It all seems pretty consistent. The only thing that really surprised me was having Teal'c's wife be involved in his rebellion, which is definitely better than what the show did and makes him less of an asshole.
Stargate Through the Looking Glass and into Heaven.
- Thread starter The Immortal Watch Dog
- Start date
I never really liked how they handled that storyline. Teal'c defied what he believed to be a God due to his moral compass and we are expected to believe he would abandon his wife and kid to that same God's wrath?
And she who seemed to be a warrior and not a priestess. You would think this would be a discussion they would have had before.
Here with the System Lords less a bunch of gangsters with starships but a proper Empire. Atleast Drey'ac has options and it always struck me as odd that he wouldn't have made sure she was taken care of.
I hope consistency is a good thing in this case.
Edit- I am also trying to show the difference in the mannerisms and cultures inside the different domains. Apophis and his people are considerably less formal than Ra who would never talk to a common Jaffa like that or even allow one to serve as his first prime.
Hathor is going to be similar but her son and brother in law would be more like Ra. Very insistent on royal protocol etc.
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Random thought - would thermobaric grenades be a better counter to Jaffa armor than pure armor piercing rounds?
DocSolarisReich
Esoteric Spaceman
Grenades of all kinds, overpressure doesn’t care about piercing your armour. But claymores and Willie Pete will probably be the go to for ambushing a Jaffa patrol.
Theyre primarily designed to dissipate energy weaponry, heat included. I've had them just wear their armor down with sustained fire so far.
But it would probably good go have a combination of incendiary/Thermoberic weaponry and next gen weapons.
One thing of note though is that the raid on Cheyenne Mountain was conducted by the the Goa'uld equivalent of a raid by a SEAL team or Delta or something and that his forces are basically the equivalent of the US Armed Forces slash NYPD/LAPD.
Now they'll be seen as the the space equivalent of Alqueda for a time given they murdered their beloved God Emperor and shot up Space Pentagon.
So most of their opponents will be house troops, Jaffa honor guard and Militia like Ra's. Who'd be tasked with detaining them until the professionals show up.
They won't face Serpent and Bull Guard often. But when they do , yeah they're gonna need it.
Things will change in the next "season" though. Once it's made clear the situation on Abydos was less clear than everyone thought.
Some System Lords will happily do business with them and others will want to avenge Ra.
So 70% of the time they need to prep for Jaffa rent a cops.
So that's what I'm trying to figure out and you guys have been a big help there.
Jesus Christ, picking the weaponry for the SGC is harder than plotting the story
I'll get a pair of chapters out soon..I swears it, including a gun porn one.
I'll get a pair of chapters out soon..I swears it, including a gun porn one.
If you need help with that, feel free to hit me up.
I think I might, thank you.
Alright, new chapters up.
Jack clears the air with Hammond, Lahm does some armchair speculative biology with dead Jaffa, more info on the gear the Serpent legions had and then we get some tissue
Oh and the next one is for @DocSolarisReich @bullethead and @StormEagle since y'all seem to enjoy the chapters that elaborate a bit on Goa'uld culture.
And y'all are gonna get a glimpse at Apophis, his personality cult and his domestic life
Jack clears the air with Hammond, Lahm does some armchair speculative biology with dead Jaffa, more info on the gear the Serpent legions had and then we get some tissue
Oh and the next one is for @DocSolarisReich @bullethead and @StormEagle since y'all seem to enjoy the chapters that elaborate a bit on Goa'uld culture.
And y'all are gonna get a glimpse at Apophis, his personality cult and his domestic life
June 28th, 2020
Cheyenne Mountain Complex- USSF facility
June 28th, 2020
“It’s a bit of a ways down sir” The poor Corporal immediately regretted it when he heard Statterfield’s laughter. “Hey Jack, did you know the Gate Room is a ways down”
“Kept asking them for elevator music” O’Neill replied with a neutral expression, it felt weird to be back in uniform, it felt weirder still to be back here and it felt even weirder to have his hair cut by Statterfield, that ended up bringing back awkward memories about a jungle raid in brazil, a would-be warlord. Some really bad mushrooms and a goat and one very confused Statterfield, that had been what? Two thousand? Oh one? A few weeks before the towers? He couldn’t remember, but he remembered her kicking the goat out, dragging him from the shack and submerging him in water. What happened with the goat again? Oh right, it ate some intel report and O’Neill had been too high courtesy of his captors to reason, so he just took the goat and blew the place.
Things were simpler then, he didn’t know about Ra and his possibly nonexistent, possibly existent empire. His daughters hadn’t gotten into a firefight with space men, and he didn’t know anything about project Giza or that nerd he left behind on space Egypt. “You got an office here?” Jack asked, noting how everyone seemed to recognize her when they came in together.
Or it could just be that they were ogling Statterfield, she was a looker even now and young adults no matter how much of sensitivity training nonsense you try and beat into their heads, were always going to be young adults. Man, woman, you stayed stupid, horny and arrogant until you turned thirty and realized life had kicked you in the nuts.
Statterfield shook her head “No, but I’m required to make quarterly visits to make sure everything is running smoothly. The facility sort of lost its prominence after you guys came back from Abydos.” “Didn’t realize we were that important” O’Neill remarked with a smug grin on his face that made the woman shake her head. “Sam, she tried hard to make it work, President Obama and the joint chiefs might have been, skeptical about your warnings, taking the interpretation that Ra was the last of his kind and whatever assets he had left would likely not know where we are”
“But Hammond and Ellis still believed, so while you were training the next generation of space marines. They had Sam try everything to “dial” into another world. Do some recon, maybe prove the threat to help us prepare”
With the NID and certain, reclusive magnates involved, he doubted it was just about proving threats. “We couldn’t even move the interior ring, your daughter helped Doctor Carter create an algorithm that almost got us to six chevrons but” she shrugged. “We tried, but the brass just wasn’t convinced, so they ordered priority be given into Project Constellation”.
They both went quiet there, no need to rehash the topic beyond that. Still, Jack was glad they had tried, even if it was in secret. “Fuck’n area fifty-one” Jack remarked “That psycho Carter and her mega dweebs get all the money and attention, but they haven’t produced anything and that whole damn facility hasn’t done anything since the B2’s”
“Being a little harsh aren’t ya Jack?” Statterfield asked, a mischievous grin flashing across her face. It was amusing working him up into one of his rants about how academics were the ultimate threat to the species, because the more they knew the more they wanted to go “stick their dicks in a hornet’s nest”. When the elevator doors opened Jack stopped before he could start, eyeballing the burn marks on the walls, the places where concrete had been blown off. The repair crews and, the dried blood. “They got this far?”
“Yes” Statterfield remarked.
Then it couldn’t be Ra, Jack reasoned, his fears that the powerful alien who seemed to border on the mystical had somehow survived a nuclear bomb going off in his face evaporated. The guys he fought were dangerous, four of them wiped out the bulk of his marines in under five minutes according to Ferretti. But once you got them out in the open, or in the right spot, they were too lightly armored to hold up to sustained fire for long, especially from some of the weapons he saw. Some of those next gen guns looked like toys to him, he figured they would have torn Ra’s half naked warriors apart. Jack didn’t like the implications there, but he refused to let himself go bonkers in speculation until he actually saw the man.
“How’s Hammond?” O’Neill asked as they rounded a corridor and he noticed one of the janitors was doing his best to mop with an eyepatch and what looked like cuts all over his arms. “Did someone loose a grenade in that room?!” O’Neill asked gawking where the smoking section had been when he’d shared command with Langford. “Yup” Statterfield remarked and he chuckled to himself shaking his head. “Christ what a mess”
“Hammond is fine, but he’s furious” she said but she wouldn’t elaborate on why which annoyed Jack, but he was used to it. Admiral Hammond in many ways reminded him of Ra, or at least what the mental intrusion implied Ra might have been once. A skilled administrator but also someone imperious, confident and relentless to the point that you wanted to do ten times what he himself did, not to outdo him but to thank him for the example he set and the loyalty he had for his superiors and more importantly those under his charge.
Yup, Admiral George Samuel Hammond must have been pissed. You didn’t catch a man like that with his pants down and not suffer biblical consequences. And as they made their way towards Hammond’s rather spacious office, he noted both Kowalski and Lahm sitting outside of the doorway, looking like chastised children. Children who remained defiantly loyal to one friend, over someone they respected immensely. -I’ll make it up to them- Jack thought.
“Here is where we part” Statterfield remarked.
“Really?” O’Neill asked, somewhat annoyed the one thing that remained from when the universe made sense besides his kids was departing.
“Yeah, I need to brief the President and then I’ve got a parent teacher conference”
Her kids were still High School age, he forgot. “Have fun with that” Jack remarked, unsure which was the harder task. Briefing the President or playing the soccer mom when you just learned something world shattering and all you wanted to do was take your kids out for pizza.
He’d done both before and he concluded that the hardest task was walking into Admiral Hammond’s office and admit to him that you lied to his face for five years. He stopped to receive a hug from Lahm and a handshake from Kowalski who were both elated and scared to see him here but before he could ask why an irate Texan roared for him to get in there.
Entering, the first thing O’Neill noticed was that the Admirals Bowie knife, a family heirloom was embedded in his desk. The second, that there was a terrified member of the Joint chief’s on the other end of a monitor who was hastily thanking Hammond for his time and ending the call. O’Neill looked at the tall, bald mammoth of a man who could go from being the world’s most forgiving superior or grandfather to the living embodiment of divine wrath in the blink of an eye when needed and realized, from the lines on his face and the haggard look in his eyes that he must have been closer to seventy than sixty and he wondered why Hammond hadn’t been forcefully retired out. Beyond the fact that everyone was so terrified of him that they probably just kept cutting him checks and promoting him and would likely do so until he died.
