NationStates Jolt Archive

One Year Ago

On Aritan, a semi-distant world in the Atumite Star Cluster, with a population of a little over four hundred and ninety two million , one of the largest and most populous goa’uld planets, there was a small, cramped tomb, one of many in a valley that had held the earliest dynasties of jaffa heroes and priests when the world had been a major military recruiting ground, before it had fallen out of use.

The grinding of stone on stone echoed through a small, dark, tomb. It stopped for a moment, and then crowbars went back into the rock, pulling it away and letting a shaft of pale illumination fall into the chamber.

“Not exactly the best tomb we’ve come across,” said a young looking man as he pushed his head through the doorway. Tomb raiding was a sign of how lax the goa’uld overlord of Aritan had become; while there were jaffa guarding the stargate, it was on an island off the coast of one of the world’s continents, and largely viewed as a myth.

The stargate of Aritan barely functioned; it was erratic at the best of times, though fortunately, the devices were equipped with enough built in safeguards that it either came on or did not, about forty percent of dial-outs from the world resulted in successful connections, and about ten percent of dial-ins.

“Well, let’s see what we’ve got, anyway,” said another, feminine voice, as a thick rope played down into the darkness. A thin shape appeared in the evening light, rapelling down through the gap, she was the second speaker, as could be heard when she grunted a little, dropping the two feet to the floor and taking a small lamp from a backpack, lighting it.

“Gold…” she said, looking around, “Quite a bit of it, if it’s real, we’ve hit the big time…”

There was a restrained cheer from above, “Hey, Malka,” said the first voice, “we’ll see if we can find somewhere to tie this off so one of us can come down…”

“Sure, just don’t all come down…” she said, setting the lantern down on what seemed to be an altar and looking around.

There didn’t seem to be much in the gold-lined room, but the lining could be stripped. What there was, inscriptions Malka couldn’t read, all lead to one point, on the wall.

Her eyes were drawn to a cylinder, a jar, of clay and leaved in silver and gold, with a jackal-head on it, sitting in a jewelled and elaborate recess in the golden wall. Malka felt anticipation as she reached out to touch it. It was warm, where the rest of the room was cold, and she dropped it in surprise.

It fell, and broke, smashed into pieces, revealing a dully-gleaming cylinder, about the size of Malka’s small forearm. It had a three sided symmetry, three bars with plastic tanks of fluid imprisoning something between them, that looked like a dappled black and brown worm, transfixed by several needles.

It hissed; it was something alive. Malka jumped, slightly, and leaned closer to see. There seemed to be distinct fins, and jaws, and a long thin tail; it looked like a cross between a catfish and a snake. Its head twisted from side to side, and it hiss-squeaked again, twisting a little faster against the pins that jabbed at it.

She was a little afraid, pitied the fish-thing a little, but was mostly curious about how it had gotten like that… Malka picked the frame up, and looked at it carefully, putting it on the alter, standing up.

“What’s going on down there?” her partner asked from above.

“Nothing!” Malka said, “just looking at something…”

The pins seemed to go through the bars, and could be drawn back it one just grasped the base. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but she decided to give it a go when the fish screeched in what sounded a lot like pain. It would probably die, but she guessed that might be better.

One, two; six, eventually, came out, and almost faster than Malka could see, the creature darted, springing up, jumping towards her. She screamed, and then gagged as it somehow crawled between her teeth.

It hurt more than anything, it was like having the back of her neck chewed, and she coughed up blood in a fine spray. Thankfully, she blacked out.

‘Hello Malka…’ it was a mind-voice, she could hear it in her head, even though it wasn’t being spoken, somhow it was different… ‘and thank you. Thank you so much… I’m Ūsa,’ it was pronounced ooh-sah, ‘There’s a silent t on the end there,’ the voice added, sounding helpful. ‘Though Aset is, I think the version of my name you might have heard of…’

Malka feinted again, for entirely different reasons.

Malka smiled a little at the sight of the town of Karan, a moderate looking place that consisted of high walled, reed-roofed buildings made of a form of concrete, housing around eight hundred people. The settlement consisted of irrigated, carefully divided farms to the east and south, against a river, and a residential area that slumped along neat lanes between a vast town-palace administration building and a trio of lofty temples. The poorer areas were cruder, mud huts, away to the north east, of the town, and this was, unsurprisingly, where Malka lived.

She thieved from the tombs up north – a dangerous occupation – and then sold what she found for a fraction of its true worth. Often to the governor of the town, via intermediaries, of course, he was ‘saving’ by tax and taking a cut from the revenue of the mines, to build himself a personal residence separate from the town palace. It was expected, of course, but the tomb robbing was a low. It was especially dangerous to deal with him this way, because the small settlement was a site of burial for the local, human, nobility, who would arrive by caravel, and be taken north to the tombs.

As such, there were strict laws against tomb robbing. Malka could, if her ‘haul’ wasn’t good enough, easily find herself arrested by the commissioner of her work, who was also the local judge, and slaving away the rest of her life in the gold mines in the dusty low hills to the immediate north.

‘Well. Not so much has changed…’ Aset mind-spoke, ‘I’m guessing the goa’uld don’t come here much, though. After all, that palace is only huge, not the ‘whopping’ they would require…’
“No, they don’t come here…” Malka said.

‘You know, you don’t have to speak aloud. And talking to yourself will probably seem strange. I’ll hear you if you ‘think it at me.’

“You can…” Malka paused, and then replied, ‘you can hear my thoughts?’ she mind-spoke indignantly.

‘I can. But I’m not. Except just there. When you think ‘at’ me, it’s different…’

“R…” ‘Right.’

‘Now…’ Aset said, looking at the town, ‘let’s see about improving our conditions… How does one set about becoming headman, anyway…’

One Year Later…

Aset smiled, taking the hand device and pulling it slowly onto her hand. It was almost a fit. A day or so with a smith would fix it up. She turned the ribbon-glove over on her hand, peering into the gemstone in the centre of her palm, which suddenly glowed with an inner red fire.

The dull steel surface shone in the light, with a slight patina of age. Aset would have to get it adjusted to her right hand – Malka was left handed – and gold plated. Someone had melted the gold off it.

She was rather annoyed that she couldn’t find any of the healing devices the goa’uld had invented (well, adapted) to work along the same lines, though.

She smiled at the man who’d brought them to her, and dismissed him with a nod, “You’ll be paid treble for this…” she said.

The billowing white windows of her rather immodest residence looked out on the shining whitewashed structures of the new version of the town. Since she’d taken over, its population had more than trebled; agriculture had expanded vastly, courts, physicians, education, and other things set up, though they were still distinctly rudimentary. One couldn’t get the staff.

The mines had expanded, too, and there were now granite quarries jostling for space. Aset had ideas for improving her little town. All she wanted now, really, was to relax and lie low for a few millennia…

Albeit in comfort.

She withdrew from Malka’s mind again, settling into the background.

‘I’ll never get used to that’ Malka complained quietly.

Aset was quite happy to rest, quietly, for a good, long time, and let Malka do most of the management, using her knowledge. She’d not seen a jaffa yet. That was her major worry. Although they weren’t in her town, she knew they were on the planet in great numbers. Lights moving in the sky betrayed the presence of three ha’taks, and if Aset were to be visited by jaffa ‘tithe gatherers’ she might well be expected to show up personally. And then, if she came too close, they’d notice her by her blood.

And if they knew enough to think she might be tok’ra, if such still existed, she would be in serious trouble…

Her siblings had doubtless made as much trouble as they could for Atum, over the years, after all…

Long Ago
The bridge of Ra’s ship was a wide, open affair of hanging silks, exposed to the morning air by the open coverings. The wind made them whip about lightly, and Atum looked out on the other pyramids now.

He was young, light-brown skinned and dark haired, in a body he’d stolen a few hundred years ago. As the chief ‘under-lord’ in Ra’s new order, Atum wielded considerable power, which he was largely husbanding until he saw a chance to eliminate some system lord in Ra’s name and replace him.

