Yu turned back around and looked at Daniel. “My host’s son died long ago.”
“Explain,” Teal’c demanded from the other side of the room.
“In time,” Yu said. He slid a hand from the opposing sleeve and waved it over the communications device. “O’Neill…”
* * *
“
…They are children. To harm their home would be unworthy of one such as you.
”
Jack whipped toward the com ball. There was no sight of Daniel… or Teal’c, or Bra’tac. Yu’s smarmy face took up the whole display.
Raising his zat, Jack triggered the action. The head popped up, enabled and waiting. He aimed it toward the ground, in the direction of the closest paneled box. “Game’s over, pal.”
Yu’s beady little eyes got beadier. Clearly, Jack had pissed him off. Score one.
He stepped back. Turning toward the boys, he waved his arms to shoo them away from the tank and its four sleeping panels. The boys hustled over to the side of the room, the lighter passing back and forth between them.
Jack waved the zat at the com ball. “Here’s the deal. You let my people go or I’ll blow your little emitter to bits.” He aimed the zat at the nearest panel box. “Care for a demonstration?”
“
Jack
!”
“Daniel?” He glanced back, but Yu’s face still took up the entire display.
“
Jack, just wait…”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Daniel, I’m trying to save your butt here. You wanna shut up while you’re ahead?”
When Yu didn’t say anything, Jack decided he had to press his point home. He grabbed one of the stray crates lying around and dragged it in front of the com ball.
“So what’s it going to be? You let my team walk, or…” He zatted the crate and it disappeared in an arc of blue fire.
Jack gave Yu his best shit-eating grin. “Oh, and while we’re at it, your Jaffa get to go free, too. It’s about time you did your own dirty work.”
* * *
Teal’c smiled as he stood beside the Royal Guard. It was good to hear O’Neill’s voice.
He walked over to Oshu and laid a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “Once we were allies. Thanks to the Tau’ri, we can be so again. Join us, brother. Leave this place and meet your brother Jaffa from across the galaxy.”
Oshu bent his head. “I cannot.”
Teal’c looked to Zheng, Lao Dan and Kong Qiu. “Surely, this is what you wish. To be free, to join the Jaffa Alliance.”
Zheng laughed. “You are a fool.”
“How can freedom for all Jaffa be a foolish endeavor?”
“Go,” said Oshu. “Ask our master’s Jaffa to join you. It will be their choice.”
“I do not understand.” Teal’c returned to Oshu.
“We are not Jaffa.”
Chapter Seventeen
“
Oh, for crying out loud, will somebody please explain to me what’s going on up there
?”
Daniel leaned in toward the communication device. “Just give us a minute, Jack,” he called out. “We’re trying to figure that out ourselves.”
He turned to Yu, hoping he’d finally get to the truth. “So… your Royal Guard… Not Jaffa?”
Yu grunted. “No. They are the descendents of my original Royal Guard.”
“How original?” Daniel placed his palms on his lap, hoping the non-aggressive posture would encourage the Goa’uld to speak freely. “I mean, depending on how much of your history really is tied to Ancient China, your Guards’ lineage could be incredibly old.”
Raising a hand toward the four men, Yu said, “Who you see before you are true descendants of their namesakes. Their forefathers wrote the
Art of War
, developed the philosophies of Tao and Confucius, and Ying Zheng… He was truly the most powerful emperor of China. After myself.”
Daniel’s mind reeled at the implications of what he was hearing. “The original Ying Zheng not only unified China, he built the Great wall… And the Terracotta Army.”
“At my behest.”
“I, uh, find that hard to believe. Four great historical figures of China… All influenced by you?”
“Believe it or not. Knowledge of the past does little to help the present, or the future which matters more.”
“Is that why you brought me… all of us here?”
“As my First Prime’s distant ancestor once said, ‘It is good to strike the serpent’s head with your enemy’s hand’.”
“You speak of Anubis,” Teal’c said, joining Daniel by the communication device. “O’Neill, it is good to see you.”
“
Good to see you, too, buddy
.” Jack pressed in close, his face becoming distorted in the display. “
Does somebody want to clue me in on what the hell Yu’s talking about
?”
“Indeed,” Teal’c said. “An explanation would be warranted.”
Lord Yu’s eyes flashed angrily. For obvious reasons, he couldn’t be very happy about receiving demands from a Jaffa. Daniel tried to be sympathetic though it wasn’t easy. Not when dealing with a Goa’uld.
Yu continued. “A thousand years ago, a great battle took place. I led many System Lords including Ra, Apophis, Cronus, and many others, against Anubis. He was destructive beyond reason and so it fell to us to destroy him.”
Daniel pulled off his glasses. “My understanding is that you did kill him, but somehow, he knew how to ascend.”
“So you said,” Yu replied. “It is no wonder the other Ascendants refused him entry, though I am troubled that he has retained partial knowledge of his time amongst them.”
“If you were still on Earth after Ra removed the Chappa’ai,” Teal’c said, “why did you then leave after winning such a battle?”
