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scifibigbang: Balance of Power - Part Four
Title: Balance of Power - Part Four
Author name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alexcat
Artist name:alexcat
Beta name:larian and Larry
Word Count: 25, 945
Fandom: Stargate: SG-1
Rating: PG-13
Main Characters and/or pairings: SG-1. SG-18(Atlantis crew), Jonathan O’Neill. Jack O
Neill, Hank Landry.
Genre: Science Fiction
Summary: Is there a new threat to the galaxy after the Ori and Goa’uld are defeated?
Warnings: Some violence but not very graphic.
Disclaimers: I do not own nor do I profit from the use of these characters
~~~
Part Four
Chapter Nineteen
- Aboard the Mother ship
Jonathan O’Neill materialized on the bridge of the ship. He looked around and saw exactly who he thought he’d see.
“And here I thought we’d killed all of you.”
“Just who are you?” Baal asked him.
“I’m Jonathan O’Neill. The general is back on earth.” The boy didn’t seem one bit surprised at who he was talking to.
“Why is your DNA the same as his?”
“Oh, I’m a clone. Loki the loony Asgard decided to clone me…Jack and SG-1 decided to keep me since I was so cute.”
“Then you remember everything?”
“If you mean when you killed me over and over, then yes. I remember every minute of it. And I’ll be thrilled to see you die again. Too.” Jonathan smiled. While it was true he was a young man, he was also Jack O’Neill with all his memories and beliefs. And he hated Baal even more than anyone knew.
“It would seem that I have the upper hand though.”
“It always seems that way but SG-1 always beats you. Every single time!”
Baal laughed and had his men take his prisoner to one of the cells in the detention block.
*
- Aboard the Daedalus
“Where did he go? Can you trace him?” Mitchell said, turning this way and that as if that would make Jonathan come back.
“His beacon says he’s on the Mother ship,” one of the techs said. He had tracked it while Carter was working on other ways to find him.
“Then they have him. We have to get him back,” Vala said.
“How do we do that?” McKay asked.
Carter smiled. “Easy. We beam over there and steal him back.”
McKay rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
*
- Aboard the flagship of the Tok’ra fleet
“I suppose it’s time to contact Landry,” Ter’net told his second in command, Jessena.
“Yes sir. I’ll send them a message now.” She sent the message through the usual channel, knowing that General Landry would get it within minutes. She stayed with her communications equipment to receive his reply. It came quickly.
“Sir, he sent only two words: Help them.”
“Then I suppose we must. Target that Mother ship.”
*
- Aboard the Daedalus
Both carriers and both SG teams received the message from the Tok’ra at the same time. Col. Caldwell fired one back at Landry telling him that young Jonathan O’Neill was almost surely aboard the Mother ship.
Mitchell insisted that they be beamed over to the Mother ship at once but that would mean they’d have to lower their shields for a few seconds.
“Do it,” Caldwell said. He always figured he’d die out in space anyway and here was as good a place as any. He had come to like the young O’Neill in the last few days and he believed in the general’s mantra: Never leave a man behind.
SG-1, Carter, Teal’c and McKay were beamed over. This was not an unfamiliar thing for any of them except Rodney, but only unusual for him in that it was not a Wraith ship.
They managed to hide rather quickly, sure that their arrival had been noted. They were armed to the teeth with guns, zats, and plenty of Jack’s personal favorite, C4. Being generally familiar with the layout of a Goa’uld Mother ship helped them navigate.
“If he’s in a holding cell, we might try level four,” Sam whispered.
“So are we here to rescue him or to stop this thing?” McKay asked.
“Rescue,” Cam answered. “Until I hear different anyway.”
“As you say,” Teal’c said with a nod.
They set out to find their teammate.
*
“Someone has come aboard,” an officer told Baal on the bridge.
Baal’s laugh rang out again. “That would be my old friends, SG-1. They’ve come to get their little science experiment back from me.”
“Shall I have a detail sent to find and capture them?” the same man asked.
“No, let them wander about. We know they’ll end up in the detention wing, looking for little O’Neill.”
“Yes sir.”
*
“This way,” Sam called over her shoulder. She’d spent quite a lot of time sneaking around Goa’uld ships in her years with SG-1 and she knew where to find the detention cells.
They were on level four, an area with few guards until they got near the actual holding cells themselves.
“We can zat them,” Cam whispered.
“It might be better to take them out permanently,” Teal’c said. These were not Jaffa but leather clad smugglers who had taken Baal as their leader. They all knew that it was kill or be killed just as it had been with many of the Jaffa in the wars with the Goa’uld.
“It might be but we zat first,” Cam whispered then zatted the guard nearest them and Teal’c caught him so he fell silently and they moved on to the next one.
*
Jonathan O’Neill was not actually in a cell but he was tied up to a chair in front of the cells. A particularly ugly man was talking to him, asking him questions that he had no answers for. It was clear that this man believed him to be THE Jack O’Neill that Baal had wanted captured instead of a clone.
“So what did you do to Lord Baal to make him like you so much, O’Neill?”
“I escaped.”
“Not from him.”
“Yes, from him. He killed me hundreds of times and yet I escaped. Pissed him off, I guess.”
The man hit him in the face then turned as he heard something in the corridor. He never knew what hit him as Carter clocked him on the head with her weapon. He dropped like a stone.
“Jonathan, are you all right?”
Jonathan smiled a smile that was undeniably Jack’s sarcastic one. “Do I look all right? This goon just tried to rearrange my face. Took you long enough.” He rubbed his jaw.
“I’m not sure you’ve been here an hour, sir,” Carter said, realizing she used the ‘sir’ out of a long habit.
“Well, well. Isn’t this nice? We have a reunion,” Baal said from the doorway where he was flanked by several armed guards with their weapons trained on SG-1.
“You!” Cameron said, clearly shocked to see someone who he was sure was dead.
“But which me? My dear Col. Mitchell, surely you didn’t think you killed all the Baals?”
“Well, yeah, I kinda did.”
“You were wrong. Lock them up. All of them,” Baal ordered his guards.
~~~
Chapter Twenty
- In the detention section of Baal’s ship
“Baal?” Carter said when they were locked into a cell. “You were certain they all were dead,” she said to Mitchell.
“Apparently I was wrong,” he said dryly. “They took our weapons. Even my C4.”
“How do we get out of here?” McKay was a little nervous.
“Maybe they’ll beam us out,” Vala said.
“Not with a battle going on. All of our ships will need their shields up and that means no beaming,” Rodney shot back.
“Then we have to find a way out by ourselves,” Carter said.
They felt the ship rock.
“What the--?” Vala said but she knew. They were being fired upon.
*
- The Tok’ra flagship
“Fire!” the captain ordered and fire they did, at the Mother ship and at the smaller ships protecting her. They knew that SG-1 was aboard that Mother ship and they intended to disable and board it if possible but if there was no other way, well, sacrifices had to be made sometimes.
*
- In the detention level of Baal’s ship
“I’m not going to be happy if they kill us too,” Jonathan said. “I never did trust the Tok’ra any more than I did the Goa’uld.”
This time Samantha was inclined to agree even though her father had hosted a Tok’ra and so had she briefly. She knew that Jack/Jonathan had had some horrible experiences at the hands of the Tok’ra even though they’d meant well at the time.
“All we can do is wait,” Vala said.
