Alright, bit of a long post, but this is the penultimate chapter.
@bullethead @DocSolarisReich @Bear Ribs You guys seem to like the chapters that explore the Goa'uld and their empire.
Ra's perspective again, though with a grain of salt in some cases because. y'know.
Kasuf and O'Neill make a decision.
Chapter 13: Defiance
Nagada
“Kasuf! Your son fired on Amun Ra! The Supreme and divine!” The deep basso voice of the man doing the arguing reverberated through the vast stone interior of Kasuf’s office. Kasuf paid Hadek little notice, his mind was on the argument he had with Shau’re and on the stones of his office, or perhaps stone was the proper word for most of what was left of whatever great City Nagada had been seemed to all be cut from the same massive slab of granite. Or, he realized, as if it were grown this way. He could never detect any seams, any indication that even the corners were set against each other. The place was always cool during the hottest days of the year, always warm at night and always a reminder of what his people could never build again.
Hadek was the City Master of yet another mining City called Sorqet, he was overly cautious and today he was irate that his son had joined with the rebels.
“We’ve all harbored these misgivings, though perhaps in different forms” Sala remarked, he was a tall, gaunt man whose smooth brows and scarecrow like figure contrasted with the massive hands and long white beard that distinguished him as having ancestry from the men who were not men as Ra called them. On Earth they might have been called Neanderthal or perhaps something else, to Ra they made excellent laborers and artisans. It was no coincidence that their species was genetically conquered by mainline homo-sapiens in Europe around the time the rebellion had driven Ra off.
Mostly because Heqet and Set had taken some seventy five percent of the species with them when they left Earth to take up stewardship of territories Ra and Anubis liberated from an Ori hermitage some two centuries prior to the rebellion. Though they could have no way of knowing this, it explained why their features were so exaggerated here. Sala steepled his fingers “I don’t think the distinction matters, Ra may not be a literal divinity, but his powers are so vast he may as well be. What use is a rebellion if he smites us from the
Mandjet as he did to
Lantesh only, this time to all of us”
Sala was a Farm Master, one of the four rulers of the villages and homesteads and counties that made up the agricultural backbone of the lands around
Nagada. For nearly a thousand miles, it was easy to understand his reluctance, his wealth made him the one with the most to lose and perhaps, his seventeen children (ten of which had joined Skara, Kasuf felt Sala’s pain acutely).
Another City Master spat; it was Arish who was nearing his ninetieth year of life. Half blind, he rose leaning on one of his great-great grandchildren. “It was Sobek I owed my allegiance too, Sobek and to the goddess Hathor..Ra was someone I prayed too, but what I saw..what..I..heard at the execution.” He suppressed a shudder; no god could sound like that. Shaking his head, a face gnarled with wrinkles and an incredibly long nose. “Sobek was kind to us, strict perhaps but kind. He shed blood beside us when we faced the great wolves of the desert and while it is true both Sobek and Hathor served Ra, when was the last time anyone saw anyone except Sobek?”
The room grew uncomfortable. “We’re alone.” Arish said his voice wheezy “I shall tell you the last time anyone saw Hathor, it was in the time of my grandfather’s grandfather! Where has she been? Where has anyone been? Sobek killed himself in the desert and it was a great tragedy, but he was no god, not like Hathor and Ra and he was the only who cared, and they never came to help him with whatever madness drove him to wander into the depths of the sand.”
There were many nods in agreement among the farm and city masters and Kasuf had to suppress a sigh. Allowing the realization to dawn on him, that they were going forward with this madness, Skara had forced their hands and now they would make a rebellion. “I wonder, how many of us are doing this to free ourselves from an evil God and how many of us are doing this because our children forced our hand” Kasuf muttered. “I am prepared to follow your votes brothers, but I caution you, we will suffer most gravely should Amun Ra choose to strike back as he did with Lantesh. We would not survive if he chose to smite us”
“We die free, or we die a slave after a lifetime of back breaking mining Naquadah?” Meslet remarked with a shrug of her slender shoulders. At thirty-two, she was the youngest City Master in recent history and rumored to have been a descendant of some of the survivors of Lantesh. “Let us die free, or perhaps in risking death gain freedom for ourselves”
“I wonder” Sala began “How many of us will vote to rebel solely because of our memories of Sobek.” That elicited a chorus of laughter. The truth was that they owed what little trappings of the civilization they lost long ago to Sobek, who instructed them on how to dwell within the ancient walls and to make use of the underground rivers and gardens of the lost cities. He obeyed his Gods yet found loopholes in those demands for obedience that kept them safe and in something approaching comfort.
