A Slight Detour

by Royce Day

The team from SG-1 encounter the crew of the iTreonai, from Peta Hewitt's webcomic iTerinui at www.terinu.net Together they must defeat enemies from both their universes and escape a planet that isn't where its supposed to be.

A Slight Detour

By Royce Day

Note: "Terinu" and related characters images are copyright Peta Hewitt. "Stargate SG-1" is copyright the Sci-Fi Channel.

The damage to her ship was impressive. There were fist-sized holes in the bulkhead leading out into the corridor, dangling wires, and little bits of shattered artificial diamond everywhere. Fortunately the explosion had taken place in an empty cargo hold, not someplace vital like engineering. Unfortunately, it had also been the result of friendly fire.

"Lance," Leeza began, with more calm than she thought herself capable of right now, "why did you try to blow up the Treona?"

Her cousin was doing a good job of looking sheepish and betrayed at the same time. "It's not my fault, Lee" he said, gesturing to where Terinu was busy leaning up against the bulkhead and pretending not to listen. "That little grey-skinned cretin over-boosted my det charge."

The little cretin in question glared at Lance with undisguised annoyance. "You were the one that wanted to see what my bion energy would do if we used it to enhance your explosive packs. It's not my fault the walls got singed."

"Singed?" Leeza repeated. "You took out part of the corridor bulkhead and the power router for the drive sensors. It's a miracle that we didn't have a hull breach. As it is now, we can't use our star drive. Which means we are sitting ducks if some Varn cruiser pops into this system and recognizes their chief annoyance."

"Hey, I used the smallest charge I could put together, inside a diamondiod safety box with just one opening for Terinu to send his little faerie lights through. It should have held against anything short of a SATNUC round." Lance's expression brightened. "You should have seen it blow!

Boys and their toys, Leeza thought. "Did it occur to either of you to wait until we were down on a planet, and well away from the ship, before you tried this stunt? Preferably behind a thick safety barrier"

"The Mad Bomber here said the box would absorb the blast," Terinu finally said. "How was I supposed to know he didn't know what he was doing?"

Lance bristled and raised a finger at Terinu. "I took every precaution—"

"—except for not doing it," Leeza cut in. "Enough! I don't care who is responsible, but I'm leaving it to you two to clean up this mess and start on repairs. I'll be along to help shortly, once Rufus and I find a bolt hole where we can hide."

Terinu's tail twitched in anger. "All I did was go along—"

"-when you knew perfectly well what you were doing was dangerous. You could have said no, or you could have brought it to me. I am still captain of this ship, you know." When I'm not playing den mother. "Now go help Lance get started."

Terinu mumbled something under his breath about finding a maintenance cupboard and brushed past the two humans.

"Sorry, Lee" Lance said with a shrug, when the grey-skinned alien had gone around the corner. "I still think he deliberately pumped up the charge though."

Why was it that the tension of whatever situation they were in went up by a factor of ten when Lance and Terinu were in the same room? It wasn't as if they were rivals at anything, beyond the fact that they were both good at making things go boom. I ought to be happy. At least they were working together for once. "You could have both been killed, Lance," she said, sighing. "I'd have hated to write a letter to my aunt starting with, I'm sorry your son died doing something stupid on my watch."

"It was perfectly… …okay, maybe it wasn't, but it was as safe as I could make it. The box should have held."

Leeza rubbed her forehead, where she could feel a migraine beginning to form. "Lance, could you just start cleaning this mess up please? I'll be on the bridge."

A quick diversion to the infirmary only served to discover that they were out of analgesics that were both non-toxic to homo sapiens and wouldn't lay her out flat on her bunk for eight hours. There still were plenty of anti-acids available though, and she took a couple of tablets to swallow before making her to the bridge.

Rufus was leaning over a hooded display terminal, an uncharacteristic frown on his fox-like face. Leeza dropped into the seat beside him and tried to peer around his shoulder.

"Bad news?" she asked.

"Not bad, good really, just a bit unexpected." Rufus turned away from the display and looked her over with concern. "Our two young bucks at each other's throats once again?"

"Actually the Lance and Teri Show was a bit low key this time" Leeza told him. "I think I made them both realize how close they came to making themselves a smear on the bulkheads. I just wish I could have a civil conversation with the two of them together that lasted longer than two sentences." She shook her head. "That'll keep though. Have you found a place for us to hole up"

Rufus tapped the display with a claw. "Yes. Lovely world, roughly equivalent to Vulpine Prime or Earth, with a moderate climate, and large amounts of plant life. Better still, no sign of an industrial civilization that might attract the Varn's interest. There's a large conifer forest region in the northern meridian I thought we might set down in. Shut down the reactor, cover the Treona with that sensor spoofer tenting we picked up, and we ought to be practically invisible from orbit until we're ready to go."

"Sounds good" Leeza agreed. "So what was making you frown earlier?"

"One minor, almost insignificant anomaly. It's not supposed to be there." Rufus grinned at Leeza's look of confusion. "According to the survey records for this system, this planet's orbit is occupied by an asteroid belt. It was too close to the local gas giants to allow for a proper planetary formation to occur. The asteroid belt is still there, but now there's a nice little habitable planet as well. Bit hard even for the Survey Service to miss that little detail, wouldn't you say"

"Nova! They missed an entire habitable world"

"Apparently. Should make for a diverting trip, I think."

"Boring," Leeza said quickly, "I prefer boring. Nice boring planets with nice boring plant life, no large animals with big teeth, or xenophobic natives."

Rufus' ears rotated in a way that Leeza had learned recognize as suppressed laughter. "Now where's the fun in that?"

The Treona was a starship, not a shuttle craft or a fighter, and was just on the near side of being capable of interfacing with a planet's atmosphere. Something which it hadn't been asked to do, Leeza realized when she checked the ship's log, since it had completed its construction trials. But she felt safe enough with the ship in Rufus' capable hands, and there were no surprises as they went from graceful spaceship to slightly ungainly atmospheric craft.

They set down in a flat, grassy clearing in the middle of what looked like a pine forest. The spot was just wide enough to allow the Treona to land, and the trees tall enough to allow the spoofer tenting to be strung from their branches, something that Terinu agreed to do with his typical flinty reluctance.

"Why not get Lance to do it? He's the one that broke the ship," the boy had asked when Leeza had requested his help.

"Because Lance would need a grav-platform, which I might add he is going to be using as soon as he finishes with the post-landing checks" she said patiently. "You, on the other hand, can leap up into the trees just fine without one."

"And if I don't?"

Leeza took a deep, calming breath. "Then you leave us open to being detected by the Varn or their lizard warriors, and I'm sure you don't want that."

Terinu snorted, and turned away to grab a bundle of tenting and some plastic ropes to secure them. Leeza let out her breath and thanked all that was holy that she hadn't found a life partner yet. Because eventually that might translate into children, and from the looks of things teenagers were more trouble than they were worth.

He wasn't halfway finished with his task when he leaped down out of the trees and bounded over to where Leeza was scanning the hull exterior for micro-cracks caused by Lance's little experiment.

"Found something," Terinu said.

"What?" Lance asked from where he was setting up perimeter sensors, just in case there was any hostile native life around.

Terinu ignored him and kept his eyes on Leeza. "Some sort of weird temple thing, about a kilometer from here, in a little valley. I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been up in the treetops."

"Nova" Lance exclaimed, jogging up to where they stood. "Some sort of local aborigines?"

"Smarter than that," Terinu said. "There are a bunch of stone columns set up all around, but in the center is a weird sort of upright ring, made of a dark stone from what I could see, with a little altar near it. I'm gonna check it out."

"Terinu, wait!" But he was already bounding up and into the trees, heading in a generally southwestern direction.

"Idiot kid" Lance said, and Leeza was forced to agree.

Leeza, Lance, and Rufus all went together to follow the Ferin boy, finally catching up to him at the end of the little valley. It appeared to be pretty much as he described. Large stone pillars that reminded Leeza of the standing stones from some old Earth cultures surrounded what appeared to be a much more sophisticated looking ring, with a small tilted altar, or something, near it. The ring had a series of chevrons set at regular intervals along its edge, and a series of mysterious looking symbols on the inner part of the ring.

"Weird," was all that Lance had to say.

"You said something about not wanting to meet any natives earlier?" Rufus said.

"Maybe it's from some local civilization that died out," Leeza said uncertainly. She raised her hand scanner and aimed itat the ring, then frowned at the results.

"What's the matter?" Rufus asked.

"That stone the ring is made out of. It's not really stone, or even steel. If I'm reading the scanner right it's something that's even tougher than diamondoid."

Lance crossed his arms and stared at the ring curiously. "Definitely not local then. Nobody could make that without a significant industrial base."

"Hey, I found something else" Terinu called out. While the rest of Leeza's crew had stayed the edge of the perimeter defined by the standing stones, the young Ferin had approached closer the ring and was examining the ground in front of it.

"Teri, be careful" Leeza called out. "What did you find"

"Tire tracks!"

Leeza, Lance, and Rufus shared a puzzled glance, then rushed over to where Terinu was standing. There were indeed wheeled tracks on the ground, made by something perhaps half the size of a ground car. They led to the edge of the woods, where the crew got their second shock of the day.

It was a six wheeled, automated probe of some sort, with a variety of relatively primitive cameras and other sensors mounted on arms on the front of the thing.

"That's not Varn technology, or anybody else's that I'd recognize," Leeza concluded.

"Nor I," Rufus agreed.

"The tech on this thing has to be at least a couple of centuries old," Lance pointed out, peering into one of the cameras.

"So? That just means it was sent here by somebody who's cheap," Terinu said. "Tech doesn't have to be bleeding edge to work properly."

Lance looked at him grudgingly. "The kid has a point."

"That still doesn't explain how it got here," Leeza said. "Where we put the Treona down is the only place within ten kilometers to land, and there's no sign that this thing went through the woods on its own."

They doubled back to the strange ring, following the probe's tracks. They led right up to the low stone platform that served as the ring's support.

"It drove through the ring, to examine it maybe," Leeza ventured.

"There aren't any tracks on the other side of this stupid thing," Terinu said, hopping up onto the platform. Meanwhile Rufus was poking at the little circular, slanted… sculpture? Altar? Anyway, the thing had two sets of concentric circles, marked with symbols matching those on the ring itself, with a large red circle in the center. I swear, it looks like the world's biggest panic button.

Lance was giving the ring an experimental shove. "Hey, this thing actually moves!" he called out.

"Don't touch anything" Leeza ordered. "That goes for you too, Rufus."

"It's all right, I don't think this thing is working, whatever it is," he said, pushing at the altar experimentally. The symbol under his hand depressed slightly, but nothing else happened. "It's definitely some sort of technology though. No bunch of stone age primitives made this thing."

"Just please don't fiddle with it until we're sure what it does," she said. "We need to finish getting the Treona under cover, especially now that we know someone is interested in this planet."

Lance glanced back into the woods in the direction of their ship. "Understood. Come on, Teri, let's finish the job and let Leeza and Rufus figure this thing out."

"For the last time, it's Terinu" the boy snapped. "Finish it yourself, I got most of it done without your help. I wanna look at this thing some more." He gave the ring an idle kick.

With a sound that was something like whraara-CHUNK, the mysterious ring suddenly rotated, and one the chevrons lit up and locked into position.

"What the hell did you just do?" Lance cried out.

Whraara-CHUNK. Another chevron locked into place.

"I didn't do anything" Terinu yelled back. Whraara-CHUNK. "I just kicked it"

Whraara-CHUNK.

"Teri, Lance, get away from that thing" Leeza yelled.

Whraara-CHUNK.

"You did something"

Whraara-CHUNK.

"RIGHT NOW"

Leeza jumped up onto the stone platform and yanked at Lance's arm, over-balancing him and causing them to both tumble to the ground. At that moment, a blue energy field suddenly filled the center of the metal ring. Terinu made a surprised vertical leap up onto the top of the ring, just as the energy field seemed to splash outward, like a spout of water from a depth charge explosion. The energy field expanded sideway about five meters away form the ring, then suddenly fell back, leaving the energy field rippling like water in the ring's center.

Lance helped Leeza to her feet, as they both brushed themselves off. His eyes were wide and starting at the ring. He and Terinu had been arguing right in front of it, and if they had tried to move a moment later, they would have been directly in the way of the energy field as it had expanded.

"I think we'd better get under some cover," Rufus said, standing up from he'd taken refuge behind the altar.

Terinu was leaning over, hands and clawed feet gripping the ring, almost upside down as he peered closely at the blue energy field. "Looks a little like my bion energy" he said.

"Don't tou—" Leeza began, as the boy gave the field an experimental poke. The field rippled, and his finger disappeared up to the second knuckle before he removed it. "—fool with it any longer," she finished.

"Yes, I think we should do as Leeza says," Rufus agreed, the swashbuckling, fox-like fighter pilot looking uncharacteristically flummoxed.

"Fine, fine," Terinu agreed reluctantly. He poised to leap to the ground, but before he could join them four figures emerged from the rippling field of energy. Flung out, rather, flying clear of the ring and landing in a rough heap six meters away.

They were all human, from what Leeza could tell, dressed in dark green and black military uniforms. Three men, one woman, and all four of them heavily armed with what looked like a combination of projectile and energy weapons.

Leeza's hand dropped to the butt of her pistol, while Rufus and Lance did the same. Terinu maintained his perch on top of the ring, which was suddenly empty as the energy field dissipated with a brief flash. One of his hands was closed in a fist, around a little bit of metal Leeza was willing to guess, suitable for a bion-chargedenergy grenade.

The first of the newcomers to recover was a heavily built African man with a bizarre looking golden sigil literally inserted into his forehead. He also had a wicked looking heavy rifle slung under one arm, which he politely pointed towards the ground when he realized that they were surrounded.

The second of the group said, a grey-haired man with a more conventional projectile rifle, began to pull himself to his feet with a groan. "Carter, Daniel, are you all right?" he asked.

"O'Neill, we are not alone," the first man said.

O'Neill, or at least that's who Leeza assumed was being addressed, looked around to see her little crew. "Oh, for crying out loud. Carter, Daniel, wake up! We've got company!"

The third man began to push himself off the ground, and was helped to his feet by his female partner, a woman with short blond hair and an inquisitive eye. He was a relatively young, not terribly imposing looking fellow, wearing spectacles like someone in a historical drama. "Uh, hello," he said, glancing between her crew, obviously trying to figure out who was in charge.

"I'm Captain Leeza Blake, of the Treona," she greeted. "Who are you all and what is that thing?"

"Colonel Jack O'Neill," the grey-haired man replied, "United States Air Force."

"I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson," the younger man said. He gestured to the remaining two. "This is Major Samantha Carter and, um, Teal'c." Carter, the blond haired woman, straitened her cap, and Teal'c favored them all with a bow of his head.

Leeza glanced quickly to Lance, and they both said almost simultaneously, "United States Air Force?"

"Uh, yeahhh," O'Neill drawled, "you were expecting somebody else's Air Force?"

Dr. Jackson cleared his throat noisily, and said, "We're from a planet called 'Earth.'"

"We've heard of it," Lance replied, deadpan.

Jackson looked relieved. "Oh, good, that makes things a bit simpler, or at least I hope it does," he said, glancing at Leeza's sidearm.

"Not to me," Rufus interjected. "Why would humans coming from Earth be so surprising?"

"Um, well, because… …ah, where did you say you were from again?"

"Earth," Leeza replied, "Australia, a little town called Anakie."

O'Neill glanced at Rufus. "Y' get big dingoes in that town, I take it?"

Rufus grinned, and gave a little bow. "Vicount Ru-Ofanius Brushtail of Vulpine Prime."

