The pathway was part of a latticework of paved paths that went between a number of structures of varying sizes. Assorted folks walked about, some Jaffa in robes and armor, some civilians in very old-fashioned clothing, all looking as if they were of Indian descent. It was like stepping into a bizarro Renaissance Fair in New Delhi or something.
However, Patel said none of this aloud. She was supposed to be a prisoner, after all, and it didn’t do to mess with that. So she stepped lively alongside Teal’c, the Thakka right behind them with his inactive staff weapon.
The people, Patel noticed, gave them all a wide berth, particularly once they saw the gold circle on the Thakka’s forehead. The only thing the subject of a Goa’uld feared as much as the Goa’uld they were ruled by was that Goa’uld’s First Prime. In fact, they probably feared the First Prime more. The average Goa’uld subject rarely even saw the ‘god’ they served, but they likely saw the Jaffa a lot more in their day-to-day lives. They also probably had a lot more direct violence inflicted on them by the Jaffa under the First Prime’s orders.
When the Thakka entered the rectangular building, no one questioned him. The two Jaffa at the doorway simply cleared a path for him and let him in. It’s good to be king, she thought wryly.
She stayed alert, but everything was going according to plan so far. The Thakka had done exactly what he said he was going to do.
But she was still half convinced that something was going to go wrong. Because something always did. She’d had far too many hard lessons in that rule.
The first lesson had come on her first mission as a second lieutenant, fresh out of the Academy. She was part of the Air Force detail enforcing the no-fly zone over Iraq during Operation: Southern Watch, reporting directly to Captain Kenny Negassa. The first thing Negassa had said to her after introducing himself was, “Focus on the job while you’re doing it. Think about what it means after it’s done.”
Six months after that, Negassa had been killed during a dogfight with Iraqi MiGs. Patel had been devastated, and came very close to resigning. But she managed to get past it, with the help of the company psychiatrist. She realized that Negassa was doing the job he’d signed up for. He’d known the risks, and he died doing his duty. That thought, and Negassa’s words, were what had kept her going when comrades had died, up to and including SG-7.
Another lesson in the rule that something would always go wrong hit her when she’d been grounded following an inner-ear infection. Unable to fly, she’d figured that she’d be riding a desk until retirement. When she had received orders to report to Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, she’d thought it was going to be even worse: not just assigned to a desk, but to a very deep hole in the ground. The Pentagon’s assurances that her new post was related to her high clearance rate, gained after Southern Watch, had fallen on skeptical ears.
And then she’d met General Hammond, and was shown around the SGC. Flying an aircraft — any kind of aircraft, whether it was a fighter jet or a 747 or anything in between — had been the greatest thrill of Patel’s life, until she’d set foot on her first alien world.
“You’ll get over that pretty quick, Patel,” Lagdamen had said when she’d expressed her amazement at walking through a giant circle to another world, and he’d been right about that. That first world, which had the oh-so-exciting designation of P2A-798, had been a barren wasteland with humidity at about a hundred percent.
She still loved it.
Lagdamen had had his own variation on the things-will-always-go-wrong rule, which he told Patel on her first mission as SG-7’s second in command: “Nothing ever goes according to plan once you walk through that gate. That’s why we make backup plans and backup plans of our backup plans. The only way to survive this assignment is to be the most prepared sonofabitch in the history of the world, and even then, you can do everything right, be ready for anything, and still come home in a body bag.”
Castro had snorted, then, and said, “Nice pep talk, sir.”
But Patel had just smiled. “That’s what my old CO used to say about the Middle East.” She hadn’t added that Negassa had first said that to her the day before he was killed.
“Turn that up to eleven, and you’ve got off-world,” had been Lagdamen’s reply, and it was that that had truly scared her, for she hadn’t believed there was anywhere in the universe as mind-numbingly insane as the Middle East.
Worse, Lagdamen had been absolutely correct. The galaxy at large made the sandbox she’d served in previously look like a day at the beach.
