The Anunnaki Unification, Book 3: A Stargate SG-1 Fan Fiction Story Page 3

  “I thought anyone with the gene could do it,” Jack said. “I just happened to be the one there. Daniel almost did it the second time we found one of those things.”

  “He could have, since he had already Ascended.” Enki shrugged. He began walking again and Jack followed. “There’s the general, all-purpose gene that a lot of your people have, and then there’s you. You’re a throw-back, Jack. A genetic anomaly. Your family tree is one continuous Ancient line and it all culminated in you. On your mother’s side, by the way. The maternal line is always the stronger. Technically, you could make an argument for not being human. As for your spirituality –Jack, I heard what you said to Matthew. Do you realize that most parents never say the word ‘joyful’ to their child in their entire life? And here you are actively encouraging your children to pursue it. ‘Joy’ is the very essence of spirituality, Jack, and you’ve been wallowing quite happily in it.” Enki patted Jack on the cheek and allowed himself to be taken in hand by excited children who wanted to play.

  The sky was slightly red from the filters Enki had placed in the ozone to keep out the damaging rays of the dual stars. It made some of the plant life more purple than green, but the insects didn’t seem to care; bees buzzed and crickets chirped a merry tune. Stacy and Davy waved to Jack from on top of their horses out in the pasture where Jonathan had taken them out for riding lessons. Jack waved back. Sam found Jack sitting on a fence.

  “Hey.” She walked around to the front and put her hands on his thighs. “Are you alright?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” he assured her. “I don’t suppose you’d like to find a field and make love with me?”

  She smiled and reached up to kiss him. “Ask me in a week,” she said. “My period started.”

  Jack frowned. “Already?” he asked. “I thought you’d have at least another month before it started up again.”

  “Me, too,” she grimaced. “Oh, well. Inanna gave me a handful of some kind of spongy insert. It can stay in the entire week, taken out, washed, and reused. The women here use them. I’m bringing a couple home to Cassie.”

  “A little more than I needed to know, but okay,” Jack said. She laughed and leaned into his chest. He leaned down and buried his face in her hair. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she responded. “Jack, are you sure you’re alright?”

  “I’m fine,” he said with a smile. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, slowly, lovingly. “Should we go and find our Danny, now?” he asked, weaving his fingers through her hair.

  “Yes, I think so,” she said. He kissed her, mapping the lips he already knew. Her fingers stroked his lower back as they suckled and licked gently at each other’s mouths. Jack took one last kiss and reluctantly stopped before things became a problem.

  Jack and Sam let the kids know they were leaving and to mind Nanna and General Hammond. Stacy informed them that she would be grateful if they returned with her Daddy.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jack said and kissed her cheek.

  Everyone on the mission got aboard the Heaven’s Bow and settled in. They already knew where their ‘kidnap’ victims were, and it would take only a short trip to get there.

  “Jack, there’s a mothership dead ahead,” came Ninurta’s voice over the intercom.

  “Is it ours?” he asked.

  “I believe so,” the bridge said. Jack walked quickly to the bridge.

  “Any contact?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing on the channels, yet,” Ninurta said. “Try your own brand of scanning. See if you can find Daniel.” Any of the Anunnaki could have done it, yet they insisted on forcing Jack to practice. He knew they’d take over in an emergency, though.

  Jack sat and reached out for Daniel’s familiar ‘scent.’ “He’s there,” Jack said. The rest of the people on the bridge breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s calm, so everything must be good. I think I’m getting Zu. Can he pop over this far?”

  Ninurta held out an arm. “Zu, to me!” he called out. A moment later, the bird was sitting on the arm. “How’s it going?” he asked the bird. It rattled on in their own language and then popped back out. Ninurta chuckled.

  “He says your men are tripping over themselves in their humiliation at having civilians knowing more than they do,” Ninurta said.

  “Good,” Jack grinned.

  “Zu said to give them a little more time. Daniel and Rya’c are about to storm the bridge and take out the evil snakes. We should be close enough for a visual.” Ninurta fiddled with controls for the camera they had planted, and the main screen changed to show the inside of the bridge. Malek sat at the main chair with Rak’nor pacing off to his side.

