STARGATE SG-1-23-22-Moebius Squared-s11 Read online

  Moebius Squared

  Melissa Scott & Jo Graham

  An original publication of Fandemonium Ltd, produced under license from MGM Consumer Products.

  Fandemonium Books

  PO Box 795A

  Surbiton

  Surrey KT5 8YB

  United Kingdom

  Visit our website: www.stargatenovels.com

  METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Presents

  STARGATE SG-1™

  BEN BROWDER AMANDA TAPPING CHRISTOPHER JUDGE

  with BEAU BRIDGES and MICHAEL SHANKS as Daniel Jackson

  Executive Producers ROBERT C. COOPER & BRAD WRIGHT

  Developed for Television by BRAD WRIGHT & JONATHAN GLASSNER

  STARGATE SG-1 is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. ©1997-2012 MGM Television Entertainment Inc. and MGM Global Holdings Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Lion Corp. ©2012 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  Photography and cover art: Copyright ©2012 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  WWW.MGM.COM

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written consent of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  PROLOGUE

  Egypt

  2492 BC

  The slanting light of very early morning danced across the water of the Nile, cutting through the last of the predawn fog. An ibis took flight, white wings spreading. A fish jumped.

  On a dock by the riverside, shaded by a grove of date palms, a man in what appeared to be a pair of white linen boxer shorts cast a line into the river and lazily began to reel it in. Colonel Jack O’Neill, USAF retired (very retired) picked up the clay cup at his elbow and took a sip through the straw, reflecting that he was never going to get entirely used to beer for breakfast.

  Not that he had complaints. It was pretty malty beer, and the straw meant that you could kind of browse over the sediments in the bottom, but it was also really good beer. For breakfast. On what promised to be a gorgeous day. This retirement thing was working out pretty well.

  Of course, this was about the only hour of the day he could count on peace and quiet. Any minute Ellie would be screaming, and when Ellie was up nobody was sleeping. And then there would be Aset bustling around insisting that eggs were more breakfast than beer and that Sam had to eat eggs or she’d lose her milk, and Daniel would be charging around with rolls of paper in his hands coming up with reasons why he couldn’t change Ellie, and Sam would tie Ellie on her back while she was looking at Daniel’s latest plan for something or other, and there wouldn’t be a moment’s peace until midnight.

  But for now — blessed quiet. He could just sit here, drink his breakfast and fish.

  “O’Neill?”

  Jack closed his eyes. Yep. That was that. “Hey, Teal’c.”

  Teal’c came down the dock and regarded him solemnly. He was wearing a shenti, one of the white linen kilts that was just about the only thing Egyptian men wore most of the time, but it looked good on him. He had the height and the chest to carry it off. To look good in a shenti you really needed washboard abs.

  Which was why Jack had stuck to pants as long as possible. But somewhere in the second year the only pair he had pretty much fell to pieces, and his attempts at tailoring had resulted in linen boxers and a big tunic like a kurta, which made people die laughing when they saw him. It had taken Daniel a month to explain that it was because here only eunuchs would wear anything like that. And so in the interests of avoiding misunderstandings, like being taken for two nuts short of a pound, he’d given up on the kurta unless it was really cold. The boxers were more or less the same length as a shenti, but gave a greater feeling of security.

  Teal’c laid his head to the side, the necklace of links of pure gold around his neck shifting. “You are not occupied?”

  “No, come pull up a piece of dock,” Jack said. “It’s nice and quiet.”

  “They are not awake at the house yet,” Teal’c said, but didn’t sit down. Obviously he was going somewhere important, and sitting on the dock he’d get dirt all over the back of his shenti. With his torso bare, the x of the symbiote pouch on his stomach showed starkly, and the faint scar where Apophis’s tattoo had been was suddenly visible on his forehead. “I wondered if I might speak with you alone for a few moments.”

  Jack frowned. Nothing good started that way. “Shoot,” he said.

  “I had hoped that this eventuality would not occur for many years, but I was wrong.” Teal’c looked out over the river, his hands behind his back. “I hoped, when I first thought that it might be so, that I was mistaken. But I am not. And so I must come to you, and trust that you will do what is necessary when the time comes.”

  Jack put down the beer. “What are we talking about here?”

  Teal’c lifted his head, kohl rimmed eyes a little suspiciously bright. “My symbiote is maturing.”

  “I don’t…”

  “It is maturing, O’Neill. When it does, it will be an adult Goa’uld. And it will take a host. It will find a first host of its choosing and it will force them to serve it. And I will die.” Teal’c’s deep voice was calm. “When it happens, when the symbiote leaves me, you must kill it so that it can harm no one.”

  Jack frowned. “OK, two things. What if I’m not there when it gets ready.”

  “I have anticipated that,” Teal’c said, his eyes on the far shore. “That is why it is best to remove it preemptively and kill it.”

  Jack blinked. “Won’t that kill you?”

