Chapter 1: The Faceless Ones

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"Daniel, dial the gate!" Cam's voice cut through the confusion as Vala took cover behind a rather conveniently placed boulder just south of the gate. An explosion sent shrapnel flying, and Vala ducked her head. The force of the P-90 in her arms sent a familiar string of vibrations through her body as she aimed at the tentacled beings streaming down the hillside - faceless creations hellbent on claiming P3X-876 as their own.

"They're coming from the rear, too - they're trying to flank us!" Sam yelled from Vala's right.

"You said we'd be safe," Hanna, a fourteen year old Verani refugee said, her once hopeful voice now cut with fear. Vala's jaw clenched as she tried to focus on the situation at hand. Daniel just had to dial the gate and they would be free. Cover Daniel, that was the job.

It was difficult to be sure, but Vala's P-90 sliced through at least four more of the tentacled behemoths. Someone had thrown a grenade over their heads, Vala's best guess was Sam. The entire ordeal had become such a mess, Vala couldn't even sure if Teal'c had made it out behind them. The grenade had landed too close to their place of cover and Vala's ears began to ring as she blinked the dust out of her eyes.

"They're coming, they're coming!" Hanna shrieked, batting her tiny fists into Vala's side. She turned her attention to their rear, knowing that she was almost out of ammo.

"I almost got - " Daniel said just as a bullet ripped through the front of his jacket, a second erupted through his jaw and he collapsed onto the DHD. Vala got to her feet just as it happened, suddenly aware of the gash in her forehead dripping blood down into her vision, but Hanna grabbed her jacket and yanked her down with surprising force. Cam was suddenly there, shoving Daniel off the DHD so he could finish dialing out.

Ignoring Hanna's protestations, Vala ran to Daniel, ignoring what she had seen, believing beyond hope that he was still alive.

"Not now, Vala," Cam said pushing her up as the event horizon lit up. Her ears were still buzzing frantically and she couldn't quite make out what Cam ordered next. There were a dozen villagers that they had managed to evacuate from Haeg, she remembered. They had to be saved. Daniel got the gate open to get them through. He'd already run through, she thought - still ignoring the bloodied mound of flesh she was kneeling beside.

"I'll hold them off - you get the rest of them through," Vala said. Cam nodded, knowing that there wasn't exactly time to argue with her. Leaning beside the DHD, hoping that it afford her some cover (the same cover it afforded Daniel she didn't have time to think), Vala took her P-90 back up and began shooting into the fray of beasts as they came up. Hanna was ushered along with her mother, shouting for Vala as they passed.

"Vala, you're still with us, right?" Sam said as she passed, the heat from her own P-90 billowing into Vala's face as she fired the weapon.

"I'm fine, just go!" Vala yelled in reply, wanting to hold the fort until Teal'c showed up. She knew he would, just like she knew Daniel couldn't be dead. Sam dove through the gate and Vala continued shooting at the bombardment of mutations that were spreading over the area in waves. She wasn't still with them, she realized. She couldn't focus and that damned gash in her forehead was still dripping. Dropping her hand, which had grown shaky, it fell to Daniel's back. So wet! She swallowed, foolishly ignoring what was going on around her. "Daniel, please. Please get up." A hateful gale whipped the field where the Stargate was located then. Vala had only a short second to see that a ship had manifested itself directly above the Stargate when she was dematerialized.

##

2 DAYS PREVIOUS

"They're clearly terrified," Vala heard Sam saying. She wasn't paying the utmost of attention to the group's conversation, a bauble that turned out to be a bracelet had caught her eye. It was glinting on the dark sideboard and Vala couldn't resist fingering it enviously. SG-1 was clustered in what seemed to be the living room of a small town about thirty minutes east of the Stargate. Vala felt a pinch at her hip and turned to see Daniel, mouth slightly open as he shook his head disapprovingly. Vala huffed at him and tightened her grip on her P-90.

"Right, so someone created these things. Any idea who patient zero was?" Vala piped up, reminding them all that she was still there and not altogether useless.