“What do we do then?” Meslet asked.
“We let the outsiders and our sons make the first move, let their actions serve as a distraction for our movements” Kasuf remarked, and he hated himself for saying it aloud, it was unthinkable to use your own children in such a way and yet, it might have been the only way to save them.
“Agreed”
“Agreed”
“Agreed”
“Agreed”
-I wonder if the rebellion in Lantesh started so easily? - Kasuf thought, ominously.
………
“I don’t understand, you were just, going to stay back and manually detonate the bomb?” Daniel Jackson sat in the fire, Shau’re sitting on his lap, O’Neill had been unusually sullen and quiet since they arrived, knowing Jackson was going to tell them, he hadn’t and that gesture of respect and that dare was enough to force O’Neill to admit it. “Our mission Doctor Jackson was to seek out technology we could bring back to earth if any existed that could be salvaged and if we made contact with any extraterrestrial life, to conduct a threat assessment” He took a long drag of a Marlboro, ordinarily he’d lament the fact that he was running low, but Skara had given him a pouch of space tobacco and some of their papyrus rolls. Kasuf and Skara were clearly more cigar men, or the space equivalent and that fact only added to why enjoyed their company so.
His father had been a cigar man, cigar, bourbon and long hours spent talking with friends. Jack himself was more of a hunter and a fisher, a kid with a potential career as an NFL quarterback who decided to serve his country instead. He didn’t have the patients to stick around for those long nights and long talks and looking back on it, he wished he had. This whole trip had screwed him up but O’Neill was starting to realize, he was already so screwed up that the clusterfuck of picking a fight with a space King probably screwed whatever was loose back on right.
“And what?!” Kowalski asked alarmed “If we find an alien threat, set off a tac nuke in it’s face?!” His tone was terse, and he stopped himself from questioning the fitness of General West for command and O’Neill gave him a sly grin. “Go on, say it”
“Is General West psychotic?” It was Lahm who piped that in, she was leaning on Kowalski’s shoulder, evidently, they’d decided to hook up (them, Jackson, was he running an op or a tacky romance “reality” show?). -He’s lucky she’s a civie- Jack thought with an amused glint in his eyes.
“That’s just great” Daniel muttered “Our first foray into the realm of cosmic politics and our first action is to commit an act of terrorism?!” Daniel almost roared it out. “I thought you spent most of your career fighting suicide bombers, is this like a profiler who starts empathizing with serial killers?!” he winced at the words, realizing how awful they were and to his surprise O’Neill only raised an eyebrow. “Really? You want to aim below like that Jackson? Wake up! We blow the gate they don’t follow us back. Earth safe, Daniel safe, team safe and if you want to talk terrorism their forefathers were abducted by a tyrant and brainwashed into being his slaves!”
“Oh, so we’re gonna fight fire with fire?!”
“Sometimes” O’Neill groused out.
“Te-terrur-eist?” Shau’re mouthed the word out, noting the disgust by which both men used the word and when Daniel explained that it was a word used to describe cowards who used barbarism and fear to achieve a political end. Shau’re understood enough, nodding her head oddly green eyes flickering. She knew the type, though they were less political but more common criminals. Bands of nomadic plunderers who preyed on the caravans (Except those that flew under the banner of Ra, even they weren’t stupid enough to steal from a god). But she didn’t particularly see anything wrong with what he described O’Neill was ordered to execute as far as a last resort went. It was risky to be sure, but they came from far away and ultimately no one really cared about Abydos, except Amun Ra and no one truly understood why. It held an emotional significance to their abductor, but none knew why. There was a chance no one would notice anything until the Ra came and he could have come now, or a dozen lifetimes from now. She had no way of knowing if he would even be able to ascertain who did it. Perhaps one of his own devices worked improperly and caused it?