"Uh, huh," Dr. Jackson said slowly. He looked up at Terinu, who was still perched atop the ring, "and you're from…"

"None of your business," Teri replied.

"Greeeat. Well, I'm totally confused," O'Neill declared. "Carter? Teal'c? Care to chime in?"

"I can offer no explanation," Teal'c replied calmly.

"I'm not exactly certain, sir, but I might have an idea," Carter said. "Captain Blake, I know this is going to sound like a silly question, but what year is it, from your perspective?"

"2564," Leeza said, "What year do you think it is"

"We entered the Stargate in the year 2004," Carter said, "But I think something went wrong."

"Ya think?" O'Neill replied.

Note to self: Re-supply the infirmary with analgesics ASAP, Leeza thought, as the explanations continued. Her headache was back, with a vengeance.

"…so you've never heard of the Gou'ald?" Colonel O'Neill asked again.

"No," Lance, repeated, "We've never seen any of these 'Stargate' things either."

"Though I have to admit, these Gou'ald sound remarkably like the Varn," Rufus noted. "Certainly they're equally arrogant, claiming to be gods and all."

"So you need this 'dust-jacket' thing to prevent your ships from being hit by interstellar debris?" Major Carter was standing by Leeza, apparently burning with curiosity. Well, so was Leeza, given she'd just been confronted by time-travellers using some form of instant interstellar transportation system.

"That's right," she confirmed. "Otherwise we'd be torn to pieces as soon as we came close to light speed."

"But why not just pop into hyperspace before you reach a significant fraction of C? Then you wouldn't have worry about time-dilation effects."

"Time-dilation? The warp envelope compensates for that before we go super-liminal." Leeza blinked. "Wait, did you say hyperdrive? Like switching into a parallel continuum where you can ignore the laws of physics"

"Well not ignore," Carter hedged.

Behind her, Leeza heard Terinu mutter, "What are they talking about?"

"The laws of physics," Rufus replied, "or rather some conflicting views of them. I think Leeza is ahead."

She ignored them and stayed focused on Carter. "Look, hyperdrives are science-fiction, like Verne's Martians, or, um…"

"…instantaneous interstellar travel?" Carter finished.

"That's what you said you did," Lance interrupted. "All I saw was a light show and you four falling on your faces."

Doctor Jackson raised his hands up before O'Neill, who was giving Lance a sour look, could interrupt. "Wait, wait, wait," he began"if I'm understanding you right, the way you travel through space is completely different from the way Sam described to you, right?"

"Right," Leeza confirmed.

"And you've never heard of the Gou'ald?"

"Right."

"Or the Stargate, or the Stargate Program?"

"Right." Leeza blinked again. "You aren't trying to say…?"

Major Carter turned to O'Neill. "Sir, I think we're in a parallel universe, like when we used the Quantum Mirror."

The Colonel looked pained. "Carter, what did I tell you about messing around with the Gate's operating system?"

"It wasn't me, sir. Everything was normal."

"I mean, this is way worse than when you sent us back to the '60's."

"Yes, sir, I know."

"And that time we ended up underneath a Titan missile."

Carter's forehead became pinched to the point that her eyebrows were nearly touching. "Yes, sir, I know."

"Excuse me, but this has happened to you before?" Leeza interrupted.

"It's a really long, and completely irrelevant, story," Doctor Jackson intervened.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.

Carter un-pinched her forehead and continued, "Look, the point is that somehow we managed to not only travel forward in time, but also apparently translate ourselves into a completely separate continuum, one where the Gou'ald don't exist, or at least never made it off their homeworld."

"I'm liking this place already," O'Neill declared. "Okay, Carter, how the heck to we get back?"

"Well, theoretically, since we didn't observe any anomalies when we transited the Gate, that might mean this world's Stargate is still somehow connected to our universe. If we dial out, it might just take us straight back home," Carter said.

"And if it doesn't?"

"Well, if it isn't still connected to our universe, that might mean that the Earth's Giza Stargate was never unburied, which means we'll either end up at the Antarctica Gate or not be able to dial home at all. In which case our best bet is to try for the one of the Asgard protected worlds and ask for a lift."

"Asgard?" Lance asked.

"Um, little grey guys," Doctor Jackson answered, then caught Terinu's annoyed glance and added, "really little grey guys."

"Nice though," O'Neill added, "they like me, us, I mean."

"Assuming they're still around of course, since in this universe we would have never helped them with the whole Replicator mess," Jackson added. He shrugged. "But if that were true then the Earth would have been destroyed by now anyway, so it's not much of a problem."

"Daniel, how about we just try the Gate and see what happens" O'Neill said patiently.

"Oh, sure."

Major Carter stepped up to the tilted altar, and touched a symbol seemingly at random. As before, when Rufus had played with it, nothing happened.

O'Neill frowned. "Uh, Carter…"

"Just a minute, sir." Major Carter tapped the altar a few more times, to no avail.

"Carter, the MALP did check the DHD, didn't it?"

"It's intact, sir" Carter insisted, "I don't know why it isn't working." She unshipped her backpack and began to rummage through it, pulling out a small tool kit.

"Anything I can do to help?" Leeza asked, kneeling down beside her. Carter seemed to be taking the idea of fooling with supposedly millennia old technology in perfect stride.

"Do you know anything about crystalline memory and power control systems?" the major asked.

"It's what we use to control the Treona's drives."

"Good. Hopefully this will make some sense to you then." Carter fished out what looked like a simple hex nut wrench from her kit and began to work at the underside of the altar, console rather.

Leeza kneeled down to watch her work. There were a series of small holes, presumably concealing whatever kept the console in one piece, into which Carter seemed to be inserting the hex nut wrench in a seemingly random pattern. "So what does 'DHD' stand for, anyway?" she asked.

"Dial Home Device," Carter answered with a grin. She pushed back the sleeve of her uniform coat, revealing a small transmitter that was strapped to her forearm. "Which you don't want to use unless you've also got your GDO, short for 'Garage Door Opener.'"

"Those aren't the official acronyms, I take it?"

"Actually, they are. It's one of the advantages of being part of a strictly black book project like the Stargate Program. You can make up silly names and not have anyone in the public chain of command make a stink." Carter made a final turn with her hex nut wrench, and there was a definitive sounding click inside the DHD. "That should do it."

They lifted off the top of the unit and set it aside. Leeza looked down at the DHD's mysterious innards, and then glanced at Carter, who was frowning deeply. Even to Leeza's untrained eye there was something obviously wrong. There were a series of multi-coloured crystals inset in the DHD, but there were also several empty slots where crystals had been obviously removed.

"Sir, you'd better take a look at this," Carter called to O'Neill. The colonel jogged over from where he and Lance had been studiously ignoring each other.

"What's up, Carter?" he asked, then glanced down at the DHD, "Okay, that can't be good."

"No, sir. It looks like somebody deliberately removed the crystals containing the Stargate's operating instructions and the ones regulating the DHD's Naquedah reactor. So we're not going anywhere unless we can locate an alternate power source for the Gate."

Leeza fought the urge to lean over and start sketching out the pattern of power conduits visible. "How much power are we talking about?" she asked.

Carter shrugged. "That depends on the distance between the Stargates that you're trying to connect. Several megawatts at least, though you can feed the power in as slowly as you want. The Gate itself acts as a sort of capacitor, taking power from the DHD to use in one burst to create the wormhole."

O'Neill looked at Leeza, "You said something about landing here in a ship?"

"A few klicks from here," Leeza said cautiously, "but there's no way to run power all the way from our landing site to here, and there isn't enough room to move the Treona over, or Rufus' fighter." Terinu was looking at her curiously, probably wondering why she hadn't chose to mention his bion generating abilities. Well, for one thing, while he could generate utterly enormous amounts of power there was no guarantee he could produce enough to power the Stargate. Second… …well, perhaps she was being just paranoid, but she didn't feel the need to show all of her hand to a group of well-armed people she had just meet a little over an hour ago. Finally, his gifts were his to offer, not her, and Terinu could be understandably touchy about being looked at as nothing more than a walking, talking fusion reactor.

"Major Carter," Teal'c spoke up, "do you have any conjecture as to why the crystals have been removed?"

"I dunno," she said, "it wouldn't have been an easy thing to do. The Gou'ald would normally avoid fiddling with it, if only because they like to leave themselves with an easy escape route if they needed it. Besides, they likely wouldn't even know which crystals to pull to disable it."

"Most would not," Teal'c agreed, "but there is one who would almost certainly have the knowledge, and perhaps the daring to do so."

"Anubis," Daniel concluded.

"Bad guy?" Lance asked.

"Very bad," Daniel agreed.

"Really bad," O'Neill confirmed.

"Indeed," Teal'c said.

"But we're not in a universe where Anubis exists," Carter pointed out.

Oh, shit. Leeza cleared her throat. "But maybe we're on a planet where he might. Rufus, you said this world was missed by the Survey Service. What if they didn't see it because it wasn't here?"

"That's…" Rufus glanced at the Stargate and then back to the strange humans, "well, normally I'd say that's impossible, but I don't think I'll bother today."

"Oh, come on," O'Neill interrupted, "you can't shift an entire planet into another universe." He glanced at Carter. "Can you?"

"Well, theoretically speaking it's possible."

"Aww, jeez…"

"If the Gou'ald have an interest in this world, we must determine whether their forces are in the area," Teal'c said.

"Were there any sign of installations when you came down from orbit?" Dr. Jackson asked.

"Not that we saw," Lance said.

O'Neill scratched under his cap thoughtfully. "Weird. Usually if the Gou'ald build something they don't bother to try and hide it. Ain't their style. That and the Tok'ra and us don't have many ships to spy on them."

"If it's going to be anywhere, it'll be near the Stargate, sir" Carter noted.

"Right, okay I think we oughtta start patrolling. Carter, you and Leeza work on the Stargate, while the rest of us split into teams of two to find if there are any bad guys around."

Leeza cleared her throat loudly.

"Something on your mind?" O'Niell asked.

"I don't care for the idea of us wandering around randomly to see if there are hostiles in the area," she said, "or taking orders from someone I just met."

"Well, we don't know there are Gou'ald in the area, but if there are it's probably a better idea if we find them instead of them finding us," Doctor Jackson intervened. "Look, how about this? You and the Major work on the Stargate, while we split into groups like Jack said. We'll just make sure that one of your crew is teamed up with one of our group, and keep in frequent contact. Does that sound reasonable? I mean we both have the same goal in mind, to get out of here in one piece, after all."

"Just a moment" Leeza said. She motioned for the rest of her crew to gather round a few steps away from the SG-1 team. "All right, what do all of you think?"

"It seems like a reasonable precaution," Rufus allowed. "If there are hostiles on this world, it's better that we find them rather than they find us."

Lance shook his head. "I'm for popping back aboard the Treona and taking off. We can find an asteroid and hide out there while we make repairs. We don't owe these people anything, and their story makes as much sense as a bad fantasy novel."

Leeza frowned. "Do you have an opinion, Terinu?"

The Ferin boy shrugged. "I don't like the idea of there being anybody else around that are as bad as the Varn. I say we get the hell out of here." His tail twitched involuntarily, which meant he was more frightened by the prospect than he was letting on. Teri grabbed the errant appendage and wrapped it tightly around his waist to prevent further betrayals.

"And that leaves me," Leeza said, "All right then, we're going to stay and help these people. If there is a threat here on the level of the Varn, we need to find out as much as we can about it so we can tell others. We'll split up into pairs and patrol as O'Neill suggested, while the Major and I look over the Stargate."

"I think it's a bad idea, Lee," Lance objected.

"Lance, don't make me start waving rank around," Leeza said, "Terinu, Rufus, I can't hold you to my orders, but I think this is the best thing to do right now."

"I've no objections," Rufus replied.

Terinu shrugged. "Nothin' better to do until we get outta here."

"Right." They returned to where O'Neill was waiting with ill-concealed impatience. "Okay, Colonel, we'll go with your plan. Who do you want where?"

O'Neill waved his team over. "Okay, Carter, you're with Captain Leeza here. Daniel, you go with the furry guy. I'll take the kid, while Teal'c goes with Vance."

"Lance," Leeza's cousin corrected.

"Whatever."

The large black man shook his head a fraction of an inch. "O'Neill, I would prefer it if you allowed me to patrol with Terinu."

"You sure?" the Colonel saked.

"Yes."

Terinu looked more dubious. Leeza touched his shoulder and took him aside.

"That guy is a lot bigger than I am" the young Ferin noted quietly.

"Yes, but he doesn't know about your bion generating abilities." she replied, "and frankly, I'd feel better if we had an ace up our sleeve against him, just in case these people aren't as pleasant as they seem."

The appeal worked. Terinu straightened up from his perpetual slouch and nodded his head. "All right, I'll keep an eye on him."

"Thanks, Terinu."

It was about the last thing that went easily for her the rest of the day.

It was Rufus' legs that were giving Daniel so much trouble, he decided, as they walked in a northerly direction from the Stargate. Digigrade feet just didn't seem right for a biped, especially one that could pass for a Kitsune from Japanese myth if the linguist squinted a bit.

"Something wrong with your eyes?" the Vulpine asked.

"Um, no, nothing," Daniel replied hastily, nudging his glasses back into place. "I was just thinking about the Varn. Just how big of a threat are they, theoretically speaking? I'm mean, my homeworld has enough of a problem dealing with the Goa'ald, never mind… other things." It probably wasn't the best time to start talking about little things like the Replicators, the occasional alien mad scientist, invisible invaders, et al. They enough on their plate right now as it was.

"A good question," Rufus admitted, "I've never seen a Varn face to face, only their soldiers. Unfortunately they have a lot of soldiers." He paused, sniffing the air unconsciously. "Most of what I know is from history. My people, and many other races, believed them to be gods. We acted accordingly, and never questioned their wisdom. It follows that they're arrogant, but it's arrogance leavened with an intelligence that shouldn't be underestimated. They've been plotting their comeback onto the Galactic scene for literally centuries. We can't just assume that we can trip them up with their own egos, even after the Humans disproved their divinity." He frowned. "They're also dangerous in other ways. There are some in the Galactic community who look upon the days of Varn rule and only remember how comforting it was to let others make the hard decisions for them. We've been on our own for five human centuries, but sometimes I wonder how deep the old instincts hold."

"That almost makes our situation seem easier," Daniel said after a moment. "One thing about the Gou'ald, they don't lack for arrogance. But I think it's an arrogance that's always been covering an inferiority complex. I mean when you get right down to it, all they are is a bunch of parasitic slugs that need a host body to actually do anything. The whole Godhead thing is a sort of massive ego-reinforcement, from one point of view. Which makes playing up to their weaknesses a lot easier."

Rufus nodded in agreement. "I'm not sure the Varn have any weakness- whaULP!" The foxish pilot tripped over an stone that was in their path and would have fallen to the ground if Daniel hadn't grabbed his arm.

Digigrade feet. Less surface area to provide a stable walking platform, he thought absently. Which normally would probably be compensated for by improved reflexes, but even someone faster on their feet than the human norm could have an off day.

"Are you all right?" Daniel asked.

"Thank you, I'm just fine," Rufus said, hopping on one foot briefly and flexing his bruised toes. "Too much talking, not even attention to where I was putting my feet. No permanent harm done though."

"Oh, good," Daniel kneeled down. The stone was part of a paved path, long since broken up and partly hidded by the roots of the forest that had grown around it, running roughly southeast to northwest. He pulled out his com and paged Jack. "Jack, I think I've found something," Daniel rattled off a description and general location of the path, "Rufus and I are going to follow it and see where it leads. Maybe we can find a clue to our missing crystals."

All right, but be careful, Jack answered, I want you to check in every fifteen minutes.

"Will do." Rufus was looking at him curiously, and Daniel shrugged, "Jack, um, worries."