At the moment, however, Atum was concerning himself with the latest ‘proposition’ from Ra’s queen, Egeria. Apparently she wanted his genetic memory for… something. Normally he wouldn’t give her the time of day, but annoyingly, this was blackmail.

Bitch.

The Present (Five Months on…)

Aset reflected that being able to remember what your parents were up to before they conceived you was… really quite hideous. No wonder the goa'uld were almost all perversely twisted.

“Jaffa!” someone was shouting in the town.

It seemed like her luck had run out…

Malka frowned at the scene unfolding ahead, as she walked down – of her own will, of course – the street. She’d never really paid much attention to the theoretically mandatory-attendance tithe-festivals, before. They were a religious event, when jaffa arrived in the flying craft she now knew as death gliders to collect revenues for Atum.

Generally, this consisted of grain, but in Karan, because of its gold mine, this consisted of bullion, as well as a tax on the property of the local population.

Aset had underestimated, with a little prodding from Malka, the ability of the Jaffa Clerics who had ringed down from their great flying bird, to count. The death glider was of the most common variant used by Lord Atum’s forces. Well over five hundred had been produced in all, mounting transporter rings in its underbelly. They were used as shuttles for the goa’uld assessors to visit remote villages, and every festival square (as decreed by the arcane decrees of Thoth) was intended to provide a landing platform for those rings.

“I see that the tithe has gone up, as production here obviously has. But that does not mean that the taxes are not to be observed!” the jaffa priest was shouting at a colourfully clad tax-collector, surrounded by a few equally well dressed Atumite priests.

The jaffa enjoyed their authority, for the most part. Here, half a dozen burly looking chaps in heavy armour, with dark skin and hair, and setting-sun (or creation-mound, which was probably the explanation now used) tattoos, stood around a short, dark haired, gold-robed fellow with a staff that didn’t look at all weapon-like.

The harassed chief tax collector, whose office stood right against the colourful festival square, glanced at Malka. The office’s flat, walled-on-three-sides roof was loaded high with cast bricks of gold, guarded by his own men down the steps in the courtyard, dressed in drab colours, and the few town police Malka’s council employed, that would be carried to the centre of the festival square, ringed away, followed by the jaffa. At which point the drinking would begin.

“Lady Malka!” he said, loudly enough that everyone turned to stare, as Aset conveyed her desire to shoot the tax collector dead for drawing attention to her, “Please can you explain to this man that we’re paying more than is expected!”

Malka didn’t feel especially deferent as the jaffa cleric began walking towards her. He stopped, a few paces away, on the edge of the square, two of his guards flanking him.

He was caught short, and Aset could tell what he was going to say… Her eyes flashed, glowing a pure white for a moment, as he did so. “Traitor!”

One of the jaffa guards was quick to draw a pistol and fire at Aset, a bolt of lightning flickering out towards her hand, which was up suddenly, and glowing. The bolt flared, bounced wildly in her hand, and she closed her fingers around it as it dissipated in a tangle of repulsion.

Malka watched her right hand shoot out, and a pulse of light shimmer against the three jaffa, sending them sailing high into the air, across the entire square, and into an irrigation ditch beyond. The other four were firing, but the bolts of their weapons crackled harmlessly against a cylindrical nimbus of yellow light surrounding her.

The festival-goers were in full-on flight, as Aset crouched in the force shield, to take up a dropped pistol, taking careful aim, thrusting the tip of the gun out of the shield bubble, and firing at one jaffa after another in quick succession.

They fell, twitching in arcs of bright lightning, and Aset smiled, letting the shield drop, and the ‘zat’nik’tel’ pistol return to its safety setting, walking the bright flagstones with a little sway in her hips, ignoring the ship hovering overhead completely, caught up in the moment.

“I am not what you presume me to be,” she said, looking down into the irrigation canal, from the little bridge over it leading to the courthouse on the far side, “I am Aset, Daughter of Atum-Ra…”

The cleric’s reaction was far beyond what she had anticipated. He immediately prostrated himself in the water, as did the two guards there with him.


Shortly after, she got the whole story. It seemed that the name of Aset was very well known in certain quarters. Folk hero and lost goddess put together – now conflated with the ‘other’ Isis – but that still left her with the problem of trusting the jaffa to keep quiet about her identity…

A whole new headache for them…

Elsewhere

“Here’s the thing…” the woman called Rose said, from the couch, glancing out of the ship’s open window at the world of Kopesh, another of the worlds claimed by Atum with no discernable use, where people were largely left alone. The Goa’uld believed that Kopesh didn’t even produce enough food to be viable for the grain tithing, “If we know about this Isis. So must Atum. Which means she’s dead already.”

Veteran members of the human Rebellion sat in the open-air deck of their ha’tak, which had been hiding on Kopesh for the last four years, landed on a mountaintop, away from most of the existing settlements. Atumite ha’taks – or, for that matter, any other goa’uld craft down to cargo ships – never came to the system.

“Maybe so. But I think that if Atum moves against this Isis, we can at least be satisfied that it will create an opening in his forces that we can exploit. We’ve been meaning to acquire another ship on the far side of the cluster for a while. If we dispatch the Alkesh now, we can probably catch them off guard. Scorii has a ha’tak we could take…”

“We might want to ask Na’rak on that… Where is he by the way?”
Aritan
The stargate on Aritan gushed open, and snapped back into solidity on the second try. Na’rak stepped out of the portal, into the huge auditorium beyond. Ten jaffa armies seemed to be guarding the gate, their standards lined up before the gate. A hundred thousand warriors pointing weapons of every sort at the stargate, ranging from Zat’nik’tel pistols, through to large, related nek’sed cannons, and covering every type of weapon in between.

Na’rak had a good idea of how this stargate had come to be damaged…

He led his band of followers across the divot peppered sandy ground in the arena, towards the edge of its ring.

“Honoured elder…” one of the guards, in a cloak similar to his own, but without the red trim that indicated his retired status, said. A Second Prime army commander.

“Brother…” Na’rak said, smiling, cracking a bit of a joke, “thank you for the welcome parade…”

The other man laughed, “Welcome to Aritan, master…”

“Na’rak,” he said.

“Master Na’rak. We take our security very seriously here. May I ask why you come?”

“We wish to see the worlds we’ve not been to,” Na’rak said, “after a few decades on Mnewer, an old warrior can feel the urge to see the galaxy again.”

“You served on Mnewer?”

“Dragon Army, twenty years…” Na’rak said.

“Ah,” the other jaffa general said, “A well spoken of unit. Well, in any case, you’re welcome…”


Malka frowned, staring at the fan on the ceiling as it lazily spun in wide circles. She knew she would have to leave soon, but it was a matter of working out a way to do it. She didn’t have a viable means of crossing the continent in order to get to where the world’s few visiting cargo ships landed. And she knew her snaky friend’s detestable ‘father’ well enough to know that disappearing into the wilderness would just result in more people suffering.

Oh, and the planet getting bombed flat.

Which meant that she could only, really, wait, and hope that the jaffa hadn’t told anyone. Which of course, they would.

‘You know I’m going to kill myself before I let them capture me again…’ Aset said in her mind.

“I can see why…” Malka replied, speaking aloud, which she still preferred when it didn’t look too silly.

‘The goa’uld have a device to force the dead back to life. If it comes to it, I think,’ the snake paused for a moment, ‘But if I blow my – our – your head off, then they should be able to do nothing…’

“Are you always this morbid?”

‘Only when I know what I’m up agai- did you do that?’

“What?”

Aset jumped out of the way, over the side of the bed, as some thing tore through the pillow, gutting it and sending downy goose feathers up into the air. She pushed the bed over onto its side suddenly, scattering sheets and blankets onto a figure, that brushed them off almost instantly. She brought up her ribbon device, and fired, cracking the bed into two halves, spraying splinters and blankets onto the target on the far side, sending it hurtling across the room. She didn’t stop, firing again and again, until the wall of the building crumbled away, and the invisible assailant was quite visible by being pressed back inches into the thick plaster.