“We’re assuming the gate can even be destroyed by a Nuke sir” Ferretti chimed in. “I saw a dozen bolts from those staff guns hit the gate and the energy just seemed to be pulled into it. Might be a nuke just offers it a snack”
“Might be the whole damn pyramid comes down it. I was going to set off the bomb in the Gate room, but I can’t do that now” O’Neill growled looking at everyone present. Intimidating as he was, Shau’re could see a profound sadness in him and an indignation that bordered on the fury of the righteous and the vengeful in him as well. -He hates what we have become and what he was asked to do now-.
“But that still doesn’t answer my question Jack” Daniel pressed, using his name for the first time, something that seemed to soften the colonels chiseled face. O’Neill took a breath, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “No parent should ever have to outlive their own kid” He wouldn’t elaborate and thankfully Daniel didn’t press him. O’Neill sat in the firelight, crouched and as hard as steel, a grim statue in the semi dark. Until Skara offered him something to drink, which brought Jack out of it somewhat.
“And now?” Daniel asked.
“It doesn’t matter, I’m not detonating a nuke miles away from a city in a mountain sized pyramid containing who knows what.” Jack was a killer, but he wasn’t a butcher. A marine, even a broken one still had his ethos.
For a moment the group went silent by the firelight, Shau’re eying O’Neill intently, making him wonder if she was starting to speak more English than she let on (Nagadans didn’t need to be shown how to do a thing more than twice, O’Neill wondered if that was the product of genetic engineering or just divergent evolution or whatever). “What happened to your boy?” Jackson finally asked, deciding to confront the elephant in the room head on. O’Neill gave a cold look for a moment before finally relenting. “I taught my girls, Sasha and Sandra how to shoot from the time they were nine, wife came from a military family, I grew up around guns. I knew there’d be plenty in the house and that it was safer if they knew the tool for what it was and how to respect it. Charlie, he..I just never had the time, always on deployment or dealing with his older sisters and their antics. He just, wanted to be close to me and” O’Neill trailed off and tossed a cigarette butt into the open flame, he waited for Daniel to finish translating for Shau’re and Skara and both looked gravely at him, but there was an odd understanding in their eyes. That made a degree of sense O’Neill supposed, they were probably used to seeing accidents like the one he described but with mining gear, they were probably used to seeing grieving fathers. No, Jack realized the familiar look in their eyes told him something similar had happened to a sibling of theirs and yet they offered no Judgment.
He turned to Jackson expecting scorn from the intellectual, who seemed to sense what O’Neill wanted and he shrugged “If you want condemnation you’re going to have to look elsewhere. I have a degree in anthropology y’know? It happens in warrior societies, its awful and they mourn, but it happens, and no blame is assigned save what the parent in question assigns to his or herself”
“Hah! Any of those cultures you know have some ceremony to deal with it? Because it’s got me fucked sideways Jackson” O’Neill muttered.
“Well, the Comanche used to get high on cactus juice and ride out to kill as many enemies as possible as an offering to their kid and their gods” Jackson said with a defiant smirk that made O’Neill laugh.
“My grandmother was Comanche on my mom’s side” O’Neill admitted with a feral grin. “Maybe I should go offer that dog headed fuck who killed our guys to my boy?” He turned to Kowalski a look in his eyes the major hadn’t seen in a long while. One that reminded Kowalski of the O’Neill he knew a decade ago one dealing with grief rather than being brow beaten by it.
“Oorah!” Skara bellowed, eliciting a similar screech from O’Neill and the surviving marines. It seemed, the course was now charted and one free of so much of the weight of before.
“Ra plans to send the bomb through the gate with some Naquadah, he said it would enhance explosive power enough to vaporize the facility, I guess bring the mountain down as well given the way he was bragging” Jackson said finally. “If we’re going to get home, we need to stop that first.” There had been something else, he kept trying to recall, a warning or a boast but it was hard to recall, hard to pinpoint.
O’Neill nodded “Two birds with one stone, alright Jackson” free their space cousins and the cavemen’s descendants and intercept a supercharged nuclear bomb. Sure, he could do that, no biggie, it was what Marines did anyway.
“Hope they declassify this someday” Ferretti remarked “So the corps can add a verse ‘bout kill’n Gods to the song”
“From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli! We fight our country's battles, on land, in space or sea.” Kowalski chimed with a voice so out of tune with the rhythm that Shau’re almost cringed.