“Once the other System Lords learned Earth’s population had expanded, they began to covet it once more. There was talk of reclaiming the world to harvest hosts and slaves. I could not permit this. It was critical that China be permitted to thrive.”
“Hold on a moment,” Daniel said. He flung a hand toward the window overlooking the village below the fortress. “I don’t know about hosts, but you have slaves. I’ve even met some of them.”
“I have done what I must to survive. No more.” Yu slammed his hand down on the
Wéiqí
board.
Daniel’s solitary dragon toppled over as black and white stones scattered to the floor.
Yu clenched his fists. “Think back to the original Asgard Treaty summit. It was I who convinced the other System Lords to agree to the treaty. It was I who wanted Earth protected.”
“Of course,” Daniel replied. “That’s why you demanded we turn over the Stargates!”
“It was for your own protection. Without a Stargate, the System Lords were less likely to invade.”
“And the planet you took me from?”
“Kunlun,” Yu said with a sigh. “It was as far away from Earth as my fleet could travel. It was there that we discovered a city with many ruins. I believe the builders of the Stargates once lived there.”
Daniel traded glances with Teal’c. As much as it appeared that Yu was trying to ally with them in his own irrational, twisted way, sharing information about the Ancients with a Goa’uld of any stripe just wasn’t a good idea.
“Why do you think the Stargate builders once lived there?”
“When we first arrived, the last of my Royal Guard discovered technologies far beyond anything the System Lords had in their possession.”
“You spoke of your original Royal Guard,” Teal’c interjected. “What happened to them?”
“Shortly after we began rebuilding, a ring transporter was installed on the edge of the city — ”
Daniel sat up. “That’s the transporter you used to ring me up. There was a chamber there, with Ancient writing.”
Yu bowed his head and fell silent, as if the chamber’s mention had upset him.
“
Daniel… ixnay on the
— ”
He stuck his glasses back on and looked at the communication device. Off to one side, the four boys were huddled together, still playing with the Zippo. Meanwhile, Jack wore a hole into the cavern’s floor, pacing madly. Sam was still out of sight, but by the way Jack kept glancing off past the display, Daniel had to assume she was still in there.
And hopefully, still alive.
“I’m not giving away the store, Jack.”
“
See that you don’t. And remind good old Yu there that I’ve still got one of his zats and my finger’s getting itchy. Very itchy.
”
Yu returned his gaze to Daniel. “My guardsmen died instantly upon opening that chamber. It was as if some sort of plague had been locked within its walls, waiting to be released.”
He sighed again, a long and deep remorseful exhale. “Upon their deaths, I had them buried with great honor on a hill overlooking the city, a
Zhenmushou
placed above their graves to protect them, but I could not bear to lose this last tie to my… my host’s… homeworld. Using technology found on that planet, I had their bodies cloned.
“I then left Kunlun, bringing the technology with me so I might clone new guards as needed.”
“What of your emitter?” Teal’c asked.
Yu lifted both hands out. “The shields, the modified weaponry… All part of the technologies acquired from Kunlun.”
Daniel could see the wheels turn in Teal’c’s mind, as if the Jaffa was considering ways to duplicate these elements of Yu’s armament. He and Jack really were more alike than Daniel had ever considered before.
“You speak of fighting Anubis,” Teal’c pressed further, “yet only weeks ago we approached you to join the battle against him at Vis Uban. For what reason did you truly withdraw?”
“I was not prepared to place my Royal Guard at risk.” Yu looked over to his Royal Guard, a soft fondness on his face that Daniel found rather fatherly… for a Goa’uld.
“Yet you were willing to capture Daniel Jackson and put the rest of us at great risk,” Teal’c said with a frown. “Why?”
“
I’d like to know the answer to that myself
,” Jack yelled.
Yu bent down and picked up a fallen stone from the floor. “To test SG-1. To ensure you are ready for what lies ahead in the war against Anubis so that you may protect Earth.”
And there it was.
Daniel sat back in his chair stunned by the fact that a Goa’uld — a System Lord, no less — actually cared about Earth.
“
Why the hell should — ?
”
“Hold on a second, Jack.”
“
Carter’s not doing too well here, Daniel.
”
“Just… give me a moment.” He regarded the Goa’uld critically, and then he asked the question that had been burning inside of him for days.
“Tell me about your host… Who is he, really?”
Yu set the stone on the now empty board. “Knowledge is a dangerous distraction if not coupled with a warrior’s skills. You must be a soldier, as well as a scholar, if Earth is to survive.”
“I’ve had that drilled into my head quite a bit lately.”
“My host was a scholar as well,” Yu added. “That is, until Anubis tried to destroy China 4,000 years ago.”
“The great flood of China,” Daniel remarked out loud.
Pointing at the scroll on the screen which depicted the floods, Yu declared, “Together, my host and I saved China from annihilation. It took thirteen years and thousands of workers, but the country survived.”