Ellis was similar, only Abe retired and traded fatigues for a suit and still kept his power. Which made sense, both of these two men represented a world that existed now solely in the history books and the deeds done by both men, in the light and in the shadows were likely at least partially responsible for the why that world existed only in books. Ellis, a modern-day Nelson, or MacArthur, Hammond the navy’s very own Patton and some dumbass space Pharoah decided to fuck with their house. “Damn fools” Hammond seethed shaking his head. “O’Neill!” he turned reaching out for Jack’s hand and of course giving the Marine a vice like grip he was only too happy to respond too. “Space Force Uniform this time?” he asked looking Jack up and down, seeing the green on red. Differentiating the marine part of the USSF, from Hammond’s navy blue and the grays of the “aerial and spatial combat division.”
“Yeah well, I’m back what can I say?”
“And I told you so might be appropriate”
Jack shook his head, not to Hammond. “You believed me sir” he wanted to flinch knowing what was coming.
“Lot of good it did” Hammond groused before gesturing for Jack to take a seat. “Tell me about Doctor Jackson”.
Oohh boy. “There wasn’t much to him, he was a nerd, he sneezed a lot. He did learn a language real quick and get us home though, that counts for something in my book”
“But you didn’t like him?”
“No, not at first Sir, he was an untested commodity” O’Neill began then adding “But he was right about a lot of things”
“But not this remnant of a dead civilization business” Hammond countered. O’Neill allowed himself to nod “Yeah, well he said he couldn’t be sure, in his defense”
“Not wanting to speak ill of the dead?” Hammond asked, a knowing look in his eyes. Damn!
There was a moment, where Jack almost looked back at Kowalski and Lahm, but stopped himself before his body began to move, or so he thought. Except the old sea dog shook his head and chuckled “No son, they didn’t give you up, you did just now.”
Jack barely had time to register the Admiral was taking a swing, but he did register the fist nailing his cheek and his ass sprawling onto the linoleum.
“What was that for?!” Jack muttered, rubbing his cheek, trying to pick himself up gracefully. He’d just been knocked on his ass by a grandpa, the same grandpa who walked over, grabbed his shoulders and set him down in his chair like he was a kid who just took a belt to the rear. Outside, Lahm shot up, but Kowalski grabbed her wrist and shook his head. No, the Colonel had to fight this battle alone.
“Lying to me” Hammond remarked as he made his way to decanter full of what O’Neill suspected was a bourbon of some sort. Two glasses were poured, and Hammond handed him one before he made his way towards the rear of his office where he gazed at a map of the solar system done up to look like a map from the earliest years of the age of sail. Jack couldn’t help but notice the Dragons that marked the edges of the map.
Dragons, Snakes, alien beings that possessed cavemen, here there be monsters, but the cat was out of the bag now.
“Start again Colonel, from the top this time” And so help me, Hammond thought. If any information the Colonel omitted could have changed the minds of those idiots in DC, there was a good chance O’Neill wouldn’t leave this room alive.
And so Jack began the sordid tale, about their arrival on Abydos, the meeting of the people of Nagada and all the things that Hammond already knew, only the part about Ferretti and Jackson taking the bomb to Ra with it rigged to detonate the moment it was tampered with, heroically sacrificing themselves left out. Instead, O’Neill told him of how Jackson had indeed helped him destroy Ra, but that the nuclear weapon detonated in orbit over Abydos and how neither he nor Ferretti were dead, how instead they remained on Abydos, both to help the Nagadans rediscover the civilization denied to them and to prepare them for a defense should anything return.
The story infuriated him, but the old man kept his calm, sipping his bourbon and playing the odds in his head. Gross as this breach of protocol was, it served a purpose. O’Neill had reasoned that he allowed those two to remain (Ferretti because he wanted to protect Jackson and help their junior Marines and Jackson because he’d fallen in love with this Shau’re person and because he would be instrumental in helping them back on track). Because it served two purposes, the first being to defend Earth. O’Neill had argued that who ever was left of Ra’s people wouldn’t come to earth, but to Abydos and if they were truly a remnant civilization than the trouble would end at Abydos, defended by the army Ferretti was building and hopefully encountering a people who had regained some measure of their former selves. The other being that, if the same morons who had been so insistent on ignoring his warnings about Ra potentially being the leader of a truly vast empire would likely insist that they return to Abydos to begin mining the planet for Earth and that could potentially bring all manner of unwanted attention their way.
They were good enough reasons that Hammond wasn’t going to punish him, he would include in the report that the deception was squarely his and he knew Ellis would likely also step in and claim it and court martialing him and arresting Ellis would be too..risky. “These people, these bird men as you call them” Hammond began but stopped himself, instead he opened the door and gestured for O’Neill and the other two official survivors of the Abydonian mission to follow him. One they reached the medical facility O’Neill understood why the Admiral had held back his question. The room was filled with bodies, many of their own and more than a few who looked like they were very much not of earth. “These bird men, was there anything inhuman about them?” He asked.
“You mean like Ra?” Jack asked shaking his head. “No, except that they were strong as hell and their Captain seemed to be learning our language like he was fed it by Ra’s telepathy”. Hammond nodded “Strong but they didn’t have anything unusual about their physiology?”
O’Neill shrugged “Truth be told when we did drop ‘em they were often too mangled to make heads or tails of it”
Lahm who’d been looking over the bodies gasped when she pulled back the blanket over one of the serpent men and caught the slits on the body’s stomach. “Is that?” she blinked sliding on a pair of gloves. “Is that a pouch?”
“Yes, though Doctor Fraser believes both sexes have them” Hammond added before his left eye twitched lightly watching Lahm ease her fingers into the pouch. Colonel Janet Fraser was an airforce doctor who had been involved in the stopping of a few pandemics, in her late forties the woman had several medical degrees and like Ellis was somewhat of an autodidact. Her amateur work on theoretical xenobiology and speculative psychology were pretty well received in popular science type magazines. Unfortunately, like Ferretti she had a bit of an X-files side, being obsessed with cryptozoology.
Hammond, West and Ellis seemed to enjoy surrounding themselves with the freaks. Then again O’Neill realized he was watching a former colleague root around inside an alien bimbos pouch. “Bullet holes, you guys got lucky and shot through her pouch..hmm..there’s something else here” she flinched and yanked her hand away “Sucker has teeth!”
“There’s something alive in there?!” Hammond asked -Damnit Fraser- “No, not alive, its torn apart, my guess is by enemy” she quirked her head eying the mix of blood, mucus and…Blood? There was a blue substance that seemed to glow slightly on the tips of her index and middle fingers. “This didn’t show up on imaging?”
Hammond shook his head “No, Janet would have told me about it if it had. What the hell is it?”
“No idea, but it’s definitely not her offspring, I’m not even sure if this counts as blood or coolant” she murmured “But my guess, these soldiers carry these for a reason” she looked the woman over, she appeared to be roughly thirty or forty with pleasing if exotic features, high cheek bones and evidence of the same mixed human and other hominid ancestry the abydonians had but far more pronounced. “During the battle, I saw one of Ra’s killers up close. His armor was knocked loose and I saw something below, slits like this and what I thought were spasms of his abdominal muscles but now”
“Damnit Lahm why didn’t you say something?” O’Neill asked perturbed, if they could have presented a freaky detail like this maybe it would have turned enough heads.
She smiled “Because Sir, they were already looking at you like crazy when you described how the Star god possessed caveman pretty boy molested your brain with science fiction movies.”
“Fair enough” Jack muttered, catching an amused spark in Hammond’s eyes.
Kowalski who had been looking over the gear picked up the black spear like weapon. It was smaller than the one Ra’s bird dudes used, and Kowalski noted, lacked all the ornate trappings and was shorter by half a length. Though there was a beautiful depiction of a water garden on the staff it didn’t draw the eye and after a moment of searching for the trigger he laughed when a stock emerged. “Colonel, look at this” he tossed Jack the staff and O’Neill caught it nodding his head, the thing had to weight less than a pound and yet it felt like it was hard enough to cave someone’s head in. “Baton setting” he squeezed the grip slightly and the gem at the top glowed.
“Is that what was used against you on Abydos?”
O’Neill shook his head “The ones we dealt with on Abydos seemed to be for crowd control and might have been more ceremonial, this, this is like a military variant. Did they have those weird tase guns?”
Hammond nodded “We recovered a half dozen of them.” The Admiral’s eyes shifted to Lahm who was looking at the imaging results. “It’s weird, whatever is inside them doesn’t show up but man, their muscle and bone density is wild. It’s like a gorillas sir and I can’t even guess at what the thing in there is…Unless maybe it’s some kind of performance enhancer”
“A living steroid pack or something?” O’Neill asked, it would certainly explain dog breath, being impaled, stabbed and everything else and still coming.
“Maybe Jack” She turned to the Admiral “Sir on Abydos most of the civilians there were human but they were very clearly heavily mixed with what I think were other hominids. Like the Neanderthal, these guys here. “she gestured to the dead woman “Have features that are even more pronounced, but I can’t guess at what went into it. My guess? We’re looking at someone bred to be strong, healthy and athletic. This lady has a cardio-pulmonary system that would make most work horse breeds blush. Put her in the Olympics and she’d outrun, out swim, out toss, out wrestle and outfight our best all in the same day and maybe she’d need to take two minutes to catch her breath at the end. It’s consistent with what I saw on Abydos Admiral, whenever the Nagadans got anywhere near them without a lot of numbers they were just tossed around like ragdolls”
“Colonel O’Neill beat their leader” Kowalski said with a grin of pride “and you and me got a few didn’t we babe!”