“When Ra gets to heaven, he’ll get shitkicked into hell for blasphemy by some of our brother’s running escort duty for saint Peter that’s for damn sure” Ferretti remarked taking a large gulp of whatever the hell Skara had given them, which tasted to him like anis, or some other cane distilled liquor.
“We’re really talking about leading a bunch of bronze age people against a guy who flies around in a pyramid made of silver colored metal using engineering even we can’t understand?” Lahm asked with a raised eyebrow, she knew the Marines were arrogant but good lord. She remembered her father describing the marine corps as a group of men who thought they could all walk on water and do it better than Jesus did. Her time with O’Neill and his marines made her wonder if that was yet another thing Henry Landry was wrong about, then O’Neill decided to be Lawrence of the space Arabians. “Sir, they’ll be annihilated”
“Maybe” O’Neill remarked “and so would we, don’t kid yourself. Next to Ra we’re cavemen scratching at an M1-Abrams trying to figure out how it works. If it were anyone else, we’d be fucked, horribly” O’Neill’s tone caused Lahm to raise an eyebrow. So, this wasn’t a way to couch suicidal tendencies in heroism, he did genuinely have a plan?
“Sir?”
“You saw the same things I did Doc, he let the mask slip a little. And I get the feeling if we came from anywhere not Earth he’d have hopped on his spaceship, taken to orbit and pounded Nagada to sand from space before fuck’n off to space Memphis or someshit” O’Neill handed her some of the sweet liquor which she took and gratefully. “You talked to Jackson about this huh?” she queried with an amused smile, Kowalski, Ferretti and Jackson had gone off to talk with the youth and to translate what Kowalski was telling them about how their guns worked. The enterprising little shits had managed to recover almost all their ammo and gear again making O’Neill wonder if they weren’t naturally intuitive and fast learners, or selectively bred to be that way.
“Yeah, before our little strategy meet” The colonel admitted. “The Dork’s growing on me, plus he saved our lives back there. He sensed it too, the personal animosity Ra has for us. If half the shit he showed us of his memories is half true then he’s way out of our league when he’s got his shit together, hell he’d probably be out of anyone’s league if he had his shit together. But he doesn’t, he isn’t using that big brain of his because he’s so bitter” O’Neill began rolling one of the cigs Skara gave him and ignited it in the fire. “I get the feeling” he began, measuring himself because he didn’t actually like revealing how smart he really was. “That ol’Ra took it a hit after the rebellion. Those hammer ship guys, maybe they sensed weakness and went wild on his ass. Maybe his failure to handle a bunch of naked monkeys made some big-time nobles in his space kingdom sense weakness and maybe they went after him, maybe it was someone he was close too. But it was humiliating enough that Ra was willing to make himself look weak in the long term just to satisfy some personal vendetta.”
She smirked slightly “Colonel, you sound like you’re profiling you know?”
O’Neill shrugged “If you ever got a hold of my service file, you’d find about ninety percent of it redacted. I did a lot of classified work. Some of that involved knocking over certain, undesirables who came to international prominence in the shadows of the collapsed Iron Curtain”. Lahm was likely born in the early nineties; she likely had no idea what it was really like for the first ten years after the USSR fell. At least, in the shadows.
-Was he Delta?- Lahm thought, could marines even be Delta? She might have spent her formative years on bases, but she resented her father too much to really learn much about the inner workings of the military. “I was young then. They used to call me baby face” Jack admitted with a bitter laugh. “but enough of it stayed up here, you hang around enough spooky power players you realize the scale of the game may change but the mentality doesn’t. I know Ra, because I spent my youth killing diet soda versions of that old bastard. Hell: I’ll even be the first to admit a guy who can bring tens of thousands of years of life experience to the table isn’t someone I would ever fuck with under ordinary circumstances. I’d just make a play for gate room and evacuate as many Nagadans as we could and hope Ra didn’t just bring the pyramid down on our heads. But we have a chance, for the same reason I always had a chance. Guys who are accustomed to having to front absolute control, eventually end up believing their own hype and the people who make them remember they’re mortal? Well, it enrages them so much because it scares them. Especially when you blame that person or people for a personal tragedy or someshit”
“I don’t understand?” Lahm asked. Was Jack alleging their ancestors hurt Ra in more ways than just one?
