Disclaimer still stands.
**************************************************************************** ********************************************
"Wow, this is welcoming," observed Colonel O'Neill, as the four of them were met by a thick blanket of fog, "let's keep together people, no wandering off," he added, looking directly at Daniel.
"I've never seen fog like this sir," added Carter excitedly, "visibility must be down to five or six feet."
"Yep," replied Jack tripping over an unseen tree root, "Daniel any ideas?"
Daniel began to form an answer when Teal'c interrupted him, "O'Neill over here"
Jack looked around and as big as the Jaffa was he could not see him, "now, what is it about, 'do not wander off', you people did not understand?"
"Over to your left, O'Neill, I have found a doorway."
They gathered around an entrance which was in the form of stone steps leading deep underground, "great," Jack exclaimed, "why's it always underground? Why can't there ever be a nice open plan structure?"
"I believe that the weather on this planet would make that impossible," Teal'c answered.
"Okay then, smart guy, you get to go first."
Teal'c nodded and lead them cautiously down the many steps to a dimly-lit complex of stone rooms.
Staff weapon burns decorated the rock of the crudely cut walls, which dripped with slime and overgrown mould. The air was thick with age and dust making Major Carter cough, the sound of which echoed off the walls until it became trapped in the rock.
They passed a room, which could only be described as a dormitory. Rows of small uncomfortable beds, derelict and abandoned now, with unformed numbers chiselled above them. The room was stark and uninviting with a cold, hard, clinical air about it. Something caught Daniel's attention by bed number 'six' so he walked over to investigate. There, roughly cut into the stone, was a childlike drawing of the night sky. "Daniel?" Jack enquired.
"Look how small these beds are," he said motioning with his hands, "these weren't made for adults."
"Children?" Said Jack, the word feeling like a shard of glass in his throat.
Daniel looked around at the bleak greyness of these 'quarters' and something in his stomach knotted, "Yeah, children."
"Sir, Daniel" called Sam who was stood with Teal'c in what looked like a neglected infirmary.
Fragments of glass carpeted the floor like a green, tinted, mosaic while all around destroyed technology lay frayed and scorched in a frenzy of abuse.
Sam examined a six-foot glass tank that had melted rather that shattered, "Fish tank?" O'Neill asked.
"No sir, I think it's more for human development," she nodded toward a DNA sequence painted above the door.
"Cloning?" Raised Dr Jackson walking to where Sam was stood, eyes fixed on the glass box.
"Yes, and by the looks of it there was more than one tank," she said as she kicked at the glass littering the floor.
"O'Neill, Major Carter," came Teal'c's strong voice, "we are not alone."
They went out to where the Jaffa was poised, his staff weapon pointing towards the diminishing light of the corridor.
"Is it he?" Whispered a voice creeping off the walls.
"Has he come?" Another enquired, the sound flying around them like a soft breeze.
"Teal'c?" Asked Jack
"I can see nothing O'Neill."
"Ninety-five, we've been waiting," reverberated around SG1, aggressively.
"Is it he?"
Suddenly a blinding light raced down the corridor like a fireball. Jack found himself thrown off his feet, the wind punched from his body and then darkness.
"Damn," exclaimed Colonel O'Neill as he came round, shaking his head to lessen the ringing in his ears, "what the hell?"
"Are you alright," enquired Teal'c as his strong hand helped Jack to his feet.
Jack blinked for a moment so he could get a bearing as to where they were. It was not good. The four of them were in a rusty old cage, with no weapons. Daniel was resting against the metal and held his hand up to Jack to acknowledge he was all right and Carter was sat in the corner holding her head.
"Major?"
"I'm fine sir, just a headache."
Jack looked at surrounding room, which was completely different to the rest of the complex. The walls were manmade, smooth and white. The room was large and in front of them was what seemed to be a bejewelled and decadent throne.
"Fit for a system lord," Daniel remarked, seeing what Jack was looking at.
"Any in particular?" He replied.
Daniel shrugged.
The door slid open and from the gloom a small man, about five feet in height, entered laughing. He sat crossed legged on the floor facing them saying, "must not touch, must not touch."
"Hi," said Daniel smiling at the man who was, now, staring at the floor, rocking.
He tried again, "Hi my name's Daniel."
The man repeated his words, "Hi, my name's Daniel, my name's Daniel," he then stood up and slowly paced closer to the cage. Jack noticed the guy's boots were on the wrong feet.