"Good commanders usually do."

Frelling stupid planet, Terinu thought irritably, hopping from branch to branch as he paralleled the trail the big guy was pacing down below him. Too many trees, not enough corridors or alleys. Why couldn't they have found a nice, civilized planet to break down near, where he could safely disappear into the crowds, instead of this near unpopulated frelling forest?

He didn't care much for the company either. The Colonel reminded him too much of Leeza's cousin, all jokes and smiles until something didn't go his way. This Teal'c guy wasn't much more comforting. He was like some of Marva's bully boys, the really quiet ones that seemed almost halfway safe to talk to, who could shoot a man dead and then go back to drinking their coffee.

Teal'c halted, and gestured for Terinu to come down to his level. The Ferin boy dropped out of the tree, hanging upside down by his tail in front of the large human.

"Yeah?"

"I wished to ask, are you familiar in the use of energy weapons?" Teal'c said solemnly. Actually he said everything solemnly.

I am an energy weapon. "Yeah" he admitted.

The big man reached into his holster and pulled what Terinu assumed was a hand gun of some sort. Assuming it wasn't just some sort of weird sculpture of a snake, which was what it looked like. Teal'c pressed a button on the side, and the thing hummed with the sound of harnessed energy, and snapped up like a cobra preparing the strike. Definitely a weapon.

"This is a Zat'nikatel, or "Zat" if you find that unpronounceable" Teal'c explained, "If you fire and strike an enemy with it once, they will be in great pain, possibly knocked unconscious. Fire it at the same target twice, and they will be killed. Fire a third time, and their body will be completely disintegrated." He touched the side button again and the zat folded back down, and then he handed it to Terinu. "Do not use it unless you believe it to be absolutely necessary."

"Uh, thanks," Terinu replied. He let go of the tree limb and flipped upright as he dropped to the ground, landing on his feet. Slipping the zat into the pocket of his tunic, he asked, "Aren't you going to need it?"

"I have other weapons," Teal'c said, hefting his big energy rifle. "You, on the other hand, appear to only have your sword, which would be insufficient if we encounter any Gou'ald or their servants on this world."

Terinu blinked. "You trust me with it?"

"If I do not give you the opportunity to take the weapon, I will never know whether to trust you or not," Teal'c replied.

"I guess that makes sense." Teal'c resumed walking, and Terinu chose to follow him on the ground. "Could I ask you a question?"

"I will answer to the best of my ability, so long as it does not compromise Stargate Command operations."

Terinu guessed that meant yes. "What the frell is that thing in your forehead?"

"It is the symbol of the System Lord Apophis, granted to me when he chose me to be his First Prime," Teal'c answered.

"It looks like somebody just poured molten gold into your head."

"They did, after opening the skin with a ritual knife."

Terinu winced. "That must've hurt!"

"It was excruciating," Teal'c answered, in the same tone he probably used to discuss the weather.

Terinu stopped in the middle of the path. "Wait a minute, I thought the System Lords were those Gou'ald that your Colonel was talking about."

Teal'c nodded. "That is correct."

"And you used to work for them?"

"Indeed. Apophis, like all the System Lords, portrayed himself as a god to my people. We followed him without question. I killed many in his name, for his glory, and only slowly did I come to question his wisdom and infallibility. But it was only when I encountered O'Neill that I came to realize that there were others in the universe that might challenge the power of the System Lords, and free my people from the bondage of ignorance and the worship of false gods."

"What did he do?"

"He showed me his digital watch."

Terinu gave Teal'c a sharp look, but there wasn't anything resembling humor on the human's face, so he shrugged and walked on. The big man seemed content to continue their patrol in silence, though he remained alert, examining every turn in the path as if it might conceal an enemy.

Teal'c made a sharp gesture for Terinu to stop, then pointed up towards the tree branches. The young Ferin didn't have to be told twice. He leaped up into the concealing branches, as Teal'c took cover in the brush alongside the path.

"Jaffa, kree!" a voice called out, and a squad of soldiers dressed in ornate grey armor and carrying metal staves came hiking up the path. Like Teal'c there were symbols on the forehead, tattooed fortunately, not gold engraved, and they didn't look particularly friendly. Fortunately they didn't pause in their march or bother to look up, and they disappeared over a small ridge within a few minutes.

When they were gone Terinu dropped out of the trees and rejoined Teal'c, who emerged from the brushes looking concerned.

"Bad guys" he asked.

"Indeed," Teal'c confirmed. He pulled a comm from the breast pocket of his uniform jacket and flipped it on. "Teal'c to O'Neill. There are indeed Jaffa warriors on this planet. We just encountered a squad made up of Serpent, Setesh, and Horus guards."

Any sign of Anubis?

"Not directly", Teal'c said, "but he is most likely the best candidate to bring such disparate forces together."

Copy that, O'Neill replied, Okay, the nature walks are over. We all better meet back at the Stargate and plan our next move. Carter, Daniel, you copy that?

Copy that, Sir, Carter replied.

Daniel?

There was a lengthy pause.

Daniel, you copy? O'Neill's voice sounded notably more anxious, anybody else receiving him?

Negative, Sir.

"I am not," Teal'c confirmed.

Damn. Teal'c, you and the kid hustle back to the Gate to protect Carter and Captain Blake. Lance and I will try and scout out Daniel and Fox McCloud's last reported position.

We can protect ourselves, sir.

You can't watch for bad guys and try and fix the Gate the same time. That's an order.

Yes, sir.

"We will return shortly," Teal'c said, and put his comm back in his pocket. "Come," he said to Terinu, "we must hurry."

"Forget it." Terinu planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. "Rufus is a friend of mine. I gotta find him if I can, and two search parties have a better chance than one."

Teal'c frowned and said, "I consider Daniel Jackson a friend as well, but we have our orders. Colonel O'Neill is quite experienced, and I am confident that he can locate Daniel and Ru-Ofanus. More importantly, there is a possibility that the patrol that just passed us may come near Major Carter and Captain Blake's position."

Terinu chewed his lip for a moment and then spat out, "Frell it. You'd better be right." Together they jogged back up the path, ears open for the enemy that might lay ahead.

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crappity, crap, crap," O'Neill muttered under his breath as he and Lance jogged along the trail, heading roughly in the direction of the paved path that Daniel had reported.

The big Aussie was starting to puff, trying to keep up with the Colonel's pace. "You got any idea… what they might have run into"

"Knowing Daniel, he probably poked his nose into some nifty pile of rocks and out popped a Jaffa," O'Neill replied irritably.

"Think they're still alive?"

"They damned well better be, because I'm gonna kill him for not reporting in to tell me what he was doing."

Leeza and Carter shared a worried glance after O'Neill had signed off. The major was the first to speak

"I'm sure Daniel and Rufus are all right," she said, "Daniel knows the Gou'ald inside out. He wouldn't let himself be caught in an ambush."

"And Rufus wouldn't deliberately put someone else at risk, even if he was curious about something," Leeza agreed. "Still, I wonder if we can't help in some way. Rufus' fighter is onboard the Treona. If I can get it airborne, maybe we can do a flyover of the last place Dr. Jackson and Rufus were and scan with its sensors."

"Good idea," Carter said. "I'll tell the Colonel and we can get back to your ship…" A loud beeping from Leeza's comm interrupted her.

Leeza opened it, and frowned at what she saw. "Treona's passive sensors just caught something big entering the atmosphere."

"Varn?" Carter asked.

"I don't know," Leeza said, "all I can say is that it's about the size of a cargo shuttle and mostly metallic."

There was a streak of light across the sky, tracing an arc from the west to the east, disappearing behind the mountains some twenty kilometers distant. Perhaps thirty seconds later the ground began to tremble, and a stiff breeze began to blow from the direction of the impact.

"Meteor strike," Carter said. Leeza looked towards the mountains, where there was a large mushroom cloud of dust and smoke rising above the ridgeline.

"Uh-oh," Leeza said. I cannot believe I wouldn't think of something so obvious earlier.

"'Uh-oh' what?" Carter demanded.

"Remember how we told you this planet wasn't on our survey records?" Leeza said. "What was supposed to be here was an asteroid field. Which is what we did find, along with the planet."

Carter blinked. "Which is occupying the same orbital plane as this planet is!"

"We'd better get back to the ship now."

Carter was already packing up her toolkit. "I'll call Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c as soon as we get there."

"Oww…" Daniel muttered. Not for the first time he wondered why zats couldn't act like a phaser on Star Trek, and let a person wake up without feeling like they'd been on a three-night bar hop. He blinked, and reached up carefully to reset his glasses on his face. Rufus was lying on a pallet on the opposite side of the cell, facing away from him. Further observations would have to wait until his brain stopped trying to escape from his skull.

"Oh, good. You're alive," Rufus said weakly, turning over to face Daniel, "I'm not." The fox alien was looking like something Daniel last saw lying flattened on the side of the road leading up to Cheyenne Mountain's parking lot.

"Dead, huh?"

"Very dead. Quite distinctly dead."

"No, I don't think so."

"Really?"

"Well yeah. I mean, I've been dead before, and believe me it hurts a lot worse than this."

"Have you now?"

Daniel nodded and immediately regretted it. "Oww, yeah. I mean, I did the whole dying of radiation poisoning thing. Skin falling off, lungs turning to jelly. It was gross."

"What happened afterward?"

"Oh, I became a disembodied being at one with the cosmos."

Rufus somehow found the strength to push himself up onto one elbow. "That must have been interesting."

"Not really. I mean, you float around lot, wishing you could help your friends more, put on a little appearance at a time of crisis, that sort of thing."

"Well that's something."

"Well, it's not like you're allowed to actually do much. Mostly it was frustrating."

"Ah." Rufus pushed himself up to a sitting position and took a look around the cell. "We appear to have been captured."

"Yeah." The last thing that Daniel could remember was following the broken trail to a small cluster of stone buildings, of Ancient construction, but with no particularly obvious purpose. He had been peering at some Ancient runes on one side of a building when Rufus had given a warning shout just before they had both been cut down by zat fire.

"Looks like pretty standard Gou'ald construction," Daniel commented, after sitting up carefully. "We're probably on a mothership. Which ought to be impossible, considering they're hard to miss in orbit, or on the ground if it's really in walking distance from the Stargate."

"Large?" Rufus inquired.

Daniel remembered not to nod just in time. "Grandiose." He managed to stand up without toppling over, and took a closer look around. "Looks like they finally managed to fix that problem with the cell ventilation system."

His companion looked up curiously. "Too small to crawl through now?"

"Exactly."

"What a pity." Marching feet clumped on the floor outside of their cell, and Rufus glanced over at the door. "Company has come."

The cell door slid back, revealing four Jaffa guards, staff weapons in hand. Their forehead tattoos indicated a mixture of origins, which Daniel decided was another bit of evidence to confirm that they were dealing with one of Anubis' plots.

"Lord Altjira will speak with you," the lead Jaffa informed them. "Come with us." Daniel and Rufus stepped out of their cell and fell in between the Jaffa, who marched two ahead and two behind them. Rufus spent much of the walk examining the extensive hieroglyphs on the walls, not to mention turning his head in wonderment at the burning wall sconces.

"You did say we're on a ship, didn't you?" he whispered.

Daniel nodded. "They're really big on tradition, trust me."

"Silence" the Jaffa officer shouted.

They were led into a lift, and began to climb upward towards the apex of the pyramid-mothership, where the bridge and presumably Altjira would be waiting for them.

The lift doors opened, and they were escorted onto the bridge, the nerve center of every Gou'ald mothership, and literally the center of every System Lord's power base.

Altjira was seated on his throne, looking as if he had little time to deal with intruders in his domain. The first thing that Daniel noticed about him was that he was definitely not using a human host, nor even an Unas. Instead the host body was of a two-meter tall, green skinned humanoid, dressed in heavy robes, and looking vaguely devilish with twin horns emerging from his forehead, and white, pupiless eyes.

Beside him, Rufus froze in shock.

"You recognize his host race" Daniel asked softly.

"Yes" Rufus said. For the first time since they had met that day, the fox alien actually looked frightened. "That's a Varn."

He'd had worse days, both personally and professionally. When the Earth was being invaded. When he'd thought he'd lost Carter, Daniel, or Teal'c or more than one occasion. When his son had… Focus, dammit, he thought sharply.

This one was going to be, if not one of the worst, sure as hell memorable.

"Asteroids," he repeated back to Carter over the radio, "just how many asteroids are we talking about here?"

It's hard to say, sir. The planet is on the same orbital plane as all the debris, which actually works in its favor, since the relative velocities and positions stay mostly the same.

"That mostly doesn't sound too comforting, Carter."

I can't give you exact numbers, sir, without persuading Captain Blake to use her ship's active sensors. Otherwise we're sitting at the bottom of an atmospheric well, which is going to make spotting any incoming meteorites very difficult at least until they're right on top of us. My best guess is that an asteroid large enough to strike the ground might come every few hours or so.

"How about something big enough to kill the local dinosaurs?"

I really don't know, sir.

"Great, just great. Report in if you spot anything else about drop down on us. O'Neill out."

Lance stood up from the fallen tree where he'd been sitting, listening. "Leeza won't use the active sensors unless she's got no other choice. Treona is ultimately more valuable than any of her crew, and we can't risk it falling into the Varn's hands."

"Well that won't be much comfort if an asteroid the size of Texas lands on us" O'Neill snapped back.

The big demolitions expert straightened up to his full height and frowned. "Look Colonel, I sorry if your mate got himself into trouble, but you don't get off second guessing Leeza like that. We can't risk the Varn finding us, period."

"It's a big galaxy," O'Neill said, "I really doubt if your bad guys are going to be in the same system as my bad guys, not to mention the two of us."

"It's a big galaxy, but a surprisingly small planet," a voice said from behind them . O'Neill turned, to be face with something that looked like a really tall gecko. Assuming that geckos came in size six foot four, wore fancy armor, and carried energy rifles, which they pointed at the two humans.

"Gisko!" Lance shouted.

O'Neill sighed. "Y'know, this seems to be the day for people to get the drop on me."

"Lt. Freeman, how pleasant to make your acquaintance again," the head gecko replied.

Lance smiled, or at least bared his teeth. "Wish I could say the same, General."

Jack rubbed his eyes and let out another sigh. "You want to introduce me?"

"I am Oryon Gisko, General of the Galapados Army, in service to the Great Dominion of the Varn," the head gecko answered instead. "And who are you?

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, United States Air Force" Jack replied"and that's all that you're getting out of me."

"I will get whatever I need from you, Colonel," Gisko answered. Despite his bravado, not to mention superior numbers, the gecko's little patrol wasn't looking particularly reputable. As a matter of fact, they all looked dirty, hungry, and tired, like a LuRP unit that had spent too long in the field. At least two of the squad's members appeared to have taken recent battle wounds, which had been neatly dressed.

"Look's like you've seen better days, Gisko," Lance remarked, who had apparently reached the same conclusions.

"A warrior does not complain of hardship, he adapts and overcomes it," the gecko said irritably.

Oh, God, they're Marines. Next they'll be shouting hoo-rah!

"Then why do you look like you've been run over by a hovertruck?"

Gisko let out a low hiss. "That is not your concern, human! You will tell us what you know of the human forces that have entrenched themselves on this world, or I will pry it out of you, starting with your fingerclaws!"

O'Neill waved a hand to get Crisco's attention. "Ah, human forces? Bunch'a guys in gray battle armor with staff shaped weapons, who can't hit shit unless twenty of 'em are firing at once?"

Something frighteningly close to a smile crossed the general's face. "That would be an accurate description."

"Looks like we got the same problem then. They ain't on our side either."

