COTS
Complete
Drama, Humour
Spoilers for Shades of Grey and Watergate
Season 4
FR-C+
Disclaimers:
Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.
The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author
Acknowledgements:
My eternal gratitude to Sho, the best beta an SG-ficcer could hope for, even if it is her fault I got into this game in the first place!
The Prophet,
20th March 2002
At the edge of the clearing, Jack O'Neill stopped. He tensed, the hair on the back of his neck prickling, as the instincts drummed into him by years of special forces training and black ops deployment warned him that danger lurked in the innocuous-looking glade. He held up a hand, signalling the rest of his team to halt, and moved cautiously forward. Fully alert, he could detect the signs of a struggle in the clearing; grass flattened, and the slightly sweet taint of decay.
"Something bad happened here," he said.
"No kidding," Daniel replied, sounding vaguely ill. "I think I've got an idea what it was."
Concerned, Jack went over to where Daniel stood. The archaeologist was as pale as death, and looked about ready to vomit.
"Daniel?" Jack asked. "What's…?"
"Don't step…!" Daniel warned, and Jack's foot halted, inches from the corpse lying face down in front of Daniel. The man had been dead for about four or five days, and the rotten smell was coming from him.
"There's another one over here," Sam called out. "A woman. Russian army uniform and tags."
"Same here," Jack replied. "We'll probably find two more somewhere. This was a Russian SG team.
"I guess there must still be some of them trapped offworld," Sam said.
Jack gave a humourless laugh. "Which is odd when you consider that they claim to have only ever had one team. If we'd known these guys were out here..." He tailed off, knowing better than most people how little use regrets were.
"What…what killed them?" Daniel asked.
"Difficult to tell," Jack replied, examining the body. "But something made a hole in him." Daniel turned green as Jack carefully probed the wound.
"Not much to call between entrance and exit wounds," Sam announced, coming up next to them. Teal'c followed her.
"Are you well, Daniel Jackson?" The Jaffa asked.
"Oh. Peachy."
"Probably a spear," Jack said. "Or an arrow. Something like that."
There was a whirring sound, and Jack felt something strike his back. It felt like a stone, although to feel it through his Kevlar vest it must have more like the force of a bullet. He began to turn, when he heard Sam gasp in horror. His body felt oddly stiff, and he looked down as something tugged at his sternum.
Of course, he thought. Arrows go through Kevlar.
Jack felt his legs buckle under him. He saw Sam and Teal'c ready their weapons, and Daniel moving towards him. Sam's submachine gun barked at his unseen attacker, but it sounded distant. Daniel seemed to be moving in slow motion. The archaeologist was calling to him, but Jack could not hear the words. Jack felt himself falling, and reached out towards Daniel's hand, as though by grabbing it he could pull himself away.
Then a blinding light filled his vision, and then there was darkness.
*
"Colonel O'Neill?"
Jack slowly opened his eyes. He was not certain where he was, but he was surrounded by a soft, golden light, and felt strangely peaceful.
"Colonel O'Neill?" The voice came again. It was a man's voice, familiar somehow, and filled with concern.
"Yeah. What is it? I'm awake; really. Tell Hammond I'll be there as soon as…"
"Sir…Colonel. You're not at the SGC."
Jack blinked to clear his vision, and looked up at the man sitting by his bedside. "Newman?"
"Yes, sir," the younger man replied. He looked better than when Jack had last seen him; cleaner.
"I think I may be suffering from memory loss," Jack admitted. "Did I do something especially heinous to end up as your cellmate?"
"We're not cellmates, sir," Newman assured him. "We're free to go where we like here."
"Funny sort of punishment for treason," Jack replied, sitting up.
Newman smiled at Jack. An open, friendly smile, which seemed odd for a man who had been sentenced to life without possibility of parole for treason on Jack's evidence. With an odd chill, Jack recognised the smile of the newly converted.
"Did you find God?"
"Not quite," Newman said. "She found me."
"She?"
"Well, after I was sprung from prison…" Newman began.
"I don't know why we bothered arresting you guys," Jack muttered.
"…a bunch of us were sent offworld through the Russian gate to establish a new operational base. We were hit by the Goa'uld within a few weeks. I was shot, and woke up here."
Jack groaned. "Great. So we are prisoners."
Newman shook his head. "No, sir. We're dead."
Jack leaped to his feet. "We're what?" He demanded.
"Dead," Newman repeated. "I was shot in the neck by a Goa'uld staff weapon." He indicated his throat, where Jack could see a large, pale mass of scar tissue. "You were shot through the heart with an arrow. We're both dead."
