The stargate on Saral opened with its usual eruption of unstable plasma before settling into the calm, blue event horizon of a controlled wormhole. Through the gate stepped a small troop of Jaffa, led by an old Jaffa Master.
Ra had recently received word from one of his underlings who had come to Saral to make a trade that the planet was emptied with no sign of who had done it and the Supreme System Lord had sent the best tracker among his Jaffa to figure the mystery out.
Master Borok was both honored and grateful for the assignment. Honored for the trust in him it showed and grateful for the chance to stretch his legs a bit. At his age, he wasn't sent into combat anymore and his days were filled with instructing younger Jaffa in the art of tracking. In fact, had he been a less skilled tracker, he would not have been given any more symbiotes to carry. Though it would no longer be an issue very soon, as the last one was having difficulty keeping him going.
He observed with approval as his squad, which were all his current batch of students, took care not to mess up any of the tracks. He'd taken them along on this trip because it would allow them to practice the craft he was teaching them without risk of combat.
Though they could hardly have done any worse than the buffoon who reported it to lord Ra. The crotchety old Jaffa thought to himself sourly, seeing that many of the tracks were made only recently, not feeling the slightest bit repentant for his uncharitable thoughts on one of the lesser gods serving Ra.
At the very least it hadn't rained, which would have erased all the tracks here. A small blessing, as the tracks were clearly several days old.
"Master Borok, something extremely heavy was dragged here." The voice of his student snapped him out of his irritable wool gathering.
Borok took a look at the tracks and saw that the much younger Jaffa was indeed correct, though it was not a very hard deduction to make. A wide trench had been gouged in the earth.
"A large cargo crate, fully loaded." Borok said after a moment's consideration on the size and depth of the trench. "More than one in fact."
"But how did they get it through the gate?" One of the others wondered, frowning at the stone stairway that led to the stargate. While it would not have been impossible for several dozen Jaffa to have dragged it there, it would have been extremely difficult since the cargo crates had no convenient handholds or anything that a rope could be tied on, but it was not impossible. Dragging it up the stairs would have been even more difficult, but also not impossible. Doing it without badly damaging the stairs however, was impossible and the short stairway was in very good condition.
"It was lifted." Borok said, though a faint hint of incredulity could be heard in his tone.
"Impossible, even if Jaffa were to grab hold of every available surface, a fully loaded cargo crate of that size would be too heavy." The same young Jaffa protested.
"It was done by a single man." Borok replied quietly, staring at the ground in front of him while his students erupted into denials.
"Silence fools!" He shouted at them once he lost patience with their behavior. Teaching these idiot younglings to come to the correct conclusions while being wary of deception was always the hardest(and most frustrating) part of instructing them in the fine art of tracking. "Look for yourselves."
The younger Jaffa approached and looked wide eyed at the single set of deeply indented footprints. The set closest to where the crate had been stopped was spaced wider, clearly indicating that the man had braced himself before lifting the crate. There were a few more before the stairway had been reached, but aside from how deeply into the earth they were pressed, they did not show the staggered gait that one might expect from a person carrying an extremely heavy burden.
Aside from incredulity at the idea that a single man could possibly be that strong, the footprints themselves puzzled them also. They were large, clearly belonging to a big man and they were barefoot. Borok could not think of anyone that walked with their feet uncovered like this. The Jaffa usually wore their armored boots if they were not at home, the slaves wore sandals or some other self made footwear, depending on planetary conditions and the gods wore a variety of foot coverings.
"Let us move on, we may discover more elsewhere." The aged Jaffa Master commanded and moved off.
The long since burnt out Temple of Ra was nearby and it didn't take them long to reach it.
Borok ignored the muttering of his students as he looked around, noting the empty containers that looked as if they had once held oil. That would explain how they had started the fire but it was not particularly useful.
