Chapter One Hundred And Ninety-One

"If you don't expect gratitude you'll seldom be disappointed" Eyor Dedonki, Memoirs of a Pessimist.

Pyramid. Goa'uld Held World.

While the Goa'uld empire was living in its final days the galaxy was a big place with tens of thousands of worlds that can be accessed via the Stargate and thousands of them had long been ruled by one false god or another. Even now there could be hundreds of worlds still under the control of either Ba'al, the only System Lord left, and many of those minor Goa'uld had little to no contact with the rest of the galaxy, or they served Ba'al as an Underlord.

Within their mostly fallen empire Underlords are high-ranking Goa'uld who serve System Lords. Their power and authority can vary from lord to lord. It is quite common for underlords whose masters have been defeated to enter into the service of their conquerors.

The Kara kesh of Underlords is always silver in colour as I'd seen when the Underlord we came to battle used it to lash out at a couple of my household guards before fleeing deeper into his palace. Thankfully neither of the women were badly injured and this was good as they would take a long time to replace

As for which Underlord we were after, that would be Hedjwer, a Goa'uld who had served Ra after being defeated by the Supreme System Lord when he tried to take Ra's place as sun god and ruler of the empire. He'd been exiled to a minor Goa'uld world and he must not have done much conquering in the last few thousand years because his Jaffa warriors were terrible.

The only thing I liked about them were Hedjwer's personal guard who had baboon helmets that were actually rather fearsome looking, I looked forward to have one of them decorating my fortress-palace back on Thrax III. But before I could think about taking spoils from this battle I had to win the battle and take this pyramid.

For reasons to do with budget I assumed the animal themed helmets worn by high ranking Jaffa were much more common in this galaxy than in the show, so I should end up with quite the collection.

I also needed to kill Hedjwer, and show his corpse to the locals so that they'd see that they were free from the rule of the false gods. Then they would be able to mine naquadah for me only with better tools and at least then they'd get paid for their trouble.

"We're having some trouble with the Goa'uld's personal guards" I was told over the command channel.

The last of the Jaffa with the baboon helmets were turning out to be somewhat good at their job so I headed over to the site of the problem.

I'd only come here with a few of my bodyguards, who I'd sent chasing after the Underlord and a full company of my household guard, as this wasn't an important mission and we'd had thousands of worlds to scout out, but I should have enough of my enhanced troops to overwhelm a minor Underlord of a System Lord who'd been dead for more than a decade.

I soon discovered the personal guard of the Underlord had set a staff cannon that could fire down a long corridor and it was too far from the corner that my people were using for cover to throw a grenade at.

Sure my Household guard could charge, but they weren't easy to replace and I didn't have any Imperial Guard cannon fodder. I'd also failed to anticipate that the Jaffa would have access to any heavy weapons since it was rare that they did.

"Keep them distracted" I ordered "I'll see if there is another way around. Charge them whenI give the command. Jack, you stay close to me".

I didn't bother doing that instead I made my way into a side room and then reached out with my psyker powers, soon entering the mind of the Jaffa at the controls of the cannon, I couldn't simply take control of his mind so I did my best to crush it and as I did I ordered a charge.

The short amount of time it took for another Jaffa to move the body of his comrade and take the controls was enough for my household guard to overwhelm them.

While destroying the mind of the Jaffa, which had been easier than expected, Jack had watched over my vulnerable body, but I let her off the leash as we entered the throne room and took down the last of the false god's defenders.

"Did anyone kill his First Prime?" I asked "I was hoping to start collecting those gold and silver emblems".

The Goa'uld who had been pinned to the flaw by two of my bodyguards did not like the fact that I simply ignored him. As for the bodyguards I'd brought along. One of them I'd named Buffy, due to her resemblance to the actress Sarah Michelle Geller and because of her enjoyment of hand to hand combat. The other bodyguard had the appearance of Eliza Dushku, only I'd never called her Faith because she was actually very pious and she preferred to be called Eliza anyway.

"You will die for this offense" he promised.

I took my power sword and drove into the back of the neck of the Underlord before the parasite tried jumping bodies only to end up removing the whole head. Not that this really mattered as it should convince the human population, who were currently hiding in their huts, that it would be wise to acknowledge a new master.

They would be wise to do since once I'd freed up some workers and industry I'd send people here to build them more modernised homes, and give them better tools for farming and mining.

"He was manning that cannon, my lord," reported a member of my household guard "I don't know who killed him".

Well technically I'd still killed him in battle so I was going to carve the emblem off his forehead and give him a battle wound to explain his death while my followers finished securing what passed for a settlement here.

Then I'd go handle the locals.