TITLE: The World Afterwards
AUTHOR: SelDear
SUMMARY: When the world ended...
RATING: PG-13
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a series of drabbles that I unimaginatively titled "Apocalyptic World". It was based on a simple 'what if'? What if Anubis conquered Earth and intended humiliation of it's millions? What if Jack was separated from his team when the attack began? What kind of life would he live? What kind of man would he become?

This one is for the 'bringers of the Apocalypse' who have made my life so very interesting - you know who you are!

The World Afterwards

He was known as the Ra'shak - the God-Killer.

In a world ruled by Anubis' minions these last five years, it was a title that carried both admiration and fear.

Women drew their children back as he walked through the broken remnants of what had once been the height of western civilisation. Men blustered or stared with suspicious eyes as he travelled through the land, end to end.

What had been was past, what was now was the future - a future of gritty dust and bleak grey.

Or gold decor from the eighties.

Anubis had come. And he had conquered.

*

On the Run

Destruction had not been in Anubis' plans. For the pesky Tau'ri, defiant of the gods and rebellious in their ways, nothing would satisfy him but their ultimate subjugation. Cities had been bombed, governments razed, and from the sky a thousand motherships had emerged, cloaked with the technology stolen from some race unknown, whose passing was unmourned.

And the peoples of Earth, under their cowed and coward leaders, bowed down before their 'gods' and 'conquerers'.

Those that didn't accept Goa'uld rule were disposed of.

The strongest died.

The weakest lived.

And the cunning went on the run to fight another day.

*

Solitary Rebirth

Sent to the White House to advise the President when the skies filled with motherships, Jack's helicopter had been close enough to be hit by the recoil of the blast that reduced DC to dust and bones. He'd crawled from the twisted metal wreckage of his craft, reborn of the helicopter's body into a new world.

He'd found people willing to fight against the invaders. People willing to accept the knowledge he held.

But they never trusted him - he knew too much, was too dangerous a person to know.

Jack was reborn alone into the future.

And alone he remained.

*

Rebellion

He hitched a lift with a man whose horse and cart were headed south-west.

Those who had clung to the older ways were best off after the apocalypse came. Those who'd been in the cities died by the hundred thousand.

And the headquarters of Anubis' rule on Earth was a mountain in Colorado.

Jack never returned to the mountain, knowing it hopeless when the news came of Anubis' stronghold there.

He'd grieved, the emptiness inside ravening at him, stronger than any singularity-turned-black-hole, but their inevitable deaths had set his feet on a new path.

Teaching the Tau'ri how to rebel.

*

Recriminations and Unsatisfactory Answers

What he knew, he shared with those willing to accept it. There were military bases, men and women who trusted him enough to hear what he had to say, his words given truth by the destruction from the skies and the aliens who walked in human flesh.

There were recriminations, of course.

"Why weren't we warned? Why weren't we told?" They'd demand.

Their questions were valid, their anger and frustration piercing. If they'd known, they could have prepared.

Perhaps.

Still, the answers he had were unsatsifactory.

We thought we could hold them off. We thought ourselves invincible.

We thought wrong.

*

The First Death

He'd killed seven Goa'uld.

The first one had almost been an accident.

The bullets bounced off the personal force shield of the Goa'uld, but the Jaffa had no such protection - nor any against the slaves they herded. Chains intended to restrict movement on slaves now restricted the breathing of their Jaffa.

As the local sheriff reloaded, Jack leapt for the Goa'uld and took it down.

A knife in the throat finished snake and host off in one act.

A bitter, brutal death that made him hunted.

Of the slaves set free, twelve chose to follow him.

They became his spies.

*

Leader

He had contacts all over the land.

Men and women whom he trusted enough to believe the news they brought him.

Men and women who trusted him enough to believe the news he brought them.

The news was mostly bad.

The Goa'uld squashed rebellions with all the compassion of the Third Reich exterminating Jews. Still, enslaved millions fought back.

It wasn't quite good enough.

How could it be, when the enemy could too easily infiltrate your own ranks, learning your plans and betraying them before action could be taken?

But the Tau'ri fought on.

Led by one Jack O'Neill.

*

The New Goa'uld

Tonight's contact - tonight's company - was a man who Jack had known before.

Lewis had lost everyone he loved to the blast that disintegrated New York, Baltimore, and D.C.

Like Jack, Lewis swore revenge. Like Jack, Lewis was hunted. Like Jack, he had his contacts,.

And he had his news.

"They say there's a new Goa'uld in charge of the Mountain," Lewis said, hunkering down by the fire. "An older man, not the younger ones that have bled us dry."

"They're Goa'uld," Jack snorted, "It's in their nature to bleed us dry."

"This one is not so harsh."

"So they say."

*