STARGATE: EXPLORER

by Lady Grey
Alpha/Beta by Jude

January 15

Two weeks later     

Olympus, in the temple of Zeus

High above the floor of the temple of Zeus, cloaked from the view of the massed congregation, el-Riel hovered in her protective s'resh, the helmet closed. On a whim, the Goa'uld had chosen to visit this planet, and word had been sent immediately to Furdani. el-Riel responded, watching the tyrant hold sway over his followers, disgusted by the groveling of the animalistic Ting-sha as they prostrated themselves mindlessly at Zeus's feet.

The Sky Clan elder had come to Olympus in secret, passing invisibly through the Wheel of Worlds with a shipment of precious metals and gems. She had wanted to see Zeus herself, to study and observe him and glean what she could of his nature.

As intrigued as she was sickened, she studied the physiological scans of the creature on the gaudy golden throne as the information appeared inside her helmet. Two beings, just as Daniel Jackson had described them, were housed in that body. One consciousness was a prisoner of the other, and the symbiosis that held them together might only be sundered with great difficulty. The People could not tackle that challenge without one of them to study directly, but these Goa'uld were apparently quite rare in the galaxy.

That, however, was a matter for another day.

Now, it was time to deliver a message and start the wheels of destiny turning.

Amid great pomp and circumstance, the doors to the inner sanctum of the temple were opened. Twenty priests lined up on either side of the golden throne in the naos, and the acolytes filled the chamber with incense and songs of praise.  Zeus graced them all with a beneficent smile as he gazed down in pleasure at the gift brought to him by the Artisans of Furdani a few weeks earlier.

el-Riel could kill him now, but she would not; it had been determined by the council of elders that execution was not the correct punishment for Zeus's crimes. There was much to do before the alien tyrant could be brought to justice, and the People's next action was only the first step, a warning to him and his followers. It would be the first of several opportunities that would allow him to give up his merciless oppression of others.

This was another test of the humans from Earth and of this Goa'uld, and the People were pleased they had not been asked to carry out a death sentence. 

el-Riel flew just outside the doorway of the naos and chose an opening in the crowd of junior priests waiting outside the inner sanctum. Directly below her, she initiated a life-sized holographic projection of Daniel Jackson, dressed in fine black robes. At the sudden appearance of the image, those nearest it gasped and moved away, clearing a space.

She knew Zeus had to be looking right at it, directly into the eyes of the hologram, and this was confirmed when she saw the flash of surprise on the Goa'uld's face as he eased slowly to his feet.

el-Riel slowly flew forward, and the previously recorded projection appeared to stride confidently into the naos, stopping just in front of the altar where the Eternal Light glimmered with rainbow radiance.

"Ready the message, Sky Clan," the elder transmitted to her equally invisible companions, their presence marked only by faint heat trails on the inner surface of her visor. Acknowledgements from the five who accompanied her came clearly through the helmet's speakers.

The Goa'uld began to speak to the hologram. "You realize you are a dead man, do you not, Doctor Jackson?" He smiled, just a fraction, casually clasping his wrists behind his back.

The image didn't reply. After a moment's pause, its right arm lifted, hand closed in a fist aimed right at Zeus. The Ting-sha reacted instantly to the possible threat and leaped, flinging themselves at the image. They tumbled right through it, slamming into each other and landing on their bellies in a pile on the floor.

Pleased by the gasps of surprise and awe coming from the crowd, el-Riel directed the hologram to step back.

The Jaffa priests shrank away, pressing their backs to the walls, where some dropped to the floor on their knees. These primitive beings had never seen a hologram and were obviously terrified of its presumed power.  "Cowards!" barked Zeus, dropping fisted hands to his sides as he shot scathing glances at his priests. "It is only an image, you idiots!"

The likeness of el-Dani Jackson pivoted without a word, one uplifted hand now aimed at the eastern wall.

"On my command," called el-Riel softly, watching a countdown on her visor. "Now!" She activated the motion, and the holographic Daniel began to sweep his arm through the air, index finger pointed as if he were writing on the distant wall.

