"SIR, WAKE UP!"
"Huh? What?! I'm awake! What?!" I cried out in shock as I bolted upright in bed.
"Good, you're awake sir!" Jarvis called, and I realized he was the one who had shouted earlier. "I thought you ought to know, something has just landed on the Creep and appears to be headed this way."
I blinked, still a bit tired, before the words filtered into my brain and I was suddenly very wide awake.
"Really!?" I asked excited, "Can you get some photoreceptors up and give me a visual?"
"Ah, unfortunately sir whatever landed has already disgorged passengers and is heading this way." Jarvis said apologetically. "I'm afraid by the time I get photoreceptors up in the area, they'll already be here."
I frowned. "Well I don't really want to be caught flat footed..." I said pensively. "...I'm gonna go into the basement. Develop photoreceptors that'll give a visual on the thing that landed, and if the beings are headed here, put some in the mansion so we can get a look at who our visitors are."
"Yes sir," Jarvis replied as a nearby wall clicked, and I made my way over to it, revealing that the latch holding it closed had temporarily dissolved, revealing one of the secret passages leading down. I chuckled at how thorough my subconscious was, admitting that the solid latch wouldn't even make it seem like a false wall in the first place.
As I made my way to the basement, which was what was left over of the homestead I'd made, I thought about the visitors. I wondered what they could be and if they would be friendly or not. It might seem rude to not be there to greet them, but if they prove hostile, then it'd be prudent to get eyes on them first just in case to get some kind of idea of what I might be facing.
Once I'd gotten to the basement and sat upon my bed, there was nothing left to do but wait. While I waited, I wondered if it'd be rude to send some nanites into the ship to explore. Though, if they're friendly and they detect it, that might be considered a faux pas... Best to wait maybe. At the very least, talking to them, or having Jarvis talking to them, would be ridiculously simple with the speakers around.
It was several minutes of waiting later, before Jarvis finally reported in, "Sir, the Photoreceptors have been finished and I have a visual on the craft and the aliens who arrived in it."
"Great! Show me a visual." I called. In front of me, two windows appeared. I knew they weren't really there, since only I could see them, but they still look like honest to goodness holographic windows, and as soon as I saw what was on them, my jaw dropped.
"Sir?" Jarvis asked, awaiting orders.
I frowned, grimacing. Of all the places... Whoever dropped me here needs a swift kick in the nuts.
"I want nanites inside those two and that ship immediately. Incapacitate them but keep them alive." I ordered, noting but not really caring that my voice had turned dark and cold as ice.
"Sir, you do realize what this means?" Jarvis asked, pensively.
I sighed and wiped a hand down my face. "Yeah, I'm beginning to... Let me know when you've got them. I have the beginnings of a plan, and I'm going to need those two mobile quick if this is gonna go without a hitch. And I especially need that ship and its computer accessed and hacked as fast as possible."
"Tall orders sir, considering this is the first piece of tech we've come across. Might I suggest an alternative plan based on your current goals?" Jarvis offered.
"I'm listening..." I said.
10 minutes later...
I walked out into the court yard with my hands raised up, looking at the two intruders invading my home. Their silver medieval style armor and white tunics offset by their large metal helmets shaped like some sort of feline, with glowing red eyes, and the staves with bulbous heads on one end, and I kind of bud on the other.
"Hello," I called, careful to keep my voice neutral.
"XXX! XXX xxx xxx? XXX xxx xxx xxx! XXX xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx!" the being, a Jaffa I knew they were called, spoke, as both pointed their staffs at me, the bulbed head flaring open, yellow energy crackling like lightning over the tip. Flashy.
"Um, sorry I don't speak your language." Yet. I added in my head, "Is there anything I can do for you gentlemen?" Anytime now, Jarvis... I mentally urged.
I'm working as fast as I can, sir.
The textbox was back for covert communications.
"XXX xxx xxx! XXX xxx xxx, xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx!" the other Jaffa shouted, gesturing with his staff.
I grimaced. I'd need to buy some time. Unfortunately I know jack all of ancient Egyptian or Goa'uld, except the ever famous 'Jaffa! Kree!' line practically everyone shouts from the show. The only other thing I can do is keep them guessing with names.
"Ra! Anubis! Osiris! Bastet! Uh... Cronos!" I said, hoping against hope they'd show some interest in why I knew the names of some of the System Lords. I AM trying to get captured after all, but just in case this fails badly, Jarvis is working on some insurance, which is a good thing, cause the names seemed to have made the two Jaffa even angrier somehow.
"XXX XXX?! XXX xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx?! XXX xxx xxx Bastet?!" the first one snarled.
