Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
to be fair as related to the missiles there is a slight problem especially post SALT...disposal is monitored
Stargate Through the Looking Glass and into Heaven.
- Thread starter The Immortal Watch Dog
- Start date
Monitored by humans, and humans are known to make errors.. a lot of errors.
"Oh me oh my, did I miss a few decommed rockets from the 90s being rerouted from their original dumping grounds? I couldn't tell, the 150,000 that came with my sandwhich today was really distracting."
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
monitored by satellites mostly actually but whatever if ya need a lot of them for plot reasons I'll say its a alternate history for that part of the treaty
I'm trying to make it plausible. I mean they could also just ask Hathor for help
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
or get the russians to help, lord know they have a lot of decommissioned missiles they never got rid of
Once it starts opening up to other countries.
Granted there's no reason they couldn't have bought decommissioned soviet missiles on the downlow I mean if Escobar almost did it.
What I don't want is breaking SOD on how they can macross missile spam when the time comes.
Which is weird...because space opera but yeah.
Which is weird...because space opera but yeah.
In my youth, I had done many glorious deeds.
Alright gents...the story advances...
Hammond of Texas and mighty O'Neill meet the Space Vikings of Hurot and Teal'c discusses lizards! Oh and a Tollan is along for the ride, so you know there's probably gonna be some BS afoot here!
Hurot-Asgard protect planets zone.
If there was one thing the Admiral was never going to get used to about Gate travel was how you could step through one world, enter another, then immediately step through the Stargate again and be in yet another planet. This one, three hundred lightyears from earth but paradoxically twelve thousand lightyears from Rax-Pellora. The Ambassador to Hurot from Rax-Pellor was an elegant, tall older gentlemen named Xoltec and he was in a jovial mood because apparently their “Grand Regent” Travell was absolutely livid that the US Government chose to do business with Rax-Tollana and that Omoc had not only agreed to it but enthusiastically began making request for various foods from earth that he’d sampled. The commodities needed to make pizza was his chief request. Hammond chuckled to himself at that; all his bigotry and self-superiority but the man was willing to pay licensing fees for the molecular structure of the items by which pizza was made. Food, it really was one of the universal ways in which barriers could be broken, the other being need.
And even with energy to matter conversion tech, building a new colony from scratch after your original was destroyed wasn’t something the Tollan could fully achieve on their own. Hammond guessed Travell wasn’t very well liked by a sizable portion of the Tollan leadership given how free he was with this info until they went through the gate to Hurot in which case state secrets and all.
The Asgardian Stargates were an interesting departure from the Goa’uld’s Stargates who were all like pieces of art. This gate was simple, translucent and made of some sort of crystal Teal’c explained was created by the Asgard and was a Naquadah alloy. The Gate symbols looked more runic than glyphic, and the chevrons were each in a shape similar to the traditional depictions of Thor’s hammer. There was a finely paved road, smooth that wound down from the Stargate that connected with other roads that led into Hurot, tall statues of mighty warriors with horned helms and battle axes or a long sword stood grim faced and their shadows covered the first few dozen feet of road from the Stargate.
“Hethrir’s father Hyjiliac and his grandfather and two eldest sons who died during the war.” The Tollan explained before frowning. “Ecthor was supposed to have met us here…He’s the head warrior of the Wyryn’s guards.” Xoltec explained in a voice that made it seem like expressing sentiments in English offended his sensibilities. “I will speak Aejir and Imperial Standard from here on out.”
Which was fine, Teal’c spoke both languages fluently and Daniel was learning Aejir uncommonly fast as he usually did and what surprised the hell out of the Admiral was that O’Neill of all people seemed to have picked up a fluent grasp of Imperial standard. O’Neill was usual was talking to Teal’c about football while Sam Carter sat on the vehicle, she was driving via remote which was one of several that carried their medical supplies, extra guns, explosives, six aerial drones with cameras and their charging stations, a Naquadah generator and enough ammo to overthrow a small country.
Colonel Makepeace was as silent as a tomb, watching and observing everything. In an hour the clock would strike midnight East Coast time and it would September the eleventh. Both he and Carter had lost that day, Makepeace a brother, Carter her parents. And Lahm had told him not to take both, mercifully she was only the chief medical officer of the Abydos facility, and its chief researcher and Janet Frasier shared his belief that it would do both good to get them out and on active duty with their minds focused on something.
Besides, the one thing he could say for the Tollan was that Narim had left Carter in better spirits than when she helped rescue him. Carter needed to be out here, and she was the only person besides McKay or Sasha O’Neill who understood anything that Constellation imparted to them on the molecular properties of Trinium and she would be the only one who understood anything in the Asgardian weapons depot assuming that wreck was worth trying to investigate or if this Hethrir allowed them to see it any way. And Admiral Hammond couldn’t bring Sasha on this trip, since he had the other twin replace the mousy Doctor Rothman who knew little about Viking culture and less about trinium on this mission. Hammond wanted his right hand for this and besides, she needed to get field experience sometime in her life.
Jack had taken pretty well too, only glaring at him murderously for an hour before relenting and seeing the sense and scuttlebutt was Mitchell owed Kowalski a C note because he bet Colonel O’Neill would mutiny over it. Beside Hammond Doctor Jackson asked Xoltec if they should be concerned about this Ecthor being late. Xoltec waved it off, but Jack and Makepeace and Major Ramirez SG-6’s XO had none the less ordered everyone to keep their eyes peeled..
“Did you know Hyjiliac, the old King?” Daniel asked, prompting the Tollan to laugh. “Boy, you must think we're as long lived as the Jaffa. I was a boy when Hyjiliac began his wars and served as a diplomat to Vindilas for the last fifty years. No, though from what I remember of what I heard he was a brutal man who believed Thor personally charged his bloodline with the unification of this planet.”
Of course, all of this happened in Imperial standard, which the younger of the O’Neill twins translated for Hammond. Who was beginning to learn the language but wasn't entirely confident enough to navigate it alone.
“So, he was crazy then?” Daniel asked eliciting a shrug from Xoltec “Ask Teal’c he’s the only one here who’s met Asgardians.” For his part Teal’c answered that in his experience like the System Lords themselves, the Asgardians seemed to be very aloof and off handed in regard to the worlds they assumed charge over with the exception of the most advanced ones. That he wasn’t sure he could say that it wasn’t in Thor’s character to command some sort of holy crusade against nonbelievers having never personally met him. Only that from his very limited interactions with Heimdall and Hela that he doubted very much Thor would have the time to do something like that.
Jackson pointed that despite how aloof Teal’c thought they were, ancient Germanic and Nordic cultures seemed to have so many elements common to the Asgardian sponsored cultures that it was almost certain they had extensive contact with Earth as recently as a millennium ago.
Hammond wasn’t sure if he liked those answers. O’Neill the elder seemed to laugh it and seemed ready to make a joke only to go silent as he noticed a group of riders up ahead. “Huh would you look at that!” Jack gestured ahead, noting that the men wore plate armor and weren’t dressed in chain or the leather padded armor he expected from a Viking culture. Even their horses wore armor…
Which was something he was surprised to see, the six men were all mounted but the lead two had large black horses that looked almost like Shire horses but with the sleekness of Friesians, the other four weren’t horses at all. Looking more like horse sized, long necked tapirs with their weird trunks and fangs. “Makes sense..” O’Neill thought aloud. “Weren’t horses the size of Dogs back when the snakes got evicted from our planet?”
“Yeah but, those horses look almost modern, as if they’re descended from horses transported off earth in the last few thousand years.” Jackson said somewhat surprised. “These guys appear to be in their equivalent of the Middle Ages Sirs..” It was Major Ramirez coming up. “And yet their visors have friggen sunglasses.” He muttered. “The tech levels out in space always confuse me.” He muttered shaking his head to a sympathetic clasp on the back from O’Neill.
It was Jackson and Sandra O’Neill who announced that they came in peace, from another world to offer aid for their monster troubles. With Xoltec walking out in front laughing as the leader of the group dismounted. He was hominid, at least, mostly neanderthal with a mix of human and some other hominid in him. Barrel chested, broad of shoulder and with thick black hair and slightly accentuated canines. “Yver Ye’rl Ecthor!”
“This is Yarl Ecthor, commander of the Wyryn’s guards.” Xoltec said. Turning he responded in Aejir “This is Hammond of Texas! Famed War Master of the Tau’Ri! And Jack O’Neill the God Slayer! and Teal’c War Master of the Imperium, Colonel Makepeace son of Makepeace, a mighty warrior and Ramirez”
“Jorgeson!” Ramirez answered slapping his chest.
All this was translated, and Hammond glared slightly as Xoltec happily acted as their hype man and he wondered again if the Tollan’s motivations here were as simple as that particular planet’s economy being somewhat dependent on the resale of Trinium and other rare materials bought from Hurot. Or if he was also trying to create as much havoc for the SGC and the Space Force as possible by making sure every unaligned planet in the universe came to seek them out for aid.
For his part Ecthor regarded O’Neill and Teal’c contemplatively before bowing to them and in Imperial Standard informing them that their deeds against Amun-Ra and Anksu-Apophis were the subject of many songs and tales even out here in the Dominion of the Aesir. His eyes scanned passed them to Hammond and he nodded grimly.
“He wants to know if you come here seeking Valhalla for lords of War your age seldom rides out to battle beside their champions.” Daniel responded, sheepishly. Hammond raised an eyebrow the skin on his bald head tightening in a mixture of amusement and frustration. Damnit! He wasn’t that old! Walking forward he eyed Ecthor, who himself looked to be in his fifties. “Tell him, war chiefs on my world don’t let old bones slow their minds or their hands.” He said, tightening a gloved grip on the family bowie knife he always wore. A look of amused defiance in his old eyes.
Ecthor’s men went silent recognizing the rebuke for what it was, and the tension suddenly mounted until Ecthor burst into laughter and begged Hammond’s pardon. Saying that it was only for the magnitude of the threat which plagued Hurot that he wondered if the old warrior came to die, but if he was the master of a company that included O’Neill God slayer and Teal’c the fearless and the Demon arsonist Ka’tur as the Jaffa had taken to calling Carter than surely, he was not one to be overcome by simple brutes with mighty weaponry.
As the party advanced down the road Hammond began to notice the road which was designed to support heavy use was completely still except for a few families on horse carts with frightened children. “How many do you guys reckon there are?”
