1 - The Dead Planet
Soft blue patterns danced across the walls, the light from the Stargate filling the dark, empty room with movement. Four ponies, almost silhouettes in their Special-Forces black uniforms, emerged through the rippling event horizon, before being plunged into darkness as the Gate shut down again.
"Good morning, campers," Colonel Jack O'Neill said as he fumbled with his vest in the dark, "and welcome to P5E-862. The weather today is... dark, and we hope you all enjoy your stay."
He found his flashlight and turned it on, wincing at the sudden burst of light hitting his eyes. He then tucked it under one of his camouflage-green wings and turned slowly round, surveying the rest of the room.
One by one, three more flashlights turned on, their beams darting around the room's walls, whose smooth, matte black surfaces seemed to soak up the light as it fell on them. Apart from a single door opposite the Gate, they were completely blank.
"So, what've we got here?" Jack said.
"It looks like a dark and mysterious room."
"Thank you, Daniel. Teal'c, you got anything?"
"I do not recognise the architecture," the golden-brown earth-pony Jaffa replied. He had walked over to one of the walls and was running his hoof over its surface, examining the subtle warping patterns that covered it.
"It's not Goa'uld, then?" Jack asked.
"I am unsure, Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c replied. "If it were of Goa'uld origin, there would likely be writings to indicate this structure's purpose. But the surface does appear to be damaged somehow."
"Maybe the writing was removed," Daniel suggested, "like what Osiris did to the records on Abydos."
"Perhaps," Teal'c said. "But if so, for what reason?"
Jack wandered over to one of the other walls to have a look himself, giving the MALP an idle kick as he passed. He gave the wall a knock with his hoof, and it rang like sheet metal.
"Alright then," he said. "You two go on ahead, see if you can find any writing on the wall." Daniel shrugged and headed for the door, Teal'c nodding and following behind the blue earth pony. Once they had left, Jack turned to Samantha Carter, who was still stood by the Gate. The lavender-coloured unicorn had already pulled out a small scanner and was sweeping it slowly around the room. "Major," he said, "what do we know about this planet?"
"I'm not reading any additional life-signs near the Gate," she said, looking up, "although I'm picking up the same faint power readings the MALP was detecting. Everything else was in Daniel's report," she added.
"...Right," Jack said, a look of comprehension absent from his face. "Care to run it past me again?"
With a sigh, Sam smiled and tucked the scanner away in a pocket, walking over to join him.
"Reports indicate that Zipacna's been gaining power recently by absorbing parts of Cronus and Apophis' armies after we killed them a few months ago," she explained.
"Ah, good times," Jack said.
"Yes," Carter continued, chuckling, "but he's still having trouble establishing himself as a major player among the System Lords, and there are rumours that he's trying to track down some sort of legendary ancient superweapon in order to use it to gain more influence."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "I do love a good superweapon," he said. "So he thinks it's here?"
"That's what Bra'tac was told," Sam replied, "but all he was able to give us was this Gate address. All we really know about this planet is that it's not one of the addresses listed on the Abydos cartouche."
Jack nodded, heading toward the door. "So we're looking for a big honkin' space gun, then," he said.
"Not necessarily," Carter said, following behind him. "It could be anything from a—" Jack gave her a look, "—yes sir. But if Zipacna's already here, we need to destroy it before it falls into his hooves."
"We destroy it as a last resort," Jack said. "I'd rather not blow up a new toy. But… yes, our priority is to stop Zippy getting his hooves on it. Whatever it is."
Passing through the door, Jack found himself in a small antechamber with a second door on the other side opening onto a long, wide corridor, the walls and floor made of the same smooth material as in the Gate room. Daniel was sat in one corner examining a Dial-Home Device.
"It looks intact," he said as Jack entered.
"We won't be needing the Naquadah generator to dial out after all, then," Sam said.
Jack nodded. "Good, it might come in handy as an explosive."
"Explosive?" Daniel asked, looking up and straightening his glasses.
"In case we need to destroy the superweapon before Zipacna can use it," Sam explained, walking through to join them.
"Right," Daniel said, sitting down wearily. "I do so love destroying the last remnants of long-dead civilisations."
"Not to mention a potentially very advanced piece of technology," Sam added.