Thankfully at that moment, Jarvis finally pulled through.
Connection established, sir.
'Great!' I thought at my subconscious, 'Now if you could hit me with that download you speculated about getting for their language, that'd be just great!'
In progress, sir. In the meantime, I will do what I can to lower their aggression.
The second one snarled too, at this point, but he seemed more like he was glowering than ready to shoot my head off.
"XXX xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx. XXX xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx!"
The other one smirked evilly,
"XXX xxx xxx xxx. XXX xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx. XXX xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
I had to wonder if that smirk was a good thing. I watched cautiously as the first one who'd smirked stepped forward and swung his staff, nailing me in the side.
"Oof!" I grunted, over exaggerating the hit slightly as I fell to the ground. It definitely would've hurt before, but with my body now enhanced by multitudes of nanites, doubling my mass and making me stronger just to compensate, the hit barely felt like a friendly punch to the shoulder.
'Struggling' my way up, I looked up and flinched as the staff nailed me on the head and I pretended to get knocked out.
Thus I found myself getting dragged back to their ship, an Alkesh I'm pretty sure it's called.
It's a Tel'tak actually.
'How do you know that?' I thought back.
Combination of your memories and what I'm so far gleaning from your 'captors' without their knowing and the Tel'tak computer.
'So the plan's coming along well?' I thought hopefully.
Yes sir. It's slow going, but with the translations I'm gleaning between the Jaffa and the computer, I should know everything they do in a few hours. I'm currently prioritizing their communications in order to jury rig an implant that will allow you to command the nanites without direct physical connection to them, but it will take time.
'Yeah, well, we may not have time. If we're lucky, they'll take us up and have to go into hyperspace in order to take me to whoever their leader is. If we're less lucky, their leader is in a Hatak in orbit. If we're really unlucky, that leader will be their Goa'uld overlord. And if we're just plain screwed, that Goa'uld is gonna try and rip directly into our minds, which means I'm gonna need that language so I can do some fast talking.' I thought.
It's coming along sir, while I'm prioritizing the long distance transmitter, which isn't easy with power constraints, you will know the full language, both written and spoken, as soon as I do.
'Good,' I thought as I felt myself scraping over a threshold as I kept doing my best to pretend to be dead weight. I got tossed into the cargo hold, and it was all I could do to curse that where I landed had no nanites available. I'd already pre-seeded the ship with them, but I'd kept it to thin lines to make them less detectable, in case they had anything to detect them with. Knowing they'd likely toss me in the hold, I'd had some lines of nanites crossing through the ship's floor surface like a web. Unfortunately they'd tossed me in a corner, which I hadn't touched. I'd have to waste precious time sending out a line of nanites to where I knew the closest grouping would be.
It was a few minutes later that I succeeded with connecting to the nanite web in the ship and felt the connections I'd left that traced to the ship's power core. It was a fairly brilliant move to sap the trace amounts of power required to have the nanites running so I wouldn't waste any of my own stored power, and with the web currently connected to both the main computer as well as the chairs where the two Jaffa had sat down to pilot in the cockpit, Jarvis immediately resumed hacking both their minds and the computer undetected.
It seems we are both lucky and unlucky, sir. Jarvis informed me a few minutes later.
'What is it?' I asked.
The good news is that I now know enough about their language in order to copy their schematics for their subspace transceivers and craft a short range implant that can reach across a few lightyears at our current power. It seems the more power put in, the longer range we can achieve.
'Ok, that's good. What's the bad news?' I asked.
We have currently docked with a hatak in orbit, and it seems that the Goa'uld is aboard.
I cursed in my head. 'Give me that language download and get to work building that implant. I'm going to need both real soon!'
Yes sir.
I barely held a wince as I felt a spike of pain in my head which abruptly faded quickly after. I soon became aware that I now knew another language and sounded it out in my head. Thinking back, I recalled now what the Jaffa had said back in the mansion.
Flashback
"Hello," I called, careful to keep my voice neutral.
"Halt! Who are you? What is this place! Answer in the name of your God!" the being, a Jaffa I knew they were called, spoke, as both pointed their staffs at me, the bulbed head flaring open, yellow energy crackling like lightning over the tip. Flashy.
"Um, sorry I don't speak your language." Yet. I added in my head, "Is there anything I can do for you gentlemen?"
"Answer him now! Who are you, or face the wrath of our god!" the other Jaffa shouted, gesturing with his staff.
"Ra! Anubis! Osiris! Bastet! Uh... Cronos!" I said, hoping against hope they'd show some interest in why I knew the names of some of the System Lords.
"You dare?! You dare to claim to be the Supreme System Lord?! And our Lady Bastet?!" the first one snarled.
