NOTE: Before I begin – Sanura has gone and snowballed from a light expy cameo into a stealth Easter Egg of a crossover, so I should probably put in a disclaimer. Circumstances and details are strongly modified, but anyone familiar with Mercedes Lackey's Oathbound series will recognize where a lot of her backstory comes from!
I also cannot claim any credit for Tom Leher's song Werner von Braun. It just wouldn't get out of my head. Nor do I claim credit or rights to the other reference… although I do believe I can claim bragging rights for having pulled that particular one off!
This is a much shorter chapter; it's really more a continuation of Chapter Six's interlude, as I maneuver my hapless pawns - er, starring characters - into position for the real action...
THE DRAGON-KING'S TEMPLE
Chapter Seven
~Even the Dragon-King's temple floods.~
"Chevron seven is locked. Wormhole is initiating," Sergeant Albert's voice announced over the intercom. "It's the Tok'ra, sir."
Well, it's about damn time, Hammond thought grouchily, keeping out of the way as the Gate response team settled into position, just in case their SOS to the Tok'ra had been intercepted. An SOS sent nearly two days ago. If this had been an emergency…
Well, be grateful that it isn't. Yet.
The wormhole kawooshed outward, then settled into shimmering stability immediately covered by the hard gray lines of the iris.
Hammond crossed his arms and waited. He knew that his presence on the Gateroom floor made the security team uneasy. It was hard enough guarding the Gate, without the ranking officer being directly in the line of sight of whatever came through. Hell, they were none too happy with it when he was safely stowed in the command center.
Well, he wasn't too happy with it himself. But the Tok'ra could be touchy even on a good day, and the SGC didn't have so many interstellar allies that they could afford to send this one off in a huff.
"GDO code checks out, sir."
Hammond nodded. "Open the iris," he said, and watched as the blade-like petals slid apart and into the frame, washing the Gateroom with eerie blue light again.
The silver-blue surface rippled as an armored figure stepped through.
"Jaffa!" someone shouted, and weapons rose-
Hammond held up a hand in a sharp Halt! gesture. "Hold your fire!" he boomed, narrowing his eyes at the figure that had paused on the ramp.
Armored like a Jaffa, yes, although Hammond wasn't familiar with the odd quilted layer underneath the armor. Looks like… some sort of polar variant?
And the strange dome of metal textured to look like human hair and fronted by a long-necked, long-beaked bird wasn't anything Hammond had seen before, but it did match Major Carter's and Doctor Fraiser's report.
But he came from the Tok'ra world. Alone. And he's not carrying any visible weapons.
Either this was one hell of a gutsy gamble, or…
"I don't suppose you'd mind introducing yourself?" he drawled, not relaxing, but not aggressive either.
The Jaffa slowly reached up and removed his helmet, revealing a striking young man, of the football captain in a Disney high school movie variety – broad-shouldered, crewcut blond, cheekbones that could cut and a chin like a battering ram.
His eye color, however, was hard to see past the familiar points of gold light that indicated an active symbiote.
"General Hammond," he said, in the hollow voice of a Goa'uld, "I am Nekht, agent of the Tok'ra."
~Even the Dragon-King's temple floods.~
"Bored? How can you be bored?" Colonel O'Neill asked, artfully innocent as he spread his arms to take in the empty room and bare, sparse cell. "Just look at the glorious accommodations!"
Seated cross-legged on the floor, Sanura crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall. "Unfortunately, I neglected to bring a book," she said dryly.
And stars, but she could do with one. It wasn't that she didn't know how to handle stillness and solitude. But bare stone and iron bars got very old after a day or two.
There was a glint of thoughtful not-quite-skepticism in the Tau'ri commander's eyes, trying to calculate whether or not she actually meant what she'd just said, or at least whether or not she meant the implications. She didn't bother to hide the annoyed roll of her own. What was it with the Tau'ri assuming that non-Terran humans, even Jaffa, were somehow uneducated and illiterate? In their own way, they were as arrogant as the Tok'ra about it.
And this, with Teal'c in their ranks. Did they somehow think he was unique?
Well. Unusual, certainly. Be fair, Sanura, Nubiti's throaty chuckle echoed in the back of her mind. When you joined Djehuty's service, you were passably literate, but not educated in the sense that they're used to.
True enough. And oh, she remembered the day Nubiti had taught her how to access the archives…
"I'm sure we could dig up something," O'Neill said, mock-conscientious. "Until then – hey, I've got me some time. Let's chat."
"Chat." Her turn to raise a skeptical eyebrow.
"Y'know. Nice. Friendly-like." He sat back in the chair normally occupied by the guard, elbow bobbing dangerously close to what Sanura suspected was a panic button as he waved a hand through the air. "Taken any good vacations lately? I hear the skiing down in the Winter Wonderlands is great this year."
Sanura snorted. "You would be the one to know, not I."
Which wasn't entirely a case of tweaking the Tau'ri's nose for the sake of tweaking his nose, although there was a bit of that. She wondered if the colonel had any idea how his patter sounded to someone who didn't come from his world. Gate-given language or not, sometimes the Tau'ri just didn't make sense until you spent some time listening to them ramble.
Still, he made more than enough sense for her to know exactly what he was after. She had no intention of making this easy for him, though.
"What, us? We were just hanging around, building igloos, counting snowflakes, observing the fuzzy frosty wildlife, that sort of thing." Under laconic humor, his eyes watched her intently. "So what brought you folks to the neighborhood?"
She copied his shrug easily. "Hanging around. Building igloos, counting slowflakes, observing the fuzzy frosty wildlife…"
"And poking at old labs and Gates. Why that Gate?"
A generous soul might have called her bared teeth a smile, she supposed. "Lawyer," she sing-songed.
There was a method to her madness – beyond tweaking the colonel's nose, which was highly entertaining in its own right. Whenever Tau'ri were captured off-world, their actions and comments made it clear that they expected prisoners to be handled according to certain standards. She wanted to see if they actually lived up to those standards themselves.
Granted, she suspected that anything that came out of their mouths in that sardonic tone was to be taken with a grain of salt. But their reactions to some of the standard System Lord practices regarding human prisoners were fairly telling.
