Vive l'empereur

The team was being held in a grey windowless room. They had been locked up for interrogation, or rather so they could interrogate Corporal Small. She was the only member of the team which could speak French.

The rest of the team was playing a game of cards on a poorly lit metal table in the centre of their cell.

"Well, at least they aren't Estonians or something." Godfrey mentioned as he drew a new card.

He was referring to the previous reality they had visited where they had ended up in Estonia, which happened to be a superpower stretching from the Vistula to the Black Sea to the Urals. It had taken them hours before they had found somebody who could speak German, one of the many languages Michelle had mastered.

"I still can't place that country on a map, not even in our own dimension." Daniel commented.

Doctor Novak mistook his comment for a question. "Estonia lies just to north of Latvia."

"And were lies Latvia?" Godfrey Mutton asked.

"Just to the north of Lithuania."

The captain and the sergeant simply stared at him with glazed eyes.

Then the door opened.

"Good news." Michelle Small announced. "The emperor had arrived, and he believed me. He can even speak English."

Next to her an old man appeared, he wore a uniform with a sash and a chest full of medals. He combined a short beard with a long moustache; however, he had gone bald of old age.

"So, Napoleon won in this universe?" Sergeant Attwood asked.

"No, my uncle was still vanquished by the coalitions." L'empereur started shaking hands with Archie Novak. "Napoleon III, pleasure to meet you."

"He was originally elected as the first president of the Second French Republic. Then he made himself emperor in a referendum." Corporal Small explained.

"What!?" Captain Mutton yelled. He certainly was not a George Washington.

"So that is when our universes began to diverge?" Sergeant Attwood wondered.

"No." Novak replied. "He also did that in our reality."

"You sure?" The captain asked. "I have never heard of any Napoleon III."

"Vat?" The emperor yelled. "Never heard of me? The man who turned France back into a Great Power, and that using only diplomacy and reforms."

"Wait!" Novak shouted. "How are you still alive? Do you have a sarcophagus?"

"Yes, however I use it as sparingly as possible. The first time was half a century ago when my body began to deteriorate too much."

"But you were already over a century old then." Michelle noted.

"Wait." The sergeant's face whitened. "But does that mean you are a-"

"Don't worry." Napoleon III smiled and pointed at the back of his neck. "I'm a Tok'ra." He said in a booming symbiote voice.

"Prove it!" The captain demanded. He reached for his gun before remembering it had been taken from him.

"If he were a Goa'uld, would we not be too busy being tortured for information?" Doctor Novak countered.

"Not if he's one of the more manipulative ones, like Hathor." Daniel Attwood replied.

"Ah, yes." The emperor agreed. "Hathor can be very duplicitous, just ask the Tok'ra High Council."

"What happened?" Michelle wondered.

"She had claimed to hate Ra so much, she was willing to become a Tok'ra in exchange for the privilege of feasting on Ra's symbiote."

"And they believed her?" Captain Mutton asked.

"Hathor really hated Ra." Michelle said. "Unsurprising with the kind of father and husband Ra was, he abused her as a child, then she was his least favourite queen, he even fathered more offspring with his mistress, Rhea, than her and had Hathor punished when she complained about it. No wonder she tried to overthrow him."

"Wait, I thought Rhea was the queen of Cronos." Daniel Attwood said.

"Yes, now you also know why Cronos always sided with Apophis when he tried to usurp Ra, despite their fierce rivalry." Michelle replied.

Louis-Napoleon turned his head to Mutton. "To answer your question, the Tok'ra High Council didn't trust her. But they needed her, without a Tok'ra queen their numbers would slowly but certainly dwindle into nothing. Not that such distrust matters anymore, as after that one incident the Tollans had given us a device preventing a symbiote from suppressing its host."

"What incident?" Godfrey Mutton asked. "What did Hathor try?"

"Stealing Tollan ion cannons. She had succeeded in taking the Tollan Curia hostage when she Had been sent to Tollana for negotiations. Betraying the trust of both the Tok'ra and Tollans."

"Wait, how did she do that?" Doctor Novak wondered.

"Crossbows with poisoned arrows." The emperor answered. "Tollan Weapons Disablers don't work on something as primitive as that. And the Tollans in their arrogance did not believe they needed body searches."

"Well, we should warn the Tollans of that when we come back. Lest a Goa'uld in our dimension gets the same idea." Mutton said in a bemused tone.

Then a loud alarm went off and the speakers started shouting in French.

"Excusez moi." Napoleon III began running towards the door. "It looks like I'm needed elsewhere."

"What is going on?" Attwood asked.

"Unidentified crafts have appeared in the solar system." Michelle answered.

Out of all the French being send over the speaker Mutton recognized but one word: 'Apophis'.

Meanwhile in the Pel'tac of Apophis' Ha'tak

Apophis, the God of Chaos and the King of the Night, was sitting in the central throne, he was communicating with Klorel. "My son, you'll engage the Tau'ri defence satellites head-on. I'll provide covering fire." Of course, Apophis left the safest task for his own ship.

