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Master Bra'tac > You
“I sincerely doubt that even you could make Master Bra’tac ‘lose his cool,’ Miss Summers. His capacity for stoicism is legendary, and for good reason. He was the First Prime of Apophis when he concluded that the Goa’uld were not gods, and began his campaign against them. Had he ever betrayed his true feelings by the slightest gesture or action, he would have been tortured to death. No matter his personal inclinations, Master Bra’tac will perform his duty, with no outwardly visible sign of his personal opinion, regardless of any obstacles he might have to overcome.”
“Is that a challenge, Mister T?”
Teal’c bestowed one of his more formidable glares on the small female, as he usually did when someone annoyed him. Buffy met his eyes, undaunted, as she in turn usually was when she annoyed people. Privately Teal’c found that somewhat frustrating. He was proud of his glare. The power of his glare had been known to make strong men water themselves. He found it frustrating in the extreme that they had so little effect on someone so small. “During his youth, long before he rose through the ranks to become First Prime, Bra’tac came to the attention of his superiors when he became the first person ever to escape the prison planet of Kalator.
“At the time, Apophis and Satesh were having a war over some trivial slight… one of Satesh’s letters had been addressed with only twenty four of the full twenty six salutations due to a System Lord of his stature, I believe. The resulting war was relatively minor; there were probably no more than eight thousand casualties among the Jaffa who actually fought it. Because it was so trivial, prisoners were kept alive rather than simply executed out of hand. Bra’tac was sent to Kalator with the other survivors, which even then was known to be escape-proof.
“Kalator is a mineralogical treasure-trove, due to the high concentration of metals within its over-sized core. But those very metals induce an extreme magnetic field which has forced life to evolve on the planet in a manner which is almost unique in this part of the galaxy. All life there exhibits what I am told is known as a ‘left-handed helicity’ in the orientation of amino acids. I am uncertain as to the biological meaning of this, but the end result is that nothing edible can grow on this world.”
When she and O’Neill looked equally confused, an excited Carter attempted to explain. “I’ve heard about this planet! If we ever get the opportunity, I’d love to study the lifeforms there. They’re like nothing we’ve ever seen. As you undoubtedly already know, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Although the proteins on Kalator look and act the same as those in most other organisms, the chirality is oriented with a left-ward bias, as opposed to the more ubiquitous right hand orientation found in virtually all biological entities on other worlds. I am certain Dr. Fraser could give you a far more rigorous explanation if you want…” from Buffy’s confused look, Sam judged that she did not so desire “…but the end result is that we have a planet with trees and insects and some small animals, but none of them can be processed or absorbed by digestive systems which evolved anywhere else. Much of it is also toxic due to the effects of enantiomers of known proteins causing unanticipated reactions when accepted by the receptors of eukaryotic organisms.”
When she noticed O’Neill giving her a strange look, Sam figured that once again she was providing Too Much Information. She sighed. This was really interesting stuff! Except, apparently, not. “It looks normal but you can’t eat it because it’s poisonous.”
Teal’c continued after nodding politely in gratitude for her ‘clarification.’ “Since nothing local can be consumed, everything required to feed the local Jaffa population had to be imported from off-world, which represented a non-trivial expense for a minor System Lord such as Satesh. It will come as no surprise that he brought in only the cheapest, most basic dehydrated consumables he could purchase for them to eat. Even his own soldiers guarding the prisoners were fed the most basic of food substitutes. As you can imagine, this did nothing to improve their disposition, so conditions on Kalator were barbaric in the extreme.
“Adding to the misery, the weather is abysmal. At the mine site, winters were long and harsh. The extraction facilities were primitive and the work back-breakingly strenuous. Due to the biological and climactic environment, settlement was impossible. Conditions were so harsh only prisoners could be made to work there, and even then only could only be persuaded to work under the most painful of inducements. Torture and summary execution were commonplace. To a warrior like Bra’tac, such conditions were intolerable. He resolved to escape at the first opportunity, no matter the consequences. Despite his vow, he was actually imprisoned for more than an Earth-year before he found an opportunity to make his escape. At that time, of the 784 Jaffa prisoners who had been captured with him, only 57 remained alive.”
Buffy swallowed, remembering the Hell dimension she had experienced when she ran away to LA after killing Angel. The place Teal’c was describing might have actually been worse. Seeing that she understood, the big man continued. “Bra’tac was unloading stores from a supply shuttle during a raging blizzard. Conditions were so abysmal the guards supervising the operation refused to go outside. They had little to fear; the shuttle was under remote control so could not be appropriated, the landing area was in a walled-in enclosure, and of course there was nowhere to escape to. Still, conditions within the facility were so horrific Bra’tac took the chance, since he assumed the supplies he was off-loading included food concentrates which he could live off of for some time. It was only after he acted that he discovered the supplies, in fact, consisted solely of lubricants for the mining equipment.
