STARGATE SG-1 ATLANTIS: Homeworlds : Volume three of the Travelers' Tales (SGX Book 5) Read online

  homeworlds

  Volume Three of The Travelers’ Tales

  Sally malcolm (editor)

  TM

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

  Fandemonium Books, PO Box 795A, Surbiton, Surrey KT5 8YB, United Kingdom

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  STARGATE SG-1 is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. ©1997-2017 MGM Television Entertainment Inc. and MGM Global Holdings Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  STARGATE ATLANTIS is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

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  ISBN: 978-1-905586-79-0

  TM

  Contents

  Editor’s Foreword

  Stargate Atlantis

  The Mysteries of Emege

  Jo Graham

  Stargate SG-1

  In Passing

  Susannah Parker Sinard

  Stargate Atlantis

  Worshipper

  Melissa Scott

  Stargate SG-1

  Blinded by the Light

  Barbara Ellisor

  Stargate Atlantis

  Second Time Sateda

  Ron Francis

  Stargate SG-1

  Sun-Breaker

  Keith R.A. DeCandido

  Stargate Atlantis

  The Player on the Other Side

  Amy Griswold

  Stargate SG-1

  Sweet Herbs and Freedom

  Suzanne Wood

  Stargate Atlantis

  Going Home

  Aaron Rosenberg

  Stargate SG-1

  They Shoot Heroes, Don’t They?

  Geonn Cannon

  Our authors

  Stay in touch…

  Editor’s Foreword

  On July 27th 1997 Children of the Gods, the first-ever episode of STARGATE SG-1, premiered. It’s testament to the incredible talent of the show’s creators and cast that, twenty years later, our love for the show remains undimmed. And it’s testament to the enduring loyalty of Stargate fans that there’s a continuing appetite for more STARGATE SG-1 and STARGATE ATLANTIS adventures.

  So it’s apt that in this twentieth year of STARGATE SG-1. we offered the opportunity for two Stargate fans to contribute to this third anthology of short stories.

  Last September Stargate authors Sabine Bauer and Laura Harper joined me in judging a short story competition at the GateCon fan convention in Vancouver. I’m delighted to be including the winning entries in this collection: STARGATE SG-1: Blinded by the Light by Barbara Ellisor and STARGATE ATLANTIS: Second Time Sateda by Ron Francis. My enormous thanks go to both winners, as well as to everyone who entered the competition, and to the amazing people at GateCon who ran the event. I hope you’ll enjoy reading Barbara and Ron’s stories as much as we did.

  And finally, I’d like to thank you — for reading, for supporting Stargate Novels, and for helping us keep the gate open. Here’s to another twenty years of Stargate adventures…

  Sally Malcolm

  Commissioning Editor

  June 2017

  Stargate Atlantis

  The Mysteries of Emege

  Jo Graham

  This story takes place after book eight of the Stargate Atlantis Legacy series.

  “Once when Arda ruled in Emege, it was a very great city indeed. It was beautiful and prosperous, and under his wise rule it became even more so, adorned like a great lady dressed in jewels. Yet its jewels were parks that ran with flowing streams and white towers that reached to the dawn, gardens beside the lake filled with fruit and blossoms, theaters and workshops, and its streets were filled with music. In Emege, all good things were possible. Arda ruled, and all was well. Indeed, so peaceful and prosperous had Emege become that the Ancestors gave to Arda three great gifts, scroll and sword and shield, that the city might ever be so.”

  “Why are you telling us this?” Dr. Rodney McKay demanded, leaning forward over his breakfast tray of half-eaten scrambled eggs. “I mean, it’s a very nice fairy tale and all that, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  Teyla clasped her hands around her mug of tea patiently. “Because it is important, as you will hear if you listen.”

  Beside her, John Sheppard stirred. “This is about the city, isn’t it? The one you showed me the pictures of in the cave that first day on Athos.”

  Across the table beside Rodney, the fourth member of their party frowned. “The one the Wraith had culled?” Ronon said. He had not been there then, but he had heard about it often enough since.

  “Yes,” Teyla said. “But this was long before. Thousands of years.”

  “Go ahead and tell the story,” John said. “We’ll save our questions until you finish.”

  Teyla took a breath and continued. “Under the wise rule of Arda and the favor of the Ancestors, Emege fruited, but as always happens the harvest-tide came, and in the day of Arda’s great grandson there came the Reapers. Death came, and our world shuddered beneath the fury of her guns. But because of the blessings placed upon Emege, the city stood alone for a year and a day, and each beautiful street was filled with throngs of people who sought safety and mercy. But at last, when a year and a day had passed, the bright blessings that had protected Emege faded, and then Death drank deeply of the Children of Emege.”