“I think he’s dead…” Malka said, at last.

‘I don’t. This is surely an Ashrak. The highest class of assassin used by the System Lords. They are designed and conditioned goa’uld,’ Aset said, firing again and again, slowly crushing their invisible assailant into the wall, ‘primarily tasked with assassinating the tok’ra. They are experts in survival, infiltration, and torture,’ she walked over, and reached out, directing a coruscating energy beam into where the head of the invisible warrior seemed to be.

‘Now, he’s out…’ Aset mind-spoke. ‘Now… A personal scale cloaking device… That could be useful… Let’s try and find it…’

“He’s invisible…”

‘This may take a while…’

“How’d you know he was there?”

‘The Naquadah in him… interacted… with it in me. They have a drug to reduce that effect, but it’s not perfect, as you can see…’


Malka looked over the ring-like weapon pulled from the unconscious enemy’s pocket.

‘Ah. I know what it is… It’s a hara kash. An ashrak weapon. Now these have gotten smaller… Practically jewellery…’

‘And the invisibility device is new?’ Malka replied, silently, now that the town guards were here, having restrained, gagged (Aset’s suggestion) and stuffed a bag over the head of her severely injured assailant.

‘Yes, that’s new. They were experimental for mid-sized ships in my time.

‘Speaking of which, how do you think this wretch got here?’

‘Nice point. Either he came by stargate, and then by glider, or possibly he has a cloaked ship somewhere near here. We need him to answer some questions…’

‘Are we going to torture him?’ Malka asked.

‘If he makes us…’

Malka cocked her head to one side, “Did you hear that?” she said aloud, to the guards as much as to Aset.

“Jaffa!” someone in the town cried again, and the whoosh of a death glider flying ahead made everyone look around nervously.

The glider was one of the ring-carrying type, and it hovered over the festival square, rings falling from it, flashing, and ascending back to the craft, before it turned and rose up into the sky, changing configuration a little, and… streaking off into the distance.

Malka watched, from the concealment of the mansion, squinting northwards towards the square. She couldn’t see what had happened yet, and didn’t feel like wondering why only one craft had come. “This way…” she said, “Bring him.”


The jaffa numbered about half a dozen, in coloured capes. Aset didn’t recognise the symbolism, but they all looked rather old. Which invariably meant, with jaffa, that they were the best. They’d survived to their current age, after all.

“Lady Isis…” someone said, from right ahead of her, and another jaffa appeared, in a maroon cloak. That was another thing about aged jaffa. They were loud, stompy and intimidating – Aset had never looked into it, but had the feeling that jaffa boots were made to sound like hammers hitting anvils on any surface they trod on - until they hit ninety. Then they became quite disturbingly adept at sneaking around.

“That… would be me…” she said, cautiously edging her hands together, toward the control for the shield function – it could stop physical assault if needed – of her ribbon device.

“You need have no fear…” he said, “Atum is a false god, and a parasite deserving only death to match his shame…”

“Is that so…” she said, as some extremely perturbed looks were passed around her guards, “And what am I?”

“You’re a parasite who may just be benevolent, and of inestimable utility to us…”

“I see.”

“And why should I trust you?”

The Jaffa were all around now, and one of the others stepped forwards, his eyes burning for a moment. “This is why… I am Per’sus, of the Tok’ra…” he said, “And I know you well.”


It was a bittersweet parting when Malka and Aset left, hours later. The entire settlement was breaking up and heading for the hills. She knew Atum well. He would send someone, or come in person, with orders to capture her overtly, now. Entire armies of Jaffa would be deployed. This way, at least, there was a hope that they would find nothing and eventually have to leave. If they were forced to make a distributed search throughout the area, there was less of a chance of, when they finally gave up, their deciding to flatten the area from orbit in order to try and stop her escaping; this way, they would know she’d escaped. She’d probably have to send a taunting message to that effect, to be sure.

‘We’re coming back. Malka said to her mind, ‘And soon…’

Aritan
The cart’s wheels trundled along the pounded mud road, and two people sitting in the back of it, now mostly empty, watched each other, nervously, as it rolled away from the hiring fair. “Where do you think this farm is then,” the slightly rougher looking passenger, a boy of about seventeen, asked.

The girl slowly twirled her hair in her forefingers, “Isis only knows…”

“Who?” he asked, trying his level best to show a healthy interest in anything other than her low cut linen dress. “Isis? You’ve never heard of Isis?”

“I can’t say that I have…”

“Tricked and fought Atum-Ra?”

He had a sneaking feeling that this was something he wasn’t supposed to be hearing, which, aside from simple beauty of the speaker, made him pay even more attention. “Please, tell me…”

“Isis poisoned Ra… The goddess Isis lived in the form of a woman, who had the knowledge of words of power. Her heart turned away in disgust from the millions of gods…”

And so she told the tale of how Ra had been poisoned and blackmailed into revealing his ‘True Name’, which controlled his ships and commanded his armies, and how Isis had used it to make war upon the gods. She had only been defeated, so the girl said, when Atum himself had made war against her. And even then, she had achieved much, distracting the evil gods – not that she’d dare say such a thing, even though it was no longer heresy to say any but Atum were not a god.

And there was another key part of the tale, inaccurate and misunderstood as it was, Atum had not been able to kill his own daughter, for she had much of his power. But had instead imprisoned her, until the end of time when his power would wane.


The transporter rings dropped back into place around Malka’s feet, and she looked around, finding herself standing in a golden room piled high with boxes, displaying the creation-mound symbol of Atum in gold on their opening catches. There was a small passage through the room, creating a thin passage leading to doors on either side, and just about leaving the transporter rings clear. The room sloped inwards as it ascended, creating a vaguely tetrahedral shape.

Malka took a guess at which end would be the front, avoiding looking at Per’sus for the moment, and walked towards the door to the front section of the ship, which opened at her approach.

A man dressed as a jaffa priest turned in his chair, “Ah… Err… Your majesty…”

“Queen’s purely a biological title…” Malka said with a wink.

“Err, yes. I’m Aquinus, I’ll be flying you out of here, once we get clearance…”

Malka looked out of the windows, and part of Aritan’s capital could be seen, a high maze of sloped roved buildings jostled with older goa’uld designs from thousands of years ago, when this region had been desert. In the distance, several pyramids rose high above the cantilevered buildings around them, and upon one of them, a vast starship squatted, glowing with the lights of a maze of corridors.

“Well, those haven’t changed…” Aset said, aloud, sending her voice deep and reverberating to differentiate from her host.

“Actually they have. Atum has about two hundred of them now. Most of the weapons are decommissioned, and they’re purely used as transports for mass quantities of cargo.”

“Hence why we’re parked right next to them…”

“Correct… And… quick. Hide. Jaffa…”


The Jaffa warriors of Ilah were regarded as some of the most unreasoning fanatics in the Domain of Atum. Already, he had arrived in orbit aboard his massive Seker-class heavy-cruiser craft, with weapons capable of destroying a ha’tak in a single discharge. They knew vaguely what they were to do. Squads with transphase eradication rods had been transported down to take over the immediate guard of the Aritan Stargate, and others had been dispatched to scan any starcraft attempting to leave the planet.

At the same time, squadrons of death-gliders were falling like autumn leaves around the slowly emptying town of Karan, and heavy troop-transports were crushing the few remaining post-harvest stalks in the fields around, disembarking as many troops as there had been, at its Aset/Malka-governed peak, residents.

Harun, First Prime of Ilah, stood, glowering around the deserted settlement from the festival square where Aset had departed. The palace burnt, when the jaffa had found no one there, Harun ordered that the death gliders level the building. He spoke into a handset-speaking device that linked him to his lord. As he did so, he could not help his gaze being drawn skyward, to where the vast mother ship coasted in freefall.

“My lord. We have not yet found the rebel of whom you spoke…” he said, “Shall we kill the population to be sure?”