  “I will die without a symbiote in any event, O’Neill. It is better that it is done in such a way that the symbiote has no chance to harm anyone else.” He glanced back to the low mud brick house above the flood line, nestled among the palm trees. “It will choose from those closest to it. I do not want there to be a shadow of a chance…” His voice trailed off.

  “That it could take Sam or Daniel or Aset or…”

  “Or you, O’Neill. It must be done soon if there is to be no risk. That is why I am speaking with you. You are the only one who is capable of killing me.” Teal’c half turned, looking down at Jack. “Will you not do this for me, my brother? Before there is any chance it harms those I love?”

  Jack swallowed. “OK,” he said. “Hold on here. I have to kill the symbiote. I’m good with that. But ordinarily wouldn’t you just trade up for a new, immature symbiote? Isn�
�t that what Jaffa usually do?”

  “It is indeed,” Teal’c said. “And what I should do, were there any other symbiotes on the planet. But the surviving Jaffa who served Ra were herded through the Stargate, and the Pharaoh Narmer killed the immature spawn who remained as we advised. It is not possible to simply take on another symbiote.” He shook his head. “I will die, O’Neill. I have known that. But I thought it would be many years before this symbiote matured.” He glanced at him sideways, and the corner of his mouth quirked. “It is not difficult to forget an evil day which one expects to be many years in the future when the present is sweet.”

  “Yeah.” It had certainly occurred to Jack that he probably didn’t have as many years left to him as he would in his own time, in a world with modern medicine, but there wasn’t much point in thinking about that. He was fifty-five, not dead. He had quite a few good years left to him, and he meant to enjoy them. Yeah, he knew objectively he’d probably never see Ellie grown, but it wasn’t like he expected to keel over tomorrow either. And Daniel and Sam were young. They’d be around for Ellie for a long time.

  “It must be,” Teal’c said quietly. “Swear to me that when the moment comes you will do as you must, before it can harm any other.” His eyes met Jack’s. “Swear it to me, O’Neill. That you will not let this Goa’uld take a host.”

  Jack swallowed again. “OK,” he said. “I swear. But let’s think through some options before we get there, buddy.”

  “There are no options.” A shade of impatience crept into Teal’c’s voice. “There are no other symbiotes.”

  “On Earth,” Jack said.

  Teal’c’s eyebrows rose. “The Stargate is buried for a very good reason.”

  “Yeah, but it’s been buried for three years. Ra’s probably gotten tired of trying it. We could dig it up for a quick recon. What are the chances he’d dial in if it were open for a couple of hours?”

  “That is a grave risk for one man,” Teal’c said. “It is not a good decision.”

  “Neither is letting you die,” Jack said.

  Chapter One

  Cheyenne Mountain

  2008 AD

  Colonel Cameron Mitchell picked up a very ugly statue of a pig and looked at it. He hoped it wasn’t a very ugly statue of a pig. “What’s this?” he asked.

  Daniel Jackson didn’t look up from his computer monitor. “Pig,” he said, still typing furiously.

  “Right.” Mitchell put the statue down and wandered around the worktable. All four walls of Jackson’s office were lined with bookcases, and the table was piled high with more books, knickknacks, strange pieces of pottery, weird bits of wood and cloth, and a couple of spare clips of 9-millimeter ammunition. He picked up one book and glanced at it before he realized he didn’t even read the alphabet. Cyrillic. OK. He put it down and picked up the next one, glancing over at Jackson, who was still absorbed in whatever was on his computer and read a few paragraphs.

  “Daniel, who’s Narmer?”

  “Egyptian pharaoh, first dynasty.” He didn’t look up.

  Mitchell squinted at the black and white photo of an old carving of a king in a big hat blasting somebody with what looked suspiciously like a staff weapon. “Who’s this Scorpion King dude that Narmer killed? He looks like a Goa’uld.”

  “He probably was.” Daniel pushed his glasses up on his nose but didn’t glance over. “My best theory is that the myth of Narmer and the Scorpion King holds a kernel of memory of the actual victory of the Egyptians over Ra, the rebellion that succeeded in driving the Goa’uld from Earth in about 3,000 BC.” His hands flew over his keyboard, typing at way better than temp speed. “Pity Narmer didn’t live to enjoy his victory very long. He died soon after unifying the kingdom, leaving the throne to his son, Hor-Aha, whose reign was very troubled.” Daniel frowned. “It’s a very murky time. Not a great deal is known. There were wars and disturbances of some kind, but we really don’t know much about it.” He finally stopped and looked up. “Why?”

  Mitchell shrugged, the book in his hand. “No reason. It’s not important.”

  “It wouldn’t be to you,” Daniel said. “I can’t imagine why you’d ever care.”

  Mitchell winced. “Jinx.”

  Daniel’s fingers flew over the keyboard again. “What?”

  “Jinx. Whenever somebody says that something’s not important, I know it’s going to bite me in the ass.”

  “How in the hell can Hor-Aha, Narmer and the Scorpion King bite you in the ass?”

