Stargate Through the Looking Glass and into Heaven.

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

New Update Leanan creeps out O'Neill, Nefreyu tells his mom to chill and we get a bit of the backstory of the Nox and its about as horrifying as you'd expect.

Jack trying real hard not to use the Next Generation weapons @bullethead described so brilliantly right about now.

Avalon:

“So, you guys invented Gaelic?” O’Neill asked the woman as they walked across a bridge that seemed to grow out of ground, springing up from the lake clear as crystal and nearly completely transparent. The architecture of it was simple, pilings, flooring and a guard rail. It wasn’t until Jack saw the end of the bridge which he realized was being held up by two massive gargoyle like monstrosities that seemed to stand vigil leering out at prospective newcomers as they supported the weight of the bridge.

“No, no.” Leanan waved off Jack’s assumption. “We don’t really speak a language amongst ourselves, at least not anymore. We developed the spoken word to communicate with the First Asgard and Fyryns. The forefathers of what you know as the Ori and Alterans as well, I suppose though they communicated with us through mathematics I believe. That was a long time ago, way before I was born any way. Which is saying something since I’m about a half million of your years old.”

“Damn” Jack muttered. “You don’t look it.”

“Oh, you’re sweet. Thank you!”

Damn, the tone of her voice was unsettling.

“I suppose your son’s as old as Ra was or something?” O’Neill asked somewhat amused. The woman smirked at him almost impishly “Hah! No, he’s about twenty Earth years old. He’s why my grandfather thought it best to move Avalon here, my people had a bunch of kids, and it was the first time since I was born so he thought it would be a good idea for us to guide the new generation and for them to gain experience in a new environment.” Though, where Avalon was originally was a subject, she wouldn’t speak on. The ease with which she spoke his language continued to bother him and he broached the topic, asking her how they learned Gaelic then.

“Well, originally I spoke caveman, my aunt Medb helped them raise the stones you guys associated with druids. But she departed earth when Ra came, she thought he would rob your people of their ambition and their imagination. She wasn’t entirely correct, I found that out when my mother and father visited Earth some five thousand years ago and then told me to come.” She shrugged, as if the idea of her just vacationing on earth was the most mundane thing in the world when it was upsetting everything, he knew about pre–Roman Britain, Scotland and Ireland or hell France and Spain for that matter.

“You guys make a habit of visiting us?” Jack asked, a slight edge to his voice. The creature, this princess of the Nox laughed and slid her left arm through O’Neill’s. “No, not all of us, but I do. I love your world, the dreams of human children be they Lotar or Tau’Ri fascinate my aunt and I, our grandfather as well. We tend to kindle imagination where we can find it in sentients, sometimes we..elevate one of the lower beings by making them one of us. But they’re almost always children.”

So, the stories about Fair Folk being child stealers wasn’t wrong, that was lovely. It was oddly phrased though, in a way that suggested she removed them from situations where their potential and maybe even their lives would have been wasted or come to a bad end. Still, whether it was rescuing kids from bad homes by abduction or not, it wasn’t exactly ethical. -robbing them of their human nature too, kinda defeats the purpose- he wondered. “...You...really do steal children? I should protest that with bullets”

She laughed, unconcerned with his threats, uncaring for the horrors of the implication. “Don’t worry Colonel, in the long history of visiting your world its only happen maybe a dozen times and only when the child has potential and only when they're in danger. I assure you; we don’t run around the moors at night pillaging the cottages of poor sheep herders who’ve no offering to leave at their doorsteps.” She tugged on his arm playfully and Jack realized they’d reached solid ground in time for the bridge and the gargoyles to vanish.

“So that’s how you learned Gaelic and then modern English? You visit our children when they sleep?” Jackson asked, a mix of alarm and wonder. This was disturbing, but the didn't think she was lying about how rare it was and the criteria for when they did it. Still, these were not people they needed to have a lot of involvement with, her casual admission was horrifying and seemed to make them just as much of a threat as the System Lords..Yet... They were too powerful to ignore and they had something the SGC wanted. -This is so dangerous-

She shrugged. “For the same reason we did it to the Ancients and to the Peers and why we lit the fires of wanderlust in the Asgard when they looked up the stars with crude instruments and asked what was out there and if there were things out there. Could they not benefit from the fires of civilization?” she paused detecting the discomfort in O’Neill and Jackson and the understanding in Carter’s eyes that seemed to galvanize something within her. “Colonel, the Ra you killed was a shade of the being I knew and loved as a friend. If you knew him was, he was long ago, you’d have seen the comparison for the compliment he was. You probably would have even liked him.”

“Can’t imagine that.” O’Neill murmured.

She smiled somewhat sadly. “Trust me Colonel, you didn’t kill him. You put him out of his misery.”

“Well, either way. We came here to ask if you’d be interested in the possibility of trade and or of an alliance.” Carter put in, trying to shift the conversation away from a topic that neither man wanted to really entertain at the moment.

The lady of Avalon smiled at Carter, but the look in the alien woman’s eyes caused Sam to reflexively take a step back. “Oh, you would bargain with us?” she responded in that same lyrical voice, but there was something utterly inhuman about it that made the young woman’s blood run cold. “You aren’t at a level where you could be of any value to us in terms of a political or military alliance. As to the other thing, we’ve already established something of a trade relationship, haven’t we?”

Dreams, Children.

O’Neill suddenly felt like he’d led his men into a trap, and he pulled himself from Leanan and stepped back, only to end up flipping her the bird when the “woman” erupted in laughter. “I’m kidding!! Look if you guys want to rummage through our forests for medicinal herbs or explore our mountains and caves of Naquadah veins, none of us would object to it. We would only ask that you don’t turn our valleys into something like las medulas when the Romans ran it or what have you. There’s also a great platinum deposit I can have my son show you, again I would only ask that you not wreck our backyard.” She paused, stopping herself in mid conversation her mind wandering. “Well, I suppose that wouldn’t be a trade agreement perse, more an agreement. We would ask for something in return, but I won’t tell you what it is yet, not for awhile at least. And I'll suppose you'll want us to stop picking up lost boys, I'll agree to a fifty year cessation at least!” She nodded as if satisfied then craned her head. “Are you expecting company Colonel?”

“No, we were supposed to check in once every seventy-two hours, but I doubt it’s been that long.” O’Neill answered, still looking at her as though she were a nest of vipers and not an alien monarch. she was easy to like, easy to believe and that made her damn dangerous.

When the woman canted her head to the other side and then received a glare from Nefreyu who mouthed something unintelligible, but Jack guessed it was the fairy speak equivalent of “I told you so.”

“It’s been more than seventy-two hours, hasn’t it?” O’Neill asked.

“It has been, my apologies. But it seems your drone was joined by another, though the gate address was for Abydos not Tau’Ri.”.

Oh crap.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

We segue to Florida as Ellis and Statterfield yank Hammond's aid Petty Officer O'Neill off to visit a certain someone.

Florida Coast:

“Why are we in Florida to find a Canadian again Director?” Petty Officer Sandra O’Neill grumbled as a row of palm trees obscuring a vast beach and golden sands on one side and rows of McMansions on the other side. Nestled between Juno Beach and another upscale retirement area, the only sane member of the O’Neill family couldn’t even be sure this town had a name.

But there was one thing she was sure of. The seemingly gauche town was filled with former spooks, retired mobsters and engineers and “consultants” for the defense industry. One had to look at the sort of cars that were parked in every yard, behind the same iron gates. Or the same kind of vapid playboys that were out on the beaches, young adults and teenagers who were born into the kind of unearned wealth only people affiliated with the bureaucracy of the American Intelligence apparatus or its byzantine civilian counterpart could attain.

“Because this is where he was put when he went off the rails Sandy.” The tone was lyrical and there was a touch of a bayou born swamp runner’s accent that years spent commanding a carrier group or walking through the halls of the Pentagon or the Capitol building never could quite erase. Abraham Ellis had retired officially from the Space Force and assumed his (rightful in the eyes of many) place as the director of Project Constellation and was the first director of the newly created home world Security. Positions that Ellis was hesitant to accept, believing he was too old (His eldest son Abe Ellis the second was a Captain on a carrier and Abe’s son Abraham the third was a newly minted Petty Officer in Space Force for gods sakes) to fill. The President had other ideas though and after a lengthy conversation the wheeler and dealer in chief managed to convince Abe to serve his country for another five years, helping them in this time of crisis to build up the infrastructure that would hopefully make Earth a power one day a century or more from now.

And so here he was, with Admiral Hammond and Jack O’Neill on one last adventure. Or in this case, with Sandra O’Neill Hammond’s “Aide de mountain” and a small security detail looking for a guy in an upscale Florida lunatic asylum.

O’Neill’s whistle broke him out of his introspection, however. “He must have been a huge deal if you put him in a place like this.”

“Your sister would hit you for not knowing who this guy is.” A second voice from the back remarked. Kim Statterfield had come along for this jaunt, she hadn’t seen Meredith in almost fifteen years and while almost everyone struggled to put up with his eccentricity back in the day, she’d taken a liking to him off the bat. “And your father would shoot me for this.”

“Oh, he got on Dad’s nerves?”

Kim and Ellis both shared a look that suggested her father probably still dreamt about shoving this guy in a stump grinder. “Any way, he did a lot of the calculations for Constellation. His work was, you might say integral to certain key areas of the project. Plus Carter based a lot of her research on his work” Namely, without his theories on hyperspace, the Arizona would just be a really expensive battleship looking model.

“So, you put him up in a nice crazy house when he snapped…Why did he snap and are you sure he’s still useful to us sir?” Sandra asked.

The old Admiral laughed “Girl, you’ve gotten quite mouthy since I stepped out of uniform.”

Sandra smiled warmly at the old man. “Only because I respect you so much sir.”

Like father, like daughter Abe thought. “He’s the smartest human being in his field, with the exception of Doctor Carter and maybe your sister.”

Sandra beamed with pride.

They pulled up to the august facility that loomed over a brackwish water lake that was fed by a creek and by an artificial bay. The smell of mangroves, seabirds and schizophrenia filled Sandra’s nostrils as the group made their way towards the entrance of the facility that reminded her of the architecture she saw in Southern Spain. “This place looks like a pink copy of the Alhambra.”

“I think it is.” Kim said, regretting her choice in wearing black in the Florida sun. “Any idea what to expect in here Abe? It’s been a while; do we even know where his head is at?”

“Can’t be worse than before.” Ellis remarked.

They were led down a series of hallways by an overly friendly receptionist and eventually out of a door near the park. Down a path that was far too pleasant and flowery to have a positive impact on anyone’s mental health and to a large cottage where the object of their quest evidently was confined. “He’ll be glad to see you, he hasn’t had any visitors in five years.” Their guidet said in that pleasant, patronizing tone Sandra came to hate from head shrinks those who worked for and with them. A door opened and an exasperated guard built like freight train who was a green beret in another life told their guide that “The Good Doctor was on one of his math spazzes again.”

Sandra wasn’t sure what she was prepared for but when the shout of “YO, RODNEY WE GOT GUESTS” came out and a dude wearing a silk bathrobe, whose face and hands were covered in calculations (Did he run out of space on the walls and floors and with paper? Why didn’t he use a computer or a tablet or a laptop like any normal crazy person?) and a mess of Einstein like hair that rose almost like a fan that accentuated his impressive widows peak and rather formidable forehead. He gazed at everyone present, as if he was looking through them until he seemed to recognize something in the spot on the wall he was gazing at. “Admiral Ellis! Statterfield?! Why are you here…wait..why are you out of uniform? Did you retire? Of course you retired, you’re what? Eighty?”

“Seventy five Rodney.”

“I knew that! I was just checking to see if you had dementia, how’s Misses Ellis?”

“She’s fine Rodney, she sends you, her regards.” Ellis said in a patient, grandfatherly voice that sounded almost strained. “How are you doing?”

“Whose this!” He yelled rounding on Sandra, looking the raven haired girl up and down. “Hmm, facial structure reminds me of Jack and Sara..But your hair color is all wrong. I take it you’re not a caveman like your dad?!”

“umm..How’d you..wait…HEY! My father isn’t a cave man..” He was twitching, running his fingers along the lapel of his robe and mumbling to himself, pacing in a circle.

“Yes, he is! But he’s a damn smart one, yup definitely an O’Neill.” He turned to Ellis and Statterifled now, seeming to grow more agitated, agitated enough the Guard gestured for an orderly that was sitting in the TV room. Only to wave him off when Rodney calmed down and gazed at Ellis with a look of awe and excitement. “I was right…That’s why you’re here.”

Ellis smiled, he might have gone crazier, but he was still as perceptive as ever and as fast as ever. “Sorry I lied to you Rodney..”

He nodded. “You should be sorry, you’d be having this conversation with me from Alpha Centauri if you clued me in and I wouldn’t be here. Why are you here? Wait shut up…I need to know if this is a hallucination…How do I know you aren’t a delusion.”

“They’re not a hallucination Rodney” The human freight train said in an exhausted tone.

“That’s just what a hallucination would say!”

“Meredith..” Ellis piped in.

“HEY!” the lunatic paused, blinked then seemed to sag with relief. “Oh good…you’re not a hallucination, my hallucinations never call me that.”

“Good Rod..wait..what?” Kim blurted out.

“Nothing, nothing..now, you’re twenty years behind where you should be, well actually you should be fifty years behind, but I heard you tapped Carter, she’s good, for a place holder but.”

“Rodney.” Ellis said with a bit more firmness in his tone mixed with relief that Mccay wasn’t completely blitzed and crazy.

“Not now Admiral..we have to get to work!”

Ellis let out a deep chuckle. You don’t know the half of it my boy, you don’t know the half of it.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Rangers Lead the Way

“I’m never gonna get used to that.” Colonel Shepherd muttered, as he stepped onto grass on another world. Above them the two drones began their descent towards the group of twenty Abydonian Militia members and five of Captain Lorne’s men and the four members the Stellar Rangers Stargate Recon group. -They have me out here rescuing people who might not need rescuing- Shepherd thought, not that he minded it. Training a bunch of kids to makeup the first generation of a new incarnation of the Army Rangers was a lot more boring than it was prestigious and Shepherd didn’t care much for the accolades this would net him down the line. He never wanted to be a Colonel and the Generalship that was probably waiting for him in a couple years meant he’d be riding a damn desk supervising the new division within Space Force and he had very little interest in that.

In his group was a kid about nineteen, Alexis Osorio, named after an aunt who had ironically been part of the first Abydos Mission. There were a bunch of them on base, Alex had an enormous family and it had been one of those weird idiosyncrasies of the Space Force that the SGC was crawling with either Colombian Tomboys or Great Lakes Irish trash talkers. Shepherd was the only member of his family since the American Civil War who had served in the military. The Shepherds were always too busy amassing fortunes or playing politics to get their hands dirty to do something selfless he supposed. Prior to that, though? There had been a Shepherd in every incarnation of the Rangers since the French and Indian war.

Already some of his rangers were telling jokes about gnomes and moth men and other weird creatures supposedly seen in woods as deep as the one that loomed on the horizon like a mountain range. Lorne’s men, who were older, combat veterans were rolling their eyes and giving Shepherd a look that suggested they wanted to do things to him his rank prevented them from doing for the sin of saddling them with a bunch of children. Shepherd glared back, they might have been kids, but they were his kids. “Let’s set up basecamp away from that forest, or at its edge. I don’t like the look of those trees.”

One of the Abydonians, their second in command muttered “Shama” which was their version of the Ja’ma! That doubled as a “holy crap” for Teal’c. “Are the forests of your home world like this as well Colonel Sheperd?” he asked. Aref was a youth of twenty who’d been part of Skara’s rebels as a boy and had risen through the ranks of Ferretti’s militia. “Mostly, Commander. Though those weird copper and silver colored trees don’t exist on Earth, err Tau’Ri. I grew up in the Appalachians, there are huge ancient forests all along that mountain range. But the trees here remind me more of the Redwoods and sequoias in California, a state on our western coast. Trees there grow as tall as Nagada’s inner walls.”

“Remarkable.” The Captain of the Militia unit, an older man named Saresh muttered. He was the brother of one of the timber masters, who cultivated the forests some hundred miles from Nagada and logged them. As it was in the US at the dawn of the American revolution, the Abydonian militias were filled with wealthy and poor alike. All willing to fight to defend their home as brothers and sisters, irrespective of class. “The largest trees I’ve ever seen seldom top fifty of your feet, I could build entire villages with just two of those great moss riddled towers I see on the western hills.”

“Right, which is why I want us in the shadow of the woods, but not inside them, forests this dense back home tend to have predators that hunt at night. Not that we can ignore them, Colonel O’Neill and his boys are in there somewhere…Still want an eight-man rotation for the watch.”

Saresh nodded. “It shall be done Colonel Sheperd.” He knew enough about the type of ambush predators that plagued the Abydonian sands and his own meager forests not to make any assumptions out here.

Especially when the Drones landed and the one belonging to SG-1 was heavily scuffed up and missing one of its blades.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Aannndddd it's time for some action

@Spartan303 @Harlock @bullethead

The difference in fight doctrine between the different System Lords is getting a little love here.

To everyone else, I hope I didn't cock up the fight scene.

..........

The Hunt.

John Shepherd had to admit having an alien lumberjack and a crew of eager kids willing to please worked out remarkably well. They’d managed to create a makeshift wooden fence, nothing too spectacular but enough to give them some protection and enough space for him to set up claymores and tripwires. The Abydonians had worked some of their rustic traps as well. Two somewhat shallow spiked pits and several snare traps that would hopefully slow down anything that came after them.

The Earth Drone was returned, and Shepherd briefed Hammond over radio on the situation, that SG-1 had likely wandered off into the woods and that there was no guarantee that they would be able to pick up their tracks given how much time had passed. He’d also explained the weird sensation the forest was producing and how his men reported seeing images of trees taller than the empire state building looming in the distance only for them to vanish just a fraction of a second later. There was something off here, powerful, and ancient and he knew that in his bones.

The Admiral wanted to mobilize and deploy another hundred troops and Kasuf offered to send a thousand men through the gate, such was their commitment to O’Neill and Jackson, but Shepherd shot that down. Whatever was out here, he had a feeling it was better to fight that on their own and not risk anyone else. While the Admiral reluctantly agreed, Kasuf still said he was going to send two hundred militia with enough cold war era ammo and weaponry that they’d be able to overthrow a third world country back home. Arming the Abydonian militia with a surplus of older stuff that had been stockpiled by the Space force but never used over the decades was probably one of Hammond’s better ideas and the Admiral had a lot of those.

The Abydonians learned fast too, what little experience Shepherd had with them was reinforced by Captain Lorne’s glowing reports. “Edwards.” Shepherd remarked causing the younger ranger to curse and step out of the shadows. “How do you do that sir?”

“Ya kinda develop eyes on the back of your head when in command.”

“Yes, you do.” Laughed Saresh who returned from his journey to the latrine and was coming through their makeshift gate. “Or when dealing with trees.” He added pulling the linen cloak he had about his shoulders tighter. The temperature was lower than they were used too, and he muttered a silent prayer to the stars that the two hundred should bring with them heaters. “I know wilderness, I believe you were right, there is something intelligent stirring these woods.” The question of what that something was, had been why he cautioned against Kasuf trying to send anymore men. If it was a false God, or something similar then Saresh was the first Abydonian to get the full measure of just how powerful such beings were.

“I can see why my forefathers worshipped the System Lords, this place is filled with power, competing power.”

Shepherd nodded, he’d wanted to fall back through the gate and ask for instructions, but the thought of leaving the Colonel and his men (And dread over having to explain why he abandoned a planet because he got the willies to the Admiral.) prevented it. “From what I read and what I’ve heard, Ra didn’t really show up except to smack you guys around though.”

Saresh nodded. “Precisely, a God has a duty to its worshippers as much as we do to it, that was one of Ra’s original commandments in the holy stories. “Bound in duty, spirit and tradition.” They said, perhaps Ra believed that once upon a time but I’ve no use for a God who exploits me. I’ve spoken to some of the aliens you rescued. Many of them share our view yet retain worship of other God’s in the old religion. I’ve often wondered if there are System Lords out there that are honorable.”

Shepherd raised an eyebrow; this had been a rather uncomfortable conversation for its implications about how faith worked for so many but also the possibility of burning an alliance that was so pivotal to their long-term survival. “Uhh…what would you?”

Saresh laughed. “No, rest assured, we know what they are now friend. It would less be worship and more an alliance with a greater power, any such alliance would necessitate that we honor our commitments to our greatest allies. After all, any of these other Gods are starting from the position of their supreme Godhead having broken his duties with us.”

Shepherd nodded, somewhat relieved. “I was worried for a second we’d have to leave Abydos..I.” His words were interrupted by a rustling in the trees that caused both men to divert their attention forward. Something was moving ahead of them, something large. The tree line seemed to rustle, and the smaller brush and ferns swayed against the wind. “Colonel, I believe we’ve company.”

“Might just be a local predator.” Sheperd responded raising his gun -These Nextgen toys better work.- “All the same.” A gesture was enough to get everyone awake into a battle-ready position as the night grew eerily quiet, the only sound being the breathing of his men and clicking noises of the few blaster staffs carried by Abydonians who preferred energy weapons to American led.

Again, there was rustling, then an odd wheeze, followed by a hiss and then a series of whistle like calls that almost sounded like an unholy cross between an elk and a peacock. “Hold…” Shepherd ordered.

They kept running around the perimeter, Shepherd realized, whatever they were. Massive enough that he could hear their footfalls when in a full charge and see them stopping just short of trip wire. -Should have brought “Should have asked them to send with an RWS..” Shepherd grumbled; the Mountain had six but they’d been “borrowed” for one of the other missions. This felt wrong, they kept rushing, whistling, and wheezing in their weird vocalizations but always stopped short of the damned explosives as if.

Suddenly the night erupted in orange and yellow as one of Shepherd’s little welcome mats went off. Fire shot out in a sphere and there were a series of loud whistles and then a growl that sounded like a lion if a lion had been the size of the shire horses his kid sister bred. It was low, deep, filled with outrage and Shepherd felt it in his bones. One of the Abydonians fired an old M16 and the muzzle flash broke like a sequence of mini sunrises in the dark. Something was hit in the dark, he could see the spark as led bounced off armor and he could hear grunts of annoyance and what sounded like “fuck.” In space Egyptian filtered through some kind of electronics. “Confirmed hostiles!”

There was a flash of red and purple as an energy bolt tore through the air from the tree line and hit another trip wire. Shepherd turned to fire, only for Saresh to grab him and throw him to the ground just in time for a massive figure to appear in view. It was huge, golden and blood red feathers, a wingspan that had to be at least thirty feet and talons as long as bayonets tore into the Abydonian’s back and pulled.

Shepherd heard a sick ripping sound as if wet cloth had been torn from a great amount of stress and he realized that the giant bird, an eagle larger than anything he thought possible had ripped out the lower half of Saresh’s spine and his hips. Before it took off into the air again, fleeing from a battery of fire from blood mad Abydonians and hardened army rangers. The bird was not at all happy, seeing as it dropped its prize directly onto the head of Corporal Billy Sanchez who was stunned by the impact and briefly knocked onto the ground. He heard a scream and realized that Billy was covered in a golden mass and Shepherd pushed the remains of the Abydonian commander off and rose, taking in the full measure of the enormous bird who he noted, had feathers which seemed to be, almost partially metallic. -What kind of weird genetic engineering? - He didn’t stop to think, instead opening fire into the back of the creature who was busy ripping Billy in half. Again, the bird didn’t seem to like it because it ripped Billy’s chest open and whirled around its head spitting out a heart that landed on Sheperd’s boot.

No, fuck this.

He pulled his rifle, calmly aimed at the bird, which was glaring at him, daring him to shoot.

And by some miracle blew its eye out and must have taken a chunk of its pea brain with it because the beast screeched in agony and tried to take off only to collapse violently, falling on top of Billy and pinning a private named Rogers with its massive head, its beak digging into his thigh. Sheperd and several of his remaining rangers circled the corpse, Rogers’ screams providing a ghoulish soundtrack to the gathering of the militia and the Rangers. Between the groups, there’d been twenty-eight of them and in what felt like a minute they were down to twenty-two.

Edwards was next to him lining up a Jaffa with a lion helmet in his sights. Two quick shots and it fell back into the tree line and took a shot, returning fire and incinerating a post near them causing wooden splinters to rip into shepherd’s shoulder and launch into Edward’s face. To his credit the kid only cursed and muttered something about damn splinters even though one clearly penetrated his cheek. “How many of them?!”

“I count three.” Responded an Abydonian “They slaughtered our men like animals!” the youth cursed. -prey, like prey-Shepherd thought. These guys were good, even by the standards Teal’c had set out. -Only three, so we can take ‘em and take ‘em easy so why are they attacking us?- The animals, he thought but they’d just killed one of their big birds. The wheezing and hooting seemed to pick up again and it rose slowly, steadily growing in pitch until it became so loud that he felt dizzy.

An Abydonian threw down his weapon and screamed, his compatriot forcing it back into his hands and telling him to hold firm and show no fear. “These things, these animals, they’re cyborgs.” Shepherd roared over the auditory assault. Doing his best to stay conscious by staying focused. “That bird’s feathers looked semi metallic and whatever is out there probably has some kind of enhancement.” O’Neill was right about their civilization being like something out of an old sword and planet book. It reminded him of the John Carter art famed artist and cover illustrator Frank Frazetta did. “Fire for the eyes, the mouth, any ear holes you can find…Hit the damn Jaffa until they stop coming. There’s only three of them!”

All went quiet, then and the silence was deafening.

Deafening to the point where it disoriented and blurred his vision.

They came in that moment between stupification and alarm that they came. Six in total, each one roughly fifteen feet long and six feet high, charging in a gallop in a way no lizard should. Or at least that’s what they looked like to shepherd, six Komodo Dragons the size of a saltwater crocodile that ran like the hunting hounds the Ellis family bred that could keep pace with horses when they felt so inclined. He’d never seen anything like them either, they were a deep black and marbled with scales that alternated between a dark burgundy and an onyx that almost made them look like living stone. If one hadn’t just bit into the leg of one of Lorne’s men and hurled him teen feet across the wooden fort and into a pile of firewood John Shepherd would have found them beautiful. To everyone’s credit they fired, even though most were so affected by the sonic attack that they could barely function. Bullets and energy bolts raced through the air, smashing into the scales (and armor! Damn things had armor!), seemingly little damage was done at first but it had been enough to cause the group of wyrms to back the hell off.

Which turned out to be a faint because the Jaffa darted in, firing with their Zat guns and downing several Abydonians before one took a nasty blast to the thigh and was sent sprawling. The next Gen weaponry was acquitting itself well however as the RM-277-R’s were doing a much better job penetrating the enemy’s armor and hides than the weapons the Abydonians used. It wasn’t always enough against the damn lizards, who killed one of his men and pulverized an Abydonian with a tale whip, but it had been enough to drive them back yet again and add injury to an already wounded Jaffa.

“Hold your fire on the Jaffa, I want him al-“A shrill caw broke the night and both Jaffa and Lizard fell back as yet another giant ass bird swept down and raked its legs through a group of Abydonians before flying off again. In the ten seconds it took them to regather, dust themselves off and climb back up again (while returning fire) one of the lizards made a go at them, grabbing one and stomping on a second, causing bones to crunch in such a fashion that shepherd heard it. “Bastards know they’re outnumbered, so they’re trying to mindscrew us and body us in the chaos.”

“We will not allow it!” An Abydonian who Shepherd didn’t recognize opened fire a pair of lizards that were barreling towards them. He fired and Shepherd and his men rounded, joining in on the fire with a battle cry of their own to match the howling, wheezing fury of the lizards. To their credit the armor and their scales held up to the combined fire of his next gen rifle, a bunch of older weapons and a staff gun before the head of one finally exploded and the shoulder’s of the second sagged as the corpse crumbled into the dirt before them causing the remaining one to stumble, its throat and chest tearing open as it crashed into the group of allies, sending people flying and a collage of claws and teeth Shepherd’s way. The world went black and when he came to, he spat out dirt and blood and jerked only to feel something press against his shoulder. His breath was ragged, fabric had been torn but thankfully nothing was punctured as far as tissue went. A clawed hand imbedded into the soil held one of his arms in place above his head and the lifeless jaws of one of the lizards rested around his chest. -Damn, damn, need to be careful, it could bite down on me on reflex-.

