Chapter Text
A Call to Arms
By: Lopaka Tanu
Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with Stargate.
Fandom: Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Martouf/Daniel
Category: Slash. Open AU.
Warnings: Violence, Language,
Summary: In the sudden silence that has filled the galaxy after the Goa'uld were wiped out, life for those who survived the war is stagnating. The Tok'ra are now trying to prevent the former slaves from killing themeselves and everyone else. Colonization of the galaxy has provided the SGC with a distraction, giving everyone something to do. It is to this that Daniel has come home to.... and from this he wishes to flee.
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It was surreal for him, stepping through the gate on his first mission in over two years. Though, to him, it had only been a month since the battle on Nasia, it felt like a life time ago. There had been so many changes in the world, the galaxy, he still didn't know up from down after a month. May be in time he would feel normal again, but for now it was still hard to believe.
There was a kind of wonder to the world while he was still adjusting. He was easily distracted by this new galaxy of sensations. In fact, he found himself staring off in to distances, lost in thoughts, often. That was the reason he was not the senior archeologist on this mission despite his greater knowledge of the people.
Blinking in confusion, he realized he had done it again. Starting down the monument steps that led to the alien world's gate, he headed for the once grand city. Monuments littered once pristeen streets, buildings laid in rubble where tremors had felled them. The city once looked like Memphis in the ancient days of Earth, the seat of the capital of Egypt during the time of the Goa'uld.
That was something he was having a hard time accepting. The goa'uld were gone and they weren't coming back. After a year of heart stopping danger every time he stepped through the gate, the instincts of that time were hard to suppress. He still kept a tight grip on the weapon they let him have more out of routine than any threat.
"Daniel, come along, young man. This site will not tell us about itself without a little help." Dr. Margaret Weissman was the leading archeologist in dynastic Egyptian worlds at the StarGate Command, thus she had seniority over Daniel now. The fact she had held the post shorter than Daniel meant nothing to her or the others. According to them, he had been dead for two years and was more than a little out of the loop. He needed a guiding hand in her opinion.
Daniel looking almost ten years younger than he should didn't help matters much either. How long he had laid in that sarcophagus was unknown to him, but the side effects were obvious. It was still a mystery just how he had come to be taken from his crypt on Abydos to the abandoned world of Mycenea. Not that he wasn't grateful to whomever had resurrected him.
Fingering the scars on the back of his neck, he wondered why they had left the sutures in when they removed the goa'uld and placed him in the box. It was strange... He blinked as the light in front of him faded out and reappeared several times. "Jack, cut that out!"
"Daniel. This is your first mission since the docs cleared you, try not to get your ass put back up on blocks before we knock the rust off ya, hunh?" Giving his friend a frown, Jack shook his head. Daniel had been doing the Zombie thing every day since they rescued him and it was more than annoying. Granted, the spells were becoming less frequent, but they were still a problem. "Look, we are here on this cake walk because you wanted to get back in the action. If you aren't ready, we will understand."
"I can handle it, Jack, just back off. As you said, this mission is a cake walk, nothing can go wrong. I've been dead these past two years and I am still trying to grasp the fact that I won't have to worry if there is a goa'uld about to jump out from behind the nearest pillar and cackle like a bad villain." Moving off in a huff, Daniel stepped around the man and continued on down the central avenue.
On either side of the wide street, buildings were more or less entact enough to make out what exactly their function was. It was the largest of these that drew his attention now. A great freeze took up the entire side of the building and was covered in hieroglyphics. He quickly scanned the entire surface and grinned over at Dr. Weissman. "This should prove interesting."
"Yes, just as soon as we figure out what it says," she replied distractedly. She was busy using the lense on her camera to study the top of the freeze.
"That was the easy part once I figured out the dialect." Daniel was too busy rubbing a finger down the side of a groove in the freeze to notice Margaret's shock. "The Goa'uld Seti II was a pharaoh on Earth before he ascended the throne of the stars. He wasn't very renown there, but apparently he was favored enough by Ra that he was given this world. Not much of a planet now, is it?"
"No, it's not." Tamping down on her natural impulse to interogate Daniel at a look from Jack, Margaret went back to scanning the freeze with her camera. This was certainly going in her report.
"We can go back now, Jack, you won't find anything here." Turning to face Jack, Daniel sighed in disappointment. He held his finger up to show the man the paint flecs from the freeze. "This city wasn't inhabited long and the planet was unimportant, any archeological evidence is worthless."
"Are you sure, Daniel?" Inside he was two steps away from jumping for joy, but only if he got the right responce.