“Hard to say, they raid mostly at night and are uncommonly fast and hardy.” Ecthor answered through Daniel. “But I believe five hundred, perhaps less. All in all, a paltry force, had they been any other group of off world marauders we would have had them hung by their entrails already. My men have driven off Lucien pirates before.”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. “The trouble with these things is that they’re insanely hard to kill, hide thick as iron and they’re bent on hitting everywhere and everything around the Wyryn, they’ve burned dozens of settlements, destroyed one of our cities by breaching a dam we built. If they came to extort us, they have done so much damage to our ability to grow or mine anything in this part of the country that they are working against their needs.” It was a mystery that clearly daunted Ecthor who had taken a rather flirtatious tone with his Petty Officer, eliciting a murderous glare from Jack who Hammond could tell was resisting a request that his daughter be sent back through the gate.
Hammond was resisting the urge to send her back himself, except he needed the extra hand, and she was going to have to go on a mission sooner or later. -Better she draws first blood with us beside her than with a team of raw recruits, or strangers.- Hammond thought. “Does he recognize the aliens at all?” Makepeace asked and Ecthor shook his head responding that at first, he thought they were Unas, there was a small colony of Unas on an island in his domains but they were hard workers, laborers and had little inclination to war.
Teal’c seemed visibly relieved at that. “Unas were once the soldiers of the Imperium before the Jaffa, they have a long lifespan and breed slowly, they evolved on the same primordial world as the Peers. They are immensely strong, but it is true, they are not a warlike people and take pride in their trade work and craftmanship. They worship Thoth and if I were to indulge in idle speculation, they worshipped Brokkr and Sindiri here, the Jotuns who the premier engineers among the Asgardians before their deaths.” Idly Teal’c gripped the Jaffa staff he carried with him, it too had been built by Brokkr for Anubis. “But if they are Unas like, then it gives us a clue there are several races descended from Unas who interbred with other reptile like species.”
“So, we’re fighting lizardmen from space.” Jack said with a shake of his head. “We’re fighting lizardmen from space for a mysterious heavy metal.”
“We’re living an old Metal Hurlant comic, aren’t we?” Ramirez asked amused.
“We usually do.” Carter said from their baggage train. She had been occupying herself by chattering with some of the few peasant refugees that had fallen in beside them. Some of them spoke Imperial Standard and Sam had been picking up enough of it to ask certain questions about what attacked them. Though she went quiet when they got close enough to the Wyryn to see the extent of the palace. Shaped like a Viking longhouse but bigger and taller than any she knew of that had ever been built on earth. A monument to the wealth and power of Hethrir’s dynasty, monuments like the kind her countrymen used to build before a bleakness overtook America. Today was a bad day, no matter the world, no matter the century.
Eleven was a bad number.
Hammond of Texas and mighty O'Neill meet the Space Vikings of Hurot and Teal'c discusses lizards! Oh and a Tollan is along for the ride, so you know there's probably gonna be some BS afoot here!
Hurot-Asgard protect planets zone.
If there was one thing the Admiral was never going to get used to about Gate travel was how you could step through one world, enter another, then immediately step through the Stargate again and be in yet another planet. This one, three hundred lightyears from earth but paradoxically twelve thousand lightyears from Rax-Pellora. The Ambassador to Hurot from Rax-Pellor was an elegant, tall older gentlemen named Xoltec and he was in a jovial mood because apparently their “Grand Regent” Travell was absolutely livid that the US Government chose to do business with Rax-Tollana and that Omoc had not only agreed to it but enthusiastically began making request for various foods from earth that he’d sampled. The commodities needed to make pizza was his chief request. Hammond chuckled to himself at that; all his bigotry and self-superiority but the man was willing to pay licensing fees for the molecular structure of the items by which pizza was made. Food, it really was one of the universal ways in which barriers could be broken, the other being need.
And even with energy to matter conversion tech, building a new colony from scratch after your original was destroyed wasn’t something the Tollan could fully achieve on their own. Hammond guessed Travell wasn’t very well liked by a sizable portion of the Tollan leadership given how free he was with this info until they went through the gate to Hurot in which case state secrets and all.
The Asgardian Stargates were an interesting departure from the Goa’uld’s Stargates who were all like pieces of art. This gate was simple, translucent and made of some sort of crystal Teal’c explained was created by the Asgard and was a Naquadah alloy. The Gate symbols looked more runic than glyphic, and the chevrons were each in a shape similar to the traditional depictions of Thor’s hammer. There was a finely paved road, smooth that wound down from the Stargate that connected with other roads that led into Hurot, tall statues of mighty warriors with horned helms and battle axes or a long sword stood grim faced and their shadows covered the first few dozen feet of road from the Stargate.
“Hethrir’s father Hyjiliac and his grandfather and two eldest sons who died during the war.” The Tollan explained before frowning. “Ecthor was supposed to have met us here…He’s the head warrior of the Wyryn’s guards.” Xoltec explained in a voice that made it seem like expressing sentiments in English offended his sensibilities. “I will speak Aejir and Imperial Standard from here on out.”
Which was fine, Teal’c spoke both languages fluently and Daniel was learning Aejir uncommonly fast as he usually did and what surprised the hell out of the Admiral was that O’Neill of all people seemed to have picked up a fluent grasp of Imperial standard. O’Neill was usual was talking to Teal’c about football while Sam Carter sat on the vehicle, she was driving via remote which was one of several that carried their medical supplies, extra guns, explosives, six aerial drones with cameras and their charging stations, a Naquadah generator and enough ammo to overthrow a small country.
Colonel Makepeace was as silent as a tomb, watching and observing everything. In an hour the clock would strike midnight East Coast time and it would September the eleventh. Both he and Carter had lost that day, Makepeace a brother, Carter her parents. And Lahm had told him not to take both, mercifully she was only the chief medical officer of the Abydos facility, and its chief researcher and Janet Frasier shared his belief that it would do both good to get them out and on active duty with their minds focused on something.
Besides, the one thing he could say for the Tollan was that Narim had left Carter in better spirits than when she helped rescue him. Carter needed to be out here, and she was the only person besides McKay or Sasha O’Neill who understood anything that Constellation imparted to them on the molecular properties of Trinium and she would be the only one who understood anything in the Asgardian weapons depot assuming that wreck was worth trying to investigate or if this Hethrir allowed them to see it any way. And Admiral Hammond couldn’t bring Sasha on this trip, since he had the other twin replace the mousy Doctor Rothman who knew little about Viking culture and less about trinium on this mission. Hammond wanted his right hand for this and besides, she needed to get field experience sometime in her life.
Jack had taken pretty well too, only glaring at him murderously for an hour before relenting and seeing the sense and scuttlebutt was Mitchell owed Kowalski a C note because he bet Colonel O’Neill would mutiny over it. Beside Hammond Doctor Jackson asked Xoltec if they should be concerned about this Ecthor being late. Xoltec waved it off, but Jack and Makepeace and Major Ramirez SG-6’s XO had none the less ordered everyone to keep their eyes peeled..
“Did you know Hyjiliac, the old King?” Daniel asked, prompting the Tollan to laugh. “Boy, you must think we're as long lived as the Jaffa. I was a boy when Hyjiliac began his wars and served as a diplomat to Vindilas for the last fifty years. No, though from what I remember of what I heard he was a brutal man who believed Thor personally charged his bloodline with the unification of this planet.”
Of course, all of this happened in Imperial standard, which the younger of the O’Neill twins translated for Hammond. Who was beginning to learn the language but wasn't entirely confident enough to navigate it alone.
“So, he was crazy then?” Daniel asked eliciting a shrug from Xoltec “Ask Teal’c he’s the only one here who’s met Asgardians.” For his part Teal’c answered that in his experience like the System Lords themselves, the Asgardians seemed to be very aloof and off handed in regard to the worlds they assumed charge over with the exception of the most advanced ones. That he wasn’t sure he could say that it wasn’t in Thor’s character to command some sort of holy crusade against nonbelievers having never personally met him. Only that from his very limited interactions with Heimdall and Hela that he doubted very much Thor would have the time to do something like that.
Jackson pointed that despite how aloof Teal’c thought they were, ancient Germanic and Nordic cultures seemed to have so many elements common to the Asgardian sponsored cultures that it was almost certain they had extensive contact with Earth as recently as a millennium ago.
Hammond wasn’t sure if he liked those answers. O’Neill the elder seemed to laugh it and seemed ready to make a joke only to go silent as he noticed a group of riders up ahead. “Huh would you look at that!” Jack gestured ahead, noting that the men wore plate armor and weren’t dressed in chain or the leather padded armor he expected from a Viking culture. Even their horses wore armor…
Which was something he was surprised to see, the six men were all mounted but the lead two had large black horses that looked almost like Shire horses but with the sleekness of Friesians, the other four weren’t horses at all. Looking more like horse sized, long necked tapirs with their weird trunks and fangs. “Makes sense..” O’Neill thought aloud. “Weren’t horses the size of Dogs back when the snakes got evicted from our planet?”
“Yeah but, those horses look almost modern, as if they’re descended from horses transported off earth in the last few thousand years.” Jackson said somewhat surprised. “These guys appear to be in their equivalent of the Middle Ages Sirs..” It was Major Ramirez coming up. “And yet their visors have friggen sunglasses.” He muttered. “The tech levels out in space always confuse me.” He muttered shaking his head to a sympathetic clasp on the back from O’Neill.
It was Jackson and Sandra O’Neill who announced that they came in peace, from another world to offer aid for their monster troubles. With Xoltec walking out in front laughing as the leader of the group dismounted. He was hominid, at least, mostly neanderthal with a mix of human and some other hominid in him. Barrel chested, broad of shoulder and with thick black hair and slightly accentuated canines. “Yver Ye’rl Ecthor!”
“This is Yarl Ecthor, commander of the Wyryn’s guards.” Xoltec said. Turning he responded in Aejir “This is Hammond of Texas! Famed War Master of the Tau’Ri! And Jack O’Neill the God Slayer! and Teal’c War Master of the Imperium, Colonel Makepeace son of Makepeace, a mighty warrior and Ramirez”
“Jorgeson!” Ramirez answered slapping his chest.
All this was translated, and Hammond glared slightly as Xoltec happily acted as their hype man and he wondered again if the Tollan’s motivations here were as simple as that particular planet’s economy being somewhat dependent on the resale of Trinium and other rare materials bought from Hurot. Or if he was also trying to create as much havoc for the SGC and the Space Force as possible by making sure every unaligned planet in the universe came to seek them out for aid.
For his part Ecthor regarded O’Neill and Teal’c contemplatively before bowing to them and in Imperial Standard informing them that their deeds against Amun-Ra and Anksu-Apophis were the subject of many songs and tales even out here in the Dominion of the Aesir. His eyes scanned passed them to Hammond and he nodded grimly.
“He wants to know if you come here seeking Valhalla for lords of War your age seldom rides out to battle beside their champions.” Daniel responded, sheepishly. Hammond raised an eyebrow the skin on his bald head tightening in a mixture of amusement and frustration. Damnit! He wasn’t that old! Walking forward he eyed Ecthor, who himself looked to be in his fifties. “Tell him, war chiefs on my world don’t let old bones slow their minds or their hands.” He said, tightening a gloved grip on the family bowie knife he always wore. A look of amused defiance in his old eyes.