Oddly the battle had died down, he couldn’t hear the sucking slash hissing noise that their energy weapons loosed, nor the sound of automatic weapon fire. Only the wheezing of the remaining lizards and screeching of birds overhead and the chatter of three annoyed Jaffa. -How long was I out?- Shepherd wanted to move but he remained silent and motionless now, looking up at the birds circling overhead. Other voices joined in, he could hear the profanity laced tirade of Osorio and someone who might have been Montez mutter something about a freaky lion guy. There were slight moans accompanied by a piercing noise and it took Shepherd a second to realize they were performing a medieval version of triage, walking the battlefield and killing anyone too injured to be saved immediately. His blood boiled, more so when he saw the figure doing the mercy killing. She spoke something that might have sounded like a cross between Space Egyptian and something that sounded like Greek to him, or perhaps it was just what Teal’c said was the local dialects and offshoot languages spoken by citizens and subjects of the different domains of the Empire (or Imperial Standard in a really bad accent, Shepherd couldn’t be sure.), she was tall about six nine and had long silky platinum blond hair and pale skin that had an odd natural gloss to it that looked almost purple and shiny copper colored eyes and looked as if she couldn’t have been more than sixteen. -They’re using kids to do their disposal work-Shepherd thought disgusted. -Don’t find me, I don’t want to have to shoot you kid-. He held his pistol close, the girl crumbled and moved over to his location grumbling as she set aside her staff (which ended on a blade point that she was using to kill the dying.) Gripping the snout of the dead lizard she wrenched it aside with a grunt of effort and began to curse as it partially spilled over onto her and hit her thigh hard enough that it would have broken a normal human’s leg. She kicked it in frustration which seemed to make the other’s laugh, including the one who’d been shot who was leaning on his own staff and looked to be healing rather well. Damn snake boosters…The Goa’uld so easily enslaved their own kind yet enforced rigid social norms on their Jaffa while venerating them as trusted warriors, it was such an oddly contradictory society, yet he was starting to see why it worked.

At least, in terms of the “military crop” it yielded.

The girl seemed to notice that he was alive and sighed and reached down to slap his cheek gripping his jaw like a vice “Eart..mon…TAU’RI…you..lie?”

“Live” Shepherd muttered.

The girl shrugged “No..care..learn your..lanwaj..because..Shaun’ac make me, Yinglez stupid…lanwaj”

Shaun’ac? Was this one a possible ally? Or just a student and why the hell was a Jaffa priestess on a combat detail? What the hell had they stumbled into? He reached for his gun and pulled it but she slapped it away and wrenched him up “Hassak Tau’Ri!” she sneered and Shepherd grinned and mouthed “Get bent little girl.” Armed with his best no damns given smirk he launched a blow to her face and managed to get to his feet and stumble away from her while she was reeling more from the surprise than the force of the blow.

She laughed and pulled a knife.

One of the lizards moved.

“KREEE!”

Everything stopped and Shepherd found himself looking at the silhouette of what could only be described as a hairless ape that walked upright like a man. It’s eyes; a dark orange, a pug nose and an almost baboon like “snout” short but with pronounced canines. Sloping brows and overlong arms and relatively short legs, each bulging with muscles that were barely contained in the orange armor he wore. Shepherd strained in the dark, thinking at first that it was one of those fancy shape shifting helmets but no that was his actual face! Those eyes as well, unnatural in color didn’t seem to harbor any malice (Which Shepherd didn’t expect given how they attacked his men.) merely a sense of outrage mixed with curiosity and concern. Concern for what? What the hell could this beast man be nervous about? His shoulders looked like mountains and the neck that weird ape like head rested on might as well have been a tree trunk. His head was covered in a hood made from the head of a gigantic blood red lion whose pelt fell about those immense shoulders and back like a cape. The rest covered his armor, and it made Shepherd remember an old cartoon he watched as a kid, Fire and Ice or something. The man before him looked like a caricature of a caveman out of that movie and Shepherd laughed. ‘The anthropology boys were wrong about Neanderthals looking like us.”

Assuming the thing this snake had taken as a host was from earth at all any way.

The teenaged assassin backed off and sheathed her blade and bowed her head muttering something Shepherd assumed was an apology only for the creature to laugh it off and reach down to pat something.

That was when Shepherd realized the mount this thing was sitting on (How the hell did he not notice a damn giant alien mount before?!) wasn’t some genetically engineered descendant of a horse or one of those weird cyborg lizards but some kind of big cat. Maybe a lion, given how it was currently licking one of the Jaffa in recognition and seemed to be rather social. But was huge, twice the size of the lizards who cowered at its presence, its fangs were some sixteen inches long and its broad chest might be covered in a plate of what may as well have been starship armor pulled off what Teal’c called a death glider for how heavy it looked (Not that the cat was struggling.) The beast looked at him, sniffed the air and its eyes glowed Great, it’s got one of those “lesser” snakes Teal’c was talking about during the briefing as its pilot- damn that thing was huge.

This was ridiculous.

The battle lion growled softly at him and Sheperd laughed. “Oh for God sakes…Agree to Admiral Hammond’s terms, go see other planets, you probably won’t even have to fight serpent men…it’ll be a once in a life time experience..Yeah good job John, now you’re a character in an old hair metal album.”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

A little bit of a preview of dialog to come and to let you gents know I'm still alive!

Herakles and Sheppard begin their parley....Yes chapter title is a bit of a pun..I'm terrible

Any way, enjoy..

Parlay

“Still alive huh?” Montez looked bad, his face was a bloodied, purpled mess and his speech sounded slurred enough that Sheperd couldn’t tell if his jaw was broken or if Montez was staying silent to keep from revealing anything. An Abydonian was dragged over and toppled on the floor besides Montez, it seemed that most of the survivors were being tended to by the two remaining Jaffa or allowed to tend to others. Rogers was in a corner with a silver and purple patch on his leg wound that seemed to be doing knitting or something below the surface given that he looked a little less pale as the seconds passed.

“Important artery in leg torn, is fatal to your kind without attention, yes?” The voice came from the female Jaffa that looked like a teen idol. The one who called him a Hass Act or whatever the hell that was. She sauntered between him and Montez and knelt down, showing him her back in an act of pure disrespect that made Shepherd want to laugh, this wasn’t an adult that happened to have a kid’s body. No soldier with even half a decade of experience would ever turn their back on an enemy no matter how incapacitated they were, not without cover. -Even if they’re super strong- John reminded himself. Montez began to jerk away as she reached up with her hands to cup his face. “No flail, stay still Hassak. Am helping..”

“Thought you hated our language.”

The girl nodded absent mindedly to Shepherd. “No run, or try and grab me, break this one’s neck if you do.” She’d be able to do it too, John realized, and he quickly eyed Montez with a glare, stopping whatever plan he had to spit in her face or headbutt him.

“Aren’t you going to execute us any way?” he asked lazily, his voice at odds with how he felt.

The girl shrugged. “First Prime Herakles, make that call. If up to me, send you back through gate, with warning to other Tau’Ri not meddle in our affairs or we blow up planet. Prince Horus say you terrorist and criminal. Herakles say not sure, Lord Zeus say not care one way or other. Say he not care what Tau’Ri does so long as Tau’Ri not interfere with Imperial affairs or come unwelcomed to his domain.”

-She’s being way too forthcoming, either Herc plans to kill us, or he’s got something else in mind. Interesting though, there’s no talk of law only what they wanna do. We were not put on a wanted list?- He hoped he wasn’t executed so he could run this by the big guy, he knew System Lords were almost countries unto themselves but that they had laws and a central authority (Their Emperor/Empress.) that even they were bound to obey and according to Teal’c the fate of the SGC was tied up in those macro laws which had been silent as they hadn’t known until recently. -Jury’s still out on us I guess-.

“Unwelcomed?” John Shepherd raised an eyebrow. That was also, a rather interesting way of phrasing things. “Are you saying we could be welcomed?”

She ignored him; she was applying some kind of slightly shimmering paste to Montez’s face. “This one, jaw out of place.” Before he could protest, she manually set it in place and the Tejano turned about as white as a ghost in a sheet the moment she pulled her hands away. “Small robots, tiny, in gel, fix injury. You cry like girl, I break legs, then fix.” She sneered, evidently one of the Abydonians howled like a banshee when she set his shoulder and she knocked him out to avoid hearing him bellow when she did the same to his hip. They were an odd people, killing the ones who were beyond saving the same way armies on earth did a thousand years ago, yet going out of their way to render what must have been state of the art aid to anyone who wasn’t on deaths door.

If he was an anthropologist, he would have been fascinated.

Too bad their war Eagle (He still couldn’t believe that existed.) ate his anthropologist. “Cry like girl huh?”

“That one back there, Sahjah or something. He cry like my baby sister.”

“Baby sister?” Shepherd asked, probing for information about her age. The girl rolled her eyes and stood up “I twenty-three of Lotar years, youngest in my post.” She boasted with a sense of pride, one Shepherd didn’t doubt was at least partially earned, still with how defense she was. He smiled “uh huh…Not because parents are Primes or something?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Hassak Tau’Ri.”

Struck a nerve there!

Laughter, deep and primal echoed behind them and then the sound of a groan of protestation as the massive lion moved into view. Evidently upset that all he was given to eat was a small slab of meat. The girl reflexively pulled a small cookie out of a pouch by her side and popped it into the creature’s enormous mouth while she muttered spoiled old brute affectionately in space Egyptian, or at least what Shepherd suspected meant that, their dialect was very different from Abydosi and he was still learning the language. The lion’s rider sat on remains of a series of wooden posts from basecamp. He too was eating what looked like the leg of a pig (If Pig’s had elephant like padded feet.), juices spilled down that odd snout like chin and he wiped them down with some silk before tossing the meat aside and gesturing towards the Abydonian whom Shepherd realized was Korla, the teenaged daughter of one of the City Masters who had been an Abydonian sharpshooter since she was twelve (What the hell was Ferretti doing training child soldiers damnit!). Herakles spoke, his deep basso voice lacked the eerie chorus of voices that signified they were dealing with a System Lord, but it was strong and his eyes glowed a faint blue.

Korla nodded then and looked to Shepherd weakly. The Jaffa girl interjected then “First Prime Herakles say, I speak for him, and she speak for you. Are these acceptable terms?”

“What if I tell her to tell Big Herc something disrespectful, like go screw yourself.”

Korla blanched and the Jaffa translated causing the living Frazetta painting to laugh loudly in a way that made it almost sound like a series of roars. Calming himself, he spoke to the Jaffa who rolled her eyes. “First Prime Herakles say, physically impossible.. Don’t stupid be, in the presence of Herakles son of Zeus out of Bastet may she know eternal peace, of the House of Aether. Of the race of the Peers, First Prime to the house of Aether, brother of Lady Athena, Mithras, Dionysus and Lord Appollo.”

“I am John Shepherd, son of Wayland Shepherd, grandson of William Allan Shepherd, Former Senator and Attorney General of the United States. Son of a founding house of my country.” He did his best to sound pretentious, making it every bit clear that he was mocking their airs by putting on some of his own as if ones pedigree mattered in a situation as absurd as this.

Evidently it did because Herakles nodded respectfully, making a gesture of reciprocity that got a mumbled “rich boy..sir...” Comment from Montez. Korla translated that and explained what an “Attorney General” and Senator was, which surprised Shepherd because he hadn’t expected Jackson to give the Abydonians civic lessons…which prompted to grumble and call himself a fool. Of course, he had, they were probably looking him and Louis for ideas on how to build their new government. To his credit Herakles seemed more impressed about the Attorney General post than he did about the Senator bit (Which revealed a little about how this one operated.). “I read the legend of Herakles growing up. It’s not a normal thing to meet a childhood hero much less get ambushed and attacked by one…” It was a gamble, trying to soften whatever blow that was coming by admitting that. Something suggested it would reach the beast man and that something was one of his hunches that usually were seventy, thirty in favor of being correct.

Please don’t let this be in the thirty percent

When this was translated Herakles sniffed and let out a grunt of incredulity, gazing intently at Shepherd for any falsehood only to find none. He spoke back in confusion and the Jaffa girl translated with a scrunched up look on her baby face. “ Herakles say that impossible, born eleven thousand years after Ra abandon Tau’Ri.” Oh really? Then how the hell did he exist in their stories? The look of bewilderment on Shepherd’s face matched Herakles until something glinted in his eyes and a smile crept over that ape like face before he continued.

“Herakles say, detail for later if there is later for your kind. Say, Prince Horus accuses Colonel Jack O’nyeir of murdering Emperor Ra, of terrorism. You not this O’nyeir but you serve him is it not so?”

Shepherd rolled his eyes, his knees shifting in the green grass as he tried to steady himself. He was tired, the night was long and as the adrenaline began to wear off the Ranger acutely felt every old wound, every battle scar and every ache from the fight that ended moments prior. Teal’c had mentioned they confused O’Neill for the First Prime of Earth’s combined military and Jack had never let them forget it! “He outranks me.” Shepherd grumbled in vexation “But he’s not my direct superior, the man who we both serve is Admiral Hammond of the United State’s Space Force Stellar Navy branch. “

As she translated this, Herakles left eyebrow rose and when the Jaffa touched her fingertips to her skull she asked if this was the Hammond of Texas John Shepherd raised an eyebrow of his own. “How the hell do you people know that?”

“Apophis share…son's..report.” Shepherd didn’t fail to notice the disgust that hung on that word nor how the response was only a partial truth. He closed his eyes and let out a breath, allowing the cool breeze that was blowing through the valley to steady his focus. Clearly, there was a lot more going on than even the absurdity of this little interrogation suggested. “Then it was Hammond of Texas who order Ra death?”

“No, the man in charge at the time General West of Virginia is dead, he left no such order to kill Ra because we assumed there was no intelligent life on Abydos. We went there, not even knowing about your empire with only the loosest of theories and a small amount of proof connected our two peoples. We didn’t know anything about your kind until Ra parked his starship on the first teams head!” Shepherd bit back, an exasperation in his tone that needed no translation. This was insane, he was on planet nine in another solar system being accused of plotting the assassination of a being he didn’t even know existed with a nuclear weapon?! It was preposterous.

“So, Herakles ask, why bring atomic weapon?”

“I don’t know why they did that, when I read the report, I thought it was stupid.” He paused, cringing at the fact that he just buried a former command officer in that fashion in front of the enemy -Get a hold of yourself John- “No one had any idea what was out there, because of that they wanted to bring an explosive powerful enough to destroy the Gate if all other options were exhausted.”

“If no idea what was out there, why bring one modified to carry Naquadah?”

“We didn’t!” Shepherd responded with vehemence that surprised both translators. “Ra put the damn naquawhatever in there, he enhanced it to that level, on its own that bomb was barely two kilotons.” Shepherd’s eyes narrowed when Herakles seemed to grunt in astonishment, scrutinizing his ape like face. -He knows this already, or suspects it at least.-, it was a realization that surprised him. There was a harshness to all of this but it had little to do with that happened to Ra and more to do with surprise at them being here at all, as if -We walked in on something that wasn’t supposed to be happening…And confirming this is just icing on the cake.-

Careful Johnny, the next few moments could either save your men or be the last of your life. “Colonel O’Neill!” Shepherd said emphasizing the last name and glaring daggers at the Jaffa for mispronouncing it. “And Doctor Daniel Jackson returned the bomb to sender because it was tampered with, they couldn’t turn it off. They couldn’t disarm the weapon, so they had two choices.”

“Let the bomb go off on Abydos, or in the vessel.” The Jaffa breathed, answering more for herself than her First Prime. “Shaun’ac was right…King Yu..Princess Isis..” If looks could kill, the gaze Herakles levied at her in that instant would have set her ablaze (And given some of these guys were psychic..). The giant leaned forward, grabbing Shepherd by the collar with one of his meaty hands, hefting him into the air, holding him high above the hero of Greece’s head. Moonlight dancing around him, illuminating the Imperial Champion and revealing a better look than he’d been able to get before. Those eyes, they were old eyes but not ancient, intense but not mindless, the eyes of a killer but not a murderer. “This..heavy..charge..you..lay..at..our liege’s feet.”

Ah, so you do speak a little American huh big guy? They were both playing dangerous games it seemed and Shepherd decided to go with his gut and push the proverbial buttons of God damn Hercules. “I thought an Emperor could do whatever he wanted?” Shepherd asked with a smirk which remained on his face until he realized Herakles had just released him and dropped him onto the grass as unceremoniously as possible. “Ra, never that kind of ruler..Tau’Ri, within a contested area of space, not ours, not Asgards, not anyones…Preemptive strikes only allowed against those already at war..Not at war are we Tau’Ri?”

“No.” He admitted, straightening himself out. “But you’re being awful truthful.”

Herakles shrugged “Prince Horus come back, either kill you all or let you go. If kill you all, Herakles lose nothing but if let you go?”

Shepherd slowly nodded “Then any…information you give me would be a debt?”

“And you pay Herakles back, Herakles owe you one and pay you back, then perhaps you ask for favor.”

“Careful First Prime, that sounds like the foundations of an alliance.” Shepherd cautioned.

Herakles laughed moving to scratch his lion behind the ears. “Or entertaining conversation before my prince kills you.”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

The Falcon and the Eagle

They had left Avalon after convincing Leanan to let them risk sneaking around Horus and Herakles to get to the gate (Hopefully) before Hammond sent anyone after them. She seemed all too eager to avoid bloodshed, but she wanted them to return whenever they wished to as she put it “Plunder my planet for resources.” Though she stressed that she also wouldn’t forbid the hunters from returning to this world should they choose to engage in another of their safaris. So long as they behaved themselves and abided by her simple rule that the peace be kept or else.

That, “or else” part probably intimidated Jack more than any other ultimatum he’d ever been given by anyone in his life. The finality in her voice was only matched by the sheer hostility in Ra’s when he let loose that psychic scream during the failed execution or the look of sheer bloodlust in the eyes of Apophis. When they got back, he was going to recommend that they avoid contact with the Nox, much as Daniel was right about them being a potential valuable ally. There was something dangerous about them that suggested they were better off acknowledged, respected and left alone. Those thoughts had been in the forefront of his mind when Teal’c suddenly gestured for them to be silent and get under cover. He noticed it a fraction of a second later, that there was movement up ahead. A Jaffa with the bird helmet.

Great, just great.

As the team edged closer, following the Jaffa they noticed him descend an embankment into an area of the forest that was slightly clearer.

There, between two small pines on a boulder sat a tall, shirtless man about thirty with long braided golden hair and biceps that had to be at least twenty-seven inches thick. His torso was covered in war paint, a gold band was around his head that looked like it was made from that metal that acted like cloth that the snakes seemed to love. He wore a cape made of the pelt of some kind of creature Teal’c said was descended from the cave bears of North America, only they were twenty feet tall when they reared up and so strong that they could actually beat down the personal shields that System Lords preferred to use.

Jackson explained that Prince Horus and Herakles were fond of killing those things with their hands if possible. Which prompted an “See! I told you, we needed pocket nukes on deployment!” from Doc Carter.

Ah Doc Carter, Sasha’s role model and someone Jack was starting to see like a psychotic kid sister despite the fact that she was barely thirty and he was, damnit he didn’t want to think about his fucking age right now..

Jack was must have been the only one here amused by the Prince of Falcons look outside of Daniel. The dark blue pants, the armored boots, the robotic hand and the brooding way he carried himself and his ridiculous physique was an interesting contrast to the sleek and lethal Apophis and to O’Neill conjured images of pro wrestlers from his youth.

If ol’Apophis reminded Colonel O’Neill of the king cobra he fashioned his symbol after, sleek, strong, powerful, and deadly in its speed. This maniac reminded him of Superstar Billy Graham or Hulk Hogan. One only needed to look at his eyes to realize how fatal mistaking him for a trash talking wrestler would be though.

There was an earnestness there, but fury and lethality.

The Jaffa began to speak up, the vocal filters that obscured their voice gone and to O’Neill it sounded like a kid who’d just gone through puberty. Teal’c had mentioned that sometimes the personal detail of the System Lords were reared from birth segregated from other Jaffa and trained to be fanatical body guards. Secret service agents, raised from birth to do nothing but protect and die for their Master. While Apophis snake fiend that he was, didn’t indulge in the practice it was obvious Horus had. “What are they saying?” O’Neill asked Jackson and Teal’c.

“He’s saying that Herakles captured a small force of Tau’Ri warriors and what appeared to be subjects of his mother’s domain acting in concrete.” Jackson said then blinked “Wait how do they know?”

“The accent.” Teal’c remarked. “Abydos has a very particular accent, it is possible some Jaffa old enough to have visited Abydos in centuries past recognized the accent from the security footage.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Carter hissed, annoyed their first priority was an ally and not earth. “They have some of our guys”

“Pastoral? What manner of low born name is that?” Daniel said, translating Horus’ scornful reaction to the name given.

Jack blinked -Pastoral? The hell? We have a guy named pasture on base. - Jack tried to search through his memory when Teal’c commented that he believed Horus said Shepherd.

God damnit John!

“Horus is greatly enraged that so many of our men were killed, evidently he wished not to commit any actions against Tau’Ri forces until he determined whether or not you acted alone O’Neill.” Teal’c translated the snapping hiss that was coming out of the tall pro wrestler looking Goa’uld as the Jaffa bowed his head attempting to mollify Horus’s anger.

“He’s also furious about the death of Abydonians since they’re technically his mother’s subjects and it makes no sense for them to be here.” Jackson said glaring at Carter who had the self-control to remain calm. “He’s really shocked about that; he’s ranting now about how nothing in regard to his father’s death makes any sense.”

Well, there was that at least. O’Neill thought, Teal’c was right about the prince of the snake men not a lunatic like Apophis. -I can work with sensible- he thought. “What’s he saying now?”

“The Jaffa is suggested they execute everyone no matter what as they’ve not enough men to take them back through the gates as prisoners and to do so even without calling for reinforcements would betray much.”

“So, this was a clandestine meeting?” Carter thought aloud, harkening back to a conversation she’d been having with Daniel in the background while Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c worked out the details of their strategic withdrawal with Leanan. She’d speculated that it was a secret meeting to discuss the upcoming political shitstorm Teal’c was always saying could come once it came time to choose Ra’s successor disguised as a safari.

There was a thunderous bang and Carter looked up in surprise, the suggestion (Which she thought was perfectly reasonable from their perspective and then felt a pang of guilt for entertaining that thought.), Horus back handed the Jaffa youth with such fury that sparks flew from his robotic hand and several segments of the helmet flew off and some kind of cooling fluid and sparks sprayed out as the youth spun in the air and crashed into the grass several feet from the prince who stalked over to the youth and wrenched him up by the shoulder bellowing something at him.

A youth she could see a bit clearer now, orange haired with pale skin and eyes an odd shade of metallic blue.

“Are we low born trash who would run around the galaxy doing as we please? Are we an empire of thugs who rule by fear? Or are we the keepers of the fires of civilization?” Daniel translated, somewhat surprised at just how indignant Horus sounded. “He’s nothing like his father Jack..I think we should go out there and try to reason with him.”

“Like hell” Carter growled. “Let me get close, I’ll do it.” She muttered tapping her rifle. “Besides, I’ve been itching to see if it’s possible to sever both heads at once.”

Teal’c raised an eyebrow and O’Neill glared at her “We’re not gonna butcher this guy, that’d start a god damn war Earth can’t win.” He paused for a second then narrowed his eyes. “But you’re not wrong, we need to do something.”

The youth admonished bowed asking to be exiled from his majesty’s presence for bringing dishonor upon his royal personage and on the mighty Jaffa race. Horus snorted and O’Neill didn’t need Daniel or Teal’c to translate what came next. “Let me guess, King of the Bird men is telling him he’s a fucking idiot, but a good natured one and he wouldn’t punish someone who was so duty minded?”

“Now that the lesson was learned, yes.” Teal’c confirmed.

“Jack, we really should try to reach him.” Jackson warned.

“He thinks the Colonel is a terrorist.” Carter responded in a hoarse whisper. “Horus will just kill him on sight...”

“Have you been paying attention?!” Jackson almost shouted.

“I have” Carter responded with a glare “More than you apparently, he didn’t say anything about the Colonel, except that he wanted to know if he acted alone or not. There’s nothing to suggest the rules of engagement he seems to hold himself by would apply to Colonel O’Neill!” There was a protective tension in her voice and a sense of concern in her eyes that Jackson wasn’t used to seeing in his fellow scientist. “And Teal’c?”

“If my death would prevent your world from being razed, I would gladly pay the price. However, I do not believe that is our fate. Daniel Jackson may be correct…Or perhaps we can devise a rescue plan.” Teal’c responded attempting to ease the tension.

“No one’s dying!” O’Neill groused out with a shake of his head. “God; you guys are melodramatic. Look, Teal’c would Herc be up for exchanging one prisoner of high value for a lot of prisoners of indeterminate value?” -And high value- Jack thought, but he wasn’t going to add that not unless it was needed to sweeten the deal.

“You propose taking Prince Horus hostage?” Teal’c asked with a raised eyebrow, his tone neutral. It wasn’t a foolish idea; it was in fact the only correct course at present short of showing up and hoping Prince Horus believed the lie that Leanan killed O’Neill and was still willing to talk after that. But it presented a problem, namely.

No one had ever done this before.

“Ransom is a concept certain feudal societies entertained, others like the Mongols not so much. At least not when it was a VIP like this.” Daniel cautioned. “Can it even be done? Teal’c didn’t exactly paint a rosy picture of what would happen if we threw down with Horus.” Ra was dangerous enough; he could have fried their brains if he had just calmed down but taking on someone who potentially had that ability who was also one of the most dangerous warriors in the known universe.

“There was a hostage negotiation policy written up at the dawn of the Imperium, but in all that time I do not believe it was ever put into practice.” Teal’c remarked causing O’Neill to gawk at him. “You mean in all that time, all those tens of thousands of years no one’s been able to abduct a System lord?”

“Not that I can recall, not since the early days of their rebellion against the Ori and in that instance the System Lord in question committed suicide and released a psychic pulse that killed everything capable of complex thought across an entire planet.”

“Lovely” Jack muttered.

“Teal’c, is Horus known for his mental powers?” Carter asked, her gray eyes were doing that odd gleam they did when she had a crazy idea and Teal’c suppressed a smile. “Indeed, not Doctor Carter, Horus like Apophis not fond of exercising his telepathic abilities. I do not know if he could retaliate against you as his parents can.”

O’Neill’s eyes darted towards the serpent men. Daniel translating the remainder of the conversation. Horus apparently ordered the guard to go reinforce Herakles and that he wished to wander the woods alone for a time to calm his rage and to contemplate on what to do with the Tau’Ri warriors. -Alone knowing there might be enemy troops in the woods?- Jack thought. “Let’s ambush him and get him.”

“It is a trap Colonel O’Neill.” Teal’c cautioned with a look in his eyes that suggested he was confounded that O’Neill would be so tactically illiterate. Jack rolled his eyes and turned to glare at Teal’c “Yeah, I kind of figured when he sauntered away..Either he thinks we’re idiots and will take easy bait.”

“Which we..evidently are.” Daniel put in.

“Or he believes none would be foolish enough to violate Leanan’s edicts.” Teal’c added with a hint of alarm in his voice..

“Which, we evidently are.”

“Assuming he even knows the Nox are here.” O’Neill corrected. “Either way, let’s do this smart. He’s expecting us to take the bait because he thinks he can take whoever’s out here alone. Let’s play to that..Make him wait.” O’Neill’s eyes darted to Carter “And you, try not to blast him into a million pieces alright?”

