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Sentinel Chamber – P2A-018 (Latona) – March 2002
Jack O’Neill checked his watch again. ‘Grieves if you don’t pick up the pace I’m going to get the Sergeant outside to come in here and stick her stun rod up your ass’ he told the former Colonel and NID man who along with his partner in crime Kershaw was trying to getting the Latonan Sentinel device operational again. Major Carter was watching them work while Daniel, after earlier helping Kershaw lower the chamber forcefield, was now trying to decipher the text on the device, jotting notes onto a pocket notepad and occasionally muttering to himself.
‘That’s not likely to speed things up’ Grieves replied evenly as he continued to work on the machine which had kept the planet free of the Goa’uld for centuries until he and his team of NID agents had interfered with it. He and Kershaw had been on Death Row for treason and this mission was a chance not only to redeem themselves for their actions but avoid execution which was already fairly motivating to start with.
‘I’m not seeing much progress either way and it would lighten my mood’ O’Neill responded. ‘This planet is full of Jaffa, we’ve got the best part of a battalion’s worth heading our way, and even if we had the manpower to stop them that Goa’uld mothership in orbit would level the entire region rather than accept defeat gracefully’ he stated. ‘I had to fight my way back here with Major Benton and the rest of SG-9 after seeing Marul, if it wasn’t for the armour and their marksmanship SG-1 would have a new CO’ he said.
‘So close’ Carter said in mock bitterness, ‘no offence Sir’ she continued, you know I’m just waiting on you to retire’ she said trying to keep a straight face.
‘Counting down the days to the top job Major?’ O’Neill asked wryly.
‘Got to get yours before I start thinking about taking over from General Hammond Sir’ Carter replied deadpan.
‘He makes less than we do’ O’Neill pointed out. Say what you like about X-COM, they expected you to risk your life for your planet but at least they paid you a decent wage for it.
‘But he’s got the biggest office and a better desk than yours’ Carter replied.
‘I have a desk?’ O’Neill asked in confusion before shaking his head and turning to Kershaw. ‘We’re not paying you by the hour, you’re earning extra years by being here not overtime’ he told her.
‘The last time we did this it took 48 hours to get past the forcefield and another week and a half to dismantle, examine and reassemble the Sentinel Device Colonel’ Kershaw replied. ‘There’s a limit to how much time you can shave off something like this’ she told him.
‘Don’t think the stun-rod thing only applied to Grieves’ O’Neill responded evenly. ‘Carter can you speed things up?’ he asked her. ‘You’ve got a knack with the alien doohickeys’ he noted, waving his hand around at the equipment.
‘This is a whole new technology to me Sir’ Carter admitted. ‘I don’t think I could do any better than these two’ she said. ‘Probably worse because at least they’ve done it before’ she added.
‘And they did it wrong’ O’Neill pointed out.
‘I still don’t think we did’ Kershaw whispered to Grieves. She couldn’t think how but she wondered if that caretaker guy they killed the last time they were here had something to do with the Sentinel not working somehow.
Grieves looked at her, eyes narrowed telling her to keep her mouth shut. ‘This would be easier if the Latonans hadn’t decided to regress a few hundred years’ he said loudly.
‘Yeah you could have beaten it out of them how their ancestors made it when you first came here right?’ O’Neill retorted. ‘Quicker than sneaking in here and you wouldn’t have ended up screwing the damn machine up’ he added.
‘We were doing our duty’ Grieves replied, ‘what we thought was best for Earth’ he said. ‘From what I hear the way we operated isn’t so much different from the way you do things these days anyhow’ he declared.
‘We take technology as spoils of war from the enemy’ O’Neill told him. ‘We don’t go around stealing from allies or poor innocent schmucks like the locals’ he said.
‘It’s a question of degree Colonel’ Grieves replied, ‘we were just more willing to step further over the line’ he said.
‘You went so far over the line you couldn’t even see it from where you ended up Grieves’ O’Neill responded harshly. ‘I’m going outside for some fresh air’ he said. ‘Carter if these two try anything zat them’ he told his second-in-command before heading outside.