Ecthor’s men went silent recognizing the rebuke for what it was, and the tension suddenly mounted until Ecthor burst into laughter and begged Hammond’s pardon. Saying that it was only for the magnitude of the threat which plagued Hurot that he wondered if the old warrior came to die, but if he was the master of a company that included O’Neill God slayer and Teal’c the fearless and the Demon arsonist Ka’tur as the Jaffa had taken to calling Carter than surely, he was not one to be overcome by simple brutes with mighty weaponry.
As the party advanced down the road Hammond began to notice the road which was designed to support heavy use was completely still except for a few families on horse carts with frightened children. “How many do you guys reckon there are?”
“Hard to say, they raid mostly at night and are uncommonly fast and hardy.” Ecthor answered through Daniel. “But I believe five hundred, perhaps less. All in all, a paltry force, had they been any other group of off world marauders we would have had them hung by their entrails already. My men have driven off Lucien pirates before.”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. “The trouble with these things is that they’re insanely hard to kill, hide thick as iron and they’re bent on hitting everywhere and everything around the Wyryn, they’ve burned dozens of settlements, destroyed one of our cities by breaching a dam we built. If they came to extort us, they have done so much damage to our ability to grow or mine anything in this part of the country that they are working against their needs.” It was a mystery that clearly daunted Ecthor who had taken a rather flirtatious tone with his Petty Officer, eliciting a murderous glare from Jack who Hammond could tell was resisting a request that his daughter be sent back through the gate.
Hammond was resisting the urge to send her back himself, except he needed the extra hand, and she was going to have to go on a mission sooner or later. -Better she draws first blood with us beside her than with a team of raw recruits, or strangers.- Hammond thought. “Does he recognize the aliens at all?” Makepeace asked and Ecthor shook his head responding that at first, he thought they were Unas, there was a small colony of Unas on an island in his domains but they were hard workers, laborers and had little inclination to war.
Teal’c seemed visibly relieved at that. “Unas were once the soldiers of the Imperium before the Jaffa, they have a long lifespan and breed slowly, they evolved on the same primordial world as the Peers. They are immensely strong, but it is true, they are not a warlike people and take pride in their trade work and craftmanship. They worship Thoth and if I were to indulge in idle speculation, they worshipped Brokkr and Sindiri here, the Jotuns who the premier engineers among the Asgardians before their deaths.” Idly Teal’c gripped the Jaffa staff he carried with him, it too had been built by Brokkr for Anubis. “But if they are Unas like, then it gives us a clue there are several races descended from Unas who interbred with other reptile like species.”
“So, we’re fighting lizardmen from space.” Jack said with a shake of his head. “We’re fighting lizardmen from space for a mysterious heavy metal.”
“We’re living an old Metal Hurlant comic, aren’t we?” Ramirez asked amused.
“We usually do.” Carter said from their baggage train. She had been occupying herself by chattering with some of the few peasant refugees that had fallen in beside them. Some of them spoke Imperial Standard and Sam had been picking up enough of it to ask certain questions about what attacked them. Though she went quiet when they got close enough to the Wyryn to see the extent of the palace. Shaped like a Viking longhouse but bigger and taller than any she knew of that had ever been built on earth. A monument to the wealth and power of Hethrir’s dynasty, monuments like the kind her countrymen used to build before a bleakness overtook America. Today was a bad day, no matter the world, no matter the century.
Eleven was a bad number.
Seeking no peace offering, truce nor settlement.
Teal'c talks lizards even more...Petty Officer O'Neill sees the Wyryn, they meet Hethrir and Space Viking and American culture probe each other.
.................
The Wyryn -Hurot: Asgard Protect Planet's zone.
The first thing that Sandra O’Neill noticed was that the walls looked burned, blasted and scarred. That the houses that filled either side of the streets leading to the Wyryn were all burnt out, pulled down and the dead were still being recovered by the smell of it. The second thing she noticed was that the people everywhere looked absolutely demoralized and the third thing? That while everyone here was human or mostly human, she could spot a few blue skinned aliens and a redskinned Kelownan or two. -Fascinating, people come even to this primitive worlds looking to profit from their skills.-
It explained why her father kept pointing out storm drains, public bathhouses and downed powerlines. Why they looked to be in the high Middle Ages and yet had working electric lighting and to a degree even cooling and heating. Not that they needed those, Hurot was a paradise, she doubted it was above seventy-two degrees and the air was cool and clean after a horrific massacre. People received them as conquering heroes and she felt a pang of guilt about the fact that they were likely going to demand payment for the monster slaying in a form of a somewhat uneven treaty. Doctor Jackson had explained that in their culture it was expected, and some sources indicated that not extorting the people you saved was seen as disrespectful.
That was whack but she didn’t let it dampen her excitement, her first mission off world! Her first actual adventure and it was with her father, her mentor and her sister’s role model and someone she considered a close friend. And there was Doctor Jackson, who wasn’t bad company and Teal’c whose advice had become something she’d come to cherish. “I know you didn’t want me on this mission..Da-Sir..but.”
O’Neill waved his daughter off. “Honestly, up until a minute ago, I wasn’t too worried about you. You’re well trained and you helped repel Tealc’s best guys remember? I thought mopping up a bunch of criminals wasn’t going to be too risky. Still had to pretend to be mad, you know fathers’ rights and all.”
She nodded; it had been a sore spot between them the involvement of his children in the Stargate project up until very recently. Her father wanted them lightyears away from any of the dangers he’d lived through in his life and she and Sasha didn’t really realize West was tapping them for the project to use as leverage until after his death. “Well, I’m glad..wait why until a minute ago?”
“Look around you. This is a big city, well town by the standards of their tech level.” Sometimes her dad was shockingly smart, other times..he was well..himself. And they wrecked this place pretty damn good…That’s my concern here.” O’Neill responded. “I doubt they sent their full force here either, but still they did all this damage. They’ve gotta be Jaffa strong and Jaffa tough or near enough as they’re the only guys I know tough enough to run wild like that….Well except for some United States Marines on leave with too much booze in ‘em and nothing to amuse themselves with.”
Suppressing an urge to roll her eyes at the Marine brag she nodded. “Teal’c do you know any species that matches…The Colonel’s profile.”
“I can think of several” Teal’c said grimly. “Though most of them are not known for the kind of violent behavior I am seeing here.”
“Anyone in particular?” Sandra asked.
“Sleestak, Slytharians and The Scarrans.” He recalled, that the Cylons, the robotic creatures created by the Kobolons were named after a semi mythical reptilian species native to Caprica that their ancestors allegedly destroyed when they tamed the planet after the “Gods” exiled them from Kobol. In Teal’cs mind they were probably a colony of Unas who had been left on that world and forgotten by Izanagi in the distant past.
“Scarrans? Aren’t those the guys you and your wife blew up?”
“Indeed.”
“You missed some.”
“That remains to be seen, O’Neill”
“oookkayyy.”
“Gentlemen.” Hammond’s voice carried in a way Sandra didn’t think it would due to the oppressive silence that hung over this mangled city. People looked up, gazing at the strange men and women with a strange language and she smiled. “We’re the aliens here..” she whispered causing Doctor Jackson to smile at the allusion. “It’s true and we speak a language none of them have ever even heard of, but some might recognize as sharing some root elements with their own.” He needed to write a book about that, one day when all this was declassified.
How to learn alien languages by inference and how to apply the psychological and cultural eccentricities of Earth to neighboring worlds without causing an interstellar incident or something. “Grandpa Nick was right in so many ways, wrong in so many others. He’d be so thrilled.” He gave a reluctant shake of his head, that was the only thing he really regretted about being part of this wonderful and insane program. Even losing Shau’re was worth having met her and loved her in the first place, but to not be able to share all of this with the kind man who was more a father to him than a grandpa.
“My grandfather would have gotten a kick out of this too.” Carter muttered, falling in line between Jackson and the younger O’Neill twin, looping her arms through theirs. “His whole thing was that space was the future, even before he got brought into project Constellation, he was adamant that there was life out there.” She smiled sadly, one of the reasons the more benevolent Goa’uld intrigued her was their ability to seemingly cure any disease and repair any genetic defects or damage resulting from said diseases and depending on the species so much more. She lost her parents to terrorism, her grandfather to disease and she nearly lost her surrogate family to picking a fight she wasn’t ready for.
The Wyryn was an impressive castle and Daniel inquired as to what it meant as it didn’t seem to match any Nordic or Celtic or Aejirian words. Teal’c explained that it was Sebacean for “Vault” or “Strongbox.”. Of course, a High King whose victories in the field of battle were likely heavily contingent on the wealth that flowed through the Stargate would name his Castle “Castle Bank”. It was almost cliché but the building itself was a marvel of engineering for any era and the odd mix of gilded age technology (The lamps, the fans, other subtle signs of working electricity and the engineering knowhow.) and high medieval period architecture and textiles with dark age Viking aesthetics. The whole galaxy was weird, the Imperium’s planets went from barely out of the bronze age (Abydos.) to densely populated worlds with technology she couldn’t even conceptualize and all of them seemed to have an aesthetic clash of eras.
And then there was Hethrir himself who to Samantha Carter looked like a living relic almost as much as Apophis had. He sat on a throne elevated above the rest of some ginormous multi-storied feasting hall on a throne made of what she suspected was some sort of ivory. He was gray haired, wrinkled, haggard but he must have been as tall as Teal’c because even back bent he looked like her head would maybe reach his chest. His bald head was a patchwork of scars that spoke of a youth spent in constant war. His hands were gnarled and looked more like bear paws and though she was told he was closer to a hundred years, he looked to be in his late sixties at most. His voice was loud, booming and was very much the voice of a man who was used to frivolity, laughter and command. -He’s never been challenged, existentially. All the wars to conquer this planet were wars he had been certain he could win no matter how damaging they were- Her eyes narrowed.
Carter didn’t like that.
P.O O’Neill walked up and alongside Daniel introduced the group. Amusingly, some of the warrior’s there seemed afraid of the Colonel more than Teal’c and more than the Admiral (Who they should have feared more than anyone even the monsters.). Others looked up with eyes glinting with wounded pride at her team. This wasn’t going to be easy, whoever the enemy was outside there would be challenges within that would cause near as many problems if the Stargate teams weren’t careful. Hethrir seemed to sense this and smiled a kind of smile she didn’t quite like as he leaned forward and offered them welcome into his hall and told them that rumors of their victories and standoffs had reached even here. “I hear you killed Sek’het…I saw him fight once when I was a boy, he killed an entire room full of Lucian pirates with nothing but a knife.”
