"Stargate-Crossed" - Part Six

Part Six

            Everything was set for the “Abydonian Revolution,” as Rick liked to think of it as. He was glad Maureen took him up on his advice to take Kasuf on a quick field trip to the Cyber War, an idea stemmed from the same bit of advice he gave Rania with Craig. The war was a living nightmare he wished no sane person to ever experience firsthand…and now he had one version of Neas that was living proof of its eventual end.

            He last saw Maureen going into her father’s Type-X TARDIS (the only other machine on Abydos capable of bringing everyone from Earth – parallel and prime – back home). He found her in the console room. When she noticed him staring at her, she snapped, “What?”

            “There’s something that I need to know,” Rick skirted (Maureen had never seen him so fidgety).

            Maureen already figured what he had in mind and immediately said, “No.”

            “C’mon! Y-You’ve already lived it! You’ve seen all that’s happened!”

            “Rick, you know I can’t divulge on details that may alter the outcome of the War.”

            “Don’t give me that Avengers Endgame crap! I need to know how we can win this thing!”

            “That’s just it, Rick,” Maureen uttered with a heavy sigh. “There is no winning this war…even when we do.”

            “Ah-ha!” Rick exclaimed. “Let the record show my client said ‘when we do’ and not ‘if we do’!”

            Maureen let out a frustrated groan. “You git! I’m not jokin’!”

            “About what?”

            Their conversation came to a sudden conclusion with the arrival of the Doctor, accompanied by General Dwonch, Colonel O’Neil, and the Brigadier.

            “It’s not important,” Maureen told the Doctor. “What’s our status?”

            “Well, apparently, Colonel O’Neil has something he believes will turn the tide in this revolution of ours,” the Doctor said, stepping aside afterwards to permit O’Neil to have the floor.

            “My team and I didn’t just come here for exploration. I’m under direct orders to use a Mark III nuclear warhead that we brought along on our mission to blow up the Stargate if we tracked signs of danger – and we did.”

            Maureen was one step ahead of him. “You want to use it on Ra and Brainiac.”

            “Affirmative,” O’Neil remarked.

            “I made it clear to the colonel how strongly I object on the idea,” the Doctor stated. “Using a nuclear weapon on sentient beings…”

            “These aren’t beings you can reason with, Doctor,” Maureen harshly interjected. “I know you can’t understand the same way I made Kasuf understand, but trust me…Ra and Brainiac are a threat to not just one universe but multiple others. We can’t let either of them live.”

            The Doctor was struck cold by the young woman’s violent resolve. “I see,” he uttered, sounding very defeated. “Well, there’s no point in me reasoning with any of you on this matter. All I can do is help get the revolution started…but I won’t help you finish it the way you intend.”

            With that guarantee, he left in a huff.

            Rick wasn’t impressed. “W-What’s the deal with buzzkill Bea Arthur?” he griped to Maureen. “I thought he was supposed to be this ‘hardcore warrior’ you told me about.”

            “He isn’t that man yet,” Maureen dejectedly said. “But I wish he were right now.”

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            Rania spent most of the night held up in a cell filled with murky water that came up to her chest. Ra’s guards, armored men with masks that resembled birds with sharp beaks, dropped her into it. Luckily, she had plenty of experience in being imprisoned as a P.O.W. in the Time War – although Dalek cells were more accommodating than this.

            The next morning, she was hauled out of the watery cell and left to dry for half an hour before being escorted to a grandiose throne room where she had an audience with Ra himself. At the time she entered, the false god sat at his throne and wore an elaborate gold headpiece that looked like a pharaoh’s mask, covering his face.

            “You are the Tinkerer of Gallifrey?” he questioned in a hallowed voice. Rania was thankful her TARDIS was on Abydos to translate what would’ve otherwise been ancient Egyptian that he addressed her in.

            “I am,” Rania replied. “Where is Brainiac?”

            It was obvious that the extraterrestrial android was nowhere in sight, possibly hiding. Ra, however, cleared things up when he told Rania, “He is busy leading our side in the War to victory.”

            Rania scoffed at his sureness. “That won’t happen, not as long as my son’s alive.”

            Ra suddenly stood from his throne. As he did so, his ornate pharaoh headpiece retracted, revealing the face of a very young man. “He won’t be for very long,” he assured Rania. “We terraformed this once-barren planet with the alien mineral from Brainiac’s homeworld to construct the Stargates that has trapped the Gladiator here…so that we can kill him and end the War.” He approached Rania, caressing the tip of his fingernail down the left side of her face. “I will take great pleasure in killing your offspring as you watch!”

            Impulsively, Rania slapped Ra’s hand away from her face.

            His guards reacted accordingly, taking aim at Rania with their staff weapons, though Ra held them back by raising one hand.

            Rania knew she might’ve signed Neas’s death warrant with what she did, but it was worth showing the false god that she was not going to allow anyone to speak ill of her family.

            The tension in the throne room was soon interrupted by commotion that took place outside. Ra looked out the window and saw what appeared to be citizens from the city of Nagada revolting against his forces. In retaliation, he ordered his death gliders to deal with the Abydonians, but they were swiftly blown out of the sky by Rick’s Space Cruiser, piloted by Rick himself (with a highly nervous Daniel serving as co-pilot and gunner).