Outside the concealed entrance to the chamber Teal’c, Andianov and SG-9 had dug in as best they could and were now waiting to meet the Jaffa onslaught. SG-3 had already reluctantly retreated through the stargate as ordered and there was little chance of rescue from that direction. A handful of fully armed and armoured SG Teams with armoured support from armed MALP’s would pulverise a few hundred Jaffa but the Goa’uld Svarog had a Hat’ak in orbit and they couldn’t do anything to counter that kind of fire-support. They either got the Sentinel working soon or they were going to have to make the decision whether or not to abandon the Latonans to their fate and try to fight their way back to the stargate which could be more than tricky by this point.
‘We’ve rigged claymores to cover the approaches Sir’ Major Benton reported to O’Neill when he appeared, Benton and the rest of SG-9 had been on Latona for some time trying to negotiate access to the Sentinel before Svarog, a System Lord who had not become heavily embroiled in the war against Apophis, discovered that the planet was now open for conquest.
‘Okay I want you all to keep your heads down and your eyes open’ O’Neill told them. ‘We hold them off as long as we can then I’ll make the call whether or not to pull back into the chamber and put the forcefield back on or make a run for it’ he said.
‘I’d rather fight than run Sir’ Sergeant Grogan of SG-9 responded, ‘we’re the only chance the Latonans have and like it or not it was two of our people that got them into this mess’ he said.
‘Grieves isn’t one of our people Sergeant’ O’Neill told him. ‘We’re just cleaning up someone else’s mess’ he said moving to take up a position lying behind a log next to Teal’c and getting his L2-A2 ready. ‘Good field of fire’ he observed.
‘We should be able to hold the enemy for some time O’Neill’ Teal’c agreed.
‘Hopefully they’ll want to capture the gadget inside intact so they won’t just blast our sorry asses from orbit’ O’Neill replied.
‘The Goa’uld scavenge alien technology as a matter of routine, all their machines may be nothing but copies or poor imitations of the inventions of other races which they claimed credit for’ Teal’c said. ‘It is unlikely that Svarog would risk destroying a weapon with the potential of the Sentinel without first expending many warriors in an attempt to seize it’ he observed.
‘Jaffa are cheap I guess’ O’Neill replied.
‘The Goa’uld have always thought of us thus’ Teal’c said coldly as he prepared to kill more of his brothers who were going to throw away their lives in service of a false god.
‘Andianov, you good over there?’ O’Neill asked, looking across to the Russian Sergeant who was positioned to provide a crossfire along with Tarkman from SG-9.
‘All things considered Colonel I would rather be back in Moscow, and do you know how cold it is in Moscow this time of year?’ Andianov responded. ‘We only drink vodka because it’s the closest thing to antifreeze that won’t kill you’ she confided to Tarkman.
‘I thought you X-COM people enjoyed a good firefight Sergeant’ Major Benton called from his own position. His armour was already blackened and scorched from a Staff-Weapon blast when the enemy had first arrived, as was Winters the other member of SG-9 with him.
‘The shooting at them is fun, it is them shooting back which I have never learned to enjoy quite as much’ Andianov replied, then paused. ‘I have known other X-COM Troops who seemed to greatly like that part too’ she admitted, ‘the crazy, adrenaline addicted maniacs.’
The sound of Jaffa horns nearby had them tighten their grips on their rifles. The enemies strange mix of advanced weaponry such as zat’nik’tels, staff-cannons and shock grenades along with primitive signalling devices such as horns and the feeble protection offered by medieval chain-mail armour was still something of a wonder to O’Neill even after all these years. The goa’uld could make far more effective infantry equipment, a battalion of Jaffa with plasma rifles with decent ergonomics, plus the body armour and other personal gear the bounty hunter Aris Boch had used would make them a far more fearsome opponent but as it was the System Lords still preferred to throw their slave armies away in waves against the superior weaponry and tactical doctrine of the Tau’ri. It was stupid and wasteful as much as it was immoral butchery of their own followers to O’Neill’s mind, but he was only grateful that the Goa’uld were so inclined, because if the System Lords ever started to use their technology efficiently, and to its full potential, then Earth would be in trouble. ‘Fire at will’ he ordered as the first Jaffa appeared in sight, some distance away, the words barely finished when a laser neatly speared the Jaffa in the centre of his chest, dropping him instantly. ‘That’s just showing off Sergeant’ he stated, knowing full well who it would have been. ‘Save some for the rest of us okay’ he added.
