Hidden under a Sunless Sky

To prevent Earth suffering any unnecessary risks of catastrophe, Stargate Command had built an operating base in a dimension where Earth never found the Stargate and the Quantum Mirror was still located on P3R-233. This trans-dimensional base was only used for exploring new dimensions. The Quantum Mirror on Earth-prime was used for contact with universes with which relations had already been established.

Up till now, nobody has suffered from Entropic Cascade Failure in this base, leading to speculation that the Earth of that reality might have been destroyed in nuclear war.

Sergeant Attwood stared at the Quantum Mirror. "Mmh, a dimension where the Quantum Mirror is still on the planet we found it."

"Next!" Captain Mutton ordered.

"I can see cracks in the glass." Corporal Small noticed. "The other side must be broken."

"What will happen if we go through a broken Quantum Mirror?" Doctor Novak wondered.

"I don't want to find out." Godfrey Mutton said. "Next!"

Archie Novak pressed the button again.

They now saw some sort of workshop or laboratory, with strange tools lying on a metal table. There was a shelf filled with boxes of sensors and crystal computers at the back of the room.

As the rest was looking at the other side the Sergeant painted their new code 'A9$Br#X2' on the wall.

"Ah, let's try this one." The captain said.

And they crossed the Quantum Mirror.

Daniel Attwood looked around. "No signs of any kind of writing."

Godrey Mutton walked towards the door. "Let's find out what kind of facility we are in."

They entered a hallway with steel walls lit by a single dimly glowing blue line in the ceiling.

"Mmh, any idea where we might be?" Michelle Small asked.

The Sergeant shrugged.

They rounded another corner. They saw some closed doors with glass windows and metal signs.

"Let's try one of these rooms." Captain Mutton walked towards one of the doors.

"The writing looks Sanskrit, but I have trouble translating it." Corporal Small mentioned. "Probably the result of linguistic drift."

Through a window tables with robotic arms and legs could be seen.

Daniel Attwood opened the door. "Wow, that looks like some sort of war robot."

A giant humanoid machine with a cockpit in its torso stood in the middle of the room.

"Power armour." Daniel Novak uttered. "Research into it had been forbidden by Ra with the consent of the System Lords; they feared such technology might be used against them by their Jaffa. So, we know this facility is not owned by a Goa'uld."

"Silence." Michelle Small said. A moment later she added. "I believe I heard footsteps."

QM-1 turned to face the corner the sound was coming from.

An orb rolled in view from another hallway.

"That looks like one of those scanning devices the Goa'uld use to see what is on the other side of a wormhole." Sergeant Attwood noticed.

"Ready your guns." Captain Mutton raised his P90. "Hostiles might be coming."

Now a Goa'uld stun grenade was thrown from around the corner. After bouncing of a wall, it went their way.

They open fire, but the few shots they had the time for all missed the speedy object.

As it landed the Corporal and the Sergeant covered their faces with their arms to avoid the flash and Godfrey Mutton jumped behind the doctor.

The stun grenade went off.

Captain Mutton aimed his P90 at the corner as Archie Novak fainted before him.

A Jaffa rounded the corner. His face bore the mark of Nirrti.

The bullets directed at the Jaffa's head all bounced off a golden shield in front of his face.

But Ra forbade the other Goa'uld to give their Jaffa shields. Godfrey thought as he was hit by an electric discharge.

The Jaffa's Zat'ni'katel was shot out of his hand by Daniel Attwood. He had recovered just in time from the disorienting stun blast.

Then two other Jaffa appeared from behind the corner. They immediately shot the last two members of QM-1 with their Zat'ni'katels.

The first thing Godfrey Mutton noticed was that everything was wet.

"Wake up human!" A deep, booming, masculine voice shouted.

The Captain opened his eyes, he had trouble adjusting to the light.

He noticed he was restrained with metal to a steel table. Somebody must have emptied a water bucket on me. He assumed.

