Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I have put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)
Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course
The Ghost in the Team
A few hours later, the meeting with the Jaffa High Council concluded and no other business immediately demanding his presence down on Dakara, Spike found himself standing on the bridge of the Ori battlecruiser once again, this time having been sent to the place by those 'ring platform' things that reminded him a bit of Stargates turned onto their sides. As the intangible vampire stepped away from Teal'c's body- the Jaffa had taken the amulet on this occasion, with Spike deciding to 'hitch a lift' as he normally did when travelling through the Stargate, just in case it made a difference; the yank he felt suggested that he still got left behind at first-, he smiled slightly as he saw Sam and Daniel turn from the control consoles to look at the new arrivals, holding up a hand to wave at them.
"Hi there," he said casually as Teal'c tossed the amulet towards Daniel. "Everything good up here?"
"Spike?" Sam asked, looking curiously at the two new arrivals. "What happened down there?"
"For his actions in defence of Dakara and the Free Jaffa Nation, as well as his great victory in the war against the Ori by both claiming this battlecruiser for both the Jaffa and the Tau'ri and by defeating the Orici in single combat," Teal'c stated, a slight smile on his face as he looked over at the vampire, "Spike has become the first member of another species to be granted the title of blood kin to all Jaffa."
Daniel and Sam's eyes widened.
"You were what?" Daniel said, turning to look at Spike with an incredulously stare that quickly shifted to become a broad grin. "That's… that's incredible!"
"Tell me about it; not too shabby, all things considered," Spike said, smiling nonchalantly at his new friends as he clasped his hands and flexed his neck slightly.
"It is an honour you richly deserve, Spike," Teal'c said, smiling slightly as he looked at his new friend. "Were it not for your actions, the Free Jaffa Nation would be divided amongst itself with the loss of Dakara, and many may even question whether the Ori are truly false gods or real ones; you have ensured our continued unity against the greatest threat our galaxy has ever known, and provided us with a means to learn far more about their technology than we could ever have done so otherwise. You have made a great difference in the affairs of the galaxy, Spike; you should be honoured."
"Trust me, I am," Spike said, looking around at the ship he was currently standing on with a broad smile on his face.
A great difference in the affairs of the galaxy…
If it was possible, Spike's grin grew even wider at that thought.
If that wasn't getting out of Angel's shadow, he didn't know what was; he'd just helped to save an entire galaxy from the bad guys!
OK, so he hadn't won the war single-handedly or anything like that; it was still a pretty good move from where he was standing.
"Anyway," he said, clasping his hands together as he looked around the ship whose capture had essentially earned him an alien knighthood, "enough about me; how's things been going up here?"
"About what you'd expect, really," Daniel replied, shaking his head slightly as he looked up at Spike. "We've managed to make some decent progress in translating what controls make the ship do what, but that aside we're having some difficulty in working out how everything connects together. What we have discovered, however, seems to demonstrate that Sam was right; it looks like a Prior is required in order to actually get the ship started in the first place…"
"So, in other words, we're screwed unless one of those buggers defects?" Spike said, only noticing after he spoke the uncomfortable looks that were subsequently exchanged between the three SG-1 members. "Not likely to happen, huh?"
"No, we… well, we tried that once, and it didn't work out," Sam explained, glancing over at Teal'c as though asking whether she should continue, only for the Jaffa to shake his head and start to talk himself.
"Almost a year ago, the Ori were able to convince Gerak, one of the members of the Jaffa High Council, to convert to Origin, subsequently transforming him into a Prior at approximately the same time as we faced an outbreak of the Prior's Plague- a fatal disease that they commonly unleash on worlds that reject Origin- here on Earth," Teal'c explained.
"Hold a minute… didn't they talk about that on the news?" Spike asked, looking inquiringly over at Teal'c. "I mean, I didn't exactly get cable down in the crypt- didn't seem worth the cash, given that I could go to… some friends'… if I wanted to watch anything, but there was this whole thing about a virus causing a mass shut-down of something like every airport on the sodding planet before they got a vaccine for the damn thing?"
