Disclaimer: Star Gate SG-1 is owned by MGM and all related affiliates. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is owned by Satsu. I own nothing of importance, so please do not sue. This fanfiction is written purely for the sole purpose of entertainment.
Author's Notes: Twelve years. Twelve. Frigging. Years! That's how long I have made people wait for an update to this story. Well, I used to be called Brax the Great. I am now Didact Brainiac 99. New pen name, new ideas! So here we go again, folks! Seven Soldiers of Nightmare!
Date: April 4th, AC 197
Location: Jupiter moon of Ganymede, high Geosynchronous orbit.
Time: 12:00 ZULU
Place: Cargo bay of Super Ha'Tac vessel, appropriated by SG-1, Jaffa rebels, deposed System Lord Baal and recently, the "Gundam" pilots and their allies.
Duo Maxwell had always loved sci-fi movies, specifically the ones with aliens and creepy space monsters. He loved it when the monsters started eating the hapless crews of space explorers or rough necks just trying to make a buck; he laughed like a loon whenever such a scene popped up! Hilde on the other hand would cover her head with a pillow or blanket, just to block out the poor unfortunate souls screams as they were eaten by the monster as well as Duo's evil laughter.
What neither of them was enjoying right now was looking at the contents of a genuine extraterrestrial warships cargo bay. It wasn't the ornate cargo containers or alien weapons and equipment that had soured their mood. What had soured their moods were the enormous mobile suits lined ten to each adjacent side of the room.
When they had first walked in, the room was in total darkness. Duo and Hilde had used flash lights they had been provided by Dr. Jackson – in Duo's opinion, one of the most goofy but incredibly honest guys he had EVER met - and eventually found one of those raised glyph switches Dr. Jackson had told them about. He rotated it clockwise and the lights came on, startlingly bright, almost blindingly so. As the spots began to clear, Duo and Hilde gasped first at the sheer size of the massive room...and then at its contents.
"Oh My God!" Hilde's startled whisper was like a shout in the other wise eerily quiet room, seeming to bounce off the walls and reverberate. The entire room was massive! If duo had to guess, looking down over the hand railing right in front of him, the huge chamber had to be at the very least eighty meters from floor to ceiling. It was a six-sided hexagonal shape with one side directly opposite them while two of the other four sides made up the walls on the left and right side. The walls to each side had five massive mobile suit berths each, allowing for up to twenty mobile suits in total to be stored there.
The suits themselves were gigantic, making other models seem like children's toys by comparison. As Duo really began taking in the sheer scale of these monster mobile suits, he began seeing similarities to other mobile suits he had either heard about or fought himself. Their feet were firmly planted on the floor and what massive feet they had! The suits themselves must have topped out at about fifty, maybe even sixty meters! These things were artificial monsters designed to resemble a mobile suit, taking design cues from several different mobile suits. As he looked closer, he realized that the base of the mobile suit was the OZ-17MS, more readily known as the Serpent, the heavily armoured – and armed – mobile suit used by the Mariemaia Army, which itself was a puppet force used by the Barton Foundation in an attempt to conquer the Earth Sphere. The suit was made of Neo-titanium, almost as tough as gundamium but far more economical to mass produce.
These things however...he hadn't the foggiest as to what they were made of but that each and every one looked like they could get hit with a tactical nuke and walk off.
It wasn't just the height of these suits that made Duo nervous. They were massively bulky, with huge air intakes (or what Duo thought were air intakes) situated on their massive shoulders, vaguely resembling OZ-07AMS Aries components, with a hefty dose of OZ-12SMS Taurus design elements added for a more stylish flare to the armour design. The heads were distinctly unique, though. Mounted on surprisingly long necks, the heads had a long reptilian design with a thick and distinct hinged lower jaw, complete with metal teeth that interlocked with teeth on the upper jaw. The optics were covered by blood-red visors which were connected to a flared-out and curving crest that stretched out well behind the head, giving the illusion of some kind of robotic dinosaur.