Gisko's eyes narrowed. "Really? That adds an interesting twist to this little tactical problem. Tell me more."

Terinu sat frozen amongst the tree branches as another armed patrol went by. It was the third one they had encountered since the colonel had ordered Teal'c to return to the site of the Stargate. Fortunately they had yet to be spotted, but the young Ferin didn't really believe their luck could hold for much longer.

He dropped down from the tree once the coast was clear again, and Teal'c emerged from his hiding place behind some boulders.

"This situation is becoming untenable," the big Jaffa noted, "I would guess that they are looking for additional intruders after the capture of Daniel Jackson and Ru-Ofanus."

"No kidding," Terinu said with a snort, "good thing for us they can't see past the ends of their noses."

"I would not count on that to hold true, Terinu," Teal'c said. "It is not common for the System Lords to encourage initiative in their soldiers, but every Jaffa knows the price they would pay for failure." He pulled out his comm, "Teal'c to Colonel O'Neill."

There was a longish pause, and then the Colonel answered, O'Neill here. What's up?

"We have encountered numerous patrols while attempting to reach Major Carter and Captain Blake's position. I am not certain that it would be wise to proceed without greater numbers and firepower. I suggest we rendezvous and plan our next move."

Ahh, that's probably a real… …um, good idea there, Teal'c. Tell you what, let me hand you over to Lance here, and he can give you our coordinates.

Terinu listened as Lance spat off a series of numbers, which probably related to the sketch map Teal'c had been periodically adding to as they'd walked. Hishorns flattened in surprise when he heard Lance say, Oh, and tell Terinu how much I appreciated his help in cleaning up that mess that we'd accidentally made in the cargo bay earlier. I know how hard the boy tries.

"I will relay the message," the big Jaffa said, "Teal'c out." He turned off the com and finally noticed Terinu's agitated expression. "Is there something wrong, Terinu?"

Terinu ran his hand through his mane of hair. "Yeah, or at least I think so. Did your colonel sound funny to you?"

Teal'c's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps," he allowed. "Colonel O'Neill is often under stress."

The Ferin boy nodded. "Well I know something was up with Lance. He hates my guts, and I'm sure he blames me for blowing up the cargo bay, even if it was his fault."

"You believe they were speaking under duress?"

"Makes more sense than Lance having a change of heart."

"Nice ship," Major Carter had said, when Leeza led her to the control room of the Treona.

"Thank you," she replied, "though I'm not sure I should be showing it to you."

Carter smiled. "I think it's all right. If your universe is so far removed from ours that the laws of FTL physics are different, then you shouldn't have to worry too much about me seeing something that might alter history. Now, do have anything like an orbital map of the major asteroids you observed when you came in?"

"Even better," Leeza replied, "most of the orbits of everything bigger than a meter across were surveyed by the scoutship that originally visited this system. It should be easy enough to transpose them with the position of the planet to see what might be a worry to us." Her hands danced over the Treona's computer interface, and the asteroid belt appeared on the main viewsceen. A moment later the planet itself appeared, and the intersecting orbiting lines of both looked a tangled web of spaghetti.

"Ugh," Leeza muttered, and instructed the computer to remove the orbit lines of everything that was more than a light-second from the planet. Most of the spaghetti disappeared, leaving only twenty or so strands.

"Well that's not so bad," Carter said. "How many of them will intersect the planet's orbit within, say, twenty-four hours?"

"Let's see," Leeza said, and entered another command. All the remaining strands but one disappeared. "There we go," she said with satisfaction. "Just one, in about seven hours, and it's only…" She read the estimation on the asteroid's size and composition, and felt her blood run cold.

"Two hundred kilometers across, and made of solid nickel-iron," Carter read.

"Well, we can always get the Terona in orbit," Leeza said. "All we have to do is find Rufus and Daniel." She swallowed and wished she'd thought to get a cup of coffee. A hundred kilometers to search at least, given the length of time they'd been missing and probable rate of travel, and most of it was thick forest.

"Yes, but," Carter leaned in and manipulated the viewscreen. The schematic of the planet enlarged, showing the individual continents, with the Treona's position marked with a red dot. Another red dot appeared, blinking angrily, some eight hundred kilometers away. "That's where the asteroid is going to come down. Even if we get everyone off the planet in time, the Stargate is going to probably disappear under all the sesmic disturbance, and SG-1 is going to be stuck in this universe for certain."

She definitely wished she'd gotten that cup of coffee. I am not a damned military commander, I'm an engineer, I shouldn't have to make life and death decisions like this.

"Captain Blake," Carter asked gently.

"We're going to search for them," Leeza decided, after taking in a deep breath. "Lance can fly Rufus' fighter in a pinch, and I can fly the Treona. Working together, we ought be able to find these Gou'ald that probably captured them." I hope so, anyway.

"If the Gou'ald see your ship or a fighter zipping around, they'll respond," Carter disagreed. "If they've got a Ha'tak mothership nearby, we could be swarmed with enemy fighters in a matter of minutes."

"What other choice do we have? I'm not leaving Rufus or your friend behind," Leeza snapped.

"I don't know," Carter said. "Maybe if we can get the Gate operational, we might be able to get some help from the SGC. Or we can try to divert the asteroid ourselves."

"With what? Rufus' fighter doesn't have the firepower to knock out something that big, and the Treona doesn't have any weapons at all."

"I don't know," Carter admitted, "but there has to be a solution. There's always a solution if you look hard enough."

"I don't see…" Leeza was interrupted by an insistent beeping on the ship's main console.

"What's that?" Carter demanded.

"Perimeter alarm" Leeza said, checking the monitors. "Something's coming from the southwest." The asteroid's collision course disappeared from the viewscreen, replaced by an image from one of the ship's external cameras.

From the treeline, Lance and Colonel O'Neill emerged, running pell-mell towards the Treona. The reason for their haste became apparent as a squad of Galapagos warriors came out, right on their tails.

"We'd better get to the airlock and give them some cover fire…" Leeza began. She stopped as two more groups emerged from the trees. The first were Terinu, and the tall Jaffa named Teal'c. The second were a strange looking group of humanoids in jet black armour, firing some form of laser weapons integrated into the arms of their suits. Terinu was the only one firing back at them, blasting the warriors with his bion energy, even as Teal'c did his best to drag the Ferin boy to cover.

"Anubis' drones!" Carter exclaimed, grabbing her rifle from where she'd laid it on a console. Leeza drew her pistol out and followed the Major as she dashed for the airlock door. They arrived just as Lance and O'Neill came running up, O'Neill taking cover just inside the door as Lance ran down the corridor.

"Where's that bastard going!" O'Neill snapped, as he fired off a quick burst at the approaching drones. A burst of energy passed bare centimeters over Leeza's head, leaving a heat flash that warmed her whole scalp.

"Who are those people!" Leeza demanded.

"Anubis' drone warriors!" O'Neill shouted back, "And we don't have the damned energy rifles we need to take 'em down!"

One hour earlier.

"Kneel before your god, Vulpine," Altjira demanded. Daniel glanced quickly at Rufus, who didn't seem inclined to move. Indeed, the foxish alien quickly recovered form his shock, and let a small smile cross his face.

"Well, I'm sorry, old boy," he said, "But unless you've got the Holy Den Mother hidden under your robes, I think I'll just stand, thanks."

"Have you so forgotten the glory of the Varn Domination?" Altjira said with a growl.

"Oh, I haven't forgotten," Rufus answered. "Sadly, for a group of gods, you appear quite mortal."

"Ah, Rufus, you might want to speak a little more politely to this guy," Daniel advised softly.

"Oh, I'll be perfectly polite," Rufus said through bared teeth.

Altjira made a gesture, and the guards shoved Rufus and Daniel to their knees. "Who led you to this world, Vulpine?"

"Pure chance, believe me," Rufus said. "We just needed a place to set down for a few hours."

"Do not think you may mock me and be unpunished." The Varn, or whatever he was raised his arm, and Daniel caught a glimpse of a Gou'ald hand device. A yellow energy beam shot from it and struck Rufus full in the chest, and the Vulpine let out a scream as he began to glow from an inner fire. Altjira dropped his hand, and Rufus fell to the floor beside Daniel.

"Polite… yes…," Rufus muttered weakly.

"He's telling the truth!" Daniel said quickly, before Altjira could strike again, "their ship was damaged from an internal explosion, and they set down for repairs."

"At the same time the most meddlesome of the Tau'ri warriors come to this world as well?" Altjira asked mockingly. "Do not test my patience." He raised his hand device once again and another blast struck Rufus. The Vulpine's scream was cut off as he mercifully dropped unconscious.

"It's the truth!" Daniel exclaimed.

"Your lies are of no consequence. With what we have discovered here, soon the Tau'ri will be totally defenseless against the combined might of the Gou'ald and Varn empires."

"Uh, yeah, about that. What the heck happened to this planet anyway? I assume it and the Gate are supposed to be in our universe, not this one. Unless the Ancients are even smarter than we think they are." Three cheers for Gou'ald egos, Daniel thought, he needs to talk about his marvelous plans for universal conquest to a fresh audience.

"I was assigned to this world by Lord Anubis, and instructed to study the Ancient ruins and any devices which I found. We were fortunate in discovering the remains of a Quantum Mirror."

"Which you naturally attempted to use, before showing it to Anubis," Daniel said carefully. I do not like where this conversation is going.

"In attempting to repair the device, it was necessary to provide an alternate power source. Rather than disable my ship's systems, I merely borrowed crystals from the local Stargate."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, we found that out."

"This proved to exceed the mirror's need for power. The results were… unexpected."

"Instead of transporting yourself, you managed to move the entire planet to a new universe," Daniel concluded. "The only connection left to or home universe is through the Stargate, maybe."

The Varn/Gou'ald smiled. "Precisely. And now we have an entirely new universe to conquer."

"You have to get off this world first," Daniel noted. "As it turns out, the laws of physics work a bit differently here. A standard hyperdrive won't do you any good." His face froze, and it was all he could do not to kick himself. What did I just say about egos?

"Yes," Altjira said menacingly, "and now your Vulpine friend and his allies have provided us with the means."

"Stay here, Terinu," Teal'c said, when they were within a half a klick of Lance and the Colonel's reported position"I'll will scout ahead and determine the situation."

"Frell that," Terinu shot back. "I'm going with you. I don't have a comm that's compatible with yours. How am I supposed to know if you get into trouble?"

"You will hear sounds of weapons discharging," Teal'c replied. "I do not doubt your bravery, but you are young. Should we be attacked I cannot both protect you and rescue our friends."

Terinu's tail twitched in anger. "I've had to watch out for myself since I was eight. This'll be nothin' new."

The big Jaffa considered this for moment, then nodded reluctantly. "I understand. But please, I ask that you remain under cover at all times, unless it is absolutely necessary for you to reveal yourself."

"Don't worry about me. Ever." Terinu hopped up into the trees and kept pace with Teal'c as the Jaffa crept slowly through the underbrush, silently scouting out the situation. Terinu was the first to see green-scaled Galapados warriors surrounding Lance and the Colonel, but Teal'c wasn't that much behind him. The Jaffa backed away, and motioned him to drop out of the trees when they were at a safe distance.

"I do not recognize the race that have captured them," Teal'c admitted. "Are you familiar with them?"

"Galapados warriors," Terinu explained. "They were created by this Varn who calls himself the Genemage. They're big and tough, and at least a couple are smarter than they look."

"I see," Teal'c said. "Does this mean the Varn themselves may be on this planet?"

"I don't think so. I've only seen one in person once," Terinu grabbed his tail before it could give away his emotions with a frightened twitch. "Most of the time they like to show up as holograms when they want to give orders. They ain't big on being at the front lines of things."

"That may be an advantage. Ready your weapon." Teal'c headed towards the clearing where Lance and the Colonel were being guarded, while Terinu took the high position in the trees once again, the strange serpent shaped weapon in his hand.

He never actually saw Teal'c pull out the second zat from underneath his vest. The first warned the Galapados warriors had was when the first shot dropped Gisko to the ground. Terinu fired his own weapon, dropping two while Teal'c took care of the rest. The fight, if you could have called it that, was over in less than ten seconds.

Terinu dropped out of the trees as Teal'c emerged from cover to greet the Colonel and Lance.

"Nice timing there, Teal'c" O'Neill said, picked up his weapons from one of the Galapados.

"I had the aid of Terinu" Teal'c replied modestly. "He was the one who recognized that you were both speaking under duress, and provided intelligence on our adversaries' capabilities. He also fought well when we ambushed your captors."

Terinu felt himself bristle. Why the frell was Teal'c buttering up the Colonel like that? "We spotted 'em first and dropped 'em like tunnel rats. There wasn't anything to it." He chucked his zat back to Teal'c. "Here, you can have your peashooter back."

The Jaffa gave him a sharp look and replaced the first zat into his holster. "Are either of you injured?"

"Nope" Lance answered, after dusting himself off. "Gisko wanted to chat, not shoot. It looks they got ambushed by these Gou'ald too. We didn't get a chance to get anything more out of them though."

"Looks more like they were going to get something out of you, Freeman," Terinu gibed. "How much did you give away to them anyway?"

"Nothing, you little thief" Lance shot back. "How much have you managed to steal off your buddy here while you were out on walkabout?"

"Hey! Save it you two!" O'Neill shouted. "How about we secure our prisoners and then start insulting each other? Teal'c, you got some zip ties on you?"

By the time they'd secured Gisko and his soldiers, the Galapados general was just beginning to wake up from his zat induced nap. He looked around at his captured warriors, and let out a pained moan. "No, I have been defeated," he said softly. "I have failed my god."

Terinu looked over at Lance, who looked back and shrugged. It sure didn't sound like the usual confident Galapados who had successfully captured him and handed him over to the Genemage.

"Ah, win some, lose some, General," Lance said cheerily. "Or in your case, lose Terinu, lose your cloning plant, lose your Crust Breaker…"

"Do not mock me further, Lt. Freeman," Gisko hissed. "I am painfully aware of my tactical failures during our confrontations. Kill me now, and let me at least die before another Varn might confront me over my treachery towards my god."

"Huh?" Terinu blinked. Gisko turned traitor? Was that even possible?

"Oh" O'Neill said, looking considerably more cheerful himself. "Well, if you want to start a little independence movement, trust me, you're in the company of an expert." The Colonel patted Teal'c's shoulder cheerfully.

"You—" Gisko hissed something untranslatable, but to Terinu it sounded really obscene. "I did not desire to go against the Genemage's wishes, but what else was I to do when the worm ate into his brain"

"Worm?" Lance looked confused, his usual expression, the young Ferin thought.

O'Neill looked alarmed. "A thing about as long as my arm, with nasty teeth and little flaps around its head?" he asked.

"Yesss," Gisko hissed. "A routine patrol discovered this world, where none had been previously recorded. My master was sufficiently intrigued that he chose to personally investigate the phenomenon. My warriors and I of course accompanied him as his bodyguard. My master's technical servitors scanned the world, and found a large, pyramid shaped artificial structure buried in the strata nearby."

"Most likely a Ha'tak mothership," Teal'c observed. "It is unusual for the Gou'ald to attempt to hide their vessels, but perhaps Anubis found something of such value that they wished to avoid the attention of the few remaining independent System Lords."

"Gou'ald," Gisko said slowly, "so my enemy has a name." He straightened up as best he could, looking a little more dignified. "We scouted out the structure, and found it inhabited by many humans, of a type we had not encountered before. One of my squads was temporarily out of communication for a few minutes, but otherwise the scouting mission was successful, and we exfiltrated the structure and returned to our encampment." He shook his head. "The leader of my second squad was a trusted lieutenant. I had no suspicions that anything was wrong until it was too late."

