Stargate Through the Looking Glass and into Heaven.

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Chapter 14: Rebellion





The Pyramid Complex.





The entrance to the primary great Pyramid seemed to glisten in the morning sun. Reflecting the pinks and golds of a star breaking through the night to illuminate a sleepy world. A world on the brink of change, a world of the brink of cataclysm or, liberation. Banners flapped in the breeze on raised poles that seemed to grow out of the smooth stone of the walkway. Each one depicting a different god, the black Eagle in whose talons a lightning bolt was clutched, the Scythe radiating lightning. The Golden Cobra on crimson with pink eyes flapped in the breeze beside a falcon like bird that held a spear in one hand and a scroll in the other. The Flower blazing like a rising sun on a field of white and another Falcon like alien flying through the heavens. Zeus, Ba’al, Apophis, Horus, Amaterasu and Osiris. The Horus Guard, the Elite fighting units of the armies of Ra, a dozen standing like statues, the sun glinting off their headpieces and breastplate. The jeweled spear like tip of their staff weapons sparkled as the first of what would be tow dozen caravans showed up. The first, dispatched from Nagada would have the honor of being transported to Ra’s vessel, gifted as tribute to the Godhead, while the rest would go through the Stargate to Thapseh the Capital of this backwater part of Ra’s domain. All in all, two hundred youths hauling carts that were ordinarily filled with Naquadah and various carved items and precious gems and grain and silk produced by sea snails. Today, they were carrying more than just their usual compliment of tribute, but a bunch of ammo, a pair of rocket launchers, two dozen grenades and one incredibly annoyed Ferretti who was ordered to hide under the tarp of one of the carts.





The guards had been under orders to search anyone who came before the entrance to the pyramid, but most were so accustomed to absolutely nothing happening that the once legendary discipline of the Jaffa lapsed enough that the lead cart and two others managed to get through the main entrance before an irate senior Horus Guard with gold tipped “feathers” on his headdress called out furiously to his men outside, ordering them to stop the carts. Grumbles of protestation from both guards and subjects followed as the armored killers began searching the carts, tarps were angrily pulled back and from outside there was a loud exclamation.



The Senior Horus guard huffed and leveled his gaze on the tallest of the robed and hooded supplicants, pulling it back to espy a tall, chiseled Tau’Ri in a crew cut smirking at him. “How ya doin?” O’Neill asked with mock flirtation, the Horus Guard was about to let out a scream, but his arm simply disappeared, followed by a blast that impacted the space between armor on his ribs. Courtesy of Shau’re who had grabbed one of the staff weapons they’d stolen in the prior engagement. As his cored corpse began to topple, the second in the room converged on their location. O’Neill pulled an M27 out from under the tarp and managed to unload into the attacker, blood spraying from his legs and midsection. A third was on O’Neill faster than he could react to him and had hoisted him up by the throat with both hands, spewing curses in their language at hm. Outside, the area erupted in weapons fire and energy blasts as Kowalski and Skara were able to grab a pair staff weapons, adding their fire to the frantic gun blasts. By the sound of it, they’d managed to kill four of the twelve in the opening seconds, but someone had been shot.





As O’Neill stood dangling in the air the Jaffa was forced to turn and drop him, crying out in alarm as the tarp covering the cart erupted, taking the shape of a giant among humans who tore through, a pickaxe held high above his head. “SURPRISE MOTHAFUCKA!” There was a god-awful clang as metal scraped on metal and the sheer violence of Ferretti’s blow shattered the eye socket of the headpiece and seemed to send a violent current of feedback through the armor, causing the man to howl. Frantically he stepped back trying to retract the armored headpiece, but it got stuck halfway, glitching.



“Too much fancy shit only gets in the way son” Ferretti’s eyes were positively feral as he stalked towards the man, burying what was left of the pickaxe in his head before tossing his staff towards the Colonel. Jackson had, who had handed Shau’re the weapon exchanged his service pistol for the staff weapon. “Your girlfriend’s a good shot Jackson” O’Neill said with an amused grin somewhat grateful Jackson didn’t try and fire the staff weapon himself, the dweeb was an amazingly terrible shot, having brought down the archway of one of the mineshafts on a half dozen Bird Dudes when he was aiming for the center mass of the leader. Shau’re beamed at O’Neill and soon they were joined by Kowalski and Skara. “Lahm’s tending to the wounded Sir, but we need to make some kind of barricade or else”



“Negative” O’Neill said, “We keep ourselves out there, fall back to the town and let them chase you, if you’re up here they’ll swamp us” At least, in the buildings they’d have better odds, CQC is what his boys were best at and if they could use the terrain. “Ferretti, go with Chuck and Lahm, Jackson, you and Calamity jane here are with me” He said gesturing to Shau’re.



Skara made a gesture suggesting he wanted to be by O’Neill’s side, he was a good fighter and unusually strong for a kid his age, but O’Neill shook his head. When Skara flashed him a look of hurt O’Neill grabbed his shoulder and squeezed, gesturing to Kowalski and then to Nebeh and the others. No words needed to be exchanged for Skara to understand the monumental importance of what O’Neill wanted him to do, that he was entrusting Skara with the safety of his own warriors and reminding him that he had a duty to his men. “If they make it through us….”



Skara nodded. “Oorah”



“Oorah boy” the two warriors embraced, and O’Neill moved to pass his service pistol to Skara, hesitating for a second…The colt had belonged to his father and his grandfather and his great grandfather. Not exactly company issue, but it was a relic both of the marine corps and of the O’Neill family. The damn thing was also the gun that had claimed Charly’s life and yet, he swallowed. It was time to let go, he couldn’t go on hating himself and wanting death, not when he had two daughters and these junior marines to live for. He handed the gun to Skara and then pulled four clips out from his belt and passed them to the boy. Intuitive as always, the youth eyed him, sensing the gravity of the action if not the reason. Skara slid the gun into his belt and with teary eyes saluted O’Neill who saluted back. “Give ‘em hell kid” O’Neill muttered as the group vanished out the entrance.





“To the gate room?” Daniel asked.



O’Neill nodded before he looked at Shau’re and then gestured to her staff weapon and then her eyes and the hallway.



She understood what he meant and flashed a ferocious smile. “Shoot..Any.,,,In,...Room”



“Yeah, exactly” Turning he looked at Daniel with a raised eyebrow “Been teaching her American?”



“A little sir, but they pick up so much via observation, part of me thinks they were engineered like that. To keep from needing to know written scripture to understand” Jackson muttered rubbing the back of his head. O’Neill nodded “It’s a mystery we can unravel later..Lets go”.





No one had come through the teleportation rings in the Gate Room and O’Neill soon realized why, when a sort of roar echoed through the pyramid. “They’re launching fighters” Jackson called back.



“Fuck!” O’Neill and Shau’re ended up saying in unison which caused O’Neill to chuckle. When they skidded into the gate room, Jackson almost slid into two Horus Guard who wheeled on him and got blasted for their trouble. The first stumbling back, the armor on the chest absorbing all of the first and second blast but the third at such a close range superheated the armor and the warrior collapsed screaming as the smell of seared flesh filled the air. O’Neill stamped on his hand, retracting the head piece and plunged the knife Skara had given him into the guy’s throat ending his suffering.



Another bolt impacted near him, Jackson tackled him out of the way and both he and Shau’re fired at the Bird dude at the same time. They had sprayed him and very little was left but charred bones and carbonized flesh. “Let’s hope our boys made it to the village or we’ll be fucked from both ends” O’Neill grumbled as the panel in the ceiling opened and rings descended followed by the tell tail beam of light that signified the transportation of matter. Four beings stood inside the light; O’Neill could make out two carrying a table that held the modified tac nuke. The other two were escorts and one of them.



“Dog boy” he growled.





Outside, Kowalski and Skara managed to lead their group into what they had designated the town hall and had occupied the first two levels and the roof. Though, they had to give ground on the roof the moment the two golden gliders began strafing the roof. They could tell, the gunners were holding back, because when one of the Farm boys hurled a grenade into the air (he got impressive airtime) from another building, they rounded on him and vaporized the kid and leveled half the building. To Kowalski, the most surreal part was that the pilots had taken the time to activate their sound systems and screech obscenities down at them. He’d fought all over his world and had never seen an honor guard act so strangely. They were all competent fighters, a few of them were extremely dangerous even. Most were very clearly trained and well trained at that but there was an element of shock. As if they couldn’t believe they were putting down a rebellion, as if this was something they had trained for because it was part of the routine, but the concept was unreal to them. This slowed their reactions down, just enough that it made it possible to fight them without being instantly slaughtered.



Part of Kowalski wondered if he would have reacted the same way had the US ever been invaded. Would the absurdity of the situation disorient him, or would his discipline and instincts carry him through? As the debate in his head raged on, Ferretti and Nebeh managed to slide behind him just as a pair of red bolts of plasma smashed into the side of the building opposite them and it exploded, caving in on itself. “Shit boss, we gotta move back!”





Across from them Skara rushed out into the square and darted towards them, lugging the rockets. As the vessels turned on his position Lahm managed to throw a flaming bottle of rubbing alcohol at the cock “nose” of the glider, which burst into flames for a fraction of a second, causing the pilot to veer up cursing. The other disengaged from Skara and turned its fury on Lahm and her group of young rebels, unleashing a torrent of fire onto the roof they’d thrown the projectiles from. Kowalski heard screams but saw that it was mostly from them jumping from the roof and landing on sandy hills or falling onto the slick streets. By some miracle no one had been hit and it took Kowalski a moment to realize Kadra had popped out of the sand and grabbed one of the boys, pulling him between two trees. “Huh? What’s Skara’s kid sister doing here?” Kowalski asked.



Ferretti shrugged, she hadn’t come with them, could she have snuck off? Or? “Maybe we’re lucky and Kasuf decided to rally the villages or something” Ferretti offered. Any discussion was cut off the moment a pair of plasma bolts smashed into a trio of youngers in the floor above the marines. The ceiling came down in a sickening crunch dropping on top of two youngsters and what was left of the ones who’d been shot at wouldn’t even fill a sandwich bag. “We need to do something about the damn Fighters!” Ferretti yelled “We’re gonna get slaughtered like this!”





Pink and purple bursts of energy began to impact into trees and obelisks and Kowalski realized that reinforcements from the spaceship had arrived. “We’ve got company!” Kowalski called. Twenty of their kids, with makeshift spears and stolen staff weapons converged on the group that was charging towards them. They didn’t last long, each of those Horus guard guys seemed to be able to kill four or five of their boys before going down and there was about a hundred of them bearing down. But their sacrifices had been enough, for Skara (who was now joined by Nebeh).





“Alright boys!” Kowalski walked through the partially wrecked building and opened the crate. “Excellent!” he cried out noting that none of the ordinance were damaged. Kowalski grabbed Skara by the chest and gestured to the attackers and then pounded a broken piece of the wall. “Cover us”



‘Cover” Skara nodded and saluted before grabbing a pair of grenades to hand to Lumpy as he pulled out his rifle and opened fire towards the oncoming Horus guard. It took a moment, but the pair of youths heard a rush and a screech and turned to see a trail of fire erupt over their heads as Ferretti fired one of the rocket launchers. It flew into the air, towards the speeding Gliders and impacted on the wing, the explosion was violent, but it didn’t even the thing and the murderous screeching coming from the cockpit prompted an “oh shiiiiittt” From Ferretti as Kowalski frantically reloaded.





To their surprise, Nebeh had a pitcher’s arm, because he managed to beam a Horus Guard in the head with the grenade and when it detonated it killed the guard, his buddy and managed to knock two others on their asses. Ferretti didn’t have time to praise the kid, he only had time to fire off another rocket, only too late did he realize the Gliders were almost on top of them.



There was an odd moment of silence, where time seemed to standstill. He could see Skara waving at someone, bolts of energy slowly streaking by, then the rocket hitting the pilot of one of the Gliders right in the head. Then a flash of light, an arch of fire and his world went black.





From her position with Kadra and her “scouts” Lahm and several of the Nagada rebels saw the explosive detonate inside the cockpit of one of the Gliders. The explosion and equipment failure causing it to tilt, then spin. A wing hit the left wing of the other Glider and both ripped off, spinning through the air (with one smashing into a poor boy of twelve mere feet from where Lahm was). Kadra let out a scream of agony as one of the gliders barreled into the upper levels of the building her brother, her friends and Lahm’s partner were in. Lahm went cold, she watched with almost, detached numbness as the roof seemed to sort of lurch then convulse, tearing itself apart as the flaming debris burst through the other end, bringing down most of the roof, fire belched out the rear and the burning wreckage of the glider smashed into a water fountain and skidding over it, crashing into an obelisk with a Naquadah tip. The obelisk glowed angrily as it cracked.



The other glide went careening into a dozen of the onrushing Horus guard before crumpling not the ground and bouncing into a second obelisk. Lahm felt something rumble below her feet, then two enormous arcs of energy erupted from the broken obelisks, shooting into the sky and causing a small series of tremors that reverberated up towards the pyramid.



Something kicked Lahm in the face and she was realized it was an enraged Horus Guard, Lahm spat out a wisdom tooth and rounded on him, stabbing him through the arm with a field knife and unloading a service pistol into his side. Though, it seemed as if she’d only managed to maul muscle and skin, because it let out a series of curses and grabbed her arm and wrenched it upward all but hauling her off the ground. The eyes in the headpiece weren’t lit up, she surmised that he was fighting blind, and she did all she could to keep him from retracting it and when he finally did, she spat blood into his eyes. He laughed and threw her, causing her to hit the sand hard enough to push the wind out of her lungs and bruise her ribs. As he stalked towards her, she could see his shadow looming over her, the acrid stench of burning chemicals and wood filling the air. As he reached down, she felt a warm spray and realized that Kadra and two of her people had driven wooden spears through the warrior’s body. One of them knocked loose the shoulder strap on his breast plate and as it fell loose, she saw an odd X shaped scar on his stomach where his navel should have been. Something writhed below it and she raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t have time to contemplate what that was. A staff blast hit his midsection and his stomach was replaced by an eight-inch cavern of burnt flesh. Her eyes darted to the source of the fire, Kowalski was bloodied, bruised and by the look in his eyes he had no idea where he got the staff weapon or how he managed to fire it.



She smiled.



Behind Kowalski, Skara let loose a war cry that chilled the blood of all present. He was on his knees before the mangled body of Nebeh, who hung between cables and debris, impaled like a ghoulish scarecrow.



In that second of bestial despair, he ran forward firing with The Colonel’s pistol, managing to wound several onrushing Horus guard, before Ferretti tossed him yet another Staff gun. Everyone charged forward, it was pure madness, the children, fighting as children, driven into a bloody frenzy by so much death smashed into the Horus Guard with such ferocity they managed to do something no army in the known universe had done.



Not in ten thousand years.



They managed to rout an army of Jaffa.





Though the rout was temporary, though it was a brief moment of shock at the suicidal fury of so many people who were barely seventeen, it was enough. The aura of invincibility that had been carefully crafted through millennia of apocalyptic warfare and martial tradition had shattered and as they began to regroup, another sound filled the air.



The sound of reinforcements.



The sound of fury

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Next up, Ra cope posts a bit and delves into the history of the war with the ancients and shares his thoughts on a certain topic. Sek'Het and O'Neill the two first Prime's engage in a battle to the death.

Shout to the artist who did this because its fuck'n awesome.

Here's hoping I didn't fuck up the action too badly.

15: First Prime, First Duty.

Mandjet





He watched, in full regalia, his brass “skin” shimmered in the light and his robes fluttered in the breeze of the pleasure craft’s balconies. The velvet glove that had enabled him to incinerate a Jaffa brimmed with energy, his eyes glowed a white hue and the energy seemed to slide down his cheek, giving him a partially ethereal visage. They were doing it again, the accursed Tau’Ri were doing it again. He could sense it, the fury of the children below, the large horde of thousands coming on boats up the river, he could sense their hatred, their fury and their complete and utter ignorance of the Empire and its true nature.



-Sobek- Ra thought with disgust, it happened before, it was uncommon, but it happened. From time to time a Goa’uld of the lower breeds would become disgruntled with his or life, the tedium of bureaucratic governance. Or a Jaffa along the path of Sodan, the rigid honor code of Anubis would seek to abandon his warriors’ pride and relinquish himself to the cosmos. Seeking the higher state, the Ori and their idiot brothers sought, that state where energy, reality and thought became one. A state, so far only one race managed to reach for all the good it did them in the end. A Goa’uld on such a path, accessing the genetic memories of his ancestors, often was a lethal experience, or the ocean of personalities that came before threatened to overwhelm and the Goa’uld would go mad and commit suicide, or else need to be killed. But for those, descended from Ra and the other System lords, those who were..His eyes narrowed. Genocide, Lyra had called it when she tried to get him to see reason. Genocide of a dying race? No, Ra thought, it was justice. “Sobek” he hissed, he’d done such a poor job of education these people on the pantheon and preaching the structure of order that they thought the idiot governor of a bunch of backwaters was their true overlord and Hathor their goddess as if even Hathor herself did not bow to the Emperor, the Godhead.





Gods; why had they taken that title again?



Ah yes, because the wars of the great races in eons prior left everything so ravaged and destroyed that the System Lords were left with the unenviable task of dragging the whole galactic cluster out of a universal dark age. So many of the once, advanced species they took custody of had fallen into such a savage state that they could only understand what Ra and the System Lords were in terms of gods and magic. They were supposed to uplift those species, to beat the ancients at their own game but a broken people who wanted to be ruled could never be made anything but chattel. Over time, Ra grew tired of trying, the Tau’Ri and the humans of the universe were the only ones who really showed any promise and because of fools like Sobek and Egeria and Prometheus, Ra was always having to break them before they could be more than they were.









Behind him two children were playing a strategy game on a table. Holographic images of figures maneuvered in a chess like pattern. His body twitched, a slight curve of the lip conveyed a snarl as he watched the idiot eunuchs, oblivious to what was happening below. -Do they not see?- suddenly there was an explosion and then a pair of energy columns and then Ra felt the Mandjet shake. Great, he thought as his hand twitched at his side the rebels damaged the power plant system on the planet. That would take weeks to fix, as it wouldn’t be safe to land a large vessel anywhere near the damaged site and they’d have to send crews through the Stargate and land shuttles. His hair blew in the wind and he sensed a pause, a shift in the emotional tenor of the battle. Someone had snapped and the rebels charged and…gave pause to his Jaffa?



Ra’s blood boiled and when he turned and espied the children playing that rage converted into action. He waved his gloved hand, with the sheer amount of energy loose in the sky around the Mandjet, it was rather easy to reduce the two to charred bones. “I am facing a revolt of the faith and you worthless creatures play games!” Ra almost roared, but he calmed himself, holding in his manic rage.





It was all happening again!



What was it that Sek’Het said? -leave me with a contingent of Jaffa and-



No, no he couldn’t, he had to see this through. With a wave of his index and middle finger he sent the command, his mental powers activating the bomb.





The Gate Room



Jack O’Neill, had been in some firefights in the twenty years plus he’d served his country. He’d also had the misfortune of fighting child soldiers and fighting beside militias filled with teenagers in third world shitholes too irrelevant to remember now. He’d been in scrapes one could adequately call a clusterfuck. But Shau’re didn’t just cause the shootout with Dog breath’s men to devolve into a clusterfuck, she redefined the meaning of the word. Those weird ring things had barely lifted off the ground when she started shooting with her staff weapon, Dog breath let out a cry of fury and jumped out of the way sliding along the floor as she managed to hit what O’Neill suspected was the power supply of a staff weapon, causing it to explode in a maelstrom of pink and purple and orange sparks which rained down on Marine, Abydonian, bird dude and nerd alike. The person who held the exploding staff wasn’t there anymore. Oddly enough his legs were standing perfectly still, yet the rest of him was gone. Oh no, it was all over the place, never mind.



O’Neill didn’t have time to really dwell on that fact, mostly because Shau’re was howling like a lunatic and exchanging fire while Daniel ran in front of her, dropping to one knee both to shield her and cover her. The scene might have been an amusing Bonnie and Clyde type deal, if she wasn’t making it downright impossible for him to do any shooting of his own. It was only when the marble column where Shau’re was hiding had been hit and pieces of debris stabbed into her hip and calf that O’Neill was able to duck out from cover, finding most of them dead. With only Dog breath alive.



The Jackal Bastard rushed O’Neill grabbing him by the fabric of his jacket and hurling him across the room. O’Neill landed with a thud, wincing as he felt ribs rattle and an odd smoking sensation, prompting him to look to his arm, realizing the bastard was firing a staff weapon over him, deliberately skimming his body with the heat the Colonel felt a surge of rage. “Are you trying to cook me to death? You bastard!” He didn’t know why that particular action brought a surge of indignation forward, but it caused O’Neill to rush into the oncoming fire, tackling the warrior and knocking them both to the floor beside Shau’re who was swatting at Jackson and trying to tell him she was okay, that he needed to help the Colonel.



“Please don’t help me, the last time you handled a staff weapon you demo’d a mine!” O’Neill thought. Jackson shot at the Jackal, but his bullets dinged off its snout and ricocheted around, causing the bastard to reach for that weird side arm thing. He managed to fire a pulse at O’Neill who was frantically struggling to turn his grip, he managed too, and O’Neill was only hit with part of the energy, the rest crashed into the column beside Shau’re and another burst partially catching Jackson, who crumpled onto the floor beside his woman.



O’Neill was up, his eyes a haze of agony as every single nerve below the surface of his skin decided to go haywire. The Knife he’d been given was drawn and he slid under a blow and managed to land a slash across Sek’Het’s thigh. A meaty forearm came down against his back sending O’Neill sprawling was the response. Rising the Colonel staggered, then swayed before flipping the knife in his hand and nodding. Dog boy hated him, perhaps it was time to use that and drive him up the wall, get him mad, get him stupid. Recalling the insults Dog breath had heaped at him while he was in Ra’s brig O’Neill affected the alien’s accent “Whuu’rythlessss”.





The insult worked, the man reached over to the back of his right hand and the mask of Anubis retracted into the chain around his neck. The creature sneered at him and pulled off his breast plate, only flicking his wrists to call forth metal claws that formed around the tips of his fingers. Sek’Het would savor this, he would gouge out those defiant eyes. He would break this Tau’Ri war leader and then if Ra was kind, he would get to send the bomb through the gate with the Colonel’s blood not yet dried upon his hands.



The two clashed, O’Neill picking up a staff weapon and thrusting it forward, hoping to use it to beat on Dog breath before firing on him when he was down but Sek’Het merely caught the staff with one hand and with a grunt of effort, snapped it. O’Neill to his credit didn’t miss a beat and gripped the rear part and brought its counterweight down onto Sek’Het’s head. The gold splitting open an eyebrow, blood sprayed and a curse followed and O’Neill felt the claws of Dog breath’s left hand tear through his shirt and flesh. Sek’Het reached up and wiped blood from his eyes, the wound already clotting thanks to his healing abilities. Part of Sek’Het wished to show O’Neill what the fool Tau’Ri was facing, that it wasn’t a Jaffa or a mere human but a Goa’uld warrior with eight thousand years of combat experience. But the voice, was an ability only the system lords were allowed to use and any of the lesser Goa’uld breeds caught using it (Even one such as himself, being of Ra’s blood). Would face one of the worst executions imaginable, a torture that endured five days and five nights. The desire to humble this bastard and show off was so strong that Sek’Het was tempted to violate the rules, tempted to risk the Hon’dai method of execution. But he supposed he could settle for simply beating O’Neill to death then violating the girl while the scribe with golden hair watched. He sauntered forward, cruel eyes glimmering in the half dark and hefted up O’Neill, one handed. His free hand moving towards the man’s head, preparing to tear out the Colonel’s eyes he muttered what O’Neill had told him in the dungeon, with those defiant eyes.



“Fuu-uhh-ukk..yooouu” His hand reached for the Colonel’s left eye and he felt a searing pain in his side and he looked down to find Jackson had rammed the broken staff through his side below the ribs and up through the liver and into his lung. Blood sprayed from Sek’Het and he dropped O’Neill and kicked Jackson so hard the scribe almost flew into a wall. He staggered, coughing up blood, and deciding it was better to leave the shaft in until he could get to a medical station (His healing abilities could repair nearly all of this damage inside of a single evening Thanks to the System Lord blood in his veins, most of the lower Goa’uld would be dead from such a blow without extreme medical intervention. Sek’Het merely needed to stop the bleeding.) He advanced on O’Neill who muttered something in exasperation and disdain.



Good Tau’Ri! Good, appreciate what you now face. Still, to his surprise O’Neill lunged at him laying a series of powerful blows to his face and neck, the knife that the Nagada City master gave the Tau’Ri ripped into flesh and Sek’Het felt his insides slide out of one of the wholes. Someone kicked his legs out from under him and he realized it was that stupid Scribe and his female. The loss of momentum culminated in the human War Leader grabbed him by the throat and driving him down onto the raw, hard floor right within the circle?! Someone yanked the medallion Ra had gifted him off his chest. He struggled, even maimed as he was, it required all three to hold him until he saw the malevolent grin across the Tau’Ri leaders face.



He grabbed Sek’Het’s wrist and drove his hand down hard enough to activate the ring device.



“Nanei! Nanei! Nanei!”



“Give my regards to King Tutt asshole!”





The rings descended, crushing Sek’Het’s throat and chest, snapping his neck and an instant later a beam of energy converted his hosts head and most of his own to energy, ripping it apart. Decapitating him.





O’Neill sat beside the corpse, his whole-body sore in ways he hadn’t felt in a lifetime. Bruised, battered and probably concussed and yet, looking at Jackson and Shau’re who were leaning on each other, backs pressed together and laughing, O’Neill hadn’t felt this alive in a long time. “Here Jackson” he muttered tossing him Katherine’s medallion. In turn he handed it to Shau’re hoping that it would help with the recovery process and perhaps that it would seal something between them.





“Don’t you want a chance to prove your grandfather’s theories correct?” she asked me, go to another planet she said, the chance of a lifetime!” Jackson muttered laughing.



“That took longer than I expected it too” O’Neill muttered “I need to stop smoking”. Both Jackson and Shau’re regarded him with incredulous looks before the trio erupted in laughter. "You punk asses" O'Neill muttered with a smile.



“Alright” O’Neill said rising and trying to ignore the protestation of his right knee. “Let me disarm that nuke”



Limping over to the table the nuke rested on O’Neill moved to pull the arming device out. It continued to count down. O’Neill blinked “oh crap”.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

16 – Home









Kasuf ached in ways he had never ached in his entire life. Blood dripped from a gash above his eyebrow, his robes were torn and ragged and he’d broken his staff of office over the skull of one of the Horus Guard. It had been pandemonium, total chaos as they arrived on the banks of the river and witnessed the suicidal charge of the advance scouts, they’d sent under his youngest daughter along with Kowalski, the brave and mighty second of O’Neill and the giant Ferretti who was the only man Kasuf had ever seen who was able to fight Jaffa by matching them blow for blow (Though even his incredible vigor waned in comparison to the relentless Horus Guard). If there had been any doubt before in his mind about the course charted the night before it had been erased when Kasuf witnessed his only son pick up one of the divine lances Jackson called a staff weapon and fired it several times into a Horus Guard. His son faced with the loss of so many of his friends and hell of combat had refused to yield and instead only fought on with even greater fury.



Yes, Kasuf was as certain as he was proud and his resolve not to be a slave anymore was exceeded only by a father’s pride. Combined, the two made a formidable combination and despite the fact that even more of the dreaded Horus Guard seemed to appear in the space between pyramids to advance upon them. Despite the fact that the retreating Horus guard were mowed down caught between their furious comrades and his son’s forces and the few who survived were turned and rushed onward in a counterattack equally as suicidal as Skara’s charge. Kasuf could only laugh, he felt free, he felt strong, hell he even felt young again!







They disembarked four hundred at a time, boats left, others came and disembarked other rebels, others had ridden their Mastages and come on foot, crossing the river at its shallowest. All in all, fifty thousand Abydonians roared into the breach and their howls of indignation and war cries for freedom clashed with the sadistic cursing and demonic voices of their Horus Guard who were soon either torn apart or foisted up over the heads of an irate mob that cast them into the river or hurled them still kicking and screaming into the burning buildings. The stench of charred flesh, burnt plastics and molten slag filled the air and before Kasuf knew what had hit him (Literally), he was standing atop the ruined carcass of a Horus guard with dark skin, someone had stoved his face in and Kasuf had fired a staff weapon into his midsection after he thought he noticed something moving beneath the fabric under its armor. Though, Kasuf would later dismiss his concerns, it would be a report many would likewise share. A mystery for another time, or as more fodder for fireside stories of their great war for independence he supposed. Independence, the word sounded so alien to him, as alien as the strangers who began the conflagration that would lead to this fateful moment. On Jackson’s homeworld, he explained a group of City and farm masters such as himself and his peers, tiring of the taxation and theft and neglect of a faraway monarch had decided to rebel. To fight the greatest power of that world for the right to build a country of their own, a world within a world. Kasuf wondered if their valiant struggle was as doomed as he suspected they were.



The Horus Guard were defeated, overrun, but there was another five thousand inside the Mandjet and Kasuf doubted if even the enormous numbers fielded by the rebels would be enough and he was perfectly willing to accept the subsequent massacre if it meant so thoroughly demoralizing the derelict God that Amun Ra departed here never to return. But what happened next was something, no one could have imagined.



The Mandjet left…



Kasuf stood in wonder, no one alive had ever witnessed the Mandjet’s departure. The tops of the pyramids glowed and beams of energy which had remained invisible until now glowed furiously in the light and then something like a bubble seemed to perforate around the vessel, releasing a gust of wind that knocked hundreds down onto their faces and uprooted some of the trees in the groves in the parks between the pyramids. It wasn’t a normal departure, Kasuf was sure of that. It had been so abrupt and so violent that it truly looked as if Ra was running for his life! Thousands ceased their fighting or mourning and looked up as the silver pyramid like structure began to into the sky, passing the tops of the immense mountain sized pyramids and soon reach into clouds which protested their sudden dispersal with a cascade of lightning. It moved fast, far too fast to imply a leisurely departure and Kasuf looked from the ever-shrinking Mandjet to his son, who held a look of utter triumph and joy.



Kasuf had never been prouder of his boy.





Mandjet





Ra was over one hundred and twelve thousand years old, in his life he had gone from being the slave of a race of cowards desperate to cheat death to the mind behind the greatest rebellion the universe had ever known. From there, to the mastermind behind the war in heaven, when the great races attempted to stop him, to deny his people their destiny. He’d retreated before, of course he had! Any leader who spent an entire civilization to gain a single victory or ordered his armies to fight pointless last stands for not, but vanity was no leader but a mad fool willing to put a temporary measure of pride above the long-term glory of an eternal Empire that pragmatism could afford one.





His mind wandered back to Dakkara, twenty-eight thousand years ago. He was alone in the palace of Serenity his features a mask of contemplative tranquility that belied a rage that was almost pathological, a rage that he had long kept in check. Ra was no great warrior, even before he took his current host and his slender girlish form, he had never been a physical creature. That was Apophis, that was Anubis and Cronus. The sun was setting over the arid world and Anubis walked into the gardens from the many spas in the imperial winter palace. His human host had gray eyes and a dark black hair that fit the Jackal God depiction his worshippers bestowed upon him. Poor Anubis, who only ever loved his family and fought for the Goa’uld against slavery. Anubis, who had been the avatar of death in the religion that had cropped up around them.



Fitting in a galaxy emerging from a dark age that the God of Death would be associated with justice, fairness and benevolence. Whereas Ra was the golden radiance, the beautiful one, the unknowable and the feared. Their respective hosts were such a contrast and his carefree attitude had always been a perfect contrast to Ra’s austere, aloof nature and Hathor’s brazenly manipulative nature. Anubis who brought out the best of them, Anubis who could have taken the title Emperor, Ra sometimes secretly wished he had. -So, we lost one planet my brother in law! One world, we have more humans in our domain than exist on their world, plus the others, we took all the others-.



Yes, this was true, they had taken the other human like apes. They were so thorough in that, when he studied the books the cursed Jackson brought with him Ra found no mention of war between the “hominids” as his books called them, only that they had died out, mysteriously vanishing.



If they only knew.



-It is not just one world! It was the start of our new lives!-



-Ah, I see, you hate them because they remind you of us. Because we used them as the Ori sought to use us and they were perhaps more benevolent in their rebellion. Merely kicking us off their home world-.



Ra sometimes hated Anubis, most of the time he admired him but that day? That day he silently wished death on his best friend and greatest supporter and a hero even their enemies acknowledged as a great and noble warrior. He’d wished death upon that innocent man solely because he was right and yet wrong. Ra didn’t just hate the Tau’Ri, the Tau’Ri who had been the redemption his species needed to grow and evolve, to live again…But the penitence was terrible.



He had fallen back, retreated a thousand, thousand times. Returning with vigor and a new plan each time. The Alliance of the great races hadn’t stopped his empire from flourishing, even as they were driven to the brink of extinction their domains grew in size and splendor and then the Tau’Ri spared those domains from becoming monuments to yet another dead empire. Ra, felt no shame in retreat, because it was never a surrender. He hadn’t really ever feared death, for what did death offer a slave except release from bondage? Ra laughed bitterly as his hands slid across an altar in the throne room. Two large crystal cylinders emerged and began to glow his fingers traced across them and a series of hieroglyphs lit up. Ra, the Godhead, the Most High, the lord of all creation and master of death still on some level remembered what it was like to be a slave and to welcome death as though it were freedom. He never feared it, he’d laughed, laughed when Odin stormed the Mesektet but his pride did him in and he hated that sense of humiliation, of the final vengeance. Ra reviled the Asgard, for being a mirror into what the Goa’uld could have been had not the Great Races mucked the universe up so thoroughly. He hated the Asgard because they represented what the Goa’uld would one day surpass and then what? The Ori, their cousins the Alterans and those pathetic refugees that fled on their stupid city had all gone insane or else surrendered to stagnation. Was that the fate that awaited the Asgard? And if so, was it the fate that awaited his kind? The Tau’Ri showed him a third path and it frightened him.



And that was the truth of it, The Tau’Ri scared him, the co-dependency of their species was as much a chain around his neck as the compliance nanites had been from the Ori. The others didn’t see it, merely viewing the Tau’Ri was the largest of the demographics that comprised the subjects of the Imperium, trillions of mortals amongst the stars who obeyed and needed shepherding. But to Ra, they represented a threat far graver than any other branch of humanity. He knew it then, when he took the boy so long ago, when his hosts own formidable telepathy reached out to touch his mind. When Egeria admitted she confided in her host, he was as horrified as he was furious with himself for feeling desperate enough to consider her request.



Fool girl! He knew they had much to offer, that was why they were chosen! But that didn’t mean you took them to bed! She wanted their kind to become symbiotic with the Tau’Ri, for two to become one via a union of the spirit. Foolish girl! Didn’t she understand?! The Ori had tried that at first and it was a rape far more profound than she understood and when they began to subjugate his kind outright, it was a valuable lesson imparted to his primitive ancestors. Sentient beings were not meant to share a mind, they were predators by nature and both the Tau’Ri and Goa’uld embodied that! To ask for communion was to ask for the death of what made both races special. To Mongrelize two mighty genetic codes and in doing so, denigrate and mutilate both until neither Goa’uld nor Tau’Ri remained. He could never allow his rule to be that of a monarch presiding over the death of his race and the rise of some new, bastard species. The leaders of the rebellion earth likewise understood this and that those savages were the only ones who shared Ra’s enlightenment had also, petrified him. Tau’Ri was a backwater, even when it was the mother world of their hosts, even when it was critical, it was always little more than a mudball.



So was Abydos.



Ra ran from Tau’Ri and then ordered that the empire abandon the world, neglect it and ignore it as the map redrew itself yet again. He’d ordered the gate coordinates forgotten and he ran, he ran from the truth, he ran from himself as much as he ran from the Tau’Ri and he ran because the concept of fighting mirrors horrified him to his core. What could the Tau’Ri become if they were pushed as the Goa’uld had been pushed? He shuddered at the thought. This time, he couldn’t run, he couldn’t allow his people to run. This time, this time he would return and face his fear, he would not run again. He would head to Dakkara and call a thing that had not been called in two centuries. A great convention and a vote for war, he would make his case before the system lords and then he would marshal the empire for war. And bring the full might to bear against two little backwaters that no one had ever heard of. He would put to bed the last of the phantoms, he would avenge Egeria and avenge Sek’Het and he would avenge himself.





Perhaps if he wasn’t so focused on his panicked desire to call an imperial crusade against two minor worlds, he might have sensed the alarm and panic below the surface when O’Neill failed to disarm the bomb Ra had tempered with (Ra wasn’t much of a scientist, but he was pretty sure even a Jaffa child could rig an atomic weapon that simplistic.), he might have sensed the mutual conclusion and relief and he might have sensed O’Neill’s mad laughter, he might even have noticed the blinking light that was telling him the ring device within the Engineering section had been activated and what the computer system aboard his ship identified as more Naquadah to be taken to ore processing by the engineers. Ra did sense the panic in the engineering crew when they realized that wasn’t a crate filled with Naquadah but a Tactical nuclear warhead with a sticky note attached to it that read.



“It’s not the business of the United States Marine Corps to allow a visiting monarch to leave without a going away present.



Kindest regards, Johnathan “Jack” O’Neill Lieutenant Colonel USMC”


Ra had enough time to turn, his eyes glowing a bright white light that seemed to trace along his cheek, seemingly splitting his skin and the full weight of his psionic powers as he tried to deactivate the bomb in the fraction of a second between one and zero.





He had just enough time to realize he’d failed.





Below, the skies of Abydos lit up with a second sun, for several seconds as an ocean of energy a fireball the size of a small town lit dissipated slowly.





“Caesar is dead” O’Neill remarked with an amused grin. He was leaning on a Staff gun and Kasuf who seemed to take his meaning. “Long live the Emperor!” Jack added flashing Kasuf an amused smirk. “You’re gonna get laid so much now you know, that right? Hah! Yeah, you know what I mean I can tell”



Kasuf gave him a dignified smirk as if such an admission was beneath his stature and O’Neill laughed. Behind him Kowalski and Lahm shared a kiss as Jackson found himself muttering yes when Shau’re more or less demanded they partner. Jackson wasn’t going home, and O’Neill was fine with that, he deserved to be here amongst the stars in a world that both vindicated him and loved him.



