Chapter 24: The Naquadah Crisis Part 4
Valley of the Kings, Egypt, August 19th, 1998 (Earth Time)
"Chariot of the sky - this has to be a ship!" Daniel repeated himself.
Samantha Carter frowned. "The room can't be large enough for an Al'kesh. Maybe a Death Glider," she added when she saw her friend frown.
"Why would anyone bury a spaceship?" Adora asked.
"Many ancient cultures believed that the dead would be able to use the items that were buried with them in the afterlife," Daniel explained. "Warriors were often buried with weapons. Sometimes, this extended to their horses and dogs. Even people - usually slaves - were sometimes killed and buried with high-ranking persons, to serve them even after death."
"That's sick!" Glimmer blurted out.
"Well, it wasn't common," Daniel retorted.
"But… perfectly fine tools, weapons and jewellery?" Catra shook her head. "What a waste!"
Sam had to agree with that. Even though such finds were very helpful for archaeologists.
"That's why substitutes were also common - clay soldiers, non-functional chariots…" Daniel blinked. "This could be the case here as well."
"A mock-up of a spaceship?" The Colonel raised his eyebrows.
"It would certainly fit Egyptian culture. Although…" Daniel bent down to check the sarcophagus. "'Favoured of Ra'..."
"So, what? Is there a Jaffa in that tomb?" The Colonel asked.
"The Goa'uld believed in clay soldiers as grave gifts?" Glimmer asked.
"They wouldn't - but their soldiers and slaves did. At least, they did so on Abydos." Daniel frowned, as usual, when talking about the planet of his wife. "Although this could be a tomb dating to the time after Ra was driven off Earth. The inscriptions only talk about mighty victories, without naming anything we could use to determine the time period or location."
"But would they mention a 'sky chariot' as a grave gift?" Sam asked. That seemed a bit… Odd.
"If the man buried here was a great warrior, he could have passed into myth, and so the grave inscriptions would reflect that. Especially if the grave was built several years after his death."
"Or her death," Adora said.
"Ah… The iconography used here, and the culture of Ancient Egypt, makes it very unlikely that this would be a woman's grave," Daniel said. "Ancient Egypt was a patriarchal culture. Women wouldn't have been praised as great warriors."
Sam pressed her lips together. On Etheria, this kind of sexism didn't exist. She wasn't about to immigrate, but it was nice to know that not every world had copied Earth's cultures.
"Wasn't their culture installed by the Goa'uld?" Bow asked with a frown.
"We don't actually know if the Goa'uld decided to take over an existing culture by impersonating their gods, or if they installed the culture posing as gods," Daniel explained.
"Well, how about we check?" the Colonel suggested. "I mean the ship. We can rob the grave afterwards."
"Colonel O'Neill!" Salah gasped.
"I was joking," the Colonel told him. "But we will have to check the sarcophagus as well for any Naquadah items." He grinned. "So, technically, we will be grave robbers."
Catra snorted, but the others weren't amused, Sam could tell. Shaking her head, she turned back to examining the wall with Entrapta.
Her research partner - she wouldn't call them 'science buddies', especially not since that was Entrapta's term for Hordak - hadn't paid much attention to the discussion about Egyptian beliefs. She was waving her multi-purpose tool around and noting down numbers.
"Are you scanning the wall's width?" Sam asked.
"Yes. But it's uniform. There's no door that was bricked up or a weaker portion - the wall was built in one piece." Entrapta frowned. "No interesting mechanism to open it."
"Sometimes, that simplifies things," Sam said.
"Simple is boring."
But boring was often quite nice. You couldn't really do proper research if you constantly had to fight for your life. "If we don't want to risk explosives, we could dig through the wall with a jackhammer," Sam suggested.
"A jackhammer?" Entrapta turned to look at the Colonel.
"It's the name for a powered tool that combines a hammer with a chisel," Sam explained with a smile. "It has nothing to do with the Colonel."
"Ah." Entrapta nodded. "But that would take time. We could have Adora slice through the wall."
"Yeah, that would be best," Catra cut in - the woman had literally ears like a cat, Sam reminded herself. "Quick and dirty."
"Hey!"
Sam shook her head with a wry smile. But the Etherians were correct - Adora's sword would make short work of the wall. "We should drill through first to check for traps," she cautioned.
"Yes!"