"You seem immensely chipper about that," Jack commented, checking his pulse. He could feel it, pulsing strongly under his fingers. But he put his hand to his chest, and felt a ridge of scar tissue over his heart. He had to stretch a little, but a moment's searching located a similar scar on his back. So he had definitely been shot.
"Because it's not over," Newman said. "We go on, and we get the chance to keep fighting the good fight. Well," he admitted. "You get to keep fighting it; I get to start."
"Fighting the Goa'uld?"
"And worse than Goa'uld," Newman replied. "This is a spiritual war. Come on," he added. "I'll show you around."
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Newman told Jack, excitedly. "This is where the best and the brightest are gathered in preparation for the great battles that are to come."
"Uh-huh. And what are you doing here?" Jack asked.
Newman shrugged. "I'm good at what I do. Since I came here, I've only got better, but I've also got a reason to fight now. A purpose. It's like being reborn."
"Being dead?" Jack kept fingering his scar, nervously, almost hoping that the next time it would not be there.
"It's not an end. It's a beginning."
"What about my team?" Jack asked.
"They were good fighters," Newman reminded him. "If they had been slain alongside you, they would be here."
"And where are we?" Jack asked. "Where is 'here'?"
"Sesrumnir."
"Bless you."
"It's the name of the place," Newman said, good humouredly. "It means Hall of Many Seats, or something."
Jack looked around him. They were walking along a broad corridor, walled in woven sticks and floored with rushes. The whole place had the clean and wholesome scent of the country about it; probably a cold country.
"What do you do here, exactly?"
"We train," Newman replied. "Readying ourselves for the battles to come, and we work to keep the hall and feed everyone. When we're not training or working, there's a games room, a playing field and a rather nice lake with a good stock of fish."
"Fish?" Jack asked. "You get to fish in heaven?"
"Did you ever doubt it?" Newman asked. Jack conceded the point.
Newman led Jack through a door, and out into a great, open space. The sky was blue, the air crisp, cold and clean, and the grass green. Nearby, a small group of men and women were playing soccer, and further afield they sparred in twos and threes - unarmed, with staves, and with what looked like swords and shields.
"Wow. Is there a room somewhere full of ninjas?" Jack asked.
"I think Yukio was a ninja when she was alive."
"Which is she?"
"The centre forward," Newman replied, gesturing towards the soccer pitch.
"This is all some crazy NID plan isn't it? I get confused, let my guard down, let something slip."
"Colonel," Newman responded with a laugh. "You were shot in the chest with an arrow. If we'd managed to scrape together the means to make you believe you'd been shot in the chest with an arrow, we wouldn't need all this to get you to talk."
Jack gave Newman an incredulous look. "You really believe you're dead?"
Newman sighed. "Come to the feast tonight," he said.
"There's a feast?"
"There's always a feast. If you can sit through it and not believe this is heaven, then nothing will convince you."
Suddenly, with a wild, whooping cry, something shot past O'Neill, close overhead, and sped away into the distance.
"What the hell was…?" Jack broke off as a second object, this one clearly a man, sitting astride a winged horse, shot over his head. Jack turned to Newman.
"Steeds of Thunder," Newman told him, as a flash of light crackled between the two flying shapes. "Once you ride one of those babies, believe me; you never want to get back in an F-16 again. You'll get a chance to take one up after you've been here a month or two." Jack just gawked.
"Don't worry," Newman told him. "It took me a while to get used to it as well. Why don't you come and meet the guys; it'll help you feel more at home."
There were nine other soldiers from the SGC in Sesrumnir, all of whom Jack recognised as MIAs. There were also half a dozen Russian personnel, and one other member of Newman's NID unit. All of them seemed to have accepted the fact of their deaths, and their new place in this afterlife boot camp.
"I know it seems weird now," Captain Karen Seneca, formerly of SG-5, assured Jack. "But we're the Chosen." Along with Newman, Karen - who like all of her comrades refused to answer to her old military rank, stating that all of the Chosen were equal - had assigned herself as Jack's guide. "We have a destiny; you'll come to realise that."
"I have a duty," Jack replied. "So do you."
"That duty ended with our deaths," Karen insisted. "If we have a duty left to Earth, then we fulfil it better here, preparing to defend her in the final battle, than by resisting our destiny."
Jack shook his head, but decided not to pursue the point. "You say we were chosen. By who?"
"By Freyja," Newman replied.
"The Tok'ra?" Jack asked, incredulous.
"The Goddess," Karen corrected. Alarm bells sounded in Jack's head. "The Chooser of the Slain."
"A Goddess, you say?"
