Stargate SG-13

Episode 1: Fantasy

Chapter 1 (you know, the part that comes before the first commercial)

Disclaimer: I hereby disclaim all rights to Stargate. I do, however, own the idea of Omalya (at least on this world; I'm not sure how the Omalyans will react to my ownership of their planet. Maybe I'm a system lord).

"Colonel, we've got a request for you. From the Air Force."

"The Air Force?" I looked up. Why the Hell would the Air Force be sending a request to me? I was just a Colonel in the United States Army. I worked in Military Intelligence—cryptography, mostly, although I had gone on a few missions as an Intelligence Agent. I was afraid of heights, for crying out loud! "What's it about?"

The poor lieutenant was obviously just as bewildered as I was. "It's from the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, ma'am."

"The Cheyenne Mountain Complex?" I repeated, beginning to get a glimmer of what this was all about.

"Yes, ma'am. Aren't they studying deep-space radar?"

"Something like that," I agreed. As a matter of fact, I had no idea what their cover was, but I did know what they were really doing in the Complex, and it had nothing to do with deep-space radar. I had been there, ten years previously. I had seen it. The truth of the matter was that the Cheyenne Mountain Complex his the most highly classified government project on the face of the earth. And it was in the hands of the Air Force. 'Cause they teach 'em how to fly, then they crash an' burn an' die. I was, quite possibly, the only person in the entire Army who knew what was concealed beneath that mountain. "What do they want?"

"They need you to go there, ma'am. Apparently it's confidential. They said to give you the code-word 'Omalya.'"

"Omalya?" I demanded, as the memories flooded back. Omalya was something I'd been trying to forget. It was a world, my world, the world I'd made up while I was in high school. But because of a certain incident ten years ago, I'd stopped writing about it altogether. That should give you an idea of how serious it was. Writing was my life—still is my life, in fact. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. It'll never get published, at least not in the foreseeable future. So mostly, I'm writing it for myself. But I digress.

The reason I had put Omalya behind me is a hard one to believe, and I often found myself wondering whether it had all been just a dream—the phone call, Colonel O'Neill coming to my house, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the Stargate, Omalya—everything. The very idea of what had happened was so unnatural I'm somewhat surprised I didn't go insane—but then, at sixteen I was half-convinced that my world was real, and that by singing the Song of Chaos I could open the Chaos Tunnel and go there. So I didn't go mad when it turned out it was real.

That was the big shock. The Stargate, that gigantic secret that the government thought would cause panic if it got out, wasn't that big a deal to me. I was comfortable with the idea of wormholes, and aliens were a fact of life. I lived what I read, and what I read was mostly fantasy and science fiction. What I wasn't comfortable with was the fact that Omalya, the world I had created, was real. That was what I'd been trying to forget. But apparently the Air Force wasn't going to let that happen. They wanted me back.

"Yes, ma'am," he confirmed. "Omalya. Do you know it?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. It's a world I made up. I have no earthly idea why the Air Force would use it as a code word." As you probably know, that was a cover. A good cover, because it was true. I had made up the world of Omalya, and it and the Stargate were not of Earth. "Was there anything else?"

"Someone named Dr. Jackson wanted to talk to you, ma'am."

"Daniel!" I exclaimed, genuinely pleased. Daniel Jackson was a cute Egyptologist with whom I had worked during my trip to Omalya. "Well, I suppose I had better be going. I mustn't keep Danny-boy waiting."

The lieutenant looked at me crazy. It was that old are-you-quite-sane look I got all the time in high school. By this time I was used to it. He must be new, I decided. Those who had known me for a while were used to my personal eccentricities.

So Daniel's involved in this, I mused as I left the room. I wonder if Colonel O'Neill is involved as well? Despite the fact that he was in the Air Force (as opposed to the Army), I genuinely liked Colonel O'Neill. He was a pretty funny guy, and I liked people who could make me laugh. I especially liked his description of the Stargate as "an intergalactic toilet that flushes sideways."

I saluted my superior officer. "Permission to withdraw, sir." Naturally, my superior officer was a guy. There really weren't enough women in the Army. Or in the Air Force, for that matter. Captain Carter was in the definite minority.

Ah, yes, Captain Samantha Carter. She was the expert on all things technological in SG-1. There hadn't been much use for her on Omalya, although she had definitely been fascinated by all the magic.

"Permission granted. The President himself has given orders that you are to be taken to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex as soon as we can arrange a flight."

