Chapter 4
"We have an emergency that's developed on P3X-758," Mr. Woolsey began the hastily called briefing in Atlantis's wood paneled conference room. Colonel Shepherd, Doctor McKay, and the quickly assembled team members of "S.G."s 15 and 17, two four man stargate special operations teams, sat around the table to receive their instructions.
Shepherd had been sparring with Link in the training room that morning when the call had come through and was feeling the bruises acutely from the wooden practice swords. He had always thought Ronan was the man to beat, but the years had not dulled his green clad friend's abilities one bit. If anything he was sharper than he had ever been. Shepherd could testify first hand. He had left Link to go through his sword practice on his own. A single special forces man had stood by the door as a customary precaution with outside visitors, not that he really could have stopped Link if he had tried, but it made Woolsey and the higher brass feel better.
Woolsey continued, "About six hours ago, an Ori warship showed up in orbit over the planet and began ringing down squads of soldiers into the village. The soldiers were accompanied and being given orders by a Prior. Within an hour of their arrival, the prior began attempting to convert the town to the Book of Origin by force."
"Hang on, I thought all the Priors in the Milky Way had been converted to our side by the Ark of Truth? What happened to this one?" McKay asked.
"Apparently he didn't get the memo." Woolsey responded.
"Okay, so we have a hostage situation." Shepherd said. "How many Ori soldiers?"
"According to the report of the one S.G. team member who managed to make it back through the gate before they took complete control over it, the whole ship's complement of several hundred." Woolsey said.
"We had an S.G. team there, sir?" A man named Major Gatsby, a member of S.G.-15 asked.
"Yes, S.G.-10 was there on assignment with Dr. Jackson. He believed P3X-758 was one of Merlin's Arthurian "seed" worlds and was doing more research on it. We believe Dr. Jackson has been taken hostage along with the townsfolk.
"Okay, so the gate is under hostile control, and there's an unfriendly warship in orbit over the planet. What's the plan?" Shepherd asked.
"You and your teams are to take a jumper and hitch a ride with the Hammond. The Hammond will drop out of hyperspace behind the large gas giant in the system. You, Colonel Shepherd, will pilot the jumper cloaked from your drop off point to the outskirts of the town. From there, your primary mission is to extract Dr. Jackson and the remaining members of the S.G. team from the town. Under the circumstances of so many enemy soldiers, there may be nothing we can do for the regular townsfolk. Our people are the priority. Colonel Carter is in parking orbit over us waiting to pick you up with the jumper." Woolsey finished. "If there are no more questions then..."
"Hey, it really doesn't sound like you'll be needing me on this one, so if you'll excuse me I've got a sword to reforge for our guest." McKay said.
"Yeah, yeah... go ahead. This isn't your kind of thing anyway." Shepherd said, deep in thought.
Surprised but happy at the lack of argument, Rodney quickly made his escape from the briefing room as the other men rose from their seats to go and suit up.
"How many townsfolk are being held there?" Shepherd asked Woolsey as the rest of the men left.
Woolsey looked very sad at the question. "Over a thousand unarmed men, women, and children." He answered. "But we can't risk a full conflict with the soldiers or the prior, or it would endanger our own people as well as the town. For all we know they might decide to blast the town from space."
"So we would need to secure the gate, take out hundreds of Ori troops, the renegade prior, and the ship with just my guys?" Shepherd asked.
"I don't see how it's possible, but yes." Woolsey responded.
Shepherd then asked, "Let me take Link with us."
"I'm sorry?" Woolsey asked. "I don't think I heard you right."
"I'm serious, let me take Link with us. This is just the kind of thing he specializes in." Shepherd said again.
"I can't let an unknown and unproven man in to jeopardize..." Woolsey began to object, but Shepherd cut him off.
"I know him, and he's proven what he can do over and over in all the years I knew him before. He saved our asses a hundred times when he was just a kid, and I watched him singlehandedly take down an entire battalion of orcs and their Ori possessed leader with my own eyes. Just this morning he kicked my ass soundly at sparring." Shepherd told him. There was no question in his mind that if this was going to turn out well for everyone except the bad guys he would want his old friend with him.
"And do you forget that his whole world is depending on him to return and solve their crisis? Not to mention that he's an offworld dignitary staying as our guest." Woolsey retorted.
"I wouldn't worry about his safety. I'd be more worried for the bad guys than for him." Shepherd said.
"This isn't a video game, Colonel. If he dies here, there are real consequences." Wolsey said.