The town on P3X-867 was known as Haeg. The planet was Veranan. SG-1 had gated in during some sort of self-induced apocalypse. As far as technology went, they were equal to Earth, though perhaps not quite as populated. The townswoman who had graciously allowed SG-1 to stay in her home, Eliza, had informed them that some sort of spore that had originated as a form of biological warfare mutated human skin where it came into contact with it. They had seen four or five victims clustered around the Stargate upon entry.

"Patient zero?" Eliza repeated.

"She means the place of origin. Your scientists, aren't they working on a cure or some sort of containment?" Cam said.

"They told us to stay indoors. It spreads by touch - sometimes. I think some are immune. The things… the newscaster said that their brains are functioning at nominal levels, that they only have the basest of functions, but… they still use guns. They're organized. I don't understand," Eliza said, shaking her head. Vala wasn't listening too intently at this point as a little girl had poked her head through the stair railing. It was late at night at this point, and Vala had the feeling she wasn't supposed to still be awake. Vala put a finger to her lips and smiled, which the girl returned. She took a seat and dangled her legs through the thin rod iron bars. Whatever the Verani were suffering, they had absolutely beautiful taste in home furnishings. At least the skittish Eliza did.

"We'll need to get a sample back to the SGC, have Dr. Lamb look it over," Sam said to Cam.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Eliza said, shaking her head. "It's spread over most of the larger cities in a manner of weeks. You shouldn't chance it." This would mean bringing Lamb and supplies to this side of the gate to do a bit of field work. And why not? Lamb hardly got out of the lab these days.

"Can you tell us anything about the incubation period?" Sam asked.

"A couple hours at the most. But boils fester upon contact - if the victim isn't immune. And then… all orifices close up. The face collapses onto itself. And those things grow," Eliza continued. As she did so, Vala snuck upstairs to sit with Eliza's daughter, who had a curious smile on her face. She supposed she wasn't very little. Thirteen, maybe fourteen.

"You know what your mum is talking about?" Vala whispered.

"About the Faceless Ones?" the girl said.

"Is that what you're calling them?"

"Yep. Though Mom calls them sick. And the news people call them 'perpetrators' or 'victims' depending on who you listen to," she said, wiggling her feet.

"What's your name?"

"Hanna. And you're Vala. And that's Daniel, Sam, and Cam - and the big guy is Teal'c," she said, pointing at Muscles to prove she was paying attention. Vala grinned as she watched the rest of her team try and wrestle out answers from Hanna's distraught mother. True, Eliza had been the only person who had let them in, but she still seemed almost paralyzed with fear at the prospect of contagion. Perfectly reasonable, under the circumstances - annoying, though. She had only let them in because she was possibly more afraid of Teal'c breaking the door down than she was of one of the tentacled monsters turning her into one of them, slightly less reasonable.

"How long ago did the town seal itself off, Hanna?" Vala asked.

"Not three days ago. I think it's too late. But Mom's right, you know," Hanna said.

"About what?"

"They're not just mindless things. They've got formations. And tact. They're waiting for something. Come on, I'll show you," Hanna said, getting up and grabbing her hand. Vala followed obediently. The hallways were painted a warm butterscotch and she suddenly wished she had a few swatches. Her little hellhole back at the SGC could definitely use a bit of a face lift. Or maybe they'd let her get her own place if she gave them something useful on this latest and greatest foe. Hanna dragged her into what looked like an office. There was a peculiar chrome keyboard sitting on a desk and a heavy leather chair in front of that. There were pictures of the girl's family - which seemed to only consist of Hanna and her mother - littering the desk and walls.

Waving her hand at nothing as she sat down, the girl whispered, "Come on, wake up." With another snap of her fingers, a monitor flickered alive, projecting from a small orb beside the keyboard. A few years ahead of Earth then, Vala thought. "The uh, strata isn't up right now. But before it went down my friend Clerval sent me this feed from Havina - that's the capitol city - here, look."

