Stargate Through the Looking Glass and into Heaven.

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright, so not to worry @Spartan303 the EFC fic will get an update very soon! But in the mean time I thought I'd try my hand at a little journey down the Stargate rabbit hole. This is another reboot, which admittedly was a lot harder for me to tackle than EFC was because its sort of hard to attempt to claim you can do things differently than one of the longest running sci fi shows not Trek or Who. This is my humble attempt to do justice both to what I felt was an amazing world and cosmology while also, doing certain things differently yet similar enough to try and keep the spirit of the show and film. A blending of the two, hopefully without mutilating either

In any case, since there was a call to add some life to the Creative Writing section..here goeth my humble attempt to entertain you gents.

As per usual, all writes belong to MGM or..Disney or whatever the fuck megacorp bought this shit out.

Annndd without further adieu and with my sincerest hope that you guys both enjoy and shred me if it sucks.

I present

It is done.


They are gone, expelled from the cradle of their power. After we fled, my father sealed the Star Gate, in which Ra and his treacherous brethren were cast, banished for all time.


With him went his servants. The Serpent Apophis, mighty warrior. Golden Aker, mighty builder, depraved Kronos and Hathor, mother of chattel and behind them, the horror whose name shall not be written, whose hunger for souls is beyond madness.


Whom even Ra feared...


We pray that those who come after never enter here. Never unravel the mystery of the pyramids, never seek the accursed figures upon stone. Do not strive to emulate them, do not look for knowledge and above all else, please, we beg to you, open not the doorway.

– The ‘Ballard inscription’, an alleged Egyptian Hieroglyphs found in a Paleolithic- era cave settlement in Arizona, uncovered circa 1969.




Prologue

40,000 years ago, North Africa


Sometimes he wished they would fail a hunt, just because he hated the singing more than he hated the dancing.


They gathered around the old mother at the mouth of the immense cave system where his tribe lived during the harshest moons of the raining season, outside a storm raged.


They’d killed one of the grey great beasts with the long straight teeth. They were different from the other great ones, whose teeth curved. They had no hair either, but shared the same long nose and they screamed as horribly. They tasted better, their meat was rich with flavors from far off places.


When he touched their weak minds, he could see white sand as far as the eye could see and great big trees. He also saw people like his, but with a lot of skin and fur from dead things about them to keep warm.


Once he even saw an old woman, who had the gift like him from the weird lands. There were so few of them, but Teltak, the gifted one who came before the boy, said that there were more now than before.


The boy didn’t know about that, he didn’t care, it wasn’t his place to care, it was his place to paint the animals, to ‘see’ the hunt and to use the gift to make sure the hunters succeeded.


Teltak had failed, it was the last time the boy saw him alive. The tribe had taken him and broke his head on a great big rock. The boy felt a measure of pity, he had used his gift to make Teltak see wrong. It had been a mistake; the boy hadn’t even known he was doing it, but they killed Teltak anyway.


It was what would happen to the boy if he ever should fail. It was stupid. Teltak had been old, even when the boy’s fathers’-father was young. It took a long time for a mother to birth a person who could see the animals and summon them with the paintings.


The tribe would probably starve without him. Or would be forced to move and wander like those savages with the sloping brows, or those weird ones who were like the boy’s people but lived like the savages. They had people with gifts too, he would ‘see’ them sometimes. But they were different from him; they’d spread out too far, their blood thinned.


The boy’s mate lay sleeping beside his furs- her belly was huge. She would probably die bringing their child into the world.


Good, the boy thought. He never felt anything for her, she was distant kin to him but that meant nothing. The Elders forced him to breed with her ‘to try and make more who can see’. It succeeded, he could sense it. His replacement one day.


Part of him hoped the child died with his mate, part of him hoped he failed just so everyone would starve.


These thoughts were dark, they often made the great ones scream a lot, but it didn’t matter. He hated the great ones, he hated his mate, he hated the thing inside her, he hated his people.


Not for Teltak. But because it was so ordinary. Everything was muted, everything was silent, it was all boring. The older the boy got, the harder it became to feel anything, to care for anything.


Legends from gifted ones, from their dreams, told of beings of light. Ancient ones, who slept with the peoples of the valley. Some said the gift was born from that union, others that it is a lie told by the sloping browed idiots.


The boy believed differently. That he existed to counter those descended from the children of the ancients, that it was a natural defense against their arrogance.


But the boy didn’t care about that.


The boy was meandering, his thought erratic.It was normal after a great one died while he was still inside its mind. This one had died badly.


Duuron, the greatest hunter of their tribe hurt its baby so much, the baby cried and cried, its wild eyes searched frantically until it ceased to scream. Great one babies died from being scared all the time. It was funny, their little noses flailing about; they would get so scared and hurt that they would even seek comfort from their torturers. And when you gave it to them, only to hurt them more. It made their little hearts ache so much.


Duuron had done that. He’d hurt the little great one so badly it died of confusion and sorrow. Its mother had gone into a blind rage at its cries and charged. But it fell into a great pit, then Duuron threw a stick down into its eye and then throat. It died sputtering blood.


Now meat from it and its baby would last them the rest of the raining season. The rains were colder now, it made it harder to focus, but the caves kept them warm.


It was all so boring, so boring, so dreadfully boring.


The boy reached out to touch his mate’s belly, it would be so easy to paint the child, but they would kill him.


In secret, he painted his mate.


She was so boring.


He wanted something new, something exciting. He wanted to ‘see’ something new.


Even if that meant being killed like Teltak. At least it would be something different.


Teltak told him to always stop his thoughts when they grew dark. But the boy always thought Teltak was a fool for saying such things.


Outside, lightning roared. It seemed louder than normal, and the ground trembled below his feet. Which was odd. The storms were getting worse, but as long as they stayed in the caves, they were safe. Never had the ground shaken below him.


People who were singing and dancing went silent. The boy was happy about this, they really annoyed him.


People began to scream.


He understood why when he looked from objects of his drawings and saw something in the skies. It was enormous, in a shape he’d never seen before and it came down with stars and sun. Bright and yet dark, it was unlike anything he’d ever seen before.


His mate clutched at him and the boy pulled away. She’d woken up and was screaming. Everyone was running now, and meat which was being cured was knocked over into the dirt.


Things began to appear at the mouth of the cave. They screamed and spoke, but he wasn’t sure if he was seeing them, or ‘seeing’ them. They were odd though, not men, not quite beasts, gigantic, reptilian and snarling.


People began to run deeper into the caves, but he walked forward excited. The ground rumbled below his feet; his mate clutched at him again. He dashed her head into a wall, she fell, she was bloody.


The creatures, if they were even there, seemed to ignore him and focused on those who ran.


The boy sealed his fate in that instant. But had he known, he wouldn’t have cared. His prayers were answered; he could finally experience something new.


The stars and sun that seemed to wrap about that which looked like a mountain. Now they were joined by a chorus of thunder and lightning; and he finally felt it. Something inside the mountain called to him, the boy could feel it. It had the gift as well!


But its spirit was different, unlike anything he had ever seen before. It was so powerful, so old, so different. Its drawings were of animals the boy had never seen before and shapes he didn’t understand.


It was in so much pain as well!


That too was different. Never had another with the gift been so strong that the boy felt its pain as more than a distant hum. This was vivid and loud and overwhelming. Yet it felt decayed; its power was holding it together, but the effort was growing more and more painful.


It was so fascinating.


It was searching for something, it was seeking something new. New beings?


Was it bored as well?


His tribe fled, his tribe cowered, but he came forward. He called back.


Here I am. Something new. Something new! Here I am!

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Chapter 1: Curiosity.
Los Angeles, June 3rd, 2015.


Smoke filled the air as the bald headed, mammoth of a host set his marijuana filled cigar down. An amused look played over the face of the young archaeologist, if his grandfather could see him now! “Right” The man began “So we’re here with Doctor Daniel Jackson, a prodigy and master at ancient linguistics.”



“And Pariah” Jackson added into the mic, his shaggy blond hair falling about a youthful face. “That’s true! Yeah, man, you’re like the only guy I know who has both fringe archeologists and the mainstream ripp’n at you twenty-four seven”.



“Yeah I’ve pretty much made everyone….a..angry with me I guess” Jackson remarked, straining to finish the sentence so as to avoid sneezing from the smoke. “I don’t understand why though” Not true, Jackson thought. He knew exactly why the archaeological world was hacked off at him. After all, he called the ancient astronaut theorists misguided and made the mainstream guys feel humiliated.



“I’m not fuck’n surprised y’know? Your grandfadder was the same way” the walking mound of frenetic energy and obesity that was the secondary guest a stand-up comic with a background in organized crime remarked. The man spoke with a thick Jersey accent, but Jackson could detect traces of his Cuban heritage even in a practiced English accent. If given enough time, Jackson could probably even figure out what neighborhood in which city the man came from. He was right of course; Nicholas Ballard was all but drummed out of the profession despite being at one point of the most cited scholars of the nineteen sixties and seventies. “Really?” The main host asked, and the mound of flesh nodded. “Yeah, fuck’n Nick said he found hieroglyphs in a cave in Nevada or someshit, but that they were like a million years old or something.”



“Nicholas Ballard for those listening was the grandfather of our guest, a great archeologist in his time and a close friend of Erik Von Deinaken and that crew. But he broke ranks with them over the discovery of the Ballard inscription which he insisted was signs of what our guest is here to talk about.”



“The Jackson-Ballard theory of cultural plagiarism” Jackson remarked, the theory that had landed him in enough hot water to have one of the only two PHD’s he’d earned (As opposed to being grudgingly conferred upon him in recognition of his talents). A degree he earned when he was just seventeen, making him one of the youngest recipients of a PHD in history. Though, that test pilot and physicist Sam Carter beat him by a few years. “And it was a cave in Arizona, and it was twenty eight thousand years old” Jackson corrected gently. “You knew my grandfather didn’t you Mister Di-?”



“Fuck’n Joey kid” the mound of flesh said slapping him on the back and cutting him off. “Yeah I did, he used to hang out with Harlan Ellison and that fuck’n weirdo with the pipe what was his name?”



“L Sprague De Camp” Jackson put in helpfully, no doubt the mound of flesh was about to launch into a story about lines with his disgraced grandfather and sensing it the mammoth of a host cut him off. “Yeah, fascinating dude your grandfather. He really lived hard, disappeared in South America didn’t he?”



Jackson nodded “fifteen years today actually. But I spent my formative years listening to his stories and theories, helping him translate dusty old journals. He taught me Ancient Egyptian before I could walk practically and I grew up reading his papers and reworking his old research.”



“Right, so what is this theory?”



“Well,” Jackson cleared his throat. “Basically, Grandpa Nick noticed something everyone seemed to politely ignore. That a lot of ancient civilizations, but specifically the Egyptians. Made the leap from cavemen to building cities disturbingly fast. And then you have the fact that minus the step pyramid, their earliest work eclipses their later”



“Explain for the folks at home” The host put in, preempting Jackson who was about to continue.



“Well, um basically. Most civilizations progress linearly, some plain out sure, or they progress erratically, but there’s almost always consistent leaps that we can point too that show progression. Even when societies stagnate, there are always some inventions. Even when they fall backwards. It’s very rare that you encounter a people that go from crude stone spears to war chariots and scythes and small cities. Or the equivalent” Jackson said enthusiastically.



“Rare? Yeah, I guess you do have exceptions. Like the Comanche that went from stone age to conquering fucking everything and fighting what were bleeding edge civilizations at the time”



Jackson smiled, his former colleagues wondered why he listened to this man’s podcast, especially Sarah. But the guy, trippy and rough as he was had a genuine curiosity and he listened to his guests. “Yes! Exactly, but with the Comanche we have a transmission of technology from one advanced culture to a lesser one. Guns and horses in this case, to me and to my grandfather Nick, it was as if the Egyptian people just sort of walked into the Nile and came out with engineering and medicine and smithing” Jackson’s hands flailed as he animatedly described what he spoke of, prompting the other guest, the mound to hand him a glass of whiskey. “N-No thanks..I..actually yeah, thanks”



“I mean fuck you are over twenty one right?”



Jackson grinned “twenty three, but I learned how to make moonshine when I was fifteen!”



“Fuuuuccckk” The host laughed “Why’d you learn that?”



Jackson shrugged “I was bored.”



“And you say the Egyptians got dumber as time went on?” The mound asked “Because fuck me, with how long they lasted? They were bound to forget some shit.”



Ah, so that was why my grandfather liked him Jackson thought. “And that’s true and they experienced a pretty horrific cataclysm as well, that’s true later Egyptian dynasties weren’t even Egyptian. The Ptolemies were Greek, but they had their own apex. No, it’s expected for things to get forgotten and or fall back. I mean the ancient Egyptians were a preeminent power when even the ancient Chinese were fumbling in the dark. But that’s my point, its almost like they just appeared out of thin air. There was no C and D in the ABCDE process you know?”



“No, it makes sense” the human mastodon remarked. “But it sure pissed a lot of people off. Dunno why though, because the way you’re explaining it, it makes fuck’n perfect sense.”



Jackson shrugged “The mainstream academic community, doesn’t like the idea that the ancient Egyptians copied another, older, grander civilization or its ruins. Since they say no proof outside of some curiosities exist. The Ancient aliens guys hate me because I don’t think their explanation is logical”



“And why do you say that?” The Mammoth asked.



“Well” Jackson began “ I think, if aliens did come to earth and share knowledge, they wouldn’t just advance us so far and they wouldn’t do something for free”



“why not?”



Without missing a beat Jackson looked up from his glass of whiskey, the light glinting off his glasses “Because we don’t and I could speculate all day and night about the psychology of beings that may not exist, or may be incomprehensible but as far as we know, intelligent life only does things one way”



“And that way is pretty shitty” the Host agreed. “Well, not necessarily shitty. We’re half savage to quote Star Trek, but that isn’t always a bad thing. I dunno, we’re pragmatic, even the Comanche only got horses because of negligence and they only got guns because someone had the bright idea to use them as mercenaries”, He gave a shrug “What purpose does it serve to carry a people only so far? Unless you were bored it was some behavioral engineering thing, but then why?” Jackson shrugged “any way…Going back to my theory. Essentially grandpa and I believe that ancient Egypt and perhaps Sumaria and ancient Indian cultures less developed and more stumbled upon the remains of some ancient highly sophisticated cultures. Maybe some sort of remnant population and that remnant or those remains served as the building block for what we now know as the ancient world.”



“And that pisses people off?” The mammoth of a host asked. “That doesn’t sound so bad”



Jackson who had been spinning his glass and watching the liquid turn looked up with a wry grin. “I accused a lot of academics of perpetuating a fraud in their papers. Mainly the false hieroglyphs inside the pyramid and the alien guys, well I don’t give them the time of day”





It had begun to rain when Jackson left the studio, his luck was truly terrible at times. No more grant money, the crowdfunding and book revenue was still two weeks away and he had been evicted from his apartment the day before the show. The last bits of funds he had on him had been spent on a motel last night. -Homeless- typical, Jackson thought. He was so focused on his current predicament, praying the podcasts exposure would get him in a position where he could breathe next quarter that he didn’t notice the tall, broad shouldered man with sandy blond hair and Polish features in a uniform, that Jackson would only recognize if he got a good look at it.



Which he was about too.



“Doctor Jackson, sir, sir” The man called, his voice genial for someone his size and with knuckles that scarred. “Space Force” Jackson murmured, noticing the officers insignia and chevrons. Created in nineteen ninety-nine by President Clinton, funded by President Bush and ignored by the current guy in the Whitehouse, the United States Space Force was supposed to be the military of the future, in truth it was seen as a place for all the armed services branches to transfer their retirees, hard cases and mad scientists. Commanded originally by Admiral Abraham Ellis (another friend of his grandfather, hence the only reason Jackson knew it existed at all). The “last service branch” had fallen into disrepair, kept funded with a large budget even while ignored for reasons no one could truly comprehend.





“I’m Major Kowalski, come with me”



“uhh why?” Jackson asked, blinking to get some of the water pouring down into his eyes and fogging up his glasses out of his way. A vain attempt he knew but.



“Well to get out of the rain for one and second because” he pointed to a limousine “Katherine Langford wishes to see you.”





“Langford?” Jackson blinked. Truly? The woman had been a legend in the archeological and anthropological community, hell. She was the daughter of scientific royalty, her father being one of the inspirations for Indiana Jones and his father allegedly being the source for Alan Quartermaine. Adventurers, scholars, thrill seekers and museum directors and owners of one of the largest collections of rare artifacts and antiquities in the world. The Langford family was on its fifth generation of contributing to the academic world. But the matriarch of the family herself, a recluse was believed to have died of old age until she published in Nat Geo some two years ago (Reasonable assumption, the woman had been born in 1911 after all) , no one quite knew what she had been up too since the late nineties. Seeing the look on the Major’s face, Jackson knew he’d been hooked but what choice did he have?



The door was opened and within sat an austere woman with bone white and silver hair and a lined face that looked like it belonged to someone in their early eighties and not over a hundred years old. Around her neck was the golden necklace of Amun-Ra, a trademark of all the old photos he’d seen. The eye of Ra seemed to shimmer in the dark and Jackson quirked his head only to have a folder with photos of his parents, his credentials and a hundred other things within. “I met your mother when she was very little.”



“I know” Jackson remarked “She never forgot” his tone was soft, and he caught himself hero worshipping and tried to make a correction. The woman offered a knowing smile “I was saddened to learn of her death and so soon after Nicholas.”



“You two were friends?” Jackson asked, before flinching, the memory of his grandfather ranting about how the Langfords let him hang when they knew, entered his mind. Right, Jackson thought, I should be bitter after all my grandfather was disgraced because of you and your family put out some hostile papers towards me.



Still, Jackson could not help but geek out just a little.



Living history always fascinated him, even if it wasn’t pleasant.





She laughed “Hard to believe with how he no doubt spoke about me, but yes once long ago” her tone was as far away as her eyes and she took a moment to compose herself. Her accent even after all these years never truly left her it added a sense of mystique to her aged voice. “I have a jet waiting for us, I trust everything you own is in that shabby bag?”



“Yes it is..wait aminute..us?” Jackson asked bewildered.



“Of course,” she laughed softly, wheezing slightly as she did so. “Did you think I hauled myself all this way to this filthy city to sit in a car? This is a job interview boy.”



Jackson blinked “I don’t understand..the guy is military”



“Yes, Marine division attached to the Space force.”



“ah” Jackson said as if that explained everything “And, why would the space force want me?”



The woman looked to her left gazing out at the rain “Do you want a chance to prove your theories right?”



There was something in her tone of voice, a weight to it that gave Jackson pause, as if the coils of destiny had just been given cue to wrap around his throat. Nervous, hesitant, military? Spooky government stuff? Space force? Why the hell was Katherine Langford mixed up with that? -I should leave- he thought.



But go where?



-I assume all you own is in that shabby bag- her wizened voice echoed in the young man’s head.



No, no matter what.



A chance to vindicate his grandfather and prove his theories?



“I do” Jackson whispered.



“Excellent! Now Major Kowalski can get out of the rain!”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Munising Michigan – Same time



Chapter 2: departures





She hated him, and she cursed him for that. They had been married twenty years now, her father warned her about marrying someone “in the life” but she didn’t listen. He was tall, muscular, toned and with the jaw and poise of an American GI straight out of another era. Sarcastic, defiant, devil may care and yet capable of profound introspection and stoicism they didn’t make men like her husband anymore. That action hero right out of an eighty’s movie meshed with the calm frontiersmen of yore out of the history books and filtered through the lens of a John Ford movie.



Colonel John James “Jack” O’Neil was one part Snake Pliskin, one part Wyatt Earp and one part stand up comic. Those traits made Sarah fall hopelessly in love with him, but they also meant that when he broke because they didn’t make ‘em like that anymore it was impossible to fix him.



Smoke rose to form a halo around shabby blond hair, she was wearing a beat-up old flannel and probably looked haggard. Sarah didn’t care, her daughters kept telling her to pick herself back up, but that was another reason why she hated the man she once loved furiously. They had seen only their father’s pain but none of their mother’s fury and with twins, well on most of the critical issues they were of one mind. They took his side, insisting that he be allowed to grieve in his own way while she was supposed to be there for him and suck it up?



That wasn’t true, she was being unfair to her two remaining kids they only wanted their parents to grieve as a couple, they only wanted Sarah to let go of her rage towards Jack, but they didn’t understand. She didn’t blame Jack for Charlie’s death, their youngest was a tenacious little one and he got into everything and if he wanted to get ahold of Jack’s guns, no safe nor lock would have stopped him. That was why she kept insisting they do with Charlie what they did for their daughters, weapons safety training, shooting, and hunting from a young age. Sandra and Sasha understood and respected guns. Jack kept promising to show Charlie, but the war on terror had reached its apex when Charlie was born and when it was supposed to wine down under President Obama it only got worse and Jack was gone so often. She kept insisting he retire, a few years older than her Jack was a Gulf War veteran and he was eligible for it. Just so they could be a family, Charlie was going to be their last kid and. No, Sarah reminded herself, she didn’t blame Jack for Charlies death, the boy had just wanted to be closer to his father and things, happened when you were a nine-year-old with a piece.