"I know that, and so does he. Look, I'll ask him and see if he's willing." Shepherd said, partly conceding, but knowing what his friend's answer would probably be. "There are a thousand lives depending on this. Men, women, and children."
Woolsey's face became pained. "I don't like abandoning them any more than you do." He said quietly. Then he conceded, "Alright, if Link will go with you then you have my permission to bring him along. Your primary objective remain our people. Your secondary objective is liberating the townspeople. Don't sacrifice the first to accomplish the second. Understand?"
"Understood, sir. We don't leave our people behind." Shepherd said and then moved to go retrieve Link. As he walked out the door, Woolsey called out, "Oh and Colonel?"
Shepherd stopped and turned around. "Good luck." Woolsey said sincerely. Shepherd nodded solemnly and then left Mr. Woolsey alone with his thoughts.
Link, Shepherd, and the other eight men of the rescue team waited in the jumper as the Hammond raced through hyperspace to the crisis at hand. None of them left the jumper during the journey for two reasons. The first was because the planet in question wasn't far enough of a journey through hyperspace for any of them to need to stretch their legs, and the second was because of the more unusual member of their special operations team. The fewer people that knew about him, the better, even among the high security cleared crew members of the United States Air Force Vessel General Hammond. Technically, he wasn't even supposed to be there, but these were special circumstances.
Link had given Shepherd the answer the Colonel expected after he approached him in the sparring room and explained the situation.
"How many townspeople?" Link asked.
"About a thousand." Shepherd responded. "Look, I know they're not your responsibility, but these kinds of odds are your forte."
Link nodded silently.
"We're only supposed to be going in to rescue our people. Technically, the higher brass won't know you're with us this time. But we can't just leave them at the mercy of the Prior." Shepherd said. "You'll be on your own for most of it. While we focus on our hostages, I'm asking you to..."
Link looked at him, all hints of lightheartedness or friendly conversation gone from his face, which had become stone cold and resolute. Shepherd's sentence trailed off. Link stood up and grabbed one of the very real, very sharp swords by the hilt that hung in the sparring room of the kind that Shepherd's friend Ronan tended to favor. He swung it a few times to get the feel and balance of it. Then, satisfied he slid it into the empty scabbard on his back. "When do we leave?" Link asked, his tone of voice brooking no argument with his coming.
"Right now." Shepherd had said.
They had paid a quick visit to the armory where Shepherd picked up his own equipment, and outfitted Link with an additional staff blast proof flack jacket. He then familiarized him with a set of baseball shaped grenades, "just like Eldin bombs," he had told him as Link nodded in understanding.
Shepherd also handed him a P-90 automatic rifle set to single shot. "Remember how to shoot a rifle? Pull this, aim, press the trigger. The red dot will show you where the bullet will go."
"Nice." Link responded.
Lastly, Shepherd handed him a pistol with a full clip. "Alright, good to go, buddy?" He asked.
"You don't use a shield?" Link asked.
"You can improvise when we get there." Shepherd had told him. Link just shook his head at the strangeness of it all.
After that they had quickly rejoined the rest of the team who were waiting in the jumper bay for their team leader. A few of them gave Link an inquisitive look. "Who is this, sir?" One of them, Collins Shepherd remembered his name, had asked.
"Gentlemen this is Link. Link, this is Collins, Gatsby, Jasper, Williams, Zvedny, Kluczinski, Stevens, and Kelly. Link is going to handle the Ori for us while we rescue our people." Shepherd replied.
They all looked at the pointy eared man whom they thought was dressed like a bad-ass Peter Pan without Tinkerbell and then gave a skeptical look to Shepherd. "Seriously, sir?" Jasper asked.
"Think Ronan Dex on steroids on a bad day." Shepherd said.
They all did looked at Link again and just shook their heads, "If you say so, sir."
"I do say so, and that's the end of it. He's seen more combat and kicked more ass than any of you and I combined. Understand?" Shepherd said, ending any dissent right there. "Yes, sir!" They all said crisply in reply. "Now get on the jumper. Alright, let's move." He ordered.
That had been a couple of hours previous, and they now all sat in tense anticipation. Once they arrived, it would take another three hours by cloaked jumper from their drop off at the gas giant to reach the planet.
"How are you doing?" Shepherd asked Link.
Link had been staring out the view port of the jumper as they undocked from the Hammond. "It's like an endless night surrounding us. Your world seemed so small as we left it." He said. "I wonder if Hyrule is really that small as well, like a tiny blue jewel hanging in the night."
Shepherd had never thought of Link as poetic before. "Yeah, I imagine it is."