Lahm rolled her eyes despite the warm smile. “Yeah, we did with back up” she continued to look through the medical file and her eyes narrowed in confusion on several of the blood readings. “Well, that’s weird. She’s in her late forties but there’s no damage to any of her organs that you’d expect from the kind of life soldiers have. I mean, they can resurrect the dead and reverse the aging process with that resurrection chamber thing Jackson talked about, but the impression he got was that it was something that only elites did. She’s not worn out” Lahm traced a hand over the dead woman’s hand trying to feel for any kind of callouses and the usual wear you saw on the joints in the digits and on the fingerprints of anyone who did physically intense work.
What disturbed her more was the imaging done on the body by Fraser suggested she’d given birth at least three times in her life but the signs of stress associated with that on her body was faded as if the last time she had a kid was five decades ago or more. Which made no sense, the woman couldn’t be over forty-six. “Sir, the people on Abydos were nothing like this, they had traits that suggested crossbreeding, but this is something else.”
“You say Ra took a human as a host, could that be what we’re looking at here?” Asked Hammond.
Jack had a hard time believing that old bastard was a snake living in a twink’s stomach and he shook his head. “His eyes glowed, he spoke with a weird voice that seemed to mess with your instincts”
“Put the fear of God in you?” Hammond asked, his voice far away.
O’Neill nodded “But only he did that, even the guy I fought wasn’t like that. No, Jackson was probably right about Ra being unique. He did things I didn’t think were possible and at one point I think he created an energy field around himself with his own mind and Jackson said there were times when he would appear or disappear, as if he screwed with your ability to focus or messed with your senses” He hadn’t seen that, but he saw the aftermath of what Ra did to Ferretti and felt the bastard in his own mind at least once.
“Well, you were right about there likely being more of them then because the golden bandido who abducted one of my marines tried that on me” Hammond was fuming despite how calm his voice was and by the cold look in his eyes O’Neill knew it didn’t take. But that didn’t surprise him, George Hammond was a quiet gentle old war dog, but he was still capable of being the biggest, meanest fucker in the yard and whoever did this was guaranteed the misfortune of learning that lesson the hard way.
God help the…God?
O’Neill smiled slightly at his terrible joke. And allowed himself a moment of vengeful satisfaction in the knowledge that Hammond hadn’t even stopped to consider it. He was willing to pick a fight with the Duke (Or Crown Prince?) and possibly an entire empire solely to get his marine back and to educate them on why no one fucked with the US military and George Hammond.
Hammond who’d been listening closed his eye for a moment, his hand resting on one of the tables. “Is there any way of ascertaining where they came from?” He asked, wanting to avoid having to send a team to Abydos, they had tried to send a probe some two weeks after SG-0’s return and it must have hit rocks because they lost contact pretty quickly. The beyond the risk, neither he nor the President were willing to endanger civilian lives on a world that might prove fruitless even if he had managed to send a team through successfully.
“Our best bet” O’Neill said after some consideration, his mind wandering to Shau’re and Daniel and Skara and Kasuf and his youngest who had stuck to Lahm as though she were an adopted older sister. “Is on Abydos”
“But the gate was buried correct?” Hammond asked.
Jack nodded slowly “Well that’s what Jackson said he would do, and he seemed to follow through. We might be able to get a radio signal out, some of that gear had solar batteries but” His eyes shifted towards the sink counter at the end of the exam room and his eyes flashed in amusement. “Nah, I’ve a better idea”
Kowalski grinned as he saw O’Neill grab a box of tissue, laughing “Don’t worry Sir, I think I know what he’s doing”
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Family matters
Chulak
Family matters
“C-c-corporal..Chri..Christmas” The voice was wispy, weak and tired and it belonged to a boy no older than twelve, or rather the creature within the boy. He was seated on a small throne in a courtyard with a series of ponds with water warm enough that a layer of mist danced along the surface, obscuring all but the phosphorescent fish within girded by ornately decorated columns depicting great battles won in the past, or scenic strolls down beaches on worlds that were either long gone or long changed. Vines snaked several of the columns, their flowers blooming in the gentle light filtered by the gas giant this world orbited.
Shortly after the murder of Ouranos, the father of Ra and Yu by more primitive Goa’uld who feared the power of the System lords, Ra established rather clear rules about which Goa’uld could procreate with which and which were strictly prohibited. There were those whose ancestors were part of the great Ori research but discarded as they lacked the potential the first peers possessed. Those made up the bulk of the administrators and planetary governors of the vast empire of the System Lords and while it was viewed unfavorably it wasn’t a crime for a System Lord to lay with one or mate with a queen. There were likely half a million Goa’uld across the Empire who were halfbreeds between these two races.
Children of the Gods, the bastards of the System Lords. The rest, those whose lifespan was a mere four millennia or so made up the bulk of the technicians and scientists who worked and maintained the infrastructure of the empire. But there were breeds even lower, the near mindless savages who existed upon the primordial Cradle world of the Goa'uld where they came solely to honor the site where Ra’s rebellion began. Mating with such feral ancestors, the atavism of their kind? That was a death sentence for any Goa’uld depraved enough to dare. It was unthinkable for a system lord to lay with such primitives, many of which who possessed beasts that crawled on all fours, or the poor, miserable Unas who remained. They were more servants of the creatures that inhabited them than the other way around and it was a very painful reminder for the Goa’uld of where they would be were it not for the Ori and their desperation.
And what the Ori intended them to be for all eternity.
Most of the System Lords adhered rather rigidly to the social norms of their empire and would seldom address lesser Goa’uld in any way that was intimate or personal and none would dare do anything more than hunt their feral ancestors for sport. To address a Jaffa as informally as Apophis and Ba’al often did (Treating them as brothers and equals) was something that was seen as absolutely backwards and barbaric and the older system Lords sneered at Ba’al for being born to a Jaffa as opposed to being born from the womb of their parents hosts..repurposed to produce children of the gods. Those Peers who were not system Lords but served them who were likewise born were held at a distance as well. Outside of Ba’al and Apophis only Hathor and Yu really broke that protocol (Yu even permitted Jaffa and Peers born of Jaffa to sit upon the heavenly Kingdoms ruling council!). Amaterasu came close, but she was so sullen and aloof it was easy to confuse her antisocial nature for a breach of protocol (She spoke to everyone the same and often sent a Peer to speak for her at court.) but even she held to this maxim of disciplined social order.
But of all the “progressives” Apophis was the only one who took it a step further. One day after a return from a pilgrimage to the mother world, Apophis brought with him a human female of some fourteen years, feral, clutching at her chains, snarling and heavily pregnant. Evidently after a night of drunken debauchery and copious abuse of narcotics he convinced himself to allow one of those primitive queens to take one of Haqet’s Lotars as a host and after several more weeks of violating her, she got with child. He was proud of his achievement, proving it could be done, but he knew enough not to bring her to court. Still, he’d kept her leash bound until the delivery killed both Qua’uld and Host.
But ancient Haqet informed on Apophis and Ra arrived with a warfleet and came close to destroying Chulak from orbit. It was only the impassioned pleas of Athena and Bra’tac (The only Jaffa in the history of the species to be granted the honor to weigh in on matters at Court and to earn that he had to become a legend almost as great as the System Lords themselves), that prevented Ra from plunging the Empire into a civil war or else costing the empire its greatest military leader. The crime of miscegenation, however, was not so easily forgiven.
Apophis had to surrender one hundred lightyears of his domain to Set and Ra forced him to kill all of his children by the she beast with his own hands. All but one, the runt of the litter, which Apophis was forbidden from ever slaying. He was to be given access to a resurrection chamber even and should he prove to possess the powers of a peer or power comparable to a System lord, it would be up to Apophis to endure and control his son. Teal’c remembered watching as Apophis was forced to butcher the infant Goa’uld, their awful noises that clearly indicated they were sentient, the psychic pulse as their barely developed minds pleaded with their father and he remembered that Apophis clutched Klorel’s pale form to him and wept openly.
Ra viewed Apophis as a degenerate and a derelict and an asset that was outliving it utility by its conduct. Drey’ac had begun to think the same, Teal’c himself had begun to think the same but then he would remember the look in the great Cobra’s eyes. The sheer guilt, shame, heart ache and unconditional love and he wanted to stay his hand.
Klorel was deformed, weak and his powers were so wild and ungovernable they tore his hosts apart, they would routinely erupt in ulcers and tumors as healing abilities went wild, age rapidly then become young again. He would spend months at a time in a regeneration chamber as they were the only place that could stabilize his energies, two weeks ago the calf muscle of Klorel’s right leg sloughed off and instead of new muscle what replaced it was a fully formed foot. His spine contorted and then a second spine began to grow that had to be extracted. Klorel himself was incredibly unhinged, often times completely unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality. He remembered things that weren’t his own life and sometimes confused himself for his own grandfather or indeed the Ori host his grandfather possessed. He spoke in Alteran, a language that even the Ori did not speak, seldom was he able to be understood without mental communication and that was in and of itself dangerous for the youth was incapable of holding himself back and applying measured contact to anyone. No, even being told “good morning” by Klorel psychically was dangerous. He was an honestly loving creature in some moments (Despite how horrifying and depraved he was, Teal’c never once felt unsafe near him as he knew without question Klorel adored him and so much so that Teal’c was the only person beside his father who could calm Klorel), but in other moments?
