The Barque of Heaven

by Stargate

  The blue glow of the wormhole disappeared as the final rays of sunlight streaked up into the sky on the planet, named as Heaven by an alien known as Ra. Bes stood sadly bidding farewell to the prison that had been his home. The light died, signaling an end to the day, and to an era of slavery.

  "I am ready."

  He turned to look at the other. Smiling gently, she reached out and he met her hand with his, twining their fingers tightly.

  She seemed to glow, her body losing its mortal form and turning to brilliant white ribbons of light. The ribbons wrapped around Bes, sharing her energy, rekindling his own. Tentatively, he loosened his hold on his mortal body and flowed into the form of pure energy he had never hoped to hold again.

  Transformed and finally free, Bes ascended to the heavens.

  About the Author

  Suzanne Wood lives in Melbourne, Australia where she has been fortunate to spend many years working with her great love, books, in various fields of the industry, including libraries, retail, admin and bibliographic research. When not writing or reading the many books crowding her out of home, she finds inspiration in the beautiful bush of country Victoria with her beloved dog Molly leading the way. She has combined a love of mythology, Egypt and Stargate in this, her first novel.

  SNEAK PREVIEW

  STARGATE SGI : HYDRA

  by Jaimie Duncan & Holly Scott

  aniel was third out of the gate, behind Jack and Bra'tac, so the scream of dismay and warning was shrill in his ears just as he cleared the event horizon. Not the first time people had run screaming when they showed up. Usually a little diplomacy meant SG-1 could talk their way into a friendship even with the people who'd become accustomed to getting nothing much but pain from the visitors stepping through the gate.

  He shouldered his way past Jack, ready to perform the dance of meeting, greeting and getting information, and caught sight of a girl running fast back toward the village, slipping in the mud as she scrambled up the hill. She pulled herself mostly upright, half-crawling up the slope, but left her shoe behind. She was still shrieking. Nothing intelligible Daniel could pick out, just panicked noise.

  "Well," Jack said, "that was quite the welcome."

  Daniel glanced up at the village. The houses had steeply tilted roofs, much like Alpine chalets, but a bit less sturdy and whole lot sadder than the average tourist would find in any resort. Mountains surrounded the village, glaciers and snowfields dimmed to purple shadow against the blue of the sky, barely gleaming in the weak light of a distant sun. A few trees marked the wide skyline here, and far down slope the forest proper was a dark swath of unbroken green. The air was thin, but the voice of the girl carried clearly, sharp with fear.

  "Yeah," Daniel said, meeting Bra'tac's stern, accusing gaze before stepping down off the gate platform. He turned and gestured to Jack, who thinned his lips and stepped down beside him.

  "Carter," Jack said. "Take point." Bra'tac stepped out in front of them all and began striding up toward the narrow path. "Dammit," Jack said, and Daniel and Sam exchanged a quick smile as they followed.

  Then Daniel looked up.

  "Uh, I think we could just wait here," he said, pointing. A group of men streamed down from the village, half of them Jaffa in armor. Jack and Sam lifted their weapons and shifted into covering positions, while Teal'c moved sideways to cover their flank. Behind them, Reynolds and his guys fanned out, crouching and looking vulnerable in the absence of good cover. Daniel didn't move. If there were any chance of making sense of the accusations Bra'tac leveled, he'd need to be as conciliatory and open as possible.

  "Stay mellow, kids," Jack said, elbow braced to level his weapon.

  "Jack," Daniel said. "Let me take the lead."

  The group of men was closer now, and they were running. Never a good sign. Daniel counted twelve, maybe fourteen, the girl lagging behind them. She slowed down and stopped in the middle of the road, watching the spectacle downhill.

  "You!" one of the men shouted, pointing a long axe at Jack. "You will surrender your weapons to us now and step away from the kreis!"

  To Daniel, it sounded like a German variant. "Circle," he told Jack, who didn't acknowledge him. The men - five Jaffa among them, staff weapons leveled at SG-1, Jack in particular - surrounded them. Daniel wasn't surprised, but he did note that the DHD was cut off, as well as the gate. Not a huge problem, and he knew Jack was already thinking them through it, but Daniel couldn't think of a way that wouldn't involve a lot of bullets. He'd have to find a way to prevent that.

  "We mean you no harm," he said to the man who had spoken. "There's been some kind of mistake."

  "The mistake was yours for returning to this place. After what you have done." The man's voice cracked with horror, and Daniel processed that, the utter finality in it. The man stared at Jack with haunted eyes. "On this day of all days, when we bury those you took from us. You, with your hands and your knives."