“I don’t think so,” Jonathan said. He lifted a square of C4 out of his pocket. “I lifted it from one of the guards when they brought you in here.”
“Didn’t happen to grab a zat, did you?” Mitchell asked.
“Sorry but I can at least blow the cell door if we can manage not to get blown to bits ourselves too.”
“How are we going to blow it?” McKay asked.
“It has a timer built in,” Jonathan answered.
“I will shield you all. I can take the most punishment,” Teal’c volunteered as he had many times before.
So they set about blowing the cell door open. They all huddled in one corner with Teal’c between them and the door and blew it. There was surprisingly little debris but the metal lock was broken and the whole group was outside the cell before the nearest guard was able to reach them.
They spread out so one guard couldn’t get all of them even if he did get a shot off and Teal’c attacked the guard from behind as he brought his weapon up toward Jonathan. The guard was not as well trained as a Jaffa either so that made it a bit simpler.
Mitchell took his weapon, Carter his communication device and they put the man in one of the other cells then went in search of a way off the ship.
They felt the ship take another hit. This one was harder than the first.
“The ship has to be sustaining some damage with these hits.” McKay said.
“We just have to hope that if the shields fail, someone has the forethought to beam us out.”
“Not until we get Baal,” Jonathan said and they all turned to see the same fierceness they knew so well from Jack in the young face of Jonathan O’Neill. “He has to be stopped.”
“If we get off the ship, we can see him blown to bits,” Vala said.
“No! I want to see him personally. Otherwise, he will slip away in an escape pod or something and turn up somewhere else on another day.”
Teal’c nodded. “I will go with O’Neill.”
“We’ll try to find a way out of here but first we need to find some weapons,” Carter said. They knew where the weapons were stored in a Goa’uld ship so they all headed in that direction, hurrying along as they knew they didn’t have much time before Baal knew they’d escaped.
*
- Aboard the Odyssey
Daniel Jackson was talking to someone aboard the Daedalus.
“What do you mean, they’re all over there?” He said to the person he was talking to. After he finished his conversation, he turned to the members of SG-18. “SG-1 and McKay are on that Mother ship.”
“Do the Tok’ra know that?” Teyla asked.
“They do and they say they’re targeting engines only,” Daniel answered.
“Why are they there?” John asked.
“Evidently Jonathan O’Neill was beamed over by the Mother ship and the others went to rescue him.”
“And no doubt got captured too.”
Daniel smiled. “They know their way around a Goa’uld ship as well as you guys know a Wraith ship. I wouldn’t count them out just yet.”
“Is there a way to get us over there?” Sheppard asked.
“So the Tok’ra can shoot at us too?” Ronon asked.
“Maybe SG-1 needs some help. That’s what we came here for. I’m tired of doing nothing.”
The captain heard them. “It might be possible to beam you over there while they’re shooting. There’s a small window to get through the shields.”
“Let’s do it!” Sheppard said and for once, Daniel agreed.
*
- On the Mother ship
“Sir, someone else is beaming aboard.”
Baal looked at the tech. “Are you sure?”
“Yes sir. There seem to be five of them.”
“More of those annoying humans then.” To one of his soldiers on the bridge he said, “Find them and bring them to me.”
“Yes sir.”
After the man left, Baal sat there and wondered how he was going to manage to get out of this one. He was surrounded by Tok’ra who wanted him dead even more than the humans did. He only had one trump card and that was the group of foolish humans who never seemed to understand that they could not defeat a Goa’uld, especially one who had all the trump cards…especially one who had the house advantage.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-One
- Aboard the Mother ship
It was pure coincidence that SG-18 beamed in right in the middle of the corridor SG-1 was running down to find some weapons, a very lucky coincidence.
“What are you doing here?” Mitchell hissed at Daniel and company.
“We decided you might need some help.”
“Do you know who is leading the Lucian alliance?” Carter whispered. “Baal!”
“I thought he was dead,” Sheppard said as they ducked into a small room lined with boxes of weapons of all sorts.
“So did we,” Mitchell answered, “but we were wrong.”
“He has to be stopped!” Jonathan said. They all noticed that he was sounding more and more like their old Jack than a young Second Lieutenant fresh out of the Academy. “I remember every single thing that bastard did to me and he has to be stopped.”
No one could argue with that so they all loaded up on weaponry and headed toward the bridge. The crew was tough and mean but not nearly as deadly as a crew of loyal Jaffa protecting their god. They managed to travel fairly quickly without actually encountering a crew member until they came close to the bridge. There was one guard. Jonathan looked at the man a moment then whacked him on the head with the butt of his gun.
Mitchell took point as they started to enter the bridge but was knocked back when the ship took an awfully hard hit from a Tok’ra vessel. The guards on the bridge saw them.
“Don’t move.”
Suddenly several guns were pointed at them. No one moved for a second until Jonathan spoke up. “Shoot and your leader goes first and you next. We have you outnumbered and I don’t mind dying to see the galaxy rid of that bastard!”
Baal’s men were first and foremost smugglers and outlaws and unlike the Jaffa, their first thoughts were for themselves, not their leader. The five men laid their weapons on the floor and backed away but Baal was fast and as deadly as he ever was. He managed to grab Vala and pull her close.
“My darling Qetesh, we meet again.”
“Let her go,” Jackson said, moving closer to the Goa’uld and his prisoner. “She is not yours.”
“We were going to rule the galaxy once upon a time, Vala. Remember that? Would you like to join me again?”
“You know better than that, Baal.”
“Didn’t you love being a goddess? You could be again.”
“Let me go!” The more she struggled, the tighter he held onto her.
“I’ll tell you what, Daniel Jackson. I will take her with me to the escape pods and once I make my escape, you can retrieve her.” Baal was making his way toward the corridor that led to the pod bay.
Jonathan O’Neill moved around Daniel and shot Baal. It was a glancing shot that only grazed him but it did make him let go of Vala. Jonathan grabbed her by the arm and flung her toward Jackson.
“Take me, you bastard!” He shouted at Baal, but he didn’t throw down his weapon. “If you can!”
Baal made a huge miscalculation as he moved to put a hand on Jonathan to use his Goa’uld powers. Jonathan shot him. Baal flew backward and all hell broke out among the men who’d just given their leader up as they scrambled to retrieve their weapons. Sheppard, Mitchell and Ronon opened fire on them and in a few seconds, the battle for the bridge was done with Baal injured and tied up and several of his crew dead or injured.
*
The ship actually had a minimum number of people aboard it and rounding up the rest of them took only a few minutes for Teal’c, Ronon and Teyla.
Mitchell contacted the Daedalus and told them what had transpired. Caldwell beamed a security detail to take the remaining Alliance members back to his ship’s detention cells.
“What are we to do with Baal?” Mitchell asked the head of the detail.
“The Tok’ra are coming over to pick him up. They are better equipped to deal with him than we are.”
O’Neill thought that was a bad idea but he said nothing, finally remembering he was the rookie in this fight.
*
The battle was still going on outside the ship.
The Lucians in the Al’Keshes were not as eager to give up as their counterparts aboard the Mother ship had been and they were giving the Tok’ra and the 302s a run for their money. They were good pilots and were fighting for their lives, not so eager to die since their leader was no longer instructing them from his seat on the bridge of the Mother ship.
