The(questionable) burdens of leadership of a troll Emperor by Noodlehammer

Chapter 3

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.