"Colonel O'Neill!" Teal'c called from somewhere further down the corridor. Jack gladly took the diversion and left the two doctors debating what was going to be most tragic about this mission, walking through into the corridor where Teal'c's voice had come from, but he froze immediately as the beam from his flashlight fell on the floor.
"Whoa," he said.
Whatever had happened in the Gate room had hit this part of the ship a hundredfold. The walls and ceiling looked like they had been melted away; pools of metal had gathered and solidified across the floor around the walls, and holes had opened up in places exposing a lattice of support structures and conduits behind. Something had definitely attacked this place, and whatever it was had been very thorough.
Treading carefully around the lumps on the floor he made his way toward Teal'c's position, musing about whether it was some universal rule that giant superweapons were always on destroyed planets. Hopefully this one wouldn't be guarded by jumpy energy beings like the last one.
"Found something, T'?" he said.
"Indeed I have," Teal'c replied. He was standing in a faint column of light that was shining through a doorway leading off to the left. The Jaffa stepped to the side and Jack looked through to the view beyond, his eyes going wide.
"Holy… buckets."
The room beyond was about the same size as the Gate room, and with about the same level of damage, but the most striking difference was the window covering the entirety of the far wall, looking out into empty space. At the bottom of the vista a planet could be seen turning slowly beneath them.
"We're on a spaceship?" Jack said.
"It would appear so, Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c replied. "It does indeed seem to be of Goa'uld origin," he continued, nodding to a pedestal placed in the centre of the room and throne set against the opposite wall. "This appears to be the Pel'tak."
Jack nodded, thinking. "That's a twist," he said. "Well, maybe the ship's computer's got some information we could use. I'll get Carter to—"
"Jack!" Daniel called, running down toward them with Sam close behind. "I found some writing hidden behind the DHD!" he stammered. "It's really old, but I managed to translate some of it, and I think—"
"—we're on a spaceship." Jack finished.
"Yeah," Daniel said, reaching the door and looking through. "How did you… oh."
He and Sam walked through the door and went over to the window, staring down at the planet below. Jack gave them a few moments to admire the view, then, pulling a cap out of his vest pocket and pulling it down over his short, greying mane, said "Okay, you two find a power switch and see what you can get out of the computer. Teal'c and I are going to take a look around."
Carter turned in surprise. "Sir," she said. "This ship could be centuries old! I don't even know if it's got enough power left!"
"I have complete faith in you, Major," Jack said, turning and heading down the corridor. "Come on Teal'c. This ship won't explore itself."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow, then turned and left as well.
"Well, you've done trickier things," Daniel commented.
"Don't remind me," Carter said.
Ten minutes later, Carter was buried up to her haunches in a wall panel which the two of them had managed to pry open. With nothing else to do, Daniel was passing the time by watching the planet passing below them.
He had figured it was unlikely that he'd see signs of civilisation from this high up, but it wasn't often that one got to see a planet from orbit, and he'd hoped that there might be at least some interesting features on the surface. But to his disappointment the planet was entirely covered in featureless, sandy desert. There were a some lines of rock criss-crossing the surface here and there, but other than that it was completely blank.
"It doesn't look like the home of an ancient and powerful culture," he mused. "Maybe it was another mining colony, like Abydos."
"What was that?" Sam called from the wall.
"Never mind." Getting bored with watching the planet, he turned his attention to the rest of the room. Like with any Goa'uld ship, the bridge was quite sparse technology-wise. Having control panels everywhere spoiled the illusion that the gods propelled the ship through space by sheer force of will, after all. There was a single pedestal in the centre of the room, however, no doubt where the pilot would have stood. A number of crystals stuck up from the surface, their corners cracked and broken, presumably because of whatever had damaged everything else. If everything on the ship was like this, Daniel doubted it would be going anywhere any time soon.
"I really don't think we're going to learn much from ship in the state it's in," he said to Sam. "We should probably try to go down to the—"
The lights came on suddenly, cutting him off mid-sentence. Sam pushed herself out from the wall and stood up, smiling triumphantly.
"Power's back on," she said somewhat redundantly. "Shall we take a look at the computer?"