Today Klorel decided to teach Teal’c “Aenglush” the language of the Myr’uins that he and Apophis faced on that backwater. Today Klorel would mark the fourth consecutive hour that he was inside the mind of Regina Christmas, though from her perspective it was the fourth decade of a life of constant pain, sorrow and despair and confusion.
Today, Klorel imparted the language of the humans of that world to him along with a deluge of images and memories and written word. Today, Klorel sought to show him exactly how he broke the woman.
And today Teal’c was convinced Drey’ac was right, and he would send for Martouf, the chamberlain of Ba’al’s domain on this very night. For what he saw within the poor woman’s mind was absolutely beyond the pale, it was exceeded only by the horrors of the Nameless One and Teal’c was almost convinced Klorel was some ancient trap left behind by the Fallen One as some twisted, postmortem act of revenge.
But that would absolve Apophis of his part in this depravity.
“C’ealt” Klorel always said his name backwards and he reached up with an ulcer ladened hand to rest upon Teal’c wrist, he was wheezing, gasping and Teal’c for a moment was hopeful this wretched misborn creature was dying, so that its suffering, and the suffering of its victims would end. “C-a-call..dad”
English? He blinked, the creature was a spastic mess and he nodded rushing away, hoping the thing would fall out of its chair and break its neck or something, while unattended.
Predictably he found Apophis in the third hour of his sparring session with the newest recruits of his Honor Guard. -Ra forbade him doing this- Teal’c thought, yet Apophis did it anyway. Granted he understood why Apophis did it anyway, Ra’s chief concern was the cult of the System lords taking a blow if anyone ever defeated Apophis in battle. While the Godhead was flippant about his divinity with those closest to him, Teal’c understood the religion built up around them was one of the underpinnings of the empire. The Humans and nonhumans under their rule worshipped them as much as they were ruled by them and while Jaffa were never encouraged to view the System Lords as Gods, most viewed them as close enough to gods for the distinction to be academic. But it was perhaps, a misguided concern for outside of Herakles, the son of Zeus and Peer and First prime to Zeus only Bra’tac had ever defeated Apophis in a sparring match. There were two virtues Apophis still seemed to possess, he was a peerless warrior and…He loved his mate and son even if they didn’t deserve that love at all.
“Majesty” Teal’c bowed and in doing so likely saved a young Jaffa from a blow that would have broken his jaw.
“Ahhh! Teal’c! Come and join us, I was just educating these whelps in how to block unconventional strikes!” His voice boomed with that distorted chorus that only the System Lords were allowed to use, a voice that could influence the emotions of those around them. Even alter their mental state, Apophis above all save Ra possessed the most refined variant, able to inspire armies, sway his peers and even drive someone mad. But Teal’c had been trained in how to resist the voice and that bald war chief had proven that it was not impossible to fight against.
“I would be honored Majesty; however, your lordly prince Klorel calls for you”
Apophis nodded “you left him alone?!” A trace of fear in his voice then the anger of a father who believed his trust betrayed. “Only because he was desperate that you be summoned, he commanded me”
Quick to anger, fast to forgive when it came to his warriors Apophis nodded resting a hand on Teal’c’s shoulder before darting off towards his son. That was the closest the Serpent Lord would ever come to an apology, but it was more than any First Prime serving any other system lord could say. It was no wonder he maintained the loyalty of his legions for so long. It was hard not to love Apophis when he wasn’t indulging in his baser impulses, but that love came at a terrible cost.
-How long have I allowed my family to be dishonored by abetting this barbarism?-
Teal’c caught up with Apophis in time to find him kneeling before the deformed, rotting heap that was his son, gently wiping away bile from his mouth. Speaking to him softly “Tell me my darling boy, tell me, what is it that makes you hurt yourself and send away your protectors?”
“T….Father..Tau’Ri…Ra..E..Emperor..Tau’Ri…O’Neeeilll”
Apophis narrowed his eyes a look of deadly seriousness washing over his features as he gripped the back of his son’s head and angled his face so that he forced the flailing Klorel to look him in the eye “What did you say?”
“S..show..you..father”
“And Teal’c..Show us both my son”
The woman, Christmas had been left naked, chained to a wall. She’d long ago become little more then a twitching, sobbing heap of flesh with a blank stare that suggested that Klorel had torn her psyche to shreds and cut her sense of self to ribbons. Apophis ignored her entirely as he looked at his son intently “Show us..Klorel..you must show us”
And he did.
And Teal’c wished he could pray.
Family matters
“C-c-corporal..Chri..Christmas” The voice was wispy, weak and tired and it belonged to a boy no older than twelve, or rather the creature within the boy. He was seated on a small throne in a courtyard with a series of ponds with water warm enough that a layer of mist danced along the surface, obscuring all but the phosphorescent fish within girded by ornately decorated columns depicting great battles won in the past, or scenic strolls down beaches on worlds that were either long gone or long changed. Vines snaked several of the columns, their flowers blooming in the gentle light filtered by the gas giant this world orbited.
Shortly after the murder of Ouranos, the father of Ra and Yu by more primitive Goa’uld who feared the power of the System lords, Ra established rather clear rules about which Goa’uld could procreate with which and which were strictly prohibited. There were those whose ancestors were part of the great Ori research but discarded as they lacked the potential the first peers possessed. Those made up the bulk of the administrators and planetary governors of the vast empire of the System Lords and while it was viewed unfavorably it wasn’t a crime for a System Lord to lay with one or mate with a queen. There were likely half a million Goa’uld across the Empire who were halfbreeds between these two races.
Children of the Gods, the bastards of the System Lords. The rest, those whose lifespan was a mere four millennia or so made up the bulk of the technicians and scientists who worked and maintained the infrastructure of the empire. But there were breeds even lower, the near mindless savages who existed upon the primordial Cradle world of the Goa'uld where they came solely to honor the site where Ra’s rebellion began. Mating with such feral ancestors, the atavism of their kind? That was a death sentence for any Goa’uld depraved enough to dare. It was unthinkable for a system lord to lay with such primitives, many of which who possessed beasts that crawled on all fours, or the poor, miserable Unas who remained. They were more servants of the creatures that inhabited them than the other way around and it was a very painful reminder for the Goa’uld of where they would be were it not for the Ori and their desperation.
And what the Ori intended them to be for all eternity.
Most of the System Lords adhered rather rigidly to the social norms of their empire and would seldom address lesser Goa’uld in any way that was intimate or personal and none would dare do anything more than hunt their feral ancestors for sport. To address a Jaffa as informally as Apophis and Ba’al often did (Treating them as brothers and equals) was something that was seen as absolutely backwards and barbaric and the older system Lords sneered at Ba’al for being born to a Jaffa as opposed to being born from the womb of their parents hosts..repurposed to produce children of the gods. Those Peers who were not system Lords but served them who were likewise born were held at a distance as well. Outside of Ba’al and Apophis only Hathor and Yu really broke that protocol (Yu even permitted Jaffa and Peers born of Jaffa to sit upon the heavenly Kingdoms ruling council!). Amaterasu came close, but she was so sullen and aloof it was easy to confuse her antisocial nature for a breach of protocol (She spoke to everyone the same and often sent a Peer to speak for her at court.) but even she held to this maxim of disciplined social order.
But of all the “progressives” Apophis was the only one who took it a step further. One day after a return from a pilgrimage to the mother world, Apophis brought with him a human female of some fourteen years, feral, clutching at her chains, snarling and heavily pregnant. Evidently after a night of drunken debauchery and copious abuse of narcotics he convinced himself to allow one of those primitive queens to take one of Haqet’s Lotars as a host and after several more weeks of violating her, she got with child. He was proud of his achievement, proving it could be done, but he knew enough not to bring her to court. Still, he’d kept her leash bound until the delivery killed both Qua’uld and Host.
But ancient Haqet informed on Apophis and Ra arrived with a warfleet and came close to destroying Chulak from orbit. It was only the impassioned pleas of Athena and Bra’tac (The only Jaffa in the history of the species to be granted the honor to weigh in on matters at Court and to earn that he had to become a legend almost as great as the System Lords themselves), that prevented Ra from plunging the Empire into a civil war or else costing the empire its greatest military leader. The crime of miscegenation, however, was not so easily forgiven.
Apophis had to surrender one hundred lightyears of his domain to Set and Ra forced him to kill all of his children by the she beast with his own hands. All but one, the runt of the litter, which Apophis was forbidden from ever slaying. He was to be given access to a resurrection chamber even and should he prove to possess the powers of a peer or power comparable to a System lord, it would be up to Apophis to endure and control his son. Teal’c remembered watching as Apophis was forced to butcher the infant Goa’uld, their awful noises that clearly indicated they were sentient, the psychic pulse as their barely developed minds pleaded with their father and he remembered that Apophis clutched Klorel’s pale form to him and wept openly.
Ra viewed Apophis as a degenerate and a derelict and an asset that was outliving it utility by its conduct. Drey’ac had begun to think the same, Teal’c himself had begun to think the same but then he would remember the look in the great Cobra’s eyes. The sheer guilt, shame, heart ache and unconditional love and he wanted to stay his hand.