"That bad, huh? Bet the Air Force has gotten themselves in trouble and they need the Army to bail them out." In truth, I had the utmost confidence in the Air Force as the world's first line of defense against Goa'uld attack, but it was a running joke in the Army that the other service branches were incapable of doing their jobs.

General Meyers smiled. "Dismissed. We'll miss you, girl. Be safe."

I relaxed a bit, finishing the salute. "Eh, how can I go wrong? What's the danger in deep-space radar, right?"

"Just don't get into any fights with the people in the Air Force, you hear?"

"Me? Get into fights? Would I ever do that?" I asked, faking innocence.

"Get out of here before I decide to order you to stay."

I laughed and left.

I occupied myself on the flight over by thinking of why SGC might have need of me. Since it was Dr. Jackson in particular who wanted to talk to me, it had to be something to do with translation. Perhaps he had come across one of the other languages. If that was the case, I'd probably have to make a quick trip to my house in North Carolina, where I kept all the stuff I didn't need in the military. It was quite a nice house, actually. By the beach, no less. And hurricane-proof. Definitely hurricane-proof. I had survived the legendary year of 2004, when Florida got hit by three hurricanes in the space of a month. Actually, that had been my last year in Florida, my Senior year in high school. So I moved to North Carolina and built myself a hurricane-proof house. I knew it was hurricane-proof, because it had been hit by a hurricane once, and it had survived completely intact. My yard, however, had been a mess. After that I had seriously considered moving to Nebraska. But then I'd have to deal with tornados, and those things are worse than hurricanes. And it would probably snow during the spring. Now, snow is nice in the winter, and I know vacationers from Florida love it when it snows during Spring Break (I was one as a child), but when I've just survived three months of snow, I'm ready for a break. So North Carolina is a really nice place for me to live. Except that I don't exactly live there. But I will. Eventually.

Now, if anyone ever reads this, I'm sure they'll wonder how the Hell I ever managed to afford a nice house on the beach. I mean, being an officer in the Army is a nice job and all, but it doesn't pay all that well. The thing is, though, I have this other job. I'm a writer. In fact, I'm more than that. I'm a best-selling author. I've been a great writer since I was a teenager. One of my poems was published in an anthology when I was fifteen.

"Hi," said the little boy sitting next to me. "My name's Jason. What's yours?"

"Kali," I replied, my mind on other things.

"Cool!" he said. "That's the name of my favorite author. Kali Rainwater."

I smiled slightly. That was my name. That was how I'd made enough money to buy myself a house: writing books (not that I actually suggest that as a paying job; trust me, I was more surprised than anyone else when my first book hit the best-seller list). I'd written several, all but one set on Earth; after the incident with Omalya, I had never quite gotten up the courage to make up another world. "Do you have any of the books with you?" I asked. I was careful to word it so that it didn't tell him that they were my books, and yet I wasn't exactly implying they weren't, either.

"Are you kidding? I've got the very first book she published!' He dug through his carry-on bag for a while. When he came up, he was triumphantly clutching a copy of The Legacy of War, the only book I had published that was about Omalya. I'd finished it in the few years after my visit to the planet, during the time when it was still easy to believe and the thought of it didn't freak me out. "Here it is. She got it published when she was nineteen. I don't know how she managed it. She was going to West Point at the time!"

"Mostly I did without sleep," I told him with a smile. I watched to see what his reaction would be.

He began to nod, then did a double-take. "No way! You're Kali Rainwater? That is so awesome! Say, can I get your autograph?"

I shrugged. "Sure." He gave me the book. I took a pen out of my pocket—there were about fifty in there, in case I ever needed one, say if I had some inspiration for a new book while I was way out in the middle of nowhere with the nearest store being fifty miles away. I signed the name "Lightning RainH2O." It was the name I used for autographs so that people couldn't use an autograph to forge my signature. A bit paranoid, yes, but paranoia is a survival skill in the military.

"Are you really in the Army? What do you do?" he asked breathlessly.

"I'm in Military Intelligence. Cryptology. It's quite fascinating, really. I'd write a book on it, but I'd have to shoot anyone who actually read it."

He laughed. "Classified?"

"Yep."

"My dad's work is like that, too. He works at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. I'm flying in to visit him."

"Civilian or Air Force?" I asked, more to keep the conversation going than anything else. I'm the type of person who really likes to talk. It's a wonder they trusted me with such a big secret as the Stargate—but then, they hadn't had much of a choice. In addition, there was the fact that even if I had let it slip, everyone would have thought that it was just another one of my stories. But it never came to that; I do know how to keep a secret.