Daniel gestured toward the viewscreen. "After you," he said.
Sam raised her eyebrows, took a deep breath and walked over to the centre of the room. Standing in front of the pedestal, she closed her eyes and focussed on her magic.
As SG-1's resident mage and scientist, it always fell to her to interface with Goa'uld technology. She was after all the only member of the team who could connect directly to the magical interfaces. Of course, having traces of Jolinar of Malkshur in her system helped as well.
The computer took a bit longer than usual to respond as it warmed up, but after a few seconds she felt it returning her pings. She opened her eyes and picked the simplest command she could think of, attempting to call up the most recent active screen.
A holographic map suddenly appeared, filling the entire window in front of them. In the centre shone a star, with a number of concentric rings encircling it.
"This must be where we are," Daniel said, walking up to the map and pointing at a pulsing red dot sitting on the second ring out.
"I think it's running a sensor sweep," Sam said. "It's not picking up any other ships in the system. Well, no active ones at least, but who knows how many more wrecks there could be out there."
"So Zipacna isn't here yet," Daniel said hopefully.
"It looks that way. Unless he came by Gate, but it doesn't look like anypony's been through here in a long time."
Daniel stared pensively at the red dot. "Does it have any information about the planet?" he asked.
"Give me a moment," Sam said, closing her eyes in concentration. The magic aura surrounding her horn pulsed, and then the map zoomed in suddenly on the dot. After a few seconds, the sphere of the planet expanded to fill the view, with the red dot sitting in orbit above it. To Daniel's surprise, the planet appeared first as a blue-green garden world, before flickering and being replaced by the familiar image they could see out the window.
"That was weird," he said. "Problems with the computer?" he asked, turning to Carter.
"I'm not sure," she said, opening her eyes. "I'm having trouble understanding the interface because it's so old. I can try to find more about the planet, but with the shift in language I'm not sure if I'd even know what to look for."
Daniel nodded. "Well, bring something up," he said. "At least we can start working on translation."
"Alright," Sam said, closing her eyes again. "Let's see what I can find."
Long strings of symbols started flashing across the screen as Sam moved through the ship's file system trying to find anything they might be able to use. Daniel stared blankly at them, trying to catch anything useful as they scrolled past.
"You know," he said as he waited. "A dangerous world, not found on the cartouche… this reminds me of something."
"Yeah, I thought of that as well," Sam replied. "But do you think Zipacna would really try to—"
A small vibration pulsed through the bulkheads. Sam lost her balance, and her concentration, and the screen disappeared.
"That didn't feel good," Daniel said.
Their radios crackled to life. "Everypony okay back there?" came Jack's voice through the speakers.
"We're fine," Sam said. "I don't think it was us, but…"
She hesitated. She and Daniel exchanged worried looks.
"Well, Sir," she continued, "We really have no idea what state this ship is in. Any number of systems could be damaged beyond repair."
"And we just turned the power on…" Daniel said, looking at the open hole in the wall.
Then, in an instant, the stillness was gone. The entire ship rocked, throwing Sam and Daniel off their hooves. Terrible scraping sounds filled the air as if the walls were trying to tear themselves apart.
"Fall back!" Jack shouted through the radio, but they didn't need to be told. Daniel had already jumped to his hooves and was bolting to the door, missing the frame by an inch as the ship lurched and tried to throw him down again. He galloped down the corridor, vaulting over great lumps of metal in the flickering light.
Sam stumbled out behind him moments later, chasing after him towards the Gate room.
"Dial us out of here!" she yelled. "The whole ship's falling apart!"
Daniel stumbled to a halt at the DHD and scanned across its face trying to find the point of origin. Spotting it at the top next to serpens kaput, he immediately started dialling the address he'd entered so many times he could almost do it with his eyes closed. With the sounds of the ship breaking apart getting louder and louder in his ears and the lights struggling to stay on, he began to wonder if he'd actually have to.
Sam burst through the door as he was hitting the third symbol, falling to the ground under the force of another tremor before picking herself up again and running for the Gate room.
"Almost there!" Daniel shouted as she passed.
But before she had reached the door, the ship lurched to the side, throwing them both hard against the wall. A shutter slammed down over the door to the Gate room, completely sealing the bulkhead.