That night, they burned the dead, enemy and ally alike in a great ceremony and the City and Farm masters proclaimed Kasuf to be the true successor of Sobek and charged him and his line forever more with the sacred duty of ruling and his first order of business was to offer the survivors of the first Stargate reconnaissance team to remain as part of the new order, to help him establish a decent fighting force should any more like Ra come from above. The offering was tempting for Lahm who saw so many opportunities for research, but she counseled against it, arguing vehemently that Earth maintaining a presence here would do nothing but harm given the nature of the situation. O’Neill agreed, he wanted to go home and set things right with his daughters any way and he didn’t like the idea of some shitheel State Department pencil pusher coming up here and screwing with these people. But he also understood they would need someone to help keep the peace and luckily Ferretti was more than happy to volunteer.





And so it was, on the morning after the Celebration of the first Abydonian Independence day, Lieutenant Colonel John J O’Neill, Doctor Carolyn Lahm and Major Charles Willis Kowalski stepped through the gate, bringing enough left over goodies (Though no weaponry) home to satisfy the brass but keep them from digging and an amazing story about a lost tribe of humanity amongst the stars.



And the evil alien who deceived them.



And the nerd who died saving their lives.



O’Neill would never see Louis Ferretti or Daniel Jackson again, he was sure of that, but he knew the surviving members of Stargate Reconnaissance Team Zero, or SG-0 as Lahm took to calling it would share a bond of fellowship not limited by time, or distance.



A broken man had led a group of soldiers and scholars into the unknown and he returned whole again, and the universe was minus one tyrant.



Ooorah!

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Children of the Gods Part 1- The Knight and the Serpent.

Try not the patience of King Cobras, for they’ve none and their wrath is matched only by their fury. – Indian proverb.







Cheyenne Space Force complex- June 27th, 2020



Five years after the Abydos Mission.







“I see your twenty and raise you fiddy”



“Ahh’m out” a mammoth of a man in the blue fatigues of the Space Force Marine regiment. Created by Colonel Jack O’Neill six months after he returned from whatever classified mission he’d been sent on and trained by Kowalski, they were supposed to be the premier combat unit of the “navy of the stars”. In many ways it was a return to form for marines who in the days of the age of sail fought in ship-to-ship combat. In others, the marines who made up the new “branch” of the Space Force were all too happy to take a pay raise and a bunch of desks to ride while global tensions were at a lull.



For Sergeant Ruiz and his group of losers, it was a great way to run a little poker and billiards ring. All in all, twenty men and women were in what was once referred to as the “Gate Room”, though none of them knew that. Those present here, had nothing to do with the Abydos mission, Kowalski had married Carolyn Lahm and accepted a post training Space Force Marines at a new facility in Florida near Daytona two years ago and O’Neill had retired a year before that. General West passed away from a stroke in twenty seventeen and General Landry and Admiral Ellis were at the main facility in Houston, Katherine Langford passed away at the age of one hundred and six after returning from a six-month expedition into Peru with her great grandchildren and a great-great granddaughter. Of all of those involved in or around the mission only one remained, the giant stoic Admiral Hammond whom everyone in the base affectionately (and not without some reverence) referred to as “The Texan”. Hammond was tall, bald with a barrel-chested and shoulders as massive as the mountain that held this facility, he still presided over the Mountain Complex and it seemed to be very much his own fiefdom for all the latitude he was given and willing to give his men.



Though he seldom came down to the “the hangar” anymore, he knew about the little party hall they set up down here, but he didn’t mind it. It was better for marines to be entertained or engaged in routine than to be stuck on their asses with nothing to do, Hammond at least understood that. “Hey Christmas, you gonna fold or what?”



Regina “Reggie” Christmas was a Lance Corporal who was relatively new to the base, having served here only six months. She was in her twenties and had the classic California beach blond looks, something that earned her nicknames like “Baywatch”, not that she minded. Reggie had six brothers, the juvenile shit just reminded her of him and if she was being honest with herself. Helped calm her nerves, because Regie, really, really didn’t like this assignment. The whole facility creeped her out, the cloak and dagger shit was supposed to be an easy way to fast track the ranks, but this place was just bizarre. At nights, she could sometimes hear things in empty hallways and janitors’ closets, and then there was that creepy fossil and the weird Egyptian cover stone thing on display. Civilians were always in here as well, something she didn’t quite know how to feel about.



“Hey! Regie, you gonna call or fold or what?!”



“Fold” she muttered; she was gawking at the weird ring thing under the tarp again. Elegant, yet Spartan, she’d caught a glimpse of it once. It looked like it was worth a fortune, with all the weird gem filled veins and gold and other material she couldn’t place, yet it was just there. Taking up space and creeping her out. “Do you..does anyone know what that thing is?” she asked the group of men.





“A money pit” Ruiz remarked, taking a long drag of a cheap cigar.



“A paycheck” Corporal Williams, his Jamaican accent still as strong as it was when she knew him when they were kids. It was nice to have at least one friend here. He’d been stationed here longer than her and he was well accustomed to how superstitious she was. “Just ignore the vibes!”





“Yeah” Christmas muttered before she felt a gust of wind and whipped around to the gate, the tarp seemed partially blown off. Her eyes narrowed “You sure that thing doesn’t do anything?” she asked. Another marine in the back by the makeshift bar groaned “She goes again, see’n ghosts”



“Don’t knock it man, my grandma she got the sight too” Ruiz said casually, between drags of his cigar. “Though she’s been a little off lately, she called me this morning telling me not to report for duty, saying I was gonna get bitten by a king cobra.”



“King Cobras?” Porter, one of the civilian’s researchers asked. “What does she think you’re stationed in Asia?”



“Nah, she knows where I am..I told her, ain’t no cobras of any sort in Colorado” Ruiz said with a wry laugh that died in his throat as the ground began to shake, the ramp to the gate groaned and the tarp came fully off.



Everyone stood, guns were grabbed, food was discarded and soon alarm was replaced with awe and terror as a dialing sequence not witnessed by American born humans in five years began and soon the whirring noise was replaced with a geyser of raw energy that tore a whole in time and space as it collapsed in on itself. Lights flickered, alarm klaxons blared and the room was illuminated by the deep blue glow of a wormhole, a tear in space, a bridge between worlds.





Christmas swallowed, Ruiz moved to stand in front of her, but she brushed him aside and started to walk towards the pool of almost clear, water like energy. The “sight’ as Ruiz called it, she was so superstitious because she’d always been sensitive, often times it was just being able to sense danger before it happened but sometimes, she could “feel” things, impressions. She’d always dismissed it as a talent she picked up from her father who was a profiler for the FBI but now? “We need to abandon the room” she muttered.



“Are you nuts?! We don’t retreat from lightshows Chonga” Ruiz muttered annoyed.



Christmas shook her head, it wasn’t the lightshow it was, something else, hungry, incredibly ancient and supremely aggressive. “I don’t…its...” her words were cut off as what looked like an ostrich sized Fabergé egg seemed to “splash” out of the pool and land, tumbling down the ramp. For a second nothing happened and then suddenly there was a violent flash of energy and a sequence of blinking lights. Someone shouted to “shoot the ball” and she pulled her side arm only to be hit by a surge of what felt like lightning that dropped her to her knees and caused her to convulse in agony. Above her head bright purple and pink streaks of energy smashed into her fellow marines, Williams her childhood friend was bisected by twin blasts that tore through him and careened into the pool table setting it blaze as his upper half went flying into another marine, causing him to tumble back into the bar.



“OPEN FIRE!” Ruiz roared but if their bullets connected with anything beyond the weird pool he would never know because the next thing he knew he was face down on the floor, his nose broken and several teeth knocked loose from the impact, which was when he realized he was awfully cold and then he realized why.



His left leg lay on the floor, the burnt flesh and ash that used to be his kneecap smoldering. The last thing he saw were five armored creatures with the heads of…



Cobras.





…….


Command level.





Colonel Bartholomew Samuels stalked towards the Texan’s office, while he’d been briefed on the Abydos mission, nothing exactly prepared him for the alarm that was roaring from the Gate Room. He’d hated this assignment, sent here to represent the “air force” component of the space force and its interests, he frequently found himself at odds with Admiral Hammond and with the duplicitous Maybourne. The facility itself was more of a shrine to that punk ass Marine and his dead team than it was anything useful. The souvenirs they’d brought back from Abydos, yielding some advancements in material sciences and computer speed but little else. They’d been playing with one of the devices for the last five years and some of the mineral samples but whatever headway was made there that lunatic Carter got all the credit for. Today had started with the same mind-numbing routine, wake up before dawn, exorcise, get dressed, listen to Director (Formerly Admiral) Ellis bitch at him in a conference call something or other and then off to get patronizing glares from the Navy seal and cold war legend that was George Hammond. God, he hated this assignment, he sucked at this assignment, he rued the day Congresswoman Kensey forced him into this shit assignment. If I had been on Abydos, maybe it would be worth it, maybe.



As it stood, all he had to look forward too was going home and going to bed. Until all hell broke loose. Maybe, just maybe he could convince the General to order the base’s self-destruct! Wouldn’t that be great! Oh who was he kidding, Admiral Hammond wouldn’t be so generous. Well, no, maybe he’d be lucky?



And then he saw the giant Texan storming out of his office, His side arm drawn and what looked like a non-regulation Bowie knife and belt being hurriedly strapped to his waist by Petty Officer O’Neill. No such luck Samuels rolled his eyes, the reddish-brown haired O’Neill twin was flanked by her sibling, who was a civilian and one of Carters fellow inmates at the crazy house. The Civilian one was repeatedly asking if she could have a gun to which Lieutenant Paul Davis repeatedly said “No” sounded like an annoyed older sibling. The sight would have been comical if it didn’t mean that Hammond intended to head down below and see what was up for his own damn self.



“Colonel Samuels, what in the hell is going on in my mountain?!” Samuels wasn’t sure what scared him more, the fact that Hammond was glaring at him like a sailor lost at sea might start eying a fellow castaway after five days without food or that he sounded less alarmed that space aliens might be storming Cheyenne Mountain and more annoyed they disrupted his nightly call with a member of his army of grandchildren.



“Reports coming in from the gate room indicate there was a breach” Samuels replied, the belt with the Admirals knife fastened the O’Neill twin who was a navy brat looked up confused “Something came through the gate?! I thought that was impossible!” She wheeled on her sister “Sasha! You and Sam said that was impossible”



Sasha O’Neill was about to bite back at her sister when Hammond wheeled on her and she all but shrunk under his withering “Impossible huh?” Hammond asked. She offered a frazzled smile “Well..we couldn’t get it to work anywhere else..”



“Ahh yes, because the two of you are smarter than the damn space king who built it correct?!” Hammond growled, twitching his head to the right nearly catching Petty Officer Sandra O’Neill mouthing “run” to her sister. What was he going to do with these two, he loved them like Granddaughters but sometimes he wanted to kick them down an elevator shaft.



“Well, sir I mean they’re like telephones..we figured, the lines were cut” Sasha blurted out, very much looking like a granddaughter on the receiving end of a scolding.



“Little girl, did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe something might have I don’t know? Fixed the lines?!”



“You mean like uh..C-cosmic cable guy? But Dad he..Well they killed Ra so who was left the fix it?”



“We’ll we’re about to find out, aren’t we?” Hammond asked as he resumed his stocking down the corridor “And Davis, give the girl a damn gun, will you?” he called back. Despite herself Sasha managed a triumphant grin. Along with a half dozen security personnel the group made their way to an elevator, ready for action.





Until she got into the elevator and found a Space Force tech bleeding to death in the elevator, something had opened his midsection and there were scorch marks above him, for a second Sasha nearly lost it. The O’Neill twins to their credit, didn’t freeze up, the memories of their dead brother, of finding his body hadn’t consumed them, probably because there was a chance, they were about to go fight space aliens. Probably or maybe they’d finally been able to heal, it also helped that neither of them wanted to disappoint the Admiral, who along with Ellis and their father were role models. Hammond to his credit didn’t even bother looking back to make sure they were okay, that subtle gesture of confidence did more to steady their nerves than anything else could have. -We’ve got this, we’ve been here before, nothing you can see is going to surprise you, you’re an O’Neill you got this-.



The elevator doors opened, and Davis managed to pull Hammond away in time to avoid an energy blast that tore open the side of the door. From one angle the Admiral could hear gun fire as the Space Force Marine Regiment was going apeshit on the intruders, coming towards the Gate Room with everything they had. On the other side, the alien trash that decided to trespass in George Samuel Hammond’s mountain and get away with it. In the smoke the old man could make out men in sleek leather like material with what looked like segmented armor along the upper arms and torso and their heads? A metal helm with glowing red eyes, in the form of Cobras, their “mouths” hissing and distorted demonic sounding voices produced by some kind of filtration system filled the air. They were armed with sleek black staffs, the base tapering into a spear tip and the top being little more than a gem inside a barrel. They were ornate but practical, far more militaristic than what the O’Neill report had described. Hammond didn’t waste time, he grabbed a rifle from one of the airmen next to him and opened fired, the snakes Helm took one, two and a third shot from armor piercing rounds before it finally crumpled, causing the snake man to hiss and growl, blinded and injured by the dented metal. Hammond finished him off with a bullet to the same area, causing its head to cave in. Men swarmed him laying down cover fire, but Hammond pushed through. Oh sure, Senator Hayes had picked him because he was a great administrator but Hammond was a SEAL and an old cold war dog first and pencil pusher third.



“How you boys doin?” Hammond called out to the marines who were fighting for their lives on the other side of the hallway. “Not bad sir! Just hav’n a little problem sir!” One called, it was a blond in her late thirties with an ashy voice, Carter? Yes, that was it, Carter, like the lunatic. “And what problem is that Carter?”



“Well, we got some trespassers sir”



“In whose mountain?”



“Your mountain sir!”



“Then maybe I should lend you marines a hand kicking these reprobates out of my damn mountain, out of our country and the hell out of our solar system!” Hammond roared, his blood up and his blue eyes burning with a little bit of madness. He was enjoying this too damn much.



“Sir! IT WOULD BE AN HONOR SIR!”



“Same here Carter, now let’s go get your boys and if we can’t let’s get even”



Her feral grin matched his own “SIR YES SIR!” turning she roared at her men to move and the group began to advance on the attackers. “Sir I recommend we don’t get anywhere near them, two of my men cornered one and that couldn’t have been more than fourteen and she tore them apart with her bare hands” Carter warned “I fed her a grenade though”



Of course, she did.





“You trying to blow up my mountain marine?!”



“SIR NO SIR, JUST DISCIPLINING A JUVENILE DELINQUENT SIR!”





More energy blasts whirred overhead, Sasha was forced to stay behind the detail, but she could see her sister managing to rush to one of the fallen attackers where she grabbed its weapon and, like a total lunatic spent two seconds out of cover trying to figure out how it worked before she shrugged and broke it over the head of one of the Snake dudes who staggered enough that he was taken out by a pair of Marines that had been left for dead in another hallway.



“How many?” Hammond called back.



Carter shook her head “We guestimate about fifteen”



“FIFTEEN?!” Hammond asked alarmed, there were a hundred marines down here, what the hell kind of enemy manages to force a hundred marines back. “To hell with this, lets go!” he roared.



The fight to the Gate room lasted almost an hour, despite mounting losses these snake aliens refused to yield. They didn’t give an inch of ground unless it was without cost, of the hundred marines and thirty Airmen who participated in the action, some seventy were left by the end of it and Hammond was certain part of that had to do with the enemy not being prepared for serious resistance.





Once they got closer to the Gate room, the carnage was even worst, techs were strewn about on the floor, there was even one dead snake man something that made Hammond offer a bittersweet smile to his fallen scientists. Below, in the Gate Room itself he could make out what was left of Ruiz and his party group, which was Reggie Christmas, draped over the shoulder of the one snake man whose helmet was “deactivated”. He saw a bald head to rival his own, dark skin and a pair of Dark blue eyes on a jaw that looked like it belonged on a Roman bust. A gold symbol of a Cobra with its hood unfurled seemed to be tattooed onto his flesh at the center of his forehead above the eyes (Despite obviously being gold). Eyes that looked grim, contemplative, and mournful. Another beside him, a younger male was issuing orders or so Hammond suspected, but there wasn’t really anyone left to issue an order too, they’d killed all the ones who’d gone up the facility.





Behind them, the pool of water like energy shimmered and what exited was a man in golden armor, who stood a mighty six eleven and yet was oddly sleek in his looks. Oh, he was coiled steel, Hammond could tell that by how he moved. He wore no serpents helmet, only a golden skull cap with an emerald serpent in the same pattern as the bald warrior. His face was gaunt, he had the look of a man who hadn’t slept very well in a long time, restless and only content now because he was engaged in battle. His smile was cruel and proud, very much the bravado of a King Cobra and his eyes which were almost turquoise looked incredibly old.



Which was a stark contrast to his body, which looked to be barely old enough to drink. Christmas began to wake, she elbowed the back of the bald man’s head he grunted less in pain and more in surprise, but it was enough that she came loose and landed, reaching for a side arm that wasn’t there any longer had been her fatal mistake because the golden man grabbed her by her throat and yanking Christmas forward in a violent jerk that seemed to nearly pop off her head, his eyes narrowing.



Something happened between them in that moment, he couldn’t tell what, but she seemed to twitch and gasp, horrified, confused and awestruck and then she screamed and went limp.



Sandra, Carter and Davis advanced and pointed their weapons. The golden man laughed, and his laughter provoked an odd twinge in Hammond’s chest, as if anxiety was rushing to the surface, at once he started to doubt and despair and he blinked confused, then he got angry. The golden man held Christmas in front of him, a human shield. Hammond didn’t flinch, instead he fired over her shoulder and managed to nail the golden bastard in the neck. The bullet bounced harmlessly off something around his throat under the uniform and when the bald man raised the staff weapon to fire the golden man uttered some kind of command that sounded like “CREE” and he lowered it.



The gate had shut off five minutes ago, according to readings, but the bald man pressed something on his right wrist and coordinates began to dial into the gate, too fast for Hammond to follow, soon the vortex he’d read about formed and the Golden man looked down at him.



And smiled in a mix of amusement and respect. Before disappearing into the vortex with what remained of his men.





In the aftermath, the Admiral could hear one of the O’Neill twins vomiting, Carter saying a prayer for her dead marines and the irate flailing of that idiot Samuels.



But Hammond could barely focus on it all.



Something had just invaded the United States, the planet Earth and his damn mountain and then kicked him in the balls and made off with one of his men.



Something, that was supposed to be dead.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Bayfield Wisconsin -O’Neill family lake house







It was nearly midnight when a pair of Black Chevy Taho’s pulled up to a rather large brick and wood house on the shores of Lake Superior. A home that looked like it belonged to some investment manager type, with really the only indication that it belonged to Jack O’Neill being the bronze statue of Popeye about to down a can of spinach at the center of the fountain. “Damn, this thing’s bigger than my neighborhood” The driver in the lead car whistled “How’s a Colonel’s salary net a place like this?”



“Fourth Generation marine, that and old man O’Neill and Jack’s Grandfather was a boot legger and a gun runner”



“Samuels!” Another voice from the car hissed, venom in her voice. It belonged to a woman in her early forties who was the only one in the detail who wasn’t in a Space Force Uniform. “Not the time” she added before swinging the door open and bolting out of the vehicle as if she’d been sitting next to someone with the plague. Colonel Samuels, the ever sullen and annoyed Colonel Samuels exited soon after her and made his way towards an oak door only to be told the Colonel was likely in the observation tower that was built on his private dock at the edge of the property. “He likes to look at the stars as much as he likes to hunt and fish” The woman remarked.



NID Deputy Director Kim Statterfield met Jack O’Neill in Kosovo in nineteen ninety-eight. Back then her name was Kim Seyun, the youngest daughter of a family from South Korea that moved to the US in the sixties. She’d been working as a sort of information broker and fixer, the pair exchanged intelligence and built up a repertoire. Their relationship had been beneficial, O’Neill introduced her to Robert Statterfield, a director of a program in Groom lake Nevada. He apparently was spook royalty and she ended up working for the CIA due to him, she was forty-four now, like Jack she had twin girls and she didn’t think she cried harder than when they buried Charly. What had started as a professional friendship where an older Spec ops vet mentored a dumbass kid in her over her head while using her for his own agenda (not that she minded, she did the same to him at the start) turned into a friendship that had lasted over twenty years.



Jack had been her best man; Sara and her daughters had been in the room when her kids were born. After the General West fiasco, Statterfield suspected the one reason why O’Neill didn’t go nuclear and put brains on walls when he found out that Sandra was transferred from the Florida base to the Mountain Complex was largely due to her (that and Abe Ellis promised to make sure his girls didn’t get into trouble and when the old Fox gave his word it was as good as the word of a god). Not that Jack wasn’t livid, Sasha was something he understood, both his daughters were geniuses (Both Kim and Jack were shocked about this little revelation), but Sasha had a knack for computation and engineering in ways few did. It was obvious Carter was going to poach her from MIT and Jack understood she’d be working at Area 51, way the hell away from the gate. But Sasha, Jack took the transfer of her to the facility as a threat from Kensey and Maybourne and he was probably right to do so. The West fiasco was…She put the thought out of her mind and gestured for the pessimistic asshole to follow her. It had taken a year to mend her friendship with O’Neill after he found out his girl was near the gate and she resented that a bit. She had no control over the military stuff, the fact that he lashed out at her bothered her more than she cared to admit. But none of that mattered now because the earth had been invaded by an alien menace.



Both her and Samuels strode along the wooden walkway that led to the O’Neill family personal dock and the large wood and brick observation tower that rose like a small Lighthouse on a tiny island that was some fifteen feet from the shore near the dock. Accessible by a wooden bridge she played how this would go in her mind. Part of her wanted to exhume General West’s corpse and shoot it for dereliction of duty for what happened, for dismissing Jack’s warnings that there was a chance (However admittedly small, both he and Kowalski insisted Jackson was likely correct that his empire was long dead) this Ra character wasn’t a remnant of a dead civilization but master of a Trans-Galactic hyperpower. He’d insisted what SG-Zero handed them as an after-action report was a jumbled mess of conjecture and hyperbole based off alleged telepathic visions handed to him by a space alien in the body of teenaged cave man. That part alone caused more than a few of the brass in that review to walk out. It was hard enough getting them to understand what they meant by “Ancient Egyptians copied the ruins of their colonial outpost” and most of them had glossy eyes by that point. In the end they concluded that, there was little to no chance of retaliation from Ra’s people because there was a good chance most of the ones who had advance technology either perished aboard ship or they would be too busy trying to recover from the loss of their leader and would be too far into their own decline to do anything.



This was a profoundly stupid conclusion, only Ellis, Hammond and Landry really fought it. Only those three and Jack O’Neill, well he finished up his tour, trained the next generation of Space Force Marines and then went on his merry way to retirement. Kowalski took that rough, but Statterfield understood it. There really was no way of knowing what happened out there amongst the stars and what would happen. And he was long overdue to relax, be a father and uncle and wait for the next generation of O’Neill’s to come along. After everything that happened when he returned, he deserved it.





“We should have brought the people in the other SUV” Samuel whispered, Statterfield pushed her auburn hair out her right eye and snorted derisively. “You think those rookies can’t stop Jack O’Neill if he doesn’t wanna come quietly” she asked not bothering to whisper, there was no way Jack didn’t hear them come up the stairs any way.



“Why wouldn’t I wanna go anywhere with you though? We good now!” Jack beamed, appearing almost out of nowhere in the doorway. He’d let his hair grow out again and the minor streaks of gray but otherwise it was almost impossible to tell that O’Neill was a little over fifty. He had a beat-up old flannel on and a led Zeppelin T under it and jeans that were stained with blood and smelled like they’d been inside something. “Deer?”



“Nah, Black bear tried to steal my fish, so taught it right”. From any other man that would have been an absurd boast, but from Jack O’Neill it was, well consistent from the man she knew. The only other person she’d blindly accept that from was Admiral Hammond, the man could command give the earth itself an order to stand aside and she’d shift orbit. O’Neill finally noticing Samuels smile broadly across his action hero looking face. “Who’s the gloomy guy? You didn’t dump Bob for him did ya?”



She rolled her eyes snorting “Fuck no”



Samuels twitched. “We’re here for you, Colonel”



“I’m retired gloomy”



“Not anymore you’re not”



“I retired a full Colonel right Statterfield?”



“Yup”



“Cool, then fuck off bean counter, you’re addressing a superior and he’ll come with you after you’ve had some bear burgers and beer” O’Neill said with a sarcastic grin.



“I thought you said deer?”



“Took the bear back too, what? Meats, meat”



Samuels seemed ready to have a stroke. “Sir…Admiral..Hammond..Requests you”



O’Neill blinked. Why the hell did Hammond want him? He’d been retired, did he want to give some sort of motivational speech to new recruits? Jack sucked at that. He had to know that, so then…wait, his commission got reactivated? Could they even do that anymore? Even to old Spooks like him? Why the hell did they…And then it hit him.



No, no, no, no, no he fucking warned them!



“Jack” Statterfield began, and O’Neill waved her off. His eyes narrowing “Three questions, where are my girls?!”



“With Ellis” Statterfield answered. Samuels tried to interject but she elbowed him into silence.



“Were they involved?”



“Yes” she whispered that out “But they’re fine Jack, they handled themselves well from what I hear”



“Good, that’s real, good, so then question number three. Was it the Stargate?”



She nodded.



“I’ll pack my kit”



…………

Chulak- same time.





Chulak was an earth sized moon orbiting the ninth gas giant of a binary star system. It lay some twenty thousand lightyears from Tau’Ri, deep within the heart of the Domain of the System Lord Apophis, the God of war, defense and expansion. One of the six fathers of the Jaffa, the Human Host Apophis took (and Apophis himself), along with two Neanderthals who impressed Ra and Anubis, Anubis himself and his Ori host’s genetic material had gone into their creation. From them, sprang the mighty warrior race and protectors of the Goa’uld and their Empire of Light. While Dakkara was the birthplace of the Jaffa and the Capitol world of the greatest Empire history had ever known, Chulak held a ceremonial place.



For it was here, that the first legion of Jaffa engaged the one Ori hermitage that had enough of its old strength left to wage an offensive war. Before them, the mighty Unas were the warrior champions of the System Lords, but their numbers were few. There was doubt among the System Lords that such beings as modified humans could match or even exceed the power of the Unas, but the Ori onslaught forced their hand and after millions of Unas were slain Anubis dispatched his brother Apophis to hold them on Chulak, their backs to the wall and accompanied only by Jaffa Apophis held the Ori fleet for two hundred standard days in a planetary siege that pushed even a System Lords formidable powers to the brink. When they did finally breach and land troops, their mechanized abominations met the first Legion of Jaffa.





One million Jaffa and Apophis met ten times their number in war drones and end stage Ori in battle.





Seven hours later only ten thousand remained, the first of the Primes standing bloody beside Apophis.



The Ori broke from that point on, it was inevitable and under mighty Ra’s command the Jaffa ground the remaining Ori into bones and ash. Chulak, with its vast primeval forests and harsh climate and the natural resources of the stellar system became the heart of the Imperial military.



On Chulak there were no Lotar, no baseline human ever set foot here, save for those hosts to Goa’uld. Everything was done by Jaffa, from menial labor and farming to construction, for Anubis believed that a soldier must be a builder and a simple man ontop of a master of war. Apophis had long continued his tradition, though Apophis was neither Anubis nor Ra.



And Ra was dead.





They weren’t certain when it happened, it was normal for Ra’s Imperial progresses to take a century. He traveled slowly, purposefully slow, stopped in places that had no value beyond sentimentality and to places of great import such as Vorash or Chuulak itself. It was also fairly common to go a year without hearing from him, for his imperial progresses were as much a sojourn from the courts as they were an important function. But five years, was far too long and six months ago, after tracking the Mandjet’s subspace wake a scout ship had found its wreckage floating over Abydos of all places. Abydos! A backwater of backwaters, in his own backyard no less. It was preposterous and at first, the confusion readings from the wreckage seemed to imply there was a fissile reaction near the vessels power plant. That had made no sense to anyone, but Osiris and Horus convened an official investigation which, likewise came up with nothing. Hathor wanted to venture to Abydos and infiltrate the world, walk amongst its people in disguise and examine their minds to determine they knew anything about what transpired there. But her sons and brother talked her out of it. After all, what would those cantankerous savages know about it? Their memories would be utterly useless as they’d be tainted by their own inability to comprehend anything outside of their frame of reference as anything but magic. Perhaps Hathor was skilled enough a mind walker to filter that gibberish out Apophis had explained to him, but it was a pointless risk.



A breakthrough came a week ago when one of Thoth’s researchers identified some of the isotopes involved in the explosion. It was an incredibly rudimentary form of fissile material, something that wasn’t very widely used within imperial space outside of the planets who were forgotten, progressed on their own and then rejoined the Empire. But such societies had ironically, never been a source of rebellion outside of the Cyranus system but that seemed to be more Amaterasu’s fault than anything else. Teal’c sighed, he would have liked to have met those “Colonials” and fought their robots. Artificial life was a rarity within the known universe, mostly because it was even more mentally flawed than natural life and thus tended to destroy itself far more often than non-synthetic societies. The few times he had fought a robot, it had been an exhilarating test of his mind, body and warrior’s spirit. His thoughts turned to Ra who often encouraged Jaffa to look to their souls as much as their bodies. Ra, Teal’c had the honor of feasting with him after the end of the Titan’s rebellion, he was cold, austere but he could sense something noble buried below it all.



Ra, who forged the Empire of the System Lords, whose leadership guided them for nearly one hundred thousand years. Who led them through the aftermath of an apocalypse, Ra the artificer of the golden age they now enjoyed?



What would happen now? The whole of the Empire was in mourning, the System lords were beside themselves, all but Apophis who seemed restless and full of energy as if the death of Ra had somehow freed him from some terrible burden.



“You’re contemplative tonight my love” the silky voice belonged to a woman with copper skin and thick green hair and eyes that were the color of the night sky a deep indigo. Drey’ac, the mother of his son, one of the nine Captains of the Fleet, the equal of any First Prime, though Teal’c was no First Prime, he was War Master, one of only two living. And of the two, the only one who could command the forces of any System Lord. That Teal’c was the second First Prime of Apophis to win that honor in the last two centuries was a point of pride for the entirety of his master’s domain. Drey’ac walked behind him, threading her arms around his waist, and leaning into his back. Her hands were warm, despite the cold of Chulak’s autumn, like Teal’c she didn’t look a day over twenty-five, but like Teal’c she was one hundred and seventy years old. Like Teal’c she had held her position for eighty of those years, making them both the youngest Jaffa to reach those posts.



But that accolade paled in comparison to one hundred and fifty years of marriage and a son who was everything Teal’c could never be and everything he was. “Are you pondering Apophis’ actions again? Or the strange weapon you brought home” She whispered as a new moon rose into the sky and the night sky’s color shifted from indigo to a gentle purple as they passed a hurricane upon the gas giant’s surface larger than the planet itself. “Both” he murmured.



Teal’c was First Prime, the vast farmland and immense palace they occupied was a testament to that. That meant he was in charge of the entirety of his lords armed forces, more than that. His duty as War Master meant he was involved in the holdings of every System Lord and their defense. It was insanity to be involved in the kinds of raids and skirmishes he’d participated in back when he was a new warrior. Worse that Apophis was conducting himself like some, grotesque caricature of a System Lord, raiding backwaters for Lotars as vain Amunet sat inside Shaun'ac refusing any and all hosts that were offered to her, like some spoiled child. Klorel was another oddity, a System lord in power though not in rank, conceived by Apophis on another Goa’uld of a breed so low their larva weren’t even used as Prim’Tah’s . Forty years ago, he’d taken his first host, he’d taken four since then. One each decade, for it seemed that he could not maintain them for long, likely an artifact of his low birth.



Apophis couldn’t control his lusts, he’d been dangerously bored this last century and the System Lord Teal’c had once respected, admired and loved was now acting like a drunken thug. “I do not understand why he does this. Engages in such bestial conduct, why he debases himself and places himself in such risk and why he would have me play the part of a common bandit” It was worse than that, Apophis seemed to genuinely enjoy this lunacy, as if indulging in his baser nature and feeding Amunet’s capricious nature were the only two things that brought him any peace, disgusting. And this world, the coordinates were on none of our databanks and yet he conjures them from memory but does not say where he learned them or how he knows them? We went into an unknown and fifteen of his personal guard were slain and for what? A child?!” he spat.



“That child is the lady of Domain of night, my love and while Ra refused to accord her the full status of a noble wife or mistress, she shall still rule in our domain to some degree. Have a care my love, we do not know what her abilities are, only that she tested for the potential to manifest as one of the peers”



The “peers” referred to the unique sub species of Goa’uld called the System Lords, the most powerful and oldest of them, the ones who possessed abilities far more extraordinary than the already remarkable gifts of the Goa’uld. They were rare, Teal’c doubted more than two dozen existed, each with a baseline set of gifts and the strongest amongst them with some gifts unique to their nature. Of that two dozen, only ten were true System Lords and ruled the three Galaxies. Not counting Yu, the youngest sibling of Ra and his heavenly Kingdom which Ra permitted to be semi-independent of the Empire of the System Lords. Yu acknowledged the authority of the House of Ra and paid him tribute, but Teal’c had no authority over his Jaffa. His borders were his own and he was recognized as a King not a Lord. Though Teal’c supposed the title of Emperor made sense then, for a king yielded to Ra’s will. The relationship between Yu and Ra was a mystery and subject to much gossip, no one knew why Ra allowed this, but he had stayed out of the politics of the Empire, obeyed its edicts, and acted as a sort of shield against threats from outside their farthest frontier. Excluding Yu, only ten were true System Lords, those like Klorel who possessed the power but utterly lacked the ability to use it properly would never account amongst the Peers and if Ra, Zeus, and Osiris had their way, neither would Amunet due to her humble origins, though it seemed she too lacked the discipline.





“Our second son warns me of her often” Drey’ac said breaking the embrace to walk to the edge of the balcony. Leaning against the cool brass railing she smirked at him. Teal’c had long grown accustomed to his wife referring to the Prim’tah she carried as their other son. Most Jaffa, like Teal’c carried infant Goa’uld that were bred to never mature, to remain in their larval state forever. They were mindless, possessing intelligence comparable to that of a beast of burden and they existed only to bestow the healing powers and longevity of the Goa’uld on the Jaffa. A Jaffa could live to be four hundred (Teal’c grandmother knew a temple priestess who lived to be five hundred), the Prim’tah simply died with them when old age finally claimed them, presuming they weren’t killed in battle in the millions of skirmishes Jaffa faces across the known universe as they had become keepers of the peace more than soldiers since the empire hadn’t expanded in ten thousand years. Occasionally, a Jaffa would achieve deeds worthy enough to be implanted with a Prim’tah that would mature, it was a rare honor though it probably happened to a thousand Jaffa each century. Jaffa trusted with this task would have a hand in the psychological development of the infant, their shared experiences and thought processes. It was a risky venture, but it was done to seal the bond between the warrior caste and their masters. To ensure that the Jaffa served willingly and that it was not a wholly one-sided affair. Teal’c had not earned the honor himself quite yet, Drey’ac’s maneuver during the battle of Corlet in the Andromeda Galaxy was remarkable. Teal’c was a rare Jaffa indeed to know two Jaffa who had received this honor. The “child” growing inside his wife’s pouch was powerful, he felt it touch his mind once and there was a chance it would be accounted among the peers, which made him fearful.



Yet oddly, Apophis could not sense it, nor could Klorel. It was as if the young one concealed his presence. Drey’ac insisted he was a kind soul, likely cut out to a scribe or a law master or one of Thoth’s researchers than a mighty lord. Teal’c concurred with the assessment, what he felt from that one was nothing like their Lord. “He warns you?” Teal’c asked and she nodded.



“Though more of late, as if your adventure into that world that you took the crude projectile weapon from has heralded something”



“I see” Teal’c said troubled, Prescience was an ability Amaterasu and Hathor possessed, but it was exceedingly rare. Though, perhaps this was merely instinct from the little one? Feeding off the experience of two battle worn veterans. “I too felt…a stir when I set foot upon that world, though I cannot explain why”



She looked from Teal’c towards the snow-covered rolling hills and fields that stretched on seemingly forever, Apophis ruled a domain of nearly eleven thousand thousand lightyears. Some of which lay in the Andromeda Galaxy. It was the largest of all the domains within Imperial space, but hardly the wealthiest. Yet here, on Chulak they had found prosperity and in the service of a worthy God, or one that had been they were younger. But at what cost? “Teal’c, I know what you are planning”



He looked away “You can go to the Realm of the Osiris or Set. Thoth would welcome you for your insights into space combat. His scribes are ever searching for newer designs”



She chuckled softly “Be a test pilot as I was when we were children” she reached out and traced her fingertips along his bald scalp. “I thought perhaps Ba’al, his wealth is beyond any of other System Lord, and he has many problems with piracy”. Ba’al was also the youngest system lord, he was devious, cunning, and adventurous yet he had a sense of fair play that was fast becoming legendary. Under his service, Drey’ac and their son could establish their own Warrior house, perhaps even a school of aerial and spatial combat that she had always dreamt of. Amaterasu was off the table, even after all this time she still hated Apophis and would turn away any Jaffa born in his lands. Hathor and Horus would be the best choices, yet there was tension between the House of Ra and Apophis. It was a sad conversation, a sad thing to entertain and yet, if he did not, how long would this madness keep? “I must think on it, perhaps our departure would not even reach him. Perhaps if we stay”



“Teal’c! Stay?! Apophis was talking about expanding the fleet, training more Jaffa, he ordered my southern fleets to the border with Horus! Teal’c” Drey’ac’s pleading tone surprised Teal’c but what she was suggesting.



“You speak madness woman! No System lord would dare!” Teal’c seized her, horror in his eyes and then he nearly flinched the instant those words left his mouth. Had Bra’tac not become a legend for crushing the forces of the rebellious Cronus? Had Teal’c and Drey’ac both not fought in his insurrection as children? Was that not how they bothered entered Apophis service? Raised up by his mighty hand? Noticing the look in her eyes, questioning the foolishness that left his mouth he raised an eyebrow “Indeed and yet in the time before that the last civil war was Egeria’s uprising and that was almost forty thousand years ago!”