When the younger O’Neill translated it, Jack laughed. “It was me and Daniel here.” He said slapping Jackson’s shoulder. “And an Abydonian princess. But I did crush his chest and send his head through those ring things yeah.”
Hethrir seemed to consider the translated words, replying in Imperial Standard. “And how? Boy, do you believe a Tau’Ri war chief, a Skald and a little girl were able to overcome the champion of Amun Ra?”
O’Neill grinned a feral grin. “Because Snake boy wasn’t trying to beat me, he was trying to humiliate me to prove a point of honor to his wounded pride. I’d gotten the better of him twice before and he didn’t like that very much.”
When this was translated the spectators who filled his hall murmured amongst themselves. And Hethrir’s smile only broadened, Carter noted he had all his teeth. Something she didn’t quite expect for a medieval near centenarian. “And you, do not engage in battle to prove matters of honor hmm?”
“No sir, when a United States Space Marine engages in battle, he means to kill his enemies until there are none left, or his soul departs his body. Whichever comes first, I leave the honor of matter to be decided by the folks that I serve.”
The room was silent, minus a few laughs until Hethrir erupted in laughter and nodded his head. “Ah, you aren’t a warrior.”
“No, King I’m a soldier.” O’Neill answered in space Egyptian, hey he had been learning if slowly. Hethrir turned to Hammond and Teal’c and asked them if they shared O’Neill’s view on the matters of honor and their place in war. Questions Carter believed could be answered with a “the object of war is to achieve political ends that couldn’t be achieved via negotiation. There’s no honor in that…just give me fissile material, some Naquadah and a machine shop and a rad suit and I’ll end your damn war by lunch.” Though she was reasonably certain her answer to the obvious character test (Apparently the guy besieged by space monsters wanted to see if the values of his deliverers matched up with this own…) would have counted as an instafail.
Teal’c answered that the legions of the Serpent Guard were always about creating warriors and soldiers and that both had their place in war. An answer that satisfied many, but it was Hammond’s answer when translated that seemed to send the crowd into cheers. “I come from a different military order than Colonel O’Neill sir, one that is more ruthless than the marines. We decapitate in the dead of night so that when men of honor fight on the field they can go home to see their wives and children. Honor, is in the man as much as it is in the deed and neither of our orders leaves a fallen man behind or lets an insult to the weak go unchallenged and if you want your monster problem taken care of, we’re the guys you want, because we’re bigger, meaner monsters. Besides, I don’t think it’s honorable to try and humiliate an enemy solely to salve your wounded ego Sir. Where I come from that is just thuggery.”
“Well-said Hammond of Texas, spoken as a warrior Skald even. Though, you dissimilate a bit, you and yours would not come here without purpose.”
The Admiral didn’t rise to the insult instead he admitted it. “No, even now as we stand here an enemy fleet is being built with the purpose of coming to our world to conquer it and we need Trinium and access to…some knowledge regarding the Aesir.” Hammond said, unwilling to inquire about the weapons depot in public.
The King answered that if all they wanted was some Trinium his subjects were being offered a bargain for they had more Trinium than most worlds and they would gladly part with some. “Though, I warn you, more arrive every day and we aren’t certain how.”
…Lovely.
………
Instead of feasting, the King had ordered a simple mean be brought out and the hall cleared of all but his warriors, the Stargate teams and witnesses and survivors of the battles and raids. That was a smart decision, what they needed right now was information and details sufficient to form a plan of action and if Major Ramirez was being honest, he really didn’t like the idea of getting wasted on the potential eve of battle. No, he thought from his chair, that was a young man’s game and if he was going to throwdown with marauding space aliens, he wanted to be sober and clear eyed and rested.
His men shared his sentiments, as most had dozed off after dinner, getting sleep when they could like proper hunters and waking only when he tapped the table to wake them as the witnesses came in. Several were members of what passed for the Wyryn’s police force while the others seemed to be civilians if Ramirez could tell by their outfits. Unlike O’Neill and Makepeace Ramirez didn’t speak much space Egyptian and so he stayed silent, trusting the senior officers to ask questions while either the other O’Neill or Doctor Jackson translated.
It appeared they had some kind of armored pets, lizards similar to the ones that attacked the Rangers on Avalon and Ramirez suppressed a shudder. The last thing he wanted was for his men to be eaten alive by Komodo dragons the size of SUV’s. Teal’c remained impassive until an old man with a missing eye and healing burns on his right eye described two types of lizard like creatures, pale skinned and tall and one had a long reptilian like snout with fangs and the other has a more Lotar (Which he understood to mean humanoid) like face with a perpetual frown and cold beady eyes. Evidently these guys could produce heat from their hands, which could paralyze and kill the person targeted and killing them was dangerous as near boiling blood would shoot out and scald those who were attacked. Ramirez didn’t like this; they were going to run out of antibiotics faster than a pharmacy in a redlight district due to all the burns they would likely be treating after the first engagement if they weren’t careful.
“Everyone worries about bullet wounds in battle.” He muttered rubbing the bridge of his nose. Makepeace nodded in wordless agreement with the sentiment. Infections were always his primary concern and he’d seen enough bad burns in jungles kill soldiers to make him almost regret volunteering. “We need to keep our people segregated if we take any injuries, no matter how clean this place might look it’s still primitive and who knows what their sanitation standards are for surgical tools.”
O’Neill gave a slight nod, though it had been addressed at Makepeace and asked Teal’c if he recognized the race. Teal’c responded by asking if the creatures violated any of the females before departure. When the man responded that one of his granddaughters had been raped to death by two, Teal’c looked ready to throw his chair across the hall “Hassak Scarren!”
Hassack, Hassak, Hursac as the Abydonians said it..Ramirez knew what that meant.
Hammond asked Teal’c if those were the people, he and his wife made war against for Apophis, and he nodded. “Indeed Admiral, they are a race of despoiled, inbred, serial raping savages partially descended from Unas. They conquered dozens of species for sport and believed in their own genetic superiority and that said superiority granted them the right to do with the universe as they pleased. And though our legal scribes could never prove it, our Ashrak swore the Scarran Empire funded the research into biological weaponry that made Linea famous early in her career. Raping females of other species was an atrocity they were legendary for. Their lust knew no bounds and their former colonies are filled with their illegitimate offspring.”
“What would they be doing here?” the Admiral asked.
Teal’c shrugged answering that he did not know. To Ramirez the reason didn’t matter, from what Teal’c described these bastards merited a “shoot first, ask for surrender later” approach. The other race, long tailed and far more cartoonishly lizard like Teal’c identified as Sleestak, a formerly advanced species that aided the Ori as servants whom the System Lords crushed early in their war and had hunted to near extinction in revenge for their refusal to join them in their ancient rebellion.
Later that night Teal’c explained that was left of their race, which had once been quadrillions strong had been reduced to two million primitives huddled in a world rad bombed to near uselessness. Over the next ninety thousand years, their species crawled from barely above animals to a barbaric and nomadic state. Sleestak were hateful, they resented the Asgardians who refused to help them in their hour of need, they utterly despised the Goa’uld for the loss of all they once possessed and the murder of their Gods (The Ori.) and roamed the Galaxies as gangsters, pirates, drug dealers, bounty hunters and thieves. He understood their anger at the snakes, they had stolen from earth, abducted his ancient cousins and flung them across the Galaxies too, but that didn’t give them the right to rampage around the universe brutalizing decent people because of the crimes of a few ancient reptiles who played at being Gods.
The one thing that all the witnesses had in common was that the attacks they survived were uncharacteristically brutal; they didn’t occupy mines or carry off children to Lucian slave markets as was common in other primitive parts of the cosmos. They didn’t steal wealth or food, they just arrived and slaughtered and slaughtered and kept slaughtering. The most distressing part of it was that it seemed like they didn’t have a leader, but they were all certain they had seen one, a great hulking alien in the shadows.
Once it all wound down, Hammond asked Teal’c if it was possible that a closet Gate Network could be why they seemed to have an endless supply of troops, but Teal’c shook his head. “It is only a technology utilized by the Imperium and their most trusted or lucrative trading partners. To my knowledge the Asgardians do not utilize such devices and I believe they would have had to transport a secondary Stargate to this planet in any case. Though it is possible they came by ship, though with the Hetch drive the Scarrans use it would have taken them several years to arrive here. Perhaps, they stole a vessel with a working hyperdrive.”
“But how does that explain their belief that more are arriving every day?” Doctor Carter asked, she’d been unusually silent during the whole debacle, her mind wandering slightly, and Ramirez understood why. She was an unusually attractive thing for a scientist, much less someone who had blown herself up several times before she was old enough to drive.
“They might just be demoralized.” Ramirez offered, though he immediately regretted it. Nothing in the Wyryn suggested that Hethrir himself was being beaten down by this, only that his subjects were completely terrified and seemingly preparing to die. Could a people like that devolve into hysteria so quickly? From what he understood, the raids against the Wyryn had only begun recently. Unless the rest of this dude’s enormous kingdom was almost constantly under siege and if that was the case then he was a bigger idiot then any monarch Ramirez had read about in school. -Letting your people fall victim to a horde of lizardmen and then lying about it for as long as you can get away with it? ‘Sta loco.-
Hammond nodded, he’d taken up one of the larger cots in the room and seemed as comfortable out here in this weird pastiche world as he would have back on Earth. A reminder that the Admiral spent the majority of his career sleeping in ditches and fighting the wilderness and all kinds of enemies America would never know it had. “Maybe, but all the same, I’d like to understand what we’re dealing with here. Teal’c says Scarrans are almost as strong as Jaffa and their bodies can resist energy weapons to a high degree naturally.”
“I do indeed Admiral, though I believe your rifles should penetrate their hides far easier than they do Jaffa armor. The danger will lie in when they close the gap between us.” Teal’c contended, gripping his staff weapon tightly, almost as if he was trying to channel the Spirit of Anubis. “Scarrans are the worst impulses of the Goa’uld with none of their high-minded values, or virtues. None of their inhibitions about being seen as body thieves that restrain them.”
“Or their moral compass I guess.” Jack said, surprising himself. If you had asked him in 2015 or hell even in the weeks after the fight at Chulak what he thought of the Goa’uld he’d have sneered and called them brain eating parasites, snakes that needed to be exterminated. Now he only really held that opinion about Amunet and Apophis, Horus might have used lethal force on his men but even O’Neill could tell he was shocked and upset by the fact that he’d stabbed Jackson and the disgust in his voice when describing what Amunet did and his sincerity at the promise to bury his friends with honor and leave Earth alone…In any case what he didn’t like about their weird ass gilded cage Empire paled in comparison to a race that was summed up as “Rape Iguanas in space.” And from what he saw here on Hurot, Teal’c’s wife did the Galaxies a favor when she blew up their empire.