And here she was in another hot place, wearing desert camo just like she was when her F-14 got shot down in the Gulf. She’d ejected, and managed to land in a friendly zone, but the whole time she worked her way back to base, she’d been convinced that she was going to die. Back then, it had been Negassa’s mantra to focus on the job that had kept her going.
But that at least was on the same planet as the rest of her support. If something went wrong here, she doubted that Hammond would even be able to send anyone through to get her.
Should’ve thought of that before you volunteered, she chided herself.
Then she remembered the charred corpses of Lagdamen, Castro, and Johnson.
The goosebumps came back as she entered the building ahead of Teal’c and the Thakka. Looking up, she saw a retractable roof over a cargo vessel.
A few moments later, they were inside the ship. The moment the Thakka closed the door behind them, Teal’c flexed his massive arms, freeing him from the shackles.
“Well done,” he said with a bow of his head toward the Thakka.
The Thakka just scowled back. “I do not wish your praise, shol’va.”
Patel also flexed her arms and then rubbed her now-free sore wrists. “I’m sorry you had to lie to your people like that.”
He waved her off. “I have had to lie to my subordinates many times. It is the way of things.” Then he smiled. “I simply do not wish praise from him.”
“Fine, can you accept it from me? You did everything you said, and even hit that curveball about Kali being on Imphal.”
“Yes, and that rather does change things,” the Thakka said as he got into the pilot’s seat. “My goal is to stop our mutual enemy. If the Reetou are still on Imphal, then the Mother Goddess will dispose of them.”
“And if she cannot?” Teal’c asked as he got into the copilot seat. For her part, Patel stood at the secondary console behind them. She wasn’t rated to fly a cargo ship, though Lagdamen had encouraged her to take the time to do so at some point, since her inner-ear issue wouldn’t matter in a spacecraft with an artificial atmosphere and inertial dampeners.
“Then I will rescue her from them.”
Within minutes, the Thakka touched a control that opened the roof and then placed his hands on the control globe on the console in front of him. The ship slowly started to rise off the floor of the building.
It was strange to Patel, taking off without use of a runway, and only feeling the most minimal pull of gravity. The ship emitted its own gravitational field, had its own pressure. None of SG-7’s missions had taken them onto cargo ships, so she hadn’t had quite this experience before.
“Never thought I’d be able to do this again,” she muttered.
Teal’c turned around. “You have flown in a tel’tak before?”
She shook her head. “No, this is my first time, but I meant fly in an atmosphere.” She explained to the two Jaffa about her inner-ear infection. “I had to be doped up on meds in order to fly to Colorado to report to the SGC. But this…” She trailed off and just stared out the window, watching the ground of Aizawl grow distant below them, watching the clouds zoom by as the cargo ship achieved escape velocity.
Then they were in space, and it wasn’t any different from her perspective than riding an elevator.
The Thakka was shaking his head, hands still on the globe. “So fragile.”
“Excuse me?”
“You are not touched by the god
s, Kula. As a Jaffa, I do not suffer from any infections, in my ear or anywhere else.”
“Must be nice.”
Teal’c added, “A Jaffa’s reliance on a prim’ta is a great benefit in battle — but it is also a great weakness.”
“I don’t know, it seems pretty good to me,” Patel said. “Like he said, you don’t get inner-ear infections. And the blast he got hit with on P3X-418 would’ve killed me, and here he is walking around all nice and healthy.”
“Yes, but without the prim’ta, we cannot survive.”
The Thakka shot Teal’c a shocked expression. “Why would we ever be without a prim’ta? When it matures, we are simply given another one.”
“Some are. And if one is not, then death is the immediate result.”
Patel nodded. “Right, your whole immune system is removed when you get the pouch.”
“Indeed.”
“What does it matter?” the Thakka asked angrily. “Worthy Jaffa receive a new prim’ta. Unworthy ones do not deserve to continue to live.” The Thakka snorted. “Which means your life will be at end when yours matures.”
“Perhaps,” Teal’c said with a surprisingly respectful bow of his head.