“There was one after Egeria’s” Drey’ac whispered and Teal’c looked away, they would not speak of the Fallen One and his attempt to cover the universe in horror and torment. No one spoke his name, not even the Asgard, he was dead, and the known universe was safe from such evil.



“Were they not concurrent?” Teal’c asked with a sigh. What she was proposing was impossible, the System Lords and the Heavenly Kingdom had kept the peace for nearly forty thousand years. A hard fought, hard won peace against implacable enemies and the known universe had known peace since then and the System Lords prosperity. If Apophis was truly threatening such stability for a throne Teal’c knew he didn’t covet..then it meant he was doing it solely for the blood.



-…How can I have missed what he has become?”



“Because you remember the Apophis of our childhood, who spoke to you as a son and me as a daughter and placed us at his right and left hand in the war against Cronus. Who allowed you to avenge your father and who said the funeral rites himself? But that was a shade, a phantom of who he was once, long ago, when the Jaffa were still young. You remember how Bra’tac described him? A mound of corpulence, barely able to survive outside of a resurrection chamber. Someone who raped millions of women and kept more mistresses than most of the other Gods keep honor guard? Teal’c if our son is right if I am right. We cannot be a party to a war for a throne for the sake of itself! If Apophis truly wished to honor Ra and keep the peace that might be one thing but…This?” Drey’ac came closer to Teal’c pressing their bodies together, urgency in her eyes. “We cannot remain, and you must make your blow a political one. You must cost him some measure of power”



Teal’c considered, his mind wandering back the battle on that strange world. Towards the iron look in the eyes of the bald War chief, the fury and concern. What would it be to fight for such a master? Perhaps his exile would not be enough, but a blow as extreme as sedition…



“If I do this, we must go our separate ways” Teal’c muttered, if he chose to go renegade, he would not drag his wife and son down with her nor the peer she carried within her. Perhaps in treason, he may serve his god better.





But all of this was the debate of two people in a state of panic. He had to think on this with a calmer head. He had to Kelno’Reem, he could not render any decision even if they both had thought on this for some Several years now. He could not make such a decision in haste, with his blood up.





Apophis could not be that far gone

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Cheyenne Mountain Complex- USSF facility



June 28th, 2020





“It’s a bit of a ways down sir” The poor Corporal immediately regretted it when he heard Statterfield’s laughter. “Hey Jack, did you know the Gate Room is a ways down”



“Kept asking them for elevator music” O’Neill replied with a neutral expression, it felt weird to be back in uniform, it felt weirder still to be back here and it felt even weirder to have his hair cut by Statterfield, that ended up bringing back awkward memories about a jungle raid in brazil, a would-be warlord. Some really bad mushrooms and a goat and one very confused Statterfield, that had been what? Two thousand? Oh one? A few weeks before the towers? He couldn’t remember, but he remembered her kicking the goat out, dragging him from the shack and submerging him in water. What happened with the goat again? Oh right, it ate some intel report and O’Neill had been too high courtesy of his captors to reason, so he just took the goat and blew the place.





Things were simpler then, he didn’t know about Ra and his possibly nonexistent, possibly existent empire. His daughters hadn’t gotten into a firefight with space men, and he didn’t know anything about project Giza or that nerd he left behind on space Egypt. “You got an office here?” Jack asked, noting how everyone seemed to recognize her when they came in together.



Or it could just be that they were ogling Statterfield, she was a looker even now and young adults no matter how much of sensitivity training nonsense you try and beat into their heads, were always going to be young adults. Man, woman, you stayed stupid, horny and arrogant until you turned thirty and realized life had kicked you in the nuts.



Statterfield shook her head “No, but I’m required to make quarterly visits to make sure everything is running smoothly. The facility sort of lost its prominence after you guys came back from Abydos.” “Didn’t realize we were that important” O’Neill remarked with a smug grin on his face that made the woman shake her head. “Sam, she tried hard to make it work, President Obama and the joint chiefs might have been, skeptical about your warnings, taking the interpretation that Ra was the last of his kind and whatever assets he had left would likely not know where we are”



“But Hammond and Ellis still believed, so while you were training the next generation of space marines. They had Sam try everything to “dial” into another world. Do some recon, maybe prove the threat to help us prepare”



With the NID and certain, reclusive magnates involved, he doubted it was just about proving threats. “We couldn’t even move the interior ring, your daughter helped Doctor Carter create an algorithm that almost got us to six chevrons but” she shrugged. “We tried, but the brass just wasn’t convinced, so they ordered priority be given into Project Constellation”.



They both went quiet there, no need to rehash the topic beyond that. Still, Jack was glad they had tried, even if it was in secret. “Fuck’n area fifty-one” Jack remarked “That psycho Carter and her mega dweebs get all the money and attention, but they haven’t produced anything and that whole damn facility hasn’t done anything since the B2’s”



“Being a little harsh aren’t ya Jack?” Statterfield asked, a mischievous grin flashing across her face. It was amusing working him up into one of his rants about how academics were the ultimate threat to the species, because the more they knew the more they wanted to go “stick their dicks in a hornet’s nest”. When the elevator doors opened Jack stopped before he could start, eyeballing the burn marks on the walls, the places where concrete had been blown off. The repair crews and, the dried blood. “They got this far?”



“Yes” Statterfield remarked.



Then it couldn’t be Ra, Jack reasoned, his fears that the powerful alien who seemed to border on the mystical had somehow survived a nuclear bomb going off in his face evaporated. The guys he fought were dangerous, four of them wiped out the bulk of his marines in under five minutes according to Ferretti. But once you got them out in the open, or in the right spot, they were too lightly armored to hold up to sustained fire for long, especially from some of the weapons he saw. Some of those next gen guns looked like toys to him, he figured they would have torn Ra’s half naked warriors apart. Jack didn’t like the implications there, but he refused to let himself go bonkers in speculation until he actually saw the man.



“How’s Hammond?” O’Neill asked as they rounded a corridor and he noticed one of the janitors was doing his best to mop with an eyepatch and what looked like cuts all over his arms. “Did someone loose a grenade in that room?!” O’Neill asked gawking where the smoking section had been when he’d shared command with Langford. “Yup” Statterfield remarked and he chuckled to himself shaking his head. “Christ what a mess”



“Hammond is fine, but he’s furious” she said but she wouldn’t elaborate on why which annoyed Jack, but he was used to it. Admiral Hammond in many ways reminded him of Ra, or at least what the mental intrusion implied Ra might have been once. A skilled administrator but also someone imperious, confident and relentless to the point that you wanted to do ten times what he himself did, not to outdo him but to thank him for the example he set and the loyalty he had for his superiors and more importantly those under his charge.



Yup, Admiral George Samuel Hammond must have been pissed. You didn’t catch a man like that with his pants down and not suffer biblical consequences. And as they made their way towards Hammond’s rather spacious office, he noted both Kowalski and Lahm sitting outside of the doorway, looking like chastised children. Children who remained defiantly loyal to one friend, over someone they respected immensely. -I’ll make it up to them- Jack thought.



“Here is where we part” Statterfield remarked.



“Really?” O’Neill asked, somewhat annoyed the one thing that remained from when the universe made sense besides his kids was departing.



“Yeah, I need to brief the President and then I’ve got a parent teacher conference”



Her kids were still High School age, he forgot. “Have fun with that” Jack remarked, unsure which was the harder task. Briefing the President or playing the soccer mom when you just learned something world shattering and all you wanted to do was take your kids out for pizza.



He’d done both before and he concluded that the hardest task was walking into Admiral Hammond’s office and admit to him that you lied to his face for five years. He stopped to receive a hug from Lahm and a handshake from Kowalski who were both elated and scared to see him here but before he could ask why an irate Texan roared for him to get in there.





Entering, the first thing O’Neill noticed was that the Admirals Bowie knife, a family heirloom was embedded in his desk. The second, that there was a terrified member of the Joint chief’s on the other end of a monitor who was hastily thanking Hammond for his time and ending the call. O’Neill looked at the tall, bald mammoth of a man who could go from being the world’s most forgiving superior or grandfather to the living embodiment of divine wrath in the blink of an eye when needed and realized, from the lines on his face and the haggard look in his eyes that he must have been closer to seventy than sixty and he wondered why Hammond hadn’t been forcefully retired out. Beyond the fact that everyone was so terrified of him that they probably just kept cutting him checks and promoting him and would likely do so until he died.



Ellis was similar, only Abe retired and traded fatigues for a suit and still kept his power. Which made sense, both of these two men represented a world that existed now solely in the history books and the deeds done by both men, in the light and in the shadows were likely at least partially responsible for the why that world existed only in books. Ellis, a modern-day Nelson, or MacArthur, Hammond the navy’s very own Patton and some dumbass space Pharoah decided to fuck with their house. “Damn fools” Hammond seethed shaking his head. “O’Neill!” he turned reaching out for Jack’s hand and of course giving the Marine a vice like grip he was only too happy to respond too. “Space Force Uniform this time?” he asked looking Jack up and down, seeing the green on red. Differentiating the marine part of the USSF, from Hammond’s navy blue and the grays of the “aerial and spatial combat division.”



“Yeah well, I’m back what can I say?”



“And I told you so might be appropriate”



Jack shook his head, not to Hammond. “You believed me sir” he wanted to flinch knowing what was coming.



“Lot of good it did” Hammond groused before gesturing for Jack to take a seat. “Tell me about Doctor Jackson”.



Oohh boy. “There wasn’t much to him, he was a nerd, he sneezed a lot. He did learn a language real quick and get us home though, that counts for something in my book”



“But you didn’t like him?”



“No, not at first Sir, he was an untested commodity” O’Neill began then adding “But he was right about a lot of things”



“But not this remnant of a dead civilization business” Hammond countered. O’Neill allowed himself to nod “Yeah, well he said he couldn’t be sure, in his defense”



“Not wanting to speak ill of the dead?” Hammond asked, a knowing look in his eyes. Damn!



There was a moment, where Jack almost looked back at Kowalski and Lahm, but stopped himself before his body began to move, or so he thought. Except the old sea dog shook his head and chuckled “No son, they didn’t give you up, you did just now.”



Jack barely had time to register the Admiral was taking a swing, but he did register the fist nailing his cheek and his ass sprawling onto the linoleum.



“What was that for?!” Jack muttered, rubbing his cheek, trying to pick himself up gracefully. He’d just been knocked on his ass by a grandpa, the same grandpa who walked over, grabbed his shoulders and set him down in his chair like he was a kid who just took a belt to the rear. Outside, Lahm shot up, but Kowalski grabbed her wrist and shook his head. No, the Colonel had to fight this battle alone.



“Lying to me” Hammond remarked as he made his way to decanter full of what O’Neill suspected was a bourbon of some sort. Two glasses were poured, and Hammond handed him one before he made his way towards the rear of his office where he gazed at a map of the solar system done up to look like a map from the earliest years of the age of sail. Jack couldn’t help but notice the Dragons that marked the edges of the map.



Dragons, Snakes, alien beings that possessed cavemen, here there be monsters, but the cat was out of the bag now.





“Start again Colonel, from the top this time” And so help me, Hammond thought. If any information the Colonel omitted could have changed the minds of those idiots in DC, there was a good chance O’Neill wouldn’t leave this room alive.



And so Jack began the sordid tale, about their arrival on Abydos, the meeting of the people of Nagada and all the things that Hammond already knew, only the part about Ferretti and Jackson taking the bomb to Ra with it rigged to detonate the moment it was tampered with, heroically sacrificing themselves left out. Instead, O’Neill told him of how Jackson had indeed helped him destroy Ra, but that the nuclear weapon detonated in orbit over Abydos and how neither he nor Ferretti were dead, how instead they remained on Abydos, both to help the Nagadans rediscover the civilization denied to them and to prepare them for a defense should anything return.



The story infuriated him, but the old man kept his calm, sipping his bourbon and playing the odds in his head. Gross as this breach of protocol was, it served a purpose. O’Neill had reasoned that he allowed those two to remain (Ferretti because he wanted to protect Jackson and help their junior Marines and Jackson because he’d fallen in love with this Shau’re person and because he would be instrumental in helping them back on track). Because it served two purposes, the first being to defend Earth. O’Neill had argued that who ever was left of Ra’s people wouldn’t come to earth, but to Abydos and if they were truly a remnant civilization than the trouble would end at Abydos, defended by the army Ferretti was building and hopefully encountering a people who had regained some measure of their former selves. The other being that, if the same morons who had been so insistent on ignoring his warnings about Ra potentially being the leader of a truly vast empire would likely insist that they return to Abydos to begin mining the planet for Earth and that could potentially bring all manner of unwanted attention their way.





They were good enough reasons that Hammond wasn’t going to punish him, he would include in the report that the deception was squarely his and he knew Ellis would likely also step in and claim it and court martialing him and arresting Ellis would be too..risky. “These people, these bird men as you call them” Hammond began but stopped himself, instead he opened the door and gestured for O’Neill and the other two official survivors of the Abydonian mission to follow him. One they reached the medical facility O’Neill understood why the Admiral had held back his question. The room was filled with bodies, many of their own and more than a few who looked like they were very much not of earth. “These bird men, was there anything inhuman about them?” He asked.



“You mean like Ra?” Jack asked shaking his head. “No, except that they were strong as hell and their Captain seemed to be learning our language like he was fed it by Ra’s telepathy”. Hammond nodded “Strong but they didn’t have anything unusual about their physiology?”



O’Neill shrugged “Truth be told when we did drop ‘em they were often too mangled to make heads or tails of it”



Lahm who’d been looking over the bodies gasped when she pulled back the blanket over one of the serpent men and caught the slits on the body’s stomach. “Is that?” she blinked sliding on a pair of gloves. “Is that a pouch?”



“Yes, though Doctor Fraser believes both sexes have them” Hammond added before his left eye twitched lightly watching Lahm ease her fingers into the pouch. Colonel Janet Fraser was an airforce doctor who had been involved in the stopping of a few pandemics, in her late forties the woman had several medical degrees and like Ellis was somewhat of an autodidact. Her amateur work on theoretical xenobiology and speculative psychology were pretty well received in popular science type magazines. Unfortunately, like Ferretti she had a bit of an X-files side, being obsessed with cryptozoology.



Hammond, West and Ellis seemed to enjoy surrounding themselves with the freaks. Then again O’Neill realized he was watching a former colleague root around inside an alien bimbos pouch. “Bullet holes, you guys got lucky and shot through her pouch..hmm..there’s something else here” she flinched and yanked her hand away “Sucker has teeth!”



“There’s something alive in there?!” Hammond asked -Damnit Fraser- “No, not alive, its torn apart, my guess is by enemy” she quirked her head eying the mix of blood, mucus and…Blood? There was a blue substance that seemed to glow slightly on the tips of her index and middle fingers. “This didn’t show up on imaging?”



Hammond shook his head “No, Janet would have told me about it if it had. What the hell is it?”



“No idea, but it’s definitely not her offspring, I’m not even sure if this counts as blood or coolant” she murmured “But my guess, these soldiers carry these for a reason” she looked the woman over, she appeared to be roughly thirty or forty with pleasing if exotic features, high cheek bones and evidence of the same mixed human and other hominid ancestry the abydonians had but far more pronounced. “During the battle, I saw one of Ra’s killers up close. His armor was knocked loose and I saw something below, slits like this and what I thought were spasms of his abdominal muscles but now”



“Damnit Lahm why didn’t you say something?” O’Neill asked perturbed, if they could have presented a freaky detail like this maybe it would have turned enough heads.



She smiled “Because Sir, they were already looking at you like crazy when you described how the Star god possessed caveman pretty boy molested your brain with science fiction movies.”



“Fair enough” Jack muttered, catching an amused spark in Hammond’s eyes.



Kowalski who had been looking over the gear picked up the black spear like weapon. It was smaller than the one Ra’s bird dudes used, and Kowalski noted, lacked all the ornate trappings and was shorter by half a length. Though there was a beautiful depiction of a water garden on the staff it didn’t draw the eye and after a moment of searching for the trigger he laughed when a stock emerged. “Colonel, look at this” he tossed Jack the staff and O’Neill caught it nodding his head, the thing had to weight less than a pound and yet it felt like it was hard enough to cave someone’s head in. “Baton setting” he squeezed the grip slightly and the gem at the top glowed.



“Is that what was used against you on Abydos?”



O’Neill shook his head “The ones we dealt with on Abydos seemed to be for crowd control and might have been more ceremonial, this, this is like a military variant. Did they have those weird tase guns?”



Hammond nodded “We recovered a half dozen of them.” The Admiral’s eyes shifted to Lahm who was looking at the imaging results. “It’s weird, whatever is inside them doesn’t show up but man, their muscle and bone density is wild. It’s like a gorillas sir and I can’t even guess at what the thing in there is…Unless maybe it’s some kind of performance enhancer”





“A living steroid pack or something?” O’Neill asked, it would certainly explain dog breath, being impaled, stabbed and everything else and still coming.



“Maybe Jack” She turned to the Admiral “Sir on Abydos most of the civilians there were human but they were very clearly heavily mixed with what I think were other hominids. Like the Neanderthal, these guys here. “she gestured to the dead woman “Have features that are even more pronounced, but I can’t guess at what went into it. My guess? We’re looking at someone bred to be strong, healthy and athletic. This lady has a cardio-pulmonary system that would make most work horse breeds blush. Put her in the Olympics and she’d outrun, out swim, out toss, out wrestle and outfight our best all in the same day and maybe she’d need to take two minutes to catch her breath at the end. It’s consistent with what I saw on Abydos Admiral, whenever the Nagadans got anywhere near them without a lot of numbers they were just tossed around like ragdolls”





“Colonel O’Neill beat their leader” Kowalski said with a grin of pride “and you and me got a few didn’t we babe!”



Lahm rolled her eyes despite the warm smile. “Yeah, we did with back up” she continued to look through the medical file and her eyes narrowed in confusion on several of the blood readings. “Well, that’s weird. She’s in her late forties but there’s no damage to any of her organs that you’d expect from the kind of life soldiers have. I mean, they can resurrect the dead and reverse the aging process with that resurrection chamber thing Jackson talked about, but the impression he got was that it was something that only elites did. She’s not worn out” Lahm traced a hand over the dead woman’s hand trying to feel for any kind of callouses and the usual wear you saw on the joints in the digits and on the fingerprints of anyone who did physically intense work.



What disturbed her more was the imaging done on the body by Fraser suggested she’d given birth at least three times in her life but the signs of stress associated with that on her body was faded as if the last time she had a kid was five decades ago or more. Which made no sense, the woman couldn’t be over forty-six. “Sir, the people on Abydos were nothing like this, they had traits that suggested crossbreeding, but this is something else.”



“You say Ra took a human as a host, could that be what we’re looking at here?” Asked Hammond.



Jack had a hard time believing that old bastard was a snake living in a twink’s stomach and he shook his head. “His eyes glowed, he spoke with a weird voice that seemed to mess with your instincts”



“Put the fear of God in you?” Hammond asked, his voice far away.



O’Neill nodded “But only he did that, even the guy I fought wasn’t like that. No, Jackson was probably right about Ra being unique. He did things I didn’t think were possible and at one point I think he created an energy field around himself with his own mind and Jackson said there were times when he would appear or disappear, as if he screwed with your ability to focus or messed with your senses” He hadn’t seen that, but he saw the aftermath of what Ra did to Ferretti and felt the bastard in his own mind at least once.



“Well, you were right about there likely being more of them then because the golden bandido who abducted one of my marines tried that on me” Hammond was fuming despite how calm his voice was and by the cold look in his eyes O’Neill knew it didn’t take. But that didn’t surprise him, George Hammond was a quiet gentle old war dog, but he was still capable of being the biggest, meanest fucker in the yard and whoever did this was guaranteed the misfortune of learning that lesson the hard way.



God help the…God?



O’Neill smiled slightly at his terrible joke. And allowed himself a moment of vengeful satisfaction in the knowledge that Hammond hadn’t even stopped to consider it. He was willing to pick a fight with the Duke (Or Crown Prince?) and possibly an entire empire solely to get his marine back and to educate them on why no one fucked with the US military and George Hammond.



Hammond who’d been listening closed his eye for a moment, his hand resting on one of the tables. “Is there any way of ascertaining where they came from?” He asked, wanting to avoid having to send a team to Abydos, they had tried to send a probe some two weeks after SG-0’s return and it must have hit rocks because they lost contact pretty quickly. The beyond the risk, neither he nor the President were willing to endanger civilian lives on a world that might prove fruitless even if he had managed to send a team through successfully.





“Our best bet” O’Neill said after some consideration, his mind wandering to Shau’re and Daniel and Skara and Kasuf and his youngest who had stuck to Lahm as though she were an adopted older sister. “Is on Abydos”



“But the gate was buried correct?” Hammond asked.



Jack nodded slowly “Well that’s what Jackson said he would do, and he seemed to follow through. We might be able to get a radio signal out, some of that gear had solar batteries but” His eyes shifted towards the sink counter at the end of the exam room and his eyes flashed in amusement. “Nah, I’ve a better idea”



Kowalski grinned as he saw O’Neill grab a box of tissue, laughing “Don’t worry Sir, I think I know what he’s doing”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Chulak


Family matters


“C-c-corporal..Chri..Christmas” The voice was wispy, weak and tired and it belonged to a boy no older than twelve, or rather the creature within the boy. He was seated on a small throne in a courtyard with a series of ponds with water warm enough that a layer of mist danced along the surface, obscuring all but the phosphorescent fish within girded by ornately decorated columns depicting great battles won in the past, or scenic strolls down beaches on worlds that were either long gone or long changed. Vines snaked several of the columns, their flowers blooming in the gentle light filtered by the gas giant this world orbited.



Shortly after the murder of Ouranos, the father of Ra and Yu by more primitive Goa’uld who feared the power of the System lords, Ra established rather clear rules about which Goa’uld could procreate with which and which were strictly prohibited. There were those whose ancestors were part of the great Ori research but discarded as they lacked the potential the first peers possessed. Those made up the bulk of the administrators and planetary governors of the vast empire of the System Lords and while it was viewed unfavorably it wasn’t a crime for a System Lord to lay with one or mate with a queen. There were likely half a million Goa’uld across the Empire who were halfbreeds between these two races.



Children of the Gods, the bastards of the System Lords. The rest, those whose lifespan was a mere four millennia or so made up the bulk of the technicians and scientists who worked and maintained the infrastructure of the empire. But there were breeds even lower, the near mindless savages who existed upon the primordial Cradle world of the Goa'uld where they came solely to honor the site where Ra’s rebellion began. Mating with such feral ancestors, the atavism of their kind? That was a death sentence for any Goa’uld depraved enough to dare. It was unthinkable for a system lord to lay with such primitives, many of which who possessed beasts that crawled on all fours, or the poor, miserable Unas who remained. They were more servants of the creatures that inhabited them than the other way around and it was a very painful reminder for the Goa’uld of where they would be were it not for the Ori and their desperation.



And what the Ori intended them to be for all eternity.



Most of the System Lords adhered rather rigidly to the social norms of their empire and would seldom address lesser Goa’uld in any way that was intimate or personal and none would dare do anything more than hunt their feral ancestors for sport. To address a Jaffa as informally as Apophis and Ba’al often did (Treating them as brothers and equals) was something that was seen as absolutely backwards and barbaric and the older system Lords sneered at Ba’al for being born to a Jaffa as opposed to being born from the womb of their parents hosts..repurposed to produce children of the gods. Those Peers who were not system Lords but served them who were likewise born were held at a distance as well. Outside of Ba’al and Apophis only Hathor and Yu really broke that protocol (Yu even permitted Jaffa and Peers born of Jaffa to sit upon the heavenly Kingdoms ruling council!). Amaterasu came close, but she was so sullen and aloof it was easy to confuse her antisocial nature for a breach of protocol (She spoke to everyone the same and often sent a Peer to speak for her at court.) but even she held to this maxim of disciplined social order.



But of all the “progressives” Apophis was the only one who took it a step further. One day after a return from a pilgrimage to the mother world, Apophis brought with him a human female of some fourteen years, feral, clutching at her chains, snarling and heavily pregnant. Evidently after a night of drunken debauchery and copious abuse of narcotics he convinced himself to allow one of those primitive queens to take one of Haqet’s Lotars as a host and after several more weeks of violating her, she got with child. He was proud of his achievement, proving it could be done, but he knew enough not to bring her to court. Still, he’d kept her leash bound until the delivery killed both Qua’uld and Host.



But ancient Haqet informed on Apophis and Ra arrived with a warfleet and came close to destroying Chulak from orbit. It was only the impassioned pleas of Athena and Bra’tac (The only Jaffa in the history of the species to be granted the honor to weigh in on matters at Court and to earn that he had to become a legend almost as great as the System Lords themselves), that prevented Ra from plunging the Empire into a civil war or else costing the empire its greatest military leader. The crime of miscegenation, however, was not so easily forgiven.



Apophis had to surrender one hundred lightyears of his domain to Set and Ra forced him to kill all of his children by the she beast with his own hands. All but one, the runt of the litter, which Apophis was forbidden from ever slaying. He was to be given access to a resurrection chamber even and should he prove to possess the powers of a peer or power comparable to a System lord, it would be up to Apophis to endure and control his son. Teal’c remembered watching as Apophis was forced to butcher the infant Goa’uld, their awful noises that clearly indicated they were sentient, the psychic pulse as their barely developed minds pleaded with their father and he remembered that Apophis clutched Klorel’s pale form to him and wept openly.



Ra viewed Apophis as a degenerate and a derelict and an asset that was outliving it utility by its conduct. Drey’ac had begun to think the same, Teal’c himself had begun to think the same but then he would remember the look in the great Cobra’s eyes. The sheer guilt, shame, heart ache and unconditional love and he wanted to stay his hand.



Klorel was deformed, weak and his powers were so wild and ungovernable they tore his hosts apart, they would routinely erupt in ulcers and tumors as healing abilities went wild, age rapidly then become young again. He would spend months at a time in a regeneration chamber as they were the only place that could stabilize his energies, two weeks ago the calf muscle of Klorel’s right leg sloughed off and instead of new muscle what replaced it was a fully formed foot. His spine contorted and then a second spine began to grow that had to be extracted. Klorel himself was incredibly unhinged, often times completely unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality. He remembered things that weren’t his own life and sometimes confused himself for his own grandfather or indeed the Ori host his grandfather possessed. He spoke in Alteran, a language that even the Ori did not speak, seldom was he able to be understood without mental communication and that was in and of itself dangerous for the youth was incapable of holding himself back and applying measured contact to anyone. No, even being told “good morning” by Klorel psychically was dangerous. He was an honestly loving creature in some moments (Despite how horrifying and depraved he was, Teal’c never once felt unsafe near him as he knew without question Klorel adored him and so much so that Teal’c was the only person beside his father who could calm Klorel), but in other moments?



Today Klorel decided to teach Teal’c “Aenglush” the language of the Myr’uins that he and Apophis faced on that backwater. Today Klorel would mark the fourth consecutive hour that he was inside the mind of Regina Christmas, though from her perspective it was the fourth decade of a life of constant pain, sorrow and despair and confusion.



Today, Klorel imparted the language of the humans of that world to him along with a deluge of images and memories and written word. Today, Klorel sought to show him exactly how he broke the woman.



And today Teal’c was convinced Drey’ac was right, and he would send for Martouf, the chamberlain of Ba’al’s domain on this very night. For what he saw within the poor woman’s mind was absolutely beyond the pale, it was exceeded only by the horrors of the Nameless One and Teal’c was almost convinced Klorel was some ancient trap left behind by the Fallen One as some twisted, postmortem act of revenge.



But that would absolve Apophis of his part in this depravity.



“C’ealt” Klorel always said his name backwards and he reached up with an ulcer ladened hand to rest upon Teal’c wrist, he was wheezing, gasping and Teal’c for a moment was hopeful this wretched misborn creature was dying, so that its suffering, and the suffering of its victims would end. “C-a-call..dad”



English? He blinked, the creature was a spastic mess and he nodded rushing away, hoping the thing would fall out of its chair and break its neck or something, while unattended.



Predictably he found Apophis in the third hour of his sparring session with the newest recruits of his Honor Guard. -Ra forbade him doing this- Teal’c thought, yet Apophis did it anyway. Granted he understood why Apophis did it anyway, Ra’s chief concern was the cult of the System lords taking a blow if anyone ever defeated Apophis in battle. While the Godhead was flippant about his divinity with those closest to him, Teal’c understood the religion built up around them was one of the underpinnings of the empire. The Humans and nonhumans under their rule worshipped them as much as they were ruled by them and while Jaffa were never encouraged to view the System Lords as Gods, most viewed them as close enough to gods for the distinction to be academic. But it was perhaps, a misguided concern for outside of Herakles, the son of Zeus and Peer and First prime to Zeus only Bra’tac had ever defeated Apophis in a sparring match. There were two virtues Apophis still seemed to possess, he was a peerless warrior and…He loved his mate and son even if they didn’t deserve that love at all.



“Majesty” Teal’c bowed and in doing so likely saved a young Jaffa from a blow that would have broken his jaw.



“Ahhh! Teal’c! Come and join us, I was just educating these whelps in how to block unconventional strikes!” His voice boomed with that distorted chorus that only the System Lords were allowed to use, a voice that could influence the emotions of those around them. Even alter their mental state, Apophis above all save Ra possessed the most refined variant, able to inspire armies, sway his peers and even drive someone mad. But Teal’c had been trained in how to resist the voice and that bald war chief had proven that it was not impossible to fight against.



“I would be honored Majesty; however, your lordly prince Klorel calls for you”



Apophis nodded “you left him alone?!” A trace of fear in his voice then the anger of a father who believed his trust betrayed. “Only because he was desperate that you be summoned, he commanded me”



Quick to anger, fast to forgive when it came to his warriors Apophis nodded resting a hand on Teal’c’s shoulder before darting off towards his son. That was the closest the Serpent Lord would ever come to an apology, but it was more than any First Prime serving any other system lord could say. It was no wonder he maintained the loyalty of his legions for so long. It was hard not to love Apophis when he wasn’t indulging in his baser impulses, but that love came at a terrible cost.



-How long have I allowed my family to be dishonored by abetting this barbarism?-



Teal’c caught up with Apophis in time to find him kneeling before the deformed, rotting heap that was his son, gently wiping away bile from his mouth. Speaking to him softly “Tell me my darling boy, tell me, what is it that makes you hurt yourself and send away your protectors?”



“T….Father..Tau’Ri…Ra..E..Emperor..Tau’Ri…O’Neeeilll”



Apophis narrowed his eyes a look of deadly seriousness washing over his features as he gripped the back of his son’s head and angled his face so that he forced the flailing Klorel to look him in the eye “What did you say?”



“S..show..you..father”



“And Teal’c..Show us both my son”



The woman, Christmas had been left naked, chained to a wall. She’d long ago become little more then a twitching, sobbing heap of flesh with a blank stare that suggested that Klorel had torn her psyche to shreds and cut her sense of self to ribbons. Apophis ignored her entirely as he looked at his son intently “Show us..Klorel..you must show us”



And he did.



And Teal’c wished he could pray.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Quick little update to prove I'm still alive and writing. O'Neill gets his team ready and Apophis has a tantrum an Teal'c begins to realize just how far gone Apophis really is.

Also Apophis throws a tantrum then decides to gamble.





Through the looking glass



Cheyenne Mountain complex- June 29th





“You know what sucks about this the most boss?” Kowalski asked with a playful smile “Besides the invasion. Carolyn and I were going to start working on having a few kids and then they knock on our door”. It wasn’t all bad though, he was excited to see Ferretti and Jackson again, the three of them forming a sort of gang of friends who helped each other through the roughest parts of the original Abydos mission. He missed Shau’re and Kasuf as well, the younger woman sort of treating him like an older brother was nice. Kowalski had nothing but brothers, so it was amusing and then there was Kadra and all their other friends, the people they went through hell with by the river.



O’Neil laughed “Don’t tell me you two dumbasses were waiting for the right time?!” He asked passing some coffee to the man who was now nearing forty. “Well she’s a lot younger than me and then she got asked to be part of the USAMRID stuff and.”



O’Neill cut him off “There no right time numbnuts, once you become a parent you can forget about order and predictability in your life.”



Kowalski blinked “it’s, it’s not that bad, my brothers have lots of kids”



“Not the same when you’re an uncle” O’Neill said. “That show with the titties and Dragons..”



“Game of Thrones” Kowalski offered.



“Yeah, that one, “love is the death of duty” one of the character’s said, I think he was some old ass wizard stuck in a freezer or something. Anyway, the quotes all fucked up, love ain’t the death of duty, but parenthood is the death of sanity for a career man.” O’Neill’s voice was filled with an ominous tone but the glint in his eyes implied he rather enjoyed being a father and loved his children intensely.



“He’s right son” Hammond’s voice boomed as he entered the conference room a level above the Gate room, where the Gate Room and the exterior and first levels of the facility were displayed on large LED’s, as well as an orbit’s eye view of the Earth. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it Kowalski” The Admiral added. Lahm entered the room shortly after and Kowalski turned beat red, wondering how much of that conversation she’d heard.



“Admiral Sir I” Whatever she was about to say was cut short by the soft rumble that signified the ornate Star Gate was activating and indeed they made it down to the communications room in front of the Stargate in time to see it shut off.



On the ramp rested a Kleenex box, with the words “Thanks! Send more!” in charcoal on the side. O’Neill knelt, picking it up before he tossed it to Kowalski who showed it to Lahm then the Admiral who managed to manifest the faintest hints of a smile. “Sir, request permission to retrieve my nerd, and my giant”



Hammond laughed lightly “Permission granted Colonel O’Neill. We’ll convene back here at 15:00 I trust that’s enough time to create your retrieval team.”



“It’ll only take me an hour sir” O’Neill remarked, why the hell did he want to wait six hours to go through the Gate? No way The Admiral would saddle him with another civilian or worse, another nerd? “I don’t need a twenty-man band or anything”



“Oh No colonel, you’re taking some of Carter’s surviving marines with you even if this puts the facility at a manpower shortage for the time being.” Replacements were on the way, but they likely wouldn’t arrive here for another two days. Hammond planned to use that time to hand pick some prospects to replace his poor scientists who died so bravely. “But that isn’t why, I want you to wait. I want you to hold position because Sam’s two hours out”



O’Neill’s jaw set “You’ve gotta be fuck’n kidding me”. He muttered before quickly adding “With all Due respect sir” Behind Hammond Kowalski idly gripped Lahm’s hand and muttered a silent prayer. “Doc Carter? You want her out of her lab?” O'Neill asked.



“Hell, you want her out of her straight jacket?!” Kowalski asked alarmed.





“That’s not necessary sir” O’Neill muttered. “She’s a turbo nerd and a crazy one, I don’t need that kind of baggage on my ream sir”



“Oh, I think it is Colonel, she would have been on the original mission had West not deemed her to important an asset to lose, but since this is just a retrieval mission and who knows what Jackson might have found in five years? I want a specialist involved. She may be the only person who can decipher the technologies out there any way. This isn’t up for negotiation”



“sir” Lahm cut in, sending Carter there was implicative of things, she wasn’t sure she fully liked. “Am I given to understand that we intend to establish a more permanent presence on Abydos?”



Hammond sighed. Yes, that was suggested to him by the president, who wanted to use this opportunity to see if they could negotiate for more of the material the natives called Naquadah, and it seemed as if he took Lahm’s suggestions about studying the plant life for pharmaceutical research to heart. “One thing at a time Doctor Lahm, if this mission doesn’t go sideways then yes.”



“If that’s the case…I would like to accompany the team sir, I could remain and collect samples and-“Hammond cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I know what you want to do, and I know why you’re doing it. You figure better you then someone who doesn’t know these people might exploit them or something right?” Hammond asked, suspecting this had been one of the reasons they lied about the mission to such a degree. When she nodded, he shook his head annoyed “You people think this thing’s a damn Taxi service don’t you? Relax Doctor, I agree with you in principle and so does President Trump. But that’s not the purpose of this mission.”



“We’ll need a medic” O’Neill pointed out.



“She’s yours then assuming she wants to go” Hammond turned and smiled slyly at the woman who laughed. “You really have to ask me? Why does your request sound like an order anyway”?



“You’re a civilian.” He answered to the first, as though it was the most obvious answer in the world. “And because they are.” he added excusing himself from the room.





O’Neill stood there for a moment, weighing his options before shrugging. “Man, if she blows up a planet or something, I’m going to mutiny.”




..........

Chulak







Teal’c looked at the human soldier chained like an animal, watching as Apophis returned from wheeling his son to the resurrection chamber. Refusing to allow anyone but himself to handle his son more out of a sense of fatherly protectiveness than fear for the safety of his attendants, though Teal’c knew any Jaffa that served as a valet to the Lordling would count him or herself blessed since Klorel was powerful enough that their mental training and assistance from their Prim’tah would often not be enough to shield them from an accidental psychic assault.



Father could protect himself from son and Teal’c wasn’t sure exactly why he was never torn apart by the broken beast. Torn apart like this poor woman, whose mind filled him with images that troubled the First Prime and yet filled him with an odd sense of hope. “Majesty” Teal’c moved to bow, and Apophis waved a dismissive hand, not in the mood for any sort of formality. Teal’c raised his eyebrow upon realizing Apophis was wearing a glove containing a gem and several silk like metal cables. It was rare for Apophis to wear such a device, only doing so when he planned to go into battle or when on inspection.







Apophis stood before the drooling heap that had once been a decently beautiful woman with the spirit of a fighter. “I was going to give her to my Amunet, but she would be terribly cross if I hand her leftovers” Especially that of her stepson Apophis realized, she was terribly jealous of Klorel at times. He reached out with the gloved hand resting his index and middle finger against the forehead of the young woman, who was groaning and pleading. The Serpent lord’s turquoise eyes glowed faintly, and the room seemed to cool as he pulled energy from around the palace.



The woman lurched, blood ebbed from her nose and ears and she slumped forward lifeless. “She served me in other ways however” Apophis remarked in a tone that was unusually grave for the God who laughed at assassination attempts as often as he did a joke. The lifeless form before them began to smoke, ordinarily Apophis would remain and watch as the corpse began to burn from the inside out, leaving nothing but ash and charred bones to be collected by the Gardeners. But Lord Apophis was unusually focused. “Come Teal’c.” He turned storming from out the room and nearly bolting through the courtyard into one of the many bridges of stone and light that linked the forward section of the palace, to Bakhu. The original mountain stronghold on the planet, the reason the Ori struggled so violently to possess Chulak. It had been a hermitage, one of their isolation colonies, but this one held a secret that only the oldest system lords knew. Whatever it was, Teal’c suspected that a great tragedy befell this hermitage for in no other tales of that distant era explained why the one hermitage that managed to preserve its power would spend it upon another.