“Yessir.” Carter muttered gloomily.

Alright Jack, lead your men into the lion’s den against a guy who could probably pick his teeth with you.

All he was missing was a James Horner or Basil Poledouris soundtrack to make the insanity of the mission complete.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Neutral Space- Andromeda Galaxy

Drey’ac would never understand why so many fleet Captains throughout the Empire were dismissive of the Hyperspace relays when in her mind they were an invention on par with the Stargates themselves. The fact that they were an invention wholly of the Empire was an even bigger source of pride for her (And designing them allowed the Imperium’s technologists to figure out how to design different types of Stargates and how to update and modernize the Gate Network.). Her little fleet had crossed into another Galaxy half an hour ago. A seventeen-hour trek through hyperspace and a half an hour cooldown time for the engines when traveling distances as short as forty lightyears outside the network unless you wanted to risk destroying your jump drives. Subspace was a mess and the only other way to travel without making small jumps of a dozen lightyears or so followed by a cooldown period was the ludicrous Hetch Drive that the Sebaceans and Scarrens used (Before she destroyed their fleet and wiped out their shipyards any way. Did the Peacekeepers leave any left alive after she did that?) which seemed to fold subspace to create a tether that let them “skim’ hyperspace. It was a slow method of travel; she supposed the tradeoff was that they didn’t deal with the problems everyone else did. Her thoughts strayed from the failed Jaffa prototypes turned vigilantes out in the wilder regions of the cosmos and to Apophis himself.

Requesting Ba’al send a small battlegroup to escort a trade fleet from one of the minor powers in this Galaxy that the Imperium had trade with to his domain was a very odd request. It seemed her old lord was trying to force Ba’al into a position where he’d have no choice but to reveal just a little bit of his capabilities. The sheer pettiness! And to a potential ally in his mad quest for a Throne she was convinced would drive him to suicide out of sheer boredom or assassination by his harpy of a queen. -He’s playing games that are beneath him and beneath us all-, this kind of rank paranoia was something a primitive petty kingdom of thugs would indulge in and not a mighty Goa’uld of the race of the Peers, not a keeper of the flame. A distress signal brought her out of her darker thoughts and her consternation was only added too when the frequency her comms officer identified as peacekeeper came up on the screen.

This is the expeditionary fleet Command Carrier Durka we’re escorting a convoy of merchants to the border of imperial space….Under attack by Lucian pirates! They’ve got Hataks!

The command area went silent, Jaffa, even the Goa’uld technologists all looked up to her with a gaze that mixed incredulity with concern. -Mayhap even fear- she thought, the Imperium maintained an enormous technological lead over the rest of the civilizations in the known universe save the Asgard. A gap that was unlikely to close any time soon and one of the ways in which the Imperium made sure of that was the strict regulation of commerce involving their technology. Technological theft was also, usually punished severely unless it was an ally or a species, they respected in which case sanctions were usually imposed. This technological hegemony was maintained at all costs, sometimes to an extent Drey’ac thought was detrimental.

After all, they were tens of thousands of years ahead of everyone, what was the point? And by the time another race backward engineered their technology, they would likely be a generation behind and that ignored their industry. Even if a race did have technological parity with the empire, they would still be drowned in numbers. No, what System Lord or minor noble would be insane enough to sell technology to the Lucian alliance? To drug kingpins, slavers, pirates and petty warlords? The cost of being caught far outweighed any benefits, any member of the nobility that wasn’t a System Lord would be killed and a System Lord would likely be dispossessed and exiled.

Already Jaffa were calling the Peacekeepers liars and cowards, but Drey’ac wasn’t certain. That they were all the way out here, made little sense to her. To her knowledge, they weren’t yet able to pay for the technology to use the relays so unless they were ferried in the hyperspace wake of a hyperspace capable vessel how were they out here? If something as absurd as Peacekeepers in another Galaxy existed, then what’s to say they weren’t telling the truth? Besides, not all Sebaceans were pathetic creatures.

Drey’ac shared the disgust many Jaffa had for Peacekeepers, though she’d met one or two in her life that might have been worthy of recognition. A crippled half breed researcher she encountered some forty years ago and disgraced Captain who was supposed to have killed himself in a bid to delay an enemy from harming his friends. She could give him that at least, both he and the living ship he created died honoring the Sodan and she wondered, if Anubis truly greeted the children of the Goa’uld in the afterlife and she hoped he found the man worthy.

“Fleet Captain, we’re coming out of hyperspace a million Sest’a from the battle.’ A young Llempiri in a Jaffa’s uniform was something she was still having trouble accepting. Not that the Llempiri weren’t worthy, they had earned the right to serve along side Jaffa despite their allegiance to Egeria as far she was concerned. They honored the Sodan and offered tribute and thanksgiving to Anubis as all Jaffa did and like most Jaffa she knew, they lived up to those oaths. Besides, any race that could be called an honored enemy by Anubis before their conquest was more than deserving of respect. Only the Luxan’s could really make the same claim and even then, the stories of their fighting and dying beside Jaffa when the nameless one made his move against the System Lords in defense of Prince Osiris were just tales from the dawn of the Jaffa race.

No known holographic recordings existed, only the mummified remains kept in a place of honor at the hall of heroes in Iwnw

And yet, she still found herself feeling insulted by their presence on occasion and then she’d spend hours feeling guilty. She’d been idle too long, she needed to kill some pirates, the distraction would set her mind straight. Ba’al having asked her to lead the battlegroup as he wished to gauge how Lord Apophis would react. -More suspicion, yet on his end, it is sadly necessary- Six Hatak’s, twenty-four Alkesh bombers and the crescent shaped Dreadnaught that Ba’al had built as his flagship all exited hyperspace, through a blue and purple bubble that formed between time and space.

They exited, black and emerald in color. Where ordinary Hatak’s Had one blade like pyramid at the center of a sort of lattice like hexagram with plenty of empty space to add sensor suites, shield generators, heavier weaponry, troop transports or anything else. Ba’al’s Hataks had the one main pyramid, green in color and two smaller green pyramids. The rest of the vessels were of a black so dark it seemed to devour starlight and his Alkesh were less like frigates and more small battleships. The House of Ra, it was said; held the most advanced technology out of all the peers and yet Drey’ac had seen things in her service with Ba’al that led her to believe the young System Lord might have held a slight edge. The vertical bladeship the Enkidu Accelerated beneath her feet, the rest of the fleet joining her. “We’ll see if it’s true.”

“It is” Answered one of the sensor officers, her turned eying her with shock. “We’re detecting seventeen Leviathans, two are killed..and..the third..the readings are.”

“If you’re going to stammer like an undisciplined whelp do not waste my time. Show me.”

The youth nodded and a holographic image appeared.

Sure enough, three command carriers, though one was currently on fire and trading vicious blows with a Hatak backed up by the conventional Lucian ships…A very old Hatak, of a model that hadn’t been in use in twenty thousand years but a Hatak none the less and before her blood could boil in rage her eyes shifted to the wreckage of the two Leviathans, they were not…Her eyes narrowed.

The Fyryns it was said, created both the Leviathan’s and their insectoid pilots during the war, wishing in their final hours to create a legacy that would atone for their atrocities against the universe via their hyperspace weaponry. Many Jaffa erroneously called them gentle brutes, but they were not brutes. She felt a sense of sympathy for the poor creatures, who labored as the backbone of the trade fleets that spanned the universe. -Well, that explains why the Command carriers are here, they rode the poor creature’s hyperspace wake- she thought but the new ones? They were warships! Her eyes narrowed, organic technology wasn’t the end all be all most of the less advanced races made them out to be, nor were they necessarily a sign of advancement. But she didn’t doubt that they held souls of their own and these mechanoids were peaceful. Her mind wandered back to the sullen Sebacean she knew long ago, the moody youth of nineteen who was obsessed with creating leviathans that could fight, not only for the Peacekeepers but so that the race would remain victims no more. But he died, along with his warrior Leviathan?

Two had fought well, a veritable graveyard of pirate ships were scattered all around their dying bodies and the largest of the two, a majestic piece accelerated towards the burning Command carrier unleashing four titanic blasts of superheated plasma that roared into the shields of the older Hatak which was forced to disengage.

But not before it unleashed a fury of orange energy that smashed into the center of the Command carrier.

The larger vessel lurched, arched and Drey’ac swore she could have heard its spine snap as it was blown wide open by the fury of the weapons fire. It didn’t last much longer, two Sest’a of starship yielded to kinetics, gravity and exploding internal systems and shattered as a torrent of energy roared out of its power plant hurling the forward section toward the Hatak that was accelerating way from the energy wave at dizzying speeds in a frantic attempt not to be smashed by a projectile several times its size.

It had succeeded, but the damage to its shields and its desperate course left it open to a broadside from one of the other command carriers, a broadside that caused its shields to flair in fury before dovetailed right for the vessel’s underbelly unleashing a frenzy of fire that smashed into the crimson shields of her defective cousins.

Drey’ac was angry, not just at the blatant corruption on display (Someone within the Imperium had to sell them this technology, the alternative was unthinkable.) but at the fact that several ships of the Lucian alliance began to target the non-warrior leviathans the moment their crude sensors detected the approach of her fleet. That wanton cruelty was contemptible and she intended to take very few survivors. “Disable one of the Hatak’s, the rest of the pirate ships? Destroy them all.” The order was given in a cold voice that brokered no contestations. And so, her fleet moved in for the kill, with Drey’ac ordering the Alkesh group and their dart like fighters to engage the Lucian pirates and to render medical aid to the leviathan crews. A hundred Lucian frigates verses twenty-four Alkesh? If her Commanders were lazy maybe the pirates would last five minutes.

Five minutes was all she would need.

The main weapon of the Enkidu was a monstrosity that only a technologist as mad as the Tau’Ri arsonist Car’tur was said to be, or that fat lunatic Tok’ra Nerus could conceive of such a deviant weapon. While technologists of the Imperium had dabbled in zero-point energy research, their ability to refine Naquadah and Naquadria meant that it wasn’t a top priority. They had other, far less dangerous methods of obtaining huge amounts of energy at a relatively small price. That didn’t mean they destroyed their research or that they weren’t at least a quarter of the way there. Ba’al’s skill at generating and manipulating gravitational fields and that research combined to create a sort of cannon. Using the entire hull of the Enkidu as a focusing rod the vessel created a small aperture between dimensions, a temporary tear in reality that flared for one glorious nano second, then sputtered and died.

And in its death unleashed a mass of energy more violent than anything Drey’ac had ever witnessed. Encased in a gravity beam, this wave of hell lanced out, a bright white light reminiscent of the main beam weapons used by the Vanir and the long dead and accursed Ori, albeit an order of magnitude stronger.

In one swift motion this wave of energy vaporized one of the older Hatak’s, incinerated thirty of its escorts and smashed into a second Hatak which held up under the energy wave long enough to move out of the way before its shielded evaporated and the ship listed, dead in space.

The Enkidu went dark as her power plants shutdown and emergency batteries flickered on. It would take the vessel four minutes to regain its main power, but her Hataks would make short work of the rest of the fleet and grab the remaining stray Hatak.

The tall, orange eyed Jaffa would soon be boarding those vessels and when Drey’ac ordered that technologists and command level officers were to be taken prison but everyone else was to be put to the slaughter they all roared in approval.

It seemed they shared in her disgust at what had been done to those freight hauling Leviathans.

She leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed, she ran a hand through her green hair, removing the cords holding it up, allowing it to fall loose over her shoulders as the battle wound down. She expected she’d be mired in reports from irate technologists now that the majority of the fighting was to be delegated to the other vessels, only she was spared by a hail from the surviving war Leviathan. A holographic image of a Sebacean in what would be the middle years of that race, tall, weary and dressed in an Admirals red and black. A finely groomed mustache and beard and dark eyes, eyes she recognized.

Drey’ac moved up in her seat, her eyes narrowing.

A dead man was speaking to her, on a Leviathan that should not exist.

Still, despite herself she felt some relief. After all, at least one of the good Sebaceans survived and thus continued to redeem his race.

There was a weight to his voice, no longer the sullen boy she remembered, but a man who carried the weight of command well and the many sins of a life of poor choices like armor.

“Fleet Captain Drey’ac, I admit I hadn’t expected to see you again. The Cy-years have been…kind to you.”

“Come now, that’s only a compliment to a female from a race with a short lifespan.” She replied with a smile that wasn’t entirely forced. “But nothing beats you, for a man dead nearly two decades you look remarkably well preserved Bialar.”

“It seems we’ve much to discuss.”

“We do and you may come aboard for dinner and to assist in the interrogation..though.” she paused and narrowed her eyes. “You are to bring only your best Peacekeepers and they are to behave themselves.”

The lines around his eyes tightened. “It seems, your affinity for me does not extend to my entire race.”

“It does not.” Drey’ac responded with a harshness that surprised her, with a quick intake of breath she added. “What was his name Bialar?”

His jaw set. “Talyn…”

She nodded slowly. “He martyred himself to save his mother and his friends was the story I heard. Is there truth to this and that you intended to die with him?”

“Yes.”

Another tight reply and Drey’ac rose from her command throne and walked towards the holographic representation. “Then he died a true son of Anubis, and he honored the Sodan in the end.”

A grateful nod followed.

They would discuss why he thought he had the right to be alive after a death pledge later, for now, everything about this made her stomach turn and her “son” spin inside her pouch, he sensed something, something dark.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright so... SG-1 faces off against the heavenly Prince and I once again want to thank @bullethead for all his help with military matters because I am pretty sure I couldn't have done anything this episode without him.

Also @Knowledgeispower is gonna want my hide for this.

@Spartan303 Monk bro! I hope this is appropriately fitting for a Nox episode and for SG proper.

@Harlock Getting a little bit of Horus's mindset and ah yes, SG-1 fighting together at last!

The Falcon and the Eagle

Part 2.

From the halls of Montezuma to the forests of Avalon….

Had Anubis still lived, the prince was certain the warrior would be in his second hour of admonishing him for all the ways this was a fool’s notion. In truth, he wouldn’t blame his old mentor. This was stupid. Everything about this was stupid; from his arranging a clandestine meeting with Herakles to see if he could convince Zeus to side with him against Apophis when Zeus was fortifying his borders as if he expected both Horus and Apophis to act like complete fools. A being just as likely to advance his own name, court either way or do nothing. Then, sensing the presence of the Nox on this world yet refusing to call off the hunting trip the moment he did. Lya, Leanan as was her true name was someone, he’d known his entire existence even living under her protection during a particularly bad century of the great rebellion when Ra and Hathor believed the sudden involvement of the Asgard and Fyryns might doom the rebellion.

He trusted her, she was like family and when she allowed them to spend several weeks hunting here and meeting in secret, he figured she was still neutral enough to warn him of the Tau’Ri presence. Instead, he had to find out from Herakles, who while beneath his station was a dear friend. A dear friend who could sometimes be heedless, which was how the prince of the stars now had a bunch of dead Tau’Ri and Abydonians at his feet, in a system claimed by the Nox before he had made up his mind on the Tau’Ri question. That a Tau’Ri had destroyed his divine father was something Horus knew in every fiber of his being. That one of them allegedly raised the rebellion on Abydos (A rebellion his mother, seemed content to ignore!) was known. Killed by a crude atomic, according to that thing his degenerate uncle called a son. But that alone wasn’t proof enough. After all, testimony retrieved via telepathic intrusion was notoriously unreliable, it was one of the reasons he seldom honed his more esoteric psychic powers. All that Horus knew was that a crude atomic weapon had been used, his technologists confirmed at least that.

Then the raid on Chulak and Teal’c betrayal occurred. Only the devious Tau’Ri could inspire such rebellion in one of the greatest living Jaffa! This Onyer must have been a mastermind to sway such a loyal soldier of the Empire, to pervert his mind. The evidence mounted, perhaps Tau’Ri had finally risen to claim its revenge.

Or perhaps one man cruelly plunged both their peoples to brink of war. Horus couldn’t be certain, all he felt was a burning rage for the Tau’Ri who killed his father. Killed, perhaps it wasn’t a murder, none of it made sense. Nothing made sense, everything was mad and perhaps he wasn’t as complex a thinker as Ba’al, or his sister and brother but one didn’t need to be to realize something was rotten. And when the Jaffa told him Herakles believed that this Onyer was here..well.

Horus was tired of intrigue, of complex problems. Governance, ruling, like war should be straight forward and honesty not..whatever this nonsense was.

And so, he resolved to get to the bottom of this, to meet the man who killed the greatest monarch the universe had ever known and because he truly didn’t wish to kill anymore Tau’Ri and risk an incident before he knew for sure, he would make himself bait.

He just hoped this Tau’Ri was dumb enough to take the bait.

He was rather content when he sensed the hostility of the approaching Tau’Ri and rather dismayed when he sensed Teal’c, nearly whipping about to shout in the War Master’s general direction, certain he was hiding behind one of the large trees that seemed to form the foundation for the wooded hills all around him. Yes, what an inviting place for a slaughter, were I anyone else Horus thought. Something landed in the brush near his feet and Horus turned his head, eyes narrowing at the metallic device that was tossed onto the grass. It took a heartbeat to realize it was some kind of explosive device and a further three of his hosts heart beats to determine that it was an explosive device using chemical accelerants. And another heartbeat to get over the shock at being assaulted by something so primitive.

This left the prince enough time to raise his personal shield, which flickered to light a soft sky-blue aura that buzzed a nano meter above his skin. It had been seventy thousand years since he’d been the subject of an explosion from something so primitive as this fruit looking thing (Not including drunken mishaps while on hunts using projectile weapons.) the last attempt was by a species that was an offshoot of the Unas, the lizard men threw crude clay explosives at him with fuses.

This explosion though, was something entirely different. There was a burst of hot air, sudden flame and a shockwave and great heaps of metal that slammed into his shield. The prince felt the bulk of the blast slam into his thigh, knee and ribs. oxygen forcefully escaped his chest, and he was vaulted into air along with twigs and leaves and pinecones which all roiled around him in the air, a swarm of detritus that bounced off his shield yet jostled his body enough he knew his host would have terrible bruises and likely a broken rib or collar bone. When his face collided with dirt and grass and his whole upper body contorted and fell forward the rushing wave of nausea and the pain in his neck told him his host also had a concussion and some damaged vertebrae (No problem, he could heal that while he fought so long as they stopped throwing those crude weapons at him!), rolling on the floor wasn’t bad enough, he noticed his sword landed several feet from him.

He hated using the ribbon weapons, damn them!

“Damnit Carter! Is he alive?!”

Was that Onyer? Horus eyes narrowed as he righted himself, rising. Blood dribbled from his lip causing oscillation in the shield. He reached and wiped the blood away, eyes narrowing.

Someone called out to him in the inbred dialog of Abydos “Mighty Prince, we are Stargate Reconnaissance team One! Surrender, we have you surrounded.”

Or at least that’s what Horus extrapolated from that pidgin babble.

“DO NOT RESIST EMINENT ONE! YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED!” it was called first in Imperial Standard and then in Tau’Ri and Horus fumed. He recognized the voice, and it threw him off as it sounded like Teal’c was still on some level loyal to the Imperium. “Teal’c!” Horus called back. “You...” he cleared his throat, trying to remember the language files compiled from the mind of Amunet’s host and Klorel’s babbling. Ynglysh was a preposterous language “You confused a great many of your brothers and sisters in arms!” He did his best to sound regal, but he was certain he sounded like a jabbering illiterate to the Tau’Ri. “You…” he paused again searching for the imprecise words, translated by two mongrels of a language they’d never spoken before.

“Cause..questioning.” He paused again then added bitterly. “Not alone for Jaffa but us..also.” He looked around the wooded area, millennia of experience hunting and fighting being brought to bear.

So, one was behind a tree to the east of him, by thirty feet. Another was coming up behind him, that one walked with a slight limp -Bad knees, I cannot say how many times I’ve had to regenerate the joints of my host over the millennia-, the dialog serving to buy him time both to heal his more severe injuries and to sus out where he was. Figuring he would take out the biggest threat in their group first, then turn his attention to the rest. -I do not wish to kill Teal’c nor any of the Tau’Ri. Not yet any way save Onyer” Of course, he would kill them in a heart beat if he felt they were too much of a threat to his survival.

As if that would happen.

Teal’c stepped from a thicket, his grim eyes locking with the princes. -Clever Jaffa, you know I am delaying-.

“You leave us, go with them?” Horus asked, the battle rage and bloodlust ebbing away for a moment leaving only the Prince, the God of the hunt, of skill, of athleticism and discipline. No Judgement was in the eyes of either man, only a recognition that blood would come from the answer no matter how long or short it was.

“Yes.”

Horus nodded gravely, his thick, long braids and bearskin cloak billowing in the wind. “I..understand..” Came the grudging reply and how could he not? Were he being honest with himself, that both his father and mother allowed Apophis to degenerate so completely yet remain in power would be reason enough were he a mere Jaffa? But still, to abandon the light of the universe for some backwater rebels…Horus pulled off his cloak hurling it into the air as he whirred around. His robotic hand glowed, the ribbons around it vibrated and a baseball sized sphere of green energy roared forward forcing the golden-haired man he had taken aim at to jump just as it impacted into a tree causing an eruption of burning bark and splinters.

Teal’c rushed, Horus dove for his sheath, grabbing it and unleashing a golden sword almost as long as Carter was tall. And suddenly Teal’c was raising his staff weapon and blocking the blade just in time to prevent the top of his head from being taken off. The Jaffa batted the sword tip away and immediately thrust forward opening fire at near point blank. The prince’s shield shuddered, and he was launched back but this time he dug his ankles in and stopped himself, a small grove in the ground along his trajectory and a wheeze being the sum of Teal’cs efforts. Horus chuckled and touched his robotic prosthesis to his blade.

And when it suddenly lit on fire, burning with a strange purple energy the “Ah for fucks sake.” He heard from the accursed Onyer brought a smile to the prince’s face.

“This is madness Prince Horus! Surrender!”

“TEAL’C CREE!”

Someone shouted, “Light em up!” and a barrage of kinetic energy smashed into his back and arms, and he noticed with some pride that Teal’c had jumped out of the way of the ricocheting slugs, but he wasn’t cowering.

They had all abandoned the pretext of cover and were out in the open firing at him, the blasts from the staff and these ridiculously crude projectiles were knocking him around, a reminder that shields might protect you from death but not from the laws of physics. -Three…the one I shot at hasn’t joined the fray yet.- He thought disengaging with Teal’c and dodging behind a tree, giving his shield time to recharge. Tau’Ri, he thought.

He wasn’t on the First world when its denizens rebelled and so only heard about it after the fact. But it was clear many of the assumptions he made about their capabilities were grossly inaccurate. -Even now they’re primitives yet they fight brilliantly. - More than that, they were sneaky, conniving and had managed to turn his trap against him. It spoke to a culture that spent many years waging a war both as insurgents and against an insurgency. Something that Horus hadn’t done since he was a youngster and even then, only for a few years. A bullet bounced off his burning sword and Horus jumped backwards, realizing in horror that they had guided him to that tree.

Something exploded within the bark, then another and another and the massive thing split and erupted in orange and black and red as the ancient thing opened from the inside and crumbled forward -Bastards! Were they trying to capture me or kill me?!-

Could he survive a tree falling on his head?

Probably, but the prince was in no mood to find out and so, just before the full impact of the explosion hit him, in that time between tick and tock he swung his blade forward and vaporized the largest chunk of debris.

Horus landed, thudding into the ground in a way that he was certain pulverized a rib and lacerated an organ or two. His sword extinguished as he as forced to deflect it from crashing into his groin. The world around him was a haze of blurred colors as he frantically repaired his host with enough speed to keep himself from bleeding to death (and to bring himself at least close to fighting form.), everything hurt, but it was exhilarating in its own way as he was rarely pushed this far. Blood bubbled up on his lips, he gripped his sword and held it firm, using it as a crutch to bring himself to one knee. Senses still a disoriented mess as he looked around frantically.

A shape loomed before him, its left forearm was wounded, and it looked tired, had one of them been caught in the explosion? Or had this been the one he fired at earlier? It kept approaching him, nearing him, speaking to him. Horus was sure of that even if ears still rang and he couldn’t make heads or tails of what was said. It reached forward; something was in its hand? Or was it? He wasn’t sure, but his psionic abilities were returning, and he realized that between drawing energies into his shield and rapidly healing himself he would be exhausted if this wasn’t ended quickly or if he couldn’t prevent himself from taking any more injuries.

They simply wouldn’t let up on their assault.

He had to grudgingly acknowledge the tenacity there.

But he also had to do something else he didn’t wish to do.

Namely…Kill a Tau’Ri.

The person approached closer, he still couldn’t make out who it was and so he lifted his blade and thrust it forward, feeling the change in weight and pressure that signified he had struck home. Blood not his own sprayed onto his cheek and neck and chest and he felt bone crunch and began to hear flesh tear as he hefted up his blade, rising to his feet.

His senses returned just in time to see the blond headed scribe that had once been the husband of Amunet’s host, hanging in the air off his blade.

Horus hadn’t wanted to kill the damn scribe…

The second thing his newly restored senses heard was the blood chilling howl of fury from a young woman and an ice cold..word.

Only one.

But Horus didn’t need a translator to know the sheer volume of rage, despair and fury it held.

“..No..”

Ah, so that one is Onyer.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Aannd this episode draws to a conclusion, Jack gains some perspective, a Prince eats some humble pie and SG-1 officially becomes a team as they fight and die and live again as one.

Oh and the Nox are the Nox.

This is for @Harlock @UberIguana and @paulobrito And anyone else who felt like they needed an adult whenever the Nox/Fair Folk popped up.

The Falcon and the Eagle Conclusion:

Cumhachd nan geug

Through desert winds and burning sands, through lightning and thunder. In grief and despair, triumph and exultation. Defying the wills of mad Gods and starting rebellions, unraveling the secrets of the past and overcoming loss. Daniel Jackson and Colonel O’Neill had done all of that together and more, a friendship that had survived the grave and the gulf of space. Carter, she was a lunatic, but she was his lunatic and a mentor to his girls despite the proximity in age. Teal’c? The big guy defied a God and abandoned a prosperous life and heaps of honor and prestige to serve as a grunt again by his side.

It had been a rocky start, to both the original SG-0 and to SG-1, but they had come together in battle in both cases and became friends. Jack being the oldest (Sans Teal’c anyway.) had come to see the younger two members of his team like family. And now, this golden haired, arrogant son of a bitch had just killed one of them.

And this time, it was permanent.

No resurrection chambers, no Ra and his curiosity, even if there had been one present, he doubted Horus would have used it. He wasn’t his father, that much was clear to O’Neill. He lacked his father’s long-range cunning, but he was more adaptive, he was quicker to recognize that men from Earth might actually pose a threat and he was changing his assessment and fighting style in real time, something that even Apophis who was a damn fine general (If completely depraved and evil.) struggled to do. There was a rage in Horus’ eyes as well, the look of grief and fury that Jack understood well because he’d seen it a hundred times in his own eyes since he laid Charlie to rest. -Whatever Ra became, he must have been a hell of a father before he went crazy- Jack realized, you didn’t carry that much with you if he wasn’t. If Charlie were still alive and Ra had killed him, would his boy have been as resolute? He wondered, Charlie, Daniel.

He failed his girls too, since they ended up involved with the stargate.

Those weren’t thoughts he had time to dwell on because Carter reached into her pack and produced a cannister that Jack recognized and his eyes narrowed “No Carter..wai!” Something heavy smashed into his torso and head. Neck and back lurching behind as he was toppled and the world went black.

He awoke to an earth-shattering roar that would have both deafened and scorched him had he not been shielded by whatever had fallen on him and Jack struggled to right himself, his mind a wash of nausea, pain and confusion. Releasing the grip on his weapon he felt around the dark and wet mass that was currently crumpled over him and he suppressed a feeling of dread at the thought of Horus hurling the body of his dead friend at him. It took him several seconds to move his hands and when he tried to clench down on the mass with his left hand a wave of agony filled his senses and he had to will himself not to vomit as his vision came too and he saw Daniel’s dog tags.