‘I have no choice Sir’ Andianov replied, ‘my rifle powerpack will be depleted before the Jaffa run out’ she noted with a half smile.
‘Shit, you can use mine’ Tarkman told her, semi-seriously.
Another blast of the horn saw a mass of Jaffa surge towards them through the trees. Others put down wildly inaccurate long-range support fire with their staffs, the plasma bolts smashing into trees and only a small number even getting close enough to warrant ducking.
The Tau’ri soldiers opened up with their L2-A2 Laser Rifles, aiming carefully at first to drop the apparent officer and NCO equivalents who were yelling orders to the other Jaffa then switching to snap shots then automatic fire as the enemy closed. ‘I wish we had a few rotary-staffs’ Sergeant Grogan said as he shot down another Jaffa. ‘We’d slaughter them’ he continued.
‘Then the Hat’ak up there would blow us to kingdom come’ Major Benton pointed out.
‘Hell of a situation to be in where you don’t dare win even if you could’ O’Neill growled, firing repeatedly at the enemy, some of who had now gone to ground close enough to fire more accurately and effectively at the Tau’ri, trying to pin them so another rush would reach them.
Teal’c switched his rifle over so it was firing a continual stream of both laser fire and zat discharges, putting the importance of weight of fire over accuracy as he hosed it left and right. ‘I am becoming concerned O’Neill he told the human next to him impassively.
‘You and me both’ O’Neill replied. ‘Hit the claymores’ he bellowed as another wave of Jaffa came at them.
Major Benton, snatched up the remote detonator, armed it by flipping up the safety and squeezed the trigger. The anti-personal charges exploded like huge shotgun blasts, supersonic steel ball-bearings shredding the Jaffa ranks and shattering their attack.
The normally quite placid Sergeant Grogan began hollering a primitive battle cry as something burned far deeper in his psyche than military training took over, fight or die. Like Teal’c he began to spray fire at the opposition, his style far removed from the almost mechanical precision of Andianov who simply gunned down one Jaffa after another with clinical lack of feeling on the matter.
Jaffa warriors fell by the dozen but hundreds more waited to take their place, eventually one had to get lucky with his staff weapon and a bolt of plasma took Winter’s head off, his blood, brains and pieces of his skull showering Major Benton who did his best to ignore it as he gritted his teeth and kept fighting.
‘Carter get your ass out here’ O’Neill yelled. With one less Tau’ri gun in action the vast numerical superiority the Jaffa enjoyed was now even more of a factor.
Major Carter leaned out of the concealed entrance to the chamber and began firing from there. Daniel thought he had got something with translating the text and she hoped it would help because an minute now they were going to be forced to retreat into the chamber and raise the forcefield, trapping themselves.
‘Staff-Cannon’ Tarkman yelled, ducking as a huge bolt of plasma crashed into the ground right next to him, throwing dirt up in all directions.
‘Got it’ Andianov responded, drawing a bead on the Jaffa operating the weapon and taking him out. Another took his place and got the same treatment, if she was using a Heavy Plasma Rifle she could have blown the thing apart but her laser lacked the required firepower so she had to deal with the crew instead. ‘Shit’ she swore as she saw another cannon being set up. A single well-placed shot from one of those things could smash any of their positions. She began switching targets engaging the Jaffa trying to operate both cannons but that meant she couldn’t help deal with the infantry. It was all starting to get very uncomfortable as far as she was concerned.
‘We die well O’Neill’ Teal’c stated with certainty. They were fighting to protect a people who could not defend themselves, even if they were unsuccessful he was certain of the rightness of their cause and glad he was going to lose his life in such a fashion, it was honourable and he died free.
‘We ain’t dead yet Teal’c’ O’Neill responded, ‘And I’m taking a lot more than this many with me when I go’ he declared, wishing he had brought along one of the X-COM naqudah-enhanced elerium grenades, that was the way to go out in style, he decided, in a huge flash of light. ‘What the hell...’ he exclaimed as a bright flash of white light washed past him from behind.