The others of Sky Clan, hovering in position inches from the intricate mosaic, fired laser-cutting tools they had brought with them, carving words into the tiny ceramic tiles. The letters were twice as tall as they were themselves, and from the perspective of the audience on the floor of the naos, it seemed as though the script were appearing by magic, incised by bright flames of energy formed at the will of the hologram.

The elder chuckled inside her helmet as her subordinates worked quickly to put up their message.

Daniel Jackson is coming.

One of the Ting-sha panicked and shot at the hologram, the discharge from its weapon taking a chunk out of the floor. That reaction started a firefight as others responded, shrieking and crying out in fear and pain when blasts hit home. Ting-sha and Jaffa alike fell beneath the terrorized assault, until Zeus's voice finally boomed out in frustration for them to stop.

"Morons!" he bellowed, running a hand through his long blond hair in obvious exasperation. "Fools! Do you not see he is not truly here?”  He turned to regard the writing, reading it with a quick sweep of his gray eyes.

el-Riel watched his complexion darken and mottle with rage.

The next command was given in a voice that quickly increased in stress level and volume, until Zeus’ fair face was bright red, his eyes glowing white. "I… want… him… FOUND!"  He turned back to his minions, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Bring me Daniel Jackson!"

His left hand lifted from his side, his fingertips capped in gold, a metal ribbon wound around his forearm. At the center of his palm was an amber jewel glowing with energy. A shockwave radiated from his hand, lifting those nearest him and flinging them through the air, their bodies smashing against the wall by the door.

Those who could, Jaffa and Ting-sha alike, picked themselves up off the floor and ran from the naos, screaming in panic. Only a few priests kept their places, cowering on their knees at their angry god's feet.

el-Riel shut the recording down, causing Daniel’s likeness to fade away to nothing.

Zeus seethed as he stared down at his followers. "Remember that face," he snarled, tiny drops of spittle flying from his lips as he spoke. "Tell everyone on every world.”  He leaned closer to the Jaffa high priest with some final words. “None shall rest until Daniel Jackson has been captured and delivered to me!"

"Yes, my lord," Teum whispered. "It will be done."

Zeus returned to his seat on the throne, staring at the Eternal Light in deep concentration.

The audio assembly in el-Riel's s'resh picked up the whisper of a pair of priests not far away from the throne. "How can we capture him? He appears and disappears at will. He writes with fire, cutting through stone with a wave of his hand. Is he a god?"

Apparently, the Goa'uld heard it, too.

With an impatient sigh, Zeus rose from his gilded seat and sauntered over to the hapless man, who was just rising from his belly to his knees. Zeus bent slightly and clasped his left hand over the man's forehead, showing his perfect teeth in a fierce, angry grin. "He is no god," Zeus growled through clenched jaws. "That was a trick. He is just a man, just like you, and when you bring him to me, I will kill him, just… like… this!"

The jeweled orb on the Goa'uld's palm glowed again and the priest shook with violent tremors of pain. His eyes rolled back in his head and he moaned, the stench of scorched flesh filling the room. The priest finally fell to the floor, blood trickling from his nose, the skin of his brow burned away to the bone, his brain thoroughly cooked. 

The handful of worshippers who were left prostrated themselves and began chanting, begging for mercy, reciting prayers of faithfulness and love to their god.

"Sky Clan, withdraw from the temple," el-Riel ordered quietly into the communication network. "We now have a location for the one called Zeus, and I must not lose track of him. The pursuit has begun."

Her order was acknowledged, and on her command, the rest of the cloaked Sky Clan exited the temple, heading back toward the Artisan's house. They would secretly return to Furdani, but el-Riel's mission had already been determined; she would stay with Zeus wherever he went, watching and waiting, and when the moment was right, she would act.

