Stargate SG-1 30 - Insurrection Read online

  Apocalypse 3 - Insurrection

  By Sally Malcolm & Laura Harper

  Stargate SG-1 Series

  Book Thirty c2016

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Previously

  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

  Acknowledgments

  To my brother, Colin. Thanks for everything, wee man—L.H.

  To all our loyal and patient readers—thank you—S.M.

  Huge thanks to James O’Kane, who loaned his name to one of our characters in exchange for a generous charity donation. We hope you like what we did with him, James.

  This story is set in season three of STARGATE SG-1, between the episodes One Hundred Days and Shades of Gray.

  “Insurrection is the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.”

  —Marquis de Lafayette

  Previously

  in the Apocalypse series…

  Stargate SG-1: Hostile Ground

  When SG-1 is attacked on a routine off-world mission, and Daniel is seriously injured, SG-1 flees back through the Stargate. But instead of finding themselves in the SGC they arrive on a desolate world—one with no DHD.

  Meanwhile, on Earth, General Hammond launches a desperate search and rescue mission to find the team. If he fails, and O’Neill doesn’t return to investigate recent thefts of technology from their allies, there’s a very real chance that the Protected Planets Treaty will collapse. If this happens, Earth will be open to attack from Apophis.

  Radiation in the soil near the gate is very high so SG-1 decides to move on, despite Daniel’s grave injuries. But the team are soon captured by a group of humans who tell them about the Amam, a monstrous race who came through the Stargate many years ago and feed on the people’s life force.

  SG-1 dismisses this story as myth until they come across a downed fighter ship and find its alien pilot. After saving him from a mob of angry people, the creature repays them by saving Daniel’s life—he puts his clawed hand on Daniel’s chest and restores him to full health. But, moments later, another alien ship appears and sweeps SG-1 up in its transporter beam.

  Waking up cocooned inside an alien ship, SG-1 witness one of the aliens feeding on another human and realize the stories of the Amam are real. With the help of a local man, Hunter, who bears the mark of the Goa’uld Hecate, SG-1 escapes. Hunter promises to take them to a man called Dix, who can help them escape the planet.

  Back on Earth, the Protected Planets Treaty has fallen and Apophis’s attack is imminent. While Colonel Maybourne leads Earth’s refugees to a new world, General Hammond sends out a final SOS to their friends in the moments before the SGC is destroyed. No one comes to Earth’s aid.

  Meanwhile, Hunter leads SG-1 through the Shacks, an enormous shanty town, and then underground to Dix’s base. It’s only when SG-1 meets Dix and recognizes him as Teal’c’s son, Rya’c—now a grown man—that they realize the ruins in which they’re standing are the remains of the SGC…

  They’re already on Earth, but it’s not the Earth they left behind.

  Stargate SG-1: Exile

  Rya’c tells SG-1 that they are one hundred years in the future and that he is First Prime to the Goa’uld Hecate. They discover that, a century earlier, SG-1 disappeared on an off-world mission and, shortly afterward, Colonel Maybourne’s plotting brought about the collapse of the Protected Planets Treaty. As a result, Apophis was free to attack Earth. Forty years after Apophis’s invasion, the Amam (who Rya’c calls Wraith) arrived from another galaxy in a ship built by the Ancients.

  Until recently, Hecate has been helping refugees escape Earth and flee to the human colony known as Arbella. However the people of Arbella have recently shut their gate. Their new leadership is suspicious of outsiders and wants their world to remain hidden and safe.

  Looking for help, SG-1 travels to Arbella. Carter and Teal’c hope to find a way to travel back in time and change the past; O’Neill and Daniel are more concerned with helping people in the here and now.

  They are greeted as heroes by some on Arbella, and as defectors by others. It’s clear that Arbella is a divided society. The Combined Military Force (CMF) supports SG-1 and wants to return to Earth and fight the Wraith, but another faction, led by the head of the security service, Agent Karin Yuma, wants to cut off ties with the galaxy and stay hidden.