"Indeed," Teal'c said, nodding slightly in confirmation before he continued. "Having made contact with Gerak after putting him in a position where he would either have to wage war on his fellow Jaffa or listen to me, I was able to make him see that loyalty to the Ori was no different to swearing our loyalty to the Goa'uld, and he agreed to help us cure the plague on Earth. However, as soon as he had cured those who suffered from the plague within the SGC- thus allowing us to isolate an antibody that could be used to treat the plague-, he immediately burst into flames. We have never determined the precise reason for this, but our most likely explanation is that it served as a 'fail-safe' created by the Ori in the event that any Priors turned against them, which was triggered when Gerak actively used his powers in a manner that the Ori would not have permitted them to be used in."
"Ah," Spike said, nodding briefly in understanding before he sighed and studied the ship around him. "So, since we can't get one of those buggers on our side without them possibly blowing up, there's no way we could just take this thing and use it to blow the crap out of its fellows, huh?"
"Not really, no," Sam said, shaking her head as she stood up from the console she was currently examining to look reassuringly at Spike. "But, on the bright side, we should be able to use the ship's computer to get some idea of its strengths and weaknesses; if we can work out, for example, the frequency of their shields we can adjust our weapons to compensate and possibly penetrate their defences more easily, or even modify our own defences to better resist their weapons. We may not have acquired a new weapon directly, but we have acquired something that should help us learn how to better defend ourselves against them in future confrontations."
"Oh," Spike said simply, before he shrugged slightly and turned to look over at Teal'c. "Well, as long as we're here, anything T and I can do?"
"Well… if you could take a look around the ship and let us know if there's anything else of interest in here that we could use, that would be appreciated…" Daniel said, looking slightly uncertain as he spoke, evidently uncomfortable with asking his two teammates to do something so simple. "I'm sorry there isn't anything else, but…"
"There is no need for you to feel uncomfortable, Daniel Jackson; Spike and I are well aware that our skills are not of any immediate benefit to the current situation," Teal'c assured his old friend, before he glanced back to look at Spike. "Come, Spike; the sooner we begin this examination, the sooner we may return to Earth."
"Amen to that, T m'man," Spike replied, nodding at the Jaffa before the two of them walked out of the control room, subsequently heading down the corridors in a purposeful manner.
It was only after they had walked around a few corners, noting a few empty rooms that seemed to be little more than crew quarters, that Spike finally broke the silence that had temporarily settled over the two men.
"So… you're a Jaffa, mmm?" he asked, turning to look at Teal'c curiously. "How'd you end up working on Earth, anyway?"
"When I originally met the Tau'ri, I served as the First Prime of Apophis, one of the greatest of the System Lords," Teal'c replied, turning slightly to look at Spike as the two of them continued to walk. "I had long harboured my doubts about Apophis's divinity, and when I encountered O'Neill in a prison and witnessed examples of his technology, I began to believe that it might be possible for them to overcome the Goa'uld; technological development on most worlds under Goa'uld rule was actively suppressed to limit the possibility of the humans of that world becoming a threat, so the weapons and other technology possessed by O'Neill and his team were something I had never witnessed before. I thus aided O'Neill in rescuing Apophis's current prisoners, and subsequently joined the Tau'ri in their campaign to overthrow the Goa'uld, beginning the steps that would lead to the formation of the Free Jaffa Nation."
"You were the first one to tell those Goa'uld sods where they could stick it, huh?" Spike asked, smiling slightly at Teal'c. "Good on you, mate; what tipped you off he was a fake?"
"Many small events gathered together," Teal'c replied. "My main guide to this path was my teacher, Bra'tac, whom you met on Dakara; as I trained to become the First Prime of Apophis, he taught me that reliance on faith alone would not permit me to triumph in battle, and only by relying on my own senses and abilities could I hope to prevail. On one occasion I was asked to kill a comrade for retreating from a battle that he could not have won and display his symbiote to Apophis; having allowed him to escape, I presented a fake symbiote to Apophis, and he never realised that it was not the symbiote of the Jaffa whose death he had requested. With these and other thoughts in my mind, I left the service of Apophis and have since served with Stargate Command ever since, aiding my people as they sought their freedom from the Goa'uld."
