Chapter 18 - True face of the New Gods
Plains of Celestis
Ori Galaxy
"What's going on?" Vala demanded before the door finished closing behind Jackson.
"This is bad," he started to explain, pacing around the dining table. Vala watched him from her usual perch on the table. "Ascended Ancients and the Ori have a slight difference of opinion. See, the Ori seem to think that because they're ascended, human beings should worship them. All humans."
"And if we don't?" Vala raised a brow.
"Then we're not worthy of living and should be destroyed."
"I don't think enlightenment means what they think it means," Vala remarked.
"According to the Ori, our ascended Ancients have been shielding our existence from the Ori. They seem to think that our Ancients are evil because they haven't shared the secrets of the universe with us."
"Well, I hate secrets–' she said, shrugging. "At least, the ones I don't know."
"The problem is the Ori now know our galaxy is inhabited by humans because of us!"
"I refuse to accept the blame for that!" Vala protested immediately. "Curiosity is part of human nature. Look, if the Ancients knew that the Ori were so bad, why didn't they stop us from coming here?"
"Free will."
"If they have been protecting us, there's no reason to believe they won't continue, right?" She asked.
"The Ancients may be protecting us from the Ori, but not their human followers," Jackson explained, starting his third round around the table. "See, Ancients won't interfere on any lower planes of existence. If anybody from our galaxy wants to worship the Ori, apparently, that's our choice. And they won't stop Priors from coming through the Gate because apparently, they've already sent one."
Sheppard hoped that SGC had managed to make contact with the Prior and confirm for themselves what they'd have to be dealing with soon.
"The Ori have given Priors special powers and that's not fair," Vala pointed out.
"They're still human," Jackson said. "Now, highly evolved humans can have some pretty amazing abilities. They're using the secrets of the universe that the Ori have given them to spread the word of Ori's godliness. And when people don't see the light, it's going to be–"
Vala shuddered and looked away. She didn't need further explanation. She had experienced their wrath first-hand.
"What are we going to do?" she murmured instead, defeated.
Find the damn communicator and get the fuck out of those people. Sheppard thought, fervently.
"I don't know. I'm starting to think that sending Priors is just the beginning. We could be talking Crusade here. We need to warn Earth."
Already done. Just get the fuck out, Jackson. That's the priority.
Just then, the door opened revealing the Prior waiting for them. "Come." He said, and took off, not looking back to see if they followed.
Not seeing any other option, they did.
…..
Sheppard didn't want to let go of the connection as the device had been nagging at him for some time. He needed to find another option to free Jackson and Vala in case they couldn't locate the other communicator.
Options menu?
A reply flashed in his mind with a soft chime.
The communication device is paired with its counterpart. In order to exit an interactive immersion, the session must be disconnected from the paired device.
In other words, find the other one Harrid and Sallis had hidden somewhere. There was a chance Jackson and Vala would be discovered if they went contacting other rebels. They had already gathered too much attention and Sheppard didn't know if there was anyone willing to take the chance at this point. He also didn't trust the way the Prior calmly led them back out of the same route as they had arrived, looking for all the world like they had been let go.
It made him suspicious.
Other disconnecting options.
Not recommended for sessions longer than ten standard hours.
Now you tell me, Sheppard griped. You mean, we could have just unplugged them before that?
Option currently unavailable.
Huh. That meant somebody already messed with the device. This was not getting any better.
Emergency override?
Not recommended. Maybe it was just him, but it sounded like the device was a little alarmed at the prospect.
Tell me anyway. Sheppard sent out a firm command.
Home of Harrid and Sallis
Village of Ver Ager.
They returned to Harrid and Sallis' quaint little house and searched the place, upside down, just in case the device had been hidden somewhere in there. An hour and a half of searching proved fruitless. Sheppard took a break when he realised Jackson and Vala were going to wait until nightfall to leave the house to look around in earnest. When he came back, they were ready to head out, and he was being hosted by Vala again.
Just before they left, there was a knock on the door. Vala opened the door and was almost pushed back when a hooded man entered the house and closed the door back quickly behind him. To their relief, it turned out to be Fannis.
"You shouldn't have come," Jackson hissed. "They're using us to get to you." He had worked out the same suspicions Sheppard had.
"So I suspected," the rebel agreed. "Either that or you have truly come to see the power of the Ori."
"Not bloody likely," Vala spat.
"You have to leave. Please," Jackson said earnestly.
Fannis, the heretic, proved he had much more backbone and conviction in his own beliefs than they had expected. "If I can help you speak the reality of our existence to your people, maybe one day in turn, you will spread that word back here," he said, lifting his head proudly, defiantly.