Vala interpreted the strata to be Earth's equivalent of the internet - a world village. Oh how she wished to have had such a device when she was growing up. The projection seemed to be touch screen enabled, and Hanna's adept hands flew across it to bring up the feed. It took a few moments for it to load and Hanna turn to Vala with an apology on her face. "It's a couple years out of date. Mom wouldn't spring for a new one. The sensitivity is all wonky."

Vala leaned over Hanna's shoulder as she watched the video feed from what must be a camera. It was shaky, but she quickly saw what Hanna meant by 'formations'. There were people screaming, military vehicles trying to maintain some sort of peace, but the things, the Faceless Ones, with their flesh colored tentacles growing from arms and heads, they were marching together. It was organized. What was stranger, they turned as one. Rows of fives and tens, all turning as one down the street.

"Can you zoom in there?" Vala said, finger hovering over a man who had just collapsed in the middle of the street.

"He's in transition I think," Hanna said grimly as she tapped the screen and spread it apart with her fingers. It took a moment for the video to sharpen, but she could see as the man doubled over. The skin around his mouth closed first. Then his nose and eyes did the same. A thick extremity began to grow from the top of his head then as he could do nothing but convulse on the sidewalk. Vala swallowed, wondering how many times Hanna had watched this. She felt like she might be sick.

"But how do they breathe?" Vala said.

"I don't think it's just an um, outside - exterior change. The scientists, whatever creeps were behind this, they haven't told us little people much - but I think the insides change. Maybe to where they don't need air?" Hanna said. "They're not human. And I don't think they can be fixed, either. But oh look at this - you see that? He's getting up now. First he sort of just runs after someone else, towards one of the military cars - but then look! Something happens, he convulses again and suddenly it's like he can see clearly. Or however it is they see. And he loses that insanity and follows the rest of them. A few of them are even carrying guns."

Vala grimaced. "Quite a mess you lot have gotten yourselves into."

"Isn't it just?" Hanna said. "That ring thing you guys came through, can get us away from here, right?"

"The Stargate? Don't your people know how it works?"

"No. We thought it was some monument left behind by the Goa'uld. We left it there to, I dunno, remember them or something stupid."

"You never tried one of the buttons?"

"The buttons don't work. Never have. I'm sure if scientists remembered it, they might come poking around, but it's supposed to be a 'town treasure.' No touching," she explained, shrugging. "Some of the wealthier people have chartered some of our ships to get off the planet, but obviously Haeg isn't exactly the place billionaires go to retire. As soon as they want to, those Faceless Jerks are going to kill us, too."

Vala frowned. They hadn't even stopped to see if the DHD worked. It had been intact, that had been the important thing. Sam would be able to fix it. DHDs weren't a big issue these days, they had come a fairly long way in their understanding of Stargate technology. But by the sound of it, they really ought to make sure it was working before they had to stumble through a quick getaway. There was a gentle knock at the door as Daniel walked in.

"If you aren't going to wait for an answer, why bother with the knocking at all? Honestly, we could have been-"

"Naked?" Daniel said. "With a fourteen year old girl?" Vala pursed her lips, suppressing the desire to stick her tongue out at him. "Anyway - Hanna, right?"

"Yeah."

Before Daniel could continue his sentence, Vala said, "Watch this. What does it remind you of?" She replayed the video for him, picking up the mechanics of the technology quickly enough. It was much more user friendly than anything on Earth was.

"Holy shit," he said. Vala swatted the back of his head. "Oh sorry." Hanna didn't seem to understand, clearly their curse words on this planet were different. Daniel's eyes narrowed as he watched the feed twice through. "They're… they're like bees."

Vala's face contorted in disgust. "Well, that's a bit racist, Daniel." She recalled only the bees she had encountered on a planet known as Enstiana, a commune of hermaphroditic cave dwellers - friendly sorts, but one mustn't drink the water."That's not what I was thinking of," Vala said. "I was thinking of Zularrian thugbeetles. They swarm, you see and -" Daniel was frowning at her again and then it clicked. "Oh you're talking about the bumbles. Bumbles. I suppose that's similar, yes."

