EV: Meanwhile, On Abydos III

Colonel Jack O'Neill had, by now at least, managed to figure out a plan. Sure he'd been winging it at first, but that was the first stage in any daring rescue against all odds. Besides, he'd been in a lot worse situations than this, like that time in East Germany back in Eighty-Two. The troops of the Wannabe Space Pharoah weren't anywhere near as tough to handle as the East Germans had been, for all their advanced tech. Honestly, it seemed like they had been trained to act like something out of a period piece. Jack had gone to see Braveheart back in May and the way these grunts traipsed around in formation like that reminded him a bit of that. Or maybe something a bit closer to Waterloo from back when he was in High School.

It was almost like they didn't understand that people didn't square off in lines and columns anymore. True, they had tech on their side. Jack was willing to bet their MP-Fives wouldn't have penetrated that armor, for instance, but something with more stopping power? Maybe with depleted uranium rounds? That might punch through a weak spot. This gear that he, Reilly, and Brown had picked up did the trick well enough, even if the Staff Weapons were pretty damn inaccurate and had crap for rate of fire. The Armor was good enough to handle a glancing shot, but not a direct hit. Kind of like how Flak Jackets worked back on Earth. The little electric pistol things did the trick even better than the staff weapons.

Regardless, Jack, Reilly, and Brown had been ambushing Guards when Jack'd gotten the bright idea to take some of the armor off the Grunts to use as a disguise. Sure, this sorta thing was technically a War Crime, but it's not like Space Egypt ever signed the Geneva Conventions, now was it? Besides, Covert action was what Special Forces were all about. That was how he, Reilly, and Brown had wound up making their way up through the ship in disguise. They acted like goons, with the helmets up covering their faces, and listened to the chatter as they passed.

It helped that the helmets seemed to be translating for them, though how they figured out English Translation so quick, Jack had no clue. Probably had something to do with the Head Honcho, this Ra Guy. Well, either that or the movies were right and Aliens really did pick up on and listen in to old Antenna-based TV broadcasts, but what were the odds of that? Either way, the translation software was how Jack found out where King Tut had been keeping Daniel. Apparently, and get this, Ra had him in a room that was meant for Harem Slaves. Jack couldn't wait to tease Daniel about that, just as soon as they weren't all in mortal danger.

Regardless, he, Reilly, and Brown had made their way over to the room that Daniel was being kept in by pulling the Han Solo trick. Granted, it wasn't like they were actually piloting anything, but if you could apply flying casual to walking, this was what it'd look like. Unfortunately, the two Alien Grunts guarding the Door to the Room Daniel was being kept in weren't exactly too keen on being helpful.

"State your business." Translated the Helmet as the Guards at the Door crossed their staff weapons in front of the doorway.

"We're your relief." Tried Jack, that was usually good for a moment of confusion or two.

"Our shift does not end for another two hours. Has something happened?" Questioned the Rightmost Guard.

"Prisoner Escape down on the detention level. They need extra hands." Hedged Reilly.

"Is that so? Something is not adding up. Why exchange two Guards for three?" Queried the Leftmost Guard.

"Well, it's just that these two are new and they need the more experienced warriors down there." Lied Brown, Hastily.

"New? On Lord Ra's Flagship? What Unit are you three with?" Asked the Rightmost Guard.

Brown and Reilly didn't get a chance to say anything more because Jack drew his Pistol Thingy and fired two pulses of electric energy at the pair of guards, knocking them out as they slumped to the floor. He holstered the Pistol Thingy before turning toward Reilly and Brown and cocking an eyebrow, not that either of them could see that with his helmet up.

"Prisoner Escape? Where'd you learn to bluff, Reilly? Even the Army couldn't have taught you to be that bad at it." Questioned Jack.

"The best lies have a grain of truth to them." Shrugged Reilly.

"A grain, not a whole loaf." Scoffed Brown.