"Who are you? How did you get here?" The Goa'uld asked.

"I thought Ra had decreed the only Jaffa allowed to have personal shields were his elite Jackal Guards?" Mutton asked back. Ra saw this a way to both cement his dominance over the System Lords and reduce the risk of Jaffa rebellion.

"You stupid fool! We are on a Stargateless rogue planet away from all the traffic lanes. No spy of Ra would even stumble upon this planet by accident." The false god stared at the captain. "Or at least, that was how things were supposed to be."

"Ah, we're on a rogue planet. My excuses we did not know this world was yours. If we knew Goa'uld were on it, we'd have stayed away."

Now the snake pained him with his ribbon device. "Answer my questions! What god do you worship? How did you get here? Does anybody else know you are here?"

"I don't worship some dude with a snake in his head!" Godfrey screamed.

The Goa'uld smiled. "You are from a so-called 'free' civilization, that is unexpected. Now, how did you get here in the first place?"

"You won't get anything out of me."

"We shall see."

Then the captain heard the sound of the door opening.

"I have gone over the security recordings." A female voice said. Godfrey recognized it as somebody he heard before but could not place it. "They did not appear on the footage before stepping out of the room with that weird mirror."

"Wait, you have security cameras here?" Captain Mutton asked.

"Of course!" The first Goa'uld replied. "Our Lady, Nirrti, has not yet become senile, like Ra or Apophis."

"So, Ra and Apophis had been senile? That would explain a lot."

"They have indeed become very sloppy in the last few centuries." The second Goa'uld replied.

"Let's check that thing out." The male Goa'uld proposed. "Maybe it's some sort of transportation device instead of a fake mirror."

Oh no. Godfrey Mutton thought. Don't tell me we have accidentally led those Goa'uld to our reality.

The false goddess threw one of her hairpins at the Quantum Mirror. After a flash it appeared on the other side of it. "Yes, a transportation device."

"But where does it go?" The false god wondered. "The other side appears identical to the room on that one planet wherein Nirrti's Jaffa found that thing."

"You are not going through that thing." The Second Prime in charge of the facility said. "Our lady shall decide what to do with it." One of the reasons there had been no Stargate on the rogue planet in the first place was to prevent those scientists from selling any of their inventions to Nirrti's rivals.

"Then we shall continue to interrogate the prisoners." The female Goa'uld said.

"You'll take the girl. I'll do the one with glasses." The male Goa'uld said.

Michelle Small was strapped to a table. She had already tried to wiggle herself out of her straps, but they were simply too tight.

She heard the door open, followed by footsteps.

A blonde head appeared. "How does that device which brought you here work? Do not lie, we shall compare your story with that of the others."

"I have the feeling I have seen your face before." Corporal Small said.

"Well, I'm completely sure I haven't seen yours." The Goa'uld readied her ribbon device.

"Does your name happen to start with an A or an F?"

An expression of shock appeared in the false goddess eyes.

She leant forwards. "Let's take a better look at you." Her face was now just above Michelle's.

Now she whispered. "This interrogation is being recorded. If you wish to say something you must whisper now."

"Are you the Tok'ra Anise and Freya?" Michelle asked.

Anise sighed. "If Nirrti finds out I am done for. Now I must escape with you."

Then Corporal Small realized something. "You cannot come back with us. Entropic Cascade Failure."

A second expression of shock appeared on Anise's face. "Entropic Cascade Failure? So now it turns out that Seshat's crazy theories about multiversal travel are true after all."

Now Freya, Anise's host, frowned. "Then we must improvise. Maybe I can arrange for you to be moved somewhere else, I believe you are small enough for it."

Michelle did not know whether she could trust her, or them if they really were Tok'ra, but she saw no other option.

Freya straightened herself.

"You must be mistaken." Anise said loud enough to be recorded. "Now tell me which god do you follow?"