"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Karen said. "But it's really not like that. And look around you for a minute. What Goa'uld would do something like this? Why train humans instead of Jaffa if you have the resources to pull something like this together? Why teach us to fight the Goa'uld?"
"Goa'uld do fight each other."
"It's not the Goa'uld," Newman told him. "You know that. Not their style. They don't bother with mind games on this scale, Jack."
"Where are the rest of these people from?" Jack asked, changing the subject.
"All over," Newman explained. "Different planets; different times. Those over there…" He pointed to a group of men paying a game of cricket. "Died on the battlefield at Mons, during World War One."
"The Angel of Mons?" Jack asked, sceptically.
"Freyja, coming to claim the fallen," Newman assured him.
Jack frowned, but kept his thoughts to himself. He had a few ideas, but he would have given a lot to have Daniel here to talk them through with. Of course, if he was wrong, that would have meant Daniel would have to be dead, so maybe it wasn't a very kind thought after all.
"Sun's going down," Newman observed.
"You hungry?" Karen asked.
"Starving," Jack admitted. "Which seems odd for a dead guy."
"Well, don't worry about that. It's supper time."
Newman might well be going a little soft in the head when it came to his predicament, but he was right about one thing: The food certainly was to die for.
The feast was held in a long wooden hall, and it was easy to see why the place was called 'Hall of Many Seats'. There must have been almost a thousand people at the tables, and yet more circulating among them, distributing food and drink. The food was mostly in the form of a rich and spicy meat stew, with heavy bread to mop up the thick gravy. It was not exactly sophisticated fare, but it was delicious and filled the stomach well. There was also fruit, and some sort of sticky cakes made from honey. The drink was mostly mead, which Jack recognised from an evening spent downing several gallons of the filthy stuff which Daniel brought back from Cimmeria - although unlike the appallingly sweet Cimmerian, this mead was actually drinkable - and which added weight to his theory.
"We take it in turns to serve," Karen explained. "Everyone does their share of the work."
"What's up there?" Jack asked, pointing to a door at the top of the hall.
"That's where Freyja's daughters live," Newman replied. "When I said we could go anywhere, that's the one exception. No entry without invitation."
"Of course," Jack said. "So how many daughters does Freyja have?"
"Twelve."
"Busy woman," Jack commented.
Over in one corner of the hall, a drum beat started up. "Who's up tonight?" Newman asked.
Karen craned her head to see. "Looks like the Russians," she said.
"Eh?"
"Anyone with any musical talent can play after dinner," Karen explained. "Usually something we can dance to," she added, as the single drum beat was joined by balalaikas and guitars, and exploded into a raucous melody.
"You don't get soft from all this?" Jack asked.
Karen shook her head. "Not at all. I'm in better fighting trim than I've ever been. You want to dance?" She asked Jack.
"I'll…pass, I think," he said.
Karen shrugged, and offered a hand to Newman. He accepted it, and the two of them stood and moved to a clear patch of floor to dance. Jack shook his head at the sight of two people he had known to be very serious young soldiers, dancing like high school seniors.
As he watched, tables were pushed back to the walls to clear more room. Jack was forced to stand and get out of the way as his table was seized and set against the wall, and soon the hall was filled with bodies as the Chosen danced. Jack looked on, carefully, trying to see what was wrong with this scene, but he could find nothing. No-one acted as though they were being forced to behave this way; no-one looked uncomfortable or unwilling. There was just an undeniable, infectious energy which threatened to sweep Jack off his feet and into the crowd.
Are they right? He wondered. Did I really die and go to some crazy dancing heaven?
A little later, as the dancing continued, a group of young women emerged from the small door. They were all very beautiful, and they dived merrily into the crowd of dancers. These must be Freyja's daughters, Jack decided, although they showed little sign of being related. Maybe they were all half-sisters.
It was all Jack could do at this point not to give up and join the fun, but he had to think.
"You're new here, aren't you?" Jack looked up in surprise; he hadn't though anyone would notice him skulking in the shadows. The woman who had addressed him was tall and fair, with long, flaxen hair and a kind smile.
"You're one of Freyja's daughters?" He asked, answering the question with a question.
"Hnoss," she replied. "The eldest."
"Jack. And yes, I'm new."
"You look ill at ease," Hnoss said. "Awkward. You don't have to be; all here are equal. Come; join the dancing," she offered, holding out her hand.
"I don't dance so well," Jack demurred.
"Neither do I," Hnoss admitted. "We can dance badly together. It'll be fun."
"Aren't I a little old for you?"
"I'm three hundred and ninety-two," Hnoss replied.
"I'll take that as a no," Jack said, smiling. "But I feel pretty weird here still. Is everyone really dead?"