Jackson considered it for a moment. Then he gestured for Vala to show him the small black stones they had.
"We need to get to the device these stones came with," he said. "Can you tell us the way?"
Fannis grinned. "I'll take you there."
No amount of pleading from Jackson could change the guy's mind.
"Harrid, Sallis, and I, all those who believe as we do, have known for some time that we may give our lives for our cause," he said seriously before leading them out of the door. "We can only hope one day the truth comes to bear as a result."
With that, he pulled his hood back over his head and stepped into the night. Exchanging another glance, Jackson and Vala followed. After walking for about half an hour by sticking to dark alleys and backyards to dodge the stragglers, they finally reached an abandoned building in an isolated part of the village.
Fannis had the key and let them all in, before locking the door behind them. It looked like a storage space for hay and farming equipment at first glance. Then he took them to the floor below and moved some of the things around to find a trap door on the floor. When he opened the door and the lid of the crate that was nestled in it, they finally found the identical ancient communicator they had been looking for all along.
There were relieved grins all around at the discovery. No amount of frantic urging from Sheppard was enough to make them move in a hurry. The feeling that had been nagging him that things were about to take a turn for the worse, bubbled out to the surface in full-blown panic when the door banged open loudly all of a sudden, startling them all badly.
The Prior walked down the stairs at a leisurely pace, his staff's crystal already glowing. A careless gesture from it sent Fannis flying across the room to impact the wall at their back with a thud. When his body slumped to the floor, he started choking, as if his neck was being squeezed by an invisible grip.
It didn't take long for him to stop breathing altogether.
Before Jackson or Vala could react, the Prior motioned with the staff again, sending both of them flying across the room as well. Then he took a look at the initialised device and aimed his staff one more time, burning out the crystal and insides of the device to cinders, rendering it completely useless.
"And the people shall deliver the wicked unto your divine judgement," he intoned, pinning a dead look on Vala and Jackson who stared helplessly at the Prior from the ground.
That was when the group of villagers entered the hidden storage space, called in by some unheard signal by the Prior. They made quick work of restraining the two of them before dragging them back up the stairs and out of the building. Then they proceeded to take them towards the village square.
Neither Jackson nor Vala needed anyone explaining to them what that meant.
The villagers wrestled them both into the circular, maze-like stone structure where Vala was sacrificed before. They were forced to their knees, with their hands shackled behind them on opposite sides of the yoke-like bench in the centre of the maze. The entire village of Ver Ager was already gathered around, waiting.
The Administrator was also there, simpering at the Prior.
"Glorious are the Ori, who lead us to salvation, who didst fight the evil that would doom us to mortal sin. Did they defeat the old spirits and cast them out," he went on and on, quoting his book. "And now, with the strength of our will, they do call upon us to prevail against the corruption of all unbelievers."
"Well, the second time's the charm," Vala gulped, looking around.
Jackson stayed silent, glaring at the Prior and the Administrator.
"Guide us on the path, so that we may triumph over the enemy of our salvation, and be with you at the end on the Plains of Enlightenment."
At the end of the preaching, the Prior looked to the villagers in the crowd. "Hallowed are the Ori."
"Hallowed are the Ori," They fell to their knees and cried as one.
The Prior lifted his staff and pointed. The bucket of flammable fluid ignites on its own.
...
Shit. Shit. Fucking shit.
Sheppard hated the situation with a passion. It had taken all his strength and willpower not to withdraw his hand from the device and get the hell out of there. There was nothing stopping him from getting away. The ancient device was, in fact, well on board with that plan.
The communicator had no faith in the course of action Sheppard wanted to take, even though it had presented him with the option in the first place. Probably because the device had been forced against its explicit wishes by a lot of begging, urging and downright demanding from Sheppard.
There were no guarantees the emergency back plan he had hurriedly explained to Lee, Lam and Mitchell would work. He hadn't waited around for them to update the General and get his approval. So he had no idea if they had done as he had asked.
What stopped him from wrenching himself out of the situation was Vala and Jackson themselves. Unlike him, they had no way of getting out of the bodies they inhibited without external help.
Harrid and Sallis would burn to death.
The minds of Jackson and Vala would die with them.
The bodies they had back at SGC would follow suit after that.
That was not something Sheppard could stand back and watch, not when there was a chance he could prevent that.
So, pulling on whatever energy reserves and determination he had left, he concentrated on splitting his mind between watching the flames that were rapidly approaching and surfacing back at SGC just enough to give them the signal.
…..
Mitchell stood next to Sheppard's bed, the position he had taken over for days. Lee stood on the other side of the device, ready with a connector to the main power line that fed power to the entire mountain. Lam and her staff were in position by all three beds, ready and waiting like a bunch of sprinters ready for the sound of the gun to start running. Landry and Teal'c were up in the Observation Room, staring down at them with matching sombre expressions.