Carefully drilling through solid stone took some time, but they were now quite used to it. After a few minutes, they were through - and had avoided triggering an explosion. She sighed softly with relief. They had scanned for any trigger or suspicious device and hadn't found anything, but Sam knew that there was always the possibility that they had missed something - no one and no technology was perfect, and Sam was pretty sure that magic wasn't perfect either.
"We're through!" Entrapta announced as Sam picked up a camera to push through the hole.
It took a bit of finagling, but Sam was an old hand at that. The thin cone of the lamp attached to the camera cut through the darkness on the other side of the wall, and Sam drew a sharp breath. That form…
"It's a Death Glider!" Daniel whispered. "And it's not a wooden or clay copy!"
It wasn't - but, as Sam realised quickly as she let the flashlight pane over the craft, it wasn't a working Death Glider. There were obvious signs of damage. And of wear and tear far beyond the usual.
"They took a wreck and buried it with him!" Daniel exclaimed.
"What a waste," the Colonel commented.
Sam glanced at Daniel and shook her head before her friend could try to correct the Colonel.
"A spaceship?" Colonel Salah asked. Sam saw his eyes widen.
"A wreck," the Colonel corrected him. "Which we will be taking with us."
The Egyptian stared at him.
"That's what the United Nations Security Council decided," Daniel reminded Salah. "All alien technology found on Earth is to be recovered and put under the control of the United Nations."
"Egypt is a member of the United Nations," Salah objected. "We can keep it safe for the Security Council's final decision."
"Yeah… I don't think so," the Colonel said, shaking his head. "You don't have a good record when it comes to keeping alien technology safe, sorry."
Sam suppressed a sigh at the Colonel's very much not apologetic grin. The Colonel was a great officer - brave, smart, caring - but he wasn't a diplomat. Hordak nodding in obvious agreement wasn't helping any, either.
"You seriously think we'll leave the ship here? After your capital almost blew up?" Catra shook her head. She'd seen less ridiculous proposals by Kyle during cadet training.
Khaled cringed at the reminder, but Salah frowned. "That was sabotage."
"Sabotage you should've prevented," Catra retorted. "I would say that disproves your claim that you can keep the ship safe."
"Yes," Glimmer agreed. "We can't risk another such explosion."
"We don't know what or who caused the explosion," Bow added. "And so it seems best to move the ship to a safer place."
Like, anywhere but Egypt, Catra thought.
"Moving it may set off a bomb," Khaled pointed out.
"Carter is the best expert for alien technology on Earth," O'Neill said.
Catra was tempted to argue that Entrapta was technically on Earth as well but held her tongue. The faster they got this settled, the faster they could leave this place. Hordak must share her thoughts since he didn't comment either.
"So, yeah, we'll be taking the ship with us," O'Neill repeated himself. "Before someone blows it up for whatever reason."
"And how will you move it?" Salah asked with a sneer. "You need our cranes and heavy machinery for that!"
"Nope!" O'Neill grinned again. "We've got all the heavy lifting we need here." He pointed at Adora, who nodded, then blinked.
"Hey!"
Catra giggled at her lover's expression. And at the blinking, shocked faces of the Egyptians.
They really had no idea about Adora's power.
"So, let's cut our way in," O'Neill said.
"Wait! Let's take a few more pictures. Just for safety's sake!" Daniel stepped forward and started taking pictures of the wall with his camera.
"Actually, Sir, if we have to move the craft anyway, we might as well go in through the roof," Carter suggested.
"After we checked for boobytraps there," O'Neill replied. "And we best do that from the inside."
"So, let's cut the door open!" Entrapta hefted a large, vaguely weapon-like tool. One of her cutting lasers, Catra realised. "We'll make a real door out of the fake door! In fact, if we had heavy-duty hinges, we could make a door we can open and close."
"Let's focus on securing the ship," Carter said. Before Entrapta started turning the tomb into a working hangar.
Cutting along the lines of the fake door would take a while, Catra knew. "I'm going to get some fresh air," she announced, wrinkling her nose."And I don't want to get dust on my fur."
Glimmer snorted in return, and Adora nodded after a moment, but the Egyptians and Daniel were probably fooled.
Outside, she spotted a dozen guards - she couldn't tell if they were the same who had been with Khaled when Darla had landed - surrounding the site. No heavy weapons, though. No tanks, no APCs. And about half of the soldiers were staring at her instead of keeping an eye out for threats.