Horus had thrown his dead friend at him.

Colonel Jack O’Neill was already enraged, but this left him incensed. Jack’s eyes were wild, he looked around the area, burning grass and ferns, small bushes that were ash and blood and the stench of burnt flesh filled his nostrils as he found a mound of flesh on the floor that was one half young women, one half melted fabric and skin.

Doc Carter

Another kid with a promising future down…He could see two of her ribs through the burnt fabric and he wanted to rage at her the moment he saw them moving, saw breath. She’d had a thermobaric grenade; one she must have enhanced with a tiny bit of Naquadah because the explosion was less like a vacuum bomb and more like a napalm strike. That explained his mangled hand and the fact that the base of his boots had melted into his feet and his pant legs were charred and partially branded into his skin. Ahead of them both, Teal’c was locked in a desperate duel with a bloodied, burned and irate Horus. Staff weapon clashed with sword as Teal’c tried to use the bladed part of his weapon (Evidently the weapon was damaged in the explosion as it sparked and hissed but wouldn’t discharge.) to impale the prince of the bird men. Teal’c was arguing with him, Jack could make out every other word, words like “Honorable.” And “implore” and something that sounded like a how could you rang out as Horus asked much of the same questions back.

O’Neill tried to rise, fishing for his gun as the form of Carter rose partially, letting out a choked sob as part of her pretty hair fell and she was doing everything she could not to scream. Carter wasn’t gonna make it, even if she could move now. Jack knew it from the extent of the lunatic’s burns that she was done. To his shock she burst from the ground and lunged at Horus tackling him which distracted the wounded System Lord enough for Teal’c (Who O’Neil now noticed was missing most of the skin on his right arm and was bleeding out of both his ears.) to drive the bladed end of his staff weapon which drove through Horus’ lower abdomen and hips and through Carter’s heart.

It was a brutal death, but it was quicker than the death by toxic shock that awaited Carter had she managed to survive long enough to get through the gate. There was a howl of rage, a chorus of ten thousand warriors old, and young, male and female filled the air and a sort of psychic compulsion to abandon all hope filled his heart and not for the first time O’Neill cursed the weird hypnotic voice the system lords had as he watched Horus stagger back and pull the staff from his innards just as Teal’c rushed at Horus, hoping to take advantage of the agony and chaos to bring him down. A look of grim resolve in Teal’c’s eyes, that suggested he was still determined to carry out the mission even if he was the lonely one left.

Horus tripped over Carter and there was a sickening crunch as he did so, and O’Neill realized Carter’s corpse was stuck to him interfering with his ability to properly yank out the staff. Teal’c tackled him and the two tumbled to the ground and Teal’c drove his burned, mangled fist into the side of Horus’s head. The prince for his part had finally succeeded in pulling the staff out, blood gushed everywhere, and he slid from underneath Teal’c staggering away, nearing his sword which after fumbling for it for a second, he found in time to whir around and bring his blade down against Teal’c who had raised his staff in time to block it.

Only exhausted, mangled and driven by pure rage Horus still had enough oomph to shatter the staff and cut the Jaffa from shoulder to liver blade shatteeing bone as Horus staggered back, unarmed, breathing more like a wounded animal in half roars than a man, or a snake wearing a man. Down to one knee, leaning on his sword, eyes blood red from ocular strokes, blood ebbing from his ears, ragged haggard breaths and yet Horus like Jack still held firm, still refused to fall.

Ra was right Jack thought with a shudder. There was too much of his kind reflected in the spirits of these damned snakes. -Too alike, if we really went at each other how nasty would it get? No, I understand it, Ra wanted us dead because he knew exactly what we’d become if he pushed us.-

So, what are you going to do about it?

A voice in his head whispered, serene and ancient and masculine, the ultimate cranky grandfather and yet there was a sense of youth there as well. He knew in an instant it wasn’t Leanan or Nefreyu, the old troll from the escape on Chulak, whom he’d seen in the woods near the gate what seemed like a lifetime ago. Horus couldn’t move fast enough to kill him before the colonel fired a shot.

If he aimed for the head?

He tried to stand, managing through supreme force of will; to rise even though he was certain the only thing holding the flesh on his feet together was the pressure of the rest of his body weight. Blood streaming down the mangled remains of his legs as he lined the Falcon prince up in his sights. He was supposed to take Horus a prize, but Horus had killed them all. His team, his friends, his extended family. He would likely just order Herakles to kill everyone any way and that was assuming both men didn’t die right there. He could barely see, but at this close range and with the ammo he had left.

Ra would be proud.

Jack wanted to sneer but instead he laughed, a bitter, harsh laugh and lowered his gun. “Yeah, sure weird old fairy dude, you’re right..fuck that.” He stumbled towards Horus, crumbling onto a log a few feet from the Snake who turned and eyed him almost akin to a cornered animal before he saw that Jack had lowered his weapon.

A bitter laugh flowed from the Prince. “That..bomb..the air one…Had Naquadah.”

“Probably..” O’Neill admitted with a shrug.

“Stupid.” Horus said shaking his head, not that he was much of an engineer or chemist himself but even he could see how crude their technology was, and he knew full well how dangerous it was for societies at the dawn of their developmental stage to play around with the deadly material. There was no way they could have rigged an atomic to work with Naquadah to enhance its blast. He knew that now and it meant that whatever happened to his father was either an accident, or something his divine father brought upon himself. “Not, know how to do this…could blow up your planet.”

“Nah, don’t got enough Naquadah for that, I hope.”

Oh, right Tau’Ri and its entire system was bereft of Naquadah. The courts would still have to make an official determination (Horus did not trust himself to render Judgment impartially against the Tau’Ri.), what an ignominious end and it would be better if he just went along with Apophis’ lies. But he couldn’t, nothing was worth that, not a Throne, not all the wealth of the cosmos, nothing was worth the loss of his honor and the violation of everything his father stood for once. “Why…Not..kill..Tau’Ri.”

O’Neill laughed “What’s the point? To avenge my team?! What would plunging my world into a war it could never win and causing the deaths of billions of people achieve except making a mockery of their memory.” He shook his head ruefully, his mind wandering to his daughters. He had promised them that he’d always come home after a mission, but now it was very likely he’d never come home and the woman they considered their role model would come home in a box an unrecognizable heap of flesh.

Horus seemed to consider this, his blood clotting and tissue bruising and swelling then returning to a healthy hue and texture as the healing process began. Exhausted as he was, he still could patch this body up in an hour so long as he could keep clot the blood in his groin and lower intestines first. So far, he had been succeeding but if he tried to focus his mental energies on the ribbon device to heal his wounds externally that multitasking might be the end of him. Nope, it was the old-fashioned way for Horus, but that hour would live him plenty of time to figure out what to do with O’Neill. Who, continued to infuriate him showing at once honor and ruthlessness, impetuousness and wisdom. “You not murder my father..in..cool..blood?”

“Cold blood.” Jack said correcting him before he shook his head. “Your father found a nuclear weapon I was ordered to bring a long to try and bury the gate in rubble if we encountered some kind of threat. Ol’Ra took that bomb and modified it and rigged it to blow up inside the Gate Room back home.”

His eyes narrowed, fury filled him again and yet, it was an anger that the prince wasn’t sure was directed at O’Neill anymore. There was no falsehood in the eyes of the Tau’Ri, only a sense of sadness and defiance as hard as Asgardian armor. His grief was sincere as well, no one who cared for those he who served to such a degree would also risk annihilating his own species. If this Tau’Ri was anything he was loyal. “To rule, Tau’Ri is be..ruled…” Horus began, groaning in exertion as he rose, blood ebbed from his midsection but it was a mild trickle compared to moments earlier. “I am Prince, System Lord, rule over hundreds of bi..billions of Lotar. Jaffa as well, separate, equal, to me their lives belong to them belongs mine. You understand Tau’Ri?”

If the father was a megalomaniac, the son was more akin to what he imagined William the Conqueror might have been. Arrogant, vain, driven, and brutal but there was a sense of honor there and pride and a sense of duty so strong it made the nonsense that came out of his mouth just now sound inspirational and on some level, the marine understood. “Duty means to rule is to serve, not just sit on your ass, get rich and fat, right?” Jack asked, his speech was slurred, he was pretty sure the adrenaline was wearing off and blood loss and shock were setting in. This was not what he imagined his final conversation would be.

Horus for his part nods and looks out to the trees. “They will go home Tau’Ri and you, I take with me, to put you in resurrection chamber. You bleed to death or die from infection if not, sleep for a time and I will..de..decide what do with you.”

“Send me home?”

That got laugh out of Horus, bitter yet not entirely so. “Perhaps, perhaps hold you for trial. If assassinated my father, enemy of the Imperium you are, if merely prevent atomic disaster on Abydos or pre..er…pre…emptive strike on..Tau’Ri then home, then Imperium’s enemy no more…” Horus paused…his jaw clenching slightly, rage warring with honor in his soul.

“My enemy..no more.” He added at last.

Jack nodded “Thank you, Bird man…And them?”

“Teal’c hero, beloved by all Jaffa, respected by many Goa’uld, admired by Peers. His betrayal, deep, but not impossible to understand. Burned as we burn our heroes, his ashes to rest in Dakkara. The scribe...” Here Horus eyes glowed a bright shade of white, burning almost like ivory flames. “Apophis wrong him, and Amunet violate his wife, break many of our laws, humiliate us when do so. Technologist crazy but give good fight.” It would likely take several hours for him to trek back to the gate, and he would need to heal O’Neill as much as he could with his device and running on fumes, it would be risky and if the Tau’Ri First Prime died on the way he would be several hours from a resurrection chamber, but these? So damaged? And with Teal’c immune to the chamber’s effects.

“They will be burned with Teal’c, honored.”

Jack nodded, suppressing a sigh of relief, for some reason he was worried about their bodies being despoiled as was common in medieval and classical societies when the leader of one force was sufficiently enraged at another. Knowing this, knowing the chance to buy if not peace, at least leeway and the chance to gain some ground with the snakes, he raised his hands “Can’t stand for parade but..arrest me..Prince Horus I officially surrender.”

Horus took a step forward and then stopped in his tracks before falling to one knee, his sword presented before him. “Lya…” he muttered looking less like a warrior who had nearly defeated his men and more like a child caught misbehaving b y a particularly intimidating adult.

“Leanan.” Came the melodic voice O’Neill had come to know as the tone the creepy fairy lady used when she was trying to emphasize a point. “Prince Horus..Why have you shed blood in my domains? Or more specifically blood I did not approve of beforehand.”

Wait what?! Fuck’n Fairies man!

Horus moved to answer but she shook her head. “No matter, your impropriety served a higher purpose it would seem.” Leanan looked slightly different, her skin a lighter shade of blue the gold stains on her skin seemed silverish and her eyes were completely the color of blood. “It is lamentable though, that it took one of you the loss of nigh everything and the other a defeat to humble him before either listened.” She let out an exasperated sigh, as though she were talking to two small and stupid children.

Before Horus can speak up again, he flinched and nearly doubles over causing O’Neill to grunt in amusement before he suddenly crashes into the grass and dirt as a wave of heat and agony seizes him. Something twitches, his mangled hand began to shift and contort as bone and flesh begin to slowly come together, knit and repair and reset. The crunch and twist of bones as they find their proper place is preceded by the Colonel unloading a tirade on the Nox women, replete with every profanity he knows. “God damnit woman! What the fuck are you doing?!”

Leanan lets out an amused giggle in a tone that makes her laughter sound like ringing bells which in turns elicits a “fucking fairies.” From Jack before the wind is knocked out of him by his liver, kidneys and hips regenerating and realigning. Jack twists as steam rises from his mangled legs, the speed by which they were regenerating, which new tissue forms from nothing causes enough heat that the Colonel swears he’s being boiled alive. The clothing on his legs and the melted shoes vanish and O’Neill reaches up with his brand new middle finger, gesturing obscenely as Leanan cocks her head and laughs. “Oh come on Colonel, Of course I’m going to save your lives, but after shedding blood on my land did you think I’d let either of you have a pleasant experience out of it? Hmm?”

“Wait..you’re bring ‘em back too?” Jack asked.

The woman shrugged. “It’s not that hard…”Behind them, Daniel twists and spasms as insides vaporize, replaced by new ones inside his torso and skin and bone that begin to heal. The blond shoots up gasping and turning to glare at Leanan “I was in a nice place…And I WAKE UP TO THIS?!”

“Jackson, stop provoking the creepy cemetery spirit.”

“Hah! Barrow peoples, yes that’s what your forefathers called us! Admittedly, we did congregate around the burial mounds but that was more when we wished to be seen.” Leanan gestures and Horus is enveloped in a wave of energy, as are the eagles in the sky and O’Neill wagers, the Jaffa and Herakles as well. His eyes shift to Leanan whose working on Teal’c, and Carter and he has a distinct impression she sent them all to their respective homes.

How exactly did the friggen Snakes fight these people for tens of thousands of years? Jack wonders, running his fingers through thicker, healthier hair.

“They didn’t” Leanan answered, absent mindedly holding Carter down by her mid-section as the girl howls in agony as new skin grows. “But even if they did, Ra and Hathor and Yu and some of the others were and are powerful enough to resist us just enough..We aren’t a war like people Jack, at least we haven’t been in a billion or so years. We encountered the other ancient races through their dreams remember? Taught them language, we defend ourselves and do so extremely well. But we are not conquerors and so we remained mostly neutral. In truth the Ori brought what happened to them on their own hea-“ she paused as Carter began to calm down and O’Neill finally realized what she’d done.

“The hell?!”

“I made your body seventeen years younger.”

“The fuck'd you do that for?!”

Leanan laughed and it echoed through the forest. “Oh, you sorry little ingrate!” she muttered in a teasing voice “You’re lucky I don’t teleport you into a star or turn you into a tree for the nerve! You were getting old Jack my boy, old. And your species needs you, so I won’t let you burn out just yet.”

O’Neill grins, knowing better than to thank an Aois Si. “You should have done that to Hammond, not me.”

Something flickers over the woman’s eyes as she looks down at Carter, who bearing the worst of it all seems genuinely disturbed as though she had pulled from a pleasant dream into horrors. Leanan helps her up, steadying her. “Don’t worry over your Admiral Jack, the sun has not yet set on Hammond of Texas nor has the hourglass run its course for Ellis.”

They’re all in new Space Force uniforms, Teal’c has a new staff weapon that Leanan swears will never lose its charge and will never be lost for long. That it will serve him as an extension of himself more than a weapon.

Despite the overwhelming joy he feels when Jackson, Teal’c and Carter embrace and when Doc Carter almost leaps into his arms like an elated kid, a bit of disappointment and relief. “We messed up huh?”

“Totally, but you didn’t fail Jack. You met an enemy who had the potential to be the greatest threat your species will ever know, and you convinced him to set aside his hatred of what he thought you were and in doing so, you learned a little something yourself.” She walks forward and sets a hand on his chest before turning to Daniel and smilingly brightly. “And you, who understood from the start, refused to abandon your friends for your ideals. The Nox like what We have seen, though both races still have much to learn you are both welcome back here, to mine and harvest as you need and to use this place as neutral grounds to come to an understanding when the opportunity should arise.”

The skies darkened suddenly and Leanan’s eyes glowed a faint blue “But I warn you, should either side break my truce again, I will not be so forgiving.”

Jack wasn’t sure how it happened, but they were there at the Stargate, beside Shepherd and the others with the gate opened before them.

Before he departs Jack swears, he sees the little troll again, only this time he gets a good look in his ancient eyes.

He doesn’t think that’s really a troll.

And he doesn’t think that was a troll at all.

-Well Jack, you’re the idiot who let himself come out of retirement…Also Frasier is going to want to do all manner of tests on you..damnit woman! I thought you were doing me a favor!-

Now, now Jack…who says I’m not doing everyone a favor?

Oooh booyyy….

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Welp, a little later than I anticipated but Enigma begins!

Enigma

September 2nd - Cheyenne Mountain complex

“Son, are you certain about this?” Hammond’s deep voice jolted Teal’c out of his ironlike focus on the image projected on the wall in the small conference room above the gate room that was used more as a place for the staff that managed the gate room and the communications and gate activation rooms to have their breakfast.

“Indeed, the markings on those buildings resemble Tollanic script.” They were different, slightly so and certain words that flickered off an on at what were once great neon signs lighting the city had words that weren’t in the Tollan language because the technology said terms would define simply hadn’t been invented by their civilization yet. This city, Teal’c thought, it was all together far more sophisticated than anything they could build and most species Teal’c wagered as it looked less like the capitol world of a species a century behind the Tau’Ri and more like a city on any Goa’uld majority planet within the Imperium. “That is to say, it is Tollanic but they would not know what climate control satellites and..” Teal’c frowned, he could infer what that one meant but the implications of it were terrifying. -Zero-point generators? Ja’mah!- “But their society is nowhere near sophisticated enough to have developed the technology those words ascribe..”

General Landry who was looking out at the Gate, his mind no doubt on Colonel Makepeace and his team who were escorting several agricultural specialists, four botanists and a shipment of several tons of fertilizer to Rax-Narya A Tollan controlled world near the border of the Stargates identified as belonging to the outskirts of the domains of Lord Zeus. They had a type of oxygen producing plant and several tubers that did what antibiotics did without the pesky risk of resistance, and they were all too happy to work out a trade agreement which Secretary Weir had been excited to negotiate herself. The fertilizer, which was better than what the Tollans were using was part of a gift exchange that served as a gesture of good faith negotiation. Thankfully Weir was tied up in a hearing in DC and wasn’t a potential hostile, assuming the worse. He turned and asked Teal’c if he was sure the Tollans weren’t this advance. “After all, you said it yourself you guys know very little about them.”

Teal’c gave a reluctant nod, in truth the Ashraks long suspected that the Tollan’s concealed their homeworld, as the trade outposts were too small to even be respectable colonies, with Rax-Tolla, the largest of the worlds having barely thirty million people. Of course, it made sense they were perhaps half a century away from their age of fission and yet their populations didn’t seem to suggest being able to support such industry or even the industry of a people centuries behind that. But trying to prove such a backwards group was able to conceal a far larger society from the Imperium was always met with derision.

Especially when so many in the bureaucracy and within the nobility enjoyed their luxury goods. The implications of this dusty covered, dead city were deeply concerning. “They are a reclusive people, highly sought after as poets and musicians yet they also sold certain silks and other goods which in high demand. Though I only visited Rax-Tolla once eighty of your years ago, I can recall that the most advanced form of conveyance that I personally witnessed was a carriage with an incredibly crude combustion engine. Yet here, in this aerial drone footage I see what clearly anti-gravity vehicles and what looks like the remains of the forward section of a space port.” That in and of itself was interesting. Ordinarily in planetary sieges, the weaponry used was powerful enough that barely anything larger than a few meters would be left when you finally blasted through the shields on a space port. His eyes darted to the ruined moon above and he wondered if they didn’t have some sort of terrible industrial accident.

They had numerous side projects with Lord Ba’al involving the production of plants that were useful in planetary engineering and ecological repair and Teal’c wondered if the youngest of the System Lords knew of this secret or not? “I cannot say, perhaps they are akin and the Tollan we know are akin to the adherents of the luddite movement on your earth.”

Landry nodded, it had occurred to him but like Teal’c, he was surprised at the population figures the former First Prime had given for their outposts in relation to the industry he claimed they possessed. “Do the System Lords destroy civilizations founded by rebellious Lotar once they achieve a certain level?”

Teal’c paused to consider, trying to contemplate how to properly answer that, for it seemed to carry its own assumptions based upon his time on Abydos. “With respect General Landry, Lotar rebellions are rare but when they do occur, they are often put down swiftly, my wife frequently encountered civilizations founded by the descendants of escaped Lotar who fled the boundaries of Imperial space. How they are treated, varies as greatly as your approach to nations within your own world. The Lucian alliance is an enemy of the Empire, yet its small enough and the problems it creates are much more akin to your drug cartels and the pirates I read of in the book on the age of sail that you provided. As such, investing in a war with them is seen as wasteful, the Llempiri rebelled in support of Egeria who had conquered them two centuries prior. Ra destroyed their most densely populated worlds but when that act was done decreed that the surviving Llempiri were not to be discriminated against and were fit to rebuild themselves within Imperial space so long as they accepted, they were subjects of the Imperium and no longer shared the citizenship status Jaffa did. Though Ra, restored their citizenship at the behest of Ba’al and then there was the Set’yim yet I believe they were annihilated more because Ra produced a harceses with their queen and Hathor was infuriated by the adultery.”

“There were another people, Kobolans, but I believe they were destroyed less because of their technological level and more because when the Countess Lady Amaterasu interceded in an attempt to mediate their civil war, one or both sides deployed Naquadah enhanced atomics through the stargate to one of her trade worlds.”

Fair enough, Hammond thought, of all the examples that was the least ruthless. “Son, so far you’re describing races or groups that either were in active rebellion or had reacted to an attempt to involve themselves in local politics with hostility. Extreme as the response from the Goold were in each case.” Except the cat people, Hammond thought, he’d seen some bitter divorces in his lifetime but one that resulted in the genocide of an entire species…

The story of the fall of the Set’yim had led to a lot of jokes about how the Goa’uld were really the only benevolent power in the cosmos because at least they blew up furries whatever that was. He remembered General Landry trying to put a stop to those jokes but controlling the humor of a military facility was like trying to stop a flood with a garden hose. “Do you know of any instance where they might have proactively destroyed a civilization just because they posed a threat? Or have you or your wife ever carried out such a preemptive strike.”

Teal’c raised an eyebrow, he was always glad Hammond never minced words and asked him directly if he had committed anything the Tau’Ri governments might consider atrocities (And he’d warned them he likely committed many as while all civilized nations no matter the scale had codes of conduct and articles of war. Not all cultures had the same concept of what was considered acceptable in warfare.) in this case he was grateful that he could say no. “Likely not for the same reason the United States of America does not, when one has an economy so large and such a military edge it is far easier to conquer with commerce and cultural influence than force of arms.”

Fair enough Hammond reasoned. Though he wasn’t exactly keen on Teal’c comparing the Imperium to the US. He understood why, it was the best comparison to present a logical example, but it still felt wrong. Teal’c would learn why it was wrong as he began to understand the spirit of the United States though.

“You think it’s something else, don’t you?” Sasha O’Neill asked, she’d been seated opposite Teal’c taking notes for Carter who was busy in a conference with Doctor McCay.

“An industrial accident maybe?” Landry asked then gestured to the screen. “Something in the way you reacted to a word you saw on one of the cracked screens the drone passed over. I may not be a former seal Teal’c but engineers don’t miss much.”

Teal’c gave a smile and a nod, in truth he enjoyed the men and women of Stargate Command, all of which were either old warriors with much experience or young but highly driven and talented and willing to learn as they served, unafraid of risks. Those men and women reminded him much of himself and his dear wife a century ago, when the Titan’s rebellion and chance pushed them into stations far beyond their years. When Teal’c opened his mouth to answer, Jackson who had been buried in his notes and trying to learn Tollan script in his spare time for the last few days blurted out “Probably because he thinks it has something to do with vacuum power.”

You could have heard a pin drop when Jackson said that and misreading the youth clarified. “Well the word there looks to be a derivative of Zprox and G’xzhem the first meaning sucking, or something exerting a great suction.”

“Absence Doctor Jackson.”

“Thank you Teal’c! And G’xzhem meaning fuel or power..ohh…oohhh….ooohhh Zero point energy?” Daniel blinked.

Sasha shot up, bolting over to Teal’c as if proximity would somehow speed his answers. “Do the Goa’uld possess the technology?”

“My belief is the technology was researched but the Imperium’s ability to refine Naquadah and connect it to near any power source allows it to meet all its energy needs for the foreseeable future as such the research is pursued more as a curiosity than a pressing need.” There were, of course other concerns, interests that stood to potentially lose a sizable percentage of their revenue stream should Naquadah become more of secondary means of conveying and enhancing energy, but the Jaffa held his tongue as he did not wish to appear a voyeur of conspiracy-based speculation.

“And this..zero point energy in relation to a power source would be critical?” Hammond asked, understanding how Jack felt not for the first time.

“In theory it would mean the ability to provide limitless amounts of energy for a certain amount of time and possibly with something as small as a tablet.” Landry added sitting on the edge of the table as Sasha handed him a cup of coffee and a croissant. “You think this is their version of Chernonyl.”

Teal’c blinked.

“Ah, Chernobyl was the name of a fission based powerplant in a country called the Ukraine which underwent a meltdown and an explosion due to design flaws in the reactor’s me-“

“Yes.” Teal’c said cutting Jackson off. “It is possible, I believe that sign is advertising the grand activation ceremony, perhaps it was a much-anticipated event. Though admittedly falling to an attack or invasion or orbital bombardment from any number of minor powers in the Galaxy is a far more logical explanation than a “Meltdown” in a zero-point generator. That technology is rare, only the Asgard and the Alterans utilized it, even the Ori sought less unstable energy sources, it’s possible they ran a foul of the Peacekeepers, or perhaps the Luxan’s or perhaps the Lucian pirates.” Not that he sounded particularly convinced, however one oddly ruined space station did not a disaster make.

Hammond nodded, leaning forward in consideration. So far, they’d been making friends, albeit with less advanced societies and while Jack (Who came back through the gate at least ten years younger and was under medical observation until this morning over that fact.) had loudly protested returning to Avalon, the chance for medical research and the resources there were too good to pass up and so the President overruled them all. Things had gone well, they would even begin turning a profit and within a few years some of the plants they’d brought back would begin to revolutionize medicine and how one approached climate change they hadn’t obtained any technology, yet.

Which had been their chief mandate, obtain any technology that could help them establish themselves as worth negotiating with and if failing that to assist in planetary defense against the Goa’uld. He didn’t like the idea of grave robbing either and it would be done thing if this disaster happened centuries ago but Landry’s people on Abydos and Area-51 had both assured them it happened at most six months ago and there was evidence the last signs of life on that world ceased hours before their drones arrived. “Sasha, do you think it would be dangerous to send a team to that world?”

“No, radiation levels appear normal, volcanic activity is at a low, I wouldn’t recommend staying long, it’s about to get extremely cold for a few years limit time on that world to say a week and you should be able to avoid the worst of it Admiral Sir..” The younger (by ten minutes.) of the O’Neill twins answered, snapping to attention as she did so.

The Admiral nodded. “Very well, go get Colonel O'Neill. I think its time he stretch his legs..” he turned to the ever present second O’Neill twin who spent the entire conference standing like a statue behind the Admiral. “Petty Officer O’Neill get ready to deploy to Abydos, I want you attached to Landry for the duration of this mission. You’ll serve as our go between if anything should happen.”

She moved to say something, but Hammond cut her off. “Ma’am either they’re a break away sect, a case of the Ballard-Jackson theory where we can examine the original source or they’ve been keeping a hell of a secret and there’s no telling what they might do to keep that secret. In case either Abydos or the Mountain need to lockdown, I want my right hand where she can do the most good”

“Yessir.”

“We reconvene here in four. Dismissed!”

Grave robbing, it was one of the few things he balked at doing for his country and yet what worried him more was the image of that cracked moon.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Little update gents, to let ya know dis ain't stagnating again and I'll probably do another two chapters after I get back from lunch.

O'Neill gripes, Teal'c wonders if he has Space Excalibur and Drey'ac gets into some trouble.

Enigma - 2

…………

“I am glad they have released you from your medical obligations O’Neill.” Teal’c had used the four hours to go raid the commissary and indulge himself on some pumpkin pie and various other pastries that seemed to be available in an endless variety now that the base was starting to fill up with personnel and experts again. Or at least what the Jaffa believed was the case, though the mountain had been nearly fully managed when he had arrived, he still got the impression those were reservists who had been activated to fill an emergency quota. Now, the proper people seemed to be here.