The second one snarled too, at this point, but he seemed more like he was glowering than ready to shoot my head off. "Perhaps we should capture this #$% and take him to our Lord Bes. Maybe then his lying tongue will be ripped from his head after he spills all his secrets!"
The other one smirked evilly, "You may be right. Our Lord is interested in this place and this one may yet hold more information. I'll enjoy hearing this one's screams as our Lord tears his mind apart."
End Flashback
'Ah crap... I didn't think spouting those names would backfire that spectacularly.' I thought, mentally grimacing, 'Well, on the plus side, it got me captured like I wanted. On the downside, these two are likely to try and influence this 'Lord Bes' character into ripping into my mind from the get go, and the last thing I need is for any Goa'uld to see what I've got in my head. Change of plans, Jarvis. How much longer until that implant is done?'
Just a few more minutes sir.
'I'm not sure we have a few more minutes.' I thought, as I felt a shudder run through the ship and presumed at this point that was the Tel'tak docking, and any moment now, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum would be showing up again.
As if my thoughts had summoned them, I heard the door open, and one of the Jaffa said to the other, "Wake him."
I felt and heard booted feet stomp over to my position and I was bodily jerked up into a sitting position. The Jaffa then proceeded to slap me about the face, shouting, "Wake up, #$%! Wake up NOW!"
Due to the simultaneous shock of getting slapped about the face, despite it not really hurting much, and the fact that what I'd need to do next would probably require me being awake, I did sputter 'awake'. "What the heck?!" I said in English, "Who slaps people awake?!"
"Get up!" The Jaffa said, not giving me much choice considering he yanked me up after him. I took note of the strength behind the move, even as I thought, 'You didn't happen to pull the map for this place from the computer did you?" I asked.
I did sir, and might I say how disturbing it is just how lacking in protection their data systems are? I am not a hacker by any means, but I wouldn't need to be to breeze past their nonexistent data security.
'Good for us, bad for them. The Goa'uld have always been prideful to the point of stupidity. It was only towards the end when they starting fighting smarter that they began to show how dangerous they are. Speaking of which, Baal needs to go down first. Seriously.'
Indeed sir.
I spent the next few minutes studying the layout and memorizing spots highlighted that Jarvis showed, namely good spots to hide, main access points to the computer systems, as well as weapons, hyperdrive, sublight engines, the power core located in the engine room, and the main location of the computer core.
While I did that, the Jaffa slapped some cuffs on my wrists that were almost bracers in design, and they practically frog marched me from the ship. Jarvis helpfully highlighted where we are on the translucent map for me, and it wasn't long before he'd calculated where we're heading, the bridge. Crap. Time for plan B.
I waited till the most opportune moment, for the hall to be clear before I snapped the cuffs that were being eaten away by the nanites and touched them both, and sent a quick command to the nanites in both Jaffa.
'Terminate.'
Both Jaffa immediately seized and fell over, dead before they hit the ground. I tried not to think about what I'd just done as I grabbed them both and dragged them quickly out of sight, waiting for a patrol to pass in one of the many handy alcoves that make this ship a nightmare to secure from commandos like SG-1. Once they were gone, I quickly dragged the two, using my enhanced strength to make it to the closest storage area where I could stuff the bodies. My original thought was to hide there as well, but I only had so much energy to spare, and I'd be much better off getting myself to the power core where I could leech a little and spread tendrils of nanites to all the important bits of this place.
Marking out the quickest path with the most hiding spots available to the power core, I paused as I realized that if any place would be the most defended it'd be there. Plus I've no idea if I'm expected and if they have internal sensors that could pick me up as an intruder. Changing my plans on the fly, I mapped out the quickest route to a computer terminal.
Thankfully the path to a terminal is shorter, and less likely to be defended, since I decided to choose one out of the way rather than head directly for the data core. That'll be my third objective after I get to the power core once I get some nanites into the system.
On the way, I winced at a piercing tearing feeling behind my left ear. I felt the area and noticed a divot and what felt like metal. 'Jarvis, what the hell!?' I thought at my subconscious furiously.
Sir, the subspace communications implant is complete. It is currently a prototype and requires an external piece. I now have a link to the rest of your nanites. It appears that the hatak we've boarded is still in orbit over what the computer has designated Chelsac-3, so named for being the third planet from the star Chelsac. It appears Chelsac-4 has a Naquada mine, and that an annual tribute was scheduled for retrieval today. I theorize from this information that when the Hatak arrived for the exchange, they must have noticed a difference in Chelsac-3 on long range scanners and came to investigate.