No, she blamed Jack for blaming himself, for hating himself and for wanting to leave her and their daughters alone in a graying world without him. -He’s supposed to be a hero damnit, I married a hero not a broken toy soldier-. The thought repulsed her, she knew how selfish it was and yet images of Jack cradling their dead son in his arms, one of their daughters clutching at brain matter and the other wailing like a banshee filled her head and she stopped caring about how selfish it was.





“He’s going to put that 1911 to his head one day and mean it for once” she spoke aloud, her voice dry and numb. A knock on the door jerked her out of her thoughts and she walked from the kitchen towards hall between the kitchen and the dinning and family rooms. Two members of the Space Force were at the door -What the hell do these losers want with a real soldier? - she thought derisively then decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. One of them was an older man, some lifetime logistics clerk a pencil pusher and bean counter most like. The other, in his twenties, she recognized the youth because he was married to one of her cousins. “Billy” she remarked trying not to laugh at the uniform. It was gray and he was doing his best not to look like a caricature of a West Point graduate from a century ago. The way the Space Force was set up was bizarre, there was a “United States Stellar Navy” branch, which had the old naval ranks and one that was clearly based off the Airforce, they were supposed to be pilots, but she wasn’t sure why there was a naval side to it except that maybe President Bush was serious about wanting spaceships with guns. There was supposedly a third division as well, one that wasn’t uniformed but more like a federal agency, an intelligence arm. Jack said it was just a rumor, no one would be stupid enough to “screw with the way things got to be” like that and throwing that much money at what amounted to a blackhole for people who couldn’t be thrown out but had to be promoted out was absurd.



But when she looked at the older man she wondered.



“Who’s your friend?” she asked, in a tone that suggested she didn’t particularly care.



“Captain Harold Maybourne” The man said, the grip on the folder he was carrying tightening. “May we speak to Jack?”



Oddly familiar Sarah thought, definitely a former bean counter. “If you can reach ‘em” she said walking into the kitchen. She knew by the look in Maybourne’s eyes this was a mission that was likely so top secret maybe fifty people knew about it outside of the command center that was directing it.





Sarah knew that meant it was likely a suicide mission.





When her husband finally stirred from their room a few moments after the men left, she knew the ghost of her husband had accepted.



He wasn’t coming home.



She felt relieved.








Cheyenne Mountain Complex – two days later

Chapter 2:2 - Arrivals



“Jesus! Jackson, we’re underground what is there to sneeze about?” Kowalski asked as the suffering blond haired nerd held a handkerchief to his nose and let loose a noise neither Charles Kowalski nor Louis Ferretti thought a human being could make. The two belonged to a detachment of the Marine Corps that was part of a JSOC under the Space Force. That basically meant they were surrounded by nerds in uniforms and nerds in civies, well besides General West and Admiral Hammond, both of those men were anything but nerds. Though West had a passing understanding of the Ancient Egyptian language, he was famous for being the man who could get any troubled base or outfit into working order. And Hammond? Well, Kowalski had only met Hammond once but any sixty-year-old who could shake your hand hard enough crush it was more than just a pencil pusher.



The story was that both men were friends of Senator Hayes, an independent that sat on a bunch of committees, that they had struck up a friendship with the older man in the late seventies. The story was that the three of them were involved in some tight shit together and that all three all but idolized Ellis and that had been why the pair of them were trusted with command of Project Giza. West was prone to titanic bouts of rage in-between periods of calm stoicism that made him an imperious, domineering figure while Hammond had a quiet, unspoken power that was common to a Texas Rancher turned SEAL. Though Hammond Spent most of his days in Washington now and West ran the facility. Project Giza itself was run by Doctor Langford and the arrangement had always confused Kowalski but then again, he was seldom paid to think.





He also didn’t mind it, Katherine was a woman who was over a hundred years old and her life had been as wild as a character out of a comic book. He could listen to her stories for hours, at least when Ferretti wasn’t debating conspiracy theories with the old woman (Who sometimes could come off as trippy and paranoid as Ferretti), the others, doctor Shore and that fat Egyptologist whose name he kept forgetting could be grating but Jackson? In the day they’d spent together he decided he liked Jackson, still didn’t stop him from occasionally teasing the guy.



“I don’t know!” Jackson cried in a baleful tone that made both marine’s chuckle. “I’m telling you man, in the 70’s they put spores of a mold that simulates LSD in the walls as part of a behavioral engineering experiment” Ferretti remarked “Jackson’s nose must be sensitive enough to pick it up.”



Kowalski rolled his eyes “That’s retarded, no one would waste money doing something like that and no one in the Government would do it to one of the most secure facilities on earth.”



“ehhh…I..wouldn’t be so sure” Jackson remarked, replacing the handkerchief in his pocket and taking out another to clean his glasses. Kowalski snorted “Really? You believe this shit?!”



Jackson shrugged in his usual boy like way and quickly added to his comment. “Well, here I don’t know, but I mean both the CIA and the KGB did do stuff like that in the sixties and seventies. The CIA even staged a haunting in a college dorm once using LSD, sleep deprivation and noise.”



Kowalski blinked, suddenly looking more concerned than he wanted to be. “You’re kidding me right?!” was everyone just crazy during the cold war? Doctor Jackson pushed some of the strands of blond hair that fell between his glasses and eyes and shook his head “Nope, look up project Climax one day, they did all kinds of weird stuff and a lot of it was just forgotten and left to continue until someone decades later found out and put a stop to it.”



Great, Kowalski thought, now I’m going to be staring at the walls for a week to make sure they aren’t melting. “But you..think they’d do it in the mountain”



“Probably not” Jackson intoned as the elevator doors opened. “Don’t worry!”



“Right” Kowalski muttered as the pair walked ahead of Jackson who gawking around at the interior of the facility, looking very much like a kid in a museum. A short, stocky woman of Latin heritage in her early forties walked past Kowalski and the equally towering Ferretti, her auburn hair a curly mass about her back and shoulders. “Doctor Jackson!?” she called out and gripped the distracted blond by the hand. Their newest nerd turned and looked down at the woman nodding as he watched his hand bob up and down in her grip “I’m Doctor Barbara Shore” The engagement and wedding ring on her finger explained the name, her accent was still thick, and Jackson remembered a Doctor Barbara Ramirez out of a University in Costa Rica who had published a series of books on Ancient Cultures and the worship of stars. She’d been amongst the class of fringe archaeologists who courtesy of the internet and cable channel documentaries had been steadily gaining more and more recognition over the last fifteen years. Ah yes, she was married to a Doctor Robert Shore, an engineer and dam builder! What was another globe trotter doing in an underground military base?





Beside her a tall portly man in a cardigan walked over, reaching out to grip Jackson’s hand with an affable smile. Jackson knew this one, Doctor Gerry Meyers had famously been one of the people to analyze and study Göbeklitepe with any kind of enthusiasm and his debates with that Graham Hancock guy had been legendary once. -the token skeptic I guess- he thought. Gerry’s false smile was one he was accustomed too when dealing with an academic old boy. Meyers smile only broadened as he added “I see you’ve already met the boys” he said gesturing forward to Kowalski and Ferretti’s backs “Or as I like to call them the two towers”.



That metaphor was apt in the sense that both men were built like buildings even if Kowalski’s height didn’t quite match the Italian American’s 6’9. Ferretti was like a meathead out of an old cartoon, a meathead who was surprisingly literate for someone who looked like he blew things up for a living and had a hunger for conspiracy theories and to his surprise had read every piece Jackson had ever written addressing the ancient astronaut theory (Daniel rather liked his approach to countering his assessment, as it was more geared towards critiquing his assumptions about alien psychology in a way, he didn’t find abstract or boring). But Meyer’s dismissiveness bothered him, neither of these men were stupid. Either way, he didn’t have much in the way of time to say anything because he was quickly led down a corridor and to a room that was barred by a steel door that opened with a sound that made Jackson wonder if the room was sealed or not.



Authorized personnel only tags covered a pair of beige doors and when Jackson walked in he beheld a bunch of computers and what looked like design tables and tablets and all the way at the far end a massive cover stone the likes of which he’d never seen before. It was a cover stone, Jackson was sure of it, a great circle made of concentric stones carved in the shape of wedges and each one containing a series of hieroglyphs that were unmistakably ancient Egyptian and yet, not. A hand gripped his wrist and he turned, espying Katherine who had an amused expression on her ancient face “Well? What do you think?”



“I don’t know what to think” Jackson murmured, his eyes flashing about erratically, doing his best to try and take in the whole sight before him. His mind a whir of thoughts, speculations, and Katherine’s words earlier -Do you want to prove your Grandfather’s theories true-







But what did that have to do with the military? “I’ve never seen anything like this” Jackson murmured. A lighthearted laugh accompanied by her usual wheeze escaped Langford’s lips and she nodded “I would imagine so, no one has seen anything like this” she paused “Except for the Ballard inscription perhaps”. Jackson whirred on her; his eyes frantic with possibilities. “Did..was this found in Arizona as well?”



She laughed “no, my father and I discovered it in nineteen twenty-eight in a quarry near the Giza Plateau.” Jackson felt himself swallow, his mouth must have been dry, and he turned back to gaze up at the stone. His eyes settled on the Cartouche where a series of odd almost figure like carvings that matched symbols that he could see dotting the outer part of the stones. He couldn’t recognize the figures, though they might have been some form of cuneiform, but Jackson would need more time. The hieroglyphs themselves were subtly different, the animals had different shapes, some looked entirely different and were unrecognizable but place between that which he could recognize Jackson could reasonably guess what was being said. “The hieroglyphs in the center stone are mostly recognizable but the outer inscriptions are like the ones in the cartouche and I can’t make heads or tails of them” Meyer admitted, his hands had been shoved in his pockets as though he were dejected yet there was a subtle challenging glint in his sunken eyes.



Jackson nodded “I bet” he turned surveying the room until he found an old chalkboard and quickly hurried over. There, he saw the hieroglyphs copied and below it a mangling of them in a bunch of possible translations. “era? Time? To the sky? Ra Sun God..well you got that right at least” Jackson muttered as he rummaged for an eraser. Meyer objected but Jackson cut him off muttering about Budge and questioning why Meyer would even bother using Budge knowing what a disaster his work was. “No, it should read. Million years into the Sky, as Ra Sun God, cast out through his, no not Door to Heaven…But Stargate for all…time.”



Jackson went silent, recalling the inscription his grandfather found over fifty years ago. The similarities were eerie and the message, halfway across the world. “But I don’t get it…What does the military want with five-thousand-year-old Egyptian relics?”



“My file says forty thousand.” A gruff if somber voice cut them off and Daniel turned around to behold a tall, strong jawed man in his forties with an immaculate crewcut and eyes that held back a tide. Jackson blinked, unsure of who the man was other than his colonel insignia and the fact that Kowalski and Ferretti were standing at attention. The date the man gave him, absolutely boggled Jackson’s mind “That date’s ludicrous, the Egyptian civilization didn’t exist anywhere near that era, nothing did.”



The man smirked, which surprised Jackson given how tight his face had been, how measured he’d held himself to that point. “Well, aren’t you the guy who said Ancient Egyptians were just a bunch of cavemen who copied and pasted what a bunch of even older dead guys did.”



“Fair..Enough” Jackson admitted, chuckling “But still, I mean if it were that old, how could the inscriptions remain..I mean something would have faded”. The Colonel, returning to a more somber and rigid posture nodded his head “Maybe but I’m not the big brain they hired to make sense of this.”



Fair, Daniel thought. Turning to Doctor Shore he had to stop himself from twitching in excitement. “Well this is a cover stone did you find a sarcophagus?” “No, but something far more interesting was fo”



“Excuse me” The Colonel cut in “But from now on no information deemed classified will be provided except without my approval first.”



“Who are you?” Langford asked somewhat irked. “Colonel Jack O’Neill out of General West’s office” he turned and began to head towards the door, Langford followed as fast as her ancient body would allow her. “Colonel” she called causing him to turn, surprised at the power the old woman could put in her voice. “I was told I had complete autonomy”



With a sigh Jack O’Neill nodded “Plans change ma’am” “I see” Langford remarked shaking her head “I thought the manic days of the cold war were over, ahh well. Why are you here Colonel?”



“In case you succeed Ma’am, you scientists have a way of making messes that people like me cleanup”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Cheyenne Mountain Complex – three weeks later.





Chapter 3: Consternations

“I’m never getting paid again” Jackson muttered to himself, three weeks of hard work! Three blasted weeks of cross referencing, rereading and studying every single damned paper, book and lecture ever printed, of consulting every glossary dictionary and lecture (Even consulting the damned books by the Ancient Astronaut guys). Nothing, he was as mystified as to the meaning of the weird glyphs on the cartouche tonight as he was when he first beheld the ancient stone carving.



The stone carving itself was a riddle greater than the Sphinx, as it seemed to both prove his theory and the belief that the planet had some sort of extraterrestrial contact at some point in time. In that as far as he knew, no culture advanced enough to produce stonework that could last through the ages as this one supposedly had. -Hell, we don’t even have the capability to do that, not for forty thousand years-. Jackson let out a breath, he had to remind himself that the United States Government had been in possession of the relic since the end of the second world war. They could be patient, real patient, even if there was a sense of urgency about the base. But Jackson couldn’t, Jackson had no desire to spend decades of his life stuck with the same problem.





“Man, still up?” The voice of Ferretti echoed from behind him and Jackson turned to see the large Italian with a tray filled with pancakes, orange juice and what looked like grits (or it might have been oatmeal). An ever-present smile on the marine’s face turned into one of confusion as he set the tray down and looked at the screen set against the wall Jackson was eying with a look like he wanted to smash the monitor with a crowbar. “huh these are the things that got you losing sleep?”



“My mortal enemies” Jackson muttered in dissatisfaction. “I have no idea what they mean at all. And honestly if they really are forty thousand years old I may never.” Daniel sighed, yielding to his hunger long enough to take a few ravenous bites out of the oatmeal. “But you still think this was a Rosetta stone?” Ferretti asked quirking his head. His half-fried mind working through the images with a look Jackson had seen on the man’s face when he was lifting a particularly large amount of weight.



“Yes” Jackson said with an exhausted sigh “It’s the only logical thing I can think of, but that would I mean I know that the markings say but trying to find any kind..syntax or”



“Looks like a legend on a map” Ferretti remarked, which caused Jackson to freeze in his tracks, spoon hovering in mid air as he quirked his head to match the Marines odd posture. Looking at it, from the angle of a conspiracy nut and meat head, it… “Wow..you’re right.. It does”



“So..what? Are these coded coordinates? Like a cipher?” Ferretti asked.



Jackson blinked, why the hell hadn’t Shore and Meyers spent any time with this man? He was a gold mind of unconventional thinking. “Not a Cipher! Louie! Look!” Jackson called, suddenly bolting from his chair to point at one image, which if one squinted hard enough looked like the hunter Orion. “Shiit Star signs?”



“It would seem so!” Jackson’s eyes flashed and he beamed an almost school boy like grin at Ferretti “You’re a damn genius you know that?! Come on! I need to consult a physicist or something.”



Eureka! Jackson thought, even as he realized this changed everything, he thought he knew. -We were right, while being wrong grandpa- He thought with a smile on his face. Oddly enough, he wasn’t upset by that prospect, if anything it opened so many doors, about so many different civilizations!



“And I thought this morning would suck”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Cheyenne Mountain complex: -four days later

Chapter 3: 2- Revelations

“But that symbol’s not on the device”





If looks could kill, the malevolent gaze General West shot poor Gerry Meyers in that moment would have caused the man to burst into flames in front of everyone. It was a haze after that, Langford chuckling in her usual wheezy way whenever military protocol was thoroughly broken at inopportune moments and O’Neill rolling his eyes and waving a hand to indicate to West that he didn’t see any harm in Jackson being able to look at the device. A button was pushed, blast doors and Daniel’s projection board began to rise into wall revealing a sort of underground hangar (likely where they kept missiles in the old days), one converted into embarkation and loading room, with all manner of cables and running towards the center of the end of the hallway where a series of struts and vices held a…Well Jackson had no idea what it was, a ring of some kind.





The ring itself was both spartan and yet like nothing he’d ever seen before in his life. It was enormous, made of a cool metal that seemed to be laced with veins in the form of ornate designs that covered the gate and ran along the seams where it might have been put together. Those veins shimmered and glowed, a rainbow of colors danced in the light as though it was drawing energy from the very lamps in the facility as much as the power cords connected to the vices that seemed to hold it in place. Within the main ring was a smaller ring that seemed to Jackson like a rotary disc of some kind. There were symbols, though Jackson couldn’t make out the number of them but each one seemed to be a depiction of some kind of constellation or had been made in the image of one. There were a series of what looked like locks or bolts in the shape of chevrons, each one containing a large triangular crystal made of a deep indigo-colored quartz that Jackson couldn’t place.





What happened next, defied the imagination. They began to input the coordinates both he and Ferretti discovered, the internal ring seemed to move, a great grinding noise seemed to echo through the compound and Daniel felt a tremor along the ground as if something immense was started to congregate. Someone he would later learn was named Walter called out “Chevron One is locked” the indigo gem glowed a deep blue then green. “Chevron two is locked” the call came as Daniel noticed what looked like two “strings” of light beaming from each “chevron” through to the center of empty air between within the circle. Behind the device the concrete seemed to distort slightly, or perhaps the light at the center of the circle became disturbed. “Chevron four”



By the sixth Langford had muttered to him “This is as far as we ever got”.



Jackson noticed the seventh symbol; it lacked the two little dudes praying but he saw the sun.





Seven beams of light and a sudden bright almost chime like noise followed and then, light and space warped and twisted and a vast ocean of raw energy roared forward akin to an explosion of water. The shockwave buffeted the facility, someone cursed and then the vortex of energy stability into what looked like a pool of water, clear, crystal, and beautiful.



They’d sent a probe through on some sort of drone that reminded him of a Martian rover on steroids. “Ra’s Stargate” Daniel Jackson murmured, beside him O’Neill’s usually stoic demeaner was replaced by a look of awe mixed with annoyance “ooohh booy…what are you eggheads gonna get us into huh?” he had murmured. Ferretti was apologizing to Jackson, consoling him as if this proved the Ballard -Jackson theory wrong since “clearly fuck’n Aliens built it man!”. But Jackson wasn’t so sure, if anything this proved the theory. -I was simply wrong about where that civilization came from- he thought.



This idly made him wonder if the remnant the ancient Egyptians found and copied left more than just relics, if such a thing as interbreeding with a completely different species from another planet was even possible. He was awestruck by it all and the possibilities set his mind a flutter, until the probe stopped transmitting and the gate shutdown. Then, it was all a blur again until images relayed by the Probe were decoded and displayed and Jackson’s awareness had returned then.



It seemed to him the gate on the other side was located inside some sort of immense reception hall, marble and granite dotted the floor, gold and silver snaked along columns that rose more than three stories into a ceiling that depicted the Sun God Ra, the Serpent Apep/Apophis and Aker a crafting God doing battle with a figure obscured in shadow. Ra’s left hand was at his waist with an open palm and his righthand stretched outwards in a gesture that reminded Daniel of Asian murals depicting the banishing of dark souls by Yama. -curious- he thought, the ceiling itself seemed carved from precious gigantic blocks of sapphires, rubies and emeralds. The gold and other metals flowed so seamlessly with everything else it was almost as if they had been “grown”. The chamber itself was enormous, but Jackson could make out no inscriptions on the interior beyond the depictions above.





Someone said they could have a recon team ready in an hour and General West remarked that the mission was for not unless they had a way to “dial out” from the other side. Daniel had to admit, the comparison to an old rotary telephone made him laugh but it made sense. He decided, he liked it. Stargate! Call collect! The mental image made him almost laugh until he realized they were talking about an expedition and canceling it and an excited Jackson, not wanting to be the first Earthling to refuse a chance to go to another world chimed in “I can bring us back, though I would have to find a cartouche..err..a legend like that one the Langfords found at Giza”



Someone asked him if it was possible to find such a thing easily.