There was an Abydonian and a red skinned Kelownan as well. Both eating with an engineer who was likely assist6ing the Abydonians with their endless quest to modernize their world. Seeing aliens on Tau’Ri was something the humans around him had not fully grown accustomed too and seeing a nearly twenty years younger O’Neill seemed to be something no one was ever going to grow accustomed too if the awestruck and mystified looks some of the soldiers were giving him was any indication.

With him, the Colonel brought the staff which had been given to him by Leanan, the Princess of Avalon and the Jaffa felt a sense of relief wash over him. The staff was long, greenish black, shiny and smooth to the touch with silver glyphs carved into the beam, each one representing a tenant of the code of the Sodan. The base was harmless and blunted now but in training he’d made it shift into a spear like tip, but it was the large ruby at the top of the staff which tapered into a jackal like alien whose jaws held the gem in its mouth that captured Teal’c’s eye. It was said the first combat staff wielded by Anubis when he led the first generation of Jaffa into battle looked much like this staff and it too had been forged for him by The Morrigan and Brokkr the Asgardian engineer and shipwright. When Teal’c held it, he could almost sense the power in it and feel a sort of intelligence from it and he had spent many an hour speculating on whether the staff was a facsimile or if it was indeed the legendary staff weapon, lost after Apophis took it as his in honor his elder brother and lost it in battle with the Dark One. Either way, he loathed to lend it to Doctor Carter who wished to study it and it would often reappear in his room during his deeper meditations.

“Carter and McCay can’t make heads or tails of your weapon big guy, I think they want to poke at it more than Frasier does me, but I’m glad to be getting out..I’m done sitting on my ass.” What was the point of being young again if you couldn’t put all that experience to good use in your new body because a bunch of big brains wanted to probe you. He felt alive, energized and was grateful for the second chance to both have more time with his kids and stay on duty beside his team for a little bit longer.

The eventual promotions and old age weren’t things he looked forward to, Jack was always a fighter and dreaded riding a desk.

“I thank you for liberating it from their clutches O’Neill.” Teal’c bowed his head in gratitude and offered Jack some pudding which the Colonel declined, deciding to opt for the burger which Carter was handing to him. He wasn’t used to seeing her in civilian clothes, which was amusing because she was a civilian contractor and he’d forgotten just how long her hair was. She was in torn up jeans and was wearing whatever t shirt she could grab and Jack had a feeling her, Sasha and the lab monkeys were testing out Naquadah shavings in gunpowder again. Mostly because she smelled like an ashtray.

“So, Daniel says you think that thing’s like the Excalibur of your race?” Carter asked, poaching the pudding while responding to Teal’c’s menacing glare at her theft with an innocent smile.

“To a degree.” Teal’c continued, letting the affrontery slide for the moment (Never come between a Jaffa and his food!). “Though it does not grant me a divine right to rule my people nor unite the System Lords as your King Arthur’s Excalibur did, merely that it was that Anubis wished to pass this blade to the warrior he considered most worthy to succeed him in his quest to create the perfect warrior ethos. At the time it was Apophis, but it was stolen from him by the nameless one and believed lost to time.”

“Who’s that guy again?” O’Neill asked.

Teal’c’s jaw tightened. “Jaffa do not speak of such things in the light of day O’Neill.”

Yeah, it was worth a try at least. The nameless horror, the Dark One, the fallen one. Big guy would never elaborate more on him or it or whatever it was, only that it murdered Anubis in cold blood and launched a campaign of despair, murder and horror across the cosmos not seen since the darkest moments of the dark age and even the Asgardians ceased their war against ol’Ra (And O’Neill got the impression king snake had to beg them to do that and then found out later they’d have done it any way out of fear and that had been what pissed him off.) to allow Ra to banish and kill this person, thing. Not even during the briefings would he divulge it when pressed and the Imperial religion on Abydos only talked about it in a way that reminded Jack uncomfortably of certain parts of the bible and he wondered if his theory back on Abydos was right. That they were only able to kill Ra because he completely lost his marbles over Earth because of this thing..

“Alright, alright big guy I’ll let it go.”

“Good, because after our time with the fucking Fae I’d rather not deal with spooky stories.” Carter muttered.

He wouldn’t argue that point and so the crew departed when his kid came for them and suited up, in a mix of MOP gear and arctic clothing that was a combination O’Neill hated (And finding gear for a seven-foot Jaffa was an adventure all its own.)

…………..

Conspiracy

Nineveh -Orbital fleet yards.

Crais had weaved a story almost more fascinating than the results of the interrogation itself, a complex web of what the Fleet Captain had surmised were half-truths, embellishments, and tales so absurd they had to be true. Evidently after the Scarren halfbreed exiled him from military service for his own inability to control his sense of guilt and self-loathing he fell in with a group of escaped criminals who, led by the Lotar Krey-ton (She knew this name, mostly because the Shadow Depository his crew robbed included several of her own accounts.), who went on many bizarre and curious adventures pursued by the ruthless halfbreed who lusted after Krey-ton’s wormhole knowledge. Evidently, he believed that the space bridges created by the Stargates could be weaponized and used as incredibly large scale and crude mass drivers, hurling chunks of stellar matter at planets and fleets.

It was an amusing idea, no doubt something considered by the accursed Alterans, Ori and their inbred Lantean cousins (Who existed more as a fable as there was no concrete proof of their civilization beyond an even more dubious cityship that they could never find.) and one she knew was rejected by Imperial Technologists because any species sophisticated enough to copy and build crude stargates much less create them and update the network could also disrupt the space bridges and if you had such tech, to weaponize it against lesser races when the development of such technology usually meant you had far more sophisticated and energy efficient weaponry was simply put; a total waste of resources and time. Drey’ac didn’t know of an instance where the exorbitant cost of creating an “unstable wormhole” simply to drop star dust on a fleet or a planet was a more viable alternative to say, blitzing a fleet then making a B line for their industrial hub and dumping a few Naquadah enhanced antimatter explosives into the atmosphere or using subspace impactors to create dimensional tears between the vessels in the fleet (Assuming the enemy wasn’t advanced enough to counter this any way.) and it certainly would never be a more economical one.

But then again, the Peacekeepers were ludicrously primitive and only managed to survive the engagement with those museum pieces solely because of the Leviathan hybrids acting as meat shields to protect the command carriers. Any modern Hatak much less a dreadnaught would have ripped them to shreds. The scarrens were slightly more advanced though more importantly they had better guns. So, she supposed desperation made for the sponsoring of dumb ideas…After all had they actually managed to crack this Krey-ton’s “riddle” then the technology developed to create said “wormholes” would leap the Sebacean race several generations ahead. All in all she had been impressed with their resourcefulness and Crais’ willingness to admit to his many sins and atone for them.

The hybrids were remarkable and the lead one, named Elann, for Crais’s father was a both a gentleman and a warrior poet. She’d spent several days in the presence of both his Commander and the ship itself and had come away hopeful that their defective cousins might one day prove themselves worthy of being heirs to Anubis as the Jaffa were. His adventures aside, the Lucian pirates interrogated revealed more questions than they answered. It was clear someone within the imperium had supplied them with technology (Or so she had believed, but the derisive laughter caused her to wonder.) But they were so afraid of whoever supplied them with such technology that several technologists committed suicide before they could be compelled to answer. Currency was found minted within the domains of Set and Haqet, yet that proved very little on its own as this group of pirates had been raiding and pillaging across the borders of the Imperium. Yet, it was clear they had some involvement, but she couldn’t prove that they had supplied the Hatak’s but the worst of it, the most horrifying part was when she allowed her “son” to begin to attempt a psionic probe of one of the captives.

Like Amunet, the young symbiote she carried was extremely powerful mentally, more so than she ever realized and like Amunet, the child had been aware inside of her pouch for many years and so they communed often enough that he asked to help her.

The instant his mind brushed against the captive’s there was a collective scream of pain across the entire barracks.

A deeply buried trap had been sprung, a web of sophisticated mental fail safe’s triggered and every blood vessel in their brain exploded simultaneously, while their personalities had simply evaporated.

It took every ounce of power her Prim’tah possessed and their combined wills to shield his mind from being caught in the psychic backdraft and the experience left them both exhausted. It was disturbing on multiple levels, for only a Peer could do something so complex. Their personalities would’ve had to have been copied, erased or buried deep and imprisoned in a psychic “box” at the heart of their subconscious then the complex layer of self-destruct commands woven into the mind and then the copied personality “superimposed” over the web, grafted painstakingly into place with it built in a manner that it neither remembered any of this nor knew it was a false self.

The Lady, Chamberlain Hathor, The Countess Lady Amaterasu, the Count Lord Izanami, the Princely Duke Lord Zeus, The Duchess Athena and Heavenly Prince Osiris were the only peers she knew of left alive with the sophistication and skill to do something like this. The Heavenly Sovereign King Yu as well perhaps and Chanyu might have been able to, but she was dead. That old Witch Haqet perhaps as well…Ba’al maybe? Her new Lord continued to surprise her.

The implications were disturbing, there were no one else she knew of with such capabilities save the Nox and no one had seen them in millennia until the Heavenly Prince Horus and First Prime Herakles ran afoul of them and they seemed to be content to remain neutral and so who?

One thing she knew, a Peer or several were determined to cause a war between the house of Tartarus and the House of Ra.

The prospect chilled her to her bones…But what horrified her even more was the suggestion her “son” offered her.

Mother, what if it wasn’t a peer, or at least a known peer.

“Impossible child…” she murdered pacing the room “Every peer is noted, documented and there have been no peers born outside of the Houses of the System Lords in the entire history of our civilization.” Well, except Ba’al.

And I agree…

Her blood ran cold…The implications so unmoored her mentally that she didn’t notice the safety shields erect around the room nor cry of warning from her Prim’tah.

She felt the heat though and the concussive force that smashed her through a window and felt the biting cold and vacuum of space and then a curious sensation of warmth and movement as she watched a wave of smoke and debris expand from the ruins of the station’s command deck.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright, an update as promised, Carter contemplates zero point energy, the war with between the Ashen confederacy and its enemies is explored again and more questions arise from a new discovery.

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

Survivor

When Colonel O’Neill stepped through the gate, he wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe stepping into the pictures of Nagasaki or Hiroshima after the bombs fell, or the ruins of Pompeii or Pripyat. What he didn’t expect was a sprawling city whose lights were still flickering in some of the skyscrapers he could see looming on the horizon, grand and elegant even when broken and burning.

Nor did he expect the gigantic holographic female, that flickered off and on gesturing towards the gate and issuing a warning that -the subspace shockwave was eminent those who can’t make it to the ships, make it to the nearest closed network gate-. Something that disturbed Teal’c greatly because only the Goa’uld had that capability (Though the Asgard had developed it on their own recently as well.), that they could do this without even tapping into the vast interdimensional webs the main Gate Network used to anchor itself spoke of a possible level of technology not seen in eons. Yet, for all their power, this world looked rather small to his eyes, it obviously wasn’t their capitol world and there was precious little Naquadah that he could sense in the area. Perhaps the zero-point issue was more plausible than he thought, an energy starved people though he wondered how they were able to relay the vast amounts of energy safely without much Naquadah both to extend the vacuum’s life and to convey the power without frying more primitive forms of conveyance. Carter was coming to similar conclusions as lightning roared above them and the clouds began to depart to reveal both a shattered moon and the cracked one their drones initially revealed.

There were spaceships as well, that reminded Teal’c of Tau’Ri cruise ships in space, massive and burning and ruined. “It would seem not everyone was able to successfully evacuate.”

“What happened here.” Jackson whispered.

Carter’s eyes gazed up at the gray sky, the glint off her goggles beaming against the dying hologram. “Maybe they built the lab where they were doing this research in the outer solar system thinking they would be at a safe enough distance and the shockwave vaporized that one moon and damaged the other or sent remnants of whatever planetoid was near the facility hurtling at this world.” Or maybe hyperspace and the other layers of subspace briefly merged, and reality just came apart at the seams. That too, was possible the sheer amount of energy that might be released by such an event made her salivate. -If we could weaponize this, we could devastate entire snake fleets and threaten their planets directly-, oh she knew it was dangerous and the Oppenheimer monologue came to mind, but Doctor Bob the nihilist was only fighting Nazis, Doctor Carter was faced with trying to device ways to protect her planet from annihilation by a civilization that could turn her home into space trash without even mobilizing a quarter of their fleet.

Could I do it? She asked herself, kill trillions to save billions? Possibly, but the scientist in her wanted desperately to learn from the snakes not slaughter them. Still, it would be a nice thing to have in your back pocket and the explosion would be gorgeous. “Hey Teal’c still think it was a fleet of pirates or something?”

The Jaffa shook his mighty head, which was far more comical than it should have been given the way all that protective gear made him look. “I no longer believe this, even if that Hologram were not warning of it, the ruins I see here have all the hallmark of an energy crisis converting into a disaster.”

“Have you seen something like this before? I mean, not the zero-point thing but a similar catastrophe?” she asked, her curiosity induced pitch carrying through the com system they were using. It was starting to rain, and O’Neill grumbled as Jackson walked away from the RV’s to go gawk at what might have been an anti-gravity vehicle.

“Indeed, Doctor Carter, fifty years ago a race called the Nebari, they were a tyrannical people who ruled a petty kingdom of some hundred worlds near the edge of Ashen space. They were at war with the Ashen confederacy and attempted to develop subspace weaponry. A type of guided missile that uses a hyperspace dilation to tear temporary fissures into various layers of subspace. They can cause tremendous destruction on a species that has no counter for them. Unfortunately, the Nebari did not take proper precautions and suffered a containment failure in one their warheads. It caused a chain reaction that formed a sort of hyperspace shockwave that blew the moons of twenty of their worlds out of orbit, tens of billions died and my wife and I supervised the evacuation of another six billion across Imperial space.”

Most had settled in the domains of Athena and Osiris. But several thousand of the more martially inclined Nebari joined the Lucian pirates. “The Ashen eventually overcame the main Nebari government before Macello and Lenea destroyed them. Much of what I see here reminds me of their worlds”

Tens of billions of dead and from something less potent than what happened here..

“Doc! Teal’c! come over here, Daniel found something”

“Roger that Sir.”

The pair moved off, nearing what appeared to be a downed shuttle, it was sleek and reminded Carter of the depictions of rocket ships from old pulp comics, sleek, art deco like and metallic blue. It had an awful gash at its side and evidence of an internal fire, around it was a dying energy field that finally gave up its ghost as Jackson dove in, heedless of any potential risk. What struck Carter was that she saw no discernible engine, merely three crystals at the end of each tear wing tip and on the dorsal fin. Windows were shattered and she could make out several bodies within, crushed to death under parts of the vessel’s support structure or what might have been machinery. The people appeared to be human, and they were encased in some of the most efficient environmental gear she’d ever seen. Their faces were covered in a soft, bubble-like sheet that seemed to both saturate them with oxygen and shield them from the elements. Carter gently craned the neck of a woman who looked like she’d been dead for several days, and she pulled back when a piece of the female’s cheek sloughed off to reveal bones that were black in color?

So much for them being human, even if they looked it. “War Master, are Tollans human descended Lotar?” Carter asked in a pensive tone.

“I cannot say, I had no reason to assume otherwise until now.” Teal’c answered, disturbed as the riddle of the Tollan deepened.

“Evacuation crew?” O’Neill asked.

“Maybe…” Jackson said staring at the limp form of a man who appeared in his sixties with white hair and a narrowed face. ” But I think this is the Tollan word Chancellor, or Minister.” Jackson answered. “Might be a VIP who wanted to be among the last to leave?”

The rain had been joined by ashy colored hail that was beating against the shuttle now and it grew colder. “This one’s alive.” He added hastily when the man opened his eyes and made a gasping noise as he reached for Jackson only to pass out in shock.

“This one appears to be as well O’Neill!” Teal’c called. He was hefting a female that appeared to be in her forties over his shoulder causing O’Neill to order Teal’c to put her down.

“Sir, we may be able to establish friendly relations with these people, failing that saving their lives give us some goodwill out there.” Jackson put in and grinned when O’Neill rolled his eyes and ordered survivors to be put on their sledges. “Fine, load any survivors you can and make it to the Gate, I’m going ahead to dial Abydos.”

Carter who had been helping Teal’c load one of the survivors gasped when her wrist was grabbed forcefully and a man in his late forties with raven colored hair muttered something like “shyrmao” to her before collapsing.

She looked at Daniel asking for a translation.

Sam Carter had been called many things in her life, but this was the first time anyone had called her an Angel.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright gents, a bit of an update, Lahm treats the Tollan and is pretty much freaked out about what she finds out and there's a bit of an info dump on how the progress with the space force is going.

………………..

Abydos

“I appreciate your confidence in my skills, but I really would rather these guys go to Earth.” Carolyn Lahm had counted the times she’d had this argument with her father over the last three weeks, when the heavier work accidents happened to Abydonians under her care. Even with the use of some of the medicines and herbs they’d been able to begin refining and using to augment her medical supplies she was still mostly working with a staff that consisted of nine retired army doctors, one so old he served in a M.A.S.H unit in ‘Nam. There were civilian doctors here as well, people Secretary Weir knew and trusted who had the clearance or were accorded the clearance to be here. They were an eclectic bunch, but Lahm felt she was too young to be running what amounted to a hospital full of geriatric doctors who had far more experience operating during a crisis or with a shoestring budget. The only people younger than her on the staff were Kadra and her clique of apprentice healers.

Which brought her to the other issue, the Abydonian healers brought invaluable wisdom to temper the modernity of her peers, but the youngest of them was seventy. Change came slowly to such people and while they wanted to merge the knowledge Earth brought with their own, both old age and certain prejudices occasionally slowed them down and caused hang ups.

“Lyn, this is the purpose of the facilities on Abydos, to create a sort of alpha site away from earth where research and medical care can be conducted on returning SG teams who might have been compromised or refugees and rescues. You knew this when you accepted command over this facility.” Hank Landry didn’t want to add that it took a near total brawl between the SGC and the Pentagon over appointing a civilian, even one as storied as his daughter to run this facility. In the end he suspected the long arm of Vice President Hayes that quashed that particular debate. But it wasn’t nepotism, he’d never insult his youngest like that. Lahm and Frasier were the best at what they did, and Janet was poached by Hammond first, so he happily chose the close second.

She nodded. “I know sir, and while we’re starting to see the benefits of the budget increases, the Space Force was still a joke for my entire life. You, Ellis and the Admiral are doing a great job rebuilding it but I’m still short on manpower.”

“Dad...”

“What?”

“We’re in my office Lyn, not in front of everyone.”

She nodded, leaning back slightly on the filing cabinet she’d been sitting on, her eyes must have been pitch black because the only thing keeping her from dozing off was the fact that she kept swinging her legs. She’d been working for seventy-two hours straight trying to get the facility up to snuff. She was also certain the emergency surgery she’d performed on the youngest of the Tollan’s they’d brought back took the last of her energy. That had been surreal, she thanked the Gate’s ability to remain powered on for half an hour at a time (A little longer if they hooked up one of their rudimentary Naquadah generators to it.) because Frasier had guided her through a procedure both women made up out of thin air to patch up a species she’d never encountered before. “I’m glad we patched things up after the first mission…But sometimes I think you misplaced your confidence in me.”

“Impossible.” He paused then added with a slight smile. “Besides, I wanted Frasier, but the sea Eagle will have his due.”

Lahm laughed out loud and stuck her tongue out at her father. “Nice to know I’m your second choice.”

“And look what you’ve done with that..You and Doctor Frasier are basically rewriting medicine out here.” And maybe, if things went all Carolyn’s grandchildren would know about the true extent of her achievements and she’d be alive to receive the praise. What a bitter thought…Duty was sometimes bitter.

“That’s another reason why I want Jan to come through the gate with Charlie. Dad, I had my hands in her guts, right? And she has a uterus and a backup uterus at least I hope that’s what that was! Her bones are black..I’m not even sure they’re fully calcium, there seems to be polymers of some kind in the samples we took and their blood stream is filled with what I think are nanomachines.”

“I was going to ask about that, they seem to be recovering well, do these “medical nanites” do a better job than junior?” That had been the nickname going around for Teal’c’s Prim’tah, causing Lahm to scoff. “No, nothing, I mean nothing I’ve seen out here comes close to the restorative abilities of the Goa’uld, except whatever those creepy fairies did to the Colonel…The Goa’uld may as well create tissue by converting energy into matter for how insane their regenerative abilities are. Teal’c let us infect him with Ebola, irradiate him and there was the time he got drunk with the boys and he accidentally drank gasoline.. Short of blowing their brains out or riddling them with bullets and then from what I read about the fight with Horus? These peers do everything better including healing.”

No one, even with the personal shields should have been able to survive the concussive violence of those explosions, much less the battering of continuous fire. She was no ballistics expert but even if the bullets themselves were stopped, wouldn’t the kinetic energy still carry a bit? He should have been beaten to death by that alone. The shuddered thinking back to Ra…Thankfully the son was less cruel. “But these guys do have some nifty technology and from what I can tell they’re the product of extensive genetic engineering over God knows how many generations. But I have no idea if I’m right about that guess, they have nine chambered hearts and each one has two of them, four kidneys, a liver that’s smaller than a pancreas but thirty times as efficient as a human liver? Assuming that’s even the liver and quad-hemispheric brains with cybernetic attachments? Dad they may look human, hell one of them even has some hominid DNA suggesting intermarriage several generations back, but they aren’t human. If you told me something human or neanderthal or whatever could even procreate with whatever the Tollans are to produce that one with the mixed heritage I would have told it was medically impossible..Yet I’ve got two nurses who aren’t fully human..so what we know can go out the window…I’m not really doing medicine anymore, I’m like Grandpa Shun, doing Ainu spirit healing with a stethoscope.” Not that it would be out of place, Doctor Edwards, one of the precious few surgeons with extensive experience she had apparently ran two lucrative practices out of New Orleans, one of them involved moonlighting as a voodoo priest. Hungan? What the hell were they called again? Bokurs? Why did the Space force always end up with the weirdos?

Seeing her father’s smile, the woman laughed. “I know you’re proud Sir but…I really don’t think we should be poking around in these guys alone.”

“I’ll see if George can spare Doctor Frasier for a bit, in the meantime you need to get some sleep.”

“I can’t, the older one woke up an hour ago, Doctor Jackson said he demanded to speak to the heads of this facility.”

“And Skara and I will be there don’t worry about it. Besides, I get the feeling its less so he can complain about the quality of service and more so he can demand something from us.” Landry had seen the look in those cold gray eyes, they were that of a leader and not someone accustomed to following orders or being at someone else’s leave.

“You sure?” she managed.

Landry stood straight and looked down at Lahm “Let me put it to you another way, as your father and your commanding officer I’m ordering you to bed young lady.”

“Yessiiirrr” She responded in mock petulance before making her way out of the apartments in the “town hall” building that seemed to be at the center of the city set up outside the Pyramid complex and on the lake. She needed sleep and if the Colonel and his gang were here then she was confident she could relax.

The only question on both of their minds as she departed was if Captain Lorne and Colonel Makepeace were in any danger now that the truth about the Tollans was out.

Whatever that was.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Update time! The attempt to unravel the mystery of the Tollan continues apace, Lorne gets a POV and Landry gets to show off why they'd let a guy who designs stealth planes and spaceships for a living command a forward action base.

O'Neill spars with the Tollan leader!

@Harlock @paulobrito @Gladiator Had to follow up the hype of the Nox with something at least half as good

Rax-Narya

.......

Captain Evan Lorne wasn’t exactly sure what he expected when he stepped through the gate, leading a team of nine rangers and two Abydonian interpreters. He knew that there was apparently a contradiction in intelligence on one of their potential trade partners, that the ruined yet highly advanced planet SG-1 discovered was Tollan. And that they now suspected there was some kind of op to conceal the true extent of their technological capabilities. He also knew his primary mission here was to contact the leaders of the Tollan colonies on Rax-Narya and inform them that some of their people didn’t make it out. Ostensibly this was just a rescue mission but given the seeming number of unknown variables here, it could have easily gone south and so he was told to watch himself.

Unknown number of variables, it seemed to Lorne like everyone assumed the Tollan were this supersecret advanced society that posed as comparatively primitive tradesmen when to him there seemed a much more logical explanation. Mainly, that the Tollan he encountered here were from a splinter group that broke off, maybe their version of a luddite movement or Amish? There were plenty of subcultures on earth that did that, the Lorne family ranch was on the outskirts of a commune of wealthy ex hippies who had abandoned the cities to form their own rural villages and while they had indoor plumbing and heating and cooling, most of their daily lives were spent living simply and rustically. They hunted and fished, farmed the way people farmed in the nineteenth century, dedicated their craftwork and art to something similar to the renaissance. They made whiskey and cider and were probably on their third generation living like that. He supposed by the standards of the Tollans the sprawling city that laid out before him and reminded him of old timey photos of New York City at the turn of the twentieth century would have been the equivalent.

It was a city on an inlet, he could smell the sea air and the docks loomed ahead of him with vessels that seemed to have rudimentary steam power and were those paddle wheels? The flags were different, the dress was different but if he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn that they had traveled through time instead of to another planet (Could a Stargate even do that?). The lead gate in the square shut off behind them and he took note of the fact that it was imposing and black with pink crystals in the chevrons, an uncomfortable reminder of the long reach of Apophis. There were six other gates, each resting one behind the other spaced out creating a wedge pattern. Those must have been the closed network Gates that Teal’c had mentioned, that could only go to one planet. Each one was enormous and color coded, greens and blues that reminded him of the Abydonian pyramids, one flanked by statues of Anubis and another by statues of Horus, another with a golden Eagle -Zeus- Lorne thought with a shudder, his interpreter having been one of the survivors of the Avalon raid. There were groups of laborers moving what looked like a cross between a buffalo and triceratops that was sleeping lazily in said crate (Evidently he was being sent to stud or was a prized animal as there was no fear there.) while a Kelownan heckled them for their laziness. Others from the class designated as Lotar seemed to bustle around them and Lorne felt uneasy. This was such a security risk, if anyone of these went back to any planet in King Cobra’s domain then the Serpent guard would be on their asses before sunset.

Ahead of them a group of men in blue uniform that reminded him of a city cop in a period drama walked over to them. The leader of the group identified himself as Artis and that he was one of the customs officers. He spoke space Egyptian/Imperial Standard damn well and didn’t seem to have trouble understand the accent or dialect of the Abydonians at all.

“He says he welcomes more of the Tau’Ri to Rax-Narya.”

Lorne nodded and then decided to break the ice “Tell him, his tone of voice suggests otherwise.”

The man frowned when this was relayed then shrugged.

“He says, there are many rumors flying around about your involvement in the ascension of Amun Ra” evidently. The imperial cult didn’t bill it as a death, merely that his body was destroyed, and his divine essence was FedExed to his proper place in control of all creation. “This makes him nervous for security reasons, it would look bad on and severely impact their commerce if the System Lords were to decide to embargo this world for conducting business with criminals from a hostile enemy power.”

Fair Lorne reasoned. “Then why hasn’t his government shown us the door?”

“He says, the Curia was given assurances that there would be no ramifications to Rax-Narya if they merely do business with the Tau’Ri but sign no treaty of alliance nor defend them in any future conflict. Evidently this O’Neill impressed Prince Horus enough to suspend hostilities”

Translation, they’re forgiving the Tollan and likely paying for intel on our capabilities and intentions out here. Lorne thought bitterly and given the look on the lawman’s face, it seemed as if he recognized what Lorne was thinking and his shrug and “what the hell did you expect?” look told him all he needed to know about his odds of getting any sympathy here. “Officer Artis asks if you’d like to go on a ride on their subterranean locomotive. He says the rail lines were completed last year and they’ve cut congestion in the streets down by fifty percent.”

A subway from the rag time era? Lorne was honestly fascinated; he’d always loved trains as a kid. “I would be honored but tell him we come on an urgent matter and that I need to confer with Colonel Makepeace.”