"Then our world is so much larger than I had thought if our land is also encompassed by other worlds around it suspended in the blackness." Link said.
"Yeah." Shepherd said, not understanding where this was going.
"Then what's happening in our Sacred Realm doesn't just affect our land and sky. It affects all those other worlds connect to us through the void, just as these worlds are connected to Earth through the void." Link concluded.
Shepherd hadn't thought that far about it. "Yeah, I guess your right." The implications were staggering.
"I am responsible for the fate of millions, maybe even billions of lives." Link said gravely.
Shepherd knew the feeling all too well. "Welcome to our world, buddy. We do that almost every day it seems like."
Link just nodded.
The town had just gone into night when the jumper landed. The S.G. team went one direction and bid Link good hunting as he went the other. They agreed to rendezvous back there by dawn. Everything had to be finished by then.
Between the two S.G. teams, S.G. 15 was assigned to regain control of the Stargate in case they couldn't escape by means of the puddle-jumper. S.G. 17 and Colonel Shepherd were to infiltrate the village and rescue Dr. Jackson and S.G. 10, assuming they were still alive.
Shepherd and S.G. 17 crept silently, weapons drawn towards the town, expecting to have to silently remove any hostile soldiers in their way. There should have been hundreds of them. But as they approached the town, all they began to find were the corpses of Ori soldiers.
"What the hell happened here, Colonel?" Williams asked quietly as he inspected the slash and stab marks on the bodies. "My god, it looks like a crazy butcher just came through." The blood of the dead men was still fresh on the ground.
Shepherd knelt down and inspected the corpses. "Looks like Link's gotten here ahead of us. We'd better hurry or there may not be any bad guys left for us."
As they continued their way, always keeping alert, in the distance they heard strangled cries, and then the loud bang of a grenade. It was eery. Staff blasts could be heard being shot into the darkness and never finding their target. "There's got to be something else out there Colonel. No way this was the work of one guy, no matter who he is." Gatsby said, some fear creeping into his voice.
"You ever play The Legend of Zelda, Major?" Shepherd asked him.
"Yeah, a couple of times with my kid." he told him.
"The guy on the screen look familiar to you at all? You know, the one in green taking down armies of bad guys all on his own?" Shepherd asked sarcastically.
Then comprehension dawned on the soldier, "Jesus, you don't mean our guy's...?"
"Good, now you understand why I felt more sorry for these soldiers than I did for us going into this with him, and why I wanted him here." Shepherd said, feeling justified.
"So what do we get to do then? Hang around and hold his coat?" Jasper asked.
"No, he has his job to do, and we have ours. And he might need back up with the Prior." Shepherd said. "Let's go."
Link had advanced to the inside of the village. Behind him and around the surrounding woods lay the dead and dismembered bodies of those "bad guys", as Colonel Shepherd called them, who tried to slow him down. "I thought the Colonel said this was going to be difficult." Link said to himself. He had lost count of the number of men that lay dead. It bothered him that they were all men like Colonel Shepherd and his team, and not monsters like he was used to facing. Did they all have families like I do? Link wondered to himself. What were they fighting for? He also wondered. They were dead, but the question still mattered to him.
He stayed to the shadows as he quickly dispatched the guards around the perimeter of the village square with his blade. The sword was silent, and he needed stealth. His other memories informed him of the many times he had needed to sneak through an enemy encampment like this, quietly taking out guards so as not to raise the alarm. This was no different. He had not needed to use one bullet yet, although he had used a grenade farther out on a group of unsuspecting soldiers. "Demon!" The men had cried in terror as he quickly finished them off and disappeared into the shadows.
The square cleared, his next focus was this "Prior" sorcerer and his "ship" high above them. Doubtless the prior knew he was here now, and would be making plans accordingly to compensate for the egregious loss of his troops. Would he run, or would he stand and fight? Link wondered.
"The truth of Origin does not run in fear from unbelievers." A gravelly voice said from behind him. Link spun around to face the gray robed, balding man. His face was covered with silver-gold markings, and what hair he had was snow white. He could have been one of Hyrule's Sages.
Link didn't respond, but analyzed his position. He had dealt with sorcerers before, he knew. It never ended well for the mage in question.
"You cannot win, child." The Prior said in an almost fatherly way. "Come and let the light of Origin guide you."
"No thank you." Link responded and quickly tossed a grenade in the Prior's direction.
The Prior saw the live grenade and thrust out his hand, sending a wave of force to cast it back at the sender. But Link had also played this game before and used the flat of his sword to bat it back at the Prior where it exploded two feet in front of him, sending the older man flying backwards in pain.