“No,” came the reply, “They must not be killed. Temu demands that we search and question all until we have found our target. His agents will come soon to carry out that order. For now, confine them in the town, and have the gliders search the surrounding country. Bring all back to the town and confine them.”

“Yes, Lord…”


‘Jaffa! Kree! Open in the name of Temu!’ echoed through the craft, as the jaffa surrounding the tel’tak smacked the butts of their weapons against its doorway.

‘We’re fucked…’ Aset said.

‘Not quite yet. I’ve got a good idea how to avoid these goons.’ Malka said, stepping into the back portion of the ship, ‘Personal cloak…’

‘They’ve got something that’ll see through that.’

‘How do you know?

‘Atum plans ahead. He’d never let us get something like this if the next wave wasn’t equipped to negate it.’

‘Well, never mind, we can just hide…’

‘Open or die!’ the Jaffa on the other side of the door cried, and as Malka quickly switched the cloak on, a grim looking jaffa with a great brown beard waved a staff weapon menacingly at the window.

‘Think he saw us?’ Malka asked.

‘I hope not…’ Aset said, looking at the crowded room beyond, ‘Now… Where are we hiding?’


The first thing the Jaffa did was prod Per’sus in the belly with a Rod of Anguish. Which of course, was understandably painful as a surge of bright yellow energy flashed through his flesh. They suddenly stopped when they noticed that he was wearing the maroon elder’s cloak, and, in embarrassment, hurried through the ship, waving short, two-handed pistol like weapons around them. They wielded trans-phase-eradication rods, designed to reveal and destroy any being invisible, or otherwise out of phase with reality. They stomped out, weapons tight across their chests, and the jaffa clumped off, trying their best not to draw attention to their striking of a supposed ‘Honoured Elder.’

“Ah,” Aquinas said, “We’ve been cleared for take off,” he said, closing the external doors.

Per’sus staggered to the co-pilot’s chair. “If I were a hundred and fifty years younger!” he shouted after them aggressively as Aquinas gunned the engines and made the tetrahedral ship hurtle into the sky.

Malka reappeared in the back room, and walked into the cockpit.

“How did you do that?” Per’sus asked.

“I’ll tell you some time.”

The vast weapon-bristling shape of the cruiser filled the cockpit windows as the tel’tak cargo ship navigated towards what looked like a string of pearls floating beyond it.

“Cargo containers.” Malka asked.

“Yes. Officially we’re transporting perishable goods to Seriturian, world of the goa’uld queens.”

“Queens?”

“There are over six thousand of them now.”

“Really?” Aset asked.

“Yes. Atum made a point to aggressively increase their numbers. All jaffa can now expect to receive symbiotes.”

“So… how do they keep goa’uld numbers down.”

“Most do not spawn, but Atum has kept up the ban on cannibalism. It is a great concern to us what he might be doing with the symbiotes.”

“Curious.”

A holographic heads up display appeared, and showed a wire-frame of the ship as it docked with one of the strings of cargo containers, before moving off and vanishing into hyperspace.

Scorii
Na’rak marched through the stargate, after a brief inspection of his papers to determine who he was. The journey was made to Kopesh and then to Scorii. He had now donned a full hawk helmet to disguise his identity, and dropped the cloak. The gate guards showed little mindfulness, letting those dressed as jaffa pass.

Na’rak and his ‘Horus guards’ began the long forced march uphill towards a pyramid-fort, where the rings that would take them to the mother ship in orbit were to be found...

Serpent guards stood on either side of the doors that led into the guard-room beyond, and as Na’rak and his group filed in, exchanging the odd look from helmet to helmet, they snapped to attention and smashed the butts of their blast-staves against the ground, summoning the guard commander of the pyramid.

Too late, though. Na’rak brought his staff up, and a sizzling bolt of plasma splashed against the chest plate of one of the serpent guards, throwing him against the wall behind him, so that he slithered along it and fell with a clank. Na’rak was already rapid-firing the staff weapon, a technique known as Kel’no’pa, or, in goa’uld, lightning-strike, and one that most jaffa warriors were expected to pick up at some point in their lives.

Of course, it was immensely difficult with staff weapons, and more a dirty secret of the jaffa than something that was officially mandated. A flurry of bolts fell into the narrow door, and he crouched as his followers spread out and burnt the remainder of the guards down. Save for however many might be in the room beyond. The serpent guard were aggressive, but they were not fools.

They would have to take the guardroom to activate the rings, which meant finding out if any man waited there. “Shel’norak!” he cried, “Tal’bet!” calling on whoever was – probably – left to surrender.

No response was coming, which meant he had either just hailed a wall, or there would be no surrender forthcoming. He began to creep along the wall with his back to one side of the stone wall of the short corridor. He twitched his hand, and his followers’ staves shot blasts down the corridor mere inches from his chest.

He heard an intake of breath, and piled around the corner, smacking the butt end of his staff up between the enemy’s legs, pulling back and bashing him on the steel skull capped head with the firing end. The jaffa goggled and fell back, and Na’rak’s gaze was drawn to the ouroboros tattoo on his head.

As no other defender had shot him, and as the proximity alarm of his helmet was not sounding, Na’rak concluded that his instincts had served him well once more, and he walked over to the glyphs on the wall. “Jaffa, stand ready!” he said, and they positioned themselves on the floor, in the ring that showed where the transporter rings would fall, leaving a space for their leaders.

Na’rak pushed several buttons, setting a brief delay, and looked up, his helmet jerking back. The ceiling split apart, casting a bright light down on them, as five naquadah rings fell around them, hovering for a moment, before they disappeared.


On Edfu, the home world of most of Atum’s legions, the goa’uld called Sia, known as the Spirit of Atum’s Omniscience, sat in a high backed bronze chair, staring at a screen on the wall.

He was different from other goa’uld. His body had no independent mind. The future, perhaps. A creation of Atum, like the Kull warriors, Sia’s body was designed around a different set of parameters. One of these was ‘looking good’ and by most standards, he was a superb human specimen, tall, dark, broad and muscular. Unfortunately, although he was durable, the nervous links that controlled much of his body weren’t as effective as those of normal humans, and while he was swift enough, when he needed to be, he was somewhat weak, though he didn’t look it.

He was like Aset in one key respect. He possessed Atum’s genetic memories. Not as many, though, but they were more recent. Great amounts of Atum’s formidable knowledge of advanced technology and cultures, even diplomacy, talents Atum had, though he rarely required it these days, Atum was a prodigy, in that area, compared to most goa’uld, he had far more empathy, Sia did not know why, it was beyond his earliest memories. He had inherited other talents, too, ones that Atum was very circumspect in his use of.

The building in which he sat was the control room for Atum’s explorer operations, and he was watching telemetry transmitted through the Edfu stargate from a remote drone. The stargate was difficult to dial over such distances… More than three million light years, the connection currently established was the result of investigations into a tablet found with the Eye of Ra, investigation that had taken thousands of thousands of jaffa-days, and claimed more than a few lives, causing more than a few statues to be raised here and on Mnewer.

Sia tapped a ‘page turner’ and examined the next scan transmitted from the drone that had been sent through. It showed the power source, which had dwindled away to almost nothing. It was small; very small, but the drone was equipped with sensors capable of seeing through several inches of solid materials, to aid it in examining technological artefacts…

He peeled back the image, and breathed out softly, “I know this…” he said, “‘The Heart of Light…’”


The rings flashed back into the floor, and Na’rak looked around from the artificially high viewpoint of his hawk helm, stamping from the dull brass ring on the floor to the golden wall, hunting out a concealed Atumite symbol, pushing and turning it. Two guards stood opposite the doors that peeled open, and he and his retinue trod heavily over to them. Na’rak could see one was beginning to question these visitors, looking at the open, charged, weapon he held.

