What If, (the long awaited) part 8
*tap tap tap* Is this thing on?? does anyone use LJ anymore? I didnt even realize my tweets weren't being reposted here anymore, that's how long its been since i used this...
Anyway, I cant think of a better place to write this. I'll post a link on facebook.
In case you're wondering what "this" is, its the long awaited new chaplet of my fanfiction story "What If", a reboot of the Stargate universe.
heres a link to my last recap if you care.
The heavily-armored mechanical silhouette returned to the entry hall after a brief survey of the surrounding dunes. The winds and blasting sand had died, leaving only the odd creaking and groaning sounds of cooling metal in the otherwise silent night.
The roughly ten-foot-tall figure with the mechanized, metallic head of a jackal joined up with the three others it had left investigating the bodies and equipment of the fallen soldiers, and it spoke in a grating, harsh language far more alien than the one Daniel Jackson was, at that moment, relearning in a catacombs not far away. When it finished speaking, the three - all with the same basic body shape but a different animal head atop each set of shoulders - fell into step behind the first as they marched back into the pyramid itself.
They stopped in the center of the large metal ring inset into the floor, which after the jackal-headed leader tapped a sequence of codes into a panel on the back of its forearm, rose up out of the floor towards the high ceiling. The ring flew up quickly with a quiet hum to a height of about twenty feet and just... paused. It was quickly followed by four other identical rings, each pausing impossibly in midair below the first, forming an evenly spaced column around the four armored figures. A flash of swirling blue light engulfed the figures.
When the light died and the metal rings slid softly back into the floor, the figures were gone.
Hundreds of feet above the ring device into which the aliens had disappeared, another identical set of rings activated suddenly, and after the corresponding blue light faded, the four figures stood in their center, their metallic armor glinting in the low light of the cavernous room. The rings collapsed back into the floor smoothly, and the small squad moved as one towards a shadowy dias on the far end of the slope-walled chamber. The jackal figure continued to the foot of the steps at the front of the dias while its companions watched, having stopped some thirty feet away, respectful and wary of the impossibly huge form seated in the massive metal throne in the center of the dias.
Pausing just before the steps of the dias, the Horus figure neatly dropped to one knee and averted its animalistic yet robotic face from the seated giant which gazed down with glowing red eyes.
"Lord Ra," the kneeling Horus began in its harsh language. "We have uninvited guests."
The glowing red gaze from above narrowed into harshly smoldering slits of anger.
"Report," it commanded in a booming voice, displeasure radiating from its hunched posture as its servant began to describe what the small team had found below.
*****
Daniel pushed a lock of his dirty blond hair back from his forehead for the hundredth time, barely noticing as it fell right back into his eyes. Torchlight glinted off the lens of his glasses, but all he could see was Shau'ri, her glossy hair tucked behind one ear as she ran gentle fingers over the etched symbols of a cartouche, her previous fear of the carvings seemingly forgotten. She turned her head towards him then, a smile lighting her features as she spoke to him softly. He, too, smiled warmly and responded to her question, but movement behind them interrupted him and he turned quickly to face Col. O'Neil, who was accompanied by a boy from the village. Shau'ri beside him had gone still, like a child caught in the act of stealing from the cookie jar.
"I thought you couldn't speak their language." O'Neil made the words an accusation.
"It's Ancient Egyption," Daniel responded. "I didn't know how to pronounce it. No one has heard it spoken for over two thousand years." Daniel's gaze shifted to the boy who had entered with the Colonel, the boy who'd ran off to get the cyborg priest earlier that morning when Daniel had arrived. The kid, maybe fifteen years old, was staring curiously at the picture story on the walls, unashamed and without any sign of the nervous hesitation Shau'ri had exhibited when she first had entered the catacombs with Daniel. The nervousness she seemed to be experiencing again now that she and Daniel had been discovered. O'Neil noticed the boy's attention, too, and he followed his gaze to the hieroglyphs and pictograms covering the walls around them.
"What is all this, Jackson?"
Kawalski and Ferretti moved further into the chamber as the Colonel stepped out of the doorway and closer to the walls for a better view. Daniel stood and helped Shau'ri up as well, unconsciously twining his fingers with hers to reassure her as he spoke.
"A history of the people who first came to this world," Daniel began, moving closer to Col. O'Neil and to the stylized images on the wall. "This seems to be their version of Ra, the Sun God, whom they worship," he said, pointing out the seated figure with the almost mechanical looking eagle's head positioned above the lines and rows of pictograms covering the first wall.
