EDIT: Sorry, I think the scroll wheel slipped so for a while this was the wrong chapter. I'll probably have another one for you as apology later tonight.

Chapter Twelve: Toil

Anise stared at the computer terminal with weariness and some degree of self-disgust. Freya tried to console her, but was too tired and busy trying to keep their eyes open to be of much help. Still, the fact that her host was trying to calm her down was enough to get Anise to settle down a bit.

The Tok'ra were doomed, that was the only way to put it. They had not had an influx of fresh symbiotes in thousands of years, and with the confirmed death of Egeria a few years ago the Tok'ra had truly known that they were amongst the dying. The days of their species were numbered, and the truly sad thing was that their cousins had a chance of outliving them if they learned to keep their heads down. At least they had queens so they could propagate their numbers.

And there was nothing they could do about it.

Between Anise and Freya they were not quite sure where the thought came from, just that from the ether they suddenly were struck with an idea. An incredible idea that gave them pause for a moment.

They brought up the various genetic maps they had access to and began to look at them intently. Perhaps Egeria had one last gift to give the Tok'ra… yes… yes… she could see it now. It was all so simple…

Anise and Freya had been up for a long time already, but they suddenly had a burst of energy as they began to work, doing all of the things that would allow them to complete their idea. Not only did they have boundless energy, but all of the stumbling blocks they expected to meet crumbled as they worked, complex knots untangling before them. It was incredible.

As they worked, they never saw the shadow flickering across the room, or the way it seemed to be whispering to them, telling them the answers when they could not think of one, and when they left the theoretical and actually began mixing chemicals, the shadow seemed to make sure that everything worked the way it should… or in some cases the way it shouldn't.

And then they had it. They had it in their hands. A serum that would, theoretically, transform a regular symbiote into a queen capable of reproducing and continuing the Tok'ra as a species. It would also help the Free Jaffa immeasurably, as Tretonin production was still lagging badly behind eventual demand, but access to friendly Tok'ra larva would help them to make the switch.

All that was needed was a test subject.

The shadow whispered into their minds, telling them that there was no better subject than them. For the briefest of moments their scientific instincts rebelled against the impulse, but those thoughts were quickly overwhelmed with a rush of pride and vanity. The serum was perfect! They had made it perfect, and their reward should be to become the new queen for the Tok'ra!

Before self-preservation instincts could kick in again, they downed the serum with one quick gulp.

Only once it was within their system did they realize that they had just made a huge mistake.

"Umm… I don't mean to be presumptuous, but was there a mistake at the printers?" Nurlan asked meekly to the young woman assigned as the den mother for the hostage children. While Nurlan wasn't amongst those who had regular contact with the children, the few women who had been allowed to remain as caregivers usually used him as an in between with their Chaos captors. The fact that most of them were so mutilated that it was impossible to tell their species probably had something to do with it.

The young woman, a master chief petty officer named Francine who apparently considered flaying herself repeatedly and wearing her own skin a fashion statement, looked at the items in question and asked, "Do you have a problem with Momma Will Kill for You or Oh the Things You'll Crush?"

"Aren't they a little violent for children?" Nurlan asked.

"Come on, we went to a lot of trouble to remember these books for the kids, and besides, they're classics… sort of… I'll admit they haven't been around that long, but I mean, I read these books to my kids when they were babies," Francine replied.

Nurlan blinked and looked at her before he asked, "You have children?"

"A boy and a girl so far, and I hope to have more when this tour is over," Francine stated proudly.

"And you read to them about disembowelling people or how they could grow up to become warlords?" Nurlan asked, horrified.

"Who wouldn't kill for their children or want them to grow up strong?" Francine asked, equally horrified in her own way.

"Well… uh… your culture is very different from ours. I don't think even the Klingons are this violent," Nurlan stated.

Shrugging, Francine replied, "We are who we are. We live in a world of emotion, and we feel everything so intensely. We love our children with every drop of our souls, and we will rain down with great anger and vengeance any who would attempt to poison or destroy our children. I devoted myself to Asukhon shortly after my first child was born, for she is the patron of young mothers and defender of babies and toddlers."

"I thought she was a war god," Nurlan asked, dredging up what little knowledge he had of these people's macabre pantheon of deities.

Francine paused and thought for a moment before she said, "Imagine if you will an army of mother grizzly bears trying to get to their cubs, and you will get a small inkling of the way Asukhon and her followers wage war. Brutal, direct, and designed to put down as many motherfuckers as quickly as possible so that they will never, ever rise to threaten our cubs again."

Nurlan was disquiet for a moment before he asked, "So what do you think about this whole abduction thing your superiors are doing?"

"I like it," Francine said with a grin, showing off her sharpened teeth. "Your Federation needs a swift kick in the ass to remind them that some things are worth fighting for, worth dying for. I fight for my children, and I want to see others fight for their children, not just roll over and die, even if we're on opposite sides," Francine said.

"So you don't think what I did was a good idea?" Nurlan inquired timidly.

"Are you kidding? Surrendering was the best option you had. There's fighting ferociously with no holding back, and then there's just being stupid. You're still alive and your kids are still alive, that means you still have a chance of kicking the shit out of us one day and getting them the fuck away from us," Francine said.

Nurlan furrowed his brows and said, "You love children and yet you agree with kidnapping them. You espouse violent action and yet speak of restraint. Are these not contradictory?"