Daniel nodded. "Ra abandoned it after he gave it to Seti II. When he left, most of his important people did too. This world was never much, but when Ra left, it became just another planet beyond the fringes. Seti II abandoned it for a posting under Apophis twenty years after taking command. He took with him the only thing of importance when he left, the people." Sighing, he waved a hand in disgust of the buildings. "There is nothing to learn here you can't get back on Earth in a hundred different places in Egypt. The paint wasn't even finished on this freeze before it was abandoned."
"Finally! Daniel, you finally get it!" Smiling largely at Daniel, Jack swept him up in a bear hug. "They're just rocks!"
"No, Jack, this world is just worthless." Despite himself, Daniel laughed at Jack's antics. That much he still knew of the world, Jack being a smart ass. "There isn't anything beyond this city and this city was just a fancy of Seti II when he took command. He was a terrible architech and most of these buildings prove it."
Sighing with over exagerated disappointment, Jack shook his head. "Well, it's a start, I guess. Come on, Daniel, your gate awaits."
"Lead on, oh mighty Jack." Daniel rubbed at the scars again as he followed Jack back up the avenue to the stargate. It wasn't exactly a gut feeling, but he knew he had never read or heard about this planet in his travels with SG-1. There were times like this he wondered what exactly the goa'uld had left in him when it died.
Watching them go, Dr. Weissman frowned in anger. Her two assistants were on either side of her with their photographic equipment and understood her rage. This had been set up to be their pet project for over a month now and in less than twenty minutes it had been deciphered and discarded by one of their own as worthless. Today, Daniel had made yet another enemy. She began to understand why he had been so easy to dismiss in their field of study four years ago.
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There was little warning before the explosion rocked the base. In her lab, Sam grit her teeth over the mouth piece she had requisitioned for this very event. The blasting they were doing to get at the Naquadah in the mines ten miles outside the base's perimeter had driven her to griding her teeth. After her second chipped tooth, she decided that seeing a dentist was less painful than giving up her lab.
She would have prefered to do her research on another world, but the potential destructive nature had prevented it from any of the inhabited colonies. The remoteness of P3R-997 and the ready supply of the gate element made it the ideal location. They only blasted at certain times of the day and always signaled the base before detonation, so it was tolerable.
Spitting out the mouth piece, she walked over to the sink to wash it and her chin. There were two other people in her lab, but they were at their own sinks. Seems she had set a trend for the whole base with the mouth pieces. Sam smiled, she liked being looked up to.
Setting the rubber piece back in the container on the sink, she closed the lid and walked back to her lab table. Today they were going over decay rates in the Naquadah to see if they could harness enough energy to replace the drive on an X301. The sub-light engines in the last test had failed because of the faulty programming and nearly killed her best test pilot. Thankfully, the Tok'ra had been in orbit for a safety net.
If she could replace the engine, she could design a more Earth friendly air craft. Their first orbital ship was looking more and more realistic. The sad fact of the matter was, despite the access to the advanced technology, they still hadn't a ship that wasn't borrowed from the tok'ra. Every ship the tok'ra had was now put to use else where.
Grimacing at that thought, she put it from her mind. Best to concentrait on making a drive they could use without the Tok'ra's help. Right now, her best hope was using a modified version of the reactor the Tok'ra had installed for the base shields. If she could just figure out how to modify the induction field without compromising the integrity of the core chamber, she would have a stable energy field.
So far, she had lost twelve generators and six labs. This was turning out to be the most expensive project the SGC had funded to date. Two more, and the funding for this entire rock would be gone and she would be back on Earth before the international review committee, again. A little charm and good old fashioned bull shiting had saved her ass last month, this time there would be none of that.
Sighing in frustration, she picked up a soddering torch and pulled down her darkened goggles. "Dr. Petrikov, is there any changes in the new induction field on reactor five yet?"
Her Czechoslovakian counter part was busy across the lab working with said reactor. She had on a large electrical glove. Stepping back and turning her head away, she flipped the power switch to on. When all it did was die with a hiss, she sighed in relief. "Niet, Major, we seem to have fudged yet again."
"That's what I figured would happen." Not really, she had expected the field to work perfectly for a few minutes before the power cell died from an over load. She was really hoping that the naquadah ore refinement was the problem, but the fact it hadn't even sparked proved she was wrong. "Set up for these new relay paths. This is a trinium alloy mined from Proxima Centari's zero G mines by the Tok'ra. They were getting ready to ship it to the Tollan as an apology for last month's events, but I hijacked the entire shipment."
