Hello, everybody!
Trife: What? How can you even consider that I killed off the farseer? She is an important character in the story, I can't just kill her off. Well, in this fic the eldar work more from the shadows and don't openly ally with anyone so easily. They are distrustful about the humans and will use their trickery to make them do their battles and work.
Lunatic Pandora1: Do you mean that the reason of rewriting was random or the story itself? I'm guessing the former. Thanks for the name advice. Looked up my author name to find this? Isn't that quite mandatory in case of a new story, unless you use Search or check the crossover section?
Dusel: Thanks for the compliment. Argh, another eldar hater! Damn, you guys are numerous these days. Well, that is understandable. I, too, was one once upon a time.
Okay those were my replies this time. I have decided to start this story from the Season 3 episode "Devil you know". I will ignore all the events of the following episodes like they didn't happen: Point of view, 1969 (no time travelling in this fic, too complicated and confusing as hell), Holiday, Past and present, fifth race, Out of mind, Into the fire, There but for the grace of god, Thor's chariot, Thor's hammer and the Nox. Done mostly for story purposes, especially the time travelling, Asgård and the Quantum Mirror.
Anyways, on to the story then!
Unknown Waters
Autarch Fetalque Swiftblade raised himself to a sitting position from the floor of the bridge of his ship, the Sword of Vaul. Well, technically the ship wasn't his nor was he the real commander, but seeing that the commander was dead and the second-in-command, Elarique Swiftblade, was also dead that made him the commander of the ship until they could get back to the craftworld and a new commander could be chosen.
Fetalque scanned the dark room - the lights had gone out from whatever happened - with his eyes, his helmet's sensors picking up fallen crew members all around the floor. Some were unconscious, while some had been crushed by a falling piece of the ceiling, most notably the crewman who operated the sensors of the Void Stalker. There were people groaning and yelling for help on the lower level of the command bridge, which was a meter and half lower than the upper level, and five meters forward. Further still was third level which was another one and half meters lower than the second one.
"Autarch, are you alright?" asked Klerian from beside him.
"I'm fine, Klerian," replied Fetalque as he stood up slowly. "What happened to us? I remember only that the entry to the Webway failed and then we hit the Warp storm."
The lights turned on without a warning.
Klerian straightened up and looked at the main viewscreen which was offline at the moment. In reality, he was scanning the surrounding area with his mind. "Strange," he muttered as he turned his head back towards Fetalque. "It appears we are no longer near Medusa V or the Warp storm that consumed the planet."
"Then where might we be, Warlock?" asked a new voice from the doorway behind them.
"Farseer Aldreth," said Fetalque as he turned to face the newcomer. "Nice to see you alive."
Aldreth was wearing a blue, sleeveless robe with her rune armor worn over it and a tall, yellow helmet with a flat, wing-like thing spurting from the back of it and curving over the top like the tail of scorpion poised to kill its prey. A yellow cape hung from her back, its edges decorated with various runes. On her wrists were a pair of yellow wristbands, edged with the symbol of Alaitoc.
"Klerian, go help the wounded," said Fetalque as he stared at the Farseer. "They will need your assistance."
"Yes, Honored Autarch," said Klerian, bowing, and went to do as told. His telekinetic powers could prove useful in removing the fallen equipment and debris.
"What is it that you want, Farseer?"
"I may know what happened," said Aldreth quietly. "When the Webway portal failed and was about to disappear, the ship plunged through it and came in contact with the Warp storm. Somehow the combination of our failed entry attempt and the raging power of the Warp storm has transported us to this place. I am not sure if we are even in the same galaxy anymore, the Warp is known to have transported ships light-years off course."
Fetalque thought about her explanation. It was very much likely that the farseer was right, just like she always was. "Then where are we, if not in the same galaxy?" asked Fetalque with a hint of worry in his voice.
"I do not know, but if we can get the ship's systems back online, then we can try to determine our location."
Fetalque nodded and looked over his shoulder. He could see Klerian dragging wounded eldar from under the debris and tending to their immediate injuries. He turned back to the farseer, only find her long gone. "Should have known she would do that," he muttered bitterly.
Fetalque climbed up the stairs of the command dais and sat on the throne, deep in thought. If we are not in our own galaxy, then where could we be? The Warp couldn't have just thrown us across the universe into some other galaxy, could it? he thought with worry and confusion.