“Not sure, but the more I think about it the more I wonder if it was more than just politics” O’Neill leaned back against the cave wall, outside the wind blasted and within a celebration began.
……….
Mandjet.
He enjoyed the thunder, or perhaps the host did. Ra wasn’t sure which of them had enjoyed the aesthetics of it and of lightning in the skies. Like the Naquadah that fueled much of his technology, Goa’uld could feed on energy to a certain degree and those primitive instincts may have had something to do with it. He was adorned in a cloak of dark black and little else, mostly naked after he had a stint with his temple girls and a eunuch or two (Ra was rather drunk by the time he choked that las tone to death oops), he disliked the carnal excesses that some of the System Lords got up too. But still, their instincts, embracing both the savage within them and the enlightenment had allowed Ra to avenge the death of his parents and with the help of his wife and his brother, and his in-laws. Organize a slave rebellion that took the Goa’uld from being chattel bound to a race of arrogant fools to freed beings and then to masters of their destiny and rulers of the known universe. Slave rebellions, he laughed bitterly at the thought that one was mounting for the second time against himself. Sometimes, he wondered if his mother wasn’t correct in her assessment that there were forces at work in the universe even Ori science couldn’t explain.
Ori science, that was so long ago, had they surpassed them by now? Most likely, not at their peak certainly, when they were one of two branches of a billion-year-old race whose achievements and domains spanned billions of lightyears. But the broken remnants that enslaved his forefathers to use to rebuild their civilization? Yes, Ra realized, they likely had. The Ori had forgotten how to make Stargates, Thoth and Yu and the other one, had learned to replicate the technology. At first fashioning crude gates that were as simplistic in design as the oldest gates the Ori possessed and then, the far more ornate and complex ones that were now spread throughout the empire and connected to the ancient gate network.
Hell, Ba’al the upstart, the youngest of the system lords even found a way to update and upgrade the Gate Network, something the Asgard grudgingly admitted they had only recently learned how to do as well. Ra had granted Ba’al an extra fifty planets for that one as well as the right to maintain estates on Dakkara and send his Jaffa to train under the War Master himself. Technically, those were rights a system lord should have been accorded by default, but in truth Ba’al was only six centuries old, practically an infant and he was dangerously smart and dangerously ambitious and had been a system lord only for a century by the time he’d achieved that. Ra wanted to hold him back for the sake of the empire, but that wasn’t the only tribute he brought to the table. Ba’al and his innovation made the Emperor’s mind wander to the Asgard.
Those stunted bastards! They were ahead of his people as always. Although, the gap was shortening with each passing millennia as the Goa’uld grew while the Asgard began to slowly plateau. Their stagnation and perhaps devolution always mystified him and he long wondered if they were embroiled in conflicts on a similar scale and in overextending themselves, doomed their efforts and their evolution. Asgard, He shuddered at the memory of the agony he’d felt when he’d taken Odin as a host. It was an act of desperation, the Asgard were still strong then, virile and bold and their leader, great king Odin stormed the Mesektet even as she burned and impaled Ra’s host through the heart with some manner of spear made of plasma, turned into crystal by their obscene technology. Odin sneered, pulling him close to mock him.
In that instant, Ra tore from his host’s throat and jumped down Odin’s. The move was disgusting, primitive, something the mindless savages that were his most profane ancestors did and what lower class Goa’uld would do whenever they got tired of one body and wanted another. Ra despised it, in a hundred thousand years, Ra ad taken only four hosts and that had been three too many as far as he was concerned. Odin’s body decayed around him and even his vast healing abilities and the resurrection chamber could only slow the rot down. He could hear Odin laughing at him from within as well. It had been worth it for the knowledge stolen and for the fact that his desperation led him to Tau’Ri.
Tau’Ri, where his people found deliverance and where it all went wrong. After all, it was a human of the Tau’Ri line, the progenitor line that he believed corrupted his beloved daughter. There was movement out behind the curtains in the royal hall as his attendants and warriors prepared for the events of the morning. He could also sense Sek’Het, haunting his steps like a concerned pet. While he’d kept the young man at a distance due to his mongrel of a mother, he admittedly had grown fond of indulging the boy, after all a benevolent God rewarded faithful service and even diluted blood was still blood. Or perhaps he was merely feeling the weight of his age and was growing nostalgic. “You wear that long face for me Sek’Het?” Amun Ra asked.