“So, we have no idea how they’re doing what they’re doing to get here and there’s scant evidence of high-tech weaponry.” It was Makepeace who answered this time, an annoyed look on his usually calm features. “What we need to do is figure out where the hell they’re at.”
“I’ve got Watson on drone duty.” Ramirez offered. “he’ll know if we’re going to be attacked tonight Sir and if so, maybe we can have the drones follow them back to their lair.”
“Lair?” O’Neill asked.
Ramirez shrugged lazily. “They’re lizardmen, don’t lizardmen always have a lair?”
Hammond laughed from his cot. “I don’t know if comic books, and tabletop games are a good way to anticipate enemy action son.”
“Our entire lives are comic books at this point, sir” O’Neill chimed in, getting up and cracking his back. “Permission to turn in sir?”
“We could all use some shuteye.” Hammond said, putting a cap over his eyes. He’d ordered them to sleep in the hall, after something Jack had said before departure. Something about how this all seemed familiar to him to some degree. Hammond thought he was talking about Beowulf but Jack insisted it was something else, something he couldn’t place at that moment. Which wasn’t too surprising given the attention span O’Neill had when he wasn’t laser focused on a mission.
.................
The Wyryn -Hurot: Asgard Protect Planet's zone.
The first thing that Sandra O’Neill noticed was that the walls looked burned, blasted and scarred. That the houses that filled either side of the streets leading to the Wyryn were all burnt out, pulled down and the dead were still being recovered by the smell of it. The second thing she noticed was that the people everywhere looked absolutely demoralized and the third thing? That while everyone here was human or mostly human, she could spot a few blue skinned aliens and a redskinned Kelownan or two. -Fascinating, people come even to this primitive worlds looking to profit from their skills.-
It explained why her father kept pointing out storm drains, public bathhouses and downed powerlines. Why they looked to be in the high Middle Ages and yet had working electric lighting and to a degree even cooling and heating. Not that they needed those, Hurot was a paradise, she doubted it was above seventy-two degrees and the air was cool and clean after a horrific massacre. People received them as conquering heroes and she felt a pang of guilt about the fact that they were likely going to demand payment for the monster slaying in a form of a somewhat uneven treaty. Doctor Jackson had explained that in their culture it was expected, and some sources indicated that not extorting the people you saved was seen as disrespectful.
That was whack but she didn’t let it dampen her excitement, her first mission off world! Her first actual adventure and it was with her father, her mentor and her sister’s role model and someone she considered a close friend. And there was Doctor Jackson, who wasn’t bad company and Teal’c whose advice had become something she’d come to cherish. “I know you didn’t want me on this mission..Da-Sir..but.”
O’Neill waved his daughter off. “Honestly, up until a minute ago, I wasn’t too worried about you. You’re well trained and you helped repel Tealc’s best guys remember? I thought mopping up a bunch of criminals wasn’t going to be too risky. Still had to pretend to be mad, you know fathers’ rights and all.”
She nodded; it had been a sore spot between them the involvement of his children in the Stargate project up until very recently. Her father wanted them lightyears away from any of the dangers he’d lived through in his life and she and Sasha didn’t really realize West was tapping them for the project to use as leverage until after his death. “Well, I’m glad..wait why until a minute ago?”
“Look around you. This is a big city, well town by the standards of their tech level.” Sometimes her dad was shockingly smart, other times..he was well..himself. And they wrecked this place pretty damn good…That’s my concern here.” O’Neill responded. “I doubt they sent their full force here either, but still they did all this damage. They’ve gotta be Jaffa strong and Jaffa tough or near enough as they’re the only guys I know tough enough to run wild like that….Well except for some United States Marines on leave with too much booze in ‘em and nothing to amuse themselves with.”
Suppressing an urge to roll her eyes at the Marine brag she nodded. “Teal’c do you know any species that matches…The Colonel’s profile.”
“I can think of several” Teal’c said grimly. “Though most of them are not known for the kind of violent behavior I am seeing here.”
“Anyone in particular?” Sandra asked.
“Sleestak, Slytharians and The Scarrans.” He recalled, that the Cylons, the robotic creatures created by the Kobolons were named after a semi mythical reptilian species native to Caprica that their ancestors allegedly destroyed when they tamed the planet after the “Gods” exiled them from Kobol. In Teal’cs mind they were probably a colony of Unas who had been left on that world and forgotten by Izanagi in the distant past.
“Scarrans? Aren’t those the guys you and your wife blew up?”
“Indeed.”
“You missed some.”
“That remains to be seen, O’Neill”
“oookkayyy.”
“Gentlemen.” Hammond’s voice carried in a way Sandra didn’t think it would due to the oppressive silence that hung over this mangled city. People looked up, gazing at the strange men and women with a strange language and she smiled. “We’re the aliens here..” she whispered causing Doctor Jackson to smile at the allusion. “It’s true and we speak a language none of them have ever even heard of, but some might recognize as sharing some root elements with their own.” He needed to write a book about that, one day when all this was declassified.
How to learn alien languages by inference and how to apply the psychological and cultural eccentricities of Earth to neighboring worlds without causing an interstellar incident or something. “Grandpa Nick was right in so many ways, wrong in so many others. He’d be so thrilled.” He gave a reluctant shake of his head, that was the only thing he really regretted about being part of this wonderful and insane program. Even losing Shau’re was worth having met her and loved her in the first place, but to not be able to share all of this with the kind man who was more a father to him than a grandpa.
“My grandfather would have gotten a kick out of this too.” Carter muttered, falling in line between Jackson and the younger O’Neill twin, looping her arms through theirs. “His whole thing was that space was the future, even before he got brought into project Constellation, he was adamant that there was life out there.” She smiled sadly, one of the reasons the more benevolent Goa’uld intrigued her was their ability to seemingly cure any disease and repair any genetic defects or damage resulting from said diseases and depending on the species so much more. She lost her parents to terrorism, her grandfather to disease and she nearly lost her surrogate family to picking a fight she wasn’t ready for.
The Wyryn was an impressive castle and Daniel inquired as to what it meant as it didn’t seem to match any Nordic or Celtic or Aejirian words. Teal’c explained that it was Sebacean for “Vault” or “Strongbox.”. Of course, a High King whose victories in the field of battle were likely heavily contingent on the wealth that flowed through the Stargate would name his Castle “Castle Bank”. It was almost cliché but the building itself was a marvel of engineering for any era and the odd mix of gilded age technology (The lamps, the fans, other subtle signs of working electricity and the engineering knowhow.) and high medieval period architecture and textiles with dark age Viking aesthetics. The whole galaxy was weird, the Imperium’s planets went from barely out of the bronze age (Abydos.) to densely populated worlds with technology she couldn’t even conceptualize and all of them seemed to have an aesthetic clash of eras.
And then there was Hethrir himself who to Samantha Carter looked like a living relic almost as much as Apophis had. He sat on a throne elevated above the rest of some ginormous multi-storied feasting hall on a throne made of what she suspected was some sort of ivory. He was gray haired, wrinkled, haggard but he must have been as tall as Teal’c because even back bent he looked like her head would maybe reach his chest. His bald head was a patchwork of scars that spoke of a youth spent in constant war. His hands were gnarled and looked more like bear paws and though she was told he was closer to a hundred years, he looked to be in his late sixties at most. His voice was loud, booming and was very much the voice of a man who was used to frivolity, laughter and command. -He’s never been challenged, existentially. All the wars to conquer this planet were wars he had been certain he could win no matter how damaging they were- Her eyes narrowed.
Carter didn’t like that.
P.O O’Neill walked up and alongside Daniel introduced the group. Amusingly, some of the warrior’s there seemed afraid of the Colonel more than Teal’c and more than the Admiral (Who they should have feared more than anyone even the monsters.). Others looked up with eyes glinting with wounded pride at her team. This wasn’t going to be easy, whoever the enemy was outside there would be challenges within that would cause near as many problems if the Stargate teams weren’t careful. Hethrir seemed to sense this and smiled a kind of smile she didn’t quite like as he leaned forward and offered them welcome into his hall and told them that rumors of their victories and standoffs had reached even here. “I hear you killed Sek’het…I saw him fight once when I was a boy, he killed an entire room full of Lucian pirates with nothing but a knife.”
When the younger O’Neill translated it, Jack laughed. “It was me and Daniel here.” He said slapping Jackson’s shoulder. “And an Abydonian princess. But I did crush his chest and send his head through those ring things yeah.”
Hethrir seemed to consider the translated words, replying in Imperial Standard. “And how? Boy, do you believe a Tau’Ri war chief, a Skald and a little girl were able to overcome the champion of Amun Ra?”
O’Neill grinned a feral grin. “Because Snake boy wasn’t trying to beat me, he was trying to humiliate me to prove a point of honor to his wounded pride. I’d gotten the better of him twice before and he didn’t like that very much.”
When this was translated the spectators who filled his hall murmured amongst themselves. And Hethrir’s smile only broadened, Carter noted he had all his teeth. Something she didn’t quite expect for a medieval near centenarian. “And you, do not engage in battle to prove matters of honor hmm?”
“No sir, when a United States Space Marine engages in battle, he means to kill his enemies until there are none left, or his soul departs his body. Whichever comes first, I leave the honor of matter to be decided by the folks that I serve.”
The room was silent, minus a few laughs until Hethrir erupted in laughter and nodded his head. “Ah, you aren’t a warrior.”
“No, King I’m a soldier.” O’Neill answered in space Egyptian, hey he had been learning if slowly. Hethrir turned to Hammond and Teal’c and asked them if they shared O’Neill’s view on the matters of honor and their place in war. Questions Carter believed could be answered with a “the object of war is to achieve political ends that couldn’t be achieved via negotiation. There’s no honor in that…just give me fissile material, some Naquadah and a machine shop and a rad suit and I’ll end your damn war by lunch.” Though she was reasonably certain her answer to the obvious character test (Apparently the guy besieged by space monsters wanted to see if the values of his deliverers matched up with this own…) would have counted as an instafail.
Teal’c answered that the legions of the Serpent Guard were always about creating warriors and soldiers and that both had their place in war. An answer that satisfied many, but it was Hammond’s answer when translated that seemed to send the crowd into cheers. “I come from a different military order than Colonel O’Neill sir, one that is more ruthless than the marines. We decapitate in the dead of night so that when men of honor fight on the field they can go home to see their wives and children. Honor, is in the man as much as it is in the deed and neither of our orders leaves a fallen man behind or lets an insult to the weak go unchallenged and if you want your monster problem taken care of, we’re the guys you want, because we’re bigger, meaner monsters. Besides, I don’t think it’s honorable to try and humiliate an enemy solely to salve your wounded ego Sir. Where I come from that is just thuggery.”