The customs officer frowned asking if everything was alright back home and if Lord Apophis had made any attempts to breach their gate or if Prince Horus had shown up for a round two.

“Luckily yes, We’ve never had a breach of our home gate and I suppose Prince Horus is as an honorable as everyone says he is, because he hasn’t attempted any hostility towards us.” Thank God for small favors he supposed. The hotel they were taken to was several blocks down the bustling street, he had offered to fetch a cab for them but Lorne wanted to take in more of the city. Evidently this planet had a population of under half a billion, but there were nine such cities on Rax-Narya and a trans continental railway that ferried people between them and the myriad of towns in two weeks. Given the pride in the man’s voice it was no doubt the pinnacle of their achievement, yet Lorne was somewhat skeptical of that, the tech level he saw in the city proper was a few decades ahead of that sort of travel time, trains of the 1880’s tended to take four or five days to make it across the US, though Lorne admittedly had no idea how large this continent was. Some other things raised his hackles, the city was too clean, there was no stench, no filth, no smoke from factories nor smog from the trolly’s or primitive cars. The steamboats themselves, didn’t really steam. Oh sure, they bellowed, and he could see steam but there was no smoke and the buildings themselves shimmered in the light of day akin to the way the Pyramids on Abydos did. He was starting to think maybe the SGC was right, and this was one gigantic con, but if so? Why?

The hotel he found Makepeace and the other’s at was something right out of the gilded age. Granite and marble everywhere, bird cages and indoor fountains, stained glass and the most sophisticated lighting he could see (and it was again oddly cool inside this Hotel.), Makepeace and his team were enjoying Dino-Buffalo steaks and sharing a bottle of bourbon with the Tollan representatives (Damnit! What if they have an allergic reaction!) saluting to the Colonel, Makepeace rose and walked forward. “Captain?”

“We need to talk sir…”

“Can it wait? We’re in the middle of sealing a trade deal.”

“No sir…General Landry’s orders.”

“Alright.” He turned and went into that used car salesmen speak that made Makepeace such a consummate bullshit artist and so effective on these trade deals. The Tollans were all too happy to agree to a recess and Makepeace sent them away with bottles of Cognac (Damnit sir!). Once the two were able to meet in the Colonel’s private suite the atmosphere tensed pretty quickly and within ten minutes there was a call to the Tollan representatives asking to speak with a member of the Curia their insistence sending ripples of concern through watchful eyes.

…………

Abydos

...........

Skara’s first impression of the elderly man who lay propped up in the Tau’Ri bed, his bald head and white whiskers, cold gray eyes was that he possessed the same imperiousness of Hammond of Texas and the same remote coldness of Amun Ra, though he detected none of the Godhead’s ruthlessness. Still, undercurrents of bitterness filled the young leader, a people so advanced out in the stars that they (as best as he could understand it.) could harness untold amounts of energies from the nothingness between matter and construct rescue ships larger than the mountain sized pyramids of Abydos in the middle of a cataclysm and yet they had done nothing to help his people from their bondage?

It was an unfair bitterness, Skara understood. Even if they did possess technology in excess of the System Lords from what Skara could infer from the imperial religion’s hyperbole and allegory that even the more advanced races of the cosmos were overwhelmed by numbers and ingenuity in the end. Still, Skara couldn’t help himself, he missed his sister and the young man in him wanted someone to blame other than cruel happenstance. -I can blame Apophis, but I can do nothing against him, I can blame Amunet, but I can’t reach her- He thought bitterly and felt a wave of shame as he realized how cowardly it was to be resentful of the Tollans. -I am not like that- Skara thought. Once it was clear that the man understood Imperial Standard, Skara introduced himself as Marshall of the Abydonian militia and then introduced General Henry Landry and Doctor Daniel Jackson of the Tau’Ri.

Perhaps that was a mistake because the man turned to the other two. “You’re the ones responsible for the death of Amun Ra? How did a species so primitive manage to destroy his pleasure barge?”

Landry shifted looking to Jackson. ‘Tell him, Ra ambushed our men and rigged a fission bomb with Naquadah, he intended to send it through the Stargate our soldiers tried to disarm it and failed, so with no other choice.”

“You used the Goa’uld matter conveyance technology to send the bomb to the Mandjet.” He finished, his Imperial standard was flawless and he spoke it slowly enough that Skara could pick up the dialectic differences and the subtle hints of his accent and the youth wasn’t sure if the man was doing that to be demean his host or out of courtesy. He laughed bitterly at that “It is understandable response, but one that may unleash a war upon this galaxy that puts us all in danger..You are reckless.”

“Never the less, we are here.”

“That is true.” He conceded to Landry through Jackson. “And I find that remarkable, that the parent species of the so many Lotar is as unsophisticated as you appear to be and yet you’ve already clearly taken advantage of all the gifts that have fallen to your lap.”

“Glad we could impress you.” O’Neill had sauntered into the room, Kasuf and Teal’c beside him and caught the tail end of Jackson’s translation not like he needed the translation for the tone the apparent Tollan leader conveyed.

“You impress me the same way the apes that infest the Galaxy courtesy of the System Lords impress me when one of their kind grabs a discarded hammer and uses it to club his rivals to death.” Came the sneering reply, that Jackson again relayed with a pleading look to Skara and

“Ya, ya and guess what? Our monkey asses saved yours so why don’t you show a little gratitude.” Came O’Neill’s response matching venom for venom.

“Colonel.” Landry stepped forward. “You’re right, we haven’t your level of technology, I’m an engineer and I think I understand well enough just how little I understand the gap here, but he has a point we did save your life.”

The man laughed. “You were no doubt exploring the Gate Network and no doubt came about Rax-Tolla by chance; an abandoned world in cataclysm and you set upon my world with the intent feast on its ruins and you expect me to show gratitude that in the midst of your grave robbing that you managed one act of decency?”

“The Tau’Ri are not buzzards!” Skara snapped angrily. “They help us even now, reclaim what was lost to us.”

Without a missing a beat the man snapped back “And tell me, when the Imperial Chamberlain returns from her sojourn and finally appoints a new Governor of your sector what will happen when they come to Abydos and find the presence of a foreign military and it’s..colonists.”

Skara went quiet, no one had actually considered that – because outside of Ra’s progress no one had seen any alien save for the ones the Tau’Ri brought back from Chulak. They had ignored Abydos for decades since the death of Sobek, why wouldn’t they merely continue to do the same? And perhaps they would have under normal circumstances, but times were not normal, and Skara felt a chill down his spine. Reflexively he responded with some declaration of an intent to drive the Serpent men from their world and he withered under the scornful gaze of the alien elder.

“This one isn’t qualified to speak for his people.”

“Are you?” Kasuf spoke for the first time, his tone even and calm betraying no hint of the indignant rage at the insult towards his son. “Did your people not ruin their world conducting an unsafe experiment?”

“He’s got a point.” Jack responded with a derisive laugh. Neither Jackson nor Skara bothered blunting his response.

Something flickered in the man’s eyes a mix of rage and guilt, and he turned towards General Landry. “With the assistance of your crude medical tools it will take three standard days for our bodies to fully repair themselves. I demand to the return of our equipment and release through the gate by then.”

After Jackson relayed the message Landry nodded his head. “We’re in agreement, you can have your stuff back, we’re aren’t thieves and we sure as hell aren’t grave robbers. We’ve already contacted Rax-Narya, I’m sure your more…primitive cousins will welcome you.”

The man’s eyes shifted towards Landry, and they narrowed again. “Where?”

Landry allowed himself a small smile, the shift was subtle, the surprise barely revealed on those hard features, but he caught it. -Got ya- “A planet that trades heavily with the System Lords, Peacekeepers and everyone else out there. They seem to be about a hundred years behind us, but it seems like you guys share the same language and naming convention for your planets.”

The man leaned back in his bed, coughing slightly. “General Landry, what are you insinuating?”

“Doctor Jackson, if you please?” Landry smiled amiable and Jackson shuffled as he stepped forward. “Well, the prefix Rax, I’ve been studying your language over the last few days, and it seems it’s a prefix that means “Colony of or founded by.” So, either Rax-Tolla and Rax-Narya were colonies of the same parent world…Or” He couldn’t even explain where the hunch came from or why both Teal’c and General Landry seemed to agree with it despite how illogical but.. He decided to go with it. “The same people.”

Something shifted in his eyes and the man almost smirked. “The manner in which you have worded that seems to imply you believe our original homeworld was lost.”

Jackson smiled ruffling his own hair nervously. “It’s a hunch.”

His reaction though, all but confirmed it. “My name is Omoc, I was governor General of Rax-Tolla most of our people evacuated to a new world outside of the Stargate network. I chose to be among the last to leave and was caught up in a hyperspace spasm. As head of state, I demand the release of my people as soon as we are able to depart.”

“Release to where?” Teal’c asked. “If your people are outside the network then you know as well as I do, if you are outside imperial space, it may take years for a vessel to find you, do you choose exile upon some primitive world beyond imperial space? If so in good conscience the Tau’Ri would not easily let you leave save with the promise of aid.”

“I have said all that I will say War Master.” Omoc, as he was called laid back in bed, placing his mask on and seemed to allow himself to drift back into unconsciousness.

The only thing that impressed Colonel O’Neill more than how easily Daniel and Skara could keep pace with the conversation enough to translate it all was how arrogant these people pretended to be and how much they sucked at lying.

Not the planet mumbo jumbo, but the guilt and shame that he thought he hid behind a mask of arrogance and rudeness.

O’Neill knew that look, but he thought he did it better back when he still bothered.

Before he stepped through the gate, before he met Daniel and Skara and his team.

What the hell did you people do old man?

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright, next chapter up, Drey'ac wakes up and has the mother of all hangovers, Colonel Makepeace breaks bread with a familiar face and more questions arise than answers because lolTollan.

given the nature of the depths of this enigma..I thought the threadmark fit

Nineveh –

She was dead, she was certain of that. She had to be, the explosion had blown out the bulkhead and blew her and a hundred tons of debris out through windows that were themselves tough enough to pulpify her flesh from impact. More besides, she stopped feeling everything the moment that she was blown out into open space. One of the few things she remembered after that was a reassuring voice, the voice of the child sustaining her and maturing inside of her, assuring her that she would live. The next thing she felt was an immense psychic field that she knew was essentially holding her brutalized flesh to her bones, keeping her from quite literally coming apart along seams created by the impact. The next sensation was a kind of pain that should have caused her heart to fail from the shock, but it was quietly numbed. She couldn’t remember much after that, except she kept mentally apologizing to Teal’c and her sons, lamenting that she would have no children neither from her own womb or cultivated in her pouch. A soft laughter and then something akin to cool fluids.

Jaffa couldn’t survive inside a resurrection chamber; the immortality technology of the system lords allegedly would destroy their cellular structure and the technology was strictly regulated any way. But they did have the best things, a Prim’tah that could repair almost any damage so long as enough of the body remained intact and enough time was given and if the injuries were too extensive there were these wondrous combat pods designed by Athena and Nerus that were filled with a fluid that was essentially neutral proteins that could be assembled into the genetic material of whoever was placed inside there. Not that such technology was often used, any injuries extensive enough to warrant such technology often meant the Jaffa in question was dead already and needed to be mopped off the floor by the nearest ill-tempered Lotar Street sweeper. But for some reason she had not only survived the explosion and the vacuum of space, but also survived long enough to be put into one of these pods.

She floated there, she knew not how long, but occasionally her conscience would stir and she would see her “son” resting in a healing jar near her, a pair of feminine hands on either side, glowing faintly. That couldn’t have been Ba’al’s wife, the Peer and Goa’uld queen Nanshe, the last living daughter of Tiamat and the sole survivor of the house of Illu (Well, there were rumors Ba’al finally got her pregnant.) who had been amongst the first to join Ouranos and Tartarus and their rebellion. For while she was a gifted Peer, her powers were half that of what Lord Ba’al’s were and she definitely didn’t have the ability to heal without a ribbon device, only Ra and Hathor possessed that power. Besides, she had never seen Nanshe not since arriving. But why would Hathor be here?! Especially since they’d likely end up on opposite sides should the worst happen?

These questions remained unanswered until she woke to the sensation of her “son” sliding back into her pouch. That would explain why she felt so alone, she hoped that Ba’al kept his word and implanted her with one of his sentient offspring, she wasn’t sure she could go back to a lobotomized Prim’tah. The solitude was more than she could bare, and it was only a few seconds. When she woke, she found herself wincing as cold air drifted across brand new skin and she thanked her son mentally as he began to focus on fishing the job the pod started. Straightening out all the new tissue and mending the microfractures in her bones and the broken capillaries. She let out a disjointed grunt and realized her “son” was likely busy enthusiastically regrowing her vocal cords. Which in and of itself was a curious sensation, especially hearing herself go from hisses, to rasps, to grunts to finally being able to form words.

Which were curses of annoyance when she touched her head and realized how short her hair was. -It must have been burned off along with most of my scalp- that had been regrown by the chamber and her “son” would likely get to work on rapidly growing out her hair in a day or so. She sat, naked being offered a robe by an unknown hand and she muttered thanks before sliding it on and wincing at the texture. “It is amusing.” She rasped, chuckling softly, or wheezing softly as those damned organs were still new. “I’ve been involved in combat, test flying and other dangerous ventures in space since I was a girl of ten, yet it’s a terrorist attack on a space station orbiting a Crown world that exposes me to vacuum.”

“I would call it irony, but in truth we’ve grown arrogant and complacent enough that I am far too ashamed to do so.” That chorus of voices, the hymnal speech, the ancient rippling power and the confident regality of it. Breath caught in Drey’ac’s throat, and she whirred in the general direction of the sound and looked aghast when she opened new eyes to find the eerie beauty of Sekhmet-Hathor former empress and chamberlain of the entirety of the Imperium of the system lords and from how wet her silken sleeves and hands looked, she had evidently been the one to put her “son” back inside the Fleet Captain and likely helped extract her from the pod..

Ja’mah!

She was at once mortified and honored and she scrambled off the medical table and crumbled onto one knee as best she could when her nerves were still remembering how they worked. “Majestic Eminence! Forgive me, I did not know you were here.” She wheezed out.

“I needed to borrow Lord Ba’al’s resurrection chamber. I believe this is the first time I’ve used one since the battle of Arnes before the Jaffa race even existed.” There was a light hint of amusement in the woman’s voice. “Child, you’ve no reason to be embarrassed, minding the foster mother of my nephew is hardly demeaning to my station..Besides..you protected young Hrakar here from Amunet. That, scheming little whore has butchered so many of my nieces and nephews that I am bereft of an entire side of my family.”

No one could miss the agony in her words, nor the deep, dark rage that had destroyed an entire species for far less of a wound. Hather was beautiful, noble and kind, but she could be a monster when she felt so inclined and Drey’ac almost wanted to fear her as she would have feared Amun-Ra, as she feared Apophis, but something stopped her. -She regrets it, what she did to the Set’yim- Drey’ac thought, even now she exerted enormous effort on controlling that dark side that threatened to unleash itself towards Amunet even if none could blame the former Empress if she tore the little lunatic apart. “I wish, that I could have done more, Chanyu and Aqet were good to me, majestic eminence and their children did not deserve that.. The great lord Apophis was good to me once as well.” Mighty Hathor nodded in seeming gratitude and walked towards Drey’ac helping the woman stand and to the Jaffa’s shock providing her a shoulder to lean on while her body oriented itself. “We will have a reckoning for those whom we love Fleet Captain, this I declare.” It was uttered in a reassuring whisper but a promise like that, uttered in the tone of finality and power that the Chamberlain had uttered it came out as a divine edict, a proclamation of fate.

This will happen. We shall be whole again.

It was inspiring and filled her with a warrior’s resolve, and she nodded silently, turning her head as Hathor pivoted to gaze at the other two figures present.

Ba’al sat silently, observing the interaction between the two, he had one of his usual Cheshire like smiles on his face. Beside him, a woman with blue tinted skin and blood red eyes, slightly pointed ears and hair the deepest shade of purple Drey’ac had ever seen stood, looming over Lord Ba’al standing nearly a foot taller than he. Nanshe, it had to be for it was said the host she had taken after the second battle of Cimmeria was part or nearly half Nebari, mostly of human stock but there was no mistaking the blue and turquoise coloring. By all accounts their marriage was controversial, imposed by Amun-Ra as part of whatever secret dealing the emperor and the scientist turned tycoon had worked out in the shadows. Ba’al was a new System Lord, young and his extreme wealth (Which existed before he gained control of the most lucrative Naquadah mines in the known universe.) came from a bloodline that none could verify survived the Ori rebellion and many suspected he was an illegitimate son of Ra passed off for whatever reason and yet the glow of his eyes was entirely different. This, mystery and his age meant the marriage and inheriting of Tiamat’s old domain was seen as a grave insult to some. Ba’al had won most of his detractors over with his mix of loyalty to the Imperium and ingenuity, but everyone assumed his marriage to Nanshe was a loveless one. It didn’t help that Nanshe was one of the earliest Peers to be born on Tau’Ri and thus was tens of thousands of years older than her husband. No one assumed that could work given the age gap alone made for entirely different psychology.

Yet the way she stood beside him, the way their fingers intertwined, the subtleties of their body language. Drey’ac had been married for a century, she knew the body language of unhappy couples and happy couples. Every court rumor about them was evidently utterly false and she immediately wondered if that wasn’t by design.

The slight smirk from Nanshe confirmed it. They’re both dangerously clever -Nothing in the history books or mental profiles I’ve read about Nanshe suggested this, to have concealed her true nature so well for so long- “Majesties…I had not known.”

Nanshe spoke up now, her voice a series of husky chanters, all women all of varying ages all bemused. All psychically instilling her with a desire to laugh at herself. “Husband, this one is a traditionalist.”

“Most conservative.” Ba’al remarked. “I’ve been trying to get her to address me by name in private for months. But alas, she always says “things must be as they are” yet paradoxically is at the forefront of much social change courtesy of her husband.”

“You’re teasing the poor woman.” Hather admonished them looking to Drey’ac “Teasing a woman who became a nine time combat ace in a broken down death glider during the Titan’s rebellion, defeated ten consecutive Scarren armadas and destroyed their empire in a week. Who hunts pirates the way my son and Herakles hunt beasts.” Hathor made a tsk, tsking sound. “You and Teal’c were an unstoppable duo, I am truly sorry our empire failed you both to the degree that he felt he needed to do what he did.”

She wasn’t about to cry in front of the mother of the greatest civilization that is, was or ever would be and so Drey’ac steeled herself and promised to give thanks later, for the magnitude of her words and she stood at last on her own. “With, all due respect and gratitude majestic eminence, I do not believe you are here for that reason.”

Hathor’s eyes glowed a soft pink and she inclined her head lightly in confirmation. “No, it is over that which you and Admiral Crais discovered…what you dare not speculate to.”

She swallowed. “That a peer is attempting to cause instability within the empire.”

Hathor nodded ever so slightly. “And how your lord here had begun his own investigation parallel to my own.”

Oh, Ja’mah.

She understands now….

Her eyes darted to Ba’al you’re the most dangerous sentient in the universe aren’t you my lord?

He seemed to smile at her thoughts and still she couldn’t bring herself to hate or mistrust him.

Damn him!

……………

Rax-Narya

Colonel Makepeace spent several years under the tutelage of General West and his old clubhouse within the NID, from congresswoman Kensey all the way to several former Presidents, to Harry Maybourne, Robert Makepeace had known his fair share of liars, killers and despots and he had a sinking feeling the tall, gaunt woman who appeared to be in her mid-sixties was one such woman. Grand Regent Travell wore a uniform that reminded him of old photos of Augusto Pinochet for some reason. The Blues, the reds, the way her boots shone in the light from both the window and the lamps. From her figure, he could also tell she was a looker when she was younger which only added to the imperiousness and aloofness. Grand Regent of what? The planet? He’d already met the Governor General.

His Abydonian interpreter said that she was the head of state born to an inherited position, as the royal bloodline of the Tollan race was lost, her family assumed command until such time as it could be found or some other such nonsense that sounded more like science fantasy than realpolitik. She presided over the Curia, which was the governing body of all Tollan worlds, which again made him wonder if Lorne was right about his assessment that this, gilded age like steampunk city was pure astroturf. Her gray eyes gazed down at the tablet as she flipped through the images displayed therein, showing an oddly intuitive grasp of the technology she had supposedly never seen (In his experience the snake men liked projecting holograms a lot.) Though, what surprised Makepeace more than anything was the look of sorrow buried below a nonplussed expression.

She had expected this.

“So, it finally happened.” Travell let out a sigh that was almost a perfect facsimile of disappointment.

“Pardon?” Captain Lorne asked, surprised by her response.

“They destroyed themselves, or one of them did.” She turned to look out the window, gazing at the ships departing the harbor in their almost perfect imitation of a steamboat’s maneuvering. “Perhaps they all did and this Rax-Tolla as you called it was the only one that had a gate.” Sensing the look of incredulity on Makepeace’s face the woman smiled what might have been a sad smile. “The main Tollan line is a very advanced race, five thousand years ago our ancestors broke off from them, led by our sovereign they departed the core world of our people in an arc and settled on a world that was several dozen lightyears farther from the border with imperial space than it is now. Our ancestors believed Tollan society had grown, ossified, arrogant. We mastered technology to such a degree that we wanted for nothing and were safe from everything. But that safety became a form of slavery I suppose. Our ancestors believed they forgot what it was to innovate, to grow and so they sought to challenge themselves by starting civilization all over again.”

It was completely absurd, but it was just crazy enough to be true Makepeace realized, which was the problem. “Minus indoor plumbing and cooling anyway?” he asked from his position seated in a rather comfortable leather chair in the ornate office room they had been escorted into for this conversation. As the Abydonian translated the woman laughed.

“Well, you cannot blame us for that Colonel, we’re not perfect, we do have vices.”

Don’t we all, Makepeace thought.

“With all their advanced technology why didn’t they just meet the Goa’uld on an even footing?” Lorne piped in, the interpreter showing slight signs of having trouble keeping up with three separate people.

The Grand Regent’s smile faltered slightly. “The Imperium is enormous and that which it does not rule outright is tied to it either culturally or economically, everywhere we go across this local Galactic cluster the imperial religion holds sway on worlds both primitive and advanced. Across kingdoms in the stars who have never seen a Goa’uld yet still they pray to the mightiest of that race. The world our ancestors left was isolationist and feared cross cultural contamination.”

Well, that might have been the first truth she told, and it was a half-truth. “But not you guys huh?”

“No, not us.” Travell responded through the overtaxed interpreter. “Colonel Makepeace these refuges are welcome on Rax-Narya, though I doubt they’ll wish it. If they wish asylum with you, we will not oppose it.”

The Colonel thanked her and as they began to depart she called back and asked the interpreter bid them turn over all Tollan technology taken from the refugees to the planetary customs officers upon their return. “It wouldn’t do us much good, but it has been Tollan law for all of their existence that their technology must never leave their hands. It would be..an insult to their memory to do otherwise.”

Makepeace promised her he would pass that along to his superiors and upon leaving he looked to Lorne as they walked through the marble hallways. “What do you think?”

“Off the record sir?”

“Roger that”

“She’s full of shit sir.”

“Yep”

Something was rotten here.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright boys, more chapters up...Narim and Carter do their thing...more of the Tolkien riddle is uncovered and every one's favorite congress woman shows up!

……..

Abydos

If she hadn’t seen their skeletal structure up close, or the “zoom” feature in their enhanced eyes that caused their pupils to literally rotate and contract like something out of an old 90’s sci fi flick Carter would have known that the Tollan were genetically and technologically enhanced simply by virtue of the fact that Narim learned English within six hours of waking up and conversing with Kadra who spoke both languages.

It was also an interesting case study in the difference in the medical tech of two highly advanced societies. The Tollan, would listen and you could see little glints in the eyes as if something was firing behind their cornea, they would crane their heads ever so slightly and ask to hear a sentence in the Abydonian dialect of Imperial standard and then in English. And it was very clear there was some kind of mechanical component to the language centers of their brains because their adjustment to Abydonian and Narim’s gradual learning of English followed very logical very orderly parameters. Conversely the Abydonians (And Lotar in general.) who had been engineered but also selectively bred by the System Lords and their ease at understanding complex concepts came via intuition and instinct. They understood, because their survival depended on not only understanding how to perform complex tasks but to anticipate what some overlord wanted. Daniel and Colonel Kowalski seemed to think that was evidence that the System Lords and the other snakes just killed lotar for the hell of it. But Sam agreed with Jack, she thought it was more out of a need to survive. the System Lords spent sixty thousand years in almost constant warfare and then another ten thousand years ending that war and another five thousand consolidating their massive empire. The conditions and pressures on every species within the Imperium not just the lowliest peasants but even those “peers” must have driven everything they did and their own personal and societal and genetic evolution as well. She saw it in Horus’ eyes when they fought as well. There was a measured intensity to them, even though he was enraged and fighting to avenge his father he kept himself collected as if allowing himself a moment of lost control could get him killed.

In the end it nearly did.

There was an, almost PTSD like quality to it and that made the way the Abydonians learned seem at once more “natural” and unnatural. But it was an intense contradiction to the Tollan who seemed to develop themselves in secret and for their own benefit not merely to overcome some insane obstacle. The break down of their cultures was interesting too, the System Lords were hard, brutal aliens but they embraced high culture, had a very proud sense of tradition that Sam felt in every encounter with them or militaries. Even what she read of Herakles seemed to suggest they viewed themselves as custodians and keepers of civilization as they were conquerors and its rightful rulers. They expanded outward, out of a sense of manifest destiny and took worlds as much by culture as they did force of arms and that was exactly why the Tollan seemed to despise them.

Oh, she wagered the Tollan on the trade worlds were different, or they hid it well (Teal’c’s shock at Omoc referring to the Abydonians as “afflicted with the social disease called Lotarism” came to mind.), she wagered they grudgingly maintained those trade planets both out of a need and because they wanted to maintain an intelligence network (She didn’t believe Omoc’s lie about “those dissident’s who engaged in Lotarism.” For a second.), but there was an isolationist bent to them that bordered on irrational. Not that she particularly minded isolationism, Grandpa Jacob was a follower of Pat Buchanan and some of her fondest memories were the time she spent with her grandfather. She understood it, but there seemed to be something almost pathological about how they went about it. As if they were all, dealing with some kind of fresh trauma that made them relive a very old set of traumas. It was weird, it fascinated her almost more than their technology that baffled her.

She watched Narim with curious eyes, he was a good twenty years older than her, but still strong and curious. He’d called her an angel and despite being much the same as the others, he sat down in the grass in the gardens in the city wrestling with a black German Shepherd named Hugo who was part of the security detail assigned to both protect the Tollans and protect others from the Tollan.

The Abydonians loved Hugo and the other black colored dogs, there was an almost religious reverence for them, and they were always overjoyed when the service dogs paid attention to them. Hugo was a grizzled old bastard who was likely going to retire next year, six hard years of combat and two bullet wounds and a blind eye. His handler Captain Matheson planned to give Hugo to the base, to let him spend the rest of his life in comfort as Hugo had essentially taken to the Abydonians like duck to water and everyone on base loved him. Military mascots were supposedly officially discouraged by Landry had already filed the paperwork to make the exception.

“You didn’t have animals like this back home?” Carter asked, kneeling down to join Narim on the floor, grinning in amusement as the dog playfully pinned him then dropped unceremoniously on the grass next to them both. He was an alien, hell he wasn’t even fully organic, he was a cyborg. She shouldn’t enjoy his company as much as she did and by the occasional look she caught out of the corner of his eyes, Carter realized the state of confusion was mutual. -he’s attracted to me too. I should use that to our advantage, but I feel kind of bad doing it-.

“No.” Narim admitted, his English coming out in a sort of posh mid Atlantic for some baffling reason. “When our ancestors arrived on Rax-Tolla the most complex form of life were these walking trees. Later it was determined the walking trees were predators not native to the world and they had decimated the local fauna. So it was only the animals our ancestors brought with them on their arc and much of their genetic material was…” he trailed off, realizing that he had divulging far too much and quickly began scratching Hugo behind his ears, looking ashamed. “I’ve said too much.”