"All their senses have been impeded as far as I can tell. I mean we can examine them closer to see if whatever membrane that's covering their mouths and eyes is permeable - but I'm assuming they communicate with… pheromones or something to that effect," he paused, adjusting his glasses. "Hanna, has the town initiated any sort of evacuation?"

"No, like Mom said. Just closed off, twiddling our thumbs, waiting to turn into one of them," Hanna said, huffing and crossing her arms irritably.

"Right. Does your town have some sort of broadcasting system we can use to organize one on our own?" Daniel asked. Clearly he thought Hanna was of more use to them than her mother as well. She was very bright. Vala would have liked to have her as a daughter - this thought made her think, rather bitterly, of Adria. Adria, her own almost-daughter, the power hungry deity who had destroyed countless planets for not worshiping her. Every time she thought of it, a headache would begin to brew right behind her eyes. She put a hand to her temple and sighed.

"Well there's the news station, I guess. I can take you there. We can hitch a ride in my neighbor's wagon. Mom's is at the shop and Ms. Hignass is out of town right now," Hanna said, bouncing out of the chair. She seemed very excited to be doing something other than twiddling. "Just have to get dressed! Be back in a minute!"

"How's her mum, then?" Vala asked as Hanna disappeared out of the office and bounded down the opposite end of the hallway toward what Vala assumed must be her room.

"Not so good. Cam's doing his best aw shucks routine to insight some kind of relief, but I think our being here has just unsettled her more. Especially the idea of us being aliens. She'd rather believe we were just military," Daniel said. "Probably should have lied, now that I think about it." Coulda woulda shoulda, Vala thought.

"Will you answer me honestly?" Vala started. Daniel raised an eyebrow at her, nodding hesitantly. "Have you ever just gone to a planet and it was pleasant? I mean say you were invited to a picnic, played a little scrabble, and went home?"

"Designated the planet as 'mostly harmless, good for vacationing' rather than 'cannibals, tigers, and bears, oh my'?" Vala nodded and Daniel offered her a tired smile as he put an arm around her shoulders. "Nope."

"Good," she said. "That would be so boring."

##

Vala came to and lurched forward, hanging her head between her knees as it swam hatefully. Blinking purple spots out of her vision, she tried to bring her head back up in order to get her bearings. Her hands were tied, she realized, feet too, and she was sitting on a cold grey floor with unusual darker grey swirls embedded into the design. Her back was to a lumpy blue wall that dug uncomfortably into her spine. She scooted forward as best she could and looked around.

She was in a ship, she knew that. There was a gentle hum to it that ran comfortably through her body, unusual but not altogether unfamiliar. Everything aboard the ship was grey or blue, the make and model completely foreign to her. Perhaps it wasn't human. She'd never been aboard an Asgard ship - perhaps they had saved her from the Faceless Jerks. Vala discarded the idea quickly enough when she realized that the tiny grey men wouldn't have bothered to tie her up. Unless Daniel thought this was some fantastic joke - but that was ridiculous as well. Daniel didn't have a sense of humor. Her throat caught for a moment as Daniel's face popped into her head - grisly and jawless after he had fallen to the ground. Her mind was inventing that - she hadn't seen it, she reminded herself. She shook the image away.

Considering briefly that saying hello and alerting her captors to her newly found consciousness might be a bad idea, she said it anyway. "H-hello?" She suddenly became aware of a different sort of humming. This was a man. And a very out of place jaunty tune. She decided to initiate a veritable yoo hoo in hopes that she hadn't simply been forgotten. "Hello? I can hear you over there. Who the hell are you? Where am I?"

The humming stopping. She was inside a hallway. She was sure it was just a hallway. Maybe the ship didn't have actual holding cells. Perhaps the hallway was as out of the way as her captor could handle. Still, it was all rather unsettling. Especially that humming. She heard footsteps coming closer, and she struggled a bit more frantically with the ropes on her hands. They were knotted very well and she lost her balance and tipped over.

"Quetesh, do me a favor and stop being so shrill. It's noisy enough in here without - Yes, I know she's awake. You see what I see! No, it's not your turn," the man said, forgoing an answer in order to better argue with himself. Vala struggled to slide away from him, but he wasn't paying her one bit of mind as he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder like a bag of flour. She continued to struggle and even tried to bite the back of his neck, but she couldn't quite reach.

