A Legacy of Chaos
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own amusement – sadly, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Stargate SG-1, Charmed and EVE Online remain the property of Mutant Enemy Productions, MGM, Spelling Productions and CCP Games respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please continue to keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Authors Note: I had a few reviewers comment on the last chapter that there is a bit of hypocrisy on the part of Xander with regards to the SGC and the provision of technology. Once he officially meets them and Earth, Xander will actually be willing to provide technology to Earth just not the technology that the US military would want or like - in other words military technology like the 'big honking space guns' that Jack O'Neill is forever going on about – but technologies that will help everyone. Like medical technology, fusion reactors, atmospheric processors and so on. But first he has to make official contact with Earth and that will take some time.
Chapter Twelve
Nox Mothership
Earth Orbit
"Your misuse of the Stargate."
General George Hammond blinked in surprise and confusion as the words of the Nox Elder hung pregnant in the air. What does he mean by our misuse of the Stargate, he thought confused by what the willowy, but undeniably extremely powerful, alien meant? As far as he was aware they hadn't been misusing the gate as they had just been sending exploration teams out into the galaxy to both learn what exactly was out there and to gather the technologies and knowledge that they needed to defend themselves and their planet from the threats that lurked in the darkness, the Goa'uld being foremost among them. Though the space station over Neptune could be just the break we've been looking for there, he thought as anyone advanced enough to build such a massive space station – and do it without anyone noticing presumably through some real-life form of cloaking technology – would surely be powerful enough to defend against the Goa'uld and, whoever they were, they obviously had some kind of interest in their system. If they could get in contact with them, presumably after deciphering the first contact package said station had sent to SETI then who knew what might become possible.
"Excuse me Elder Ohper but what exactly do you mean by our misuse of the Stargate," President Marcel said after a few moments of stunned silence.
"There are a number of issues, some of which could easily lead to the loss of some of your people or even the complete annihilation of your planet," Ohper replied, recalling the results of their scan of the Tau'ri Stargate facility and the shocking revelation that they did not have a dialling device. Which made them vulnerable as the Ancients had built a great number of safety protocols, and lockouts, into the Stargates that required the DHD to work properly – it was why when they had sent the Tollan to their new planet and shown them how to build a Stargate they had also made sure that the Tollan knew exactly what all the safety protocols were for and why the Ancients had gone to such extreme lengths to create them in the first place. The Tollan had appreciated the advice and made sure that their own self-made dialling device accounted for every single one of those protocols.
Without the DHD the fact that they were keeping the gate a secret from the people of their world was potentially the least of their problems.
Hammond frowned. "What exactly do you mean?" he asked.
"When we scanned your Stargate facility, we noticed that you are not using a dialling device."
"No when the Stargate was recovered from beneath the Giza Plateau seventy years ago the dialling device unfortunately went missing," Hammond explained, "we have not been able to recover it. We did recover another when we recovered the original Ancient stargate from a glacier in Antarctica – that's our southernmost continent – and while it mechanically works the power source doesn't seem to be functioning."
"It sounds like the molecular matrix of the subspace capacitor crystal has decayed," Ohper replied frowning thoughtfully, "that can happen in many older dialling devices, the capacitor crystals lifespans are in the millennia but even they will eventually decay and cease to gather and store energy. Thankfully that breakdown is simple to correct, we can provide you with a replacement crystal easily enough along with the proper installation instructions. In the meantime, how have you been able to use your Stargate?"
"Captain Carter's research team created a computer to dial the gate," Hammond answered, "granted it doesn't consider a number of the feedback signals, but it enables us to use the gate."
"And that is one of the areas where you and your world are in terrible danger," Ohper told him, making Hammond's eyes widen.
"What do you mean?" he asked alarmed.
"When the Alterans – though you might know them as the Ancients – first created the Stargate Networks – first here, then in a number of other galaxies in the local group – they built a number of vital safety protocols and lockouts into the Stargates. All exist for very good reasons and ignoring or discarding those warnings could easily lead your world – or a world you contact – to disaster."
"How so," Marcel asked curious.
"There are any number of ways. Some are relatively easily dealt with others are not so and would have been challenging even for the Ancients to resolve," Ohper explained. "A common one is you could allow an unstable element, such as plutonium, to essentially latch onto your wormhole and use it as a means of getting somewhere where it shouldn't be such as the interior of a star. This would lead to said star undergoing a dangerous shift in its emission spectrum potentially destroying all life on any nearby inhabited planets."
"Yikes. Can you help us avoid that?" Hammond asked.
"Of course, we can simply by restoring the dialling device to full functionality and resynchronising it to your Stargate. I assume you have it stored somewhere."