Na’rak jerked the tip of the staff forwards, pressing it to the jaffa guard’s neck and chin. It flashed and sizzled in an electrical discharge as part of its energy earthed itself through him, twisting his limbs spasmodically. At the same instant he reached out and punched the other guard in the face, breaking his nose and sending him clattering to the floor. A moment later and he stepped back, twirling his staff weapon to hit the first guard ‘upside’ the head with the butt. He looked at the two unconscious jaffa. “Put them in the rings. We will send them back to the planet,” he said.

Carefully wiping the blood away with his foot, he turned to his strike team.

“I will see to the shields. You know your task.”

The corridors of this Ha’tak were slightly different from the one already in the possession of the Resistance, and moored at Kopesh. This one was older, he thought, but the shield control relay should be in the same location, three decks below the command deck. A pair of serpent guards leered at him, but let him past; they were after all, all part of one happy empire.

It was a simple matter of locating a hidden port in one of the golden bracings of the walls – some were actual structural members, others concealed relay systems – and sliding it out. Looking either way, he carefully pulled it out, stood back, and shot it. The crystals exploded into pieces, along with the drawer that held them.

‘Jaffa Kree! Unauthorised weapons fire on deck thirty six!’ a shrill voice snapped over the internal communications systems, and Na’rak frowned: this was apparently a new trick. Doors slid down and across at either end of the corridor, and Na’rak grinned, tossing his weapons away, and pressing the switch at his collar to conceal his helm, which noisily slid back, twisting, fabric and metal pieces alike folding up, into a slightly denser than normal collar around the top of his armour.

This could be fun.


“So, you really want to know why Atum thinks differently. Tell me,” Aset said, lounging in the copilot’s seat in the cargo vessel, “what do you know of Apep.”

“Primordial serpent. The first Supreme System Lord, and founder of the first goa’uld dynasty, thirty thousand years ago, who ruled for over seven thousand years, who consistently acted to balance power between the other tribal leaders, and claimed to be the discoverer of the stargate network,” Persus said, “murdered by Anubis, leading to the rise of Ra in the war of vengeance… Rumour had it that Apophis was him survived and returned.”

“Almost right…” Malka said, “But replace Apophis with Atum…”

“What?”

“That’s joke in Atum’s claims to divinity; the first ‘god’ to emerge from primordial chaos, who created others of himself. They’re true accounts of his history, and other than himself, Thoth, and I, no one ever knew it.”

“So how did he survive then? Apep was eaten, publically. And sent insane by forced exposure to the first proto-Sarcophagi…” Aquinas said.

“He managed to escape and put another in his place at the end. But he wasn’t able to avoid Anubis’ servants. He spent most of the next ten thousand years stuck in a lake on a distant world, existing as an outclassed aquatic predator and eventually finding a suitable host creature, and working his way back to the stargate, over a continent, by hoof. He survived withdrawal, and contrived a new plan to regain his former powers.

“He went, in time, after taking another Unas as his host, to Thoth, who was then an outcast – unfairly, as it happened – who provided resources in return for promised of future power should Atum’s plans bear fruit, and more importantly, a comparatively immediate return to favour. This is about where the history of Atum everyone knows begins,” Malka said, though she’d not known it herself until she had blended with Aset, “With Thoth’s help, he cloned Shu and Tefnut from his own genetic material, with limited memories, and between his own skill, and Shu’s unsophisticated, if aggressive tactics, he managed to become the favoured underlord of Ra in a few centuries…”


Na’rak affected a defeated look as he was dragged into the pel’tak command deck of the ship. A dozen serpent guards surrounded by the petite, shockingly crimson haired woman sitting on its command throne, and two weapons consoles sat on either side of the main flight controls.

“What did you think you would achieve?” she demanded, “Did you seriously believe that the Barque of Wenut would be so easily disabled? My shields were active again within moments,” she sneered, rising to look down at Na’rak, thrust onto his knees before her.

She raised her hand, and the jewel in her palm burnt, burnt his eyes from its brightness, and burnt his mind… He screamed…

It seemed to stretch on and on. At last, Wenut threw her hand aside, which caused his legs to give out as a paralysis passed. He was faintly aware of being pulled back to his knees.

“Who sent you?” she demanded.

“Shouldn’t you get an answer for one question first?” he coughed, then laughed into her face.

“Insolence,” Wenut said, her eyes flashing in anger, as she reached down and sent burning beetles into his arteries once again.

“You want Insolence? Surrender or die,” he croaked, through the pain…

Wenut laughed, “And how would you kill me? I already know you have no weapons, nor bombs, nor poisons about your person. Do you think me a fool?”

“Yes,” Na’rak said, “You are a foolish and insignificant little worm and I suggest you look out of the window…”

She looked up. Outside the window was a white shape where previously there had only been the world. And in that shape, through windows, an alarmingly casually dressed human waved jauntily, before settling his hand on the bomber’s weapons control. Inside the shield envelope, as the ship was, it would be devastating.

“Jaffa! Kree!” Wenut snapped, and the gunners frantically punched the buttons, nothing happened.

“I thought I was buying time for my people to seize and barricade your fire control room,” Na’rak said, rising slowly to his feet, “And I think I managed it… Now… Surrender. Or we both die. And be assured, that will happen…”

Wenut glowered, and slunk back into her chair, glaring. Na’rak grabbed the weapon of one of the serpent guards. “Clear the pel’tak!” he snapped. “Everyone but your false goddess… You, disarm and get up…” he said, prodding her with the staff.

Kopesh
Aset pouted slightly as she looked at the ship in the distance as the tok’ra ship landed. “I can’t help but notice that it’s not being terribly well maintained…” she murmured.

“Well, yes,” persus said, “The Naquadah to power a ha’tak through even normal operations is hard to come by, so we’ve been running only minimal systems; long range sensors, seismic sensors, computer systems, internal lighting, and so on.”

“Mmm. It’s a big asset, but you need more,” she said, as the shuttle came to rest on the landing deck of one of the ship’s cargo bays.

“I’m told there’s an operation underway to acquire another one. We also have an extensive network of tunnels nearby, too, and on the planet’s moon. There’s a small population, that we think we can evacuate before any ships of ha’tak grade could arrive without detection. We work to keep the planet paying its tithes and being quiet, too…”

“What about other installations?”

“There are five other tok’ra bases, I couldn’t tell you where they are; protocol only allows couriers to know two base locations, and everyone else one. Couriers typically kill themselves if there’s any possibility of a losing engagement…”

Aquinas grimaced as they walked into the steel and gold halls of the ship, “Had a few close calls on that one…”

“What about sarcophagi?” Aset asked.

“In my case, it’s an implanted bomb based off the zat gun. I’d disappear completely.”

“Nice. Everyone should have one…” Malka said.

“Anyway, if everything’s gone to plan, another ship should be arriving shortly…”

Hyperspace

Na’rak ran down the corridor, a few paces ahead of the black figure chasing him. Lightning-flashes burst over his shoulder melting and vaporising the metal walls.

The Kull Warrior. All capital ships in Atum’s domain carried one, now, hidden in stasis with orders to put the crew to the sword if the ship went rogue. Even though they’d unloaded most of the crew back at the planet, the signal had come through loud and clear even in hyperspace, and two of his men had been killed before Na’rak had come up with a plan to deal with the warrior.

The ship’s former captain had been locked away in its brig and with no-one else to worry about, save Na’rak and his men, the warrior had followed him.

Na’rak pushed a button on the wall, breathing heavily; A great door slid down, rather slowly, and the warrior dived towards it, sliding its arm underneath. It should have been impossible, without some lever, but Na’rak could see that the kull warrior was actually making progress against the motors controlling the door, slowly pushing the six inch thick metal back up again.

He took his staff weapon, and fired at the black hand, visible under the door, which didn’t even flinch as it absorbed the energy. The other arm of his enemy came under the door, and golden bolts sprayed out in Na’rak’s direction.

He jogged backwards, watching the door slowly pressed up by both hands now. The warrior had thrust its hands under the door, and was slowly pushing its forearms, with the door pressing against them upwards.