Suddenly one of the sensor displays showed disturbances in subspace, he was not the only one traveling to Earth.

In the space on the other side of Earth five hyperspace windows opened. Out came two obelisk-shaped Ashrak'tak gunships, two Ha'taks, and one Mastaba-shaped carrier.

"What is this? Open communications!" Apophis ordered.

"Yes, my Lord." Teal'c replied.

On the front screen of the Pel'tac an image of the System Lord Heru'ur appeared.

"What are you doing here? I arrived first! This planet is mine!" Apophis yelled.

"You arrived first? Don't you realize I have been preparing over a year for this invasion?" Ra's son replied.

"And I have been gathering supplies and training troops for over two years!" Apophis retorted.

"Meh, I don't care. I rightfully inherited the Tau'ri from my father." Heru'ur replied. "I'll take back what belongs to me. Should you interfere I'll blow not just the Tau'ri defence stations but also your ships from the face of the galaxy."

Apophis closed the connection.

The false god turned to Teal'c. "Launch all our fighter craft, bring our ships in combat formation. I shall show that uppity larva who is the real Goa'uld."

"My lord, our sensor readings show there is a third fleet in hyperspace heading too here." Shaq'rel mentioned.

"A third fleet?" Apophis wondered. "Did the Tau'ri get reinforcements? But from where?"

"I don't think so." Shaq'rel replied. "The ship in the middle is huge, we know of only one thing which has sufficient size."

"Oh, no." The false god uttered. "Not those demons."

Then a ginormous hyperspace window opened surrounded by several small, miniscule by comparison, ones.

All the Jaffa in the Pel'tak panicked at the sight of the Wraith Hiveship and Cruisers.

The Wraith ships immediately began to launch thousands of Wraith Darts.

"Incoming message from the Tau'ri." Teal'c said.

"Do they think I'm wasting my time with their nonsense when those demons are here?" Apophis replied.

"But it was related to those demons, the Tau'ri proposed we all shoot the Wraith instead of each other."

"Exactly what I had just been planning to propose to them." Apophis lied. He could not afford to appear to follow the Tau'ri's lead afterall.

"Heru'ur seems to already have accepted." The First Prime added.

The Goa'uld ships began firing their plasma cannons at the Wraith, their plasma blasts were joined by myriads of missiles and railgun shells being fired by defence satellites and stations.

The Wraith hesitated, they had not expected to encounter so much opposition, but then attacked. As their hyperdrives were still recharging they could not retreat anyway.

The Wraith threw their entire fleet at Apophis hoping to take down their enemies one by one.

Their cannons fired blue blasts at Apophis' ships and their Darts cut down Apophis' Death Gliders.

In the pel'tac the sensor screens showed the first Wraith Cruiser exploding under the fire.

"Make our ships do a fighting retreat." Apophis ordered. "Throw all our Death Gliders and Al'kesh into the fighter brawl."

"As you wish my Lord." Teal'c's disliked sending so many of his comrades to their deaths but it was not as if he had a choice.

A Ha'tak could be seen blowing up in front of Apophis ship.

"We're all going to die." Shaq'rel whispered.

However, the forces of Heru'ur came to the rescue of his uncle by attacking the Wraith from behind.

His two Ashrak'taks cruised at top speed to the wraith; their many powerful cannons were brought to bear on the Wraith Hiveship.

The hive ship was very big, however as it lacked shielding it had to directly suffer the strain of multiple explosions in the megaton-range. The organical ship's ability to heal was outmatched by the heat of the plasma, it simply burned through everything.

Nevertheless, the Wraith mothership was a formidable opponent and managed to destroy one Ashrak'tak before exploding.

A second Wraith Cruiser was brought down by railgun fire.

"Launch a counterattack! Now!" Apophis ordered. He could not stand to suffer the humiliation of his nephew and those Tau'ri primitives getting away with all the glory.

On the screens of the Pel'tac could be seen how the unshielded Wraith Cruisers were quickly cut down by an attack from three sides. But those 'demons' did not go down gently, both Heru'ur and Apophis lost another Ha'tak.

Shaq'rel was relieved when only Wraith Darts were left.

Apophis opened communications with Heru'ur. "I suggest we both return to our own domains. If those demons can show up here, they must also be capable of reaching our worlds."

"Agreed. I don't want to end up like Yu." Yu had not reacted immediately when the Wraith had shown up. This had cost him dearly; he had been forced to decimate his own worlds with naquadah bombs to prevent the Wraith from culling them.

"Prepare to jump away from this cursed space." Apophis ordered Teal'c. There were still hundreds of Wraith Darts left, but these were the Tau'ri's problem now.

"Who were these 'Wraith' guys?" Captain Mutton asked back on Earth.

"Hmm." Napoleon III appeared embarrassed. "They are the reason the Asgard decided to no longer lend us their hyperdrive engines."

"How so?" Doctor Novak wondered.

"We encountered these guys in the Pegasus Galaxy." A general said. "Then, we, err, accidentally led them to the Milky Way."

"Well, I take it we now know something which we should avoid doing." Sergeant Attwood replied. "That would be great information to take back home."