"Civilian," Jason replied. "He's a scientist."

"What's his name?" Maybe I would come across him while I was there.

"David Miller."

Jason fell silent. I went back to my own thoughts, wondering why the Hell the Air Force had sent for me. It had to have something to do with Omalya; otherwise they would have used SGC as a code-word, or perhaps SG-1.

I wondered briefly how Blake would react if he found out the Air Force had specifically requested me for this project. Blake was my brother, a bratty little kid who had gone into the Air Force to probe that he was at least as good as I was. I was somewhat surprised he hadn't gone to the Naval Academy; after all, the rivalry between Army and Navy was notorious, even infamous. But he had gone into the Air Force, and had bragged to me quite often about how he was part of a top-secret government project. He claimed it had something to do with radar. Somehow I doubted that. It didn't seem to match up with his double-major of astrophysics and quantum mechanics.

My thoughts wandered off on their own, as they were wont to do. For the first time in several years I thought about Omalya. It really wasn't such a bad place. It was just impossible. "Nothing is impossible, except bringing the dead back to life—and even that has been done." My Senior quote. For where I saw myself in ten years, I'd put: "In Hawaii, with my rocket scientist husband, doing research for my next book." That had been before the whole adventure in Omalya. It hadn't even crossed my mind that I might be involved in a top-secret government project to explore other worlds. Such as Omalya.

Omalya began as just Zeflan, a magical island inspired by Xanth. Zeflan is perfectly round. That idea probably came from Mercedes Lackey's Lake Evendim. I rather liked Lake Evendim; the fishers there are all descended from pirates, and although I didn't like pirates when I created Zeflan, I did become obsessed with them later on. At one time pirate ships were some of the most democratic places on Earth.

I chased that line of thought back to its beginning. Pirates—Lake Evendim—Zeflan—Omalya. I had become quite proficient at it, because my thoughts often went off on tangents of their own, while I was trying to think of something else entirely.

So. Omalya. It really took off when I came up with Khéós. As I recall, Khéós, which means "Chaos," began as the idea of the Chaos Tunnel, a passage that could be opened between any two points. It was rather like a wormhole. I came up with it sometime around February of 2002, if I recall correctly. Or maybe it was before then; I'm really not sure. It somehow developed into the idea of a land called Chaos, which had no Sun, but instead revolved around a glowing Moon. After a while I decided it would be easier to write about if it had a Sun like a normal planet, but I still liked my original idea. So I had the Moon destroyed, and my character Mera, who was Queen of Chaos, created a Sun. There was still another, smaller Moon, so it was a more normal planet, much easier to write about. However, there was still the option of writing about a time before the Sun, or aprí Méré in Khéósin.

A bit later, I got bored of only having one kingdom, so I decided to split it up into smaller kingdoms, each of which used to be a duchy. Most of the stories I wrote were about the time after Korinth, last King of Chaos, but The Legacy of War, the only one I published, began on the day of Korinth's birth. The end of it was at the very beginning of Korinth's reign. However, the story itself had very little to do with Korinth; the timing was mostly coincidental.

"What are you thinking about?" Jason asked me.

"Omalya," I replied.

"Could you tell me more about it? I've always been curious about it. Why'd you stop writing about it?"

I shrugged. "Some of the stuff I was writing bordered on classified information. The government didn't like it." I presented the lie as plain fact. I had had some experience at that over the years I had spent in the military. Not that I lied to my superior officers; but there was classified information that had to be protected by believable lies. Like the Stargate.

"So where are you going?"

I considered saying "Omalya." It was what I would have said if I had been going anywhere else. But since it was dangerously close to the truth, I didn't. "I'm going to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex."

"Awesome!" After that exclamation, he thought about it for a bit. "Say, aren't you in the Army?"

"Aye." My habit of slipping into my "pirate" dialect whenever something got on my nerves (like someone asking a question I'd already answered) had gotten me into trouble in the Army, but I never learned. It was part of my personality to be annoying; I knew that and accepted it.

"So why are you going to the CMC? Isn't that an Air Force base?"

"O' course it is, mate. But them Air Force fellers are so incompetent they need the Army to help 'em out, savvy?"

A slight wince passed over his face. I had just mixed a Southern accent with pirate brogue, and when I mixed accents, the result was never pretty. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means 'do you understand?'"

"In that case, I don't savvy."

"It has to do with the competition between different branches of the military. It's mostly a joke. The Air Force is actually extremely competent at what they do."

"Oh."