"We don't follow a maniacal parasite." Corporall Small replied.

"Interesting if true. Now how did you get on this world?"

Michelle was unsure how to respond. She did not know how to give the correct impression to anybody who might be listening.

Now Anise activated her ribbon device. "How did you get here?"

Corporal Small screamed out of pain. She wondered whether Anise was holding herself back or she suffered the full power of the Kara'kesh.

"No need to hurry up telling me. I can do this all day long."

Michelle wanted to beg her to stop but found herself incapable.

Then Anise stopped. "Now, tell me."

"We came here through the Quantum Mirror."

"You mean that device in the room you came out of. How does it work?"

Then Corporal Small explained it in but five minutes.

"Mmh, so Seshat had not gone mad afterall when she had claimed that inter-universal travel is theoretically possible." Then Freya bowed and began loosening the straps. "I'm going to release you for today, your honesty deserves a reward."

Then she helped Michelle of the table. "Poorly enough a kara'kesh on maximum power leaves its victim too damaged to walk, so I'll have to support you."

Corporal Small thought herself capable of walking on her own.

If that thing hurts so much at partial strength, how much pain would it cause at full strength? She wondered.

As Anise held Michelle and walked with her to the door she whispered in her ear. "Use this against the Jaffa in front of us when I give the signal. I'll take care of the Jaffa behind us."

She slipped something in her shirt, the shape suggested it was some kind of weapon. "Aim for the head, a shot in the chest might not kill them fast enough."

Then Freya opened the door. Two Jaffa could be seen in the hallway.

"Why is the prisoner being moved?" One of the Jaffa asked.

"When taming a wild animal, one needs not only a stick but also a carrot." Anise replied. "I thought to bring her to my room and treat her to my luxuries as a reward for the information she had given us. We need to demonstrate what she can expect if she cooperates."

"I see." The second Jaffa replied. His mother had always told him that nothing loosens somebody's tongue as much as a good meal with wine.

"Don't you fear she might try something?" The first Jaffa asked.

"What can she do?" Anise asked. "In her current state she can barely walk."

Michelle pretended to lose her balance. It looked as if she would have simply fallen to the ground if Freya did not hold her arm.

After rounding three corners the group now entered the hallway with the room with the mechas.

Freya stepped on Corporal Small's feet. "Prepare to draw your weapons." She whispered in her ear.

Then Anise draw her gun and turned at the Jaffa behind her. A blue ray pierced the shield protecting his head like it wasn't there.

The Jaffa ahead of them turned around to see what that sound was, but a second blue ray went through his head.

Michelle trembled on her legs; she had never killed somebody before. She had been placed on this team because of her language skills, not her combat experience.

Freya opened the door. "Come in, quick."

Corporal Small followed her.

They ran towards the sole fully assembled mechanical suit, it was a 12-feet tall metal monstrosity.

Freya opened the door of the cockpit. "You are the only one who can fit into that thing. I am just a tad too large."

"You want me to drive that thing? I don't even know how it works."

"It is not as difficult as it looks like. I'll help you." Anise said as she locked the room's giant door.

Michelle stepped in using the table as a step. "Why are these things so small anyway? Even I barely fit in." Her head accidentally hit the cockpit's ceiling.

Freya closed the cockpit's door behind her. "It was designed to be piloted by young girls, an idea of Nirrti to save weight and space. Though I suppose fear of one of us stealing it to use against Nirrti herself might also be part of her motivation."

"I see, I even have to duck to fit in."

Now Corporal Small was inside a HUD was lowered before her eyes, so she could see outside despite there being no windows. A magnitude of symbols she did not understand floated in front of her. Her legs and arms became locked into place by some unseen mechanism.

"So, now we will teach you how to aim." Anise said. "Try to move your own arms. They may be kept in place, but the device should notice your muscles contracting."

The mecha's arms moved towards the door.

"You can fire with your- wait which finger was used to control the plasma arm cannon again?" Anise wondered.