Then again, she thought, I am one of the bigger threats here, so I guess I can't blame them for that.
She stretched, just to make it believable, then started a light jog up the slope, towards Darla. A soldier on top of the slope moved as if he wanted to block her way, but another held him back. Grinning, she waved at them and then sped up, racing towards Darla. She didn't go on all four, though - it was always better to keep some ace up your sleeve, as Daniel had explained the saying.
Which was another reason for her quick trip back to Darla. She entered the ship - Darla extended the ramp as she approached - and went to the weapons locker. It contained both Shock rods and staves, some of them Horde issue and some that were probably spares in case Glimmer broke her own staff over the head of someone who annoyed her too much.
Chuckling at the idea, she grabbed a Horde-style staff and left the ship again.
"Ah, you remembered that you should never enter a dungeon without your trusty ten-foot pole?" O'Neill asked when Catra rejoined them. Judging by his grin, that was a joke she wasn't supposed to get.
"Jack!" Daniel shook his head. "He's referring to Dungeons and Dragons where the players can use poles to check for traps."
"Your miniature game!" Bow beamed. "We really should play a game together!"
Catra frowned, and Adora and Glimmer groaned. Bow was a little too enthusiastic about this. But she wouldn't shoot him down - she'd leave that to Glimmer.
So she grinned and twirled her staff in her hand. "I just wanted a few more options if we're facing something that I don't want to get too close to."
Fortunately, Entrapta announced that they were through the door, and people got serious again. Catra really didn't want to talk about miniatures.
Jack O'Neill was really glad for Carter and Entrapta's timing. The last thing he wanted to do in the middle of an ancient tomb was talk about Dungeons and Dragons. Especially with an enthusiastic fan - Jack really should have known better than to crack a D&D joke. Sometimes, he played himself.
But now he got to watch Adora show off again as she grabbed the cut-out 'door' and pulled, slowly dragging the massive slab of stone out of the wall. It wasn't the first time he saw it - she had done the same to the door into this chamber - but it was still a sight to see. Like a comic book hero come alive.
He blinked and then shook his head to push the picture of Adora in a Supergirl outfit away. Besides, the woman couldn't fly, and he preferred Batman, anyway. You didn't need superpowers to defeat an enemy; just skill and smarts and some luck. Like… No, not going there.
He felt a slight draft of air as the door was pushed to the side - without breaking apart, as he had half-expected - and they could enter the second chamber, then held back Daniel; Carter was too sensible to rush in. "Let the magical girl enter first, Daniel," he told his friend. "She can take a hit from a tank gun - you can't."
That made Catra snort and the two Egyptians goggle at them. Probably revising their estimates of the aliens? That would be a good thing. The sooner the rest of Earth realised just how powerful the Etherians were - and how dangerous the Goa'uld were - the better. Jack was heartily sick of all the posturing and denial.
Why couldn't the politicians not simply trust them? Just because they had kept the Stargate a secret for so long? He snorted and pushed the thought away; he was here for a mission, not to think about politics.
Adora was already entering the room with the wrecked Death Glider, so Jack followed her, ignoring the way Carter frowned at him. He led from the front, damn it, and he was responsible for his team!
The room wasn't much larger than the ship - probably literally built around it before the sand buried it or something. No sign of any traps, but that didn't mean anything.
"I don't detect any Naquadah outside the ship," Entrapta said behind him - he could see the tips of her hair tendrils move just inside his field of vision.
"No sign of any power in use," Carter added. "Not in the wreck or the walls."
Well, that made things look a little safer.
Jack took a step to the side as the two women passed him and started to examine the ship, followed by Bow and Daniel. Hordak, though, stayed back, watching the Egyptians. And the entrance to the tomb. Well, Jack couldn't blame him for that.
"This looks like battle damage. Staff weapons, probably," Entrapta said.
"Yes. There aren't any signs of any attempt to repair it. Maybe it was damaged and abandoned during the rebellion?" Carter speculated.
"They recovered it to entomb it here, though," Daniel objected. "So, either this happened after the rebellion - and why would the victorious rebels honour a follower of Ra like this? - or Ra's forces recovered the ship during the rebellion but then spent the time to entomb it. Which also seems unlikely. No, based on the information so far, I think this tomb predates the rebellion!"