"Hey, you're not off the hook either Brown. Seriously, you couldn't come up with something better than 'it's my first day'? Is that how the SEALs do things these days?" Queried Jack, turning on Brown.

"Do we really have time for this?" Asked Reilly.

"No Reilly, you're right, we don't really have time for this. Let's just get this open." Responded Jack.

Then, he hit the door controls and entered the Harem Room to find Daniel sitting on a pillow looking at some kind of tablet computer. Daniel turned to look at them enter with a frown on his face.

"Who are you three? I was given to understand I still had time on my deadline." Questioned Daniel.

Jack couldn't help himself, he had only one response to that. He prepared to drop his helmet and say the one thing that no self-respecting film connoisseur would pass up the chance to say in this exact situation. When he did, he would only get groans from everyone present, though.

The Philistines. . .

XXXX

Daniel Jackson had, on understanding his predicament, formulated a plan to learn as much information as he could about Ra's Empire while he was in captivity. Ra, apparently, had decided that giving Daniel Access to general information about the scope of the Empire and its forces would make him more likely to acquiesce to Ra's Ultimatum, had agreed to make some of that information available to Daniel. What was contained in the tablets wasn't the most encouraging thing out there.

Apparently, there were hundreds of aliens pretending to be Gods out there on hundreds of worlds. It wasn't just limited to Ancient Egypt, either, though with Ra in charge, that Pantheon was naturally considered to be first among equals. What was more worrying was the sheer scale of it all. Hundred of Planets with potentially millions of troops each. The scale of resources was mind-boggling, though there was clearly some potential to make the Pantheons fight amongst themselves, weakening the Empire while Earth sent Special Forces through the Stargate to work behind the scenes.

That might not be possible at the moment, though. By all accounts, the grip Ra had on Power in his Empire was absolute. At least, by the accounts that Daniel had been allowed to see. When he had spoken to Sha're back in Nagada, she had mentioned that there was some problem with rebellious elements that would cause mineral quotas to spike every now and again as Ra demanded more to stamp out this or that base. Of course, none of the tablets that Daniel had been given contained any information on these Rebels Against Ra. Instead, they emphasized the sheer scale of the Empire.

And that sheer scale, if it could be counted as accurate, was mind-boggling. Apparently, the least of Ra's direct vassals had an empire of nineteen worlds to his name, each of which could produce more than a million troops, and which maintained a fleet of Twelve Ships that would make Modern Aircraft Carriers look like tugboats, along with at least twice that many smaller ships and thousands of fightercraft. And Ra had fourteen of those Direct Vassals, the largest of which had several times that many worlds while Ra himself had over four hundred worlds all to himself. The best-case scenario, according to the data that Daniel saw, was that Ra's Empire was around one-thousand-two-hundred-sixty-two worlds strong, and that was just the ones that Ra would admit to having.

Daniel, though, had realized something that Ra hadn't. In giving him this information, which emphasized Ra's numerous powerful vassals in the hopes of overawing Daniel into submission, Ra had inadvertently clued Daniel into the feudal nature of Ra's Empire. Daniel suspected that the many powerful vassals would, as these sorts of scenarios often led to, inevitably turn on each other just as soon as there was no pressure from a powerful leader to stop them from doing so. In essence, the only thing that seemed to be keeping Ra's Empire together was Ra himself.

If they took him out, then the rest of the problem should collapse into infighting for a good long while. Maybe long enough for Earth to find allies in these Rebels Against Ra that Sha're had mentioned, or other factions out in the Wider Galaxy. One-thousand-two-hundred-sixty-two worlds was a drop in the bucket compared to the number of Stars in the Galaxy, after all. Even if only a thousandth of those stars were habitable, and even if a hundredth of those had Stargates, then the number of worlds that Ra would admit to having at his command only equaled roughly twelve-point-six percent of that number of Habitable, Stargate-Bearing, Worlds. The odds of finding allies were in their favor by a lot, if only they had the breathing room. They just needed to assassinate Ra to get that breathing room.