Daniel pointed toward the statue of the woman and three children. “There’s a famous Chinese legend about your overcoming the floods. You’d been married only five days when the floods hit. You said goodbye to your wife, not knowing she was already pregnant. During your years fighting the flood, or so the legend goes, you passed by your own family’s doorstep three times — ”
“The first time I passed by,” Yu said, “my wife was in labor. The second time I passed, my wife had hold of my son’s hand as he was learning his first steps. The third time, my son greeted me, inviting me to come in for rest.”
“So it’s true?” Daniel whispered.
Yu bowed his head.
Daniel reached out and picked one of the dragons off the ground. His mind whirled at the implications of what Yu just told him. Other Goa’ulds had merely taken on mythic personas. If Yu was telling the truth, he’d really lived it.
“
Daniel
?”
He put the dragon on to the board and looked up at Jack. “Yeah?”
“
Are you done with the little walk down Goa’uld memory lane
?”
“Jesus!”
“
No, Daniel. That slime ball planted a spy on Earth
,” Jack waved his zat at the communication device. “
Who knows how many years Huang was kicking around as an official Chinese diplomat? And oh, did I mention? He was practically a carbon copy of Yu’s First Prime. Forget it. I will never trust a Goa’uld
.”
* * *
Carter barely stirred as Jack dragged another crate from the corner of the cavern. He dropped it dead smack in front of the com ball, triggered the zat and poof!
The crate disappeared into oblivion.
“I’m not buying it,” he yelled. “Not until all of us are far, far away from this stinking planet.”
On the other side of the cavern, one of the boys giggled.
Jack dragged another crate in front of the com ball. “I’ve got one more stipulation for that Goa’uld, too. The boys come with us. None of this serving a snakehead crap.”
He raised the zat again to shoot the thing to smithereens. A burst of white light to his left, a recognizable thrum, and series of horizontal rings chased down the floor.
The rings disappeared.
“Colonel O’Neill.” It was Yu, all alone with no Jaffa or fan-boy guards to watch his back.
Jack stepped between the Goa’uld and Carter. He aimed his zat. “Don’t come any closer.”
A sudden commotion broke out as the boys raced to Yu’s side. They took turns hugging him like he was their long lost uncle.
The sight made Jack’s skin crawl.
Yu plucked the Zippo out of the mini-Huang’s hands. From his pocket, he handed them each a lamp, no bigger than a fist.
“Leave us,” the Goa’uld ordered, pushing the kids toward the archway.
Jack leveled his zat directly at the snakehead’s face. “Not so fast. They’re coming with me.”
“These children are not yours to take, O’Neill.” The Goa’uld bent down and whispered in mini-Huang’s ear. When he finished, the boy nodded curtly and ran out the archway.
The other three followed.
Jack decided it was for best. Once he got done with Yu, he and Carter could grab the kids on the way out of this hellhole.
He shifted his zat from one hand to another. The Goa’uld was alone, unguarded. Considering the hell the bastard had put his team through, killing him would be a happy addition to the proverbial notches on Jack’s belt.
Clink.
Yu had flipped open the lighter. He thumbed the wheel and it lit up. “Primitive, and yet effective.”
“Earth technology at its finest,” Jack quipped impatiently. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”
“Several members of your team are still in the custody of my Royal Guard. If you kill me, neither they nor my Jaffa will allow you leave. My warriors are not blind in their loyalty.”
Snap.
“This tool you carry,” the Goa’uld held up the lighter, “does it serve another purpose?”
“What is this, twenty questions?” Jack tightened the grip on his zat. “Tell your guards to let my people go.”
“And then?”
“Then…” Then what? Leave those kids behind?
Jack glanced up at the over-bright sphere spinning endlessly atop the tank. “I could zat your toy. Make it go bye-bye. How does that sound?”
The Goa’uld didn’t say a word. He just stood there. No pompous overtures, no threats. Definitely not the behavior Jack was used to from a high-and-mighty System Lord.
Finally, the snakehead held out the Zippo. “Do you wish your ‘toy’ returned, O’Neill?”
Keeping the zat trained on Yu’s chest, Jack stepped close enough to snatch the lighter back. He hastily retreated, not wanting to be any closer than necessary.
A small measure of relief washed over Jack as he stuffed the Zippo back in his vest pocket. It was a dumb to feel that way about scratched up metal, springs and lighter fuel, but the feeling was his all the same.
“One last question,” said Yu… or rather, the host. There wasn’t faintest trace of a boom in his voice.
Jack tightened the grip on his zat, unsure what kind of game Yu was playing. “Ask.”
He gestured at the tank. “You wish to destroy my emitter?”
“I’d be stupid not to.”
“In doing so, you will destroy that which allows an old man his memories.”
“Like that matters to me.” Jack slid his finger toward the trigger. “Goa’ulds don’t deserve memories. All you snakeheads deserve is — ”
“Tell me then… if our memories are left behind, what reason will there be to oppose Anubis? To protect Earth?”
Before Jack could answer, a breeze blew by.