They found the bare footprints here once more, though much lighter, as well as Jaffa footprints aplenty and it looked as if they had forcibly dragged several people away from the temple, most likely the priesthood. This pointed to it being the action of a rival Goa'uld, but Borok could once again think of none that would do this. The barefooted tracks would in that case most likely belong to the god that these Jaffa served, as only a god could be so strong, but no god would lower himself to performing manual labor.
It was also baffling that the priesthood had been taken alive instead of killed.
"Master, what do you make of this?" The puzzled voice of his student once again snapped Borok out of his contemplation, causing him a small amount of irritation. Borok didn't like having his thoughts interrupted.
Grumbling, he made his way over and was himself puzzled at what his student had found. There were three golden chalices that were normally used in religious ceremonies, clearly taken from the temple before it had been burned.
The first contained the rotting body of a dead Goa'uld, perhaps Banaded himself or some other mature symbiote taken from the pouch of a Jaffa. The second was filled with what Borok identified as stale animal excrement. And most baffling of all, the third contained a stone tablet with a crude, but recognizable carving of male genitalia belonging to either a human or Jaffa.
He had to give his irritating students a glare to shut them up again when they started muttering about how blasphemous it was. Yes, it was blasphemous, but whining about it wasn't going to make it any less so.
"Master, what does it mean?" The only Jaffa to have kept silent at the sight asked.
Borok frowned deeply as he considered the question, but could make no sense of it.
Naruto had intended the first to imply that the Goa'uld would rot just the same as any dead man. The second one was supposed to be a metaphorical representation of how full of shit the Goa'uld religion was and the third one was there simply because Naruto was a dick and knew it.
Of course, all this metaphor was completely lost on the Jaffa, whose culture was so far removed from that of 20th century Earth that they couldn't even begin to make sense of it. Naruto had known this when he'd left the three chalices there, but he hadn't cared much. Because he was a dick.
Giving up on solving the apparent riddle and deciding to pass it on to Ra, they moved on. The temple was close to the city outskirts and they had been able to see the wreckage of the Tel'tak from there, which was where they headed.
The only thing they found was the mangled, bloated, decaying body of Banaded's host that was giving off a truly spectacular stench and wriggled with insects and other corpse eating creepy crawlies.
Naruto hadn't bothered disposing of the man's body since nobody among the living would care about him and the man himself was dead and in no position to care what happened to his carcass. He'd briefly considered simply removing the Goa'uld and letting the host live, but the poor bastard had long since been become a vegetable over the course of millennia of mental domination.
"I do not know." Borok admitted.
"Could it have been the Asgard?"
Borok frowned again in uncertainty. Jaffa legend wasn't exactly detailed on the enigmatic enemy of the Goa'uld, so he couldn't say for sure.
"Lord Ra will know if it was."
Once more the Jaffa moved on through the eerily empty settlement. Everywhere they could see the signs of a mass exodus. Tracks left by carts and livestock abounded on the hardened dirt roads, with the occasional forgotten item left lying carelessly on the ground. There were signs of battle in some areas, especially the town center, but there was a puzzling lack of bodies, either those of Banaded's Jaffa or that of the invader. Surely someone must have died, yet the victorious invading force had apparently taken the dead as well as the living.
Borok organized his students into several groups to cover more ground , leaving the most capable in charge. It was nearing nightfall by the time they regrouped in front of the palace to report their findings.
"What have you found?" Borok prompted, staring at the leader of the first group.
"The homes of the slaves are mostly empty, everything has been taken that could be easily carried." The much younger Jaffa reported. "We have also found a glider that has been shot down with a staff cannon, its pilot and gunner were not present."
"We found the cannon." The second group leader spoke up. "It had been ripped from its glider with brute force. The metal was bent slightly where it had been squeezed too hard."
The report set off another round of muttering from the others who knew how durable the staves were, severely irritating Borok once again. "You will cease gossiping like old matrons and allow him to finish!"
