The Hall of the Slain (SG-1 fic)
Posted: 2005-06-13 06:10pm
Ok kids, punch big glowing holes through the parts that are glaringly inconsistent with SG-verse canon ..... or just read & enjoy.
THE HALL OF THE SLAIN
Prologue
The SGC team fanned out from the Stargate, their expressions alert but relaxed. The area around the Stargate was just as the MALP had shown it, the gate sitting in the middle of a flat, roughly circular glade in a forest of towering conifers. The stone steps leading up to the gate were cracked with age, but no structures or paths were visible in the knee-high grass between the gate and the forest.
When the team had moved little more than 50 meters away from the gate, the ambush began. Staff-weapon and zat-gun fire erupted from the treeline before them, and as their leader barked orders to run back to the DHD, they saw Super Soldiers and Jaffa emerging from the forest behind them, more weapons-fire cutting into them. P90's chattered to life in staccato bursts, the team leader tossing grenades expertly, and slugs and shrapnel cut down many attackers.
The team was outnumbered heavily, and one by one they were dropped by energy blasts. The firefight was over in less than a minute, the glade suddenly, shockingly returning to silence, the smell of spent cartridges and the drifting smoke from smoldering staff-blast impacts the only remnants of the chaos -- besides the bodies.
Nine Jaffa lay dead in the grass, with eleven of their fellows and four Super Soldiers left to clean up. The senior surviving Jaffa stripped the SGC team of weapons, radios, and any other item of interest to his God. The human bodies were left as a warning for any of their comrades who might come through the gate.
A Super Soldier moved to the DHD and dialed the Stargate, something this patrol had been preparing to do when the gate first activated for the MALP. Carrying the bodies of fallen Jaffa, the patrol passed quickly through the gate, returning to their homeworld.
The glade returned to sombre silence, the normal sounds of the forest still hushed in fearful reaction to those moments of violence. The bodies of four humans lay motionless in trampled grass, their blood still slowly leaking into the soil.
Beside the body of the Major, the team's leader, silver-white light flared for a moment. When it subsided, a woman stood beside the Major. Long, curling blonde hair framed a face of elegant beauty, calm strength radiating from ice-blue eyes. She wore a skirt of silver mail below a breastplate of pale blue metal, matching bracers on her forearms, a light blue cloak draped over her shoulders though her long legs were bare.
She knelt beside the Major, gently caressing his cheek with one hand, the other clutching a slim spear. She looked around the glade and saw that the other fallen SGC members were attended by women similarly dressed. They shared a knowing glance and she nodded once, then silver-white light surged again to surround each woman and the corpse she knelt beside.
When that light faded, the glade was empty again, the trampled bloody grass and the lingering smell of gunfire the only evidence that its peace had been disturbed.
I.
General Jack O'Neill sat in the privacy of a stall in the washroom nearest the Gate Room, elbows resting on his knees as he held a newspaper before him. He heard the door of the stall next to his close, and looked down, tilting his head to get a look at the shoes of his neighbor. They were not military boots, but a comfortable brand of hiking shoe that might be worn by ...
"Daniel?" he asked.
There was a moment's pause before "Jack?"
"Yeah."
"What are you doing?"
"Besides the obvious?" O'Neill retorted. "Reading the paper ... good Ziggy today. You bring anything to read?"
"Um ... Toschi's A History of the Roman Empire."
"I know how it ends ... wouldn't want to spoil it for you, though," O'Neill said, but before he could add another comment an alarm rang through the corridor outside.
"Unscheduled offworld activation!" Walter's voice echoed in the corridor.
"Dammit, Walter," O'Neill muttered ... I hate wiping in a hurry."
Daniel said nothing as he pulled up his pants, and only exchanged a quick look with O'Neill at the sink as they washed their hands before heading for the Gate Room, where they found Teal'c and Carter already watching the Stargate glow behind a closed iris.
"Receiving Asgard IDC signal, General," Walter announced from the control room.
"Open it up," O'Neill ordered, but before the iris could open a holographic image shimmered into solidity on the ramp below the Gate, the thin form of an Asgard appearing.