  “Like Sateda,” Ronon said quietly. “It’s a story about that happening to your people a long time ago.”

  “Yes,” Teyla said. “But the reason I am telling you this is not because of what happened, but how.”

  “The shield,” John said, putting down his mug. “The Ancestors gave him sword and shield. And the city stood for a year and a day. Literally a shield. Like the one on Atlantis. Like our shield.”

  “Until the ZPM ran out,” Rodney said, sitting up straight, that idea-crackling expression on his face. “The city fell because they ran the shield until the ZPM failed. Not because it was destroyed. But just because they ran out of power. Which means….”

  “That the shield generator might still be there,” John said. “That the equipment might be salvageable.”

  “It’s always handy to have another shield generator,” Rodney said quickly. “We already have one, but a spare would be useful.”

  “It is not your shield generator,” Teyla said. “It is our shield generator. If it is there. Which I think it is. The ruins of the city have been forbidden for many generations and left undisturbed since the last culling two hundred years ago. But clearly we were not able to get it functional then.”

  “You didn’t have a ZPM,” John said
.

  “Or we had not yet regained enough knowledge to make it work,” Teyla said. “These things move in cycles.”

  “The Wraith knock down whoever gets too tall,” Ronon said. “They weren’t going to let you get to the point where you could use the technology.”

  Teyla inclined her head. “Yes. But I do not think we would have destroyed technology we didn’t understand. We would have studied it, or at worst simply let it be. Without a ZPM, as you say, the shield could not have been activated. But it is quite possible that the installation is intact.”

  John nodded thoughtfully. “The Athosians didn’t want us to go poking around in the ruins of the city before.”

  “You were strangers to us then,” Teyla said. “Much has happened in six years. You are strangers no longer. And much has happened to us.” Which was a great understatement, Teyla thought as she took a sip of her cooling tea. They had fled Athos for Atlantis and its planet only to be forcibly removed by the returning Ancients two years later. The Ancients had resettled them on a world they called New Athos, and many of them had died there at the hands of the abomination Michael. He had held many of them, including Teyla, prisoner for many months before they were at last freed. They had returned to New Athos then, a year and a half ago, but all was not well there. Their new world was inhospitable and their numbers had been culled to the bone. It was likely, Teyla thought, that hers was the last generation of Athosians who could properly be called that unless something changed. Peoples came and went, but it made her heartsick to think that the way of life she had loved would die, even if she no longer lived among the Athosians herself.

  Rodney seemed to have followed part of that thought. “If the Athosians aren’t on Athos,” he said, “they won’t know if we look around the city or not. We can go, have a look, and just not tell them.”

  John winced. “That’s not how we treat our allies, Rodney. We ask their permission before we go through their stuff.”

  “It’s thousands of years old! They’ll never know.”

  “It’s theirs,” John said. “How would you feel if some random people went digging through the ruins of Vancouver?”

  “I’ll tell you how we feel on Sateda,” Ronon said. “We feel pissed. That’s why we’re not buying an alliance with the Genii. They went scavenging on our world without our permission.”

  “We must discuss it with the Council,” Teyla said. “It is quite possible that everyone would agree to it.”

  “There’s a lot of water under this bridge,” John said. He was too polite, Teyla thought, to mention that pretty much everyone on the Council owed him personally for a rescue from Michael’s twisted experiments. It would be awkward in the extreme to refuse the Lanteans’ request, provided it was made courteously.

  “As you say,” Teyla said. She looked at Rodney. “And provided that it is understood that if we find a shield generator, it belongs to the Athosians.”

  “If we find a shield generator, it would mean a lot to your people,” John said thoughtfully, and she knew he was thinking about Torren. It worried him each time Torren left Atlantis to stay with his father, Kanaan, on New Athos. There was no shield there, no protection except the word of the Wraith queen Alabaster, and that was a fragile thing to trust with the life of a child he loved as a second father.

  “It would,” Teyla said. “There are those among us, like Halling, who wish for the Athosians to return to our proper home. If there were a shield generator and it could be made operative, it would make doing so much safer.”

  Rodney leaned forward. “But isn’t Athos, Old Athos I mean, in Waterlight’s sector rather than Alabaster’s? Do you think Waterlight wouldn’t honor the treaty?”

  Teyla sighed. “I think she will, at least for the forseeable future. But that is because I know Waterlight, queen to queen. I trust that she will not break her word to me. But I cannot tell the others the reason for this, and asking them to trust a Wraith blindly is too much.”

  “And you can’t tell them about… everything.” Rodney gestured at Teyla, and possibly at his hair, which was very short. It seemed that it might be growing back in brown, so Rodney had asked one of the Marines to cut it closely, hoping that he would trim out the white and leave only the brown roots. Instead Rodney was practically bald. But, as John said, it would grow.