The earth ships were taking little to no fire now since the smaller ships had all they could manage dog fighting with the Tok’ra.
*
SG-1 took over the bridge of the Mother ship.
“Looks like we’ve got a new Mother ship for General Landry,” Mitchell said as he sat in the captain’s chair.
“If the Tok’ra don’t take it away,” Daniel said.
The rest of the team had spread over the ship, taking over the operations of all the systems and powering the weapons down, leaving Carter, Mitchell, and Jackson alone.
“I wonder who this one belonged to,” Carter mused.
“This was one of mine—er Qetesh’s,” Vala said over the ship wide communications channel. “I wondered where it got to. It would seem the Lucian Alliance had it all along.”
“Are we sure this is the end of the Alliance?” Jackson asked.
“Probably not. We were sure that Baal was gone and look where that went,”
Mitchell said.
*
A few ships broke off during the worst of the fighting and slipped away almost unnoticed. The Lucian Alliance may have lost its leader but it hadn’t lost everything.
Yet.
*
- Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
General Jack O’Neill had flown to Colorado while the battle was still being raged around the tiny mining planet. For some reason, he felt that he needed to be there. The Pentagon was the base for Earth defenses but here at the SGC, that was where it was at for the rest of the galaxy.
Landry was glad to see his old friend too.
“They came through again, Jack, just like they always do.”
“How did the boy do?”
“He was the one who stormed the bridge. It would seem that he loves Baal as much as you do.”
“A clone off the old block! Now did I hear something about there being some good cake in the Mess hall?”
Landry laughed and sent Walter for some cake for the head of Homeworld Security.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Two
- Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
Within a week, the Earth ships and the Mother ship had arrived back home. Jack had had to go back to Washington but he returned to greet SG-1 and SG-18. He hugged Carter and Daniel as they came into the conference room. The others came in and sat down.
All but one. General O’Neill watched the doorway for that one. Finally he came through.
“There you are.” He was surprised to see how much the young man had grown. He was now as tall as the general and looked even more like him than he had before. It was like looking in a time machine.
Jonathan O’Neill saluted General Jack O’Neill.
“At ease. How is life treating you, Jonathan?” It felt funny to call the boy Jonathan because his grandmother had called him that too at about the same age this boy appeared to be. He supposed it sounded better than calling him ‘son’.
“I have no complaints, sir.”
“Glad to see you’re keeping out of trouble. You’re certainly doing better than I did at your age.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Then Jack turned to the rest of the people in the room. “So tell me about this. Why did this happen?”
“It appears someone, possibly Baal, wanted to control the price of naquadah in the galaxy. By eliminating some of the major sources, he could name his price for what the Lucian Alliance managed to control, which is quite a bit,” Mitchell said.
“And it was a perfect way to attack you, General O’Neill, sir,” Jonathan said.
“You think that was part of the reason?” Jack asked, genuinely curious as to why the boy said it.
“Yes, he seemed very surprised when he beamed me over to his ship. He was expecting it to be you, sir.”
Jack shook his head. “He always was an evil bastard. I’d feel better if he was no longer alive, to tell the truth. I never have trusted the Tok’ra to do anything but help themselves.”
“They have the only facility to safely remove his Goa’uld, Jack.” Daniel never believed in taking a life if one could be saved and he was probably the only person who could get away with saying so to General O’Neill without getting an earful.
“I know that but I simply don’t trust them.”
No one could argue with that, not even Daniel.
“Is there any news on the Icarus personnel, sir?” Mitchell asked. He knew some of those people. He’d met both Young and Dr. Rush and though he’d not cared much for either of them, he hated to think of them lost somewhere with no way home or even worse, dead with no one to ever find them.
“None. They have simply disappeared. We have to assume they died when the planet blew up.” Jack was lying through his teeth and he figured that most of the people in that room knew it but that was the nature of their work and it was his job.
“Have you figured out how to dial that ninth chevron, McKay?”
“I have some theories. Well, Col. Carter and I have some. But without a planet like that one with its large naquadria deposits, we have no way to test them. That makes them theories and nothing more.”
“I was afraid of that. I know you all are tired and would like to get home for some rest so we will meet again Monday morning for a final briefing. Thank you all,” General O’Neill said as he dismissed them.
*
- Somewhere in the galaxy
The remaining ships of the Lucian Alliance came together in orbit around a small, sparsely inhabited planet that they had successfully used as a base for years, even before they’d stepped in to fill the void left by the fall of the Goa’uld. Once it was clear for them to land, they did so and met at an appointed place.
“I am glad that so many of you made it home.” The blond woman smiled. Then her eyes flashed with an unholy light. “I was worried that that fool, Baal, might get you all killed. We have plans to make, my darlings.”
They all gathered around a huge round table covered with star charts and maps and began to plot for another day.
*
- Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
General Jack O’Neill was in the guest quarters, such as they were. The room was small and the furniture plain and cheap. But the bed was soft and the place smelled like home to him. He supposed that life in Georgetown had its advantages but most days, he’d be damned if he knew what they were. He was a soldier but life had finally made him a bureaucrat, which rankled each and every day.
His phone buzzed and he glanced at the number. Damn. He had to take it.
“O’Neill here.”
The voice on the other end told him that the Icarus party had contacted them again with the communication stones, told him they were on an ancient ship that seemed to be careening through space on a mission of its own.
He sighed.
Maybe it was good that they were alive but it surely didn’t feel like it. He thought of the wiz kid they’d kidnapped and sent to P4X-351 and his poor mother, who was not well and now had lost her only son. He hated his job.
Maybe Carter and McKay would figure something out eventually.
*
Samantha Carter stayed on base that night. It was too late to go home and she was tired. She knew there was more to the Icarus puzzle than Jack was telling them but she’d lived with secrets ever since she’d come to Stargate Command. This was nothing new. Something about the entire episode bothered her but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Cam Mitchell had sworn that the last Baal was dead and gone and there would be no more yet here he was. Were there more Goa’uld out there? She was getting too old to fight them.
Maybe this really was the last of the Goa’uld. She really hoped so.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Three
- Langara
Jonas Quinn and his people were glad that the worst had been avoided but he had to admit having SG-1 there was a pleasure for him. He had come to care deeply for them when he had been a member of their team and he had been grateful that Jack O’Neill had given him a fair chance even though he rightly blamed Quinn for Daniel Jackson’s death.
It was with these thoughts in mind that Jonas brought up defense in the next Ruling Council meeting. And finally, for once, they agreed with him that their planet needed to beef up their planetary defenses and to ask the Earth for some help in doing so.
*
- P3X-403
Col. Edwards and his group settled back into their work of mining naquadah with the help of the Unas. The Colonel even shared some lighters and food bars with his work force every week. He still hated to admit Jackson was right but he now knew that one did not have to be a human being to be a good person.
The Unas had taught him that.
*
- The Smugglers’ planet
Vala’s ex-husband, Demetrius, had been returned home to find all traces of the Lucian Alliance gone from the planet. Not that he complained about that, of course. It made it easier to spend some time with MaryAna without that Garen Toker.
He sure did wish Vala was here instead. He missed that spitfire of a woman.
*
- Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
Morning brought more meetings and briefings. All in all, the Earth ships had come through with little damage and they’d actually not lost any of their 302s or the men piloting them. The real losses were the planets that had been destroyed before this final showdown. But even then the enemy had chosen planets with little in the way of population. That was odd, especially to SG-1, who had dealt with the Goa'uld for so many years and knew what little regard they had for human life.