"Kyux?" I asked, the old habit brought back to life by my recent thoughts of Omalya. Back in the days before I knew about the Stargate, and during the years immediately after, I would say "kyux" instead of "okay."

"Kyux," he affirmed with a grin. He knew the word because it appeared in The Legacy of War as the Khéósin word for "okay."

I glanced out the window. "Looks like we're about to land."

The captain's voice came over the intercom, telling us that we would be landing shortly. Several minutes later, we came down on the runway with the slightest of bumps. As I disembarked from the plane, I saw Daniel Jackson. He was looking at each of the passengers, trying to spot me. His eyes passed right over me. I feel so loved. "Danny-boy!" I called. "Over here!"

"Oh!" he exclaimed, his surprise evident. "You've villed out."

"Just a bit," I agreed. At sixteen, I had been a stick of a girl, tall and thin and stronger than I had any right to be. But four years of intense physical training had given me muscles I hadn't had before, and I wasn't quite as flatchested as I used to be. I could still pass for a boy, but not as easily as before.

"Jack wasn't too happy about calling you back," Daniel told me as we walked side by side toward the baggage claim.

"I'm sure he'll tell me he was opposed—just for the record." I smiled, thinking about Jack, I definitely didn't have a thing for him, not like I had a thing for Danny-boy, even though I knew that was hopeless. Daniel Jackson already had a wife, Sha'uri, who had been taken by the Goa'uld. He was searching all over the galaxy for her. As for Jack, he made me laugh, and I really liked to laugh. Going into Military Intelligence hadn't changed that aspect of my personality. I was somewhat disappointed that he didn't seem to like me in return.

"He kept muttering about airborne rangers."

Ah. That would explain it. At sixteen, my rather abrasive personality had led me to sing a cadence I had learned during the week I spent at West Point for the Invitational Academic Workshop. Oh, there are no airborne rangers in the Air Force. In the Air Force! Oh, there are no airborne rangers in the Air Force. In the Air Force! 'Cause they teach 'em how to fly, then they crash an' burn an' die, oh, there are no airborne rangers in the Air Force. In the Air Force! For some reason the dear colonel had found the song offensive. Apparently he had remembered it, while Danny-boy had not.

Once inside the secure premises of SGC, Daniel began to brief me on the situation. "We received a message from Omalya. It's written in an alphabet no one recognizes. We thought you might."

"I'll have to see it before I can say for sure," I told him, "but I suspect it's written in Khéósin letters. I may be able to translate them, but I'll probably need your help. Something is wrong over on Omalya, or the message would have been in the Roman alphabet. Mera and her friends know it, even if no one else does. To keep the message from being deciphered, it's probably in Khéósin as well. By the way, where is it?"

"Actually, I have it right here." He took a piece of parchment out of his pocket and handed it to me.

As I looked at it, the memories came flooding back. Laying sprawled across the floor of my room, a book open before me, coming up with the language. "Get me a copy of The Return of the King," I ordered in a peremptory voice. Tolkien's alphabet had been the basis for my own.

Daniel left, and Jack entered. "So, do you know what it says?" Jack asked. He must have missed the whole Return of the King bit.

"Well," I said, taking a look at the parchment, "it starts with a 'K.'"

"That's helpful."

"I'm pretty sure the next letter is a vowel."

"Very helpful."

"Would you care to translate it, Colonel?"

"It's General."

"Excuse me, sire. Would you care to translate it, General?"

"No."

I got back to work. A few minutes later, Daniel reappeared, carrying a copy of The Return of the King. "Here's the book you asked for."

"Thanks," I said absently. I put the book on the table and promptly forgot all about it.

"What have you got so far?"

I showed him what I had written. "K-0-2-3! 4-5-0-í-6-í-5 7-l-8-5-9-10-í-5 k-7-l-11-5 12-13 k-0-l-2 14-11-15-2-16. 4-l-13-10-13-5 17-13-10-11-4-l 18-13 19-11-k-4-l 5-8-19-2-16. K-2-20-13-17-21-10 4-l-13-10-2-17 11-5-13 22-2-11-21-l-3-í-17. 4-l-13-10-13-5 11-5-18-11-17-23-2-10-8-17 k-2-17-á-16."

"Ah, that says 'Goa'uld,'" Daniel said, pointing at the last word in the fourth sentence. "I've seen it before."