“By the time he discovered that fact, he had already killed two of the five guards. Naturally if was then far too late to reassess his options, so he had no choice but to run. One of the pursuing guards foolishly attempted to prevent him from closing the external door by blocking it with his foot. Due to the environmental conditions that door was made of thick metal, and Bra’tac used its mass to crush the guard’s leg, severing it completely from his body, causing the man to bleed to death. Bra’tac then used the severed leg as a club to kill the remaining two guards, who had unwisely attempted to stench the flow of blood from their fallen colleague.
“Bra’tac then made his escape, using the blizzard to conceal his trail and prevent anyone from following him. He walked for miles, despite having only the thinnest of clothing, until he found a cave which provided some shelter. He is a skilled outdoorsman, and was able to create a fire from locally-available materials. Despite its unique molecular arrangement, wood on Kalator burns the same as wood anywhere else. The water was filled with microorganisms which could be lethal to alien lifeforms, but once boiled was potable. He had to make clothing from local vegetation, and keep moving to ensure that he was not located by the sensors carried by prison search parties. Somehow, he was able to do all this for seventy three days, until he was able to make his escape, by…”
O’Neill interrupted at that point. “Seventy-three days!? Without food? In winter, when he couldn’t make a fire big enough to be spotted by thermal sensors? I think the old boy was stretching the truth just a bit, T.”
Meeting his eyes steadily, Teal’c kept his voice even. “He did have sustenance, O’Neill.”
“You said the supplies were just grease. So what did he eat?”
“The guard’s leg.”
There was dead silence for several long seconds, before Buffy’s pretty face scrunched up in a disgusted expression. “Ewwwwwww!!!!”
O’Neill, on the other hand, was more impressed. He’d never really liked Bra’tac, but… damn! “Okay, color me impressed. That is seriously Hard Core.” Sam appeared to agree with Buffy, but didn’t want to seem like a wuss so nodded like she agreed with her boss.
“Indeed.” Giving them some time to consider his mentors actions, Teal’c prepared to carry on with the tale. Buffy, however, wanted nothing to do with it, and held up her hands, one at right angles on top of the other in a signal Teal’c recognized from one of the local athletic endeavors as calling for a ‘time out.’ “Is there a problem, Miss Summers?”
“He doesn’t eat anyone else on the way out, does he?”
“No. But capturing a hyper-capable ship required considerable skill and brilliant improvisational tactics in order to lead a group of…”
Once again, she interrupted. “Teal’c, it doesn’t matter what he did to get out. He ate the man’s leg! You already made your point! Anything after the ‘eating of the leg’ is pretty much redundant. The guy is a complete badass! He is not going to throw a tantrum over me telling him he should have used Noxzema when his face first broke out. And if I do manage to piss him off that much, he might eat my frickin’ leg!! Enough already. I get it! I’ll be good. Sheeesh.”
- Return to Normal Chapter
“Is that a challenge, Mister T?”
Teal’c bestowed one of his more formidable glares on the small female, as he usually did when someone annoyed him. Buffy met his eyes, undaunted, as she in turn usually was when she annoyed people. Privately Teal’c found that somewhat frustrating. He was proud of his glare. The power of his glare had been known to make strong men water themselves. He found it frustrating in the extreme that they had so little effect on someone so small. “During his youth, long before he rose through the ranks to become First Prime, Bra’tac came to the attention of his superiors when he became the first person ever to escape the prison planet of Kalator.
“At the time, Apophis and Satesh were having a war over some trivial slight… one of Satesh’s letters had been addressed with only twenty four of the full twenty six salutations due to a System Lord of his stature, I believe. The resulting war was relatively minor; there were probably no more than eight thousand casualties among the Jaffa who actually fought it. Because it was so trivial, prisoners were kept alive rather than simply executed out of hand. Bra’tac was sent to Kalator with the other survivors, which even then was known to be escape-proof.
“Kalator is a mineralogical treasure-trove, due to the high concentration of metals within its over-sized core. But those very metals induce an extreme magnetic field which has forced life to evolve on the planet in a manner which is almost unique in this part of the galaxy. All life there exhibits what I am told is known as a ‘left-handed helicity’ in the orientation of amino acids. I am uncertain as to the biological meaning of this, but the end result is that nothing edible can grow on this world.”
When she and O’Neill looked equally confused, an excited Carter attempted to explain. “I’ve heard about this planet! If we ever get the opportunity, I’d love to study the lifeforms there. They’re like nothing we’ve ever seen. As you undoubtedly already know, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Although the proteins on Kalator look and act the same as those in most other organisms, the chirality is oriented with a left-ward bias, as opposed to the more ubiquitous right hand orientation found in virtually all biological entities on other worlds. I am certain Dr. Fraser could give you a far more rigorous explanation if you want…” from Buffy’s confused look, Sam judged that she did not so desire “…but the end result is that we have a planet with trees and insects and some small animals, but none of them can be processed or absorbed by digestive systems which evolved anywhere else. Much of it is also toxic due to the effects of enantiomers of known proteins causing unanticipated reactions when accepted by the receptors of eukaryotic organisms.”