She was still pissed that the Tollan had dared to assume they had the right to judge a friend of theirs because he had a sentient being inside him. If they wanted a sign of good faith from the Tok'ra before accepting possible alliances, then they could rot. It wasn't the Tollan's arrogance that had saved the Earth from attacks during the war, and it sure in hell wasn't their much vaunted superior technology either.
Removing her goggles, she tossed them to the work bench and turned the torch off. It took a level head to make the changes necessary to ensure the whole thing didn't come apart and kill them all in the resulting explosion. Handing over the replacement part to Dr. Petrikov, Sam leaned back against her table. Good thing she only had to make the damned things and not design them today.
Reaching behind her, she picked up a packet from the lab table and pulled out a cylinder. Lighting up the tip, she inhaled from the other end slowly. Holding in the breath, she waited a second then released it slowly. "Oh yeah, that's the good stuff."
Frowning, Dr. Merryl came up beside Sam. "You know better than that, Major." Taking the joint from her, he held it in his hand and glared at the now grinning Sam. "Wait until after the part is in place before lighting up. We have to be clear headed, damn it!"
"Have you not wondered if the committee is aware of our celebratory smoke?" Dr. Petrikov slipped the new part in place on the generator and tightened down the bolts before stepping back. Taking the joint from Dr. Merryl, she shook her head. "I think Sam should flip the switch this time because she lit up early."
"Hey! I was just wanting to relieve a little stress before we fired it up. Besides, the fire works always look better when I'm a little buzzed." Seeing her fellow scientists were adament, she picked up the glove on the lab table and put it on. Grumbling, she reached out and flipped the switch. This time, the generator sparked twice then kicked on. As it began to hum and the lights attached to the out put wires came online, she stepped back and admired their handiwork.
Coming up beside Sam, Petrikov handed over the joint. "Congratulations, we've got the first successful Earth built naquadah generator." No sooner than the words were out of her mouth then the lights connected to the generator exploded and the entire lab went dark.
"Bitchen."
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Teal'c stepped over the bodies of the fallen Jaffa, searching for survivors of the massacre. He had heard of this meeting and had come hoping to diffuse it before it errupted in violence. By the looks of things, timing of the information was off by at least two days. There would be no survivors this time, just like the last twelve times. Just like the other times, their prim'tas would all have been removed as well. It was becoming the signature of whoever was attacking the meetings between rival Jaffa.
After minutes of searching, he gave up the cause as lost and turned back for the transport. Seeing the Tok'ra agent waiting for him by the craft, he shook his head to signal there were no survivors.
Aldwin nodded and went inside the ship to prepare it for take off. He and Teal'c had visited over a dozen worlds trying to gain the location of the this meeting and it ended just like the rest. Despite his frustration with it, he would not give up until the Jaffa did.
Teal'c stepped aboard the tel'tac and absently turned the symbol to close the hatch. It would be a long trip back to the next planet in the ship, but he wanted the time to himself for meditation. These attacks were increasing in frequency. If he did not get them to stop, the entire Jaffa race would face extinction before the Tok'ra queen was ready to brood.
Taking the secondary control position next to Aldwin, Teal'c scanned the area around the tel'tac. There was no life sign and the only unusual thing was the Chappa'ai. A neutrel planet, like all the others. It was hopeless. As the tel'tac lifted off the planet, he focused his thoughts on the next goal.
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"All I'm saying, Colonel, is that you can't expect us to make unreasonable deadlines. Just because you think you are god does not make it so! Now, if you will excuse me, I have to perform a miracle here." Dismissing his new CO from thought, Rodney McKay bent back over the piece of unknown alien technology. The lower beings at Area 51 hadn't been able to figure out what it was or did and finally, they had begged him to figure it out.
Actually, they had brought it to him after yet another of their people had died from some form of electroshock the device put out and now he had to deal with it. Apparently since Major Carter was off world, he was the resident genius. That irked him more than it should have. He knew he was second best to her, her posting had proved that. Not that he would ever, ever admit that.
Jack had not stopped harping on him about finding what the damned thing did from the time it had been brought in two hours ago. Every five minutes, like clock work, the annoying Colonel would enter the lab, mess with things and yell at him about not solving it yet. It seemed that the other members of his team were blessed with an abundance of knowledge that made them damn near perfect at their jobs.
Ever since being assigned to SG-1 two weeks ago, there had been a massive inferiority attitude expressed towards him. They believed he wasn't good enough, and if their attitudes were justified towards Major Carter, then they were right about him. Then again, no one was that right all the time. She was just damned lucky.