"We do," Marcel confirmed.
"Then we will assist you getting it working again. However, before we can do that there is another matter relating to the Stargate – and how you have been managing it – that we must discuss. A matter that if it is not resolved carefully could easily lead your world to self-annihilation. We have seen it happen before on other human worlds and I would rather not see it happen to you."
Marcel and Hammond exchanged a look. They both had a horrible feeling that they knew what Ohper was referring to. "Might I ask what you are referring to Elder Ohper," Marcel asked after a moment.
"Why the fact that you have kept the existence of the Stargate, and the fact that you are using it, a secret from everyone on your planet. We have seen such behaviour from human governments on fractured worlds like yours on a number of occasions before and it never, ever ends well."
"But we don't have a choice about using the gate," Hammond replied, "we weren't going to use it, the device was just a curiosity until just over a year ago when a Goa'uld raiding party led by Apophis attacked us. We're just attempting to defend ourselves and our world from attack by the System Lords. They've already sent ships once and it was only through sheer dumb luck that we were able to destroy them."
"I am sure that is what you believe General Hammond," Ohper answered, "but we know the ways of human nation state ruled worlds. No doubt there are many in the government of your nation state, and its military, who would use the gate to further their own agenda and position in the geopolitical power games that young races have been known to partake in."
Marcel sighed. "You're not wrong," he admitted, having had to deal with numerous elusions to using their control of the Stargate in such a manner over the last year from some quite senior people among those in the military, intelligence services and congress in the know about the gate. It was one of the reasons why he had gone along with Senator Kinsey's recommendation that they shut down and bury the gate – even though he knew it probably wouldn't work long term and that eventually one of Kinsey's associates would probably unbury it and start covertly using it again – at least until Apophis attempted attack from space a month ago.
"Mr President!" Hammond exclaimed looking at him in shock.
"Relax George I would never think of using the Stargate in such a manner," Marcel replied holding his hands up in the universal 'calm down' gesture. "Unfortunately, there are some people in the know who are both arrogant and short sighted enough to want to use the Stargate for such a nationalistic purpose. The fact that the Goa'uld wouldn't discriminate between nations, that they wouldn't hesitate to burn us all to glass and enslave anyone unfortunate enough to survive doesn't seem to occur to them."
"Then you see the problem," Ohper answered, "and it is one that must be resolved immediately or, to protect the innocents who could come to harm when the secret eventually does get out – as it inevitably would, we will have no choice but to take preventative action."
"Is that a threat," Marcel demanded.
"If you know anything of the Nox you know that we do not threaten," Ohper replied. "The preventative action of which I speak is simple, we would simply remotely access the Stargates operating system and deactivate it. Your gate would become completely inert and no longer respond to any outgoing or incoming dialling commands. The other Stargate on this planet would simply be transported either to this ship or the Asgard vessel and taken to a world that currently lacks a gate and be appropriately reconfigured to function there.
"I would rather not have us have to take such an action. The Nox do not like to interfere in the development of other civilisations, especially one as young as yours, in such a manner," he continued, ignoring the scowling of the two Americans who did not like the idea that the access to the stars granted to them by the Stargate could be taken away so easily. "We would only do so to save the countless innocents who would otherwise die when the inevitable revelation occurs and violence over who controls the Stargate erupts as it has done on every other divided human world."
Marcel grimaced. "What can we do to prevent you taking such an action," he asked, though he knew that this wasn't going to be that we'll received back in Washington. There would be many who would say that they could not let the Nox intimidate America in this manner. He would be lying if he said that it did not annoy him as well, as the US President he was used to being one of the most powerful men in the world, but he was a realist and thus could tell that the Nox meant what they said and indeed were only willing to do what they said out of a genuine desire to protect those innocents who stood to come to harm if or when the secret got out and the other nations went berserk about it.
"The people of your world must learn of the gate."
"We can't do that," Hammond exclaimed, "it would cause chaos and probably bring about the very thing that you wish to prevent."
"There maybe away around that," Ohper said with a smile, "there are a few things that we need to decide upon first not to mention I would have to speak with Alexander and get his agreement to participate but it could be doable."
Both Americans blinked, startled by the very Earth name that Ohper had just said. Had the Nox already been in contact with someone on Earth? If they had what had that person told them? And why hadn't he reported the contact to the proper authorities?
"Who is Alexander," Marcel asked.
"Alexander is both a who and a what," Ohper explained, "he is the capsuleer who owns and operates the station in orbit of the eighth planet of this system."