"I'm afraid so," Hnoss told him. "Freyja is forbidden to take her warriors from among the living. But do not be afraid; death is not the end of your journey."
"Look. I'm not so good with crowds," Jack said. "But if I'm stuck here, I'd like to get to know the place. Could you show me around?"
Hnoss smiled, warmly. "Promise you'll dance tomorrow?" Jack nodded. "Of course then," she said, taking him by the hand.
"…and this is the Thunder Steeds' eerie," Hnoss said, leading Jack into a huge stable. It was actually quite a surprise for Jack to find that the Thunder Steeds really were horses, and it damaged his theory rather.
"They're…incredible." He could not find any other word for them.
"This is my favourite, Grimtep," she said, stroking the nose of a magnificent, slate-coloured beast.
"And where does that door go?" Jack asked, trying to keep his mind on his purpose despite being surrounded by winged horses. Being alone in a stable with a beautiful girl was not helping his concentration any either. Hnoss kept bringing him to secluded locations, and he had to keep reminding himself that she was the boss' daughter.
"That goes down to our quarters, and to mother's shrine," Hnoss replied, absentmindedly, as she fed Grimtep a sugar lump.
"Uh-huh." Jack started towards the door. It took Hnoss a moment to realise what he was doing, but she crossed with impressive speed to block his way.
"No, no, Jack. You can't go down there."
"Why not?"
"It's our rooms; it's private." Jack made to move past her, but she caught hold of him by the shoulders. "You wouldn't want me just barging into your room, would you?"
"I doubt I'd complain too loudly," Jack quipped, and Hnoss blushed. Jack took advantage of her distraction to slip from her grasp and duck through the door. It was not locked, and Hnoss could only call after Jack to stop as her sprinted down the flight of stairs which were revealed. He went as fast as he could, paying no heed to the girl at his heels, until he reached the bottom of the steps, and stopped dead I his tracks.
"Jack! Wait! You can't go down there, you mustn't…" Hnoss came after Jack at full tilt, running headlong into him and sending them both sprawling on the floor. A floor that was cool and smooth, and formed of a dark, bluish-grey metal. They were lying near the centre of a large junction. Three corridors led off into the distance, and a single large door stood opposite the staircase.
"I knew it!" Jack announced, struggling out from under Hnoss and striding towards the door.
"No, Jack!" Hnoss called, desperately. "You mustn't be here. It's not allowed."
"Jack O'Neill!" The voice thundered from all around him. It was one of the most incredible sounds he had ever heard, carrying overtones of terrible anger and power, and heartbreaking sensuality, all at the same time. "Go with my daughter, and return to the hall. Go now!"
"Na-ah," Jack responded. "Not until I get some answers. I wanna know why I'm here."
"You were slain," Freyja answered. "I am the Chooser of the Slain. I Chose you to be one of my warriors." From her voice, it sounded almost as though she were trying to explain the obvious to a wilful child.
"I'm not dead," Jack told her. "None of these people are dead."
"You were slain," Freyja repeated. "The arrow pierced your heart. You lost consciousness and died within minutes of receiving the wound."
"So I was dead," Jack allowed. "It's not the first time - probably won't be the last, either - but I'm not dead now."
"You've died before?" Hnoss asked, confused.
"A bunch of times. One of my best friends seems to make quite a habit of it. I guess it's what sets me apart from the others downstairs," he added, addressing the door in front of him. "They've never been dead before; they just figure it sticks. You're using them; lying to them; claiming to be something you're not so you can manipulate them…"
"No!" Hnoss protested, defensively.
"You're just like the Goa'uld," Jack accused.
"You are upset, Jack O'Neill," Freyja said. "I will forgive you your impertinence. But I am not like the Goa'uld; I do not enslave. I grant those killed fighting for their homes the chance to do so again. If you chose to think of yourself as alive, then you owe your life to me, for no surgeon on your world could have saved you, even had your friends had time to return you through the Stargate."
"Maybe I do owe you," Jack replied. "But that doesn't mean I belong to you. Now I'm coming in, and we're going to talk face to face, then I want to speak to…"
"Stop!" Freyja commanded, as Jack reached for the panel which controlled the door.
"No!" Hnoss warned.
Jack reached out, and as he touched the control, Hnoss threw herself into him, knocking him aside. There was a flash and a sizzle, and the acrid scent of ozone filled the air as a burst of energy fired from the panel and caught Hnoss in the abdomen.
"Hnoss!" Jack caught hold of the girl as she staggered and fell.