‘The Sentinel’ Teal’c said in awe as the Jaffa touched by the light simply vanished, the effect reminding him of the Asgard using their transport beams as weapons. The light swept on towards the city taking the enemy with it.
‘Way to go Grieves!’ O’Neill yelled, he might be a rat-bastard but if he’d just saved their asses he had gone way up in O’Neill’s estimation, that sort of thing earns a reappraisal.
‘Grieves is gone’ Daniel said, emerging from the chamber entrance with Kershaw who looked downcast at the loss of her former commanding officer. ‘The Sentinel needed a human component to work, Grieves killed the last one when he was here before so he took his place when I figured out the text’ he said. ‘When he activated the machine it destroyed him, self-sacrifice might be part of the process’ he noted.
O’Neill stood up. ‘Regained your honour Grieves’ he said, looking towards the city, ‘way to go’ he repeated quietly, turning to see Major Benton looking down at Winter’s remains, shaking his head sadly before making his way over to the commander of SG-9, it was hard to lose a man under your command, you only hoped it never got easy like it seemed to have done for some of the X-COM Officers.
‘My Colonel’s dead and now I go back to prison’ Kershaw said, letting out a long sigh. ‘I might have been better off getting killed’ she said, kicking out at a stray stone that bounced away.
‘You’re good, with the alien technology I mean’ Carter said. ‘Maybe they could find a better place for you than a cell’ she suggested. ‘Hell they put Nirrti to work’ she added bitterly.
Kershaw blinked. ‘I’ll do anything to stay out of that cell’ she responded hopefully.
‘I’ll talk to General Hammond and Commander Sharp’ Carter replied, it was a waste having her in a cell instead of doing something useful, the NID had recruited highly skilled people for their short-lived off-world team.
Unfortunately Marul, head of the Latonan government refused them permission to work on the Sentinel device any more and they had to return to Earth without knowledge of how the weapon worked, Grieves had cleaned up his own mess but Winter’s had died too all for nothing in the end. Major Benton only wished he could tell the mans family how he really died.
Omega Site – PX0-999 – April 2002
Commander Russell Sharp stepped out through the stargate and found himself standing in the middle of a small camp built along the lines of the Alpha Site. They were near a fast flowing river in a grassy valley between two mountains, part of what he knew from reports was a range that crossed the planets single continent from north to south like a spine. It all looked very picturesque and for some reason like much of the galaxy reminded him greatly of his home Canada.
Although clearly terraformed at some point in the past the planet had not been part of the stargate network which was why it was chosen, after the Asgard helpfully provided a list of locations they thought suitable for the main Tau’ri offworld base. The gate the world now possessed was of Tollan design and manufacture and had been placed here by one of their new “Ghostrider” warships, or “Defence Vessels” as the Tollan preferred to call them, in readiness for the Earth humans to establish their facility. Unlike the ubiquitous Ancient-built stargates that filled the galaxy it was slimmer in form and in some ways rather more advanced, with all the functions of a DHD including power source built into the gate itself which was dialled by remote unit.
‘Welcome to PX0-999 Sir’ Colonel Edwards who was in charge of the suvey and engineering team building the base greeted him with a salute which Sharp returned. ‘Some of us call it Terra Nova’ he added.
‘New Earth, not a bad name’ Sharp replied. ‘Stargate still not underground yet?’ he queried. At least there was plenty of hardware and troops set up to defend the gate, several weapons of differing types had been aimed at him when he stepped through, so the Omega Site was secure but the plan was to have the whole facility deep underground.
‘Still excavating that part of the complex’ Edwards explained. ‘Even with the crystals we got from the Tok’ra speeding things up with the access and ventilation shafts we’re still digging out a base that makes Cheyenne Mountain look like a pothole’ he said. ‘Eventually the gate is going to be in a granite chamber about a mile and a half under where we’re standing but we want to get all the other facilities in place first like the base defences’ he continued. ‘The missile silos are finished and we’re just waiting on the Russians to deliver the SA-21 prototypes with the naquadah nuke warheads.’
‘What about the rest?’ Sharp asked.
‘The PAC-3 Patriots are in place and the VLS batteries with the SM-3’s are nearly operational, they just yanked them from a pair of Aegis Destroyers they docked in Gdańsk and sent them through as sections via the gate in Poland’ Edwards replied.