Along with a second pair of primary arms, clawed fingers, nasty looking spikes and what he could only guess were recessed beam cannon ports all over the armour, his joke name of monster suit seemed rather appropriate. If one of these things walked out of its berth and he saw a mechanical tail swishing behind it, he wouldn't be surprised.
"Lovely, aren't they?"
The new voice that sounded to the left of them made both Hilde and Duo jump, and when they saw who that voice belonged to, they became even more nervous. The deep voice that had made them jump was slightly accented, but somehow seemed unnatural. Considering the owner, it was easy to understand why.
Ba'al, Goa'uld System Lord, gazed at the enormous weapons with an appreciative gleam and a noticeable smirk. He had his arms folded into the massive folds of his pristine regal robes. His eyes flashes with light for just a second, reminding the two of when Damien Jekyll – now revealed as the Goa'uld Malachi – did the same trick when they met him at the space port terminal on the moon base. Hilde moved behind Duo because she didn't trust the man; no, He wasn't a man at all. While the physical person in front of them was most certainly male, they had both been informed (by the imperious ghoul himself, no less) that Ba'al was a serpentine parasite that lived inside the person standing before them, controlling the host body like a meat puppet. A strange quality of being possessed by a Goa'uld was that a persons voice became deeper, more vibrant, given some strange otherworldly timbre.
It made the fine hairs on both Duo and Hilde's neck rise like the hackles on a cat. What made the sensation even more eerie, or in Duo's case, a reason to kick somebody in the junk was that Ba'al knew it too. He relished the thought that his voice alone could unnerve someone, even someone with the extensive combat experiences of the teen-aged Gundam pilot and his cute little woman. It certainly began to make up for that idiot boys overreaction to his little prank on his woman.
All he had done was compliment her on her good looks and she told him, in quite a huff, to kiss her ass! So he did! Got behind her so fast, no one knew he had done so till he pulled her jeans down to her knees and quite emphatically planted a wet one squarely on her right ass cheek! She squealed like a banshee! The fun abruptly ended though when that posturing idiot decked him in his right eye.
The reason why he was standing off to their left, was so they wouldn't see or comment on the shiner Duo gave him. The brat and that loud idiot O'Neill made fast friends though, which only soured Ba'al's mood considerably. Duo decided to finally respond to Ba'al if only to get the guy to leave that much sooner.
"If by 'lovely', you mean 'shit-your-pants-terrifying' then yeah, I can see the appeal".
Ba'al smiled even wider and quipped, "You don't find appeal in the design? How very strange for one who once called himself the 'God of Death'. These huge mobile suits bristle with armaments, have levels of armour you would find on a Goa'uld mid-range bomber, and come complete with numerous technological innovations you silly Tau'ri would no doubt confuse for sorcery, as backwards as you lot are".
Duo and Hilde were both taken back by the "backwards" crack, but were kept from firing back themselves as Ba'al began to talk about the huge mobile suits again.
"A species from my home universe, the Asgard, developed a wonderful alloy comprised of a metal called trinium, carbon, and naquadah. The last material in that list is found in so many Goa'uld technologies. Naquadah is a non-radioactive isotope that generates far more energy than either uranium or plutonium and is used to power Goa'uld technologies like our great ships, the weapons used by our Jaffa foot soldiers, any piece of Goa'uld technology really. Did I mention that this amazing isotope is alsos a component of Goa'uld bio-chemistry? In other words it's literally in our blood.
"Then, of course, there is carbon, which even you know about", that comment making both young people glare at the haughty alien body jacker, "and the last material, trinium, is a remarkably strong metal, much stronger than your silly titanium; after much processing, of course".
"Oh, of course!" Duo griped back.
Ba'al merely smirked again.