Besides. Maybe he'll cough one up, and I'll get to find out what a lawyer actually is.
That would almost make this whole experiment worth the constant low-grade headache she was getting from the constant, ferocious concentration needed to keep up the outwardly casual patter. Thank goodness for security tapes and drinking games.
Thus far, the Tau'ri were holding to their implied standards for the most part, she had to grant that. The cell was bare and utterly lacking in anything resembling amenities or privacy, and she was cold. But the clothing they'd given her was clean, they'd given her decent food and clear water, and while she'd never been left alone, the guard had always stayed scrupulously on his side of the bars, and well away from the bars at that. As did O'Neill whenever he turned up. Which, granted, was half just plain common sense, but… all things considered, her treatment had been quite decent.
On the other hand… After trading a few more quips, Colonel O'Neill checked a timepiece on his wrist, made a face, and let himself out. No offers to communicate with her leader for an exchange, she noticed. No rewards for good behavior. Not even an offer of a lawyer.
I thought not.
Nubiti would be annoyed, Sanura wryly acknowledged. She still remembered their discussion – it couldn't be called an argument, quite – after she'd insisted that the Tau'ri go into holding cells briefly.
"All other factors aside, the Tau'ri are ranging deeper and deeper into the network of the System Lords. We were going to run into them eventually. Better to have them know us as a friendly or at least neutral party than get caught in a crossfire." Nubiti had raised a slender finger. "More importantly, the Tau'ri homeworld was the center of the Gatebuilders' empire, long ago. If we can open lines of communication…" Her shoulders had lifted in a shrug, followed by a wry smile. "Besides. The Tau'ri poke things, and they've shown a keen interest in the past – just look at their Daniel Jackson. A second set of eyes trained in a completely different scientific tradition might see something we've overlooked all along." Then wryness had gained a glint of impish humor. "Besides. Our long-term goals are mutually compatible, no?"
All very good points, and very true. And she had no intentions of letting those plans go anywhere until she had some idea of whether or not the Tau'ri actually walked the paths they talked. So far as she cared, anyone who went around claiming moral high ground had better be able to defend it. And the Wise One could roll his eyes and list off all the chancy or downright treacherous allies he'd worked with over the course of a very long life as much as he liked. Better an ally you could trust to stab you in the back than one where you didn't have the first idea which way they'd jump at any moment.
Lady, but she missed her clan-sibs right now.
Well, they are not here, and they will not come here anytime soon if they have any sense, Sanura thought, standing up and stretching. Which means I must think about what to do next.
She was ostensibly alone, but the little black devices against the ceiling in two corners of the room were enough like the recording devices the Tau'ri sometimes carried to tell her that she was still under surveillance. Still, ostensible privacy was better than being stared at directly. She ignored the cameras and began methodically going over her cell again. At least it was something to do – not that she expected to find anything more than she had before. Given the Tau'ri's history when it came to prison cells and the breaking out thereof, she suspected they had to be at least decent at foiling similar breakouts themselves. She and Urdu had been using those exploits as reference materials when redesigning the ha'tak's holding areas, although they rarely saw use.
For what good it did us. Of course, they hadn't planned for adorably badass little girls who could kick stone and metal into shape the way Sanura did raw recruits. And when she got her hands on Lieutenant Nekht for engineering that mess…
She grimaced. The guards who'd gone down in the ha'tak… she didn't have to like it, dammit, but she did accept it.
Hells. I would have done the same thing, if I found myself with two injured children, she admitted to herself, grudgingly – then smirked. Only with more explosions.
Although that depended. If you defined explosion as flying masonry and pyrotechnics…
I would not object to having that on my side right now, she thought dryly, ending her fruitless circuit of the cell where she'd started, seated on the floor against the back wall. There was a bed, but you'd have to be unconscious to find it comfortable, and she wasn't inclined to nap the day – night? – away just yet.
So, no. She might be less than pleased by the chaos of the escape, but she didn't blame the Tau'ri for it.
Khenut, on the other hand…
Sanura swallowed and closed her eyes, feeling again the horrid lurch that had slammed into her gut when her search party had cleared a ridge and seen Khenut's glider.
Grounded, in unsecured, unknown territory. For no reason so far as she could see – that was the part that kept gnawing at her. There'd been no messages saying she'd found something to investigate, no sign of the sort of storm it would take to ground one of the fighters in either the ha'tak's sensory sweep or when they'd investigated the surroundings. Just the ship sitting there, engines still humming quietly in idle mode and all systems showing green and good to go – although the environmental controls had been a little stressed after hours of trying to regulate the climate of the whole mountain range through doors left carelessly open. It was as though Khenut and her team had decided to ignore all protocol and common sense and just pop out for a bit of fresh, frozen air.
Leaving all their cold-weather gear, supplies and weapons neatly stowed away on the ship as they vanished for a walk in sub-Arctic mountains, apparently.
What happened?
Then, when Sanura had gathered her search party to investigate the most likely trail away from the grounded ship, winding towards the valley that held the planet's Stargate and, according to Urdu and Nubiti's research, a research facility from the height of the Gatebuilders' civilization…
They hadn't been on that trail more than fifteen minutes when they'd rounded a blind turn and come face to face with the Tau'ri officers.
Not proof of foul play, she acknowledged grimly. But as circumstantial evidence I would call it pretty cursed damning.
After all, it was an uninhabited world. The only native lifeforms were some exceedingly cold-resistant algae. Was she supposed to believe they'd puffed the glider down?
Khenut knew Djehuty's long-term plans. She knew he'd been planning to open negotiations with the Tau'ri ever since Earth's Stargate had opened again. If she'd seen the Tau'ri as her team had been scouting the range, she would have tried to talk.
Without backup? Her inner voice of reason sounded like Nubiti again. Without even using the comm to notify one of us? Khenut trained you, Sanura. You know what she'd do to anyone who violated protocol like that on her watch.
Heh. Drummed out of the active forces would be the least of it. Djehuty was no great System Lord; he didn't have slave worlds full of loyal forces, although he did have a few settlements beyond his homeworld that he supported when he could. He simply couldn't afford to field rank upon rank of blast-fodder, even if he'd wanted to.