"But would the head snake really sacrifice a ship like that?" Jack asked. Ra hadn't struck him as a guy who cared about honouring his followers like that.
"If it was irreparable, he might have felt the gesture worth it - such an honour would likely have helped tie his guards to him," Daniel said. "Oh! If this happened during Ra's reign on Earth, then this might be a Jaffa's grave! On Earth!"
Jack glanced at Teal'c, who was looking at the ship, then back at the sarcophagus. His friend was hard to read normally, and right now, Jack couldn't tell what he was thinking at all. Teal'c's expression looked like stone.
He cleared his throat. "So, is it repairable?"
"Anything is technically repairable as long as you are willing to spend the resources," Entrapta said. "So, even if the engine and electronics are gone, we could replace them, I think."
"But it would probably not be cost-effective," Carter objected. "If we are basically rebuilding a ship, we might as well build a model more suited to our purposes."
Jack nodded and suppressed the urge to make a Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica joke. Even though flying an X-Wing or a Viper would be a dream come true. But Daniel would never let him hear the end of it. And Carter would be worse - she might even design such a ship… "So, how damaged is it?" he asked.
"Well…" Entrapta cocked her head to the side, visor sliding down over her face.
"The engine is damaged, but the damage doesn't seem too extensive," Carter said.
"Yes. But the control system… all the crystals have been removed. Or destroyed. The ship is basically braindead," Entrapta added. "Can you lift it a little, Adora?"
"Sure!"
"I don't think the ship had much of a brain." Bow pointed at a wrecked part. "That doesn't seem to be able to house a crystal big enough to grant a personality."
"Right. Poor thing." Entrapta sighed. "We'll do better when we rebuild it! And we need to name it!" She tilted her head to the other side. "I'm thinking… Clarice!"
"Clarice?" Bow asked.
"She looks like a Clarice. And sad."
Jack wasn't going to ask about that. Not at all. But he would have to impress upon Hammond that Entrapta wasn't allowed to name any ship Earth might be building with her help. Serving on a battleship named 'Hannah' or 'Sophie' would be simply embarrassing. Ah, well, time to…
"Oops."
He froze. That wasn't something he wanted to hear from anyone, least of all Entrapta.
"'Oops'?" Adora froze in the middle of lifting the left wing of the ship. If Entrapta said 'Oops', that often meant 'Run!'.
"Moving the ship just started something that moves - it's not magic or electricity-based, or we would have detected it," Entrapta explained. "Don't move while we analyse it!"
"Ok…" Adora clenched her teeth. The ship - a Death Glider - wasn't particularly heavy - not nearly as heavy as a tank, and she could throw those - but she didn't have the best leverage, and the metal felt a little… not quite slippery, but fragile. If she gripped it too hard, it might bend. Or break.
And then Entrapta crawled under the ship, her hair fanning out. "Oh… it's a purely mechanical mechanism! Fascinating!"
"Yeah, fascinating. And what does it do?" Jack asked.
"We don't know yet, Sir," Sam replied - she was crouching down to take a look at the underside of the ship as well. "But it's a clockwork mechanism."
"And it is still working after all those years?" Daniel, like Entrapta, sounded more intrigued than afraid. "That's… actually a point against my theory that this tomb dates back to the time of Ra's reign on Earth."
"Don't sound so disappointed," Jack told him. "Maybe you catch a break, and we all get blown up before anyone can reveal your mistake."
"Jack!"
Adora heard Catra snort.
"It looks like the mechanism is connected to a small container made out of Naquadah," Sam said.
"And the mechanism is made out of Naquadah," Entrapta added.
"And what's in the container?" Catra asked.
"We can't tell yet," Sam replied. "The container is shielding the contents."
"We should be able to calibrate the scanner to get around that," Entrapta said. "I guess we don't want to open it before we know what's in it."
"Yeah, I don't think we want to risk releasing whatever the Goa'uld might have put into a Pandora's Box."
"What's a Pandora's Box?" Adora asked.
"It's a myth - a container that held all the evils of the world, which were released because the holder, Pandora, got curious," Daniel explained. "This could be a trap to deal with grave robbers."
"But it's not open yet?" Glimmer asked.
"Not as far as we can tell," Bow replied from under the wing - Adora could only see his legs.
"If it's a trap, why didn't it trigger already?" Glimmer knelt down next to Bow.