"Wild guess here," O'Neill said, "your 'Master' started acting kinda funny after chatting with your lieutenant."

Gisko growled at the Colonel's flip tone. "The Genemage became… easily agitated… At first I thought that I had failed in him in some manner, but I could think of nothing that I could have done to rate the irritation he was displaying towards me. Even after the disaster that occurred during our assault on the Creo asteroids, he forgave me for my lapses and praised me for my bravery."

"Darn, I was shooting for you to get hooked up to the Crust Breaker like the Genemage did to Terinu," Lance said.

The Galapados warrior ignored the insult and continued. "I discovered the truth when the human warriors from the hidden structure arrived at our encampment. Rather than order the base defenses activated, the Genemage welcomed them inside. Then he ordered me to meet with himself and the leader of the human warriors in his private chambers. There were three of the strange warriors there, and three of my own Galapados. At the Genemage's order they seized me, and brought forth one of the worms from a container. The Genemage's eyes glowed yellow, in a manner I had never seen before, and he told me that I would now bow down to my true god, Lord Altjira."

"Altjira?" Lance asked, looking surprised. "That sounds like the name of one of the native Australian gods. The lord of the Dreamtime and provider of tools."

"Geez, is there any human religion the Gou'ald didn't infiltrate?" O'Neill said to no one in particular.

"I care nothing for Human heresies," Gisko hissed. "All that I know is that whatever being stood before me now, it was not my god the Genemage. Before the worm could enter me, I tore free of the grip of my subverted soldiers, and made my escape. I hid in the base until I could locate the few remaining Warriors that had not been subverted, and together we disabled our landing craft and escaped into the forest. We have been avoiding their patrols ever since."

Terinu laughed. "So your god the Genemage thinks he's some other god? What difference does that make?"

"It is extremely serious, Terinu," Teal'c said. "It is possible that Anubis, through this Lord Altjira, will attempt to infiltrate the Varn Dominion. That would mean the Gou'ald would have an entirely new universe to conquer. One that is not prepared to face their unique threat."

"That still doesn't explain why this planet is in our universe in the first place," Lance pointed out. "Did the Genemage find out anything before he got taken over?"

"If he did, he did not see fit to inform me," Gisko admitted. "For now, I must find some way to contact one of my Master's fellow gods, and tell them of this new threat. Perhaps they would even know a way to free him on the worm."

O'Neill glanced at Teal'c, who nodded back. Then the Colonel turned to Lance and asked, "You think we can trust this guy if we free him?"

"That's not my first choice," Lance admitted. "But this situation is sounding more serious all the time. If we don't give them back their weapons, we should be all right." Leeza's cousin kneeled down in front of Gisko. "Okay, General. For now, it looks like we've got the same enemy to worry about. Altijira, or whoever he says he is, has got a couple of our people too. If we give you and your men parole, and help us free them, we'll help you do whatever is necessary to stop the Gou'ald from running amuck, and maybe even free the Genemage."

Gisko's mouth opened for a moment, and he ran a forked tongue over his teeth, considering Lance's offer. Terinu stepped on his own tail to keep it from twitching in anger. Who the hell did Lance think he was to start cutting deals with the Genemage's goons? They could free Rufus and the other guy themselves, without any help!

"Agreed, Lt. Freeman," Gisko said. "On my word of honor, my warriors and myself will work with you to free your companions, and you will aid us to free my subverted warriors and the Genemage."

"Right," O'Neill said. "Teal'c, help me cut them loose." He pulled out a knife and ducked down to cut the plastics handcuffs securing Gisko. A red bolt of energy crossed the space where he had been standing the second before, and blasted the tree behind him to splinters.

Terinu leaped up into the air in surprise, grabbing hold of a branch with his tail. Below, a squad Jaffa emerged from the tree line, firing their staff weapons. Beside them were a new set of fighters, dressed in glossy black battle armor with built –in weapons on their arms.

"Drones!" O'Neill shouted, pulling Lance out of the way as the enemy began firing in earnest. "Everybody grab some cover!"

Present

Leeza fired twice at the black-armoured soldiers, hitting one in the chest straight on. The drone, or whatever it was, didn't appear to be affected. Fortunately she did succeed in drawing its attention away from Teal'c and Terinu, who made it to the airlock without being hit.

"Terinu, are you all right?" she demanded.

"''m okay." he said. A lie. His face was covered in sweat, and he grew visibly paler as he lifted a hand and fired at another drone. His bion energy appeared to affect their armour where Leeza's blaster did no good, for the black soldier went down hard.

"His energy projection abilities appear to be our only effective defense," Teal'c said, even as he fired twice in succession with is own energy rifle, giving cover fire to the Galopados soldiers as they ran toward the Treona and took cover wherever they could find it.

"What happened! Who are those people!" Leeza demanded, as O'Neill began to fire as Teal'c reloaded.

"Anubis' drones!" the Colonel yelled back. "That armor of theirs can absorb pretty much anything, except for some experimental weapons and your buddy there!" He fire off an extended burst that at least managed to knock over one of the drones temporarily. "Incidentally, you were going to tell me about his little trick when?"

"When he wanted to tell you himself, not before," Leeza shot back. The inner airlock door opened up, and Lance burst through, a small rucksack under his arm.

"'Bout time you showed up!" the Colonel yelled at him.

"You'll thank me later!" Lance said, grinning like a hyena. He slapped Terinu on the shoulder, yelling, "Teri! Cargo hold!" then tossed threw the rucksack like an Olympic hammer towards the approaching drones. Leeza had just enough time to hit the deck before Terinu's bion blast struck the rucksack that was hurtling towards the center of the drones.

The blast still knocked the breath out of her, and tossed everyone who hadn't had the chance to grab cover to the ground. The air was filled with smoke, dirt particles, and an awful, sour smell that she sincerely hoped she wasn't identifying correctly.

Colonel O'Neill coughed and drew himself up to his knees as he dusted himself off. "Well, that worked," he said.

"Indeed, it was most effective," Teal'c noted. He had fallen across Terinu as soon as the young Ferin had detonated the rucksack. Teri looked dazed, the final blast of his bion having taken the last of his reserves.

"What was that?" Carter demanded.

Lance, covered with dirt and still grinning, gave her a little bow. "Ten kilos of C-10 stabilized gelignite explosive. Plus a little additive courtesy of the little cretin here"

"Just ten kilograms did that?" Carter said in amazement. The smoke was clearing now, and Leeza could see that where the drones had been was now reduced to a crater at least twenty meters wide and four deep.

"Y'd b' su'prised, wha' y' kin do to tha' stuff," Terinu said woozily.

"Yeah, nice shot there, kid," O'Neill said worriedly. "You okay?"

"He needs food," Leeza explained. "Using his abilities like that drains a lot out of him." Movement from where the Galapados warriors had taken cover reminded her that every enemy hadn't been defeated yet. She reached for her pistol, but Lance took hold of her arm and stopped her.

"We're all friendly here," he explained, as General Gisko and his men approached.

"Excellent improvisation, as always, Lieutenant," the General said. "But I fear you have only bought us a brief respite."

"Lance, what the devil is going on?" Leeza demanded.

"Gisko has the same problem we do," Lance explained, "only even worse. Remember how Colonel O'Neill and his people were explaining about the Gou'ald, and how they're parasitic worms? Well guess who their latest host is."

Leeza rubbed her eyes. "They got a Varn?"

"They got the Varn. The Genemage is on this world, and he isn't happy to be stuck here."

"Lance, we're all stuck here unless I can fix the Treona's drive."

"I fear you may not have time for that," Gisko interrupted. "Undoubtedly Altjira's drones reported their position prior to attacking your ship. He will return, no doubt with reinforcements, and quickly."

"And he's gonna have air cover," O'Neill added. "Lance and Terinu's little trick won't work against fighters, and the one piece of air-to-air capability we do have isn't going to do much good against a squadron of death gliders either. Looks like we're running out of places to retreat to."

"Wait, sir," Carter said. "Maybe not. The whole problem we've got revolves around getting a big enough power source to the Stargate, right?"

"No," Leeza said, taking a step back to hover protectively over Terinu. Teal'c had kneeled down beside the boy and was feeding him some sort of redi-meal taken from cargo pockets of his uniform. "He's not just a walking, talking fusion reactor, you got that?"

"We need to get out of here, and right now the Stargate is our only option," O'Neill countered. "We try and fly out in that tub yours and we'll get shot down. We stay here, we either get shot by the Gou'ald or buried when that asteroid hits. Right now we gotta retreat and regroup."

"I am not leaving Rufus on this planet!"

"And I'm not leaving Daniel. But if we don't back off now, they're both going to die, whether we're on this planet or not. We head through the Gate if we can, and then we can come back with reinforcements."

Leeza felt her fists ball up in frustration. "Terinu is in no shape to power up anything right now, can't you see that?"

"It doesn't have to be fed in all at once" Carter said. "Heck, it can be done with car batteries in a pinch. Slow and gentle."

"Well, not too slow," O'Neill added.

"No."

"H'y, Blake," Terinu said softly. "It's a'right, I think I c'n do it. Whatever's in this car'board Teal'c 's feeding me seems t' be workin'." Indeed, he didn't look quite as deathly pale just then, but Leeza still wasn't convinced.

"I can't ask you to do this, Terinu."

"Who's askin'? I'll jus' do it." Terinu blinked, and looked up at the Colonel. "Hey, y' said sumthin' about reinforcements?"

"Lots of 'em," O'Neill reassured him, "with big guns."

"Work's for me. Let's get this Stargate thing up and runnin'."

"This is a seriously bad idea," O'Neill said for the third time, as they came to the edge of the woods by the Stargate. There were at least a half-dozen Jaffa in front of the Gate itself, and another dozen guarding the edges of the perimeter.

"Tell me something I don't know," Terinu agreed. The kid looked scared, but who could blame him. Jack hated the idea of putting him at any more risk, but they needed to draw those Jaffa away from the Gate. And the plan at least had the virtue of simplicity.

"I just want to know why I have be the one wearing the bloody armour," Lance groused. They had dressed him hastily in a Jaffa's grey armour, taken from one of the warrior's that had been blasted to bits in the impromptu nuke he and the kid had put together. The explosives expert wasn't looking too happy about it, especially given the condition of the previous occupant when they'd poured him out.

"I fear my face and Colonel O'Neill's are too well-known to attempt this deception," Teal'c answered, "and there is no such thing as a female Jaffa warrior."

Colonel, we can't wait much longer, Leeza called out over the com, I've got more of those drones marching in on my position.

"Understood, O'Neill out." He clipped the com to the front of his BDU coat. "Okay, let's do this. Terinu, act scared and tired. Lance, act like you hate little grey kids."

"That's a stretch," Terinu muttered clasping his hands behind his back. He twitched as O'Neill slipped a zip tie over his wrists, loose enough that he could slip out of it easily, but from a distance looked secure. At least the kid looked a lot healthier than he had a few minutes ago, his body processing the MREs Teal'c had fed him way faster than any human could.

Lance grabbed hold of Terinu's shoulder, and gave the kid a shove out of the tree line and into the clearing. The Jaffa patrolling the perimeter saw them and headed towards their position, while the remainder stayed their post in front of the Stargate.

"Captain Blake," O'Neill called into his com, "a grand entrance would be appreciated."

On my way.

A kilometer or so behind their hiding place, O'Neill heard the whine of engines, just as the first of the perimeter Jaffa reached Lance and Terinu.

"Jaffa, kree!" shouted the perimeter guard's leader. Lance dropped back a bit, hand still on Terinu's shoulder, giving the lead Jaffa a cheerful smile.

Quit smiling, you Aussie idiot, Jack thought, Jaffa don't do that in public.

Just as the patrol leader's expression grew suspicious, the thin silhouette of the White Knight overflew the clearing. All of the Jaffa looked up as the slim fighter began firing with enthusiasm, if not aim, at the patrol by the Gate.

"Now!" Jack shouted. He picked off the leftmost of the Jaffa surrounding Lance and Terinu with his MP-5, while Teal'c took the right, while Lance and Terinu took up the middle, with Lance firing his staff weapon point blank into the nearest of his foes, while Terinu spun in place, freeing himself from the zip tie while knocking over two opponents with his tail. Lance got another opponent, just as Leeza managed to swing the White Knight around and actually hit close enough to the Stargate patrol to knock them over from the blast.

Two more shots and the remainder of the patrol was dead, while Carter and General Gisko's warriors finished off the last Jaffa standing by the Gate itself.

"Okay, we're clear down here," Jack shouted into his com. "Captain, you stay airborne for a little while, and see if you spot those drones that were heading towards your ship."

F.A.B.

O'Neill jogged over to where Terinu was picking dusting himself off, looking at the array of dead bodies in front of his with disgust. "You okay, kid?" the Colonel asked.

"Yeah, fine, fine," Terinu answered, brushing O'Neill's hand from his shoulder.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," Lance said sarcastically. "Don't mind me, I'm just going to get out of this gear."

"Don't worry, we never do," Terinu answered shortly, as they walked towards the Stargate. "Okay, Colonel, how am I supposed to get this fraggin' Gate workin' anyway?"

"Just grab the thing and start feeding it juice," O'Neill said. He turned towards Sam, who had emerged from her position and was examining the DHD. "Carter, how much do you think we'll need?"

"Three, maybe four megawatts, given what we had to feed in when before we made the connection back at the SGC," she answered.

"No prob," Terinu said confidently, grabbing the outer ring of the Stargate with one hand. A faint glow emerged from his palms and was immediately absorbed by the Stargate itself.

Carter tapped at the first symbol of Earth's address, frowned, waited a moment, then repeated the function. The Stargate groaned to life, spinning at about half-speed to lock the first chevron in place.

"That's not good," O'Neill noted.

Carter shrugged, "It's not getting anywhere near the power feed it needs, sir. We're just going to have to be patient." She tapped the next symbol, and again the Stargate reluctantly locked the next chevron.

"Hey, kid!" O'Neill called over to Terinu, "you think you can feed that stuff a little faster? We still got drones in the area."

"I'm doin' the best I can," Terinu shouted back. The ring's rotation slowed again, to quarter-speed now, and the third chevron locked down.

Jack's com crackled to life. Leeza to O'Neill, I've spotted the drones. They've turned about and are heading towards the Stargate. I think I also spotted more Jaffa heading from the opposite direction.

"Great," Jack muttered. "Teal'c, give the kid more rations! Chance, the lizards, and I will handle perimeter defense!"

Energy bolts flew up from the trees, lighting up the White Knight's wake. I'm taking fire, Leeza reported, I'm going to see if I can hit them back before they reach your position.

"That'd be appreciated," Jack leaped up onto the Stargate platform, Lance beside him.

"Leeza, be careful," her cousin said over his own com, "you're not a fighter pilot"

And you aren't an engineer, Lance. We make do. The White Knight circled around, and began firing into the woods. Conifers began exploding and burning, filling the air with an obscenely cheerful pine scent, not to mention a lovely smokescreen to cover the drone's approach.

The fourth chevron locked down, and Terinu collapsed to his knees, his body shaking. "F-f-frell, that's it. I'm d-d-done."

"Unacceptable," Gisko hissed, "you have produced greater amounts of energy easily."

"When he was hooked up to your horned freak of a god's machines!" Lance shot back.

"Enough," Teal'c snarled. "He is plainly exhausted. We must come up with another plan." They all ducked down as energy blasts suddenly erupted from the woods, as the drones began to march on their position.

Jack opened up on the lead drones, dropping it to the ground with an extended burst from his rifle. The damned thing just got up again a moment later, as the rest of them fired with their wrist weapons. "Anybody got any ideas? We're runnin' short on options here!"