  “SG-1 to the gateroom.” Walter’s voice echoed over the intercom. “SG-1 to the gateroom.”

  “Finally,” Mitchell said, dropping the book on the table. “Carter’s through with her gate diagnostic and we can get a move on.”

  Daniel hit save and turned off his monitor as he stood up. “So we’re off to Ba’al’s secret installation?”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Mitchell said, preceding Daniel out the door and waiting for him to turn off the lights and lock it. “SG-14 said that was their best guess. So we’re going to go take a look.”

  “That ought to be easy,” Daniel said, shrugging his jacket on and pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Jinx,” Mitchell said.

  Sam and Teal’c were already in the gateroom and geared up, a couple of heavy looking boxes on the floor beside them. “What’s that stuff?” Mitchell asked.

  “Equipment,” Sam said, her P90 at port arms. “SG-14 said the installation was a treasure trove of Goa’uld technology. I’d like to get started taking a good look at it as soon as possible.”

  “Right.” Mitchell picked up his own weapon. It was a good idea to be ready for trouble even when that seemed unlikely. After all, the installation had already been secured by other SG teams, and it had been completely unoccupied when they found it. Still, the thing about the system lords was that you could never count on a secret base staying unoccupied. Even if they were right, and this was one of Ba’al’s, somebody besides them would be eager to get their hands on it.

  “Let’s see what we’ve got,” Daniel said, shrugging into his tac vest. “Ba’al’s toys are always so much fun.” His voice was fairly dripping with sarcasm, and Mitchell caught Sam giving him a quick sideways look, as though there were some history there he wasn’t aware of.

  Which there probably was. Even though he’d been with SG-1 for more than three years now, Cam still felt like the new guy sometimes. Sam and Daniel and Teal’c had been doing this together for almost twelve years. Well, give or take last year when Sam had been in Atlantis and the year Daniel had been dead. You couldn’t say the job didn’t have some weird moments.

  “Where’s Vala?” Sam asked, looking around.

  “Remember the guy who was Ba’al’s host?” Mitchell asked.

  Sam winced. “Vividly.”

  “Vala went back to spend some more time with him,” Mitchell said. “She talked to him after the extraction ceremony and she said he was having a rough time. She promised she’d come back in a couple of days and talk some more. You know. Been there, done that.” Vala had once been host to the Goa’uld Quetesh, so she’d been there and done that in the most literal sense. A lot of people wouldn’t want to be reminded of what that had been like, but that was Vala for you, one of the things he liked best about her. She might talk a tough show, but helping this guy had been her idea. “I told her it was cool if she wanted to go today. We don’t have anything big planned.”

  Sam nodded. “OK.”

  He supposed he ought to have said something to her first, another one of the weird little currents around here. Technically, Sam ranked him. But then technically she wasn’t posted to SG-1. Landry had had no idea what to do with her when the IOA dismissed her from Atlantis with no warning. He’d had her back at the SGC in a heartbeat of course, but she was assigned to the base, not the team. Assigning her to SG-1 would have pulled the rug out from under Mitchell. Luckily, he and Sam had always gotten along super well, since they’d been in the sa
me flight at the Academy Mitchell’s first year, in 1988. Sam had been a junior, and she’d been really good to him.

  Up in the control room, General Landry was standing by the glass window that overlooked the gateroom. “Colonel Mitchell, you have a go whenever you’re ready.”

  Mitchell nodded sharply. At least O’Neill wasn’t still here. He’d gone back to DC a couple of days ago. Much as Mitchell admired the guy, it was kind of nerve wracking getting on with business in front of him. He’d been a legend when Cam took command of SG-1, the guy with the biggest shoes on the block that Cam was now expected to fill. In the last three years he’d eased up a little. He knew he was doing a good job, and Landry concurred. Every time he’d seen O’Neill, the guy had been nothing but nice.

  But still. O’Neill was a major general as well as a legend. Last week he’d gone with them to Ba’al’s extraction ceremony, in which the symbiote Ba’al was for once and all removed from its host and finished. Mitchell hadn’t had anything to do except look attentive, but it had still been nerve wracking. Even though O’Neill had taken them all to lunch afterwards. Cam was definitely not in the ‘pal around with a living legend’ place yet.

  They waited while the coordinates were dialed and the chevrons locked, while the blue flare of the Stargate whooshed open and the wormhole stabilized. Sam and Daniel were talking about the dialect of Goa’uld used on some control interfaces. Right. Mitchell looked at Teal’c. “So basically we’ve got nothing to do on this one.”

  “It is to be devoutly hoped,” Teal’c said. It was hard to tell if that was supposed to be a joke or not.

  They stepped through the Stargate into a huge chamber that appeared to be carved out of solid rock. “Not that different from the gateroom in Cheyenne Mountain,” Mitchell said.

  “That may be where he got the idea,” Daniel replied. He was already stepping away from the gate, his eyes roving around. “As security goes…” His voice trailed off.