The Goa’uld first prime who’d been given the honor of donning the Anubis mask bowed deeply. “Forgive me, majestic eminence, but you seem far away. Ever since discovered the interlopers were Tau’Ri”
Ra laughed a soft, slightly feminine laugh. “What do you know of the rebellion on Tau’Ri? Of the rise of that violent faction of Tok’Ra?”.
“Thirty years ago, at the Birth ceremony of Amunet. Lord Apophis grew unfathomably drunk and told us the story” Sek’Het answered, though with a pang of skepticism that made Ra laugh.
“Ah yes, the tragic tale of how my daughter Egeria who was promised to him in marriage was discovered making sexual congress with Amaterasu? And how after I wisely allowed him to torture and rape Amaterasu to prevent a civil war and Egeria and her heretical tutor Prometheus turned the hapless, lazy Tau’Ri against us in vengeance and ingratitude at our benevolence?” Ra spat the last part out in mockery. That story verged dangerously close to sedition and the only reasonhe didn’t have Apophis attainted then butchered was that his domain was too vast to safely divide amongst other System lords and because Apophis himself was the backbone of the Imperial military, making him essential to the empire. Still, Ra thought, he was growing dangerously more brazen, and time would come when he would not be able to ignore the man’s arrogance.
“Apophis is a degenerate; did you know his future queen is a mongrel whose mother was born of a breed barely sentient?” Ra asked with a venom in his voice that made him sound almost like a town gossip.
“I had not” Sek’Het answered, wondering what was said about his mother behind closed doors. “It doesn’t matter I suppose, if he wishes to undermine and debase himself by grooming and then laying with an animal that is his prerogative. The bitch will never attend court and he knows it!” Ra would not have that,
thing anywhere near him.
He’d reached out and set a hand on Sek’Het’s massive forearm, an oddly affectionate gesture that made Sek’Het wonder if this nostalgic indulgence was safe. “Come Grandson, walk with your god”. As they two strolled along the moonlit terrace of the outer deck of the Mandjet Ra resumed his tale in earnest.
“I nearly killed Egeria when I pulled her from her mother. Using a host to conceive and deliver a larval queen has always been a dangerous affair, that your grandmother managed to carry and deliver six is a testament to her resilience if not her wisdom” He would not elaborate on why and the not so hidden malice in his tone suggested that if Sek’Het inquired further this pleasant evening with his divine Grandfather would quickly become an exceedingly long fall for him from the balconies of the
Mandjet. “But, I hesitated, instead I gave her to one of my closest temple priestesses to incubate. At first, I regarded her as a curiosity, but she eventually earned my love. And I did love her, yes, it is true what I allowed Apophis to do to Amaterasu was the catalyst for her decision to rebel. She loved Amaterasu; it was more than just the romantic triste of two spoiled children. Though I cannot fathom why, Amaterasu is a boring, brooding sow of a woman” But love was often times an absurdity. After all, he loved Hathor for a long time. Until she eradicated his felinoid paramour and her entire species. That, that had been the proverbial pebble which broke the Mastage’s back. “But it was not the true reason, a far more romantic excuse for the purposes of propaganda perhaps, but not the real reason.” Ra paused here, deliberating for a long moment on whether or not he should continue and reveal further truths to a mongrel like Sek’Het. Then he decided he would continue, after all there was a chance the overeager First Prime would be killed tomorrow and he knew to keep his mouth shut in any case.