Klorel was deformed, weak and his powers were so wild and ungovernable they tore his hosts apart, they would routinely erupt in ulcers and tumors as healing abilities went wild, age rapidly then become young again. He would spend months at a time in a regeneration chamber as they were the only place that could stabilize his energies, two weeks ago the calf muscle of Klorel’s right leg sloughed off and instead of new muscle what replaced it was a fully formed foot. His spine contorted and then a second spine began to grow that had to be extracted. Klorel himself was incredibly unhinged, often times completely unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality. He remembered things that weren’t his own life and sometimes confused himself for his own grandfather or indeed the Ori host his grandfather possessed. He spoke in Alteran, a language that even the Ori did not speak, seldom was he able to be understood without mental communication and that was in and of itself dangerous for the youth was incapable of holding himself back and applying measured contact to anyone. No, even being told “good morning” by Klorel psychically was dangerous. He was an honestly loving creature in some moments (Despite how horrifying and depraved he was, Teal’c never once felt unsafe near him as he knew without question Klorel adored him and so much so that Teal’c was the only person beside his father who could calm Klorel), but in other moments?
Today Klorel decided to teach Teal’c “Aenglush” the language of the Myr’uins that he and Apophis faced on that backwater. Today Klorel would mark the fourth consecutive hour that he was inside the mind of Regina Christmas, though from her perspective it was the fourth decade of a life of constant pain, sorrow and despair and confusion.
Today, Klorel imparted the language of the humans of that world to him along with a deluge of images and memories and written word. Today, Klorel sought to show him exactly how he broke the woman.
And today Teal’c was convinced Drey’ac was right, and he would send for Martouf, the chamberlain of Ba’al’s domain on this very night. For what he saw within the poor woman’s mind was absolutely beyond the pale, it was exceeded only by the horrors of the Nameless One and Teal’c was almost convinced Klorel was some ancient trap left behind by the Fallen One as some twisted, postmortem act of revenge.
But that would absolve Apophis of his part in this depravity.
“C’ealt” Klorel always said his name backwards and he reached up with an ulcer ladened hand to rest upon Teal’c wrist, he was wheezing, gasping and Teal’c for a moment was hopeful this wretched misborn creature was dying, so that its suffering, and the suffering of its victims would end. “C-a-call..dad”
English? He blinked, the creature was a spastic mess and he nodded rushing away, hoping the thing would fall out of its chair and break its neck or something, while unattended.
Predictably he found Apophis in the third hour of his sparring session with the newest recruits of his Honor Guard. -Ra forbade him doing this- Teal’c thought, yet Apophis did it anyway. Granted he understood why Apophis did it anyway, Ra’s chief concern was the cult of the System lords taking a blow if anyone ever defeated Apophis in battle. While the Godhead was flippant about his divinity with those closest to him, Teal’c understood the religion built up around them was one of the underpinnings of the empire. The Humans and nonhumans under their rule worshipped them as much as they were ruled by them and while Jaffa were never encouraged to view the System Lords as Gods, most viewed them as close enough to gods for the distinction to be academic. But it was perhaps, a misguided concern for outside of Herakles, the son of Zeus and Peer and First prime to Zeus only Bra’tac had ever defeated Apophis in a sparring match. There were two virtues Apophis still seemed to possess, he was a peerless warrior and…He loved his mate and son even if they didn’t deserve that love at all.
“Majesty” Teal’c bowed and in doing so likely saved a young Jaffa from a blow that would have broken his jaw.
“Ahhh! Teal’c! Come and join us, I was just educating these whelps in how to block unconventional strikes!” His voice boomed with that distorted chorus that only the System Lords were allowed to use, a voice that could influence the emotions of those around them. Even alter their mental state, Apophis above all save Ra possessed the most refined variant, able to inspire armies, sway his peers and even drive someone mad. But Teal’c had been trained in how to resist the voice and that bald war chief had proven that it was not impossible to fight against.
“I would be honored Majesty; however, your lordly prince Klorel calls for you”
Apophis nodded “you left him alone?!” A trace of fear in his voice then the anger of a father who believed his trust betrayed. “Only because he was desperate that you be summoned, he commanded me”
Quick to anger, fast to forgive when it came to his warriors Apophis nodded resting a hand on Teal’c’s shoulder before darting off towards his son. That was the closest the Serpent Lord would ever come to an apology, but it was more than any First Prime serving any other system lord could say. It was no wonder he maintained the loyalty of his legions for so long. It was hard not to love Apophis when he wasn’t indulging in his baser impulses, but that love came at a terrible cost.
-How long have I allowed my family to be dishonored by abetting this barbarism?-
Teal’c caught up with Apophis in time to find him kneeling before the deformed, rotting heap that was his son, gently wiping away bile from his mouth. Speaking to him softly “Tell me my darling boy, tell me, what is it that makes you hurt yourself and send away your protectors?”
“T….Father..Tau’Ri…Ra..E..Emperor..Tau’Ri…O’Neeeilll”
Apophis narrowed his eyes a look of deadly seriousness washing over his features as he gripped the back of his son’s head and angled his face so that he forced the flailing Klorel to look him in the eye “What did you say?”
“S..show..you..father”
“And Teal’c..Show us both my son”
The woman, Christmas had been left naked, chained to a wall. She’d long ago become little more then a twitching, sobbing heap of flesh with a blank stare that suggested that Klorel had torn her psyche to shreds and cut her sense of self to ribbons. Apophis ignored her entirely as he looked at his son intently “Show us..Klorel..you must show us”
And he did.
And Teal’c wished he could pray.
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DocSolarisReich
Esoteric Spaceman
Huh, suddenly I have the desire to be in command of ISD in orbit over Chulak.
"This planet offends me. Helm, Guns, implement action plan Base Delta Zero. That is all."
"This planet offends me. Helm, Guns, implement action plan Base Delta Zero. That is all."
Something is rotten in house of Tartourus.
Speaking of that, Goa'uld ships won't be as pathetic
I mean, they were only pathetic when compared to high end stuff, like Asgard, Ancient, and Ori ships.
They're pretty good all-round general purpose ships in the general scifi sense.
The thing the Goa'uld needed most was a bit more variety than fighter/small transport/mid-range bomber/capital ship/super capital ship.
Theyre user friendly nature is definitely something I'll keep
paulobrito
Well-known member
Tagged.
Thanks? I think.
paulobrito
Well-known member
LOL - is an expression used in several other sites that basically says: Is a good story, I'm marking it to read.
Hah! Thank you then.
I think this is the first time in a decade I've tackled anything like this. From a creative standpoint it's a hell of a challenge. Trying to do the original show justice while adapting it.
Especially when the standard protocol for so many professionals is to tumblerize crap
Through the looking glass
Quick little update to prove I'm still alive and writing. O'Neill gets his team ready and Apophis has a tantrum an Teal'c begins to realize just how far gone Apophis really is.
Also Apophis throws a tantrum then decides to gamble.
Through the looking glass
Cheyenne Mountain complex- June 29th
“You know what sucks about this the most boss?” Kowalski asked with a playful smile “Besides the invasion. Carolyn and I were going to start working on having a few kids and then they knock on our door”. It wasn’t all bad though, he was excited to see Ferretti and Jackson again, the three of them forming a sort of gang of friends who helped each other through the roughest parts of the original Abydos mission. He missed Shau’re and Kasuf as well, the younger woman sort of treating him like an older brother was nice. Kowalski had nothing but brothers, so it was amusing and then there was Kadra and all their other friends, the people they went through hell with by the river.
O’Neil laughed “Don’t tell me you two dumbasses were waiting for the right time?!” He asked passing some coffee to the man who was now nearing forty. “Well she’s a lot younger than me and then she got asked to be part of the USAMRID stuff and.”
O’Neill cut him off “There no right time numbnuts, once you become a parent you can forget about order and predictability in your life.”
Kowalski blinked “it’s, it’s not that bad, my brothers have lots of kids”
“Not the same when you’re an uncle” O’Neill said. “That show with the titties and Dragons..”
“Game of Thrones” Kowalski offered.
“Yeah, that one, “love is the death of duty” one of the character’s said, I think he was some old ass wizard stuck in a freezer or something. Anyway, the quotes all fucked up, love ain’t the death of duty, but parenthood is the death of sanity for a career man.” O’Neill’s voice was filled with an ominous tone but the glint in his eyes implied he rather enjoyed being a father and loved his children intensely.
“He’s right son” Hammond’s voice boomed as he entered the conference room a level above the Gate room, where the Gate Room and the exterior and first levels of the facility were displayed on large LED’s, as well as an orbit’s eye view of the Earth. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it Kowalski” The Admiral added. Lahm entered the room shortly after and Kowalski turned beat red, wondering how much of that conversation she’d heard.
“Admiral Sir I” Whatever she was about to say was cut short by the soft rumble that signified the ornate Star Gate was activating and indeed they made it down to the communications room in front of the Stargate in time to see it shut off.
On the ramp rested a Kleenex box, with the words “Thanks! Send more!” in charcoal on the side. O’Neill knelt, picking it up before he tossed it to Kowalski who showed it to Lahm then the Admiral who managed to manifest the faintest hints of a smile. “Sir, request permission to retrieve my nerd, and my giant”
Hammond laughed lightly “Permission granted Colonel O’Neill. We’ll convene back here at 15:00 I trust that’s enough time to create your retrieval team.”