I filled that in, spelling it in the Khéósin manner (meaning phonetically), then went back and filled in the letters that matched up to those symbols. I now had: "K-0-ó-d! 4-5-0-í-6-í-5 7-l-8-5-9-10-í-5 k-7-1-a-5 d-13 k-0-l- 14-a-15-ó-16. 4-l-13-10-13-5 17-13-10-a-4-l 18-13 19-a-k-4-l 5-8-19-ó-16. K-ó-20-13-17-ú-10 4-l-13-10-ó-17 a-5-13 G-ó-a-ú-l-d-í-17. 4-l-13-10-13-5 a-5-18-a-17-23-ó-10-8-17 k-ó-17-á-16."

"I think that first word is 'kai'ód,'" Daniel said. "It means 'help!'"

That definitely made sense. The message was a plea for help. I wrote it down.

"That word means 'sky,'" he said, pointing at the newly completed "kailó." "So the word before it is probably 'dé,' which means 'down from.'"

"Like in Latin," I said. Of course part of the language was like Latin—or at least, it seemed like 'of course' at the time I thought it. I had created the language, hadn't I? And when I created it, I was taking Latin, so that would influence my creativity. It's kinda strange, how he's translating for me the language that I made up. For some reason that thought struck me as funny. I laughed. Daniel gave me an odd look. "Oh, it just struck me how absurd it is for you to be tutoring me in a language I made up."

I went back to the translation. "These words have the same ending, so the word between them is probably 'té.' That much I remember. It means 'and.'" A conspiratorial grin came across my face. "It's 'et' backwards." I permitted myself a small look at his reaction—an amused grin—before returning to my work. We now had: "K-ai-ó-d! 4-5-ai-í-6-í-5 7-l-8-5-9-10-í-5 k-7-l-a-5 d- k-ai-l- 14-a-15-ó-16. 4-l-é-10-é-5 17-é-10-a-4-l t- 19-a-k-4-l 5-8-19-ó-16. K-ó-20-é-17-ú-10 4-l-é-10-ó-17 a-5- G-ó-a-ú-l-d-í-17. 4-l-é-10-é-5 a-5-t-a-17-23-ó-10-8-17 k-ó-17-á-16."

"Assuming the first word in the sentence is in the nominative case—a reasonable assumption, based on Khéósin sentence structure—it would have to be plural. That would make the last letter 's.'"

"Right," I said. As I filled in the s's, an idea came to me. It was similar to what I had often felt years ago when I got inspiration for a new Omalya story. "These two words," I said, pointing at the words surrounding the "té." "I think they're names. Mera and Zak. They've been captured by the Goa'uld."

"Are you sure? Aren't they supposed to be a god and a goddess?"

"No, I'm not sure, and yes, they are a god and a goddess, but they have no power where there's no magic. Perhaps the magic stops outside Omalya's solar system. In that case, if the Goa'uld took them while they were unconscious, and then flew in their spaceship until they were outside the system, Mera and Zak would be powerless. So let's assume that's what it says, and see if we get anywhere."

When I finished filling in the new letters, I studied the paper. "K-ai-ó-d! 4-s-ai-í-6-í-s 7-l-8-s-9-r-í-s k-7-l-a-s d- k-ai-l- 14-a-15-ó-16. 4-l-é-r-é-s M-é-r-a-4-l t- Z-a-k-4-l s-8-z-ó-16. K-ó-20-é-m-ú-r 4-l-é-r-ó-m a-s- G-ó-a-ú-l-d-í-m. 4-l-é-r-é-s a-s-t-a-m-23-ó-r-8-m k-ó-m-á-16." "What do you think, Danny-boy?"

"That word could be 'sezónt.' It means 'they captured.' The 'they is also specified earlier. Here—this must be 'ilérés.' This here would be 'astam'pórem.' It means—"

"Stargate," I whispered, staring at the slip of paper. "'Help! The Goa'uld control the Stargate. They captured Mera and Zak.'"

"Yes, I believe that is the gist of it," Daniel agreed. "I can't quite get the second sentence, though. The third word seems to say 'boxes,' but that can't be right."

"What do you think it says?" I asked. "In Khéósin," I clarified before he had a chance to speak.

"Isai'íngís aulesorís kaulas dé kailó wanónt."

I wrote that down. "What's it mean?"

"'Flying metal boxes came down from the sky.'"

"Ships," I said. "Ships came down from the sky. The flying metal boxes were spaceships!"

"'They captured Mera and Zak. We think that they are Goa'uld. They control the Stargate.'" He looked up. His eyes met mine. "This is bad."

A/N (10/9/04): Okey dokey, folks. There's the first chapter. Nice and long, eh? Eight pages in Word. Hope you liked it.