  Jack said, "Daniel, you've got about ten seconds to-"

  "I can see you believe we've wronged you, but it wasn't us," Daniel said urgently, stepping forward, hands outstretched. "We haven't-"

  "You dare," the Jaffa nearest him said. "You, whose crime was worst of all. You stood by and did nothing."

  "That's it," Jack said. Voice pitched just for his team, he said, "Daniel, stop talking and be ready to dial." He raised his voice to normal speaking levels for the benefit of the villagers, and Daniel glanced to his left. They were slowly encroaching on the team, backing them away from the gate. "Listen, folks, you've made the mistake, and we're going to go now. We'd rather do that without a fight, but-"

  "Do not let them leave!" The girl's voice, high-pitched and plaintive, wavered down from the hill, and Jack said,

  "Oh, crap."

  They all moved at the same time, different directions in order of priorities - Jack, Bra'tac and Teal'c for cover, Carter for the DUD, Daniel with the same general purpose. Jack rolled to the side and crouched behind the gate's stone pedestal. The first staff blast passed so close to Daniel he could feel the hair on his arms singe, and he dove for cover, groping for his Beretta.

  So much for negotiation skills.

  Daniel scrambled into a low ditch, clumps of grass clinging to his face and hair like wet seaweed. He brushed them off and straightened his glasses. One huge staff blast shattered the frosty ground not ten feet away, raising the smell of boggy peat on a bonfire.

  "Defend your positions," Jack's voice said, crackling out of Daniel's radio.

  "Some position," Daniel muttered, as he scooped out a miniature trench for his arm to rest in, the better to aim at angry Jaffa. Goopy mud trickled down from the channel. He hunkered down against the shallow wall of the ditch, waiting for a chance to rise up and return fire.

  Another staff blast gouged a hole in the side of the ditch right next to Daniel's head and he threw himself into the brackish standing water in the bottom of it to protect his face from the debris. Gravel and mud pattered down around him, sounding almost like rain.

  He was inching his head up to ground level to get a look at the battlefield when a fresh cascade of gravel clattered down on his back, followed by the thud and splash of a body hitting the bottom of the ditch beside him.

  Completely covered in the thick, grey mud, Jack rolled onto his knees, and straightened long enough to send a short burst of P90 fire over the edge of the shelter before hunkering down with his back against the sloping side of the ditch. "Clip," he said curtly, trying to wipe mud from his eyes with a gloved hand, and instead leaving more mud behind. "I'm out."

  Daniel was, for once, grateful that Jack forced him to go into the field with extra ammo for any contingency. He lifted a magazine from his vest pocket and tossed it to Jack, who slapped it into place.

  "What the hell is going on with these people?" Daniel demanded, slouching down and wincing up at the darkening sky. "I don't get it."

  O'Neill only grunted and pulled out a telescoping mirror so he could get a look over
the edge of the ditch. He grunted again and passed the mirror over. "See for yourself"

  The field was churned mud. On the other side of it, Sam was strafing the treeline from the shelter of a blast crater, Teal'c beside her, reloading. A new clip in place, Jack popped up and neatly dispatched a Jaffa creeping up on their right flank. But there were more Jaffa coming. Many more. Daniel had only one more clip himself, and he wasn't feeling too great about using it on civilians.

  "This doesn't look good."

  "Oh, cheer up, Daniel," Jack answered. "I'd say we're about two steps past terrible. Far cry from hopeless." He got off two quick spurts of fire and then ducked down with a whoop as another staff blast sent up a fan of debris two feet away. Jack's teeth were white in his dirty face when he grinned. The grin had real, predatory amusement in it.

  Daniel's radio let out a burst of static. "Daniel! What's your position?"

  Jack's grin disappeared quickly.

  Daniel's mouth fell open and he lifted a hand to point at Jack, like he could pin him to the dirt with the gesture. Then, with the other hand he keyed the radio. "Uh, hi. Who is this?"

  "What? This is your commander, who is currently getting his ass shot to hell south of the Stargate!" Jack's voice was fuzzy with static, but recognizable. "Reynolds is in position. We're gonna make a push for the gate, so be ready!"

  In the ditch beside Daniel, not-Jack gave Daniel a one-shoulder shrug. His mouth twitched up in an embarrassed grin. "Oops," he said, and in a second he had clambered over the edge of the ditch and onto the field. By the time Daniel had dodged another blast and the dust had cleared, Jack-or whatever was passing for him-had disappeared into the chaos of battle.

  STARGATE SGI : HYDRA

  AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2008

  For more information, visit www.stargatenovels.com

  Table of Contents

  EPILOGUE