He looked at them, through gold coloured eyes, and singling out Teal'c, smiled a toothless grin. "I'm Jaffa, I'm Jaffa," he sang, patting his chest and dancing around.
"Aren't you a little short for that?" said O'Neill.
The man stopped, grasped his matted dark hair and pulled it violently, "am too, Jaffa, made from Jaffa. Am strong."
He violently jump toward them, watching Colonel O'Neill through the mesh of metal, narrowing his eyes in the process and turning his head to one side, "say, Jaffa, say Nineteen is Jaffa."
"Sir!" Major Carter said noticing smoke rising from the Colonel's jacket.
"O'Neill," cried Teal'c and grabbed at the jacket, ripping it from Jack's body and throwing it to the floor, just as it burst in to flame.
"Hell," yelled Jack and began to stamp on the embers that were once his clothing.
"I think you'd better let me handle the communication from this point," said Daniel with a slight sigh.
"All yours Danny boy, be my guest."
Daniel continued, "Nineteen is that your name?"
The grubby looking individual looked at Daniel suspiciously and then clapped, "you big brain man, not like he," pointing at O'Neill, "tiny mind, not thinker, good for carrying weapon and going boom!"
"Nice."
"Jack," Daniel gave him a look.
"Okay, okay, 'Dr Jackson', you seemed to have a rapport going with our good buddy here perhaps you could ask him what he wants."
Nineteen walked closer to the cage, this time looking at Sam, "girl," he stated.
"Yes, her name's Sam," Daniel replied.
The small man gave Sam a bright smile full of gums, "like Oma, the light lady"
"Wait, you know Oma Desala?" Asked Daniel grabbing at the steel web.
"Beautiful light, like the moon and stars in my head," he then spoke to Sam, "you must be the light from the sun, bright and clear?"
The doors slid opened again and in walked two more men dressed in the same ill fitting grey tunic as Nineteen. The small man moved away, crossing his arms to his chest saying "did not touch, did not touch."
One of the two was built like a Jaffa, tall and lean, but he had no symbol on his forehead. His one eye was closed up, the other was a blue-white mass and his hair was an erratic white.
The second was bald and delicate, his eyes a vibrant pale blue. Sam looked at them thoroughly, noticing how pale they all were, their skin powdery and translucent, like living ghosts who'd never seen daylight.
The one with the blue eyes spoke, "I am Six, this is Forty-four, you've already meet Nineteen."
Daniel nodded and introduced everyone in the cage.
Six moved closer and studied Teal'c. "You are Jaffa. Nineteen and Forty- four are Jaffa also."
"You were cloned from Jaffa?" Delved Major Carter.
"The Father-creator made us from his strongest. I am fashioned from first prime; some, like these, from his great armies and others from those he took from the stars. He gave us life, brought us into the universe and kept us from harm."
He walked toward Major Carter and looked at her intensely, "you," he said with a gentle understanding, "you have walked through the effervescent colours too. The Father-creator gave us the colours to adapted us, to make our minds and bodies sturdy, to make us powerful so we could defeat his enemies."
"What happen?" She asked drawn to those pulsating eyes.
"We, like you, could not walk in their beauty for long. We failed him. Most of us were weak in spirit and mutated. Those who were not strong were taken in the night to their journey's end. Even the five he created from his own body, four of them perished in the birthing tanks misshapen and useless. Only Ninety-five was whole and pure."
"He not one of them?" Asked Nineteen, "she said he'd come back, promised."
"No brother, he is not here but I feel him close. They have travelled far, through the gates of many worlds I will find him in them, do not fear, I can sense it", replied Six walking over to where Daniel was stood.
He held up his hand feeling Daniel's presence, "you walked once in the footsteps of the enlighten with the one called Oma. You chose to follow your heart, as it was written you might when you took that journey, I see it in your aura. You are stronger than you think Dr Jackson, more so than others who walk above you, there is honour in your choice, friendship is a strength worth fighting for."
Six began to cough, it rattled through his body like old bones. The one called Forty-four laid his hand on the frail being's chest, a blue light seared onto his torso, calming the convulsion.
He continued. "There were not many of us left at the end. The Father- creator's enemies were closing in on him. They were jealous and wanted what he had built."
"Nirrti?" Sam asked looking at Daniel.