"Mother…" Hnoss whispered. Her voice was thin and weak, and blood bubbled on her lips. There was little sign of injury save a small burn where the beam had scorched through her tunic, but he flesh around the wound felt oddly soft, and Jack was certain that there must be extensive internal injury.
"What the hell was that for?" Jack demanded, incandescent with rage. "I thought you people were supposed to be enlightened!"
"It was…an accident," Freyja protested. "An automated system to prevent any but my daughters from entering. It was you who triggered it."
"Never mind who triggered what," Jack hissed. "Help her. You've the technology to do it; you did it to all of us."
"Yes…Yes of course." There was a moment's pause, and then a blue light engulfed them both, and the junction disappeared, to be replaced by the bridge of an Asgard mothership.
*
"The Sesrumnir has slowed to approximately two-thirds maximum speed," Thor announced. "Freyja must be placing a drain on her power supply."
"And how long until we catch up with her?" Sam asked, impatiently.
"A few minutes yet," the second Asgard replied, levelly, his single eye fixing Sam with an intense and inscrutable gaze. Odin was nearly identical to Thor, save for the patch which he wore over his left eye. It had surprised Sam that an Asgard should bear any lasting scar, but he had explained that the organ he was born with had been replaced with a device which gave him swift access to all of the knowledge of the Asgard race. He seemed far less fond of humans than Thor, although he had taken a liking to Daniel when the archaeologist began asking him questions about the Asgards' use of sentence structure in their command consoles.
"You can move between galaxies in a few minutes," Sam muttered under her breath. She should have learned in the past few hours that Odin's ears were far sharper than any human's.
"A planet in another galaxy is not moving away from us at trans-relativistic velocities; nor is it actively evading our pursuit, Major Carter," he explained.
"I know, I know," Sam replied.
"Besides which, the Sesrumnir is an exceptional vessel; the most advanced constructed before the O'Neill prototype which you destroyed."
"For the greater good," Sam reminded him.
"I did not say otherwise." Sam just glowered at the small, grey-skinned alien.
"Erm…If I'm reading this right, the Sesrumnir is accelerating again," Daniel warned.
"You are correct, Dr Jackson," Thor replied. "The power drain has ended."
"Meaning that we are once again only matching velocities with the Sesrumnir?" Teal'c concluded.
"Yes. Although we have gained considerably," Thor added.
"Does she know we're here?" Sam asked.
"If she does not," Odin assured her. "She will do soon."
*
The Asgard, Freyja, directed Jack to place Hnoss in a healing pod, similar to the one which Thor had used when injured by the Replicators.
"I thought you could heal humans just like that," Jack said, snapping his fingers.
"Healing humans is indeed far easier than healing Asgard, but Hnoss is not precisely human, although she descends from a common root. Her physiology is more complex than a human's, and more fragile; the blast would only have rendered you unconscious," Freyja added. Without the voice filters which produced her 'goddess' voice, she sounded much like any Asgard.
"So, did you steal your daughters as well as your soldiers?" Jack asked.
"I steal nothing; I take only those whose lives on their own worlds are ended. Hnoss - like all of my daughters - died within hours of entering the world. She was born to a family under my protection, and so I took her in at her mother's request."
"Her mother asked you to care for her dead daughter?"
"Yes."
"Okay. What about the 'Chosen' then? Who asked you to take care of them?"
"It was necessary," Freyja assured him. "I give them a chance to battle their enemies again; to bring down the System Lords."
"On flying horses?" Jack asked, doubtful.
"The steeds are useful for training purposes, but when the time comes for them to go into battle, I have created a small fighter vessel for my warriors to pilot," Freyja admitted. "It is controlled in much the same manner as a thunder steed, and no more than nine of them would be needed to destroy a Goa'uld mothership."
"Then why haven't you destroyed the System Lords by now? You've got plenty of pilots."
"The design is…not perfected yet. And my construction resources are limited."
"Well, I wish you the best of luck," Jack said. "And any time you want to drop me and everyone else you've abducted off at home would be just great."
"You can not go," Freyja told him, firmly. "You are needed here."
"I am needed at home!"
"At home, you died."
"And you brought me back, so I'm not dead. Do we have to go through all this again? Look, I appreciate everything you and the rest of the Asgard have done for me…for Earth, but…What's that?" Jack asked, gesturing to a soft glow that was blinking in and out on one of the ship's control screens.
Freyja moved over and shifted a runestone into a new position. A display appeared, showing an Asgard mothership, face on.
"The Sleipnir," Freyja muttered to herself.
"The who now?"
"Odin's ship," the Asgard replied. "He's following me. But how did they find me?"
*
"So you've been watching us, waiting for Freyja to come for Jack?" Daniel asked.