"Thor, buddy!" O'Neill greeted their old ally happily. "Just in the 'hood? Thought you'd drop in to talk a little baseball?"
Thor paused for a moment to consider, head tilting atop his thin neck. "No .... I am sorry I have not been in frequent communication, O'Neill, but since the defeat of the Replicators and Baal's fleet at Dakara, the core of the Asgard fleet has been occupied securing the borders of our domain."
"Places to go, snakeheads to kill?" O'Neill asked. "Sounds good to me."
"Yes," Thor answered flatly. "The victory at Dakara has allowed the Asgard to regroup and rebuild our fleets while consolidating defense of our new homeworld. We have found no evidence of new Replicator activity within our galaxy ... it appears your victory was complete."
"Yes, well ... we don't like to toot our own horn ..." O'Neill began.
"But," Thor began.
O'Neill's shoulders slumped a little. "There always a 'but' with you guys!"
"But," Thor repeated, "we have maintained a close watch on the progress of the war between the Jaffa and the goa'uld. Baal continues to rebuild his forces in alliance with other goa'uld, but the fleet of ships the Jaffa captured at Dakara has been driving them back on all fronts."
"The hits just keep on comin'," O'Neill smiled.
"But ..." Thor said.
"You see what I mean?" O'Neill looked to Teal'c for support, getting a murmured "indeed."
"But one element of the goa'uld's forces is withdrawing into a remote sector of your galaxy ... a sector, in fact, that was once part of the Protected Worlds Treaty. Jaffa forces are pursuing them into this area, which is ... hazardous."
"You said it was once part of the Protected Planets Treaty," Carter observed. "But the Treaty must be over by now, isn't it?"
"Yes," Thor's holographic image looked at Carter. "The actions of Anubis and his allies abrogated the Treaty. But this particular section of the galaxy was withdrawn from the Treaty long before then."
"Withdrawn?" Carter asked. "You mean the Asgard agreed to stop protecting this area from the goa'uld? Why?"
"The area in question included a planet inhabited by a race which no longer needed the protection of the Asgard ... a group, in fact, which had grown powerful enough to constitute a threat to both the Asgard and goa'uld."
O'Neill winced. "Ok, that's a big 'but'."
"Indeed," Teal'c nodded. "A race powerful enough to threaten both Asgard and goa'uld would be formidable. It is difficult to believe we did not hear of them before."
"Yeah, these do seem like guys you'd mention," O'Neill agreed with more than a trace of sarcasm.
Thor's image shimmered slightly, then regained focus as he faced O'Neill. "It is not a topic that the Asgard are happy to raise. It is a source of ... embarassment. The race in question is, unfortunately, a result of experiments performed upon another species. Unsanctioned experiments. Performed by an Asgard ..."
"No .... don't say it!" O'Neill held up a warning finger.
"Performed by Loki," Thor sighed.
"I asked you not to say it!" O'Neill groaned.
"When we met Loki," Daniel interrupted, "he mentioned that he had gotten into trouble with the Asgard for performing unsanctioned experiments on humans. This race that became powerful enough to threaten the Asgard and goa'uld ... they're a result of Loki's experiments on ... us?"
"Yes," Thor admitted.
O'Neill grimmaced. "You know, after all the times we've pulled your cute little butts out of the fire, you'd think ...."
"Sir," Carter cut him off before he could get rolling, then turned back to Thor. "This planet that the goa'uld are retreating toward, where this race lives .... what's it called?"
"Valhalla," Thor answered in a tone that only an Asgard would recognize as misery.
"Valhalla?" O'Neill asked. "Wait, there isn't opera involved in this, is there?" A look of mild distaste creased his face.
"Valhalla was a sort of heaven in Norse mythology," Daniel explained, "the 'Hall of the Slain'. Except instead of clouds and harps and singing, Valhalla was a hall with hundreds of doors, each door large enough to pass an army, where warriors who had fallen nobly in battle feasted and drank themselves insensible every night with mead, served by beautiful Valkyries."
"Hey ... my kinda heaven!" O'Neill smiled, ignoring a glare from Carter. "Yet somehow, I'm guessing there's a 'but.'"