Two more floors to go…

Iokrisce

Morrigan glowered at the stargate in the heart of her flagship. It was always irritating to be reminded that she served another, let alone be given orders that took her out of her own domain.

The stargate snapped into place, and a cascade of glimmering light shot out, then snapped back to form a wall. Sia stepped through the surface of the stargate, followed by a quartet of palace guards, in their glowing golden armour and blue-eyed helmets.

“Lady Morrigan, System Lady and Commander of Forces Granted by Atum, Blessed God of Creation, hear and obey,” Sia began. She gritted her teeth. The ritual here was deliberately demeaning, “You are hereby notified that you are under the special command of Sia, Lesser Lord,” that was irritating, she was three ranks above him in the feudal ‘pecking order’ but that didn’t matter. She and hers had been requisitioned, and so had to obey. Infuriating, “For as long as he desires to complete the task he has been assigned by Atum, Blessed Lord of Creation.”

Sia held the tablet he’d been reading from out for her, to examine, but Morrigan waved it away, she had no interest in seeming to be resistant.

“So, what is your mission?” she asked.

“I will give you a set of stargate coordinates. We are to go there by ship and reconnoitre the area. Equipment and persons will be coming through to assist, presently.”

“Wonderful.”

Kopesh

Space above the resistance base shuddered and twisted, as the ha’tak appeared, twisting for a moment, out of control.

Inside the ship, Na’rak ran, still running. The fiendish creature was mere yards behind him, he knew. He had only moments. The cargo bay was open, wide, and in it sat the pyramidal shape of the al’kesh, its doorway wide and inviting ahead of him.

The warrior followed. He could see movement in the corner of his eye.

He leapt.

Golden bolts flew, searing his eye agonisingly, blasting part of his nose away, blinding him.

He screamed in pain as he hit the floor of the ship, whose pilot, fortunately, needed no telling, backing off through the doors; now open into normal space. It was merely a few meters, but the kull warrior was stymied, standing in the cargo bay, shooting wildly at the al’kesh with little hope of harming it.

The ship fired, and the whole bay exploded into light and gas. The warrior tumbled into space, The Alkesh’s light guns shot it, even as it tumbled, again and again, until it ceased moving.


In the landed ship, Aset frowned, “So, what was that warrior?”

“They are called the Kull,” Persus said, “all we know is that they are essentially invulnerable. If they have a weakness, we have yet to determine it…”

“In that case, you really ought to send Aquinas and his ship up there to retrieve what’s left of that one.”

“It’s already being done,” Aquinas said, “The new Ha’tak should be entering orbit soon.”

“You have disabled its tracking device?”

“We have been unable to locate such a device, and there’s no record of it… And the previous vessel didn’t seem to have one”

“We have devices the size of your hand. You told me you got the other one from shipyards. This one is in operation. Atum is coming. How long will it take the forces waiting for us at that last planet to get here?”

Persus stopped, “Maybe… three hours?”

“Best get moving,” Aset snapped. “You were talking about evacuation? And find me who’s in charge of defence here…”

‘You’re sure this is going to work ’ Aset asked.

‘Positive’ Malka said, ‘Unless you’re holding out on me… ’

‘In this regard, no. You have access to all my knowledge. But it doesn’t feel right… ’

They sat on the command throne of the ha’tak, crowded with fighters armed with staff weapons and dressed in lightly camouflaged garb. “Ground based sensor installations report three minutes until arrival. It’s too late to jump to hyperspace, but we can probably move to a more concealed position…” the human manning the main console said.

“I’m certain this will work,” Malka said, to both of them, “We simply need to hold our nerve. Is the evacuation complete?”

The display showed the green orb of Kopesh a column of light reaching from the “You’ve moved the stargate?”

“Yes,” a woman at her side said, “and this vessel possesses an auxiliary gate we took when we acquired it… We can use both to evacuate…”

“And the destination worlds?”

“The Tok’ra base at Abarusten will be able to take this ship’s crew, and Crufo has a sufficient surplus of arable land and food to supply everyone else, and the locals aren’t too happy with Atum,” Persus said, “I don’t think, once our advance team – already in place and alerted – deals with the planet’s gate guard, we’ve got much to worry about security wise there.”

“Good,” Malka said, “Begin evacuation, raise shields, order the base on the moon to power down all non essential systems and inform all stations to prepare for combat.”


In the blue crystal tunnels of Kopesh’s moon, the lights dimmed, and the seventy thousand three hundred and thirty seven people who’d been hastily evacuated – including a number of renegade jaffa carefully instructed to seek places there to maintain the appearance of a garrison – cowered. They needn’t have worried; they were far safer with the massive base, expanded to form a web of tunnels deep under the ground of the planetoid that orbited Kopesh, powered down. With minimal energy outputs, there was less chance of the goa’uld detecting it, and as they didn’t know the base was there – they would anticipate, and quickly find, one on the planet itself, but it was a diversion, built as a maze and infested with booby trapped corridors that would turn back to solid rock when entered, crushing intruders.

In one of the larger rooms of the lunar base, a dull metal ring began spinning; parts of it glowed a ruddy red, and a watery surface snapped out of it. As the prime gate in the system, it would receive all the incoming traffic. And this was what happened now, as the servants of Atum engaged a remote stargate and began sending waves of troops through into the passageways.

Fortunately, they were not kull warriors. They were instead, the fanatical warriors of Ilah, and though the gate chamber was heavily defended, there were thousands of warriors prepared to charge the stargate and die in the name of that servant of Atum.

They came out without even firing their weapons as a preamble, charging from the sides of the stargate, where they had presumably been sheltering mere paces away to minimise the time it would take them to enter it.

With wordless battle cries of exaltation they clubbed and dragged at the Tok’ra guarding the newly installed stargate, the remainders of whom quickly fell back through the passageway leading into the room, and up a flight of stairs, some falling to their pursuers, too crazed with bloodlust to fight effectively, but that initial fury was beginning to fail. After mere seconds of brutal, intense fighting, the jaffa warriors began to use the sides of the crystalline corridors to provide cover as they advanced, laying down fusillades of golden fire before them.


Aquinas smiled, as he returned to orbit, above Kopesh. The sight was one he knew he would not see again, but he found it pleasant nonetheless. At least, until it was marred by the sight of five goa’uld ships, high between the moon and the planet. He had been entrusted with a key part of the plan. He brought his ship around and smiled at the sight of the planet, un-marred by goa’uld vessels, and then began heading towards the main island chain of the far south, pleased to see that it was night. Pin-points of red light glowed like coal fires beneath him.

Very good…


Karan was a tok’ra warrior, and at the moment, he was holding the line against the enemy. He was worried, even though this base had supposedly been built far enough underground that signals generated by the goa’uld warriors’ personal helmets would not reach the surface, to get the stargate into position so quickly they had exposed this part of the tunnel network to space, using the crystals, which could pierce hundreds of feet of rock in a minute, to create a vertical shaft. Some of that, even though it had supposedly been collapsed, might remain.

If the goa’uld ships surely above the moon even now were able to locate their soldiers he had little doubt that the enemy would simply withdraw and begin to liquefy the surface of the moon, it would be a simple matter to find the ring platforms and the stargate, once they knew what they were looking for, and with that their only choices would be to die in a torrent of liquid rock, or expose the tunnels to space.

Even now, his comrades were building more tunnels, thousands of yards every minute, in all directions; and working to spread out life support equipment, so that in the event of an attack, they would be more spread out.

He watched as his host took aim and sent a bolt of flickering blue-white lightning into the arm of a jaffa warrior that emerged around the corner. The jaffa paused, yelling, and another strike felled the enemy.

“We’ve got to fall back further…” he heard someone cry behind him, and he head the distinctive tromp of dozens of feet running, doubtless planning to make another push into the corridor, over the dozens of smoking, dead and wounded jaffa (and tok’ra) bodies already clogging the turn in the passageway.

It was said that Isis was on the ha’tak, now, and that she had some plan. In the past few hours, Karan hadn’t had the time to consider what that was. For now, he simply prayed that it was good.