"For any of you," Odin corrected. "Our cloaking devices operate with 90% efficiency, even against our own sensors. We could only track the Sesrumnir if we could first get a fix on it, and for that we needed to predict where she would activate her transport beam. It seemed logical that she would show an interest in Earth's foremost warriors."
"Wait a minute," Sam interrupted, drawing another piercing look from Odin. "You mean you've been following us around, waiting for one of us to die?"
"What if we never did?" Daniel added.
"Statistical projections showed that to be an unlikely turn of events," Thor assured them. "Freyja chooses only warriors, not scholars. Had she more diverse interests, Dr Jackson, she might have attempted to claim you, and we would have had several chances to apprehend her already."
"That's fair," Daniel agreed.
"And what happens now?" Sam asked.
"That depends on whether we can catch Freyja or not," Odin replied.
*
"Odin seeks to capture me," Freyja told Jack. "The other Asgard do not approve of my plans, but they have not suffered as my kindred have suffered."
"Oh?" Jack asked, leaning across to see what Freyja was doing at her console.
"Many of my family were part of the first Asgard expedition to encounter the Goa'uld. Only my father, my brother and I survived the encounter."
"I thought you guys could whoop major Goa'uld behind?" Jack said, concerned.
"We were not equipped for battle, and we did not anticipate it. We were naïve, and the Goa'uld were able to surprise us. Considering the distances involved, it was decided that retaliatory action would be inappropriate; instead, the Asgard sued for peace and negotiated the first version of the Protected Planets Treaty."
"How could the distances be an obstacle in ships like yours?"
"This was a long time ago, Jack O'Neill," Freyja reminded him. "Our people were not so advanced then, but also, while it does not take much time to travel between galaxies, it does take a considerable amount of energy. It is not a journey to be undertaken casually, even today."
"So they made peace, and you didn't accept it and so you went on your personal vengeance quest?"
"For centuries I worked with the others, but they would not accept my suggestions. It is not vengeance I seek, Jack O'Neill, nor justice; I simply seek to make your galaxy safe for lifeforms other than the Goa'uld. They attacked my people without warning. They have no respect for life; none whatsoever. The only way to make certain they do not destroy and subjugate other races is to exterminate them."
"Preaching to the choir," Jack assured her, although in truth it was disturbing to hear such sentiments in the melodic voice of an Asgard.
"Then stay, and help me," Freyja suggested.
"And what about Odin?" Jack asked, moving a little closer to her panel.
"I can evade the Sleipnir," Freyja assured him.
Jack's hand darted forward and snatched up one of the stones from the control panel. "Even without this?"
"You fool!" Freyja cried, the most emotional outburst that Jack had ever heard from an Asgard. The lights on the bridge dimmed. "You have uncoupled the main reactors."
"Meaning that Odin can catch up to us."
"Meaning that the navigational controls are locked, and we are travelling at many times the speed of light, which means that it can only be a matter of time before we…" Jack was flung from his feet as the Sesrumnir bucked wildly. Freyja slid hard across the deck and struck the base of the pod. "…hit…something," she finished, weakly.
*
"What the hell just happened?" Sam asked.
"The Sesrumnir just started decelerating, fast," Thor reported. "It looks as though she has lost power to her hyperdrives."
"Well, that's good, right?" Daniel said.
"Not precisely," Odin replied. "The vessel is also without navigational shielding, and still travelling at trans-relativistic speeds. It will continue to pass through most objects in realspace, but as it slows it will begin to be affected by their magnetic fields."
"What happens when she drops below light-speed?" Sam asked.
"She will re-enter realspace," Thor explained. "And continue travelling in a flat trajectory until she strikes an object…"
"…and is destroyed," Sam concluded.
Teal'c turned from his vigil at the main screen to face Thor. "We must go faster," he said.
*
"Freyja?" Jack crouched by the Asgard, uncertain whether or not he should try to shake her. "Freyja; how do I start the navigation systems? I put the stone back, but it didn't do anything and now they've all fallen off. Freyja? Oh come on; I can't go through this again."
"The engines must…be reactivated," Freyja gasped. Jack had no idea how Asgard anatomy worked, but he was fairly certain that she was in a bad way.
"How?"
"Go…to the panel. I will…I will tell you, what you must do."
"Right. Okay." Jack stood and went to the panel. The surface was dark, not illuminated like the one in the Biliskner had been. As he had told Freyja, the stones had all fallen down to the bottom of the panel and refused to remain in place. "Ready. What do I do?" There was a long pause. "Freyja? Why do you people always pass out when you've got something important to tell me?"