"It must have some leeway or delay - a security margin - so it's not triggered by an Earthquake," Daniel speculated.
"Yes. The clockwork mechanism might be a way to introduce a delay," Sam agreed. "But it's still working, if slowly."
"So we've got a time bomb," Jack said. "Can you defuse it?"
"We should be able to, Sir. But you might want to retreat to a safe distance," Sam told him.
"If it's a nuclear or Naquadah-enhanced bomb, there might be no safe distance," Daniel pointed out.
And someone had to hold up the ship so they could work, Adora knew.
"Though if there's a delay, then there's also a safety," Entrapta said.
"Yes," Sam agreed. "If removing the weight of the ship triggers the mechanism, replacing it should stop it - so an Earthquake shaking the ship would not trigger it after the ship comes to a rest again."
"Yes. So… let's see which of the studs sticking up would do that." Entrapta wriggled fully under the ship.
"Or I could just put the ship down," Adora suggested.
"But then we couldn't get at the mechanism or get the ship out!" Entrapta retorted from below. "Don't worry - it's a simple mechanism once you see it."
"And it's still running?" Catra asked.
"Yes."
That wasn't reassuring. Not to Adora. But Sam, Bow and Entrapta were all underneath the ship now. Even Hordak had stopped standing guard and was using a scanner to analyse the ship.
"This looks good," Entrapta said.
"But it's not connected to the mechanism according to the scanner," Bow objected.
"Right. It might be a decoy then. Too good to be true."
"How about this?" Sam asked.
"Oh, yes. That… see the strut there? And the lever?"
"Yes."
"Now, how do we depress it enough to trigger the failsafe?"
Adora drew a sharp breath. The failsafe? Like back in the Heart of Etheria? No. This wasn't a magical superweapon about to destroy the world and the local sector. This was just a bomb or something.
But it would kill all her friends anyway if it went off.
"I'm pushing it down… Or not," Bow said. "It seems stuck."
"No, I think the mechanism just needs more power to trigger."
More power? But Adora had to keep holding the ship.
"We need leverage. Catra! Your staff!"
And now Catra crawled under the wing as well!
"Put it here… yes… now we can… Teal'C? If you could help push the staff down?"
"I shall try." He started to push the end of the staff down, bracing himself against the wing Adora was holding.
"Something went click," Catra said.
"That's the failsafe. Now we need to weld or solder the clockworks together to keep it stuck," Sam said.
"Aw. That'll ruin it. And after thousands of years of working perfectly."
Adora gritted her teeth. It wasn't Entrapta's fault that she was like that. But sometimes, it was really annoying.
At least they had defused whatever trap this was.
"Do we really have to destroy the mechanism?" Entrapta asked.
Samantha Carter suppressed a sigh. While she could understand Entrapta's stance towards destroying such an old piece of technology - she wasn't fond of that herself - she would rather not take any risk when it came to traps laid by - possibly - Goa'uld. Not after seeing the crater near Cairo.
"We could block it." Bow, obviously, was a bit more prone to taking risks.
"That would likely damage it as well, at least if we wanted to ensure that the mechanism doesn't work any more," Sam pointed out.
"Well… what would be easier to repair?" Bow asked.
"Using something to block the clockworks," Entrapta said. "The clockworks can't exert too much force, but we should probably use Naquadah alloys to be sure it won't just be crushed and spat out."
"Yes!" Bow nodded, almost hitting his head on the wing above him.
"Or we can destroy the shaft that links the mechanism to the container," Hordak suggested. "We only have to go through the stone here." He pointed at a slab of stone in the ground.
"Technically, that would destroy the mechanism as well, since that's part of it," Bow pointed out.
"Are you arguing whether or not you should damage a trap that might kill us all if it triggered?" the Colonel sounded incredulous.
Sam felt herself blush and was glad she was currently hidden from sight by the craft above her.
"Jack! This is a historical artefact that might give us crucial clues about the origin of this tomb!" Daniel, predictably, protested.
"I vote for 'destroy it to be sure'," Catra cut in.
"Can we move the ship now?" Adora asked.
"Oh, sorry - I forgot about that," Entrapta replied. "Yes, you can move it to the side."
Adora grunted, and then the entire ship tilted forward, sliding a little over the floor before the nose was stopped by the wall. Then the woman turned it to the side and put it down. "I need some better grip to carry it out."