  The president is caught in the middle. Several years ago, his wife, Lana Jones, disappeared in an off-world mission and he’s been opposed to exploration ever since. SG-1 offers to help find Lana, in the hope that this will persuade the president to help Earth. Eventually, they’re allowed to leave Arbella to embark on the mission.

  SG-1 returns via the Stargate on Earth, which they now know was moved from Area 51 and hidden in Scotland during the Goa’uld invasion. There, they start searching for the president’s wife and encounter the Wraith who saved Daniel. His name is Sting. He helps them find the place where Lana is being held: a laboratory owned by a Wraith queen called Shadow, where Goa’uld symbiotes are being implanted into Wraith hosts to create a deadly hybrid army.

  Sting’s own queen, Earthborn, is opposed to Shadow. Believing that Earth has corrupted them, Earthborn wants to take the Wraith back to Pegasus where they belong. In return for Sting’s help in finding Lana, O’Neill promises to help Earthborn pilot Atlantis home. Together, SG-1 and Sting raid the laboratory, where they find Harry Maybourne working for the Wraith. His life has been artificially extended by frequent use of a sarcophagus and he is now insane.

  Maybourne betrays SG-1 to a Wraith/Goa’uld hybrid called Boneshard-Sobek. They manage to fight their way free, but Boneshard and Maybourne escape even though the lab is destroyed. Before they leave, SG-1 finds Lana, although she is very weak and confused. With Sting’s help they take Lana back to the Stargate and from there to Hecate’s Ha’tak in orbit around Earth and prepare to return her to Arbella.

  But before they leave, Hecate, who they haven’t yet met, requests an audience with SG-1. They are taken to her throne room and are horrified when they see her.

  Because her host is none other than their old friend Dr. Janet Fraiser…

  Chapter 1

  Hecate’s Ha’tak — 2098

  “This must be disconcerting for you.”

  Struggling to get breath past the knot in her throat, Sam could only stare at the woman—the Goa’uld—walking toward them. Dressed in a simple white gown, like something a Greek statue might wear, with her hair curled and piled high on her head, it was nonetheless Janet Fraiser. Her face, her kind eyes, her expression—they were all as Sam remembered from the last time she’d seen her friend just a few weeks ago.

  Give or take a century.

  “Disconcerting?” the colonel snarled. “I can think of another word for it, you b—”

  “I understand,” Janet—Hecate—said. Her tone was sharp, but to Sam’s ears it sounded more like Janet’s doctor voice than the overbearing insolence of a Goa’uld. “But I would ask that you listen to me, Colonel O’Neill. All is not as it first appears.”

  “Yeah? Because it appears like you’re wearing a friend of mine.”

  Hecate glanced down at herself, smoot
hed her hands over her diminutive form. “Janet Fraiser…” She glanced back up, her gaze finding and holding Sam’s. “Janet was dying when she was brought to me. She’d been shot and left for dead by one of your people. A traitor called Major Newman.”

  Sam tried to swallow but that knot was still tight in her throat and her mouth was dry. Even so, she managed to scratch out, “Janet would have rather died than become a host.”

  Daniel huffed his agreement, his silent anger blistering.

  “I won’t lie to you,” Hecate said, moving closer to Sam. Her eyes were so like Janet’s, the same warm shade of brown, filled with the same bright intelligence, that Sam had to grit her teeth against a wave of grief. She struggled against the conflicting desire to put a bullet through this creature’s head and to pull Janet into her arms and beg her forgiveness for allowing this twisted future to unfold. “I won’t lie to you,” Hecate repeated. “And I won’t pretend that I gave Janet a choice. I’m not Tok’ra.” Her lips twisted on the name, disdain showing through her pleasant tone. “But I didn’t choose this host at random. Janet Fraiser possessed a great deal of knowledge that I valued, and many insights into the healing arts.” She glanced toward Daniel. “You know that I’m well regarded for my knowledge of medicines?”

