STARGATE: EXPLORER

by Lady Grey
Alpha/Beta by Jude

July 5

P9X-1017

The vibration from an unexpected activation of the stargate pulled everyone from their bedrolls in the wee hours, reaching for whatever weaponry they carried. Most of the team had been sleeping; the night had been utterly quiet and still until the stargate awakened them.

The wheel was still spinning up when they gathered outside their tents.  Hailey had been on watch, but the moment Colonel Dixon emerged from his tent, he was in command.  “Get your weapons and take cover in the rocks,” he ordered. “Nobody make a sound. Radio silence, till you hear from me. Let’s see who’s coming and find out what they want before we take action.”

Daniel knew they weren’t expecting anyone from the base. He returned to his tent, boots still unlaced but on his feet, fetched his Beretta and two extra clips of ammo, and paired up with Satterfield. They took cover behind some boulders that gave a good view of the campsite but hid them from sight.

An alien raced out of the event horizon at a dead run, roaring and armed. He was Teal’c’s size and build, but far from human. Small silvery scales glinting in the moonlight covered his face and arms, and a mane of dark brownish hair sprouted from the back of his head, around his throat, and down his chest. His face was something out of a nightmare, werewolf-savage with sharp teeth and glowing yellow eyes.

Dozens more followed him.  The creatures began to hunt for them; noses lifted in the air, they followed the human scent and headed directly for the rocks that hid Captain Hailey. From Daniel’s point of view, the tiny woman was invisible, but the aliens found her with little trouble, dragging her out from behind her cover by the collar of her jacket.

She screamed as one of them swung at her with a powerful fist and her face caved in, blood splattering everywhere. She died instantly, crumpling like a rag doll to the ground.

Daniel was horrified; he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen.

Then Dixon squeezed off a burst of fire with an order to attack crackling through the radio.  Bosworth took out two of the creatures, but there were so many, and they just kept coming.  Satterfield cried out, taking aim with her P-90, her muzzle flashes in the darkness lighting up her tear-stained face.

Several of the aliens fell, but more and more exited the watery portal, an army of them filling up the area around the stargate, climbing into the rocks where the team had made camp. They carried weapons similar to the Jaffa staff but with a shorter stick, almost a baton, that they could aim and fire with one hand. Discharges of bright yellow flame roared into the stillness, striking the rocks shielding SG-13 from view.

Bosworth was the next to die. There was no hope of winning against those numbers, and in a matter of minutes, the survivors were surrounded. Dixon ordered their surrender, and the team laid down their arms. One by one, they were dragged back to the landing pad in front of the stargate.

Daniel watched in dismay as Satterfield was summarily executed, tears streaming down her face. One blast to the forehead and she fell backward, her body crumpled and lifeless, her pretty face covered in blood, tears and gray matter. 

The leader of the aliens strode up to Colonel Dixon and snarled, “You de Yaks’n?”

Dixon frowned. “What? I don’t understand.”

“Yaks’n,” the beast tried again. “Dan-el Yaks’n.”

The Colonel glanced at Daniel and straightened. “Yes,” he replied. “I’m Daniel Jackson.”

Dixon was protecting him, Daniel knew, only he wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. Still, that look Dixon had given him had told him to keep silent. If they were looking for Daniel, maybe they’d take Dixon and leave Daniel behind, alive, so he could return to the base and report what had happened. It was a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.

The alien commander pressed his weapon against the Colonel’s forehead, this time speaking in rough, growling Latin. 

Another of the aliens spoke in the same tongue, his tone of voice hesitant, almost apologetic, his body language supplicating.

Daniel understood them, and he was certain he was the only one who did. They were talking about his glasses, the subordinate reminding the leader that Daniel Jackson wore a contraption with two small lenses on his face. They looked around at the two survivors, both on their knees, hands clasped behind their heads, not moving. 

It had been an automatic reaction for Daniel to reach for his glasses in the tent as he had groped for his gun. He’d put them on by reflex, so he could see to shoot accurately. None of the others on the team wore them but him. They were on his face, in plain sight.

“I’m Daniel Jackson,” Daniel blurted in Latin. “Please, let him live. I am the one you want.”

“Shut up, Doc,” Dixon growled. “I don’t think they mean to ask for your autograph. I’m tryin’ to save your ass!”