"But," Daniel went on, "every day the warriors of Valhalla woke to go to battle, training for their final battle of Ragnorak, the end of the world. Most of the warriors would die in these battles, but be miraculously healed at dusk in time for the night's feast."
"Ok, that's a big 'but'," O'Neill frowned.
"Thor," Carter asked, "are you saying that there's a real planet called Valhalla?"
"Yes," Thor answered.
"It was a place where Loki performed experiments ... involving a lot of fighting and bringing dead warriors back to life?"
"At the time, Loki thought that he might find a solution to the problem of Asgard genetics in the sarcophagus technology used by the goa'uld," Thor explained.
"Oh here we go ..." O'Neill rubbed his forehead with one hand, a headache coming on.
"At the same time, he thought that the technology might be used to create warriors who were both experienced and durable enough to make good soldiers in the war against the goa'uld."
"Let me see if I can guess the 'but' here," O'Neill nodded quickly, "just let me see if I can guess: the soldiers didn't appreciate these experiments, and took over Valhalla and kicked Loki's little grey butt out of there."
"That is a fair guess, although Loki has never been as forthcoming as we would like about the exact circumstances that led to the revolt of the Einhar," Thor said. "Unfortunately, they captured a great deal of Asgard technology, which Loki had been training many of them to use against the goa'uld."
"Instead, they used it against Loki to gain their freedom," Carter finished.
"Yes," Thor sighed.
"How long ago did all this happen?" Daniel asked.
"Just over nine hundred of your years ago," Thor said.
"We're just hearing about this now?" O'Neill's eyebrows rose. "After nine hundred years? Thanks for that news flash. Any predictions on who's winning Super Bowl III?"
Ignoring the obscure human cultural reference, Thor continued. "When the Einhar revolted, the High Council took steps to contain the damage of Loki's activities. There is a Stargate on Valhalla, but we introduced a device into the Valhalla system which affects the structure of local space-time in a way that prevents a stable wormhole from forming, either into or out of a Stargate."
"Wow," Carter blinked. "That's some device ... but it wouldn't isolate these Einhar if they had access to Asgard starship technology, I suppose."
"No, it would not," Thor nodded. "However, the Einhar showed no interest in expanding into other parts of the galaxy. In fact, their 'revolt' was not a true rejection of the Asgard, or even of Loki, who they still regarded as a ..... god." Thor said the last word with distaste that was obvious, even to the humans. "They continued their training in daily combat, preparing for their final war ... presumably against the goa'uld."
"But, something changed?" Daniel asked.
"Yes. We suspect that the Einhar have discovered that the resurrection technology taken from Loki has limits ... that a warrior can only be revived from death a certain number of times before they cannot be restored to full health."
"I'd call that a 'limit' all right," O'Neal noted.
"As a result," Thor continued," their population may be declining. "We infer this ... because the Einhar appear to have disabled or destroyed the Stargate Inhibitor deployed in the Valhalla system."
"Appear to?" Carter asked.
"This must be the case ... because Valkyries have once again begun appearing on planets with Stargates .... taking dead warriors from the field of battle," Thor said.
"Okay .... sounds a little weird," O'Neill nodded, "women taking dead guys off to some world where they can't die ... and they're not named Oma and they haven't grabbed Daniel yet ... and these guys like to kick goa'uld ass, so I guess you're going to get to the 'but' that makes this a problem big enough that you finally got around to mentioning these guys to us?"
Thor turned to look directly at O'Neill. "An SGC team was killed this morning in a fight with goa'uld forces, and have been taken to Valhalla. We believe the Einhar are aggressively trying to increase their numbers in response to the goa'uld retreat toward Valhalla."
O'Neill frowned. "Carter?"
"I was going to tell you at the morning briefing, sir ... SG-6 is two hours overdue on their check-in. They were on a recon mission to P3X-9904."
O'Neill directed his frown at Thor. "Let me guess: we have to organize a mission to go save SG-6 from an army of the Undead. It's been a while since I've seen this movie ... but from what I remember, I'm going to need a chainsaw and a shotgun."