But they had and when they realized Apophis and the first legions of the Jaffa had massacred everyone inside, they went into a blind frenzy. Bakhu was enormous, a mountain turned into an underground city, turned into a palace and fortress by Apophis. While it had originally been built simply as a means to keep a dying race alive, the System Lord had turned it into a place of art and culture -He’d been honorable once, they all had been-. However, beautiful as it was, the place still felt lonely, remote and sad. It was obvious why Apophis eventually relocated his Capitol to the planet Waset. This place was deary and both he and his wife avoided it when not at work.



Within its walls Jaffa who did not qualify for the training on Dakkara under War master Bra’tac learned and the vast majority of the Serpent Guard and the navigators and marines of the fleet studied and lived here. It always daunted him, how somber the place was even with so many present, even when he spent ten hours of every day here. It was as they walked across the rainbow colored forcefields that acted as bridges between the two more traditional walkways (Something had constructed in mockery of the Asgardians Heimdall and Thor) that Teal’c decided finally to voice his concerns, voice his uncertainty at the images. “With, respect great Lord” Teal’c began watching as Apophis careless threw his silk robe over the side of the bridge and take a deep breath of the cold air. Apophis did this when his blood was up, when he wanted to fight and needed to focus. “You seem disturbed by those images, but they may not mean anything.”



He knew of the legend of the Tau’Ri, the first world where humanity and its offshoots evolved. But he knew also that there were no records of the world, that Ra claimed Egeria and Prometheus began their treason on Dakkara itself, causing a rebellion amongst the human serfs and the non-human peasantry. But stories, amongst the descendants of those humans and some of the Jaffa involved said the rebellion began elsewhere, not on the cradle world but on the ancestral home world.



But Teal’c also knew that mind reading was not as reliable as the humans and other races of the galaxies believed that it was. Most memories contained an element of biased, as memory was always filtered through one’s own mentality. The biases, the prejudices, the fears and the regrets and one’s own understanding of the universe. What Klorel showed them was indeed startling, the a “mission report” that this low-ranking person somehow managed to read? A thing that made Teal’c wonder if she was not a plant within this organization or had an agenda of her own or had been supplied false information in the event she was captured (This had been done before, Set recently blundered into a trap set by pirates from the thrice damned Lucian alliance who exploited this.). That the world they raided was indeed Tau’Ri and that they would encounter the successors to the very force that killed Ra over Abydos and that this was a plausible explanation (No one believed foul play, for Abydonians were nearly all loyal even when one of their cities rebelled), all seemed far too convenient to Teal’c. “And the address” Teal’c spoke, this time considerably more carefully. “Would you not remember it?”



Rather than be offended Apophis erupted in laughter it was as bitter as it was jovial. “Teal’c the rebellion occurred more than thirty thousand years ago and the world itself was only valuable because of your forebears and the fauna, of which we modified and dispersed to our liking. Once that was achieved, it lost value. Ra bid us to forget it, I saw no issue in it. A bunch of primitive ingrates ambushed our garrison on the coast of one of their continents, another one of our space ports was hit and Ra abandoned the planet” both of the Serpent lords fists clenched once they entered the grand doors, now fury seemed to course through his veins. “Miserable fool! Egeria was mine! My wife! My mate, my consort! The mother of my children and the Prim’tah of my Jaffa! It was bad enough she cuckolded me with that pathetic slut Amaterasu! That ape fucking cretin, but then she makes off with Prometheus and instigates a rebellion?!” His fist hit a brazier, denting the metal, and causing oil and flames to spill over the synthetic granite floors. It burned in the dark casting an aura of madness of the snarling face of Apophis.



“Ra was my brother-in-law, Anubis followed him, and he was the elder brother, I obeyed Anubis because it was the way of things, it is the way of things. I never complained, though I chafed under my dear brother at times, I never challenged Ra though he mocked me and disrespected at every turn! He passed me over for that…Wretched little bro-” Apophis went silent, veering dangerously close to a topic that was utterly forbidden, a topic that was too horrifying to discuss.



“Ra made it all about him, about his great humiliation, but those were my Jaffa on Tau’Ri! Their first prime my son! Ah, yes he waxed poetically and commissioned ballads and had entire religious texts discussing his heart break, the pain of Egeria’s treachery..Fah…what about me?! She humiliated me! And when the Serrakin rebelled? It was on my worlds their terrorism was the most vicious! Egeria’s rebellion spread to a hundred worlds before we put it down and by the time we did, we lost it all. To him Tau’Ri represented a personal humiliation and an irrational fear. But to the rest of us? The abandonment of Tau’Ri marked the moment we nearly lost our empire! If it weren’t for those benighted” Apophis took a breath, doing his best to center himself.



Ra had been their leader from the start, the rebellion started by his mother had been carried to its conclusion by Ra himself. The war against the alliance, the Goa’uld would not have survived if it had happened under the leadership of anyone else. “It sounds terribly blasphemous doesn’t it Teal’c?” His eyes sparked with sardonic amusement as his First Prime and Imperial War Master shifted. Apophis knew that Teal’c like many Jaffa didn’t pray to Apophis as the humans and other subjects did. But he also knew, most did worship them to a degree, even if that form of worship was more respect and reverence than ecclesiastical devotion. He knew this, because before he was killed Ra had started to become something else and Ra had begun to draw on the energies of the faithful. Perhaps it was for the best that he fell at Tau’Ri hands and yet.



“Anubis, Ra all my life I have been the god of night, the one who lives in the shadows of others. My victories, accredited to others, my humiliations a matter of public knowledge. Soon, we will have to ascertain who should rule as Emperor in Ra’s place. I was content to support my sister, as her sons will surely do so, but now I see that to allow another member of the House of Ra to sit upon the throne would be…Wrong” he took a breath and smiled a nearly feral smile “Ah but today is not a day for politics! We have learned who murdered Ra and I would return to the site of his death soon!”



Teal’c wanted to pale, nothing that was said in this mad rant was at all reassuring and he was suddenly filled with a sense of dread. -I must get Drey’ac and our children out of Chulak-“If your plan is to pursue the Throne even if it means military action then I would advise you to send Drey’ac and our son to Nineveh” Teal’c spoke with a bow, doing his best to keep his tone neutral, to shield his mind and conceal the sheer terror he felt.



Apophis blinked “But why?” he queried.



“Ra governed not through might but politics, we must do both majesty. After all, the convention of System Lords will decide and protocol will have to be followed, only if they vote against you would we wage war” This was dangerously presumptuous talk from him, Teal’c knew this. Apophis was jovial and friendly but to council him so openly could very easily result in the System Lord shouting him down in his present state. Yet Apophis flashed a smile “And any decision would require Ba’al’s wealth of course..that greedy fool will demand something from me” he frowned.



“But having one of my greatest Admirals in charge of his pitiful navy would certainly ingratiate him..Especially if Drey’ac pretends to fully leave my service, yes of course!”



Of course, Teal’c thought not particularly certain why Apophis thought Ba’al would blindly back him (Though it was likely so, Ba’al’s domain lay in the middle, between Horus and Apophis, the two giants of the system Lords and Ba’al was not exactly beloved by the House of Ra, who resented his wealth and held him back). “If the unthinkable should happen majesty, we would need Ba’al”



And Zeus, Athena and Haqet Teal’c thought ruefully. If it came to that and the maniac was talking as if civil war was inevitable. He needed to do something public, to cost Apophis political capital and to slow him down. And to deny the man his own experience -how much farther can he sink?-



“Excellent Teal’c! Make the arrangements and contact Martouf in the morning if his lord is amenable then I shall sorely miss your gallant wife!” His eyes flashed wolfishly then he erupted in laughter “Peace Teal’c! I don’t have sex with Jaffa, there are limits even to my progressive appetites”



Teal’c felt a twinge of hate in his heart and shame.



“But come, prepare yourself for in the morning we are to make for Abydos!” his smile widened, teeth bearing as he seemed to nearly salivate at the possibility of returning to combat. “After all, my darling wife still needs a host!”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

And into Heaven.





Cheyenne Mountain complex







“So that bit about you being the youngest person to break the sound barrier is bullshit?” Kowalski asked as he, Lahm and a woman with long sandy blond hair and gray eyes walked towards the armor. She was dressed in the fatigues of the Aerial and Spatial combat fatigues of the Space Force, a tribute both to her grandfather General Jacob Carter and her infamy as a Test Pilot. Among the million other things Doctor Samantha Carter had done before her thirtieth birthday.



“Not bullshit, I’m just number two, Katrina Mumaw beat me by two years” Carter grinned. “The story about the Castle Bravo replica is true though, I just didn’t have any fissile material. I did make some explosives so I could blow it up, but it wasn’t as spectacular as I thought it’d be” the woman sounded, somewhat disappointed. A thing that made Kowalski chuckle, the meeting between Samantha Carter and the rest of the team had been, rather tense. Jack’s attitude had been rather terse, which was to be expected given his distaste for academics and it wasn’t until Carter told him about how she once crashed a Cessna in weed field belonging to the Juarez Cartel and that she fought her way out that he relented. “You’d think the whole “youngest person in space” would have won me tome points” she muttered under her breath, it normally didn’t bother her when older military types looked sideways at her as she’d either earn their respect or run through them. But for some reason the look the Colonel gave her had bothered her, maybe it was because of his accolades, that he’d been on the original Abydos mission. Or maybe because one of his daughters had been her assistant and occasional partner in crime that she wanted the man’s approval. Like Hammond, he represented the best of the old school, though old school for them was two different eras.



“He just wants to be sure you can handle yourself in a pinch” He explained.



“So, the fact that I was putting out a fire while shooting into orbit on a test rocket doesn’t count?” She asked with a raised eyebrow. Kowalski only shook his head “It counts, don’t take it personal. He was the same way with Jackson”



“I’m in good company then.” Carter nodded, she didn’t mind having to earn the Colonel’s respect at all, as long as she was given the same chance to screw it up as everyone else.



“You were born in good company, your grandfather saved the Colonel’s life in the 90’s, give him time. Speaking of that how the hell did you manage to…Y’know?” Kowalski hesitated, not sure how to phrase the question -How the hell did you fight a cockpit fire in a fucking rocket? That sounds like bullshit- delicately. He’d seen the logs, listened to the recording, he knew it wasn’t a lie but how the hell did she manage?



Sam beamed at him “Explosions and I are old friends Colonel!”



That didn’t answer his question but given his wife’s laughter he figured he probably shouldn’t pry anymore. Entering the room, they saw Colonel O’Neill holding up one of the Next Generation guns that were supposed to replace the current weaponry used across the armed forces. The Colonel had a perplexed look on his face, which made Carter chuckle, he looked very much like a caveman trying to comprehend a crossbow and it was almost adorable. “Why’s it got a doorknob on the barrel?!” he asked to no one in particular.



Accompanying them would be six marines belonging to the other Carter, they were all prepped and alternating between wanting to question the Colonel’s sanity or laugh at what had to be an obvious joke. “Um suppressor sir” Lahm remarked with the cheekiest of smiles, as if to say -c’mon I’m a civilian and even I know this-.



“Looks like a piston”



Kowalski laughed “Come on sir, we ready to go retrieve our other nerd?” O’Neill nodded “Yeah, what do you think of your toy guns?” he asked with a face as neutral as possible. “I see you’re still keeping your colt”



“An O’Neill has been carrying that into battle since the first world war, one day one of my brats’ll get it. Til then, she stays with me.” O’Neill walked out just as Kowalski began to arm himself. Following behind Jack was Sam Carter who folded her arms behind her back and seemed to almost jolt to his side with a kind of manic energy O’Neill wanted to grumble at. “You know you’ll like me when you get to know me sir! I’m not that crazy”



“Oh, I adore you already.” he added half sarcastically half serious, she’d stood her ground in the conference room when he put her on the spot and despite her size, she was able to handle Hammond’s iron grip without wincing and seemed to be willing to do her best to match it. Beyond that his daughters sung her praise constantly and he accounted them as good judges of character even if they thought he was awesome. “Did you eat before going through the gate Doc?”



“Yes, but I’ve eaten before lift off Sir, I’m sure I’ll be fine”



-oh boy-



As the teamed walked into the Gate Room, they found Admiral Hammond waiting for them along with the eternally sour Colonel Samuels. “It’s a remarkable machine when it’s not being used by enemy combatants” Hammond remarked watching the chevron’s lock onto each piece of the Abydonian address. The beams of light touching in the center followed by an exclamation of delight from Carter as the energy fields bent and swooshed into a violent whirlpool of energies that gradually settled into the appearance of a tranquil pool of water.



“Bring Jackson back, for a briefing on what he’s achieved there during his sojourn. Get home in one piece”



O’Neill saluted and the team began to disembark, Kowalski jumping in as if he was doing a free fall into a pool while Lahm hung back to guide the new recruits through, until at last she jumped in. Only O’Neill and Carter remained, Carter who was presently reaching up to touch the surface of the vortex, watching it ripple as her fingers traced it. “Amazing” she said softly, something approaching awe in her voice. “It feels, it feels like water, cool water and you can even see the fluctuations in thewoah”



Jack Rolled his eyes, gently pushing the dweeb through before nodding to Hammond and taking his own steps through the looking glass. While Jackson and Brown spoke of seeing worlds and stars flash before their eyes as the wormhole launched them through time and space, all the Colonel remembered seeing was a rush of blue and green energy and an endless spiraling tunnel, one that he was ripped through at speeds that defied the imagination. As with the last time, he felt a rush of hair escape his lungs as he “fell into” the aperture within the Abydos gate.


Abydos- Pyramid Complex

To her credit carter was fighting back her nausea and looking up at the Abydos gate as the wormhole closed. “Huh this one looks more simplistic and smaller than the earth gate” Sam remarked, she’d read the Abydos mission brief a hundred times, but this was a little detail O’Neill and Kowalski’s report had left out (with only Doctor Lahm noting the difference). “Did you ever figure out why?”



“Wasn’t really high on our list of priorities” O’Neill admitted though in hindsight, it probably should have been. There were very clearly a lot more questions than there were answers and their own misconceptions only added to the confusion. “But Jackson thought the one on earth was a newer model than the one on Abydos, likely used to impress the locals.”



“Like bringing out the Benz to visit in laws?” Carter asked with a wry smile. O’Neill nodded “Something like that yeah” He said before shaking his head as Carter darted to the mushroom like piece of technology seemingly growing out of the ground. He remembered that, it was the device Jackson had used to activate the gate, sending them home. “Fancy ain’t it?” he asked sarcastically.



“You’re telling me sir!” she exclaimed kneeling to inspect the Dialing device, missing the sarcasm in his tone as she was busy trying to figure out how this work. “It took me the better part of a year and a pair supercomputers to MacGyver up a system like this and they’ve got..a night stand” her eyes darted around the room noticing the lights that simulated torches, she couldn’t even tell what they were powered by but she was already rambling out guesses. “I wonder if Naquadah particles are woven into the material this pyramid is made out, it would explain why this place seems to have no wiring or outlets” she turned and then let out a curse and then then something was grabbed, and O’Neill heard a crunch.



He whirred around to see a youth of fifteen on the floor cursing and an “old” M27 grabbed by Carter who was pointing it down at the boy. Who upon seeing her, blinked then asked “Merikyan?”



She blinked, trying to process the word, wondering if it meant American or just “screw you” in Space Egyptian. Others came out armed but there was a commotion and the word “Onyer!” echoed into chamber as a young man who had to be twenty-one or so rushed towards Jack, who was grinning like a bastard. The two embraced as another teenager, this one closer to eighteen jumped into Lahm’s arms before yanking Kowalski into a hug.



“I did not expect to be seeing you again my friend!” The young man who was clearly the leader here remarked clasping O’Neill on the shoulder.



“Skara! Life’s been good to you huh?” he asked surprised he spoke English, but the Colonel just assumed Jackson had taught him the language. Abydonians learned fast and in five years who knew what the Abydonians could have relearned or if they’d begun to innovate on their own.



“I am a man married now! I hope my wife will give me a son sometime soon! And I am Vice Marshall to Marshall Ferretti”



Of course, he would name his rank something like Marshall O’Neill thought rolling his eyes. “Congratulations on the wife” For some reason he felt like a proud father and by the look in Skara’s eyes it seemed that he seemed to be searching for such a sentiment. -Funny how we could barely understand each other and the little shit’s family- “Oh wait Vice Marshall huh?” He stood at salute with Kowalski and the new marines following suit (Though more out of deference to their officers). Lahm and Carter followed even though civilians didn’t technically have to.



“Sir! Vice Marshall Skara, on Behalf of the United States Space Force, Marine division Colonel John James O’Neill formally requests permission to enter Abydonian territory! Sir?!”





Skara may as well have been a hundred feet tall in that moment. He beamed proudly then nodded hurriedly “On behalf of Lord Kasuf and the City and Farm Masters, Skara son of Kasuf, son of Amenthep welcomes you to Abydos…dear friend”



With the formalities out of the way Skara guided them from the Gate Room, through a hallway that had been little more than an oppressive indigo yet now seemed to illuminate with light. “Amazing projected out of the walls” Carter murmured.



“Yes, Daniel found what he called a “switch” which allowed for us to activate the light carvings when we wished to study them, though he says these light up when we move near them” The voice of Kadra piped in from behind Carter, sandwiched between Lahm and Kowalski. “He thinks there is Naquadah in the stones, that brings power here”



“I thought so!” Carter beamed turning back towards Kadra. The poacher of talent in her wondering if when relationships were formally established, she couldn’t request from whoever this lord Kasuf was to borrow this youth, who seemed eager for knowledge in the way she described it -I’ll probably have to fight Carolyn for her though- Carter thought, ah, well, it was worth the potential black eye. “Have you been studying these walls?”



“Yes!” Kadra said enthusiastically “And much more around us, though I am a healer primarily” she remarked. “A physician in training as Daniel calls it” The youth beamed a looked back at Lahm who laughed “our little urchins are all grown up huh Charly?”



“Shit our junior marines out rank us huh Colonel?” he called to Jack, earning a laugh from Skara. Kowalski was pleased to see the group of marines he brought with them were chatting along with the little militia that Ferretti had trained on behalf of Kasuf, comparing their “older” weaponry to the Next Gen toys O’Neill brought along. “Speaking of Daniel, where’s he at?”



“He was in the town when the storm came, I believe he and the others will arrive at the main entrance soon” Skara called back. “He has been…important to us, helped us rediscover much of what Ra stole from us.”



O’Neill nodded, deciding it would be time to break the ice on why they were here. “You unburied the gate then?”



Skara nodded. “It did not seem prudent to hide ourselves, we continue to send Naquadah through, though less than before. Just in case.”



“Has anyone come through?”



Skara shook his head “In truth, I do not even believe the gate on the sphere we send our Naquadah to is manned by anyone, not since Ra has anyone come from outside, except for you O’Neill”



Jack nodded, he knew these guys didn’t come from here, if any of those guys had showed up to take the planet as well trained as Skara and the others no doubt were, nothing would have stopped those snake bros. “You sure about that?”



Skara chuckled “O’Neill very little happens on Abydos that I do not know about now, if there were any visitors, I would have sent for you myself.”



“you’re assuming they’d be a threat?” Carter asked, catching up to O’Neill. Skara looked to her and nodded his head in formal greeting before answering her with a shrug. “My father tells of Sobek, a lord who ruled our world in the name of the Goddess Hathor, wife of Ra. He was much beloved, part of why his generation rebelled was that they felt that Ra betrayed the loyalty Sobek had earned from them. But that was long before I was born, none save O’Neill came since then, but Ra and he always brought misery to us, and always came from the heavens.”





“I see.” Carter thought, she began to speculate then on the nature of this Empire that was content to forget entire planet’s existed, were they incredibly wealthy? Or a vestigial power as so many Earth civilizations became. “Skara, on our world, there was a realm, an empire called Rome. This Empire once ruled a large part of our planet. At its zenith its might was felt over all corners of the earth but as its power waned, as its society slowly came apart. They abandoned their farthest flung outposts and least important colonies to try and hold onto their more critical areas.” As they walked down the hall Sam began to grasp the sheer size of the pyramid and she wondered what sort of materials it was made of to handle its own weight. -I should see if I can take samples, the material science department back at Groom Lake would go nuts- She had promised them a souvenir.





“Do you think Ra’s domain was like this Rome?” Skara asked curiously. Carter gave a shrug “I don’t know, but it would explain why you guys went so long without contact.”



“Or maybe they’re just so huge they forgot Abydos existed” O’Neill muttered pessimistically. “Damn forgot how huge this place is”



Skara laughed “We would not mind if either were true, Daniel alternates between the two.”



“Typical” O’Neill muttered as they reached the main entrance to the pyramids, where it seemed like a makeshift camp had been set up. Various hammocks hung between columns and tents erected and O’Neill noticed the temperature had dropped a considerable amount. “Jackson mess with the cooling?”



Skara laughed “No, it always grows this cold during a lightning storm, Daniel believes the buildings draw in energy”



“Makes sense” Sam chimed in. “We haven’t seen any power source that we can detect anywhere. Granted this place is huge but still, if it pulls power from the storms and the sun then maybe” She blinked quirking her head to O’Neill who was seemingly snoring on his feet. Sam rolled her eyes which caused Skara to grin. “Daniel will like you.”



“You think?” She asked with a hopeful grin. She’d read the Ballard-Jackson theory on cultural mimicry as it was now being called, gaining traction due to Jackson’s mysterious disappearance among the antics of the Langford family which seemed to have taken a keen interest in it after Katherine’s death. Beyond that, Sam remembered the day she found out about Jackson’s breakthrough and what an idiot she felt like for missing something so obvious. “I hope so.”



O’Neill had pushed passed them and called out “Neeeeerddd!” in the most dramatic fashion possible, causing the group to turn in surprise, surprise that quickly erupted into cheers of welcome. Ahead a blond who had been out by the doorway at the entrance peaked his head through and on espying Jack the figure adopted a smile and ran towards O’Neill.



“Colonel! I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!”



“Same here, what’s this business about letting Ferretti make himself some gaudy military title?!” O’Neill asked, his eyes warm as he gripped the other man’s hand. “Been awhile Jackson.” The years on Abydos had done the young book worm some good. No longer was he a scrawny, almost girly blond. While he still looked bookish, his shoulders were broader, his arms thicker and he looked healthier and more alert. There was some power in the kid’s handshake too which O’Neill nodded in respect.





“It has!” Jackson said with an energetic smile.



Kowalski slid forward handing Jackson a box of kitkat bars and some tissue paper. “Greetings from Earth Doctor Jackson!”



“Kowalski!” Jackson reached out and shook his hand before turning to eye the blond who was kneeling beside Lahm and Kadra listening intently to a conversation about one of the medicinal fruits that was grown on this planet. She looked vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place her. -There’s something about that face- he thought, turning when he felt an arm lace around his. Shau’re was there, smiling at her old friends “Colonel! It is good to see you!” She made a gesture of salute and O’Neill returned it “Ma’am, I hear you and Jackson have been pretty busy”



“Trying to reclaim what was taken from our people yes” She said nodding her head vigorously. She too looked stronger, there was more definition in her body and weird as it was, her eyes had changed colors, green with blue flecks -The fuck?!- Jack thought. He remembered the conversation Lahm and Jackson had before they left all those years ago, about how she believed these humans were selectively bred and modified. -I wonder-.



“And Ferretti?”



“He should be in soon, his people were caught in the storm and he went to make sure the Mastages were safe in the buildings by the river” She said with a hint of worry in her voice, these storms had gotten more intense since Ra’s death, a cycle that she was told by the elders of Nagada that worsened once every seventy years or so.



Carter, who’d risen from her place beside Lahm nearly walked into O’Neill “It’s amazing sir, the sheer size of this place and the lights and holographic hieroglyphs”



“Hologlyphs? That’s catchy” Jackson said with an amused smile, wishing he’d thought of that. She turned upon hearing him and reached out “Oh, hi! Doctor Jackson! I’m Doctor Samantha Carter, I was in charge of creating the dialing system you used on the first mission.”



“You were?!” Carter, so that’s who she was! He recognized the name, but not from the study of alien artifacts or from any involvement in Project Giza, but from when he was in high school. Carter who was two years older than him had been a bit of a celebrity for a little while before she dropped off the face of the earth (Presumably to area fifty-one and to work on whatever else the Space Force was into). “Shau’re let me introduce you to the second youngest person to break the sound barrier and the youngest person from my world to go into space.”



Carter offered a manic grin. “I worked on the same project Daniel worked on, albeit in a different area. I read about your people in the report, I want to say its an honor to meet one of their liberators.”



Shau’re nodded her head and seemed to want to ask her about space but there was a loud boisterous call of “Colonel!!!” and then the sound of the jolly Italian giant running over to salute O’Neill and then lift Kowalski into a bear hug. “You fuckers came back!? Nice!...wait..you fuckers came back”



He set the other marine down and looked at Jackson who finally realized how odd that was. “Yes, not that I’m unhappy to see you, but why are you here?”



O’Neill cleared his throat, straightening the beret on his head. “Skara says you haven’t had any trouble from the gate?”



Jackson nodded, his mouth suddenly dry “Did..something..someone come through the gate?”





“Oooohh yeah” O’Neill muttered “Something came through alright, dudes wearing snake get up. Sort of a supped up, combat mod variant of Ra’s guys. Only, not human, not totally any way, they tore through one hundred and ten marines before they got killed and their Commander..Daniel..His eyes glowed like Ra.”



Ferretti blanched, tore through over a hundred marines? -There are more out there?!-



-We messed up- Jackson thought, horrified “General West?”



“Died a few years back, it was Hammond who repelled the attack..my..daughters were there too”



“Oh god, Jack! Are they okay?!” Jackson asked, both Shau’re and Skara edged closer to the Colonel and Sam found it heart warming to see just how much people respected and care for the Colonel. -Reminds me of Grandpa Jacob- she thought. Ferretti cursed loudly and punched one of his fists against the palm of his other hand.



“They’re fine, O’Neill’s are made of sterner stuff. But, Ra, we killed him, right?” When Jackson nodded, O’Neill continued. “So, it stands to reason, these guys, this glowing eyed alien dude is..Part of Ra’s Empire. They took one of our marines Danny.”



Jackson nodded. “I take it you weren’t able to convince them?”



O’Neill nodded. Noticing how Shau’re’s grip on Jackson’s arm became vice like -She freaked big time at the mention of the snakes-



“Well, if that’s the case I think I may be able to help you, we found something in the Southern pyramid, though it’ll have to wait until the storm passes.”



“You know anything missy?” O’Neill asked Shau’re his tone neutral while Daniel moved to ask him what he meant by that. Shau’re shook her head “Only more conjecture, it wouldn’t help you, I think conjecture is what got us here. “



“We were just about to sit down for our evening meal if you’d like to join us?” Jackson offered and O’Neill was more than happy to oblige. Dinner had been more of those lizard lobster things, but this time cooked in a sauce made from those weird tomato looking fruits that grew underground in the Nagada oasis. It tasted surprisingly more like barbeque sauce than what he expected from space tomatoes, but the highlight of the evening was the liquor Skara had begun to distil based on Jackson’s description of bourbon. The only person who was able to handle shotgunning a glass without flinching besides himself was Carter and O’Neill gave the lunatic nerd a nod of respect. And when the night wound down, it was early morning before one of Junior Marines came in to let Jackson know the storm had passed. “Good, this thing doesn’t work well in storms at least according to the manual”



“Manual? Thing?” O’Neill asked. His team had barely finished exploring the front pyramid the last time they were here; six days and it was the size of a small mountain and the other pyramids? They’d managed to examine the courtyard and the second pyramid but given the sheer size of the entire complex it took seven hours to walk the whole complex. “Did you ever end up seeing snow ontop of the pyramids?” O’Neill asked absent mindedly, prompting Doc Carter if they were truly that big, which caused Lahm and Shau’re to nod emphatically.



“I’ll remain here with Shau’re while we escort Doctor Lahm around to find some samples of the local wildlife” Ferretti offered. Skara and Shau’re both agreed to stay as well, with Shau’re telling Lahm that she believed a particular plant would suit her world nicely. O’Neill gave a nod of his head “Then Kowalski stick with them, make sure our marines are protection detail for our VIP’s” he said gesturing to Shau’re and Skara. “Jackson, Doc Carter.”



“With you, yeah we know.” Sam said with her usual smile, one that was a mix of adorable and nerve wracking. It was hard to doubt her smarts and her courage, so far, she’d handled being on another world like a pro but that half crazed grin always made him wonder. “Personally, I’m fascinated by everything and I can see why Caro wants to look around at the plants. I’ve seen at least three instances of plants that seem to generate electricity and another that seemed like it was doubling as an insulin shot and that was just from what I observed in the water gardens at the Gate Room and during dinner.”



“Electrical plants? Are a good thing?” O’Neill asked, immediately regretting it when Carter nodded enthusiastically and launched into an explanation as to why that caused his eyes to glaze over until she sighed and settled for saying “Lightning tree good, make power cheaper, make life cheaper, help settle pollution problems.”



“Thank you!” O’Neill beamed as the group made their way down another hallway through the pyramid, with “torch lights” that flickered on, presaging their approach.



“So, Jackson, how’d you and Shau’re meet?” Sam asked her eyes on the sudden appearances of murals carved out of light depicting beast men at war with a race of tall knight looking men with hammers. Others depicted, gentle fairy like people who reached out with their minds and made war on Ra in battles of illusion and trickery or debate and pleas. -The casualness of all this high tech is the most interesting part- She thought. It was all used for ceremonial purposes and yet, it felt like it wasn’t special as if the technology was a commonplace every day thing.



“Well, she followed me into a sort of cleansing room when I tried to write, see religious texts, lore and anything not mathematics was prohibited to these people by Ra. I struggled to learn the nuances of the Abydonian language, and she was so intuitive, together we learned how to read it and she helped me figure out how to speak it. After that, we sort of fell in love, she kind of claimed me as her consort..funnily enough.”



That caused Carter to chuckle as they moved into a hallway that ended in a room that had nothing but another doorway and an immense mirror on the other side. “We found this room about a year ago.” Jackson said pointing at the hieroglyphs around the mirror. “A doorway, it says from one temple to the next.”



“It’s a mirror Jackson” O’Neill remarked quirking his head. “Well, an impressive mirror” He had to admit, the clear crystal was so perfect Jack thought he was looking at high some, res recording of his group.



“Yes but.” Jackson walked forward and touched one of the hieroglyphs on the lefthand side of the mirror. The mirror shifted, their reflections gone as it seemed to liquify and in their place a hallway into an interior that was dark green to contrast the indigo of the main pyramid. “Oh so that one’s green and the other is red” O’Neill said remembering that Brown had told him the pyramids were color coded.



“Yeah, I don’t know why that is” Jackson admitted before motioning to Carter. “Doctor Carter, I figured you would enjoy being the first person through.”



“I would!” she said with a smile that seemed to reach her ears. Through one looking glass and then another, Samantha Carter stepped through, her skin prickling at the cool sensation of the glass and the world shifting as she seemed to “sink” into the glass on the other side.



Once there, Carter realized they were inside not a hall of the same size as the one they departed but an immense room in an eerily hollow pyramid. Enormous statues flanked each corner, a mighty Cobra like alien made of gold and a pink gem she couldn’t identify curled around the statue of some sort of humanoid whose hand was extended in prayer. The snake sank its fangs into the throat of the humanoid. The second was a mighty Jackal headed man, his posture erect, perfectly rigid, armored and made of a deep black stone and gold and emeralds, the third could only have been Ra for his immense form sat at the center of an orrery made of holograms and floating globes, seated like a mighty king, directing the other two.



Everywhere around her were obelisks made of a Naquadah-diamond hybrid, covered with symbols, the walls were likely covered and after squinting in the semi dark she realized what she was seeing.



A repository, a map of their ancient empire.



The phone book her team spent five years searching for.



“Holy, Hannah!”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Well, it's been a little too long hasn't it? Almost Two weeks. I apologize for that, if anyone still gives a fuck about this story I'll be back in action!

Our nerds decipher some of the riddles of the pyramid and Ferretti does something awesome.

Red pyramid



Map Makers



“So, this is, this is real!?” Carter murmured, standing in place, and seemingly swiveling on her legs from side to side reminding Daniel Jackson of a Stork. “No, the truth is you’re back on earth in the same loony bin you’ve been in since you built that mockup of Castle Bravo back in ’01.”



“Two thousand and two; sir.” Sam corrected with a laugh, she didn’t mind the maniac jokes, everyone called her crazy, except for the two Admirals. But only Colonels Kowalski and O’Neill had the courage to make crazy jokes to her face and she didn’t miss the endearment in the voice of one or the lack of any hidden meaning beyond your usual hazing of a new teammate in the other. “And I don’t know sir, my hallucinations usually involve carebears that make mushroom clouds.”



Jackson laughed at that. Looking around the expansive room, eying the markings that glinted in the dark. Above them a great banner seemed to materialize out into the center of the gigantic hollow pyramid. “Our local galactic cluster” Jackson said gesturing towards the vast map.



Immense holographic pillars appeared flanking the banner which slowly transformed into a gigantic oval mirror, the map of the Galactic cluster began to remind Jackson of old nautical maps, each with lines that reminded him of latitude and longitude, well-traveled routes. The Orange seemed to represent one power, the sole power until a small cluster of purple appeared near earth. “Amazing, is this a holographic map of Ra’s domain?”



“If it is, it’s shitty, half of it is in another Galaxy and far away from the other half, cut himself off” O’Neill remarked, but somehow, he didn’t think that was a correct assessment. He knew the old bastard, prideful, vain, and arrogant as he was, Jack didn’t think he’d pitch his tent in such a haphazard way.



“I don’t know” Jackson admitted “I’ve never seen this before but I’m assuming it activated because it detected your comm devices or some of the cameras you brought along.” Jackson was going to elaborate further but something shifted, a small white dot appeared somewhere in the heart of the milky way and then it began to branch out, moving forward blotting out the orange wherever they clashed with it. The white grew, soon blue and green lines streaked through the remaining orange. O’Neill saw the pillars shift and hammers appeared on the “stone” as if it was starting to lay out belligerents. The map slowly shifted, white replacing the orange over time, the blue lines were depicted scattering and regions of the map burned only to be repaired again.





The edge of the map depicted some sort of demonic giant marching beside an old man with one eye made of silver with a spear thrusting as the map shuddered, regions shifted, names that Daniel couldn’t make heads or tails of faded, replacing by names he recognized albeit spelt differently. A holographic jackal smote the giant demon and the one eyed metal man yielded to the banishing wings of the falcon Horus who was commanded by Ra who sat like a Buddha, his hand raised in banishment.



O’Neill suppressed a shudder, fucking Ra. “So, this is the old bastard’s life story.”



“More like, a depiction of the rise of his empire.” The map shifted to the lesser Magellanic cloud. It was pure green, perhaps the enemies who sided with the orange hailed from there? A jackal and a Cobra attacked green; fires were depicted as raging across the stars before the map faded away. “So, Ra annihilated the green guys?” Jack asked, not really wanting to think about the logistics of invading another Galaxy.



“Eradicated or conquered, it could be either. We’re meant to believe it, but if its true?” Jackson gave a noncommittal shrug. “We’re beyond the science of my field and well into speculation. So I got no clue sir.”



“I think the Colonel might be right.” Carter whispered from her position beside one of the Obelisks. “These images are all gate coordinates, we have to assume they were either conquered or settled before the gates were put there..” She rose up and continued to walk around, snapping pictures. Pausing to see if she recognized a constellation or no. “You thought the symbols on the gate represented constellations. I don’t think they do, because we tried a bunch of different addresses our computers generated based on extrapolating which constellations match the symbols and even accounting.”





“So, most of these addresses are inaccessible?”O’Neill asked, cutting her off before she got into one of her nerdy rants. Hoping, that Ra’s holdings were either abandoned or destroyed and the threat of this Empire of the space kings and body thieves.



“Well, we assumed the gates must have a way of compensating for things like stellar drift, maybe they’re all connected to a network or something. Like a cosmic wi-fi connection. I wouldn’t be surprised if our gate and the Abydos Gate just haven’t received an update because neither were used in so long.” Carter answered between clicks on her camera while a second body camera recorded every wall, she put her head against. “Sir we need to establish a more detailed presence on Abydos. Beyond the pharma and minerals, these pyramids are a gold mine in material sciences, addresses and..”



They all paused.



The map shifted, the green gone, the hammer dudes were barely holding on and the last of the Orange was being encircled, when suddenly all movement stopped. A part of the map, a tiny white dot vanished, new pieces appeared. And the war shifted, something dark and terrible blanketed half the map only to gradually be banished by Ra. Things resumed apace and eventually the orange was completely devoured. The map faded, semi-darkness returned to the great pyramid but at the center a new obelisk appeared, one that seemed to be made of a white metal with veins of Naquadah running through it, each hieroglyph carved in a precious gem, either emeralds, jade, or sapphires. “Huh, didn’t hear that pop out of the ground.” O’Neill said, noting the air grew colder around the obelisk more of that “sucks all the energy out of everything” stone? “Jackson, what’s it say?”





Daniel walked forward, eying the inscriptions, the hieroglyphs were different from the ones within Nagada which were close enough to Egyptian for him to understand without scrutiny. He’d encountered this before in the Green pyramid, hidden in depths. It had taken Jackson the better part of six months to translate those. “I found hieroglyphs like this in the green pyramid, took me forever to translate them. It wasn’t until Shau’re pointed out how some of the words were similar but written as strangely as I had spoken at the beginning that I realized I was looking at the alien equivalent of old English.”



“So, this is Space Shakespeare then?” O’Neill asked gawking at the obelisk as if he was suddenly near something venomous. Behind him Carter stifled a laugh as Jackson nodded. “umm it says…”



“In the year 19,375 of the Second Dynasty, I Yu; The golden! artificer of his eminence Ra; do lay down the great directory, that which is both map and list of the worlds that do makeup the length and breadth of the Empire of the System lords. It shall remain as it is, never to grow with our grand expansion. To stand as a monument to our imperial power in this era, to measure against the archive upon Dakkara, to remember how far we have come. So that others may know, how far we shall go.”