“Well-said Hammond of Texas, spoken as a warrior Skald even. Though, you dissimilate a bit, you and yours would not come here without purpose.”
The Admiral didn’t rise to the insult instead he admitted it. “No, even now as we stand here an enemy fleet is being built with the purpose of coming to our world to conquer it and we need Trinium and access to…some knowledge regarding the Aesir.” Hammond said, unwilling to inquire about the weapons depot in public.
The King answered that if all they wanted was some Trinium his subjects were being offered a bargain for they had more Trinium than most worlds and they would gladly part with some. “Though, I warn you, more arrive every day and we aren’t certain how.”
…Lovely.
………
Instead of feasting, the King had ordered a simple mean be brought out and the hall cleared of all but his warriors, the Stargate teams and witnesses and survivors of the battles and raids. That was a smart decision, what they needed right now was information and details sufficient to form a plan of action and if Major Ramirez was being honest, he really didn’t like the idea of getting wasted on the potential eve of battle. No, he thought from his chair, that was a young man’s game and if he was going to throwdown with marauding space aliens, he wanted to be sober and clear eyed and rested.
His men shared his sentiments, as most had dozed off after dinner, getting sleep when they could like proper hunters and waking only when he tapped the table to wake them as the witnesses came in. Several were members of what passed for the Wyryn’s police force while the others seemed to be civilians if Ramirez could tell by their outfits. Unlike O’Neill and Makepeace Ramirez didn’t speak much space Egyptian and so he stayed silent, trusting the senior officers to ask questions while either the other O’Neill or Doctor Jackson translated.
It appeared they had some kind of armored pets, lizards similar to the ones that attacked the Rangers on Avalon and Ramirez suppressed a shudder. The last thing he wanted was for his men to be eaten alive by Komodo dragons the size of SUV’s. Teal’c remained impassive until an old man with a missing eye and healing burns on his right eye described two types of lizard like creatures, pale skinned and tall and one had a long reptilian like snout with fangs and the other has a more Lotar (Which he understood to mean humanoid) like face with a perpetual frown and cold beady eyes. Evidently these guys could produce heat from their hands, which could paralyze and kill the person targeted and killing them was dangerous as near boiling blood would shoot out and scald those who were attacked. Ramirez didn’t like this; they were going to run out of antibiotics faster than a pharmacy in a redlight district due to all the burns they would likely be treating after the first engagement if they weren’t careful.
“Everyone worries about bullet wounds in battle.” He muttered rubbing the bridge of his nose. Makepeace nodded in wordless agreement with the sentiment. Infections were always his primary concern and he’d seen enough bad burns in jungles kill soldiers to make him almost regret volunteering. “We need to keep our people segregated if we take any injuries, no matter how clean this place might look it’s still primitive and who knows what their sanitation standards are for surgical tools.”
O’Neill gave a slight nod, though it had been addressed at Makepeace and asked Teal’c if he recognized the race. Teal’c responded by asking if the creatures violated any of the females before departure. When the man responded that one of his granddaughters had been raped to death by two, Teal’c looked ready to throw his chair across the hall “Hassak Scarren!”
Hassack, Hassak, Hursac as the Abydonians said it..Ramirez knew what that meant.
Hammond asked Teal’c if those were the people, he and his wife made war against for Apophis, and he nodded. “Indeed Admiral, they are a race of despoiled, inbred, serial raping savages partially descended from Unas. They conquered dozens of species for sport and believed in their own genetic superiority and that said superiority granted them the right to do with the universe as they pleased. And though our legal scribes could never prove it, our Ashrak swore the Scarran Empire funded the research into biological weaponry that made Linea famous early in her career. Raping females of other species was an atrocity they were legendary for. Their lust knew no bounds and their former colonies are filled with their illegitimate offspring.”
“What would they be doing here?” the Admiral asked.
Teal’c shrugged answering that he did not know. To Ramirez the reason didn’t matter, from what Teal’c described these bastards merited a “shoot first, ask for surrender later” approach. The other race, long tailed and far more cartoonishly lizard like Teal’c identified as Sleestak, a formerly advanced species that aided the Ori as servants whom the System Lords crushed early in their war and had hunted to near extinction in revenge for their refusal to join them in their ancient rebellion.
Later that night Teal’c explained that was left of their race, which had once been quadrillions strong had been reduced to two million primitives huddled in a world rad bombed to near uselessness. Over the next ninety thousand years, their species crawled from barely above animals to a barbaric and nomadic state. Sleestak were hateful, they resented the Asgardians who refused to help them in their hour of need, they utterly despised the Goa’uld for the loss of all they once possessed and the murder of their Gods (The Ori.) and roamed the Galaxies as gangsters, pirates, drug dealers, bounty hunters and thieves. He understood their anger at the snakes, they had stolen from earth, abducted his ancient cousins and flung them across the Galaxies too, but that didn’t give them the right to rampage around the universe brutalizing decent people because of the crimes of a few ancient reptiles who played at being Gods.
The one thing that all the witnesses had in common was that the attacks they survived were uncharacteristically brutal; they didn’t occupy mines or carry off children to Lucian slave markets as was common in other primitive parts of the cosmos. They didn’t steal wealth or food, they just arrived and slaughtered and slaughtered and kept slaughtering. The most distressing part of it was that it seemed like they didn’t have a leader, but they were all certain they had seen one, a great hulking alien in the shadows.
Once it all wound down, Hammond asked Teal’c if it was possible that a closet Gate Network could be why they seemed to have an endless supply of troops, but Teal’c shook his head. “It is only a technology utilized by the Imperium and their most trusted or lucrative trading partners. To my knowledge the Asgardians do not utilize such devices and I believe they would have had to transport a secondary Stargate to this planet in any case. Though it is possible they came by ship, though with the Hetch drive the Scarrans use it would have taken them several years to arrive here. Perhaps, they stole a vessel with a working hyperdrive.”
“But how does that explain their belief that more are arriving every day?” Doctor Carter asked, she’d been unusually silent during the whole debacle, her mind wandering slightly, and Ramirez understood why. She was an unusually attractive thing for a scientist, much less someone who had blown herself up several times before she was old enough to drive.
“They might just be demoralized.” Ramirez offered, though he immediately regretted it. Nothing in the Wyryn suggested that Hethrir himself was being beaten down by this, only that his subjects were completely terrified and seemingly preparing to die. Could a people like that devolve into hysteria so quickly? From what he understood, the raids against the Wyryn had only begun recently. Unless the rest of this dude’s enormous kingdom was almost constantly under siege and if that was the case then he was a bigger idiot then any monarch Ramirez had read about in school. -Letting your people fall victim to a horde of lizardmen and then lying about it for as long as you can get away with it? ‘Sta loco.-
Hammond nodded, he’d taken up one of the larger cots in the room and seemed as comfortable out here in this weird pastiche world as he would have back on Earth. A reminder that the Admiral spent the majority of his career sleeping in ditches and fighting the wilderness and all kinds of enemies America would never know it had. “Maybe, but all the same, I’d like to understand what we’re dealing with here. Teal’c says Scarrans are almost as strong as Jaffa and their bodies can resist energy weapons to a high degree naturally.”
“I do indeed Admiral, though I believe your rifles should penetrate their hides far easier than they do Jaffa armor. The danger will lie in when they close the gap between us.” Teal’c contended, gripping his staff weapon tightly, almost as if he was trying to channel the Spirit of Anubis. “Scarrans are the worst impulses of the Goa’uld with none of their high-minded values, or virtues. None of their inhibitions about being seen as body thieves that restrain them.”
“Or their moral compass I guess.” Jack said, surprising himself. If you had asked him in 2015 or hell even in the weeks after the fight at Chulak what he thought of the Goa’uld he’d have sneered and called them brain eating parasites, snakes that needed to be exterminated. Now he only really held that opinion about Amunet and Apophis, Horus might have used lethal force on his men but even O’Neill could tell he was shocked and upset by the fact that he’d stabbed Jackson and the disgust in his voice when describing what Amunet did and his sincerity at the promise to bury his friends with honor and leave Earth alone…In any case what he didn’t like about their weird ass gilded cage Empire paled in comparison to a race that was summed up as “Rape Iguanas in space.” And from what he saw here on Hurot, Teal’c’s wife did the Galaxies a favor when she blew up their empire.
“So, we have no idea how they’re doing what they’re doing to get here and there’s scant evidence of high-tech weaponry.” It was Makepeace who answered this time, an annoyed look on his usually calm features. “What we need to do is figure out where the hell they’re at.”
“I’ve got Watson on drone duty.” Ramirez offered. “he’ll know if we’re going to be attacked tonight Sir and if so, maybe we can have the drones follow them back to their lair.”
“Lair?” O’Neill asked.
Ramirez shrugged lazily. “They’re lizardmen, don’t lizardmen always have a lair?”
Hammond laughed from his cot. “I don’t know if comic books, and tabletop games are a good way to anticipate enemy action son.”
“Our entire lives are comic books at this point, sir” O’Neill chimed in, getting up and cracking his back. “Permission to turn in sir?”
“We could all use some shuteye.” Hammond said, putting a cap over his eyes. He’d ordered them to sleep in the hall, after something Jack had said before departure. Something about how this all seemed familiar to him to some degree. Hammond thought he was talking about Beowulf but Jack insisted it was something else, something he couldn’t place at that moment. Which wasn’t too surprising given the attention span O’Neill had when he wasn’t laser focused on a mission.
Last edited:
In his hatred...
Teal'c and Carter bond over being Orphans, doom marches towards the Wyryn as Teal'c gives a little more info on the Titans rebellion and just how corrupt Cronus/Kronos was. Also, some info on just how much the Peers crap on other Goa'uld.
Credit to whoever did this painting by the way because..damn.
.................
The Wyryn -Hurot: Asgard Protect Planet's zone.
While the others slept, Teal’c who had been in a state of Kelno’Reem for the last hour (which was comparable to sleeping six hours.), made his time exploring the Wyryn. His long shadow haunting the columns in the hall of battle, a section of the great castle dedicated to exhibiting the armor used by the various kings and potentates that Hethrir and his father before him had subjugated in their wars to unify the two dominant continents on this planet. Though it lacked the immensity of Goa’uld architecture and its multicolored towering monoliths or the charm of the practical yet aesthetically pleasing architecture of Tau’Ri, it was an appreciable middle ground. A feat of engineering that for a people so primitive might have been a marvel and it made Teal’c wonder how many laborers, builders and engineers died completing this behemoth of a structure and if so, just how many of them had been prisoners of war drafted into a labor force. It wasn’t a pleasant thought about a potential ally, but Teal’c knew the Admiral and O’Neill were both thinking the same. They had seen the look in those eyes, the cruelty, the coldness.