"We can get some cables to make a harness," Catra suggested.
"Can we stop the bomb or whatever it is, first?" the Colonel asked. "Like, priorities, people!"
"Alright… let's uncover the mechanism first," Bow said.
That didn't take them long.
"Oh! It's a beautiful piece of craftsmanship!"
"It reminds me a little of the Antikythera mechanism," Daniel commented. "Although that is thousands of years younger."
"And the underlying mechanics would demand a similar construction," Sam pointed out. "This does not have to mean anything."
"But it would explain how such a mechanism appeared almost out of the blue," Daniel insisted.
The Colonel coughed behind them.
"Well, let's cut the shaft - that's easier to repair than the clockworks," Bow repeated his idea.
Cutting Naquadah alloys was always a bit of an effort, complicated by having to reach down alongside the clockworks, but Adora transformed her sword into something like a slim sabre, and not even Naquadah could offer much resistance to a magical blade. Or a blade made of magic - Sam made a mental note to ask the princess if she could analyse it.
"Yes!" Entrapta's hair wriggled into the opening and lifted the mechanism out.
"Now we need to secure the container with the payload," Sam reminded the others.
"And find out what would have happened if we hadn't stopped the mechanism, yes." Entrapta nodded in agreement.
With a bit more help from Adora, who got teased by Catra about being a nice tool, and by the Colonel for having a 'magical swiss army sword', the container was exposed. It was made from Naquadah as well, and…
"This is sealed very tightly," Sam commented. "Airtight according to the scan." And, in her experience, people didn't do that unless they needed such a seal.
"Yes. Whatever is inside must not have been allowed to get out."
"How reassuring," the Colonel commented.
"Probably a biological or chemical weapon, based upon your comment earlier," Hordak said, nodding at Daniel.
Who paled a little. "The curse… if this contains poison…"
"...then we might not be dealing with some poisonous spores, but an actual Goa'uld bioweapon," Sam finished the thought for her friend.
"A bioweapon?" Salah blurted out - Sam had almost forgotten that the Egyptians were there. Sloppy, she berated herself.
"That would be the worst case," she told the officer. "It could also be a chemical weapon. Or merely a poisonous substance or a pathogen available to ancient Egypt."
"But since that container was made out of Naquadah alloy, we shouldn't assume it's something harmless," Daniel added.
"Well, let's calibrate the scanner and see if we can find out what it is without opening it!" Entrapta said.
That took a few minutes, and the scan itself took a bit of time as well, but the results…
"There's definitely something in there," Bow said.
"And it's under slight pressure. If the lid opens, it would quickly escape into the air," Samanta said. Ideal for a trap using poison gas. Or a biological weapon.
"But you can't tell what it is?" The Colonel asked,
"No, sorry - we need to take a sample for that," Entrapta told him.
"No! The risk is too great!" Salah protested.
"Not here," Entrapta told him. "We'll probably do it in orbit in a safe lab."
Sam suppressed the slight jealousy she felt at hearing that. An orbital lab would allow so many research projects…
"Careful, Emily - don't break the seals!"
"Yeah, be very careful," Catra muttered under her breath as Entrapta pep talked the bot carrying the container. "Or at least if you do, don't break your hull." The sealed hull of the bot should contain any poison or pathogen.
"Catra! Align the doors!" Adora yelled from below.
Right. Catra sighed and squinted down the ramp. "A little to the left, Bow," she spoke into the commlink. "The other left," she added when the ship drifted to the right. "OK, a bit more… stop!" She checked again, then yelled. "It's alright, you can lift!"
Down below in the tomb - now with the roof removed - Adora pulled on the makeshift pulley, braced against the floor, and the Death Glider - and wasn't that an ominous name for a ship? - started to rise. A minute later, it was hanging in front of the lowered ramp of Darla, and Catra quickly attached a few more ropes to pull it inside. Well, far enough so it would rest on the ramp - Adora could do the rest once she climbed out of the tomb.
"Well, I can't fault the efficiency of using brute force." O'Neill thought he was funny.
Catra snorted. "It's not exactly brute force - Adora's not simply carrying the thing inside." That would have been Plan B.
"It's pure muscle power. Brute force," the man insisted.
"Whatever," Catra said, stretching. "It works."
"Can't argue with that," he agreed. "And it impressed the local yokels."
