Stargate SG-13

Episode 1: Fantasy

Chapter 4

Okey dokey folks, here's Chapter 4. Hope y'all like it!

A/N (12/15/04): Wasn't a Jaffa for Halloween. Didn't get my costume made in time. Ended up being Colonel Rainwater, and my brother was Jack. My dad was General Hammond and he almost didn't open the iris for us.

As soon as Nai'óbí left, Jack pulled me aside. "She's that Chaos persona, isn't she?"

I sighed. "Yes, sir, she is. Her real name is Nai'óbí. No one's supposed to know she's really Chaos. She pretends to work for Chaos, but now Chaos works for Jacob. It's all very complicated. She doesn't trust me, but I know who she really is, and I'm holding that over her head. She really doesn't want her people to know that their queen is actually the assassin sent to kill their king—before he was their king, of course."

"Stop, please," Jack said. "You're giving me a headache."

"Good. That was the point."

Jack groaned. "You'd remind me of Carter, except she's not this annoying."

I grinned in response. "I think I'll take that as a complement, sir."

"You do that."

"Oh, by the way, sir, you need to watch out for Tobeson and Dr. Weis. Jim says one of them is a traitor."

"You trust him?" Jack asked incredulously.

"With my life. You forget, I've read his thoughts for the past several thousand years."

"How would he know?"

"He knows things. It's a talent he has."

We rejoined the others, myself feeling very much relieved, Jack looking rather thoughtful and disturbed by what I'd told him. Well, that went exactly as planned. Jack was pretty unpredictable, so I hadn't been entirely sure how he'd react, but I'd hoped that my confusing explanation would send his mind spinning in circles. If I didn't already have it all straight, half the things I talked about would send my mind spinning in circles. I'd perfected my techniques in high school, describing my stories to the school nurse. The ones that involved myself as a main character were especially confusing. I'd keep switching from talking about the me in the story to talking about the me in real life. And since most of the stuff that was mentioned in the story really happened to me, it was hard to keep track of how much was fact and how much was fiction.

Tobeson asked permission to go search for temples. I thought for a moment, then gave him directions to the nearest one. I wondered briefly why he wanted to go there, and decided to watch him using my newfound psychic skills. Even if I couldn't read his mind, I could at least see what he was doing. He made a face. "It defeats the purpose when you already know all about this place, ma'am."

I changed the subject. "I didn't know you were interested in temples."

"Culture, ma'am," he corrected. "Temples are usually the center of culture. That's my job on the team. I replaced the last cultural expert when he died on a mission."

I'd noticed from reading the mission reports that there was a high incidence of fatality on SG-13. Tobeson had only been on the team for a year, Blake for two years, and Dr. Weis had only joined the team a few months ago. So we were all fairly new, and my brother was actually the most senior member of the team. Very unlike SG-1, which I knew had been together for at least ten years, and I believed had been a team for eight years before that. I was itching to get my hands on their mission reports, but I doubted I'd be allowed. All I knew for sure was that my team was a sort of back-up SG-1. Even though we were new, we were best suited for adapting to new situations. We even had a real medical doctor with us—Dr. Weis—something of which SG-1 could not boast.

Nai'óbí was back quickly. "Jacob doesn't like it, but he can't do anything about it."

That's not right, I thought. There is something he could do about it. He could publicly order you not to come with us. But I knew he wouldn't do that, so it really didn't matter.

Dr. Weis sent a dark look in Nai'óbí's direction. I was really beginning not to like the man. We really didn't need him on our team. But he wasn't the one I suspected. If he really were the traitor, he wouldn't act so infuriating. That is, if he were any good. "She's the agent of an assassin, Colonel. Do you really think it wise to have her with us?"

"I trust her," I said with an absolutely straight face. Just about as far as I can throw her. And she'd throw me first.

Nai'óbí immediately took command of our little operation. Not that I minded too terribly much. She was used to telling people what to do. Jack wasn't very happy, but she just gave him a look and told him that this was her planet, not his, and as Queen of Relgar she had the political power here. Besides, this was going to involve sneaking around, wasn't it? How else were we going to take over a spaceship with only nine people?

"She is correct, O'Neill," Teal'c said in that overly-correct way he has of speaking. "However, we have more experience fighting the Goa'uld. Perhaps O'Neill should be in charge of this expedition."

"Do you always talk like that?" I asked.

"Indeed."

"Good," I said. "You're making Grammar Cop very happy." Grammar Cop is this personality that sits in my head and gets annoyed whenever she comes across bad grammar, spelling, or punctuation. She sometimes even gets annoyed when I used bad grammar. Not that it stops me. Usually.

"First we need a way to get to this spaceship," Nai'óbí said.

"I'll fly us up," Blake offered.

"Have you ever flown a spaceship?" Jack demanded.

"Well, not in space, no," Blake admitted.

"Then Teal'c will fly us up," Jack said.

"I have a better idea," Nai'óbí said. "Why don't we get more than one spaceship? These—what do you call them, Death Gliders?—hold only two people, yes? That means we will need several pilots. One for every two people." She looked at me as if she expected me to volunteer.

I held up my arms defensively. "Look, Nai'óbí, there's a reason I went into the Army and not the Air Force. I'm scared of heights. I'll freak as soon as we hit a thousand feet. I wouldn't trust myself to fly an airplane, much less a spaceship."

Luckily I didn't have to.

A/N (2/29/05): I finished writing the story several weeks ago. Only just now got back to typing it up. If I get nice reviews I'll be sure to type the next chapter soon. If I don't get nice reviews I'll hold a zat to your heads until you give me good reviews. Savvy?