"We also believe that the cannon was ripped away mid flight, as we found the glider that once carried it nearby. It crashed due to having its wing severely bent by what appears to be a forceful stomp. The size of the indentation in the wing corresponds to the size of the bare footprints we found." The second group leader continued reporting after getting a nod from the Jaffa Master.
"What of the Jaffa who had flown it?" Borok asked, giving a pre-emptive glare to prevent his students from gossiping.
"They were not present."
Borok hummed and rubbed at his chin, considering the situation for a moment before giving a nod to the third group leader as a prompt for him to speak.
"We found the last of the gliders, this ones underbelly had been carved open with what appear to be claws. Given that the glider crashed, it must have also been done during flight. Neither pilot nor gunner were present." The young Jaffa reported.
"What makes you think it was done by claws?" Borok asked.
"We did not truly know until we investigated the signs of a pursuit into the nearby forest. Many Jaffa were chasing the barefooted one, to no apparent effect. The distance between each footprint was immense and the stride forceful. The speed with which this creature would have been moving would render pursuit impossible and it appeared to have been toying with the Jaffa chasing it, as the footprints reverse direction many times."
"You have still not told me why you believe the damage to the third glider was done with claws." Borok reminded when it appeared that his student had gone on a tangent.
"Many of the trees bore claw marks, some faint and some deep. We also saw them in the tree tops, so it must also be capable of climbing as well."
"It is no creature if it is intelligent enough to operate a staff cannon and toy with pursuers in such a manner." Borok said contemplatively. "Show me what you found, I wish to see it for myself."
He had to make certain that his idiot students hadn't gone from being too skeptical to being too gullible after all.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Several hours later, they were back at the palace and much to Borok's masterfully hidden shock, his students had been entirely correct.
The barefooted god could indeed move at insane speeds and did indeed possess claws that could tear apart metal. He was less shocked about that than he was over the fact that his students had actually been entirely correct. Perhaps there was some hope for them yet.
It was well into the night now, so the group of Jaffa equipped torches as they moved into the palace. Borok had considered making camp for the night and continuing the search in the morning, but Ra had demanded answers as soon as possible. It would mean that they were much more likely to miss something important, but one did not lightly ignore orders from one's god.
It became immediately apparent that the palace had also been looted. Many rooms were stripped bare or nearly so, with only the occasional decorative trinket left behind. Banaded's personal quarters had not been spared this either, even his sarcophagus had been taken.
The inspection of the room where Banaded conducted his deals was the most interesting by far. An altercation of some sort had clearly taken place here. A small table lay smashed against the wall and a Ma'tok staff with its bulbous firing end crushed had been left carelessly on the ground. The deep indentation of fingers was more obvious here than it had been on the staff cannon, making it clear what had happened.
Borok suspected that this was where it had all started, but did not mention it to his students. He had nothing solid to base his suspicions on, but for this room to have been used at all, Banaded must have invited the invader inside.
A short way down the hall, they found four lines gouged into the wall and easily identified them as claw marks by this point.
Next they made their way to the slave quarters, which were adjacent to the palace wing where new slaves were trained. As had been the case with the rest of the palace, it was stripped bare.
There they found the body of a single Jaffa priestess bearing the symbol of Ra, her body in the same state of decay as Banaded's had been.
"Master, I do not understand." One of the Jaffa began. "Why was this one killed instead of taken?"
"I do not know." Borok said as he inspected the body. He was glad to see that the priestess had at least not been violated before her death. Jaffa were generally too disciplined for such deplorable behavior, but it did happen occasionally that the warriors of an enemy god would take such liberties with either the priestesses or the slave women of a defeated planet. Jaffa that sunk to such dishonorable behavior were usually quietly disposed of by their fellows if something else did not take their lives first.
"She was grabbed by the throat with one hand and had her neck broken with the a push of the thumb. A quick death." Borok pronounced after taking a look at the bruising on her neck and jaw, still visible despite the decay.