Sebaceans were a prototype of the Jaffa race, cast out of the Imperium because of the genetic defects that prevented them from enduring extreme heat, because their lifespans weren’t as long as a Jaffa’s would be even without a symbiote and because many of them could not control their more aggressive impulses. Teal’c had little use for such a broken people, though he knew his sentiments were prejudiced and thus refused to disparage King Hethrir with the Tau’Ri for being one quarter Sebacean. His wife had always insisted to him that while the race might have been despoiled not all of them were bad, she’d befriended some angry young officer forty years ago, Crais or something like that and his tenacity had impressed her. Teal’c remembered she even mourned his death. And so, armed with the knowledge that it was likely his biased speaking to him he had stayed silent, until he saw the eyes of his Tau’Ri friends and leaders. Hammond of Texas was wise for someone who was so young, O’Neill possessed an intuition that was almost clairvoyant. In the time he spent with them, he’d come to value their insights above all others save Daniel Jackson. And both saw what he saw, Doctor Carter had as well but she didn’t speak up because she would have ignored far worse if it meant her people obtaining their goals.
…Samantha Carter.
The one member of his team that Teal’c wasn’t quite certain about yet. She liked him, which was surprising for he was an alien and Carter seemed to place the Tau’Ri above all other concerns and she trusted him enough, but he was never fully certain if he could extend that courtesy in the other direction. Carter was a youth with a great deal of personal wounds, and even greater potential both for madness and greatness beneath a surface that had grown thinner by the day and though she was improving and mending now (Because she’d learn to trust her teammates and the O’Neill Twins.), to go into battle with someone whom he believed had the lingering mental wounds of battle and had not yet consented to addressing always carried its risks. “She needs to get her head above water Big guy” O’Neill had said, and it was true. But had it been the Serpent legions, had he commanded, he likely would have sent her to the healers the moment they returned from Avalon.
No, that wasn’t correct, had this still been Apophis’s military he would have been too busy running an armed forces that numbered in the billions to really be able to focus on one, single soldier that needed help. The youngest War Master ever, yet he believed at times that he knew less about individual soldiering than O’Neill and the others, for he spent comparatively less time as one than the others. Perhaps he’d forgotten until very recently the bonds of local command, for Hammond was not the sort of leader of men to let one of his bleed mentally or otherwise unaided. Perhaps it was true about focused thoughts being capable of conjuration because Samantha Carter was seated on a ledge, a leg hanging over stone her back leaning into the wall behind her. She was gazing up at the moons, or moon and a half, there were a series of rings around the main moon and a quarter remaining of the original. “The handywork of one of your ancestors Teal’c?” Carter asked offering him a jug of what he assumed was the rose tasting honey wine these primitives enjoyed.
Likely not, Teal’c thought. “Anubis, or Apophis, possibly Horus or Garak or Unas under the command of them.” It could have been Izanagi, the eldest member of the house of Ame-No-Manakushi outside of Garak. The father of System Lord Countess Amaterasu and her Tsukuyomi and the grandfather of Raijin the ape like first prime and however many hundred million or so descendants produced by Tsukuyomi who was one of the most prolific queens this side of Hathor and their progeny thereafter. “In the early days of the war, the Goa’uld held very few planets, but they had seized factory worlds and so their strategy was to hit everywhere, as often as they could to confound the enemy. A hundred thousand years and no doubt extensive effort by the Asgard to repair the damage to the ecosystem.”
Carter nodded; a shattered moon would have done God knows what to the planet, another testament to the mysterious Asgardian races and their technological might. She knew the Goa’uld weren’t that far off, that alarmed her and had always guided her outlook on Stargate command’s mission. “If you can’t beat a superior enemy, make your attacks confusing…Were these Asgard worlds back then?”
Teal’c shook his head. “I believe they belonged to none, it’s possible there was a military installation here of Fyryns. The Ori were not in any position to act aggressively so far out of their territories.” Or so the legends went any way, steeped in a mythical past and shrouded by the mists of time it was never easy to figure out how much of the truth was legend or fable and after a hundred thousand years, it was likely even the oldest of the Peers had forgotten.
“Do you remember your parents?” Sam asked suddenly, her voice sounding every bit as young as she looked. Teal’c raised an eyebrow, ah yes was the eleventh not the anniversary of their deaths? And if he recalled Earth history, a particularly nasty terror attack.
“My father was a Prime to Kronos..”
“C, or K?”
“Interchangeable, Doctor his role in the Imperial religion seems to have been corrupted into two distinct Titans on Earth. In any case, Kronos dismissed my father from his service for refusing to execute an Ashrak he believed was wrongly implicated in a gene trafficking operation. One of the Titan’s illegitimate spawns had been selling genetic material to the Ashen Confederacy, a grave crime. Father always believed the Titan had a hand in it.”
“Were they poor?” Carter asked confused, the House of Aether seemed to be involved in all kinds of stuff that was usually associated with organized crime or corrupt multinationals and dirty politicians not something she’d expect from powerful aristocrats that ruled huge pieces of entire galaxies.
“No, but the world they came from was quite resource deprived and the worlds they tamed and conquered took many centuries to elevate to what they are now. They were considered the Galactic wilderness. I believe Kronos and Zeus suffered from some many of neurosis from that long ago era.” Teal’c shrugged. “It matters not why, in the end my parents and my sister were left to wander..My sister needed a Prim’tah but by the time they could scrounge up enough to obtain one on the black market…Prim’tah are heavily regulated. If a Jaffa serves not a Peer nor the Imperial bureaucracy, then obtaining one is impossible and death is all but assured for their children. It is how they keep Jaffa from attempting to become warlords out in the uncharted territories or in space not claimed by the Imperium and how they keep the lesser races of Goa’uld from being used like chattel..Except for by the Peers I suppose.”
Fair, she thought, if Jaffa could just access replacement Symbiotes for their own offspring whenever they wanted, there was no reason for them not to go do what the Sebacean people did she supposed. And, whether she liked it or not, Goa’uld were sentient beings and the manner in which the Peers oppressed their less evolved cousins and used them to enhance the Jaffa was terrible. The Jaffa might not have been slaves, but they certainly had a sword of Damocles over their heads as did the Goa’uld themselves. -I can give them that at least- Carter thought bitterly, the sword that hung over the lowliest soldier hung over their “Gods” as well, it took balls to be a member of the elite and willingly point a gun at yourself to earn loyalty however twisted...
Her own national leaders hadn’t taken risks like that in decades. “I take it..the Symbiote wasn’t?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Too primitive and she was too ill. Agents of Apophis eventually found us, my father was made a Prime and given estates on Chulak and I was given over to Bra’tac to act as his personal..hmm..I suppose Squire or Page is the closest analogue in your language and cultures that comes to mind. My mother was a Priestess of the Imperial religion, a lore master and she came with us and was placed beside Shaun’ac as her aide and representative of the clerics of Apophis on Dakkara.”
“Sounds generous” Carter murmured; she was sporting that sleepy look she got when she was intensely focused on someone talking. Teal’c was surprised none of this bored her or was unsatisfactory. Jackson and Carter were both very young and the very young do not always enjoy hearing an autobiography however brief. “Lord Apophis was generous.” Teal’c conceded. “He wanted to tap my father’s talent and I believe part of him an echo of the hero he was once was impressed with his honesty. He also hated Kronos and viewed his humiliation over the scandal to be justice.”
Teal’c swallowed. “They died the day of the Titan’s rebellion. I was on Dakkara with Bra’tac attending him as he dueled Herakles. My father and mother were called aboard Ra’s pleasure barge, for her intended to hold court as he departed on one of his Imperial progresses. Lord Apophis did not attend. Nor any of the House of Aether, in hindsight perhaps that should have alerted Ra. As it was, the Countess Izanami requested they delay for a tea ceremony. Ra was far too annoyed and Sek’Het I believe did not alert the Jaffa aboard his palace of light….the pleasure barge. That fact saved their lives..Kronos had a bomb planted in the engineering section of the vessel, its powerplant. I remember seeing it, Iwnw’s top tower burned. My parents were murdered…” He let out a warm breath which steamed in the cool night air. It had been a long time since he’d told anyone that story. “I was twelve years old.”
“I remember too.” Carter whispered. “I was five..I don’t remember the details like that only that..Grandpa took me to work that day. The Pentagon was so big, I was so excited to see it. I was with his secretary Miss Jenkins, she was sweet…She gave me candy. I remember being really happy because I hadn’t seen my Daddy or mom in a month, I think…I just. All of a sudden there was noise, so much noise…” She looked up at Teal’c sadly. “The terror attacks in 2001, you know the sad part? I can’t remember if my mom was on the plane when it hit or my dad..But one of them was at work in the building with grandpa and the other was.” She stopped herself and sighed. “They talk about me like I’m a firebug, an arsonist, but I’m not. Fire isn’t an old friend…It’s a vicious animal that..That kills your family in broad daylight.” Carter looked like she was about to bolt from her seated position, but she remained. “When my grandfather died, it was all I had left.”
“That is no longer correct Doctor Carter.” If it was correct at all, had not Jacob Carter more children? Did she not have a great many cousins? Human filial relations confounded the Jaffa sometimes. He set a hand on her shoulder and felt Carter’s hair brush up against his forearm as she leaned against him. “Stupid..old..man.” she whispered in a grateful voice, evidently crying. Teal’c smiled but said nothing, allowing them a moment of silence for those whom they both loved that had left them behind.
“Thanks, Teal’c.”
“For?”
“Nothing.”
He was content to stand there with his comrade until the sun rose, but at that moment a series of horns broke the silence of the night and at the city’s edge Teal’c espied a series of what looked like pulse flashes.
Carter stood.
“They’re here.”
It was time to repel the enemy, to strike a first blow for Tau’Ri and for Teal’c to finish what his family started years ago.
Credit to whoever did this painting by the way because..damn.
.................
The Wyryn -Hurot: Asgard Protect Planet's zone.
While the others slept, Teal’c who had been in a state of Kelno’Reem for the last hour (which was comparable to sleeping six hours.), made his time exploring the Wyryn. His long shadow haunting the columns in the hall of battle, a section of the great castle dedicated to exhibiting the armor used by the various kings and potentates that Hethrir and his father before him had subjugated in their wars to unify the two dominant continents on this planet. Though it lacked the immensity of Goa’uld architecture and its multicolored towering monoliths or the charm of the practical yet aesthetically pleasing architecture of Tau’Ri, it was an appreciable middle ground. A feat of engineering that for a people so primitive might have been a marvel and it made Teal’c wonder how many laborers, builders and engineers died completing this behemoth of a structure and if so, just how many of them had been prisoners of war drafted into a labor force. It wasn’t a pleasant thought about a potential ally, but Teal’c knew the Admiral and O’Neill were both thinking the same. They had seen the look in those eyes, the cruelty, the coldness.