He just hoped the ship could be repaired quickly.
Hidden in a nearby asteroid belt, a lone ship, consisting of a superstructure with a large, golden tetrahedron pyramid at the center, watched the strange, new ship with interest.
It had appeared half an hour ago in a bright flash of light and massive burst of energy that was powerful enough to cause almost every system in the Ha'tak to fail. It had prevented the ship from returning to its master on one of the planets of the solar system.
In the pel'tac of the Ha'tak, a lone man stood before the command console, observing the strange ship as it floated lifelessly in space a couple of thousand kilometers away. The ship was sleek, several kilometers long and had two wing-like sails going out diagonally from both sides. It was painted azure while the wings were yellow like a sun. It seemed to be damaged in several places and was undergoing repair, but that couldn't be confirmed from the distance without any kind information.
"Master Ro'nak," greeted a jaffa as he entered the room. "The Ha'tak should be able to move once more in a couple of minutes."
Ro'nak turned his head to look at the jaffa whose face was hidden behind a chainmail face mask. Many of the jaffa serving his god, Sokar, wore such masks to hide their faces and to appear more intimidating to their enemies. This gave them a certain advantage in the field of battle and made them excellent choices should a human world decide to rebel against their god.
"Thank you, jaffa," said Ro'nak. "You may go now."
The jaffa bowed. "Yes, my lord," he said and left the room.
Ro'nak turned his attention back to the mysterious ship. Whoever was in command of that ship was a possible threat to the Ha'tak and as such, a threat to the goa'uld themselves.
Such threats had to eliminated, but how? He knew nothing of the ship or its crew. If he could seize the moment, he could try to attack the mysterious vessel and hope that the Ha'tak's firepower was enough. If only he could send a message to Sokar's fleet about this ship.
Suddenly the control panel began to act weirdly: random crystals began to flicker and shake. This continued for a moment, despite Ro'nak's best efforts to stop it, then it stopped and more weird things happened: first the control panel disappeared and was replaced by the body of a man, then the room around began to lose focus and became nothing more than a black veil that surrounded him.
Ro'nak reached for the body, pulling the chainmail mask off its face slowly. Instantly he recoiled at the sight of the pale face of the body. It was him! He could easily recognize his face from a mass of dozens simply because he had an unmistakable scar that ran diagonally across his face, from the left side of his forehead and down to the right side of his chin.
The body's head began to slowly turn towards him, its eyes glowing yellow, mouth hanging open. "This is what you will become," it said in a hollow, ghostly voice. "You can still save yourself." A deathly pale hand grabbed Ro'nak's wrist. "You must find your destiny! Find your guiding beacon; find your destiny!"
Ro'nak screamed as the vision faded and colors returned to the surroundings. He panted and gasped for breath as he struggled to stand upright. He had always had the ability to somehow predict the future to some degree. He didn't know how or why, he just did. In his home village he had been branded a sorcerer and banished because the townsfolk thought he was a demon in disguise. When he was barely a teenager he was taken in by Sokar's jaffa and was taken into their ranks, even if he never had a goa'uld larva like everyone thought.
The visions themselves were ghostly and cryptic. Sometimes they showed him his own death, sometimes they showed wraiths and spirits that spoke in riddles, sometimes they showed a field of white flowers where a little girl in black clothes sat picking up flowers and smiling sadly, signifying that something tragic was going to happen. He had learned a long ago that those visions had to be heeded or they would come true in one way or another, even if he didn't understand what they meant most of the time.
"What did that mean," he whispered as he stared at the control panel. "Does it have something to do with the new ship?" He looked at the gigantic alien ship.
Ro'nak gasped when the sudden realization hit him. The vision was referring to the alien ship! It had to be.
"This ship... could it be my guiding beacon?" he asked, unsure of his own voice.
Then, in the distance the alien vessel began to move.
After an hour of repairing and calibrating, the Sword of Vaul began to move.
"I want a full powered scan of our surroundings at once," ordered Fetalque, sitting down on the commander's throne on the dais. He had waited patiently for this moment, thinking over various scenarios of what happened. He had come to the conclusion that the ship was nowhere near any distinguishable stars, systems or sectors, or any other thing that could be used to determine their location.
"Initiating the scan, Autarch," announced a crewman from his position from the side of the bridge.