“Egeria sensed some, potential in the native sentient life amongst the Tau’Ri, she conferred with her first host. She wasn’t wrong about that potential either and she argued that I should encourage my subjects to take not hosts, but partners. That a union between our races, a communion of minds and hearts would breathe not only new life into the empire but perhaps convince our enemies to relent and leave the remaining Ori to their fate at our hands. After all, the Asgard held no love for the race now called the Ancients, though the history books may say differently.” Ra laughed a soft laugh, inclining his head slightly at the memory of the argument. “For a time, I admit, I was considering it…”
That floored Sek’Het who couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Most Goa’uld took hosts that were born brain dead, as they didn’t like having to suppress a personality, others took the terminally ill who volunteered, making a sacrifice for their lords. System lords though generally took what they pleased, though he understood why. Most had the psionic abilities to simply obliterate the mind of the host. It troubled him to imagine himself spending the next five centuries he’d likely be able to keep this body alive listening to the protestations of another, opening himself to its influence. Ra sensing his confusion smiled a truly ancient smile on such a young face. “My boy, we had been fighting the alliance for nearly sixty thousand years. The preposterous Fyryns had been eradicated by then, the Nox had withdrawn into themselves and the last of the damnable Ori were nearly dust and bones. Only the Asgard stood against us, but the first battle of Cimmeria was a disaster for both our races. The second, the one I showed the Tau’ri was but a pale shadow of the first” Ra cursed it, that had been the last time the Goa’uld ever fielded a fleet of a hundred thousand warships. Facing ten thousand Asgard vessels, their true warships in a battle that destroyed two of the twelve planets in that solar system and saw the annihilation of the majority of both their fleets and, their peoples.
That had been when the Goa’uld stopped advancing, when they began to stagnate, why the Tau’Ri were so integral. While Ra believed his people could amass fleets of that size were, they truly pressed now a days, they hadn’t needed too. The Asgard were the only ones left that could face them and potentially beat them and while they had become even more advanced now, they had become an exhausted, over extended people. Ra’s empire had licked its wounds, healed, rebounded with new life. That was all due to humanity, it gave them the breathing room they needed, in the fast multiplying, adaptable species, the hardy Goa’uld found the perfect hosts, their differences complimenting each other, their similarities making them an unstoppable force. “We were exhausted, I was willing to consider many things if it meant sparing my people further war. But considering and accepting are two different things. I had done as she asked and entertained the notion, but the Tau’Ri were a bunch of primitives, barely above the apes that Amaterasu surrounds herself with, or the ones that roam the forest worlds of Set’s domain. There was nothing their minds could offer us that their spirits and their flesh could not…Egeria never forgave me, she lost trust in me” Ra sounded, almost mournful for a moment before it was gone, and it left Sek’Het wondering if it was an echo of the kindness he once possessed or all he had left of his soul.
“After Amaterasu, Egeria's host convinced her that I wasn’t worth trying to save. And with that ancient fool, Prometheus began encouraging the Tau’Ri to question our doctrine, by that point we had ruled their world for twelve thousand years and spread them amongst the stars across countless worlds. The populations on many of those worlds even exceeded Tau’Ri, no they began the rebellion there because it was a symbolic blow, and it invited the Asgard to make one final, desperate push”
After that, the one who would not be named rebelled. His horror and madness were enough to stay the Asgard, who allowed Ra and Apophis to put an end to that. The fact that Ra had to beg for a reprieve from the Asgard, that Tau’Ri had stolen his most precious child, the one whose character was the closest to what he had originally been. All of it compounded “I had to kill them, Prometheus my oldest friend, my mentor and Egeria my dearest daughter? All because some savages got it in their heads to listen to the words of a senile old fool and a broken-hearted child?! It all went wrong on Tau’Ri, amongst the Tau’Ri”
Sek’Het was both touched and horrified, on the one hand he had evidently allowed Apophis to rape and torture Amaterasu, he had forced Egeria into that marriage (This was expected of course, even Gods had duties to attend too), it was almost touching how Amun Ra refused to hate Egeria and instead blamed the Tau’Ri for her sins and yet. He was now more convinced than ever that his grandfather was as dangerous as he was glorious. Sek’Het fell to one knee “Tomorrow, I shall not fail you grandfather. I swear on our blood”
A smile one part genuine and entirely brimming with malice danced across his youthful features. “Bring me the heart of the one called O’Neill and you will be granted a resurrection chamber fit for you and your wife and the right to breed. You will take your place as a lord of worlds governing on behalf of the Gods.”
Sek’Het for the first time in decades felt his sullen mood vanish.
“All Hail Amun-Ra, Emperor of the Second Dynasty, the exalted, the master of death, the deliverer of the Goa’uld! God of Gods! Lord Most High!”