Hammond and Marcel exchanged a look at that. Both of them wondering just what the hell a capsuleer was? How did the Nox know this, Alexander? Plus, what did Ohper mean when he said that this person was both a who and a what. It was a very odd description to give someone, especially someone who from his name was almost certainly human. Both men realized that there was only one possible way answer to there questions.
"What's a capsuleer?" Hammond asked a moment before a twittering chime – almost like birdsong – filled the air. "What's that?"
"It's an incoming message from the Asgard vessel," Ohper replied, before manipulating some holographic controls that appeared near his hand. As he did so Hammond and Marcel exchanged yet another look. Both wondering just how many alien starships there actually were orbiting Earth right now and wondering why they hadn't detected their approach? There deep space radar had, after all, easily detected and tracked the two Goa'uld motherships that Apophis had brought to Sol from the moment they came out of hyperspace next to Saturn. So why hadn't they picked up the Nox and Asgard ships as they approached and entered planetary orbit?
The answer was both obvious and devastating.
Apophis had wanted them to see him coming. The powerful, and more than a little pissed off at them, Goa'uld System Lord no doubt had wanted them to shiver and quake with fear as his two warships approached bringing their inevitable doom with them. Such an action would have been well within the observed character of the Goa'uld, it would be just like them to want their soon to be victims to cower in terror as their ships approached, then entered orbit of their planet before beginning a systematic annihilation via plasma bombardment of the population. Something that had very nearly happened to them, would have happened to them if SG-1 – with no small amount of help from Master Bra'tac and some likeminded Jaffa - hadn't pulled a miracle out of their hats at the last-minute leading to the destruction of both motherships.
The Nox and Asgard though, with them things were different. Neither race actually wanted them to know that they were coming, or that their ships were here in orbit of Earth. Thus, they didn't show up on their deep space or orbital radar screens because they did not want to. It was a deeply troubling revelation for both Americans, in the month since Apophis attempted assault, they had assumed that – because they'd detected them last time – that they would always detect alien interstellar spacecraft as they approached and entered orbit of Earth. The fact that that wasn't the case, and that alien powers could easily defeat the best radar's American science and technology could create, was worrying no it was downright terrifying.
They were saved from thinking about it more by a new hologram appearing in the room. The being that appeared was short, barely the size of your average ten-year-old, with pale greyish-white skin and willowy limbs that looked like a stiff breeze would be able to snap them. Its head was proportionately much larger than the rest of its incredibly slender frame, with two large purely black eyes being the dominant feature of the face. It wore nothing in the way of clothing and appeared to be completely androgynous, certainly there were none of the distinctive sexual dimorphism characteristics that you would see between human genders.
"General Hammond, President Marcel allow me to introduce you to Commander Baldur of the Asgard," Ohper said in introduction. "Commander Baldur this is General Hammond and President Marcel. Both hail from the nation state on the planet below that currently has sole possession and use of the Stargate."
"Greetings General Hammond, President Marcel," Baldur replied calmly.
"Greetings commander," Marcel answered with a polite nod, a greeting and gesture echoed by Hammond a moment later.
"General Hammond," Ohper said, "Baldur has a question that he would like to ask you."
"I'll do my best to answer," Hammond replied. "What is it?"
"General Hammond I was scanning the subterranean base where you are keeping the Stargate when my sensors detected the presence of three Goa'uld symbiotes," Baldur answered, "one is immature and likely in the nourishment pouch of a Jaffa. The other two are fully mature. One appears to be in a holding cell the other moving slowly through the upper levels of the base. Would you mind explaining this for me?"
Hammond glanced at Marcel for permission, gaining a nod in response. "The immature symbiote your detecting is indeed in the pouch of a Jaffa. His name is Teal'c he defected to us from Apophis a year ago and has been a valuable ally against the System Lord ever since," he explained. "The mature Goa'uld in the holding cell calls herself Jolinar and claims to be a member of the Tok'ra. She has taken my chief scientist Captain Samantha Carter as a temporary host out of desperation after her last host was fatally wounded in a Goa'uld attack on a planet called Nasaya. The other Jolinar claims its something called an Ashrak – a Goa'uld assassin sent by the System Lords to kill her."
"I see I am familiar with the Tok'ra and the Ashrak," Baldur replied. "I will transport both the Ashrak and Captain Carter to my ship whereupon I will remove the Goa'uld symbiotes from their bodies. Jolinar I will return to the Tok'ra along with a stern warning that if she takes a host against their will again there will be the most severe of consequences."
"And the Ashrak," Hammond asked. "And what of Captain Carter and the Ashrak's host?"