  “Here they come,” Kar’yn said from a station where she monitored the hall activity.

  Jack reached out again. The image of a corridor filled his mind, startling him. Ninurta felt Jack's jump and told him to relax and go with it. Jack was seeing from Daniel’s eyes. After a moment, he decided he was impressed; he hadn’t realized that Daniel had picked up so much military training. He no longer barged through intersections without looking first, he listened to all the surrounding noises, he was quiet on his feet, kept himself tucked into the walls, calculated his movements, and even coiled up a piece of loose cable he came across, and looped it over his shoulder.

  “Wow,” Jack commented to himself.

  Daniel glanced behind and saw Rya’c, Mason (with a bloody eyebrow), and several other Jaffa and Marines scattered down the hall. Daniel motioned and Mason stepped forward.

  “Take two men and head down that corridor,” Daniel whispered and pointed. “On your right will be a conduit just before a door.” He explained the layout of the corridor and the behavior of the Jaffa that the Marines needed to watch for. Jack had a feeling of frustration from Daniel and assumed that it wasn’t the first time Daniel had tried explaining anything to the men. Despite his grumbles, Jack knew the Marines weren’t that dense, so maybe it was one marine in particular that was refusing to pay attention.

  Mason and two men headed silently down the corridor, and Daniel motioned for several more to split up at another corridor. Jack pictured the layout of the ship and saw that Daniel was surrounding the bridge before entering. Daniel held out his hands and a child stepped into them. The child put a knife between his teeth and Daniel hoisted him up to a vent. The child scurried inside and was gone. Jack recognized the boy as one of the Jaffa trainees.

  Daniel stood to one side of the door and Rya’c to the other. Rya’c fiddled with the door controls. On a count of three, Rya’c took out the main crystal and the door opened. They jumped in headfirst to the floor. Zat fire hit the walls on either side of the door. Jack knew the zats were fixed at bare minimal power, but the Marines didn’t know that. Daniel took a smack to the head and spent a moment dizzy. Mason found himself taken on by a teenage girl and wound up thrown halfway across the room.

  The child dropped from above and landed on Malek. The slow weight and knife immediately penetrated the shield and Malek went down, startled, not having expected an aerial attack. Daniel jumped in and hog-tied the ‘System Lord.’

  “Check-mate!” Daniel shouted. The fighting stopped and Jaffa stood around looking down their noses at the mystified Marines. Daniel put a boot in Mason’s side and shook him. “Up and at ‘em, Colonel,” he said. “Shake it off.”

  Jack and Ninurta laughed and got up from their seats.

  “Come on,” Jack said to Sam and Ferretti.

  They beamed over and looked at the wreckage of the bridge.

  “Messy, messy, Daniel,” Jack said, toeing a piece of console.

  “Yeah, well….” Daniel stood with a zat shouldered.

  “Ja…. General, what the hell is going on?” Mason demanded as he forced himself to throw off the stun. His men gathered slowly behind him. None of them looked happy.

  “O’Neill training,” Jack told him.

  “You sent a child through the ventilation system?” Malek asked Daniel in
disbelief. Said child grinned at him. Jack clapped Malek on the shoulder.

  “Malek, Malek…. How many years have you known Daniel?” Jack asked. “You should know by now not to underestimate him. For shame, Mal. Getting slow in your old age.”

  Sam took a quick look at everyone and declared no one seriously injured.

  “Good,” Jack declared. “Then while we are headed back to Chulak, I want a meeting with the commanders of this mission. Rya’c, I’d like to hear from you, too, come on. Colonel, you and your men will be debriefed later.”

  “So. What’d you think of Colonel Addison?” Jack asked Daniel once they were out of sight of the bridge.

  “Why?” Daniel asked, suspicious.

  “He’s a cousin,” Jack said.

  Daniel nodded, his brow clearing. “That explains a few things. Well, I think he’s a well-trained Marine. I also think that the military in general needs to change their training tactics. They make no allowances for local culture. They fight like the British did when they came over to put the fear of God back into the colonials.”

