and Drey’ac both not fought in his insurrection as children? Was that not how they bothered entered Apophis service? Raised up by his mighty hand? Noticing the look in her eyes, questioning the foolishness that left his mouth he raised an eyebrow “Indeed and yet in the time before that the last civil war was Egeria’s uprising and that was almost forty thousand years ago!”
“There was one after Egeria’s” Drey’ac whispered and Teal’c looked away, they would not speak of the Fallen One and his attempt to cover the universe in horror and torment. No one spoke his name, not even the Asgard, he was dead, and the known universe was safe from such evil.
“Were they not concurrent?” Teal’c asked with a sigh. What she was proposing was impossible, the System Lords and the Heavenly Kingdom had kept the peace for nearly forty thousand years. A hard fought, hard won peace against implacable enemies and the known universe had known peace since then and the System Lords prosperity. If Apophis was truly threatening such stability for a throne Teal’c knew he didn’t covet..then it meant he was doing it solely for the blood.
-…How can I have missed what he has become?”
“Because you remember the Apophis of our childhood, who spoke to you as a son and me as a daughter and placed us at his right and left hand in the war against Cronus. Who allowed you to avenge your father and who said the funeral rites himself? But that was a shade, a phantom of who he was once, long ago, when the Jaffa were still young. You remember how Bra’tac described him? A mound of corpulence, barely able to survive outside of a resurrection chamber. Someone who raped millions of women and kept more mistresses than most of the other Gods keep honor guard? Teal’c if our son is right if I am right. We cannot be a party to a war for a throne for the sake of itself! If Apophis truly wished to honor Ra and keep the peace that might be one thing but…This?” Drey’ac came closer to Teal’c pressing their bodies together, urgency in her eyes. “We cannot remain, and you must make your blow a political one. You must cost him some measure of power”
Teal’c considered, his mind wandering back the battle on that strange world. Towards the iron look in the eyes of the bald War chief, the fury and concern. What would it be to fight for such a master? Perhaps his exile would not be enough, but a blow as extreme as sedition…
“If I do this, we must go our separate ways” Teal’c muttered, if he chose to go renegade, he would not drag his wife and son down with her nor the peer she carried within her. Perhaps in treason, he may serve his god better.
But all of this was the debate of two people in a state of panic. He had to think on this with a calmer head. He had to Kelno’Reem, he could not render any decision even if they both had thought on this for some Several years now. He could not make such a decision in haste, with his blood up.
Apophis could not be that far gone
mysteriousuniverse.org
He'll figure it out though and we'll see his reaction. Douche Canoe that he is, he'll try and do the right thing and god help 'em all for it.
en.wikipedia.org