The younger Jaffa stayed in respectful silence for the life of the priestess, already knowing who had done it. Breaking a person's neck required a certain amount of strength and could not be done with with just the thumb unless the owner of said thumb was monstrously strong.
Borok led them deeper into the palace, going where Ra had instructed them to go in order to retrieve the magic crystals that Banaded had in his keeping. All Jaffa knew of the crystals that held the magic of the gods and allowed their great starships to fly. Ra had said that he suspected that the enemy god who had destroyed Banaded would have taken them, but they were to look just in case.
As they had half expected, the crystals were gone, stolen just like most everything else on the planet. With nothing left for them there, Borok and his students wrapped the decaying body of the dead priestess in one of the few curtains that hadn't been stolen and buried her.
While Borok continued to puzzle over who could have possibly done this, his students mentally cursed the abomination that had blasphemed against their god and slain his servants Banaded and the unfortunate priestess, hoping that he would suffer for his actions.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Naruto was at that moment suffering his wife's silent displeasure as he walked next to her through the palace. Akitsu was on her other side, holding the horned woman's arm between her breasts in a not very subtle attempt to distract her.
It wasn't working too well because Xanna was not as easily distracted from her irritation with sexual invitations as Naruto might have been.
It had been almost a week since the last of the people from Saral had come through the stargate, which had been an endevour that had taken almost a full day in and of itself.
Naruto had been the last to leave Saral, carrying the heaviest of their ill gotten gains through the gate. While he'd been supplying power to the gate to keep it open indefinitely, Xanna had needed to keep the whole thing organized on the other side. They had made some preparations for receiving a large influx of people, but it would have been fairly chaotic even then, with twice as many people it was nigh unmanageable.
This was one of those rare situations where you became glad that your enemy was so stupid, in this case with their ship design.
The Ha'tak mothership was the mainstream ship used by all Goa'uld. They were all pretty much identical and they were the 'one size fits all' solution of the Goa'uld, a truly textbook example of putting too many eggs in one basket. It was a capital warship, troop transport, carrier and even cargo ship if need be. It could even land on a planet if whichever Goa'uld flying it wanted to really make an entrance, something that even Naruto (who had no experience with spaceships whatsoever) could tell was fucking stupid for a ship that was well over half a kilometer long and wide.
Then again, there was a lot about the ship itself that he felt was stupid besides the people who typically owned it. The pyramidal core and triangular superstructure around it gave the thing way too many angles. Sure, it had sixty rather powerful plasma cannons, but only a small number of those cannons could actually fire at a target at any given time due to its shape, not to mention the lack of variety in their weaponry. Plasma weapons for their infantry, their fighters, their stationary defenses, their bombers and their capital ships. They didn't even have any point defense guns to fight off swarms of fighters and bombers.
Naruto had been hoping to see some frickin lasers but oh well, he'd just have to make his own. Good thing that Sekirei ship he'd appropriated had some.
But the troop transport part of the Ha'tak actually came in handy this time, no matter how dumb it was to have a front line capital ship double as a troop transport. It could comfortably hold 400-500 Jaffa, depending on how much of it was used as a barracks, but in the current situation it was uncomfortably being used as a temporary home by over a thousand people.
That still left about nine thousand homeless that needed taking care of, but it was something and Erius was currently in early summer, so nobody was in danger of freezing to death. Fortunately, the city of Hesa wasn't too far north of the equator, so the temperatures didn't drop particularly low even during winter. The people certainly hadn't complained much, though that was probably because they were used to being slaves and not being allowed to complain.
Things had still been rather hectic though.
Nearly every moment since their return from Saral had been spent trying to figure out what to do with so many people. They had not slept, eaten, had sex or done anything else save directing the efforts to settle them somewhere. None of that was necessary for them to do and it was no hardship for them to go without, but Xanna tended to get crabby without those things. Sex and sleep were activities of pleasure and relaxation that she had gotten used to and did not enjoy going without, while eating was one of the few things that had not gotten dull over the millennia and she'd gotten attached to it.