Carter smiled, trying to keep the guilt out of her eyes. “It’s alright Narim, your people have been through hell. It’s natural to want someone to confide in.”

“Perhaps, it’s a curious sensation though. I’ve never had a moment in my life where my sentiments conflict with my duty. I enjoy your company, it stirs my blood and I adore these people and your soldiers. And yet.”

“I know.” Carter muttered, refusing to push any further and she hated herself for it because he was handing her gold that could be used as emotional leverage later, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to.

What the hell was wrong with her?! She wasn’t some dumb teenager; she wasn’t even a dumb teenager when she was a dumb teenager. Then the memory Horus running Daniel Jackson through filled her head, the blade that pierced her heart and ended her pain, the warm dream before she awoke screaming as Leanan Sidhe restored her to existence. They had failed, miserably that day, but they had become a team, a family that day as well. She felt raw, she had seen her brothers die, she had died herself and she was tired of being confused over what she’d experienced in the fall out of that. Nothing had ever been as wonderful or as complicated as serving as a member of the flagship Stargate team and part of her felt like she was failing them now.

“Does that make us disloyal?”

She laughed a hollow laugh, damn the stupid quarter toaster and his ability to synchronize their emotions. She found herself leaning on his shoulder, enjoying the mid-day sunset. This was stupid, she was stupid for this. “No, it doesn’t disloyal would be telling me your secrets to get in my pants, or me seducing you to do the same then helping you escape in a fit of regret or something cliche like that. Neither of us are that stupid.”

“No, we are not.”

So why did they both feel like that was a mark against them?

…………

Cheyenne Mountain

“Representative Kensey, it’s an honor to welcome a member of the-“

“Honor huh Admiral?” The woman barked out a cruel laugh as she took the Admiral’s hand. “Damn George I would have needed a half dozen barbs in gin before I could muster up the gumption to say that to you.” They didn’t shake hands, there was no point in any pretense on that front. Roberta Kensey would have that bald bastard skinned alive on national television if she could get away with it. The sanctimonious idiot had the nerve to rise through the ranks in the clandestine world of cold war politics while still sticking to his principles and together with Ellis and Hayes created a political bloc that had prevented more than a few of her more lucrative ventures.

Not to mention she was certain Hammond had General West killed quietly to avoid his “big treason” coming to light and risking exposure along with it. She could never prove it and she would never forgive it. The few scant pieces of technology brought back (including one of those retractable helmets.) were created a boom in material sciences that so far had been the exclusive purview of small independently owned companies that resisted all attempts at forcing them to become publicly traded and refused sale. All signs pointed to a revolution in said sciences that would ensure the US would stay at the bleeding edge in certain fields for the next century, all great. Except for the fact that her friends in China and Russia were livid at not being able to benefit from that windfall and her own pocketbook wasn’t nearly as bloated as it could be.

So General West tried to sell a Horus guard helmet to a Chinese defense firm, that was no reason to kill a man and threaten to expose a bunch of her assets, especially when she was owed a sixty percent cut of that deal. No, she would never forgive that Texan swamp running frog man. Neither one could prove anything about the other and so this infuriating stalemate continued.

“Though, I’ll admit Texas, its nice seeing our budget being put to good use.” She remarked with derision in her voice causing the Admiral to crane his head slightly before he turned and began to lead her to the conference room. “We do what we can with the budget increase being so recent after almost four decades of neglect.”

“Yes, yes, now onto business Texas. I hear you have some refugees with high technology that are presently homeless.” Kensey queried, a jackal like sneer on her face.

“With all due respect Representative Kensey, what’s your point?”

She smiled, as if he’d stepped into some kind of trap. “Well, you guys have been doing great lately, don’t get me wrong. All the pharma stuff you’re bringing through is like to save tens of millions of lives and the Naquadah generator is a big success from what I hear, but what about weaponry?”

“The staff weapons taken from the-“

“Yes, yes and in ten years maybe we’ll be able to make some energy weapons of our own without any expertise, any knowhow. We need people who know how to make this crap to help and if what the reports are saying about these…What are they called? Toran?”

“Tollan” Hammond answered, his tone growing slightly harsher with every passing second.

“Whatever, your boys seem to think they might have technology on par with or above the damn snakes!”

“We don’t know that.”

She cut him off. “I want their weapons and I want their knowledge Texas.” Her voice was cold and venomous and Hammond got the feeling she was about to try and give him an order he would have to refuse.

“And if they refuse?”

“to hell with them, take it by force and compel 'em under torture if you have too.”

The entire base seemed to go silent at this, even Kensey’s aides who had been putting up a front to try and act tough in solidarity with their boss seemed to come to close to blanching. This was not a conversation to have in a hallway but of course Kensey decided to do it right there, where she could use his answers to undermine his command. “Last I checked, that’s illegal ma’am.”

“you’re right, if these people were Jaffa or any other sort of alien, our legal experts tell me the constitution would apply to them.” She spat the words out as if they were poison on her tongue. “But these people aren’t really even people, are they?”

“Ma’am?” Just what the hell was she getting at?

“The blood work.”

Damn, she had spies in his mountain! No way she’d be reading those reports so fast.

“They’ve got extensive robotics in their body, even those micromachine things..Nanowhatevers. The bill of rights doesn’t apply to inanimate objects Texas, they’re things. They’re not even real, just do what you need to do to take possession of them. They stopped having a say when they woke up on Abydos.”

And there it was, Hammond had expected her to play dirty, something devious, something vile. Maybe the threat of removing him unless he turned them over, maybe a blackmail threat. But this? This was obscene, it violated every oath he ever swore as a warrior, as a soldier and even as a man. Several of the personnel in the area shuffled along quickly, their looks of disgust plain as day. “No.” he answered finally.

She raised an eyebrow “My order comes with a lot of weight Admiral.”

“But it’s outside my chain of command Ma’am and it’s an illegal order.” Cutting her off he added. “I don’t know who the legal scholars you consulted were, but by your criteria of what meets the definition of an artificial person anyone with a pacemaker, cochlear implant or insulin pump would be a cyborg, say don’t you have a pacemaker Representative Kensey?”

Her features seemed to adopt all the characteristics of a particularly ugly newborn that just tasted lemon for the first time. “Last I checked, Texas. I wasn’t an alien.”

“Even if I agreed Ma’am, what would torturing these people get us? If you’re right and they’re more sophisticated than the Goold, do you really think torturing their citizens is going to help us? What if they take it as an act of war? We’re barely managing to avoid a war with the preeminent power in our neck of the woods and now you want to risk possible war with another power?”

“I’ll take this to your superiors Hammond.”

“Read the Space Force charter ma’am, there’s no one superior to me save for the man who sits in the Whitehouse and ol’Admiral Ellis. Hell, let’s step into my office, we can conference together the four of us.”

Kensey paused for a moment, hanging there in the hallway, looking as if she were going to try to rip the man’s head off. Her lips twitched, before she laughed a false laugh. “Alright Texas, you can refuse me, but I’ll go over your head in a different way.” She turned and stormed towards the main command area as if the damn base belonged to her.

This was going to be problem, how the hell was he supposed to explore the Galaxy and make allies if elements of his own government were hellbent on playing stupid games like this!

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

New update, games get played, Omoc makes a confession, some info about the history of the Tollan gets out and Jack decides he's tired of it all. Oh and Travell is...Travell.

…………..

Abydos

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

‘So, you do understand this technology?” Jackson asked, somewhat surprised. Over the last sixteen hours the tension with the Tollan had moved beyond needing to drag O’Neill out of the room once when Omoc pushed his buttons one too many times, to needing to prevent Abydonians from shooting Narim and another Tollan when they appeared outside their hospital room with no explanation.

Which was when they learned the Tollan’s had technology that allowed them to phase through solid matter. Technology Teal’c said couldn’t work on Goa’uld buildings normally because the Naquadah particles dispersed throughout their construction and self-repair systems would usually disrupt such tech. Omoc had been particularly furious with Narim for exposing state secrets then and Teal’c spent an hour or so speculating with Carter about how it was they achieved that. They were obviously an extremely sophisticated people and while Teal’c was the first to admit he was no scientist even the stuff the learned in grader school put most of Earth’s scientists to shame in terms of understanding if not formula. It was rather fascinating to watch and then to get to study the contrasts between their cultures up close, to see how secretive the Tollan were and when he’d asked when they simply didn’t just stand up to the Imperium the looks both Omoc and O’Neill gave him had told Daniel that was a dumb question. “Let us say, that we possessed the capacity to destroy a thousand Goa’uld ships.” Omoc responded in a way that suggested he was doing his best to pretend like they didn’t totally have that capability, while divulging just enough to let it seem like a not-so-subtle threat. “What do we do about the other ten thousand? There is a point where technological advantages stop having a strategic impact.”

That had been rather obvious, earth’s history was filled with examples like that, and he felt rather stupid for it. Omoc must have sensed that and maybe he decided to play Jackson’s game and turn the tides on him because the otherwise harsh man became willing to answer certain questions. Omoc had said it was because both he and O’Neill were willing to admit when they were being fools, which was a rare trait in any sentient. That led to a conversation about how pride was seen as a great sin in nearly all Earth’s religions which Omoc thought was rather enlightened for a bunch of backwoods savages.

The question made the elder Tollan hiss out a laugh that turned into a cough. “Dok-tor Jackson, you ask that question as if you don’t believe I’m learned in the sciences”

“Forgive me Governor General, but you strike me more like our superior. Admiral Hammond, a scholar and a leader, an administrator but not a man of the sciences.” Jackson answered, having learned that Omoc preferred formality, he also refused to speak in English even though Daniel was certain he understood it by now. Which gave the linguist time to practice Tollan, a language that was utterly alien to any language he’d encountered in the galaxy so far but had adopted enough Imperial syntax that he suspected their “modern” language was a fusion of the two which oddly contradicted and reinforced their almost manic xenophobia. -It also means I’m not talking to a man but a wolf, he’s liable to snap at me or have an ulterior motive.-. Maybe to get their gear back? Omoc had not been pleased when General Landry had it confiscated.

Omoc smiled nodding again before he gazed back up at the holographic projection depicting their war with the Ori, the rebellion then conquest. “I am not, but our science is a generation or more ahead of the Goa’uld, I learned how to make devices like this as a child in my studies. The Goa’uld make things differently than we do, we’re ahead of them yet we do not know how to build our own Stargates. Nor do we understand how their hyperspace relays work.” He was fishing now; Daniel was sure of it, but he had also softened a bit either because he felt he and Jack proved something or because he’d begun to realize the deception wasn’t going to work.

“We’ve had several examples of that on my world, where a more advanced culture has trouble duplicating specific achievements by a less sophisticated people. Usually, it’s in medicine or material sciences.”

“It often is.” Omoc observed. “The ancient races whom the Goa’uld overthrew forgot how to fashion gates, this much we know from our own analyses. How much of that culture they plundered?” He gestured forward as the advancement continued. “Or perhaps it is an example of your Ballard-Jackson theory.”

Daniel raised an eyebrow.

“Reading material was provided to us Doctor Jackson, audio material as well, including a recording of a conversation you had five years ago with some rather colorful individuals.” Omoc saw his reaction and wheezed out a laugh “I don’t think it was intentional.”

“I hope not, but that isn’t the question, you really want to ask me is it Governor General?”

Omoc raised a white eyebrow “And what Dok-tor Jackson, is the question?”

“Whether or not Rax-Narya is an example of our theory.”

Omoc folded his arms behind his back, his gaunt features casting a scarecrow like shadow across the hall, flickering as the hologram continued its propaganda. “And are they?”

“No” Daniel answered as bluntly as possible, sensing that this was the culmination of this little series of questions and answers. A moment that could determine the outcome of their entire interaction with the mysterious Tollan. “I don’t believe so. It’s a good cover story Omoc, but I don’t think so.”

The Tollan elder let out another rasp of a laugh. “And you suppose we, what? Create those trade outposts to obtain what we need while hiding ourselves from a rival?”

“No, I think you could have continued unnoticed by the Goa’uld for hundreds, maybe thousands of more years. But you recognize what will eventually happen, so you created elaborate set ups, outposts to make yourselves a semi-important hub of trade while directing them away from your real homes. They’re spy worlds, listening outposts.” Jackson was called crazy for suggesting this by Kowalski, but O’Neill and Carter agreed, Teal’c seemed to side with Kowalski but the more he thought about it the more sense it made.

“You’re accusing my people of perpetrating a rather elaborate hoax.”

“That’s what Teal’c said, that it was the most elaborate operation he’d have ever heard of being conducted. He was skeptical.”

Omoc nodded with a slight frown as if what he had to say next tasted foul. “To earn the rank of first prime is a rare honor, to become a War master before the age of three hundred and I believe he was the youngest ever promoted. Perhaps you should listen to him.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Omoc let out a slightly louder laugh, followed by an almost grunt of approval and at last het turned, backing facing the map. “Take me to Colonel O’Neill and General Landry, I’ve something to discuss with them.”

……….

She offered them asylum sir and spun a pretty cover story about her people being separatists but honestly sir, the way she said it worried me. Like she’d arrange for an accident to happen or something, to make damn sure they never set foot on Rax-Narya alive. Advise caution General these people are somewhat unhinged.

What a cold people, General Landry thought as he mulled the conversation over with Kasuf again. The two were convinced something deeper was going on than mere differences in values. This Regent Travell seemed to be a cold creature and from the pictures taken by the tablet as she scrolled through it, it was clear she knew she was being photographed.

She doesn’t seem to have the extent of the cybernetic enhancements these guys have, but I don’t doubt her senses were just as good. She detected what was happening easily enough. The one called Narim had off handedly confirmed this while discussing his people with Sam, mentioning that the people of Rax-Narya might have been just as augmented as his kind, but along different lines and his tone seemed to come with a warning as well. As if he thought the SGC was walking along some dangerous ground, coming perilously close to a predator or some sort. He wouldn’t elaborate anymore but what little both men had to decipher this riddle with suggested a profoundly paranoid people willing to set up one of the most elaborate and complicated deceptions he’d ever seen.

One he thought was somewhat wasteful and dangerous. But that made them unpredictable and the fact that none of his engineers could make heads or tails of how they powered their technology must less how to use it bothered him even more so. On some fundamental level they understood how snake tech worked in theory at least. Most of that theory admittedly came from pulp novels and science fiction but at least there was some understanding, here? The tech wasn’t just advanced it was utterly alien. The mechanics Teal’c and the red skinned Kelownan woman had explained was simply alien.

Jack thought they designed it that way as well that it probably wasn’t just coincidence. Skara seemed to support that, and the young soldier had a knack for building things that had impressed Landry. The two had bonded over the design of a new irrigation system and ever since then the General had come to trust his insight. Abydonian inferences, tended to border on magic sometimes. Omoc and the others entered his office in the equivalent of what he suspected was the mayor’s office in the “townhall building.” Flanked by Jackson, he noted Narim, and Carter followed, along with Hugo the soon to be base mascot and his fellow soldier who seemed to be the permanent shadow of the Tollan. O’Neill and Teal’c were followed by Kowalski and all three men looked like they were engaged in physical activity before they were called here. And by the relieved looks on the faces of the Marines, Teal’c was probably whooping their asses in the gym again.

“Governor Omoc, you wished to see me.”

The man seemed to hesitate, an instant or perhaps he was gathering his thoughts? When he spoke, he chose to speak in English asking Jackson in Tollan to ensure his words were correct. “My people have been monitoring some of your communications.” He raised a hand when Landry moved to speak up. “Your communication methods are so crude the medical devices my people use to amplify our hearing began intercepting them by accident. I instructed all save myself and Narim to block out your signals. In any case, you were right. We were researching Zero-point energy.”

The room went quiet, but several of the Tollan were visibly disturbed by Omoc’s decision to speak on this issue. “Our species has rather extensive energy requirements and many of our core worlds are in regions of the Galaxy that are far apart from each other and Naquadah deficient. This is done for protection purposes, should one of the primary Tollan world get discovered, it can easily be sacrificed or abandoned without endangering the others and the lack of Naquadah would make us unappealing to most of the so-called civilized community amongst the stars.”

Landry nodded, following so far. “And the world’s the Goa’uld have contact with? They’re more than just surveillance outposts I take it?”

Omoc nodded. “They provide us with the scant amount of Naquadah and Trinium we need; however they are primarily a means to misdirect the Imperium while ensuring we have a reliable source of intelligence and a connection to the Galaxies.”

Right, Jack thought. They were isolationists who went out of their way to spy on their neighbors and psyop them off the beaten path with totally parallel, false cultures where millions upon millions of Tollan were born, lived, and died dedicated to keeping cover. This was such bullshit, but it was bullshit he suspected was at least half true. “So, why’d you blow yourselves up?” He’d no more patience for these cyborgs.

Omoc’s jaw set for a second before he mastered himself enough to continue. “Our planet’s populations were, are experiencing a boom. For the first time in a thousand years, Tollan are having larger families at younger ages and our society has a rule that once a planetary population reaches two billion, half a billion are relocated to several new worlds. It is how we have carefully and methodically grown our stellar nation over the ten thousand years since we entered your stars.”

“And your need to colonize new worlds was moving faster than your ability to meet energy quotas?”

“We do not want for raw materials General...”

“Omoc.” Narim implored, being silenced by a glare.

“Our people can create matter from energy.”

“That’s not..possible..not without enormous cost and bleed off and..” Carter went silent when Omoc turned and gave her a look that seemed to suggest she was a gorilla trying to debunk the science behind a Ford F350 to her fellow apes. “Your kind are barely above the other apes, do not presume to tell me what can and cannot be done.”

“Omoc you’re part human you know, least according to your DNA.” Daniel reminded him with a wry smirk.

Omoc sighed. “Yes…some of us possessed ancestors who..lacked self-control. It happens, that Kelownan you have assisting your laughably titled science division is an example of that as her entire species is a result of interbreeding between Lotars.” He spat the last part out as if that was evidence of how much better his “undisciplined” ancestors were that he was a minority and not a member of an entirely new sub species of Tollan. “In any event, our best scientists determined that zero-point energy was the best method of solving our present energy crisis, should we find a way to generate the power required to begin the process.”

Carter was following along “and Naquadah couldn’t help you?” She asked suddenly, unsure why.

“Yes, not in the quantities available to us and given the bulk of our worlds are outside of the Gate Network and our FTL system is based on a stolen Hetch drive, we could not realistically ferry the Naquadah.”

“So why didn’t you just y’know change your rules in regards to population density, rather than go through all this nonsense.” O’Neill asked in a bored tone eliciting a hiss from one of the Tollan females and a curse that needed no translation.

Omoc shook his head slightly. “Those rules have kept us alive Colonel, they are not discarded without consequence.”

“Oh, I dunno can’t be worse than blowing up a planet.”

Omoc continued, ignoring the Colonel. “We heard of a variant of Naquadah believed found only on Kelowna, we found that a planet in the solar system of Rax-Tolla held small deposits, nothing worth anything to anyone else but with our refining capabilities, enough for the process.” He stopped here, seeming to consider. “But that planet was already inhabited, by a species roughly on par with yours….And we do not share our technology..it is one of our lesser laws.’

Landry could see where this was going, it was a tale as old as the industrial revolution itself. One used to justify all kinds of atrocities in the name of obtaining oil, or rubber, or coal, or uranium. “So, you invaded them?”

His eyes darted to Landry. “We’re not you, or the Goa’uld. No, we didn’t.” he paused to gather himself before adding. “There were two superpowers on that world locked in an ideological contest that had been kept from devolving into a conflagration by the deterrence of crude atomics. We determined that the side that would be most hostile to our agenda possessed the land where the deposits were detected.’

“And so, you supported the other side huh?” Kowalski asked, his tone a mix of sarcasm and a keen awareness of how the next chapter of their story would end.

“We did…We provided them with less sophisticated technology than we possessed, allowed them to win their war in exchange for territory. We did anticipate how dependent on us the species would become, nor in how the other side continued to fight long after they were nearly totally destroyed.”

“They did it, didn’t they? They interfered with your research. I mean why not build the zero-point facility on their world to mitigate the risk?” Landry asked as Kasuf bore down on Omoc with a cold, judgmental stare.

“Yes” Omoc conceded. “We anticipated that the destruction of their planet, should the worst happen would be contained to their part of the stellar system as their planet orbited a gas giant, but we had succeeded in creating several zero-point modules by that point and when they detonated their naquadriah bomb, it caused all four those modules to explode. That planet, their gas giant and six other planetoids were vaporized, the shockwave blew Rax-Tolla out of orbit and damaged our moons, our planetary engineering technology is sophisticated, we believed we could have fixed it but the debris from the moon dropped several of our orbital stations onto Rax-Tolla. A billion of my people were killed in the following cataclysm, our weather control and planetary modification technology caught in a Faultline, and it was all destroyed. We a risk, we failed and only fifteen percent of the population of Rax-Tolla survived to flee to Rax-Tollana.”

Everyone remained quiet, each one digesting the information given in their own way, each of the Tollan dealing the shock of both seeing their leader admit his guilt and in being party to his violation of some apparent taboo that was taken with deadly seriousness. The moral implications of this story, how much it reminded the older soldiers in the room of the politics of the cold war. To Jack, it made him grateful they didn’t find the Stargate until after the Iron Curtail fell as there was no telling how his species would have been exploited had they run into the snakes when he was a teenager.

Finally, it was O’Neill who broke the silence with a bitter laugh. “Damn, you guys aren’t that different from us when you break it down, except we were never dumb enough to hand our most advanced weapons to a bunch of cave dwellers.”

“And what do you call the alliance between yourself and the people of Abydos Colonel?” Omoc bit back.

“One not founded on arrogance and greed, Governor Omoc.” Kasuf spoke out finally. “We are acutely aware of the technological disparity between ourselves and the Tau’Ri, to say nothing of ourselves and the Goa’uld. Even if they offered us their most sophisticated weaponry we would not have accepted. What we wish is to learn and grow at our own pace and we compensate them for their knowledge and defense in Naquadah, blood and friendship.” Omoc moved to speak. “You preyed upon the greed of a lesser race and in your arrogance, you destroyed them and failed your own people. Though, I’ve another question to ask.”

And here it came, that moment the old mining boss turned King of Abydos made it abundantly clear that you were dealing with a mind that wouldn’t be out of place on the board room of any major earth company, or in the Whitehouse.

“How much of that confession is a lie, or that is to say. How much of the truth have you decided to tell in the hopes that we would be so disgusted with your kind that we would return your technology and send you through the gate to a world devoid of any intelligent life without a second thought?”

Omoc made a harrumph that might have been a laugh of acknowledgement, certainly there wasn’t any more contempt in his eyes when looking at Kasuf. “We know that your soldiers have spoken to Grand Regent Travell. If she believes that our technology has remained in your hands, or that we are being held against our will. After the disaster she may very well respond with hostility, she could easily have everyone in this facility killed.”

“She would do that just to rescue you?”

“No, she’d just as soon see me dead, we were not allies, politically and she did not support Rax-Tolla as being the location for the research. But I’ve reason to believe that after the disaster, that our technology being passed to primitive hands will become as taboo as divulging all that I have divulged here.”

“General it is imperative that we find a world where we can depart and take up exile. The alternative is that elements of both our governments begin to take actions that neither of us will support.”

Landry raised an eyebrow. “Our?”

“As I said, I have been monitoring your communications. During the last gate conference someone sent a coded message to a General Kennedy.”

Damn…damn!

The General nodded slowly, seemingly in thought. “Exile to me sounds like a death sentence.”

“If we cannot go to our new world, it is preferable to find a planet that no one cares about and remain there in exile. We would not ask you for any aid, or support. We would even bury the gate. It is the least, we, I can do.”

Ah, there we go, an emotion that wasn’t scorn or misanthropy.

“Do you speak for your people?”

“Yes.”

Landry finally nodded reluctantly. “Alright, be ready to depart two days from now.”

“Wait, hold on.” O’Neill cut in. “What if we could put you in contact with people that could take you in and maybe even teach you how to create a Stargate. ‘ssum’n you could establish contact between ‘em and your people.”

Omoc raised an eyebrow. “You know of such a race.”

“Jack no!” Daniel blurted out, causing a look of muted terror to draw over the face’s of Teal’c and Carter once they both realized what O’Neill had suggested.

He shrugged. “What? They just said they deserve it, besides, they’re a high society, they’re advanced, they can handle it! And she did say we were welcome back”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

So a little something, to hold you guys over and move things along, ep's damn near complete. Omoc and Daniel go to Avalon to ask for asylum.

Omoc, is Omoc.

All credit to epic artists who make the content I use. They're all awesome..

Avalon

……..

This was Jack’s dumb idea, why did he have to be the one to go? At least Omoc had volunteered to come, as what he knew of the Nox came from their understanding of imperial religion and he wanted to see it for himself. There were more subtle hints at just how advanced the Tollan really were that they weren’t surprised that a Nox moved the entirety of Avalon to that planet and Omoc later confided in Jackson that his people had suspected it was possible to achieve instantaneous FTL without worrying about displacement and that both Teal’c description of the Asgard and the Nox confirmed it.

He was utterly dismissive of Jackson’s comment that he didn’t think the Nox used technology to achieve that end. “Perhaps it was done in a way that you could not detect.” Came Omoc’s answer “You aren’t stupid boy, it’s far more logical to assume they merely use devices far more sophisticated than you’ve an understanding of.”. Daniel conceded that point, in truth he didn’t know why he made that assumption, except that there was a primitive part of his brain that believed there was something at work here beyond mere technological wonders. They stepped through the Stargate sometime in the early evening by the standard time on that particular continent on Abydos and stepped through the gate in the early hours of the morning Avalonian time as Jackson was going to call it.

Omoc had, using the coordinates of the Stargate given to him for the Nox colony world sent a communications signal ahead of them, letting Leanan know that he and Jackson were coming. Landry had wanted to go as well, but both O’Neill’s and Lorne were adamant that he stay. “Fascinating.” Omoc remarked. “I detected no technology apart from the gate, until now.” He gestured towards the huge bird in the skies.

“Herakles.” Jackson muttered. “I guess he’s here hunting again.”

Omoc nodded. “I’ve heard of his father but the Tollan on the trade worlds never reported that the house of Aether has the means to conceal their cybernetic implants from our passive scanners.”

“You’re being oddly forthcoming with me Governor” Daniel responded, pushing his spectacles closer to his eyes. He really needed to get a new prescription now that he was spending at least a few months on earth. Ahead of them, the immense skyscraper sized trees of Avalon and the surrounding area loomed in the horizon, cloaked no longer and Daniel gasped when he saw that the Gate was connected to the valley over a new bridge made of white marble and that the gate itself rested on an island in the middle of an immense river which was now linking the lake and river systems Avalon rested in to whatever distant ocean this new river ran towards.

It had been what? Two months? In two months, they’d completely reshaped the entire continent, and everything looked healthier, more verdant, more alive than when he originally visited. “Impressive technology huh Omoc?” Jackson found himself asking, slight teasing in his voice.

Omoc allowed a small and somewhat amused sneer to trespass along his features before he steeled them shut. “Forthcoming, yes, you have potential Jackson. Your species does, more so than the Lotar descended from you. Perhaps, in a thousand years Tau’Ri and Rax-Tollana can communicate.” In truth Omoc was an isolationist and would remain so to his dying day, but he also understood their way of doing things needed to gradually change and whether he wished it or not, war was coming to these galaxies and when it finally came, the Tollan would not be able to hide from the conflagration.

“Perhaps more potential than your ossified culture Omoc as you still foolishly believe my children are constrained by technology.” The voice, which sounded like it belonged to a woman nearing her middle years, echoed around them with an eerie gentleness, that of a chiding mother that hid an imperiousness and a finality that poked at the lizard part of Daniel’s brain whish told him to run, run and run as fast as he could as far as he could.