Before the conversation could continue, the Thakka said, “Preparing for hyperdrive.”
Remembering what she’d read about in the files, Patel grabbed onto the rear console to steady herself. Based on the reports from various SG teams that had been on spaceships, going into hyperdrive took some getting used to. In particular, she recalled something she’d read in the SGC’s copiouis files written by Dr. Bill Lee, which said that transiting to faster-than-light travel affected the inner ear, at least until the person went through it a few times and adjusted their balance.
Maybe I won’t get used to it, she thought glumly.
Sure enough, the space outside the viewport went wonky, the ship itself seemed to buckle under Patel, and she almost lost her footing. The two Jaffa, however, were completely unaffected.
“Y’know, I never really thought about that,” Patel said as she slowly recovered her balance. “The Goa’uld have to actually provide you with a new larva. That must cause problems when you try to recruit people for the rebellion.”
The Thakka whirled around. “What rebellion?”
That made Patel look at Teal’c. “What, you haven’t given him the sales pitch yet?”
“The Thakka does not believe that the Jaffa rebellion is real.”
Patel snorted. “Seriously?”
“Teal’c is the only shol’va,” the Thakka said with the same conviction that Patel had when she insisted to her mother that she believed in the tooth fairy — when she was six.
“He really isn’t.”
At that, the Thakka whirled around to stare at Patel. “You speak insanity, Kula.”
“We just set up a whole bunch of rebel Jaffa on one of the worlds we control.” Patel chose her words carefully, as orders were to be as circumspect as possible about the existence and the location of the Alpha Site. “The last mission SG-7 went on before the one where we — we met you was to help settle them in after their base on Cal Mah was compromised.”
“Many Jaffa,” Teal’c said, “have come to realize that the Goa’uld are false gods, unworthy of our protection.”
“The Mother Goddess protects us, fool,” the Thakka said disdainfully. “It is we who protect her subjects.”
Patel stared at the Thakka. “I didn’t see her doing much protecting on P3X-418 when the Reetou attacked. All your Jaffa died — you would’ve died, too, if I hadn’t brought you back.”
Without turning to look at her, the Thakka said, “And I am grateful for that, Kula, but — ”
“Will you stop calling me that?” The words exploded out of her mouth. She hadn’t consciously realized how much his using that term annoyed her until she snapped at him. “I’m not one of the Kali Kula. In fact, you couldn’t pay me enough to be one. I don’t want Kali’s protection — I don’t need her protection. I’m a captain in the United States Air Force and a member of Stargate Command, and that’s where my allegiance lies. With freedom and truth, not subjugation and lies.”
“The Mother Goddess has never lied to us!” The Thakka’s words were emphatic, but also, Patel thought, hollow. “There is no Jaffa rebellion! No Jaffa would ever go against their gods, it is unheard of!”
Teal’c raised one eyebrow. “In fact, such examples are commonplace, though they are usually followed by the false god exacting retribution. But the Goa’uld are not divine.”
“How can you say that? They live forever, heal all wounds — ”
“They extend their life via the sarcophagus, which any may use, and their symbiotes heal them as they heal us.”
“Don’t be absurd, only gods may use a sarcophagus.”
Teal’c shook his head, and said almost pityingly, “No. The sarcophagus works the same on humans and Jaffa as it does on Goa’uld.”
“It’s true,” Patel said quietly. “One time, my team went up against Cronus. Sergeant Castro was injured — a head wound. She probably had a subdural hematoma, and there was no way she was going to survive more than half an hour. Major Lagdamen picked her up and literally dragged her halfway across the mothership to get to the sarcophagus. I thought he was insane, there was no way she should even be moved, but he gave me an order and I followed it, guarding their six while we went through the corridors, leaving a trail of Castro’s blood. When we got to the sarcophagus, he opened it up and put her in. I stood guard for about twenty minutes, and then the top just opened up on its own, and Castro was fine. I’d never seen anything like it.” She snorted. “Could’ve used one of those yesterday. Castro’s dead now, thanks to the Reetou, and so are Johnson and Major Lagdamen.”