"The Ashrak will be terminated. Both Captain Carter and the other host will be returned to your base unharmed once the two Goa'uld are removed. I will take no action against the Jaffa Teal'c at this time."
"I don't suppose you would give us the Ashrak as a prisoner," Hammond asked.
"No," Baldur replied before his hologram vanished as he closed down the connection from his end.
"Well, that was a bit rude," Hammond commented.
"The Asgard do not have the same concept of manners as most humanoid species do," Ohper explained, "they are a warrior people and to them actions speak far louder than mere words. Currently they do not know you and thus will not trust you for quite some time. However, should you prove yourselves in their eyes they will become one of the greatest friends you can ever ask for."
"Interesting," Marcel commented even as he occurred to him that the Asgard had to have had some influence, especially in the Nordic countries, here on Earth in the past. He would have some other anthropologists in the know about the Stargate look into it, after all as brilliant a man as he undeniably was Daniel Jackson couldn't do everything for the SGC with regards to archaeology and anthropology. He wasn't Superman after all.
"Now where were we," Ohper said bringing there attention back to the here and now. "Oh yes you were asking me what a capsuleer was and by extension what Alexander is. I will explain as best as I am able to, though it will be up to him if he wishes to participate in a plan to ease the transition for your world into a new age. It will also be his decision to meet with you and likely others from your world."
"We can respect that."
Ohper smiled, pleased by there acceptance before beginning to explain just what capsuleers were. Though he was careful not to mention the fact that Alexander was originally an American named Xander Harris and that he had been transformed into a capsuleer by magic. That would not be a good idea as he didn't doubt that some of the people in America would use his previous nationality and nature as an excuse to claim complete ownership of the station and the ships inside of it. Instead, he began explaining it much as he would if Alexander/Xander was actually from a distant star cluster called New Eden.
There would be time enough to talk about magic later.
Sunnydale
California, A Short Time Later
Buffy Summers grunted as she landed, with a bone jarring impact, on the floor of one of Sunnydale's numerous cemeteries. The impact stunned her momentarily, though with the supernatural constitution of the Slayer she recovered in seconds and got back to her feet. Glaring angrily at the vampire that had just tossed her over a headstone to land with such a jarring impact on her back.
"Do you realize how hard it is to get grass stains out of this top?" she rhetorically asked the vampire, which looked like it had just stepped out of the fifties. "And sheesh when will you fang faces ever get with modern fashion?"
The only answer from the vampire was a demonic snarl before it came charging towards her. So predictable, she thought pivoting to one side allowing the angry vampire to charge past. As it did so she delivered a spin kick to the lower back, and the kidneys, of the demonically reanimated corpse. The force of the impact knocked the vampire on its face with a loud roar of pain. Not giving the vamp a chance to react Buffy walked over, flipped the groaning fang face over before driving Mr Pointy into the unbeating heart and pulling it back out. Moments later a familiar scream of demonic anguish split the night as her latest kill of the evening turned to dust.
Relieved Buffy stood up and looked around the graveyard, searching for any sign of more vampires. Thankfully there did not appear to be anymore of the foul creatures around tonight, meaning that this final part of her nightly patrol was over, and she could go home to bed as Willow had already done. Brushing some vampire dust off herself she made her way out of the graveyard and began making her way towards home.
As she walked, she found her thoughts drifting back towards the events earlier in the evening and the conversation that they had all had with Aura, that artificial intelligence of Xander's. She was still struggling to wrap her head around this whole capsuleer thing from the fact that Xander was now functionally immortal – and that if he died, he would simply wake up in another identical body – to how capsuleers could fly starships by physically becoming literally one with the ship. That last part sounded incredibly, impossibly cool and she couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to literally feel the ship and control every aspect of it from sensors to propulsion to weapons just by thinking about it. She almost wanted to try it out for herself, almost as she didn't think she would like the cybernetic implants that she would need to become one with a ship – she still remembered the sight and feel of those six metal sockets running down Xander's spine that he'd showed them when he'd briefly come back to Earth. Sockets that were downright freaky, especially given that they were seamlessly merged with the body as if it had been grown with them already in place, which if she understood what Aura had said correctly it had been.
No thinking about it more she wouldn't want to be a capsuleer. If nothing else the hydrostatic fluid that they were immersed in when in their capsules – which was apparently there to protect and support the capsuleers physical body while their mind was merged with the ship or station – would likely do a real number on the blond hair she was so proud of. Thus, it was definitely a no at least for her. Though she was willing to bet that Kyle and the other former members of the pack would be all for becoming capsuleers themselves so they could be with Xander all the time – something that all five of them seemed to want but which they had never been allowed to have due to Xander feeling he had no choice but to conceal the truth about the soul imprint left behind by the hyena possession from her and Willow. Have we really been that insensitive and domineering towards him, she thought, that he didn't feel like he could trust us with that kind of information? We would have understood.