"The material they are built from is staggeringly robust, but that is only the beginning. Weapon systems inspired by your After Colony designs, tried and tested Goa'uld designs, even ideas 'borrowed' from other races the Goa'uld have encountered provide these machines with teeth to bite! Omni-directional energy shields that prevent all enemy weapon fire from damaging the suit; speaking of the shields, they allow for weapon fire to pass through from within. The suit can fire out without the shields causing massive self-damage.
"The suits are equipped with sub-light drives and hyper-drives, allowing for incredibly rapid deployment within a solar system to any point or to any point within a sector of space! A wonderful combination of artificial gravity systems and inertial dampening systems in the cockpit protect the pilot from such extreme g-force. The suit itself is made even hardier through a technology called structural integrity reinforcement which employs molecular energy fields that greatly augment molecular bonds, allowing the suits to handle FTL velocities.
"The power sources these suits use are ultra-compact Naquadria reactors. Naquadria is an artificial derivative of Naquadah. The Goa'uld scientist who created it sadly died during his initial experiment to create it. Malachi surprisingly found a way to stabilize the usually unpredictable substance and use it to fuel these wonderful constructs. The reactors they use generate almost ten times the amount of power generated by a conventional Ha'tac vessel!
Ba'al smirked even more.
"All of that makes these impressive machines a force to be reckoned with, of course, but what really makes these glorious suits so terrifying? Why the Zero system of course. Malachi discovered how to make it safe for anyone to use for greatly extended periods of time! Think of it, children! The suits on-board computer and pilots mind connecting to each other, each augmenting the other and ceasing to be separate entities while the system in online. The pilot becomes the suit! What a staggering innovation!"
Ba'al's voice had risen to a crescendo, joyous as he described the terrible power of these monster mobile suits. As his voice echoed like a crash of thunder, he heard someone behind him and slowly turned around. Doctor Daniel Jackson was there, staring at both him and his captivated audience. He had found this very cargo bay before and asked Duo and Hilde to check it out. He was very glad he did, because now he had discovered a whole new set of problems for SG-1 and its allies to deal with.
When their pilfered Ha'tac had arrived at Ganymede almost a full week ago, all of the onboard systems – save for life support and the artificial gravity – had been crippled by a sleeper virus in the system. The strange thing about the virus was that it was design to self-delete after about a week. Malachi could have rigged their ship to blow by remote but instead temporarily crippled them. It made no sense, but then again, anything to do with that twisted so-called "Super Goa'uld" didn't make sense.
"Making friends, Ba'al? I was wondering what had happened to Duo and Hilde but I see you were...keeping them company".
"Dr. Jackson! What a pleasant surprise! Have you also come to admire Malachi's creations?" The System Lord seemed far too cheery for Daniel's taste. Something was up, but he decided to humour the Goa'uld and fully walked into the massive cargo bay, only to jump and startle when he saw the gigantic mobile suits lined against the walls. Daniel had seen the huge machines guarding the Forge of The Gods facility, but these things made those others look like kids toys by comparison. He blew out a frustrated breath as he realized that the Gundam pilots worst fears had come to light. The world they come from had finally renounced war, leaving its bloody trappings in history's dust. Now, though, someone had brought back the tools of war and planned to plunge the world back into violent chaos. If Malachi had made these twenty monster machines, he had probably made a very great many more!
"Well, those things are terrifying! A whole bunch of new reasons to get up to the pel'tac, on the double. Sam said that the virus' timer is about to expire". As Jackson turned the other way, Ba'al was snickering behind his back as he followed the archaeologist, never noticing the look of abstract horror on Duo and Hilde's faces. Duo felt like kicking the body-jacker right in his stolen testicles and throwing him over the rails, but for right now they needed what was in his head, and Duo wasn't thinking about the hideous thing inside the skull of the poor soul that Ba'al had taken over so long ago.
As Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter studied the system read-outs being displayed on the main viewing screen on the pel'tac, she began to go over all the craziness she had run into on this multi-dimensional trip. She'd so far travelled forward in time (the implications to temporal mechanics were simply mind-boggling!), travelled to a parallel universe, encountered giant robotic battle machines called mobile suits (those only being observed so far), and now had met a group of young people that through heartbreak, loss, teamwork and sheer grit, had become legendary figures. She had learned enough about them to realize that they'd give up the praise and adulation just to disappear and let the world move on without them if it meant preserving a hard-won global peace.
Sam really admired these kids. So did Jack. Speaking of them, along with everybody else, they were gathered around a large executive meeting table that had surprisingly been found in one of the ships many cargo bays by SG-3 and Anise who were exploring the ship after splitting into search teams. SG-3 was led by a relatively new guy named Lt. Donovan Moen. While he could be a stickler for the rules, he cared about his team and was as loyal to them as they were to him. He never compromised when given his orders, but he also wasn't afraid to speak up against orders he didn't agree with.
Right now Lt. Moen was winning at a hand of poker. SG-8, Anise, their Jaffa comrades Ongar, Ry'gen, and Ry'gen's little sister Irana and two of the Gundam pilots along with Sally Po the Preventer Agent were all engaged in a rather intense game. The two Gundam pilots, Quatre Winner and Trowa Barton, were doing rather well though Sam was sure they were helping each other cheat. There respective lady friends had played several hands before bowing out, being completely outclassed by the two teen-aged mobile suit pilots and the Jaffa, especially Master Bra'Tac. Bra'tac and Moen had developed a strong respect for each other over the near-week that the ship had been stuck in Ganymede's orbit. Moen held great admiration for the wise Jaffa master and Bra'Tac greatly respected Lt. Moen's dedication to his men.
She noticed the serene -yet very odd – Dorothy Catalonia coming toward her and nod hello. She had heard some amazing things about this unusual young lady – both good and bad – but the silliest thing seemed to stick out; how in the hell did she get her eyebrows to look like that?! Sam knew it seemed like such a petty thing to concentrate on about a person but...yeah. Those eyebrows were weird. They reminder her of long crab claws and they gave the girl a villainous look right out of an old pulp sci-fi magazine!
As the odd girl approached, she couldn't help but smile as she remembered General O'Neill openly commenting about her "bad-guy eyebrows". The girls face had puffed up like a balloon and she had stormed off in a huff, grumbling about an "over-grown Duo Maxwell" and some such.
"Not getting in on the game, Colonel Carter? I thought you'd be itching to put those silly boys in their place. Now sweet little Irana is fun to play against; she sees poker as what it is, simply a game of strategy but the men are so serious about it that the fun dies off". She gave an exasperated sigh as she dramatically swished out her long hair. Colonel Carter also wondered idly just what kind of conditioner the girl used and was just going to ask if she could borrow some when a dull, throbbing alarm started going off.
She Checked the controls and looked to the primary display. She really didn't like what she was reading; apparently, the system lock-out was over and the ship was starting back up. Primary power systems were coming back on-line, the lighting was now back on and the ship was slowly moving toward Ganymede. Those parts were actually very good news, but the upsetting information came when she realized she had no control whatsoever of the navigational systems. She couldn't steer the ship or even control how fast they were going! What she could do was relay their course and speed, even projections for the final destination.
"Are those alarms a good thing or should we all be worried?" Dorothy asked with a nervous smile curving her lips. Colonel Carter gave a non-committal shrug and went back to work, trying to regain control of the ship. She checked the ships heading and realized they were heading toward a massive docking port on Ganymede's surface that was like a huge hole in a puzzle that the ship would physically fit itself into. While that was disconcerting in and of itself, what she was really worried about was the physical topography of the area. Everything around the huge docking port, while completely artificial, was in a state of constant flux and change. She even picked up the Peacemillion 2 docked into another such a port, and it seemed as though the ship was physically merging with the rest of the constantly changing facility!
As everyone gathered around her, Carter began to explain what was going on, and her theories as to what was going to happen next. To her captive audience, it was quite a bit to take in.