After all, there could only truly be one Rodney McKay in the universe and he was was it.
Jack, having recovered from the shock of such blantant disrespect from his new team member, glared down at the scientist. "I don't care, McKay, if Sam were here, she would have solved this damned thing already!"
"Listen to me, you...." Rodney was cut off by the appearance of the most wonderful thing he had ever seen in his life.
Entering the lab, Daniel slowed to a stop when Rodney just stared at him and the mug he was holding out. "Is there something the matter, Dr. McKay?"
Taking a deep breath, Rodney composed himself long enough to shake his head yes. "Colonel O'Neill was just getting the hell out of my lab and leaving me to my work." Taking the mug from Daniel, Rodney smiled at him gratefully. "Thank you for this. Have you been able to remember what exactly about the inscriptions on this device were familiar?"
"No, and that is what confuses me. I'm not sure if it was me or..." Daniel grimaced at the implied thoughts. "All I do know is that I have encountered something like this before. I know the writing is an ancient form of Latin used during the time of the Etruscans. Anything other than that and I am completely lost."
"Which is completely useless to me." Sighing in frustration, Rodney took the mug from Daniel and set it down on the lab table. There wasn't much else he could do at this time. All his immeadiet responce testing had proved useless, the long term testing required more time as implied by the name. So far, he was stumped by the golden box.
"Well, I'm sorry, Dr. McKay, I only wish I could be of more help." Leaning back against the counter top behind him, Daniel slid up on it. Since he had come back to his job, the people in the archeological department had been increasingly hostile towards him. It wasn't his fault they were completely wrong ninety percent of the time.
Realizing they had completely forgotten him, Jack just shook his head in disgust and walked out. It wasn't the first time in the past two weeks that those two had been lost in their own world. If this kept up, he would begin to suspect McKay of trying to seduce Daniel.
Like it wasn't bad enough that damned snake had been bedding him every time he came through the gate. Jack figured the man had taken advantage of the fact that Sha're had moved on without Daniel and used his emotions to seduce Daniel.
Jack stopped. That was a particularly bad memory to be going over while he was walking. Daniel had been near crippled with grief for the better part of five days. In those five days, he had refused to do more than roll out of bed to use the restroom. The first day, Jack had to drag him for that one. After the fifth day, Daniel had appeared in the cafeteria bright eyed and bushy tailed like his whole world hadn't been crushed.
That had made no sense to him until he saw Daniel look at that snake and Jack just knew. He knew ole Marty had seduced his kid just a surely as the snake seduced eve. Another thing he was fighting over, seeing Daniel as more than just another kid who needed protecting. The younger man's appearance wasn't helping that perception much. More than once he had to remind himself that Daniel was thirty years old, not ten.
It hurt to think about that too. Daniel's appearance was just a few years older than what Charlie would have been. He cursed the goa'uld for causing this and wished he had one here right now to strangle. Getting a strange look from a passing Lieutenant, Jack sent him a glare and moved on.
Back in the lab, Daniel watched Rodney scratch in every concievable place as he scanned over his data. He was just about to suggest the man try scratching in two hard to reach places simultaneously just to see if he could when Rodney glanced up at him. "What?"
"Is there a reason you are here?" Scratching at the area between his shoulder blades, Rodney tried not to sound pissed. He wasn't, but it was a good cover for what was starting to turn in to a real problem. "Not that I don't mind your presence, but, really, I do."
"Um, okay, I guess." Sliding off the counter top, Daniel made for the door. Not the first time someone else told him to get lost since he got back.
Reaching out, Rodney knew he had made a mistake this time. "Dr. Jackson!"
Daniel didn't bother responding. He shut the lab door by waving his pass pen over the sensor. It was an easy decision for his next move. Hands in his pockets, he wandered down the hall to the elevators. Lucky for him, the doors opened just as he arrived and he was able to step on with the minimal of fuss after letting a group of mechanical engineers off. He pressed the button for the ground level when the last of them stepped off.
"Daniel! Wait!"
That set him in to action. Daniel hit the door close to prevent Rodney from getting on. Another awkward conversation about people and their things he did not need. It was like being a kid again with all these people. They thought they knew everything and him nothing because he had been technically dead for a little over two years. It was more than frustrating.
After the lurch of the lift launching itself sky wards had settled, Daniel leaned back against the side of the car. Somethings were to be expected, it wasn't like he hadn't. But to be completely ignored day in and day out, despite his considerable contribution, it was beginning to feel like the entire thing wasn't worth it any more.