After having given a short explanation, Freya took shelter behind the war machine. "Anyway, please aim at that piece of the floor there and fire."

The entire building shook. Pieces of rubble impacted the mechanical suit's shield.

As the smoke lifted the hole in the floor that appeared was as large as one caused by a Staff Weapon at its highest setting.

"And that was only the lowest setting." Anise mentioned. "Now I'll explain the suit's secondary weapons: stunners and shield drainers, and how to move it."

Anise had just finished with her instructions when the door, together with the wall around it, was destroyed by a salvo of plasma blasts.

The silhouettes of a dozen Jaffa could be seen from behind the smoke.

"Open fire on those oppressors!" Anise shouted safely from behind the war machine's shield.

"Die Shol'vas!" The Jaffa shouted as they fired their second salvo.

Michelle shot back at the highest setting.

The Jaffa's Staff Blasts struck the shield, but did no visible damage.

The plasma blast exploded in the middle of the Jaffa's formation.

A wave of disgust flowed throughout Corporal Small as she looked upon the result of her action.

Freya rubbed her hands with glee. "Excellent, now we must prepare an ambush for Nirrti during her next visit. As a countermeasure against treason only I and Khonshu together can send a subspace message. Nirrti should not yet know of our treason."

"Should we not also liberate my comrades?"

"Oh, right. We shall first get them out of their cells. But hurry up, the control tower must fall before Nirrti leaves hyperspace, otherwise they could warn her with their short-range communicator."

The door of Doctor Novak's cell opened.

"Sorry, my excuses." A female voice said. "I'll get you out of here immediately, your escape is close."

"And you are?" Archie Novak asked still strapped to the table.

She began removing his chains. "The Tok'ra Anise and Freya. My colleague Khonshu is also here."

"Wait, not one but two of Nirrti's servants are Tok'ra?"

"It took us quite a lot of effort to gain her trust and for our hosts to gain her trust."

"Your hosts?" Archie raised his back after his arms had been untied.

"Nirrti had invented a symbiont sedative. It allows her to interrogate any host without the symbiont being capable of interfering. Nirrti then devised a system wherein her subordinate Goa'uld were placed in her most trusted and indoctrinated subjects, so she could root out any treason by interrogating them. It took us quite a lot of effort to place Freya in a position where she was trusted by Nirrti."

"Mmh, that is actually quite clever of her." Doctor Novak said as he jumped of the table.

"Your comrade is waiting outside." Anise said as he heard blasts coming from the other side.

"Is there combat going on there?"

"No worries, she can handle those Jaffa." Freya raised her shield and opened the door.

"I did not know Michelle was such an excellent fighter."

Then he saw Corporal Small was inside a lumbering shield war machine firing blue hot bolts of plasma. "Oh."

Michelle looked at the hallway filled with craters. "How many Jaffa are there in this building?"

Then two uniformed, handcuffed, and gagged men rounded the corner followed by more Jaffa.

The Second Prime pointed his Staff Weapon at Sergeant Attwood's head. "Surrender, or I will blast his head off. You shall be treated well should you lay down your arms."

"Do not listen to him." Anise shouted. "Even if you surrender Nirrti shall arrange a fate worse than dead for you."

Corporal Small hesitated. She suspected Anise was correct, but she could not simply shoot her superiors.

Then a blue light ray pierced the Second Prime's head from aside.

The two remaining Jaffa drew their weapons and turned to face the source of the energy beam.

They were gunned down before they could return fire.

Somebody rounded the corner.

"Khonshu!" Anise shouted and ran towards him.

"We must prepare for Nirrti's arrival." Khonshu began untying the captain. "We have only two hours left."

"That is fast." Doctor Novak replied.

"We are but a few lightyears away from her capital." Anise answered.

Nirrti's flagship came out of a hyperspace window. The ship was shaped like an Indian temple and was twice as massive and sophisticated as a Ha'tak.