"Nice job," Spike said, smiling in approval at the Jaffa before his expression became more neutral, a somewhat wistful expression on his face as he reflected on his own past. "Never took on anything that big before coming here myself, I have to admit; mostly Sunnyhell only really attracted the smaller groups wanting to open the Hellmouth."
"The Hellmouth?" Teal'c inquired, looking curiously at Spike as they turned to head down some nearby stairs to the next level down. "Would that be referring to the portal to Hell that Captain Finn mentioned was located below Sunnydale during my earlier meeting with him?"
"Bingo," Spike said, nodding in confirmation at Teal'c before he continued. "Anyway, as I said, we had some problems with various assorted demons trying to open the damn thing, but otherwise we never had to deal with a large-scale attack apart from when we were defending this island from a bunch of demon Nazis or that final fight against the First; everything was either small groups trying to open the Hellmouth that were fairly easy to stop once we knew what they were up to or just a bunch of random demons that wanted nothing more than to commit a few murders in the area or something like that."
"Indeed," Teal'c said, looking at Spike in a slightly curious manner before he continued. "If I might ask, what type of… opponents… did you confront before arriving at the SGC?"
"Oh, nothing major by what I've seen of your standards, really," Spike said casually. "We had a triad of demons who tried to open the Hellmouth by throwing themselves into it, some kind of brain-eating alien-ish thing- was never really sure if it was actually an alien or just a demon that liked coming from the sky; at the time everyone was more focused on killing it rather than quizzing it about its origins-, this demented robot created by some guy who wanted the perfect girlfriend and only decided after it had been built that the damn thing was too perfect- really obsessive about the guy and way too predictable, from what I gather-, a trio of nerds who fancied themselves the new big bads of the city when really only one of 'em was actually evil- the other two were mainly misguided loners-, that whole year-long thing with the First that Captain Cardboard told you about when I got here… oh, and there was this time when we ended up going up against this loony god who wanted to kill one of us as part of a ritual to get home…"
"You have encountered a true god?" Teal'c asked, looking over at Spike inquiringly.
"Well, she was totally barking mad and had lost a decent amount of her original power level when we encountered, but yeah, she was a god; got the info from a pretty reliable source," Spike confirmed as the two men continued walking, enjoying the slightly surprised look on Teal'c's face as he walked. "Called herself Glorificus- well, that was her real name; everyone just called her Glory for short-, and tended to spend her time sucking the mental energy out of people to keep herself something close to stable while looking for this Key thing that she was going to use to get herself back to her home dimension- while, naturally, not bothering about the fact that doing that would cause this reality to kind of… collapse, I think was the word used."
"How did you manage to prevent her from doing so?" the Jaffa inquired, a slight gleam in his eyes that Spike was fairly certain was excitement; evidently, after learning something about the kind of foes Spike had tackled on a regular basis before arriving at the SGC, the Jaffa was curious to learn how one managed to defeat a real god as opposed to the pretenders.
"Well, as I mentioned, she'd powered down a bit when she ended up stuck here- she ruled her world with two other gods and they teamed up to kick her into this one-, but she was still capable of taking pretty much anything we could throw at her as… well, herself," Spike explained, pausing briefly to glance through a nearby closed door, only to shake his head and retreat back out of it as he turned back to look at Teal'c. "Anyway, we eventually learned that she had been partly bonded to somebody else- some human dude called Ben; she basically turned into him at random moments, but this spell thing prevented anyone from actually remembering it until the spell began to break down- who tried to sell us out to get a life for himself, and, after we hit Glory with enough mystical and physical whammy, she powered down to Ben and we were able to…"
He paused for a moment, unwilling to specifically name Giles as the man who'd killed Ben- the man had needed to do it, but it hardly seemed fair to talk in detail about people behind their backs to people who'd likely never even meet them-, before he concluded his statement with, "Well, we finished the job."