Aside from being pretty much the only people keeping things even vaguely organized, Naruto had also been performing large amounts of manual labor, such as hauling heavy loads of stone and wood for the construction of new homes, hewing said stone into more manageable sizes along with various other things. He wasn't particularly pleased with the lack of sex either and the work had at least been a half decent distraction.
Xanna had kept most of her focus on keeping track of things and directing efforts to make the labor as efficient as possible, as well as using a number of Jaffa as a makeshift police force to prevent any altercations from happening.
The work was not nearly done and would likely take a several more weeks before the new population was even vaguely settled in and the people currently inhabiting the Ha'tak could move out, followed by the long process of integrating them completely. He was familiar enough with the concept of culture shock to know that you couldn't just mash two disparate peoples together and expect them to mesh perfectly.
With the ability to clone themselves, they could have quite easily given themselves a break while still getting shit done, but much to Naruto's puzzlement, Xanna didn't want to do it because it would be 'cheating'.
To Naruto, cheating was a way of life. For Xanna it had long since become necessary to exercise some restraint or else ruin your own fun.
He could understand her desire to limit the use of their powers on an intellectual level, but why was she so damn annoyed by it when she was doing it to herself? It was times like this that Naruto became certain that she'd chosen correctly when she'd decided to take a female form.
Immediately after the thought passed through his head, a fist caught him in the jaw and sent him crashing into a wall, though not hard enough to do more than crack it.
"That is not the cause of my displeasure my idiot husband." Xanna said scathingly, tearing her other hand away from Akitsu's grip in irritation. "I was aware that refraining from the use of our power to speed things along would mean that we would need to put that much more personal effort into it long before the idea to rule an empire even entered your thoughts. Even your blunder with the size of the population you've just abducted was not so bad since you at least had the foresight to bring along plenty of food."
Though it did point out the fact that they should have prepared better for a large influx of people. Despite her wishes otherwise, a considerable amount of cheating would need to take place to provide for the new population.
"What I am displeased with is how casually you've undermined our authority."
Naruto had raised his hands in surrender at her tirade, though he couldn't keep himself from grinning at how hot she looked when she was mad. He knew she wasn't really mad at him anyway. The last sentence just plain confused him though. "How did I undermine our authority? Last I checked everyone was still doing as as we said."
"You did it by allowing those children to braid your hair!" She snapped in exasperation.
"I had to admire that little girl's guts for just walking up behind me and starting to play with my hair without even asking for permission and the others just sort of joined in afterwards." He shrugged, not at all sorry.
The girl's mother had been terrified out of her mind at what her daughter had done though. That had been vaguely funny too.
"Naruto, she couldn't have been more than three years old and probably didn't even register that your hair was attached to you. That is not an indication of 'guts', but a lack of cognitive development." Xanna replied dryly.
"The others were older and ballsy enough to do it." He pointed out.
"They could hardly be intimidated by you when you had a three year old wiping her spit stained fingers in your hair."
"I...have no argument to support myself." Naruto capitulated. "But I don't get what's so bad about letting them braid my hair."
"It is bad because if they do not fear us, we will eventually be inundated with requests to use our power to help them with all of their inane little problems." She explained, slightly frustrated at his shortsightedness.
She'd even heard people refer to her as a merciful goddess, clearly demonstrating how out of hand things were getting. She hadn't even done anything particularly merciful.
Naruto swaggered forward and pressed her into the wall, bringing his mouth very close to hers before he answered. "Then we say no."
"So it is that simple now, but when I suggested that we kill half of the people you took to make things easier, it was 'going too far'?" Xanna asked archly.
"I know that I'm the newbie here, but mass murder seems like a bad starting point for a society." He answered sardonically, knowing that the suggestion had been only half joking. "Now come on, lets go catch up on the sex we missed out on and you can make it up to Akitsu for almost making her cry."