The usually quiet giant On'Gar was the first to speak, his deep baritone catching everyone's attention. "How can buildings change shape as you describe? Are they alive somehow?"
"No, not alive. I used the ships scanner and discovered that the whole place is almost completely constructed from nano-machines". The blank looks she drew from the Jaffa made her take a quick breath and start again. "Tiny machines, smaller than germs, capable of performing any task their programmer can conceive and also capable of self-replication, meaning they make more of themselves from whatever raw material is available".
"Okay, well that's terrifying. Like the Goa'uld aren't scary enough with plasma weapons, giant pyramid ships, and everything else they've thrown at us! Now they have giant robots, time travel technology, and let's not forget kids, parallel dimension travel tech which they used to start this whole mess!"
That outburst came from a visibly annoyed General O'Neill. He actually looked ready to literally tear his own hair out. A surprising question stopped him, though.
"Excuse me, Colonel Carter?" The usually quiet Ry'gen was next to speak up. He had actually raised his hand like a kid in a classroom asking a question of the teacher. Carter liked the redheaded Jaffa; he was inquisitive, thoughtful, and wasn't exactly bad on the eyes either. She smiled as she responded, "Yes Ry'gen? What's your question?"
Ry'gen looked a bit bashful as though he was embarrassed by his own question, but he pressed on. "Why would anyone want to use these tiny machines as building material?"
"Well, an obvious reason would be structural flexibility. You need to move a power source or install a new piece of equipment, the whole building can change to suit your immediate needs, even help in the installation of whatever piece of equipment your putting in. That's not even mentioning structure that transform into whatever you need on demand".
As Ry'gen cupped his chin in thought, Colonel O'Neill chimed in.
"Carter? We're about to land".
Carter spun around so fast, everyone thought she had hurt herself. She stared opened mouth at the main display screen and realized the ship was literally a fast minute from docking with the ship port on Ganymede. They had already entered the atmosphere and were closing in on the surface? She knew that atmospheric entry would be smooth in a Goa'uld Ha'tac vessel, but not THAT smooth! Just as she got tot he controls and began checking the readings to make sure they were correct, a deep electrical whirring noise could be heard suddenly, followed by a bone jarring thump that staggered or outright toppled people over.
"Oh no". Carter pushed herself to her feet and stared with horror at the main view screen. There had been something tickling at the back of her mind, just beyond her awareness but now...now she understood.
All the ships that had docked and merged with the base, each one was now interconnected with the others through physical power conduits and computer linkages that were a part of the docking births. The one birth that had been empty, the one their ship was now locked into and even now beginning to merge with, had been part of a massive web-like network. That network no longer had a gaping hole in it; now it was whole and complete. With each ship, the total power output would be added together and then multiplied by however many ships became interconnected. With every single docking birth now occupied, the amount of power at the disposal of the Goa'uld in charge was, quite frankly, astronomical in scale!
The power of the network was not only growing by leaps and bounds, but if Carter had been reading the display correctly, it would CONSTANTLY grow by leaps and bounds! For how long, even Carter didn't know!
The ship's intercoms suddenly began to crackle and whine, until a very familiar, very deep, very alien voice broke through, clear as a bell.
"Well, well, well. Everyone's all accounted for? Ba'al? You had better have come through on your end of the bargain. Did you, or did you not?"
"Of course I came through, Malachi. Don't you trust me?" The aforementioned System lord chuckled as he strode past all the surprised and angry looks, completely unconcerned about reprisals. General O'Neill slapped himself in the face and groaned, "Oh, how did I not see THAT coming?!"
"I know, right?" Ba'al quipped.