It was almost as if… Everyone who thought it let the thought trail off there. Carter, Mitchell, General Landry, General O’Neill…
What did it mean?
Again, there were no answers that made sense.
So they closed the book on this mission. Jonathan O’Neill was mentioned in the mission report for his bravery in dealing with Baal. He finally felt at home in his own right with SG-1 and they all treated him accordingly, even Jack O’Neill himself.
*
Jonathan felt that something was off. He might only be a clone but he knew the Goa’uld and he knew Baal and this whole thing was just off somehow. He decided to say nothing though. Things may be different than they were when he was Col. Jack O’Neill.
A really odd feeling came over him. This was the first time since he’d been dropped off at the high school all those years ago that he thought he was actually the real Jack O’Neill as much as General O’Neill was. Perhaps he should have gone into a different line of work.
He turned over and closed his eyes. Sleep was not long in coming even to his restless mind.
*
Carter knew that Jack knew more than he was telling about the Icarus survivors. She knew they gated somewhere and since no one had seen them, she was sure that they had gone to the ninth chevron. She just wished she knew where that was.
*
Cam sat in the mess hall, drinking coffee alone. The mission had been one of the strangest ever. It had been successful but there were too many parts that came too easy. He knew that things seldom fell together the way this mission had. It was almost like someone had orchestrated it.
He finished his coffee and headed to his quarters. He knew it was early to go to bed here on earth but he’d only gotten a few hours sleep in a week and he was exhausted both mentally and physically.
*
Vala and Daniel were actually sitting outside, where the emergency tunnel came out on top of the mountain with the sky full of stars above them.
“Vala, just how many times have you been married?” Daniel teased her. She knew that he really didn’t care.
“I can’t remember myself sometimes. But I’ve never married you. Want to give it a try?” She grinned and poked him with her elbow as she leaned closer to him.
“Not sure I ever want to marry again but I’ll keep you at the top of my list.” He let her lean and enjoyed it but he never let on to her that he liked it.
She sat up straight and looked over at him with that dangerous grin. “You do still owe me a date, you know.”
“That wasn’t a date!”
“Well, you owe me a private dinner then. Will it work to call it that?”
He laughed and nodded, knowing how easy it could be to love her if he let himself.
*
Teal’c stopped off to speak to Jack before he gated back to Chulak,
“O’Neill, it has been my pleasure to see you again.”
Jack nodded and smiled, something Teal’c had not seen him do since they’d gotten here.
“You do not like your work?” he asked.
“Not so much. I am a soldier, not a desk jockey. I’m no spring chicken but I feel as if I’ve been promoted to my level of incompetence. I’d rather be gating around the galaxy anytime than doing what I do.”
“Perhaps you should take a vacation.”
“Maybe I need to come see you on Chulak.”
Teal’c smiled almost sadly. “I think my job there is much like yours. I spend all day most days in meetings, trying to get one faction of the Jaffa nations to understand the other faction’s point of view.”
Jack grinned ruefully. “I guess old soldiers never die, they just negotiate until they completely disappear.”
“I will see you soon, O’Neill. You are always welcome to visit the Jaffa.” With those words, he bowed and left the room.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Four
- Jack O'Neill’s office in the Pentagon
Col. Young in the body of Telford sat across from him and talked about the Destiny and what was happening to them in the ship perhaps millions of light years from home. Jack had seen many unbelievable and bizarre things in his years of going through the gate but this one was perhaps the strangest thing he’d heard of.
With all the different briefings he’s had from the different persons aboard the Destiny, he had no idea what was really going on. It actually sounded almost as if they were all on different ships giving different reports about different events. Maybe things really were like the blind men seeing an elephant with their hands. But he had no way to see the whole.
He wished he could sit down with Carter, Daniel and Teal’c and talk about this. They could help him make sense of it.
*
- A small planet uncharted planet
“Did we accomplish our mission to your satisfaction?” The woman asked the man whose face she saw on her view screen.
“Yes, perfectly. Regrettably we did not manage to get any usable information on the ninth chevron. But we do know for sure that the humans broke the code and we know that some eighty people are wherever that address leads to.”
“Is there another planet that has enough naquadah to open an address that far away?” She asked the man.
“There are several. We are working to gain control of them as we speak.”
“Do you think the humans understand what they’ve found?”
“Not a chance,” the man answered her and his image faded from the screen.
Jessena smiled. Not even the men who worked for her had any clue who she actually was.
Nor did the humans who had met her on the Smugglers’ planet.
*
- The Tok’ra homeworld
The ceremony was about to begin. SG-1 was there this time as they had been the last time a Baal had been relieved of his symbiote. Even General O’Neill had come, as much out of boredom as any other reason. A day away from the office was a day away from the office.
They all stood in a room that appeared to be some sort of chapel, the same one they’d been in the last time this happened, and listened as the charges against Baal were read on and on for more than an hour. O’Neill fidgeted like a school boy waiting to see the principal. Carter and Mitchell stood still, almost at attention, for the entire ceremony while Vala popped her gum and looked off into space. Daniel, of course, watched with great attention as he very quietly translated the words into English for the others.
The ceremony went off without a hitch.
Or so it seemed to the group from earth.
They all went home by Stargate.
As soon as they had gone, one of the Tok’ra guards stepped forward and removed Baal from his bonds.
“Your mission went well even though we did not reach our objective. They suspect nothing,” said the Tok’ra high counselor.
“One ‘Goa’uld’ is the same as another to the humans,” Baal said with a smile.
“We did manage to give ourselves quite a supply of naquadah. We have clues to the ninth chevron and perhaps a planet with enough naquadah to get us there. All we have to do is get the exact address from the humans, but I doubt that will be a problem. Our operative at the SGC has always been a source of excellent intelligence so I expect her to come through for us again.”
“What about the other one?”
“Oh, she is already poised to take over the Lucian Alliance in the absence of any established power.”
Baal laughed again. “It sounds as if we, the Tok’ra, have finally come into our own.”
“It does indeed. Now if you’ll excuse me. I have one more urgent matter to attend to.”
Baal smiled and left the room. He had been glad to get this body. The old Baal had been a strong opponent but now it was time to use the body for the greater good of the Tok’ra. After his other body finally began to wear out, he feared that he would never find a new host.
But he had and this body was fit and strong and should last him many more years.
*
When the counselor had left Baal, he returned to his office where a different woman sat with a stone in her hand.
“Hello, sir. I am glad to see you.”
“As I am glad to hear from you at last.”
“We are on a ship, sir, somewhere millions of light years from our own galaxy. We have no idea what the ship is doing or where it is going. It seems to have its own agenda.”
“Does anyone suspect you?”
“I seriously doubt that many of these soldiers have ever seen a Tok’ra or even a Goa’uld.”
“Any chance to come home?”
“Not that I can tell, sir. We can’t gate to Earth because we don’t have enough power for that. We seem to be running low on most things, to tell you the truth. Our survival has been a bit iffy at times.”
“What’s the name of the ship, by the way?”
“Destiny, sir. Dr. Rush says the name in ancient means Destiny.”
With that, the stone fell from the woman’s hand to the floor. She looked up at her superior and smiled. “It’s an amazing ship, sir.”