This was the being who had possessed the Hub prior to Daniel Jackson's theft. He had information the Furlings wanted, and they meant to get it. A personality ruled by such a large ego offered many opportunities for leverage. Now he had revealed a potential bargaining chip, and a plan had already been set in motion to obtain it. 

In a few weeks, a specially outfitted ship, cloaked and well protected by other Furling ships, would arrive in orbit around this planet. As it came into transporter range high above this temple, it would dematerialize the great statue of Zeus, reassemble it into the hold, and carry it back to Furdani.  There, it would be housed in a museum, where it would no longer be worshipped as the effigy of a false god, but instead, cared for as a priceless relic of a lost world.

January 17

Two Days Later

P3X-367

A heavy blanket of snow had fallen on this alien world, but Daniel wasn't cold. The s'resh he wore almost constantly now kept him comfortable and clean, and whenever he was away from the ship he kept the helmet in place to conceal his identity, just in case anyone might be watching. He’d grown so accustomed to the view through the visor and the ability to access so much information, he rarely took it down on missions.

The SGC's report from the exploration of this planet had been sketchy at best. Nirrti had kept SG-1 busy while the team was trying to assist the human population in dealing with a strange illness that caused them to literally come apart at the seams. One man had died in the base infirmary, his body breaking down into its basic components in a terrible, painful metamorphosis. Almost upon arrival, the locals had captured the team, and only through Jack's simple but persuasive reasoning with Wodan and Eggar had SG-1 managed to escape with their lives.

Nirrti had been killed, but not before revealing the secrets of an advanced machine she had used to perform her ghastly experiments. Wodan had promised Jack they'd destroy it once they finished changing their people back to normal. The SGC hadn't followed up with anyone to see if that vow had been kept. The villagers had simply kept to themselves, and the connection to the SGC allowed to lapse.

Now, years later, Daniel was visiting the planet for the first time, since the original mission had been conducted during his ascension, when Jonas Quinn had been part of the team.

The fortress where SG-1 had visited was now abandoned, but scans from the Gaia indicated the native population was still living in a village further east. That cleared the way for Daniel and company to prowl about without disturbing anyone. Scout, Rose and Denali were all exploring nearby, though the giant had to duck to enter the rapidly deteriorating edifice where Nirrti had kept her deadly machine.

They didn't have to look for long before they located the remains of the device. The platform base was still intact, but overhead, a giant reddish-orange ball had been smashed open, revealing bits of damaged machinery. Not far away, a control station lay tipped over, hammered into a misshapen mass, just as Wodan's people had promised Jack O'Neill they would do years earlier. 

Denali peered into the orb attached to the ceiling, squinting as he studied the displaced mechanical innards. "Interesting," he commented. "Much of this looks familiar."

He concentrated then on the walls, which were notably devoid of markings in that room, except for one spot where a thick layer of plaster had fallen off, revealing the stone wall beneath. He leaned forward, studying the artwork. "I recognize this, too." His pulse quickened with excitement. "This planet was marked as a Furling colony in the PDHD database, and either this building was built by your ancestors, or the people who lived here knew them and influenced their architecture."

"Agreed," said Scout, squatting beside the control station. "I believe this machine was made by our people long ago." He pawed through some of the broken bits and picked up a fractured control crystal with a metal fitting around one end. The lines were clean and elegant, and there was unnecessary embellishment added to it to make it beautiful as well as functional.

Daniel scrabbled at the plaster with his gloved fingertips. "Wish I had my tools," he grumbled to himself. Fortunately, the covering broke easily and came away to reveal more of the writing on the wall. When he found a seam between the stones that made up the wall -- one that shouldn't be there -- he called for help, excitement rising as he realized what he'd found.

"It's a doorway!" exclaimed Rose, tearing off a hunk of the crumbling plaster. "It's been sealed up."

"I'll give you one guess who did that," Daniel shot back triumphantly.

"Nirrti?" Rose asked with a grin, stating the obvious conclusion. Her helmet was open and she was sweating, her face swiped with dirt and powdered with white dust from their excavation.