So he trained his people. Intensively. Quality trumped quantity, and for decades, Khenut had by-the-Lady made sure he got that quality.
And the Tau'ri were surprised to see you. As surprised as you were.
Which was why she'd taken them into custody, Lady take it. She wasn't exactly a big believer in the power of coincidence. If the SGC were headed in the direction of that grounded glider, and weren't expecting a follow-up party, and didn't have one of Khenut's team with them to explain the situation…
If Khenut had tried to talk to them, then clearly it had gone very badly. Best-case scenario, she and her team were prisoners. No matter what the circumstances, Sanura had decided, getting a bargaining chip of her own was definitely a good idea. And she'd wanted answers.
Although her intuition cried that she already knew. That one more of her family was dead, when she'd lost so many already.
She was breathing. That… didn't make sense. She was fairly certain that when you'd rammed a glider loaded with a lethal payload of high-energy weapons into the bridge of an oversized mansion house pretending to be a starship, whatever might come next, breathing wasn't supposed to factor into it.
The world lightened, blurred, and then came into focus on two warm, worried amber eyes, set in a demon's face.
It shouldn't have been a comfort, except that given what she'd learned recently of gods – well, better demons than that. And this face, she knew, didn't belong to a demon at all.
Except that it didn't make sense. Nubiti should have been back on her ha'tak. She shouldn't be dead…
Memory surged. Enemy gliders coming after her small stolen vessel as she suddenly veered off on an unplotted trajectory. Unexpectedly, someone else's hands on the weapon controls, freeing her to fly with steady hands for her goal. A jolt that went straight to her heart when she turned and saw a mix of mulish stubborn and resigned amusement on a familiar green-and-gold face…
The world blazed white.
"Stay calm. And still. The chamber healed the worst of your wounds, but I pulled you out once you were out of danger." A chuckle, half wry and half dark. "You'll scar, but believe me, it's better than the side effects. One of these days I'm going to find the name of the fool who decided psychopathy fell under the category of acceptable side effects, and then I am going to indulge my ancestral traditions and erase said name from existence. Assuming he knew. Psychoneurology is complicated even when you're working with your own species…"
Sanura tried to persuade her eyes to open, not listening to the scholarly ramble so much as letting it anchor her, keeping her from drifting in a sea of nothing but pain.
Ow.
She was alive, then. Being dead couldn't possibly hurt this much.
Which raised a very pressing question. Bracing herself, she managed to look at Nubiti again. "How?" she croaked, the roughness of her voice still strange even after six months to get used to the damage that had been done by smoke and screaming.
Nubiti sat back with a darkly amused smile. "Sometimes the System Lords forget how much of their technology is my own invention. Like the transport rings."
Sanura blinked. "You are no older than I am."
And Nubiti wasn't, relatively speaking – a few years' worth, maybe, but no more than that. Sanura had done the math, one sleepless night when the screams of the dying and the silence of the dead chased her up out of sleep and through the halls of Djehuty's ha'tak home. It had taken some head-pounding calculations of human aging as compared to that of Nubiti's people, and the conversion of Unarian and Dhorishan years to the standard used by Djehuty to compensate for an existence completely disconnected from any form of season, planetary cycles or even a sun, bouncing across the galaxy as he did – in his own way, the Wise One was as much a nomad as the Dhorisha ever were. Not to mention factoring in the preservative effects of ghoti versus prim'ta, and their relative ages for each…
Nubiti had covered her eyes lightly with her hand and was actually rumbling a chuckle in the back of her throat. "You humans and your pronouns… how in the stars do you manage to keep things straight when you only have one way to say I?" Her voice changed in timbre ever so slightly – the voice of Nebet, rather than Nebet-Djehuty. "Perhaps I should have said, the Wise One created them." Amber eyes peeked through her fingers slyly. "And I – he – may not have told the System Lords everything about them."
Sanura eyed her.
Nubiti lowered her hand, smile full of pointed teeth. "The transport rings have a remote-activation trigger. Once we were through the shields, I used it to transport us out of the glider and into the ha'tak."
Another woman stepped around the foot of the bed to come into sight, pulled-back iron-gray hair emphasizing the dark scowl she was leveling at both of them equally. "And nearly got both of you blasted into space debris before getting to the on-ship Gate and away," she grumbled in a deep and melodious voice that seemed oddly at odds with her sharply defined muscles and deeply lined face.
At any other time, Sanura might have flinched under Khenut's hard eyes, remembering the raw disbelief and pain she'd heard over the glider's comm when last they'd spoken. At the moment, however, her gaze was locked on Nubiti's. "Why?" she demanded.
Nubiti sat back, arms crossed as the mischief smoothed into ancient calm. "My people have a saying, Sanura. Cross not a Wisdom Seeker's crèche."
Sanura made a vague, baffled gesture, trying to somehow indicate shorn black hair – chin-length now, had so much time passed since the fires? – dark skin and blue eyes, contrasted against inhuman patterns of amber and green, small ivory horns and pointy teeth.
Teeth that flickered faintly in a little smile. "Aren't you the one with the proverb about friends being family you chose? We've shared six months of grief and rage, and plotting." The smile darkened slightly, fierce and predatory. "And now triumph. We did it, Sanura. We got them – all of them. Yer Tanri and Gök Tanri are finished. Dhorisha has been avenged."
Vengeance. Sanura closed her eyes, remembering familiar faces gone strange and twisted, then horrific; the look on Jelani's face when they'd seen the first black marks spreading from a corrupted wound, finding the transmitter and realizing it had all been a game of careless gods, destroying it, lighting the fires…
It was all still there. Vengeance hadn't undone the past. The dead were dead. But at least she could assure the dead that justice was done.
The world still felt so empty.
Now what?
The question hit with all the force of her suicidal glider. Because that had been suicide, of a sort. Not that she'd been thinking in so many terms. But…
She hadn't expected to walk away.
Khenut snorted. "Now what?" she echoed, and Sanura suddenly realized the words had slipped out aloud. "Now you get your idiot self healed up so I can start whipping you back into shape. What?" she asked, rolling her eyes at Sanura's look of shock. "You thought we would simply cast you out when the battle was won?"