"This seems to say that Ra was a creature from the stars, hostile and very strong. He cowed these people by force of arms, killing any who tried to oppose him. He built the pyramids and the Star Gate," Daniel paused for effect, letting his fingers gently brush the gilded ring on the wall. "He brought to these people extremely advanced technologies but he didnt do it to enlighten them; he did it to enslave them.
"Ra became their god, he who could bring life or death to the people at a whim, and he used them as labor - workers for his mines." Daniel looked up triumphantly from the carvings to Col. O'Neil's face, confusion dampening his elation that his theories about Ancient Egyptian culture were confirmed. O'Neil was worried, his expression shifting between that and cold calculation as the officer studied the pictograms on the wall. Slowly, the real meaning of the story - not just the fact that it confirmed his unpopular theories - settled like a chill in Daniel's bones. His gaze searched out and found the gruesome scenes of murder painted and etched into the stone walls surrounding them, the walls of a tomb.
Kawalski, all but forgotten during Daniel's explanation, cleared his throat pointedly, the sound echoing ominously through the tunnels. "Jackson, I think you better take a look at this."
Daniel spotted the Lt. Colonel near a bend in the corridor, his small LED flashlight beam playing over a familiar-looking stone against the wall. Shau'ri clung to his side as he made his way nearer, but she was all but forgotten when he saw and began to understand what Kawalski was showing him. Dropping to his knees in the sand before the cartouche, Daniel eagerly brushed his fingers over the carved hieroglyphs, wiping away dust, cobwebs, and sand from the stone.
Reading the symbols aloud, Daniel's excitement grew. "A million years into the sky is Ra, the Sun God." He laughed, digging the sand out from around the bottom of the stone, exposing what could only be Star Gate constellation symbols corresponding to the alien gate on this planet.
"They must have kept it in here in hopes that one day the gate to earth could be reopened," Daniel explained. "But," his blue eyes shimmered in the mix of white LED light and the yellow glow from the torches. "Where's the seventh sign?"
For a moment his fingers brushed the jagged edge of the stone, realizing slowly that a piece was broken off from the bottom. Plunging his hands into the sand again, he dug frantically, anxious to find that piece. It would contain the final piece of the key that would unlock the Star Gate and send them all home.
The other men from earth understood almost immediately and also began to dig in earnest at the sand, but it was Daniel who lifted up the broken piece and fitted it to the bottom of the stone. It was a match.
"This is it," he said, but as the words left his mouth, a deeper chill settled into his heart.
The surface of the stone fragment was blank. Whatever symbol it once displayed had been worn off by exposure to the shifting, grinding sands.
Daniel's mouth was suddenly dry, and he couldn't force himself to form words. O'Neil and the other soldiers turned to walk out of the Catacombs, followed quickly by the boy from the village. Still holding the broken stone in his hands, Daniel turned his gaze up to the uncomprehending Shau'ri.
"Come on Jackson," O'Neil's voice echoed back to him from outside the chamber, sounding distant and bitter. "We're going back."
Dropping the broken tablet like it had bit him, Daniel got to his feet, eyes still on Shau'ri. His voice was mournful when he responded. "But it wont work without the seventh symbol."
If O'Neil replied, Daniel didn't hear him. Taking Shau'ri's hand in his, he made his way out of the forgotten tomb into the waning light of the last of the setting moons.
O'Neil's team, with Jackson and Shau'ri in the rear, made a silent march out towards the city gates. Though O'Neil and his men kept walking as they passed through those gates into the starlit dimness beyond, Daniel paused and turned to Shau'ri, meeting the girl's doe brown eyes reluctantly. Daniel spoke a few words of parting, but Shau'ri already seemed to understand that they were leaving and she wasn't to come with them. The heavy, plodding footsteps of the village priest approached, but Daniel didn't stop to explain - Shau'ri would have to do that for him.
Quickly, he rushed into the yielding sands, trying to catch up to the team, feeling the soft, sad, doe-eyed gaze on his back.
Before the little group made it over the rise of the next dune, a laughing group of village boys crested the top of it and began making their way towards them, led by the boy who had been in the catacombs with O'Neil.
"It looks like you've made a friend, sir," Kawalski noted dryly as their group came to a halt.
"Get rid of them, Jackson," O'Neil said in a steely voice, adjusting his course to avoid the boys. Daniel spoke to the leader of the group - his name was Skaara - trying to get the boy to turn back, but the kid was headstrong. He pushed past Daniel, moving towards the Colonel, calling for the officer to wait for him in a language Daniel knew the older man didn't understand.
"I said, get rid of him!' O'Neil shouted, anger and impatience ringing in his tone.
Daniel raised his hands helplessly. "I tried."
