Episode V: Deities of Darkness from Beyond Time
The Doctor entered the cemetery running past the pylons that guarded the entrance and into the darkness beyond. Captain Jack Harkness and Martha Jones followed in his footsteps, pushing, the would be, Houdini in front of them. Minutes past before they reached the other side where the marsh was pushed back from its natural boundaries.
"Ok, where is it?" Jack prodded the Roxicoricofallapatorian.
"Over there, just beyond those trees, there!" He pointed to two toppled over trees where a tail fin was jaggedly ripped and dangling.
The Doctor moved forward his high tops soaking in. The marsh was filled with sunken logs and dead plants making the traversal of the fifteen feet or so to the plane all the more difficult. With a bit of effort and wriggling the pushed past one last bit of underbrush to find the ship have sunken into a dense mud pool. Water had seeped into the crater that had been formed by the ship's crash landing forming a dense, dark, and putrid smelling mud. To one side the hatch laid open and ajar and on the other, as the Doctor climbed on top, was a floating skeleton dressed in regal but tattered clothing.
"Doctor, what do you see?" Jack yelled into the dense undergrowth.
"Just the dead, nothing to worry about!"
The Doctor pushed his way into the ship which was, to an extent, rather clean. There were only a few small blobs of mud that had dripped into the hatch and the controls otherwise appeared to be pristine. He took out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the console which whirred to life. The engines gurgled and burped underneath the mud and the front monitor flicked on with a warning light for engine failure.
He poked in and around the console until finally finding what he was looking for. Removing the data sensory module and its memory the Doctor exited the ship shutting the hatch behind him. Minutes later a soggy muddy and tired looking Doctor climbed out of the marsh with a pack around his back containing the module components.
"We need to get back to the TARDIS so I can examine what happened to his ship."
"Right, Martha," said Jack, "we'll take care of Houdini here while the Doctor examines the module from the ship." Martha nodded, biting her lower lip.
"Doctor, what did you mean when you said 'the dead'?"
"Skeletons were floating about the ship, if I had to guess the blast, with some help from the marsh, up rooted several caskets that were buried there some time ago."
***
"Before the dawn of time there was the Dark Times, the days of blood and magic. The Ancient Ones known as the Eternals formed an alliance to lock away two great evils. Before the Time Lords and before the dawn of man, before the existence of time as it is today, these beings created the Guardians of Time. This was the time of gods and these gods created man in their image as slaves with the potential for intelligence, but without their power, to serve their wills and act as their guardians. The Guardians of times abhorred these gods, the Chronovore, and the ancient beings brought down a covenant to never create these lower beings again. Yet they did, and in a defiant way set forth the events of the end of the dark times and their eventual flight from this universe. The Eternals formed a realm beyond time and space and the Guardians were left to watch over the universe and the passage between the two realms." Thor's voice echoed inside the Odyssey's cockpit. "Off course Colonel Carter these are just rumor, myths from a time before we understood the universe for what it is."
"Keep going, maybe there is a clue with in the myths that will tell us who the Arachnid woman was."
"Very well, Chronos was the child of a Chronovore known as Prometheus, and of an Eternal known as Electra. His birth and their union broke the pact between the two ancient races spurring on a conflict that encompassed the whole of the universe. The Guardians created a new god Death, to bring an end to the conflict. Amidst this other races of this time took their sides, the Carianites sided with the Chronovores and the Helleth with the Eternals. Chronos disappeared into time leaving the war to rage on. Soon the Eternals gained the advantage and banished the Chronovore to the Ever Darkness, a void with no time or space, no reality. However, in doing so they sealed their own powers as well. Leaving this reality they created a new one outside of time, where they would not age or die. Humans and many other races formed from this war and a new time started, one governed by Chronos himself."
"And Chronos, the mythical deity of Rome is real. And the Eternals, where did they go?" Sam asked.
"I think I know," said Daniel, "they were the first Ascended."
"The Ancient Atlanteans then were more than likely the first descended humans. However, that still does not tell us who that spider thing was." Carter shivered for a moment.
"Wait," Daniel said, "is there any information on the Helleth?"
Thor turned to the screen for a moment, his hologram shifting slightly as he moved.
"They were said to have been fearsome creatures, Daniel Jackson, but there is no specific record of their physical form."
"What would you bet that that spider thing was one of these Helleth?"
"It is possible, by the way, where's Mitchell. I know Vala is on the Tardis, but wasn't Mitchell with us?" Carter looked from Thor to Daniel to Teal'c.
"I believe he left to check on the weapons systems after you went to speak to Thor. He should have radioed in by now."
Carter clicked on her radio, "Mitchell, are you there?" Only static returned. "Mitchell?"
****
Anansi peered down at Mitchell, who was now tethered to two posts.
"You puny humanssss we shall devour you and your planet."
"Right, but first, I think I'll have a snack…"
Anansi's grotesque body pulled forward to lunge at Mitchell with a fell and precise leap she landed abreast of him, inches from his face. The putrid smell of rotting flesh lingered about her mouth.
"First I'll inject you with my poisonsss, then you will begin to liquefy from me to ssssuck you up…."
As she leaned forward her ship lurched as a skeleton twisted into form.
"Ssshhhhaaaaaa DEATH has come for you."
"Are you sure about that you spider freak?" Mitchell yelled as he pulled at his restraints.
The skeleton reached out and grabbed a hold Anansi and pulled her back towards the warp he had come from.
"NO! You can't do thisssss, I've worked ssssso hard."
"You should not exist, banished for all of time to the underdark."
"It wasss you're kind who did that to the Helleth…."
Anansi turned and with a great lunge ripped her own leg out of its socket to escape. The disembodied leg browned and decayed there in the skeleton's hand and then crumbled to the floor.
***
"Weir, the temporal shielding is in place, though integrating phasing technology with temporal technology could cause problems." McKay looked at Weir before returning to his tablet. "It' an untested combination, we don't know if the two technologies will work, but it seems to be the only way."
"Do it then." Weir turned on her head set and her voice came over the intercom.
"All personnel should report to their designated safety areas. We will be experiencing a phase shift of the entire city. You may become disoriented, or even feel sick as we will also be experiencing a shift in time as well."
Weir nodded to Rodney who pressed a few buttons. The city's shielding rose up its usual clear color was now gone replaced by a red hue. Atlantis shook as the shield fully formed and covered the city, and it began to sink. Moments later as the full phasing took place Atlantis fell to the ocean floor landing with a colossal crunch which cracked and broke several of the outer corridors.
"I did not expect that to happen," said McKay as he stood, "ow…"
"Damage report" ordered Weir as she too stood.
"Damage isn't the worst of our worries," McKay said, "the temporal rift will be here in three, two, one…" The rift hit the planet and Atlantis. For a moment everything outside of Atlantis seemed to stop, the water froze in place, the fish stopped in mid flop, then the planet was gone and Atlantis hung in space. There was no solar system, no stars to see, only a gaseous cloud and a single proto-tar.