“I’m sure it is.”
~THE END~
Author name:
alexcatArtist name:
alexcatBeta name:
larian and Larry Word Count: 25, 945
Fandom: Stargate: SG-1
Rating: PG-13
Main Characters and/or pairings: SG-1. SG-18(Atlantis crew), Jonathan O’Neill. Jack O
Neill, Hank Landry.
Genre: Science Fiction
Summary: Is there a new threat to the galaxy after the Ori and Goa’uld are defeated?
Warnings: Some violence but not very graphic.
Disclaimers: I do not own nor do I profit from the use of these characters
~~~
Part Four
Chapter Nineteen
- Aboard the Mother ship
Jonathan O’Neill materialized on the bridge of the ship. He looked around and saw exactly who he thought he’d see.
“And here I thought we’d killed all of you.”
“Just who are you?” Baal asked him.
“I’m Jonathan O’Neill. The general is back on earth.” The boy didn’t seem one bit surprised at who he was talking to.
“Why is your DNA the same as his?”
“Oh, I’m a clone. Loki the loony Asgard decided to clone me…Jack and SG-1 decided to keep me since I was so cute.”
“Then you remember everything?”
“If you mean when you killed me over and over, then yes. I remember every minute of it. And I’ll be thrilled to see you die again. Too.” Jonathan smiled. While it was true he was a young man, he was also Jack O’Neill with all his memories and beliefs. And he hated Baal even more than anyone knew.
“It would seem that I have the upper hand though.”
“It always seems that way but SG-1 always beats you. Every single time!”
Baal laughed and had his men take his prisoner to one of the cells in the detention block.
*
- Aboard the Daedalus
“Where did he go? Can you trace him?” Mitchell said, turning this way and that as if that would make Jonathan come back.
“His beacon says he’s on the Mother ship,” one of the techs said. He had tracked it while Carter was working on other ways to find him.
“Then they have him. We have to get him back,” Vala said.
“How do we do that?” McKay asked.
Carter smiled. “Easy. We beam over there and steal him back.”
McKay rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
*
- Aboard the flagship of the Tok’ra fleet
“I suppose it’s time to contact Landry,” Ter’net told his second in command, Jessena.
“Yes sir. I’ll send them a message now.” She sent the message through the usual channel, knowing that General Landry would get it within minutes. She stayed with her communications equipment to receive his reply. It came quickly.
“Sir, he sent only two words: Help them.”
“Then I suppose we must. Target that Mother ship.”
*
- Aboard the Daedalus
Both carriers and both SG teams received the message from the Tok’ra at the same time. Col. Caldwell fired one back at Landry telling him that young Jonathan O’Neill was almost surely aboard the Mother ship.
Mitchell insisted that they be beamed over to the Mother ship at once but that would mean they’d have to lower their shields for a few seconds.
“Do it,” Caldwell said. He always figured he’d die out in space anyway and here was as good a place as any. He had come to like the young O’Neill in the last few days and he believed in the general’s mantra: Never leave a man behind.
SG-1, Carter, Teal’c and McKay were beamed over. This was not an unfamiliar thing for any of them except Rodney, but only unusual for him in that it was not a Wraith ship.
They managed to hide rather quickly, sure that their arrival had been noted. They were armed to the teeth with guns, zats, and plenty of Jack’s personal favorite, C4. Being generally familiar with the layout of a Goa’uld Mother ship helped them navigate.
“If he’s in a holding cell, we might try level four,” Sam whispered.
“So are we here to rescue him or to stop this thing?” McKay asked.
“Rescue,” Cam answered. “Until I hear different anyway.”
“As you say,” Teal’c said with a nod.
They set out to find their teammate.
*
“Someone has come aboard,” an officer told Baal on the bridge.
Baal’s laugh rang out again. “That would be my old friends, SG-1. They’ve come to get their little science experiment back from me.”
“Shall I have a detail sent to find and capture them?” the same man asked.
“No, let them wander about. We know they’ll end up in the detention wing, looking for little O’Neill.”
“Yes sir.”
*
“This way,” Sam called over her shoulder. She’d spent quite a lot of time sneaking around Goa’uld ships in her years with SG-1 and she knew where to find the detention cells.
They were on level four, an area with few guards until they got near the actual holding cells themselves.
“We can zat them,” Cam whispered.
“It might be better to take them out permanently,” Teal’c said. These were not Jaffa but leather clad smugglers who had taken Baal as their leader. They all knew that it was kill or be killed just as it had been with many of the Jaffa in the wars with the Goa’uld.
“It might be but we zat first,” Cam whispered then zatted the guard nearest them and Teal’c caught him so he fell silently and they moved on to the next one.
*
Jonathan O’Neill was not actually in a cell but he was tied up to a chair in front of the cells. A particularly ugly man was talking to him, asking him questions that he had no answers for. It was clear that this man believed him to be THE Jack O’Neill that Baal had wanted captured instead of a clone.
“So what did you do to Lord Baal to make him like you so much, O’Neill?”
“I escaped.”
“Not from him.”
“Yes, from him. He killed me hundreds of times and yet I escaped. Pissed him off, I guess.”
The man hit him in the face then turned as he heard something in the corridor. He never knew what hit him as Carter clocked him on the head with her weapon. He dropped like a stone.
“Jonathan, are you all right?”
Jonathan smiled a smile that was undeniably Jack’s sarcastic one. “Do I look all right? This goon just tried to rearrange my face. Took you long enough.” He rubbed his jaw.
“I’m not sure you’ve been here an hour, sir,” Carter said, realizing she used the ‘sir’ out of a long habit.
“Well, well. Isn’t this nice? We have a reunion,” Baal said from the doorway where he was flanked by several armed guards with their weapons trained on SG-1.
“You!” Cameron said, clearly shocked to see someone who he was sure was dead.
“But which me? My dear Col. Mitchell, surely you didn’t think you killed all the Baals?”
“Well, yeah, I kinda did.”
“You were wrong. Lock them up. All of them,” Baal ordered his guards.
~~~
Chapter Twenty
- In the detention section of Baal’s ship
“Baal?” Carter said when they were locked into a cell. “You were certain they all were dead,” she said to Mitchell.
“Apparently I was wrong,” he said dryly. “They took our weapons. Even my C4.”
“How do we get out of here?” McKay was a little nervous.
“Maybe they’ll beam us out,” Vala said.
“Not with a battle going on. All of our ships will need their shields up and that means no beaming,” Rodney shot back.
“Then we have to find a way out by ourselves,” Carter said.
They felt the ship rock.
“What the--?” Vala said but she knew. They were being fired upon.
*
- The Tok’ra flagship
“Fire!” the captain ordered and fire they did, at the Mother ship and at the smaller ships protecting her. They knew that SG-1 was aboard that Mother ship and they intended to disable and board it if possible but if there was no other way, well, sacrifices had to be made sometimes.
*
- In the detention level of Baal’s ship
“I’m not going to be happy if they kill us too,” Jonathan said. “I never did trust the Tok’ra any more than I did the Goa’uld.”
This time Samantha was inclined to agree even though her father had hosted a Tok’ra and so had she briefly. She knew that Jack/Jonathan had had some horrible experiences at the hands of the Tok’ra even though they’d meant well at the time.
“All we can do is wait,” Vala said.