On earth, he explained that the answer was no, but the building seemed to be in almost new condition despite the fact that it likely had stood for tens of thousands of years. “chambers like this, aren’t just built in the middle of nowhere” The chamber itself was something his mind was still struggling to process, the interior of Egyptian temples looked something like that, but the use of marble and granite had been more something the Romans did or so he thought. If this was the “prime” culture, then the Egyptians were poor copycats. “General there have to be other buildings, other rooms, I’m sure there will be something there. There has to be, elsewise, how would they know what to dial? “This civilization crossed the stars sir, that implies efficient record keeping. It just might take me twenty days or more.”





O’Neill had said he was full of shit but West seemed determined. Something was working in his eyes and a Captain Maybourne whispered something in his ear which seemed to make the titanic bald Texan who was seated at the conference table with Langford and several other members of the Space Force sneer menacingly. Jackson (The only member of the top brass who hadn’t shown up was Admiral Ellis but that didn’t surprise Daniel, Langford mentioned he’d had an ocular stroke and the procedure to clear that out was..not conducive to long flights and changes in pressure). Was relieved he wasn’t on the receiving end of that glare; he’d only said maybe three words to Vice Admiral Hammond, but the man’s quiet tone belied a steadiness and a sense of personal power that matched the imposing General West and exceeded it in some ways. He asked the right questions during his little presentation as well, there was nothing more dangerous in the universe than a clever Texan who knew his mettle.



“Twenty-one days is out of the question; you need to achieve this in twelve” West had told him with finality.



Jackson knew better than to argue, but what?! You didn’t just, rush archaeology. “we’ll touch base with you in five days after your initial arrival. You will be provisioned for thirty days as an emergency measure, but Jackson I mean it. You do not dawdle, or so help me god I’ll have Colonel O’Neill bury you out there”. Jackson didn’t doubt for a second that he meant it and that O’Neill might do it, but he was too excited to realize just how over his head he was.





So that was it, they were on an expedition to ancient ruins in another world, it happened so fast and so absurdly that Jackson was convinced this was going to happen whether he came along and he wondered why he was asked to decipher this riddle yet again. -Are they trying to capture advanced technology? - Daniel felt compelled to warn them, that there was a chance they’d be walking into a gave yard, that in the immense span of time since the creation of the building that chamber resided within that he had no earthly idea if there was anything there that they’d be able to pick apart besides dust and stone. “Would we even understand it?”



“Nervous?” The august voice of Doctor Langford brought Jackson out of the stupor he’d found himself in. Looking up the supercentenarian wore a playful smile, eyes filled with a far-off sense of nostalgia. “The ad hoc nature of how this expedition came into being?” she asked a knowing tone in her voice and upon seeing the nod from the blonds head she laughed again. “That’s how we did it in the old days, archaeology was almost always part intuition. I admit that is not especially scientific and yet, this is one part art and one-part science.”



“My grandfather used to call it the mongrel of the discovery fields” Jackson remarked causing her to nod with a fond smile that made him annoyed. “You knew” he murmured in an accusatory fashion “You knew he was right, you knew, and you let his reputation be destroyed. You knew and you never reached out to me” his eyes flickered, unsure if it was the excitement over what he was about to embark on or if it was just that he was tired of this elephant being in the room.



Langford regarded him with amused eyes as if the question was an absurdity, but she decided to answer it any way, knowing Nicholas, he likely had ranted enough to the boy over the years. “Because dear boy, this entire facility is classified, this whole project is classified and we are bound by law not to disclose it..”





“Oh” Daniel muttered, looking thoroughly ashamed. A good natured, if wheezy laugh followed as Langford pulled something from her pocket. “Before our friendship soured, your grandfather and I had a tradition I would like to continue with you. Whenever one of us bested the other to the rights to an expedition the other wished badly the loser would give a token of theirs to the winner, something precious. Come back alive, we would say for I want this back” Her eyes flickered with memory and Jackson wondered if it hadn’t hurt her just as much as it wounded his grandfather to lose their friendship. In her hand was the eye of Ra necklace she wore, the white metal and gold woven together with the blues and light greens of the eyeliner, the gem itself was glowing a vibrant crimson. “I found this with Stargate long ago. I thank you for discovering its name by the way. We are old friends and I finally get to name it” as it left her hands into Jackson’s he quirked his head and catching the realization in his eyes she nodded “Yes, it was made by the builders of that wondrous gate. And I do believe it is the source of my long life, keep it with you and keep it safe. It should protect you to a small degree”



“Katherine I can’t”



“Yes boy, you can next time, you’ll be giving something of yours any way” she said with a slight hint of challenge in her voice, enough that Jackson could see the echoes of the woman she was in her youth. “May Ra go before you Katherine Langford in all the empty places you should walk.”



“And may he come between you and harm in all of yours”. She whispered, completing the ancient farewell speech. As she left the room Jackson sat in the half light, wondering if a torch hadn’t been passed between them.


Abbydos- Ten seconds and a few thousand lightyears later.

Chapter 4: Arrival





Twenty-five souls ultimately departed on the fateful mission through the Stargate, fifteen members of the US Marine Corps detached to the Space Force, three technicians to handle the probes and supplies. Two cooks, four medics and Doctor Daniel Jackson. The Techs accompanied by Ferretti had gone through the gate first, he’d insisted and pleaded with Colonel O’Neill because he “wanted to be the first human to ever successfully go through a space hole!”. The Colonel had allowed it, to Jackson it seemed as though he was mellowing slightly, even though his eyes still looked sad. The rest of the team went in, with Jackson stopping to touch the clear pond like surface of the event horizon before finally “stepping” through the threshold.



The world went black and weightless, formless and Jackson reached out to clutch in the dark only to find he had no hands to clutch with, no hands, no arms, no body. He was formless, he was thought carried on stellar winds and it terrified him utterly for a second before a tsunami of stars passed through him and around him and he found himself flung across the vastness of space through a tunnel that twisted and contorted, changing colors as rapidly as a man might blink. He crossed distances that might have taken centuries were it not for whatever this end-run around the laws of physics was. Off to his “left” Jackson would have sworn he saw the formation of a second tunnel, heading in a winding, twisting direction down and away from him and he could have sworn he thought he saw a tall, grim dark-skinned man and a beautiful woman with vibrant green hair and oddly copper colored skin. But he also was certain all of this was a hallucination or his mind attempting to translate experiences it couldn’t truly comprehend. There was a sudden screeching noise the tunnel began to spin and whir, the images faded, and Jackson soon found himself confronted with a dizzying array of streaks of light as the speed built up beyond what was tolerable.



Then suddenly he was on his knees, leaning against one of the RC carriages carrying bags and equipment. Frost covered the tips of his hair; he was shivering and disoriented and he remembered someone gripping him. Perhaps lieutenant Brown or Major Kowalski. “It wears off after a minute or so Jackson.” Yeah, it was Brown. Brown was the only person he knew who wasn’t over eighty that spoke with an old continental accent. Ahead of him, Jackson could make out Ferretti grinning and asking anyone else if they saw weird colors and shapes, most said no and Jackson filed his intra-Gate experiences as a hallucination. O’Neill was standing stoically ahead of everyone looking around the immense room. The medic, a woman in her early twenties with tanned skin and dark hair and vaguely Asiatic features was checking everyone’s pulse. Doctor Lahm was pleasant to look at, but she was almost as somber as O’Neill. “Everyone seems okay sir, but I think we should make use of the chamber as”



“Negative, too big, not easily defended. Too many damn entrances too.” Colonel O’Neill reached into his fatigues and withdrew a cigarette and a lighter. “Ferretti take Brown, Simmons, Watkins and one of the nerds and find a way out of this damn building”. Turning towards the far corner the Colonel called for Kowalski who came over with his usual enthusiasm. “Take Jackson with a detail and start looking around the interior of this place.”



“umm, I don’t think we’ll find anything in this building, whatever it is.” Daniel remarked walking towards the Colonel, looking at every direction around him, eying the cool stone and the ornate decoration on the ceiling which seemed to cascade with energy as if it fed off the opening of the gate itself. When the Colonel gave him a glare Jackson quickly shook his head “This looks like a great temple or I don’t know maybe civic center, I would have to see more but if the rest of the building follows the entryway pattern I” both men turned to one of the techs who was whistling at what looked like a large toadstool that rose out of the ground between the statues of two great bulls. The device appeared to have a series of buttons that formed concentric rings, each one containing a different set of combinations and what looked like a gigantic ruby at the center. The ruby hummed faintly, and Jackson swallowed “I guess that’s the builders dialed out” he said softly “I wonder our gate was found without one.”



“Maybe it got broke in the following millennia?” O’Neill offered though by the tone of his voice it didn’t sound like he was paying much attention. “Or the people who buried the gate broke it” Kowalski offered in a suspicious tone. “Right” O’Neill muttered taking a drag of his cigarette. “So you can use that to get us home Jackson, maybe you should dial it up”



“Well, I’ll need the coordinates from here, otherwise we’d be plugging in combinations all day for a million years an”



O’Neill rolled his eyes “So we’ll still need to look around is what you’re telling me? And you aren’t talking out of your ass, right Jackson?”



“Right sir” Jackson murmured. O’Neill’s mood had soured as quickly as it had improved, and he wasn’t going to add anymore fuel to that fire. “I’m certain we’ll find what we’re looking for but we’ll need to look”



“Alright, then as soon as Ferretti comes back, we’ll head outside and find a spot to set up camp” he paused then turned back towards the group assembling. “Hey Space nerd two!” “Reyes sir” called the Space Force “Seaman”. “Right, Space nerd two, you sure this place is abandoned?”



The man sighed but nodded “Yes sir, near as we can tell we’re picking up none of the usual radio waves and power readings you’d associate with civilization and besides no ones come to greet us yet.”



Both Jackson and O’Neill rolled their eyes at that part, it meant nothing. For all any of them knew, whoever lived here could have scattered in fear or have regrouped to set up an ambush. There was no guarantee of anything except that they had discovered a wonder beyond all reckoning.



The next hour passed in tedium, most of the marines napped. Kowalski chatted with Doctor Lahm in a rather sad attempt to break the ice with her (Jackson didn’t fault Kowalski for trying, he’d been trying to do the same with Colonel O’Neill since they got here after all). Brown came back and more had a look on his face that made Jackson think of the Ezekiel chapter out of the bible and how the prophet was stupefied and left in contemplative shock after the angel departed. “W-we found the way out and outside its.”



“Fuck’n amazing” Ferretti’s voice boomed, and his shadow filled the room.



Soon the group was following Ferretti (Who was carrying a machine gun that was enormous and belt fed and Jackson wondered if the Italian giant wasn’t lugging something around that was meant to be loaded onto a combat vehicle) and crew down a hallway that was so large Jackson and several of the techs began speculative murmurs about the sheer size of the place. “But is it the size of Graceland” Lahm piped in, an uncharacteristic moment for her and O’Neill looked back at her with his usual stoic expression cracking slightly. “What? I like Elvis” she murmured.



“I think it might be” Jackson said with a wry grin, in truth you could probably fit four or five Graceland’s inside that chamber alone and the more time Jackson spent inside the building itself the more he wondered if it wasn’t some sort of pyramid but if so, how big?



The answer stunned him into silence.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Abydos

Chapter 4: Exodus 1: Awe



“So, this is what the real thing looks like” Daniel whispered, taking in immense set of stairs, plinths and ramps that led down from the gargantuan building they had been in towards a road made of a smooth black stone that seemed to absorb the rays of the planet’s twin suns. Green grass growing out of white sands covered an area of about a quarter of a mile, he could even make out palm trees and other plants that were from earth! Albeit, changed by tens of thousands of years of evolution (There was something of a cross between a rose bush and an orange tree that rose out of a median in the road. He could make out fruit the size of a lemon hanging from between its thorny branches). Down towards a lake that likely fed into a river Jackson could make out what looked like it might have been a small city that Ferretti claimed was abandoned. The buildings rose some four stories into the air, each one looked not out of place in the depictions of Memphis or Thebes as described by ancient sources. Long, white on the outside with bright colored columns and… Were those arches?



“Holy fuck” Kowalski exclaimed beside him and Daniel felt his shoulder yanked “Jackson! look at this!?” Daniel turned and felt as if his jaw might have hit the floor. The building that they exited was no palace as Jackson thought, but an enormous pyramid, bone white and shimmering in the sun it rose like a mountain into the heavens, some thousand feet and at its peak Jackson saw that the pyramid’s “tip” was made of the same quartz like material the gate possessed in an abundance. It glowed a deep crimson in the sun and was joined by two pyramids of slightly smaller stature in the horizon, each one topped with the same material. Above them, almost matching the position of the pyramids themselves were three moons which loomed in what must have been a mid-day sky. “This is amazing” Jackson whispered. Even Colonel O’Neill was gazing up with a mix of wonder and concern.







Lahm was the first to speak up, trying to shake everyone out of their stupor. “We need to take water samples and I need to be able to analyze some of the fruits, maybe we can, we underestimated the enormity of this…Settlement, it might take Doctor Jackson longer than any of us expected and frankly I’d like to see if we can survive off the land.”



“That won’t be an issue” Colonel O’Neil said, his tone oddly remote as he’d said it. “Jackson, do you believe the carwhatever…you’re looking for would be in one of these pyramids?”. When Jackson shook his head, O’Neill appeared relieved “Good, that means it’s just the buildings we need to search.”



“And Down steam” Daniel added “We need to find the source of the water that feeds this lake and follow it, this town you see over there would have been where the workers and royal officials that handled whatever affairs were conducted inside the pyramids. Though, we should find what we are looking for there. We should find their equivalent of a City hall.”



“they had those?” O’Neill asked raising an incredulous eyebrow.



Jackson nodded. “them or an equivalent thereof has existed in our world since the dawn of cities. If, our ancient cultures copied the leftovers of this”.



“Then it stands to reason that they’d have one too. Fine but I’m warning you Jackson, this isn’t a fieldtrip”



“Yes sir” Jackson nodded his head vigorously and secretly wondered why O’Neill was so grim about this? They might have been trapped for now, but they were on an alien world! Seeing the ancestors of the Ancient Egyptians and perhaps all human civilization. Beside him Kowalski slapped Jackson on the back and walked off towards the grove getting a cry of alarm from Lahm when the Major simply grabbed one of the rose fruits from a tree and took a bite out of it. “What?! It looked harmless, tastes pretty good!”



Jackson shook his head, smiling before he fell in line beside O’Neill who was ordering everyone to begin to set up basecamp on the outskirts of the small town. He wanted to be close enough to the settlement to use it as cover but not close enough to the lake, just in case “any alien alligators come out at night or something” Brown and one of the cooks laughed until what looked like an unholy fusion between an armadillo, an iguana and a lobster burst forth from the sand and ran like a bat out of hell when one of the Technicians accidentally stepped on its tail. It was an eerie reminder that while this world might have looked like theirs to some degree, it wasn’t and even the animals at night could be a threat.





This was later proven true, when one of the Marines headed out alone to relieve himself in their improvised latrine and was pulled into the sand by what looked like an elephant crossed with a worm and a lamprey. Ferretti used his giant gun to tear it to pieces, but not before it scuttled off into the dunes to die with its ghoulish prize.



The first night was cold, the noises of the night were eerie, but the death of one predator must have put out a warning sign to the life around the area for no one else was harmed. But by day three, the men were starting to grow frustrated with the search and somewhat hostile to Daniel Jackson.



Not that Daniel could blame them.



By the fifth day something was sent through the gate that only O’Neill was authorized to handle, and the morale seemed somewhat low.





Until the beast arrived any way. Rising like a weird fusion of a giraffe and the Uru from the Dark Crystal, smelling like a yak and making ungodly groaning noises it had ambled into camp and was nearly shot. Until they saw it had a harness, it was also a remarkably friendly animal, taking food from anyone who offered and enjoying scratches behind what Kowalski hoped were its ears.



The harness and obvious signs of domestication caused Colonel O’Neill’s demeanor to change remarkably. He’d begun to open up, to relax a little but the moment he saw signs of lingering intelligent life on this planet, he had clammed up. Merely asking Jackson if he believed the owners of this thing would show up. Jackson was going to answer but his hand caught in the harness and the beast bolted, dragging Jackson along and forcing O’Neill, Watkins, Kowalski and Lahm to run after him.





Where the beast would take them would begin to alter the course of events for not only this planet but the whole of the universe.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Chapter 4: Exodus 2 – Shock

The Quarry







He had no idea how much time had passed, for what seemed like an eternity all Daniel Jackson could see was either his arm and legs and lower body billowing in the wind like a half deflated inflatable tube dummy outside a used car lot, an ocean of grass and sand or the dark blue skies and the triplet moons that suggested the day was winding down.



Everything else was a blur though he knew at some point they had gone far from the lake and river system as grass eventually gave way to dunes of sand and by the time, he felt a searing pain in his shoulder that suggested it had been dislocated, the sky was semi dark. “Damnit! WOAH SPACE YAK…HEEL, YEILD…SHIT UMMM…” with a frantic pull of his trapped arm that sent hypersonic needles up his spine he managed to pull on what he thought were the beast’s reins. Luckily for him they were, or maybe, luckily for him the animal just got tired of running because it slowed to a crawl and then finally stopped.





Jackson blacked out by then, waking an hour later when the stars were out, and the triple moons shown bright in the sky. His sandy blond hair was covered in a mix of actual sand and slime that felt surprisingly cool and had an almost anesthetic vibe. Something he was grateful for because Lahm with her usual cheeriness barely gave him more than a moment before she poked at his shoulder again. “Yeah, you’ll need to ice it and rest it but I don’t think you’ll need surgery or anything when we get back”



“Ice it? Here?” Jackson asked amused, causing Lahm to shrug. “No concussion, I was tempted to punch you though. You made us run god knows how many miles”.





“My fault?!” Jackson asked indignant his good arm flailing in the direction of space yak who was happily lazing on the dunes, with Kowalski sitting on its massive shoulders and Colonel O’Neill scratching its massive chin. It was easy to understand why Kowalski was able to bond so quickly with the creature they had taken to calling “Lil’Bit” (A name she/he/it earned after it mimicked the head bobbing Brown would do when doing a terrible Good Fellas impression). From what he learned about the stalwart Polish American, he was a farm boy who grew up around animals and seemed to be the first out of the camp to figure out this wasn’t just a domesticated animal but a very easy going, sociable one. Likely an older creature who had spent its entire life hanging around a campfire with its owners after a hard day’s work. That it had a set of canines and what Lahm found were retractable tusks lead her to believe he was right, and it was likely both guard dog and beast of burden. Lil’Bit was built like a tank and it was so damn tough it shrugged off one half a clip of Brown’s side arm when it snuck up on him while he was in the latrine. The animal made grunting noises and had stomped one of its massive hind legs as if it was being tickled. Lahm found no blood, no injury below its fur, not even a bruise. Beyond the thickness of its hide. Lil’bit was built like a brick shithouse on stilts, Jack had taken to calling it a Mastodon and no one could dissuade him from doing so, especially if it plowed through the dunes to due battle with those elephant worm-snake things (which it killed), after one nearly ambushed Ferretti when he was walking alone to the pyramid on a patrol. “how is it my fault?!”





“Well, it can’t be Lil’bits fault, she’s a good girl” Kowalski murmured patting the creature’s neck, causing it to bob its head enthusiastically. Both Colonel O’Neill and Lil’Bit ended up bonding over the huge beasts love of cigarette smoke and upon discovering tobacco leaves in one of the groves in the courtyard of one of the buildings, the Colonel had attempted to dry Tobacco. The signs of habitation there (both Jackson and Colonel O’Neill surmised it was a seasonal or ceremonial village) and the few trinkets of technology convinced General West (as of last communication) to extend the stay for as long as was needed so long as they didn’t encounter any hostile threat.



While Jackson and the other specialists were enthusiastic, the rest of the crew looked like they wanted to beat Jackson to death over it. O’Neill had become insular and sullen the longer he was out here, evidently whatever communique from home was brought to him made him worse. Though if Jackson were being honest, he suspected everyone’s mood was growing dimmer because they could only receive “calls” and not dial out. It was like torture and Daniel had begun to feel the same way, they could return to this planet whenever they wanted, study and explore and even set up some sort of trade relations with the natives should the local be amenable. So many opportunities, if he could just get the damn coordinates. The only two people whose mood seemed to improve were Lahm and Kowalski, who had grown close to each other even though they were serving together, and he was some sixteen years older than her.







“You’re in space again Jackson” Lahm remarked, noting that he was drifting. “Well, it occurred to me, Lil’Bit was taking us on a path it knows well. Maybe heading back home” Jackson added looking towards O’Neill who seemed to be thinking the same. “So, you want to follow it when it’s done resting?”