Lance whipped around to face Terinu, who was leaning down so far that his forehead was nearly touching the stone of the platform. "This is your fault you stupid little grey-skinned freak. If you hadn't blown up the Treona's drive, we wouldn't be in this mess!"

"Hey! We do not have time for this!" Jack yelled.

"You stay out of this!" Lance shot back. "This little moron has been nothing but trouble ever since Leeza let him come onboard."

"G-g-go f-f-frell yourself, F-f-freeman!" Terinu chattered, leaning on the Stargate for support as he raised his head.

"That's right, look at me when I'm talking to you!" Lance shouted. "You're useless, you stupid little pirate."

"I'm n-not a pirate!"

"Leeza has risked her ass for you time and time again, and all you can do is sit there and cry while she puts her neck on the line"

"S-shaddup, Freeman." Terinu, angry now, managed to yank himself to his feet by holding onto the Gate for support. The ground burst up in explosions as Leeza made another pass over their heads. If the drones got any closer, Jack judged, she wouldn't be able to do another strafing run without hitting her own people.

"Stupid, worthless, freak!"

"I said SHADDUP!" Terinu's whole body began to glow with barely contained energy, as the Stargate suddenly snapped back life and began to rotate at full speed.

"Stand clear!" Carter shouted, as she inputted the last symbol. Teal'c reached over and pulled Terinu away from the Stargate as the wormhole suddenly burst outward and stabilized. "Transmitting access code!"

"This is it!" Jack shouted. "Everybody get ready to move!" Fire from the drones struck one of the Galapados warriors, flinging him to the ground. General Gisko scooped his fallen comrade without missing a beat, or losing aim with his energy rifle.

"Code confirmed!"

"Everybody through the Gate!" Jack ordered. Teal'c flung Terinu to Lance, who caught the boy on the fly and leaped through the Stargate without hesitation. Carter, Gisko, and the remaining Galapados warriors followed. "Captain Blake, we'll give you cover fire while you land!"

I don't think landing is an option for me any more, Colonel, Blake answered. The White Knight flew over their heads, wobbling a bit as smoke poured from its port side engine. Get yourselves through, I'm going to have to find a place to either ditch or eject.

"Damnit! Understood," Jack slapped Teal'c on the shoulder. "We gotta go!"

Teal'c nodded, and together they leapt through the waiting wormhole.

There was an insistent female Vulpine voice in Leeza's right ear, whom she couldn't understand but she could guess was repeating the information that the many, many red lights lighting up the White Knight's instrument panel were telling her in Galactic Standard. Her borrowed fightercraft's portside engine had shut down, as had the anti-grav, and the dust jacket generator, and several critical portions of the fly-by-wire controls. The fighter's frame shook with complaint as the remainder of the flight controls tried to compensate, and Leeza did her best not to add to the problem by flying straight and level.

At least Lance, Terinu, and Colonel O'Neill's team had made it through the Gate to safety. If she could eject over a reasonably clear area, she might be able to stay ahead of the patrols searching for her. At least until the asteroid hurtling towards the planet hit and destroyed everything in a tidal wave of dust and debris.

A loud warning beep caught her attention. The White Knight's sensors were telling her that there were two objects rising into the air and on an intercept course. From their size and speed she guessed they were the "death gliders" that the Colonel had mentioned in their hasty pre-assault briefing. Which meant staying the air was no longer an option. Even if the White Knight had been fully functional, Leeza doubted she could win in a two-on-one battle. Damaged as it was, there was just no way.

Can't land, can't fight, can't run, she thought grimly, then glanced over to the clearing below her, where the Stargate's wormhole still glowed invitingly, but maybe I can still retreat.

O'Neill stepped out of Earth's Stargate an into a scene of controlled chaos. The kid, Terinu, and the wounded Galapawhatever were being laid out onto gurneys to be transported to the infirmary. He hopped quickly out of the line of fire as a stray blast from the drones passed through the wormhole and blew off a chunk of the observation gallery's blast panel.

Close the iris! General Hammond's voice called out over the intercom. The titanium cover slide shut over the wormhole, blocking any possible assault from Anubis' forces.

"No! No!" Lance yelled, waving his arms at one of the security cameras. "Open it! Leeza hasn't made it through yet!"

O'Neill rushed over and pulled him back. "She's not coming," he told Lance. "Her ship took a hit in the engines, and she was blowing smoke when I last saw her. She said to go through without her."

"Bullshit!" Lance yelled in his face. "You left her behind"

"I don't leave anybody behind if I can help it!" Jack shouted back. "If she managed to eject, we'll find her when we go back to get Daniel and Rufus!"

Unidentified traveller transiting the wormhole, an Airman's voice reported, and it's big.

There was a pause between them. "She wouldn't…" Lance started to say. "I mean it wouldn't fit!"

"If thought she had no other alternative…" Teal'c offered, from he had been observing Lance and Jack's argument quietly.

"Aw shit!" Jack grabbed a nearby intercom. "This is O'Neill! Open the iris and clear the Gate Room! Repeat, open the iris and clear the Gate Room! We got incoming!" All three of them ran for the closing blast door, the rest of the Gate Room's crew on their heels.

The last Airman was pulled through a fraction of a second before the shattered remains of the White Knight, wings sheared off and still moving at a considerable clip, blew through the Stargate and slammed into the reinforced concrete wall beyond it. The blast threw O'Neill down, and he was almost run over by both Lance and Doctor Frazier's medical team as they ran up to the blast door and impatiently waited for it to cycle open again.

The automatic fire suppression system had kicked by the time the door opened again, leaving the Gate Room in a mist of pouring water, steam, and acrid smoke. The White Knight was crushed against the back wall, the forward section crumpled almost up to the cockpit, which Lance was even now pounding on frantically to get it to open.

"We've got it from here," Doctor Frazier said, trying to pull him away.

"That's my cousin in there, damnit!" Lance shot back, finally succeeding in wrenching the cockpit window loose to cycle it upward. O'Neill hung back, watching as Frazier and her team lifted Blake carefully from the fighter's cockpit, and eased her onto a gurney. Her cousin stayed by her side, refusing to take the hint to get out of Dr. Frazier's way. "Leeza, talk to me!"

"Huh? Oh, hi Lance," she said woozily, only half-conscious from shock.

Lance grabbed her hand and held on tight, as Frazier and the medicos started to pull the gurney through the doorway to the infirmary. "Lee, what the hell possessed you to fly Rufus' fighter though the Stargate?"

Leeza blinked. "It seemed like a good idea at the time?" she offered.

SG-1, report to my office. Now, Hammond's voice called out over the PA system.

"This is one debriefing I'm not looking forward to" O'Neill said aloud.

"Indeed" Teal'c agreed.

Terinu fought through clouds of cotton, trying to find his way back to consciousness. It would have been easier if somebody hadn't cut power to the grav plates and there were no handholds within easy reach…

He blinked a couple of times, and instinctively turned his head away from the light fixture off to his left as he opened his eyes. He was lying on a hospital bed, tubes running from his arms to a plastic bag hanging from a hook. The walls were plain concrete, and the place smelled like it was enclosed, like a starship, or somewhere deep underground.

He felt like crap. Worse, he felt as weak as a two-tailed rat. That frelling moron, Freeman, had made him get mad enough to power up his bion at full strength, even though Terinu knew he hadn't the reserves to get that Stargate working.

Must have had enough anyway, I guess. So where the frell were they now? On pre-Varn Earth? Not where I wanna be, even if there ain't no Varn to invade. Terinu pushed his feet over the side of the bed, intent on… well, he wasn't sure, but lying here waiting for somebody to start running tests on him wasn't what he wanted to do.

The door to his room opened before he could go much further, admitting a human female in a lab coat. Aw, frell.

"Hey, don't get up!" the woman called out. She grabbed his legs and began to lever him back into bed. "You were on the verge of a diabetic coma just an hour ago. We're feeding you through that IV, so you need to stay in bed."

"Frell that! I'm fine," he started to get up again, but the woman just put a hand on his chest and pushed him back down.

"I don't want to sedate or restrain you, but if you insist on getting up I'm not going to let you hurt yourself."

"Screw you!" he shouted and tried to push her hand away.

"Teri, stop!" he heard Leeza call from the doorway. She was propping herself up with a metal cane, and had an older, heavyset, balding human in some kind of military uniform beside her. "Let Doctor Frazier do her job. You were almost dead an hour ago."

He laid back down on the bed, hissing in frustration. "I'm fine, Blake."

"You didn't look fine when you came through the Stargate, son," the male human said. He offered his hand to Terinu. "I'm General Hammond, and I'm in command of this facility. I'm told that you put yourself at considerable risk to get SG-1 and your companions through the Stargate and to safety."

Teri took the hand cautiously. The General shook with a strong, but not crushing, grip. "I didn't do nothin', I just fed it some juice. It's what I…" …was made to do. "Um, it's just somethin' I can do."

"According to Doctor Frazier here, you almost died doing it. I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate everything you did, for both your friends and my SG team. Whatever you want that's within my authority to grant, you can have while you're on this base."

"Uh, thanks," Terinu mumbled. He ran his hand through his hair. "Can I get out of bed and get rid of this stupid tube in my arm?"

"If Doctor Frazier agrees," Hammond allowed.

The doctor shrugged. "Well, he seems active, if not up to full strength yet. Let me run some tests…"

Terinu stiffened.

"…some non-invasive tests, and I suppose I can release him," Frazier finished.

"Very well," Hammond agreed. "Ms. Blake, Terinu, I would appreciate it if you all and Lt. Freeman could meet with myself and Colonel O'Neill's team as soon as Doctor Frazier is finished."

"Of course," Blake agreed. She sat beside Terinu on the bed while Frazier went off to look at some charts. "You okay, Teri?"

"I guess," he said. "What happened to you? You land Rufus' fighter and get through the Gate okay?"

"Landed his fighter and got through the Gate, but not necessarily in that order," she replied, blushing. "I'm afraid I banged myself up a little, but it's nothing a few pain pills won't cure. I'm more afraid of Rufus' reaction when he sees what's left of the White Knight."

"Hey, it can't be any worse then when you walked in on me and Freeman back on the Treona," Terinu said, smiling a little.

"Actually… Terinu, I'm sorry I blew up at both of you," Blake said. "You were trying to help and get along with Lance, which I appreciate, and I know that neither of you meant to damage the ship. But you scared me. I don't care so much about the Treona, but the two of you could have been seriously injured, or worse."

He shrugged. "It worked out. At least Lance and I figured out that boosting the explosives with my bion was worth trying. That's the only thing that saved us when those weird drones were trying to blast us. And if we hadn't landed on that planet, we would have never have found out about the Genemage getting grabbed by those snake things until it was too late."

"That's true. I hadn't thought of that." Leeza smiled back at him. "Let's get you out of that hospital gown and get over to that briefing. By my estimate we've only got a little less than five hours before that asteroid hits the planet. Time's a wastin'."

Jack fought the urge to check his watch again. In four and a half hours, minus however many seconds had passed since he'd last looked at it, PXP-528 was going to look something like the beginning of Armageddon and here they were having a conference.

"Now then, General," Hammond was saying to Gisko, "you're certain that this 'Genemage' of yours was taken over by the Gou'ald?"

"Absolutely certain," Gisko hissed. He was flanked by a pair of MP's, and hadn't been real happy to find out the rest of his squad was being kept in the SGC's holding cells.

Sorry, buddy. We humans like to stick together, O'Neill thought unsympathetically. He spared a glance at Freeman, who was staring at Gisko with undisguised irritation, and then to Blake and Terinu. The latter two he wished he could order to stay here, since neither of them looked up to what was likely to be a heavy combat mission. The kid was closer to white than grey still, and Blake was wincing as she tried to find a comfortable position in her chair. Having been in a couple of near-fatal landings himself, Jack understood perfectly well how bruised her back had to be feeling right now.

"That presents a problem then. The Gou'ald are a frightening enough threat in our own universe. The idea of them being set loose in an entirely different one, one that has no idea of the danger they pose, is not something that I like," General Hammond concluded.

"Then you see the need to free him from the worm's influence," Gisko said insistently.

Hammond looked grim. "I see the need to neutralize the threat that they both represent. Now by your own admission and by the information presented by Ms. Blake and Lt. Freeman here, the Varn successfully invaded the Earth and enslaved mankind, until they were thrown off by a human led rebellion."

"Humanity was offered a chance to live under the enlightened guidance of the Varn Dominion," Gisko corrected. "The fact that they were ungrateful enough to both refuse it and engender heresy among the other blessed races is of no concern of mine."

"Be that as it may, I am not going to allow your Genemage to be a further problem, whoever is in control of his body." Hammond turned to O'Neill. "Colonel, your orders are to attempt a rescue of Doctor Jackson and Ru-Ofanus. If possible you may assist General Gisko in the capture of the Genemage and removal of the Gou'ald symbiote currently inhabiting his body. If not… then it is up to you to neutralize whatever threat the Gou'ald present to the universe these people inhabit, by whatever means you see fit. You will be accompanied by SG-3, who will maintain security around the Stargate and Captain Blake's ship."

"Yes, sir," O'Neill replied. Gisko looked like he wanted to spit, but he was keeping his mouth shut for the moment.

"Very well." Hammond turned to Blake. "Now then, Captain. One part of this whole scenario bothers me. When you fled through the Stargate, you left the Treona behind. At this point we can only assume that it has been captured by the Gou'ald. Now what's to stop them from just taking off and leaving you all behind?"

"Before I left, I locked out the Treona's computer, so it can't be used except by an authorized user," Blake relied. "But in case the Genemage or the Gou'ald can get around that, I also took the liberty of removing the control crystals from the Treona's drive. They might be able to get her into orbit, but there's no way that they'll be able to past lightspeed without them." She frowned. "I've got a concern of my own though."

"What is it" Hammond asked.

"Terinu got us through the Stargate once, and at a nearly fatal cost to himself. I can't ask him to go through that again."

"Don't worry," Carter replied. "We've got portable Naquedah generators just for this purpose. Once we're through I can hook one up to the Stargate and we can dial out without having to put Terinu at risk."

Blake let her hackles go down, and the kid eased up in his seat a bit, looking relieved.

"There is one further point to discuss," Teal'c said, the first time he'd bothered to speak since he'd sat at the conference table. He turned to face Gisko. "General, when Lt. Freeman and myself first encountered you, we came to an agreement to aid each other in riding PXP-528 of the mutual threat that it contained. I consider that agreement still in force."

"As do I" Gisko replied.

"Teal'c…" O'Neill began to say we do not have time for this, but he didn't get the chance to finish.

"Would you not consider it more prudent to aid an ally, rather than be forced to watch our backs against a potential enemy, O'Neill?" Teal'c said, in that same level tone that he used when making momentous pronouncements like, We appear to be surrounded by superior forces or They are serving meatloaf in the cafeteria today.

"Right, right," O'Neill agreed, waving him off. "Okay General, we'll see what we can do to get your buddy the Genemage free of the Gou'ald that's got a hold of him."

"Sir, if they've got some sort of hidden base in the area, which they'd need to maintain their drones, it's possible that they might also have a sarcophagus," Carter pointed out. "We could use that to remove the symbiote from the Genemage. Assuming we can capture him."

"Leave that task to my warriors," Gisko said. "No others will be permitted to insult the Genemage by laying hands upon him."

O'Neill stood up from the table. "Right. Okay. Terrific. By my estimate we've got about four hours and fifteen minutes before that asteroid hits the planet. In that amount of time we've got to free Daniel and Rufus, recapture Captain Blake's ship, and knock out this Genemage and free him from the Gou'ald. Do we need to talk any more or can we get going?"

"Consider your mission authorized, Colonel," Hammond said. O'Neill was out of his seat and heading towards the door before the General finished his sentence.