It was then that the door opened and in stepped a trio of Ra's Guards in full armor, with their helmets on and weapons out. Daniel frowned, he had been checking the time and knew he still had hours left on the deadline. This was completely unexpected and he had to know more. So he did what he'd been doing this whole time, went fishing for information.

"Who are you three? I was given to understand I still had time on my deadline." Queried Daniel.

The Lead Guard looked over at him, then put a gauntleted hand to the forget of his armor. Was he possibly communicating with someone? Was that where the armor's Communications unit was? Daniel didn't know. It was possible that the guard was getting new orders. What Daniel couldn't have predicted was what the Guard's response was.

"I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you. I'm here with Ben Kenobi." Answered the Guard.

As the Guard hit some kind of switch on the Gorget of his armor, his helmet folded back in to reveal the grinning face of Colonel Jack O'Neill. The other two Guards hit their own Helmet releases, revealing Lieutenants Reilly and Brown, though in their cases, they were grimacing at Jack's quip. Daniel couldn't blame them, honestly.

"What? I had to, it's a classic line!" Protested Jack.

"Still." Groaned Reilly.

"And you got on my ass for using the First Day excuse." Grumbled Brown.

"Putting that aside for a moment, we need to talk." Sighed Daniel, pushing past the awkward moment and getting to the meat of the issue. Suddenly, the smile on Jack's face dropped and he nodded.

"I know. King Tut has the Nuke. I've been trying to figure out a way to get it back from him, but he's got it locked down tight with whatever passes for priests in Bizarro Space Egypt. I figure that's what the locals call technicians, but I couldn't figure out what exactly is being done to it." Insisted Jack.

"Ra's rigging the nuke so it can't be turned off once it starts the countdown. He's probably also adding a twist to it. The Mineral the locals mine, called Naquadah, is to plutonium reactor fuel what plutonium reactor fuel is coal, Jack. If something like that goes off, forget tactical nuke, we're talking a citykiller here." Informed Daniel.

"Great. And he's making it so it can't be disarmed?" Asked Jack.

"That's what he said. He wants Earth, Jack and if he can't convince the Leaders of the World to surrender, he says he'll make them." Daniel explained.

"Citykiller nuke followed by an attack from orbit might just do the trick." Frowned Reilly.

"Yeah, if he gets Cheyenne Mountain with the nuke, the Joint Chiefs are gonna have a hell of a time trying to coordinate a counterattack. The only stuff we have that can even reach orbit are Nukes, and those are coordinated by NORAD." Frowned Brown.

"Which is exactly why they sent a nuke along in the first place. Just in case." Nodded Jack.

"That's not the whole problem. Ra has a whole empire to call down on Earth if he needs to, over a thousand worlds, Jack. The only thing is, their political structure seems feudal." Pressed Daniel.

"I'm sensing there's some silver lining in what you just said, but I can't figure out what it is." Offered Jack.

"It's the feudal structure. Ra has a lot of powerful vassals that are only being kept in line by him. If we can kill him, then those over a thousand worlds suddenly start fighting amongst themselves." Insisted Daniel.

"Cutting off the head of the snake and letting the body die, huh? It's not a bad plan if your intel is accurate." Mused Jack.

"Yeah, and there's a Citykiller Nuke on board that can't be disarmed once the countdown stops." Mused Reilly.

"I don't know what kind of Tech Ra has access to, but I doubt he'll survive us opening up a can of sunshine on his ship." Agreed Brown.

"Which just leaves us needing a way off this ship. Fortunately, this ship has a Hangar full of smaller ships. Not just fighters, but something called a Tel'tak, which from context sounds like a small troop or cargo hauler. Think you can fly one, Jack?" Grinned Daniel.

"I can fly anything, but you're forgetting one thing. This ship is close enough to the Local's City that they'll get caught by the nuke too." Reminded Jack.