Sanura's hand closed into a fist. "I do not seek charity," she said fiercely, and couldn't quite make herself meet Nubiti's patient eyes.
Khenut laughed at her.
When Sanura's head snapped up, the Prime crossed her arms across her chest. "Charity? Duat's kiss, no. I want you here so I can whip you into shape to be my replacement."
"Khenut…" Nubiti started – and then winced, rubbing the ridge of her brow.
Khenut's voice softened, but her words were unyielding. "Did you think I hadn't noticed, Nebet-Djehuty? You went through two Stargates, unprotected. You told me yourself what that does to you." Hard hazel eyes narrowed. "The migraines will only get worse, and you know as well as I that there is only one way to repair that sort of damage. Djehuty needs to take a new partner." Khenut grinned wryly. "Sanura out-sneaked me. She will do."
Nubiti sighed ruefully, then looked at Sanura. "It's your choice," she said simply. "But before you make it…" She hesitated. "The way of the Dhorisha lives on in you. Believe me – I know something of how that feels. Let us help it survive." Then suddenly her lips curved in a smile that wasn't the Wise One, but the impish woman who had pulled her out of ashes and demanded she live. "And I always meant to have children, when I completed my ghoti. Any child of mine would be proud to call you crèche-mother."
The image of Dhorishan children with horned face ridges and sharp-toothed smiles made Sanura suddenly begin to laugh – and sent a touch of warmth around the core of cold that she had thought would never leave her heart.
Although at the moment, the cold she felt was more physical than emotional, Sanura granted, fighting the urge to shiver. It wasn't that chilly in her cell, although she did have to wonder if this really was in keeping with the Tau'ri's purported concern for "humane conditions."
Or perhaps that was just a draft, as the door opened and a large man with the traditional golden sigil of a Prime stepped inside.
Sanura couldn't help straightening a little. Teal'c had been legendary even before he'd turned against Apophis. When Dhorisha had died – that legend had helped keep her alive.
He nodded silent acknowledgement before sinking down to sit cross-legged on the floor. He kept a courteous distance from the cell bars, acknowledging that she was not helpless despite being confined. Once settled, he set a kel-no-rem candle on the floor between them.
Recognizing the invitation, Sanura settled into a proper meditation posture, slowing and evening her breathing along with his as she waited for him to speak.
Which he did only after several long, calming minutes.
"I have spoken to many Jaffa since joining the Tau'ri, urging them to see that the false gods do not deserve the worship they demand. Somehow, I feel I will not need to speak so to you."
Even in a light meditative state, Sanura couldn't quite resist the wry snicker. At least she hadn't fallen over laughing. "Given that it is my task to sit on the Wise One when he is about to do something particularly foolish – no, not really."
There was an odd hint of flicker in the back of his eyes as he shifted his gaze from the candleflame to her. "Then the rumors are true. He does not demand worship from his people?"
Realization struck, and Sanura smiled. "He offered you sanctuary at one point, did he?"
"Not directly," Teal'c replied, with a tilt of his head in silent agreement. "But when I joined Apophis, I was given… indications that he would not be averse to offering support or asylum, should I seek it." His brow furrowed ever so slightly. "At the time, I thought it to be further maneuvering among the System Lords."
"I supposed it could be called such," Sanura admitted. Although she'd never tell Djehuty that. What he had to say about the System Lords couldn't be repeated in most impolite society.
Another subtle glance. "Speak with me," Teal'c invited. "I know little of Djehuty, and much of what I know I cannot confirm." He raised a brow slightly. "The Tau'ri are not unreasonable, although they are fierce in defending their own. They prefer allies to enemies. I have heard it said that Djehuty is much the same."
Well. That was a leading statement if ever she'd heard one. Sanura's lips curved faintly in a smile. "That is one way of putting it…"
~Even the Dragon-King's temple floods.~
"Senile?"
Hammond leaned forward in polite interest, raising a hand to forestall whatever Carter had been about to say. She'd given her summarized report on the events on P4X-684; now, it was time to see what the Tok'ra agent would tell them.
But this was a rather unexpected reply to his initial query. "I wasn't aware that your people suffered that particular ailment," he continued, raising his eyebrows quizzically.
"Djehuty is the oldest of the living Goa'uld," Nekht said with a dismissive shrug. "He was old when Ra first came to your planet." Hammond had the feeling that the hint of expression that flickered across Nekht's face would have been a sour one, if Nekht had allowed it to stay. "His mind has been going at least that long."
Interesting. "According to our legends, Djehuty was a god of science, law, and wisdom."
"Doubtless," the Tok'ra said with a hint of smile. Hammond firmly sat on the urge to smack it from the agent's face. Even with the best of the budding xenopsychologists in the Stargate program – Dr. Jackson among them – no one was quite sure if the Tok'ra realized how much their apparent condescension irked their human allies. If, as Dr. Jackson had theorized on a good day, it truly was unintentional, the result of a miscommunication in body language between two very different species – well, giving in to that urge would only set Tok'ra-Earth relations back at a time when they could ill afford to go looking for new interstellar allies.
And if it was intentional, as more paranoid minds suggested, it was best not to let them know they were getting to you.
And it's not that certain Tau'ri colonels don't take advantage of the same uncertainty.
Hammond set the thought aside with the ease of much practice as Nekht continued. "Djehuty provided Ra with technology, in exchange for the freedom to explore Earth as he willed."
Hammond shared an uneasy glance with Carter. Just what the SGC didn't need; another Goa'uld with a grudge. The Tau'ri rebellion would have inconvenienced this Djehuty at least as much as any other System Lord. "Looking for what, exactly?"
Nekht shrugged. "Ra never knew, nor cared. Djehuty was no threat to his power." His expression did sour this time, quite visibly. "Egeria approached him."
Hammond raised his eyebrows. "For her rebellion?" That implied that Egeria had believed that Djehuty would not only be amenable to her cause, but useful.
"Yes. She offered him the freedom of a willing host, the chance to observe humans as they are and not as Ra forced them to be…" For a moment, Nekht's expression twisted to one of disgust. "He laughed in her face."