Without another world, Col. O'Neil drew his gun in a slick, casual motion that ended with the barrel pointed towards Skaara and they other boys. Before anyone could blink, the gun barked and a bullet ripped into the sand at Skaara's feet. The noise and flash from the muzzle sent the group of boys reeling and they stumbled down the sloping sand, away from the soldiers.
"Jesus Christ!" Daniel realized the words were his own as the soldiers turned to look at him, shock at their commanding officer's actions apparent on their faces as well. "You didn't have to do that!"
Skaara retreated behind the ridge of a neighboring sand dune and peered over it at the retreating group of soldiers. After a pause, Daniel hurried after them, as well.
He was still reviewing the needlessly violent scene in his mind as the team trudged up another steeply sloped sand dune. O'Neil was hard, cold, but Daniel couldn't understand why anyone would fire a weapon on a group of children like that, even as a warning. He glanced up to see O'Neil drop to his knees and the other men hurry up the hill to his side. Daniel, uncomprehending, stepped up his pace to join them, until Kawalski turned and motioned him down.
Fear stabbing through him, Daniel fell, flattening himself against the dune, and as the rush of adrenalin flowed through his system, he crawled the last few feet to see over the dune, the scene just barely illuminated by a pink glow of dawn on the horizon.
The pyramid they'd found themselves in yesterday when they arrived had changed. It had grown to an impossible height, at least twice as tall as it had been before - and that had already been much larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza. Also, it was now made of a strange black metal instead of stone, and it was lit, here and there, by pulsating malevolent looking lights. As Daniel watched, the black pyramid moved - a panel unfolded near the ground and covered a stone outcropping, extending metal columns around it and pushing them into the ground as if to support the great weight of the structure. Daniel slowly became aware of subtle changes all over the massive structure, as if the thing was alive and couldn't sit still.
"It's on top of the original pyramid," Daniel muttered, understanding that much. "Sitting on it. But what... where...?"
"A million years into the sky," quoted Kawalski quietly. "That's a space ship."
Daniel stared at the darkly gleaming structure, recognizing the truth of the Lt. Colonel's words, but his brain was still unable to process it. Somewhere in his mind a little voice shouted with glee that he'd been right, that an alien race really had created Egyptian civilization as history knew it.
As O'Neil and his men started moving toward the ship in a coordinated pattern, Daniel muttered to himself, "I hate being right."
At Kawalski's silent hand signals, Daniel pushed himself to his feet and followed the soldiers down the dune, straight into the unknown.
Anyway, I cant think of a better place to write this. I'll post a link on facebook.
In case you're wondering what "this" is, its the long awaited new chaplet of my fanfiction story "What If", a reboot of the Stargate universe.
heres a link to my last recap if you care.
The heavily-armored mechanical silhouette returned to the entry hall after a brief survey of the surrounding dunes. The winds and blasting sand had died, leaving only the odd creaking and groaning sounds of cooling metal in the otherwise silent night.
The roughly ten-foot-tall figure with the mechanized, metallic head of a jackal joined up with the three others it had left investigating the bodies and equipment of the fallen soldiers, and it spoke in a grating, harsh language far more alien than the one Daniel Jackson was, at that moment, relearning in a catacombs not far away. When it finished speaking, the three - all with the same basic body shape but a different animal head atop each set of shoulders - fell into step behind the first as they marched back into the pyramid itself.
They stopped in the center of the large metal ring inset into the floor, which after the jackal-headed leader tapped a sequence of codes into a panel on the back of its forearm, rose up out of the floor towards the high ceiling. The ring flew up quickly with a quiet hum to a height of about twenty feet and just... paused. It was quickly followed by four other identical rings, each pausing impossibly in midair below the first, forming an evenly spaced column around the four armored figures. A flash of swirling blue light engulfed the figures.
When the light died and the metal rings slid softly back into the floor, the figures were gone.
Hundreds of feet above the ring device into which the aliens had disappeared, another identical set of rings activated suddenly, and after the corresponding blue light faded, the four figures stood in their center, their metallic armor glinting in the low light of the cavernous room. The rings collapsed back into the floor smoothly, and the small squad moved as one towards a shadowy dias on the far end of the slope-walled chamber. The jackal figure continued to the foot of the steps at the front of the dias while its companions watched, having stopped some thirty feet away, respectful and wary of the impossibly huge form seated in the massive metal throne in the center of the dias.
Pausing just before the steps of the dias, the Horus figure neatly dropped to one knee and averted its animalistic yet robotic face from the seated giant which gazed down with glowing red eyes.
"Lord Ra," the kneeling Horus began in its harsh language. "We have uninvited guests."
The glowing red gaze from above narrowed into harshly smoldering slits of anger.
