Hera's Wrath

Posted on Sat May 31st, 2025 @ 6:24am by The Commander & Heracles & Lady Hera

1,152 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Serpent's Tooth [3]
Location: Outside the Great Hall, DS13
Timeline: Concurrent to ✱12-14

Hera exhaled as the door to the great hall closed behind her. She knew it was around 1920 hours. She wanted away from this place, and she could feel herself losing the ability to keep calm about it. She needed her sarcophagus, soon. Mars had said he had one, but nobody had the time to check. She hoped it would not be necessary to find out, the Federation ship would suit her purposes well. She could simply beam her own sarcophagus aboard once they boarded it.

“Why are you doing this, mother?” Heracles asked once they stepped into a turbolift. She gave him a poison look.

“Do not question me. I am your mother.”

“And I am Harcesis. I may not yet have all your memories, but I know enough. There was no need for this. The Federation was helping us. There was peace with Akhenaten and Typhon. You have thrown it all away, for what?”

“For you!” Hera screamed at the burly man who was her son. “You may have my recollections but you do not know the nature of the Goa’uld. Akhenaten is a liar, I am sure of it. He is not some simple religious fanatic. And Typhon is as lethal as he ensures his men say he is. You are a threat to them.”

“I threaten nobody, mother. I serve the Aten, whose will is peace. As do Akhenaten and Typhon.” Heracles pleaded sincerely.

“There is no Aten you child! It is a myth! This is how we have controlled the slaves for millennia! How can you know so much and understand so little?” Hera exploded but regained her temper after her last rhetorical question. “They will kill you, or attempt to make you a host. The only way you survive to rule Olympus some day yourself is through me.”

“You underestimate my survival skills, mother.” Heracles said, unperturbed by her volcanic temperament.

“If I had not ended your war against Oceanus for you, you would be rotting in his torture dungeons. Do not speak to me of skills.” Hera had gone from incandescent to cool as the doors opened, and they emerged at Beta Dock. She wanted to be somewhere with a wide view, that would not be the first target of any Starfleet resistance.

“Commanders, report.” Hera asked the grey sphere she removed from in an in-sleeve pocket. She had waited some time since her arrival, expecting that someone would have updated her first. Many little faces appeared.

“The Excalibur-ship is secure. Hundreds are aboard already.” Came a voice she didn’t recognise in a lion helmet. He stood in front of the umbilical that crossed to the Constitution-class ship, she could see Jaffa rushing behind him.

Before she could ask him his name, Polyphron appeared, she looked to be lying on the floor.

"My Queen, Hekate is dead, the hok'tar host we sought overpowered her and killed the symbiote. Mars has betrayed us, but I know not to what end. At least one Jaffa has joined him, I would be surprised if there were not others."

"I see." Came Hera's voice, she did a poor job of concealing how she seethed. "It is of no further concern. We are leaving, return to Alpha Dock."

“Pull all forces back to our new vessel except those sent to shut down the reactivated dock.” All the Commanders who appeared on the sphere nodded and stated their acknowledgement. She noticed Thallistra was absent.

Once all the other faces had disappeared, Hera continued to look. There was only the sound of staff and zat fire coming from her communicator, still connected only to Thallistra's.

It did not take Hera and her son long to return to Alpha Dock, but by now it was around 1950. She intended to go straight to the command centre of her new vessel, but as she reached the pier it was connected to, she stopped, and raised her hand to the trailing forces aboard. She saw those ahead go in and did not stop them.

She approached the Jaffa at the threshold. There was something strange about him. He was too small, too thin to be a Jaffa. “Who are you?” She demanded, activating her ribbon device.

She reached with her spare hand and pressed the button to retract his helm. Underneath, she found the thin, pale face, heterochromic eyes and red hair of the Excalibur’s Commander. “I, Miss Hera, am just a figment of your overactive imagination.” The Commander said, and his holographic form collapsed, leaving an empty set of Lionguard armour, a staff weapon and about a dozen of the spherical communicators, from all the Jaffa commanders who had gone aboard.

Hera removed her own communicator once more, and spoke something heated into it in Goa’uld. Across Alpha Dock, the doors at another pier opened, though there was no ship there. They appeared to open out into the void, but there was no explosive decompression.

“Go!” She instructed the Jaffa towards the door. “My chariot awaits us there, my son will lead you aboard.” She said, pushing her large son in that direction. He yielded slightly to her touch, but stayed where he was.

“No, mother. I will not.” The Jaffa seemed terrified by his refusal. None of them wished to have to come between them.

“You will do as I command. Go aboard, now.”

“I will not, mother. I am staying here.”

“Why?” She asked with a sudden desperation, “What is it that could be greater than the Kingdom I will build for you?”

“I love her, mother. And she loves me.”

“You are a fool to trust her!” Hera shouted once more, her sadness transmuting into anger. She released a shockwave into Hercules from her ribbon device, throwing him across the room, but leaving him mostly unharmed.

Hera stormed across the distance to the door that seemed to open into space. “Jaffa, kree!” She commanded, and they followed her in step. Across the threshold, they found the cloaked Cheops-class cruiser she had been hiding since the crossing. With their queen leading, the Jaffa marched eagerly towards what seemed to be a door open to outer space.

When it seemed that Polyphron was no longer answering her Mistress’ hails, and Thallistra had fallen, the hit from a polaron torpedo that disabled their cloak was the last straw for Hera to order them away. Their haste meant they took coupled segments of the pier with them, and left a number of Jaffa behind. Once the starbase rotated into position to hit them, they were soon disabled, and Hera in her rage smashed the throneroom aboard, which Mars had kept since his time as an independent ruler.

Though her fury seemed boundless, it was replaced by fear as she saw the blocks aligning in a circle. Before the supergate so dramatically opened, she knew it was over. The Tau’ri had found them.

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