"The Father-creator had many enemies," Six told her, "they were frightened of him, of his power. So he destroyed everything to stop them stealing his technology; his Jaffa used their weapons to cleanse this place and to take us to our journey's full circle."
"But you survived?" Questioned Daniel.
"Oma saved us, she took us into her light and shielded our bodies. There were six of us, originally, including Ninety-five."
"Why is this Ninety-five so special?" Jack asked
Six shook his head and shrugged, "I do not know. Oma took him away from us, wiping his memory and hid him amongst the stars. She told us to await his return."
Six began to cough again and fell to the floor. "We do not last long here before our journey's end," he said smiling at SG1 just as a small amount of blood seeped from his nose.
Daniel couldn't stop it, neither could the rest of them, the name just harried from the back of their collective minds and slapped itself on their foreheads. It was the blood that was the trip switch, it was the similarity of the nosebleed that finally did it and their hearts knew who Ninety-five was. Jonas.
Six got up relief relaxing his face, "thank you," he said and went to get SG1's communication device.
When they were alone again O'Neill said, "so Carter, cloning, that means an exact replica of the 'thing' you've cloned."
"Yes sir."
"Now, I might be wrong here but I've never seen any mini Jaffa before."
"Sir, Nineteen was duplicated from a normal Jaffa but he was genetically altered, re-sequenced, to give him additional abilities, which I suspect impacted on his development. He was probably exposed to the same machine that Nirrti used on myself and Jonas."
"So somewhere there's a full blown version of our small friend?"
"Yes, sir."
"Okay," the Colonel continued, "so, by that rational, out there, there's a system lord that looks a lot like Jonas?"
"Yes sir."
"So how come we've never met him?"
"It maybe, O'Neill," Teal'c answered, "that he is not a system lord but one who wished to gain power by building an army such as these. He may have been slain just after this building was destroyed."
"But you've never met him?" The Colonel asked.
"I have not. He may not of been worth Aphosis's attention."
"Daniel?" Jack noted how quiet the younger man had been, his mind fixed in concentration.
"Teal'c probably right Jack, our guy's faded into obscurity or dead," he replied but he felt something was gnawing deep in his soul, a murmur clearing its voice.
**************************************************************************** ********************************************
"Wow, this is welcoming," observed Colonel O'Neill, as the four of them were met by a thick blanket of fog, "let's keep together people, no wandering off," he added, looking directly at Daniel.
"I've never seen fog like this sir," added Carter excitedly, "visibility must be down to five or six feet."
"Yep," replied Jack tripping over an unseen tree root, "Daniel any ideas?"
Daniel began to form an answer when Teal'c interrupted him, "O'Neill over here"
Jack looked around and as big as the Jaffa was he could not see him, "now, what is it about, 'do not wander off', you people did not understand?"
"Over to your left, O'Neill, I have found a doorway."
They gathered around an entrance which was in the form of stone steps leading deep underground, "great," Jack exclaimed, "why's it always underground? Why can't there ever be a nice open plan structure?"
"I believe that the weather on this planet would make that impossible," Teal'c answered.
"Okay then, smart guy, you get to go first."
Teal'c nodded and lead them cautiously down the many steps to a dimly-lit complex of stone rooms.
Staff weapon burns decorated the rock of the crudely cut walls, which dripped with slime and overgrown mould. The air was thick with age and dust making Major Carter cough, the sound of which echoed off the walls until it became trapped in the rock.
They passed a room, which could only be described as a dormitory. Rows of small uncomfortable beds, derelict and abandoned now, with unformed numbers chiselled above them. The room was stark and uninviting with a cold, hard, clinical air about it. Something caught Daniel's attention by bed number 'six' so he walked over to investigate. There, roughly cut into the stone, was a childlike drawing of the night sky. "Daniel?" Jack enquired.
"Look how small these beds are," he said motioning with his hands, "these weren't made for adults."
"Children?" Said Jack, the word feeling like a shard of glass in his throat.
Daniel looked around at the bleak greyness of these 'quarters' and something in his stomach knotted, "Yeah, children."
"Sir, Daniel" called Sam who was stood with Teal'c in what looked like a neglected infirmary.
Fragments of glass carpeted the floor like a green, tinted, mosaic while all around destroyed technology lay frayed and scorched in a frenzy of abuse.