"No!" Sam shouted.
Then there was an almighty shriek from inside the walls. Sam knew the sound of metal tearing and snapping under the strain of unimaginable forces, and felt her life flashing before her eyes. She prayed that the bulkheads would hold.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The ship went dead and silent, and the lights shut off completely.
"Are we dead?" Daniel said after a long pause.
"I… don't think so," Sam answered.
Moments later, the lights flickered back on. The room looked unchanged, in spite of what had just happened. Sam stood up and limped over to the sealed door, pulling open a control panel concealed next to it and trying to open it up again.
Jack galloped into the room, followed closely by Teal'c.
"What the hell just happened?" he barked.
"I was dialling the Gate," Daniel said, looking down at the DHD where three symbols were still lit up, "and then the door sealed itself."
"Yeah, I noticed that," he said, turning to Carter. "Can you get it open, Major?" he asked.
"It's not responding to manual controls," she said, poking at the panel with her hoof. "There's something blocking the interface."
O'Neill marched over to the door, making a good attempt at staring it open.
"We need that Gate, Major," he said.
"I know, Colonel," she replied. She held her horn up to the panel and tried to get it to respond to magic, but every spell she tried just bounced back at her.
"There's some sort of safety override blocking my access," she said. "I can't open it."
"Dammit," Jack growled, banging his head against the door in frustration with a dull thud. Sam started at the sound, turning and looking at him with a concerned expression.
"Do that again," she said.
Jack lifted his head up and gave her a confused look. "What?"
"Just… hit the door again."
Jack raised an eyebrow sceptically. He took a step back and knocked the door with his hoof. The bulkhead responded with a disturbingly empty sound.
"Uh oh," Sam said. She turned and galloped away again toward the bridge, leaving the other three in mutual confusion.
"Uh oh what?" Jack called after her.
"I guess we should follow her," Daniel said.
When they reached the bridge Sam had brought up the map again, showing the zoomed view of the planet. It looked exactly as it had before, except where there had previously been a single red dot marking the ship's location, there were now two.
"Uh oh," Daniel echoed.
"Will you ponies stop saying that?" Jack groaned. "Somepony please explain what's going on."
Carter turned to face him, looking apologetic, and after taking a deep breath said, "Colonel, when we turned the power on, one of six primary power generators became unstable and overloaded. The resulting explosion tore the ship apart down the middle." She gestured at the map, where the two dots were sitting next to each other above the planet, drifting slowly away from each other. "The two halves are still in stable orbits, and both have power, so they won't burn up in the atmosphere for a year at least."
Jack walked up to the map and examined the dots. Only one of them was pulsing; he took a wild guess that they were on that one. "I assume," he said, pointing at the other, "the Stargate's over there."
"No, sir," Sam replied.
With a burst of magic from her horn, she pulled the map out to show the space surrounding the ship. A number of smaller dots began to appear, moving quickly out away from the ship.
"The Stargate was right on the seam," Sam continued. "It, along with a number of sizeable sections of the ship, got blasted out of orbit by the explosion."
The map zoomed out further, until it showed the entire inner solar system. A thin line started to track away from the planet; Jack followed it with his eyes, getting a sinking feeling as he saw where it was headed.
"It's been captured by the gravity of this system's primary," Sam said. "In a little over fourteen hours, the Stargate will have fallen into the sun."
The line continued on until it reached the star, then stopped dead.
The four of them stared in silence at the line, watching their only way home slowly drifting towards its eventual destruction. Jack pulled his cap off and wiped his brow with it.
"Oy," he groaned. "This is starting to feel like a bad day."
"Indeed," Teal'c said.
"Now what?" Daniel asked, walking up next to him and looking at the map.
Jack stood in silence for a few moments, weighing up their options and noticing just how few there were. In the end he could only think of one thing to do: keep moving.
"Are there rings on the planet?" he asked.
There was silence. He turned and looked back at Carter. "Major?"
"Uh, sorry," Sam said, dazed. Her horn's aura pulsed and the map zoomed in on the planet again. A blue line formed between the ship and a point on the surface below.