“I don’t think so,” Jonathan said. He lifted a square of C4 out of his pocket. “I lifted it from one of the guards when they brought you in here.”
“Didn’t happen to grab a zat, did you?” Mitchell asked.
“Sorry but I can at least blow the cell door if we can manage not to get blown to bits ourselves too.”
“How are we going to blow it?” McKay asked.
“It has a timer built in,” Jonathan answered.
“I will shield you all. I can take the most punishment,” Teal’c volunteered as he had many times before.
So they set about blowing the cell door open. They all huddled in one corner with Teal’c between them and the door and blew it. There was surprisingly little debris but the metal lock was broken and the whole group was outside the cell before the nearest guard was able to reach them.
They spread out so one guard couldn’t get all of them even if he did get a shot off and Teal’c attacked the guard from behind as he brought his weapon up toward Jonathan. The guard was not as well trained as a Jaffa either so that made it a bit simpler.
Mitchell took his weapon, Carter his communication device and they put the man in one of the other cells then went in search of a way off the ship.
They felt the ship take another hit. This one was harder than the first.
“The ship has to be sustaining some damage with these hits.” McKay said.
“We just have to hope that if the shields fail, someone has the forethought to beam us out.”
“Not until we get Baal,” Jonathan said and they all turned to see the same fierceness they knew so well from Jack in the young face of Jonathan O’Neill. “He has to be stopped.”
“If we get off the ship, we can see him blown to bits,” Vala said.
“No! I want to see him personally. Otherwise, he will slip away in an escape pod or something and turn up somewhere else on another day.”
Teal’c nodded. “I will go with O’Neill.”
“We’ll try to find a way out of here but first we need to find some weapons,” Carter said. They knew where the weapons were stored in a Goa’uld ship so they all headed in that direction, hurrying along as they knew they didn’t have much time before Baal knew they’d escaped.
*
- Aboard the Odyssey
Daniel Jackson was talking to someone aboard the Daedalus.
“What do you mean, they’re all over there?” He said to the person he was talking to. After he finished his conversation, he turned to the members of SG-18. “SG-1 and McKay are on that Mother ship.”
“Do the Tok’ra know that?” Teyla asked.
“They do and they say they’re targeting engines only,” Daniel answered.
“Why are they there?” John asked.
“Evidently Jonathan O’Neill was beamed over by the Mother ship and the others went to rescue him.”
“And no doubt got captured too.”
Daniel smiled. “They know their way around a Goa’uld ship as well as you guys know a Wraith ship. I wouldn’t count them out just yet.”
“Is there a way to get us over there?” Sheppard asked.
“So the Tok’ra can shoot at us too?” Ronon asked.
“Maybe SG-1 needs some help. That’s what we came here for. I’m tired of doing nothing.”
The captain heard them. “It might be possible to beam you over there while they’re shooting. There’s a small window to get through the shields.”
“Let’s do it!” Sheppard said and for once, Daniel agreed.
*
- On the Mother ship
“Sir, someone else is beaming aboard.”
Baal looked at the tech. “Are you sure?”
“Yes sir. There seem to be five of them.”
“More of those annoying humans then.” To one of his soldiers on the bridge he said, “Find them and bring them to me.”
“Yes sir.”
After the man left, Baal sat there and wondered how he was going to manage to get out of this one. He was surrounded by Tok’ra who wanted him dead even more than the humans did. He only had one trump card and that was the group of foolish humans who never seemed to understand that they could not defeat a Goa’uld, especially one who had all the trump cards…especially one who had the house advantage.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-One
- Aboard the Mother ship
It was pure coincidence that SG-18 beamed in right in the middle of the corridor SG-1 was running down to find some weapons, a very lucky coincidence.
“What are you doing here?” Mitchell hissed at Daniel and company.
“We decided you might need some help.”
“Do you know who is leading the Lucian alliance?” Carter whispered. “Baal!”
“I thought he was dead,” Sheppard said as they ducked into a small room lined with boxes of weapons of all sorts.
“So did we,” Mitchell answered, “but we were wrong.”
“He has to be stopped!” Jonathan said. They all noticed that he was sounding more and more like their old Jack than a young Second Lieutenant fresh out of the Academy. “I remember every single thing that bastard did to me and he has to be stopped.”
No one could argue with that so they all loaded up on weaponry and headed toward the bridge. The crew was tough and mean but not nearly as deadly as a crew of loyal Jaffa protecting their god. They managed to travel fairly quickly without actually encountering a crew member until they came close to the bridge. There was one guard. Jonathan looked at the man a moment then whacked him on the head with the butt of his gun.
Mitchell took point as they started to enter the bridge but was knocked back when the ship took an awfully hard hit from a Tok’ra vessel. The guards on the bridge saw them.
“Don’t move.”
Suddenly several guns were pointed at them. No one moved for a second until Jonathan spoke up. “Shoot and your leader goes first and you next. We have you outnumbered and I don’t mind dying to see the galaxy rid of that bastard!”
Baal’s men were first and foremost smugglers and outlaws and unlike the Jaffa, their first thoughts were for themselves, not their leader. The five men laid their weapons on the floor and backed away but Baal was fast and as deadly as he ever was. He managed to grab Vala and pull her close.
“My darling Qetesh, we meet again.”
“Let her go,” Jackson said, moving closer to the Goa’uld and his prisoner. “She is not yours.”
“We were going to rule the galaxy once upon a time, Vala. Remember that? Would you like to join me again?”
“You know better than that, Baal.”
“Didn’t you love being a goddess? You could be again.”
“Let me go!” The more she struggled, the tighter he held onto her.
“I’ll tell you what, Daniel Jackson. I will take her with me to the escape pods and once I make my escape, you can retrieve her.” Baal was making his way toward the corridor that led to the pod bay.
Jonathan O’Neill moved around Daniel and shot Baal. It was a glancing shot that only grazed him but it did make him let go of Vala. Jonathan grabbed her by the arm and flung her toward Jackson.
“Take me, you bastard!” He shouted at Baal, but he didn’t throw down his weapon. “If you can!”
Baal made a huge miscalculation as he moved to put a hand on Jonathan to use his Goa’uld powers. Jonathan shot him. Baal flew backward and all hell broke out among the men who’d just given their leader up as they scrambled to retrieve their weapons. Sheppard, Mitchell and Ronon opened fire on them and in a few seconds, the battle for the bridge was done with Baal injured and tied up and several of his crew dead or injured.
*
The ship actually had a minimum number of people aboard it and rounding up the rest of them took only a few minutes for Teal’c, Ronon and Teyla.
Mitchell contacted the Daedalus and told them what had transpired. Caldwell beamed a security detail to take the remaining Alliance members back to his ship’s detention cells.
“What are we to do with Baal?” Mitchell asked the head of the detail.
“The Tok’ra are coming over to pick him up. They are better equipped to deal with him than we are.”
O’Neill thought that was a bad idea but he said nothing, finally remembering he was the rookie in this fight.
*
The battle was still going on outside the ship.
The Lucians in the Al’Keshes were not as eager to give up as their counterparts aboard the Mother ship had been and they were giving the Tok’ra and the 302s a run for their money. They were good pilots and were fighting for their lives, not so eager to die since their leader was no longer instructing them from his seat on the bridge of the Mother ship.
The earth ships were taking little to no fire now since the smaller ships had all they could manage dog fighting with the Tok’ra.