“It’ll only take me an hour sir” O’Neill remarked, why the hell did he want to wait six hours to go through the Gate? No way The Admiral would saddle him with another civilian or worse, another nerd? “I don’t need a twenty-man band or anything”
“Oh No colonel, you’re taking some of Carter’s surviving marines with you even if this puts the facility at a manpower shortage for the time being.” Replacements were on the way, but they likely wouldn’t arrive here for another two days. Hammond planned to use that time to hand pick some prospects to replace his poor scientists who died so bravely. “But that isn’t why, I want you to wait. I want you to hold position because Sam’s two hours out”
O’Neill’s jaw set “You’ve gotta be fuck’n kidding me”. He muttered before quickly adding “With all Due respect sir” Behind Hammond Kowalski idly gripped Lahm’s hand and muttered a silent prayer. “Doc Carter? You want her out of her lab?” O'Neill asked.
“Hell, you want her out of her straight jacket?!” Kowalski asked alarmed.
“That’s not necessary sir” O’Neill muttered. “She’s a turbo nerd and a crazy one, I don’t need that kind of baggage on my ream sir”
“Oh, I think it is Colonel, she would have been on the original mission had West not deemed her to important an asset to lose, but since this is just a retrieval mission and who knows what Jackson might have found in five years? I want a specialist involved. She may be the only person who can decipher the technologies out there any way. This isn’t up for negotiation”
“sir” Lahm cut in, sending Carter there was implicative of things, she wasn’t sure she fully liked. “Am I given to understand that we intend to establish a more permanent presence on Abydos?”
Hammond sighed. Yes, that was suggested to him by the president, who wanted to use this opportunity to see if they could negotiate for more of the material the natives called Naquadah, and it seemed as if he took Lahm’s suggestions about studying the plant life for pharmaceutical research to heart. “One thing at a time Doctor Lahm, if this mission doesn’t go sideways then yes.”
“If that’s the case…I would like to accompany the team sir, I could remain and collect samples and-“Hammond cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I know what you want to do, and I know why you’re doing it. You figure better you then someone who doesn’t know these people might exploit them or something right?” Hammond asked, suspecting this had been one of the reasons they lied about the mission to such a degree. When she nodded, he shook his head annoyed “You people think this thing’s a damn Taxi service don’t you? Relax Doctor, I agree with you in principle and so does President Trump. But that’s not the purpose of this mission.”
“We’ll need a medic” O’Neill pointed out.
“She’s yours then assuming she wants to go” Hammond turned and smiled slyly at the woman who laughed. “You really have to ask me? Why does your request sound like an order anyway”?
“You’re a civilian.” He answered to the first, as though it was the most obvious answer in the world. “And because they are.” he added excusing himself from the room.
O’Neill stood there for a moment, weighing his options before shrugging. “Man, if she blows up a planet or something, I’m going to mutiny.”
..........
Chulak
Teal’c looked at the human soldier chained like an animal, watching as Apophis returned from wheeling his son to the resurrection chamber. Refusing to allow anyone but himself to handle his son more out of a sense of fatherly protectiveness than fear for the safety of his attendants, though Teal’c knew any Jaffa that served as a valet to the Lordling would count him or herself blessed since Klorel was powerful enough that their mental training and assistance from their Prim’tah would often not be enough to shield them from an accidental psychic assault.
Father could protect himself from son and Teal’c wasn’t sure exactly why he was never torn apart by the broken beast. Torn apart like this poor woman, whose mind filled him with images that troubled the First Prime and yet filled him with an odd sense of hope. “Majesty” Teal’c moved to bow, and Apophis waved a dismissive hand, not in the mood for any sort of formality. Teal’c raised his eyebrow upon realizing Apophis was wearing a glove containing a gem and several silk like metal cables. It was rare for Apophis to wear such a device, only doing so when he planned to go into battle or when on inspection.
Apophis stood before the drooling heap that had once been a decently beautiful woman with the spirit of a fighter. “I was going to give her to my Amunet, but she would be terribly cross if I hand her leftovers” Especially that of her stepson Apophis realized, she was terribly jealous of Klorel at times. He reached out with the gloved hand resting his index and middle finger against the forehead of the young woman, who was groaning and pleading. The Serpent lord’s turquoise eyes glowed faintly, and the room seemed to cool as he pulled energy from around the palace.
The woman lurched, blood ebbed from her nose and ears and she slumped forward lifeless. “She served me in other ways however” Apophis remarked in a tone that was unusually grave for the God who laughed at assassination attempts as often as he did a joke. The lifeless form before them began to smoke, ordinarily Apophis would remain and watch as the corpse began to burn from the inside out, leaving nothing but ash and charred bones to be collected by the Gardeners. But Lord Apophis was unusually focused. “Come Teal’c.” He turned storming from out the room and nearly bolting through the courtyard into one of the many bridges of stone and light that linked the forward section of the palace, to Bakhu. The original mountain stronghold on the planet, the reason the Ori struggled so violently to possess Chulak. It had been a hermitage, one of their isolation colonies, but this one held a secret that only the oldest system lords knew. Whatever it was, Teal’c suspected that a great tragedy befell this hermitage for in no other tales of that distant era explained why the one hermitage that managed to preserve its power would spend it upon another.
But they had and when they realized Apophis and the first legions of the Jaffa had massacred everyone inside, they went into a blind frenzy. Bakhu was enormous, a mountain turned into an underground city, turned into a palace and fortress by Apophis. While it had originally been built simply as a means to keep a dying race alive, the System Lord had turned it into a place of art and culture -He’d been honorable once, they all had been-. However, beautiful as it was, the place still felt lonely, remote and sad. It was obvious why Apophis eventually relocated his Capitol to the planet Waset. This place was deary and both he and his wife avoided it when not at work.
Within its walls Jaffa who did not qualify for the training on Dakkara under War master Bra’tac learned and the vast majority of the Serpent Guard and the navigators and marines of the fleet studied and lived here. It always daunted him, how somber the place was even with so many present, even when he spent ten hours of every day here. It was as they walked across the rainbow colored forcefields that acted as bridges between the two more traditional walkways (Something had constructed in mockery of the Asgardians Heimdall and Thor) that Teal’c decided finally to voice his concerns, voice his uncertainty at the images. “With, respect great Lord” Teal’c began watching as Apophis careless threw his silk robe over the side of the bridge and take a deep breath of the cold air. Apophis did this when his blood was up, when he wanted to fight and needed to focus. “You seem disturbed by those images, but they may not mean anything.”
He knew of the legend of the Tau’Ri, the first world where humanity and its offshoots evolved. But he knew also that there were no records of the world, that Ra claimed Egeria and Prometheus began their treason on Dakkara itself, causing a rebellion amongst the human serfs and the non-human peasantry. But stories, amongst the descendants of those humans and some of the Jaffa involved said the rebellion began elsewhere, not on the cradle world but on the ancestral home world.
But Teal’c also knew that mind reading was not as reliable as the humans and other races of the galaxies believed that it was. Most memories contained an element of biased, as memory was always filtered through one’s own mentality. The biases, the prejudices, the fears and the regrets and one’s own understanding of the universe. What Klorel showed them was indeed startling, the a “mission report” that this low-ranking person somehow managed to read? A thing that made Teal’c wonder if she was not a plant within this organization or had an agenda of her own or had been supplied false information in the event she was captured (This had been done before, Set recently blundered into a trap set by pirates from the thrice damned Lucian alliance who exploited this.). That the world they raided was indeed Tau’Ri and that they would encounter the successors to the very force that killed Ra over Abydos and that this was a plausible explanation (No one believed foul play, for Abydonians were nearly all loyal even when one of their cities rebelled), all seemed far too convenient to Teal’c. “And the address” Teal’c spoke, this time considerably more carefully. “Would you not remember it?”
Rather than be offended Apophis erupted in laughter it was as bitter as it was jovial. “Teal’c the rebellion occurred more than thirty thousand years ago and the world itself was only valuable because of your forebears and the fauna, of which we modified and dispersed to our liking. Once that was achieved, it lost value. Ra bid us to forget it, I saw no issue in it. A bunch of primitive ingrates ambushed our garrison on the coast of one of their continents, another one of our space ports was hit and Ra abandoned the planet” both of the Serpent lords fists clenched once they entered the grand doors, now fury seemed to course through his veins. “Miserable fool! Egeria was mine! My wife! My mate, my consort! The mother of my children and the Prim’tah of my Jaffa! It was bad enough she cuckolded me with that pathetic slut Amaterasu! That ape fucking cretin, but then she makes off with Prometheus and instigates a rebellion?!” His fist hit a brazier, denting the metal, and causing oil and flames to spill over the synthetic granite floors. It burned in the dark casting an aura of madness of the snarling face of Apophis.
“Ra was my brother-in-law, Anubis followed him, and he was the elder brother, I obeyed Anubis because it was the way of things, it is the way of things. I never complained, though I chafed under my dear brother at times, I never challenged Ra though he mocked me and disrespected at every turn! He passed me over for that…Wretched little bro-” Apophis went silent, veering dangerously close to a topic that was utterly forbidden, a topic that was too horrifying to discuss.
“Ra made it all about him, about his great humiliation, but those were my Jaffa on Tau’Ri! Their first prime my son! Ah, yes he waxed poetically and commissioned ballads and had entire religious texts discussing his heart break, the pain of Egeria’s treachery..Fah…what about me?! She humiliated me! And when the Serrakin rebelled? It was on my worlds their terrorism was the most vicious! Egeria’s rebellion spread to a hundred worlds before we put it down and by the time we did, we lost it all. To him Tau’Ri represented a personal humiliation and an irrational fear. But to the rest of us? The abandonment of Tau’Ri marked the moment we nearly lost our empire! If it weren’t for those benighted” Apophis took a breath, doing his best to center himself.