Silence hung in the Gate Room for a moment, finally broken by one word from Teal'c. "Indeed."
THE HALL OF THE SLAIN
Prologue
The SGC team fanned out from the Stargate, their expressions alert but relaxed. The area around the Stargate was just as the MALP had shown it, the gate sitting in the middle of a flat, roughly circular glade in a forest of towering conifers. The stone steps leading up to the gate were cracked with age, but no structures or paths were visible in the knee-high grass between the gate and the forest.
When the team had moved little more than 50 meters away from the gate, the ambush began. Staff-weapon and zat-gun fire erupted from the treeline before them, and as their leader barked orders to run back to the DHD, they saw Super Soldiers and Jaffa emerging from the forest behind them, more weapons-fire cutting into them. P90's chattered to life in staccato bursts, the team leader tossing grenades expertly, and slugs and shrapnel cut down many attackers.
The team was outnumbered heavily, and one by one they were dropped by energy blasts. The firefight was over in less than a minute, the glade suddenly, shockingly returning to silence, the smell of spent cartridges and the drifting smoke from smoldering staff-blast impacts the only remnants of the chaos -- besides the bodies.
Nine Jaffa lay dead in the grass, with eleven of their fellows and four Super Soldiers left to clean up. The senior surviving Jaffa stripped the SGC team of weapons, radios, and any other item of interest to his God. The human bodies were left as a warning for any of their comrades who might come through the gate.
A Super Soldier moved to the DHD and dialed the Stargate, something this patrol had been preparing to do when the gate first activated for the MALP. Carrying the bodies of fallen Jaffa, the patrol passed quickly through the gate, returning to their homeworld.
The glade returned to sombre silence, the normal sounds of the forest still hushed in fearful reaction to those moments of violence. The bodies of four humans lay motionless in trampled grass, their blood still slowly leaking into the soil.
Beside the body of the Major, the team's leader, silver-white light flared for a moment. When it subsided, a woman stood beside the Major. Long, curling blonde hair framed a face of elegant beauty, calm strength radiating from ice-blue eyes. She wore a skirt of silver mail below a breastplate of pale blue metal, matching bracers on her forearms, a light blue cloak draped over her shoulders though her long legs were bare.
She knelt beside the Major, gently caressing his cheek with one hand, the other clutching a slim spear. She looked around the glade and saw that the other fallen SGC members were attended by women similarly dressed. They shared a knowing glance and she nodded once, then silver-white light surged again to surround each woman and the corpse she knelt beside.
When that light faded, the glade was empty again, the trampled bloody grass and the lingering smell of gunfire the only evidence that its peace had been disturbed.
I.
General Jack O'Neill sat in the privacy of a stall in the washroom nearest the Gate Room, elbows resting on his knees as he held a newspaper before him. He heard the door of the stall next to his close, and looked down, tilting his head to get a look at the shoes of his neighbor. They were not military boots, but a comfortable brand of hiking shoe that might be worn by ...
"Daniel?" he asked.
There was a moment's pause before "Jack?"
"Yeah."
"What are you doing?"
"Besides the obvious?" O'Neill retorted. "Reading the paper ... good Ziggy today. You bring anything to read?"
"Um ... Toschi's A History of the Roman Empire."
"I know how it ends ... wouldn't want to spoil it for you, though," O'Neill said, but before he could add another comment an alarm rang through the corridor outside.
"Unscheduled offworld activation!" Walter's voice echoed in the corridor.
"Dammit, Walter," O'Neill muttered ... I hate wiping in a hurry."
Daniel said nothing as he pulled up his pants, and only exchanged a quick look with O'Neill at the sink as they washed their hands before heading for the Gate Room, where they found Teal'c and Carter already watching the Stargate glow behind a closed iris.
"Receiving Asgard IDC signal, General," Walter announced from the control room.
"Open it up," O'Neill ordered, but before the iris could open a holographic image shimmered into solidity on the ramp below the Gate, the thin form of an Asgard appearing.
"Thor, buddy!" O'Neill greeted their old ally happily. "Just in the 'hood? Thought you'd drop in to talk a little baseball?"