Fortunately, unbeknownst to Jack and Daniel, that problem was about to be solved for them in spectacular fashion thanks to events on the ground. What neither of them realized was that Ferretti and Kawalsky's rebellion was about to storm the Temple that Ra was using as a landing platform. As the Rebel Forces on the ground attacked, Ra made the decision to undock the ship from the temple and bring it into low orbit. Jack and Daniel could feel the Ship take off and realized that this was their shot. Now all they had to do was get to the Nuke, arm it, and then race to the Hangar to steal a Tel'tak.

What could possibly go wrong?

XXXX

Major Charles Kawalsky was not having a good day. True, he'd started it off with a bang, literally, as he'd downed one of the Enemy Fighters in a move that was more fit for some kind of action movie than real-life combat. He'd been feeling pretty damn good about his chances after that. Unfortunately, when the time had come to attack the Temple it seemed that reality had decided to bitchslap him for daring to think in terms of an action movie.

They'd taken out the guard post easily enough and hit a couple of patrols along the road to the Temple, but then what had to be at least two companies of enemy troops had come rushing out of the temple to meet his rag-tag rebel force in the Temple Courtyard. Kawalsky would take US Troops against ET's Forces at two-to-one odds and be confident enough in victory, but outside of him and Ferretti, the Rebels who'd come with him were all just kids. Some had experience hunting with spears or bows, but only the oldest ones and the only ones who had anything remotely like firearms experience were Skaara and his Friends, who Ferretti and he had taken shooting early on in the expedition against Jack's wishes.

Two-to-one with that kind of force should have been a massacre, but somehow they were holding on. Between depleted uranium rounds, captured Alien Weapons, and sheer luck, they were holding on. That had prompted the second kick in the nuts from reality. The ship that had been using the temple as a landing platform, the thing the rebels had been trying to board, the whole point of attacking the Temple, to begin with, had just up and taken off, rising up into the sky. It made for orbit, putting it well beyond their reach.

"Damn it, come on!" Shouted Kawalsky as he let rip with a captured Staff Weapon.

A bolt of plasma blasted into the torso of one of the Armored Alien Guards, bowling the Alien over and killing him in the process. A flurry of bolts came his way and Kawalsky was forced to duck behind a pillar for cover as plasma blasted chunks out of the stone. Only some of the bolts were on target, of course, but that had more to do with how badly designed these Staff Weapons were. If Kawalsky wasn't one of the best marksmen in the US Military, he wouldn't be able to hit a damn thing with this weapon. Fortunately, you don't qualify for Special Forces Training without being a damn good shot.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for much of the rest of the Rebel Force. A lot of the Kids had resorted to spray and pray tactics. That wasted a lot of shots, and they didn't have a lot of ammo to begin with. After an hour of fighting people had begun to run out. Skaara's friend Tobay popped up from behind a blasted statue and let off a burst of depleted Uranium into a squad of enemy troops that was trying to flank the group of Kids that Ferretti had been leading. Most of the shots rebounded off of armor, but enough hit weak points that Tobay managed to down the squad. Unfortunately, he had used up the clip to do that and he reached for another in the leather satchel he had been keeping them in only to find it empty. A frown crossed his face as he came up without a fresh clip, just before a staff blast slammed into his shoulder and blew his arm off.

"Tobay!" Shouted another of Skaara's Friends, Bolaa, as he rushed out from behind cover.

"Damn it, get back in cover!" Swore Ferretti.

It was no use, though. Bolaa fired a spray of rounds at the squad that had downed Tobay, only he was a lot less lucky with his fire than Tobay had been. Only three out of eight Alien Troops had been downed by Bolaa's attack and as his MP-Five clicked empty, a quartet of staff blasts shot out at Bolaa. Two struck the ground in front of him, one went wide, blowing the head off a statue, but the last blew his legs off, practically bisecting the poor kid. Ferretti popped out of cover with his purloined Staff Weapon and fired a blast at the Alien who had downed Bolaa, blowing the Bastard's arm off. Skaara with his hand-me-down SAW lent his own fire to the attack, striking down the rest of the Alien Squad with heavier caliber rounds, the depleted Uranium punching through armor to cut up the Aliens.