Even Omoc was affected by whatever it was, though he seemed to control his emotions better. The world around them shifted and in a flash, they were within the throne room of Avalon, a part of the island SG-1 hadn’t visited. There, at the center of an immense tree which seemed to rise up and coil around a central mound made of limestone and granite shaped in the style of the burial mounds of Ireland and Scotland was a throne made of what looked like whale ivory, on which etched in gold were runes that depicted the Gods of the ancient world of the celts and were those native American carvings? There were other etchings as well, etchings that meant nothing to Jackson but had a profound impact on Omoc who narrowed his eyes.

That was when she appeared, fifteen feet tall and seated on the throne, cloaked in scarlet and adorned in armor similar to the armor worn by Anubis in the depiction he remembered seeing on Chulak. Hair, blacker than any shade of the color he’d ever seen and some of the strands of hair were actually long black feathers with a dark green hue to them, her eye sockets were empty except for stars that seemed to flicker therein, and her face was deathly pale. “Daniel Jackson, my daughter is otherwise engaged and asked me to rule Avalon in her stead, she does wish you well and the boy sends his regards as well.”

So, there she was, wife of the Dagda, Morrigu, The Morrgan, the nightmare, the three who are one, queen of death, war and fate. One of the high Gods of Irish mythology and depicted in one form or another in many pre-Roman western European cults. There was warmth in her voice, but all Jackson saw was power personified in a way that reminded him way too much of Ra. So, he knelt and asked forgiveness for intruding on her daughter’s planet, but the need was dire or something. In truth Jackson had no idea what he was saying and Omoc was snapping at her something in a dialect of Tollan Jackson suspected was so ancient that it was almost unintelligible to the average Tollan in the “modern” age. She lifted a finger and Omoc simply vanished.

Oh…So she’s every bit the part..

His thoughts wandered back to Ra.

Not again!

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Alright, alright, alright ladies and gents!

We return with the final chapters before the end of this episode.

Kensey reappears and my version of Colonel Kennedy makes his intro and for @Harlock and everyone else who enjoyed the Nox...the Morrigan guides Daniel through the enigma that is the Tollan. Landry also gets the delightful honor of experiencing cyberwarfare conducted by one of the most advanced civilizations in the known universe.

…………

Cheyenne Mountain

Of course, Texas had been gracious enough to offer them his conference room, which until early this year she was told was completely abandoned and stacked with old papers, outdated computers from the nineties and papers penned by Doctor Meredith McCay, some autistic man from Canada who’d been a genius in physics and then went completely insane in 2004 or so. It was empty now and spacious, able to host some fifty people if necessary and was widened as much as possible to accommodate diplomatic guests from off world. Something that the SGC had done no less than seven times in the last three month. Something that frustrated Kensey’s attempts to withhold funding from the Mountain Complex and turn this place into some rest stop on the way to Abydos.

Frustrated her ability to get more of her people onto Abydos as well now that Secretary Weir and that balding Anglo buffoon Woolsey were taking such a vested interest in the development of alliances. Rumors were that they were bringing in gold, platinum and plants that could be back engineered into cures for everything from cancer to atmospheric scrubbers and she’d seen that damn lightning tree.

That was why she acted now, the idiot in the Whitehouse had some pipe dream about using all the alien tech to set up parallel economies and the infrastructure necessary to reorient the world away from the rising sun and back to the US, she dismissed the idiotic notions that he actually wanted to defend the homeworld against alien incursion. Her backers feared the loss of a status quo and so gave the leash around her neck some slack, but Kensey didn’t care about that. No, what she cared about was getting one of her grandchildren into the Whitehouse and ensuring a great grandkid followed that one, she cared about the political dynasty her family had slowly constructing since the Mangano crime family became the Luciano family and her grandfather became the legitimate arm of the commission. Careful, century spanning plans battered by the sudden rise of some populist asshole backed by that conniving Hayes.

Hayes, another Irish name. How she hated them all! Even that useless idiot she married and whose name she now wore in place of her own. Coffee had been provided to her by an aid, Malik she thought his name was. He was a Turkish American, from some suburb or other she represented, all she knew was that he could snap a person’s neck with his hands which made him incredibly useful for intimidating the hell out of the hundreds of gofers, middlemen and eternally intoxicated lobbyists she had to endure on the daily.

Reaching out to her other aid, a woman in her twenties who gave her a worried look and relented, producing a flask. Ah, Armagnac in coffee, good shit, it made the coming lecture more tolerable. “Madam congresswoman, I…you committed a crime just now!”

Bobby Kensey raised an eyebrow “Earlier you mean, sitting on my ass isn’t a crime.” an incredulous look formed in her cold eyes. The average member of congress commits a felony every two hours, their aids more so! Was this bitch serious? And a damn Kennedy talk about crooked. With a sigh, Kensey rose from her chair and walked towards the immense window made of bullet proof glass upon which was placed a map of the local Galactic cluster and the varying stellar nations that comprised the rulers of each territory. It did not escape her notice that almost everywhere was the purple color Stargate Command had chosen to represent the damn Goa’uld. “When I was twenty-two, I was invited to the Whitehouse, my father was the newly made mayor of Philly and my older brother was a lawyer for the Kennedy family. I got to meet your grandfather and the President.”

“You mean my grandfather and the Attorney General?” The woman asked.

“Oh, right, you guys all look alike, my bad. Anyway, your granddad grabbed my ass and invited me to go bowling. I didn’t expect that dope head cripple to have the stamina he did but..” She gave a dismissive shrug then cleared her throat. God, why was she still surrounded by Kennedys? Was this sow the sister of the Junior Representative who was making a play against her and trying to ally with the Satterfield’s to support Hammond? Shaking the speculation away she continued. “After our trist, we met up with my father, his brother and a few Generals. Lockheed owed us some favors and so the brass wanted us to lean on them for some reason or other.” She laughed, a tired, cruel laugh. “I remember the smug looks on their faces..Y’know what’s funny? How everyone in that room including your fucking Granddaddy is dead as a doornail except me.” Kensey reached up and traced a withered set of fingers along the map.

A hundred thousand years, three Galaxies. Continuity, dynasty, legacy. Too bad these great serpents had to be enemies of the US in order for her own dynasty, her own legacy to rise. Still, she admired it, a hundred thousand years, shepherded by one clan, one family, one patriarch. It was everything she wanted for herself and for her family. “My father once told me, the cold war was as much about securing gainful employment for the children of the leaders who won world war two on both sides as it was about overcoming ideologies. He said they were stupid, Bush, Kennedy, Roosevelt, MacArthur, Nixon, Stalin, Khrushchev, Fascism, communism, capitalism, tyranny, democracy..We’ll live through it all, people matter, survival matters, opportunity matters, legacy matters. Making the next generation a little bit richer, a little bit more powerful. Continuity matters, that’s something the snakes are right about. The only kind that matters, power and blood.” She downed the coffee and turned to gaze at those present, noticing of the three only the Turk took her words to heart.

Shame.

“Chairman of the joint chiefs, Presidents, Secretaries of Defense, I’ve outlasted them all kids. Hammond will come and go, I’ll still be here and when my bones are dust, it’ll be my blood that calls the shots, changes this map right here forever. It’s about time these arrogant Space Force clowns remember their place.” She was going to continue, especially after she saw the look on the Kennedy brats face but all of a sudden, the world went to hell in a handcart with alarm klaxons everywhere and a voice over an intercom shouting “Unscheduled off world activation.”

She moved to bolt from the room only for a guard to block her path.

Stupid tin soldiers.

……..

Gate Room.

It almost came as a disappointment when the radio signal beaming through the Gate piped Sandra O’Neill’s voice through the speakers to Admiral Hammond, the thought was terribly unprofessional but at the same time, it was better than dealing with Kensey and whatever other nonsense she planned.

-I should have her killed- The thought came unbidden, especially at the realization that Hammond could probably get away with it after what she’d just pulled or rather the implications of what was said below her ranting. “Petty Officer, I assume all is not well if you’re calling ahead of schedule?”

“Aye Sir! Two hours ago, we had an unscheduled off world activation, something passed through the Gateshield and detonated on the walkway, it wasn’t anything more than a flash bang sir but it was a diversion or a message as General Landry says. A second after that we had some kind of alert in the computers within the pyramid itself then our systems registered some kind of virus.”

Hammond’s eyes narrowed. “Goold?”

“No Sir, Narim, one of the Tollan thinks it was security forces under orders from the Regent. It was an incredibly sophisticated virus sir, Teal’c says he’s never seen anything like it. It shut us out of our own systems, downloaded everything, retransmitted it through the gate then shut everything down. It took us an hour to get everything back up and another forty minutes to undo everything it did.” There was a tension in the youth’s voice that betrayed just how bad the breach was that made the old Admiral concerned.

Could this virus have done something to the powerplant of the pyramid complex? What would a meltdown of a power system that fed energy to what amounted to an artificial mountain range do to Abydos? Another thought came to his mind, chiefly that this incursion might have potentially exposed the Tollan to the System Lords, why risk it? Over some hostages that their last communique suggested were political enemies.

It wasn’t over the technology, was it truly over politics? Travell seemed insane were that the case. Another thought came to him, and his blood stilled. “Have you made contact with the Nox?”

“Doctor Jackson and Omoc departed for Avalon six hours ago sir, to officially request Asylum for the Tollan.”

Hammond nodded then added. “I wouldn’t worry too much on your end, they’ll likely ignore Abydos and come straight for earth if they attempt anything. I know they know you have the refugees, but if they wanted to seize them, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They’ll want to send a message and they’re going to come here to do that.”

The comms went silent for a second. Then “Sir request permission to return to earth.”

“Negative.”

“But Admira-“

“You’re still my eyes and ears on Abydos and if the Tollan make a move against earth and we don’t make it for whatever reason than I trust you to keep General Landry on the right track, I trust you to hold the line O’Neill understand me?”

“Yessir..”

“Alright, we’ll touch base around twenty-two hundred. If anything happens before then.”

“Godspeed sir.”

Hammond smiled. “Don’t write my will just yet miss. Keep Abydos safe, Hammond out.”

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

And here we arrive at Daniel and the Morrigan and Travell and Hammond come face to face.

@Spartan303's reaction to Travell inspired this and I partially want to see what @Knowledgeispower Is going to recommend in terms of an appropriate response to her antics.

Also, lemme thank @Harlock Because his interpretation of the Dilgar served as a bit of a muse for how Travell is going to address this..prickly mess.
……….

Avalon

“Our conversation was not for your ears; we will continue to talk as I continue to talk to you.” She seemed to smile slightly. “So, tell me child, why are the Tollan seeking me out for knowledge on how to build a stargate, when they have real time faster than light communication. Something not easily done without a Stargate network?”

Jackson blinked…Then laughed at the insanity of it all. They were lying and misdirecting even now? Did Omoc not realize just how much danger he was in?! Forget worrying about Travell this woman would hurl him into a star if she got annoyed. One didn’t trifle with the Morrigan, all myths agreed on that. “You mean to tell me; he already knows how?”

“No.” She answered calmly, the tone of a mother gently nudging a child through a math exorcise. Though, something flickered in those eyeless sockets, the stars therein shifted slightly. “Now, now little boy, you’re smarter than that reason it out.”

It was entirely unsettling to be addressed like that by the Morrigan Daniel decided. Which he suspected was partially the point, she wanted to test his deductive skills while under fire. Perhaps slower than he intended, something clicked in Daniel, his mind rolling over the odd phrasing of their words, the way they described how they founded their first worlds. -Since we came to your stars…Omoc didn’t mean...- His eyes widened and her looked at the looming Goddess who smiled and held a finger up to her lips. “Not yet, save that one for when it will be most valuable.”

Jackson swallowed, thickness in his throat. “But why all the deception then if they’re planting subtle hints at the truth of themselves?”

“Sweet boy” The Morrigan laughed softly, it was a laughter that might have sounded kind coming from anyone else but from her, Daniel felt his heart sink. “Are those not the best places to hide lies?”

Fair point, Daniel reasoned. “Oookkayy..So some Tollan worlds have Stargates..But they’re not detected by the Goa’uld..” It was a stretch but when he saw her give the barest of nods Daniel had to wonder just how advanced the Tollan really were and if so, would pursuing an alliance with them be worth the aggravation and intrigue? And sheer danger, given their willingness to mercilessly exploit other cultures to keep themselves one step ahead of potential enemies.

She made a tsk, tsk type noise and Daniel was shrouded in darkness, the world fading away before his very eyes until he was adrift in a sea of stars, wispy, smoke like tendrils of shadow holding him in place, shadow that leaked out like feathers from the Morrigan’s form. “Significant Technological advantages were possessed by the alliance of the elder races against the Imperium. Yet all but three members of that alliance are extinct now, would you ask this of the Tollan people?”

“No” Daniel admitted, especially not when peace seemed to be a real possibility after their fight with Horus. Not when they were more likely to send a bomb through the gate on Earth than even the Goa’uld were given how paranoid and isolationist they seemed to be. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t help us any way.”

She smiled “But that isn’t the topic of our discussion”

“They withhold technology even from their own kind?” Daniel asked, grateful for the tangent that gave him enough time to think. Even if it had been discouraging, there was a larger enigma that needed to be unraveled about the Tollan people. “Why the paranoia? Why the fear?”

She laughed, it rang like bells in his mind and chilled his blood. “That is an interesting question to ask given who rules your stars.”

Admittedly, it was an odd question, but he didn’t really get the impression that most of the System Lords would really care about conquering the Tollans from how Teal’c described them and from his experience with Horus. He understood the need to defend oneself thought and the more he thought about it the more he realized it made little and less sense that they didn’t approach openly with the ability to defend themselves clear, specifically to prevent any attempts at overt hostilities. There was the cultural concern, they hated anything not Tollan but even then, a show of force might have been enough to convince the System Lords to leave them alone outside of isolated trade ports.

They hated the Goa’uld, feared them just as they hated and feared everyone else..No, not as they hated and feared everyone else. They were positively hysterical in their terror…

An answer danced in his head, and Jackson’s eyes widened. “Wait, if they’re of a distant Galaxy and are pathologically terrified of the Goa’uld to where they’d pull such an elaborate stunt..But that doesn’t…The Goa’uld had no idea what the Tollan were capable of, I don’t think they’d just forget an enemy like…” Something clicked in Daniel’s mind out of reach and whatever realization came to him was dashed aside when he suddenly became aware that something was stroking his cheek and it was one of the Morrigan’s hands, which looked silky and velvety and soft but to his horror felt more like old worn out bones rapping at his cheeks. He was once again made away of the fact that he was swimming in an ocean of shadowy, ink like tendrils that extended from this “woman’s” being and though she might have looked like a beautiful (If freakishly tall.) woman, one needed only to gaze into those empty sockets that held constellations that reflected back at him in that odd silver light to remember that neither she nor her species were anything close to human.

“Ah, there’s my clever boy. This conversation stays between us, but you asked the right question in the end and passed the test..Omoc owes you his life.”

Doctor Daniel Jackson’s fight for flight response damn near overwhelmed his senses and he managed to stop himself from struggling just as darkness completely enveloped him, subsuming him as the Morrigu’s laughter became the only thing he heard or felt.

Then suddenly just as he was consumed by the black, he was assaulted by a series of lights and sounds, curses and the clicking of triggers and then alarmed cry of “hold fire!” from a voice he recognized as belonging to one of Jack’s daughters.

“Doctor Jackson?” a mix of fear mixed with that steely confidence and the O’Neill family swagger, yeah definitely the Petty Officer daughter. “Sandy..err..yeah it’s us.” Omoc stood beside him grim faced as usual but there was something different in his eyes, they were softer, wearier.

He’d brought his arrogance before the Nox and been humbled by their Nightmare Queen.

“I take it the big lady’s a Nox?”

Oh, so that was why guns were being pointed at him.

Wait…He whipped around and noted the Gate was most definitely not active, nor did it retain the faint glow it often held when it had recently deactivated. Had she just teleported them here?

No, wait…before the tendrils of darkness enveloped him, Daniel had the unique sensation of floating in..his eyes shifted the Morrigan who smiled knowingly at him. “Sweet boy, conversations are hardly ever idle, aren’t they?”

“How long have we been gone?” Daniel asked somewhat alarmed, given the bewildered look of those present around him.

“Sixteen Abydonian hours, fourteen of your hours.” Answered Omoc, whose mechanical bits must have alerted him to the time difference.

sixteen hours…

……….

Cheyenne Mountain

Nineteen ninety-six, that had been the last time he’d been in the mountain. In Hammond’s Mountain, Brigadier General Roark Marion Kennedy had to remind himself. This was enemy territory, no matter how he sliced it, no matter how insane that wop bitch was and no matter how much she provoked the Admiral, this was always going to be enemy territory because General Kennedy, head of the laughably titled “United States Space Force Stellar intelligence division” had been an ally and protégé of Major General West and one of those allied with Kensey. Like Samuels, he was reasonably certain that the Admiral was behind General West’s rather sudden heart attack.

And so, he entered the complex with an escort slightly larger than ordinary retinue to apprehend four refugees and people he knew were absolutely loyal to him. Nineteen ninety-six, had been the year the Space Force moved the Stargate from Groom Lake to the mountain where it was expected to achieve no results despite West’s odd obsession with it and the work of that Nicholas Ballard guy. That had been the year that started everything, the year that marked the beginning of the end for his faction unless they could wrest control from Hayes and his cadre of heroes.

The reception had been warmer than he expected, with Colonel Shepherd of the Stellar Rangers and Lieutenant Davis meeting his group at the elevator and escorting him passed the conference room where the Congresswoman was no doubt sitting and seething. That warmth belied a taunt, no doubt. “This is our mountain, this project is hours.” Kennedy’s gnarled face twisted into a scowl. Eighteen years ago he’d nearly lost most of the skin on his cheek and around his orbital socket on the right side of his face, it had been hanging off by a thread of sinew and the reconstructive surgery left him with a jagged scar that ran from his eyebrow to his chin, down to his throat. Maybourne had been a young naval intelligence officer then, his “research” had seen Kennedy’s team which was a combined force unit out into some Afghan ruin chasing rumors, O’Neill had saved his life that day then Jack had gone and ruined their friendship by walking away from West for Ellis years later. Bastard those cold war fossils had absconded with so much talent out from under him over the years. -Die you senile wretch- was a frequent thought upon seeing Hammond.

Of course, the vice like grip of the Admiral’s handshake put any notion of that pipe dream to bed. “Admiral, I’ve got an order from Secretary Esper to conduct several interviews with the Tollan.”

“That’s all you were able to get huh? She must be losing her touch.” Hammond remarked.

“As things are, I’d like to get to Abydos to conduct my interviews.”

“I’m sorry General, but I can’t allow that. Abydos suffered a security breach and General Landry locked the base down until they can be absolutely sure their security isn’t compromised.”

“How convenient.”

Hammond’s eyes hardened. “Son, I’m not sure a major cyber attack on the most important offshore facility the US has counts as convenient.”

Kennedy unconsciously took a step back, damnit!

“Besides, even if the facility wasn’t in lockdown I’m not sure I could grant you, your request if the Tollans refuse, not without consulting Woolsey or Secretary Weir.”

“How so?” Kennedy asked, doing his best to meet the judgment in Hammond’s tone with steel.

“Because they requested an asylum from a people we have a mining agreement with.”

Kennedy narrowed his eyes. “Abydos gave them asylum?” he asked, trying to keep his voice as firm and accusatory as possible. There were a few planets the SGC had already secured treaties with, but the slight mocking in Hammond’s voice suggested they’d request asylum from the one group of people Kennedy, like Kensey had thrown a fit over. The one group of people they thought were made up by the SGC until everyone saw O’Neill’s bloodwork and Teal’c’s fancy new blaster staff.

“No, the Nox. So, you can take this to your superiors, and I’ll call the President and we can both ask our bosses if its worth making an enemy of them for some trinkets.”

Kennedy hoped he wasn’t going pale at the confirmation. “Admiral, I’m just trying to do my duty.”

Hammond snorted. Kennedy came close to losing it at that, who the hell did he think he was accusing a one-star general of divided loyalties! “With respect, Admiral.” Hammond cut him off “Damnit Roark they rule three Galaxies! They can throw more ships at us than every blue water navy on earth combined without straining their logistics and each of their infantryman is good enough to match three of ours and that’s the below average ones! Teal’c can kick the crap out of a dozen Rangers without breaking a sweat and one of their battlefield commanders kicked his ass and killed three of my best while he was nursing injuries from a damn vacuum bomb!”

“Admiral…” Kennedy felt the heat evaporated in his voice, feeling less like a career military man and more like a snot nosed cadet. But he couldn’t help it, nothing rattled George Hammond and George Hammond was rattled now. You didn’t have to like the man to realize how serious that was.

“Damnit son, think long and hard about the kind of games we can safely continue to play under those conditions.”

Hammond was right, General Kennedy realized, much as it pained him to admit it. Hammond was completely correct. But that didn’t excuse the sanctimony he possessed to think it was his place in history to be the shield for all mankind. Kennedy might have mustered up the courage to say this to Hammond had the base not gone to hell in a hand basket in that moment.

The ground shook, it was subtle and soft, but it was a tremor none the less and Kennedy remembered this part from the early attempts to active the device. Hammond yelled something to O’Reilly their communications and gate control operator who activated the famed iris, a bit of technology that was so far ahead of the rest of the US military that it could only come from the wreck at Groom Lake. A lightshow flickered off the gray concrete as the Iris closed blocking the rush of dimensional energy Kennedy knew to come from the wormhole stabilizing (At least, as far as he could tell in the videos.) and he observed sentries turning to focus on the sealed portal.

Hammond’s eyes narrowed and Kennedy followed his view to the iris which seemed to distort and warble. “Admiral, is that normal?”

“No, it isn’t.” Hammond answered before he gestured to the Gate operator.

Soon, the Admiral’s voice boomed over the intercoms, an omnipresent heavenly command to clear the gate room.

Something came through just as the last of the “Space marines” abandoned the Gate room leaving the newest autocannons to swivel towards…A basket?

A basket with fruit?

A second later power cut out completely.

Hammond cursed and stormed out of the operations room and made his way towards the stairs, Kennedy following in time to see Kensey howling at the guards to let her pass. Following the Admiral and ignoring his boss for now, the irate General entered behind the General who managed to gain access to the former missile silo turned wormhole generator platform (He hated calling it a Stargate, it sounded wrong.) in time to see a rush of colors appearing like a cascade of glitter “pass” through the iris, dancing like something out of a psychedelic drawing until they began to come together gradually taking shape.

The shape of a woman in her late fifties, with long hair that he assumed would be gray and a military uniform that reminded him of the Union Blues he saw in civil war paintings, albeit the colors seemed different to him even though the hologram was (likely intentionally crude.) little more than an outline of the woman. Her eyes, he could tell even from the poor rendition were cold and hard, cruel.

Kensey like eyes.

“You are the one the Ashrak’s call the Tau’Ri war master, Hammond of Texas?” she asked the bald Texan. Who stepped forward “One of them Ma’am.”

Ashrak? Ah yes, the people the Jaffa exile said were the Imperium’s version of the CIA, right. It bothered him immensely that their intel community guys knew the Admirals name and held it in regard. As if the damn Texan needed anymore accolades heaped on him.

“Then I wish we could have met under less contentious circumstances Admiral.” Her English was accented, in a voice that was clearly not accustomed to pronouncing words the way they had in the English language and if Kennedy could guess, any language that humans on earth spoke except maybe Bantu (It was just a hunch but there was something in the way she sounded that made him think she was resisting the urge to click.). “I am Grand Regent Travell, leader of the Tollan Curia and supreme commander of its security forces. I am given to understand you’ve a planetary governor and several members of his personal retinue detained on Abydos.”

“I do Ma’am.” Hammond remarked looking up at the floating projection, meeting the shadowy imperious gaze of the projection. Man alive, this was not good. He trusted the reports coming back from both Makepeace and Landry regarding the Tollans but nothing could have properly prepared him for what he saw in her features. Those were the eyes of a fanatic; he’d seen many of them in his career, they wore many shapes, came in many colors and in devotion to many different causes, faiths and creeds. In his youth, it had communist, in his prime it had been communist, separatist, South American and African fascists or hedonistic drug kingpins and in his old age it had Islamists, narcos again and ecoterrorists and more. These were the first alien eyes he’d seen since Apophis that burned with fanaticism. But where Apophis was fanatically devoted to himself and the art of war, these were the eyes of someone willing to commit atrocities to advance the most mundane needs of her people.

“We surveyed your world on a routine exploration mission and happened to find them injured, we nursed them back to health and plan to send them on their way.”

“Excellent so you’ll turn them over to me as soon as this conversation reaches its terminus?” the woman asked in a way that sounded almost sneering. “I thought you said they wouldn’t be happy on your world with its lower technology?” Hammond asked, a slight edge in his voice and the accusatory nature of his inflection wasn’t lost on either of them.

She smiled, it was a smile of recognition but it was predatory. “Now, now Admiral. You’re not in a position to be.” she paused, searching for the word. “Oppositional?”

The way she used that word made Kennedy’s skin crawl.

“Ma’am from what they told General Landry they were concerned they wouldn’t survive very long on Rax-Narya.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, evidently this Governor committed a faux pas by admitting to this. “And is this your concern?”

Hammond sighed. “Ordinarily no, not unless they request Asylum, my counterpart on Abydos was preparing to-“

“Sanctuary?” She queried incredulously. She knew all of this already, she had too, she’d stolen the data after all.

“I think we both know who they asked asylum from.”

Her features shifted, some of the bravado fell away. “They don’t exist.”

“But they do, in fact they accepted the Asylum request and are enroute to retrieve Governor Omoc and his cohorts as we speak.”

The woman seemed to bite down on the inside of her mouth and her sneering posture all but evaporated for a microsecond before it was replaced with a front of aloofness. “Admiral, I am going to make something clear to you on behalf of the Curia. We, accept that your involvement in this affair was merely as hapless barbarians stumbling upon the aftermath of a terrible accident. Well meaning, if primitive and we appreciate your efforts to save our kind. However, we are going to ask you to keep our deception a secret from the Goa’uld, whether they’re denizens of the Imperium or not. You may trade with our outpost worlds, we’ll even offer favored amongst nation terms but you will not attempt to discover our more..advanced worlds nor will you ever attempt to plunder technology from Tollan ruin, nor will you ever involve yourself in our internal affairs again. We will accept, a limited trade-based alliance upon those grounds.” Kennedy’s ears perked up at the constant bizarreness of the specific phrasing she kept using. Phrasing that seemed to be the product of someone who had just learned the language in books but not on the streets but too perfectly incorrect and he suddenly wondered if the subtle hints he thought he detected with her language were real or if they were even more layers of Tollan bullshit.

Luckily, Hammond had been authorized to agree to just demands on that level, but not liking the idea of being seen to capitulate to threats the Admiral stepped forward. “And if we decide to trade this information for say, access to artificial gravity or a better trade agreement?”

She smiled, a wide smile now, venomous. “Then the next thing I send through your event horizon seal shall be a Naquadah enhanced antimatter bomb. One with a sufficient yield to vaporize a hemisphere's worth of land mass on a typical planet of the dimensions that your species seems to love so much. Enough to murder your branch of Lotars in its crib and believe me Admiral, if we determine that your people have betrayed us, we will ensure that Tau’Ri becomes little more than space dust and memories.”

Kennedy froze in place, panic filling his chest.

Hammond kept whatever he felt below the surface. “Ra tried that.”

She laughed. “No he didn’t and in any case, I am not Ra, I am not weighed down by the legend I built for myself and my shackles are not some imaginary debt to a dead daughter, I am Myzzenia Travell and my only duty is to the Tollan people. Do we understand one another?”

“Completely.”

“Excellent! Well, while I am glad to have met you Admiral, I hope for the sake of your world that we never need interact again.”

As quickly as she appeared, the leader of the Tollan’s image vanished and lights returned to the base.