A holographic map of the surrounding space around the Void Stalker appeared on the table that sat on the middle level of the command bridge and rose up while enlarging. It was now at the level of Fetalque's seat and at least three meters in height and width.
The Sword of Vaul sat in the center of the hologram, surrounded by a sphere of blue, yellow, red and white. Then the image began to clear up, forming a three dimensional map of the area. The map was quite blank, except for an asteroid belt in the eastern side and a small planet in the western side of the map. But something within the asteroid belt caught Fetalque's attention: it was a ship with a large, tetrahedron pyramid in the center of its superstructure. On the map it was colored red for a possible threat, and Fetalque didn't want to get the ship into a battle so early after the repairs were complete.
"Unknown ship is suffering from widespread system malfunctions," said Farseer Aldreth as she walked up the small climb of stairs of his command dais. "Our sudden appearance from the Warp must have caused it."
"That is quite unfortunate," said Fetalque. "I had hoped our presence would go noticed until we had determined our exact location."
"We could hail them and try to acquire information from them."
"I know, but if they are suffering from system malfunction, then their communication should be out as well." Fetalque sighed in annoyance; this was not going to end well if the unknown ship had allies. He turned his head to the farseer, who was still staring at the holomap. "Would it be possible to just leave the area and forget this encounter all together?"
"It is not my place to say, Autarch. You are the commander; it is your duty to make the decision." She jumped backwards down the stairs and left the bridge for her own chamber somewhere deep within the Sword of Vaul.
"Autarch, what are your orders?" asked a crewman. "Should we open fire?"
"No, let's make our way to the inner solar system. I want to know where we are, and there may be a planet nearby with at least some kind of civilization, be it primitive or not." Fetalque rose from his throne as the holomap disappeared and the main viewscreen flickered to life, forming into the image of the space in front of the ship. "Make towards the first inhabited planet in the system at full speed! We cannot afford to waste time until we are sure of our location," he ordered and the crew began to issue commands without a word.
Ro'nak gasped in awe when the alien ship began to move, first slowly as if testing the waters, then it began to move even faster towards the inner system, reaching a speed Ro'nak hadn't thought possible for a starship its size.
"Impossible," said Meron, a jaffa who had come to observe the strange ship with him. He was wearing the basic dark red jaffa armor and carried a staff weapon. His skin was quite pale and the right side of his jaw was covered in burns from an old accident. "Should we tell Sokar about this incident?"
"I do not know, old friend," said Ro'nak. "I saw a vision of my own dead corpse telling me to find my destiny and a guiding beacon, but I do not know where to look."
"You believe it has something to do with this new ship?" asked Meron, worried. He was one of the few who knew of Ro'nak's powers of foresight and his lack of a goa'uld. He understood why Ro'nak had kept quiet about himself; a human who commanded a Ha'tak and had powers of precognition was a threat to a goa'uld's power should he gain enough popularity and fame among the jaffa and humans.
"Yes," answered Ro'nak blankly. "Maybe we have to follow it, to find where my destiny lies."
"The Ha'tak should be able to enter hyperspace by now. If the ship is heading towards Delmak, then we might be able to arrive there before it does."
"You are correct." Ro'nak turned to fully face his old friend. "Tell the crew to start the reactor and prepare for hyper launch."
"As you wish," said Meron with a bow and left to inform the crew.
"I just hope the fleet on Delmak doesn't try to attack the ship," whispered Ro'nak, shivering at the thought of arriving right into a battlefield and then being blown to pieces himself. Of course, he hadn't seen the power of the strange vessel's weaponry, but he doubted he had ever seen something like them. He had seen a few weapon turrets from the distance and a pair of massive cannons on the ship's prow.
He wished he would never be the target of those cannons.
Teal'c, the ex-First Prime of goa'uld Apophis and a member of top secret military team SG-1, was trying steer his Tel'tak away from a pair Death Gliders that were after him.
He had come with his team - consisting of Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson and himself - and a Tok'ra operative, Martouf, to save another Tok'ra operative, who was also Major Carter's father, from a goa'uld named Sokar. He had deployed the rescue force via deployment pods and stayed behind in the orbit in case they needed extraction. But an arriving Ha'tak had seen him after a massive energy wave swept over the whole solar system and disabled his ship's cloaking device, leaving him open for an attack from the Death Glider wings inside the goa'uld mothership.
Fortunately, the Death Gliders were also disabled by the energy wave; unfortunately, the Tel'tak was also disabled for a very long time. Now, he was being chased by the Gliders.