It had to be, he thought, running.


‘Look at those…’ Malka thought, ‘They look tiny on a little screen… But they’re whole flying mountains, armoured and armed. Utterly terrifying…

“Secure communications report that the dialling from the mountain gate was unsuccessful. We didn’t get it installed in time. Jaffa are pouring through and control the gate room…” one of the rebels said.

‘We’ve our own mountain…’ Aset replied. ‘I think, if we’re going to do this, we should do it now…

“Very well,” Malka said, “Tell them to retreat and seal those tunnels as they go. The fighters are in position?”

“Yes lady-captain. We can begin as you desire.”

“Good. Tell Aquinas,” she said, “It’s time. We have twelve minutes from his mark…”

“For your valorous victory over the Tok’ra, we hereby grant you the promotion to the rank…”

Atum was speaking, and Ilah, from his kneeling position before the supreme system lord, smiled as the room exploded. Death gliders swept down over the citadel and blasted parts of it away, rock and smoke hanging everywhere. Dozens of Jaffa burst into the throne room, laying down volleys of fire with new weapons discovered among the Tok’ra ruins that caught the Kull Warriors guarding Atum by surprise and felled them.

Ilah rose to his feet, as his warriors surrounded Atum, “of Supreme System Lord…” Ilah finished, smiling triumph-

“My Lord…”

He opened his eyes, dismissing the fantasy for a moment, to look at Harun, standing near the pel’tak’s console. “We approach the enemy system my Lord. What are your orders?”

“Accelerate the ha’taks around us. Inform all crews to take their stations, and prepare to launch our bombers, Deploy our glider complement in close support positions,” he said.

“It shall be done, I shall go myself,” his first prime said with a bow, “lord.”

Ilah smiled, a little far fetched, but nonetheless, he would surely triumph here. Ahead of him, on the screen, he could see ha’taks overtaking them in their combined hyperspace corridor, they flickered and vanished, and he felt a moment of vertigo as he imagined his massive cruiser was plummeting vertically down a well.

The screen flashed, and the dappled green and brown orb of Kopesh occupied the screen, its moon a white crescent to the other side of the screen.

“My lord,” said another jaffa, “We detect no active signals in the system. We detect no ships. Beginning an active scan…”

It was a few moments before he found it, “My lord. The stolen ha’tak is on this world. It is landed on a mid-continent mountain range.”

“They know they cannot escape my wrath. Even so, it is strange that it makes no effort to flee,” he said, “What of its shields?”

“They are raised but only at six tenths of effectiveness.”

“Curious. Order the Al’kesh to attack it and bring its shields down. Have an initial squadron of gliders attempt to draw its fire…”

if it could be recaptured, rather than destroyed, Atum would be pleased indeed.

“Send a wing down to secure the area around the stargate and prepare to signal the attack through it…” he added.

“My Lord, we cannot detect the stargate. The settlement around its recorded location is deserted.”

“What?” Ilah asked, “they must have anticipated that… And moved their stargate into the ship. Order that the attack begin!” he snapped.

“Yes Lord. And that glider wing?”

“Send it to the settlement… Raze the homes of any that shelter shol’vas to the ground!”

“Yes Lord.”


Harun watched as his small wing of three gliders crested the trees near the main town on the planet Kopesh, which seemed to exist with very little stable agriculture in this particular area, instead being serviced by dozens of hamlets he’d seen as he’d flown over. “Target in sight…” he said, “Orbital scan confirmed, no life,” he added, “Remember, we can happily let this place burn, so each building,” he eyed the thatched roofed constructions, “won’t need more than one shot. Let us be quick, in Atum’s name…”

The gliders screeched as they made a single pass, the weapons on their wings firing alternately at a rate of about ten shots per second as they made their high speed run, flames bursting out among three columns of rooves in the town, and the surrounding trees with their late autumn foliage, as the attack began.

Harun glanced back at his handiwork as the gliders turned in the air, angling up, spinning around on their Z axis, and falling back into the wide, pendulum-like attack arc.

“Fire in the unaffected areas,” he said, allowing the ship to slow down, “And we should speed this up,” he added, placing half a dozen shots into what looked like a tithe barn, and being rewarded with an explosion of combustibles that rained down nearby, causing secondary fires in a wide radius.

The gliders swept up out of the atmosphere, and away.


Aquinas stood, turning out of the chair, towards the back room of the small, cloaked cargo ship. Lying before him was a suitcase sized container made of a silvery metal. He opened it. Inside was a cylindrical frame of metal, with glimmering blue crystals, not entirely different from those inside a Zat’nik’tel. He attached several more into it, to form a sphere that glimmered from the inside, forming a solid carbon-trinium outer surface that shone with barely contained light, like a thunderbolt in a child’s ball.

He picked the cylindrical frame up, and carried it over to another box nearby, containing a small container that would, to earth-human eyes have resembled an early lunar capsule’s re-entry vehicle. The device opened up like a flower, and the cylindrical frame slotted into the centre of the foot-wide probe capsule.

He carried it to the front of the ship, lifting one of the floor panels and opening the aperture beneath, depositing the core probe in the slot below, closing the aperture, and sitting down again.

He brought the ship around, skirting the top of the atmosphere, looking at the glowering point of the volcano beyond. The holographic heads up display of the craft popped into being, showing a targeting reticule, in the mouth of an active volcano.

A diagram showed the exact angle required, and he moved the ship a few hundred kilometres backwards, until it was confirmed.

He leaned back, and pressed another crystal into position.

The lights went out, as the launcher began building up maximum power from the ship’s reactors. Annoyingly, the space-warping of the cloaking device required a large expenditure of power, and he reached forward to deactivate it.


“My Lord. Sensors are now detecting a tel’tak over the planet’s southern hemisphere… It is outside of weapons range…”

“Which are our nearest ships?”

“Harun’s wing, Lord.”

“order them to intercept and capture that vessel. What is it doing?”

“At this range, we cannot tell, Lord…”


Harun watched the pin-point of white light that was the enemy ship as his wing screamed toward it. Far, far outside weapons range yet, but he could see it, surely a good thing…

Malka watched with a little smile, as events relayed from the other ship on the ground were viewed.

‘They need to be closer’ Aset said, quietly, into her mind.

“The package is away. Twelve minutes and counting…” their communications officer reported.

“Good,” Malka smiled, “Is Aquinas away?”

“not yet… It appears he’s having difficulty engaging his cloaking device…”


“Stupid thing!” he snapped, watching in dismay as the HUD flashed a warning about the trio of gliders on his tail. He seemed to be quite irritatingly good.

An indicator flashed that the rear shields were down to a fraction of their full power, without sparing the time to look more precisely.

He pulled the ship into a barrel roll, to make it more difficult for the death gliders to target the engine mechanisms, and wished he had something to shoot back with…

“Think fast, fast….” He said…

‘Got it…’ his symbiote, Elsinth, said, ‘We’ve got a distraction…’

“Of course… Descent pods,” he said, aloud, and reached forward, letting go of the controls for a moment. Blasts hammered the back of the ship, and an alarm went off. Aquinas punched a button, and behind him, four coffin-shaped short duration escape pods shot downwards, inside self contained pressurised tubes, jetissoning them from the ship.

As they were programmed to, they locked in on the nearest habitable planet and roared toward the atmosphere on one-shot gravitic engines that quickly burnt themselves out leaving only enough energy to protect the pod from the effects of reentry.

Through the cockpit window, he could see the death gliders sweeping after the empty pods.

Now he simply had to hope he wasn’t noticed as he skipped ship…

The centre room in the cargo ship was large and filled with containers – of supplies that he would rather have kept with him. He opened a box, taking a serpent-like pistol weapon from it, testing the Zat’nik’tel, before doubling back, inputting an untargeted transport command at the terminal that controlled the ship’s rings, and running forwards.

The rings would lock in on the nearest target with receiving rings and either no shields, or shields configured to permit transport.