Link advanced on him, and the Prior recovered far more quickly than he should have and raised himself up onto his feet. "You will burn in the fires of damnation!" He said to the Hylian. And thrust out his hand again.
Link was picked up off of his feet and hung in the air far above the ground. His hands and arms were still free to move as his legs flailed underneath him. He dug his hand into a pouch which hung at his belt and produced a small red crystal. Shouting the name of the goddess, "Din!" The red crystal glowed as he threw it to the ground where it exploded into a fireball spreading outwards and taking the prior by surprise. Link fell to the ground as the Prior was forced to focus his power on keeping himself from being burned. The white hot flames reached him and passed over him beginning to die out before they reached the buildings around the two combatants.
Link advanced on him again, and the Prior sent a wave of force at him again, except this time it was weaker. "Let's see who's gods are stronger, sorcerer! Yours or mine." Link taunted him.
The Prior howled in rage at the impudence of the young man. Overhead a great storm cloud began to form and lightning crackled across its face. "The Ori will strike you down for your blasphemy!" The old man raged.
"I don't think so." A familiar voice said from behind the Prior, and the storm clouds collapsed and fell apart as the Prior turned around to see the smiling face of Colonel Shepherd, holding a black disk with small lights orbiting the edge. "Recognize this, spanky?"
The Prior didn't see or sense the tiny red dot of light on the back of his head before the shot rang out. His eyes registered surprise as he dropped to the ground. Taking advantage of Colonel Shepherd's distraction, Link hadn't hesitated with the P-90 he had been carrying all night, and hadn't used before now. His aim, aided by the laser sight, had been perfect.
"Nice shot, Peter Pan!" Jasper quipped.
Link nodded, not understanding the reference.
"You could have left some of the bad guys for us, you know." Shepherd scolded him jokingly.
"Don't worry, I did. I didn't hunt the north side of the town. I'm sure there are some there totally oblivious to what just happened." Link responded in kind. "And there's still the warship overhead."
"Oh goody." Shepherd retorted. "Going soft are we?"
"Collins to Colonel Shepherd." The voice came through Shepherd's radio as he tapped it with his fingers.
"Go ahead." He responded.
"Stargate secure. Hostile forces neutralized." Collins responded.
"Situation secure in the town. Prior has been neutralized. Very neutralized. Some random hostiles still north of the town. Dial up Atlantis and radio Woolsey, apprise him of our situation, and see if he can't get a hold of Colonel Carter to do something about the Ori ship in orbit that's blocking her parking spot." Shepherd instructed him. "No Prior, no one to fly the ship. It's a sitting duck." Shepherd explained.
"Will do. With pleasure, sir." Collins responded. "If Woolsey asks, how did you manage to take out the Ori ground troops so quickly?"
Shepherd looked at Link, smiled and then said, "Tell him Link was having an off day. He missed a few. Woolsey will know what I mean."
"10-4." Collins responded.
The six of them in the square then did a building to building search for their men, eliminating any remaining Ori guards. About an hour later, they finally found the bound men, Daniel Jackson and the three other men from S.G. 10 seated on the floor in the mayor's house. As they untied them and led them out of the house there was a tremendous explosion overhead as pieces of fireball fell through the atmosphere.
"What was that?" Dr. Jackson asked.
"I think that was Colonel Carter revoking the Ori ship's parking permit." Shepherd replied.
"Oh." Daniel replied.
"Shepherd to Collins." Shepherd said into the radio.
"Collins."
"Confirm visual on Ori ship kill to Atlantis." Shepherd said.
"10-4. Yeah, we saw it too." Collins responded.
After flushing out the rest of the Ori ground forces, taking as many captive as would surrender, the teams and the hostages they had been sent to rescue returned by jumper through the stargate to Atlantis instead of hitching a ride back with the Hammond.
After settling in and debriefing all of them, Woolsey pulled Link and Shepherd aside.
"About an hour before you returned, we received a transmitted message in English through the stargate that was addressed to you, Link. I'm sorry but because of security concerns we had to open it and see what it contained." Woolsey said.
"Who would be sending a message to you through the stargate?" Shepherd asked, addressing his friend. "Could Impa have? And why would she have?"
"I don't know." Link said. "The symbols she gave me were supposed to return me to the Temple of Time right after I left. Something must have gone wrong."
"I'm afraid it did, Supreme Commander." Woolsey said with a great weight on him. "Zelda is dead."