Sebaceans were a prototype of the Jaffa race, cast out of the Imperium because of the genetic defects that prevented them from enduring extreme heat, because their lifespans weren’t as long as a Jaffa’s would be even without a symbiote and because many of them could not control their more aggressive impulses. Teal’c had little use for such a broken people, though he knew his sentiments were prejudiced and thus refused to disparage King Hethrir with the Tau’Ri for being one quarter Sebacean. His wife had always insisted to him that while the race might have been despoiled not all of them were bad, she’d befriended some angry young officer forty years ago, Crais or something like that and his tenacity had impressed her. Teal’c remembered she even mourned his death. And so, armed with the knowledge that it was likely his biased speaking to him he had stayed silent, until he saw the eyes of his Tau’Ri friends and leaders. Hammond of Texas was wise for someone who was so young, O’Neill possessed an intuition that was almost clairvoyant. In the time he spent with them, he’d come to value their insights above all others save Daniel Jackson. And both saw what he saw, Doctor Carter had as well but she didn’t speak up because she would have ignored far worse if it meant her people obtaining their goals.
…Samantha Carter.
The one member of his team that Teal’c wasn’t quite certain about yet. She liked him, which was surprising for he was an alien and Carter seemed to place the Tau’Ri above all other concerns and she trusted him enough, but he was never fully certain if he could extend that courtesy in the other direction. Carter was a youth with a great deal of personal wounds, and even greater potential both for madness and greatness beneath a surface that had grown thinner by the day and though she was improving and mending now (Because she’d learn to trust her teammates and the O’Neill Twins.), to go into battle with someone whom he believed had the lingering mental wounds of battle and had not yet consented to addressing always carried its risks. “She needs to get her head above water Big guy” O’Neill had said, and it was true. But had it been the Serpent legions, had he commanded, he likely would have sent her to the healers the moment they returned from Avalon.
No, that wasn’t correct, had this still been Apophis’s military he would have been too busy running an armed forces that numbered in the billions to really be able to focus on one, single soldier that needed help. The youngest War Master ever, yet he believed at times that he knew less about individual soldiering than O’Neill and the others, for he spent comparatively less time as one than the others. Perhaps he’d forgotten until very recently the bonds of local command, for Hammond was not the sort of leader of men to let one of his bleed mentally or otherwise unaided. Perhaps it was true about focused thoughts being capable of conjuration because Samantha Carter was seated on a ledge, a leg hanging over stone her back leaning into the wall behind her. She was gazing up at the moons, or moon and a half, there were a series of rings around the main moon and a quarter remaining of the original. “The handywork of one of your ancestors Teal’c?” Carter asked offering him a jug of what he assumed was the rose tasting honey wine these primitives enjoyed.
Likely not, Teal’c thought. “Anubis, or Apophis, possibly Horus or Garak or Unas under the command of them.” It could have been Izanagi, the eldest member of the house of Ame-No-Manakushi outside of Garak. The father of System Lord Countess Amaterasu and her Tsukuyomi and the grandfather of Raijin the ape like first prime and however many hundred million or so descendants produced by Tsukuyomi who was one of the most prolific queens this side of Hathor and their progeny thereafter. “In the early days of the war, the Goa’uld held very few planets, but they had seized factory worlds and so their strategy was to hit everywhere, as often as they could to confound the enemy. A hundred thousand years and no doubt extensive effort by the Asgard to repair the damage to the ecosystem.”
Carter nodded; a shattered moon would have done God knows what to the planet, another testament to the mysterious Asgardian races and their technological might. She knew the Goa’uld weren’t that far off, that alarmed her and had always guided her outlook on Stargate command’s mission. “If you can’t beat a superior enemy, make your attacks confusing…Were these Asgard worlds back then?”
Teal’c shook his head. “I believe they belonged to none, it’s possible there was a military installation here of Fyryns. The Ori were not in any position to act aggressively so far out of their territories.” Or so the legends went any way, steeped in a mythical past and shrouded by the mists of time it was never easy to figure out how much of the truth was legend or fable and after a hundred thousand years, it was likely even the oldest of the Peers had forgotten.
“Do you remember your parents?” Sam asked suddenly, her voice sounding every bit as young as she looked. Teal’c raised an eyebrow, ah yes was the eleventh not the anniversary of their deaths? And if he recalled Earth history, a particularly nasty terror attack.
“My father was a Prime to Kronos..”
“C, or K?”
“Interchangeable, Doctor his role in the Imperial religion seems to have been corrupted into two distinct Titans on Earth. In any case, Kronos dismissed my father from his service for refusing to execute an Ashrak he believed was wrongly implicated in a gene trafficking operation. One of the Titan’s illegitimate spawns had been selling genetic material to the Ashen Confederacy, a grave crime. Father always believed the Titan had a hand in it.”
“Were they poor?” Carter asked confused, the House of Aether seemed to be involved in all kinds of stuff that was usually associated with organized crime or corrupt multinationals and dirty politicians not something she’d expect from powerful aristocrats that ruled huge pieces of entire galaxies.
“No, but the world they came from was quite resource deprived and the worlds they tamed and conquered took many centuries to elevate to what they are now. They were considered the Galactic wilderness. I believe Kronos and Zeus suffered from some many of neurosis from that long ago era.” Teal’c shrugged. “It matters not why, in the end my parents and my sister were left to wander..My sister needed a Prim’tah but by the time they could scrounge up enough to obtain one on the black market…Prim’tah are heavily regulated. If a Jaffa serves not a Peer nor the Imperial bureaucracy, then obtaining one is impossible and death is all but assured for their children. It is how they keep Jaffa from attempting to become warlords out in the uncharted territories or in space not claimed by the Imperium and how they keep the lesser races of Goa’uld from being used like chattel..Except for by the Peers I suppose.”
Fair, she thought, if Jaffa could just access replacement Symbiotes for their own offspring whenever they wanted, there was no reason for them not to go do what the Sebacean people did she supposed. And, whether she liked it or not, Goa’uld were sentient beings and the manner in which the Peers oppressed their less evolved cousins and used them to enhance the Jaffa was terrible. The Jaffa might not have been slaves, but they certainly had a sword of Damocles over their heads as did the Goa’uld themselves. -I can give them that at least- Carter thought bitterly, the sword that hung over the lowliest soldier hung over their “Gods” as well, it took balls to be a member of the elite and willingly point a gun at yourself to earn loyalty however twisted...
Her own national leaders hadn’t taken risks like that in decades. “I take it..the Symbiote wasn’t?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Too primitive and she was too ill. Agents of Apophis eventually found us, my father was made a Prime and given estates on Chulak and I was given over to Bra’tac to act as his personal..hmm..I suppose Squire or Page is the closest analogue in your language and cultures that comes to mind. My mother was a Priestess of the Imperial religion, a lore master and she came with us and was placed beside Shaun’ac as her aide and representative of the clerics of Apophis on Dakkara.”
“Sounds generous” Carter murmured; she was sporting that sleepy look she got when she was intensely focused on someone talking. Teal’c was surprised none of this bored her or was unsatisfactory. Jackson and Carter were both very young and the very young do not always enjoy hearing an autobiography however brief. “Lord Apophis was generous.” Teal’c conceded. “He wanted to tap my father’s talent and I believe part of him an echo of the hero he was once was impressed with his honesty. He also hated Kronos and viewed his humiliation over the scandal to be justice.”
Teal’c swallowed. “They died the day of the Titan’s rebellion. I was on Dakkara with Bra’tac attending him as he dueled Herakles. My father and mother were called aboard Ra’s pleasure barge, for her intended to hold court as he departed on one of his Imperial progresses. Lord Apophis did not attend. Nor any of the House of Aether, in hindsight perhaps that should have alerted Ra. As it was, the Countess Izanami requested they delay for a tea ceremony. Ra was far too annoyed and Sek’Het I believe did not alert the Jaffa aboard his palace of light….the pleasure barge. That fact saved their lives..Kronos had a bomb planted in the engineering section of the vessel, its powerplant. I remember seeing it, Iwnw’s top tower burned. My parents were murdered…” He let out a warm breath which steamed in the cool night air. It had been a long time since he’d told anyone that story. “I was twelve years old.”
“I remember too.” Carter whispered. “I was five..I don’t remember the details like that only that..Grandpa took me to work that day. The Pentagon was so big, I was so excited to see it. I was with his secretary Miss Jenkins, she was sweet…She gave me candy. I remember being really happy because I hadn’t seen my Daddy or mom in a month, I think…I just. All of a sudden there was noise, so much noise…” She looked up at Teal’c sadly. “The terror attacks in 2001, you know the sad part? I can’t remember if my mom was on the plane when it hit or my dad..But one of them was at work in the building with grandpa and the other was.” She stopped herself and sighed. “They talk about me like I’m a firebug, an arsonist, but I’m not. Fire isn’t an old friend…It’s a vicious animal that..That kills your family in broad daylight.” Carter looked like she was about to bolt from her seated position, but she remained. “When my grandfather died, it was all I had left.”
“That is no longer correct Doctor Carter.” If it was correct at all, had not Jacob Carter more children? Did she not have a great many cousins? Human filial relations confounded the Jaffa sometimes. He set a hand on her shoulder and felt Carter’s hair brush up against his forearm as she leaned against him. “Stupid..old..man.” she whispered in a grateful voice, evidently crying. Teal’c smiled but said nothing, allowing them a moment of silence for those whom they both loved that had left them behind.
“Thanks, Teal’c.”
“For?”
“Nothing.”
He was content to stand there with his comrade until the sun rose, but at that moment a series of horns broke the silence of the night and at the city’s edge Teal’c espied a series of what looked like pulse flashes.
Carter stood.
“They’re here.”
It was time to repel the enemy, to strike a first blow for Tau’Ri and for Teal’c to finish what his family started years ago.
Last edited:
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
on another note can I nominate that the first UK battleship bare either the name warspite or dreadnought?
Hell yes you can!
Dreadnaught..Musashi.
And I need a name for a Taiwanese Ship..
And I need a name for a Taiwanese Ship..
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Sun Yat-sen.
I will eventually ask you guys who should be in on the international coalition and I want your insights there.
But 2021 is gonna be...explosive so I'll hold off on that til we near the end of season 1.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
definitely most of the G20 for sure
Yeah, I expect the G20 to eventually become full partners in the United State's expeditionary endeavors.
Well, the post February G20 any way...Without spoiling too much the world order is about to change, considerably.
Dreadnought would probably be the one they go with, that was their first nuclear submarine, so it would be a good fit for their first combat capable spaceship.
Only complication is if they don't mind using their new SSBN, also named Dreadnought, as cover.
Would that make it easier to hide?