"Hey, Rufus, are you all right" Daniel said softly. After their interrogation by Altjira, the Jaffa guards had dumped them back in their cell. Rufus, only partly recovered from the zat stun and hit twice by the Gou'ald's hand device, had remained unconscious for several hours. Now his eyes were open, but they were glassy and unfocused, and he was letting out quiet, pained whines. "Rufus…"

"Please… stop… shouting…" the fox-like pilot whispered. "I feel rather like… er… like a sausage that's… been in the microwave too long…"

"Yeah, well, that awfully close to what actually happened," Daniel agreed. "Of course your alternatives were to either get thrown up against a wall by a bolt of pure force, or getting your brain psionically roto-rootered."

"What a charming piece of jewelry," Rufus said, a touch of humor returning to his voice. "Must get one… for Melika. Or perhaps for Auntie Alexia, not that poor Lance would ever forgive me."

"Melika?"

Rufus' eye grew unfocused again, more dreamily this time, rather than verging on unconscious like before. "Lovely woman. Golden green eyes, high noble cheeks, and beautiful tan fur that's as soft as your mother's…" He caught himself and cleared his throat noisily. "As I said, lovely woman." He found the strength to roll onto his side and prop his chin on his elbow. "I've found, as I've grown more mature, that it's often a fine idea to have someone waiting for your return. Makes one a tad a more cautious when attempting foolish stunts."

"That's probably true," Daniel agreed.

"Do you have anyone waiting for you, on the other side of that remarkable Stargate?"

"Me? No, no, not anymore," he said. "Once… but she's gone now." It had been, what, five years now? And if he thought about Sha're for just a moment, it still hurt as if her death was yesterday. Good Father, if I could only reach through the veil of time and bring your daughter back to you.

"I'm sorry," Rufus said after a moment.

"Not your fault," Daniel said. "We were only really together for a year or so. But it was a very good year." He put a smile on his face to reassure the pilot. Now was a bad time to be distracted by painful memories.

"I've had… much less time… with Melika. I think I really ought to make sure I have more." Rufus tried to push himself upright, then his eyes went glassy again with suppressed pain and he fell back upon his bunk. "Assuming I'll get the chance…"

"Jack will rescue us," Daniel said with confidence. "You can count on it."

"Mmm, I'm certain Leeza will do her utmost as well," Rufus agreed. He winced as he rolled over onto his back again. "I do wish they'd both hurry though."

Their cell door slid back, and Daniel could see Altjira's guards waiting for them.

"Prisoners, you will come with us to Lord Altjira's chamber."

Daniel stood up, coming between the guards and the injured pilot. "Rufus is sick, he can't walk on his own."

The lead guard lowered his staff weapon at Daniel. "Then you will carry him, or know Lord Altjira's wrath"

"Uh, that seems fair." Daniel managed to get his shoulder underneath Rufus', not an easy task given that the Vulpine was significantly shorter than the archeologist, and helped him up. Fortunately Rufus was able to walk with support, and they made it to the pyramid's control chamber without further incident.

Lord Altjira was sitting upon his throne, and looked over the two prisoners with undisguised disdain. "Guards, leave us," he said. "I will interrogate the prisoners personally." The lead guard bowed to him, and left the chamber with his mate.

His voice, there's something wrong with it, Daniel thought. It was as deep and resonating as any Gou'ald's, but the pitch seemed subtly different from their first meeting.

The Varn/Gou'ald touched a control on the arm of his throne, and the door clicked as they sealed shut. "This room is now cut off from all forms of monitoring," Altjira declared. "Now then, I have questions for you, Daniel Jackon."

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Daniel said firmly. "Not even if you threaten me, or Rufus."

"Oh, thank you…" Rufus muttered sotto voce.

"This you will wish to answer," Lord Altjira said, leaning forward in his chair. "Tell me, Doctor Jackson, how I may be rid of this deceitful creature that has attached itself to my nervous system?"

"Huh?" That's not Altjira talking!

"The Genemage, I presume," Rufus said weakly. "Well, if that's the case, I'll just sit, thank you." And he slid out of Daniel's grip and plopped down into a cross-legged position on the floor.

"You are correct, Ru-Ofanus," the Genemage replied. "The will of this offensive creature within me is strong, but I am able to suppress it temporarily. How long my mind shall last against his I do not know. That is why I must be rid of it, and quickly."

"Do you know if there's a sarcophagus aboard this ship?" Daniel asked.

"Yes, six levels below this chamber," the Genemage said, "but it is an automated device. It must be programmed from the outside after I enter it to ensure the worm is removed."

"Okay, fine, great," Daniel said, thinking fast. "I can probably handle the controls myself, assuming it hasn't been modified much. Just call your guards back in they can escort us down there."

"Wait, not so fast," Rufus interrupted. "Why should we help you? To be frank, neither of the two people in your body right now are folk that I want to be allied with."

"How could you have forgotten in merely five short centuries the glory that was the Dominion?" the Genemage asked him. "We were a civilization at peace, in total harmony under total order. Ask Doctor Jackson to compare that paradise with the horrors of war that the Gou'ald have perpetuated on the worlds they have enslaved. Even when humanity resisted us, we did not resort to the mass destruction that the Gou'ald judge to be a matter of course, and the Varn Dominion has never been wracked with such wasteful backstabbing among its leaders."

"Give us your word then," Daniel said, "that if we help you remove the Gou'ald from your body, that you'll let us go free."

"Of course," the Genemage replied.

"That means all of us," Rufus warned.

"If my beautiful Ferin is with you, he must return with me to the Dominion," the Genemage said firmly. "He is my creation. Without my science, he would not exist, save as an anonymous, primitive marsupial on an otherwise unremarkable world."

"Terinu is his own man," Rufus said, then suddenly doubled coughing. He recovered in a moment and continued, "if he ever decides to go with you to the Dominion, it will be his choice, not because you compelled him."

"He is a child," the Genemage replied, "he must do what he is told." Then tall Varn blinked, and his eyes suddenly blazed like gold, and he straightened on his throne.

Oh, damn, Daniel thought.

"Interesting," Lord Altjira said, with an evil smile. "The memories of the Ferin were something that this host wished to block from me. Thank you for bringing it forward, where I might know it." He touched another control on his throne. "Guards! Take these two prisoners and execute them. Their usefulness is at an end."

The only thing scarier than going through the Stargate the first time, Terinu quickly realized, was going through it the second time, when he had some idea of what was happening. Stars whirled past him at a dizzying velocity, as the tunnel in front of him whipped back and forth like his own tail, assuming it was caught in a blender. Then the tunnel turned suddenly bright, and he was flung outward to land on his feet, while Leeza and Lance were barely able to avoid being thrown to the ground. The air was thick with ashes from the still smoldering trees, and the grass that had been underfoot before had been completely burned away by the forest fire Blake had started when she's strafed the drones in the woods.

The humans in SG-1 and SG-3 had already recovered, as had Gisko's warriors. Colonel O'Neill coughed once, dusted himself off, and said to no one in particular, "Is it just me, or was that transit as bad as back before we got the Stargate tuned?"

"I think it has something to do with the dimensional transfer, sir," Carter speculated. "We'd better get out of the way now."

Terinu hopped off to the right as what was left of Rufus' fighter slid through the Stargate, strapped down onto two sets of roller pallets. Right behind it came a third pallet, with what Major Carter had said was a sensor suite from one of the many Gou'ald death gliders the SGC had captured over the years. A gift from Stargate Command for helping out one of their teams, General Hammond had said.

He looked around the gate. Bits of wing from the White Knight were scattered all over the place, though most of them seemed to be in big enough bits to be repairable. Leeza was looking at the scattered pieces as well, frowning in worry.

"Hey, Lee," Lance said, "I'm sure that Rufus has insurance."

"Yeah," Leeza said, still looking worried, "I just hope that it covers inter-dimensional travel."

"Look on the bright side," O'Neill offered affably. "At least now he's got a hobby."

"Oh, thanks," Leeza muttered.

While the humans argued with each other, Terinu found a spot on the stairs leading up to the Stargate's platform and sat down heavily. Fragg he was tired. Not half-loopy like he was earlier, but he still felt shaky and useless.

"Okay, Major Dalton, I want your men on standard perimeter, with one squad set to do a recon of the Treona's status," O'Neill ordered. "Carter, get the Naquedah generator hooked to the Gate. I want our back door open in case we have make another retreat."

"Right, sir." With another soldier's help, Major Carter moved a heavy plastic crate from the six-wheeled equipment transport that had accompanied them and then began to fiddle near the base of the Stargate with her tool kit.

"Are you well, Terinu?" Teri looked up to see Teal'c staring down at him. Like the rest of the soldiers he carrying a slim energy rifle made of metal and black plastic, along with the rest of his usual gear. Supposedly it was good against those weird drone warriors, which was just fine by Terinu.

"I'm fine."

Teal'c frowned. "You do not look entirely recovered from your exertions."

"I said I'm fine," Terinu snapped. He stood up, wobbled, then shook off Teal'c's offer of a hand to steady himself.

Teal'c took a half step back. "There is no shame in admitting that you are not as capable as you normally are. When one has friends, then it grants them the opportunity to show their friendship in their aid to you."

What was it that Lance had said when they were arguing in front of the Stargate? …all you can do is sit there and cry while she puts her neck on the line! Terinu stared the big human down. "Right now Rufus needs our help more than I need anybody else's" he said. "Let's get going."

"As you wish," Teal'c said serenely.

Okay, there is no reason to panic, Daniel reassured himself as the guards dragged them down the hallway. You've gotten yourself out of worse scrapes. Of course right now he couldn't figure just how to get out of this particular scrape, beyond physical violence, which he knew really wasn't his forte.

"I don't suppose at the moment you would consider switching sides and joining up with your Jaffa brothers in fighting the false gods?" he offered to the guards escorting himself and Rufus to their execution.

"Silence!" the lead guard shot back, striking Daniel in the kidneys with the blunt tip of staff weapon. Daniel collapsed to the floor, barely keeping his grip on Rufus' half-conscious form.

"Ow. Okay, I just had to ask…"

"Get up, you ally to sholva!"

"Well, I'm really not seeing the incentive go along with you, since I guess the only reason you're marching us around like this is because you want to find a tidy place to shoot us." The Jaffa guard stuck Daniel again, and he collapsed completely, dropping Rufus in the process. "Though I'll admit… that was a fairly compelling argument…"

"Silence!"

"Excellent idea!" Rufus piped up. He suddenly jumped up from his crumpled position on the floor, knocking over the other guard and grabbing his staff weapon. The lead Jaffa fired at the pilot, his shot going wild as Daniel made a clumsy grab for his weapon. Rufus swung his own liberated staff in a brief arc, striking the lead guard in the head and knocking him unconscious to the floor.

"Ah, ow, I see you weren't as out of it as you looked." Daniel accepted Rufus hand and got back to his feet.

"A little bit subterfuge to fool our enemies," Rufus confirmed, bowing briefly to Daniel. "I thought since they weren't familiar with the Vulpine species, they might not be suspicious that I was taking longer than a human to recover from their weapons."

"I see."

"Mind you, it might have been all for naught if you hadn't so cleverly and longwindedly distracted these two armoured fellows for me."

"You're welcome," Daniel said. He took the remaining staff weapon, and two zats from the guards and glanced up and down the hall. "Come on, let's see if we can't get out of here and hook up with Jack and the others."

"Capital idea," Rufus agreed. "Lead the way."

Fifteen minutes and several dodged patrols later they were thoroughly lost. This particular Ha'tak, assuming it actually was a Ha'tak, was of a non-standard design. Daniel led Rufus down several corridors and two access shafts, but he still hadn't hit anything resembling an exit.

"Doctor Jackson, as much as I appreciate you taking me on a guided tour, I do think we really ought to be going," Rufus said softly, as the latest patrol passed. "Eventually the Genemage, or Altjira, or whatever he chooses to call himself, will be wondering why his two faithful guards haven't reported our untimely demise."

"I'm trying to get us out of here," Daniel said, trying to rein in his frustration. "There ought to have been a transport ring station in that last room."

"Might it be somewhere else"

"Transport rings take a fair amount of power to operate, which means they really should be on this level, near the power core. Let's try this way," Daniel said, leading Rufus onward.

"You aren't just taking us in a random direction because you have no idea where to go, are you?" Rufus asked.

"Um, of course not," Daniel lied. He led Rufus down another corridor. At the next junction they stopped, almost tripping over a set of heavy power cables that snaked across the intersection.

"What's this?" Rufus asked.

Daniel kneeled down to examine the cables. "I don't know. I mean, the power core is that way" he said, pointing down the corridor where the cables snaked along. "But down that way should be just an empty storage chamber." He blinked, and straightened up, coming to the same conclusion Rufus must have.

"Or a chamber holding something that requires a considerable amount of power to operate, eh?" the foxish pilot said. Together they followed the cables, which led to a door guarded by two Jaffa in full ceremonial armour.

"Remember how to use this?" Daniel asked, pulling one of the zats from his pocket.

"Yes" Rufus said. They popped around the corner and zatted the guards before either could raise the alarm. It took only a moment to drag the unconscious pair through the open door.

"Now, what's so important that they'd need…" Daniel's voice trailed off as he beheld the frame before him. It held a spider web of glass-like shards, glimmering in the dim light of the chamber. Thin, infinitesimal wires connected each shard, putting together what could never be repaired by Gou'ald or human minds.

"The Quantum Mirror…" he breathed.

Colonel, we're in position around the Treona, Major Dalton reported. There appear to be four Jaffa on guard at the main hatch, and no units patrolling. No one is visible on board the ship through the viewports we can observe.

"Very well," O'Neill said. "Maintain your position and be prepared to engage when I give the order."

Yes, sir.

"I'm surprised there aren't any of those drones that attacked earlier on guard there," Leeza said. She'd listened to Dalton's report over the SGC coms that the Treona's crew had all been given.

"Drones are Anubis' heavy assault troops," O'Neill told her. "They're great for punching through a defensive position, but pretty lousy with keeping down the whole 'collateral damage' thingie. If Altjira really needs your ship to get out of here, he can't afford to have his own troops blow holes in it."

"Understandable," Leeza said, and they continued their journey through the forest, following the path that Professor Jackson had discovered just prior to his final transmission. She halted as O'Neill raised a hand. He motioned for everyone to take cover, then edged forward five meters through the brush, with Teal'c by his side. After a moment, they both crawled back to where Leeza, Major Carter, Terinu, and Lance had hidden themselves.

"Okay, we've got a half-collapsed stone structure up ahead, with what looks like Ancient writing on the sides," O'Neill reported. "Other than that, no visible guards, equipment, or signs of struggle. On the other hand there's plenty of cover so it would have been as easy as cheese for a squad of Jaffa to sneak up on Daniel and Rufus from behind, and the same goes for us."

"So what now?" Leeza asked.

"Now, we head up to said building and try and find some tracks to lead us to where Daniel and the guy with the fur went off to." O'Neill motioned the party forward. They emerged into a small copse where a building made of black stone and covered in vines, its roof caved in long ago, sat forlorn and forgotten.

"I wonder what it was?" Lance said aloud.

"Nobody is quite sure what any of these places were," Carter explained. "Most of them are literally millions of years old, and made of the same substance as the Stargates. And almost all of them were completely stripped of equipment."

"Yeah, about that," O'Neill said laconically. "If you see a weird looking circular sculpture kinda thing hanging on a wall, don't get too near it."

"Why, what does it do?" General Gisko asked.

O'Neill grimaced. "Just don't touch it. Trust me."

"Hey what's this?" Terinu called out. Leeza headed over to where he was leaning up against a section of the Ancient building's wall. The Ferin boy was pointing a circular section of ground that was free of any sort of undergrowth. "It just looked weird to me," he said.