When she noticed O’Neill giving her a strange look, Sam figured that once again she was providing Too Much Information. She sighed. This was really interesting stuff! Except, apparently, not. “It looks normal but you can’t eat it because it’s poisonous.”
Teal’c continued after nodding politely in gratitude for her ‘clarification.’ “Since nothing local can be consumed, everything required to feed the local Jaffa population had to be imported from off-world, which represented a non-trivial expense for a minor System Lord such as Satesh. It will come as no surprise that he brought in only the cheapest, most basic dehydrated consumables he could purchase for them to eat. Even his own soldiers guarding the prisoners were fed the most basic of food substitutes. As you can imagine, this did nothing to improve their disposition, so conditions on Kalator were barbaric in the extreme.
“Adding to the misery, the weather is abysmal. At the mine site, winters were long and harsh. The extraction facilities were primitive and the work back-breakingly strenuous. Due to the biological and climactic environment, settlement was impossible. Conditions were so harsh only prisoners could be made to work there, and even then only could only be persuaded to work under the most painful of inducements. Torture and summary execution were commonplace. To a warrior like Bra’tac, such conditions were intolerable. He resolved to escape at the first opportunity, no matter the consequences. Despite his vow, he was actually imprisoned for more than an Earth-year before he found an opportunity to make his escape. At that time, of the 784 Jaffa prisoners who had been captured with him, only 57 remained alive.”
Buffy swallowed, remembering the Hell dimension she had experienced when she ran away to LA after killing Angel. The place Teal’c was describing might have actually been worse. Seeing that she understood, the big man continued. “Bra’tac was unloading stores from a supply shuttle during a raging blizzard. Conditions were so abysmal the guards supervising the operation refused to go outside. They had little to fear; the shuttle was under remote control so could not be appropriated, the landing area was in a walled-in enclosure, and of course there was nowhere to escape to. Still, conditions within the facility were so horrific Bra’tac took the chance, since he assumed the supplies he was off-loading included food concentrates which he could live off of for some time. It was only after he acted that he discovered the supplies, in fact, consisted solely of lubricants for the mining equipment.
“By the time he discovered that fact, he had already killed two of the five guards. Naturally if was then far too late to reassess his options, so he had no choice but to run. One of the pursuing guards foolishly attempted to prevent him from closing the external door by blocking it with his foot. Due to the environmental conditions that door was made of thick metal, and Bra’tac used its mass to crush the guard’s leg, severing it completely from his body, causing the man to bleed to death. Bra’tac then used the severed leg as a club to kill the remaining two guards, who had unwisely attempted to stench the flow of blood from their fallen colleague.
“Bra’tac then made his escape, using the blizzard to conceal his trail and prevent anyone from following him. He walked for miles, despite having only the thinnest of clothing, until he found a cave which provided some shelter. He is a skilled outdoorsman, and was able to create a fire from locally-available materials. Despite its unique molecular arrangement, wood on Kalator burns the same as wood anywhere else. The water was filled with microorganisms which could be lethal to alien lifeforms, but once boiled was potable. He had to make clothing from local vegetation, and keep moving to ensure that he was not located by the sensors carried by prison search parties. Somehow, he was able to do all this for seventy three days, until he was able to make his escape, by…”
O’Neill interrupted at that point. “Seventy-three days!? Without food? In winter, when he couldn’t make a fire big enough to be spotted by thermal sensors? I think the old boy was stretching the truth just a bit, T.”
Meeting his eyes steadily, Teal’c kept his voice even. “He did have sustenance, O’Neill.”
“You said the supplies were just grease. So what did he eat?”
“The guard’s leg.”
There was dead silence for several long seconds, before Buffy’s pretty face scrunched up in a disgusted expression. “Ewwwwwww!!!!”
O’Neill, on the other hand, was more impressed. He’d never really liked Bra’tac, but… damn! “Okay, color me impressed. That is seriously Hard Core.” Sam appeared to agree with Buffy, but didn’t want to seem like a wuss so nodded like she agreed with her boss.
“Indeed.” Giving them some time to consider his mentors actions, Teal’c prepared to carry on with the tale. Buffy, however, wanted nothing to do with it, and held up her hands, one at right angles on top of the other in a signal Teal’c recognized from one of the local athletic endeavors as calling for a ‘time out.’ “Is there a problem, Miss Summers?”
“He doesn’t eat anyone else on the way out, does he?”
“No. But capturing a hyper-capable ship required considerable skill and brilliant improvisational tactics in order to lead a group of…”
Once again, she interrupted. “Teal’c, it doesn’t matter what he did to get out. He ate the man’s leg! You already made your point! Anything after the ‘eating of the leg’ is pretty much redundant. The guy is a complete badass! He is not going to throw a tantrum over me telling him he should have used Noxzema when his face first broke out. And if I do manage to piss him off that much, he might eat my frickin’ leg!! Enough already. I get it! I’ll be good. Sheeesh.”
- Return to Normal Chapter