"Aren't you supposed to be diplomatic?" She raised her eyebrows at him.
"What? They can't hear me - they're both still in the tomb, arguing with Daniel about the sarcophagus." O'Neill chuckled. "They don't know how stubborn Daniel can be, for all his niceness. Although if you could have claimed that there was some Naquadah in the sarcophagus, we wouldn't have to argue about taking the thing with us," he added with a nod at Entrapta.
"I won't lie about data!" Entrapta retorted with a frown. "How can we expect people to trust us if we lie to them?"
Well, as long as they didn't realise that they were lied to, their trust wasn't affected. But any lie tended to be revealed sooner or later.
"It would have been a white lie," O'Neill insisted. "And we don't know if the sarcophagus doesn't contain something dangerous, so it wouldn't have been a real lie."
"But we didn't detect anything dangerous!" she protested.
"Your scanner couldn't identify the contents of this little surprise, could they?"
"I said so."
"Let it go," Catra told him, baring her teeth at him for a moment. Entrapta wasn't one of his subordinates. And she didn't deserve to be berated for being herself, instead of some… someone like that traitor Double-Trouble.
He met her eyes for a moment, then sighed. "Sorry. I'm just sick of all the talking when the end result is clear."
She snorted again - she could understand the feeling.
"I thought the real problem started when you stop talking," Entrapta commented.
Catra grimaced. That was… not wrong.
"Not always," O'Neill said. "Sometimes, too much talking and not enough doing is the problem."
"Sounds like that's mostly an Earth problem," Catra couldn't resist saying.
He frowned at her. "I'm sure you had your pointless meetings as well."
"Not too many when I was in charge of running things," she retorted.
"Well, we did have a lot of talks in the Alliance," Entrapta said. "But I wouldn't call them pointless."
"What are you doing?"
Catra turned. Adora was standing on the ramp, looking at them with narrowed eyes. She was a little dusty. Or was that sandy?
"We're discussing whether too much talking or too little taking is the bigger problem," Entrapta told her with a smile. "What do you think?"
"I think not enough thinking is the problem," Adora shot back. "Now help me pull the ship fully into Darla."
Well, if she asked like that… Catra grinned and went forward to help her lover.
It took them five minutes and two almost broken ropes, but they managed to help Adora move the Death Glider into the hold of the ship and secure it there with the magnetic clamps. Adora sighed. "Finally!" She wiped the back of her hand over her forehead as if she had sweated.
"And now we can go and pick up the sarcophagus. And by 'we', I mean 'you'," Catra told her.
Adora groaned again. "Why is it that I'm always doing the heavy lifting?"
"Because you're the logical choice for that," Entrapta told her with a smile. "None of us can lift as much as you can."
"I know that," Adora said.
"Oh. Why did you ask then?"
"It was a rhetorical question," Adora told her. "Let's go and grab the coffin."
Catra followed her down the ramp into the tomb. Her ears twitched as she heard Daniel's voice before she saw him: "...and I assure you, you will get the sarcophagus back should we determine that it's not of alien origin."
"That is not good enough. This belongs to Egypt - it's our history!" Salah argued.
"Not if it's of alien origin."
They entered the grave chamber. "He's still arguing," O'Neill muttered, and Catra couldn't tell if he meant Daniel or Salah.
Not that it mattered. Adora harrumphed and picked up the sarcophagus without a word, then turned and carried it out.
Catra flashed her fangs at the Egyptian. "Thank you for your cooperation!" she quoted one of the movies she had watched.
Above the East Mediterranean Sea, August 19th, 1998 (Earth Time)
...dozens, maybe hundreds, dead or wounded in the so-called 'crater riot' - it's hard to tell, with thousands being injured or killed in the blast that almost destroyed Cairo. The Egyptian authorities didn't answer questions at the press conference and merely released a statement that the threat to the country had been handled.
Jack O'Neill didn't wince when he watched the news on the bridge of Darla. He had expected that once he had seen the size of the riot - and that the people were attacking a line of soldiers, not cops prepared for riot control.
But the Etherians hadn't expected that. Well, they had seen the start, before the trapped tomb kind of took priority, but they seemed still shocked. Those on the bridge, at least - Entrapta and Bow were with Carter in the hold, analysing the Death Glider. And, hopefully, keeping Entrapta from tinkering with the Naquadah container before they were in a secure lab in orbit.