Sharp smiled and nodded. ‘Laser Cannons?’ he queried, looking around trying to see if he could spot any of the concealed emplacements intended to house them.
‘Just need the naquadah reactors to run them now’ Colonel Edwards told him, ‘if you’d like to follow me to the rings I can take you underground to show you what we’ve done so far’ he said.
‘Lead on Colonel’ Sharp told him.
‘We were hoping to get Plasma Beam defences’ Edwards told Sharp as they headed for a circle marked nearby with a few white painted stones. ‘Something to really put the hurt on a Ha’tak if it got too close’ he said.
‘We don’t have elerium coming out of our ears like we do weapons-grade naquadah’ Sharp replied regretfully. ‘Base defence Lasers would take out Deathgliders or Al’kesh by the bucketload at least’ he said. ‘They say they’ll be able to make copies of the main guns on a Ha’tak eventually, so we’ll probably shift to them as the main base-defence armament when we can’ he said as they stepped into the ring platform, Edwards activating it by remote control.
The rings transported them down into a crystalline tunnel which sloped off downwards, the complex being too far down for rings to operate all the way through that much rock. The original access tunnel which had got them down this far to install the rings, the sections brought to the Omega site through the stargate, had already been sealed. ‘This place can’t collapse can it?’ Sharp asked, reaching out and touching the walls, they were warm, probably because of the depth.
‘The tunnel walls are damn tough despite how fast they’re grown’ Edwards told him. ‘The local geology is stable so we don’t have to worry about earthquakes’ he continued, ‘or nuclear strikes with yields less than a few hundred megatons’ he added with a chuckle. ‘It gets damn hot down here like a deep mine but we’ve got good aircon’ he said, ‘concealed ventilation shafts run up into the mountains miles away’ he said, walking down the fairly steep sloping path. ‘It would hit over a hundred and twenty Fahrenheit without the cooling, we consulted the mining engineers who run the deep gold mines in South Africa to see how they coped with the problem.’
‘The tunnel network connects all the outlying bunkers to the main base?’ Sharp checked.
‘All the aircraft hangers, missile batteries everything’ Colonel Edwards confirmed. ‘They can all be isolated if the enemy gain access to them from the surface’ he noted, ‘steel doors, demolition charges or just use another crystal to seal the whole tunnel’ he said. ‘Sorry we have to walk’ he apologised, ‘we’ve got track laid throughout the base but the areas where we’re digging and need to move rock or heavy machinery take priority on the engines’ he said, indicating the steel rail tracks on the ground.
‘No problem, the exercise is good for me, I’ve been spending too much time out of the field lately’ Sharp replied. ‘We’ll be relocating a lot of troops, equipment and manufacturing facilities here as soon as we can’ Sharp told him. ‘Getting this base finished is high priority’ he said.
‘Good thing I thrive under pressure Sir’ Edwards replied.
‘Yeah, especially given the freaking air pressure down here Colonel’ Sharp responded. Damn they were getting deep he thought as they continued on, occasionally passing an engineer or technician heading the other way. Suddenly the tunnel seemed to shake for a couple of seconds and a loud rumble echoed down the tunnel causing Sharp to raise his eyebrows. ‘Geologically stable?’ he asked suspiciously.
Edwards laughed. ‘That was one of the teams excavating the main chamber’ he explained. ‘The Tok’ra crystals have limits so we use old-fashioned blasting methods for some of the work’ he told the Commander. ‘I say “old fashioned” but that was a potassium/naquadah device’ he continued, ‘yield of a decent sized fission nuke but it doesn’t leave a lot of long-lasting fallout behind’ he said. ‘Beats the shit out of dynamite and jackhammers I’ll tell you’ he added with another laugh.
‘What are you going to do after you finish this place?’ Sharp asked.
‘Everything else will be a comedown Sir but we’ve still got to survey the rest of the planet in detail for mines’ Edwards replied. ‘There’s not much if any naquadah on this rock from what we can tell but there’s definitely trinium as well as rare earths, which aren’t so rare here, and a crap load of pitchblende’ he said, ‘uranium ore I mean’ he explained. ‘If this place was on the stargate network before now I’ll bet the Goa’uld would have filled this place with slaves swinging pickaxes’ he said.