“Yes”



“Jackson you’re lucky your arm wasn’t pulled off, you need rest!” Lahm turned to the Colonel “Sir, I suggest we return to base cam-”



“I’ll be fine!” he protested cutting her off, his usual excitement returning “I mean..well..I’m sore but, what if it doesn’t follow us back? We’ll lose its trail out here”



“Sir”



“No, we’re following it” O’Neill’s voice left no indication of whether he’d made the decision based off a desire to assess a threat or because he wanted to find a way home. Wordlessly he gestured to Watkins that they should communicate this back to camp. To Watkins surprise, their comms was still rather clear despite the distance and he believed it was due to the weird Quartz like material everywhere. It seemed to have a passive effect on anything electronic, amplifying a device’s range and efficiency. There were so many applications for that material that even if they failed to contact the ancient culture, it would well be worth it.





“Tell me something” Lahm asked, again bringing Jackson’s eyes back to the medic. “Do you think” she began, trying to find a way to properly phrase a question that frankly was a question only science fiction writers have ever asked. “Do you think that the species who built all this would be using whatever Lil’Bit is?”



Ah, Jackson thought. His blue eyes scanning the seemingly endless dunes, the question that had been plaguing his mind, Ferretti and the Colonel’s since Lil’Bit had loped enthusiastically into their lives. “There are, I mean” he paused, a nervous laugh escaping his lips as was often the case when he was found himself tongue tied. “Yes, maybe, if they utilized these guys the way we utilize horses, or maybe their civilization collapsed and the people using it are the survivors of whatever caused that collapse.”



“But wouldn’t a civilization that built the Stargate span whole star systems, or hell even galaxies?” Lahm asked, her brows scrunched in a way that reminded him of one of the Generals who had attended the conference on that fateful day nearly two weeks ago now. Sandry? Mandry? Ah, yes Landry, there was a little of him in her other expressions as well. General Landry was from supposed to be the leader of the part of the Space Force which in theory would be the combat fighters launched from whatever President’s Clinton and Bush envisioned would be guarding the earth (How the US was allowed to violate a bunch of international treaties and why there was such a sudden interest in militarizing space had been a mystery to him until he ended up in Cheyenne). He hadn’t spoken much at all during the conference, but he seemed like a congenial man, if a bit bookish and not what he’d expected from a former Air force Colonel. Lahm had never spoken of her family; the younger woman would have had to have been his youngest daughter given he was in his sixties and she was only a year older than him. He felt fingers tug on the long strands of his hair and realized Lahm was glaring at him and Daniel realized he must have spaced out again.



“Yes, maybe what we’re looking at is the frontier of their once glorious empire? Earth is supposed to be several thousand Lightyears away, maybe we’re looking at two different ends of a once vibrant domain? Maybe the people I thought were the gate builders weren’t the original Gate Builders and we’re just seeing more copy cats”



Lahm nodded, the Stargate here on this world looked the color of gunmetal, its chevrons were far less ornate, and it had none of the beautiful almost, woven gems and precious metals, it was simple and spartan “Perhaps this planet was where they found the gate technology and the one on earth represented their success in reverse engineering and modifying it?” The Earth Gate was much larger, seemed to even create the wormhole differently. “Or maybe it’s the reverse and the crude gate here?”



“No” Jackson said shaking his head “You were right the first time, that gate is so ancient it seems almost fossilized in a weird way. No, I wager that gate is the “prime” maybe…But that brings us back to what happened to the builders.”



“Which iteration?” Lahm asked wryly, eliciting a laugh from Jackson and an annoyed sigh from Colonel O’Neill who seemed to fall asleep while still on his feet whenever “nerd talk” (As he called it before he clammed up) happened around him. “Fair”



It had not even been midnight when the huge beast rose and shook itself. Baying that they come along. The Colonel, content to be away from speculation ordered everyone to move. There would be no sleep tonight he supposed, as the creature broke into a “Close to home” Trot as Kowalski put it. Explaining that a horse who was tired and missed its barn might speed up its walk or run the last stretch.



Lil’Bit was indeed enthused and it became obvious why as soon as they navigated around a particularly enormous dune (Lil’bit had wanted to run up and down the Dune but it led them around when it sensed that the Colonel had no desire to scale it). A strong scent filled the air, the combined stench of smoke, chemicals, burning of dung and wood, sweat and blood. Ahead, great plumes of smoke rose from a shadow and snaked through the sky forming purple- and brass-colored clouds (was that a trick of the light? Or the fuel of the fire?) that shadowed the dunes. Lahm walked beside Kowalski and as the growing realization of what this meant dawned on her slowly reached for his right hand. Watkins was crossing his chest and kissing the rosary he kept below his fatigues, his faith having never wavered even in the face of this, absurdity (Jackson admired him for that, envied him a little as well). The only thing Daniel Jackson could think of was his grandfather and how much he wished the old eccentric was here with him now.





“We’re about to meet aliens, aren’t we?” The Colonel asked.



“We technically already have.”





“Right” was the Colonel’s only response.





They came towards the source of the smoke which rose into the sky. Four immense smokestacks rose from some sort of foundries and in front of them was a series of incredible tents, some spanning hundreds of feet in diameter, larger than the largest circus tent Kowalski had ever seen. Other creatures, like Lil’Bit, some larger still and seemingly of a different breed lazed in the moonlight and the shadows of hundreds of figures gathered around a great fire in the central pavilion and Daniel could make out laughter and words, words uttered in voices that sounded.





Human.



Chapter 5: Revelations -1 At the gates Nagada

Beyond the tents was a series of walkways towards an immense pit in the earth, deep and dark and wider than the lake they had encountered when they first exited the pyramids. Jackson could make out hundreds of lines that crossed the pit and he realized those were bridges. Some walked along them, others seemed to sit around the entrances. He couldn’t make out faces until he espied two hooded figures seated outside the entrance to the pavilion. Sentries perhaps?



One of them noticed the triumphant return of Lil’Bit and he rose, pulling back his hood to reveal copper skin, deep blue eyes and facial features that reminded Jackson of depictions of Neanderthals, sloping brow, large thick hands, and a barreled chest. His pale hair was in dreadlocks and he wore what looked like some sort of crude leather armor. His companion rose to a taller heigh, his skin was a dark brown and his facial features reminded him of no particular ethnic group or a single species of hominid but a mix of different hominids and groups. His perceptive eyes shifted from the elated second guard and the happy beast to those the beast had brought with it and he upon noticing their attire and weaponry took a sudden step back and held a finger out calling towards the entrance of the Pavilion.



“Jackson” Colonel O’Neill began “you’re the expert, talk to these people.”





Daniel swallowed “sure, no pressure” he murmured, walking towards the pair. At first, he extended his hands in a welcoming gesture, which they understood only to pause in bewilderment when Daniel began to speak to them in Ancient Egyptian. Another figure exited the tent, a youth of some sixteen years, strong, confident his skin was copper colored as well with odd green flecks and his eyes were a shade of green Jackson had never seen before. The youth was better clothed than the other two and wore some sort of multicolored chest covering that reminded him of Egyptian murals depicting civic officials. The boy strode forward, only to stop dead in his tracks when he saw Katherine’s necklace hanging from Jackson’s neck, the pupil in the eye of Ra glowing an odd shade of amber as though it was drawing on the body heat of the people present. The youth saw it and extended a hand and shouted something before falling to his knees, head bowed in reverence.





Colonel O’Neill blinked “Natural yah-yah?” he muttered, trying to phonetically pronounce whatever the youth had said.



“Nahuro-Ay -ya…I think” Lahmn offered helpfully, her right eye twitching as she caught the confused look of what was clearly a Neanderthal with some human ancestry had given her.



Everyone then knelt and Lahm looked to Jackson quizzically.





“They think we were sent by the gods.” Jackson clarified which prompted O’Neill to touch the medallion containing the eye of Ra symbol “geeee I wonder what gave ‘em that idea?”





“S...sorry” Jackson muttered.



Uncomfortable O’Neill walked forward and knelt down in front of the kneeling boy. Helping him rise and clasping his left hand in a firm shake. “There, see, flesh and bone just like you.”



The action had exact opposite of what it was intended to do, and the boy bolted howling “Kasuf! Kasuf!” at the top of his lungs. “Kasuf some kind of cry for help or something?” The Colonel asked Jackson with a raised eyebrow, when he was in a good mood, he didn’t like the idea of children running from him, he never did and he especially hated it now and part of him blamed Jackson.





“Sounded like he was calling someone” Kowalski muttered, ahead of them Lahm was kneeling down and touching the face of a girl with features that likewise looked like a cross between a cave man and a normal human. “clan of the cave bear stuff happened here?” O’Neill asked her. Lahm responded that she was surprised he knew of the books. “Huh? Books, Daryll Hannah just had great tits”.



Lahm rolled her eyes “To answer your question yes sir, but there are other things that aren’t from intermixing. The different pigmentations of the skin, their eyes seem adapted to protecting themselves from UV light and dust.” The girl, who was likely about fourteen was terrified at first, but the gentleness of Lahm’s touch combined with the surety in her voice seemed to relax the girl. O’Neill realized he was with babies at that moment, Lahm wasn’t even old enough to rent a car yet and she barely looked more the ten years older than the girl that she was currently prodding like some lab rat.. Most of the marines assigned to him were in their twenties as well, only Ferretti and Kowalski and their cook Rushings were north of thirty. It made what General West ordered him to consider as a deterrent should hostile action occur all the more painful, his mind kept wandering to his daughters and the guilt he felt for accepting that contingency. -Jackson, don’t fail them-.





Others began to gather and soon they were surrounded by people whispering and conversing with each other. Some attempted to speak to Jackson but any attempts he made to respond back only got gawks. The only one who seemed to be able to comprehend what Jackson was saying by gestures at least. Was this youth around nineteen, with long hair so black it almost sucked in the light and eyes greener than emerald. She kept trying to tell Jackson she understood, he kept flailing and before she could grab him to get his attention everyone parted because Lil’Bit’s big brother showed up.



Colonel Jack O’Neill had seen many weird things in the jungles of the world, hell he might even have seen that weird hairy rhino monster in the Congo once (and he knew he came in contact with those gorilla sized chimps). And on this world, there were weird animals, but Lil’Bit’s race took the cake. This one, towered over Lil’Bit and its six knees were a head above everyone in the crowd. A boy of twelve, who looked to be related to the kid who ran off screaming for whoever this Kasuf was and the boy himself. The boy didn’t look as terrified now as he had earlier, and the creature seemed to share Lil’Bits enthusiasm for marines because it immediately went over to Watkins and nuzzled him with a snout the size of his chest. Someone crawled out of a small canopy on its back, a man who looked to be in his early fifties, with a graying beard and a bald head, decked out in purple with a sash similar to the boy whose hand he shook, though more ornate.





He bowed, introduced himself and Jackson wasn’t sure what the hell he was saying (The Egyptologist and language expert was now useless apparently). The man rose, presenting Jackson with water, but Jackson shook his head and gestured to O’Neill. The primitives naturally thought he was the leader due to the necklace, but Jackson wanted to make sure the chieftain knew O’Neill called the shots. It was a gesture Jack appreciated and after receiving the water he handed out a chocolate covered granola bar. The man calling himself Kasuf took a bite muttered something that sounded like “Bunny way!” which Jackson had no idea the meaning of (Dumb dweeb, it obviously meant something like cool, or nice or tasty). They were escorted after that through some of the rope bridges and followed by an honor guard of children and teens lead by the cave man boy and the kid who ran. Some mimicked Jackson’s sneezes, others (the one who ran away), fell in line behind Kowalski and in an oddly empathetic gesture the girl with the dark hair had taken hold of Lahm’s hand. The fact that Lahm honestly seemed not to mind surprised Jack, whatever she was going through he never pried but she seemed to be the only person on the trip that was far more sullen than he was.



That had been one of the reasons Jack was starting to come out of his funk, all these kids needed him to be functioning at peak capacity, hell his girls back home needed him and the farther away from his wife he was the clearer things became and the more he resented General West. The boys falling in line behind Kowalski eventually dispersed as they came close to a tremendous city. One that reminded Jack a little of the more antique parts of Cairo. Walled, with thick black granite walls rising some four hundred feet into the air with what looked like balconies and small viewing centers, O’Neill wondered if any ancient army of earth could have taken these walls and how much explosives would he need to do the job. Great iron doors opened as they were led in and a crowd gathered in what looked like the public square. They chanted something that sounded like rehu or Retu and Jackson was able to understand that it meant Ra “they think we’re emissaries from the sun god” Daniel told him.



Yeah, he got that part when the big honking golden disk in the shape of some asshole’s eyeball glinted in the moonlight overhead. It was all going smoothly until Ferretti radioed them and told them they had to abandon base camp. The sheer noise made Jack worry it was combat and he ordered everyone to prepare to head back and when people tried to stop him he almost shot at Kasuf.



It was only by the timely intervention of the youth who ran from him that caused things to deescalate. Escorting Jack to the tenth floor observation “port” in the wall and he espied the immense wind storm that was brewing. Explained the walls, if this place was caught in the open it would be torn apart and buried. -they didn’t build these walls-. It seemed like Jackson had the same thought, but Kowalski was busy apologizing profusely for the misunderstanding that almost got the mayor of Space Cairo shot.







His head was in a bad place, he lost one man almost a week ago their turbo nerd almost got his arm ripped off and he was starting to realize what a horrible damn mistake this had been. Their turbo nerd also couldn’t get them home yet and worse, the kid who explained via tapping his chest and saying the word “Skara” very slowly was someone O’Neill was developing a soft spot for and there was a chance he was going to have to nuke the poor kids temple.





“What the fuck am I doing” he muttered to himself, catching the vehemence of the word Skara put on a scowling face and said “fuck” or as close an approximation as he could. -Damnit-.



Had the Colonel not been so focused on everything that had gone wrong, he might have noticed a silhouette of something large pass over the smallest moon in the sky.

The silhouette of something moving with intention.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alrighty then, shit's about to heat up gents and once again sorry for the delay.






Chapter 5:2 Revelations – That which the Storm brings.

The Pyramid



“Man, what the hell was that” Brown was haggard, shivering as they made their way into the great pyramid, the doors to the main entrance opening as they came close and closing just as the last of the team passed. A reminder that though these buildings looked simple in construction, they were in fact incredibly complex and highly advanced. It amazed everyone how fast the storm came on, how quickly the temperature dropped. There, in the Oasis by the river they were inundated by intense wind and sand as well as rain which created marsh like environment farther out by the buildings. Ferretti felt like he was trekking through a slowly forming swamp. But outside, across the horizon they could see the arcs of friction generated lightning that arose when vast quantities of sand that were kicked up by the violent winds and rain. “Was that a hurricane or a damn sandstorm or what?” Brown muttered.



“Sandstorm” one of the Techs muttered miserably. Their primary cook, lieutenant Rushings whistled as light mimicking torches began to illuminate the interior of the pyramid. “Sandstorm crossed with a hurricane more like” The cook said, like others in the service he’d been quietly retired to the Space Force after failing a few promotions, but his career had spanned long enough to encounter both while in service. “I guess we know how they keep the triangular pool between the pyramids in the campus between them filled.”



“You mean the sound suppression system” Ferretti muttered conspiratorially. In their third day here, The Colonel had ordered Ferretti to do recon on the space between the pyramids. What they found was a beautiful campus that looked like a cross between an arboretum and an orchard. A hundred different kinds of trees, dozens of different species of flowering plants (including some that glowed at night). All of which surrounded a great elevated poor in the shape of a triangle, with each corner tapering out into an aqueduct that seemed to both draw and deposit water underground, likely into reservoirs vast. Ferretti was convinced it was some landing pad or a launch pad for a spaceship. But everyone teased him over it, the pool was enormous no one would build a spaceship with an engine that large and no engine that large could lift off without incinerating everything around it for a mile.





“All I know is that I lived through Hurricane Andrew, I was in New Orleans during Katrina, I’ve been out on lake superior during storms and I’ve been in Iraq and I ain’t felt wind like that, not once, not ever” Rushings was kneeling down over a few cooking pots, he’d begun combining bean cans with meat from the lizard-lobster things and some peppers from the local gardens and while the men complained before the first bite, by day five everyone was enjoying the feasts their cook would pull out of thin air. “Could have picked a better room to put in for the night though” he muttered, his eyes moving along the immense statues that sat holding water fountains that cascaded liquid along a small pathway filled with a sort of moss that glowed in the dark. They fed into a trio of ponds towards the rear of the room where alien water lilies and amazingly, what looked like salmon crossed with koi fish entered the cool pools through an underground access.





The statues of a dark black ivory like substance, the gold inlays and precious jewels seemingly “grown” into the material. The eyes of the statue of Anubis seemed to flicker menacingly but Rushings assured himself it was a trick of the light. “They’re watching us” he muttered, turning towards a statue of Hathor and another of Bastet. Bastet’s green eyes burned in contrast to the amber hues of Hathor and the intense blue stare from the Anubis statue. “How many rooms does this pyramid have?”



“No idea, the thing’s a damn mountain.” Answered Brown, he’d been leading the majority of the missions to explore the Pyramid, hoping to find rooms with any technology or the coordinates or hell even hieroglyphs, there had been none. Jackson insisted it was weird that none of the buildings had any language. The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with putting protection spells or stories or both on their buildings and Pyramids were supposed to be tombs and yet he found no antechamber, no sarcophagus, no depictions of anything. The entire place had the feeling of having served one grand purpose long ago and having been shifted into something else entirely.





“Jackson’s theory is that the Egyptians copied the leftovers of this culture, or its people taught them but what if the stick figures were a new addition? He hasn’t considered that” A Marine muttered sullenly. Ferretti gave him a cold glare “Jackson is doing better than we are, even if it was by accident. You’ve been running through here for a week and a half and haven’t found a damn thing and..” they all stopped talking when they noticed the Cook rising from his knees over the stove which was vibrating. Hell, the whole room was vibrating, and it seemed as though the shadows cast by statues snarled.



Something sounded, echoing like an enormous tuba blaring within the immense pyramid, walls shook and then suddenly as if commanded by some unnatural force the walls lit up and hundreds of hieroglyphs like signs appeared seemingly projected but from where none of them could tell. Fading as quickly as they came, the eyes of the statues glowed and Ferretti nearly opened fire at the statue of Anubis. “Ferretti” Rushings murmured “What the fuck is going on?”



“How should I know?” Ferretti asked alarmed.



One of the marines, A Corporal Osorio whom they all called Lex looked around her brown eyes narrowing “vienen por nosotros” she murmured under her breath “Something evil is out there! Estamos jodido jefe!”



“Shut up and fall in line Osorio!” Snapped Ferretti “Form a circle, keep the nerds and the fuck’n cook behind us!”



“With all due respect sir, blow it out your ass, I’ve seen combat unlike these babies” Rushings rose from the makeshift kitchen and drew his side arm. Rifles glinted in the dark as the ground continued to shake outside and another noise joined the cacophony. Lightning seemed to roar around the exterior of the pyramid and the strikes impacting with a shudder only to seemingly disperse.



Inside, they might have seen the pathway the water snaked along towards the fountains glow, but externally each pyramid would have begun to light up in segments. Quadrants of blocks lighting up in groups of blues or greens or yellows and reds. The lightning roaring about the area was drawn away from the groves and towards a series of obelisks that the team had dismissed as ordinary if devoid of writing. It was pulled along the ground in lay lines woven into the floor and drawn up the corners of the pyramids and along their edges until they coalesced into the massive gems at their tops.





The pyramids tips began to glow brighter than ever before, one blue, two red and they lit up almost as a lighthouse in the storm. And as the marines shivered within the heavens above cracked and parted and a bright, silver object began its fated descent.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

And now for some interaction between SG-0 and the locals.

Nagada

“Well, that’s weird” Colonel O’Neill remarked observing the three new lights that glowed even in the thickness of the storm. He ‘d taken a seat beside the boy called Sakara, or to be more accurate Skara had decided to sit beside him at the banquet table. Kasuf seemed to be more than just the mining observer but also the head of the village for his apartments and presumably that of his children (Jackson assumed this as Skara and the nineteen-year-old who had touched her chest and muttered Shau’re when Daniel asked her name and the younger girl who was still stuck to Lahm like glue and was called Kadra) was high above the rest of the city sized village. A few other guests were present, people that Jackson figured were important to the mines and some farmers from other settlements (This was something Kowalski guessed by their clothing and smell, O’Neill wasn’t sure if he was full of it or not). From high above, near the rear wall in an edifice built by who ever had built the walls. The Colonel and the other guests could see the great festivities below and the clouds above the sandstorm which seemed so damn low compared to the rains raging above them. “Those from the Pyramids Sir?” Watkins asked him.



“The hell should I know? Eat your lizard lobster Watkins” O’Neil was in a mood, between Daniel fawning over the girl and Lahm becoming the darling of the villages girls and old ladies he was wondering if they were ever going to remember why they were here. Skara was a cool kid though, his father had presented him with a rolled up crude cigar and in gratitude and remembering what his grandfather told him about how the leaders of native tribes exchanged gifts when meeting for the first time, including a ritual of smoking. Jack produced a packet of his own cigarettes. The two smoked each other’s tobacco and both nodded in appreciation of the quality of the work from other worlds. O’Neil followed by gifting him with a service knife, which Kasuf weighed in his hand and handling the grip and balance bowed in gratitude and ordered Skara to run off.