From her Pel'tac the goddess of death and decay opened contact with her research base. She was surrounded by four Jaffa and two of her handmaidens. The handmaidens were the surplus daughters of high-ranking aristocrats who saw it as a great privilege to be allowed to massage their goddess' back.

Two of her guards appeared in a hologram. They immediately bowed before their lady.

"Where is my Second Prime?" The Goa'uld demanded.

"He became ill, our much-feared lady. He is too sick to leave his room."

"Why had Khonshu not told me anything about that?" The false goddess replied.

Khonshu moved into view. "I did not believe it to be important."

Nirrti nodded. "Understandable, but include such information next time. I want my rapports both concise and complete."

For a second, she considered whether to punish her subordinate. She decided against it, it was minor enough to be forgiven once.

Nirrti stood up. "I shall go down to interrogate the prisoners myself."

As their lady turned around both of Nirrti's handmaidens took a stasis jar's handle in each hand.

Back on the rogue planet Khonshu broke the connection.

"Can we finally remove that makeup and change our clothes?" Daniel Attwood wondered.

"Not yet." Khonshu replied. "One of Nirrti's servants might still try to contact us."

After Nirrti rematerialized, she immediately realized something was wrong.

"It is too silent." She spoke. This place was next to the Jaffa quarters. The was always sound in either the canteen, training room, or bedrooms. However, this time she heard nothing.

Then metal footsteps sounded through the hallways.

Instinctively Nirrti raised her shield.

One of her own war machines turned around the corner and began firing on her.

As shield draining blasts stuck the shield, the Jaffa began shooting back.

"Treason!" Nirrti shouted. She used her Ribbon Device to push the buttons on the control panel.

However, the rings refused to come back down. "Who cut off the power?"

At long last Nirrti's shield was depleted by the green blasts.

Now red stun blasts followed.

"Is this how my reign ends? I don't even know who vanquished me." Nirrti muttered as she collapsed.

"So, we can go home now?" Sergeant Attwood asked as he bound the hands of an unconscious Jaffa.

"Yes, it is a necessity I suppose." Anise replied. "It won't take long till Entropic Cascade Failure sets in."

"Oh, right." Captain Mutton replied. "I hope we can keep contact."

"What about the mechanical suit?" Michelle wondered.

"We can't take it with us." Doctor Novak said. "It is too big to fit through the Quantum Mirror."

"No need to worry, I can disassemble it and send through the pieces later." Freya mentioned.

"Thank you." Godfrey Mutton replied.

Khonshu looked at Nirrti. "You think you could take over her place, Anise."

"Mmh, that should work. I think I know enough about Nirrti." Anise replied. "Off course we do need to find how to deal with her servants."

"What if Nirrti's host refuses?" Daniel Attwood wondered. "She might turn out to not be in the mood to once again carry a snake in her neck."

"That is, a possibility." Khonshu admitted.

"Goodbye." Captain Mutton crossed the Quantum Mirror. He was followed by the rest of QM-1.

As soon as the last person crossed over, Anise toppled the mirror, so it fell flat on the ground. "We cannot allow them to return. They may not find out we are not Tok'ra, but Linvris."

"Indeed." Khonshu said. "From where they had the idea we were Tok'ra anyway, I wonder?"

"Apparently we were Tok'ra in their reality." Freya replied.

"Mmh, that is actually not that surprising considering our 'eccentricities'." Khonshu said. "Nonetheless, we best should not mention that to our superiors." Thanks to a shortage of recruits the Linvris had no choice but to be more tolerant of certain 'eccentricities', but they were not that tolerant.

"I shall open contact with the others to inform them of our capture of Nirrti and this facility." Anise said.

Khonshu rubbed his hands with glee. Now they were one step closer to overthrowing the cruel, oppressive System Lords, so they can become the new cruel, oppressive System Lords others are trying to overthrow.