‘No Goa’uld but have you found gold?’ Sharp joked.
‘Yes’ Edwards replied seriously, ‘but it’s the platinum and silver for electrical contacts and circuits we’re more interested in’ he continued. ‘It’s not like we can ship too much of it back to Earth to sell, we’d crash the market price of the stuff if we did’ he noted with a shrug.
‘Damn, there goes my idea for bolstering the operating budget’ Sharp replied. ‘And my retirement fund’ he added with a chuckle. ‘What we really need to find somewhere is a mountain of elerium’ he said with a frown.
‘I thought that was an artificial allotrope, not a naturally occurring one?’ Edwards asked as they continued on down the sloping tunnel.
‘So the Asgard and Tollan say and our people agree unfortunately’ Sharp confirmed. ‘It’s pretty clever of Loki when you get right down to it’ he said. ‘Any other advanced technology you use against the Replicators they can capture, analyse and use back at you but Loki’s stuff is useless to them because as soon as the elerium in the captured equipment is used up the Replicators can’t make his engines or weapons work any more’ he said. ‘Loki has a monopoly on elerium production, as far as we can tell, so he can continue making more and more advanced weapons, ships and shields based upon it and the little lego bastards are stumped’ he continued. ‘If I was Loki I’d be waiting for the rest of the Asgard to be right at the edge of defeat and then ride to the rescue when they’re in no position to turn down his offer.’
‘Saviour of his entire race’ Edwards responded with a snort. ‘While he screws ours’ he added with a growl.
Sharp nodded, to be fair to Loki he himself would be perfectly willing to screw over the Asgard to save humanity but he knew he was a ruthless bastard and didn’t particularly consider himself a shining example of the best his species had to offer on the ethical or morality front. ‘I am getting the biggest office and the best quarters in this place right?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘Right’ Edwards confirmed.
‘I still think we should have gone for the hollowed out volcano surrounded by liquid hot magma’ Sharp declared.
‘You were told that given budgetary constraints it was either that or the F-302’s with the frickin laser beams Sir’ Edwards replied deadpan, playing along as was good policy when your CO makes a joke, or attempts one.
‘I’ve got to start kissing up to the IOC more to get a budget increase’ Sharp said thoughtfully, or maybe threatening Kinsey would work he thought. Cassandra could probably pull something suitably criminal and persuasive out of his mind that would guarantee support, there was no way that shifty fucker wasn’t involved in some truly jail, or even firing-squad, worthy activities he decided.
Marduk's Ziggurat – P2X-338 – April 2002
‘Okay I admit it’ Daniel conceded, ‘I did scream like a little girl when that thing jumped out of the sarcophagus at me’ he said. ‘Even Teal’c jumped’ he added defensively, ‘damn thing moved like greased lightning’ he stated.
O’Neill grinned. ‘The expression on your face when it bounced off your armour and then tore off towards the door with Andianov shooting at it’ he said, ‘never seen her miss like that before’ he noted.
‘See, everyone was shaken’ Daniel declared.
Carter finished checking the remains in the sarcophagus. ‘Like I thought, Marduk jumped ship into the... whatever it was’ she said with a frown. ‘I knew I felt a Goa’uld inside it when it went past me heading for the way out’ she said.
O’Neill frowned. ‘We’ll have to track it down’ he said. ‘Teal’c, you and the Sergeant find the little bastard and waste it’ he ordered.
‘Yes Sir’ Andianov replied, she was still feeling guilty about missing the creature earlier and was highly motivated in the extreme to make amends. ‘My motion tracker should be effective as long as it keeps moving trying to evade us’ she suggested.
‘Use the zat on your rifle only, no blowing holes in walls with lasers’ O’Neill told them. ‘You could collapse the whole damn pyra... ziggurat on us’ he pointed out.
‘Yes O’Neill’ Teal’c agreed, as Andianov retrieved her motion tracker and switched it on. ‘I will lead Sergeant’ he said, heading out of the chamber with the Russian following on behind, eyes flicking between the screen of the motion scanner and their environment.
‘This Marduk fellah must have been quite an asshole for his own priests to seal him in the sarcophagus here with that thing to snack on him’ O’Neill observed, looking at the remains.