He’d come back with a thin curved blade, of a kind of metal so light Jack wondered if it wasn’t some kind of hyper advanced plastic. The blade itself was woven with the same kind of strings one saw on star maps and he noticed veins of the quartz. The gesture was, surprising and when he sheathed the dagger, he bowed to Kasuf and smiled at Skara. Jackson who was lower in the order of tables than he was (something the Colonel found amusing) had walked up and knelt to speak to O’Neil “So far I’m still struggling to make out their language, its clear ancient Egyptian was based off of this yet its totally alien in other ways. I’m mostly interpreting their gestures and looking at what they’re describing. Shau’re has been a big help there.”. Colonel O’Neill took a drag from his space cigar and leaned back, amusingly Skara copied his movement and did his best to look incredibly cool. Something that his son used to do and the gesture brought a bittersweet smirk to the Colonel’s face. “They recognized your medallion Jackson, they probably know other symbols too.”



“Assuming they even speak it” Jackson countered.



“Jesus Jackson, they don’t have to speak it, just point you to where they are so we can find the damn address.”



“Oh” Jackson blinked realizing the Colonel was right “Sorry sir, you’re right.” He rose and began to head towards Kasuf.



“Jackson” O’Neill called back “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe in forty thousand years the language either died or..y’know evolved?” O’Neill asked though it seemed he was less snarking the scientist and more curious. Jackson for his part blinked as if trying to come up with answer, it was possible but so much time had passed that there was a chance any new language that evolved in its place would have likely been so far removed from the original as to be no help and yet, they seemed to have a vague understanding of some of the words he used. O’Neill was busy when he finished thinking, the Colonel having returned to watching the sky and the dense dark clouds that swarmed the faint lights.



Jackson, approaching the village leader knelt and pulled out his medallion causing Kasuf to bow in reverence. Jackson quickly shook his head, golden locks falling messily about him “No, no..uhh…wait” He moved towards the arrayed meal and after dipping his finger in a green that had the consistency of oatmeal Jackson began to draw out the hieroglyphic pattern for “Hello”



He barely made it through one before cries of what sounded like “Na-nay Na-Nay!” and furious wiping. Women converged on Daniel and O’Neil looked up confused, with Jackson trying to explain that writing seemed forbidden to these people.



Though that didn’t explain the fact that they had crude architecture, farming and some form of medicine as Lahm was with the younger girl watching. Two of the elder females administer a smoking brew to someone having an asthma attack. Evidently their field medic had managed to communicate to a girl barely a teenager that she was a doctor while the fucking team linguist, master archaeologist and renaissance man managed to learn the name of the girl he was sweet on and little else.



-The universe hates me- O’Neill thought annoyed -What did I do to deserve this? Oy..oh..right..my only son blew his brains out with my gun and like a coward I abandoned my wife and daughters to go on what I thought was a suicide mission- why had he done that? His daughters were sent away, he had shutdown and trapped himself in a home that had become a tomb hoping to contain his wife’s rage so it wouldn’t spill over to them, only to realize they were going to be adults in a couple years and both wanted to follow in his footsteps, she was going to hate him regardless and then what? His whole life he’d been a Marine, what was he supposed to do? All he knew how to do was fight and…



Skara shook him out of his thoughts, tapping him on the shoulder and gesturing for him to follow it had seemed to boy wished to show him around sensing the Colonel’s curiosity. -Thanks kiddo-

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

It begins

----------

That which walks between the lightning.


Beyond the grim circle of marines an immense shadow descended parting the black, angry clouds and causing a roaring screech to fill the air. In the light cast by the lightning siege Pyramids a floating object began to appear. A dipyramid began its descent, silver in color of a metal that seemed almost liquid like, its enormous body was covered in ornate depictions of war, of death, of triumph over an ancient enemy that in desperation pushed the vessels navigator beyond the brink. Gold and brass accentuated the Falcon Horus which held its wings spread and its beak pointing towards the tip of the pyramid vessel where all sides were covered with a star burst depicting a sun. The screeching began to end as the vessel “landed” gently resting atop the water within the triangular lake at first and then slowly it sank until the water was displaced, spilling out like a deluge onto the tiles floor, where the energy pulled from the lightning roared angrily and a great rush of vapor shot up towards the clouds and the heat met cold and thunder cracked.



And the glowing tops of the Pyramid which seemed ready to burst discharged a beam of light which roared towards the vessel at the center.



For a moment all was calm and then, a whir of machinery and engines as lights within the new arrival lit up and energies snaked along its outer hull as though it had pulled the very essence of the storm through its sibling pyramids and fed upon it to recharge itself. At that moment a smaller second beam of light exited the top of the Spaceship and connected with the tip of the main pyramid.





Within the Marines had begun to relax, as whatever weirdness had begun seemed to be ending. Lights that had been on began to flicker and Ferretti let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding. “Well, damn that was weird….Ya think the noi-“



The room went completely dark.



Guns were hugged close. “What’s going on” one of the marines muttered. In the darkness they could hear shuffling noises. “Something’s in here” Osorio murmured “Te dije, te dije jefe”



“Quiet Osorio!” Ferretti hissed, the shuffling grew closer, closer and then they heard it. A word filtered through some sort of electronic device, menacing cruel and bestial and a flicker of red. “LIGHT ‘EM UP!”



The room turned bright, a miniature sun as a dozen marines unloaded simultaneously. “THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” Ferretti didn’t know who said that, but there was loud cursing and fury in that unnatural voice, and he could make out more. Something had fallen to the floor, but Ferretti couldn’t tell who or what it was. Movement and the glowing eyes vanished as Ferretti fired again and he blinked. Trying to focus as someone moved to turn on a flashlight and found that it wouldn’t work. Had there been some sort of EMP? What was happening?



The Marine next to him was suddenly grabbed and let out a scream, blood sprayed onto Ferretti’s face and the younger marines opened fire. “HOLD! HOLD!”



More gunfire



“THE FUCKING STATUES! THEY’RE MOVING! THEY’RE MOVING I SWEAR TO GOD”



“Vamos a morir! Vamos a morir!” Osorio’s words were cut off as something metallic buried into her face. A second later something had grabbed her by the shoulder before the marine beside her and the tech behind her could reach out to stop it. Her gun fell and a tech reached to grab it, something bright and purple impacted into his chest and his torso exploded.



That was the moment all hell broke loose.



Rushings the cook roared about how he was going to rape the mothers of those alien bastards and ran into the dark, gunfire erupted again and, in the flashes, he witnessed something tall grappling with Rushings only for it to vanish and Rushings to be shot to pieces by his own brothers and sisters in arms. Bullets ricocheted off the walls and there was a low mocking string of static that sounded all too much like sadistic laughter. Something akin to a bolt of electricity smashed into the youth next to Ferretti and he realized one of their surviving techs was aiming a gun to his own head and before Ferretti had a chance to stop him, he was hit by a bolt of electricity that dropped him onto the floor in a seizure like series of spasms. There had been ten Marines with Ferretti two cooks four medics and a bunch of nerds and now both his cooks were dead, the medics were missing and only five of his Marines were left.



Again, there was a sick, distorted laughter in the dark and a pair of blue lights flickered rapidly. It took Ferretti a fraction of a second to realize the source of those tiny blue lights was charging him but that fraction of a second was enough for something sharp to be buried into his thigh, followed by blow to his back between his shoulder blades that violently ejected the wind from his lungs and set the near seven-foot marine sprawling across the floor. There was a scream, Ferretti saw the blast from the muzzle of a rifle, he saw what looked like an Olympic athlete with a bird’s head take a round point blank to the throat which dinged and caused it to shuffle back. He saw a bolt of purple energy blow that marines arm off and then something else bring a foot down onto his head, the boot crushing the skull. In the darkness, Louis Ferretti remembered what it felt like to be a six-year-old again, hiding from his drunken mother in a closet. He’d never been more terrified not until now.





Outside of footfalls and the moans and whimpers of trained killers, it all gone quiet, he stumbled into something yet and sticky and realized someone had thrown up..No, it wasn’t vomit it was stomach contents but..his hand fumbled again and he found Osorio’s face. Whatever attacked her had opened her up so violently it tore through her stomach and pulled her insides out. Ferretti struggled, rising to his feet only to be met by a blow that dropped him to one knee and what sounded like a snort of derision.





The synthetic torches slowly began to turn on, by the will of their attackers Ferretti guessed who decided to show off their handywork. As his eyes adjusted to the half light Ferretti looked up and beheld three figures, tall and built like pro athletes. Each one was covered from waist to toe in plate armor of some kind with a kind soft leather boots above they were all shirtless save for a chest plate that covered only their breast and shoulder area. Their arms were likewise bare but their hands were covered in armored gloves with claws? Shaped like talons perhaps? Each held a staff in one hand long and gold colored with a gem wrapped in what looked like steel and something like a side arm in the form of a pistol. The most striking thing were the heads! Long head dresses that clung to the shoulders and seemed to be made of some sort of sleek almost transparent like metal stopped at a pair of falcon like faces with moving beaks which hissed as red eyes glowed. In front of the pair was the strongest looking creature he’d ever seen with a large gold and black head dress that looked almost a helm which wove into a black and gold snout that made it look like a robotic jackal from hell…The statues were moving one had said.



Behind the trio was one on the floor, his midsection was practically sawed off by automatic fire.



Four.



Four.



Four of these things slaughtered eight marines, two medics and one of their specialists inside of five minutes…



Four.



The leader, the dog monster walked forward, it was rare for someone to look down at Ferretti even on his knees but this one did, and its eyes flickered and Ferretti’s world went black.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Chapter 6: Contact
​

Mandjet



Ferretti wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, though he knew he was startled from unconsciousness by one of the bird headed guards shoving a poultice into the wound on his hip, using a thumb to jam it in real good. That had been extremely painful for a few seconds and then whatever the contents were caused a numbing sensation that brought relaxation and then the curious sensation of being able to feel his muscles and bone begin to knit together. That curious sensation evolved into one of pure agony and he blacked out again. It was only the sensation of motion that roused him from his foray into night once again, motion and the squeaking noise his boots made as he was dragged across a floor so smooth and shiny, he thought it must have been cleaned, polished and buffed three times a day. His eyes scanned a black floor, made of a kind of granite that reminded him of those old, lame ass mood rings. He could see metal lining tracing along the floor taking shape as his head rose, to scan in front of him. He could make out, what looked like constellations between the metal seams which now he realized formed a grid. A map of the galaxy perhaps? More? They searched the pyramid extensively but hadn’t been in every single room. Could this have been some sort of chamber? Looking ahead, he could see enormous columns flanked by plinths upon which rested two falcons, wings outstretched. At the center of the statues was an immense throne, carved from a single ruby larger than any one gemstone Ferretti knew existed. The blood-colored throne rested on a raised dais that ensured whoever sat upon it would forever look down on those who came near. “heh..this is some Dune level bullshit” he muttered. A mistake since the two guards that were graciously carrying him began to shake his arms and ragdoll him. They roared something in those distorted voices of theirs that Ferretti assumed was telling him to shut up or insulting him or both. He did so, lowering his head just as they turned from the throne room down a corridor through some immense silk sheets so thin Ferretti thought they might have been some kind of synthetic material else they’d have come apart at the slightest breeze.





He was hauled towards another set of plinths with yet more statues, though this time one was a great Jackal sitting patiently, dutifully, black as night with bright blue eyes and gold around the neck and breast. The other, was a mighty cobra, gold in coloring with bright pink eyes that struck him as a rather odd thing to have on a statue that was supposed to symbolize a guardian. Ferretti was pulled towards the raised set of steps that made a sort of base for an altar and he looked upon an immense Egyptian sarcophagus, or the sarcophagus Egyptian sarcophagi were based on? He wondered why they were bringing him here unless they just wanted a quiet place to beat him to death in for killing their men.





That was when he heard that arrogant sneer of a laugh and his head rose slightly to find the dog man, what he assumed was the unit’s commander leering down at him, the concept brimming from those glowing eyes ensured Ferretti didn’t need to know his language to know how little he thought of him and his Marines “bastard” he muttered.



Whatever response that was going to come from the Dog man’s “mouth” was interrupted by a noise that sounded like the moving of gears and Ferretti’s head jerked up towards the sarcophagus. Slowly, the pharaoh depicted on the top yielded, melding away and giving rise to an opening series of doors. Ferretti thought he saw what looked like a hand with metal covering the fingers but whatever he was focusing faded to the back of his thoughts as he felt something he couldn’t quite describe.



It started as a tingling sensation in the back of his head, as if something was “touching” his mind, gently poking it and pressing on it to gauge its tolerance levels. He twitched, unable to focus on what was in front of him as he tried to figure out just what the hell was happening.



He didn’t have to wait long for an answer because whatever it was came again and this time it wasn’t gentle. He felt something odd, smells from when he was a child bubbled back and the filthy dampness of the places he hid from his mother returned. The fight in the alley when he was eight, when he grew big enough to push his harpy of a mother down the stairs after she almost drowned his sister. His sister coming off the drugs, her marriage, her first born all the pride. His graduation from training, his time in Iraq, the memories flowed through his mind as if he was scrolling through them like tabs on a smartphone. The sensation would have been fascinating, he had never possessed this level of emotional and mental control so that he could just watch his life back for his own personal analyses.



Something creeped up Ferretti’s heart, striking deep within his very soul. “God..” he whispered, his fists clenching. “God…God…” the realization hit him like a tsunami. He wasn’t the one flipping through his memories. No, no, no, no, no! Panic hit him as he heard a soft, almost childlike laugh from a voice that was not his own. The memories began to shift from his life, to his career, images of the mountain complex of General West and Admiral Hammond, of Jackson and O’Neill, words like bomb and machine gun and field knife and…Something ached deep inside him, a dull pain that he couldn’t quite define that suddenly roared into life as an agony that set his nerves on fire. Everything hurt, everything. His eyes, his skin, every breath he took, the sounds of the guards and their machinery. Every scar felt inflamed and more than that, his mind was flooded by the memories of the pain he felt when the scars were first received. Every beating by his mother, every gunshot, stab wound, every punch, every broken chair over his back. Every bottle, every burn, the time he was tortured in China. As the pain hit him like a tsunami he was acutely aware of every emotion that went with it, the guilt as he stared down at his mother’s cadaver. The fury he felt at having to do it, every moment of fear, every moment of terror, sorrow, anger, humiliation, pain, joy, ecstasy, despair, confidence, doubt. It was a gamut of emotions that assaulted him from all ends as every bit of useful knowledge was ripped from his mind by a presence he couldn’t even comprehend.



It was old, so very old, immense and incredibly alien. It had been noble once, maybe even kind but now all that was left was an inescapable sense of power that threatened to utterly subsume his personality. Ferretti hadn’t realized it, but he had pissed himself, his whole body was rigid and contorted but he didn’t feel that or notice it either because the chorus of his own life turned upside down and thrown at him in a disjointed cacophony that concealed this intrusion had left him barely to comprehend anything.



Something seemed to change, the emotional intensity and frequency of the whirlwind dimmed, and he felt an impending sense of dread as it seemed the music had only lulled because the conductor decided to make a more personal appearance.



Ferretti realized he was right, as voice distorted and subtle began to speak in a tongue that was entirely new to it and yet an intimate friend.



Fe..rr..e..tttiiii



That was the point where Lieutenant Louis Ferretti, nicknamed the iron giant by his peers, screamed like a frightened child.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

New chapter up gents! The conversation between Skara and O'Neill redux and then the history of the Tauri!

Chapter 7: Histories and Discourses

The storm that had so violently swept the surface of this world, whatever it was called seemed to have parted as swiftly as it first descended. Lasting only sixteen hours, gassing out and seemingly breaking over the mountains that lay beyond the city they now knew was called Nagada. O’Neill didn’t mind it; he didn’t mind staying here and the simple trinket Kasuf had gifted him would likely yield a treasure drove of information as soon as the boys back home finished analyzing it to say nothing of the samples of the quartz like mineral they had taken from some of the ore depositories. Assuming Jack let them have his knife, Skara and his father gave it to him. It was odd to be sentimental towards someone he’d just met but it seemed to be a recurring theme among his men. Watkins, who apparently had a great singing voice had taken to learning some of the songs the city priests chanting as the eye of the storm passed over Nagada and in exchange he sang some of the old Latin litanies, devout a catholic as he was it seemed he didn’t mind an exchange of faith-based hymns. Lahm had fallen asleep some hours ago after she had spent most of the night before helping their healers attend minor wounds and learning all she could about their herbs and medicine and showing them a few tricks, she picked up when she worked for a chiropractor while in med school. She’d fallen asleep with the girl with the odd mix of neanderthal and human features on her lap and Jack spent the evening smoking and drinking with Skara and Kasuf, none of them could speak the same language and yet much passed between them all the same. He’d nearly ruined that when Skara made a grab for his M27 but the look of terror and grief in Jack’s eyes caused Skara to nearly bolt from the room long before Jack had moved to slap it away.



Kasuf had admonished his son, Jack felt bad about seeing the boy get chewed out, but they had remained together for another hour or so before Kasuf finally excused himself. No one knew where Jackson had gone, he vanished with Shau’re and to who knew where after the ritual washing. “Figures” he muttered, noticing Kowalski had fallen asleep next to Lil’Bit and O’Neill couldn’t tell which was snoring louder and when he kicked Kowalski awake the weird space giraffe Muppet groaned in protest in unison with his major. “Found a girlfriend huh Kowalski.”



The man smirked “She minds me” the more Jack stayed the more he came out of his shell and the tall, muscular stoic was replaced by someone who sounded more like an eighties action hero, reluctant or otherwise. Sarcastic, funny, all too happy to admit he had no fucking clue what they were talking about half the time. “Have you seen Jackson?” Kowalski asked as he yawned and cracked his back, forcing O’Neill to suppress the urge to make a crack about him being married to that beast. “No, I was going to ask you the same thing” O’Neill remarked.





He’d found Daniel’s Jacket but little in the way of the man and when Kowalski offered to go looking for him Jack shook his head. “This city’s big enough it would take hours, better we talk to one of the kids to see if they’ve heard anything.”



“Heh talk.” Kowalski remarked. They communicated well enough and some of them seemed to even be able to understand Jackson albeit every four or so words, but they seemed to get most done because Skara, Shau’re and kadra were incredibly intuitive and smart as whips. So it was off to the teens, followed by a sleepy Lil’Bit who bounded along easily to his paddock with the other beasts they found out were called Mastages. The enclosure where the strange alien beasts were kept reminding O’Neill of a scene out of Jurassic Park, as they transitioned underground to a large garden area with cool water and fish and a bunch of mastages lazing in the surprisingly humid climate given how arid and plainlike the above was.



Skara was with a group of boys, showing off the lighter O’Neill had given him after the incident with the gun, the one that looked more caveman than man (Nebeh or Nebehua or something O’Neill couldn’t pronounce so he just called him lumpy on account of the shape of his head).



“Hey kids!” O’Neill called out, standing straight with his arms folded behind his back, looking every bit the muscular jock, he’d been in high school and the epitome of Marine training he was. O’Neill felt a sense of pride in Skara when he knew instinctively to get the little shits to form rank and then stood at attention in front of them yet in a position inferior to him. -What a damn fine soldier he’d make- Jack thought and then felt a twinge of regret, Sandra wanted to go into the air force whereas Sasha was probably going to be a turbo nerd like Jackson or that maniac Carter. How could he encourage her or think such thoughts about the desert prince when the memory of Charlie’s bloody body was so fresh in his mind? Shaking himself from his darker thoughts he prowled back and forth as his old DI used to do. “Alright fuckers, I’m looking for Jackson, have you seen him? The long haired dude?” he said gesturing to his head which they misinterpreted as a salute “No..No..wait..hrmm hey Kowalski do you think the word Dweeb means anything to these kids?”



“No, but I’d say Jackson’s more a dork than a dweeb.”



O’Neill rolled his eyes “Thanks for the help Kowalski” he muttered turning to gaze at the kids “the guy sneezes…Man I’m on planet ex looking for a dweb…who sneezes and”



Skara caught it “ehghhgh..egh..ahhh AHH! BWAH..BWAH BWAH BWAH”



“Yess!! Exactly!” O’Neill called “Chicken man!”