"It was that simple?" Teal'c said, looking at Spike uncertainly. "I would have thought that a true god would require more than that to be defeated."
Spike shrugged.
"As I said, she'd apparently been powered down a bit when she got stuck here even without the whole thing where she was forced to turn into Ben; apparently she was meant to be one seriously big cheese back where she came from," he explained as he looked back at Teal'c. "It's like I heard from a friend of a friend somewhere along the line; anything that can actually manifest a body here kind of has to be killable to some degree or another, it just takes a bit of an effort to find out how they can do it."
"A good rule to be aware of," Teal'c replied, before he paused outside a door with a slight smile. "We have arrived."
"Arrived at what?" Spike asked, looking in confusion at the door in front of them.
"This is the door for the power generation chamber of the ship that we now stand in," Teal'c explained, looking over at Spike with a slight smile. "If you would not mind taking a look inside it, Spike?"
"Sure thing," Spike said simply, leaning through the door for a few seconds before he pulled back with a shrug. "Well, doesn't seem too bad in there, really; a bit dull, of course- all I can really see in there is some massive egg-thing that's not doing much of anything but sitting there and glowing at me."
"That is the central power core of this ship," Teal'c confirmed, nodding slightly at Spike before he looked curiously at the vampire. "Did the glow in question appear to… weaken… as you looked at it?"
"Just a mo…" Spike said, raising one hand before he turned around to lean through the door once again, this time remaining in that position for several seconds before he pulled his head back out. "Nope, still seems to be the same as ever."
"Thank you for clarifying that question, Spike," the Jaffa replied, smiling slightly at the currently intangible vampire before he activated his radio. "Colonel Carter, it would appear that the ships are not entirely dependent on the Priors for power; the central power core appears to remain at relatively full strength despite the length of time that has elapsed since the departure of Adria from this vessel."
"Right," Sam's voice said over the radio, "Daniel and I'll see what we can find about the power source up here; you and Spike keep searching the ship for something else that we could use."
"Understood," Teal'c said briefly, before he terminated the radio and looked up at Spike. "We shall proceed."
"Uh… and look for what, exactly?" Spike asked, looking at his new Jaffa friend in no slight degree of confusion. "I mean, I don't exactly mind the chance to check out new things, but what else could there be in here…?"
"Information on the tactical strategies of the Ori forces that would allow us to develop counter-attacks, examples of the weapons they traditionally use that would allow us to develop a means of negating their technological advantage in a hand-to-hand confrontation, and clothing that could be used to provide us with a disguise at some future date, amongst other things," Teal'c countered, his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Spike. "We are at war, Spike; even the slightest tactical advantage at this juncture could prove to be of crucial importance at present."
"Uh… point," Spike admitted, trying not to look as foolish as he was feeling right now; he was so used to thinking in terms of 'take out this week's bad guy and build up strength for the big finale at the end of it all' that he'd almost forgotten that the SGC didn't have that kind of luxury. In most cases, the villains he'd been up against had been gathering their strength for the final attack just as much as he and his allies had been gathering theirs; these guys, on the other hand, were pretty much fighting to keep up with these Ori buggers, who, from what Spike had gathered, were already operating from a position of power and weren't that eager to ditch it that easily.
If he was going to stay on this team, he was going to need to learn that he was dealing with some very different bad guys than what he was used to…
Before he and Teal'c could get much further along the corridor, however, the radio activated once again.
"Colonel Carter?" Teal'c said, raising the radio to his mouth as he looked curiously over at Spike. "Is something wrong?"
"Teal'c, Spike," Sam's voice said over the radio, sounding suddenly rushed, "General Landry just called and asked for the two of you to get back to Earth as soon as possible. We have a situation; Vala's been abducted and they think that it might be the Trust!"