There was an uncomfortable silence, that followed the holographic depiction above and the sheer vastness of the pyramid. The implications for the sheer size of Ra’s empire was maddening and chilled the colonel to the bone. -We fucked up, we fucked up bad-. After a few seconds O’Neill turned to Carter “Doc, how many addresses do you think are here in this room?”





“umm, I don’t know, maybe a hundred thousand, maybe more. But-but that doesn’t mean this represents the full measure of their territory sir. A lot of these could just be worlds they visited.” She muttered, rather unsure of herself.



“Uh-huh visited but didn’t bother to settle. They were just kind enough to drop a Stargate” O’Neill asked sarcastically.



“Well, in fairness sir, the United States doesn’t deposit military bases in every country it does business with” Carter countered, her eyes shifting across the vastness of it all. “The inscription this is all theirs, but you guys made note of how arrogant Ra seemed and how bitter. Maybe his Empire balkanized? We might not be in danger, hell sir there’s no reason to assume that Ra’s people would even see us as a threat! What if they just end up wanting to sell us stuff.”





O’Neill gawked at her as if she’d grown a second head. “Doc, we blew the fuck out of their space Caesar! We may as well be seen as the worst terrorists in the universe, how would it be reasonable to assume they’d wanna do anything but shoot us on sight?!” O’Neill asked, or worse, he’d seen enough of Ra’s hatred to realize if his people were anything like him, they could expect a terrible end.



“Well, that’s the point isn’t it Sir?” Carter answered with a shrug “Maybe we did them a favor, maybe they have no idea that we did it. Maybe just”



“They can read minds Doctor Carter.” Jackson remarked “At least Ra could, if others can as well then there’s no way they wouldn’t find out and then we’re in trouble. But you’re in trouble any way.”



O’Neill nodded; Jackson had a point there. Their mission was to retrieve Jackson to try and figure out where Hammond’s missing Marine was taken and how to retrieve her if possible. No matter what, they were going out there and he doubted he’d be able to talk Hammond down. Even if they presented him with this..information. It seemed like the Government wanted them out in the stars by what O’Neill could read inbetween the lines and he had a feeling they were expecting something like this for a good while even while they denied it. -What the hell’s been going on back home- he thought.





“Alright, continue documentation here and finish up in half an hour and then we’ll head back. Daniel, I’d like for you, Shau’re and Skara to come with us. I want Abydos represented and Hammond should know we’ll have allies here and future trading partners.”



And a potential place to strike from on any less than savory missions, Jackson thought somewhat upset at the prospect of his new home being used as a sort of meat shield for Earth. Not that Jack would allow that if he could help it, the affection the Colonel held for Abydos was plain as day for anyone with eyes.



“It may be better for Skara to appoint a go between, Kasuf sort of became the planetary Governor of Abydos, when the city and farm masters decided to just continue the old system but with a rebrand.” Daniel put in.



“And two members of the new royal family being away from home in unknown territory even an ally isn’t wise gotcha” O’Neill nodded.



“Actually sir, three” Carter put in slapping Daniel on the chest “Prince Daniel here is husband and consort to Lady Shau’re after all!” She said in a hazing tone, her eyes filled with amusement which evolved into laughter when Jackson groaned. “He’s never going to let me live that down now”



“Prince Daniel? So, I guess a few thousand years from now people will be gawking at your mummy huh?”



“Don’t remind me.” Daniel groaned; he really didn’t like the reverence that he’d received since the ousting of Ra five years ago.



“Well, your majesty. If you’d be so kind as to assist Doctor Carter so we can get back.” Jack remarked. Wondering which of the Junior Marines would be asked to accompany Shau’re and Jackson back through the gate.


...................


Main Pyramid.





“So. wait, you guys have underwater horse elephants with six leg-flipper things?” One of the Space Force Marines, asked.



The youngest guard, who had almost protested the assignment of Gate duty when he learned the Tau’Ri” had brought new munitions with them. He wanted to go into the deep desert and hunt the sand wolves, the ambush predators that Tau’Ri had done battle with on their first mission. His protestations stopped when he realized it was as much part honor guard duty as anything else and he had enjoyed the responsibility. Besides, Sanders and Beckett as he learned they were called had been good company. They were ten years older than he and had interesting experience in combat on their world. Jungles were something that was said to exist in the far north of the mother continent. Some vast forests in the new lands settled by those who had left around the time of Sobek and the few that returned spoke of a coldness that lasted months as opposed to merely the evenings.



But oceans of frozen water far as the eye could, see? That beggared the imagination! “Indeed, I am told the ancestors of the Mastages hail from your world. Perhaps, you’ve got your own variant?” he queried.



“Well, there are Walrus’ and Manatees and Elephant seals, but we don’t domesticate them for work. Elephant seals are too violent, Walruses as always and Manatees are too rare, gentle and stupid. Our ships were driven by men with oars and by wind. Then by fire and boiling water, then by electricity and dead flesh and now, finally by nuclear power..errr..small stars” Sanders explained. He was the older of the two marines and the more knowledgeable of the pair, far more eager to talk than Beckett, who was no less congenial.



“Ah, like the device the O’Neill God-killer used to destroy Ra?” The boy Sureth asked.



“Yes, precisely, only instead of exploding, we use its terrible heat to generate electricity via the boiling of water” Sanders said nodding his head. That was supposed to be the difference between regular marines and the Space Force Marine Detachment. Not just the deadliest killers on the earth and in the heavens but the smartest.



“Giving away state secrets there ehh?” Ferretti’s voice boomed from corridor, behind him Shau’re laughed lightly as both the marines and the members of the Abydonian defense force stood erect. “MARHSALL SIR!” Sareth called, throwing up a salute.



“At ease warrior” Ferretti said, his hands folded behind his back a look of amusement in his eyes as the USSF Marines rolled their eyes. “I once was an earth man y’know, can’t say I approve”



“Shall I imprison them sir?” Sareth asked innocently causing Ferretti to howl with laughter. “No warrior…actually..wait..on second thought lets scourge them in public and hang them for dishonoring their masters our allies”



“Harr harr Sir” Sanders remarked reaching out to shake Ferretti’s hand. The two had served together briefly seven years prior, Beckett who looked pale began to relax.



“You’re cruel!” Skara remarked walking up with a group of marines. “We came to keep them company, Gate duty can be rather boring. Nothing happens there after”



The ground trembled slightly.



Lights on the gate flickered.



“Hammond?” Skara asked, a slight edge in his tone. Though he suspected it was likely their escorts (As Kowalski had just radioed back to let them know they’d be bringing official delegates of Nagada). Allegedly this Admiral Hammond had planned to step through the gate himself to escort them through. Skara looked forward to meeting the man who even O’Neill described as a great man.





“No, he said he wouldn’t be here fore another two hours” Ferretti snapped his fingers, his boys darted into the darker parts of the chamber and he eyed Sanders and Beckett “follow their lead.”



Someone ran up to Ferretti with one of the staff weapons taken from after the battle with Ra. Ferretti grasped it and slunk backwards. “Take Shau’re and go” he whispered to Skara.



Shau’re shook her head. “No, my place is here.”



“Shau’re!” Ferretti hissed as the final symbol locked into place.



The twist of the vortex, the roar of the aperture.



What looked like a bejeweled Ostrich egg tumbled into the room, Beckett thought it might have been similar to the scanning device described in the assault on the SGC. He found out, much to his horror how wrong he was when a wave of energy roared into being that launched him against the wall. A violent screeching sound disoriented everyone, Shau’re fell to the ground clutching her ears, Sanders nearly vomited in his helmet and Ferretti opened fire on the orb which exploded in an array of sparks that were absorbed by the walls.



Seconds later an enormous bolt of crimson energy left gate and tore down the hallway, impacting somewhere within. The explosion rattled Beckett’s teeth and caused the entire passage and ceiling above to seemingly lurch. A second later, he heard someone shout “They’ve got fucking artillery lasers?!”



Someone else cursed, but it wasn’t one of his men nor the desert boys for it was in a raspy, cruel and metallic voice. Something slammed into his side and Beckett opened fire, the next generation weapons and their ammunition seemed to do a better job than the stuff the marines that fought off the attackers on earth had because he could see a man in dark leather like get up with a bronze-colored serpent’s head endure the storm of bullets for a second before his armor was shredded and bits of him came loose.





That was when Beckett began to feel like he was lightheaded. He reached down and felt his torso, ribs? Not broken? No puncture wounds on the sternum, down near his left hip, he reached for what Hammond called “Dough boy love handles” and felt a gaping hole where his kidney and part of his stomach used to be.



Oh, that was why.



Beckett passed out as Shau’re ran over to him, grabbing his rifle.



-Go get ‘em kid-

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

@bullethead @DocSolarisReich NGS comes up against Jaffa armor...And Apophis and Ferretti fight.

My God is an awesome God.







“Majesty! Wait, reports from the other side indicate that the Tau’Ri have new weaponry, weaponry that is more effective against our armor” Teal’c did his best to keep his voice calm and measured. He’d never not in nearly two centuries of life, ever really hated himself. But here? And now? Standing at the front of the Chappa’ai like some thug from the Lucian Alliance trafficking hosts for the lowest breed of Goa’uld that they might try and touch their betters? Teal’c felt low, upon seeing his master pace along the gate ramp like some caged racing steed all but biting at his own cheeks with anticipation; Teal’c felt shattered….





-I prayed to you once- Teal’c thought bitterly. Back when he was young enough to see the System Lords not as beings of immense power, perhaps god like power but literal gods. Back when the Titan had exiled his father and they were without a home and he had seen Apophis for the first time. Gallant, noble and laying low a dozen of his own Jaffa in duels only to laugh and help them up.



Kronos had been cruel, vicious, haggard and bloated. A living carcass of a System Lord, hateful and tyrannical and he mistreated his Jaffa as much as he abused his own subjects. Apophis, for one glorious moment had everything a Jaffa could ask for in a master, in a lord and in a god. And now? He was watching the man he idolized, on the eve of what might be the bloodiest war the universe would ever see pace like a human junky on some “developed” world’s streets.



Teal’c waited, for it seemed as though Apophis hadn’t heard him, and he moved to speak again before his lord waved him off. “Ah but Teal’c that only makes things more interesting!” Teal’c hadn’t bothered to ascertain if the weapons fire was Abydonian in design and if they were chasing phantoms. It was obvious that, such a backwater couldn’t manufacture such weapons, once perhaps but when Lantesh was razed.



-More interesting? Are you so bored with life that you wish to risk being torn to pieces by crude projectiles for a little amusement? Are we nothing to you?!- Teal’c wanted to shout, gnash his teeth, anything. System Lords were powerful, dangerous and if they had time to react, nearly unkillable but they were still susceptible to ambushes even though Teal’c knew of none save Prometheus that had been killed in such a manner. Well, until Tau’Ri terrorists blew up Ra, killed the Godhead, the being even Teal’c thought to be beyond death.



Apophis set a hand on Teal’c shoulder. “Come! Come Teal’c! We shall avenge Ra! And cement the house of Tartarus as the true power in the Empire!” He flashed a manic smile before pulling away from Teal’c, taking in a deep breath. Eyes wild with anticipation, waiting only long enough for Teal’c to step through before him as was proper.



The pair emerged on the other side with six of the Serpent Lord’s honor guard into a cacophony of violence. Bullets and energy blasts racing around the room, either impacting and being absorbed by the walls or else ricocheting and proving to be a hazard to friend and foe alike. A bullet glanced off the silver-colored officers Serpent helm Teal’c wore, and he aimed his staff weapon above Apophis who dove to the ground. The two fired almost simultaneously and a young Abydonian near one of the Tau’Ri warriors was turned into little more than a pair of legs and a head which had smashed into a column behind him. A young Abydonian female near a partially disemboweled Tau’Ri managed to fire one of different weapons of Tau’Ri make at the staff of Sak’ro a young Jaffa of nineteen whom Teal’c had trained since childhood to be among the Serpent Lords honor guard. The bullet must have contained or been encased in some sort of accelerant for when it by chance hit the focusing prism in barrel of the staff’s cannon, the resulting mix of plasma and whatever substance was within the projectile exploded and Teal’c saw part of the shaft bury itself in the torso of the young Jaffa whose arm was little more than a smoldering stump.



He saw blue liquid ooze out of Sak’ro’s back and quickly turned firing a staff bolt at him before the room could be filled with his screams, before he could die the most undignified of deaths. Apophis turned on Teal’c eyes narrowing “Those barbarians know to target the pouch!?” His voice, that chorus of the consumed which all System Lords spoke with roared above the fray and Teal’c shook his head. “No Majesty! I believe it was merely poor luck!”



“I had to ask! Any maniac fool enough to turn an imperial temple into a shooting gallery is capable of anything!” Apophis laughed and rose from his position beneath Teal’c and rose wading into the din of battle.



Teal’c supposed it was fortunate no System Lord ever claimed to be prescient, even though Hathor was said to possess the power of oracular sight. The complete lack of self-awareness Apophis had just displayed would be enough to make any Lotar or subject of the empire renounce their worship. Then again on many primitive worlds on the periphery of the empire savages worshipped rocks, or dirt or stars or moon or sun or rivers or the storms of their worlds. Fickle Gods, immensely powerful and unreachable, it was an apt fit for his master on most days. Today, he was both the fickle god of feral beast men and the mighty war god of the imperial religion. A quick blow from a staff weapon delivered by Apophis nearly cleaved a youth of Abydos in half for all the violence of the impact. His master was now weaving between projectiles and shattering bone with an energy weapon he seemed to prefer to wield like a combat baton.



These men of Tau’Ri these “mureens” were killing Jaffa Teal’c had known for decades, fighting far better and far more organized than those in the Tau’Ri facility, their allies with the madness of men and women defending their homes though most were still children. They were losing, but the losses inflicted on his own warriors were enough that Teal’c would have ordered a retreat had he not known Apophis would kill him where he stood for daring to deny him his indulgence. Apophis was a remarkable warrior in his own right and soon the Jaffa were rallying beside him when what looked like a crude pickaxe hurled by the largest human Teal’c had ever seen smashed into the armored torso of Apophis with enough violence that it simply bounced off the metal it couldn’t penetrate.



Iron and wood snapped, there was a grunt and Teal’c noticed his Lord had taken a blow to the right eyebrow and left lower jaw and he saw the din of battle die as everyone saw the Serpent Lord fall. Jaffa horrified, Abydonians hopeful and the surviving Tau’Ri simply confused as to why everyone stopped.



Fools, was it not obvious?



A god had just fallen.



Or had he?



The shadow of Ferretti loomed over Apophis for a second before Teal’c turned on his heels and aimed his weapon for the mammoth of a human’s chest.



“KREE-JAFFA!!!”



The order robbed everyone of fight, Tau’Ri, Jaffa, Abydonian like. The deep rumbling, other worldly voice of the System Lords, the psychic command to stay their hands had overwhelmed everyone.



Everyone, except the young woman, the Tau’Ri giant and the giant’s second whom Teal’c would later learn was called Skara.



-You should have been weaker, now he will want you for more than just momentary amusement- Teal’c realized with dread.



Apophis rose, his full height a head above Ferretti though he was lankier in form. “Ve…rhhmm..rmmmhh..Ah..Veery..Good!” Apophis nodded, his English mangled.



“Been inside the heads of many Americans?” Ferretti asked with a vicious grin. He’d set aside his pistol; his rifle had run out of ammo and then been melted by a stray plasma bolt. Armed with only a knife and axe the giant intended to face Apophis.



“No, but..my..” he allowed the words to come into his mind, touching every so slightly on the mind of the one surviving marine whose eyes seemed to flicker with alarm at the bizarre sensation Ferretti knew only too well.



“Son has, you’ll have to give me a moment Tau’Ri I was never one for telepathy. It’s a coward’s weapon, but it is useful in learning languages. My dear boy, showed me a home made codex of your language that one..the..Jensen? On the floor there with the half-melted face. He is helping me as best we can to polish it.” Apophis cracked his knuckles then with a heave rotated his shoulders and cracked his neck.





“Yeah, the other guy learned English by screwing with my brain. I don’t think he liked how I spoke though. Y’know the jackass twink with the armored skin? Long hair, sun god.”



Several Jaffa cursed; they didn’t need to know the language but the tone that was being taken against their master disgusted them. For his part though Apophis laughed uproariously even as he probed Ferretti’s mind for the definition of the word Twink (He’d apparently conditioned himself well in the last five years, it was the wrong conditioning to avoid mental intrusion, but it wasn’t bad. So, Apophis honored with a “knock” and was rewarded with a mental image he found amusing).





“My brother-in-law was a great ruler, but he was no leader nor warrior. He forgot that one cannot simply call oneself a god, but one must prove it and earn it.” Apophis held up a clenched fist, his eyes brimming with madness, while Teal’c had to struggle not to shake his head at how flippant Apophis was being with his “godhood”.



“Do you understand this Tau’Ri?”





The giant to Teal’c, had the look of a man who knew he was likely going to die, but he also had the look of a man who was intent on buying as much time as possible for reinforcements to arrive and when he motioned to Apophis to warn him, the Serpent shook his head.





“Well enough, well enough…What’s your name body snatcher?”



That insult, Teal’c needed no translation for, his eyes accused “thief!” was screaming from the Tau’Ri’s body language as well. No Goa’uld alive would allow such an insult to go without punishment and Bra’tac said the closest Ra came to ever going mad with bloodlust was when Cronus had accused him of such.



“I Am ankhsu-Apophis son of Tartarus and Neith, Lord of war, king of combat! Master of the largest domain of the System lords! The Spear of Ra and master of the fleet of a million ships!” Apophis voice roared around the vastness of the room, many presents might have sworn they’d heard the cry of battle, of the voices of soldiers spanning tens of millennia, the subtle “inflections” in the voice of the system lord filling the minds of those present with the anticipation of bloodshed.



“I’m Major Ferretti, Marshal of the Abydonian militia, son of a bitch, son of no one born in Brooklyn!” Ferretti stepped forward cracking his neck. This shit was unreal, completely unreal. The moron stopped the whole battle just to pick a fight with him? His eyes flickered back to Skara who nodded.



As soon as Apophis dropped him, they’d drop led.



“If I’m gonna kill a god, what promises do I have that your men won’t kill me hmm?”



Apophis who had been laughing at Ferretti’s irreverent introduction grinned a malevolent grin. “My word, my divine will! Should you defeat me or even die with honor! My Jaffa shall leave Abydos forever more! Truth be told, I’m not supposed to be here…I’m breaking into my sister’s territory without permission!” his manic laughter caught Ferretti off guard for a second -Damn, this dude’s batshit-



Apophis turned to Teal’c and speaking in the offshoot language of their region and not imperial standard he ordered that Teal’c slaughter everyone present as soon as he killed the Tau’Ri war leader.



Teal’c almost paled, his eyes flickering in momentary shame. True enough, while Jaffa of any System Lord had leave to enter and enforce laws in the territory of any other. It was still expected of them to notify the local primes, if a fugitive or pirate group was large enough to notify that domain’s first Prime or a planetary lord then all actions had to be undertaken jointly and while it wasn’t illegal, no System Lord ever entered the domains of another save by leave of that system lord. To do otherwise was seen as a gross insult and breach of protocol, one that had happened since the mad titan invaded Haqet’s holdings at the start of his rebellion. But now, Apophis was asking Teal’c to not only disrespect Hathor but to dishonor himself? “You would have me..violate your divine mandate majesty?” Teal’c asked horrified.



Apophis waved him off “Oh my dear Teal’c, how you worry. I shall absolve you and pardon you, after all. You’re worth more to me than this entire planet and all its denizens!”



Teal’c steeled himself nodding and perhaps compelled by the memory of the God Teal’c respected and admired, perhaps even loved. He withdrew a long dagger with a bone handle, the blade was black as knight save for soft sparkle like patterns of Naduadriah a rarer and far more unstable and valuable variant of Naquadah. “May I request that you face and defeat the first prime of Abydos with the blade of your first prime?” -please my lord, see reason! The raid here is enough to censor you, don’t engage in an atrocity that will sully us all please!-



For a moment Apophis seemed genuinely touched, he took the blade in hand his eyes searching the blade pattern, his heart searching his memories. “This was your fathers was it not my boy?” Apophis asked. “I slew Cronus with it and in doing so, avenged him didn’t? Yes.. Yes I did.” There may have been some of the warrior of old within, but it vanished as he handed the blade back to Teal’c.



“No” He shook his head. “That blade killed a god Teal’c, it cannot be used on this…terrorist filth. You presume too much my dear First Prime! Were I my sister I’d have you reduced to the status of a prime for such affrontery! Perhaps even castrate you for it!” Though his tone was playful, there was a hint of malice in it that Teal’c had never heard before from his master. -He’s gone- Teal’c realized -If he ever existed at all-





Apophis instead opted to slide a leather glove with the metal ribbons and Naquadah gemstone system Lords used as a focus. Teal’c understood in that moment Apophis didn’t intend to defeat this Ferretti but butcher him.







The fight commenced faster than Teal’c anticipated and to his shock it was the Tau’Ri who unleashed a hurricane of thrusts and blows with the one knife he kept on his person. Sparks flew from armor, the chamber filled with the crazed laughter of Apophis and the grunts of effort from Tau’Ri’s champion.



Blow after blow, Apophis either playfully knocked away from his person or else pivoted to allow it to glance harmlessly off an armored part of his body. At one point he side stepped Ferretti who had his arm out mid thrust the world seemed to slow to Teal’c as he could see the Serpent lord stare quizzically at the giant only for his eyes to widen in surprise when Ferretti managed to reverse his momentum and slam into Apophis’ chest with such violence he uprooted the Serpent Lord and crumbled to the floor just as Apophis collided with a column and let out a sharp intake of breath that told Teal’c a rib bone was broken.



The Cobra King’s eyes sparkled balefully, and an unhinged smile trespassed across his face as he watched Ferretti rise and rush towards him forearm and elbow digging into Apophis’ sternum, knife blade driving towards his throat. “Fuck your mother” Ferretti Spat, the sheer strength of the Tau’Ri surprising many who witnessed. Apophis for his part never seemed to lose his amused expression, even as the blade punctured a layer of skin on his throat. He’d allowed it, just enough before he began to push back slowly reversing the tide with little more than his own forearms. Ferretti was launched back but he managed to arrest his own momentum and with a flip was on his knee’s eyes frantic and searching for Apophis and barely getting his left arm up in time to block a powerful kick designed to snap his neck.



There was an audible crunching sound and then the sound flesh skittering along the floor. Ferretti was down and by the time he got up to his feet, an arm hanging almost limp at his side, the forearm and upper arm both shattered, Apophis had grabbed him by the head rammed the man’s skull into the nearest column. Blood sprayed everywhere, the violence of the blow collapsing the right eye socket. Something spluttered to the floor, a pair of molars and then a blow to the side and blood followed. Apophis yanked the heap of a man down onto his knees and grabbed a tuft of hair on his head.





His eyes flickered to Shau’re and Skara and the demoralized, horrified militia and a wolfish grin trespassed along his features. The device began to glow in his hand and…



A gun blast broke the silence.



Shau’re’s eyes were filled with venom and she’d managed to get a round off square in the Serpent Lord’s chest. Fortunately, the armor held but the second bullet that went off would have gone right through one of his eyes had he not thrown up an energy shield in time. His eyes locked with Shau’re, taking in her beauty, her defiance, her hatred.



He uttered one word.



With the blood of his Jaffa up, Teal’c couldn’t have stopped them even if he tried. They were still intoxicated by the image of their Lord fighting beside them and the audacity of these Tau’Ri radicals to fire on Apophis during a contest of strength! The sheer dishonor.



“Her.”



He didn’t need to utter another order. The possessiveness in his eyes said it all, he wanted that girl and anyone else strong enough to fight back.



The Serpent guard fell upon the Abydonian defenders, abandoning their staff weapons and opting to rip them apart with their bare hands for their heresies.



Teal’c thanked the stars that his Serpent helm obscured the look in his eyes and the shame on his face.



He wanted to weep, he wanted to take aim and fire at Apophis.



He wanted to hold his wife and son and forget anything else existed.



Maybe he could forget the universe and his disgrace then.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Gate Room


“Damnit why the hell are these pyramids so big!” Kowalski’s voice echoed through the corridor, despite the age gap between himself and his men the Colonel was out in front hustling ahead of them weapon at the ready. He thanked God for the Next Gen Weapons they were able to get authorization to use though, a detail of three Serpent dudes made it to the exit of the hallway before he and his men and the Abydonians and their armor stood up to about two seconds of sustained fire from his marines before they were shredded. The Snake men took out an Abydonian and vaporized the rifle of one of his marines (Likely severely burning the dude’s arm and hurling shrapnel into his torso in the process, from what Charles could tell from the smell and sounds). During the original fight five years ago, even Ra’s rentacops could handle more led and Kowalski shuddered to think what would have happened if he brought some useless shit like a P-90 against one of these professionals. Ahead of them the pathway was filled with smoke and debris but amazingly nothing from the interior of the pyramid collapsed and to Kowalski’s surprise the fire was slowly being put out by the energy absorbing properties of the Naquadah in the facility -Damn this things hungry for energy like a fatass at a buffet-.



As they neared the Gate room there was the telltale hiss of staff guns and the roar of weapons fire from his men and what was left of the Abydonian militia within. A body was strewn on the floor, covered in that leather looking armor, the helm blown off. Below was a pale skinned girl of about sixteen (physically any way, his wife had said there was a chance one of these dudes who looked like a teenager might be closer to forty than sixteen.) Kowalski had to stop himself from feeling the instinctive pang of guilt at the killing of a child soldier by his marines. They were dangerous enough on earth, but he read the after-action report on the raid. A girl younger than this disemboweled a marine and twisted another’s head almost clean off before the other Carter blew her brains out. -They only look like kids; she could really be sixteen or she could be my age-





What he assumed were plasma bolts whirred overhead the moment he entered the Gate Room and Kowalski could see the metallic looking gate was open and shimmering, Snake dudes retreated through as others laid cover fire. The tall golden armored dude who commanded them was nowhere to be seen but Kowalski could make out another giant standing like a grim, contemplative statue watching the carnage. There was something, somber about the figure and Kowalski would have stopped to wonder if the guy wasn’t filled with regret or doubt if it weren’t for the fact that the female behind him held Skara over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She began to head towards the gate and Kowalski slid from the column and took aim.



A bullet ricocheted off her shoulder -Damnit Chuckles! Focus!- He fired again and again, finally something gave and blood sprayed from her chest as two surviving members of the Abydonian militia likewise turned and fired at her. The wound must have taken a chunk of her lung and certainly shattered bone, but she merely sauntered through the gate in one final burst of energy.



There was a second where the blasts from energy weapons ceased, only the tall grim figure behind the silver helm watched the defenders of Abydos, his refusal to leave a single one of his surviving Jaffa on the other side of the gate. Both impressed Kowalski and made him wonder if the guy didn’t have a Deathwish or something as he refused to fire at anyone who came near him. Eventually the figure turned, just as someone hit him in the shoulder with what Kowalski thought sounded like a Barret. -Was that one of his or one of the Abydonian’s?-



Shockingly, the alien commanders’ arm didn’t explode, but the armor bent inward and Kowalski was pretty sure the guy’s shoulder was dislocated and a few of the bones below the joint were broken. -So, I guess command level guys have better gear? Because that would have crunched one of Ra’s rentacops-



The wormhole faded from existence and as the gate itself went dark an eerie silence reigned over the Gate Room.



Then the screams started.



Kowalski turned, his eyes taking in the carnage before him. A marine lay on the floor next to an Abyondian, what was left of his face had been contorted in shock, the butt of a next gen rifle was lodged in his torso where the left side of his rib cage should have been. Weaponry from ally and enemy alike lay strewn about the floor “These bastards went into CQC?”



“They tore our guy’s apart sir!” One of the medics remarked horrified. The Abydonians faired little better, Kowalski could make out a teenager whose arm had been ripped off and used as a blunt instrument to crush his skull with off to the side near a large heap that… Jesus, Ra’s mooks were at least disciplined. What the hell happened here?





Forget a breakdown of the chain of command, their God or a representative thereof was fighting with them from what he could gather, and they still lost their shit like this and went blood mad? He could hear footfalls belonging to his wife and to Kadra who were leading a contingent of Abydonian medics forward. Kowalski felt relieved until he heard the loud wailing of a young woman and turned to see Kadra on her knees, Lahm and some of his marines were all turning with a similar look of horror and disgust.






Several feet closer to the gate was a mound of human flesh, which despite being on its knees appeared tall and broad. About it was draped a banner all black with a golden cobra, hood outstretched mouth opened in a display of menace. A cobra whose snout was red and bloodied, bloodied by the wounds on the body. A body that had most of its face crushed, an arm shattered and what looked like some sort of steel spear thrust through its chest. Worse, the body’s heart was pulled out by the spear and rested partially out of the shattered chest. Kowalski blinked unsure why Kadra was sobbing so violently and then he saw his wife move to pick her up to help her hold herself together by assuring her Louis would want her to tend to the wounded and the dying.



Louis…Louis?!



The corpse was Ferretti?!



“No” Kowalski murmured. “Oh no, no, not like this. Not after everything, not like this, not like this!” He wanted to rage, he wanted to kick something, he wanted to punch something, hell he wanted to cry. Instead, he calmly tried to reach the colonel again by tapping the transmitter near his earpiece. When once again he received static, Kowalski did his best to steady his shaky hand and order one of his boys to go retrieve Colonel O’Neill.



“Dial up earth!” Kowalski barked at an Abydonian he recognized from the original mission. The man blinked “Earth?”



Oh right, why would he know the address, damnit.



The man seemed to consider for a moment before grinning “Ah, Tau’Ri, yes I forget you people call your world soil! Forgive me, I do not know the address, but my son does!” turning he called for a tall, lanky boy of thirteen who rose from position beside an old miner who was in shock from a gut wound. The youth ran over and after a quick exchange between father and son the boy turned to Kowalski and nodded. “At once sir!”



“Charles” a voice came from behind him, he almost didn’t recognize it for how haggard it sounded. “I know Kadra” he responded doing his best to conceal the anguish in his voice, Skara and Shau’re were missing. While he couldn’t account for Shau’re, he could certainly account for Skara. But how could he tell her that her older brother was carted off? At least right now and yet.



“They were taken?” she asked softly.



Damnit.





“They were.”





And we’re gonna get them back Kaddy, I promise you that.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

The Serpent and The Eagle





“If the avian does not whistle, kill it” – Orilus



“If the avian does not whistle, convince it to whistle” – Odin





“If the avian does not whistle, whistle through it” - Ra







“The three Kings” – Tollan Haiku





Two hours after the raid.





“I understand it’s your prerogative sir, but I have to insist you remain behind.” Colonel Samuels all but bellowed down the hallway in a tone that was more of a sarcastic “oh no, please don’t” tone that suggested he’d be anything but dismayed if the Admiral walked himself through the gate and right into a firefight.





“You insist?” Hammond asked not really looking back as he strode towards the elevator. The dismissiveness in the Texan’s tone suggested he cared about as much as Samuel’s input as Samuel’s cared if the man survived or not. “First communication we get from Abydos and it’s that those snakes killed more of my men and abducted two diplomatic envoys under the protection of the USSF and you think I’m going to let anyone under my command go in without my presence?!”



“..Procedure..sir..regs”



“Son we’re in the middle of intergalactic intrigue son, don’t cite terrestrial protocol!” it might have been Samuels’ imagination, but the elevator doors seemed to slam closed as if to emphasize the bald Seals point.





In the Gate Room the blue hum of the vortex illuminated against the back of the wall, yet there was not but the glimmer of shiny over the event horizon of the wormhole. The iris, something Hammond had insisted on after he read the report from the first Abydos mission. Was made up of titanium, steel and some kind of polymer made of materials back engineered by the Groom Lake boys. Closing barely a micrometer from the surface of the event horizon it was said to prevent anything sent through from rematerializing. Initially, his request was met with stonewalling but after a year of fighting well, he finally had his damn Iris. -Not soon enough- Hammond thought bitterly. Around him were several unmanned vehicles that would be remote operated by USSF specialists who were sitting on the ramp or helping move the medical supplies that were being loaded on the tiny trailers attached to the vehicles. Twenty USSF marines and four specialists from the “Air force” arm of the USSF and a group of five survey experts and energy specialists pulled from the army corps of engineers were present.



It had surprised Hammond how little convincing the President needed to give the go ahead to initiate talks about establishing a research facility and a “trade outpost” on Abydos, the engineers were supposed to be brought in to look around and to talk to Kasuf about any assistance he might have needed while Skara and whoever State sent to help Hammond negotiate with Skara did the smooth talking. Instead, they would be part of a show of force, both to calm their allies down and to proceed through the gate on a rescue mission as soon as the dust could be settled.



A mission Hammond had every intention of commanding from a Froward Operating Base and not from the safety of the Mountain. Seals didn’t run, Seals didn’t hide not unless they were taking cover to better kill a target and Admiral George Samuel Hammond wasn’t about to do any running or hiding not to a bunch of varmints. “Colonel Samuels you will head to Washington and join Director Ellis.”



“S..Sir General Landry isn’t that far away, shouldn’t you hold the mission just a little” Samuels really, really didn’t want to have to put up with Hank Landry and his love of birds for the next week or so it would be before the Admiral returned from his insane adventure. -Why is a member of the Stellar Naval division of the Space Force commanding a ground mission? It should be Landry on the field and Hammond here, greedy bastard- Samuels thought, ignoring the fact that the Admiral was a Seal and that most of experience involved similar missions. Nothing was going to get in the way of his desire to rage.





“You can tell Samuels hates his life because he isn’t jumping at the chance to command the SGC for the half hour it’ll take the General to stop saying hi to the guards outside” The sing song voice came from a short woman with tanned skin and earthy brown hair in a pixie cut. She was forty-seven but looked some ten years younger, something she insisted was a miracle given as she put it “I survived Ebola, Polio and getting abducted by aliens and the big foot thing”. It was sometimes hard to tell if Janet Fraser was messing with you or deadly serious, especially given everything they now knew about the stars. Fraser had survived Ebola and Polio though, from her time dealing with bioweaponry in the nineties. Hammond had chosen her as the head of medical for the facility because she was one of the best damn doctors out there and her hobbies made her an expert in all kinds of weirdness that her made useful in the field of dealing with the potential aftermath of interplanetary exploration. Something that, Hammond had been pushing for since SG-0 returned from the original Abydos mission and something that was finally greenlit within hours of the raid. Fraser would be leading a team of ten medics and would be returning with the most severely injured personnel and abydonians.





Pallets of ammunition, guns of all kinds and other gear were also being shipped out and would arrive with the second wave through the Gate. Knowing what they knew about the size of the gate on Abydos compared to theirs Hammond wanted to make sure nothing got wedged on the other side. He stood at top of the Gate Ramp looking over the menagerie of combined forces, civilians and everything else under his command and marveled at how swiftly they were able to up their timetable and cobble everything together. A nod of his head lowered the Iris and after a quick broadcast warning the other side, they were coming through Admiral George Hammond became the first Flag office of the United States Space Force’s Stellar naval division (And the first Earth Born Admiral) to set foot on another world.





Hammond didn’t expect fanfare, but he did wish his arrival on Abydos didn’t precede an assault by a psychotic alien despot. The smell of blood, smoke, antiseptics and sweat filled his nostrils and he gazed around at the blood stains and the people too injured to move, the corpses which were strewn about the room, the brutality of it all and then.



Ferretti.



George Hammond was going to kill whoever did that to Ferretti.



George Hammond was also going to make a scarecrow out of the bastard’s corpse.





Others exited the gate, including Fraser who bolted passed Hammond and immediately grabbed Lahm by the wrist, assaulting her with a barrage of questions over what was needed. Hammond was glad the woman had come, craziness aside she had an aura of matronly authority about her and Lahm and the Abydonian healers seemed to be relieved to have someone who was willing to take the burden of command off them so they could become more involved in triage.





O’Neill and an older man with strong shoulders and robes that looked like they belonged to a king in an old sword and sandal movie approached Hammond, Carter was off to the site leaning on a column covered in dried blood from helping with the wounded. He’d never seen the young woman so angry. Seated on the ground in a heap beside her, head resting on one of her legs was Doctor Jackson. He had the look of a man who’d just lost someone precious to him and then from the look in O’Neill and the older man’s face (Both had a look Hammond had seen in many father’s whose children either went missing or died), he assumed this one was Kasuf.



Hammond bowed his head, unsure what the proper greeting was. “Colonel O’Neill and Kasuf I take it?”



To his surprise the older man spoke English and he nodded. “Admiral Hammond, I regret I cannot offer you the reception a man of your reputation and your station deserves.”. Though it was a dark attempt at humor, Hammond understood it well. He’d spent his fare share of time in missions that required him to meet tribal chiefs and nomadic leaders, he understood the importance such societies often placed on decorum and protocol especially during a time of crisis and he could see Kasuf partially meant the apology.



“You honor me sir, but there’s no need to be sorry on my account. This, travesty takes precedent over all other concerns, don’t it?” Hammond asked relieved when he saw the look of relief on Kasuf’s face, one that meant he wasn’t completely off base with his read.



“My eldest son and eldest daughter have been taken by a Star God or perhaps one of their champions.” Kasuf’s voice wavered, he didn’t quite know what to call the being who had commanded the raid. Ra was the Great Godhead, the king of kings, the Emperor of all time and space, the other gods were great lords, kings amongst the stars, demons perhaps. Though he no longer believed in the imperial religion, not since he was a child and especially not since Daniel came, it seemed to be the best way to emphasize what they were now dealing with.



“So was one of my men, a marine of mine named Christmas. We aim to bring her home; we’ll bring yours home as well” Hammond assured him grabbing the man by the shoulders. “Lord Kasuf” Hammond said, remembering the proper way of addressing him from the last radio communication. “There was talk of an alliance between our people, in the spirit of that alliance. I bring you medicine, ammunition, and weaponry. I was told that Jackson was helping you rediscover your lost technology, I’ve brought some experts to help you there.”



Kasuf bowed deeply, crossing his hands over his chest. “I thank you Admiral, part of me wishes to advise you to bury the gate, if they come to avenge Ra for all that you have done, we would bear that fight alone if we thought it could spare your people.”



Hammond was touched, the nobility of the thought earned Kasuf his respect and friendship but there was no way Hammond would allow that. “The leader of my people wants us to stand with you and I’m a man of Texas lord. And in Texas we don’t abandon our friends to a nest of vipers. No, this is our fight too and if you’d allow it. I would establish a command center here to conduct the rescue of our people.”