“Shiken’mayn!” Skara nodded and rounded on the chorus of clucks coming from the other kids who all stopped except for lumpy who needed a kick to the pants. -Maybe if we establish a permanent presence on this shithole, I’ll ask for a command assignment- O’Neill thought and he couldn’t believe that he was even thinking it. A permanent presence on another god damn planet close to the galactic core. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have good relations with these people given the fact that the mineral they were mining was the same quartz like weird substance the Stargate was partially built from. Skara approached tentatively, taking the jacket and shoving it into Lil’Bits face as the creature sucked greedily from some water gathering vines.





Lil’Bit let out a roar of protest then bolted rushing not up the stairs but further into the labyrinth below the city.





They had run behind the fast-moving Mastage for what felt like hours though O’Neill guessed it had only been something like five or six minutes. It had amazed him how swift it was and how lithe it could be. There was a moment where they passed from garden soil to sand and then from sand towards an arched doorway flanked by two statues of golden men with the heads of cobras that stood beneath an arch whose top was decorated with the eye of Ra. Several of the children hesitated, with Skara shaking his head and gesturing to the doorway which to their horror had been open.






“You don’t like this place?” The Colonel asked, raising an eyebrow.



“Think its forbidden to them sir” Kowalski added “I get the impression this is what remains of the original settlement the walls were here to protect” It was Lahm’s voice, she looked half asleep, but she was remembering something Jackson had said, that he believed this place had been built atop something. She nodded reassuringly to Skara, her dark hair falling over eyes that Kowalski found remarkably beautiful. “We can go and you can remain” she said gesturing to herself and the Colonel and pointing ahead, then tapping his chest and pointing to the ground.



To everyone’s surprise it was Lumpy who puffed his chest and began to saunter forward towards the door and not to be outdone by the groups beloved spaz, Skara proudly marched forward.



And so, Colonel O’Neill, Major Kowalski and ensign Lahm and O’Neill’s band of junior Marines made their way through the great doorway and through a corridor with walls that looked to be solid gold and filled with hieroglyphs! Writing! No wonder this place was declared off limits if writing in a scriptural or mythical sense was banned (O’Neill agreed with Jackson, other topics had to be acceptable to write down or else none of what they saw above would be possible). From there, it was into a great hall of some kind where they heard the voices of Jackson and presumably Shau’re echoing from another hallway. “Good acoustics” O’Neill remarked.





“I hope they aren’t having sex, we’ve no idea the bugs these people have” Lahm muttered dejectedly. She had figured whatever local bacteria or viruses that did exist weren’t all that different from their own and while the danger of so many millennia of isolation was always present, the fact that neither her team nor anyone here had erupted in sores or pox or anything else seemed to suggest whatever was here their immune systems could handle it (And theirs could handle what the Stargate team brought, or so she hoped). “visa versa as well, we could kill these people without meaning too. If we’re going to make a habit of this Colonel, we need to establish some kind of protocol.”



“Save it.” O’Neill remarked as they grew close enough to see the light of those artificial torches and he saw both Jackson and Shau’re looking disheveled, a thing that made him shake his head. -First base only dumbass- he thought. As they got closer he realized they sitting in front of an enormous mural that would have made a renaissance artist proud. He didn’t quite have time to stop and take it in however as he realized they were both speaking the same language.



“Thought you couldn’t speak their dialect.”



“Well, like any language theirs evolved over time and while I speak ancient Egyptian that language was a knock off of their original tongue and”



“Jackson, I asked why you’re speaking moon babble not a cure for insomnia” O’Neill remarked with a semi amused glint in his eyes. Much as he’d been annoyed with Jackson hours ago, the sheer speed at which he learned space Egyptian was well, mind boggling.



“I just had to learn how to pronounce it and then figure out their slang, which I’m still doing but yes! I do now”



“You did that between” he looked down at Shau’re who smiled sheepishly at him. “exertion”



Jackson turned red “I, it wasn’t..We just kissed and stuff” he murmured looking younger than Shau’re suddenly rather than a few years older than her. Kowalski whistling at the mural distracted O’Neill from any further teasing, and he gestured towards the wall “Doctor Jackson, if you’d be so kind?”



Grateful for the reprieve he turned and eyeballed the mural, recalling what he’d just translated hours earlier. “It says a terrible war raged in across the heavens, apparently Ra is or was some sort of High King or Emperor. His people won but the cost of that victory was terrible. Maimed, exhausted and depleted Ra roamed the stars searching for a way to cheat death both for his people and himself. Apparently, the body he was in was failing.”



“Body he was in?” Lahm asked with a raised eyebrow.



“Well, its not clear on that. There is a word here Goa’uld “Children of light” or Child of light, it’s almost interchangeable with the concept of a living Kami or with Ka and Pharaoh maybe, I’m not sure. Any way it delineates between Ra and this” he gestured towards a figure that looked pained, mad and desperate but also like the typical image of a Roswell gray.



“It seems like, Ra’s whole race was pushed to the brink of annihilation even though they won and Ra himself was grievously injured. Anyway, his ship the Mesektet reached a world filled with life and populated by many peoples, our world. It says, as the night turned into day the people of the valley and caves ran, all but one who looked up into the sky with curious eyes. He called to Ra who possessed him, a parasite taking a new host” Jackson walked along the wall touching different hieroglyphs and depictions. “He discovered that with all his powers and his technology he could use these people to breathe new life into his civilization. More so, he could extend their lifespans indefinately! They were taken here I suppose and made to work the mines. The mineral is clearly the building block of his entire civilization.”



“Oh clearly” Jack muttered, his eyes narrowing at the implications here. His mind wandered back to the night of the storm and the weird lightshow they caught in the distance. “So, we walked into the king of space’s personal mining world” he muttered, just great. -Looks like I won’t be going home or getting that assignment- he thought bitterly, then again, he supposed he could just ride Lil’Bit back to the village and seek exile there. The thought of never seeing his daughters again made him enraged. How the hell could I have agreed to this damn mission?!



Major Makepeace had supposedly volunteered but was turned down, stupid, stupid! If he had just refused.



“Jackson! Come quick!” Kowalski’s voice echoed and the Colonel realized both her and Lahm had vanished from the room down into another. This one, was a room that was filled with empty walls save for an immense cartouche with. “Is that your legend Jackson?”



“Yes it is!” Jackson confirmed enthusiastically “I can do it! We can go home and touch base and report what we’ve seen here. Sir, this is worth a permanent presence here.”



-Fuck that- O’Neill wanted to say “Jackson, that wall implies this place belongs to some Darth Vader type.”



“Palpatine”



“Nerd”



“Anyway! Maybe, maybe not. Colonel it’s been forty thousand years at a minimum since this was inscribed here. There’s a chance his abduction of so many ancient humans and other hominids didn’t really do anything to help his kind recover. This could truly be the last outpost and these guys are mining for a dead civilization!”



“And ya don’t think they would have realized something was up when no one came by to pick up their space rocks?!”



“Well, Shau’re says they just send it through the Stargate” Jackson remarked rubbing the back of his head, evidently, he’d planned this conversation the clever little shit. “I asked her if anyone had ever come through the gate or well, landed a space ship” he laughed there and then grinned “Well I used the term sky boat, I’m not sure if..but anyway she says there hasn’t been a visitation in at least a century if not longer. Colonel, I think we’re in the clear, we’re left with more questions than answers maybe but we’re in the clear.”





“You sure about that Jackson?” The Colonel asked.



For a moment Doctor Daniel Jackson hesitated, searching the chiseled face of Colonel O’Neill, one that was inscrutable even when he was being sarcastic and informal. There seemed to be something akin to pleading in his eyes, what the hell was going on in that head of his? “I can’t say one hundred percent for certain, but everything we’ve seen so far suggests a people blossoming in the ruins of a civilization, long gone just going through the motions.”





For an interminable second The Colonel seemed to weigh his options before nodding. “Then we’re leaving.”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

So, apologies for the tardiness, in recompense here's a bunch of chapters.

Starting with a bit of Kasuf's childhood and what the lesser Goa'uld are like in the empire.




Chapter 8- Crisis




Nagada


“What you are saying dear daughter is heretical!” Kasuf blasted Shau’re as he rounded the desk in his comfortable office above the city of Nagada. His purplish eyes darting along the ornately carved floor. A floor that, Kasuf’s father spent a lifetime trying to figure out how it had been carved. -We cannot make things as we once did my son, Ra saw to that- his father spoke with bitterness. -But father?! Ever Sobek has championed knowledge and efficiency-



-Sobek is a lord, great and mighty, immortal but he is no god nor is he the All father, the master god, the lord most high! Ra long ago determined that we must lose a piece of ourselves in order to regain his trust, that was in the time before memory-



Sobek, the lord of their “sector” whatever that meant, had visited often even though he spoke little of the domains in the world beyond the gate, if any beyond Dakkara crown world of the gods existed. The impression Kasuf got, was that even if more existed, that did not matter to his little world for his little world mattered little. Sobek had stressed that enough, that when he came through the Stargate, he did so to visit a place that was fond both to him and his great god. Sobek was their lord, he whom they paid taxes towards and who collected the precious Naquadah For Amun Ra. He was a hard lord, but a fair one capable of moments of remarkable kindness such as when he and his mighty Jaffa warriors remained with a farming village to do battle with the great desert wolves that could swallow a Mastage whole. Or when he saved Kasuf’s mother from plague long ago. He had great powers, but Kasuf never got the impression they were divine. Ra though, the Godhead, the Emperor and king of the heavens had descended upon the city of Lantesh some five generations back. They had done something to offend Amun Ra and he smote the city into a smoldering ruin as his warriors and his son Horus butchered anyone who managed to flee, with fire coming from their staffs and great gusts of wind from their hands. The ruins of Lantesh stood as a quiet monument to the power of Amun Ra.



Despite the growing population people opted to wander into the desert, or seek new lands across the seas than to dare settle that accursed place again. No, new cities had yet been built. They couldn’t not since the decree in a time before memory. Villages and settlements yes, great farming kingdoms but no new cities.



Lantesh was a fable, more than a memory and Sobek returned once, thirty years ago and wandered into the desert, saying that he would likely not return. Kasuf was barely a man then and he remembered the look in Sobek’s eyes, they were half mad. No one had seen the gods, no new immortal lord had come, no Jaffa had been seen since Kasuf was a boy. All these thoughts made him wonder if perhaps, just perhaps. But then he remembered the lights that came with the storm and what he as the City Master knew it meant, what was heralded and what had come.



“Father! I can show you the stories! I can teach you what Daniel taught me!” Shau’re implored her father.



He didn’t doubt that he’d harbored grave reservations and questions about the divinity of Ra ever since he was a child. But one thing Kasuf didn’t question was his power, that much was obvious and the signs last night. “That Ra is no god? Child, even if he is not, what does it matter when he commands powers that make him as great as one.”



“It matters father” She whispered. “Don’t you understand? Our forefathers, they bested him, drove him from our home…From Tau’Ri!”



Kasuf’s eyes lit up with memory. Of stories when he was a child, spoken around fires at the halls of the leaders of the lesser cities. Something about a mythical home for their peoples, the story involved Ra delivering from that world and from certain doom. Had that been a lie as well? Did it matter?



The thought filled Kasuf with a certain amount of indignation as he began to learn that the truth was worse than anything he could have believed. That truth, or interpretation of the mural filled him with enough terror and reluctance to temper his outrage at the possibility that his entire life and the lives of all his fathers before him were given in the service of a great lie. And with the great beacons atop the pyramids alight last night, with what they heralded. The other City Masters and the Farm masters had likely seen the lights as well and they would all come with a great host to celebrate. He knew, many held such doubts and yet.



Kadra and Skara, who had remained silent while the eldest sibling and their father discussed these issues both appeared to be sulking and in anger at his father’s reluctance Skara departed the room with a baleful laugh. “Father, what she says is true, I saw them myself and these strangers who we took as emissary’s of Ra, perhaps they come from Tau’Ri..Maybe this is fortune”



Kasuf sneered “So daughter, you would trade one deity for another solely because you are infatuated with that La-am!?” He asked his disapproval clear by his tone. Kadra turned reddish and shook her head, dark locks shaking about as she did so “I get the impression, these people would have found that improper, no she needed a friend and her knowledge as a healer interested me father that is all.”



Sometimes the deviousness that his youngest was capable of, even while kind bothered him. “They are leaving, perhaps it is for the best” If they were fortunate perhaps, they would pass through the Stargate long before Ra deigned to leave his sky palace.



“the debate is pointless, for it is all conjecture. Where the strangers came from, where they are going or if Ra even still lives” Shau’re continued, bringing the conversation back onto the original topic. “What I do is that we should stand on our own and be rid of these lying monsters! Think of it! Father, no one has come in a lifetime, you are the last person in our village who isn’t an old man who remembers the emissaries of the gods! They aren’t coming, even the lights last night!”



“Daughter” Kasuf laughed bitterly “the lights mean only one thing, Amun-Ra.”



Shau’re’s eyes widened in fear..Lantesh was where her mind immediately went. The wind stolen from sails for a moment. “He…comes?”



“No child, he is already here.”



“Danyer” she whispered.





A servant came in at that moment, something was cried out in alarm regarding her brother Skara, but Shau’re could only think of the sweet little golden scribe and the death that awaited them back at the pyramids.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Whereupon Jack meets a First Prime for the First time!





Chapter -9 A Clash of wills




The Pyramid, The Journey and Mandjet


“We have no idea if they even still exist huh?” O’Neill asked as they finally made it across the dunes towards greener pastures, even before they got near the immense pyramid complex it could be seen rising out of the ground like three gigantic, lime washed white mountains. Or they were three, gigantic, pyramid shaped, limewashed mountains four nights ago. Now? Now there were four! The fourth being a gigantic silver and gold colored pyramid that rose out from the middle shimmering in the sun and later moonlight. To Jackson this merely represented a new piece of data, he kept assuring the Colonel that there was no way in hell whoever piloted the ship was the same person depicted in the mural.



“Yeah, but Jackson, didn’t the mural say Ra found a way to keep himself alive indefinitely?” Kowalski asked, voicing O’Neill’s concerns. “If the big honking spaceship has the big space king in there and he was a slaver and a pimp who plundered our planet wouldn’t that just be like walking into a lion enclosure at a Zoo with steak on your neck?”



Kowalski’s metaphors could be vivid and amusing and the large man had taken to walking beside Lahm, the two were closer now than before and Jackson was certain he wasn’t the only one who had been fraternizing. Watkins who had remained mostly silent learning well enough to let the others discuss these things shrugged when Kowalski looked to him for comment. “Biological immortality is impossible” Watkins added when pressed and Jackson nodded “Exactly! Scientifically”



“Scientifically?! Jackson these people fly around space in triangles and rip open holes in the universe to go pick up lunch! Has it occurred to you, that their science just might be a little…I dunno better than ours?” O’Neill asked, rounding on him in annoyance. Jackson might have been the one academic type he was willing to tolerate but that didn’t mean he found the guy any less grating sometimes.



“Granted, but wouldn’t biology still be biology?” Jackson asked the group, though the question seemed to be directed more at Lahm who shook her head. “It isn’t about that Jackson, we know certain species live insanely long lives, hell we technically are one such species. Then you have these less complicated lifeforms that renew their cells nonstop. I don’t know much about the fight against old age but from what little I do know is that it’s a question of energy. Our bodies oxidize and start to run out of steam. In theory if you could find a way to keep the cells from decaying, keep the energy going maybe you could achieve immortality. Though, I can’t even begin to imagine how someone would go about doing that.”







The rest of the walk was passed in silence until they reached the building where they’d taken up residence, using it as a partial basecamp. All they found there were weaponry and ammo, some of it missing, some of it discharged and most of Jackson and Lahm’s books gone as well as a lot of the scientific equipment that was sent through the gate on their last contact. O’Neill noticed his one of his sports rags was taken as well. -Bastards- they advanced cautiously, slowly making their way towards the grand steps of the main pyramid and then moving in. The whole time they tried and failed to radio anyone. Evidence of a struggle of some sort was seen when they entered the main chamber, where they thought Ferretti would have taken his group had they needed to abandon everywhere else.



“Dried blood” Lahm remarked, kneeling before a large almost puddle sized blotch of rust colored ichor on the floor. O’Neill nodded his jaw clenched, all he could see was dried blood and spent shell casings, something had massacred his men. “Something took out enough marines to overrun a small town” O’Neill hissed, venom in his voice as he contemplated the letters General West would have to send and the whole reason, he took this idiotic mission in the first place. “Kowalski take point..I..”



O’Neill had enough time to grab Jackson by the shoulder and yank him as a purple sphere of light streaked passed him and collided with Watkin’s midsection. O’Neill had seen someone’s stomach burst open after they’d been shot through the back, hell he’d seen people disemboweled by pressure before. But he’d never seen someone’s love handle just vanish, leaving only cauterized, gnarled flesh and red steam and Watkins collapsing onto his knees. To his credit, the marine managed to reach up and discharge his service pistol causing a flurry of demonic sounding curses from some asshole with a metallic bird on his head. The space bird man was wounded, his arm bleeding and what looked like blood running from under a breast blade, a hit in the armpit? It staggered slightly discarding the staff and pulling what might have looked like some kind of ray gun from its side.



To O’Neill’s surprise Lahm opened fire jumping on top of Jackson as Kowalski ran towards the space bird dude opening fire. O’Neill watched as something like a lightning bolt hit Kowalski dropping him.



No, no.





O’Neill darted towards the bird bro and pulled his new knife, tackling the bastard which let out a curse and a grunt of surprise as it hit the ground. Metal clanging onto granite while O’Neill jammed the blade into the creatures arm pit and when he found the upper part of the rib cage it was cover. O’Neill arose covered in blood and sheathed the blade. “Lahm! Fall back with Jackson towards the gate”



“Kowalski’s still breathing!”



“GO NOW” O’Neill ordered as he managed to grab Kowalski by the shoulder, pulling him and the staff weapon as more voices began to fill the temple air. -The fuck’s the point of grabbing Kowalski? I’m just going to nuke everyone any way-



Oh, right, because you didn’t leave one of your men behind and in this insane world, he needed to hold onto something. Somehow, he succeeded and after hefting the marine on his shoulders and making it into the gate room, he tossed Daniel the staff weapon “Kill anything that comes through that doorway Jackson! Lahm tend to Kowalski!”





There was a screeching noise, Watkins must have still been alive, somehow and that sound was someone butchering him. -Yeah? Wanna play serial killer with my boys’ you motherfucker, let’s see how you like a face full of a nuclear Eagle! - O’Neill frantically searched for the bomb, he was going to have a smile on his face when he pushed the button. Any second now, any second…Any



Oh fuck.



“It’s gone” O’Neill muttered. “It’s fucking gone!”



“S-sir” Lahm murmured causing O’Neill to look towards the entrance. A look of horror on his face as he saw Jackson on bent knee, blood streaming from his cheek where he’d been struck, the iron grip of a man larger than even Ferretti… Or dog man rather, as the creature had the robotic head of a great Jackal, its long eyes outlined with gold flickered as it held tight to Jackson’s throat.



It laughed in vicious mockery, the weird audio filters that made it sound demonic (Or at least Jack hoped those were filters), unable to cover just how little regard this thing had for him. Eyes flickered, taunting and O’Neill didn’t have to speak Space Egyptian to understand what that meant. -Go on Earthling, make my day-.



Colonel Jack O’Neill willed himself to drop his side arm. Though part of him still wanted to die fighting to atone for Charlie’s death, for allowing his wife to turn their home into a vortex of rage and for abandoning his daughters to come on this mission, for letting General West exploit his grief. But everything else, his love for his kids, his desire to be a father for them and his refusal to leave what was left of his unit to carnage and, the worry that Skara would be disappointed in him compelled him to march forward dropping his weapon.



The Jackal laughed contemptuously and kicked Jackson in the back hard enough to make him yelp, forcing him to his feet. Lahm did her best to help Kowalski stand but one of the bird men grabbed his arm and yanked him over its shoulder like a sack of meat. Jack heard what he thought was “k’su. Su” and he assumed that meant move it and so he did.



The group walked towards the gate, stopping some ten feet before it. In the shadows of the artificial torches O’Neill caught a glimpse of movement and internally cursed when he realized Skara and his band of junior marines had followed them here, even lumpy! -What the hell are you doing kid?!- Jack thought, a parent’s concern, thankfully the boy understood the look in his eye and held position in the shadows.





