Murphy's Physics
Murphy's Twelfth Law: "If everything has been going wrong, something is bound to go right."
Udimu sat on his padded throne, waiting for his underlings to bring his captives before him. He wore an attitude of relaxed superiority, but it was a mask to conceal that he was seething. It galled him-- infuriated him-- that his power and majesty should be so little recognized at the present. It had taken too long to locate the harsesis as well as an expenditure of much naquada and slaves that he could not spare. The System Lords had shut him down at every turn; luckily for him, a goa'uld could buy anything for the right amount of naquada.
The cost of the location of this planet had been great; enough mineral to build a Ha'tac, and a third of his jaffa had died in the raid upon Kali's territory while stealing it. It angered him that it should cost him anything. Could not it be seen that he had a right to whatever his heart declared to him? To negotiate price and offer payment was beneath the consideration of a God.
It was unseeming as well for a God to lower himself to such petty outbursts, therefore Udimu could not rage and rant in his frustration. He raised his chin high and leaned back, trying to forget the humiliation he was suffering by indulging in daydreams of glory and conquest to come.
His body servants and guards pretended that they did not hear Udimu speak. The God often spoke aloud to Himself. It was more than their lives were worth to interrupt Him.
"Soon", the God said, long fingers stroking the underside of his chin, "I will at last take my rightful place as a System Lord... perhaps even become a Power great enough to humble the System Lords! Surely one such as I, Udimu the Vast and Terrible, should not be expected to stand beside such lowly goa'ulds as Bastet or Ba'al! I shall be hailed as the greatest Goa'uld Lord all!"
Lost in his fantasies, Udimu was not aware that a hooded jaffa had escorted the boy before him until the jaffa tapped his staff gently on the floor. The boy was kneeling in front of the jaffa in an attitude of dejection and surrender.
The Goa'uld looked upon the child with greedy eyes. He was strong of limb but much younger than any host he had ever taken before. "I should wait," the Goa'uld said softly, as if still speaking to himself. "I should cultivate this host for a few years, until the body has reached the ideal conditions for absorption. But I have searched and waited for a long time, and I will not take the chance of losing you again. Jaffa!" He turned glowing eyes upon the warrior who stood over the boy. "Where is the human prisoner? Did I not order that he should be brought before me as well?"
The jaffa stiffened, striking his breast in a salute to his god. "My lord," the jaffa's voice was muffled by the closed hood, "the human is dead."
Udimu sat up, his carefully sustained aura of calm dissipating in a fresh wave of fury. "Is it not customary to kneel before your God when he deigns to speak to you?" He raised his hand, the ribbon device glowing on his palm. "I should strike you down for this insolence!"
The jaffa knelt, his ill-fitting armour clanking, and bowed his head. In his hand, the staff weapon assumed a seemingly innocent angle toward Udimu. But the goa'uld was too incensed to notice. He focused on the device, prepared to strike down the jaffa. So what if the numbers of his jaffa had been decimated... surely one more would not make too great a difference.
The boy looked up, frozen between the doomed jaffa and the goa'uld. Udimu frowned, not wanting to risk harming the child he had hunted for so long. "Stand aside, harsesis! I will show you what happens to those who defy their God!"
"Defy this, snakehead."
The boy dodged aside, just before the jaffa thumbed the trigger on his staff weapon. A neat hole the size of a bowling ball appeared through Udimu's chest. The goa'uld had reached for his wrist to turn on his body-shield rather than release the blast from his ribbon device. He fell back on his throne with a look of amazement, watching the smoke rising from his bowels. He seemed more surprised that his servants and guards did nothing to leap to his aid as he slid from the seat and died upon the floor.
When the desperate gould symbiote wormed out of the dead host, a heavy jaffa boot came down and crushed the life from it.
O'Neill gave his heel a twist to finish the job. "God, I love my work!"