Sheppards plan, the one he had slurred out before diving right back under Lam's protest, was, in a word, wild.
The chances were, if Jackson and Vala couldn't find the thing on their end, they would die. Sheppard had a feeling they weren't going to find it easily. So he came up with a backup plan.
A crazy idea that had the potential to fry the brains of all three of them. Mitchell shuddered even thinking about it.
"Same outcome any which way you look at it," Sheppard had pointed out. And, his plan had at least some chance of them coming back to life back on this side, mostly unscathed.
If It worked. Emphasis on if.
Lee had been excited enough to hear it. After studying his own scans and readings, he agreed that there was a chance the plan would work. The downside was, there was a chance of them taking down the main power grid of Cheyenne mountain along with probably the power supply of the entire state of Colorado.
In addition to frying the brains of the three people involved.
General Landry had approved the plan after Lee had guaranteed to switch the feed off before crashing the grid. It could be done, the scientist had explained, promising that he would restore their own power supply within an hour after they implemented the plan, regardless of its success. According to him, they had more than enough backup power to last that long with the help of a Naquadah generator.
All they had to do was wait for Sheppard's signal. Then Lee would plug the cable into the slot Sheppard had shown them and direct all the power to the device. The SGC would switch to backup power during that moment.
The high voltage of sustained energy input would theoretically be enough to sever the connection. It was apparently a system reset, not recommended while users were still attached. Sheppard assured them that he could ride the dissolving connection to the surface and grab Jackson and Vala's collective consciousness before they too got fried with the connection.
Mitchell didn't understand the mechanisms of how any of that worked. All he could do was hope to see the three of them waking up on this side without their brains too badly scrambled.
Lost in his thoughts, he was badly startled when the monitors around the three prone bodies woke up with alarms as one, signalling that all of them were in distress.
Lam and her team shouted out readings and codes. Their pulses were rising, just as it had been when Vala had been burnt to death.
Sheppard's whispered words joined the controlled chaos of medics at work.
"It's time." His words were so low amidst all the noise. "Plug the cable."
"Done." Dr Lee, to his credit, didn't waste time. Then he ran to the nearest wall with the circuit breaker and pulled the handle to switch off the main power, saying. "Taking us out of the main, now."
The exchange between the main supply and the backup was so seamless only a flicker of lights above their heads on the ceiling was the only indication on the SGC's side.
The Ancient communications device, however, was a different matter. The thing that had only been emitting a glow from its crystal until now. The moment the energy input that was enough to light up an entire state entered it in one go, it flared up like a miniature sun next to Sheppard.
They all would have run out of the infirmary in a mad rush to clear the blast zone, had they not been warned that this would happen.
….
Sheppard knew the exact moment they plugged in the power supply.
He felt it like a sudden bright light that surrounded him after days of complete darkness. He didn't have time to squint and moan and adjust to the sudden change, however, because several things happened at once.
The glow started to expand and brighten even more, reminding him that he had only very little time to do what he needed to do.
What had been a temporary viewing until then, became a full immersion.
Vala, who had thought she had been only sharing mind-space with Sallis, suddenly became aware of his presence.
The red-hot liquid reached the area where they were kneeling on the stone surface, agonisingly hot flames licking at their clothes and exposed skin like an angry, hungry predator.
Sheppard had no time to waste. He only had seconds to grab the minds of Jackson and Vala as they all became disconnected from the burning bodies at the same time. Their minds were scared, panicky things, wriggling and fighting to get away from the pain and the inevitable deaths.
Sheppard wasn't gentle when he grabbed them both as securely as he could with his own mind, imagining it like catching two angry kittens by their scruffs. Then he turned around and threw them back as fast as he could with all the strength he could muster.
If the plan worked, their minds would travel the rapidly dissolving line back to the communicator on their side before it completely collapsed. Sheppard followed hot on their trail, almost feeling the disappearing connection like a bridge that crumbled behind him as he ran madly to get to the other end.
Once he was back on the side, he couldn't exit the device as Jackson and Vala had already done by then.
No.
There was one more thing to do to make sure nobody died at the last possible millisecond by the backlash that would hit them through their initial connection to the stones.
He braced and imagined a shield - a dome-shaped one between him and the centre of the device where the overloading power core was interpreted like a sun about to go supernova in his mind.
He strengthened the shield until there was nothing left in him to pour into it anymore.
Then all he could do was hope it was enough to keep his and the other two minds shielded when it reached the final step of its core reaching its maximum entropy.