  “Of poisons,” Daniel corrected, jaw clenching around the words. “If I remember my mythology correctly—which I always do.”

  A faint smile touched Hecate’s lips. “History has been unkind to me,” she said. “But so it often is to those of our sex, is it not, Sam?”

  Sam didn’t answer; she wasn’t about to debate feminist interpretations of history with a Goa’uld. Instead she said, “What do you want with us?”

  Hecate lifted her chin, folded her hands in another gesture painfully reminiscent of Janet. “I’ll come to that in a moment,” she said, “but first I need you all to understand something. Although it was not my intention when taking this host, Janet Fraiser has changed me. That is, she has changed my perspective of many things. I sought her medical insight, but, in opening myself to the mind of the host, a…” She hesitated, a flicker of distaste crossing her face. “…a blending, of sorts, took place. I have been changed. I feel…” Again, another frown. “I feel a loyalty to this world, and for many decades now I have been working to free it from the invaders. From the Wraith.”

  “Huh,” the colonel snorted. “Well, congratulations on your spectacular lack of success with that.”

  Hecate snapped her head around to look at him, her eyes narrowing. “Colonel O’Neill,” she said, “I am familiar with your insolence. Janet has many memories of it. But you should know this: it was I and my First Prime who kept the Stargate open for refugees to flee Apophis’s rule on Earth. And after the Wraith came, we continued to do what we could to provide safe passage to those humans who wished to serve us and fight the invaders.”

  “Your First Prime?” Teal’c said from where he stood at Sam’s shoulder, his voice flat with disapproval. “You mean my son.”

  Sam glanced at Rya’c, who was standing beneath the shadowed colonnade of Hecate’s throne room. He wore an expression of studied neutrality, but his shoulders were tense and his back stiffened when Teal’c spoke.

  “Rya’c was a child when the Goa’uld invaded this world,” Teal’c said. “Why would you make him First Prime?”

  Hecate smiled. It was a sad, almost wistful expression. “Rya’c serves me well, and has done so for many years. But before him there was another.” Again, her attention switched back to Sam, and Sam braced herself. In truth, talking to Hecate through Janet’s face was harder than a lot of fire fights she’d experienced; there was no way to fight back, nowhere to take cover, she just had to endure. “Perhaps it will convince you that I’m being honest,” Hecate said, “when I tell you that the first to serve me as First Prime was not Jaffa. He was a man called Dixon.”

  The colonel’s frown was dubious, cutting right between his eyebrows. “Dave Dixon?”

  “Yes,” Hecate said with another wistful smile. “Colonel Dixon was extremely loyal to Janet Fraiser. He blamed himself for her apparent death, but when he discovered that she still lived—within me—he dedicated himself to our service.”

  “Bullshit,” the colonel said, although Sam could hear the uncertainty beneath the expletive and saw the way he glanced at Daniel as if to confirm his opinion. “Dixon wouldn’t serve a snakehead.”

  Hecate’s expression flattened. “You’re wrong, Colonel. He served for many years, helping those humans who wished to escape Earth.” Her expression shut down, eyes dipping toward the floor. After a moment, and in a very human voice, she said, “He died during the Wraith invasion. Even my skill could not save him. But his name—the name of ‘Dix’ —had become legend among your people, Colonel, and it lives on still.” She lifted her head, once more defiant in a way Sam recognized all too clearly as Janet. “A fitting epitaph for a brave man, don’t you think?”

  Sam’s gaze travelled back to Rya’c, the man everyone now called ‘Dix.’ As much as it was difficult to believe Hecate, it would certainly be an elaborate lie.

  The colonel didn’t answer Hecate’s question, his expression cool and shuttered although his fingers curled and uncurled at his side; like her, he was missing the weight of a weapon in his hands. “You still haven’t answered Carter’s question,” he said. “What do you want with us?”

  Hecate paused for a moment, as if changing tack. “Very well,” she said. “To put it simply, I need your help.”