"I'm reading one set of rings below us, and there's a set on the ship not far from—"
"That's our plan then," Jack said before she could finish. "We go down to the planet and find out what's there. Here's my wish list: first, another Stargate. Failing that, a ship with a hyperdrive. Failing that, a ship without a hyperdrive that we can jump to the Gate from."
The others exchanged glances. Jack ignored them.
"And failing that?" Carter asked.
Jack shrugged. "Well, Zipacna should arrive eventually," he said. "Maybe he'll give us a lift."
"A lift," Daniel said.
"Sure. Why not."
Carter rubbed her forehead. "Yes, sir," she said after a few moments.
Jack stepped through the holographic screen and up to the window, looking down at the planet below. He figured that it was better than nothing, but, looking at its barren surface, he wasn't entirely convinced.
The transport rings lifted back up into the ceiling leaving SG-1, weapons ready at their sides, alone in yet another strange room.
"Clear," Jack said once he was satisfied. The four of them relaxed. Jack unclipped his P-90 from its strap and rested it on the ground, then stopped to survey his new surroundings for the second time.
They were in what looked like the entrance to a temple. Huge, decaying stone columns flanked them on either side, covered from floor to ceiling in intricate carved inscriptions. There was a single door at either end of the room; one was blocked off with rubble, while the other led into the open air. Beyond it the sun was sitting near the horizon, its light shining directly down the middle of the chamber.
"This looks more promising," Daniel said, wiping his glasses and going to admire the nearest column. Tea,'c following. Jack headed to the door to have a look at the surrounding area, but before he was able to look round for conveniently-placed spaceports, his attention was drawn to something much closer. As he stepped outside he felt something soft under his hooves, and he looked down to find himself standing on a thick bed of grass and moss.
"Huh," he said.
Sam appeared next to him.
"That's odd," she said, poking at the grass with her hoof and giving it a sniff. "I guess it's not all desert," she added. "Fells a bit dry, but at least we won't starve if we're stuck here."
"We're getting off this rock," Jack said in his best attempt at a reassuring tone.
"Yes sir," Sam replied, unconvinced.
"I can think of worse places to be stuck, though," he conceded.
He welcomed the silence that followed, allowing himself a few moments to admire the view and take in some fresh air before they began the task of trying to escape. He had almost managed to forget why they had come here in the first place, when…
"Colonel O'Neill!"
He closed his eyes and sighed, the moment of peace shattered. "What is it, Teal'c?" he said, turning to find the Jaffa staring at something on one of the columns with what almost looked like fear.
"We should not be here," he said.
"Yeah, I got that," Jack replied. "Any particular reason?"
"No, he's right," Daniel said, moving over next to Teal'c and staring up at the inscription. "I think you need to hear this."
"Well go on then," Jack said impatiently.
"Uh," Daniel said, scanning over the writing. "It's a welcome for travellers," he said. "'Welcome, worshippers and subjects, to the temple of the Great God Ra.'"
"Ra?" Sam asked, walking up next to them. "The first system lord?"
"Yeah," Daniel said, nodding excitedly in spite of the situation. "Of course we've only heard of him through legend and writing…"
"Right, right," Jack interrupted. "Ra died thousands of years ago; I've heard this before. Why is this important?"
Teal'c turned to face him. "There are many Jaffa legends concerning the death of Ra," he said. "There is little agreement on how he was killed, or by whom, but they are all in agreement on where he died."
"Right, that's the important part," Daniel continued, turning back to the inscription. "'…the Great God Ra, Lord of the sun, saviour of ponykind, and supreme ruler… of all Equestria.'"
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This should be interesting.
This right here is classic Jack/Daniel interaction.
Uhhh, excuse me, but Jack killed Ra. With a nuclear warhead. In the original Stargate. On the planet with the cartouche.
OH, I WAS THE 666TH VIEW?!
Uh oh...
We don't know they are on a ship yet.
Well this got a rewrite while I wasn't looking. Also, I think the biggest difference would be that Ra died before O'Niell blew up his ship with a nuke...
Which begs the question about the start of the series and re-activation of Col. O'Neill...
I mean, there's a logical correlation there; kind of hard to destroy things without a weapon.
Celestia is dead? Or just retired perhaps?
Huh... That is a spin of the series I never see before ♡