Thor paused for a moment to consider, head tilting atop his thin neck. "No .... I am sorry I have not been in frequent communication, O'Neill, but since the defeat of the Replicators and Baal's fleet at Dakara, the core of the Asgard fleet has been occupied securing the borders of our domain."
"Places to go, snakeheads to kill?" O'Neill asked. "Sounds good to me."
"Yes," Thor answered flatly. "The victory at Dakara has allowed the Asgard to regroup and rebuild our fleets while consolidating defense of our new homeworld. We have found no evidence of new Replicator activity within our galaxy ... it appears your victory was complete."
"Yes, well ... we don't like to toot our own horn ..." O'Neill began.
"But," Thor began.
O'Neill's shoulders slumped a little. "There always a 'but' with you guys!"
"But," Thor repeated, "we have maintained a close watch on the progress of the war between the Jaffa and the goa'uld. Baal continues to rebuild his forces in alliance with other goa'uld, but the fleet of ships the Jaffa captured at Dakara has been driving them back on all fronts."
"The hits just keep on comin'," O'Neill smiled.
"But ..." Thor said.
"You see what I mean?" O'Neill looked to Teal'c for support, getting a murmured "indeed."
"But one element of the goa'uld's forces is withdrawing into a remote sector of your galaxy ... a sector, in fact, that was once part of the Protected Worlds Treaty. Jaffa forces are pursuing them into this area, which is ... hazardous."
"You said it was once part of the Protected Planets Treaty," Carter observed. "But the Treaty must be over by now, isn't it?"
"Yes," Thor's holographic image looked at Carter. "The actions of Anubis and his allies abrogated the Treaty. But this particular section of the galaxy was withdrawn from the Treaty long before then."
"Withdrawn?" Carter asked. "You mean the Asgard agreed to stop protecting this area from the goa'uld? Why?"
"The area in question included a planet inhabited by a race which no longer needed the protection of the Asgard ... a group, in fact, which had grown powerful enough to constitute a threat to both the Asgard and goa'uld."
O'Neill winced. "Ok, that's a big 'but'."
"Indeed," Teal'c nodded. "A race powerful enough to threaten both Asgard and goa'uld would be formidable. It is difficult to believe we did not hear of them before."
"Yeah, these do seem like guys you'd mention," O'Neill agreed with more than a trace of sarcasm.
Thor's image shimmered slightly, then regained focus as he faced O'Neill. "It is not a topic that the Asgard are happy to raise. It is a source of ... embarassment. The race in question is, unfortunately, a result of experiments performed upon another species. Unsanctioned experiments. Performed by an Asgard ..."
"No .... don't say it!" O'Neill held up a warning finger.
"Performed by Loki," Thor sighed.
"I asked you not to say it!" O'Neill groaned.
"When we met Loki," Daniel interrupted, "he mentioned that he had gotten into trouble with the Asgard for performing unsanctioned experiments on humans. This race that became powerful enough to threaten the Asgard and goa'uld ... they're a result of Loki's experiments on ... us?"
"Yes," Thor admitted.
O'Neill grimmaced. "You know, after all the times we've pulled your cute little butts out of the fire, you'd think ...."
"Sir," Carter cut him off before he could get rolling, then turned back to Thor. "This planet that the goa'uld are retreating toward, where this race lives .... what's it called?"
"Valhalla," Thor answered in a tone that only an Asgard would recognize as misery.
"Valhalla?" O'Neill asked. "Wait, there isn't opera involved in this, is there?" A look of mild distaste creased his face.
"Valhalla was a sort of heaven in Norse mythology," Daniel explained, "the 'Hall of the Slain'. Except instead of clouds and harps and singing, Valhalla was a hall with hundreds of doors, each door large enough to pass an army, where warriors who had fallen nobly in battle feasted and drank themselves insensible every night with mead, served by beautiful Valkyries."
"Hey ... my kinda heaven!" O'Neill smiled, ignoring a glare from Carter. "Yet somehow, I'm guessing there's a 'but.'"