‘Certainly not too popular’ Daniel agreed, continuing to read the Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions around the room. ‘The sarcophagus would have kept healing him to prolong the agony’ he noted.
‘Not how I’d want to go’ O’Neill stated with a shudder.
‘I just wish the Russians had told us about the gate coordinates their archaeologist found in Iraq earlier’ Carter said. ‘We’ll have to find a way to get this sarcophagus out of here, maybe have one at the Omega Site’ she suggested, they already had one on Earth.
‘I’m sure if he had his way Doctor Britski would have made his discovery public two and a half years ago when he found the stone tablets’ Daniel responded. ‘The Russian government recognised the symbols from the DHD they sold to X-COM and kept the tablets secret until they saw a way to profit from them.’
O’Neill muttered something darkly about unreformed commies to himself before raising his voice. ‘I’m not happy about that Colonel Chekov getting offered command of the Omega Site’ he opined.
‘He’s still technically junior to Commander Sharp Sir’ Carter noted.
‘That wouldn’t be too great a thing even if it counted for much’ O’Neill replied. ‘Sharp’s not a desk jockey, he’ll leave Chekov to run the Omega Site like he mostly leaves Hammond alone to run the SGC’ he said. ‘It’s like they’re rewarding the damn Russians for keeping something quiet until they could get paid for the information.’
Carter held up the large circular crystal set into a gold disk they had found in the sarcophagus. ‘The Eye of Tiamat is supposed to be an extremely powerful piece of technology Sir’ she said.
‘Possibly an energy weapon of Ancient design’ Daniel suggested, he knew Jack was always a sucker for a big honking space gun.
‘It could just be a piece of gaudy jewellery for all we know’ O’Neill responded. ‘Reminds me of something I might have worn in the seventies with an open shirt and flares’ he said.
Daniel grimaced. ‘Not a mental image I wanted’ he said.
Elsewhere in the sarcophagus Andianov and Teal’c were still hunting the alien creature possessed by Marduk. ‘It might be laying in ambush’ Teal’c suggested. ‘I cannot be taken as a host so you are in more danger than I’ he told the Russian.
‘If it appears again I will be expecting it and won’t miss this time’ Andianov replied.
‘This structure is labyrinthine’ Teal’c noted. ‘If it remains stationary we could hunt it for many days unsuccessfully.’
Andianov nodded sadly then looking up from her motion scanner to Teal’c smiled evilly. ‘Poison gas’ she suggested. ‘We return to Earth, collect the gas and pump the whole ziggurat full of lethal nerve agents’ she said.
Teal’c raised an eyebrow. ‘An excellent idea’ he agreed.
‘There are non-persistent agents that would dissipate within hours’ Andianov told him. ‘The structure would be undamaged, and once the ziggurat was cleansed of the alien threat engineering teams could shore up the walls and ceiling so Doctor Jackson undertake a proper investigation of the ziggurat’ she said.
‘Shooting it would be more... satisfying’ Teal’c observed.
‘I’ll settle for it being dead’ Andianov replied evenly.
SG-1 used the rings Daniel found in the ziggurat to escape the building, but limited by his host Marduk was unable to do likewise and could not open the stone doors which sealed him inside either. When he heard the rings activate again many hours later he scurried to the site hoping to ambush a human, intending to take them as a far more suitable host, instead he found himself looking a strange cylindrical device marked with symbols he could not understand and which was venting some kind of...
The VX Nerve gas having done its job SG-1, returning in full NBC Gear, found Marduk and his extremely undignified last host dead on the floor by the rings. Other personal unsealed the ziggurat and flushed it out with clean air before they started systematically searching the building, putting in reinforcing beams where needed. Marduks’s hand device was found two weeks later along with other Goa’uld technology in a concealed compartment in a wall. Unlike the ones already in their possession it was the more advanced type with a personal force-field which had many Tau’ri scientists clamouring for the opportunity to try and unlock its secret.
The Eye of Tiamat itself however remained a mystery for some time, Anubis was very annoyed when he came looking for it and found the ziggurat empty except for the obvious signs of Tau’ri presence such as signs and insignia marked with that stupid X logo they left all over the galaxy.