STARGATE: EXPLORER

by Lady Grey
Alpha/Beta by Jude

June 17

Five Days Later

Gaia Laboratory Five

"So it begins," announced Teal'c. He removed his gray robe and handed it to Daniel, who stood in the spacious room beside his friend. Barefoot, dressed only in a pair of loosely fitting trousers, Teal’c mounted the open space in the DNA re-sequencer, then turned to confidently face his audience.  The Jaffa stood in his usual pose at parade rest, his friends on either side outside the platform, a handful of Furlings busy with various machines all around them.

"You don't have to do this," O'Neill told him, eyeing the alien apparatus with suspicion.

"On the contrary," Teal'c returned quietly, "I must." He nodded toward the device, his gaze traveling up to the five-foot-wide orange ball set into the ceiling above the raised silvery pad. "If the Furlings are successful, my people will be truly free of the Goa'uld." He smiled. "I consider this a great honor."

Glimpsing a tiny movement in his peripheral vision, Daniel smiled as he glanced down at Jack's hands and caught him crossing his fingers for luck.

A memory of General Hammond flashed through Daniel's mind. "Godspeed," he said.

Teal'c inclined his head briefly, then turned his attention to the diminutive Grass Clan healer commanding the controls. "I am ready," he intoned.

Rhami nodded, her tiny fingers dancing across the buttons and levers to activate the re-sequencer. The orange crystal above Teal'c's head began to glow, and a holographic helix formed in the air all around him, slowly spinning as the device scanned his body for exact biological construction.

Once that was completed, she entered additional information into the keypad. Rhami's hands settled on a yellow gel-like pad on the middle of the console, her fingers digging in gently as she altered the construction of the Jaffa's DNA one tiny fraction at a time. With the delicate, touch-sensitive gel, she set new parameters, made a few more adjustments, and finally set the transformation in motion. 

Teal'c started to sweat, beads of perspiration rolling down his face and neck.

Jack rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand, head down, and began to pace.

Daniel struggled to try to avoid getting his hopes up, in case this didn't work.

"Come on, come on," whispered Doctor Lam urgently from just behind Jack. "If this works," she murmured to no one in particular, "there won't be a need to build that Tretonin plant on Alpha. We won't have to scavenge for Goa'uld to make the drug. The Jaffa can be human again."

Jack shushed her, still pacing, and stopped long enough to glance at the re-sequencing chamber.

He froze.

Carolyn gasped. "Oh, my God! His pouch -- it's closing up!"

Teal'c's stoic expression slipped. He grunted with pain, his hands rising from his sides to hover over his belly, with its X-shaped opening. He looked down at himself, watching the slits disappear, and as his abdomen became seamless, rippling with uninterrupted muscle and gleaming with perspiration, he started to laugh. 

Daniel had never heard such a sound from the man. It was deep and rich, filled with indescribable joy.

"I am free!" Teal'c shouted, fists punching the air. He kept laughing, looking down at his belly and rubbing his hands gleefully over the smooth, unbroken skin.

The illuminated DNA helix began to fade and disappeared as the lights in the machine went off. Rhami stepped away from the controls and turned to the gathering. "Finished," she announced with a pleased smile.

Teal'c of the Tau'ri stepped off the platform as a human being, no longer needing a symbiote or drug to keep him healthy and extend his life. Now he would age like any other man and be susceptible to illness just like his friends from Earth. His dependence on the Goa'uld was over, as it would now be for the rest of his people.

He raced over to Rhami and swept her up in his arms, lifting her up onto his shoulders as if she were a child. He danced -- Teal'c danced! -- brimming over with excitement that could not be contained, still laughing as he hugged everyone in the room.

Doctor Lam cheered and clapped.

Jack got crabby and poked at his eye, protesting that he had something stuck in there.

Daniel cried unabashedly as he reacted to the fact that Teal'c was only the first to benefit from this research. The information they'd acquired from this procedure would be relayed to every Furling ship and colony, every world where they lived. Re-sequencers would be built as fast as the People could manage, the technology offered to anyone who wanted to shrug off the yoke of enforced servitude to and worship of false gods.  Soon there would be no more Jaffa; they would all be human, as they had been once upon a time long ago, before the Goa'uld came to enslave them.

This was a moment that would be remembered forever, and a debt that might never be repaid. Best of all, though, was that the service had been --and would continue to be -- rendered out of compassion, with no strings or price tag attached, just because the Furlings wanted to help.