Covering them was Skaara's Friend Nabeh with one of the Alien Pistol-Like weapons. They'd found out fairly quickly that a shot from those only stunned you, but that was as good as a kill in a battle, and the best part was that those stunning rounds seemed to bypass the resilience of the Alien Armor. Nabeh fired a number of shots at an oncoming Alien Squad five of them while the remaining three managed to avoid being hit by the simple expedient of diving for the ground. Skaara reached Bolaa and found his friend dead, but swiftly grabbed hold of the leather satchel that Bolaa had kept his rounds in, searching for ammo. He came up with two clips, racing back into cover with them and handing them off to the two Older Boys with MP-Fives remaining in the Squad that Ferretti was leading.

Kawalsky himself took the reprieve to link up with the trio of Rebels that had remained in Tobay's Squad. They'd all scavenged staff weapons from the fallen Alien Enemies, their MP-Fives having all run out of Ammo already. Between them, and the two squads still fighting on the other side of the Courtyard under the leadership of Pateni and Yasim, two of the Older Boys who had experience hunting with spear and bow, they had four squads at around half strength. Given that they'd started the battle with a full platoon of fifty men, as they'd kept fifty back to hold the Guardpost at the entrance of the City in case they needed a fallback position, that wasn't exactly great.

As Kawalsky and his squad made their way over to where Ferretti and his squad were hunkered down into cover, he looked over at the Marine Raider. Ferretti looked back at Kawalsky and both of them clearly knew. They weren't gonna win this one as they were now. They'd defeated the enemy force on this side of the Courtyard, but from the sounds of combat filtering in from the distance, Pateni and Yasif were still fighting. Plus, the enemy had reserves and their objective had already taken off for orbit. Neither of them wanted to admit it, but they had to link up with the other squads and withdraw back to the Guardpost at the Entrance to the City.

"Kawalsky. This isn't gonna work." Admitted Ferretti, finally.

"I know. We're gonna link up with Pateni and Yasif and fall back to the City. We have another fifty fighters in the Guardpost there. Hopefully, we can hold out long enough for something to work out." Nodded Kawalsky.

"It's not a great plan, but I can't think of a better one." Sighed Ferretti.

And with that, the remainder of the Rebel Attack Force moved out, hoping to link up with the two detached squads under Pateni and Yasif. If they could manage that much, then they might just be able to withdraw from the Temple back toward the City, where the reserve at the Guardpost could bolster their numbers. Then, hopefully, Jack would think of something on the ship. It wasn't a good plan, and it relied a lot on hope.

It was the only plan they had, though. . .

XXXX

Jack O'Neill hated to admit it, but their goose might be cooked here. He, Reilly, Brown, and Daniel had managed to get to the Nuke easily enough and set the timer for twenty minutes. They'd managed to make it all the way to the Hangar in half that time but then had hit a major roadblock. Said roadblock had come in the form of a platoon's worth of enemy troops, led by the asshole in the Jackal Helmet. Apparently, their mad dash to the Hangar had been noticed and Ra had sent his chief goon to stop them from leaving.

Fortunately, it seemed like Ra didn't realize they'd armed the nuke, at least from the Banter that said Jackal-Headed Goon was engaged in. True, Jack only could tell what the Guy was saying because the Helmet he was wearing translated things automatically, and yes, Ra could have done something to futz with the translator, but that was what Daniel was for. He was able to verify that Jack's Helmet was still accurately translating. Not that what the Jackal-Headed Asshole had to say was at all interesting.

"You will never escape! The eye of Ra is upon you now!" Exclaimed the Chief Goon as he fired his Staff Weapon at where Jack, Daniel, Brown, and Reilly were taking cover behind one of the crescent-shaped Fighters. There was one of those Pyramidal Cargo Haulers Daniel had mentioned just a few yards away, but trying to get there would get them shot to bits without downing some more of the Alien Guards first.