Soon enough the bell sounded and the doors were opening. He stepped out in to the empty lobby of the main base floor. It used to be teaming with people busseling about. He could still hear them in his mind if he tried. Walking off the elevator, he strolled down the corridor towards the entrance.
At least here, there was still a guard post manned. Most of the guard posts in the base were now automated and monitored from the control rooms. According to the newly promoted Colonel Maybourne, which was a shock in itself that the man was working with them, these new automated systems were more reliable than human guards, highly efficient, and extremely deadly. He could understand, the first time he had passed through one without the pass pen he had ended up stunned seven ways to Sunday.
Of course, that could also have been the trace ammount of naquadah still in his blood left over from hosting the dead parasite. Apparently it had been decaying in his body before he died and he absorbed parts of it. Now, there was just enough in his body for Maybourne's sensors to scream bloody murder if he didn't carry the damned pass pen. He had to admit, despite the downside on his part, it worked pretty well.
Giving over his security badge, he waited for the guard to clear him for leave. It took only a second, Maybourne had been here too. All badges were checked daily, all systems constantly updated through a central core that was not linked to any terminal. If you wanted to access the central computer core, you had to be on level 28, in the main security office, and use an independant computer. The central core, though not linked to the base intranet, controled most of the base's security protocols.
It was Maybourne's baby.
Jack had once told him he suspected at night the other colonel probably read it bed time stories. Of that, Daniel had no doubt.
His status had only been cleared a week ago to return to the surface. He remembered that event all too well. He had gone to Maybourne with orders from Hammond to let him go up top. The Colonel had typed in his new security clearance in one of the three consoles for the core. The core had downloaded the new security information to the mobile drives. Each mobile drive had to be carted to a check point and it's contents downloaded in to the check point's computer.
Manually was the only way to update the security check points. Another paranoid protocol brought to them by the mind of Maybourne. It also made sense, if you were a complete freak. No one could hack the base's security grid, no one could control every check point from remote locations. This meant that all the guards had been retrained as computer techs in order to do their jobs.
At least no where else could claim that even the guards were smart enough to rebuild a hard drive from scratch.
Taking back his pass from the security guard, he smiled at the other two men waiting near by with riffles and made his way towards the sky lift. The sky lift was another security station with its own protocols. When visiting or inhabiting aliens needed to be with nature, but not seen by human eyes, they went to the sky lift.
Stepping in to the red gridded zone, Daniel waved his pass pen over the sensor. A beep later and the floor beneath him was raising him towards a pair of steel girders above that were retracting with the ceiling. Warm sunlight rushed in as a powerful wind buffeted him. He inhaled deeply, the scent making it hard to ignore the beauty.
He put the thought from his mind to focus on the matter at hand. His reactions to certain stimuli, he was learning, were different than they had been before. For starters, he couldn't stand the taste of coffee any more, the mere thought of drinking it sent a wave of nausea so strong in him every time that he carried a tube of smelling salts to burn his sinuses just to get it for Rodney.
Gathering up his control, he stepped off the lift before it had completely reached the ground level. All around him were buildings carved from stone and wood in patterns not seen on earth ever. What had once been part of the mountain was now a town. A crystal structure over to his right was the housing for the resident Tok'ra. To his left was the forest homes of the only two living Nox. Directly ahead was the massive pyramid shaped green house built for the former host of Selmac. Behind him was the generator complex that powered the holographic field and shield that hid and protected it all.
Daniel sighed. It was hard not to get lost in the sensation of being outside here again. The Nox had been busy in their almost two years here. Most of the area was covered in what appeared to be old growth forest. It reminded him so much of the Nox home world that he could almost believe he was back there. Shaking himself out of it, he forced his body to move towards the crystal structure.
Growing out of the mountain side and up in to the air like a conk shell, the Tok'ra had created the first crystal building on earth. It was here that Earth's only permanent Tok'ra lived. Living in exhile, Selmac was forbidden to leave the base's perimeter, even to contact his host's family. Daniel couldn't really empathize, the snake had broken the law.
Besides, that wasn't who he had come to see anyways. Picking up his pace, he followed the stone path towards the crystal structure. He was half way up the path when a the crystal wall ahead of him melted to the ground and a figure stepped over the foundation. Heat welled up in him suddenly and Daniel found his clothes too hot. A smile quirked the corners of his mouth and he stopped just short of the other person.
"Hello, Jolinar."
"I've missed you, Martouf."
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