Author's Note: Hi! Here it is, chapter TWO! It's a little longer, too. And I got my first review, for this story! Happiness! Thanks to you! In the next chapter, more will be explained, maybe...
The shiny, sophisticated turbolift beeped at Nareem to tell him that he'd arrived at his destination. The chamber was very far underground the rest of the city. Almost two mountains worth of solid rock now separated him from the surface.
The door slid open. Calming his nerves, Nareem got up and stepped through to find another door.
He spoke more authorization codes that, now that the old man was dead, only he knew. After much ado, the door whooshed open. The lights inside the chamber turned on automatically as they sensed his motion.
He stepped over to the control consoles and started activating them. Icons lit up as systems powered. Glass panels slid slowly down from the ceiling, the lighting shifted, and on the panels was a near-space heads-up display.
It showed a red delta shape that represented the Goa-uld Mothership that was flying impossibly through the blue line layers of complex shields and defense arrays that surrounded the planet. In another view, wing-shapes glided across the city. One by one, critical positions blinked and faded to grey outlines.
Nareem activated the long-range Tolan communication device. He had to tell the Tau-ri what was happening, and what he as going to do. They, his only real allies, had to know. He had to tell Samantha.
"They're coming!" His voice was panicked. "The Goa-uld! Tollanus is under fire! Soon they will reach –"
His transmitted words were cut off when the little icon for the inter-galactic communications tower blinked then faded, as a wing-shape passed over it.
He saw another screen that monitored the Stargate. It had been active for a while now. Some of his people were fleeing through the wormhole.
Two whole new squadrons moved in over the city. Nareem watched in horror as everything started to blink, even the building directly above him. Then the heads-up display and almost all of the systems cut out.
A minute passed.
The lights flickered once.
With an effort, Nareem remembered that the systems he needed now were not connected to or reliant on the city above. He turned on the auxiliary power and accessed a system with a label that he hadn't really thought about in many years, and pushed some green icon-buttons.
The wall to his right slid into the ceiling to reveal another, larger, chamber. Inside was a white and silver Tolan Stargate. It was an almost exact replica of the one on the surface. It had been built and put here when they had first come to this world, just as policy, to comply with law once made. The console surface opened to reveal a compartment, the bottom of which rose to bring its contents up. Nareem picked up the armband, fastening it around his left forearm.
The Stargate whirled as he dialed it. This Stargate only connected to its counterpart. It used the standard seven-point address, but would not connect with just any Stargate address he put in. Only the right set of constellation symbols would activate it. And it didn't matter where either Gate was in the Universe, they would still connect.
The naqueda energy whooshed out and then pooled inside the ring, waiting for him.
Nareem pushed a sequence of panels on the armband, which sent out a special code through the Stargate to its counterpart; the Gate receiving the wormhole. The code would deactivate a device similar in purpose to the Tau-ri's iris. But, far less primitive than an iris, this device would demolecularize anything that tried to pass through it. In short, he would turn into a nice little pile of dust on the floor.
Just to be safe, though, he turned on his phase-shift device.
Everything was ready, and if he didn't hurry, the wormhole would soon destabilize and turn off. He closed his eyes and said a last mental farewell to his second home world, then stepped through the Stargate.
Pinpoints of light blurred and smeared and swirled around him so fast. And then they stopped, and the world coalesced into reality again.