"I tried to kill Malachi by having the dimensional drives of the prototype ha'tac ship he had created overload. I thought I had succeeded. What I succeeded in was trapping Malachi in another universe for several hundred years. You'd think he would be particularly vengeful. What he was was very grateful! He was trapped in what would become the AC Timeline. For centuries he studied the technology of this new universe for anything that could help him get home, and soon discovered he still possessed the original Quantum Mirror device he had acquired so long ago, along with his research which allowed him to make great gains in rediscovering his earlier work. He learned how to make his own quantum mirror devices! He used one to contact me across time and universe. We made a bargain; Anubis would return and rule, with me as the public face of this new empire. In return, not only would I be spared, but I would be one of the first Goa'uld to receive an army of mobile dolls of my own".
Malachi's voice cut in, anxious to add to his own story.
"My father, Anubis, returned to out home universe mere days after we had left thanks to the addition of time travel technology I developed using research my father had acquired during his time ascended, but of course in a small fighter craft I had designed. Father had actually built the Al'Kesh bomber and cargo ship with dimensional drives I had originally meant to build before going anywhere near something so massive as a full-sized Ha'Tac. Shipping smaller equipment pieces and other materials became much easier to acquire and transport. Oh, I almost forgot!"
As Malachi suddenly stopped, there was a rustling of fabric, like someone was searching their pockets for something they had misplaced. He came back to the conversation with an enthusiastic, "Hey!" Every one jumped at the sheer volume of his shout, but he caught their attention again when he brought up a very important point that had gone over their heads, making everyone feeling foolish for missing it.
"Remember how Ba'al said I learned how to make quantum mirrors of my own? Heh". Malachi's chuckle sent a shiver down everyone's spine. They knew where he was going, but was hoping he wouldn't outright say it.
"I made dozens of the things, almost a hundred even! For each mirror, I created a companion that would allow for two-way travel. MY mirrors can actually adjust their own size to be big enough to accommodate one of my mobile suits or small enough for a human child. The companion mirrors would be connected to the 'home' mirrors and put into a stand-by mode. After arriving at the target universe, they would expand to whatever size they were programmed for. They could move on their own so picking a good place to settle was easy to set up, just pick a geologically stable, out-of-the-way area. Children's play! Too easy after I really found my rhythm. Father actually laughed at how easy it was for me to expand on a plan. Any way, I discovered so many other universes! So much variation! So much inspiration! I programmed the mirrors to max out their expansion ability and hide. Because the mirrors could become bigger or smaller, getting into tight places was easy! Finding hiding spots away from prying eyes? Not so much, but a pleasant challenge. Each mirror became the core a new Goa'uld facility, hidden away in some remote part of the world, or even on another planet! So many universes similar to my own, it was eerie, yet so many universes similar to the AC Timeline, but yet so many radically different. Dozens of universes where mobile suits came to be, but the series of events that led to their creation, and the historical events that followed are so radically different as to perfectly dissimilar".
The gathered pilots and SGC personnel and their allies were stunned. They knew about the mobile dolls being built back in the SGC personnel's home universe, but this added so many more layers to the danger, they simply couldn't take it all in.
Malachi had one more massive bomb to drop, and he was in quite the mood to drop them.
"My dear friends and enemies. My dearest allies and most hated foes. I have taken it upon my self to restore to the Gundam pilots what they themselves so willing surrendered, all for the sake of peace in their time. Gentlemen, the seven Gundams have I rebuilt. No, not using primitive Earth garbage but glorious and powerful Goa'uld technology and materials, even that which the enemies of the Goa'uld possessed, and so much more. They are bigger than ever, and powerful? 'Powerful' does not even begin to describe their majesty.
They are, now and forever more, seven soldiers of nightmares. They are the ultimate mobile suit-based weapons. They are divinity given Gundam shape and form. They are kings of metal. They...are the Divine Gundam Kings!"
Author's Notes: Well...A very long chapter to write, and a very long time to get it out. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter as much as I have enjoyed writing it for you all. This chapter officially begins what I call "Infinity's Waltz: The Second Beat". I hope you join me for the next instalment which I have titled "The Divine Gundam Kings". TTYL, and stay safe.