"But," Daniel went on, "every day the warriors of Valhalla woke to go to battle, training for their final battle of Ragnorak, the end of the world. Most of the warriors would die in these battles, but be miraculously healed at dusk in time for the night's feast."
"Ok, that's a big 'but'," O'Neill frowned.
"Thor," Carter asked, "are you saying that there's a real planet called Valhalla?"
"Yes," Thor answered.
"It was a place where Loki performed experiments ... involving a lot of fighting and bringing dead warriors back to life?"
"At the time, Loki thought that he might find a solution to the problem of Asgard genetics in the sarcophagus technology used by the goa'uld," Thor explained.
"Oh here we go ..." O'Neill rubbed his forehead with one hand, a headache coming on.
"At the same time, he thought that the technology might be used to create warriors who were both experienced and durable enough to make good soldiers in the war against the goa'uld."
"Let me see if I can guess the 'but' here," O'Neill nodded quickly, "just let me see if I can guess: the soldiers didn't appreciate these experiments, and took over Valhalla and kicked Loki's little grey butt out of there."
"That is a fair guess, although Loki has never been as forthcoming as we would like about the exact circumstances that led to the revolt of the Einhar," Thor said. "Unfortunately, they captured a great deal of Asgard technology, which Loki had been training many of them to use against the goa'uld."
"Instead, they used it against Loki to gain their freedom," Carter finished.
"Yes," Thor sighed.
"How long ago did all this happen?" Daniel asked.
"Just over nine hundred of your years ago," Thor said.
"We're just hearing about this now?" O'Neill's eyebrows rose. "After nine hundred years? Thanks for that news flash. Any predictions on who's winning Super Bowl III?"
Ignoring the obscure human cultural reference, Thor continued. "When the Einhar revolted, the High Council took steps to contain the damage of Loki's activities. There is a Stargate on Valhalla, but we introduced a device into the Valhalla system which affects the structure of local space-time in a way that prevents a stable wormhole from forming, either into or out of a Stargate."
"Wow," Carter blinked. "That's some device ... but it wouldn't isolate these Einhar if they had access to Asgard starship technology, I suppose."
"No, it would not," Thor nodded. "However, the Einhar showed no interest in expanding into other parts of the galaxy. In fact, their 'revolt' was not a true rejection of the Asgard, or even of Loki, who they still regarded as a ..... god." Thor said the last word with distaste that was obvious, even to the humans. "They continued their training in daily combat, preparing for their final war ... presumably against the goa'uld."
"But, something changed?" Daniel asked.
"Yes. We suspect that the Einhar have discovered that the resurrection technology taken from Loki has limits ... that a warrior can only be revived from death a certain number of times before they cannot be restored to full health."
"I'd call that a 'limit' all right," O'Neal noted.
"As a result," Thor continued," their population may be declining. "We infer this ... because the Einhar appear to have disabled or destroyed the Stargate Inhibitor deployed in the Valhalla system."
"Appear to?" Carter asked.
"This must be the case ... because Valkyries have once again begun appearing on planets with Stargates .... taking dead warriors from the field of battle," Thor said.
"Okay .... sounds a little weird," O'Neill nodded, "women taking dead guys off to some world where they can't die ... and they're not named Oma and they haven't grabbed Daniel yet ... and these guys like to kick goa'uld ass, so I guess you're going to get to the 'but' that makes this a problem big enough that you finally got around to mentioning these guys to us?"
Thor turned to look directly at O'Neill. "An SGC team was killed this morning in a fight with goa'uld forces, and have been taken to Valhalla. We believe the Einhar are aggressively trying to increase their numbers in response to the goa'uld retreat toward Valhalla."
O'Neill frowned. "Carter?"
"I was going to tell you at the morning briefing, sir ... SG-6 is two hours overdue on their check-in. They were on a recon mission to P3X-9904."
O'Neill directed his frown at Thor. "Let me guess: we have to organize a mission to go save SG-6 from an army of the Undead. It's been a while since I've seen this movie ... but from what I remember, I'm going to need a chainsaw and a shotgun."
Silence hung in the Gate Room for a moment, finally broken by one word from Teal'c. "Indeed."
'ship as it should be done.