"This is…" Glimmer shook her head. "Why did they keep attacking? Why didn't they break after the warning shots?"
"Or after the first volleys from the soldiers?" Catra asked.
"They showed a much stronger morale than expected," Hordak commented. "I will have to revise my estimate of the quality of troops from Earth."
Well, some probably were just surprised. Just as Jack was surprised that Hordak wasn't with Entrapta in the hold.
"Hordak!" Glimmer snapped. "Those weren't soldiers - those were civilians!"
"Exactly." The alien nodded. "That means a trained soldier should be even fiercer." He cocked his head to the side. "Perhaps the sheer number of people on the planet shaped a culture that considered lives expendable in war?"
Jack clenched his teeth. This was…
"Well, in the past, similar sentiments were quite common in certain cultures, but as history proved, societies where soldiers were considered expendable tended to be less stable than those who cared for all their members," Daniel said. "And these days, most countries try to avoid taking casualties."
"Human wave attacks went out of style fifty years ago," Jack quipped.
Hordak turned to face him. "That seems to contradict some of the movies we saw about the last protracted conflict your country was involved in."
Jack sighed. "Those are movies, fiction, not historical documents."
"Ah. Still, wouldn't the existence of such fiction indicate a lingering tendency for such tactics?"
Jack looked at Daniel. Cultural clashes were his friend's field. Jack was the expert for the other kind of clashes.
Daniel pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded. "It would generally indicate an attempt to portray the enemy as unsophisticated, uncaring and cruel towards their own people."
"Ah. Propaganda." Hordak nodded.
Daniel opened his mouth, blinked, then nodded as well. "Effectively, yes. It reinforces cultural stereotypes."
Jack snorted - softly; the pictures of the carnage in Egypt still played on the screen. "That's quite the condemnation of Hollywood."
"The movie industry as a whole does tend to cater to the target audience's cultural values," Daniel replied.
"You must be a very violent society, then," Glimmer commented. "Judging by your entertainment."
Jack bit down on a flippant remark about not doing blood sports any more since the Romans Empire fell. "We also have lots of wholesome family entertainment," he said instead. "And we have the Simpsons."
"Which often feature violence in an exaggerated form used for comedic effect," Daniel cut in. Jack glared at him, but his friend shrugged. "It's true."
"Well, we saw some of those shows as well," Glimmer said. "They seemed rather… formulaic was the word, I believe."
"Yes. And they were also very 'conservative'," Catra added. Though she used the word as if it were an insult. Well, if they had seen some of the favourite TV shows of the conservatives, it probably was an insult for her.
"Oh, yes. Such shows tend to be rather conservative," Daniel agreed. "There are exceptions, but most reinforce current values, often by portraying an idealised family. Some scientists suggested using the portrayal of alternative lifestyles in daytime TV as an indicator to gauge how progressive a society is. This kind of approach does seem to be…"
Jack sighed with relief when Daniel's explanation was interrupted by an incoming call from Stargate Command. It was Hammond. "Colonel O'Neill. Queen Glimmer. Princess Adora. Dr Jackson. We've received your preliminary report."
"We haven't had the time to work on a more comprehensive report," Daniel said as if Hammond would expect a dissertation in a day.
"I'm aware of that. Good work." Hammond nodded.
Jack shrugged, "We just went in and got the stuff."
Hammond snorted. "I'm aware of the situation on the ground. Egypt already filed a protest with the Security Council, demanding access to the 'cultural relics taken from Egypt'."
"Well, some of the best experts on ancient Egypt are Egyptian historians and archaeologists," Daniel said. "They could help with analysing the recent find. Just cross-checking assumptions would facilitate the translations."
"I'm sure that will be taken into account, Dr Jackson," Hammond replied. "Though recent events also have raised some security concerns."
Daniel blinked, so Jack added: "They need to be vetted."
"Oh."
"But I am not calling because of that," Hammond went on. "As of half an hour ago, Honduras formally requested assistance with recovering an alien artefact in their country."
Jack blinked, then pressed his lips together. "Why do I have a bad feeling about this, Sir?"
"Because we've been monitoring their communications, and they lost contact with the soldiers sent to 'secure' the artefacts. After incoherent screaming about the 'dead walking again' according to our interpreters."
Jack groaned. "Don't tell me we're dealing with zombies, Sir." Couldn't they catch a break for once?