It served a dual purpose, Kasuf guessed. Both to begin establishing what he suspected was a Tau’Ri presence that would become more permanent, and commerce based over time (Not that he was against this, nor the masters but the formality of negotiation seemed moot) and to ensure that they would not face any onslaught that came from the stars alone. Again, not a thing Kasuf or the council of masters would be against.



“I welcome your assistance Admiral Hammond. Abydos, welcomes your protection but we face all enemies together, yes?”





Ah, here it came Hammond realized, the part where Kasuf insisted that a detachment of the militia came along, if only to say they were able to avenge their fallen leader. His units were diverse enough, he didn’t know the Abydonian militia, but it seemed like they were capable, having made an appreciable defense of the Gate Room. Still, it wasn’t something he was entirely comfortable with. He had his orders though and those were to ensure the cooperation and support of the Abydonian people no matter what.



“We can discuss joint operations at a later date, for now Kasuf I believe Colonel O’Neill won’t have any objection to a coalition force on any retrieval mission.”





“Assuming we can figure out where they came from, a lot of the body cams have been fried on our men.” O’Neill put in; finally wading into the conversation. His jaw tightly clenched in his skull as his eyes darted to the body of Louis Ferretti which had finally been removed from its grizzly spot on the floor. He could make out orders from Fraser moving the most easily treated nearer to the exit while Lahm had begun moving the ones who needed emergency care towards the gate.



“Ser permission to dial home?!” Fraser called and Hammond nodded “Make sure they receive your code first” The Admiral reminded her, not particularly wanting his chief medical officer to be a smear on the back of his new iris.





“We have a gate address!” Carter called out, rushing towards Hammond, the look of fury in her eyes mixed with a sense of anticipation. “One of the Marines was able to capture the sequence they used to dial out on cam!”



“Excellent!” Hammond nodded his head then looked to the Colonel “Take your teams back to Cheyenne get cleaned up, get six hours of sleep”



“Sir”



“No, I want you both rested. Take Carter and Jackson as well, I want them with you when we go out and find these bastards.”



“The scientists?” O’Neill asked not that he had any issue with Jackson who had all right to be there, for his wife but Carter? “On a rescue mission?”



Hammond nodded “You’re going to need her big brain out there, besides from what I can see the girl can handle herself in a fight. When she isn’t working in the lab I plan to have her on missions regularly”



“Lab? Missions?” O’Neill blinked what the hell was he talking about? Then it hit him and his eyes narrowed. “So, the President’s agreed with our recommendations then?” finally.





We’re out there now. O’Neill thought. There was no going back and to pretend otherwise was to simply bury your head in the sand to hope you suffocated before the predator took your ass out. Besides, this was their fault more than anything.



Hammond nodded. “We’ll discuss this later, for now it’s enough to know The Stargate reconnaissance division is reactivated and you’re officially commander of SG-1, I intend Kowalski to be the head of SG-2”



O’Neill nodded in agreement, Charly deserved this, it was about time though he was surprised neither of them were going to be benched to do training and orientation for new teams, then again as of right now they were the only ones with any kind of experience in this unique field and so it made sense.



“Six hours then report back here.”



“Aye Sir” O’Neill turned and walked towards the column where a despondent almost catatonic Jackson sat.



“Alright Dweeb, get up, she isn’t dead yet and you need to help me find Skara” O’Neill said kicking Jackson lightly on the ankle. Jackson who was lost in thought merely looked up squinting as if he couldn’t see the man in front of him and more the shadow of who was. “J-ack?” He asked finally.



“No, the Easter bunny, get up idiot, we got people to rescue!” The order was one O’Neill desperately wished someone could have given him when he’d found his son dead, was enough to snap Daniel out of his stupor. He shot up and grabbed Jack’s wrist “Skara?! Shau’re?! We’re going to get them right? Right?”



“Yea, just said that dork, lets go.”



“Right…Right….Wait before..we go..Shau’re thought she had an idea who it was that attacked us…I think, Kasuf does too” Jackson asked, looking towards the pair of old men.



The crowd grew silent as everyone looked from Jackson to Kasuf quizzically. Kasuf for his part let out a sigh of relief that no one was glaring at him accusatorially, for he said nothing because he couldn’t prove anything except for stories from the old imperial religion. For all he knew, only Sobek, Ra and Hathor were real, and the rest were just fables, personas crafted to enhance the grandeur of their former god and yet.







“the mention of serpents from your men, the description of their armor and what I see here in the dead and from what that grotesque banner suggests…” Kasuf sighed. “In the cult we used to worship, in its doctrine he is painted as a god of…”



Kasuf cleared his throat. “He is the Lord of night, the patron deity of expansion, conquest and war. The Master of victories, the prince of Serpents and King of battle.”





“Son of Tartarus and master of the fleet of a million Ships, Apophis” Everyone turned and looked at Carter who was reciting what she had just seen on video captured by one of the fallen marines. “At least that’s how he announced himself when Ferretti challenged him to a duel.”



O’Neill smiled despite himself. -Of course, you did, you glorious psychopathic greaseball-.



“So that’s it, we need to go fuck up a war god to get our men back huh?” O’Neill aske, his tone casual. “And here I thought this was going to be difficult.”





“Try to be discrete about this Colonel, the last thing I want is for us to leave fingerprints and another intergalactic incident arises from it.” Hammond cautioned, he wasn’t about to abandon the mission now but he had a sinking feeling in his chest like he’d just ordered his men to storm the enemy equivalent of the Pentagon and he had a firm notion of just what sort of response that would warrant.



He’d have to ask himself, when the dust settled if potentially starting a war with an alien superpower was worth the retrieval of one soldier and two allied leaders, then he’d promptly remind himself that any superpower that conducted itself like a bunch of gangsters wasn’t worth respecting.



No, to hell with this.



They were going to send a message of their own.



Loud and clear.



Run your kingdom how you like, but set foot on any soil, anywhere that was claimed by the United States or one of its allies and you will spend the rest of your eternal life ruing the damn day.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright boys and girls, a little update for those of you who want more info on Goa'uld culture and society and for those of you who like to see a bit more about the alien tech. Annndd for @StormEagle More about how much of a douche canoe Apophis is.

Expect a couple more chapters soon!




Interlude

Chulak

Teal’c hadn’t seen her off, he hadn’t even come home when he returned through the gate from Abydos. This had been by design of course; Apophis needed to think things between them were bad at home for when his eventual defection occurred. Something she doubted any other system lord would have really bothered to notice (Not that they were dismissive of their primes or First primes, merely that they tended to maintain an extremely formal, rigid relationship with them). But Apophis on his good days often treated Drey’ac and Teal’c as though they were a mix of prized pets and adopted children and she knew he would notice Teal’c’s conspicuous absence, and it would further shield their son.







Idly she traced her fingers along the armored fabric that covered her pouch, the young symbiote inside was writhing around inside, laughing at some mental joke it shared with Ray’ac, her other son. It was such an odd relationship to have, especially knowing that the symbiote was a peer (It was taboo enough to be borderline obscene among the System lords and those precious few who possessed their power). Yet the Symbiote loved her son as a brother and regarded Teal’c and Drey’ac as parents. She, also understood this for Apophis barely tolerated any of his children besides Klorel and neglected all of his grand-children. The boy sustaining her immune system and enhancing the already formidable strength that a Jaffa’s lineage accorded her was the grandson of Apophis’ and his last wife Chanyu. Chanyu was the bastard daughter of King Yu with a granddaughter of Amaterasu or Athena (Drey’ac was never sure which, for Chanyu never spoke of her mother). She’d been a wife forced on Apophis by Ra some twelve thousand years ago (And one of the many reasons why Amaterasu refused to attend court), done to seal a trade deal and a strengthen the bond of alliance between Apophis and Yu (Not that either System Lord or God cared for the other very much) and because Ra got tired of Apophis constantly having affairs with lesser breeds of Goa’uld. The Story (as Herakles the Goa’uld Fist prime and bastard Son of Zeus told it anyway) was that Ra told him it was either he a found himself a proper wife and “got over Egeria’s cuckoldry” or else he’d have removed Apophis’ lower half and replaced it with robotic parts so he couldn’t regenerate from the castration. Chanyu despite being a peer, was illegitimate and her relation to Amaterasu as much as her questionable birth was likely an insult to Ra as much as anything.



Drey’ac remembered Chanyu and her daughter Aqet, they were both noble women even if Chanyu was as sullen and depressed as her fabled grandmother. Aqet’s love of space flight was what motivated Drey’ac to become a pilot and eventual fleet commander. Chanyu had been killed by the Titan during the rebellion, a victim of his insane terrorist assault on Ra’s palace of light. Apophis certainly shed no tears for her nor did he mourn the death of Aqet shortly after she bore the batch of Symbiotes that included the sentient one growing inside her now. Aqet’s death occurred when it Amunet was closer to maturation and Drey’ac always wondered if one of the lesser Goa’uld who administered the Serpent Lord’s domains arranged her murder as a courtesy to Apophis and Amunet.



After all, Aqet was the best pilot Drey’ac had ever known one that wouldn’t accidentally enter hyperspace inside a blackhole because she “engaged in drunken revelry” (Aqet was a phenomenal alcoholic, Drey’ac had to grudgingly admit her mentor was rarely if ever sober but that had never impacted her skills). So of course Apophis didn’t even flinch at Martouf’s suggestion this exchange of talent included binding the Symbiote who was five years away from maturity to lord Ba’al (In exchange Ba’al would give Drey’ac a Prim’tah who would mature and be sworn to Apophis in a few decades.) even though it meant he was essentially handing over a grandson as if he were some lesser breed. Another social faux pas that would likely cost Apophis politically and make his bid for Emperor all the more difficult, with the contempt he was showing the traditions that had bound an empire of ambitious super predators together for nearly one hundred thousand years.



Beside her, Ray’ac looked gallant as ever, even though he was trying not to laugh at the mischief her other son was broadcasting into his mind. He was dressed in the colors of Apophis, black, gold and pink and carrying the ceremonial dagger he was given mere months ago for his eleventh birthday. Her son’s eyes sparkled with a rapidity she admired, the boy was clever, and he was swift and his bond with the Goa’uld inside of her had likely shaped both into the strong males they would one day become. There was a moment of nervousness though, as he understood far more than he let on. It was, also clear the boy knew what his parents were planning.



Ahead of them was the sleek, dagger shaped black variant of the Al’kesh class support vessels that were often used as force amplifiers for Fighter squadrons and as heavy bombers. The personal militias and fleets of the other System Lords were seldom as heavily militarized as those of the House of Ra or those of Lord Apophis who essentially was the Goa’uld military but Ba’al’s fleet was known for its small size, advanced weaponry and incredibly sophisticated artificial gravity technology. While the Goa’uld had possessed AG technology for the entirety of their existence and had improved on the designs they had taken from the accursed Ori, Ba’al had taken gravity manipulation to a new level. Allegedly his vessels were powered by micro-singularities and while they had the standard sub light engines, their AG fields also created a form of thrust.



To see one up close, her eyes flickered at the possibilities. Behind her, several Jaffa carried some personal effects for the journey, but only two of her closest valets would accompany them. La’tir and Olo’noc, the pair of gray-haired Jaffa were lanky and resembled the dummies of straw and old clothing her farmers used to scare away avian’s than members of a legendary race of warrior poets. Ahead, adorned in a dark blue and metallic gray tunic was a man with pale skin and thick blond hair done up in a series of braids that fell about his shoulders. She noticed the slightly pointed ears and wondered if the host wasn’t a descendent of those humans who were said to have interbred with the Nox, assuming the Nox even existed. The man’s eyes glowed a pale shade of green; the greeting all lesser Goa’uld were ordered give to anyone they met for the first time (As only the System Lords were permitted to use the voice this was done to differentiate host from Lotar). Martouf was said to have been a Tok’ra of the hedonist sect who found new purpose in service to Ba’al but seeing as he’d been the first prime of Tiamat (Who perished in an accident fifty years before Ra raised Ba’al up), she knew better than to assume he was your typical Chamberlain.

Or that any rumor in regards to Martouf and his origins was anything but rumor.

It made Drey'ac recall what Bra'tac had said about Ba'al.

Youngest system lord, yet the one everyone knew the least about and the same was true of those who served him.



“Captain Drey’ac, it is an honor.” Martouf bowed, he had such a soft, easy voice that it surprised her. The fact that he genuinely meant what he said, surprised her even more for there were only two Goa’uld first prime’s not including the ones Ra always had. And Herakles and Raijin were bitterly competitive with Jaffa (Though Raijin was far more chivalrous and respectful of Jaffa not of Chulak, his host was also a nine-foot-tall ape, so it was hard for Drey’ac to tell if he shared his master’s hatred of all things related to Apophis or if he was just broodingly silent all the time). Yet here Martouf showed no hostility, no sign of affrontery and his voice was disarmingly gentle.



She knew his eyes though, warm and friendly as they were, they were the eyes of a man who would kill her and her sons without a second thought if he felt Ba’al was threatened. -Good- She thought, if Ba’al could win the loyalty of someone so dangerous and if someone so dangerous was so well disciplined then she knew she was safer than if she had been with Apophis.



“The Honor is mine Martouf.” She bowed back, of Martouf she knew little save that he was rumored to be a master of the quick draw of the Zat’nik’til and was said to be one of the few people in the known universe skilled enough to wield a plasma whip, both skills better suited to a commander of a special operations legion than a First Prime. She knew he was an adept administrator and a bitter rival with Zipacna, who served as his counterpart in Set’s domain.



But everyone alive knew the tale of Jolinar of Governess and Lady of the Malkshur system, Martouf’s former wife and Drey’ac wondered yet dared not ask how it was that he survived her defection to the Children of Egeria terrorist sect when the husband and mistresses of Garshaw former governess of Belote were all tortured to death by Athena. “It is rare to meet a First Prime who can set aside his staff and blade and find a measure of peace.”



To her surprise he took her hand and gave it a squeeze, something that caused murmurs of disgust among the trio of Goa’uld technologists who had gathered at the palace Space port. These kind of gestures from one who came from the kind of pedigree Martouf came from (Even though he was not a peer in power). Were barely acceptable between different breeds of Goa’uld much less between a Goa’uld of his rank and a Jaffa were seen as positively scandalous. Something she thought was absurd for them to sneer at given what their Lord and “God” did.





“Peace, I find comes at too high a price, but I have found joy in my service as a steward of his majesty’s domains. They are small compared to yours, but what they lack in size they make up for in wealth and…opportunity.” He whispered out the last part and turned to depart towards the vessel.





One thing she would miss about Chulak, Drey’ac thought. Would be the underwater space port of Bakhu. Built deep under the mountain complex, a series of twelve tunnels and gravity rails ferried troops and supplies and Government personnel from within the heart of the Imperial military to the rest of Apophis’ domains. Not as enormous as the space port on the surface used for commerce and pedestrian movements, it possessed one thing the surface port lacked. And from the viewing screens of the Alkesh she could see it all in full glory.



Once the Alkesh passed the tunnels and entered the shielded launch pad, her eyes were assailed by a veritable cathedral of light as the bearded whales circled the energy bubble feasting on the immense swarms of fish that would pass over the bubbles, absorbing heat from the shielding during colder nights. The Whales’ mighty beards were in reality tendrils that emitted a sequence of energy pulses that caused minor jolts that would lure the fish up towards their maws. The bleed off from the pulses created a sequence of exploding rainbows that crashed into the shields and created a sequence of oscillating colors that filled the ocean with beauty. And when a ship breached the shield, the reaction caused a chorus of soft sighs that added to the whale’s natural song.





“Do, these come from Tau’Ri like the great ones in seas of I’Zoumo and Sakai?” Martouf asked with intense curiosity.



The leviathans on the throne world of Amaterasu and her primary harvest world were indeed the genetically modified descendants of the great blue beasts of the first world and were said to be able to exceed six hundred feet in length, but these whales, barely sixty feet in length no, they were native to Chulak.



“As far as I know, they precede even Lord Apophis on this world.”



The vessel rose from the waters then broke for orbit, vanishing into the stars and then a hyperspace window.



-Teal’c my love, survive whatever you do, come back to us one day-

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright gents, to Chulak we go!

A bit of of the Imperial Religion is showcased and true to form Ra passive aggressively dunks on the Asgard Fyryns and Nox.

Children of the Gods Part II: Act One



Taken

..

Cheyenne Mountain Complex three hours later:





“I feel like such an asshole” Daniel muttered, seated on the same locker room bench he once sat upon while contemplating his promise to General West that he could decipher the sequences on the other side to get the first Stargate Reconnaissance team home. -I was so excited, so confident. I had no idea what I would see on the other side-



His mind wandered to Nicholas Ballard, wondering if his grandfather would curse him a fool for opening the Stargate in the first place and inflicting all this misery and horror on Shau’re and her world, her family, his family. Or if Ballard would curse him for being a moron for thinking that any bad that came out of this outweighed the good. -They’re free because of you-.



No, that wasn’t it and he knew it, regretting the past was how he avoided the fact that his closest friend was a corpse, his brother-in-law was missing and dozens of his neighbors and friends were dead and despite all of it? All he could think of was Shau’re, all he could think of was getting her back. Any lingering thoughts were disturbed by the feeling of a hand running through his golden hair and he turned around to see Sam, her hand rested atop his head as if she was scratching a dog, an inquisitive glint in her grey eyes. “For what?!”





“I dunno, it just seems wrong for me to only feel apprehension about my wife when Ferretti’s dead and the others and.”



“You’re being stupid.” Carter said tugging on his hair gently, there was something in her somewhat husky voice that brought a smile to Jackson’s face, rather than outrage at having his feelings dismissed so tactlessly. “I didn’t know Ferretti, but I think we would agree with the way you’re handling this.”



To his surprise Carter knelt down and straightened out his vest, making sure the armored plates tucked in various parts to augment the Kevlar and whatever the hell else made up the new gear Carter had brought with her from Area 51. “There you go.” She blinked looking up at Jackson who seemed ready to cry. “Don’t tell me Shau’re had to dress you too huh?”



“Of course, she did!” O’Neill’s strong voice rasped in as he walked back into the locker room fully dressed and with three cold beers. “My brother’s distillery, I kept a few in cold storage in case I ever found myself back here with the shit hitting the fan.”



“How prescient of you.” Jackson smiled taking the beer. “I guess I am being an idiot.”



“You’re a scientist, being retarded is what you do for a living.” O’Neill reasoned “Not surprising you’d be a potato when it came to grief as well.”



Daniel blinked quirking his head, he’d missed Jack’s complete lack of any sort of political correctness or tact and his amusing disdain for “big brains” as he called scientists, but more than anything he missed his calming presence. He’d had role models and idols in his life, he had his grandfather who was closer to him than a father, whose dedication to proving his theory inspired Jackson’s entire life. But O’Neill was his only true mentor in a weird way and his presence calmed him. “So, we go get them, my wife and Skara and smack around Apophis.”



“Yeah, been meaning to ask, What’s the rundown on Aposhits”



“Well, in Egyptian Mythology he’s called Apep, and he was basically Ra’s umbilical cord discarded into darkness after he was born which somehow became a gigantic light eating snack that hunted Ra through the skies every night.”



“A zombie, sun killing piece of afterbirth..man..whoever passed on the stories of these..aliens..must have really hated Apep huh?” Carter asked amused.



“Well, in the religion on Abydos, the faith erected around Ra. My understanding is that he’s a very war like god. One that dwelt far away, and the people of Abydos were protected from his fury by the will of Ra, he was the younger brother of Anubis.”



“The Death God?” Carter asked.



“Dog breath?” O’Neill asked.



“Yes and no, I think the guy we killed was wearing an Anubis mask as some sort of sign of rank…But yes, Anubis was said to be a very fair and very noble God. On earth he’s a deathgod and a sort of cross between an escort and a judge. But here, he’s more like a mix of Saint Peter and King Arthur. He guards the entrance to paradise, serving his brother in law Ra even in the other world. He was a champion, a hero who battled the..Ori..This..I dunno race of Evil Gods that Ra led his “Goa’uld” in a war with for the sake of all creation or so the propaganda went. No idea how much of that is true at all, but I can say this; Apophis was the edgier, more Rambo like version of Anubis and the religion portrays him as a defender of their material empire as his brother defends their netherworld kingdom. A champion God…It doesn’t say anything about him ordering people to raid and steal women like a Comanche or Viking war party, that was surprising..And if that truly was him and not a commander.” Again, Jackson felt himself in the old familiar territory of endlessly speculating, only this time around he had more data points and he promised not to get anyone else killed.



His mind wandered to the body, Apophis had killed Ferretti in a way that suggested he broken the Brooklyn brawler like an overeager child with a fragile toy and Apophis soldiers tore apart the others. -What kind of a champion allows stuff like this to happen- Daniel thought dejectedly.





“You air quoted Goa’uld” Carter remarked with curiosity in her eyes, half her beer already consumed, a strand of sandy blond hair falling loose as she tried to focus on the conversation and not the fact that she’d spent forty minutes in a shower scrubbing off bits of the lower intestine of some poor kid who had his torso ripped open by one of those serpent men.



“Umm yes” Daniel said trying to gather his thoughts and grateful for the attempt to offer him something to focus on “It’s not really a name more like a portmanteau; I think it means “Children of Light”. I actually did spend a year or so studying the oral stories of their cult when I had the free time and in reading what their lore masters were finally willing to put down on text. Granted, there’s a lot of drift from the original sources in the twenty or so thousand years since they suffered their first proscription against written text for history and faith umm…It was actually amazingly fleshed out. Like, the Dark, evil Ori were aided by three different races of Gods whom Ra refers too as “Good hearted, yet lazy, foolish and gullible” and the scripture says that Ra and his fellow Gods and their lesser kin had to destroy two of those four races of Gods to humble the other two. “



“You think those hammerships were Ori or part of the dumbass brigade?” O’Neill queried, the image had stuck in his head, ever since the botched execution attempt in the gardens. Something about how irate Ra was with those fuckers made Jack like them and he hoped the old bastard wasn’t able to grind them to dust. “umm coalition of dumbasses, otherwise everyone would have recognized them instead of being all confused” Daniel answered, causing Jack to nod in agreement.



“Right, he lost the audience with the hammer dudes”



Carter whose eyes were shifting everywhere around the room except anywhere near them as long as they talked about the hammer ships finally got up and motioned to the door. “T-minus ten sir and we’re back to Abydos.”





“Jack…do you think..”



“We’ll try” O’Neill promised, not liking the odds, and not liking what they were going to potentially be starting once they kicked down the next doorway, but Shau’re was family as was Skara and in truth?



O’Neill realized they were going sooner or later, and he wanted to force the conflagration on his terms and not theirs.







……….





Abydos







He didn’t like it, the idea of sending O’Neill through the gate with less than a hundred marines was something he really didn’t like. Oh sure, for the recon and contact missions that were likely coming down the pipeline that made sense, you didn’t need to arrive in force unless there was a potentially hostile settlement or species on the planet in question. But now, knowing this was going to be a rescue mission into hostile enemy territory? No, Hammond didn’t like it, not one bit.





But then again, manpower was the bane of the Space Force. Even after the return of SG-0 through the gate when it became clear there was a potential for a hostile alien incursion the battle, he, West and Ellis faced to turn the United States Space Force from a glorified retirement community slash “Special needs home for the turds of the forces” (as Jacob Carter used to derisively put it). Had been like trying to fight a walrus in a duel, buck ass naked armed only with a narwal tusk as a spear.



Hammond had to stop himself wondering where the hell that absurd metaphor came from and then he remembered that Soviet Colonel, what was his name? Chekov? Ah yes, that lunatic. -But was it a Narwal tusk we gave ‘em?-. God he missed the cold war, he missed working off the books in that era because you could get away with it and the latitude you had back then. He’d wished a return to that until a bunch of serpent men right out of the cartoons the un-enlisted and junior officers loved to watch back in the 80’s and he got exactly what he wanted. Paid a high price too, the Admiral thought bitterly.



Naturally, the USSF’s subbranches had enough people to field the two-hundred-man band he wanted to put out here. But a lot of them would be raw recruits, he’d seen what happened to those when they went against the serpent men. Damn me for letting them set up a poker table down there! Hammond thought balefully, he’d considered retiring to atone for that, but the truth was if he or Landry stepped down that would leave Ellis alone to fight Maybourne’s faction which he suspected was backed by Kensey and if not that soulless harpy, likely by General Kennedy. Zealous, opportunistic pricks that they were; would fall on Abydos like wolves and he wanted nothing to do with seeing these people exploited (As opposed to becoming business partners, like a proper American colonial endeavor) and while he knew Statterfield would do her best to contain them (Like she had when they learned what West was doing, even if it was with an ally. Bastard) but that wouldn’t stop them from doing god knows what. PMC’s on Abydos and doing SG missions, yeah the former SEAL wasn’t having any part of that.









As it stood, the United States Space Force, Marine “division” had about ten thousand “able bodied” men and women he could call on. Except that half of them were retired from other services who were closer to weekend warriors (some of them even worked primarily in the civilian part of the USSF’s projects something Hammond did not like). The other half was divided into fatasses that he was sure he could trust to hold to security clearance, he didn’t want to have to commit ritual suicide in front of Kasuf for leading a brigade of sea lions through the gate. The others? Rookies stationed throughout the USSF’s facility (most of them in either Florida or Okinawa or Houston). Rookies who were too young and too inexperienced for what he wanted for this mission and too far away.





And so, with the return of O’Neill and his team they brought fifty marines most of which were in their forties or fifties. Seasoned and more on the salt side than the pepper and briefed on the way to the space portal about the events of the last half decade. Some of them had been people O’Neill had served with before, but most were strangers, and most were wide eyed. Kasuf volunteered some one hundred members of the Abydonian militia including a man named Ardef who must have been more Caveman than man, because he almost looked like those Frazetta paintings his wife collected come to life. Ardef, Kasuf told him had been a priest for the imperial cult who was one of the last of them alive who’d known Sobek personally and served him and was taught by him.



Sobek being the only benevolent contact with alien life these people had until the original Stargate team showed up. He would serve as Daniel’s second in matters of interpretation and Hammond broke the groups down into two teams, command of Stargate Reconnaissance and action team One would be given to O’Neill with Kowalski getting the Second. Most were clothed in robes and cloaks provided by Kasuf (something Hammond didn’t like for the potential implications if they got caught.). Lahm opted to remain behind to help with a series of emergency surgeries that were likely being performed back at base.





But other than that, three of the four surviving members of the First Stargate team were present.





“Admiral…Uhh sir..”



Hammond turned to see the blond-haired archeologist whom without, he wouldn’t be standing on another world and amidst new allies. “Yes son?”



“Well, I wanted to thank you for not benching me like Landry wanted, I understand the need for a specialist to brief and train and supervise the other teams and a linguistic expert for first contacts but..My wife and..” He looked to Jack and Kowalski, Carter and the Marines all ready for war. Ready to go storm an enemy kingdom to avenge Ferretti and bring back his wife and brother-in-law.



“Not a pleasant prospect, is it? Sitting back at home while your people are out there.” Hammond’s voice made Jackson realize he wasn’t alone in that feeling. -He’s a grandfather and he still wants to be out here with his men?- “No sir.”



Hammond turned and grabbed Jackson by the elbow, with a hand that may as well have been an industrial vice for the grip strength. “Son; I’m letting you out there to get your wife back, a princess and a potential ally and because its your duty to care for your family and I won’t stand between you and her. But its not for free, it’s a two-way street. You aren’t allowed to be stupid out there Jackson, you aren’t allowed to get yourself killed, nor are you allowed to get them killed. Bring her home if you can, avenge her if you don’t have any other choice but don’t let your team down”





Daniel nodded, his eyes steeled with a mix of gratitude and respect. He should have been angry at Hammond for basically giving him a “don’t fuck it up” speech but there was something grandfatherly about it that made him want to live up to the expectation rather than take it as a slight. “Yes sir!”





The older smaller gate opened and O’Neill, carrying a staff weapon in one hand and his Next Gen rifle slung at his side nodded his head in a silent request for departure.







Forty-eight hours, forty-eight hours to get into what might be an alien fortress (Landry advised not to send drones ahead just in case it opened in the middle of an alien city, better to pass themselves off as subjects of the Space Empire than not.) forty eight hours to rescue two POW’s and maybe blow up another God.



This’ll be fun.





Hammond nodded in return.



“SG-1 you have a go.”





God speed marine, God speed.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Aannd new chapter up, Amunet claims her due...Teal'c is forced to watch and @Knowledgeispower And @DocSolarisReich probably plot ways to blow up Chulak again.

Scene apropiarte music in the title.

Amunet


Chulak -Bakhu several hours earlier.







This was irregular Teal’c told himself. It was rare to be invited to a bonding ceremony mostly because bonding ceremonies were a very private affair. Only the personal guard of the Goa’uld in question, that Goa’uld’s mate and the Jaffa that carried their offspring and in extremely rare cases the Lotar’s spouse and children were invited. Teal’c suspected that it was due to the fact that the System Lords were ashamed of their ancestry, of their nature as body thieves and parasites. Ra, Anubis and Hathor the mighty founders of what Teal’c still believed was the greatest civilization the universe had ever known laid down very strict rules about the governance of their kind and their conduct.



Peers almost always had access to resurrection chambers and even without them they were virtually immortal and so could keep their hosts alive for thousands of years unaided. So Teal’c knew once a host was taken it would likely be the last host that peer ever took, as to the system lords themselves. Apophis had used his current body since before the dawn of the Jaffa race (Them being in part descended from both his host and Apophis himself). Hathor it was rumored was the last of the System Lords to still retain the Ori she took during the early hours of the rebellion in the heavens. Amaterasu, Athena, Zeus, Izanami, Osiris, and Horus had all retained their original host. No one could say for certain in regards to Ba’al because only Ra knew anything about Ba’al and Ra carried that knowledge with him beyond.



Teal’c was correct about the shame, but there were other far less emotional reasons as well. Most Goa’uld had long given up taking unwilling hosts, either cloning their most trusted Lotar leaving a child’s body but with no developed mind or personality and taking the brain-dead husk. Others took willing volunteers who were severely ill or merely blindly loyal or sought to advance their families through enormous payouts. There was always an element of risk for a young Goa’uld in taking a host for the first time. Those not Peers could find their own personalities subsumed or merged or devoured by the host, which would either result in the death of both or madness or the emergence of a new personality alien to all. All such acts were often confused for compassion on part of the Goa’uld and perhaps to a degree that was true (In the same sense that it was seen as morally wrong to torture animals on many worlds). But it was mostly born out of that pragmatism, a Goa’uld that was several hundred or a thousand years old could keep its personality intact and its sense of self from being devoured but even then, host taking carried risks and no one wanted a moment of profound and dangerous intimacy to be intruded upon.





Even if it was rare for those things to occur, Teal’c knew they did (He’d encountered several hedonistic Tok’Ra who were the result of a host taking ceremony that resulted in mutual annihilation and the rise of a new “self” made from both souls.). System Lords and Peers though? Each one possessed a measure of psionic power, some greater than others and all were fully capable of tearing the host’s psyche apart if they so choose.





Apophis was right; this was a rare thing indeed to witness but he was wrong to call it an honor. No one could be in the room when Klorel took a new host, the process was so violent and traumatic to both parties that the psychic feedback was known to kill Jaffa unlucky enough to be near the room. Hell, Klorel killed himself taking his last Host and somehow revived himself without a resurrection chamber. Something that if Ra learned about he likely have come personally to kill Klorel over. Amunet was likewise, powerful but where Klorel’s low birth left him with a crippled mind it seemed to give Amunet’s psychic powers a fine focus for she was fully able to communicate through her Jaffa as early as twenty years ago when she was still an infant. She was a greedy, ruthless, conniving bitch of an infant and promised to be even worse as an adult for she shared her future husbands more primal urges.





And so Teal’c stood, a grim sentry at the entrance of the personal chambers of the Serpent lord, flanking the entrance columns wishing he was anywhere else.



Apophis sat in front of him, half naked and Teal’c could see the sleek muscle and coiled steel that had once been buried under enough excess weight that it was said to be able to bury a man alive. He was eating something; it was a fried flying beast of some sort. A delicacy from the realm of Athena who frequently sent crates of the bitter tasting meat to Waset, the throne world of Apophis’ realm. Across the room laying on a bed was poor Shaun’ac, the temple priestess and master of languages and lore who carried Amunet as a Prim’tah. Like most Jaffa given the honor, her original permanent Prim’tah had been given to a younger Jaffa and a replacement now rested in a jar beside her.



Good, Teal’c thought, she needed it badly.





In exchange for incubating infant Goa’uld the Jaffa gained much but the downside to the bargain was that a mature Goa’uld could not continue to function as the immune system and source of the extraordinarily long life and abilities Jaffa possessed. Peers could continue maintaining a Jaffa once they matured through their incredible powers, but it was an exhausting affair and eventually even that would fail. Shaun’ac who was some forty years older than Teal’c and one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, had clearly gone well beyond the point where Amunet could sustain her.



She looked gaunt, her cheeks sunken in, her eyes surrounded by black bruises and her body was all bone held together by skin that seemed to hang. Her immune system had likely failed several weeks ago, and the sight reminded Teal’c of the time he spent ten years on police duty at Helios Among the humans and Serrakin (and several other races and mongrel offshoots), there was a sort of wasting sickness that spread via sexual congress or the exchanging of blood. It had taken hold of the largest cities on Helios like wildfire and Artemis, chamberlain of Athena’s realm was forced to turn to that monstrous bioterrorist Linea to find a cure. Teal’c shuddered at the memory and finding no peace when he opened his eyes and witnessed Shuan’ac’s labored breathing. -She taught Drey’ac her letters when she was a child, I remember now.- Teal’c thought with sadness.



Sadness that turned into horror when he heard screams and curses, insults heaved in Imperial standard so devolved it sounded like the pidgin Lotar and lesser Goa’uld on imperial backwaters spoke. Her eyes, beautiful green and blue were filled with a mix of hatred, disgust and outrage. She let loose a flurry of words, but her standard was so bad all Teal’c could make out was “parasite” “Whores” “Thief” and “Dead”.





“Do you not see what I have brought you, my love?” Apophis asked as the Jaffa who carried her in stripped her of her clothes and bound her tightly by hand and foot to two columns on opposite ends of the other entrance. She screamed and spat and pulled against the golden chains which now wrapped about her forearms and wrists and ankles, her dark hair falling wildly about her. Apophis turned to her and spoke in Tau’Ri “Is she not a perfect match.”





“Apophis! Warmonger! Murderer! Let me loose of my chains and I will kill you as we killed Ra!” She bit back in Tau’Ri which Teal’c understood (Courtesy of Klorel) far better than the gutter spoken standard.



Apophis laughed “As you killed Ra? Hmm do you carry a fission bomb inbetween your legs? I would love to see that.. A fission bomb!” Apophis laughed uproariously “Ahh the look upon his face! Arrogant Emperor scribe that he was! The priest king! Undone by a primitive bomb any Jaffa child in his first year as a pupil could build!” A calloused hand smashed onto the cushion and wood as the Serpent Lord wheezed with laughter, a hundred thousand years of resentment, unresolved arguments and bitterness brimming to the surface. “Ah my love, does she not suit you?”



Shaun’ac stirred, her wheezing raspy and a young attendant hastily moved to ready the sleeping Prim’tah in a jar.





When she rose, she nearly fell over. But without aid righted herself and began to walk again, even though the effort had caused blood to leak from lips whose skin had become so thin the act of grimacing must have broken it. He noticed her midsection was enormous, her liver had given out?! Ja’mah! That Prim’tah had its work cut out for it.





Despite the fact that she resembled a walking corpse from campfire stories about resurrection chambers malfunctioning Shaun’ac carried herself with an incredible amount of dignity and Teal’c was reminded of the nobility of the Jaffa Spirit and of Anubis and the Empire when it was a beacon of light in the darkness and not, the farce he saw before him. She warmed his heart but rekindled the flames of defiance he felt in his soul.



Shau’re for her part gasped at the woman, a look of sympathy briefly replacing the mask of fury and defiance. Then, when Shaun’ac pulled back her robes and revealed the infected slits at the opening of her pouch, the woman groaned.



…



Monster! Shau’re thought. “what have they done to you?” she whispered in Abydonian, until the slits began to move and the sweet yet foul smell from within wafted through the room and she watched as pus and mucus seeped and she did her best not to vomit. Something was pushing the slits open from within! Her eyes narrowed, focusing, her mind ignoring the disgusting stench to watch with grim horror as what looked like a beak made of four serrated tusks pushed through, at the base of the hideous beak were gill like apertures and eight glowing pink eyes. Shau’re’s eyes widened with a mix of realization and horror as her memory wandered back to the painted mural and the story of Ra. Is this what they are?!





Fear gripped her as she suddenly realized why she was brought her and she began to struggle against the chains.



Nanei! Nanei! Nanei!







Nanei! Daniel! Jack! Nanei!



Their names she chanted like a mantra eyes closed in a panic until she felt something brush against her cheek and she realized it was the creature! Eyes opened, then her mouth and she sank down into the creature’s side between a hideous wing like hood and flesh and she heard an inhuman screech of agony and something convulsing in her mouth but as she tried to bite down harder, she felt something tear into her brain and her senses exploded in agony. Something had brushed against her mind, she felt it and gasped and the creature pulled back blue glowing blood trickling from small bites wounds and down her own lips.





That’s it! Run you filthy serpent!



Your kind always does that, accuses us of being snake like..though we are more mammal than reptile in our fashion….Mammal that is the word your husband taught you to refer to beings that can regulate their own body temperature yes?



The voice was oddly detached, cold and eerily sounded like a particularly bored teenaged brat.





You bit me, I love you for that. Strong and pretty and healthy, you will be my mirror…





Oh no, it was in her head…Her head! “Stay out of my mind demon!” She hissed through gritted teeth, the world still an ocean of pain as something began to coil around her psyche, gradually tightening.



Demon? That’s a new one. How provincial. Let’s see what other insults you have.