"Laughed?" Carter asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes slightly. Hammond suspected she was prodding at the hazy residual memories Jolinar had left in her mind. "Something about… saying please?"
"Learn the meaning and use of please, thank you, and I'm sorry. Then return and speak to me again." Nekht made a sharp, dismissive gesture with his hand, before his expression smoothed over into cool distance again. "It was clear at that point that his mind was completely gone."
Hammond managed to keep his reaction to a near-silent huff of ironic amusement. Pity you didn't take the advice.
Carter looked down at her notes. "Back up for a minute," she said thoughtfully. "You said that Djehuty provided Ra with technology. What kind? I've never seen anything like those riot shields before."
"Toys," Nekht said brusquely. "Simply display pieces left over from a brief fascination with primitive battle tactics." He shrugged. "They're certainly a high-quality alloy underneath the gold plating, enough to deflect a glancing hit…"
Carter made a startled noise in the back of her throat. When Hammond glanced at her from the corner of his eye, she was bent over her notes, scribbling furiously.
Two years at the SGC had made him an experienced scientist-wrangler. Hammond paused for a moment, long enough for her to get her first few thoughts out on paper, then firmly tapped his finger on the table to redirect her attention back to the conversation.
"What technology did he provide, then?" he asked, covering for Carter's distraction.
"He created the zat'ni'catels, for one," Nekht said. "It turned the tide for Ra when Apophis made a bid for power against him."
Hammond leaned back in his chair, thinking hard. "And none of the System Lords have attempted to eliminate him?" Given the cutthroat nature of System Lord politics, that was rather unexpected.
"Attempted? Probably. But for the most part, Djehuty is too useful to eliminate. He is willing to develop technology for any of them, so long as the project amuses him. Which has its own… complications." Nekht actually shuddered. "When he initially created the intars, they shot beams of multicolored light that left anything they touched undamaged, but… similarly colored for several minutes. I, of course, was not present, but the tales of the first live demonstration were… memorable."
Carter smirked and began humming faintly under her breath. "Don't say that he's hypocritical… say rather that he's… a-political."
Hammond steepled his hands in front of his face. It helped hide the smile as he fought to maintain a stern and sober demeanor. He does sound remarkably like a Goa'uld Werner von Braun, he acknowledged. Better to think about that then let his mind wander to his granddaughters' Saturday morning cartoons. He didn't think his mind could survive the image of Jaffa doing the Care Bear Stare.
…Too late.
While he was trying not to cringe, an ah-hah look crossed Carter's face, as though she'd just had a theory confirmed. Quickly circling something she'd written in her earlier notes, she leaned forward. "Did he develop the TERs as well?"
"He did," Nekht affirmed. "Djehuty has long been obsessed with the idea of unseen beings." His lip curled. "He has even been known to visit human populations simply to listen to stories."
Hammond bit his lip, suddenly picturing a Goa'uld with Daniel Jackson aspirations. He honestly didn't know if the thought was amusing, intriguing, or terrifying. Probably all of the above.
"Doubtless this energy-consuming being you describe was the result of another branch of that research," the Tok'ra continued. "It would not be the first time an invention went out of control to wreak havoc. We Tok'ra keep watch on him and attempt to divert any creations that would endanger the balance of power among the System Lords, but…" He spread his hands. "You see why we could not afford to leave such powerful potential hosts in his hands."
The major pursed her lips slightly. "So you arranged for them to be imprisoned with us."
"You are Tau'ri." There was a hint of a shrug in the tone. "We knew you would keep them safe until I could come here."
"Endangering your cover in the process," Hammond said, as Carter's eyes narrowed. "Why not simply give us the Stargate address?"
"I? I am nothing but a Jaffa," Nekht said smugly. "Djehuty does not even maintain a slave population by which to bolster his numbers. He will not notice my absence." He spread his hands. "The Dur'Asada Stargate appears to be locked somehow – it can only be accessed by the Gate linked to the Ancient laboratory, which doubtless explains how the world and its inhabitants went unknown for so long. Give the young ones to us and we will see them safely home."
Dur'Asada. Hammond wrote the name out in shorthand on his pad without taking his eyes off the Tok'ra – the life of a general offered plenty of opportunity for developing one's note-taking skills. They hadn't been able to determine any sort of name for Zuko and Toph's homeworld. With luck, this would give Doctor Jackson another angle to pursue.
In the meantime… He nodded to the Tok'ra, brisk and professional without being too accommodating. "I understand your reasoning," he said neutrally. "However, the children are still on edge after their experiences. Given that there seems to be no rush, I advise we avoid pushing them for the moment."
Nekht didn't quite manage to hide the sudden flash of irritation. Hammond firmly sat on the urge to smirk at him. Caught by your own words – you can't force us to hurry when you were just bragging that your absence wouldn't be noticed. "In the meantime – you say Djehuty has a history of researching noncorporeal entities? Then perhaps you might be able to assist our technicians in designing containment procedures. If there are more of these things – and in my experience, scientists never make only one prototype," he added wryly, "then the Tok'ra will need some way of countering them…"
Nekht clearly understood that for the dismissal that it was, even couched in polite language. "That would be advisable," he said, maintaining an admirably neutral tone himself. "But be aware that we cannot afford to waste too much time, General." With a curt nod, he excused himself.
I know that better than you, Hammond thought with a wince. After consulting with Doctor Fraiser and SG-1, he had chosen not to divulge to the Tok'ra the potential danger of naquadah depletion that the children faced; the Tok'ra already held far too many cards in this situation for his liking. But that didn't mean he wasn't aware of the ticking clock it represented. He'd done some research on mineral depletion and its effects. It didn't make for sound sleep at night.
Familiar with the ways of scientists on the trail of a theory, he'd more than half-expected Major Carter to be buried in her notes again as soon as the door closed behind Nekht. Instead, she sat back, turning her pen about in her fingers as though contacting its heft and aerodynamic properties with relation to its potential use as a dart. "Just how gullible does he think we are, sir?"
"The mind boggles." Hammond smiled dryly. "Particularly given that this Djehuty appears to have been pulling wool over the collective eyes of the System Lords and the Tok'ra for several millennia."