"Report," it commanded in a booming voice, displeasure radiating from its hunched posture as its servant began to describe what the small team had found below.
*****
Daniel pushed a lock of his dirty blond hair back from his forehead for the hundredth time, barely noticing as it fell right back into his eyes. Torchlight glinted off the lens of his glasses, but all he could see was Shau'ri, her glossy hair tucked behind one ear as she ran gentle fingers over the etched symbols of a cartouche, her previous fear of the carvings seemingly forgotten. She turned her head towards him then, a smile lighting her features as she spoke to him softly. He, too, smiled warmly and responded to her question, but movement behind them interrupted him and he turned quickly to face Col. O'Neil, who was accompanied by a boy from the village. Shau'ri beside him had gone still, like a child caught in the act of stealing from the cookie jar.
"I thought you couldn't speak their language." O'Neil made the words an accusation.
"It's Ancient Egyption," Daniel responded. "I didn't know how to pronounce it. No one has heard it spoken for over two thousand years." Daniel's gaze shifted to the boy who had entered with the Colonel, the boy who'd ran off to get the cyborg priest earlier that morning when Daniel had arrived. The kid, maybe fifteen years old, was staring curiously at the picture story on the walls, unashamed and without any sign of the nervous hesitation Shau'ri had exhibited when she first had entered the catacombs with Daniel. The nervousness she seemed to be experiencing again now that she and Daniel had been discovered. O'Neil noticed the boy's attention, too, and he followed his gaze to the hieroglyphs and pictograms covering the walls around them.
"What is all this, Jackson?"
Kawalski and Ferretti moved further into the chamber as the Colonel stepped out of the doorway and closer to the walls for a better view. Daniel stood and helped Shau'ri up as well, unconsciously twining his fingers with hers to reassure her as he spoke.
"A history of the people who first came to this world," Daniel began, moving closer to Col. O'Neil and to the stylized images on the wall. "This seems to be their version of Ra, the Sun God, whom they worship," he said, pointing out the seated figure with the almost mechanical looking eagle's head positioned above the lines and rows of pictograms covering the first wall.
"This seems to say that Ra was a creature from the stars, hostile and very strong. He cowed these people by force of arms, killing any who tried to oppose him. He built the pyramids and the Star Gate," Daniel paused for effect, letting his fingers gently brush the gilded ring on the wall. "He brought to these people extremely advanced technologies but he didnt do it to enlighten them; he did it to enslave them.
"Ra became their god, he who could bring life or death to the people at a whim, and he used them as labor - workers for his mines." Daniel looked up triumphantly from the carvings to Col. O'Neil's face, confusion dampening his elation that his theories about Ancient Egyptian culture were confirmed. O'Neil was worried, his expression shifting between that and cold calculation as the officer studied the pictograms on the wall. Slowly, the real meaning of the story - not just the fact that it confirmed his unpopular theories - settled like a chill in Daniel's bones. His gaze searched out and found the gruesome scenes of murder painted and etched into the stone walls surrounding them, the walls of a tomb.
Kawalski, all but forgotten during Daniel's explanation, cleared his throat pointedly, the sound echoing ominously through the tunnels. "Jackson, I think you better take a look at this."
Daniel spotted the Lt. Colonel near a bend in the corridor, his small LED flashlight beam playing over a familiar-looking stone against the wall. Shau'ri clung to his side as he made his way nearer, but she was all but forgotten when he saw and began to understand what Kawalski was showing him. Dropping to his knees in the sand before the cartouche, Daniel eagerly brushed his fingers over the carved hieroglyphs, wiping away dust, cobwebs, and sand from the stone.
Reading the symbols aloud, Daniel's excitement grew. "A million years into the sky is Ra, the Sun God." He laughed, digging the sand out from around the bottom of the stone, exposing what could only be Star Gate constellation symbols corresponding to the alien gate on this planet.
"They must have kept it in here in hopes that one day the gate to earth could be reopened," Daniel explained. "But," his blue eyes shimmered in the mix of white LED light and the yellow glow from the torches. "Where's the seventh sign?"
For a moment his fingers brushed the jagged edge of the stone, realizing slowly that a piece was broken off from the bottom. Plunging his hands into the sand again, he dug frantically, anxious to find that piece. It would contain the final piece of the key that would unlock the Star Gate and send them all home.
The other men from earth understood almost immediately and also began to dig in earnest at the sand, but it was Daniel who lifted up the broken piece and fitted it to the bottom of the stone. It was a match.
"This is it," he said, but as the words left his mouth, a deeper chill settled into his heart.
The surface of the stone fragment was blank. Whatever symbol it once displayed had been worn off by exposure to the shifting, grinding sands.