Daniel thought he'd made a pretty good choice when he'd set them free, releasing the Furlings from their imprisonment by the Ancients. Still, there remained one other question regarding the future of the Jaffa. He turned to the chief healer, now back on her feet. 

"What becomes of the symbiotes now incubating? We haven't addressed that yet."

"Must be harvested first," Rhami told him. "Then we set Jaffa free."

That was the benevolent choice, to be sure. It didn't end the threat the Goa'uld posed, though. He remembered the Furdani stargate, how it had been locked, the planet guarded from space. He thought about Chaka and his people, the Unas, who had been the first unwilling hosts to the snake-like aliens.

"We should try to find them a world where there are no other potential hosts," Daniel added thoughtfully. "One with no stargate. No one should be able to approach or leave the planet. Maybe in a few thousand years, the Goa'uld will evolve into something more rational, less megalomaniacal. Maybe not. But everyone else should be protected from them.” 

Daniel studied Scout's face for a reaction, knowing he was basically repeating the fate handed down to the Furlings by the Ancients, but without the genocidal war.

The elder was pensive, considering. He gestured toward the re-sequencer. "There is no longer a threat from them, friend. Anyone taken as a host can be freed."

"You don't know that for sure," Daniel countered. "You haven't successfully separated symbiote and host yet. You've just taken the incubators out of the equation."

el-Mikha smiled. "Then we'll have to capture a Goa'uld and its host, and discover how this may be safely done. I'm not willing to repeat our fate with another race, Daniel, no matter how just you believe they might be. In the minds of the Goa'uld, they are deserving of worship and servitude of others. They must learn to distinguish the truth of what they are from the fantasy of what they wish they were, and imprisonment won't help. We must perfect a way to free the hosts, so they'll no longer pose a threat. Only when their power has been removed will they learn to see reason."

"If we can contact the Tok'ra, they know how," Jack offered. "I've still got connections."

The elder gave him a gracious bow. "We'd be honored to assist them with freeing those who are unwilling hosts; however, if they're not inclined to share the knowledge, we'll happily defer to them."

"This is a great day," announced Teal'c, still smiling broadly.

"Indeed," Daniel agreed. He glanced at his tall friend and saw a single eyebrow arch in response to his intentional theft of Teal'c's pat response. He grinned back. 

June 24

One Week Later

Kheb

Jack O'Neill clutched his P-90, his index finger lying flat alongside the trigger guard, ready for action. He frowned as he scanned the temple grounds, though no one was in view. The setting was peaceful, the area still well maintained since SG-1 had been there years earlier.

"I hate this place," he growled, glancing at his companion.

Daniel nodded. "I know." He didn't have to make much of an intuitive leap to figure that out. This had been the starting point in Daniel's journey toward ascension. This was where he'd met Oma Desala for the first time.  He turned to Jack. "You can wait here, if you'd like. I won't be long."

O'Neill gave him a brusque nod, then reached up with his left hand to touch the Furling comm device on his ear. "Everything secure at the gate, Scout?"

"We're ready," came the reply through the earpiece.

Taking a moment to remove his boots and socks, Daniel stepped up onto the wooden deck and pushed open the shoji-style doors of the temple. A young monk glanced up at him briefly, then returned to his meditation without greeting him.

He took a seat on a floor cushion across from the youth, folding his legs beneath him, wrists balanced on his bent knees. "I've come to speak with Shifu," he announced quietly. 

"You have been expected," said the monk without opening his eyes. "He will join you shortly."

"Thank you." Daniel rose and padded back to the deck alone, hands thrust into his trouser pockets. He concentrated on his breathing, in and out, and the sweetly scented air of the well-manicured gardens all around him. It was beautiful there; he thought he might like to visit Kheb now and then, just for the view and the atmosphere of serenity.

He watched Jack patrol the perimeter, gravel crunching beneath his boots as he strolled around the opposite end of the courtyard, watching the horizon beyond the arched doorway set into the surrounding wall. O'Neill's attention was directed outward, on watch, looking away from the isolated building where Daniel stood waiting.

In the meditation hall behind him, the monk remained sitting in silence, unmoving.

"It has been a long time," called a voice to Daniel's left. 

Daniel's head whipped around. Not far away, a teenage boy dressed in orange robes stood solemnly observing him. Daniel recognized him immediately, though his features had changed significantly, and he had grown a couple of feet. He still looked like his mother, Shau'ri.

"Shifu!" Daniel called, smiling in warm welcome. "You're so tall now!"