The Ice Sekirei started a bit at suddenly being spoken about, having retreated a short distance away, where she had been wringing her hands anxiously.
"Ah...it's okay, I wasn't going to cry." She muttered quietly, only lying a little bit. The rough way that the horned woman had torn her hand away had made her tear up at little, but she hadn't been about to cry. It just seemed so silly to be upset over something so minor when Naruto had been punched into a wall and managed to grin about it. It was just that it had been a week since they'd had any time for her and she'd been so happy about it that the sudden violence had been really distressing.
Naruto rolled his eyes at the subdued response. "Sure you weren't. Now do you want to join in on the fun or not?"
Akitsu smiled shyly and fidgeted as she answered. "Ah...yes."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Xanna frowned to herself as she closed the door to the royal quarters behind her and made her way down the hall. The past day of 'catching up' on lost time had done a lot for her ill temper, but it had also raised some other questions.
Akitsu.
What the hell were they doing with that girl anyway?
The Ice Sekirei certainly was fun to have around for several reasons. Notably for her habit of giving the impression that she was some helpless girl that was abused on a constant basis by the scary horned people. It was always amusing to see people's reaction to that one, though it wasn't likely to come into play for some time now. A pity.
The other thing was her submissive personality. Xanna had always liked being in control and Naruto was too wild to be submissive to anyone or anything for very long, even her(which she had to admit was somewhat refreshing even if his unique form of obsession with her wasn't looking like it would ever loosen its grip on him). The Ice Sekirei felt positively blissful in the presence of two such dominant personalities.
Like right now, when Naruto was pinning her to the bed, covering her completely with his much larger body as he thrust into her with just enough restraint to keep it from being painful. Despite being more than ready to fall asleep from exhaustion, Akitsu still eagerly kept her legs spread for him, moaning in near delirium as he took her.
The horned woman shook the image out of her mind before she got the urge to go back in there and rejoin them. She'd left the fun a bit early this time to think about the situation, not to get herself horny again.
Akitsu had been extra attentive to her this time, no doubt still feeling deep inside that she had to make up for the minor irritation Xanna had felt at having her arm occupied while she'd been punching her husband.
It was beyond obvious that the Ice Sekirei had attached herself to them so completely that to cut her loose now would destroy her. Xanna would have had no real compunction about doing so anyway despite her fondness of the Ice Sekirei, but Naruto would object to it severely.
For her, Akitsu was only been supposed to be a fun plaything for a while before they moved on, but she'd been so much fun that the situation had just dragged on.
She snorted at the thought. Naruto used to be just a fun plaything too and now she was married to him.
Akitsu was so submissive that any thoughts about not wanting to share Naruto with her were moot. If anything, if was the Sekirei being shared between the two of them, but it was still a deviation from the plan that Xanna had envisioned for the two of them and she hated deviations from the plan.
Granted, it hadn't been much of a plan. Basically just 'enjoy our divinity for as long as possible before eternal life made everything so boring that we want to die'.
Then have Naruto find a way to utterly obliterate their existence. If anyone could find a way to kill the unkillable, it would be him. Much to her shock, Naruto's own power had started mutating, his unforeseen manifestation of Rinnegan abilities proved it. Initially, it would have been simple to take back what she had given him with the Chakra Fruit, now it would pose some negligible difficulty. If this continued, he would eventually be completely independent of her.
Not truly a concern given his devotion to her, merely unexpected. She trusted him completely and knew that nothing would change between them due to this, but it highlighted the fact that a means to end their existence needed to be found for the inevitable day when the burden of eternity became too heavy.
That was still a long, long way into the future though, so she hadn't mentioned it to him yet. Not that it would do any good anyway, he would just shrug, grin and refuse to think about it until it happened.
Same thing with the Akitsu situation. He likely hadn't devoted even half a second of thought to where they were going with her and was just going with the flow.