Sam examined a six-foot glass tank that had melted rather that shattered, "Fish tank?" O'Neill asked.
"No sir, I think it's more for human development," she nodded toward a DNA sequence painted above the door.
"Cloning?" Raised Dr Jackson walking to where Sam was stood, eyes fixed on the glass box.
"Yes, and by the looks of it there was more than one tank," she said as she kicked at the glass littering the floor.
"O'Neill, Major Carter," came Teal'c's strong voice, "we are not alone."
They went out to where the Jaffa was poised, his staff weapon pointing towards the diminishing light of the corridor.
"Is it he?" Whispered a voice creeping off the walls.
"Has he come?" Another enquired, the sound flying around them like a soft breeze.
"Teal'c?" Asked Jack
"I can see nothing O'Neill."
"Ninety-five, we've been waiting," reverberated around SG1, aggressively.
"Is it he?"
Suddenly a blinding light raced down the corridor like a fireball. Jack found himself thrown off his feet, the wind punched from his body and then darkness.
"Damn," exclaimed Colonel O'Neill as he came round, shaking his head to lessen the ringing in his ears, "what the hell?"
"Are you alright," enquired Teal'c as his strong hand helped Jack to his feet.
Jack blinked for a moment so he could get a bearing as to where they were. It was not good. The four of them were in a rusty old cage, with no weapons. Daniel was resting against the metal and held his hand up to Jack to acknowledge he was all right and Carter was sat in the corner holding her head.
"Major?"
"I'm fine sir, just a headache."
Jack looked at surrounding room, which was completely different to the rest of the complex. The walls were manmade, smooth and white. The room was large and in front of them was what seemed to be a bejewelled and decadent throne.
"Fit for a system lord," Daniel remarked, seeing what Jack was looking at.
"Any in particular?" He replied.
Daniel shrugged.
The door slid open and from the gloom a small man, about five feet in height, entered laughing. He sat crossed legged on the floor facing them saying, "must not touch, must not touch."
"Hi," said Daniel smiling at the man who was, now, staring at the floor, rocking.
He tried again, "Hi my name's Daniel."
The man repeated his words, "Hi, my name's Daniel, my name's Daniel," he then stood up and slowly paced closer to the cage. Jack noticed the guy's boots were on the wrong feet.
He looked at them, through gold coloured eyes, and singling out Teal'c, smiled a toothless grin. "I'm Jaffa, I'm Jaffa," he sang, patting his chest and dancing around.
"Aren't you a little short for that?" said O'Neill.
The man stopped, grasped his matted dark hair and pulled it violently, "am too, Jaffa, made from Jaffa. Am strong."
He violently jump toward them, watching Colonel O'Neill through the mesh of metal, narrowing his eyes in the process and turning his head to one side, "say, Jaffa, say Nineteen is Jaffa."
"Sir!" Major Carter said noticing smoke rising from the Colonel's jacket.
"O'Neill," cried Teal'c and grabbed at the jacket, ripping it from Jack's body and throwing it to the floor, just as it burst in to flame.
"Hell," yelled Jack and began to stamp on the embers that were once his clothing.
"I think you'd better let me handle the communication from this point," said Daniel with a slight sigh.
"All yours Danny boy, be my guest."
Daniel continued, "Nineteen is that your name?"
The grubby looking individual looked at Daniel suspiciously and then clapped, "you big brain man, not like he," pointing at O'Neill, "tiny mind, not thinker, good for carrying weapon and going boom!"
"Nice."
"Jack," Daniel gave him a look.
"Okay, okay, 'Dr Jackson', you seemed to have a rapport going with our good buddy here perhaps you could ask him what he wants."
Nineteen walked closer to the cage, this time looking at Sam, "girl," he stated.
"Yes, her name's Sam," Daniel replied.
The small man gave Sam a bright smile full of gums, "like Oma, the light lady"
"Wait, you know Oma Desala?" Asked Daniel grabbing at the steel web.
"Beautiful light, like the moon and stars in my head," he then spoke to Sam, "you must be the light from the sun, bright and clear?"
The doors slid opened again and in walked two more men dressed in the same ill fitting grey tunic as Nineteen. The small man moved away, crossing his arms to his chest saying "did not touch, did not touch."
One of the two was built like a Jaffa, tall and lean, but he had no symbol on his forehead. His one eye was closed up, the other was a blue-white mass and his hair was an erratic white.