Turning the Colonel eyed the Dog man who pushed a large blue gem attached the gauntlet cover his hand. Above them a circle in one of the many swirls opened and a bright blue beam of light shot down to touch the floor, encircling the group. O’Neill heard a whirring around and four large rings that looked like a Stargate crossed with an elephant sized life preserver. “More Gates? What are these Gonna do send us to..wuuuhh”



He felt something akin to a tug through his guts and then he saw a flash of light and the rings vanished, revealing a massive chamber with intricately carved pillars. The floor beneath their feet seemed as much a stellar map as a surface to walk on and Jack took in everything he could. Trying to find Earth’s position relative to Abydos but then he realized he couldn’t read the writing and the one guy who could was busy looking wide eyed ahead towards plinths where two Pick up truck sized falcons with wings outstretched shaded a raised dais with a throne that he assumed was cut from one gigantic ass ruby. Around them, the walls seemed to melt away, folding into smaller and smaller segments until the bright light of the Abydonian dawn touched against whatever glass like substance counted for windows. Idly Jack wondered if the exterior was armored, or if the owner of this tub was insane enough to fly around in what he assumed was Space Airforce One without any sort of protection.





They were nudged towards the Throne Room. Kowalski turned and insulted one of the bird space men when he hit Lahm a little too hard and was punched in the face for his trouble. “Easy Kowalski” Colonel O’Neill warned, the mocking laughter from the dog man suggested he was just waiting for a chance to humiliate O’Neill by slaughtering yet another of his men.



Or at least so he thought, there was something rather personal about how Dog dude reacted towards him and towards his men. Something in the body language he recognized from his time in some central African shithole he’d forgotten the name of. This warlord fancied himself an elite, a great personal warrior and he made a point of challenging Marines and Delta boys, not to defeat them but to make a mockery and humiliate them as if to prove to everyone his own inner doubts were wrong and he was the best.





Jack sensed that same ego driven loathing here.



His knee buckled as one of the Bird dudes nailed him in the leg and forced him down, Kowalski and Lahm needing no prodding, Jackson was too busy looking around and so a Bird man let out an annoyed growl and yanked him down onto one knee.





“What now sir?” Lahm asked.



“We wait.” O’Neill responded.



There was nothing else to do, damn it all.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Interlude: Lightning at Dawn





As Skara and the other youngsters cleverly exited the pyramid and began to walk back to the ruins of their new friend’s base camp, their raw determination mixed with a sense of fear as a great door opened in the Mandjet, The sky was pierced with a screeching sound of thunder as what looked like two giant arrowheads were shot out, accelerating as if propelled by fire! Soon, hawk like wings began to form, materializing segment by segment as they sped off towards Nagada.



“Father” Skara whispered, a sense of dread “Shau’re! Kadra” he murmured and whipped around to the other boys “Grab as many of their weapons and supplies as you can! We must return home!”



While it would take half a day for the band of aspiring rebels to reach home, it took the death gliders several seconds. The sky above Nagada cracked with thunder and the vicious roars and curses of the fabled Horus guard. They cursed the villagers, damned them for defying Amun Ra, damned them for faithlessness, damned them for their lack of shipments from the mines (Though those had been abundant). The twin Gliders unleashed a frenzy of bright red bolts of energy which tore through the makeshift buildings and tents, ripping people apart and toppling scaffolding on young and old alike.



There were twenty-two thousand people lived in Nagada, by the end of it twenty thousand remained among the living and Kasuf and the master’s from the other settlements looked on in confused terror.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Chapter 10- Amun Ra

Mandjet


They had been kept on their knees, for to Daniel Jackson felt like an eternity. Behind him, Lahm and Kowalski did their best to hold each other up and beside him O’Neill stood as tall and as stoically as a statue. Eyes gazing towards the staff weaponry and armor of the guards, something that filled Jackson with trepidation. His thoughts were interrupted by a series of chants which preceded the marching of a group of twelve teenaged boys, each clad in a simple tunic and barely anything else, each carrying a pole over which a banner attached. Jackson could make out the symbol of a golden cobra in one, its hood unfurled majestically and with menace. Another was a blood red flower whose petals shown like the sun rising on a field of white. Another was some sort of prehistorical cow, with a golden disk between her horns. Another was that of a scythe wreathed in lightening on a field of dark blue. Another yet was a bolt of lightning in the talons of an Eagle there were others, but Jackson’s attention was turned towards the dais.



Something had appeared there, as if out of thin air. It was a magnificently lifelike bronze statue of a young boy, or at least Jackson thought it was a boy, it was an incredibly feminine frame. Perhaps a eunuch? It was robed in sky blues and gold, orange and crimson along its slender features and trailing to the floor. It’s face, was serene and youthful, almost angelic but there was nothing angelic about its headpiece. Done up in the style of the great and ancient pharaohs this, statue rested upon a ruby throne and cast a shadow about the room that seemed to engulf everyone in its presence.





Jackson felt something touch the periphery of his mind, a foreign, almost alien set of emotions that weren’t his own and for a second his terror at the mental intrusion was eclipsed by his fascination with the sensation. Kowalski muttered “my god” under his breath and Jackson understood why, the moment he noticed that the statue, which was now being surrounded by barely clothed priestesses (some of which were young enough that Jackson shuddered with disgust), was breathing!



It raised a hand and to the surprise of everyone it spoke in English! Or broken English. “You…Come..here..to..destroy…” Jackson wished he’d never heard that voice. It was soft, subtle, but there wasn’t one voice, there was a dozen, each one echoing the last and each at a temp that seemed to dig into his subconscious, he felt himself overcome with awe and fear and a sense of immensity that made him want to kneel. As if there was something, alien in that voice, compelling him. “To destroy…me…” There was amusement in its voice and then it issued a command in what the Colonel called Space Egyptian -show them-.



The Horus headed men touched rubies on the back of their hands and slowly in segments the immense head pieces began to vanish into their breast plates and shoulders. They were human! Mostly, some seemed to have features more common in Neanderthals some might have had ancestry that wasn’t fully human either. Finally, the Jackal headed guard, the commander of Ra’s forces touched the sapphire on the back of his hand and his hood gave way to a man who appeared half O’Neill’s age, like the others his face was covered in the usual eyeliner and adorned with the symbols of Ra. He nodded his head to the Colonel laughing arrogantly at him and daring him to rise.



The room grew silent as something, compelled Jackson to look forward, the statue began to shift, where the armor covering the others came off in segments here, the metal seemed to merely “melt” back into the flesh revealing a young boy, around sixteen years of age physically. Jackson couldn’t tell what ethnicity he belonged too, for he had tanned skin and thick black hair, yet the palest set of blue eyes Jackson had ever seen. He realized it was stupid to try and compare someone born at the very least forty thousand years ago. Those eyes spoke to the futility of it, Jackson had never seen eyes like that. They were old, so incredibly old, and cold and intense and alien.



Several of the eunuchs brought out a three-foot tray where some kind of device on a tripod rested and suddenly Ra’s accusation made sense and Jackson’s eyes widened as he looked at O’Neill accusingly. “what is that? Is that a bomb? What the hell were you thinking?! Why did you bring that?!” his hushed urgency was cut off by a look of total agony in the Colonel’s eyes and he sighed, stowing his rage for the time being as he looked up to the Throne.



The room was quiet, everyone was either too scared to move or awestruck. Lahm was squeezing Kowalski’s arm like a vice, hoping to snap them both out of whatever held them. But it was O’Neill who made his move.



As soon as “Anubis” knelt in submission to Ra, Colonel O’Neill landed a blow to the side of his head that dropped him. Kowalski dove over Lahm as The Colonel reared on one of the guards and opened fire vaporizing his abdomen and blasting charred bone across the floor. Another turned and began to take aim, without any proper time to think Jackson rose and threw himself in harms way and a pulse of violet energy smashed into his side and he crumbled to the floor, blood erupting from his mouth as he looked down and saw a rib was gone as was a kidney, part of his stomach and his diaphragm and for one grizzly second, he could see his charred lung before he blacked out.



O’Neill didn’t waste time, he rounded on Ra and made to fire only for a dozen children and women to run around him in a great human shield. Jack hesitated, refusing to fire on the children and that moment’s hesitation was enough for “Anubis” to kick Jack in the ribs hard enough to send him sprawling. Recovering the staff, the commander of the alien forces began beating The Colonel over the head. They heard a crunch, blood sprayed, and Lahm was sure he had caved the Colonel’s eye and temple in. A harsh whisper from Ra stopped him in his tracks.



He moved back, afraid as the much smaller “God” rose and began to walk slowly, angled towards the carnage. Lahm was holding Kowalski and the two were crying, mourning the blond haired one no doubt. Ra’s eyes glowed slightly, and he hissed a word of chastisement in ancient Egyptian, one that the two who remained conscious understood to be both reprimanding and consoling, though they weren’t sure how. To their surprise the Sun God knelt by Colonel O’Neill first and touched him on the arm. Some, sort of energy flowed through him and the broken ribs and collapsed eye socket began to mend and knit until there was no sign of injury at all. Ra’s eyes glowed an eerie white and he rose and began walking towards the corpse of Doctor Jackson. Kowalski muttered something like “Leave him alone you son of a bitch!” which seemed to amuse the creature wearing that boy as a skinsuit.



The last thing Doctor Carolyn Lahm remembered was a Amun Ra, the Sun God of Egyptian mythology kneeling and touching Katherine’s medallion and smiling nostalgically.




Jackson was dead, The Colonel was unconscious and for all she knew everyone else was dead. She thought of her father and wished they could be friends again, make up, that she could have her big buddy back and years of baggage between them could go away, she wanted, she wanted Charlie Kowalski to be okay, she wanted everyone to be okay.



She wanted to go home.



Instead, she was sent into unconsciousness.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright boys and girls, new chapter up. Ra and Daniel clash, you'll get a little info on the system lords and some commentary from the First Prime of Ra and some info on the Jaffa and how long they live in this setting, Ra's ego and abilities expounded on and a little shoutout to another franchise etc.

Chapter 11 – The God and the Scribe

Mandjet

Daniel, Daniel.



Grandpa?



Damnit boy, you’ve got work to do, get your ass up out of bed!



Jackson shot up in a panic his ears almost catching on sides of the lid of the sarcophagus like chamber that he’d been placed in. A silken shroud resting over his face caught in his mouth and started to choke when a strong hand caught the back of his head and another pulled away the fabric. Perhaps, this was the feeling every newborn experienced when they breathed in cool air for the first time and felt the nurses intrusive suctioning of mucus and amniotic fluid from the nose. Perhaps this was the unnatural howl of a resurrected man, perhaps so before for a moment he’d felt something warm and then a brutal coldness that overwhelmed him as he awoke inside a tomb filled with an unnatural light. It was wrong, felt wrong, felt oddly seductive and empowering, as the fear of the tomb wore off, he began to feel a rush of energy. The hand that gripped the back of his neck belonged to the most exotic looking woman he’d ever seen. Her hair was long and green, and he could make out what looked like feathers in some parts of her hair, it was done with a gold sash holding it in place, raising it above her back, she was likewise adorned in the headpieces common to depictions of clerics in the temples at Heliopolis. Her skin was a copper color, almost reddish and her eyes were a golden crimson color that made Jackson wonder if this was the first true alien he’d encountered since Ra. As if sensing his thoughts, she smiled and answered in what the Colonel called Space Egyptian that she was “mostly human”. Her companion was an equally attractive female with indigo hair and violet eyes, she too looked mostly human, but Daniel noticed the same features as some of the Abydonians, as if she were descended from other types of hominids as well. He asked her if she could read minds and she shook her head, answering that only Ra possessed such a gift on the Mandjet. “Come, come his eminence, his majestic personage awaits you..come”



Jackson was led from the hall where what they called “the chamber of eternal life” rested and soon found himself accompanied by two boys, each one physically powerful and athletic, each one adorned in a style of armor similar to the Horus headed guards. Their protégé’s perhaps? Replacements? Idly, he fingered the medallion that Katherine gave him, it was still on his person and glowed brighter than ever before as though the days spent here amongst all the mysteries of Abydos had energized its core.



They passed columns and the throne room, arriving a pavilion assembled between the banner of the rising flower and the Scythe, where Jackson beheld two eunuchs preparing tea and Ra himself, shrouded in indigoes and purple, a corset made of threads and lace that looked to be a sort of smart metal and resting upon his slender shoulders a sun affixed between two horns. He looked, beautiful but there was something serpentine about his posture that Daniel Jackson would have found off putting even if he didn’t know what this creature truly was. “I was dead” Jackson said in Space Egyptian and the two girls beside him giggled and Ra turned in a disturbingly feminine way. “Your accent…a..atrocious” It spoke slowly and measured, its voice at once deep and distorted and yet he could hear the soft voice of a child within, a particularly deranged child and it made Jackson shudder.



“You’ve learned my language well” Daniel Jackson responded in English. The being nodded “First, from the minds of the ones called Ferretti and Jen..sen…Not helpful for eloquence” It added with some measured distaste in its tone, its shoulders contorting in a way that made it almost teasing and that only served to make Jackson’s instincts screech at him to run. “But, they served a purpose in the..end” It waved a slender hand, covered in the brass that made him appear statue like towards a table. There Jackson noticed his books, their manuals and some of the research notes and physics papers, history books. “Egypt” Ra murmured. “this civilization of charlatans seems to have stolen my works and passed it off as theirs. I find that amusing, for it was not far from that land where your kind engaged in their blasphemous rebellion.”





That was the chief problem Ra found himself facing. It wasn’t uncommon for a regional governor or a sector administrator or a minor Lord to lose contact with a planet or two, his empire was immense and spanned three galaxies after all. In the intervening millennia those worlds, left to develop on their own either bombed themselves back into ruination, necessitating their eventual deliverance or began to explore their local solar system. Eventually they’d develop crude instruments and determine what the Stargate actually was and open it to explore, seeking new knowledge or new worlds. After many failed attempts (Attempting to use the gate without a proper understanding of its network was dangerous in and of itself), if they survived, they would inevitably find their way to an imperial world and contact would be reestablished. The local minor lords would ascertain which System Lord ruled the domain their homeworld was located in and they almost always made a peaceful integration back into the imperium. There were some exceptions, Ra vaguely remembered Amaterasu ended up having to annihilate a civilization of twelve planets that worshipped empty temples dedicated to Prometheus and Egeria. Typical of Amaterasu that sullen little girl managed to fail at integration so thoroughly that she ended up in the middle of a civil war between homicidal robots and the heretics and glassed those worlds when she failed dismally to put a stop to their conflict. That had been, some four thousand years ago, what a shame. Ra would have liked to see the look on the faces of their leaders when he descended in the Mandjet and announced himself as the father of Egeria and the executioner of Prometheus. But that was Amaterasu, what could one expect from a stupid child who still resented the death of her paramour and kept gigantic apes as her first prime and honor-guard instead of Jaffa. She had been the first System lord born in sixty thousand years, the first one born on earth and the youngest until recently. -thirty-eight thousand years old and still a sullen little girl- Ra thought with disappointment.



He wasn’t sure what he disapproved of more, Egeria’s rebellion or that she fell in love with that depressive animal lover.



Earth was different. It technically rested between one of the borders of his Empire, unclaimed space and protected space and more besides, the parent species were a bunch of ungovernable savages whose ingratitude cost Ra politically as well as personally. While that world had obviously changed much, the fact that this “United States of America” entered into the Stargate with an atomic weapon as a guarantor told Ra that while the peoples and cultures who overthrew him may have been long dead, the spirit of their assertiveness and defiance still resided in abundance in the blood of the humans who remained. The arrival of Tau’Ri back on the scene added to his already sullen mood and he decided to send a message to their homeworld that he would not tolerate their presence amongst the stars. But that still left the impression of the man, Daniel Jackson that Ra had ripped from the mind of the one called Ferretti. That of an inquisitive soul who would have no doubt discovered the underground temple and no doubt told the heresies buried below to the Abydonians.



“Isn’t that why you chose our kind O’great king” Jackson asked, a mix of confusion and awe in his voice. “Because of our resilience”



Ra laughed a cruel laugh in that distorted voice of his and he heard the madness of his host and the ancient alien being within and it terrified Jackson. Ra swayed, sitting across the table and in an almost flirtatious way, snaking towards him. Jackson felt his skin crawl at what was before him, but he didn’t step back. “No, boy, because your bodies are so easy to restore and repair” of course, there were other reasons but Amun Ra would not deign to divulge them to this interloper however much he was amused by him. “My kind are naturally long lived, my breed are virtually immortal, the resurrection chamber stops what little aging we endure and reverses it…we can last forever but the flesh as they say is” Jackson didn’t know when the figure on the table stopped being sprawled out on the table and appeared behind him, but he felt a hand trace his chest and he wanted to scream. “Weak” Ra murmured, this time sounding far too much like a mad child for his liking.



It walked away, beckoning him to follow. “No other species takes to our resurrection technology so readily as our own save yours. Together, I ensured an eternal empire for my species.”



“Why would you tell me any of this?” Jackson asked breathlessly.



The creature shrugged. “Because you will forget most of it, perhaps you will one day work it out as your kind says for yourself and your subconscious may guide yourself to those conclusions again. Because I enjoy toying with you and because I wish you only to remember the part about the weapon and” It paused, effecting a stillness in motion that made it look less like a three dimension, fully living creature and more a drawing cast by some foreign hand. It’s eyes glowed a bright white “And what I intend for you to do with your friends”





……..



He hated these “Marines” as his God Amun-Ra called them. He couldn’t explain why, exactly but he hated them, their audacity perhaps, the fact that they snuck onto a backwater that his great Liege lord and God only visited because it was the first experiment with the ancestors of his host body. Perhaps it was their weaponry, which while primitive and crude was shockingly effective against his men. Perhaps it was because they had wounded his pride when that behemoth of a man let loose with that monstrosity, he held with two arms and all but sawed one of his men in half with metallic projectiles. But he hated them, he especially hated the one who had been healed by Amun Ra. That one, the contemplative baleful gaze, the defiance it reminded him that bastard Warmaster. Yes, he thought, it was the same look Bra’tac had in his eyes as a youth, the weight of the ages in one so young and a grim resolve to rise above any personal loss to be a leader. The bastard upstart had defeated one hundred of the finest warriors in the known universe at the last grand convocation at Helios before Titan’s rebellion and Sek’Het was among them. That had been two centuries ago and though he would one day outlive Bra’tac he would never defeat the old master and that had left him in a sore mood for two hundred years. This, Tau’Ri reminded him too much of his defeat and as he sneered down at O’Neill in his waterfilled prison, and the man looked up at him Sek’Het swore he would not only defeat O’Neill but utterly humiliate and destroy him.



He hadn’t known many of the strange tongue these Tau’Ri spoke, this Yingrush but Amun Ra in his infinite wisdom had mindshared with Sek’Het and taught him enough to read the helpful diagram that came with their atomic weapon, it was enough of the language for him to try and read some of the guttural books, they bored him, but he remembered one word and looking down he flash a sadistic smile and gestured towards what was left of O’Neill’s men



“Wyurr..th..le..esss”



O’Neill without missing a beat flashed some gesture with the middle fingers of both hands in what was no doubt some mongrel’s obscenity and mouthing back. “Fuh-uh-k Youuuuu”



Sek’Het turned and stormed off… Yes, he would kill that bastard.

……..



He’s going to modify my memory? Daniel Jackson thought horrified, leaving enough in his mind that one day he might piece together what was confessed here only to use it when it would likely be too late. It was like some tale from England during the dark ages about the fair folk and how their boons often came at terrible cost. But more than anything, it was what came next that horrified Daniel Jackson.



“Tomorrow, a procession of..my..” his eyes flickered as he seemed to search for the word. “serfs, will come to honor my arrival. It has been some time since our royal presence graced this little world. Tomorrow, you will execute your friends in front of ten thousand Abydonians and you will then return here to serve me for the remainder of your days. Then I shall depart this world, but not before I send your weapon through the Stargate with a shipment of my mineral, it will amplify its effects a hundred-fold.” Ra paused again, canting his head slightly, he had to assume the Tau’Ri had the gate in some location deep underground from the memories he pulled from the minds of what passed for warriors on Tau’Ri. It would likely not be enough to do more than poison the area around the facility, but it would be enough to send a message.



“Why, would I agree to any of this?” Daniel asked, numb from the sheer nonchalance Ra displayed when discussing what amounted to a terror attack on his home planet to send a message to the Whitehouse. Kill his friends? Jackson was horrified, disgusted, why did he think he would do such a thing?



“Because, if you do not. I shall destroy Abydos, there are one hundred million soul’s on this world, and I will make them ash and turn this world into debris in the void. A monument to arrogance of your wretched planet and to the price of defying my will.” It snaked closer to Jackson now, turning in a way that made Ra look more like a figure in an Egyptian temple than a man and he took the medallion in hand and pulled it, yanking the chain loose. “There can be..only..one..” His eyes lit up a blinding white and his cheek seemed to glow an odd blue as his voice let loose a psychic attack nearly shattered Daniel’s psyche “Amun Ra”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright folks it begins! The March to the fateful rebellion on Abydos.



Chapter 12: Opening the ball on a God.