  Jack thought for a moment. “They march into every situation in the same style,” he said. “The colonials had taken lessons from the local tribes, which was why they won the War for Independence. Our military has not taken history as a lesson.”

  “Correct,” Daniel nodded. “The colonel and his men saw civilians as an impediment instead of local experts. It was like pulling teeth to get them to shut up and listen, and they only did so because everyone else ganged up on them. Pride goeth before the fall. And they fell. They even refused to see Zu as a source of information. No one who was not American could be trusted. I couldn’t be trusted because I had lived too long among the locals and I had probably gone over. Even though I'm northern European by genetics, I was also Egyptian born, which made me automatically suspect. To give the guys their due, though, I think that if we had a few more days they would have settled down into a proper learning mode. They started to listen, once in a while, and I got the colonel to follow my lead for that last battle.”

  “They were madder than hornets when we got there. They were ready to storm down the corridors and take out everyone they came across. Not an especially bad plan, letting God sort out the bodies, but they were going to use up all their energy before knowing the layout of the battlefield. They didn’t even know who they were fighting. Gibil and Erra sat back and pretended to be ranchers, so I sent Zu out for recon on the assumption that a real Goa’uld wouldn’t realize that he was sentient. When he started talking, the men thought it was just cute macaw parroting. They started to change their minds when Zu kept coming back with reports. After that, they began to listen.”

  “So, you got their attention,” Jack said. Daniel nodded.

  “I think so, yes. Were you watching any of it?” Daniel asked.

  “The last few minutes,” Jack said. “I followed you down the corridor to the bridge. You did a good job, Danny, I was impressed. What made you think to pick up that cord?”

  “Too many MacGyver episodes.”

  “Daniel is being generous, Jack,” Erra said, jumping in. Gibil, Malek, and Rya’c agreed. From the various inputs, Jack learned that ‘Lord Khonsu’ informed the men that this was a retaliatory strike against Jack by taking Daniel, and against the sholva, Teal’c, by taking Rya’c, and that the others would become new Jaffa, since Jack had stolen all their slaves. Everyone tried telling them that, besides the fact that it was standing orders to rescue Dr. Jackson, Daniel was the one who spoke and read the language, he knew the ship’s layout, and he had the experience of escaping from these ships. They didn’t listen and the colonel insisted that the non-military keep quiet so that the men could think. Rya’c argued that he was military, as were several others who had been taken. They were ignored and then threatened when Rya’c attempted to take charge.

  Jack shooed them out and had Mason sent for. Once the colonel was standing before him, Jack repeated the verbal report. Addison’s jaw became tighter and tighter.

  “Now, I know for a fact that you are not as ignorant as you made yourself on this outing, Colonel,” Jack said. “So I’m going to assume you allowed your personal feelings to get in the way of common sense. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “Is this off the record? Sir?” Addison asked coldly.

  “For the moment,” Jack warned.

  “You deliberately put me and my men in the hands of children in an effort to humiliate me, you disrespected me and my own experiences as a soldier, and now I see that you have allowed your own fame to go to your head by acting as a warlord out here where the eyes of Earth and the American government cannot see you.”

  “Are you insane?” Jack asked, eyebrows climbing higher and higher. “Are you the only person on the face of the Earth who has not read CMSgt. Harriman’s book? Daniel’s book will be out in a few months; it’s a real eye-opener. If you had been paying attention, you would have known that Rya’c was a warrior in just about all the battles over the past few years and he can match you as an experienced soldier. He knew the battlefield and you refused his experience, so who exactly was disrespecting whom? Dr. Jackson also knows his way around a battlefield, much to his own regret, and you disrespected his knowledge. Gibil and Erra may be herding cattle, at the moment, but did it occur to you to ask them if they had any battle experience? They’re Anunnaki, Colonel. Every one of those people that were with you had battle experience. You had seasoned soldiers all around you, and you disrespected them. As for your contention that I’m playing warlord, I can’t begin to tell you how much bullshit that is. These are my friends and I asked them a favor in an attempt to respond to YOUR request to be trained in Jaffa-style fighting. I showed you great respect, Colonel, by offering you up to the masters because I thought you were capable of that challenge. You failed, Colonel, miserably.”