*
SG-1 took over the bridge of the Mother ship.
“Looks like we’ve got a new Mother ship for General Landry,” Mitchell said as he sat in the captain’s chair.
“If the Tok’ra don’t take it away,” Daniel said.
The rest of the team had spread over the ship, taking over the operations of all the systems and powering the weapons down, leaving Carter, Mitchell, and Jackson alone.
“I wonder who this one belonged to,” Carter mused.
“This was one of mine—er Qetesh’s,” Vala said over the ship wide communications channel. “I wondered where it got to. It would seem the Lucian Alliance had it all along.”
“Are we sure this is the end of the Alliance?” Jackson asked.
“Probably not. We were sure that Baal was gone and look where that went,”
Mitchell said.
*
A few ships broke off during the worst of the fighting and slipped away almost unnoticed. The Lucian Alliance may have lost its leader but it hadn’t lost everything.
Yet.
*
- Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
General Jack O’Neill had flown to Colorado while the battle was still being raged around the tiny mining planet. For some reason, he felt that he needed to be there. The Pentagon was the base for Earth defenses but here at the SGC, that was where it was at for the rest of the galaxy.
Landry was glad to see his old friend too.
“They came through again, Jack, just like they always do.”
“How did the boy do?”
“He was the one who stormed the bridge. It would seem that he loves Baal as much as you do.”
“A clone off the old block! Now did I hear something about there being some good cake in the Mess hall?”
Landry laughed and sent Walter for some cake for the head of Homeworld Security.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Two
- Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
Within a week, the Earth ships and the Mother ship had arrived back home. Jack had had to go back to Washington but he returned to greet SG-1 and SG-18. He hugged Carter and Daniel as they came into the conference room. The others came in and sat down.
All but one. General O’Neill watched the doorway for that one. Finally he came through.
“There you are.” He was surprised to see how much the young man had grown. He was now as tall as the general and looked even more like him than he had before. It was like looking in a time machine.
Jonathan O’Neill saluted General Jack O’Neill.
“At ease. How is life treating you, Jonathan?” It felt funny to call the boy Jonathan because his grandmother had called him that too at about the same age this boy appeared to be. He supposed it sounded better than calling him ‘son’.
“I have no complaints, sir.”
“Glad to see you’re keeping out of trouble. You’re certainly doing better than I did at your age.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Then Jack turned to the rest of the people in the room. “So tell me about this. Why did this happen?”
“It appears someone, possibly Baal, wanted to control the price of naquadah in the galaxy. By eliminating some of the major sources, he could name his price for what the Lucian Alliance managed to control, which is quite a bit,” Mitchell said.
“And it was a perfect way to attack you, General O’Neill, sir,” Jonathan said.
“You think that was part of the reason?” Jack asked, genuinely curious as to why the boy said it.
“Yes, he seemed very surprised when he beamed me over to his ship. He was expecting it to be you, sir.”
Jack shook his head. “He always was an evil bastard. I’d feel better if he was no longer alive, to tell the truth. I never have trusted the Tok’ra to do anything but help themselves.”
“They have the only facility to safely remove his Goa’uld, Jack.” Daniel never believed in taking a life if one could be saved and he was probably the only person who could get away with saying so to General O’Neill without getting an earful.
“I know that but I simply don’t trust them.”
No one could argue with that, not even Daniel.
“Is there any news on the Icarus personnel, sir?” Mitchell asked. He knew some of those people. He’d met both Young and Dr. Rush and though he’d not cared much for either of them, he hated to think of them lost somewhere with no way home or even worse, dead with no one to ever find them.
“None. They have simply disappeared. We have to assume they died when the planet blew up.” Jack was lying through his teeth and he figured that most of the people in that room knew it but that was the nature of their work and it was his job.
“Have you figured out how to dial that ninth chevron, McKay?”
“I have some theories. Well, Col. Carter and I have some. But without a planet like that one with its large naquadria deposits, we have no way to test them. That makes them theories and nothing more.”
“I was afraid of that. I know you all are tired and would like to get home for some rest so we will meet again Monday morning for a final briefing. Thank you all,” General O’Neill said as he dismissed them.
*
- Somewhere in the galaxy
The remaining ships of the Lucian Alliance came together in orbit around a small, sparsely inhabited planet that they had successfully used as a base for years, even before they’d stepped in to fill the void left by the fall of the Goa’uld. Once it was clear for them to land, they did so and met at an appointed place.
“I am glad that so many of you made it home.” The blond woman smiled. Then her eyes flashed with an unholy light. “I was worried that that fool, Baal, might get you all killed. We have plans to make, my darlings.”
They all gathered around a huge round table covered with star charts and maps and began to plot for another day.
*
- Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
General Jack O’Neill was in the guest quarters, such as they were. The room was small and the furniture plain and cheap. But the bed was soft and the place smelled like home to him. He supposed that life in Georgetown had its advantages but most days, he’d be damned if he knew what they were. He was a soldier but life had finally made him a bureaucrat, which rankled each and every day.
His phone buzzed and he glanced at the number. Damn. He had to take it.
“O’Neill here.”
The voice on the other end told him that the Icarus party had contacted them again with the communication stones, told him they were on an ancient ship that seemed to be careening through space on a mission of its own.
He sighed.
Maybe it was good that they were alive but it surely didn’t feel like it. He thought of the wiz kid they’d kidnapped and sent to P4X-351 and his poor mother, who was not well and now had lost her only son. He hated his job.
Maybe Carter and McKay would figure something out eventually.
*
Samantha Carter stayed on base that night. It was too late to go home and she was tired. She knew there was more to the Icarus puzzle than Jack was telling them but she’d lived with secrets ever since she’d come to Stargate Command. This was nothing new. Something about the entire episode bothered her but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Cam Mitchell had sworn that the last Baal was dead and gone and there would be no more yet here he was. Were there more Goa’uld out there? She was getting too old to fight them.
Maybe this really was the last of the Goa’uld. She really hoped so.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Three
- Langara
Jonas Quinn and his people were glad that the worst had been avoided but he had to admit having SG-1 there was a pleasure for him. He had come to care deeply for them when he had been a member of their team and he had been grateful that Jack O’Neill had given him a fair chance even though he rightly blamed Quinn for Daniel Jackson’s death.
It was with these thoughts in mind that Jonas brought up defense in the next Ruling Council meeting. And finally, for once, they agreed with him that their planet needed to beef up their planetary defenses and to ask the Earth for some help in doing so.
*
- P3X-403
Col. Edwards and his group settled back into their work of mining naquadah with the help of the Unas. The Colonel even shared some lighters and food bars with his work force every week. He still hated to admit Jackson was right but he now knew that one did not have to be a human being to be a good person.
The Unas had taught him that.
*
- The Smugglers’ planet
Vala’s ex-husband, Demetrius, had been returned home to find all traces of the Lucian Alliance gone from the planet. Not that he complained about that, of course. It made it easier to spend some time with MaryAna without that Garen Toker.
He sure did wish Vala was here instead. He missed that spitfire of a woman.
*
- Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
Morning brought more meetings and briefings. All in all, the Earth ships had come through with little damage and they’d actually not lost any of their 302s or the men piloting them. The real losses were the planets that had been destroyed before this final showdown. But even then the enemy had chosen planets with little in the way of population. That was odd, especially to SG-1, who had dealt with the Goa'uld for so many years and knew what little regard they had for human life.
