Survival of the Fittest

Survival of the Fittest Sabine C. Bauer An original publication of Fandemonium Ltd, produced under license from MGM Consumer Products. Fandemonium Books PO Box 795A Surbiton Surrey KT5 8YB United Kingdom Visit our website: www.stargatenovels.com © 2011 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. All Rights Reserved. Photography and cover art: Copyright ©1997-2011 MGM Television Entertainment Inc./ MGM Global Holdings Inc. All Rights Reserved. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Presents RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON In STARGATE SG-1™ AMANDA TAPPING CHRISTOPHER JUDGE and MICHAEL SHANKS as Daniel Jackson Executive Producers ROBERT C. COOPER BRAD WRIGHT MICHAEL GREENBURG RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON Developed for Television by BRAD WRIGHT & JONATHAN GLASSNER STARGATE SG-1 © 1997-2011 MGM Television Entertainment Inc./MGM Global Holdings Inc. STARGATE: SG-1 is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All rights reserved. WWW.MGM.COM No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written consent of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. To Tanya—beta extraordinaire and the one who‟s responsible for Everything! CONTENTS Prolog 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 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Prolog The childlike face— she‟d been a child, first and foremost, a smart, needy, tantrum-throwing teenager who‟d made an awful mistake— never moved. Jack reached for her neck as if to feel a pulse they both knew had never been there. It wasn‟t the pulse he was after, Daniel realized. Below her right ear a hidden catch activated and released the energy cell that had powered her. The crystal fizzed briefly and winked out, looking dull and dead; its removal a clear case of overkill. Nothing would revive her now. After all, Jack O‟Neill, ex-Special Ops, was a crack shot. “You stupid son of a bitch!” “Hey, you‟re welcome.” Daniel wanted to hit him, for the glib reply alone. Someone up in the control room gave the all clear. The klaxons stopped their wailing, and the gate room fell quiet enough to hear the soft clickety-click and clatter as all throughout the base Reese‟s „toys‟, bereft of the life-force that had fuelled them, disintegrated to a harmless rain of metal wafers. Rain or tiny needles of snow. Daniel felt cold. Another difference not made, for Reese and for an entire race of beings who were getting their little gray asses whupped by the offspring of her „toys‟. Too many differences not made. Maybe it was time to leave. No point in staying and pretending things were just fine when everything had changed. Or perhaps nothing had changed. He heard himself start up an argument, because he was Daniel and Daniel always argued, pitting the ever-same reasoning against the ever-same justifications and with the ever-same results. “Look, I‟m sorry,” Jack said finally. “But this is the way it had to go down, and you know it.” Now brush your teeth and go to bed! He stopped short of that. Instead he turned away, muttering into his radio, and began walking off toward the blast door. He‟d still be holding the gun, always would. No difference. Daniel didn‟t look up, afraid of what he‟d see, of the decisions it‟d force on him. Chapter One Convergence: The development of similar features in distantly related lineages due to the effects of similar evolutionary factors. The subject, strapped to a gleaming metal table inside a gleaming surgical lab, opened his mouth for a scream. Thankfully that particular audio channel had been set to mute. The scream was enduring and heartfelt, which didn‟t come as any great surprise. Suddenly the subject‟s eyes rolled up, and he stilled. The solemn face of a white-clad doctor interposed itself between camera and surgical table. The doctor shook his head. Another failure. How many had there been? Eight? Nine? It was high time to consider the alternative. Frank Simmons switched off the aftermath of the experiment and turned to the central monitor bank. Each screen showed the same image, just from a different angle. The backgrounds varied. French doors and a glimpse of a garden or pristinely starched curtains or a blank white wall. However, all of them showed bars in the foreground and, behind the bars, a man. Or what looked like a man. He was dark-haired, tall, and heavily built, and he moved with a curious absence of grace, as though mind and body hadn‟t really connected. Which might be the case after all. Some of the guards called him Herman. The likeness was indisputable, but Simmons discouraged the joke. Herman Munster was a cretin. This… thing… on the screen was highly intelligent and commanded the entire knowledge and viciousness of his species. Prettifying him would be lethal. Until quite recently the man-thing had been a person called Adrian Conrad. Obscenely rich and incurably ill and unwilling to appreciate, let alone accept, the irony of it. And so he‟d paid a large amount of money for a larval Goa‟uld and let it infest his body. The alien parasite had cured the disease but usurped the host‟s mind in exchange when the removal process had run into a hitch. Tough luck. Good luck for the NID. Thanks to Simmons, the secret government agency owned the Goa‟uld exclusively. Right now, the thing that had been Conrad sat inside his cage leafing through a textbook. Genetics. Suddenly, and with all signs of disdain, he leaped from his chair and flung the book against the bars. “Where are you?” The harmonics of the distorted voice made the speakers hum. “I know you are there! I demand to speak to you!” Simmons took another bite from his sandwich— pastrami and pickle, though they made them better in New York— and watched as Conrad paced the cell. Let him stew. Sooner or later he‟d grasp that he was a prisoner. Maybe he‟d learn some manners then. Ten minutes later the sandwich was gone and Conrad had stopped pacing and slumped back onto the chair. It was time. Simmons scrunched the wrapping paper into a tight ball and pitched it at a trashcan. He missed, shrugged, and left the control center. When he entered the prisoner‟s room, trailed by two guards armed with zat’nikatels, Conrad straightened up, his eyes glowing. “You are late!” Ignoring him, Simmons nodded at the guards. “Unlock the cage.” Given the Goa‟uld‟s immense strength, it posed a risk, but it also was a psychological necessity. Remaining outside the cage would have betrayed fear. More importantly, a face-to-face meeting suggested a degree of equality that would facilitate cooperation. The ploy had worked before, it would work now. The door of the cage fell shut behind him, and Simmons picked up the book, leisurely flicked through its pages. “Not to your taste, I take it?” “It is puerile! Your so-called scientists do not know half of what they ought to know. Even the men my host employed were amateurs.” A sly glint stole into the alien‟s human eyes. “You killed another one, did you not? That is why you are here. But I can only tell you what I have told you before. Your plan will fail.” “Not if you help me.” “Why should I help you? So that you can assemble an army of warriors to destroy my kind?” “Your kind?” Simmons leaned back against the bars of the cage and started laughing. “Since when did you develop feelings for the family? Your kind would kill you just as soon as look at you, and you know it.” He did, of course. For a second, the eyes flared in annoyance. Then he rose and approached until he was mere inches away, towering over Simmons. From somewhere outside the cage came the dissonant chime of zat’nikatels being readied. “Stand down!” Simmons snapped and, more quietly, added, “We‟re having a friendly discussion.” The parasite molded his host‟s face into a smile. “Indeed. Suppose I could help you, human, would you accept my price?” “Freedom? Not just yet. You‟re a little too useful for that, I‟m afraid.” “No. Not just yet.” The grimace deepened, bared teeth. “But if I give you those warriors, you are to send them against whom I tell you when I tell you.” When hell freezes over! Simmons stared past Conrad and at a strip of sunlight that dissected the white floor of the cage. The reflection was painfully bright, and he closed his eyes, hiding a flicker of triumph. It was true. The Goa‟uld‟s arrogance was their greatest weakness. “Why not?” he said. “With the one obvious exception, of course.” “Of course. Unfortunately, I cannot help you.” “What?” Simmons‟s eyes flew open in time for him to watch Conrad back off in a show of boredom. “What do you mean, you can‟t help me?” “I mean what I said. I do not have the skill. However…” “However?” It took some doing, but Simmons managed to bite back a more suitable reply. However, once he‟d squeezed that punk dry, he‟d kill him personally.

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