The pen stilled in Carter's hands as she glanced sidelong at him. "So you think so, too."
Hammond raised his eyebrows. "I am painfully familiar with accidental mayhem," he drawled, and was amused with the astrophysicist flushed slightly – she had, after all, been the source of some of that mayhem. And he was never going to be able to hear the word reactor without wincing again. "As commanding officer of a base full of often bored soldiers, I am even more painfully familiar with pranks." Not the least of them from his 2IC. He shook his head. "Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that demonstration."
The major shuddered. "You're braver than I am, sir," she said, face pained. "Day-Glo Jaffa. Yikes."
Hammond raised his chin, and an eyebrow. "I survived being young in the psychedelic sixties," he said with mock pride, then sobered. "More to the point, I know weapons R&D. Researchers may be odd, but senile? Not if they're producing functional results on a regular basis."
Carter nodded. "He went to a great deal of trouble to make himself look harmless and whimsical," she said intently. "But… sir, rainbows may be pretty and a symbol of happy thoughts, but in terms of energy, they're incredibly complex phenomena. To not only get a concentrated, directed, visible spectrum, but somehow enable it to charge what it contacts so that it will radiate light, and do it all without actually hurting anything…" She paused. "And by hurting, I mean physical damage only, sir. No claims for mental damage."
Hammond snorted.
"But my point is – he can't have come up with that by accident. He was doing serious research into the properties of light. And… believe it or not, sir? I think that's how he came up with those shields."
Hammond blinked, sitting up straight. "Go on," he said intently. Staff weapons were horribly inaccurate, but the sheer damage they could do if a blast landed…
"Gold, sir," she said, tapping the note she'd circled. "Staff blasts, zats, even the low-intensity death glider weapons – we think of them as kinetic weapons, because that's what we're used to, and the effects are physical. You get hit, you get knocked around. But actually, they're all energy-based. And energy and light are closely related. If you think of it in terms of deflection, or rather reflection…"
Hammond's jaw dropped. "Visors," he said slowly, remembering the years of devouring everything he could read about the moon landings. "Dear God. NASA was using gold plating on visors for years before we ever managed to get a man into space."
"Thin enough, gold is translucent, but it cuts down on harmful radiation even so," Carter affirmed. "Some aircraft use gold plating on windshields; a light electrical charge is enough to melt frost." She looked at him. "It'll take some research, sir. There's still a physical component – those were heavy shields, and I suspect they had to be. Reflected energy or not, there must still be some kind of kinetic effect. And it'll be expensive. But I think we can use this." Carter tilted her head. "What really gets me, sir? I have to wonder if the Ancient Egyptians knew. Gold was so prominent in their culture. Because it's pretty and doesn't tarnish, and they had plenty of it, sure, but how much of that was holding onto a memory?"
Hammond rubbed his chin. "Which makes me wonder what other hidden memories we've been overlooking." He raised an eyebrow at her, inviting comment. "Nekht claimed the yukiuso was created by Djehuty."
Carter snorted. "Nekht has a remarkable ability to see the world the way he thinks it should be. Which makes me think…"
Hammond raised an eyebrow.
Carter smiled dryly. "If the Tok'ra really do think Djehuty is a senile old fool who is a source of new toys rather than any kind of real threat – odds are they didn't exactly send their best and brightest to keep an eye on him." She shook her head. "Either way, Nekht's claim is jossed by the evidence, sir. Zuko didn't just know how to fight that type of creature, he knew about it, specifically. Down to name, behavior, and abilities. It's from their world." She frowned. "If Djehuty's as old as Nekht claims – and that much, I think I can buy; they wouldn't call him senile if he weren't old, they'd just call him insane – then it's possible that this Dur'Asada was one of his worlds, a long time ago, and he's returning to check up on the experiment."
"Or," Hammond said thoughtfully, "he came to Dur'Asada because it was inhabited by such creatures. He wasn't looking for advanced hosts at all. In fact… he may not have realized they were even there."
"That would certainly explain how those two managed to utterly blindside his Jaffa." Carter's expression darkened. "But it doesn't change the fact that he certainly knows they exist now."
And so do the Tok'ra.
Neither of them said it out loud – but Hammond knew they were both thinking it. Which wasn't fair to the Tok'ra, who were risking so much by allying with the Tau'ri, but… Jolinar's body-snatching had left deep scars in the SGC. It was one thing to face the risk of possession by an enemy who didn't care what you thought about it. Another entirely to face possession by a would-be ally who expected you to be grateful.
He swept the papers on the conference table in front of him together and tapped the edge once to put them in a semblance of order. "I think," he said, looking at Carter, "that while Nekht's eagerness to assist in taking them home is admirable, at the moment returning to P4X-684 in his company is too risky. If he is wrong and Djehuty did note his absence, Nekht could unintentionally lead them into a trap."
And he strongly suspected the Tok'ra had thoroughly misjudged the situation. The SGC might not operate on a shoestring budget, but there was only so much the Pentagon could siphon into an operation so deeply classified even the cockroaches had to undergo deep background checks. And top minds and officers like those that made up SG-1 rarely could simply slip through the cracks and vanish – let alone wanted to.
When a resource was limited, you used what you had carefully. And you kept track of it. Which meant that Djehuty no doubt had noticed Nekht's absence. Assuming that the Tok'ra's earlier manipulations with the prisoners had gone unnoticed. Which Hammond strongly doubted.
Also assuming, of course, that Nekht actually meant to take the children directly home. No one at the SGC had forgotten SG-1's first visit to the Tok'ra world.
If you will not be hosts, then there is no point in allying.
And a pair of psychokinetics made such appealing potential hosts.
"That seems wise, sir," Carter said, relaxing faintly as she rose to her feet. Then she smiled slightly. "Although it would be amusing to see his reaction to Toph. I doubt she's anything like what he expects."
Hammond snorted as he waved her to the door. He, unfortunately, had to stay for another meeting. It wouldn't be the SGC without multiple crises at the same time. "Major," he said dryly, "the one thing I am certain about regarding those two, is that Zuko and Toph are never quite what anyone expects."