The door was locked, but with a little effort, the team got it open, and an odor of decay and water wafted to them.  Daniel turned on the chest light on his s'resh and stepped forward into the dark room, where he tripped on something and almost went down.

Scout caught his arm and righted him, then angled his chest-light toward the floor to see what had caused Daniel to stumble.

Four Jaffa skeletons, their armor still in place, lay crumpled on the ground. 

"Probably the construction crew," Daniel observed with a note of irony as he scanned the area for possible booby traps, both visually and with the aid of the devices built into his protective suit. "Nirrti guarded her secrets jealously."

He took note of the height of the arched ceiling above them, all the elegant architectural detail, and was absolutely certain the Furlings had constructed this building.  Leading the way down the passage, he stopped when he came to the end of the corridor. At his feet lay a twenty-foot square filled with water, perfectly still and glassy-smooth like a reflecting pool, except this one had wide steps cut into it, descending into darkness. The first few steps were visible in the glow of their lights, but further down they seemed to vanish into the shadows. 

"Why put steps into a pool this size?" Rose asked, folding her arms across her chest. "Where do they go? We can't see the bottom. Those stairs gotta curve at some point."

Daniel's attention had been directed at the columns supporting the ceiling, with incised text in an ancient form of Furling writing. Much of the letters and symbols were filled with dust. "I don't think it was originally intended to be a pool," he commented, directing his light down to the base of the nearest pillar. "Look. There are signs of flooding here. It might be an opening to an underground city like Shahr."

Rose stood peering down into the depths. She sighed. "Y'all know if these suits are water-tight?" she asked. "'Cause somebody needs to check out where the stairs go." 

"Once the helmet is sealed, yes," replied Scout. He glanced up at Denali towering over their group, then patted the giant on his shoulder. "Wait for us here and watch our backs, friend."

Denali nodded and stepped back a little, turning so he could see both the pool and the way back to Nirrti's fortress with a glance in either direction.

Daniel activated the sensors on his s'resh, enabling a type of sonar mapping that would help him navigate under the surface. "How much air will we have?" 

"The s'resh will filter some from the water," Scout answered, following Daniel's example, "but not enough to give us unlimited range. A timer will show on the display once you're completely submerged, calculating the distance you've traveled and how much time you have left to return to an oxygen-saturated environment. The halfway point will be clear, and I warn you not to push it."

"I'll make sure he heads back on time," said Rose through the communication link. "And just so's y'all know, I'm a certified underwater rescue specialist, from my early days in Special Forces. Either of you boys ever been diving?"

Scout nodded. "I've used the s'resh in this fashion many times."

"Lots of recreational swimming," Daniel answered with a shrug. "A little snorkeling for shallow-water archaeological site exploration, but no diving. I never found the time to learn that."

Rose activated her helmet. "Then you should be aware there are rules. We stay together, always within sight of each other. Check your gear. Stay calm, and if Scout or I give you an order, you don't ask questions or argue, you just do it. We don't know what's down there, and it's damned dark, so we have to be careful. If we can't see each other's lights, we come right back up. Understand?" She put a hand on his shoulder with a firm squeeze.

"Yes, ma'am," he returned, thinking privately that she was every bit as protective of her teammates as Jack O'Neill had been. Not that he minded. In fact, he kind of liked it a little. 

After wading shoulders-deep into the water, Daniel checked his suit for leaks, temperature changes, variations in the readouts, but everything seemed to be working properly. Once he was completely underwater, he heard Scout and Rose calling in to verify their communications gear was operational, and he did the same. "I can hear everybody just fine, and the lights cut a decent path in the water. Let's go."

He continued down the steps until he was fully submerged, then put his head down and kicked off, diving into the inky blackness, following the chiseled stone steps downward in a lazy circle. The s'resh-lights penetrated the darkness in widening swaths, eventually disappearing in the dark. The sonar mapping was displayed in readouts on the insides of their helmets, scanning the area with sound, and they swam lower and lower into the depths of the drowned Furling city.

End Chapter 26

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