It was almost as if… Everyone who thought it let the thought trail off there. Carter, Mitchell, General Landry, General O’Neill…
What did it mean?
Again, there were no answers that made sense.
So they closed the book on this mission. Jonathan O’Neill was mentioned in the mission report for his bravery in dealing with Baal. He finally felt at home in his own right with SG-1 and they all treated him accordingly, even Jack O’Neill himself.
*
Jonathan felt that something was off. He might only be a clone but he knew the Goa’uld and he knew Baal and this whole thing was just off somehow. He decided to say nothing though. Things may be different than they were when he was Col. Jack O’Neill.
A really odd feeling came over him. This was the first time since he’d been dropped off at the high school all those years ago that he thought he was actually the real Jack O’Neill as much as General O’Neill was. Perhaps he should have gone into a different line of work.
He turned over and closed his eyes. Sleep was not long in coming even to his restless mind.
*
Carter knew that Jack knew more than he was telling about the Icarus survivors. She knew they gated somewhere and since no one had seen them, she was sure that they had gone to the ninth chevron. She just wished she knew where that was.
*
Cam sat in the mess hall, drinking coffee alone. The mission had been one of the strangest ever. It had been successful but there were too many parts that came too easy. He knew that things seldom fell together the way this mission had. It was almost like someone had orchestrated it.
He finished his coffee and headed to his quarters. He knew it was early to go to bed here on earth but he’d only gotten a few hours sleep in a week and he was exhausted both mentally and physically.
*
Vala and Daniel were actually sitting outside, where the emergency tunnel came out on top of the mountain with the sky full of stars above them.
“Vala, just how many times have you been married?” Daniel teased her. She knew that he really didn’t care.
“I can’t remember myself sometimes. But I’ve never married you. Want to give it a try?” She grinned and poked him with her elbow as she leaned closer to him.
“Not sure I ever want to marry again but I’ll keep you at the top of my list.” He let her lean and enjoyed it but he never let on to her that he liked it.
She sat up straight and looked over at him with that dangerous grin. “You do still owe me a date, you know.”
“That wasn’t a date!”
“Well, you owe me a private dinner then. Will it work to call it that?”
He laughed and nodded, knowing how easy it could be to love her if he let himself.
*
Teal’c stopped off to speak to Jack before he gated back to Chulak,
“O’Neill, it has been my pleasure to see you again.”
Jack nodded and smiled, something Teal’c had not seen him do since they’d gotten here.
“You do not like your work?” he asked.
“Not so much. I am a soldier, not a desk jockey. I’m no spring chicken but I feel as if I’ve been promoted to my level of incompetence. I’d rather be gating around the galaxy anytime than doing what I do.”
“Perhaps you should take a vacation.”
“Maybe I need to come see you on Chulak.”
Teal’c smiled almost sadly. “I think my job there is much like yours. I spend all day most days in meetings, trying to get one faction of the Jaffa nations to understand the other faction’s point of view.”
Jack grinned ruefully. “I guess old soldiers never die, they just negotiate until they completely disappear.”
“I will see you soon, O’Neill. You are always welcome to visit the Jaffa.” With those words, he bowed and left the room.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Four
- Jack O'Neill’s office in the Pentagon
Col. Young in the body of Telford sat across from him and talked about the Destiny and what was happening to them in the ship perhaps millions of light years from home. Jack had seen many unbelievable and bizarre things in his years of going through the gate but this one was perhaps the strangest thing he’d heard of.
With all the different briefings he’s had from the different persons aboard the Destiny, he had no idea what was really going on. It actually sounded almost as if they were all on different ships giving different reports about different events. Maybe things really were like the blind men seeing an elephant with their hands. But he had no way to see the whole.
He wished he could sit down with Carter, Daniel and Teal’c and talk about this. They could help him make sense of it.
*
- A small planet uncharted planet
“Did we accomplish our mission to your satisfaction?” The woman asked the man whose face she saw on her view screen.
“Yes, perfectly. Regrettably we did not manage to get any usable information on the ninth chevron. But we do know for sure that the humans broke the code and we know that some eighty people are wherever that address leads to.”
“Is there another planet that has enough naquadah to open an address that far away?” She asked the man.
“There are several. We are working to gain control of them as we speak.”
“Do you think the humans understand what they’ve found?”
“Not a chance,” the man answered her and his image faded from the screen.
Jessena smiled. Not even the men who worked for her had any clue who she actually was.
Nor did the humans who had met her on the Smugglers’ planet.
*
- The Tok’ra homeworld
The ceremony was about to begin. SG-1 was there this time as they had been the last time a Baal had been relieved of his symbiote. Even General O’Neill had come, as much out of boredom as any other reason. A day away from the office was a day away from the office.
They all stood in a room that appeared to be some sort of chapel, the same one they’d been in the last time this happened, and listened as the charges against Baal were read on and on for more than an hour. O’Neill fidgeted like a school boy waiting to see the principal. Carter and Mitchell stood still, almost at attention, for the entire ceremony while Vala popped her gum and looked off into space. Daniel, of course, watched with great attention as he very quietly translated the words into English for the others.
The ceremony went off without a hitch.
Or so it seemed to the group from earth.
They all went home by Stargate.
As soon as they had gone, one of the Tok’ra guards stepped forward and removed Baal from his bonds.
“Your mission went well even though we did not reach our objective. They suspect nothing,” said the Tok’ra high counselor.
“One ‘Goa’uld’ is the same as another to the humans,” Baal said with a smile.
“We did manage to give ourselves quite a supply of naquadah. We have clues to the ninth chevron and perhaps a planet with enough naquadah to get us there. All we have to do is get the exact address from the humans, but I doubt that will be a problem. Our operative at the SGC has always been a source of excellent intelligence so I expect her to come through for us again.”
“What about the other one?”
“Oh, she is already poised to take over the Lucian Alliance in the absence of any established power.”
Baal laughed again. “It sounds as if we, the Tok’ra, have finally come into our own.”
“It does indeed. Now if you’ll excuse me. I have one more urgent matter to attend to.”
Baal smiled and left the room. He had been glad to get this body. The old Baal had been a strong opponent but now it was time to use the body for the greater good of the Tok’ra. After his other body finally began to wear out, he feared that he would never find a new host.
But he had and this body was fit and strong and should last him many more years.
*
When the counselor had left Baal, he returned to his office where a different woman sat with a stone in her hand.
“Hello, sir. I am glad to see you.”
“As I am glad to hear from you at last.”
“We are on a ship, sir, somewhere millions of light years from our own galaxy. We have no idea what the ship is doing or where it is going. It seems to have its own agenda.”
“Does anyone suspect you?”
“I seriously doubt that many of these soldiers have ever seen a Tok’ra or even a Goa’uld.”
“Any chance to come home?”
“Not that I can tell, sir. We can’t gate to Earth because we don’t have enough power for that. We seem to be running low on most things, to tell you the truth. Our survival has been a bit iffy at times.”
“What’s the name of the ship, by the way?”
“Destiny, sir. Dr. Rush says the name in ancient means Destiny.”
With that, the stone fell from the woman’s hand to the floor. She looked up at her superior and smiled. “It’s an amazing ship, sir.”
“I’m sure it is.”
~THE END~