Once I'd hidden myself in an alcove, I concentrated inward on Jarvis' words, then thought, 'Ok, Jarvis, three things. First off, Ow! Second off, why the hell didn't you warn me that the communications implant would be external?! Third, the hell kind of name is Chelsac?!'
I apologize sir, I tried to warn you. If you would turn your attention to the screen, you will find if you scroll upwards in the messages I've sent you, you'll find that I tried to catch your attention to warn it was coming, but you were currently hiding from a patrol and weren't paying attention.
I raised an eyebrow. 'I can scroll this thing?' I turned my attention to the window of text Jarvis was using to communicate with me. With a mere flick of my eyes and a small application of will, the screen scrolled up and there was the message indicated. 'Ah. So you did.'
Indeed sir. And I do apologize for the momentary pain. You know as well as I though that I cannot filter pain in places you've not felt pain before very easily. Filtering signals is a touch difficult without knowing what to look for.
I rolled my eyes, 'Can't you just give me a pins and needles feeling to get an idea of what needs to be blocked?'
That may give me a headstart. Would you like me to do that now, sir?
I nodded, 'Yeah, do it quickly.'
Quickly, the feeling of pins and needles I've experienced when my body falls asleep started from my toes and passed over my skin like a wave until it stopped at the top of my head and disappeared.
That should do for some things sir, but not all, but it's a start. As to your query of the name 'Chelsac', I'm afraid it's randomly assigned. The locals may have another name for it, but it appears all stars visible to the Goa'uld Empire have already been randomly assigned names by their computers by randomly combining easily pronounceable sounds. Very few worlds and systems in the galaxy have been personally named, and outside of those, any world or system with a name that actually means anything is purely coincidence.
'Ah. Huh. Better than assigning a random string of numbers I guess.' I thought with a shrug before continuing down the path towards the terminal.
Actually, all systems do have a numerical designation, based upon their coordinates in relation to the galactic center.
I blinked. 'Huh. That's... surprisingly smart of them. I wouldn't have expected- Wait. The Goa'uld are vultures. Let me guess, the numerical designation was set up by a non Goa'uld?'
A most astute observation with a high probability of being correct, sir.
'You don't know?' I asked, as I slipped through a door and into a room with a single Jaffa guarding the terminal.
I'm afraid the computer aboard the Tel'tak does not have such information aboard its data banks.
'Fair enough. Any suggestions for taking this guy down, or should I cheat?' I asked thoughtfully from my hiding spot, looking at the Zat'nik'tel I'd grabbed from one of my Jaffa escorts earlier and wondering if I dared fire, seeing as I'd held off up to this point for fear the energy discharge would be detected.
I believe normal terms of engagement should suffice sir.
I nodded, and waited as I sent a spike of nanites through the ground. I really didn't want to risk getting caught yet, and as Jarvis said, normal terms of engagement.
1. There's no such thing as a fair fight.
2. If you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough.
3. Fairness is for duels and spars, not survival.
4. There is no such thing as overkill. Unless it results in non desirable collateral damage, then use necessary force.
5. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
So when all else fails, cheat!
Thankfully this guy mostly seemed bored and had a thousand yard stare. I imagine if he'd actually noticed me sneaking in from the side door into the room, he would've exploded from excitement for finally having something to do. As it is, he merely dropped once I had enough Nanites in his system necessary to reach his brain. My third kill of the day, and third kill of my entire life. I'll need to put aside some time later to let myself have a small breakdown after this is over.
Shoving aside my feelings on the matter for the moment, I recalled the nanites from the Jaffa and transferred them to the console. After a few seconds, the screen began to flicker and glitch, before clearing up and showing 'ACCESS GRANTED' in Goa'uld.
'Ok Jarvis, tell me if anyone of importance is on this ship or down on the planet?' I asked.
After a few moments, Jarvis finally answered.
Negative sir. The only ones on this ship are the Goa'uld Bes and his personal Jaffa. The planet below is merely a mining colony, and doesn't have any strategic importance enough to warrant even an outpost.
'Huh. Well that's both good and bad I suppose. No chance of getting shot out of the sky at least. So no signs of Tok'ra, Jaffa resistance, or, heaven forbid, an SG team?' I asked.
No sir. If there are any Tok'ra or Jaffa resistance, there are no signs of it. However, I do not believe there to be any chances of SG teams, or the Jaffa Rebellion, or even the Tok'ra resistance being on board.
'Why do you say that?' I asked, furrowing my brow.
Because there is no mention of a Tok'ra resistance in existence or a Jaffa rebellion on this computer, but more tellingly, Tau'ri is still the seat of power of Supreme System Lord Ra.
A beat of silence passed.
"What."