Shau’re felt something inside of her throat tighten and her jaw began to move, at the same time her mind was filled with an ocean of words and context, sentences and vocalizations. The laughter of her father as he and another city master traded playful barbs over a meal when she was a child. “Dweeb” the first time she’d heard that word and the exasperated yet fatherly look on the face of Colonel O’Neill, stoic, sad and ever so brave. The thick accent of Ferretti as he described Ra to a farm master from a far-off country on Abydos. -Some body snatching, corpse thieving, brain suck’n girly man cosmic freakazoid- insults that she didn’t fully understand but grasping the context laughed loudly. Memories of sarcasm and jabs that would have brought her comfort and familiarity but now filled her with a sense of cold dread because she realized her mouth was moving and words were rasping out against her will!



Her eyes flickered to the Serpent which hung from the woman’s mid-section and she struggled against the intrusion of the foreign mind. Her jaw straining against her own nerves! Her own will! -NO! This is my body! My Body!- muscles in her mouth burned and felt as though they were tearing as she finally managed to stop herself from rasping out the word “fucker”. Agitation not her own flooded her mind and she heard a sigh that wasn’t her own.



Alas, I knew it, you’re too big for us to share. Alright then Shau’re Jackson.





The pain suddenly ceased and there was a cold breeze that passed through her body. It was pleasant at first, but then something pushed where it wasn’t supposed to push and something tore and then like so many grains of sand, she felt a memory, no memories slip through. Or perhaps she was feeling the absence of a memory because there was nothing there, but she knew there had to have been something there. There had been something there.





She searched frantically, clawing in the dark for something that she knew she lost but hadn’t the slightest idea of what it looked like. What is it?! What, what am I missing, where did it go? Where are you?



Your mother, you had one I took her from you.





Shau’re’s eyes widened. A mother? She never had one, it had only been Kasuf and Skara and her sister..her sister..whose name was..was…



Who was she thinking about?



Panic seized her as she realized she was chasing the name of a sister she only knew she had because she’d been thinking about her name a moment before all traces of her vanished from her mind.



This thing, it was…



Yes…memory..by..memory..piece..by..piece..





Daniel! Daniel! Daniel! Oh Daniel, never forget me! Brave Scribe! I won’t let her do this!



No Shau’re would die before being subjected to this. She tried to clamp down, to bite through her own tongue but something stopped her, and she realized that her mouth was being held open by the will of another. I’m too large to go in through your back like some commoner, I’m going to have to swim down your throat and tear through your stomach and insides to get to the spine..Try not to throw up on me on the way down. Shau’re…





Was Shau’re her name? The woman blinked, was that her name? She was so frantic, her heart ached and she was grieving, mourning the loss of something, something important but she didn’t remember what. Only that there was an immense hole surrounded by an ocean of sorrow and fear and love and a desire to see someone again…She felt the loss keenly, but she couldn’t remember a name at all or a face or anything about who she’d lost or what her name was? Skara? No, that was her brother? Friend? Who was she? What had this thing done! Why was she here?! More and more the hole widened and then the creature in front of her shot forward and plunged into her mouth and down her throat.



She gagged, feeling her throat bulge, air ceased to enter her lungs for a second and then she felt pressure in her stomach and an ocean of pain as she vomited up blood.



The last thing the Abydonian who had been Shau’re experienced was the sensation of something ripping through her insides and coiling around her nervous system.





And a terrible sense of despair that she couldn’t understand.



And a frantic apology, to someone she couldn’t remember.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright, some updates!

First part...The teams arrive on Chulak and Daniel gets accused of speaking space ebonics...the second....Some good ol'fashion imperial politics since @StormEagle and @DocSolarisReich and @Spartan303 seem to enjoy that!



Rescue:

Chulak.





“holy shit it’s cold!”

“It’s not that bad Kowalski, Jesus!” O’Neill muttered with a slight roll of his eyes. It was cold, even for someone who grew up on the Great Lakes, it was damn cold. The Abydonians who had never experienced temperatures colder than fifty degrees were suddenly grateful for the fatigues that the Tau’Ri had insisted they wear below their robes. Others were glad they brought an extra cloak or had pockets large enough to shove their hands. But their chatter and amazement stopped when they looked up at the sky and saw the oddly colored clouds and the sunny skies filled with the distant silhouettes of moons and the immense gas giant, a world of a size and nature that the Abydonians could scarcely believe existed when Daniel told them about the ones in his solar system.



Jackson’s eyes took in the majesty of it all, the surrealness of knowing he was likely even farther away from home than he’d been from earth. His attention turned to the device Carter had taken to calling a Dial Home Device or DHD for short born of her own love of “analogue” tech as she called it. The DHD itself was sculpted to resemble a large cobra like alien, with pink eyes and spikes on its snout and in its open hissing mouth rested the dialing console. His eyes turned to the gate and he whistled in surprise, because the gate on this planet was nearly three times the size of the earth gate, pitch black in color with veins of Naquadah treated to look pink. “Apophis really likes the color pink” Daniel murmured.



“Big ass gate, must move a lot of cargo through here or something.” Kowalski said before turning towards the road that wound out ahead of the main gate. It shimmered a gold color in the sun and it was wide enough for several MI-Abrams to ride side by side down the road. On other side were side walks and several large flag poles which rose up into the heavens some fifty feet. Immense banners of a hissing king cobra like alien in gold with those pink eyes, its hood unfurled towered above a series of smaller banners, each with a different symbol all its own. Daniel suggested those were either the flags of “provinces” within this Snake dude’s domain or perhaps the standards of minor nobility or different regiments of their army or all the above.



The road wound onward, heading towards a city, that seemed to be eclipsed in the shadow of an immense mountain that one of the new marines identified as an enormous palace. “Well when in doubt” O’Neill said, not liking the idea of sneaking into a place that massive to find two people. “Follow the yellow brick road.” He added.



“I could wile away the hours, conferr’n with the flowers, consult’n with the rain!” Daniel began to sing the scarecrow’s part and O’Neill grinned “Easy there Dorothy, I can drape you from one of these flag poles.”



The pair laughed, glad for it given the specter of their lost friends while Carter remained transfixed on the immense gate, her eyes a whir as she seemed to be working out something. “We know two things today, that we didn’t know yesterday Sir.” She called towards the Colonel. -Confirmation that they can build different kinds of gates for different needs and they’ve presumably a way of differentiating between which gates so as not to send something large through this gate only to have shredded exiting a smaller gate.- This was bad, Carter realized. Turning she began to chase after the colonel, throwing up her hood, covered in the eye of Ra.



Ardef who was walking with Daniel turned back towards Carter motioning for her to join them. O’Neill looking as nonchalant as possible as other groups began to appear along the road. “They’re all built like athletes” he noted tensing as his mind wandered back to the Horus Guard and to the serpent-men. All of them built like warriors but most of them seemed to be dressed in garb that looked more like they belonged to laborers or tradesmen, technicians, and specialists. Several of them had what looked like grease or ink stains on their hands and the Colonel wondered why such an advanced society would still need mechanics or fountain pens. Then again Jack hunted even when he didn’t need to, and he still carried around a first world war era pistol. The laborers or whatever they were passed them merely nodding their heads in respect when they saw the symbols of the eye of RA, but O’Neill could sense a bit of apprehension in them that they hid well.





“Kowalski take SG-2 to the gate and set up camp in the woods on the side of the road, I saw some other tents and pavilions there. Hopefully you’ll blend in well with them and they’ll just assume that you’re traders or something. Take the Abydonians with you, our party’s too damn large for this road.”



“Sir…” Kowalski eyed him for a few lingering moments. “Sir, you want us to hold position?”



O’Neill nodded before adding “And I want you to give us twenty four hours and if we’re not back or you see trouble coming up the road, you hit the gate and get out.”



“Sir I’m not abandoning you!” Kowalski insisted. O’Neill shook his head “You’ll do as your ordered.. Listen Chuck if we’re not back or if snake dudes come down that road its because we’re fuck’n dead get it?” O’Neill’s vehemence caused the younger Colonel to reluctantly nod.





“What are you making out for far about their technology?” Daniel asked Carter who’d fallen in beside him her eyes lost none of the wild excitement from the moment she stepped through the gate onto this new world, but he could detect a level of anxiety there as well. The blond smiled at him and shrugged. “Well, we assumed your theory applied to these guys as well, that the copycats on earth were merely copying what another group of thieves and copy cats plagiarized. The story about Ra taking a human as a host seemed to imply, they were parasitic in nature or so we thought.”



“Right, which would in theory mean that they would know how to duplicate the technology and maintain it but not really innovate or advance or build off the technology right?” Jackson asked, sensing where she was going with that line of thinking and not particularly liking it one bit. It reminded him of all the speculating he did back during the first Abydonian mission only for him to realize he was only right about thirty percent of the time.



“Precisely and I was wrong, this is..Well this all speaks to a civilization that treats the technology that built the Abydondian pyramids and the city outside as if it was mundane. A lived-in civilization that shows an alarming amount of high tech just commonplace.”



Jackson didn’t like that, as far as he knew the mountain sized pyramids were the pinnacle of technological achievement and yet she was talking about it the same way a regular person might describe cell phones. “The city by the lake suffered extensive damage during the battle against Ra, within two years the buildings had regenerated themselves, so did whatever power line we hit by accident during the fight. If what you’re saying is right, this road could be thirty or forty thousand years old…Or brand new because they upgraded their roads the way we might upgrade between operating systems…Damn”



“Older.” Carter said in an almost whisper. “Think about it Jackson, even if they did copy some of their technology, to refine it to where they could do this? Build entire colonies and mass export humans from earth all over the Galaxy and who knows where else? An emerging civilization couldn’t do something like that. I think, we’re looking at a much older race than we’ve imagined.”





“Boy! You dorks just keep bringing the good news huh?” O’Neill asked standing between them with an exasperated look on his face. Ardef who was behind them and had been contemplating their discussion gave a nod. “Some of the religious stories we recorded said that Ra’s race was far older than humanity, that the Gods came from outside to rescue us from the darkness.”





“A million years into the heavens” Daniel repeated the words written on the cartouche that launched his journey all those years ago.



Ahead of them a group of men in dark black cloaks with gold lining and what looked like leather made from enormous serpents rested over their shoulders. The men were older, gray beards immaculately trimmed and bald heads with the symbol of the serpent men carved into their foreheads with silver. Their leader nearly stumbled into Daniel and Sam only for him to shake his head and bow in supplication, until he noticed the eye of Ra on the robes, and he regarded them with suspicion.



“surra-al-hazla?”



“The fuck does that mean?” O’Neill asked, that hadn’t sounded like any Space Egyptian he’d heard. Seeing their blinking eyes, the priest sighed and began to speak in a dialect that at least sounded Abydonian.



“I suppose its too much to ask of Clerics of the House of Ra to speak in the language of the serpent! The warriors tongue. We are off to spread the faith in the border worlds, there are some breeds of mongrels out on the edge of our holdings in the next Galaxy who are starting to build their first flying machines. We’re to spread the word amongst the frontier, something you lazy fools should consider doing once in a while!” The head Cleric remarked in annoyance at what he believed were interloping priests from a competing branch of the main church.



-Huh? So, This house of Ra has clerics that preach domestically but the clerics of Apophis do missionary work and did he say “other Galaxy”!?” that shocked him but he had no time to dwell on it.



His reply made their faces twitch. While Jackson had replied with “I have often suggested it to my fellows, that we should share in your burden alas, we are merely here to deliver updated texts”





What the Clerics of Chulak heard was the most broken pidgin babble they’d ever heard, something even most backwaters would be ashamed of speaking. “Brother, what did this illiterate say?!” One whispered.



“He said something about prepositioning his brothers and coming here to make congress with newtexts?”



“Excuse me?!”





“Direct them to the main temple and order them not to disturb Lore Master Shaun’ac for her body is still being regenerated by her new Prim’tah and I would not have these gutter dwelling fools agitate her with their babble.” The head priest sniffed.



“No wonder his Majesty wishes war with Prince Horus, if these are the priests of the house of Ra I shudder to think what their technologists, scribes and warriors are!”





The head priest sniffed derisively and delegated it to a second who walked towards Daniel and Ardef and speaking slowly in Imperial standard said “You, go North, to Bakhu palace, there go to golden domicile of the Serpent and leave texts with Ra’ak and go away, speak not to Lore Master Shaun’ac, she is very important and busy. Hathor, update imperial religion too much, say come back here in two centuries. Now go towards Bakhu yes? Ayaaaa!” He added the last bit with dismissive effect and quickly stormed off to follow the other priests.





“Grouchy bunch” O’Neill remarked.



“Apparently they thought our dialect atrocious” Ardef remarked in English with a bemused smile. “They thought we were simpletons, though they gave useful information..Though I could understand only half. Daniel gambled and said we came to provide updated scripture, a gamble that paid off as they seemed to accept it. I assume it was useful.”



“It was useful” Daniel said somewhat astounded by its implications. “Apparently they’re going off to evangelize in another Galaxy.”



“You’re kidding me!?” Carter asked shocked.



“Could gate the even travel that far?” O’Neill asked.



“I guess? As far as we can tell the gates don’t seem to be limited by distance, I’m guessing it’s a question of power and that would require astronomical levels….Pun intended” Carter offered with a slight smile. Though, the question remained. Could they travel across galaxies by ship like she thought the vessel in area fifty-one could.





“He also mentioned a House of Ra, I wonder if that means their society is feudalistic. Or more imperialistic with a hint of feudalism to it..” Jackson thought aloud.



“Lets just hope some of them see our blowing up their space Cesar as a favor then” O’Neill muttered.



Down the road and towards the mountain of madness.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Aannd we get to imperial politics, some scene appropriate music and Bra'tac!

.....

Dakkara









How he missed this place, the capital of the greatest Empire the universe had ever seen. The center of a cosmic golden age that had risen from the ashes of a million years of darkness, decay and decline. The ancient Capital of the remnants of the Ori and the second world his father liberated, the site where his grandparents were killed, and the rebellion evolved from a pair of lonely outposts to a fire that consumed whole galaxies and cleansed it of the filth that dared to hold his ancestors in bondage. Dakkara had been many things, the symbol of the expansion of their slave rebellion, the nexus of their cultural power and the birth world of the Jaffa race.



Two billion Jaffa lived in the shining blue, green and rust colored gem, another four billion baseline humans, six hundred million Serrakin and a small kingdom of Unas scattered among the immense archipelago’s that dotted the ocean around Dakkara’s southern pole. One hundred thousand years ago, Dakkara had been a wasteland. It’s red, dust covered surface mirroring the sickness that was ravaging the Ori and their dead Alteran brothers, but Yu, Prometheus and Ra had turned it into a verdant paradise, keeping solely the largest eastern continent as the rust colored hellscape the rest of the world had been. There in the dune seas, amidst oasis and the hybrid animals that were a mix of Tau’Ri beasts and local fauna lay the ancient temple of light. Guarded by War Master Bra’tac it was the center of all martial learning and knowledge for the Jaffa warrior race. While Chulak would always be the military industrial center of the Empire, Dakkara was where the greatest Jaffa were trained by the retired first Primes of many system lords and under the leadership of Bra’tac of Dakkara formerly of Chulak.



Apophis, the war god, the master of expansion. The gold and silver colored Tel’tak would have trembled under its owner’s fury at the thought of the name had he not more self-control. In the Imperial religion, Apophis and Athena were the gods of war, strategy, expansion and defense and Horus mighty Falcon was the god of the Hunt, of athleticism, of discipline and skill. Looking at the muscular, tall man that sat upon a throne covered in exotic pelts and furs an enormous golden sword resting against his knee one might be forgiven for assuming he was the god of war. Unlike Apophis who kept himself bald, Horus’ golden hair long and fell about his shoulders like a mantle. Several long braids trailed down the length of his chest while others fell down his back to coil on the cushions. One of his hands was metallic and gold in color, robotic and clawed. A hand taken by his kid sister Egeria during her rebellion and though he could have in time grown back the hand; Horus preferred a prosthetic. A reminder of the price of keeping one’s guard low, of allowing love for one’s family to cloud one’s judgment. A mistake he would not repeat with his uncle.



They entered the atmosphere just as the sun was setting on the southern most western continent, what looked like a series of mountain ranges looming in the sunset. Mountain ranges that were in fact towers belonging that were part of the Iwnw the marvel, the wonder, the center of political and administrational power, the seat of governance of the greatest Empire the universe had ever seen. The beacon, the flame of civilization, the heart of the fire at the center of creation. At twenty thousand square kilometers Iwnw was as much a city as a palace. Half a million people lived within its walls and another million worked in and around it. Though the southern wing of the palace belonged exclusively to the House of Ra, it hadn’t been where he grew up. Horus was born on the world that was the epicenter of the rebellion. The primordial home world of the races that made up the Goa’uld and Horus had been raised in what were now the ruins of the hermitage there. The Tel’tak landed on a concealed pad near one of the grand hanging gardens that dotted the Western Wing. Suspended on anti-gravity pads each block of plants represented a different group of tropical flowers or vines from across the empire. Water flowed against gravity, rising “upwards” and feeding a river that flowed through the air towards a series of cisterns and pipes that fed other sections of the palace.



Ordinarily the arrival of Prince Horus would have come with much fanfare but today he hadn’t even bothered to announce his coming or send a herald. Today his meeting had to be secret, for today the House of Ra was discussing the unthinkable and the very real consequences that potentially came with such talk. But what choice do I have? My uncle has gone mad.



There were many system lords who were cynics, many who were overly ambitious, but what they all held in common was a belief that the Empire, the dream they built from the ruins of their chains was bigger than all of them. Though none embodied that belief quite like Prince Horus of the house of Ra who was the closest thing one could find to a Goa’uld zealot. On earth, he’d be called an ultra-nationalist. The Tollan called him a fanatic, the Asgard a supremacist and Apophis called him a fool playing at patriotism. Horus was loyal, he was a good son and that was why he was here.



He came alone, save only for Garek his chamberlain. The dark skinned, hoarse voiced behemoth of a man was born a peer, one of the sons of Ame-No-Manakushi and thus, like Prometheus. Garek was of his grandmother’s generation. Despite his powers however, he had dedicated himself to martial pursuits and had trained Anubis and Apophis in the art of war and when they surpassed him, he set aside his weapons and became a scribe and administrator. Many scorned him, for he easily could have become a system lord and for changing his name, yet he had chosen to serve instead. To Horus, that was always something to aspire too and admire about the hard old devil. Garek’s cape cast a mighty shadow that when joined to his own gave the impression that he was every bit the winged creature of his personal symbol. Automatic doors opened, there were servants but most scurried away or averted their gaze. To the citizens of the empire, the System Lords were gods and even the lesser breeds of Goa’uld worshipped them as such. -Pathetic- Horus thought, why had his father insisted on the Imperial religion again? It helped keep the peace, it helped build a sense of unity and no peer save father ever really called themselves Gods in private (His father had earned the right as far as Horus was concerned.) Nor did Horus really refer to himself as one in public either, within his domains his deeds spoke for themselves and people worshipped him of their own accord.



They entered an antechamber, far from the main apartments and Horus suppressed a shudder. How could he call this place home when his mother had long ceased living here? Only Isis, Osiris and the myriad of their children and grand children and the imperial bastards lived here.



Walking along marble it wasn’t long before Horus espied a woman who appeared to be physically in her late teens to early twenties by human reckoning. She had long, thick black hair with metallic red streaks and a pair of eyes the color of finely polished copper. She wore a corset made of some leather he couldn’t recognize and a skirt of fine silk that extended to her knees. As usual she was drunk and as usual, she was sharing a bottle with Bra’tac who was the only Jaffa to earn the right to be privy to such discussions, even if Horus did believe it was ludicrously above the War Masters’ station.



Bra’tac was a leather worn, copper skinned, gnarled, wrinkled hard old devil of a Jaffa with long brown hair that had gone an ashy, charcoal like gray. Broad of shoulder and with a long whiskered mustache and hands that still looked like they could crush the skull of an Unas in their grip. Bra’tac, the only Jaffa to defeat Herakles in single combat, the man who defeated two dozen primes and eight of the twelve first primes back-to-back in one of the most amazing sequence of duels Horus had ever witnessed. He'd also killed two hundred of Cronus' rebellious Jaffa as he carved a path of ruin to the mad Titan with not but two teenagers at his back. Brat’ac was adorned in the dark gray and gold of the imperial army, the golden symbol of the serpent upon his head an unpleasant reminder that the mentor of all Jaffa had been a creature of Apophis. -He shouldn’t be here, yet we cannot have this discussion without him-.





“Elder brother!” Isis whispered in a sing song tone. A soft chorus of a dozen different voices some childlike others womanly, some ancient. Rising from the table, swaying slightly she smiled, allowing her eyes to glow a deep white. Brother-in Law Horus wanted to correct, Isis was the daughter of Set, who had been given to Ra when she was still a larval infant. She’d been fostered with Osiris and grew up to eventually marry him and her domains were roughly the same size as her husband’s. Ra, Osiris, Isis and Horus, together the house of Ra ruled some sixteen thousand lightyears and nearly a quarter of a million worlds. Horus personal domains made up the lion’s share of that territory (some nine thousand lightyears), his domains being the largest of all the System Lords, save Apophis whose monstrous fiefdom was nearly the size of the entirety of the house of Ra’s. Together the Houses of Tartarus and Ra controlled just under half the total size of the domains of the system Lords and nearly twenty five percent of the total size of the empire not counting his uncle Yu’s Kingdom.



House of Ra, Horus had to stifle a chuckle at that. He remembered when the house of Ra and the House of Ouranos were one and the same. Before Anubis declared Ra their emperor and divine father made the House of Ra. -Things were simpler then weren’t they? -



“Sister” Horus said nodding his head to her, the bells on his braids jingling. Eyes narrowing as the woman rose and walked towards Garek. She took a dry, old hand in hers and bowed to the ancient Goa’uld. “Old uncle, it is good that you accepted our invitation.”



“Indeed? Bra’tac is already here, if you need a wise voice to tell you this is pure stupidity and disloyal as well, then you’ve him.” Garek rasped in response, his tone as curt as ever and his eyes hard.



“It is only treasonous if we act before Apophis draws first blood.” Horus responded with a sigh, rehashing the argument he’d already had with Garek before they left Nekhen The Crown world of Horus’s domain.





“I agree!” Isis chimed in as she laced her arms through Garek’s who was walking towards Bra’tac and clasped the man firmly on the forearm with the free hand in greeting. “War Master, Tek’ma’te!”



Bra’tac nodded his head, honored by the informality and respect of the term while Horus did his best not to roll his eyes at the absurd latitude the Jaffa was given. “Well met, old father” Bra’tac bowed his head. “They fear, not without reason that Apophis will not wait for the Grand Convocation and election ceremony in five years, they fear he will make war first and seize the throne by force.”



“He would be mad to do that!” Garek responded the chorus of his voice sounded like dozens of deep chanters meeting the rasp of a bunch of machinery. His eyes glowed a soft green indicative of his generation and his connection by blood to Amaterasu and her lineage. Even the ancient strategist, the precursor to the First Primes could not conceive of Apophis being so insane as to do what Cronus tried. “The only reason the Titan rebelled was because he believed he could wipe out the House of Ra and Tartarus at the same festival! A conflict between the house of Ra and Apophis would be a disaster for the Empire!”



“We would need the four of us to stand united against him to merely survive, we would have to call on Athena and Zeus to win.” Horus remarked concerned. “Haqet would side against us, that ancient bitch has ever resented the House of Ra because father was made Emperor and not her!”



The fury of that embittered fossil was well known. Haqet had been with the exception of Garek and Prometheus the oldest surviving Peer after the deaths of Tartarus and Ame-No-Manakushi, Ouranos and Nu made her subservient to them and when both were murdered by primitive Goa’uld in the aftermath of the first battle of the rebellion Haqet had tried to assert her authority. Anubis overruled her by bowing to Ra and the rest was history.



The ancient bitch ruled from her castle on Taonas, a grim and reclusive domain spanning some seven hundred lightyears at the “Northern” border of their empire. Tanith; her Chamberlain was always present at the imperial Court no doubt delegating his duties to some lonely second, his smiles as false as Haqet’s youthful host.



“Amaterasu will involve herself, the only being she detests more than Apophis is Haqet and your mother hates the old whore profoundly as well and if sAmaterasu involves herself, then Izanami will join, and Set will be compelled to side with Apophis as his realm would inevitably end up a warzone! And if Set joins him...” Horus clenched his robotic fists, eyes glowing a violent sort of white.



Nearly all the System lords embroiled in a war that would unravel everything they’d worked so hard to build. It would be a disaster and the ultimate vindication of the arrogant Nox and judgmental Asgard. “We are discussing this as though it is foretold” Garak cautioned as one of the doors opened and their fellow confederate entered. A tall pale skinned man with a lanky body and elegantly trimmed hair that was combed to the side. He wore a form fitting tunic with the symbol of the House of Ra and embroidered on the cuffs of his tunic, a falcon like bird flying through a field of stars. The symbol of Osiris, “God” of exploration, movement and politics, who looked every bit as youthful as his wife Isis despite being of another generation entirely. Osiris, his younger brother conceived some eighty thousand years ago during a period of relative peace between the great wars against the alliance.



“Ah, I see you have begun without me hmm?” Osiris spoke in sweet, melodic tones, the compelling voice of the Goa’uld sounding as though it were full of reassuring, confidence, and ease. The charmer, the snake oil salesmen, the liar. Yet the only being in the universe Horus trusted completely. “Is Garek doubting that Apophis will make a play?”



“He is dear husband” Isis chimed.



Bra’tac regarded the couple and nodded. “Garek is correct, he may not make a move until after the election, should he put his name forward at all” Though Bra’tac hoped he would, if not there would be war for a certainty and all the seeming obedience to form and protocol would have been not but a ruse to build up his forces.





“That brings us to another problem, no one expected Father to die, I do not believe he expected himself to die. These protocols were written the year Osiris was born and ratified by System lords of whom, only seven from that time still live. Prometheus himself is one of the signatories, good luck arguing the legitimacy of that document now.” Isis said folding her hands behind her back in a manner that reminded Horus of father -She may not have been his blood but-.



“Those documents are law!” Garek insisted, flustered by the talk he was hearing. “And even if it weren’t that would mean the position of Supreme System Lord and Emperor would go to your mother.”



Hathor had been co-ruler, empress before her divorce from Ra and while she became the Imperial Chamberlain and remained the second most powerful figure in the imperial government, it had been a step down. Hathor had lost much of her executive authority, retaining the judicial power while the Court of the System lords acted as the legislative body. An ascent to the position of Empress would mean someone would need to fill her spot, Isis and Osiris both seemed to beam with ambition.



Horus and Bra’tac both promptly threw cold water on their fantasies. Assuring everyone that Hathor would never accept the position of empress unless it was forced upon her. “It would go to you Horus, dear brother” Osiris finally said, speaking that which they all knew but dare not say, not until the votes were tallied.





“I wish it, for my father, to continue his legacy but it is a hard duty and I concur with Garek, those protocols for succession cannot, must not be broken!” No, Horus thought, I would not have the empire torn apart solely because of who my father was. I am loyal and we worked far too hard for this peace to be so broken.



“And if Apophis should break with the protocols? Osiris asked.



“Then his death shall be as grotesque as that invalid he calls a son!” Horus boomed and everyone in the room had to suppress a shudder. Klorel was, an uncomfortable reminder of where they came from, a cruel lesson in the dangers of mixing between the breeds and an abomination against every Goa’uld in existence and a perversion of the blood of the peers. “Vile creature that he is.”



“Amunet is little better” Bra’tac remarked and then clarified when he caught the withering gaze of Horus who was one moment of presumption away from killing the War Master. “With respect, eminent prince” Bra’tac began using the affectation for a scion of the House of Ra. “I spoke with Shaun’ac earlier, it seems Amunet took an unwilling Host, without cloning or lobotomization, without it being a condemned criminal and made sport of..neutralizing her spirit.”



Isis gagged and walked towards one of windows overlooking a hanging garden, her body tense with disgust as Osiris cursed and Horus grew so wrathful, he withdrew his sword and in a loud curse struck it into a column, nearly shattering the stone. “Barbarian! It’s bad enough she’s a filthy mongrel, but she conducts herself like some lowly Hassak vermin? Ja’mah! It’s unseemly!” Horus fumed, while the risks the lower breeds of Goa’uld underwent when taking a fully developed Host weren’t present for the Peers it still didn’t mean it was acceptable to conduct yourself like some, mindless, hunger driven primitive. “Father always regretted the way Odin’s body was taken and the way he took the boy. “Horus grew silent, the memory of his own possession distant and far away but he remembered that it was unpleasant, that he had greedily tore apart the mind of his host the act was…bestial and it shamed him to come so close to conducting himself like his barely sentient ancestors or the disgusting peasants that made up the lower orders...



“Our uncle consorts with beasts, surely someone so..addled is capable of anything” Horus said looking to Garek, who seemed to nod regretfully.



“Which is precisely why I suggest we prepare, but only prepare. We will not strike first and if Apophis waits until the election, then more the better. He will be attainted if he does..Perhaps we can avoid civil war entirely if we build a bulwark and box the old serpent in.”





“Or” Began Garek his eyes dark as concern filled him for even suggesting this. “Or we.” He went silent as Lotar entered to deposit some beverages andfoods resuming only when the group departed. “Or we bribe Apophis by promising a period of expansion, long has he eyed the largest Galaxy in our cluster, what the Ori called Akromedas I believe he rules several hundred lightyears there already. There are regions of our Galaxy the rest of the Empire could expand into and establishing a bulwark in Pegasi and the Dwarf Galaxies nearby, it would certainly occupy us for the next ten thousand years.” Garek muttered, touching his chin. Yes, the opportunity for growth there would be something even the Asgard couldn’t object to, even if they did rattle their saber about expansion in the milky way.



“That, would require approval of the new Emperor, only Ra ever held the authority to authorize expansion.” Isis said before her eyes glinted in realization. “Ah, yes, I see…So we make dear brother Emperor and Horus agrees to go on a conquering spree and we sate Apophis bloodlust.”





“You assume” Bra’tac remarked, cutting in. “That Apophis merely wishes for a good fight and is not ambitious, or resentful of being in the shadows of others.”



Horus sneered at that. “Apophis never once set his eyes on the throne before. He was content being our dog of war, he’s served in that capacity for a hundred thousand years! Why would he suddenly want more?”





“Why indeed.” Bra’tac asked with a serene smile, perhaps prince, whose father believed him a fool. Perhaps because he has been sitting on resentment for several ages of the universe at this point and wishes to claim what was long denied to him? Bra’tac said nothing because Garek cleared bis throat.



“This is a discussion we cannot have without your mother, where is her majestic eminence, the lady Hathor?” Garak asked, with none of the usual preamble those who claimed to be friends with their mother only using the prefix used when she was empress. The only real sign that Garek was the closest thing Hathor had to a grandfather.





“No one has seen mother, not in a year.” Isis responded; concern evident in her voice. “Her office continues to release edicts and update scripture as though she were still with us, but she departed Dakkara months ago.”



“What?!” Garek’s voice held a note of worry and Horus looked up positively horrified. “You’re certain?! The lady is missing?”



“She claimed she was going to find answers as to who murdered Father, she left through the Gate alone and we traced the address to a Forest world at the edge of Father’s domain.” Isis responded meekly, somewhat surprised her foster brother's chamberlain hadn’t noticed. “You both have been gone too long my loves.”



“Why didn’t you stop her?!” Horus asked in alarm. “Madness…we’re on the edge of civil war and…”



“We should request an analyses of local subspace from Thoth or one of Ba’al’s technologists, we should determine where mother has gone.” Osiris offered, attempting to defuse the stress. “In the meantime I suggest that we at least begin to fortify our borders and send out word that we will hold a grand banquet in Ra’s honor, issue a summons to all the system lords and request their attendance personally, infer that we will begin the process…”



“That may provoke Apophis” Bra’tac cautioned, earning a nod of agreement from Garek who touched his chin in thought. “And yet, perhaps it is good that we do, provoke. At least we will find out who has the appetite for battle and if we’re correct in assuming the majority would prefer a peaceful transition of power and not a civil war.”





“Amaterasu and Apophis, Set and Ba’al, Haqet and mother at a table together…” Isis murmured with an amused drawl in her tone. “Empire’s have been destroyed by less…volatile personalities.”



“And saved by them as well” Garek said, his eyes shifting towards the gardens. -Anubis, your presence is sorely missed…Everything went wrong when you died, Ra cites Egeria’s death as the point, but it wasn’t the Tau’Ri who marred us was it? It was your death-



No, Garek thought.



It was that you laid your weapon down and bowed to Ra and vowed to avenge his parents and unite the universe under the all-seeing eye of Ra, when it should have been the banner of the shakal.





Funny, his failure as a teacher was the inverse of Prometheus’ failure, Garek had never nurtured ambition in Anubis and Prometheus over indulged Ra’s.



He laughed aloud and when the others looked at him, the ancient Goa’uld smiled. “Nothing, Nothing”



Except an old man recriminating against himself, lost in nostalgia.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

…………..





Bakhu – Chulak

Hearts and Cannons.




O’Neill ended up being glad that they were dressed as priests, because the walk to the castle-mountain thing they were ordered to go towards probably would have taken his team three or four hours. Instead, another group of travelers (These being farm hands from what O’Neill could tell) directed them towards a parallel road half a mile from the main one whereupon they were identified as priests and escorted to what looked like some kind of monorail. Except it floated off the ground and moved faster than any train Jack had ever seen because they arrived at an immense lake that tapered off into a waterfall that plunged down to the depths below the palace.



Thankfully, the train thing also didn’t plunge down the depths of the waterfall but stopped short of an immense bridgehead that glimmered in the sun, immense sphinxes flanking either side of the entrance. The whole trip Doc Carter was babbling about the implications of the technology they saw around them, the young woman was almost vibrating in her seat talking about the wonders she saw around her and how concerning it was that these guys appeared to be hostile. Jack didn’t understand anything that she was saying to him it may as well have been space Egyptian. But what was clear to him was the sheer scale of everything the Colonel could see around him.





An old timey medieval castle, a damn fortress that was either made by repurposing and reshaping the mountain or was built between the mountain ranges. He could see what looked like crenellations, buttresses that probably doubled as aqueducts, a moat that was more like an abyss and the whole way here when he wasn’t staring at an ocean of farmland. Colonel Jack O’Neill was watching thousands of people arrayed in divisions drilling endlessly. Ardef noticed it too and shared a look with Jack that suggested he was thinking the same thing. While he couldn’t be sure, his guts said this was a planet preparing for war.



But war against who?





Skara, Shau’re, Christmas. Retrieving them was going to be a lot harder than he initially thought, perhaps even impossible and that was something he really didn’t want to think about. He wasn’t going to abandon them, but he was starting to realize that there was a chance they wouldn’t be going home. -It’s worth it though- O’Neill thought, it was different this time. Different from Abydos, all those years ago when he was running from despair and guilt into the jaws of death. Here, he’d be fighting like hell and maybe dying for friends or maybe just maybe they’d succeed. After all, Ra was powerful, ancient and stupidly advanced but he made mistakes. Enough mistakes that they were able to blow his ass to kingdom come. An image of Ferretti’s mangled remains filled his head and O’Neill and he felt his knuckles clench as they departed from the bridgehead and made it towards the bridge itself. He was so focused that he didn’t even notice that he was walking on an energy ribbon until Carter knelt down to touch it, earning sneers from some of the clerics who had joined them in the procession with one calling her a cloudy headed girl who needed to stop debasing the Imperial clergy by acting like some backwoods primitive.



“They called me a primitive?! I built a hydrogen bomb before I could..sheesh” Sam shook her head, some of her hair spilling from the hood, clinging to her cheek in the wind. Jack thought she looked adorable in a psychotic way. But he was quick to put those thoughts out of his mind as the roar of what could only be marching cadence echoed from another energy bridge some six hundred feet to the left of him. -Damn, they’re hustling- what amazed him was that most of the serpent dudes were shirtless, it was nearly thirty degrees, and they were covered in a sheen of sweat and didn’t seem to be anything other than annoyed in that way recruits get annoyed when they’re singing the same song for the nine hundredth time during a particularly harsh week at the yard. They were preparing for something and Jack could only hope it wasn’t war.



Getting into the behemoth of a castle was easier than he thought it would be, mostly because whenever he opened his mouth the priests would flinch and babble back at him in overexaggerated accents. Daniel was telling Carter that he thought he could detect elements of something that sounded a bit like Berber and Farsi in their language, but he didn’t know if that was coincidence or if the Persians had based their language on some of the ruins of Ra’s kingdom or not. “Give him enough time Doc, he’ll be babbling space Moroccan in no time.” O’Neill reassured her.



Carter laughed as they passed through a main hallway and lobby of one of the largest libraries Sam Carter had ever seen. “woah” she murmured, shelves filled with scrolls and books interspersed with datasheets, holograms dancing between immense busts of creatures she had never seen before and the ceiling was filled with what she could only describe as an animated movie playing that depicted parts of this “War in heaven” including a figure clearly meant to be Apophis battling someone that looked like Thor, if Thor was one of those blue aliens from the marvel movies, what were they again? Kree? Right, except instead of blue the hulking warrior was gray with dark green hair. “Amazing” she murmured. O’Neill tugged her along waiting for Daniel and Ardef to inquire if they could explore the main palace a bit.



Once again there was a rubbing of temples and a nod and a gesture to the exit, or what Jack hoped was the exit and not a broom closet or something.



“It’s so beautiful.” Carter murmured, she had stopped to reach up to touch the cheek of a holographic depiction of a woman who appeared to be in her early forties, with long lush brown hair and tanned skin with an oddly green hue. Her features reminded Jack of all the others he’d seen who looked like they had cave man in them and a few other ape people as well. Catching the look in Jack’s eyes Carter rolled her eyes ‘Yes, the weird goddess lady is kinda sexy too” She teased “I meant the hologram, I can even feel texture, like its simulating skin.”



“The larger one’s breathe and even give off smells. It’s rather remarkable the achievements Set’s entertainment technologists have made in the bending and capturing of light over the last ten millennia.” The voice was smooth, the English remarkably well spoken and Carter almost thought it was an Abydonian talking until she turned and saw it was a woman with pale skin, she was tall, with incredibly black hair and deep blue eyes, looking like an Amazonian statue come to life but for how emaciated and tired she looked. Carter took a step back, reaching for a gun and Jack advanced on her but the woman held up a hand. “Please, my liver was restored six hours ago and while I’ve flushed all the ascites and pus from my body, I don’t think my blood can clot like it used too anymore.” She waved the hand, which had a few bracelets and several rings. On her forehead was the symbol of the serpent in what Carter thought was platinum. “So, I would really not like to fight you.” She offered an oddly, charming smile and O’Neill narrowed his eyes stepping between Carter and the woman.