"Oh give it a rest already! You sound like a cheap Saturday morning cartoon villain for crying out loud!" Called out Jack, popping out of cover briefly to put a few blasts down range. He got one of the Guards, but the others managed to avoid being hit, and so did the Chief Goon.

"He doesn't know what that is Jack!" Reminded Daniel.

"Just keep your head down, Daniel! You're not weapons trained!" Shouted Jack.

"Five minutes, Colonel!" Exclaimed Reilly, popping out of cover to fire his purloined Staff Weapon into the chest of one of the Guards.

"Is that gonna be enough time?" Questioned Brown, firing his looted Pistol Weapon down range and catching a Guard.

"It will if you just keep shooting!" Insisted Jack, downing another Guard with his stolen Pistol Weapon.

"Jack, do you trust me?" Queried Daniel.

"What?" Asked Jack.

"Ra wants me for some sort of ceremony. To make me a vessel, whatever that means. I don't think that these guys will shoot at me with that being the case. We can use that as a distraction!" Insisted Daniel.

"And if you're wrong, then you get killed for nothing, absolutely not!" Snapped Jack.

"Four minutes Colonel!" Intoned Reilly.

"Jack we don't have time to argue!" Pressed Daniel.

"Colonel, let him do it! It's better than trying nothing!" Advised Brown.

"Fine! If you think it will work, I'm out of other ideas!" Acquiesced Jack.

Daniel nodded once, then walked out from behind the fighter they were using as cover. As he did so, the damndest thing Jack ever saw to that point happened. One of the Alien Warriors moved to raise his staff weapon to gun Daniel down, only for the Jackal-Headed Chief Goon to order him not to fire. Well, if Daniel was right, there was only one thing that Jack could think to do. He signaled Brown and Reilly to follow him on his mark and then three seconds later, they all popped out from behind cover and fired their stolen Alien Weapons into the Enemy.

"Betrayal!" Called out the Jackal-Headed Chief Goon as he watched his remaining Grunts get gunned down. He turned to fire back, but Jack put two bolts from his Alien Pistol Weapon right into the Jackal's face. The Chief Goon slumped to the deck plates bonelessly.

"That was for Poro and Freeman." Huffed Jack, giving the Jackal-Headed Chief Goon a kick for good measure.

"Come on!" Intoned Daniel.

They reached the Cargo Hauler with two minutes to spare, getting on board thanks to Jack hitting the right control. He was starting to get the hang of this Alien Tech, it seemed. Or maybe not, as he sat down in the cockpit to find a completely different control scheme than anything he was used to. A lot of the symbols were translated by his helmet, so he just needed a moment to figure things out.

"Jack?" Prodded Daniel.

"Give me a second!" Snapped Jack, as he hurriedly tried to figure things out.

"Jack!" Insisted Daniel, louder.

"One minute Colonel!" Reminded Reilly.

"Right, I think I've got it! Brown, hit the door control, then everyone strap in! We're busting out of here!" Ordered Jack.

As soon as everyone was ready, Jack hit the controls, if his Helmet was translating accurately, he should have just engaged the launch sequence. The interface panels flashed once and made a chirping noise, as the humming of the Engines roaring to life echoed through what was most likely a cargo or troop bay. Then, with thirty seconds left before the nuke blew, the Cargo Hauler rocketed out of the Hangar as massive doors ground open, letting them out into space.

"Jack, this isn't far enough!" Intoned Daniel.

"Fifteen seconds Colonel!" Relayed Reilly.

"Everyone hang on!" Ground out Jack.

He pushed the throttle control up and the Cargo Hauler rocketed forward faster. By the time five seconds were left on the countdown, they'd almost reached a safe distance. As Reilly counted down from his seat, Jack pushed the engines as far as they would go. Reilly's countdown reached the number one just as the Cargo Hauler managed to get to a minimum safe distance just as a second sun blossomed in orbit behind the smaller ship. There was a burst of light, heat, and noise as Ra's Ship exploded from the force of the enhanced nuclear device. Then the moment passed.