Shaking her head, Francine said, "Your Federation really has cut off the balls of your people, hasn't it? We don't harm kids, we might use them as human shields, but we hate hurting them physical, emotional, or psychologically. We have some huge issues with that sort of thing. We believe that when you fight you shouldn't hold anything back, but we believe that until you actually start to fight you should use restraint and careful judgement."

Nurlan supposed that that made some sense, but he still could not really understand these creatures, they were like night and day to the culture of Federation. Where the Federation was calm, sober, and rational, these people were wild, mad, and insane. Of course, where the Federation was sluggish, detached, and sometimes downright apathetic towards things these creatures were quick, active, and passionate about everything they did.

Having given him a few moments to absorb that, Francine said, "Well, now that we have that issue sorted out, back to work with you."

Sighing, Nurlan shouldered his pick-axe and said, "I'm going, I'm going, no need to get out the whip."

Again, these people were paradoxical, in that while they had technology far beyond anything the Federation could even dream of, they also forced those they had abducted into brute manual labour and used lashing and beatings to get what they wanted. Although the manual labour bit was somewhat understandable as they had more bodies than mining gear and they were on a bit of a schedule.

The innermost moon of Syracuse was being mined out to provide more extensive habitation for the natives of the dying world. Already many of the primitive aliens were being transported off their world and brought to the habitats formerly inhabited by the Federation research team, or stationed aboard the Cardassian ships that had been captured. Still, that was a population of a few thousand out of millions, much more room was needed.

So they had begun to dig. Syracusans that could be trained received preferential treatment and usually got the better equipment, but as more gear was replicated it trickled down to the captured Federation personnel. Nurlan had refused any of the mining lasers or plasma cutters, saying that until everyone else had one he would suffer with them and swing a pick at the hard stone walls. It had been becoming frighteningly easier as time had worn on, and he knew that his body was being changed by the power of Chaos. Genetic engineering and even certain forms of genetic therapy was verboten in the Federation, and yet with no apparent mechanism these beings of Chaos were twisting his body into something new, something that could swing a pick axe hard enough and repeatedly enough that he was starting to outperform some of the people with advanced equipment.

It terrified him on a fundamental level.

It terrified him because not only was his body changing, but he was starting to like it, starting to enjoy the feeling of power rippling through his body as he drove his pick into the stone and watched it crumble before him. These creatures were trying to turn him into one of them.

And it was working.

Shortly after meeting with Prometheus and him giving them the technical and industrial plans for the fabrication of a form of personal body armour that could shrug off a staff weapon blast with a reasonable degree of success and would laugh at the armour piercing rounds of most personal weapons on Earth, the enigmatic creature had suggested that SG-1 take a return visit to P4X K79E.

After checking the planet with a MALP, the mission had been required as everyone wanted to know what the hell had happened to the world. It wasn't everyday that a once temperate world became a barren wasteland with no apparent sun providing the scarlet illumination.

While the MALP's sensors had not detected any toxic chemicals in the air, the members of SG-1 immediately wished that they had brought along full NBC gear, for the smell was revolting, the sort of iron and copper scent of spilled blood, but it permeated everything in sight. Everyone had immediately donned gas hoods just to be safe, but even those were insufficient to block out that cloying stench.

The ground had also changed, becoming hard, scorched glass that sliced at their boots. There were signs that some people had been walking on the ruined landscape in bare feet, leaving behind trails of blood. And there were a lot of trails, all leading in one direction. Following along, SG-1 rounded a hill and discovered just how horrific this world had become.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were labouring to craft some enormous effigy in the landscape, carving out an enormous pit in the rock in the shape of some sort of humanoid figure. Already a scaffold was going up over the pit, presumably the top half of whatever mould they were making. But only half the people were working on the mould, the rest were lining up, whipping themselves with cat-o-nine-tails and screaming out devotions as they approached the pit. And once they arrived at the pit they knelt upon a block of solid obsidian and had their heads swiftly cut off by an axe wielding executioner.

Somehow, that was not the worst part. After the headless corpses were drained of their blood they were hauled to the back of the line where the bodies began to twitch and regenerate, until finally the people gathered up the whips still clutched in their hands and got back in line to do it all over again. Repeatedly torturing someone to death and then resurrecting them with a sarcophagus was something that SG-1 could understand, but this self-inflicted monstrosity was so far beyond them…

"You like?" A voice behind them asked. Whirling about, weapons at the ready, they discovered a bizarre, grotesque creature had somehow just appeared behind them. It was… it was… it…

It wasn't actually attacking them, just staring at them with a strange, almost child-like expression. That was a start at least as their brains tried to process what exactly they were seeing.

Finally, after several seconds of staring agape at it, the details began to work out. The only relatively constant thing about the creature was that it was a humanoid skeleton about five metres tall, although it was hunched down to stare at their level. Rather than being solid though, the individual bones were made out of collections of skulls or parts of skulls, all stained blood red. The skulls were fused into solid masses in places and lashed together in others with long, grotesque tongues that continued to twitch and writhe. Overlaying these 'bones' were various muscles and tissue that only seemed to appear when they were needed, materializing out of thin air and decaying away when no longer required. Only the face seemed to stick around for long, but even then the flesh seemed to have been stapled onto the head.

For a long moment there was silence as the creature stared at them curiously before it frowned and said, "You don't like. You don't like momma's work."