It hit the young man like a physical blow and he staggered backwards, falling to his knees. "That's not possible." He said.
"According to the message it was done by three orc assassins, one of them was a 'sorcerer.' She died at her coronation. I'm so sorry." Woolsey said.
"No, that wasn't supposed to happen. Time wasn't supposed to continue while I've been gone. My men. I had two thousand men guarding the castle and the temple. Good men. Zelda..." Link broke. "I've failed. I've failed the goddess. I wasn't there to protect her. I wasn't there to protect Hyrule."
Shepherd had never seen him like that before, but he had his own feelings on the issue to contend with. He had known the uber-mature, wise, and kind girl since she was ten years old, and had watched her grow up alongside Link. Like Link, there was a time when he had sworn to protect her as well. Like Link, he felt the sting of failure in his mission with the death of someone he had cared about too. He was angry. Very, very angry.
"I'm going back with you Link, and we're going to catch that orc sorcerer son of a bitch." Shepherd declared.
"Now wait just a minute, Colonel, I can't authorize you to..." Woolsey tried to put the brakes on him.
"I'm going, Woolsey." Shepherd said again, "with or without your permission."
"I sympathize, Colonel. I met her, too, remember? Even as young as she was then, she was still an extraordinary girl. But I can't authorize an S.G. team to travel across realities on a revenge mission you may not be able to come back from." Woolsey tried to reason with him.
"Not my whole team, just me." Shepherd said. "It's just going to be Link and I. We both have to do this." Shepherd said.
"Link has to go back. It's his responsibility. He swore an oath to her, just as you swore an oath to the United States." Woolsey said firmly.
"I SWORE AN OATH TO HER TOO!" Shepherd yelled at him. "Dammit, Woolsey! This isn't a request. I'm telling you. You can court-martial me when I get back, if I come back, but I'm going to help him bring that bastard to justice."
Woolsey pursed his lips, seeing there was no way to talk him out of it. "I see," he said. And the truth was he did see. Shepherd had revealed the heart of the matter to him in his outburst. Like Link, he saw himself as having failed in his sworn duty. The way Shepherd saw it, he left Zelda behind and he couldn't live with that. Woolsey then bowed his head for a few minutes and gathered his thoughts. There was dead, uneasy silence between the two men. Then Woolsey said. "I think we can forgo the court-martial if you make it back. I'll keep this one off the books. If anyone asks, I'll tell them you're on emergency family leave. That'll be close enough to the truth at any rate. With luck, you'll be back before anyone knows you're missing."
"Thank you." Shepherd said. "I'm sorry for yelling."
"We'll discuss proper protocol in my office later." Woolsey remarked.
Shepherd walked over to his devastated friend and took him by the arm. "We will find him, Link. You and I together. I'm going with you." Link looked up at him, and John Shepherd could see eons of pain trapped behind his eyes at the loss of a relationship with a person he had known at many different times for thousands of years. There was no describing the depth of it. "We'll get him, buddy." Shepherd clasped him by the arm and raised him up.
When Link spoke his voice was gravelly, and sounded exhausted. "Who sent the message?" He asked.
"The name at the end was 'Hylia.'" Woolsey said.
At the sound of that name Link straightened up and his whole demeanor changed. "Hylia." He repeated.
"That's not possible," Shepherd said in confusion, "if Zelda's dead then who..."
"She's rejoined the goddesses. She wanted me to know what had happened." Link told the two men. "Was there anything else in the message?"
Unsure of things now, Woolsey continued, "Yes. The message said something about Nayru's piece being safe. Hylia also wanted you to return home as soon as you could. I don't understand, who is Hylia?"
"Zelda ascended." Shepherd explained. "Zelda was supposed to be the line of incarnations of the goddess Hylia. When she died, she must have ascended. By signing 'Hylia' to the transmission she was trying to tell us she was still around."
"But that's good right? That means she can retake human, or Hylian form?" Woolsey said.
"She won't though." Link answered wearily. "There's no need for her to any longer. She's going to rejoin the other gods of Hyrule. I think she was trying to tell me as much before I left."
Shepherd's anger and frustration abated a bit. It lessened the blow to know that while Zelda might have died, she wasn't lost. He was still going with Link though.
"McKay to Woolsey." The call came through the headpiece.
Woolsey stepped to the side, away from the two men and answered, "yes, go ahead, Doctor."
"We think it's done." McKay said. "You want to send our guest down to give her a spin?"
"Not a moment too soon, doctor. I'm sending him down now with Colonel Shepherd. I think he could use some good news right now." Woolsey said.