  Chapter 40

  All the Marines except Addison were sent home. The colonel was taken back to Kalam until Jack decided to go home. Addison would then be transferred to the SGC and trained by Col. Bosco until Jack felt ready to send Addison back to Chulak. And Addison would return to Chulak. Addison protested and Jack reminded him that he had the permission of the Joint Chiefs to train anyway he saw fit. The Joint Chiefs were not happy with Jack’s initial report. At least Jack got them to agree that the forces needed to be shaken up with new training methods; the cookie-cutter method was getting their boys and girls killed on the battle fields. It was a new era and the kids needed to know how to think on their feet, not be turned into drones.

  “Is this really necessary?” Maggie asked, interrupting his murmured conversation with Daniel and Ninurta. Daniel had discovered that the elusive Ereshkigal had been ill and was confined to bed. Jack didn’t think the old-timers ever got sick. Ninurta said that she exhausted herself helping Enki put the planet together and they were keeping it quiet because there were still a few Beings in the galaxy who were kept at bay through the threat of the lady’s power. Jack still didn’t understand the dark queen’s role.

  Jack didn’t open his eyes. “Yes, it is, Mom,” he said. “I am dealing with a colonel, not your nephew, so please…..”

  A shadow moved across his closed eyes. “You’re humiliating him, Jack,” she told him. He rubbed his eyes and blinked blurrily before putting his dark glasses on.

  “He humiliated himself,” he said. “His pride got his entire team captured, and almost destroyed. He almost got civilians killed. He’s lucky I didn’t boot him out an airlock. Now. I’m drawing a line here, Mom. I love you and I don’t want to hurt your feelings by pulling rank with you.”

  At least Hammond wasn’t coming down on Jack; he understood.

  “As a highly decorated officer, he should have known better,” Hammond said after hearing the story. “If a remedial class is what he needs, so be it. Maybe we’ll make a general out of him, yet.”

  Daniel turned in a half-doze and buried his face near Jack’s side after Maggie left. “She doesn’t und
erstand,” he murmured. “She sees only her son and her nephew fighting.”

  “I know,” Jack said. “It’s why I try and keep her away from my work. She wants to mother everyone, and this isn’t a mothering situation. Bosco will take over and teach him about the new military.”

  “Why not Reynolds?” Daniel asked, curious.

  “Reynolds is better at first contact and scouting,” Jack said, having changed his mind. “Bosco is a good trainer.”

  “Oh.”

  Jack sighed and absently stroked the tips of his fingers down Daniel’s back.

  “Mason is a good soldier, Danny, he earned his rank, don’t get me wrong, but he’s a meathead. He bulldozes his way into situations without regard for the situation itself and he disrespects his experts.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Daniel commented. He got his hair pulled and the back of his neck kissed.

  “And it took a couple of irritating scientists to knock it out of me,” Jack admitted as he pecked at Daniel’s smooth back, enjoying the musk that came out under the sun’s warmth. One of the local children came running up and Ninurta obligingly kissed an owie. Sam came out of the water, wrapped a towel around her waist, and dried her hair with another. Jack sat up and leaned back against the tree. He patted the ground between his legs and Sam sat down. He took the towel and dried her back and gently toweled her hair.

  “He’s a Special Ops soldier?” Ninurta asked.

  “Something like that,” Jack said.

  “I won’t ask details. I assume he’s been on his own missions while you’ve been fighting aliens,” Ninurta said. “So he’s had no contact with current events. Much like the citizens, he doesn’t understand what all this has to do with him and his work. He has children? Has he noticed anything different in them?”

  “Make an argument that hits closer to home?” Daniel asked.

  “Correct,” Ninurta said with a nod. “Jack, I can sense your antipathy toward your kin, but how can you lead the way if you don’t get over yourself first?”