  “No, I cannot tell them about everything,” Teyla said.

  Ronon made a noise that Teyla chose to ignore.

  “They’d freak,” Rodney said.

  “They would no longer trust me,” Teyla said. “Even as much as they still do.” Her eyes stung unexpectedly at the last, and John jumped in.

  “But having a shield generator would mean that they weren’t relying only on Waterlight keeping the treaty,” he said. “They’d have a way of defending themselves if they went back.” He leaned back in his chair. “I think it’s worth a try. If we don’t find anything, we’re right where we are now. So let’s ask the Athosians if we can take a look around. We could go over today, or tomorrow or whenever you’re ready.”

  “Except for one little thing,” Rodney said, waggling a finger at John. “You’re still in charge in Atlantis. Elizabeth is back, but she’s not cleared for duty yet. And the IOA hasn’t decided if she’s staying. You’re still the guy behind the desk.”

  John looked annoyed. “Fine,” he said. “Then I can authorize the mission. Teyla, ask the Athosians if they’ll let us look around the city. We’ll take it from there if they say yes.”

  “I will do so,” Teyla said.

  Teyla considered at length who to take with her to Athos while she warmed up that afternoon in the gym, long stretches that were meant to quiet the mind but did not when a question like this weighed on her. John would be ideal. The Athosians knew him and trusted him, and he was more than capable of being diplomatic. Despite his insistence that he was no diplomat, he was actually quite adept at getting along with people. Teyla sunk into a low lunge, then rolled neatly out of it. John listened, and that was more unusual than he thought.

  Unfortunately, it was true that he could not leave Atlantis unless it was necessary. The IOA was very insistent on that since the time the plastic eating virus had gotten loose in his absence. True, Major Lorne had handled it well, but the IOA had been furious that Colonel Sheppard had been outside the quarantine zone. This trip to Athos was not actually necessary.

  Teyla sighed, coming gracefully to her feet. She could ask Ronon to accompany her, of course. Ronon had been to New Athos on many occasions. But Ronon had made it known in no uncertain terms that he disapproved of the treaty between Atlantis and the Wraith queens who had allied against Queen Death. Given that one of the points of debate was certain to be whether or not they could be trusted, Teyla would rather that Ronon didn’t muddy those waters. Which left Rodney.

  Teyla leaned forward, balancing on one foot and her fingertips. Taking Rodney was perhaps the best choice. Though his hair had begun to return to its normal color, his Wraith telepathy that allowed him to speak with her showed no signs of fading. Among the Athosians, the Gift was a lifelong ability, and she doubted at this point that Rodney’s Gift would be any different. It did grant them the unexpected advantage of being able to speak privately and silently, which could only help in a diplomatic situation. And if the Council did permit them to search the city which had been Emege for a shield generator, Rodney was the logical person to lead the search. He could certainly assure the Council that he would not harm or destroy any buildings or artifacts they discovered. Rodney, then. She would take Rodney with her to New Athos.

  So it was that Teyla Emmagen and Dr. Rodney McKay stepped through the Stargate on New Athos on a glorious day in early summer. The meadow the Stargate stood in was abloom with small yellow and pink flowers, while the woods beyond were cast deep in shadow by the green leaves of forest giants. Teyla stopped for
a moment as the gate deactivated, breathing.

  “What are you doing?” Rodney asked.

  “Reminding myself where I am and what season it is,” Teyla said. “I have come from autumn on a much colder world. It is worthwhile to take a moment when one can and remind oneself where one is and when.”

  “It’s hot,” Rodney said.

  “That is because it is summer.” Teyla put her hand on his arm. “Rodney, there is no great hurry. Just close your eyes and be here for a moment.”

  “This is one of those zen things, isn’t it?” he said, but he did close his eyes, taking a deep breath through his nose. “I can feel my allergies kicking in already. What are those things?”

  “Flowers,” Teyla said firmly. “And I do not know their name because this is not my world.”

  Rodney opened his eyes and looked at her all too keenly. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it? This isn’t your world. Any of you.”

  “That is one of the problems,” Teyla said. “Another is that we are too few after all that has happened.”

  “You’ve dropped below genetic viability.”

  “To put it bluntly, yes.” Teyla looked toward the path that led among the trees, winding its way toward the settlement. “And so we have done what we have always done when pressed — we have taken in those dispossessed by Queen Death’s wars. Some are Manarians, who have always been our friends, and there are others from scattered worlds who have suffered and look only for a place that will be safe. But they were not of Athos, and they do not know our stories.”