"I am sorry, Jack O'Neill. I will try not to pass out again. First you must reinitialise the primary control circuits." Jack breathed a sigh of relief. "Take the Ansuz rune, and place it in the slot at the top of the control panel."
Jack's relief was short lived. "Freyja!" He called. "Which is the Ansuz rune?"
"A downward stroke," Freyja replied. Jack reached for what looked like an 'I'. "Two downward slanting strokes from the top and centre right," she added.
"The one that looks like an 'F'?" Jack asked.
"Yes," Freyja replied, after a moment's thought.
"Right…F." Jack lifted the stone from its place, and inserted it into the socket at the top of the control panel. The panel flickered and came to life, light shining out of the surface. "Bingo! I think we're back in business."
"Excellent. Now; set the Kaunaz rune back in its place to power up the reactors."
"Kau…"
"The rune you so rashly removed before."
"Right. The 'C'." Jack replaced the stone, and power thundered through the ship. "Aw yeah."
"Good. Now you must activate the navigational shielding, by setting the Algiz rune at the third junction, and the Thursaz in merkstave to the…"
"Gaah! I didn't know Ansuz or Kaunaz!" Jack cried, frustrated. "Why would I know Algiz or…Thermostat?" He searched through the runes, looking for something that might be either of those letters. "And which is the third junction? Third from…?"
The ship rocked again, and Jack was knocked down once more. He struggled to rise, but was thrown back as the entire vessel began to vibrate. He struck his head, and as the world spun about him, he was not sure whether that was an effect of concussion, or simple reality.
Then a bright blue light filled his vision, and all Jack could think was: Oh great; not again.
*
…and then everything was still. He was lying on the bridge of the Sesrumnir, while the ship hummed quietly to itself, deeply satisfied with its condition.
"That was…fast."
"Sam?" Jack asked, looking around. Sure enough, there was his second in command, looking concerned.
"The Asgard work quickly. I think it took them about ten seconds to raise the alternate General Hammond from the dead."
"Daniel? You guys haven't died as well have you?"
Teal'c's voice spoke from behind Jack. "Be assured, Colonel O'Neill, that we are all as alive as you are."
"So what are you all doing here?"
"Rescuing you," Sam replied. "We got here just in time too; some idiot had switched off all the power."
"You don't say?" Jack asked, assaying surprise.
"The ship was about to get pulverised by space dust," Sam assured him.
"Dust?"
"If you're moving fast enough, even tiny dust particles become a hazard. Fortunately, Daniel was able to get things running again."
"Daniel?" Jack was surprised. "Since when did you become Mr Scott?"
"Since the controls started working on a linguistic basis. It's really easy…for anyone who ever spent their high school evenings writing love-poems in ancient Norse."
"You write poetry, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.
"Bad poetry," Daniel assured him. "Very pretentious. I mean, I was writing teen-angst poems in ancient Icelandic verse meter."
"I fear you," Jack assured him.
"Luckily, these controls are very like angst poems."
Jack nodded in feigned understanding. "Uh-huh. Where's Freyja?"
"In the medical bay," Sam told him. "And then she's likely to face an Asgard court-martial."
"What does that involve?" Jack asked.
"Probably a lot of long, hard stares," Sam replied. "I don't think Odin likes me," she admitted.
"So…Freyja's been a bad girl then?"
"Well, as I understand it," Daniel explained. "She's been waging a one-Asgard war on the Goa'uld for centuries."
"She mentioned something about her family?"
"Yes. After they were killed, Freyja studied…well, we don't really have a word for it, but 'combat philosophy' comes close."
"It's an Asgard specialist military field," Sam added. "Covering logistics, strategy, tactics and defence technology."
"That's a specialist field?" Jack asked.
"It also includes the study of training methods, morale and motivation," Teal'c continued. "And of the reasons why conflicts occur."
"Apparently she was one of the best, but when the Asgard declined to commit to total war against the Goa'uld, she set out on her own. She's been exploiting a loophole in the Protected Planets Treaty by recruiting slain warriors from worlds protected by the Treaty to make war on the Goa'uld. She's also been developing fighter tactics - which the Asgard don't use. Recently, she started taking members of SG teams, which is when Odin and Thor began tracking us to get to her."
"And now she goes to jail?" Jack asked.
"Actually," Daniel admitted. "I think they're looking at a plea bargain."
*
"Until now, all of our attempts to combat the Replicators have met with failure," Thor explained. "We believe that your tactics are sufficiently removed from ours to have a chance of success."
"Your faith in me is touching," Freyja replied. "But my fighters will surely be no more effective against Replicator-controlled vessels than a mothership."