The second was bald and delicate, his eyes a vibrant pale blue. Sam looked at them thoroughly, noticing how pale they all were, their skin powdery and translucent, like living ghosts who'd never seen daylight.
The one with the blue eyes spoke, "I am Six, this is Forty-four, you've already meet Nineteen."
Daniel nodded and introduced everyone in the cage.
Six moved closer and studied Teal'c. "You are Jaffa. Nineteen and Forty- four are Jaffa also."
"You were cloned from Jaffa?" Delved Major Carter.
"The Father-creator made us from his strongest. I am fashioned from first prime; some, like these, from his great armies and others from those he took from the stars. He gave us life, brought us into the universe and kept us from harm."
He walked toward Major Carter and looked at her intensely, "you," he said with a gentle understanding, "you have walked through the effervescent colours too. The Father-creator gave us the colours to adapted us, to make our minds and bodies sturdy, to make us powerful so we could defeat his enemies."
"What happen?" She asked drawn to those pulsating eyes.
"We, like you, could not walk in their beauty for long. We failed him. Most of us were weak in spirit and mutated. Those who were not strong were taken in the night to their journey's end. Even the five he created from his own body, four of them perished in the birthing tanks misshapen and useless. Only Ninety-five was whole and pure."
"He not one of them?" Asked Nineteen, "she said he'd come back, promised."
"No brother, he is not here but I feel him close. They have travelled far, through the gates of many worlds I will find him in them, do not fear, I can sense it", replied Six walking over to where Daniel was stood.
He held up his hand feeling Daniel's presence, "you walked once in the footsteps of the enlighten with the one called Oma. You chose to follow your heart, as it was written you might when you took that journey, I see it in your aura. You are stronger than you think Dr Jackson, more so than others who walk above you, there is honour in your choice, friendship is a strength worth fighting for."
Six began to cough, it rattled through his body like old bones. The one called Forty-four laid his hand on the frail being's chest, a blue light seared onto his torso, calming the convulsion.
He continued. "There were not many of us left at the end. The Father- creator's enemies were closing in on him. They were jealous and wanted what he had built."
"Nirrti?" Sam asked looking at Daniel.
"The Father-creator had many enemies," Six told her, "they were frightened of him, of his power. So he destroyed everything to stop them stealing his technology; his Jaffa used their weapons to cleanse this place and to take us to our journey's full circle."
"But you survived?" Questioned Daniel.
"Oma saved us, she took us into her light and shielded our bodies. There were six of us, originally, including Ninety-five."
"Why is this Ninety-five so special?" Jack asked
Six shook his head and shrugged, "I do not know. Oma took him away from us, wiping his memory and hid him amongst the stars. She told us to await his return."
Six began to cough again and fell to the floor. "We do not last long here before our journey's end," he said smiling at SG1 just as a small amount of blood seeped from his nose.
Daniel couldn't stop it, neither could the rest of them, the name just harried from the back of their collective minds and slapped itself on their foreheads. It was the blood that was the trip switch, it was the similarity of the nosebleed that finally did it and their hearts knew who Ninety-five was. Jonas.
Six got up relief relaxing his face, "thank you," he said and went to get SG1's communication device.
When they were alone again O'Neill said, "so Carter, cloning, that means an exact replica of the 'thing' you've cloned."
"Yes sir."
"Now, I might be wrong here but I've never seen any mini Jaffa before."
"Sir, Nineteen was duplicated from a normal Jaffa but he was genetically altered, re-sequenced, to give him additional abilities, which I suspect impacted on his development. He was probably exposed to the same machine that Nirrti used on myself and Jonas."
"So somewhere there's a full blown version of our small friend?"
"Yes, sir."
"Okay," the Colonel continued, "so, by that rational, out there, there's a system lord that looks a lot like Jonas?"
"Yes sir."
"So how come we've never met him?"
"It maybe, O'Neill," Teal'c answered, "that he is not a system lord but one who wished to gain power by building an army such as these. He may have been slain just after this building was destroyed."
"But you've never met him?" The Colonel asked.
"I have not. He may not of been worth Aphosis's attention."
"Daniel?" Jack noted how quiet the younger man had been, his mind fixed in concentration.
"Teal'c probably right Jack, our guy's faded into obscurity or dead," he replied but he felt something was gnawing deep in his soul, a murmur clearing its voice.