~Even the Dragon-King's temple floods.~
Jack had to admit, angry stomping was pretty impressive when it involved leaving foot-shaped depressions in solid concrete. He'd seen teenagers acting like they could make the earth shake with pique. Toph actually pulled it off.
Pity that kid's parents.
Although maybe the most impressive part of the whole thing was that the tremors didn't actually go very far. One thing to stomp cracks into concrete. Quite another to simultaneously control the tremors so that they didn't disturb the guys from SG-3, sleeping off a bad mission.
Although maybe that was just because even Toph didn't want to get frowned at by Janet, who was at the other end of the infirmary giving Zuko's healing arm a checkup.
Yeah, well, when Napoleon sees those footprints in the concrete…
Next to Jack, Daniel sighed as he finished scribbling notes from their latest round of Charades. "That could have gone better."
"Think it went pretty well, myself," Jack drawled, leaning his hip against a desk.
Daniel rubbed his forehead and rolled his eyes at the ceiling for a moment, before the exaggerated resignation in his face shifted to a much more genuine, thoughtful look. "Jack, are you sure there's no way…? Toph seems to think it's really important."
"Do you want me to list all the reasons letting those two out of the base is a really bad idea, Danny?" Jack asked. "Starting with security breach and going from there?"
"There's the secure area at the top of the mountain," Daniel insisted. "Surely we could at least let them go that far?"
"And how long do you think it would be before Little Miss Not-My-Boss over there got bored with staying nicely behind the yellow line?" Jack asked pointedly. "And quite frankly, if she decided to get cute out there, I doubt we'd be able to hold her. She's got escape techniques that impress Sam."
Daniel looked unconvinced. "Zuko…"
"Zuko ain't going outside, Daniel. You heard Janet. Kid's pretty much one germ away from getting knocked off his feet with a NORAD-grade cold. That's a complication we don't need."
Daniel winced, clearly conceding the point.
"Besides," Jack said, wrapping up his argument with a bit of dark humor, "last thing either of those two need right now is to come down with a bad case of kidnapped."
Thus far, Hammond had managed to sit on Janet's little bombshell. But there was no hiding the psychokinesis part, not with things like those concrete footprints still scattered across the SGC even after the post-battle clean-up. The NID had been circling even before the yukiuso had hit. The last thing Jack wanted to do was risk taking the kids outside and giving the NID the excuse to cite jurisdictional priority and swoop down, secured SGC topside area or no. Particularly given Zuko's condition.
Speaking of. "How's he look, Doc?"
Janet shook her head as she went to join them, exam finished. Zuko was sitting back on the cot, apparently listening to Toph burn his ears off about Jack being a big old meanie who wouldn't let them out to play, judging by the tired, wry smile he was only sort of pretending to hide. The Marines had scrounged up a bit of clothing for the pair before the requisition forms had even been submitted; Zuko was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt with a flame motif, and Toph had a bright green T-shirt about three sizes too big for her declaring, BOW TO MY WILL, PUNY MORTALS.
Toph couldn't even see it, of course, and Zuko could hardly read it – but from the eyebrow the kid had directed at the grinning Marines who'd presented the clothing, he'd guessed at the sentiment.
Kid didn't look all that bad, from here. But Jack knew fatigue when he saw it. Zuko was just a bit too pale, even for as fair-skinned as he was. He'd never quite gotten back all the color he'd lost during that fight in the lab against the yukiuso.
Dammit.
"His arm is healing," Janet said, pulling off her gloves before reaching for a clip-board covered with a mixture of analysis reports and hand-scrawled notes. "However… going by his reactions, he's used to healing faster than this."
"That could just be normal impatience," Jack pointed out. "I know I hate waiting for a wound to heal."
Oops. Janet was eyeing him. "Maybe if you ever actually gave injuries a chance to heal rather than charging off to the next disaster, they wouldn't take as long. Think about it, Colonel." She shook her head. "However. A slow recovery time would be consistent with his other symptoms. Which, if he were human, I'd say he was suffering from something very similar to copper deficiency."
If he were human. "Yeah. About that…" Jack waved at the clipboard. "Hit me."
Because this was Stargate Command – not Starfleet.Body-snatching snakes, fuzzy little snobs, naked gray men, invisible insectuars, sure. And plenty of actual humans that just happened to not be living on Earth. Human-except-a-bad-makeup-job-says-not, not so much. Except for maybe the Jaffa – who were human, just modified, dammit.
So what made the kids so different?
"Degree of differentiation," Janet answered, when he asked aloud. "The Jaffa are, basically, modified humans. The Goa'uld made one or two very small tweaks to get relatively large results on the functional level." She flipped through the pages on the clipboard thoughtfully. "Zuko and Toph almost work the other way around. On the functional level, they're nearly identical to humans. But in a few cases, they get there by a completely different route. Slightly different brain chemistry, muscular structures, the naquadah…" She lowered the clipboard. "In short, Colonel – Jaffa are a subspecies of Homo sapiens. Zuko and Toph are a different species entirely."
Jack blinked. "What – like Neanderthals?" he said disbelievingly.
"Or maybe Denisovans," Daniel said thoughtfully – followed by a sharp, "and if you say Gesundheit, Jack, I will hit you."
Jack spread his hands, arranging his features into the very picture of artfully wounded innocence. Darn. "So fill me in. Since I assume you're not referring to an alien species that founded the Denny's chain restaurants."
Ooo, score an eyeroll from both Janet and Daniel.
"We don't know much about them," Daniel admitted, running a hand through his hair. "The first known traces were only recently found, in a cave in the Altai Mountains, and they're pretty minimal. But we think the Denisovans were a species of humanity that split off about the same time as the Neanderthals. So far as we can tell, they lived in eastern Siberia down through Southeast Asia, about forty thousand years ago. It's hard to say for sure, given the lack of archeological evidence."
Jack glanced over at the kids again, thinking back on the report Daniel had submitted. Asiatic culture, language so old Daniel couldn't even positively ID the roots, just soil it might have grown in. Not to mention the simple fact that these apparent non-humans did seem to have common ties with Earth, however old… it fit.