Her thoughts on the subject were interrupted when she passed through the throne room, which now sported a far more impressive and tasteful dual throne of polished obsidian furnished with comfortable blood red cushions. In fact, most of the palace had already been redecorated so that it was more to their tastes instead of the gold obsessed Goa'uld.
The décor of the throne room was not what stopped her in her tracks though, but the dozen or so nervous looking women waiting in it. If she did not miss her guess, they were all from either Banaded's serving staff or personal harem. While they had not been a priority, Naruto's...peculiarities...regarding women had ensured that they were well treated, so their presence here was something of an oddity.
"Yes?" Xanna prompted, instantly bringing the women to attention. Apparently Naruto had managed to convince them to stop kneeling all the time, though it did look as if they had just barely restrained the impulse to get down on their knees.
"My lady, we wish to offer our services to lord Naruto." The one that seemed to be the designated speaker said with a small quaver in her voice.
"Is that so?" Xanna murmured to herself too quietly to hear and discreetly scanned their minds. Naruto had let it be known that none of the former harem girls or pleasure slaves would be required to do the same under their rule, but most of them were here for exactly that purpose anyway.
They seemed to be of the opinion that Naruto was the only real power here, which was irritating but understandable given that they'd come from a society where the only authority had been a male. Well, a worm pretending to be a male, but it amounted to the same thing in the end.
In short, they felt a bit lost and unsure of what to do with themselves. Despite being slaves, they'd actually enjoyed a very comfortable life so far. Abused, malnourished and tormented women weren't very attractive after all, unless you were a particularly sick individual. Their duties hadn't even been demeaning from their point of view thanks to their upbringing, so the only reluctance they felt in offering themselves as harem girls was Naruto's frightening appearance. They were doing this with the hope that in return they would get to continue to live in the luxury that they were accustomed to.
Though there was one among them that Banaded had apparently favored, causing the woman to think that he had loved her and she was now planning to assassinate Naruto after he had sex with her and fell asleep. Cute, but misguided on so many levels.
The whole thing was misguided actually, Naruto wouldn't be interested in a harem. He chased other women for the thrill of seducing them rather than the pleasure of sleeping with them. It wasn't as if any of them could even remotely compare to her after all.
Xanna wasn't interested in a harem either, but there was one thing that she could use these women for. She'd already decided to put off making any decision about Akitsu, so this would be as good a distraction as any.
"How good are you at giving massages?"
"We were well trained." The apparent speaker for the group said with a bit of hope.
"Good." Xanna purred and started walking to another room, disrobing as she went. Before she was completely naked, she manifested her ten tails and kept them wrapped around her midsection to make it seem as if they were always there. "Come show me then."
The women muttered amongst each other in shock at seeing the tails unfold, but hastened to follow when they made an unmistakable beckoning gesture.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Alone in an absurdly opulent room that was heavily decorated with gold, a young and very handsome, Egyptian looking boy of perhaps seventeen years of age was frowning. At least he gave the appearance of being a boy, though the age and malice in his eyes gave lie to that first impression.
This was Ra, Supreme System Lord of the Goa'uld Hegemony, and he was confused. As someone that was around ten thousand years old, he didn't get confused often.
The emptying of Saral had been a surprising development, but he'd not expected it to be so puzzling. Vacating an entire planet was usually done with orbital bombardment or with an army of Jaffa sweeping it clean. It was not done often because large numbers of human slaves could be difficult to replace, so they usually only suffered minor casualties during conflicts between Goa'uld.
Taking the people but leaving the planet was a new tactic, which he'd assumed one of his rivals had cooked up for some reason. Borok's report on what tracks they had found seemed to contradict this however. He'd been disbelieving when the aged Jaffa had told him that a barefooted man had lifted a fully loaded cargo crate all by himself and carried it through the stargate, more than one even. He had considered if perhaps the old Jaffa's mind had finally failed him.
Borok was as sharp as ever though and his assessment of the tracks gave little choice but to believe him.