It was an awful risk… The rings flashed, whisking him away.


Harun dived after one of the pods, “Empty…” he said, his glider’s scanner confirming that this second one was empty, the other pilots had each scanned a pod, this was his second… “A trick!” he growled, putting a bolt of golden god-fire into the target, which burst along its seams and flared into brilliant dissolving flame as the heat of re-entry suddenly touched it, out of spite, and pulling his ship around in time to see the cargo ship flare with a line of white fire stretching away toward the distant fleet.

He reached out and touched the stone that linked his voice to the mother ship. “The pilot has just escaped using a ring transporter…” he said.


Ilah watched on the screen as his dozen Al’kesh flanked and bombarded the grounded vessel, anti-ship naquadah bombs sending out visible storms in the snowy air, stopped by an erratic dome of yellow energy that suddenly flared and disappeared.

“Cease fire. Configure our shields and transport our troops down!” he said in triumph.

“As you command, Lord,” one of the Jaffa said, “Shields configured…”

Nearby, he could hear the relayed voice of his first prime saying something…


On the moon, Karan ducked, the corridors were a charnel house, blood stained the previously pristine and new corridors, smears where the wounded had grasped the huge crystals as they had fallen, splatters where weapons had slain, and even a strange scuffing from where, mixed with smoke, a fog of death had been sent up.

Yet still they fought, staff weapons putting flickering firepower around the narrow corridors, and still their foes returned just as much, maybe twice or thrice as much, fire.

“Are those crystals not here yet?” he demanded loudly, and then gasped as the wind was forced from him by a shot to his stomach as he moved to fall back again from the steadily advancing jaffa, whose numbers seemed limitless. There must have been hundreds felled already, to a mere dozen defending casualties, in his mind, but they were still winning.

And now, he was hit, too. He wanted to move, but couldn’t, found himself lying down on the dead, feeling simultaneously burning and cold…

His symbiote had died like this before. He screamed, but nothing came out but a gasp of blood. And he knew that there was little hope even for that symbiote. He had to move, or when the tok’ra collapsed these tunnels, he would be crushed utterly…

Had… to… move.

A jaffa passed over him, and another paused, pointing his staff at Karan’s head. Suddenly the armoured figure, looming like some impossible obelisk, fell, like a cut tree, tumbling though the air.


Aset smiled, “About now… Let’s see if we can’t draw them in. Order the fighters to move…”


“Lord. Sensors now detct a squadron of gliders on an attack vector.”

“Gliders?” he asked, in surprise, “How did they elude our scans?”

“Sensors indicate that they had been buried in a forested area, where life sensors would not detect them over the background, lord, and where the cover would obscure their shapes.”

“Interesting. It must be an underground base,” the court had suspected for some time that the traitors had allied with the Tok’ra, this would seem to confirm it, “Move us in to perform a full scan, Direct our fighters to eliminate the gliders…“


Aset smiled further as the countdown dwindled and the Atumite ships engaged the remote-piloted gliders… Five… Four… three…


“My Lord!” the sensor operator said, “The planet… Is exploding.”

“What? Normal view!” Ilah said, standing.

The tactical display showing the progress of the battle disappeared, and he could see the dappled green-brown planet seething before him, continents broken into pieces, floating on a magma sea. The world twisted and flashed again, and suddenly was a torrent of asteroids hurlting towards him.

“Jump… Do something!”

“Too late!” the helmsman cried, angling the ship into it, as a huge rock impacted one of their escorts, crumpling it like papyrus.

The shields flared…

Aquinas cringed as the transporter rings dropped to the floor, depositing him among a group of hostile looking jaffa warriors, all swiftly pointing pistols right at his head, “Praise Atum! I’ve escaped!” he said.

They seemed to be quite unsympathetic to his claim, not flinching, or lowering their weapons in the slightest.

“You’re not going to believe that, are you?”

The warrior right in front of him shook his head, and Aquinas cringed again when he caught sight of the symbol of one of Ilah’s fanatics on the man’s forehead.

“I’d best surrender, no?”

They nodded.

“Would you believe me if … Of course you wouldn’t. Well. Lock me up. Preferably somewhere right near the middle of the ship…”

The jaffa punched him in the face, and Aquinas felt certain he could feel his teeth dislodged as two more grabbed him and hauled him away from the transport rings.

‘Very convincing,’ Elsinth said in his head ‘try not to do that too often. I can’t do anything if they put your teeth out. Or shoot you…’

“Sarcastic bastard, I didn’t hear you coming up with anything good…” he grumbled as the guards hauled him away.


The shields flared, held, and then did nothing, as a chunk of burning stone the size of a ha’tak smashed into Ilah’s cruiser, propelling him, even with inertial compensators, straight up, smashing his head on the silken canopy above his throne, before gravity returned to normal, and he fell at a poor angle onto his throne.

“Report…” he grunted, trying to blot out the pain from his host’s twisted, shattered leg.

“Jaffa! Report!”

He ground his teeth, rolling painfully onto his side to look around. The others had not been so limited in their brief flight, and were scattered about at odd angles around the command deck. He pulled himself away from the throne, looking about for a staff weapon to support himself on.


Aquinas moaned, unsure of where he was.

‘I cannot believe how much that hurt,’ Elsinth said.

“Urgh. You’re right…”

‘Try not to move. You’ve torn the lining of your stomach.’

‘Ow…’ Aquinas replied, thinking, rather than speaking, ‘Err… Elsinth, old worm…’

‘I wish you’d stop calling me that.’

‘You know the spirit I mean it in. Anyway…’

‘Yes?’

‘You may want to try and give the old muscles a slight hormone-kick…’ Aquinas said, pulling himself up to his feet, trying, with a little help from his symbiote, to ignore the raging agony of his belly.

‘Why?’

‘You may not have noticed that hissing sound…’

‘Atum’s Bones…’

“My thoughts exactly…” Aquinas said aloud, helping himself to a handgun and a staff weapon from a jaffa, who struggled briefly to hold onto the latter until Aquinas shot him with the former.

He limped painfully back toward the ring room, where the guard who’d punched him and several others were just recovering. He chuckled as he shot the former in the back of the head, then zapped the other two, studying the control panel in the wall for a moment…

“The base on the moon…”

‘Sure it’ll still be there?’ questioned the symbiote.

The rings flashed down around them, and they found themselves in the reassuring placid blue of the tok’ra tunnels. Someone was pointing a gun at his head, and he gave them a brief, idiot smile, before falling over.


Malka smiled, “Ilah’s flagship. As I suspected. Life signs…”

She watched as a beam of white light flicked out toward the moon, and a pulse travelled along it; a ring transporter. There’d been efforts to use the ring-transporter match-finding mechanism to seek out tok’ra bases, in the past, and Tok’ra rings at least, those below ground level, generally locked out those who didn’t know the right sequence.

“Twenty seven…”

Malka’s ship had only a few hundred volunteers as its crew; but the super-ship before them, the cruiser, had two thousand, as a full complement. Even if it was critically damaged, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

“Prepare to board it…” she said, “we must take advantage of this situation…”


Isis smiled, looking at the Bargheni gas giant outside the cruiser’s window. The new ship had been less severely damaged than they’d expected. They were still patching it up, and had brought it here, to a gas giant in the Bargheni system, where magnetic flux between the giant and its closest moon would eclipse it from hyperspace sensors, unless one were actually approaching the gas giant. They’d discovered a number of new technologies on board, including a teleporter that didn’t need rings. That had been quite remarkable. More importantly, the two mile wide flagship had space for almost the entire resistance movement on board, on a vessel which wouldn’t be missed, and which could destroy a ha’tak in a single shot. At least, if they could get the weapons and shields working again. It would require work, but at last, they would have the option of taking the fight to the enemy. Now, the next part of Aset’s work could begin. She held the stasis-jar containing the Ilah symbiote, and put it on a shelf, next to the one containing Renenutet. She wasn’t sure why she had bothered to keep them, but she felt certain they would have their uses.