The leader glanced at the Colonel with his bare face, then back at Daniel. With a snarling grimace that might have passed for a smile, he squeezed off two shots, executing Dixon without mercy. 

“Bring him,” the alien commander snarled, heading for the DHD.

“Oh, God,” Daniel breathed, his eyes filling with tears as he surveyed his teammates’ bodies. They were all dead now, all but him. “I’m so sorry.” 

Two of the alien soldiers yanked Daniel to his feet, bound his hands behind him, and marched him toward the ‘gate.  Others carried their own dead and wounded, leaving the human bodies behind.  One of them dialed a ‘gate address, but Daniel couldn’t see all the glyphs.  Moments later, the obelisk scanner passed harmlessly over them as they approached the event horizon.

At the other end of the wormhole, they arrived inside an enclosed metal structure populated by more of the bipedal aliens. A vibration through his boots told him there was a powerful engine at work nearby, and Daniel’s first thought was that they were inside a spaceship.  It wasn’t the typical Goa’uld/Egyptian hybrid he was accustomed to seeing, however; the design elements were Greco-Roman, with lots of white marble and elegant columns.

He was forced down a short corridor to a small cell with smooth metal walls, ceiling and floor, the interior closed off by a force field that his captors activated once they’d shoved him inside the little room. His only comforts were a metal shelf that might serve as a sleeping platform, complete with a sliding panel in the middle that opened to a toilet hole. Inside that was a screen that would let waste pass through, but nowhere near big enough to consider as a possible avenue of escape.

No one spoke to him. He had no idea why he’d been singled out from the team and everyone else killed. He had no intention of cooperating or giving them anything; he’d rather die than help them.  As far as he was concerned, they’d destroyed any possible leverage they might have had over him by killing his friends. 

The SGC would be returning to the campsite when SG-13 didn’t report in on time, and his teammates’ bodies would be discovered and returned home for burial, but no one would know what had happened to him. No one from Earth had ever seen aliens like those who had captured him, and he had no idea where they had originated; neither would anyone else. There was no way they could track him, so he was on his own.

He had no idea how these aliens had found him, and hoped it hadn’t been through a traitor in the midst of the SGC.

He simmered with rage as he examined his cell for every possible avenue of escape. If he could manage to free himself, he might be able to get home. And just maybe, if he were lucky, he’d be able to find a way to avenge his murdered teammates.

That idea fueled his hope, but he found it was all he had left. 

The People gathered at the camp, surveying the carnage around them. This attack had been unexpected, but was not yet cause for alarm.  After all, those who had been struck down might well have deserved their fate.

The bodies of the visitors were gathered up and carried off to await dissection and analysis.  The alien’s shelters, weapons, and transportation vehicles were given a cursory examination; it was determined they might require further study, but they were dismissed as unimportant for the moment.  Meanwhile, the items would be protected from ravaging beasts and made invisible until the inquiry was completed, in case the attackers returned for whatever the first visitors had brought with them. 

In due time, in the city of Shahr, the council of elders met to determine a course of action once all the necessary information on the aliens had been acquired.

“They were only primitive beings,” Mountain announced. “They cannot be of those whom we called ‘Friend’ in the long-ago.” 

“Their tools and machines are crude,” agreed Forest. “We have been able to glean some information from them, but not enough to piece together a complete language reference. They seem to have no knowledge of us.”

“Have we been so completely erased from the universe?” asked Sky. “Is it possible no one knows we are here?”

Grass grunted and scratched his bearded chin. “Is why we here. To be lost.”

“But they are not The Ones?” asked Mountain. 

“No,” declared Sky. “We do not believe so.”

“No,” agreed Forest.

“Must observe rites,” stated Grass firmly, steepling his fingers over his lap.

“Agreed.” Mountain rose and led the procession out of the council hall.

The bodies of the dead strangers were cremated, their ashes returned to the base of the portal through which they had come, blended with the dust of all the People who had passed in every generation since they had arrived on that isolated world.

The People mourned them as their own and, when the ceremony was over, they returned to their respective places in their world.  Nothing had changed; for them, things were no different than they had been before the Wheel of Worlds opened to admit their visitors and those who had taken the life force of all but one of them.