Ra had been their leader from the start, the rebellion started by his mother had been carried to its conclusion by Ra himself. The war against the alliance, the Goa’uld would not have survived if it had happened under the leadership of anyone else. “It sounds terribly blasphemous doesn’t it Teal’c?” His eyes sparked with sardonic amusement as his First Prime and Imperial War Master shifted. Apophis knew that Teal’c like many Jaffa didn’t pray to Apophis as the humans and other subjects did. But he also knew, most did worship them to a degree, even if that form of worship was more respect and reverence than ecclesiastical devotion. He knew this, because before he was killed Ra had started to become something else and Ra had begun to draw on the energies of the faithful. Perhaps it was for the best that he fell at Tau’Ri hands and yet.
“Anubis, Ra all my life I have been the god of night, the one who lives in the shadows of others. My victories, accredited to others, my humiliations a matter of public knowledge. Soon, we will have to ascertain who should rule as Emperor in Ra’s place. I was content to support my sister, as her sons will surely do so, but now I see that to allow another member of the House of Ra to sit upon the throne would be…Wrong” he took a breath and smiled a nearly feral smile “Ah but today is not a day for politics! We have learned who murdered Ra and I would return to the site of his death soon!”
Teal’c wanted to pale, nothing that was said in this mad rant was at all reassuring and he was suddenly filled with a sense of dread. -I must get Drey’ac and our children out of Chulak-“If your plan is to pursue the Throne even if it means military action then I would advise you to send Drey’ac and our son to Nineveh” Teal’c spoke with a bow, doing his best to keep his tone neutral, to shield his mind and conceal the sheer terror he felt.
Apophis blinked “But why?” he queried.
“Ra governed not through might but politics, we must do both majesty. After all, the convention of System Lords will decide and protocol will have to be followed, only if they vote against you would we wage war” This was dangerously presumptuous talk from him, Teal’c knew this. Apophis was jovial and friendly but to council him so openly could very easily result in the System Lord shouting him down in his present state. Yet Apophis flashed a smile “And any decision would require Ba’al’s wealth of course..that greedy fool will demand something from me” he frowned.
“But having one of my greatest Admirals in charge of his pitiful navy would certainly ingratiate him..Especially if Drey’ac pretends to fully leave my service, yes of course!”
Of course, Teal’c thought not particularly certain why Apophis thought Ba’al would blindly back him (Though it was likely so, Ba’al’s domain lay in the middle, between Horus and Apophis, the two giants of the system Lords and Ba’al was not exactly beloved by the House of Ra, who resented his wealth and held him back). “If the unthinkable should happen majesty, we would need Ba’al”
And Zeus, Athena and Haqet Teal’c thought ruefully. If it came to that and the maniac was talking as if civil war was inevitable. He needed to do something public, to cost Apophis political capital and to slow him down. And to deny the man his own experience -how much farther can he sink?-
“Excellent Teal’c! Make the arrangements and contact Martouf in the morning if his lord is amenable then I shall sorely miss your gallant wife!” His eyes flashed wolfishly then he erupted in laughter “Peace Teal’c! I don’t have sex with Jaffa, there are limits even to my progressive appetites”
Teal’c felt a twinge of hate in his heart and shame.
“But come, prepare yourself for in the morning we are to make for Abydos!” his smile widened, teeth bearing as he seemed to nearly salivate at the possibility of returning to combat. “After all, my darling wife still needs a host!”
Also Apophis throws a tantrum then decides to gamble.
Through the looking glass
Cheyenne Mountain complex- June 29th
“You know what sucks about this the most boss?” Kowalski asked with a playful smile “Besides the invasion. Carolyn and I were going to start working on having a few kids and then they knock on our door”. It wasn’t all bad though, he was excited to see Ferretti and Jackson again, the three of them forming a sort of gang of friends who helped each other through the roughest parts of the original Abydos mission. He missed Shau’re and Kasuf as well, the younger woman sort of treating him like an older brother was nice. Kowalski had nothing but brothers, so it was amusing and then there was Kadra and all their other friends, the people they went through hell with by the river.
O’Neil laughed “Don’t tell me you two dumbasses were waiting for the right time?!” He asked passing some coffee to the man who was now nearing forty. “Well she’s a lot younger than me and then she got asked to be part of the USAMRID stuff and.”
O’Neill cut him off “There no right time numbnuts, once you become a parent you can forget about order and predictability in your life.”
Kowalski blinked “it’s, it’s not that bad, my brothers have lots of kids”
“Not the same when you’re an uncle” O’Neill said. “That show with the titties and Dragons..”
“Game of Thrones” Kowalski offered.
“Yeah, that one, “love is the death of duty” one of the character’s said, I think he was some old ass wizard stuck in a freezer or something. Anyway, the quotes all fucked up, love ain’t the death of duty, but parenthood is the death of sanity for a career man.” O’Neill’s voice was filled with an ominous tone but the glint in his eyes implied he rather enjoyed being a father and loved his children intensely.
“He’s right son” Hammond’s voice boomed as he entered the conference room a level above the Gate room, where the Gate Room and the exterior and first levels of the facility were displayed on large LED’s, as well as an orbit’s eye view of the Earth. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it Kowalski” The Admiral added. Lahm entered the room shortly after and Kowalski turned beat red, wondering how much of that conversation she’d heard.
“Admiral Sir I” Whatever she was about to say was cut short by the soft rumble that signified the ornate Star Gate was activating and indeed they made it down to the communications room in front of the Stargate in time to see it shut off.
On the ramp rested a Kleenex box, with the words “Thanks! Send more!” in charcoal on the side. O’Neill knelt, picking it up before he tossed it to Kowalski who showed it to Lahm then the Admiral who managed to manifest the faintest hints of a smile. “Sir, request permission to retrieve my nerd, and my giant”
Hammond laughed lightly “Permission granted Colonel O’Neill. We’ll convene back here at 15:00 I trust that’s enough time to create your retrieval team.”
“It’ll only take me an hour sir” O’Neill remarked, why the hell did he want to wait six hours to go through the Gate? No way The Admiral would saddle him with another civilian or worse, another nerd? “I don’t need a twenty-man band or anything”
“Oh No colonel, you’re taking some of Carter’s surviving marines with you even if this puts the facility at a manpower shortage for the time being.” Replacements were on the way, but they likely wouldn’t arrive here for another two days. Hammond planned to use that time to hand pick some prospects to replace his poor scientists who died so bravely. “But that isn’t why, I want you to wait. I want you to hold position because Sam’s two hours out”
O’Neill’s jaw set “You’ve gotta be fuck’n kidding me”. He muttered before quickly adding “With all Due respect sir” Behind Hammond Kowalski idly gripped Lahm’s hand and muttered a silent prayer. “Doc Carter? You want her out of her lab?” O'Neill asked.
“Hell, you want her out of her straight jacket?!” Kowalski asked alarmed.
“That’s not necessary sir” O’Neill muttered. “She’s a turbo nerd and a crazy one, I don’t need that kind of baggage on my ream sir”
“Oh, I think it is Colonel, she would have been on the original mission had West not deemed her to important an asset to lose, but since this is just a retrieval mission and who knows what Jackson might have found in five years? I want a specialist involved. She may be the only person who can decipher the technologies out there any way. This isn’t up for negotiation”
“sir” Lahm cut in, sending Carter there was implicative of things, she wasn’t sure she fully liked. “Am I given to understand that we intend to establish a more permanent presence on Abydos?”
Hammond sighed. Yes, that was suggested to him by the president, who wanted to use this opportunity to see if they could negotiate for more of the material the natives called Naquadah, and it seemed as if he took Lahm’s suggestions about studying the plant life for pharmaceutical research to heart. “One thing at a time Doctor Lahm, if this mission doesn’t go sideways then yes.”
“If that’s the case…I would like to accompany the team sir, I could remain and collect samples and-“Hammond cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I know what you want to do, and I know why you’re doing it. You figure better you then someone who doesn’t know these people might exploit them or something right?” Hammond asked, suspecting this had been one of the reasons they lied about the mission to such a degree. When she nodded, he shook his head annoyed “You people think this thing’s a damn Taxi service don’t you? Relax Doctor, I agree with you in principle and so does President Trump. But that’s not the purpose of this mission.”
“We’ll need a medic” O’Neill pointed out.
“She’s yours then assuming she wants to go” Hammond turned and smiled slyly at the woman who laughed. “You really have to ask me? Why does your request sound like an order anyway”?
“You’re a civilian.” He answered to the first, as though it was the most obvious answer in the world. “And because they are.” he added excusing himself from the room.
O’Neill stood there for a moment, weighing his options before shrugging. “Man, if she blows up a planet or something, I’m going to mutiny.”
..........
Chulak
Teal’c looked at the human soldier chained like an animal, watching as Apophis returned from wheeling his son to the resurrection chamber. Refusing to allow anyone but himself to handle his son more out of a sense of fatherly protectiveness than fear for the safety of his attendants, though Teal’c knew any Jaffa that served as a valet to the Lordling would count him or herself blessed since Klorel was powerful enough that their mental training and assistance from their Prim’tah would often not be enough to shield them from an accidental psychic assault.
Father could protect himself from son and Teal’c wasn’t sure exactly why he was never torn apart by the broken beast. Torn apart like this poor woman, whose mind filled him with images that troubled the First Prime and yet filled him with an odd sense of hope. “Majesty” Teal’c moved to bow, and Apophis waved a dismissive hand, not in the mood for any sort of formality. Teal’c raised his eyebrow upon realizing Apophis was wearing a glove containing a gem and several silk like metal cables. It was rare for Apophis to wear such a device, only doing so when he planned to go into battle or when on inspection.