Even as she thought that she guiltily had to acknowledge that they wouldn't really have understood – how could they as they'd never been possessed like that themselves – the lingering bond between them. Plus, Willow would probably have pushed to find some way of removing the imprint or blocking it somehow with magic, despite being told that it was not possible.
Willow.
Buffy grimaced slightly at the thought of her redheaded friend. She had learned quite a bit about Willow today, about how much she liked to have control over things and make sure everything was exactly how she liked them and would not accept that it could not be that way, stuff that she wasn't sure she really liked. It had her questioning a lot of things she had previously thought about Willow and the support she had offered especially towards her relationship with Angel. The possessive way she seemed to regard Xander – and how she had tried to hog all the questions to Aura and tried to prevent any of the pack asking questions, well until either Giles, Ms Calendar or Kowalski had put a stop to it for all of thirty seconds each time, not to mention her repeated assertions that there had to be away to return him to normal again despite being told, repeatedly that it was not possible that not even divine magic could undo the fundamental change that had been wrought on Xander by the spell – had set alarm bells ringing in her head. It had her wondering just what else had she missed about Willow's personality, what else did she hide beneath her mousy do no harm exterior. How much did she really know Willow, did she truly know her at all?
It was at the moment that she turned into her street and her house came into view. She did her best to push down – for now at least – the disquiet she was feeling about seeing the controlling aspect of Willow's personality. An aspect that Xander had clearly known all about given how he had subtly warned them about it when they'd briefly met him at the old CRD site before he'd had to leave due to a problem with his ships cloaking device. There would be time enough later – and she was going to have plenty of time to think about it over the next two weeks due to school suddenly being closed after most of the faculty from Principal Snyder on down suddenly, inexplicably keeled over dead, something else she was going to have to look into as it literally reeked of supernatural nastiness, nastiness that it was her job as the Slayer to put a permanent stop to – to think about what if anything she should or could do about the revelation of Willow's control freak streak. Right now, she needed to clear her mind and stop thinking about it, and everything else they'd learned this evening, otherwise she would not be able to sleep.
Arriving at the front of the house she let herself in, thankful that she had thought to tell her mother and little butt pain ahh sister that she was studying at Giles place this evening, and that as a result the door was unlocked and the porch light on. It made a nice change from having to climb up the tree next to the house and slip in through her bedroom window.
"Buffy," she heard her mother call from the living room. Blinking surprised that her mother was still up, Joyce Summers liked generally to retire quite early she moved into the living room. To see the trunk from her room on the floor at her mother's foot, and that was not all her mother was holding one of her swords. A sword that she knew had been in the trunk, a trunk that only she and the late Merrick knew the combination to. "Come here we need to talk. I assume that you haven't actually been studying with Mr Giles but have been out slaying vampires."
Buffy's eyes widened. "How did you?" she exclaimed.
"Buffy, have you forgotten that you were not the only one who had to dress up for Halloween," Joyce replied, absently twirling a stake Buffy hadn't seen in her other hand further shocking her as that was one of the fun little coping mechanisms that she'd learned. Ironically based on a suggestion from Xander. "I had to dress up as well to go to that small business owners party. The theme for us was to dress up like your children would and like you I got parts of my costume from Ethan Rayne's shop."
Oh crap, Buffy thought. "You mean you got…" she started to say.
"-up in the spell as well yes," Joyce answered. "I have spent the last few days thinking about everything I learned about your calling. I am sorry I didn't believe you before. Now sit down we need to talk."
"What about," Buffy demanded as she sat down.
"About this calling of yours as The Slayer. The fact that it has already killed you once, would have if Xander hadn't given you CPR, the disgraceful way in which you repaid him for saving your life," Joyce said, making Buffy wince as she recalled how she had used Xander as a human stripper pole to make Angel jealous in the Bronze. She still didn't know what she had been thinking when she had done that as it had been so thoughtless and cruel. She didn't have time to start beating herself up about that again for it was at that moment that Joyce said one final devastating thing. "And the fact that you are dating an ensouled vampire older than this nation."
And suddenly Buffy knew a good night's sleep was not on the cards.
Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the metaphoric dust. I hope you all enjoyed it, sorry it has taken so long to get this chapter written but the muse just refused point blank to cooperate leaving the chapter half-finished until very recently – as in two days ago lol. Hopefully the next chapter won't take quite so long to write but we will have to see. Until next time.