The Harsesis child was well on the way to becoming a man. He had a slender build and delicate hands that had never known the joy of manual labor. His hair had grown well past his shoulders, and was now worn in Abydonian dreadlocks, pulled back at his nape, rather than shaven. His expression was serene, but his eyes were troubled. He didn't smile. 

"Your journey has been a difficult one," he commented. 

"Have you been observing?"

"You have come here with a weapon," Shifu stated. 

Noting that the youth hadn’t answered his question, Daniel told him, "No, not really." Daniel’s welcoming smile dimmed to a shadow of its former brilliance. "I've come with an invitation."

"I do not understand."

Daniel shot a glance at Jack, who was strolling not far away, keeping an eye on them, but maintaining his distance.  Their chat would be private.

"There's a cure for the plague the Ancients were suffering when they ascended," he told the boy.  "They need no longer fear the disease. They can return to mortal form and live out their lives on this plane. I urge them to accept this offer. It's a generous one."

Shifu's head bowed as he contemplated that announcement. "Some may consent. Most will not. They have no need."

"Yes, they do," Daniel told him gently. His heart ached a little for Shau'ri. This was her son. Had things been different, he might also have been Daniel's. "They have a debt to pay, Shifu. Didn't they tell you about the terrible crime they committed?" 

"They were afraid," said the youth. "They did not want to die."

"Neither did the Furlings."

"The Ancients have become enlightened.” Shifu's voice held a note of pleading. He was reluctant to let go of the beings who had saved his life and his sanity, and fear glimmered in his dark eyes. “They have helped me learn to control the terrible things in my mind."

Daniel nodded. "Yes, they have. You were one of the few good things they did, Shifu. Most of the time, they turned their backs on people they could have helped. Should have helped. Uncountable billions have suffered enslavement beneath the race who created you; you know what kind of suffering they've caused. What about all those the Ancients chose not to help? Don't they count, too? Why was it all right to help you and not them?" He wrapped his arms around his middle and ambled toward the youth, who fell into step with him as they strolled along the deck surrounding the meditation hall.

"Not interfering is a lesson they learned while they were still mortal." Shifu's pace slowed as he spoke, and he walked a little closer to Daniel's side, as if seeking comfort for emotional distress. "In the end, the Third Race was given mercy. Some were spared."

This subject was obviously uncomfortable for Shifu, but it had to be covered. That was why Daniel had come there, after all. He understood the young man was reasoning his way through behavior he didn't truly understand, trying to justify what he knew, and to defend those who had helped him. "The Ancients left the Furlings with no provisions, no shelter, no way off that world. They left them there to die, Shifu. Far from being an act of mercy, it was the final phase of a punishment they didn't deserve."

Shifu lifted his dark eyes, so like his mother's, to search Daniel's face. "They do not want--"

He was interrupted by a distant rumble of thunder, low and angry, like the growl of a cornered beast.

Surprise flickered into Shifu's expression. "They are preparing to destroy the ship that brought you here!" 

Daniel whipped around, shouting to Jack across the courtyard, "Now! Tell them to activate the machine!"

Jack's response was immediate; before Daniel even finished his sentence, the order was being relayed.

The sky clouded over and grew dark in a matter of seconds.  This time, he knew, it wasn't because of his own stormy emotions.

"Stay here!" Daniel called to Shifu, bolting off the deck, running right for Jack.

Lightning was on the way. Daniel could feel it, and Jack was the target.

He wasn't going to make it in time. The hair on his forearms lifted as the static charge in the air increased. His right hand reached out as he ran, fingers spreading wide open.

"No!" Daniel cried. He loosed a pulse of energy, a shockwave that lifted Jack off his feet and flung him backward into a Zen garden, just as a bolt of white light struck the ground where he had been standing. Pebbles scattered everywhere and a cloud of dirt kicked up into the air.

Jack rolled to his feet, glancing up at the sky, racing for Daniel. "I’ve got nothin' to shoot at!" he cried.

As soon as Jack caught up, Daniel turned, and they raced back to the temple together, as fast as their feet would carry them. His fingertip brushed the controls on the comm link on his ear. "Any time now," Daniel called urgently into the device. "Just give it--"

A ball of light hit the ground between them and the temple, and when the glow faded, a naked old may lay curled up on the dirt. Another, and then another appeared, nude men and women of all ages falling out of the sky all around them in a celestial rain. Daniel knew instantly who they were, though he had never seen their faces before.

These were the Ancients.