“How do you speak our language lady?” His tone was cold but that didn’t seem to phase the woman. “I am Shaun’ac, lore master and chief linguist of the temple of the serpent. One of my…former students took English from the mind of your..Cor…coreperal Kressmas…ah I am mangling her name, forgive me. He shared the language with me with his mind, best he could. I’ve been extrapolating since….Then.”



“Where is she.” O’Neill asked tersely the menace in his voice fading just a bit. If they started a firefight in here, they’d be dead and this woman, sick as she was could have had them killed whenever she wanted and yet didn’t.



“Regrettably, she was killed by Lord Apophis.” The sheer sorrow and shame in her voice shocked O’Neill, why did this woman care so much for some alien stranger? Or had Christmas been just one more in a long line of casualties that had eaten away at her. His eyes suddenly flickered with worry, if the English language had been torn from her mind, then there was no telling what else could have been pulled from there. -Damn, damn-.



The woman seemed to catch the look in his eyes, and she nodded. “In fairness, beings far stronger than her have been dismantled…by…her..interrogator.” Shaun’ac spat the words with a vehemence that surprised her captive audience. Though she had been close to the one who carried Klorel and though Klorel showed the same devotion to her as he did Teal’c and Drey’ac, Shaun’ac was disgusted by the deformed prince and what Apophis had become, she was also certain that Amunet’s ascent meant the end of the House of Tartarus if drastic measures weren’t taken soon. “But that is not your present concern, yes?”.



“There were two others we came for!” Daniel cut in agitated. “One a female and the other.”



“I will take you to the boy.” Shaun’ac whispered, something in her eyes made Jack’s stomach crawl. “And the woman!? Shau’re is her name, she’s my wife.”



The way the woman’s eyes flickered once again told O’Neill all he needed to know. “Daniel…” “No Jack I need..”



“Save it Jackson!” O’Neill hissed.



“Your leader is right Dan..yer..If you draw too much attention to us I will not be able to assist you.” As the woman said this O’Neill could see her lean slightly against a column and with a discrete nod, he had Carter stand behind her, incase she collapsed from whatever she had “repair her liver” from. Not that he trusted her, completely but if she was really willing to help it couldn’t hurt to help her in turn and if she was up to no good, then the look in Carter’s gray eyes suggested she’d put a bullet in the woman’s spine the moment it hit the fan. O’Neill was starting to appreciate Carter’s crazy ass.



It didn’t make sense, even if she had been given English by telepathic upload, how the hell did she know who Jackson was? Or him? There was a look of relief in her eyes when she beheld the Colonel and that made no sense. She recognized us, Jack thought and more than recognized she knew enough to pronounce Daniel the way Shau’re used too, a way Jack knew would tie Daniel to her like a kite. She spoke with a familiarity not her own and that further disturbed him and for some reason he felt a sense of loss. Shau’re the name came unbidden to his mind and he had to put a considerable amount of effort into ignoring whatever his gut was telling him. “You helping us makes no sense.”



“This is true.” Shaun’ac conceded, a faint smirk on her features “Do not mistake this for friendship, the Tau’Ri killed Ra. Your kind murdered the heart of our civilization, its builder, and its keeper. And now, like children blundering in the dark you penetrate the heart of our military in a suicidal quest to retrieve three people you can’t even be sure are alive. No, I am not impressed by you, I am not moved by your plight. But it is honor that moves me, what was done to your women was conduct unbecoming of our great lord.”



“Bullshit” O’Neill muttered his eyes narrowing. “Oh, it dishonors that golden shithead huh? Hah and I’m supposed to believe a high priestess is just going to admit that to an enemy? An enemy she thinks killed her space Caesar.” O’Neill shook his head. Something was wrong, why the hell was she involved in this? This wasn’t some last-minute change of heart; she came here prepared. What the hell was going on?! Jack might not have had the experience in political nonsense that the cold war vets had but he was involved in enough off the books operations in shitholes to smell a fix.



“It’s not about his honor Rahksha!” she sneered, and O’Neill’s eyes flickered in understanding. The man wasn’t as stupid as he looked, she hadn’t needed to elaborate more but she could see it in his face that he recognized immediately what this was. Amusingly enough, from the look in his eyes he knew what she was doing because he’d been in her position before and when his lip curled at the bitter taste of being on the receiving end of the mountain of feces such games often bestowed upon the player’s pawns and board, she gave him a chastising look. “Yes Tau’Ri, this is what it feels like.”



Despite himself O’Neill laughed. Damn, this bitch is dangerous he thought with an exasperated sigh. So, this was it, they could come with her and accept her help, knowing it would cause a whole world of shit for Earth and Abydos, or he could let them slaughter his people, ambush Kowalski and hope their rampage stopped with their corpses. It was interesting though, she could tell Abydonians were with them, it was obvious by the recognition in her eyes, but she didn’t spare them a second glance, like they didn’t factor into any plans for retaliation and he couldn’t understand why. No, that wasn’t correct, she was going out of her way to avoid bringing attention to the Abydonians entirely. -They’re another chess piece in whatever game this witch lady and her handlers are playing-. My mighty serpent lord his ass, she didn’t give a single solitary fuck about Apophis, but her loyalty to the empire was unwavering Jack recognized that.



A patriot, who could play games.



Fuck’n familiar that…



Lovely.



“Alright temple skank, but what guarantee do I have that our rescue attempt won’t end up with us being crucified or something?” O’Neill asked. Carter pressed the gun into the woman’s back even as she appeared to help brace the Lore Master.



She grinned wickedly. “There are others who are not happy about what has transpired Tau’Ri, your survival will just have to depend upon the quality of your ability to persuade.”



“Welp, we’re fucked.” Jackson said without missing a beat.



“Gee thanks” O’Neill rolled his eyes. “Alright Witch lead the way.”



“Lore Master thank you very much, I worked as hard on earning that title as I worked on my figure boy.” Shaun’ac turned sniffing into the air dismissively, leading the group through the halls and into what Jack was certain was going to be the mother of all false flag operations. -I should have let Carter shoot her, I’m guaranteeing a war like this…- Except you never left men behind, especially when those men were family, especially when General Hammond and the damned President told you to go out there and make enough noise to make sure they kept their noses clean. -But is that what I’m doing?-



They walked in silence for an hour, except for Jackson who was trying to take his mind off panicking over Shau’re by trying to learn the language they spoke on this world. Carter kept glaring at him, implying that he should put a stop to it but O’Neill kept refusing, he wanted to see how clever this woman really was and if her brain represented what he’d have to face on the battlefield should the worse come of it or not. After all, Jackson knew the game well enough and was giving just enough to keep the woman interested, which he was okay with because it in turn allowed him to observe how she operated. Eventually the female fell in line beside O’Neill, he could see hints that she was becoming tired -Just how tough are these people?- whatever the hell was happening to her was slowly being fixed and he could tell that because her color improved by the moment but he could also tell she was exhausted. “Do you serve a monastic order Tau’Ri? Or are you a soldier? Whom do you serve?”



“I serve the SGC under the command of an Admiral Hammond.” Jack didn’t know why he revealed that information, she wasn’t trustworthy at all but the more time they spent together the more she reminded him of Kim Statterfield and the more he knew, as slick as she was, they likely had a fucked-up friend out here. -But why?- was the question that kept nagging him.



“And this Hammond is..a..”





“Just a man, a great man.. very bald man..from Texas.”



The woman smirked. “I see, we thought you were a First Prime.”



“Like that Dog face guy on Abydos?” O’Neill asked with a raised eyebrow. They came to the end of a hallway into some sort of chamber with columns that rose up higher than Jack could see an end too, a reminder that this place was a mountain. One that felt, very lonely and remote despite it being the center of all the activity. Something terrible happened here once upon a time, he’d bet his bones on it.



“Dog..” Daniel mouthed Anubis and she nodded. “Ah yes, Sek’Het was his name, he was the supreme commander of Ra’s militias and his personal champion and chief body guard.”



“Yep, definitely not that, killed ‘em though.”



Something flashed in her eyes, a mix of intrigue and shock that she hid so well he only noticed it because he’d been watching her like a hawk. “I will leave you now, Priests are free to wander about as they please without proper authorization even in the emergency state you created it is so.” She sounded disappointed at her own people and Jack couldn’t blame her because that was a mistake the US had made as well.



“We call it victory disease where I come from.” O’Neill explained.



“Ah, apt…may I steal it?”





“Go right ahead.” O’Neill replied with a hint of sarcasm. “sooo we wait in this hall and our guys will just show up?”



She laughed “No fool, in half an hour a pair of Serpent Guard will come to retrieve you, I have told them Skara, and the others imprisoned wish to make a final confession, wait in the room near the southern exit. As the majority of them come from holdings of the House of Ra I informed them I would send for some of their clerics, how fortunate”



There were other prisoners? O’Neill wanted to ask more but Carter put an end to that when she gripped the woman’s wrist and dug her pistol deep into her side. Ice in her gray eyes and a look that brokered no ambiguity. “You’re staying with us.” She hissed in a tone that surprised O’Neill. Who had been suppressing the urge to freak out over the fact that Skara was slated for execution and she had said nothing about Shau’re this entire time?



“Am I?” The woman responded. “I am the lore master and chief priestess of this…errmm..dioceses? That correct? Well never the less, I’ve many duties and was near death earlier in the day. I’m expected to rest and attend to small duties, it would look odd if I were spending more time than expected of me with some rustic preachers from nowhere.”







O’Neill relented nodding to Carter who let her go but whispered something that was probably a threat because the taller woman looked down at her with a newfound respect before, she turned limping away as gracefully as she possibly could. “Well…we’re in it now boys.”





“She’s using us to start something isn’t she sir?” Carter asked. It was Daniel who answered instead of Jack. “No, I don’t think its her, not at least alone. But we’re definitely being used…Like we stepped in the middle of a bigger game or knocked enough shit down to start one up”. O’Neill didn’t like it, but there were some possible benefits to this, like the majority of these so called “Gods” thinking Earth was just a patsy and maybe going after each or something. Sitting here, on a comfy couch in the snake man’s castle gave him too much time to think. Earth’s politics were complicated enough, he still had no idea what the hell that was all about.



Jackson who had been studying the art on the wall, observing the “moving ink” as Ardef called it, which was how he referred to the murals on the walls which seemed to move and shift as they depicted ancient battles or great hunts where Apophis and a behemoth of a man with laughter in his eyes struck down huge beasts that Jackson thought looked like megatheriums, others like giant armadillos with extra spikes. He was trying to determine if the game depicted here was alien or human when he found himself walking towards the end of the hall.



“Don’t wander too far Jackson!” O’Neill muttered but the blond was too lost in his own thoughts and he continued passed the columns that marked the opening at the other end and in following it his shoes found a crimson-colored marble that was almost, see through, an ocean of gems seemed to sparkle in the floor pattern as spirals wound into spirals, each one seemingly containing ruffles or…Jackson blinked. “The floor depicts DNA.” He spoke to himself aloud, a habit of his when he needed to keep himself from unraveling. Though a pang of sadness filled him as he realized he hadn’t needed to in half a decade because Shau’re was always there to calm his soul. “The DNA of every race they’ve conquered maybe?” Jackson thought aloud, looking up from the floor to see a series of immense statues arrayed about the room, many with miniature oasis and water flowing freely from jars, or jugs or from mouths. Smaller ones ran along the walls spilling into a series of wall fountains which likely filled some of the aqueducts that ran along the walls. This palace was truly massive, it very likely was the entire mountain and he wondered how many millions of square feet it was. The Largest palaces in the ancient world were the Domus Aurea and Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli with Weiyang palace coming in third place. He had to wonder if this one could fit all three of them within and have room to spare. As he continued to walk, he encountered a series of benches and what might have been ferns.



He didn’t notice the serpent guard, too lost in thought about Shau’re and the palace and the mysterious woman. The Guards themselves didn’t make a move to stop him for they knew better than to disturb their master.



Shau’re, Daniel thought. -We were going to have children this year, I need to get her back. I need too-. Jackson stopped himself, espying what looked like a dark black hair slumped over shoulders. He sighed wistfully, his Shau’re had hair like that. The youth was making a noise that he thought was laughter, but it was, different. A hundred different voices at once and there was a second voice or chorus of voices rather. This one, deep, rich with some subtle rasps, a chorus of souls that felt like carnage and death and Jackson’s blood froze in his veins. -Oh crap, oh crap, there’s a pair of them here?-. Jackson looked around, eyes wide in alarm and at last he noticed the serpent guard and he swallowed. -Crap I stumbled into a makeout session..okay Jackson, play it cool, act natural…act natural-. He turned on his heel.



“Danyer…husband”



Jackson stopped in his tracks, frozen as something dug deep into his heart, dread and despair as a voice that was utterly alien yet so familiar spoke a line that he’d heard every time he woke up in the morning. -No, no, god no..please-. Shau’re, his desert rose, his princess, his lover, his Isis, his…His best friend since his grandpa died. Slowly, slowly he turned as the voice cooed that line, that line that had been so reassuring and loving for many years and now profaned.



And he beheld her, his best friend, his wife…No, that wasn’t Shau’re, she lay sprawled on the immense chest and torso of the bald warrior King, his robes pulled apart, hers loose, eyes sultry as the man below turned and flashed a malevolent smile at Jackson’s face. “Oooohhh..so this is the scribe who helped kill a God? I am in your debt!”



“Indeed, my love” The… Not Shau're whispered leaning down to bite on the man’s cheek before she turned back to gaze into Jackson’s eyes. “We should reward him! Hmm..oh I know!” Her voice echoed now, speaking in the darker manner of Ra. -No, no-



Her eyes glowed a shade of pink. “Husband! Come, join us!”



Something broke inside Daniel Jackson.



He didn’t remember much after that, he tasted salt, he felt his hand move. He saw the pistol raise along with his hand and he heard the blasts.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

……..


Jailhouse Rock.


Bakhu







“Feels like that time I got stuck in the centrifuge” Carter murmured, rising from what she assumed was a cold floor given how much her muscles ached and how stiff she felt. Her sand-colored hair fell about a her face, obscuring a particularly nasty bruise on her cheek. She was coming too, slowly and she felt a pair of hands touch her cheek and for a second. Given the warmth emanating from the fingers she relaxed, until her eyes beheld a squat face with heavy brows and a large nose with the bushiest, greenest whiskers she’d ever seen. Carter wanted to jump back but she was overcome with a wave of dizziness and fell back into the hands of the..Person? Blinking she tried to focus and what she saw looked like a troll from a Nordic epic.





“Jackson says the troll guy says you have a concussion.” The voice of Colonel O’Neill put in. “But he’s healing you, something about the warmth in his skin being bioelectric something or other.”



Jackson, oh, right. Jackson, oh Jesus, Jackson! “Sir! What the hell happened?!” She wanted to jerk away but she could feel the dizziness failing as the weird alien ape thing chanted. Later she would find out his name was Benin, and he came from a species of aliens the System lords subjugated before they found the Tau’Ri. Evidently, they were immune to being taken over by a Goa’uld but rather than exterminate them Ra and Hathor raised them up as healers and scribes. But for now, she just mentally referred to him as Troll medic, an O’Neillism if ever there was one.



“One of those aliens..the Goold? Took over Jackson’s wife.” O’Neill replied with a hint of sadness in his voice. For such a chiseled face, the colonel could be remarkably expressive and right now it looked like someone had ripped his heart out. “How do we know Sir?”. There O’Neill laughed bitterly “Well, I doubt Shau’re would make out with another man, especially the guy who shot up her friends and killed Ferretti.”



“Oh God…” Carter murmured, bits and piece coming back to her as the troll continued to mend her. “I remember…” Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the ornate wall behind the troll medic and tried to gather her thoughts. “Jackson managed to wound her in the shoulder and a shield was up when we got in.”



“Yeah, they have freaky powers.” Jack remarked, recalling Ra and shuddering at the memory of his psychic howl. Freaky was an understatement though with that bitch, because he remembered the lights flickering in the room and then an arc of purple lightning that smashed into Daniel and sent him barreling into Carter. The two hit a wall and the rest of the crew opened fire and that was when? O’Neill laughed “After you and Jackson got Jedi’d”



“Sith”



“Nerd”



Sam smiled, grateful for the levity. “Right sir..so after we got Sith’d”



“Ol’Thulsa Doom just threw Shau’re off his crotch like she was nothing but a cheap thrill and reared on us. She didn’t appreciate that too much and sent another arc of lightning mumbo jumbo at us that killed Ardef and burned one of our guys pretty badly. We lost him to a heart attack an hour ago…” It was disturbing the state of the Space Force, they were going to have to beef up their people soon. “Snake king ran at us and him and I got into a fist fight and then I got knocked out. Woke up here, to Skara trying to clean some of the burns on Capaldi’s calf from the lightning thing..And Jackson crying in the corner.” The last part was uttered without any sarcasm, he looked back to find Jackson in a corner, one of the reservists called up, a woman in her early forties who had a background as a shrink was talking to him, with Skara listening intently. The two looked like they had their guts ripped out, their eyes filled with a pain that Colonel O’Neill understood all too well.





“I got knocked out by that big guy with the bling on his head.” O’Neill muttered gesturing to the tall, grim figure in armor with the shiny serpent symbol carved into his forehead. O’Neill and the silent giant had stared each other down several times over the last hour and Jack was certain he understood English and from the look in his eyes, he was not happy with any of this. They were in a room surrounded by some two dozen people, from all over the place by the looks of them. Some were straight out of a Frazzetta painting, looking like beast men that were more ape than human. Others were the mixed heritage that was common on Abydos, different eye, and hair colors and then there was a pair of freaky ladies with crimson skin and hair that was a dark green with a sort of metallic sheen that made it look more like decorative bird feathers than anything else. “They’ve conquered everyone.” O’Neill said in a voice that he hoped did a good job of containing his wonder.



“I did not even know there were that many different peoples in the stars, O’Neill.” Skara’s voice shook him out of his thoughts, and he turned to espy the youth, who didn’t look so young anymore. Grief was strong in his eyes and he looked alarmingly haggard, the cold weather and humidity must have been harder on him than he thought, or the loss of his sister is eating him alive. “Kid…”



“I will endure O’Neill.” Skara said in a voice that was partly optimistic, partly full of doubt. “I must, Kadra cannot continue our line on her own, its unfair. And, you taught me how a man handles grief.” That last bit came out resolved and O’Neill laughed slightly. “That’s funny, because I wasn’t handling it well at all when we came to Abydos back then…Part of me wanted to die out there, to cut Charlie’s death out with a nuke.” The usually sarcastic or stoic colonel let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and mock punched Skara on the chin. “It was you two, that reminded me what a father’s duty is, what a man’s duty is.”



“Then, together.”



“Together” O’Neill nodded and he realized he’d committed himself to a blood oath in that moment, to save Shau’re or avenge her. “Right Jackson?” O’Neill asked, looking back at the man who was positively haunted. “Right?”



“Jack I shot at her..god..I shot at Shau’re!”



“No, you shot at that thing inside of her.”



“Is there a difference?!” Jackson asked and his eyes widened, and he slumped back, the marine slash shrink giving O’Neill a look that seemed to be a mix of gratitude and warning. -Don’t push the kid too far-.





“Together.” Jackson finally relented, in a tone that sounded hoarse, as if he was trying not to cry. “We should have brought Cadmen with us as well when we made the call.” Carter mused, her gray eyes seemed lost in thought, though what thoughts O’Neill could only guess at. Cadmen though? Hell no! The older blond was as crazy as Carter and wilder to boot. He knew she’d reenlisted in the Space Force not because she needed the money Cadmen designed some of the rockets Carter flew in earlier in her life and her husband was a member of the Shepherd family. So that meant she showed up for the party she expected to find.



“Oh yeah, that’s what the universe needs, you two lunatics on an alien world plotting to blow up the universe together.” O’Neill rolled his eyes, which caused Carter to laugh wickedly. “Come on sir! we’d behave ourselves!”



“If I end up having to write “And we blew up a sun” in my after action report because of you two..”



Something malevolent sparked in Carter’s eyes and O’Neill regretted bringing it up immediately. He turned back to Jackson who was eying the silent giant with the bling on his head, glaring at him murderously. His hands were clenched, knuckles ivory white as he finally spoke up “Hey! Does anything of the Host survive?!”. Most of the armored warriors sneered, metallic laughter and scorn filtering through their serpent helms. It was clear they didn’t understand a word he was saying and when he tried again in Imperial standard, they must have said something to the effect of “How the hell are we supposed to know? Shut up scum”, O’Neill heard Skara tell him the Serpent guard were calling him terrorist and they seemed to move forward until the tall bald man in the silver tapped the floor with his staff and they all froze to attention almost on instinct. They revered him, he was the only one not wearing a helm but he could tell by the velocity of their shift. -He’s like Hammond- O’Neill realized, someone with a very high rank, probably the equivalent of a General or Admiral, maybe higher and his presence in these common cells must have made their day.





The man also looked like he wanted to jump off a building, there was so much shame and anger in those eyes, guilt. Yeah, Jack realized, this was an incredibly high-ranking man being asked to perform menial duties and it was a total insult to his pride as a warrior and a soldier, he could read it, he didn’t need to be a remind reader. The giant moved from the wall and walked over to the group and again Daniel asked, this time rising and running to the giant who gripped his shoulder and forced him down with a shake of his head. “Do not look to save her Tau’Ri, stronger men then you have gone mad trying to reclaim a lost love from a peer.” Or at least, so the stories said. Teal’c didn’t know of anyone who had done what Amunet did, not thousands of years.



“Peer? What?! And Tau’Ri! You keep using that word…you know English, why don’t you call us Terrans? Or Americans?”



Damnit Jackson!



The man’s eyes flickered for a moment. Did they not know their own history? Or had they made a terrible mistake? Teal’c upon his meeting with Apophis had used his connections to consult certain, unofficial archives of Gate Addresses and they had confirmed the coordinates of that world were a match for the coordinates of Tau’Ri, had they forgotten everything? -My lord believes this was deliberate on their part, that they are coming for vengeance but this one seems clueless?- Teal’c was no mind reader, but experience was a harsh teacher and he could detect no falsehood in the broken hearted youth. Horror filled him at the realization that they had made an enemy of the people who killed Ra in what may very well have been an accident. “Honor your woman by surviving as long as you can, that is all you can do.”



That told O’Neill all he needed to know about the man and he turned and regarded the Serpent man in the eye. A look in his own that said it all, that he knew how Teal’c felt, that he had lived the crisis of faith and collapse of pride, the loss of ethos and that he had found it again. “They go bad…We don’t have too.”



The sullen giant rounded on the colonel, his eyes narrowed at O’Neill scrutinizing, questioning, seeking. Then he tossed Jackson down and turned to walk towards the great doors that sealed the room where he sat on a chair his eyes dark and contemplative, his proud posture hunched forward, staff in hand. To Jack, he couldn’t have looked more like a king and part of him felt a pang of sympathy for the monster that commanded him, because it was clear as day to Jack this was a good man, a noble man, a leader and a damn fine soldier and not someone who would ever take orders from that…Thing.



-What you must have been at one point huh snake dude?- O’Neill thought as Jackson grabbed his arm and gave him an indignant glare. “Why are you trying to be nice to him?!”



“Think about it for a second Jackson and then remember what the lore lady said.” O’Neill responded, his tone far more patient than Jack had expected himself. Even grieving, the question was so absurd. They needed help, hell unless the planet had some kind of benefactor or protector there was a chance they’d be rolled up and smoked like a cheap blunt before the end of the year. When Jackson began to relent, O’Neill nodded, glad to see even in this much pain the boy could still keep himself. “They’re huge Jackson, everything about this place screams wealth. Not just high tech but the industry required for something like this? They built a castle out of a mountain and all the soldiers everywhere? We’re in the heart of their military she said, and their version of the Pentagon has farms and factories? We need help.”



“And you think he’ll help us?” Jackson asked, desolate. “I don’t know” O’Neill answered.





….



It was preposterous Teal’c thought. That these people could have killed Ra the way Amunet and Klorel believed. That it was an intentional return to the stars by a vengeful Tau’Ri out for blood but what we saw were a bunch of soldiers who guarding a scribe and a woman who must have been a technologist for she babbled endlessly about light and yields and had the eyes of a pyromaniac. -Perhaps she is their version of an Weapons smith?- Teal’c thought, the engineers who worked for the decadent Tok’Ra Nerus who Apophis had secured service from in exchange for a resurrection chamber, an endless supply of food and the right to periodically blow things up. Nerus was frightfully mad but he’d revolutionized Jaffa body armor and weaponry over the last five thousand years or so Teal’c had been told. Thoth was still the greatest technologist in history, everyone knew that but Thoth lacked the madness that he saw in the eyes of Nerus and in the eyes of this blond.



-They could not be a threat to Ra, not unless Ra made them so-. Teal’c eyes narrowed at the man with the square jaw and short hair, the man who was clearly their leader and he brooded in thought. There was no malice in this leader, he’d hunted down terrorists before during the final days of the Titans rebellion. Those renegade Jaffa were filled with resentment and fanatical fury, but this man? All he saw was conviction and a sense of honor no matter how different than his own. -They go bad, we don’t have too-.



Klorel.



Amunet.



They had most certainly gone bad or had been born rotten. His hand clenched against the staff and he rose, feeling the twitch of instincts that warned him that something mad was looming behind him. Doors opened and Teal’c wanted to wail in despair when he realized his threat response was activated by the Lord he once saw as a second father. Apophis was adorned with a black tunic and a long flowing cape, a golden coronet rested on his head, pink, blue and crimson diamonds sparkling in the light. Beside him, Amunet in her host, wearing barely anything at all. The soft fabric armor of Jaffa woven into her pants, she wore armor over her breasts and moved as though her shoulder had finished healing yet was still somewhat stuff. The Scribe had put a bullet into her chest, close to the collar bone and she had been enraged by it.



“Ahh Teal’c!” Apophis walked over and clasped the man on his shoulder, speaking in the tongue of his domain. “How fares this batch of rabble.” He asked gesturing to the Jaffa who had all dropped to bended knee. “I know these low ranked children are not ones you have trained but how fares my army?”



“Exceedingly well majesty.” Teal’c bowed and he felt something touch his cheek and suppressed a shudder when he realized it was Amunet’s hand. “My divine lord adores you War Master Teal’c, I will look to you to ensure his safety in the coming days.” She turned before Teal’c could say anything and began to walk towards the group of Tau’Ri. With a gesture Teal’c ordered Jaffa to intercept in case she was attacked again but Apophis called her back before she could approach the Tau’Ri Scribe and the others. The scribe called out to her, begging er to free Shau’re and take him in her place. Something wavered slightly in her eyes, Teal’c wondered if it was a remnant of the host whose destruction he was forced to feel as much as witness. Then he saw the feral glint in her eyes and his head shifted downwards. “Come my divine lord, does your son not need a new host?” Amunet’s voice was smooth, gentle but there was something cruel when she referred to Klorel, a flair of jealousy perhaps. “Perhaps that Tau’Ri leader would do?”



Apophis shook his head. “No, Klorel will tell me when he must switch forms.” There was an odd amount of pain in the Serpent Lord’s voice and the worry of a father. “My little Klorel, I hope he fixes himself so that he may not need it.”



Teal’c felt a pang of guilt for the thought that was going through his mind, that he should shoot the Tau’Ri commander to spare him the horrors that would await him should Klorel approve. And Teal’c knew he would, the Tau’Ri commander like Teal’c and the youth’s father was a warrior and he ever wished to impress his father. And you, he ever wishes to impress you and your wife as well. The attachment Klorel and Apophis had for his family would never be a thing he would understand, and he feared it as much as he had once valued it. Another thought affixed him, to join with the Tau’Ri.



It was a moment of despair and fury, a frantic hope. But it was a hope that died instantly because of the implications. His goal was to deal a political blow to Apophis, to hurt his rise to power and force him to lose faith with his lords, governors, and his legions but to join with the men who killed Ra even if it was done during a prison break would make it appear as though the House of Tartarus had something to do with Ra’s murder. -He would end up humiliated and then move for war and worse…Or perhaps he would be slowed by his lords, perhaps. -



“Teal’c” Apophis regarded his First Prime with amused eyes “Are we boring you?”



“No master, but I’ve been thinking on what is to come.”



“Ah, you see Amunet, were he not a Jaffa I would adopt him as an honorary member of the House of Tartarus! See how he thirsts for battle just as we do my love?” Apophis asked, his eyes beaming with pride even though the insult was back handed. The Jaffa were the champions of the System Lords, socially above even some Goa’uld races. Though Ra had always discouraged too much familiarity and open affection was seen as scandalous, that always less to do with Jaffa being seen as inferior and more as a disrespectful breach of protocol for both.

“I do, my divine love.” She whispered, a glint of malice in her eyes as she uttered the divine part. She clearly resented the fact that she would never be made allowed the rank of System Lord, nor even attend court though one of those facts might change should Apophis ascend the throne. -She would still never be anything more than a consort, her children would never rise to the rank of System lord-.



Neith and Hrakar were in danger, Teal’c realized, the only two “offspring” of Apophis who were born of peers and descended from System Lords. Neith who served in Dakkara as an aid and herald of Hathor, the female Bra’tac incubated and Hraka, the name his “second son” had chosen for himself. -Only they would be able to rule in Apophis stead as he ruled from Dakkara-. It was compounded, the danger because Apophis had forgotten both existed entirely. -What can I do? I must deal him a blow but the Tau’Ri?-



“He is right to be impatient!” Apophis turned to Teal’c and gestured to the huddle masses. “It is done, there will be no more raids. My darling Amunet has her eternal host, and we have great deeds to plan! And these? Well, seeing as he pillaged worlds of several System Lords. Well, we cannot allow them to return home and report any of this. Kill them all, the children too, I’ve allowed Lotar to infest the purity of Chulak long enough.” Apophis turned leaving a stunned Teal’c, only to stop and rest a hand on the crestfallen Jaffa’s shoulder “When this is done, I will find a way to properly reward you, I know this cannot have been easy. But I love her Jaffa and you know what I would do for those who I consider family.” They left, with Amunet turning to regard Daniel Jackson one last time with an imperious and dismissive sneer before departing with her husband.





Who I consider family.



Not a year ago that would have been enough for Teal’c to destroy a planet for his lord. It was the closest a System Lord could come to acknowledging a Jaffa as a foster without violating so many taboos as to lose all legitimacy and disgrace both and yet, Teal’c remembered the casual scorn Apophis displayed before the battle with the Tau’Ri from Brooklyn. It was all false, or it was true depending on his mood and Teal’c had just been ordered to massacre a bunch of innocent peasants whose only crime was bad luck. Even the Tau’Ri did not deserve this and when he waited in stunned silence one of the men nudged his elbow. “Lord” he called. “War Master should we not..”



The youth himself who spoke in a voice that hadn’t even begun to break looked horrified, he didn’t want to do this, nor did he wish to disobey his great lord. Others though began to advance on the corralled crowd who began to scream.



Teal’c walked forward, no matter what, he was done after today.



He couldn’t do this, yet if he turned on his own Jaffa, what could he do? -perhaps my death will shock Apophis-, who was he kidding. Apophis would just blame the Tau’Ri and continue down his path of ruin.



Tau’Ri, Tau’Ri.







….



“Take me!” Daniel had called as she began to depart “Let my wife go! Take me!” It was a desperate, lonely cry and he felt both Shau’re and he could feel Skara, and Carter tackle him and pull him down, pinning him to the cold floor. -Damnit let me go, if I can just reach her-.



A voice whispered in his head, soft, whiny, mean. ‘She’s gone Jackson and I don’t think my lover would enjoy fucking a man’. ‘I’ll kill you! I swear it!’ Jackson’s face contorted in a mix of rage and despair and he struggled against them only escaping the rage that possessed him when Apophis addressed the warrior who had told him to survive. He couldn’t fully hear what was being said over the rush of blood thrumming in his ears, but he made out “Alashy’beh” and “Fakuskaska Kree” which sounded like gibberish, guttural Arabic, Berber and who knew what else until he played with the words in his mind a bit, matching them as best he could to classical Arabic, Berber and Sumerian and he realized the man likely had ordered everyone in the cell massacred.



Or he was ordering a pizza, the truth was the language on this planet was incredibly different from anything Jackson ever had to tackle on Abydos that trying to match the words in a tense situation was as dangerous as rushing Apophis himself. There was hesitation after the command, so Jackson assumed it wasn’t anything nice and then as soon as their lord left the room a group began to advance.



“We’re dead” Jackson murmured, and an ocean of shame washed over him as he realized how hopeful he’d sounded in that moment.



“Like hell we are.” O’Neill hissed, a look of understanding mixed with indignant rage in his eyes. You didn’t get to talk momma O’Neill’s baby boy off a ledge only to walk right up on that ledge yourself. Not without an ass whoop’n! O’Neill jerked forward, watching the warriors advance, watching their sullen commander and the other. Staffs were raised, energy sparked, one pointed his staff directly at a family. Again, O’Neill was amazed at how non-ceremonial they were and how they almost looked like ancient rifles, a reminder that he was dealing with soldiers and not militia or rentacops. Would they listen? Army men wouldn’t, neither would marines but then again O’Neill hadn’t heard of something this fucked up since Oh’five and only a few of those marines obeyed. “That is up to your powers of persuasion” the woman had said, their survival depended on friends they could make. -Screw it- O’Neill thought, finally rising to his feet and rushing out in front of the crowd, standing between staff guns, the titans that wielded them and the terrified. “I CAN SAVE THESE PEOPLE!” O’Neill roared, but there was no pleading in his voice, only the stoic conviction of a marine who’d faced down one champion of a god and came through it to send that God to hell. Colonel Jack O’Neill wasn’t asking Teal’c of Chulak for help, he was telling him to help out or get the hell out of the way.



And when the giant rounded on him, staff raised like a rifle eyes dark, O’Neill thought he’d failed.



“I’ve heard this before.” The giant remarked, his tone grim. And then he turned and fired a blast right into the armored helm of the serpent guard not four feet from him, followed by another almost instantly. “But you’re the only one I believe could do it!” the youth beside him to his credit didn’t turn on his commander and rather opened fire and killed one of the others before two blasts slammed into his torso, his staff went sliding across the floor. Teal’c grabbed the boys body muttered an apology and used it as a shield to absorb the blasts roaring towards him as he felled another.



O’Neill was up and firing, Skara had bolted towards the giant and grabbed his side arm and bolts of lightning roared into three more at speeds that the Jaffa War Master had to admit was impressive for the Abydonian -even the Abydonians are well trained- He thought. None flinched and when the blond female rose, she was retrieving weapons from the fallen, rushing through the fray of battle like a maniac possessed. -The technologist is mad- Teal’c thought. She joined the fray and the shock mixed with the abruptness resulted in a bunch of dead prison guards and a room acrid with the stench of burnt plastics seared flesh and a bunch of bewildered prisoners.





“Alright then.” Jackson murmured rising, a look of surprise in his eyes “So she meant you.”



“I’ve no idea of whom you speak.” Teal’c remarked gruffly “I had no desire to allow another massacre within these halls. Jaffa are more than common criminals, we are warriors, soldiers…Guardians. Apophis understood this once, if he understands it no longer then he is not worthy of our fealty.”



Jackson nodded, glad for an explanation that would allow him to think academically and lose himself in his study of history rather than focus on the pain. “I see…so…This is a feudal contract then? You swear to your lord.”



“We are servants of the empire.” Teal’c corrected. “Our oath is to the code of Sodan, the ten-virtues laid down by Anubis at the dawn of our race. Our loyalty is to the throne and whoever sits upon it. But yes, I am a Jaffa of Apophis, Lord of this realm and master of the imperial military. He who was one of our fathers, he who faces all enemies of the empire.”



“I see!” Daniel said, fascinated while both Skara and O’Neill were ready to slap the man. “So you aren’t defecting from your service so much as, joining us to continue that service?”



The giant quirked his head and then looked at O’Neill who had to stifle a laugh. “Yeah, he’s always like this, even when he’s a mess.”



“Then he will be fine.”



Both men were surprised at how reassuring that felt even though he was an enemy. Though Carter interrupted their attempts to further engage. “Look the geopolitics of why you helped us is fascinating and all, but I bet they’ll figure out what’s happened soon right?”



The man nodded and began to walk towards a wall, a wave of his hand caused a series of projected consoles to appear out of thin air. He pressed several yellow buttons and suddenly the whole palace erupted in alarms.



“The hell!?” Jack asked.



The giant shrugged. “I have told them you fired upon me and have slipped through the
ventilation system and that allies of yours have breached the power plant below. They will not come here and if we are fortunate, they will seal off a hundred levels below this room, the plant itself is massive. It should take the technologists time to discover the false alarm it will buy you time.” Diagnostics, he thought. He has never been so grateful for them before.



“How much?” O’Neill asked.



“An hour, perhaps two. When I open the doors, lead these people down the hall towards a door with holden arches, there you.”



O’Neill shook his head, unreal! This dude wanted to stay here? Wait to be executed? “pffffuuuck that. You’re coming with us. I know that look pal, this wasn’t the big play you intended to make, its something way worse right? Well tough shit, I’m not about to let a man who saved my life to die pointlessly.”



“By aiding you I’ve dealt a blow to my lord that was far more incriminating than I intended, he shall not be able to ignore it. If I remain at least I can prevent a larger war.”



O’Neill looked him dead in the eye. Great man, but naïve if he thought there was anything he could do to stop what was coming. “Buddy, I saw the look in your snake king’s eyes. There ain’t no stopp’n what he’s fixing to unleash. Seems to me, the best way for you to serve is to do what you told Jackson back there and survive. Come with us, stand with us. Help us.”



“I’ve nowhere to go.”



O’Neill rolled his eyes at the weak ass protest. “Stay at my place.”. He could see the giant’s stoic features relent , a look of relief as if he felt that was sufficient and the group bolted.



Years from now, O’Neill would look back on this as the moment he gained not just a valued asset but a brother in arms. For now, he could only hope his instincts continued to be correct about him.





“What’s your name Jaffa?” O’Neill asked; a calm voice cutting through the screeching of alarms.



“Teal’c son of Ray’nar, of Chulak. And you? I would know the Tau’Ri who slew the Emperor of all the stars.”



“Jack O’Neill, Colonel, United States Space Force Marine division.”



“You are not as I imagined you would be O’Neill.”



“Good.”