If others came, the People would be waiting, always watching and waiting, as they had done for millennia.

July 6

Somewhere In Space

Outside his cell, two of the scaly aliens stood guard.

Daniel’s belly growled. The one meal he’d eaten at the camp had been just enough to keep him going, but he was slowly dehydrating from lack of water. He was exhausted, but he dared not lie down and sleep with no one to keep watch. This kind of treatment was designed to break him down, but he’d been through worse.

By his chronometer, he knew that almost 24 hours had passed since his arrival, and no one had bothered to speak to him or interact in any way. Soon the communication deadline with the SGC would pass, and a contingent of Marines would be sent to investigate what had happened to SG-13. Their bodies would be discovered and taken back to the base for burial, their supplies gathered and returned home. Daniel would be listed as MIA; no one would know what had happened to him or where to attempt to mount a rescue. Even he didn’t know where he was.

Pacing, looking around, thinking, keeping one eye on the doorway in the anteroom outside his cell, he examined his prison for the bazillionth time, looking for any weakness he might exploit, thinking and calculating all possibilities, trying to cement in his mind the path from his cell to the stargate; he’d need to remember that, if and when an opportunity for escape presented itself.

Finally, a visitor arrived, an old woman – a human – and Daniel felt a slight sense of relief at the sight of her. A small black lightning bolt was tattooed on her forehead, marking her as a Jaffa. This was a symbol he hadn’t seen before, but he knew instantly whose it was. Earth mythology told him that detail.  She was a servant of Zeus.

She handed him a tray laden with food and water, passed through a slot in the wall on one side of the energy barrier that served as both door and window.  He took the tray and set it down on the shelf in his cell. Since his alien captors had spoken to him in Latin, he guessed his visitor might use the same language.

 “Greetings,” said Daniel with a smile. He touched his chest with one hand. “My name is Da—“

“I know who you are,” the woman whispered in Latin, fear in her eyes as she meaningfully glanced at each guard. “For your own sake, I beg you to give Zeus whatever he asks.” She dropped her gaze, gave him a slight bow of respect, and started to turn away.

“Please!”  Daniel beseeched her.  “Wait!”  He reached toward the door, wanting to grab her arm and hold her, but was zapped for his trouble by the force field.  “Do you know what he wants with me?”

“Such important things are not for a slave to know,” she replied meekly, eyes downcast. “You must cooperate, or the price you pay will be terrible. Zeus has great power. We must not question him.”

Daniel felt his opportunity slipping away. “What is your name?” 

“Zera. I am to see to your meals.” She bowed again and hurried away.

With a sigh, Daniel sat down and examined the food and drink, sniffing suspiciously at the contents of the large metal tankard he’d been given.  In the end, his thirst won out, and he gulped down the cool liquid, his eyes closing in utter bliss.  The food was simple and filling; a bowl held a plain stew with meat and vegetables, and two slices of bread lay alongside it.  The meal would hold him for another day; at least now he had hope that they didn’t intend to starve him to death.

He knew the Earthly mythology of Zeus, son of Cronos, father of the Greco-Roman gods. His symbol, marking the woman’s forehead, was the lightning bolt. Zeus had a reputation for infidelity, whimsy and great wrath, but how much of that would hold true in this culture remained to be seen.

Daniel assumed this was yet another Goa’uld who had enslaved both human Jaffa and these beastly aliens, whatever they were.

He waited for the woman to return for the empty tray, and when she did, he thanked her with a warm smile. That eased her tension a little, softening her expression, but she didn’t smile back.

He decided to try for more information.  “Zera, are we on a space ship?”

She gave him a little nod. “I cannot tell you more. You will learn all you need to know when Zeus arrives, and you are presented to him.” She hesitated, met his gaze with a pleading one of her own, and bowed.

He let her go without more questions, sensing he might be putting her in danger for the interaction. He hadn’t missed the narrowed gaze of the scaly werewolf guard to his left, who had obviously monitored their conversation, its head turned toward the doorway.    

Daniel decided to try another tack. “What are your people called?” he asked the creature in elegantly precise Latin.

“Ting-sha,” it replied in a frosty growl. It turned away, steadfastly refusing to answer any of Daniel’s other questions.

At least he had an identity for his captors now.  That was something. 

End of Chapter 2

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