"It's working!" Jack yelled enthusiastically. He glanced around them as they came to a stop at the edge of the deck. "Holy buckets, Daniel! How many are there?"

"Thousands," he panted. "Maybe millions. Not all here." Winded from the run and the effort of the telekinetic blow, he leaned forward, hands on knees, to catch his breath. "The Furlings will be funneling the signal through the stargate network, like Sam and Jacob did with the energy wave that destroyed the Replicators."

"You warned 'em," observed his friend triumphantly. Jack's expression turned grim. He adjusted his grip on the P-90 as he watched the crowd of Ancients in their birthday suits getting to their feet. "Now it's time to pay the piper for the dance."

Daniel eyed the crowd, then glanced up at the clearing sky.

The old man who had descended first tottered up to them, brushing dirt off his shoulder and turning rheumy, guilty eyes on Daniel. His shoulders were hunched, head tipped downward, like a tiger backed into a corner and about to pounce. "You have forced us back to mortality, used your machine to take from us what we rightfully achieved on our own. What will you do with us now?" he asked, his voice hoarse with accusation and leashed rage. 

"For the moment, you learn how to be mortal again," Daniel answered as compassionately as he could. "The Furlings will be bringing food, clothing, and medicines for you. Eventually, you'll all be gathered up and taken through the stargate to the Nox homeworld."

"And what becomes of us when we get there?" asked a beautiful young woman, not bothering to cover her body with her hands. She looked resentful, angry, maybe a little scared. 

Daniel cocked his head, thinking about the punishment the Furling council of elders had suggested, still not understanding it. "Both you and the Nox will be provided simple tools and provisions enough to survive, but all advanced technological devices will be removed from your possession. The stargate will be taken away. However long it takes you to rebuild your societies from the most basic level, that's when you'll be free to roam the galaxy again. If it takes ten years or a thousand, you'll have that long to really think about the decisions you made. Be grateful they didn't do to you what you did to them." 

Most of the Ancients were staring at the ground in shame, but some eyed him with obvious hatred, others had chins held high, no doubt believing they had acted correctly. His judgment brought only a faint ripple of protest, a distant grumbling of disagreement. No one spoke loudly or clearly enough for him to hear, and he knew there would be no argument. Daniel thought the Furlings had been generous, after having spent millennia preparing for a war they wouldn't fight. Given the option, they were a peaceful race. Backed into a corner, they would not easily be defeated.

More than ever, Daniel felt the Furlings had been frighteningly misjudged and was happy he'd been able to help rectify that matter.

He knew the Ancients could try to run and hide, but the virus would find them and, without the Furlings' amazing medicinal tea, any stragglers would die. If they wanted to live, they would submit to this sentence. If they ascended again, they would simply be brought right back to the mortal plane.

"What will become of me?" asked Shifu, reaching out to touch Daniel's shoulder.

Daniel smiled at him. "You’ve committed no crime," he reminded the teenager. "You can go wherever you want."

"My mother's world is gone, as is yours. Where should I go?"

"There's our new home," offered Jack lightly, "and the Furlings are nice folks, too. They have a cool music box."

Leave it to Jack to simplify things, Daniel thought. "The Furlings are very wise," he suggested. "There are some on Alpha, if you decide you want to go there. I think they may have much to teach you."

The tiniest impish grin touched the corners of Shifu's mouth. "Then I would like to see both places." 

"You got it," agreed Jack. He patted the boy on his shoulder as they took a step off the deck. "That is, if it's stopped raining naked people." He glanced hesitantly up at the sky, then at the crowd, which silently parted to let them pass.

"Sky's clearing," Daniel observed, and then his gaze turned to the ground beneath his bare feet.

"Daniel," said Jack. "Shoes."

"Right." He pivoted and turned back to the deck to put on his footwear. He didn't look up at the crowd of Ancients as he pulled on his socks, his mind wandering to far places.

At that moment, a fleet of Furling ships would be closing in on the new Supergate, carrying another of Daniel's machines to the galaxy where the Ori ruled. When they arrived, the Furlings would activate the device and return the Ori to physical form. What became of them afterward would be the decision of those who had worshipped them under penalty of death.

Without the power of the Ori, the Priors would become ordinary mortals again. Truth would reign at last. False gods would be revealed as the imposters they truly were, and humanity would have an opportunity to make a fresh start.  Daniel looked forward to that, and to bringing justice to his lost world.

He adjusted his left boot and got to his feet with his head high, eyes forward, step sure. Soon now, he hoped he would be standing face to face with Zeus.

End Chapter 36

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