Now the Thakka was staring right at her and speaking in much quieter tones. “That look of wonder on your face, Kula — my apologies, Captain Patel. But you truly did see such a sight. A human using a sarcophagus.”
“Daniel Jackson was placed in a sarcophagus by Ra himself,” Teal’c said. “He did so in order to continue to torment him.”
“Enough!” The Thakka held up a hand.
But Teal’c was relentless. “Everything the Goa’uld have told you is a lie. They do not see all or know all, but use technology to trick us into believing it. They are not truly immortal, for I have seen many of them die. They — ”
“I said enough!” The Thakka took his hands off the control globe and made as if to rise from the chair. “Be warned, shol’va, that I will not tolerate — ”
“The truth?” Patel said. “You may not think much of Teal’c here, but you said I was an honorable warrior. I don’t know much about that, but I do know what I’ve seen. I’m not lying to you, Thakka, and neither is Teal’c. There is a Jaffa rebellion.”
“And your presence would be welcome in our ranks,” Teal’c added.
The Thakka stared at Teal’c, and then stared at Patel.
Then he turned back to face the viewport, placing his hands back on the globe. “We will speak of this no more.”
It took the better part of a day for the cargo ship to travel to Imphal. Teal’c took over piloting when the Thakka went into the rear compartment for kelnorim, then they traded off, Teal’c doing his meditation thing while the Thakka piloted.
Patel made several attempts to discuss the Jaffa rebellion and the falsity of the Goa’uld while the pair of them were alone in the cockpit, but the Thakka rebuffed her.
At least, until Teal’c finished his own kelnorim and returned to the forward compartment. Then the Thakka asked, “How many Jaffa have joined this rebellion?”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow. “Then you do believe in its existence?”
Patel grinned. The big guy didn’t normally go for sardonic, but he wielded it pretty well when he chose to. “Based on the last count we made when we were settling them in at our base, one hundred and nineteen.”
“But that number is ever growing,” Teal’c add
ed, “and does not include the hundreds more who remain covertly in the service of their false god to further our cause.”
“Look, it’s up to you,” Patel said. “You can believe us or not. But Kali isn’t divine. A writer on Earth once said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The Goa’uld didn’t even create most of the technology they use, they stole it from another ancient species. They use it to make themselves look like they can do magic. But it’s just science, and anyone can wield it.”
The Thakka was silent for several seconds before finally speaking. “We will go to Imphal and rescue your comrades and take our revenge on the Reetou. After that — we shall see.”
“Very well.” Teal’c sat in the copilot’s seat.
Patel stifled a yawn, then decided not to bother and actually yawned. “How much longer till we arrive?”
“Four hours,” the Thakka said.
Nodding, Patel adjusted her watch. “Fine, I’m gonna sack out for a bit.” She hadn’t planned on leaving these two alone for fear that they’d try to kill each other without her calming influence on the Thakka, but he seemed to have at least settled into some kind of reluctant acceptance that the universe wasn’t quite what he thought it was.
So she went into the back and curled up behind a cargo container. She’d always been able to sleep anywhere for any length of time and be refreshed. It had served her well on hiking trips when she was a teenager, not to mention in the desert after her F-14 was shot down.
She just hoped that SG-1 was there to be rescued…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
P3X-418
“WELL, THAT went better than expected,” O’Neill said as he took the staff weapon and zat from the Jaffa that was squirming on the floor of the lab. He tossed the zat to Carter.
She caught it unerringly and said, “Yes, sir, though I think my theory about why the Reetou affect the Goa’uld may be wrong.”
“I will somehow find it in my heart to forgive you, Major,” O’Neill said as he gripped the staff weapon and activated it.
Carter removed a crystal from one of the devices she’d been playing with, slipping it into the Velcro pocket of her shirt. “This is all the data on the device. If we make it back to the SGC, we should be able to re-create it.” She then grabbed the T.E.R. and holstered it.
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