This forced Ra to consider who could have done this. One of his fellow Goa'uld might have conceivably developed some technology that would allow for such a strength increase, but they would never sully their feet by walking barefoot. Especially not on a planet swarming with disgusting cattle that left their droppings everywhere.
Furthermore, Borok's claims that the 'enemy god' had claws capable of shearing through stone and metal also argued against it being one of them. Unlike the Jaffa, Ra knew physics and knew that natural claws simply couldn't do that. Nor was it possible to crush a staff weapon in one's fist or leap high enough to take a death glider out of the air. The Unas were the most physically powerful race that the Goa'uld had encountered so far and even with a symbiote enhancing the lizard creature's native strength, they couldn't have done that. Though Goa'uld who had used Unas hosts did often walk barefoot due to the creatures clawed toes, Borok had been adamant that the footprints matched that of a human.
Some new technology employed by a rival Goa'uld was the most logical explanation and Ra wanted it for himself as soon as possible.
The most baffling part of this came from what Borok and his students had found in front of his desecrated temple. That was in and of itself an act that angered him greatly and he would enjoy making his displeasure known once the defiler was found.
Ra, the same as Borok, could not decipher the meaning of the three golden chalices no matter how much he thought about it. Why would anyone put animal excrement into a cup made of gold? Why would someone put excrement in any kind of cup? Or a dead symbiote for that matter?
The stone tablet with the carving of male genitalia was even more confusing. It somehow seemed like an incredibly immature thing to do.
Regardless, Ra might not be able to understand the exact meaning of these things, but he knew that he was offended by it and that was all that he truly cared about if one was to be completely honest.
Banaded's death didn't phase him much at all. The minor Goa'uld had been a useful underling because he lacked the will and ambition to rebel against him even if he wasn't loyal, but there were plenty more like him. They probably wouldn't be quite as good as Banaded at governing a planet, but that was alright. Keeping slaves under control only took so much skill after all.
The blow to his reputation, and therefore his ego, was far worse than the loss of a minor trade planet whose only real value was the slightly higher quality of trained slaves it tended to produce. There were always more slaves after all, but he would lose face in the eyes of his fellow Goa'uld for having his planet attacked like this and his temple defiled, which could be dangerous given Sokar's briefly successful rebellion recently. He would have preferred to keep the fate of Saral entirely quiet if possible, but too many had already known of it. If there was one thing worse than having a planet deep in your territory invaded like this, it was trying to cover it up and failing. The whole thing made him burn with the desire to demonstrate to the attacker why it was unwise to slight the Sun God.
Unfortunately, he had no idea who had done this. Banaded and the priestess had been dead much too long for the sarcophagus to be capable of reviving them and there were no other witnesses.
It could have been one of his rival Goa'uld, but they would probably not have attacked Saral if that were so. It was too much of a high risk target for too little gain.
The idea that it might have been the Tok'ra was dismissed out of hand. Those rebellious traitors were a nuisance at best and survived only by hiding in caves. Evacuating ten thousand humans would have only served to compromise their stealth while gaining them nothing of any true worth.
The Asgard were a far likelier possibility. The advanced race certainly had the power and technology for it, but the method was all wrong. Had it been them, one of their monstrously powerful ships would have come and used its weaponry to disintegrate every Goa'uld structure and Jaffa warrior on the planet. By all accounts, this was a strictly ground based attack and Ra knew that the little grey aliens were physically very frail. They would have never left the safety of their ships to engage in such a confrontation. Not to mention that the Asgard didn't leave any bodies behind, such as those found of the priestess and Banaded that had been found by Borok and his students.
Besides, Ra couldn't recall doing anything lately that would instigate their wrath.
So either this was some new race with an unknown agenda, or one of his rivals playing some clever game. Ra could not be certain either way. The Jaffa tracks pointed at a Goa'uld, but everything else seemed to point at something else entirely.
He would find out one way or another, and when he did, he would make sure that the offender suffered for their insolence greatly before they were finally allowed to die.