The Pyramid complex


“All this for us?” O’Neill asked with an amused chuckle as they were led out into the grand courtyard of the pyramid complex, the brilliant silver of the Mandjet shown, almost like a mirror yet oddly reflected no heat. The Dog dude had gone and grabbed him, Ferretti, Lahm, Kowalski, Brown and Simmons who managed to survive despite the grotesque third degree burn on his side from catching a glancing blow from one of those staff guns becoming infected in the damp, waterlogged prison they’d been tossed in. Simmons could barely function though; he was feverish and had to be dragged along by one of the bird space dudes.

“Heh what do you expect Colonel? We’re fuck’n Marines!” Simmons slurred, he was barely aware of his surroundings and his shivering body was probably more grateful for the sun than anything else.

“Ooorah!” Kowalski called out, earning a kick to the ribs from the Dog man who laughed through his cruel mask. “Ooorah” it mocked back and that was probably the moment O’Neill decided that he was going to rip that fucking dog man’s head off and shove a grenade down his neckhole. “Hey, kibbles” O’Neill turned, his eyes a mix of despair induced fury and spite that seemed to match the glow of the helmet’s eyes. “You better not miss” O’Neill was pretty sure the Dog bro didn’t need a translator to get what he meant given he was back handed rather severely.


They were out on their knees, the crowd that had gathered was enormous, it packed the gardens and courtyards, and the noise was such that he suspected thousands more were out and about the pyramid complex in the grass and sands, perhaps going all the way down to the river. Honestly as far as executions went, nothing said “These people are a threat to me” quite like inviting every big wig amongst your subjects to watch some foreigners get got. -He’s not stupid, that thing inside the kid’s skin. He has to know this makes the big time ruler of the space lanes look like a panicky chump-.

Maybe Jackson was right about the rest of his kind so he could get away with this, the last vestiges of a mega power out in the stars. But that was pathetic and while it might have been true. O’Neill had his doubts, so all this fanfare. -Son of a bitch!- Jack found himself laughing “He’s taken it fuck’n personal” Jack muttered. Kowalski turned raising a curious eyebrow “Guy’s not thinking because us Earthlings daring to show our face here after our caveman forefathers shitkicked his crying game ass out of our solar system has pissed him off. He isn’t thinking.”

Damn Jack thought. He’d been wrestling with suicidal thoughts the entire time he was here, then that kid and his old man knocked that out of his system (He owed his daughters an apology for that). And then everything went to hell and he was back to wanting to blow himself up to take out this Ra dude. There would have been no way, realistically that he would have been able to lead even a legion of desert rebels successfully against the calm, collected monarch he saw up there. Had been a dictator on earth, one of the many tinpots in the middle East or the Africa of his early years in the service, O’Neill didn’t want to even think about what it would take to dislodge him. Ra had the aura of a bureaucrat, a governor, an administrator, someone who ruled by the pen and the text message and made them just as deadly as any nuclear weapon. But he was clearly so ticked off by their presence that his big brain got possessed by resentment. -Must have burned a lot of his political capital back then getting overrun by some beast men- Jack thought.


The fact that he was still bent out of shape even now, after forty thousand fucking years was what made it comical. Ra was brilliant, it was obvious even if he did end up being the last of his kind. But that brilliance was not at work against him and his men, now would have been the perfect time to strike, to start something even if they lost out. These people, who’d been enslaved to a monster wearing a boy as a suit for long enough and while it wasn’t in his mandate, O’Neill wished he could do something.

To his surprise, The Dog headed bastard walked out in front of him and stood by one of the many Obelisks in the courtyard. And the gathered crowd began to go from noisy and filled with discourse to hushed silence. In the distance, Ra in all his metallic glory walked forward adorned in crimson robes, a long silk cape trailing behind him, flanked by his usual retinue of eunuchs and scantily clad women and the bird bros. Except, one of the people pushed forward, ahead of the entourage was Daniel Jackson.

“I thought you said the kid was dead?” Ferretti asked before he got kicked again.

“Guess our nerd came back" O’Neill thought aloud.

Ra was as magnificent as usual, and O’Neill got the impression a part of that cynical old demon wanted to do this for the pageantry as much as the vendetta. His eyes darted from Ra towards the crowd, and he could make out Kasuf. Who sitting on a litter born by some of the villages and Daniel’s squeeze and…Skara? His eyes narrowed at the boy, trying to discern of he was carrying any weapons below his robes, when he found the telltale bulge his eyes narrowed protectively. -Damnit kid! I told you not to play with those! - mentally he began berating himself until Jack O’Neill felt a sort of odd twinge in the back of his mind. As if something was pushing against his head and he found himself blinking. Was this what screwed Ferretti up so bad? He sounded half dead last night and now his face was contorted in a mix of rage and shame. “He’s doing it again Sir”

“I know” O’Neill muttered his square jaw clamped as tight as a snapped bear trap. What came next was curious, he didn’t understand the language Ra spoke, nor the words but he didn’t seem to need too. The outrage, the contempt and the narrative was spun more in a sequence of images and O’Neill silently noted not only did the crowd within the court yard but Ra was able to reach the minds of everyone present.

Ten thousand fucking people, he was broadcasting to ten thousand fucking people. He’d silence a crowd with a thought and told a story of depravity, treachery and propaganda, enemy lies and apostacy. About how the Scribe and his warrior chief (O’Neill noted with some smug satisfaction that Dog breath was seething at the honorific.) were sent by the Thunder God who in his hubris and bitterness had never gotten over his defeat at Cimmeria and sought to undermine the faith and the bond of fidelity and honor between Abydos and the All-mighty Ra.

Okay O’Neill had no idea what the fuck Ra was babbling about, and he could tell the man lost some in the crowd who gazed with uncertainty up at their bronze star god. O’Neill saw images, ships that looked like silver hammers locked in a titanic battle with enormous vessels that looked like ancient triremes albeit with engines in the rear instead of oars and what might have been solar sales tucked inside. Given the blank looks on the faces of the crowd, O’Neill was convinced Ra was sending the image solely to himself and his team. The battle was horrific, five thousand space triremes and some weird spearhead shaped vessels and what looked like flying pyramids in a hexagon went up against five hundred of the Hammer ships, space was practically on fire from savagery of the battle and in the end only a lone hammer ship was able to escape. Thousands of Ra’s vessels burned and O’Neill blinked, so there were powers in the stars that could check Ra’s? At least once, the impression O’Neill got from the memory was that it was distant, remote and the sentiment that went with it seemed to imply Ra was virtually unchallenged. O’Neill tried to examine it further, trying to see if that was an accurate picture of his Empire or if it was a visage of what was long ago. In the end he concluded that Jackson was probably right and that Ra was the last of his kind, if that battle was any indication of how that war went then it was likely both sides fought themselves to mutual ruination.

Years later, Jack would find out how wrong his assessment was, but for now he laughed darkly. Ra was good, no Ra was great but like any politician who spent too much time in the offices of power and not enough in the world he had lost most of the crowd with examples of enemies they had forgotten existed.

Senile girly man, if you’re gonna blow up a people’s history and culture you probably shouldn’t evoke the name of some guy they forgot while we were still scratching at your ruins….To justify your over compensation.

What a powerful mind, could that thing read thoughts while broadcasting? He’d torn them from Ferretti’s skull like he was tearing through a wet tissue.


One thing of note, that gave O’Neill hope was that Ra wasn’t able to pick out that Skara and the junior marines were armed and that had prevented Jack from lunging at Ra so that he could force them to kill him before Ra figured the fix was in. He could broadcast thoughts, even custom his speech but he couldn’t read while doing that and when he caught the look of resignation on Jackson’s face O’Neill gestured with his eyes to crowd.


Daniel turned to Ra was made to bow and then he turned to the crowd and caught the glint off O’Neill’s knife which had been gifted to Skara. His eyes sparked with hope and when he turned towards O’Neill instead of blowing the Marines head off, he opened fire the foot of Ra’s throne. The crowd screamed, Ra stood up enraged and Jack thought he saw a sort of bubble of distorted energy around Ra. The “Sun God” was suitably pissed, he hadn’t broken the mental link with the crowd and everyone heard his psionic scream of rage. For some, it was enough to cause them to collapse and beg. For others, they would remember it as the exact moment they realized their God was not a God at all, but something far unnatural. Ferretti was up, lunging towards one the bird guys just as Skara and the others unloaded with automatic fire. Whether they were naturals or just lucky Jack wasn’t sure but one of the other bird dudes got hit by two of the kids unloading from two shotguns and given that it was point blank they sort of turned him into a hollowed out carcass. Dog boy was howling in rage but rushing to flank Ra while a Bird dude smashed Simmons in the back of the head with a metal fist so violently his brain matter splattered on Jack’s face.


Kowalski and Ferretti even Lahm were either lunging at the bird guys or grabbing their discarded side arms or staff weapons and laying into them. This close, it was all they could do to protect their God (Not very godly to need protection) and O’Neill shot up and ordered everyone to run into the crowd.


The chase through the garden happened to fast for Jack to remember, Ferretti managed to fight one of the Bird dudes in hand to hand, throwing him into the space between Ra’s spaceship and the side of the artificial lake slash fountain it’d landed in. It evidently had artificial gravity tech because when the guy fell between the vessel jerked lightly to one side bumping the other end and then on the rebound everyone heard the crunch. Brown caught a staff weapon blast in the chest from behind and his heart burst out of his chest on fire and was dashed into a tree a few feet from Daniel who was hastily flinging a robe over his shoulders. Kowalski, Ferretti and Lahm were already being disguised and Jack, Lumpy and Skara got separated from the group and ended up needing to fight through enraged loyalists among the villagers and one of the bird dudes before they reconnected with the group.

They didn’t cross the river, instead diving into barges that were pulled by a hairless breed of Mastage that looked like an unholy cross between a manatee, a Walrus, a river otter and a dinosaur. They hauled ass, used to pulling tribute in large quantities of food and precious metals the group of twenty kids, Lil’Bit and two other Mastages must have seemed light because they almost tore their bridals pulling them through the water. They were out and away before the enemy combatants could find them. Before Jack knew it, Lahm was cleaning a wound on Skara’s shoulder and the boy gave O’Neill a look that would have made any father proud and certainly any XO. He was contemplative, certainly it was the first time the boy killed anyone. He was also not beating himself up over it, recognizing that it was a him or them situation. O’Neill stayed silent, his mind wandering back to the bomb and Jackson’s accusing look. They traveled for another hour before ending up on the sands, hiking with the Mastages through a sandstorm that brought with a cold harsh enough to make O’Neill’s bones chatter. Jackson nearly collapsed into the freezing sands but Shau’re dragged him forward, a look of passionate resolve on her young face.

His dweeb had become a man!

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright, @DocSolarisReich and @bullethead you wanted more on the Goa'uld and their history? Some of it is alluded too here, including their origin in the universe this fic takes place in. In this gruesome intermission

@Gladiator Would love your input here even if it just to tell me not to quit my day job

The Wrath of Ra


Mandjet


Sek’Het was nearly eight thousand years old, he replaced Heremur as Ra’s first prime after Heremur grew too old to take more than one or two new hosts. In honor of fourteen thousand years of service Heremur had been allowed to take the body of one of Ra’s child slaves and permitted to retire in wealth and glory on Memphi one of the agro-worlds within Ra’s domain. Without a sarcophagus a Goa’uld of the lower species had a lifespan of about four thousand years, those who were the children of System lords (Like Sek’Het who was the illegitimate product of Ra’s son Osiris making sexual congress with a female from a lesser breed) lived longer, much longer. twenty thousand years, assuming they weren’t born with the gifts of the system lords themselves (Sek’Het much to his ever-lasting shame was not born with the unique abilities and enhanced powers that Amaterasu or Set were born with). Heremur was the bastard son Cronus and lived to a ripe old age keeping his retirement host alive nearly nine centuries before he died quietly in his sleep on the vast estates he’d been granted for his service.

That was a little over seven thousand years ago, this would be Sek’Het’s ninth host. Use of the resurrection and immortality technology was very strictly controlled and only the System Lords themselves had the right to use them from birth. The right to own a resurrection chamber was never reserved for warriors such as himself, but more for scribes, administrators, and scientists. Sek’Het ordinarily didn’t mind this, he served his grandfather happily and with honor. Ra even allowed him to take a wife (Goa’uld Queens were exceedingly rare, but the first queen Mother’s Nu and who ever was the mate of Hathor’s father Tartarus had through immense will modified and repurposed their own offspring, creating male and female Goa’uld.). Though it was exceedingly rare for a coupling with a female who wasn’t a queen to produce more than one or two viable children, he’d been hoping to ask his grandfather for his blessing and the right to procreate.

Or he would have, after the execution of that damn Muir-yn, that one irked him more than the scribe who received the honor of resurrection (Sek’hat had become violently angry when his grandfather ordered him to dump the scribe in the chamber), who reminded him too much of the one stain on his otherwise flawless record, his defeat in a contest of cunning and skill and strength against Bra’tac. Ra was usually in a foul mood when the topic of the Tau’Ri came up, foul enough that Sek’Het was afraid Ra would destroy this planet just because Tau’Ri had set foot on it. But being able to send a message and execute some of them seemed to bring out lighter spirits in the old God. Ra had even invited him to take breakfast with him at his table. Sek’Het had only been granted that honor twice before. He was planning to make his request that day and then that damned Scribe and those impudent children! And the damned commander who managed to cause the death of even more of his men had ruined it all.


“Why weren’t they screened?!” Ra queried, his voice deep, menacing and frighteningly cavaliere. That was what made Sek’Het truly afraid. Ra was never one for open emotional outbursts unlike Zeus whose tirades were legendary and had nearly gotten him hauled before Ra for treason more than once. Yet today, at the ambush, the outburst, that psychic scream of rage terrified Sek’Het to the point where he wanted to put a staff weapon to his mouth and end it.

He came to the royal chambers, fully expecting to be slaughtered by his own grandfather. The question would have been absurd on any other day, when Ra did these century long imperial progresses, it was ordinarily up the local Governors and the First Prime of whatever system lord ruled those systems to see to it. Though, in the eight thousand years Sek’Het had worn the mantle Anubis he had never once experienced an issue with security until the Titan’s revolt over a century ago. Abydos fell under the Jurisdiction of Sobek, a territorial governor under Hathor who ruled this region of Ra’s domain in his name, which meant as First Prime security fell to him, but Abydos was a backwater, its people rustic even by the standards of some of the most backwards parts of the Empire. Furthermore, when the City of Lantesh had rebelled (And had the misfortune of engaging in their idiocy when Amun Ra had come on his imperial progress), Sek’Het had so thoroughly crushed the rebellion in Ra’s name that they hadn’t even bothered to try and rebuild in the ruins, such was their fear. Sek’Het never understood why Ra came here, Sobek had apparently killed himself thirty years ago, no one even realized it such was the irrelevancy of the worlds he ruled not until six years ago. Hathor could have been more vigilant of her holdings, but the role of Imperial chamberlain meant she dealt with the administrative duties of the Empire for Ra and that meant she barely left Dakkara anymore.

His master, his Grandfather, his God was placed in danger for nothing but a sense of nostalgia he couldn’t comprehend.


“I had advised them to use different protocols, to search all who would enter the main garden complex, your Majestic Eminence. “He bowed deeply, Amun Ra’s blood was up and the room seemed to shudder at the measure of his rage.

“You advised?” Ra asked, his tone caused Sek’Het to hope the Sun God would remember their shared DNA and kill him quickly.

“I did, Majestic Eminence. I should have ordered it, but Tau’Ri and on Abydos?! I, we”

“Peace! Grandson!” Ra spoke, it was rare for Amun Ra to address him with such familiarity, unsure whether to lower his guard or panic Sek’Het gazed at him confused. The God’s back was turned to Sek’Het, but the First Prime could tell Ra was reaching into an ornately carved box to retrieve a velvet glove, studded with jewels and threaded with metal “yarn”. While other Goa’uld would have needed a version of the hand device that was more of a weapon that was fueled by the Naquadah and other rare superconducting elements in the blood of the Goa’uld, the wrist devices used by System lords were more a focus for their inborn psionic powers. Ra, who was the most powerful of them all and one of the nine warriors arrayed here was about to experience that power firsthand.

“It’s absurd enough that Abydos would rebel against me twice, it was beyond the scope of fantastical indulgence to assume it would be at the hands of Tau’Ri agitators” Amun Ra reassured him, there was genuine affection in his voice. The Sun God could still care for his subjects, that was what made his ability to kill without hesitation all the more horrific. Ra could love you unconditionally, as he had with Egeria if the legends are to be believed and yet he still tortured his own daughter to death. “But, I do not..Appreciate that you were the only one to recognize how unusual this was” . He turned, his long silky black hair shimmering with the precious dust from precious gems slicked into it. His posture became somewhat feminine, and he held his gloved hand close to his chest. “How did they escape?” he asked at last.


A dark-skinned Jaffa named Rornac answered that some of the kids from Nagada were helping them.


Slowly, Ra nodded.

A thought perhaps more absurd than anything that had transpired today entered Sek’Het’s mind, what if the Commander managed to rally the peasants here? What if he got them to rush the pyramid compound, had that not been how Ra was driven off Tau’Ri in the first place? “Majestic Eminence, should you not make preparations to depart? Leave me here with a thousand Jaffa and I”

Ra turned to him affixing him with that cold stare and a vision of Egeria’s death played out before him and Sek’Het wanted to vomit. The message clear, he held his tongue and chose to ignore his instincts. -I’ll have to hunt down that Commander myself- Sek’Het thought, he would not rest until that bastard was in his grave.


The Sun God’s hand slid from his chest and fell limply at his side as he seemed to sway backwards, an uncomfortable reminder of what they truly were. “Children and Tau’Ri vermin using crude projectile weapons, have undermined me. I, Amun Ra! Who led the rebellion against the Ori! Who slew the last of their kind! I who united the races of the Goa’uld! I who held noble Anubis as he died, a victim of treachery! And I who cast the nameless one into the void! Amun Ra! Who took a cosmos ruined by ten million years of war and beset by anarchy and at the mercy of barbarians and built out from it an empire!” He hissed, the last bit, his disembodied voice echoing about the entirety of the Mandjet “Amun Ra! The ever living, the master of death! He who owns the stars! The God of Gods, the Most High, the exalted! I am undermined by interloping terrorists and peasants!” the air grew cold, and the air began to taste metallic and Sek’Het noticed something sparked in Ra’s gloved hand.


“Undermined because my Jaffa have forgotten how to be adaptive” He threw his gloved hand forward, Toralak a new Jaffa whose father was of the legendary Kordai plains on Chulak. The poor Jaffa let out a scream as an unseen force launched him into a column, the violence being enough to crack ribs and rupture his pouch. That alone was enough to kill him, as the symbiote within would have likely been killed by the concussive force, but Ra wasn’t willing to wait until he died of his injuries! Ra walked towards the gasping, mangled Jaffa and his shadow seemed to take up the entire Throne Room. Ra knelt and rested the gloved hand upon the warrior’s head and all around the room strings of energy seemed to be drawn towards Ra whose eyes glowed.


Only the System Lords held the right to be called Gods, only the System Lords were worshipped as Gods, all the others were merely seen as demigods, immortals and spirits given flesh.


The poor warrior began to seize as arcs of energy flew out of the palm of Ra’s hand, the spasming of the warrior below was accompanied by the splitting of the scalp as it peeled back, skin roasting from the heat within. The skull cracked yet it did not explode, as the spine began to glow and flesh began to split seemingly along seams.

Only the System Lords could be worshipped as Gods.


But as Sek’het stared at the heap of ash and carbonized bones that remained when Amun Ra rose from his position beside the corpse, he wondered if the most dangerous branch of the Goa’uld species wasn’t something else entirely.



Ra inclined his head slightly eyes glowing. “Tomorrow, they will bring tribute and their quota of Naquadah, I will depart on the rest of my progress” reaching into the sleave of his left arm Ra pulled out the medallion he’d taken from Daniel Jackson and he extended his arm towards Sek’Het “Take this, it belonged to my first Priest, a warrior from a tribe of sloping browed savages on Tau’Ri, before Anubis convinced me to permit him and Apophis to create the Jaffa. Yu made it, he said it would replicate a facsimile of our kind’s regenerative powers. A poor facsimile, but it allowed them to live long enough to serve me for a century or so. It was a sign of my authority on Tau’Ri, I believe it is fitting that you should kill their world’s First Prime bearing the badge of office his forefathers so coveted”


Sek’Het, feeling some of his confidence restored, took the necklace and bowed. “Majestic Eminence, I will slaughter them all in your name and send the device through the stargate myself when you command it so”

“Of course, have I not decreed that it shall be so?” Amun Ra turned and departed towards the pleasure gardens in the lower levels of the Mandjet.


The System Lords were worshipped as Gods, they called themselves such.

Sek’Het was once again reminded why.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

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!”