"Perhaps not," Odin said.
SG-1 stood in Freyja's chamber, while the three Asgard discussed the terms of Freyja's return to the fold.
"We have been developing a new weapon," the one-eyed Asgard continued. "Based on our experiences with the humans, which fires a solid projectile using a magnetic slingshot."
"A railgun," Sam interjected. Odin fixed her with another of his long, inscrutable looks.
"A linear accelerator," she explained. "We've been working on them for a while now; the smallest working models could be mounted on a battleship and aimed by pointing the ship itself at the target," she added.
"Yes," Odin said at last. "That is what we have developed, although smaller."
"We believe that your fighters may be the best way to deploy this weapon," Thor continued. "And that the use of human pilots may also be advantageous, as the Asgard mindset is well-known to the Replicators."
"You need stupid pilots," Jack hazarded.
"That is more or less the idea," Thor replied. "We are in fact constructing a new vessel to act as a platform for such fighters, which has been named in honour of Major Carter."
"Cool," Jack commented. "Although I don't know if Carter has the same ring as O'Neill."
"The ship is named the Stupid Idea," Odin said.
Sam laughed. "Well, I'm flattered anyway."
"What do you wish from me?" Freyja asked.
"You are still one of the best in your field," Thor reminded her. "We want you to oversee the project, the design and construction of the fighters, and the training of volunteer pilots from worlds under our protection, but not included in the Treaty."
"What about my pilots?"
"They will be returned to their homes," Odin promised. "Unless they wish to stay."
"And my daughters?"
"The same. Each of them must be given the choice, which means that they must learn the truth about you." Freyja nodded, sadly.
*
Alarms blared through the corridors of the SGC. "Offworld activation," the PA announced. "Incoming traveller detected."
General Hammond strode into the control room overlooking the Gate.
"Picking up SG-1's GDO code, sir," the technician replied.
"Open the iris," Hammond commanded, already on his way back out and headed for the Gate room. SG-1 were more than a day overdue, which was usually a cause for concern.
Jack O'Neill stepped from the Stargate, looking fresh and well.
"General Hammond," he said, stepping forward to salute his commanding officer in his usual casual manner.
"Colonel O'Neill," Hammond returned, as the rest of SG-1 stepped from the event horizon behind him.
"General Hammond." The technician's voice came through the speakers in the Gate room, concerned. "We have more incoming travellers." Hammond looked enquiringly at O'Neill.
"Just some old friends who got lost," Jack assured him.
Hammond turned to the control room window, and signalled for them to leave the iris open. After a moment, a young woman stepped from the event horizon.
"You remember Captain Seneca; SG-5?" Jack asked.
"I do," Hammond replied. "Welcome home, Captain."
"Thank you, sir," Karen replied, saluting. Behind her, a young lieutenant, thought dead the past two months, emerged. He was followed by the other SGC soldiers, and the Russians, whom Hammond knew from photographs given to the SGC. There were also a number of others whom Hammond did not recognise. The veterans of Mons and earlier conflicts had chosen to remain behind, as had Major Newman.
"Colonel O'Neill, what on Earth - or off it - is going on?"
"General Hammond." A woman in civilian clothes, whom Hammond did not recognise, stepped up beside the Colonel. Behind them, the Stargate closed. "My name is Hnoss, daughter of Freyja of the Asgard. My mother apologises for the abduction of your deceased personnel."
"Abduction!" Hammond exclaimed. "Deceased?"
"It's a long story," Jack told the General. "I'll explain everything in the debriefing, but Freyja did - to be fair - save all our lives."
"Well, I'm not going to complain too much over an incident that returns any personnel I thought I'd lost," Hammond admitted. "So long as they haven't been…"
"No sir," Jack assured him. "No interference. No anal probes."
"Alright then. We'll debrief at thirteen hundred." Hammond looked around at the soldiers crowding the Gate room. "I can see it's going to take a while. I'll see if Sergeant Willis can find space for them all until then." He turned to Hnoss. "Is there anything your need, Miss Hnoss?"
"No, thank you. I came to bring my mother's apologies, and should be going now."
"Very well. It was a pleasure meeting you; if you give Sergeant Davis your destination co-ordinates…"
"That won't be necessary," Hnoss assured him. She turned, and raised her hand, and the Stargate burst back into life.
"One of these days, I'd like someone to arrive unannounced who can't do that," Hammond commented.
"Well, it's been…emotional," Jack told Hnoss, walking her up to the gate. "Will we be seeing you around?"
"Oh, count on it," the girl replied. She stepped toward the event horizon, but at the last moment turned her head to face Jack. "You still owe me a dance."