  The colonel barked a laugh. “And why the hell would we help a Goa’uld?”

  “Because we share a mutual objective.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.”

  Frowning slightly, Hecate tipped her head. “Wrong again, Colonel. We both want to free this world—this galaxy—from the Wraith, and to destroy the abominations that their queen is creating.”

  “You know about that?” Daniel said. He sounded cautious, interested despite his better judgment. “About the Goa’uld-Wraith hybrid?”

  “I know a great deal, Daniel. Including how to destroy them—all of them.”

  “All the hybrids? You mean there’s more than one?”

  “There will be.” Hecate swept her imperious gaze across them as if measuring each in turn. “There will be thousands.”

  Sam’s stomach clenched at the prospect, but she couldn’t contradict Hecate’s assertion; they’d seen the tank of symbiotes in the Wraith lab on Earth, they’d seen the Wraith being bred as hosts. Queen Shadow was building an army.

  “Janet Fraiser always believed that one day the great SG-1 would return to save Earth,” Hecate continued. “Many doubted her. Many called her faith foolish and condemned her as a traitor. But now you have the chance to prove that she was right, that her faith in you was justified.” Hecate’s smile was suddenly very much like Janet’s, full of quiet conviction and stoicism. “Your world needs you,” she said. “How could you possibly turn your backs?”

  Arbella — 2098

  Salem sat bright on a rust colored horizon when General Roz Bailey left the Combined Military Force headquarters that morning. The sight of Arbella’s smaller moon so early in the day reminded her how rapidly the weeks were passing and how soon winter would be upon them. The dirt crunched, brittle beneath her boots, and the air had lost its humidity, having the familiar bite that she always found refreshing after months of cloying heat. In a few weeks, they might even have snow. If Roz had been one who believed in omens, she’d perhaps have thought how the change of season could herald a shift on a much larger scale for all the people of Arbella. But she was more pragmatic than that. The snow would fall no matter how things turned out with SG-1.

  But as she made her way through Laketown, she decided that rational thinking might be an uncommon commodity these days. The atmosphere rang with a tension that some might call anticipation or even excitement. Roz knew it was neither of those things.

  Conflict wasn’t a new thing on Arbella. Ever since
the First Gens had broken ground here, there had been philosophical and political differences so complex and ingrained that one hundred years of history had done nothing to erase them. Some would say that there were two factions that could be traced back to those loyal to the SGC and those who believed that Stargate Command had been responsible for all the ills that had befallen humanity. On the face of things, she supposed that was essentially true.

  But Roz knew it could never be as simple as that. She’d read the history books, and then read them again, the second time around trying to find what wasn’t said in typeface—those elusive truths that hid between the lines. The story of Arbella was a troubled and twisted thing.

  The most obvious quarrels made themselves known in the Fu-Bar. After too many pitchers of Steiner’s Original, the CMF hotheads would clash with those from the security force, resulting in a few broken chairs.

  But there were other, uglier, conflicts. The ones that took place in the dark, where whispers were more damaging than shouts.

  In the past few weeks, both battlegrounds had witnessed an escalation of hostilities.

  Roz supposed it had been inevitable from the moment Rya’c had contacted her. After all, four legendary (or notorious, depending on your position) figures from humanity’s past couldn’t suddenly rise from the dead without creating a stir. First of all, it was to be expected that the very reality of their existence would be questioned. She herself still found it hard to believe that they were back after all this time. But she’d become something of an expert on SG-1—and Jack O’Neill was most definitely Jack O’Neill.

  From the buzz around Laketown, it was clear that some were more willing to accept the team’s existence than others. She’d heard that the likes of Lieutenant Jefferson were spreading word that the CMF was getting ready to storm Earth; that was a rumor she’d have to stifle soon enough, never mind the fact she hoped it might be true. The last thing she needed was some ill-conceived attempt at a coup if the plan to find Lana Jones didn’t pan out.