Daniel's mouth was suddenly dry, and he couldn't force himself to form words. O'Neil and the other soldiers turned to walk out of the Catacombs, followed quickly by the boy from the village. Still holding the broken stone in his hands, Daniel turned his gaze up to the uncomprehending Shau'ri.
"Come on Jackson," O'Neil's voice echoed back to him from outside the chamber, sounding distant and bitter. "We're going back."
Dropping the broken tablet like it had bit him, Daniel got to his feet, eyes still on Shau'ri. His voice was mournful when he responded. "But it wont work without the seventh symbol."
If O'Neil replied, Daniel didn't hear him. Taking Shau'ri's hand in his, he made his way out of the forgotten tomb into the waning light of the last of the setting moons.
O'Neil's team, with Jackson and Shau'ri in the rear, made a silent march out towards the city gates. Though O'Neil and his men kept walking as they passed through those gates into the starlit dimness beyond, Daniel paused and turned to Shau'ri, meeting the girl's doe brown eyes reluctantly. Daniel spoke a few words of parting, but Shau'ri already seemed to understand that they were leaving and she wasn't to come with them. The heavy, plodding footsteps of the village priest approached, but Daniel didn't stop to explain - Shau'ri would have to do that for him.
Quickly, he rushed into the yielding sands, trying to catch up to the team, feeling the soft, sad, doe-eyed gaze on his back.
Before the little group made it over the rise of the next dune, a laughing group of village boys crested the top of it and began making their way towards them, led by the boy who had been in the catacombs with O'Neil.
"It looks like you've made a friend, sir," Kawalski noted dryly as their group came to a halt.
"Get rid of them, Jackson," O'Neil said in a steely voice, adjusting his course to avoid the boys. Daniel spoke to the leader of the group - his name was Skaara - trying to get the boy to turn back, but the kid was headstrong. He pushed past Daniel, moving towards the Colonel, calling for the officer to wait for him in a language Daniel knew the older man didn't understand.
"I said, get rid of him!' O'Neil shouted, anger and impatience ringing in his tone.
Daniel raised his hands helplessly. "I tried."
Without another world, Col. O'Neil drew his gun in a slick, casual motion that ended with the barrel pointed towards Skaara and they other boys. Before anyone could blink, the gun barked and a bullet ripped into the sand at Skaara's feet. The noise and flash from the muzzle sent the group of boys reeling and they stumbled down the sloping sand, away from the soldiers.
"Jesus Christ!" Daniel realized the words were his own as the soldiers turned to look at him, shock at their commanding officer's actions apparent on their faces as well. "You didn't have to do that!"
Skaara retreated behind the ridge of a neighboring sand dune and peered over it at the retreating group of soldiers. After a pause, Daniel hurried after them, as well.
He was still reviewing the needlessly violent scene in his mind as the team trudged up another steeply sloped sand dune. O'Neil was hard, cold, but Daniel couldn't understand why anyone would fire a weapon on a group of children like that, even as a warning. He glanced up to see O'Neil drop to his knees and the other men hurry up the hill to his side. Daniel, uncomprehending, stepped up his pace to join them, until Kawalski turned and motioned him down.
Fear stabbing through him, Daniel fell, flattening himself against the dune, and as the rush of adrenalin flowed through his system, he crawled the last few feet to see over the dune, the scene just barely illuminated by a pink glow of dawn on the horizon.
The pyramid they'd found themselves in yesterday when they arrived had changed. It had grown to an impossible height, at least twice as tall as it had been before - and that had already been much larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza. Also, it was now made of a strange black metal instead of stone, and it was lit, here and there, by pulsating malevolent looking lights. As Daniel watched, the black pyramid moved - a panel unfolded near the ground and covered a stone outcropping, extending metal columns around it and pushing them into the ground as if to support the great weight of the structure. Daniel slowly became aware of subtle changes all over the massive structure, as if the thing was alive and couldn't sit still.
"It's on top of the original pyramid," Daniel muttered, understanding that much. "Sitting on it. But what... where...?"
"A million years into the sky," quoted Kawalski quietly. "That's a space ship."
Daniel stared at the darkly gleaming structure, recognizing the truth of the Lt. Colonel's words, but his brain was still unable to process it. Somewhere in his mind a little voice shouted with glee that he'd been right, that an alien race really had created Egyptian civilization as history knew it.
As O'Neil and his men started moving toward the ship in a coordinated pattern, Daniel muttered to himself, "I hate being right."
At Kawalski's silent hand signals, Daniel pushed himself to his feet and followed the soldiers down the dune, straight into the unknown.