And all that Jack could hear was the sound of Brown puking his guts up. . .

XXXX

On the surface of Abydos, the explosion of Ra's Cheops-class Battleship proved a sign of ill-omen for the Jaffa advancing on the City of Nagada. They all knew that it meant that something terrible had happened to their God. Had one of Ra's Rivals dared to trespass so deeply into Ra's Domain that they could strike him down while his guard was lowered? If so, which could possibly possess the force to do so? Perhaps Yu Huang-Shang Ti? The Jade Emperor was one of the Oldest Gods still alive, it was possible. Perhaps Cronus? The Titan King's military power was quite potent even after the restrictions placed on vassals by Ra, after all. What of Ba'al? The Rider of the Storm had been known for devilishly inventive weapons before bending the knee to Ra. Or perhaps Ra's jealous brother Apophis had kept one of the other Cheops-class Ships back for himself? It would fit the devious Serpent to have done so and waited for a time when his strike would do the most damage.

Ultimately, however, the truth did not matter. Ra's Jaffa had lost their God, lost their morale, and then lost their lives, for they were not alone on the road to Nagada. Instead, they found themselves undone by the unlikeliest of sources, a Human Woman. Sha're, daughter of Kasuf, Chieftain of Nagada, had implored her father to lead the grown men of the City against the forces of Ra. She had begged him not to let the children of the City fight his battles for him, and that had seemed to rouse him to action. He called the men of the village together and rallied them to the aid of the Rebels and their Tau'ri allies.

As the Jaffa of Ra stalled out a few hundred yards from the City of Nagada, just shy of the Guardpost at the Gates of the City, they suddenly found themselves assailed by the Men of Nagada, mounted on Mastadges with hunting spears. Even with their armor, a charging Mastadge could easily break limbs if trampled by one. Many of Ra's Jaffa were mangled by the charge of the men of the City. Those who weren't, and who managed to pull themselves to their feet in the aftermath, soon found themselves cut down by the Weapons of the Tau'ri, Pilfered Ma'tok Staves, and Looted Zat'nic'tels as the Rebel Forces in the Guardpost counterattacked.

Ra's Remaining Jaffa fought bravely, but it took a mere forty-five minutes for them to be slain to the last. Shortly afterward, the Tel'tak carrying Daniel Jackson, Jack O'Neill, and Lieutenants Reilly and Brown landed just outside Nagada with news that Ra and his Battleship were no more. The Supreme System Lord of the Goa'uld had been undone, in large part thanks to his own hubris, and now Abydos was free. It would take some time for the effects of these events to be felt in the wider Galaxy.

But when they were, it would change the course of Galactic History forever. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here's the last bit on Abydos. The End Result, Ra being offed by his own altered nuke, is the same but there are a few key differences. For one, Jack and Company managed to capture a decent amount of Goa'uld Tech, and while they can't bring a Tel'tak through the Gate back to Earth with them, that doesn't mean they can't pull information off of its computers. Earth is going to be a lot better informed about the Goa'uld this time around than they were in canon. As well as that, the captured suits of Jaffa Armor, captured Staff Weapons, and captured Zat'nic'tels will start them down the path of understanding Goa'uld Technology earlier than in canon.

Of course, some things are also going to stay the same. For instance, a lot of the information that Daniel got emphasizes the size and power of the Empire, and while the info they can bring back from the Tel'tak's computers is going to paint a more detailed and nuanced picture, it can't get rid of all the misconceptions, which will lead to a moratorium on Gate Activity similar to what happened the first time around, as the Joint Chiefs try to come up with a game plan for gaining allies and technology. Instead of hoping that the Goa'uld don't notice what happened, instead, the pause will be because the Military wants a plan before they start Exploration back up.

At any rate, the next chapter will be a return to Erlang Shen as he continues his conquest of Tengri's Independent Domains.

Stay tuned. . .