Apophis stood before the drooling heap that had once been a decently beautiful woman with the spirit of a fighter. “I was going to give her to my Amunet, but she would be terribly cross if I hand her leftovers” Especially that of her stepson Apophis realized, she was terribly jealous of Klorel at times. He reached out with the gloved hand resting his index and middle finger against the forehead of the young woman, who was groaning and pleading. The Serpent lord’s turquoise eyes glowed faintly, and the room seemed to cool as he pulled energy from around the palace.
The woman lurched, blood ebbed from her nose and ears and she slumped forward lifeless. “She served me in other ways however” Apophis remarked in a tone that was unusually grave for the God who laughed at assassination attempts as often as he did a joke. The lifeless form before them began to smoke, ordinarily Apophis would remain and watch as the corpse began to burn from the inside out, leaving nothing but ash and charred bones to be collected by the Gardeners. But Lord Apophis was unusually focused. “Come Teal’c.” He turned storming from out the room and nearly bolting through the courtyard into one of the many bridges of stone and light that linked the forward section of the palace, to Bakhu. The original mountain stronghold on the planet, the reason the Ori struggled so violently to possess Chulak. It had been a hermitage, one of their isolation colonies, but this one held a secret that only the oldest system lords knew. Whatever it was, Teal’c suspected that a great tragedy befell this hermitage for in no other tales of that distant era explained why the one hermitage that managed to preserve its power would spend it upon another.
But they had and when they realized Apophis and the first legions of the Jaffa had massacred everyone inside, they went into a blind frenzy. Bakhu was enormous, a mountain turned into an underground city, turned into a palace and fortress by Apophis. While it had originally been built simply as a means to keep a dying race alive, the System Lord had turned it into a place of art and culture -He’d been honorable once, they all had been-. However, beautiful as it was, the place still felt lonely, remote and sad. It was obvious why Apophis eventually relocated his Capitol to the planet Waset. This place was deary and both he and his wife avoided it when not at work.
Within its walls Jaffa who did not qualify for the training on Dakkara under War master Bra’tac learned and the vast majority of the Serpent Guard and the navigators and marines of the fleet studied and lived here. It always daunted him, how somber the place was even with so many present, even when he spent ten hours of every day here. It was as they walked across the rainbow colored forcefields that acted as bridges between the two more traditional walkways (Something had constructed in mockery of the Asgardians Heimdall and Thor) that Teal’c decided finally to voice his concerns, voice his uncertainty at the images. “With, respect great Lord” Teal’c began watching as Apophis careless threw his silk robe over the side of the bridge and take a deep breath of the cold air. Apophis did this when his blood was up, when he wanted to fight and needed to focus. “You seem disturbed by those images, but they may not mean anything.”
He knew of the legend of the Tau’Ri, the first world where humanity and its offshoots evolved. But he knew also that there were no records of the world, that Ra claimed Egeria and Prometheus began their treason on Dakkara itself, causing a rebellion amongst the human serfs and the non-human peasantry. But stories, amongst the descendants of those humans and some of the Jaffa involved said the rebellion began elsewhere, not on the cradle world but on the ancestral home world.
But Teal’c also knew that mind reading was not as reliable as the humans and other races of the galaxies believed that it was. Most memories contained an element of biased, as memory was always filtered through one’s own mentality. The biases, the prejudices, the fears and the regrets and one’s own understanding of the universe. What Klorel showed them was indeed startling, the a “mission report” that this low-ranking person somehow managed to read? A thing that made Teal’c wonder if she was not a plant within this organization or had an agenda of her own or had been supplied false information in the event she was captured (This had been done before, Set recently blundered into a trap set by pirates from the thrice damned Lucian alliance who exploited this.). That the world they raided was indeed Tau’Ri and that they would encounter the successors to the very force that killed Ra over Abydos and that this was a plausible explanation (No one believed foul play, for Abydonians were nearly all loyal even when one of their cities rebelled), all seemed far too convenient to Teal’c. “And the address” Teal’c spoke, this time considerably more carefully. “Would you not remember it?”
Rather than be offended Apophis erupted in laughter it was as bitter as it was jovial. “Teal’c the rebellion occurred more than thirty thousand years ago and the world itself was only valuable because of your forebears and the fauna, of which we modified and dispersed to our liking. Once that was achieved, it lost value. Ra bid us to forget it, I saw no issue in it. A bunch of primitive ingrates ambushed our garrison on the coast of one of their continents, another one of our space ports was hit and Ra abandoned the planet” both of the Serpent lords fists clenched once they entered the grand doors, now fury seemed to course through his veins. “Miserable fool! Egeria was mine! My wife! My mate, my consort! The mother of my children and the Prim’tah of my Jaffa! It was bad enough she cuckolded me with that pathetic slut Amaterasu! That ape fucking cretin, but then she makes off with Prometheus and instigates a rebellion?!” His fist hit a brazier, denting the metal, and causing oil and flames to spill over the synthetic granite floors. It burned in the dark casting an aura of madness of the snarling face of Apophis.
“Ra was my brother-in-law, Anubis followed him, and he was the elder brother, I obeyed Anubis because it was the way of things, it is the way of things. I never complained, though I chafed under my dear brother at times, I never challenged Ra though he mocked me and disrespected at every turn! He passed me over for that…Wretched little bro-” Apophis went silent, veering dangerously close to a topic that was utterly forbidden, a topic that was too horrifying to discuss.
“Ra made it all about him, about his great humiliation, but those were my Jaffa on Tau’Ri! Their first prime my son! Ah, yes he waxed poetically and commissioned ballads and had entire religious texts discussing his heart break, the pain of Egeria’s treachery..Fah…what about me?! She humiliated me! And when the Serrakin rebelled? It was on my worlds their terrorism was the most vicious! Egeria’s rebellion spread to a hundred worlds before we put it down and by the time we did, we lost it all. To him Tau’Ri represented a personal humiliation and an irrational fear. But to the rest of us? The abandonment of Tau’Ri marked the moment we nearly lost our empire! If it weren’t for those benighted” Apophis took a breath, doing his best to center himself.
Ra had been their leader from the start, the rebellion started by his mother had been carried to its conclusion by Ra himself. The war against the alliance, the Goa’uld would not have survived if it had happened under the leadership of anyone else. “It sounds terribly blasphemous doesn’t it Teal’c?” His eyes sparked with sardonic amusement as his First Prime and Imperial War Master shifted. Apophis knew that Teal’c like many Jaffa didn’t pray to Apophis as the humans and other subjects did. But he also knew, most did worship them to a degree, even if that form of worship was more respect and reverence than ecclesiastical devotion. He knew this, because before he was killed Ra had started to become something else and Ra had begun to draw on the energies of the faithful. Perhaps it was for the best that he fell at Tau’Ri hands and yet.
“Anubis, Ra all my life I have been the god of night, the one who lives in the shadows of others. My victories, accredited to others, my humiliations a matter of public knowledge. Soon, we will have to ascertain who should rule as Emperor in Ra’s place. I was content to support my sister, as her sons will surely do so, but now I see that to allow another member of the House of Ra to sit upon the throne would be…Wrong” he took a breath and smiled a nearly feral smile “Ah but today is not a day for politics! We have learned who murdered Ra and I would return to the site of his death soon!”
Teal’c wanted to pale, nothing that was said in this mad rant was at all reassuring and he was suddenly filled with a sense of dread. -I must get Drey’ac and our children out of Chulak-“If your plan is to pursue the Throne even if it means military action then I would advise you to send Drey’ac and our son to Nineveh” Teal’c spoke with a bow, doing his best to keep his tone neutral, to shield his mind and conceal the sheer terror he felt.
Apophis blinked “But why?” he queried.
“Ra governed not through might but politics, we must do both majesty. After all, the convention of System Lords will decide and protocol will have to be followed, only if they vote against you would we wage war” This was dangerously presumptuous talk from him, Teal’c knew this. Apophis was jovial and friendly but to council him so openly could very easily result in the System Lord shouting him down in his present state. Yet Apophis flashed a smile “And any decision would require Ba’al’s wealth of course..that greedy fool will demand something from me” he frowned.
“But having one of my greatest Admirals in charge of his pitiful navy would certainly ingratiate him..Especially if Drey’ac pretends to fully leave my service, yes of course!”
Of course, Teal’c thought not particularly certain why Apophis thought Ba’al would blindly back him (Though it was likely so, Ba’al’s domain lay in the middle, between Horus and Apophis, the two giants of the system Lords and Ba’al was not exactly beloved by the House of Ra, who resented his wealth and held him back). “If the unthinkable should happen majesty, we would need Ba’al”
And Zeus, Athena and Haqet Teal’c thought ruefully. If it came to that and the maniac was talking as if civil war was inevitable. He needed to do something public, to cost Apophis political capital and to slow him down. And to deny the man his own experience -how much farther can he sink?-
“Excellent Teal’c! Make the arrangements and contact Martouf in the morning if his lord is amenable then I shall sorely miss your gallant wife!” His eyes flashed wolfishly then he erupted in laughter “Peace Teal’c! I don’t have sex with Jaffa, there are limits even to my progressive appetites”
Teal’c felt a twinge of hate in his heart and shame.
“But come, prepare yourself for in the morning we are to make for Abydos!” his smile widened, teeth bearing as he seemed to nearly salivate at the possibility of returning to combat. “After all, my darling wife still needs a host!”
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