            “I know this is the wrong Roland Emmerich film, but doesn’t it feel so much like Independence Day right now?” Rick asked Jackson. “We’re like Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum…except, you know, we’re both white.”

            “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Daniel reacted.

            Within the throne room itself, one of the green gelatinous portals generated by Rick’s portal gun had opened. Maureen, Dwonch, O’Neil, and the Brigadier emerged and took down Ra’s guards in one fell swoop, thanks to weapons both military grade and those Rania brought from the Cyber War.

            “Pop!” Maureen called to her. “Are you alright?”

            “I am after you guys saved my butt just now,” Rania said. “What about Craig? Is he alright?”

            Maureen smiled and nodded. “Yeah, the lil’ bugger’s all good.”

            Rania was relieved to hear this. “That lil’ dude really saved the day.”

            “Of course he did,” Maureen smirked. “He’s Craig of the bloody Creek.”

            “Where are Ra and Brainiac?” Dwonch asked, her gun still taking aim in spite of the litter of dead guards sprawled out on the floor.

            “Brainiac was never here – he’s still back in the Cyber War,” Rania informed. “As far as Ra’s concerned…” Her hazel eyes scanned across the throne room, seeing no trace of the false god. “The sneaky jerk fled!”

            FLOOM!

            All of the sudden, the entire foundation of the room quaked.

            “What the devil’s going on?!” the Brigadier exclaimed.

            “It’s Ra!” Maureen said. “He’s leaving – possibly returning to the Cyber War!”

            “And to Brainiac!” Rania added.

            “Not if we have anything to say about it!” O’Neil avowed before switching on his radio and patching in with a couple of individuals waiting for their orders back in Nagada. “Simmons! Yates! Send the bomb through the portal now!”

            “We can’t, Colonel,” Simmons said over the radio.

            “What do you mean you can’t?!” O’Neil barked.

            “The bomb’s not here, sir,” Yates notified. “And neither is the Doctor.”

            Not before long did the group hear Rania’s TARDIS dematerializing near them inside the throne room. It didn’t take much for Maureen to put two and two together, realizing that the Doctor himself had O’Neil’s nuclear warhead.

            “Everyone through that portal now!” she ordered her father and the soldiers, who came to the same realization, doing what Maureen said without question. Maureen followed after them, emerging outside the pyramid. They looked up to see Ra’s pyramid ship ascend to the heavens…and then blow up outside the planet’s orbit, killing Ra.

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            Victory had come to the now-liberated Abydonians. But not everyone celebrated.

            After returning to Nagada in Rania’s TARDIS, the Doctor waited in the console room (which he admitted was more vast and resplendent than that of his TARDIS) until Maureen and Rania arrived to confront him on his deed – the very deed that won them the Abydonian Revolution.

            Neither of the women was angry. They were more puzzled than anything else.

            “What changed your mind?” Maureen asked him.

            The Doctor stood idly by the control console, half-admiring how it also bore a few similarities to his TARDIS. “No pun intended towards you, Aznavorian, but I did some tinkering of my own through your TARDIS computer,” the Doctor explained. “I found your logs on this ‘Cyber War’ and was appalled by what I discovered about Ra and Brainiac. Maureen was right – there would’ve been no appealing to their better nature.”

            Maureen sympathized with him. “I really wish there could’ve been, Doctor.”

            The Doctor gave an understanding nod. “Well, on a brighter note, I also uncovered a little more about you, Neas. You’re the same woman I’ve met in my previous lives. I’ve seen your TARDIS from the schematics Aznavorian keeps in his records. I now see you’ll be someone of great importance to me in my future…just as you have to my past.”

            “And to mine,” Maureen said with a smile.

            A little later, the three Time Lords were joined by Rick, Dwonch, O’Neil, Jo, and the Brigadier, as well as Craig and his friends, all of them anxious to return to their own times and dimensions in Rania’s TARDIS.

            Rania noticed one person missing from the assemblage. “Where’s Dr. Jackson?”

            “Daniel’s opted to stay here on Abydos,” O’Neil said. “He assured me the Stargate here will be destroyed, just as it will be on our side of reality.”

            “And ours as well,” Dwonch ensured, speaking on behalf of herself and the Brig.

            “I must commend you and your men on your bravery, Colonel,” the Brigadier told O’Neil. “I know that we had a rocky start on things, but after the action I saw today, I’d be honored to have a man like you on my squad.”

            O’Neil grinned in approval. “Right back at ya, Brig.”

            The two men shook heads while Dwonch sniffled beside them. When she noticed them glancing her way, she bashfully hid her emotions with a single word: “Allergies.”

            Meanwhile, Craig walked up to Maureen. He timidly clutched his staff, which now lacked its crystal head, having given it to Rick and Rania for their Cyber War mission. “Sorry that I said you didn’t know how to operate your TARDIS,” he said in reference to their first encounter.

            His apology, while unnecessary, touched Maureen. “I’m sorry that I never told you the truth from the start. I was just scared what you would think about me not looking how I once did.”

            “It’s O.K.,” Craig forgave her. “I like you this way, too.”

            Maureen knelt down to him, playfully stroking his curly, low-cropped hair. “No matter what, you’ll always be my little bro,” she told Craig, granting one of her best friends in the multiverse with a hug and a kiss on the head.