"Teal'c, can you hear me?" came the voice of Colonel O'Neill over the radio. "What the hell happened up there? We saw a huge light some time ago, and the radio fell dead after that!"
"I do not know what it was, but whatever it was it disabled my Tel'tak and the Goa'uld mothership that arrived from hyperspace a moment before it," explained Teal'c calmly. He steered to the left to avoid staff blasts from his pursuers. "Now, I am being pursued by a pair of Death Gliders."
"Great, more problems! Just great! First Apophis is alive and well, trying to dig into our heads with some kind of a hallucination liquid and now this!"
"Has Apophis acquired any information yet?"
"No, I don't think so; none of us cracked. How come he is alive, anyway?"
"Sokar must have used a sarcophagus to revive the dying symbiote." Teal'c steered downward to avoid more shots. "Apophis must have fooled us into thinking he was dead so we would send the body back to Sokar. When Sokar revived him, he transferred him to another body so he could have tortured him further."
The ship shook as a pair of staff blasts hit the Tel'tak's side.
"Somehow Apophis was able to convince Sokar to make him the guardian of the Keeper of Ne'tu, Bynarr, whom he killed to take over the moon. He will possibly try to kill Sokar when he is about to make him the next Keeper of Ne'tu."
"And you know all this, how?" asked O'Neill after a moment.
"That is a simple plan that has been utilized in many forms by many goa'uld in the past, and Apophis is no exception."
Suddenly another staff blast rocked the ship, this time more violently.
"Teal'c? You OK?" asked O'Neill worriedly, hearing the explosions and the screeching metal. "Don't tell me those snake bastards are still trying to blow you up..."
"I'm alright, but not for long," said Teal'c, this time louder and less calmly than before. "I can see more Gliders coming to finish the job."
Indeed, in the distance he saw a dozen more Death Gliders flying towards him. They were followed by an Al'kesh, its round shape easily recognizable against the flock of curve shaped Gliders. He wouldn't last even a minute against that kind of armada.
Then he saw something that struck fear and hope into his heart: an absolutely massive azure colored ship sailed gracefully past the oncoming fighter armada at speeds no ship should have been able to reach, its numerous gun turrets and cannons aiming at the goa'uld fighters. Four great wing-like sails, two on each side, passed by the Death Gliders, making them look like flies next to the ship's sheer size.
Teal'c grabbed his radio quickly, he had to report this to O'Neill; this ship was definitely not of goa'uld design. "O'Neill, we have a new contact," he said, eyes glued to the newcomer.
"Friendly or hostile?" came the reply.
"Not sure, but it is truly a sight to..." he stopped when he heard Jack yelp in surprise and listened closely.
From the other end of the line, Teal'c heard sounds of struggle, cursing, threats and an all too familiar sound of a goa'uld. He heard Apophis order his troops to bring the SG-1 and Martouf to his chamber for an audience with Sokar. Teal'c's eyes widened when he heard the next word uttered by Apophis: "Make sure the Tau'ri are ready to die after I kill Sokar."
Teal'c felt new determination wash over him, let go of the radio and grabbed the steering wheel firmly, turning the Tel'tak around quickly. He hurried towards Ne'tu and Delmak, not worrying about the pursuers who were too mesmerized by the new alien ship, which had come to a halt a few kilometers away from the Tel'tak, to actually notice his escape.
He stole one last glance at the colossal vessel, feeling a shiver go down his spine as if something in the ship was watching him, before he diverted his gaze back to his destination: the fortress world of Delmak, the lair of the devil.
And that's a wrap!
I know, I know. I said I wouldn't update in a month but a little change in the schedule came up. I wrote this as fast as I could so the ending may seem a bit rushed.
So how do you like the psychic human-pretending-to-be-jaffa idea? Also, do eldar have bionics or such things to replace lost limbs or even an eye? Just asking! I'm not going to make someone have such a thing, I just want to know just in case.
How do you like this version of the story? Is it better than the old one?
Well in the next chapter we'll have the first encounter between the goa'uld and the eldar, and it won't be a pretty sight. Then we have a fight between Apophis and Jack O'Neill. A jaffa rebellion led by Ro'nak and Meron. Fighting on Delmak's surface. And we will meet terrible experiments of Sokar and of course Sokar himself...
See ya!