Except for one, very important detail. "Danny," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Forty thousand years is way too far back for the Goa'uld."
"The Goa'uld weren't the ones who built the Stargates in the first place, Jack," Daniel pointed out. "Someone else was here first."
Jack frowned. "So… what? You think the Ancients up and relocated a bunch of Denisovans to another planet for some reason? Why would they do that?"
Daniel shrugged helplessly. "They didn't exactly leave us notes. Preservation, like the Asgard did with Cimmeria?"
"It's possible. We don't know when the Denisovans vanished," Janet said. "We have one site for them. Not even any major bones. The only reason we do know as much as we do is because temperatures in the Denisova Cave average at about zero degrees, so the DNA record was preserved." She shrugged and smiled a little at Daniel's startled look. "I keep track of medical discoveries. Genetic studies have suggested that the Denisovans interbred with Homo sapiens, same as Neanderthals. Current theory suggests we get nearly half of the alleles involved in developing our immune system from that kind of introgression." She flipped down the pages of her clipboard. "Which actually supports our theory. Zuko and Toph do seem to carry the alleles associated with the Denisovans. Which, by the by, is one of the reasons why I'm not keeping Zuko in a sterilized environment, or insisting we wear face masks around him."
Now it was Jack's turn to raise an eyebrow at her.
"Their immune systems could probably munch most Earth-native bugs for breakfast, under normal conditions," she said wryly. "Which makes me very glad that we came through a cold, dry environment to get here. Any bugs that could give them the sniffles would tear right through the SGC." The physician sighed. "But that's only under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, as I said, it appears that naquadah deficiency in their people has certain similarities to copper deficiency in humans." She rubbed her forehead. "The medical term is neutropenia – basically, the loss of a certain type of white blood cells. I think that's what I'm seeing, at any rate. It's hard to judge when I don't even know how analogous their systems are to ours. Right now, the best I can do is compare Zuko's charts to Toph's."
Jack blinked. Something wasn't adding up here. "Wait. I thought you said that this was caused by naquadah depletion? And the naquadah depletion is caused by doing the psychokinesis?"
"That's my best guess, yes."
"So why is the firebrand burning out, while the dainty demolitionist, who uses the stuff just to see, apparently has juice to spare?" He waved a hand at the small, precise indentations stomped into the infirmary floor.
Apparently only just noticing them, Janet scowled fiercely for a moment, then shook her head. "Because she isn't. Toph's other mineral levels are haywire, but her naquadah is steady – I'm starting to wonder if she's biosynthesizing it, somehow. Which should be impossible, by the laws of chemistry, but – well, that describes half of the things I see before breakfast, on a busy day." Janet sighed. "If she is biosynthesizing it – maybe Zuko just has a condition where he can't generate his own. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he manipulates fire rather than minerals. Maybe we're missing something else entirely. I don't know. He's stable for the time being, at least. But if something happens…"
"Any ideas?" Daniel asked sympathetically.
Janet spread her hands. "Get them home, Daniel. And hope that if there's something more going on, it's something that the people on their world know how to deal with."
"Believe me," Jack said with honest fervor, "we're working on that." And for more reasons than the kids' health. He and Daniel and Sam had all sat down with Zuko and Toph over the last two days and hammered out a basic list of the do's and don'ts of fighting no-see-ums, enough to get some basic emergency procedures in place for the next time something spooky popped in to say hi. But one thing Zuko had gotten across was that he didn't see himself as an expert.
All things considered, with the yukiuso currently locked up in the chill-chest, Jack really, really wanted to talk to an expert.
Eh. Give it a day or two. Hopefully, Hammond'll wring enough info out of the Tok'ra to get these kids home by then. Frosty's tucked in tight for the time being, and no one in the SGC is going to be stupid enough to open that freezer.
~Even the Dragon-King's temple floods.~
Foolish, ignorant, arrogant Tau'ri.
Nekht crossed his arms over his chest, the only outward sign of impatience he permitted himself as he waited for Major Carter.
And seethed.
The Tok'ra had risked much in this alliance with the reckless, careless, visible Tau'ri. One System Lord's agent slipped into the ranks, and all of Egeria's children could be at risk. And in exchange for what? Assistance in a few minor tasks, and constant demands for help and advice, and the stubborn refusal to even consider a proper partnership, or even return Jolinar's memories to her people where they belonged.
And now the Tau'ri were attempting to cut the Tok'ra off from more desperately needed hosts. As if they thought he didn't see what they were doing, leaving him to cool his heels outside this small so-called lab.
Enough! They had asked for his assistance with the strange creature they had encountered. He was Tok'ra, he would abide by their alliance and assist. With a growl, he pushed the door of the small lab open, lip curling at the nose-stinging smell of smoke that still lingered in the air. He almost couldn't make out the door underneath the graffiti that covered it. And this was supposed to be where a scientist would work?
"Sorry I'm late, the general needed – what are you doing?"
Already gripping the handle, he turned, startled.
He forgot to let go.
The vacuum seal of the door released with a heavy thump.
~Even the Dragon-King's temple floods.~
AN: Really, Jack. You jinxed it the minute you declared the yukiuso Sealed Evil in a Can. Remember: in the SGC, Murphy is always listening.
Doesn't help that Nekht is indeed an idiot. There's a reason the Tok'ra shoved him off to the boonies. But even so, from his point of view – well, he's got a point. To the Tok'ra, the alliance with Earth is high risk and minimal gain.
I am aware that later SG-1 canon holds that Goa'uld can go senile. The SGC hasn't met Yu yet in this universe, however. What's more… I'm trying to keep things to 'no hard evidence against it,' but the Goa'uld definitely have a bit of an alternative background in this story.
And a couple people have guessed at the biosynthesis theory, based on the fact that most animals can make certain vitamins – we humans can generate our own vitamin D, after all. However, there's a problem with that: minerals, by definition, cannot be biosynthesized. They're atomic elements, the building blocks that become those vitamins. The only place an atomic element can be created naturally is the fusion reactor of a dying star, if you're going for anything heavier than iron. Biosynthesis? Not happening.
…not in real life, anyway. On the other hand, this is Stargate we're talking about…