He flopped her over into a seat and she spun slightly away. She blink twice as she realized that he had tossed her onto a swivel chair. With wheels. Who in their right mind would have a swivel chair aboard a space ship? She realized now probably wasn't the time to be pondering this peculiarity on top of the myriad of others.

She straightened and watched as he, the funny man with strawberry blond hair and birdlike features, went back to what he was doing, muttering to himself all the while.

Vala waited a moment for an 'in' to the conversation. She already had a feeling this was a Goa'uld - more likely a Tok'ra. After all, Goa'uld would hardly argue with themselves. But then the Tok'ra were usually more reserved.

"No, she's clearly not. Yes, I heard - no. Okay! O-okay yes. Sh-shhhush!" His speech became muddled and stressed. It looked like he wanted to slap someone. She had a sinking feeling that would be her.

"Why," she said finally, "did you call me Quetesh? Have we met?" Vala had played host to the Goa'uld known as Quetesh for about thirty years not too long ago. Many of the Goa'uld still recognized her as such - which could either be very good or very bad news, depending on who was currently residing inside this skittish, however well built, little lunatic.

"Yes - no, well. Yes I'm telling her!" He paused for a moment, clasping his head and squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened them again, they glowed briefly - the signature of a Goa'uld. "I'm sorry, Quetesh. This host isn't exactly my choosing. Desperate times, you know!" Vala rolled her eyes as the man's voice deepened to a caricature of its former self.

"Who are you then?"

"Oh we never met. I worked for Ba'al. I am Sobek," he said. Vala grimaced. She recognized the name. One of Ba'al's tinkers. She had heard that the Free Jaffa had captured and killed him, but clearly they had missed a piece. "The damaged little creature I'm residing in is called Allan."

"And you allow Allan to speak for you? How very unlike a Goa'uld," Vala said.

"I'm a more enlightened individual. At one point I even called myself a Tok'ra," Sobek said, shrugging, strutting towards her. It could only be described as a strut: he had his arms crossed behind him, his shoulders were straight. His eyes, a dull blue, appeared sunken and bruised. There was more coherency in them now that Sobek had taken over, but the shabby tan frock he was wearing, and the state of his hair told her that Sobek didn't often get the reins.

"Tok'ra, eh? And what's a Tok'ra doing all the way out here in the middle of an apocalyptic nightmare? The Goa'uld being gone ought to have allowed you asylum on another planet," Vala said, shifting in her uncomfortable position on the swivel chair. If she could turn around and vault off one of the walls, perhaps she could incapacitate him and take over the ship. Either that or she would knock herself over and he might not be nice enough to pick her up again. Ah the foils of a swivel chair.

"If you keep struggling like that you're going to chafe and bruise those delicate little wrists of yours," Sobek said, turning back to what appeared to be a work table. Vala frowned, realizing that a DHD had been taken apart, its various bits and pieces strewn about haphazardly like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Vala looked from the table to the rest of her surroundings. She could tell the ship wasn't huge. This wide, round room aside, the frame of the ship did not boast size. She could see that the main control interface was also housed towards the front of the room. There were three hallways leading off from this main atrium. Vala was completely alone on this ship, but it felt like so was Sobek. She'd been in far worse situations, this was - what had Cam called it? Pastry. It was pastry.

"Well, then, why am I here?" Vala asked, as she did so, she realized that Sobek had disappeared.

"You… You're just an accident. We just needed the DHD - Damn it, I'm explaining it to her because she has a right to know. I don't know! Will you - Fine. Sobek says I probably shouldn't tell you this - but he's not really my favorite person right now," Allan said, picking up a tool that most closely resembled a socket wrench and pressing it to his temple.

"I can imagine," Vala said, nodding.

Allan let out a laugh at this. It was more like a giggle, really. "You can, can't you? But you've only had one - one! Those were the days. He calls you Quetesh, but that's not your name. It's Va-Vala, right?"

"How did you know that?" she asked, choosing that one over the more pressing ones simply because she didn't want to make him nervous. Allan was a squirrelly little beast, spooking him might land her out an airlock - especially when it seemed she wasn't necessary in whatever they were doing. The first thing she had to do was make herself useful - seem like she was his friend.

"I pay attention," he said, leaning over the work table and loosing several wires from one of the boxes within the DHD. She could see the crystals lying in a pile at the other end of the table - they'd been completely fried.

"Were you down there? On Veranan?"

"Not recently, no. Well! That's not true, all three of us were down there about a month ago," Allan said, pausing as he recalled whatever events led him here. Vala had no reason to suspect that Allan and his tag-along had any part in what was going on down on the planet, just one Goa'uld was hardly a threat to a civilization, but she supposed she would be foolish to dismiss him entirely. What he meant by three, she didn't quite know. Perhaps he had two Goa'ulds inside him? No, that was biologically impossible - the Tok'ra had tried on countless occasions when they're populations began to decline exponentially and willing hosts were almost impossible to find.

"That doesn't really answer my question then. How did you know my name, Allan?"

For a moment, Allan didn't answer, he continued tinkering with the wires. He zapped himself and looked at her, sucking idly at his index finger. He looked, in that moment, like a child with a boo boo.

"What me to kiss it better?" Vala said, offering him a coaxing smile.

"Your uh," he began, shaking the pain from his hand, "your other person. Brown hair, yay tall? He was beamed up with you and the DHD. It's a proximity thing. He was nearly dead. We threw him in a sarcophagus."

The smile was wiped from Vala's face. She blinked, frowning as she straightened as best she could in her seat. She had all but forgotten the events leading to her sudden captivity. Daniel had been shot. Twice. But she had somehow managed to exchange that image for one of him hopping through the Stargate with several villagers in tow. That hadn't been Daniel, it had been Cam.

"He's… alive then?" Vala said, all playfulness gone from her voice.

"Oh I dunno. He's probably still in the middle of whatever deep cleansing tissue massage that thing initiates, but it's pretty reliable," he said, waving a hand thoughtfully. He suddenly seemed more calm and rational, as though his neighbors were being quiet.

"Well, take me to him then!"

"No, I don't think that's a good idea - you know. You'd probably band together and knock me out. Separate is best," he said, nodding to himself.

"I was going to do that at some point anyway! You know, I'm sure you don't want that nasty Sobek in your head any longer, if you help me then I can help you get him out! There's a process that the-"

"Oh I know all about that. But if I help you, he'll kill me. And himself. And then me again, oh it just wouldn't go at all the way we'd like. Besides, he says he's going to switch into your friend's body as soon as I get the sound system all set up - then we'll all be hunky dory and Ma'at and I can be on our way! Doesn't that sound great?"

Vala's frown deepened as his speech became faster, more erratic.

"Where do I fit into this plan?"

"That's none of your concern, Quetesh." Sobek had taken over once more. "Once I'm free of this idiot, I'll have a body I can call my own again."

"If you can't hold on to this one on your own, what makes you think it'll be any easier in Daniel's body? I'm sure he's more stubborn than Twitchy here," Vala said, her shoulders were suddenly less tight. She hadn't realized how much tension she had been holding on to. Daniel was alive though! The situation may have become steadily more repugnant, but she wasn't alone. "Besides, when my Daniel wakes up, it won't be much easier for you to keep us both hostage. There's only one of you -"

"My dear Quetesh! What ever gave you the idea that I was alone?" Sobek said, leaning over her. He smelled positively garish.

Her jaw clenched as two of those scuttling, wriggling beasts from the planet below appeared from the right hallway at the snap of Sobek's fingers. "And there are several more minding your… Daniel was it? - minding his sarcophagus. I was only planning on grabbing a civilian later, but since you and he seemed to be on top of the DHD when it popped aboard - well who am I to argue with fate?"

Licking her lips as her eyes widened, Vala said, "Aren't these lovelies a bit… contagious?"

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