Teal'c leaned down in the dirt. "There are many Jaffa and drone bootprints" he announced. "I would venture a transport ring has been in frequent use here."

"Transport ring?" Leeza asked.

"Watch," O'Neill said. He pulled out his com. "Major Dalton, we've found what looks like a transport ring. We're checking it out and will report back if find anything else significant."

Understood, Colonel.

"General, it might take a couple of minutes to figure this out. Have your warriors keep a sharp eye on the perimeter, just in case any drones or Jaffa return."

"Of course" Gisko agreed, eyeing O'Neill carefully. Leeza couldn't help but notice that O'Neill said this as Teal'c subtly guided Lance and Terinu into the circumference of the ring.

"Check this out," Carter said to Leeza. She dusted off some dirt from the very center of the ring, revealing a large metallic button, which she pressed down with her boot heel.

Five rings, each about two meters in diameter, suddenly sprung up around the team. There was a flash of light and the rings descended once again. But now instead of a clearing, Leeza saw that they were in some sort of building, the walls dimly lit with open torches, and covered with hieroglyphics.

"Carter, if you don't mind," O'Neill asked. The Major reached over to a nearby control panel, popped it open and took out the crystals from within it. "There, that ought to keep Crisco from getting too close.

Lance laughed. "Good one, Colonel!"

"Thanks, I wasn't too fond of the big gecko either," O'Neill said cheerfully. "Okay, let's find out where Daniel and Rufus are, pull the worm out the Genemage, or better yet just shoot him, and then get the hell out of here."

"General Gisko will be displeased when we return," Teal'c observed.

"He can be displeased as much as he wants," the Colonel replied. "We're in a hurry and I do not have time to argue tactics with him right now. You think we should go back and get him?"

"I was merely making an observation."

"Noted. Now let's get moving."

"So, that's what got us into this whole mess, is it" Rufus said thoughtfully. He reached out with one finger, as if to tap one of the glittering shards in the frame.

"I wouldn't do that," Daniel said quickly, grabbing Rufus' hand. "Touching it might be, um, bad."

"How bad?"

"How would you like to be in a universe where humanity didn't succeed in overthrowing the Varn?"

"I've met far too many people who would enjoy traveling there. I am not among them," Rufus said firmly, and carefully clasped his hands behind his back.

"Right," Daniel said. "Okay, obviously Altjira managed to not only find a second Quantum Mirror, he even managed to put it back together. Though not very well." He wandered over to what looked like a control and monitoring station that was wired into the Mirror's frame. "Ah!"

"'Ah' what?" Rufus inquired, looking over Daniel's shoulder at the display. There were several bell curves displayed, filled in to various degrees by red shading. The Gou'ald word for "power" was used several times, but that was the extent of Daniel's comprehension.

"I really haven't the faintest idea. Sam's better at figuring out all of this technical stuff," he admitted. "I mean, it's obvious that they're monitoring the amount of power the thing is taking here I think."

"What about this curve?" Rufus asked, pointing to another portion of the display.

"Let's see…" Daniel murmured, leaning over the display. "That's… 'Strength of the Heavens and the Hours' it says. I have no idea what that's supposed to mean."

"How poetic. Perhaps it's meant to represent space-time in some manner."

"'Space-time', yes," Daniel said eagerly. "'Strength' in that context would probably mean the local stability of the space-time continuum."

"Marvelous," Rufus said cheerfully. "So, going by this curve, things appear to be quite under control."

"Uh, no actually," Daniel corrected. "Gou'ald measuring systems usually go in the opposite direction from Earth models. Basically with the curve being filled in that way, um…"

Rufus glanced up at the Mirror in distress."That thing is about to fly into a million more pieces, and take the rest of the planet with it!"

"Y'know, the transport rings were not supposed to be there," O'Neill complained, as they made their way down the hall. Leeza was two steps behind him, trying to stay close to Terinu without getting into the weary boy's personal space

"Yes, sir," Carter replied.

"That's the one thing I really hate about Anubis. Gou'ald are supposed to be a bunch of unimaginative, clichéd supervillains. Screwing around with the furniture is entirely out of character for them."

"Yes, sir."

"Carter, when I say stupid stuff like this you're supposed to contradict me. It's what you do, I mean aside from stuff like blowing up the occasional sun."

The major looked aggrieved. "Sir, I only did that once."

"Are you sure we're not lost?" Leeza interrupted.

"Yes," O'Neill said firmly.

"No" Carter replied, at the same time. At the colonel's annoyed look she explained. "Gou'ald ships are, usually, of a standard design. Most of the major gangways and bulkheads appear to be in the same place for this one, but it looks like a lot of stuff got shifted around."

"So where are we?" Lance demanded.

"At the power core level," Carter said, "but the transport rings were moved, meaning they had to be making room for something else."

"Like this mysterious Quantum Mirror?" Leeza asked.

Carter looked thoughtful. "Possibly" she said. "We've got no idea what the real power requirements for the thing are, since the only example we've seen before is a complete unit, so it might be that they shifted some of the major power draining equipment away from the core to allow them to run shorter cables to the Mirror itself. That way there'd be a minimum of energy lost in the…"

"Carter, we're trying to rescue Daniel and Rufus, remember?" O'Neill broke in. "We worry about the Mirror after we rescue them, deal with Altjira, get Blake's ship back for her, and do something about that asteroid that's going to drop on our heads in…" he checked his watch, "…an hour and a half. So let's just find the elevator and get to the brig."

"Yes, sir."

They proceeded forward in silence, until they entered a hallway crossed by several large power cables.

"Not a word, Carter" O'Neill grumbled under his breath. The major just smiled. Well, he knew which way led to the power core, which meant whatever was at the other end was Something Important. Like the Quantum Mirror, or Daniel and Rufus, or Daniel and Rufus and the Quantum Mirror together.

Nah.

They came to a corner. O'Neill motioned to Teal'c, who peered around to check for guards.

"There is no one visible" Teal'c reported softly. "The cables lead into an open doorway, however."

"Right" O'Neill said, leading the party out into the hallways and closer to the open door. "On three we rush to the door. One… two…"

A man stuck his head out from the doorway. O'Neill came horribly close to snapping off a shot with his MP-5 before he recognized Daniel.

"Hey, don't shoot"

O'Neill put his weapon down, fighting between letting out a sigh of relief and smacking his friend over the head. "Jesus, Daniel! Do you mind not doing that? I almost blew your head off!"

So the guy with the glasses was still alive, but where the hell was Rufus? Please be alive, Terinu thought fiercely.

"Sorry" Daniel said, stepping out into the hallway. "Don't worry about the guards, we zatted them as soon as we found this place."

We!

"Great, what the hell is it?" They followed Daniel into the storage room, where a weird looking frame held either a bajillion bits of glass or the Genemage's take on modern sculpture. Meanwhile Rufus was busying himself staring at a console with a worried look on his face.

"Rufus!" Terinu, shouted. He stepped forward to grab the Vulpine pilot, but his damned shaky knees started to give out on him, and Blake nearly toppled over trying to steady him. Teal'c ended up grabbing them both and making sure they were all on an even keel.

"Hullo there, Terinu," Rufus said distractedly.

"Hey yourself." Terinu shook off Teal'c's grip with annoyance. "What's the matter"

"Oh, not much," Daniel answered, stepping over to the console next to Rufus. "Hey, Sam, Captain Blake? Would you care to take a look at this thing and tell us how to keep it from blowing us and the planet up, please?"

"What!" the two humanfemales said almost simultaneously. They huddled around the console while Rufus came back to stand beside Terinu.

"You look terrible, son," he said. "What have you been up to, anyway"

"We ran into a bunch of Altjira's troops and had to make a run for that Stargate," Terinu answered. "'cept the gate still didn't have any juice, so I had to power it up myself."

"He pushed himself to the very limits of his ability," Teal'c said.

Terinu shrugged. "I wouldn't have done it if Freeman hadn't been such a frelling arse. What happened to you though? It looks like you met the wrong end of a La Vick vampire." For a guy who usually looked an image from a Vulpine military recruiting vid, Rufus was pretty messed up. His fur was matted, his breathing was more labored than it normally was, and his uniform featured several tears now.

Rufus smiled, trying to be reassuring. "I had the unique distinction of having a personal audience with the Genemage, or Altjira rather, twice. The first time was not particularly pleasant, and let's leave it at that."

"You saw him in person?" Lance asked, butting in to Terinu's annoyance.

"Yes," Rufus said with a nod, "and apparently his will is strong enough to fight the Gou'ald with him, at least for a short time. Not long enough to us much however, except to get an agreement from him to let us go should we free him from his symbiote."

"Great, sounds like Gisko wasn't fooling around," Terinu groused.

"You ran into General Gisko here?" Rufus said, his ears flattening in surprise.

Terinu nodded. "Yeah, let me tell you about it. We got the drop on him and his lizard boys real good"

Given everything else that had been happening that day, Leeza forgave herself for thinking that looking at a modern readout display with labeling in Egyptian hieroglyphics was simply not worth commenting on just then.

"So what am I looking at?" she asked Major Carter.

"This is a control unit, regulating the power from the ship's reactors into the Mirror," Carter explained. "Right now, it's sucking in an awful lot of power, though I'm not sure why."

"Something to do with the damage it sustained," Leeza speculated.

"That would make sense," Carter said. She touched a few spots on the control panel and a new set of diagrams appeared. "Ah, I get it. See the structure of that waveform right there?"

Leeza looked more closely at the screen. "It's a recursive power loop. A supposedly stable, self-regenerating power nexus. Except of course that self-regenerating equals perpetual motion, which is impossible, so they maintain the loop by feeding it minute amounts of power. This one looks like it's quite large."

"Right, and the larger it gets, the more power you have to feed into it," Carter agreed. "This one looks like it's been going for a while now."

"So it started when they activated the Quantum Mirror, and now for some reason they can't shut it down," Leeza speculated

Carter nodded. "That's what I think happened. Basically when they activated the Mirror, it transported the first thing it touched." She gestured to the ship around them. "Since apparently it wasn't isolated properly, it transported this entire ship, and the planet that it's buried in."

"Is the Mirror required to actually keep an object in another dimension?"

"No," Carter said, "though if two identical people from different dimensions attempt to stay in the same dimension, it cause some problems. But since the original planet in this system was reduced to an asteroid belt, that shouldn't be a difficulty."

"Carter, how's the Not-Blow-Up-the-Planet thingie coming along?" O'Neill asked, wandering over to where they were.

"Still working on it, sir. The problem is that we've got a recursive power loop that's somehow had it's harmonics sufficiently synced that…"

O'Neill covered his ears and made a face. "Ah! Short version, Carter!"

Carter shrugged. "It needs power to remain stable. Unfortunately it needs more and more power to do that as time goes on."

"And when it can't get enough, things go 'boom'?" O'Neill asked.

"Basically, yes."

"So shut it off."

"I don't think that's possible," Leeza interjected. "It's like a rubber band that's been stretched too tight around something. At this point the only way to release the pressure is to snap the band."

"And this half of the planet goes kablooie," O'Neill concluded. "So we're basically between a rock and Chernobyl right now. I mean, that asteroid is still coming towards us. The only thing that would be a bigger boom is if the rock hit right here."

Carter blinked. "Sir, that's brilliant! All we have to do is launch the ship towards the asteroid, and when they impact we solve two problems at once"

"That's assuming we can launch it," Leeza said. "I mean won't the bridge be guarded?"

"Not to worry," O'Neill said. "All we have to do is get Altjira's attention. From there things will be easy."

"This is easy?" Leeza muttered to Carter, as O'Neill showed Lance where to place the C-4 charges for maximum show and minimum damage to the power grid.

"Well, compared to some of our plans, yeah," Carter reassured her. "We need to lure as many Jaffa to this area as we possibly can, if we're going to pull this off."

She shook her head, as she placed electrical contacts into the C-4, and then made sure the power was on to the receiver on the detonator. When she left it was to Carter to arm the detonator.

"Indeed," Teal'c said, "I believe this distraction will serve our purposes well. Jaffa are often used for damage control aboard the System Lords' ships, when attending to their duties as boarding troops or internal security. It is considered a more prudent use of resources than putting valuable technicians at risk."

"Charming," Lance muttered from his station at the end of the hall, watching for Jaffa guards that might be coming their way.

"We all set to go, kids?" O'Neill asked, from the hall's other junction.

"Ready, sir," Carter confirmed.

"All set here," Leeza agreed, after double-checking her last charge.

"Okay, everybody around the corner," the Colonel ordered. He tapped Terinu's shoulder as the grey-skinned child walked past him. "Don't even think about setting off the charges with that bion stuff of yours. I'd rather not have the ship blow up around me."

"Been there, done that," Terinu replied, looking annoyed.

"Right, here we go. In five, four, three, two, one…" Carter covered her ears as O'Neill activated his remote detonator. There was a bright flash, a deafening roar, and then the air was filled with smoke and debris. She covered her nose and mouth with a kerchief from her pocket as everyone regained their senses. Around them, the ship's alarm claxon began to sound.

"Okay, we're going to have Jaffa over here in less than a minute!" Carter yelled to Leeza's group. "Follow us!" Keeping on O'Neill's heels, they all quick-timed it a secluded alcove, just as the first group of Jaffa exited from the lift. One more jump to a hiding place, and then they reached the transport ring chamber.

"Can you really use these things to do an inter-ship transport?" Lance asked nervously as Carter replaced the control crystals she'd removed earlier.

"Sure, it's been done before," Carter reassured him, as she made sure the crystals were seated properly, and then replaced the cover. "Mind you, it's not recommended." She tapped in a few commands, hit the timed activation, and then stepped into the center of the transport rings with the others.

The rings flashed up, the rings flashed down, and suddenly they were on the ship's bridge, guns aimed at Lord Altjira, who sat on his throne.

"Okay, Altjira, how about we have a nice walk down to your sarcophagus and take your wormy self outta the Genemage there?" O'Neill asked.

"Sir, that might be a bad idea," Carter said, glancing towards the shadowed walls of the room. The shining bell muzzles of weapons were barely visible, until the tall, green skinned Galapados warriors stepped out into the light.

"I think not, Colonel O'Neill," Altjira replied coolly. "However, I do thank you for granting me the opportunity to regain my host's favorite honor guard."

"I advise you and warriors to set down your weapons, immediately, Colonel," Gisko advised.

Three times. I've had people get the drop on me three times today. This is getting so old, "Gisko, hiya," O'Neill said aloud. "Found the back door, did you?"

"I had little choice, given your betrayal of our agreement," Gisko replied coolly. "We encountered a Jaffa patrol returning to the site of the transport rings, and persuaded them to show us the ground entrance to their ship."

"General Gisko came to re-pledge his loyalty to me, after you demonstrated the futility of trusting humans to him, Colonel," Altjira said, smiling. "My thanks for returning my servants to me, and showing them the error of the ways. Their physical form is in many ways superior to that of the Jaffa. I will enjoy introducing them to this galaxy after their physiques have been reinforced by the symbiote larva they will carry."

"Indeed," Teal'c said. Which was nicer than saying, I told you so, Jack figured.

"Gisko, you can't go along with Altjira's plans!" Lance said. "That isn't your precious Genemage standing there now, it's a parasitic worm inhabiting his body!"

"I am aware of what the Gou'ald are," the general replied. "That does not change the fact that I am sworn to my master's service, regardless of all other considerations. My previous attempt at rebellion was a foolish error, brought about by ignorance. It will not occur again.

"It won't occur again because as soon as he gets you alone he's gonna stick one of those worms in your head!" O'Neill shouted. "Gou'ald don't give a damn about loyalty, just whether or not you're scared of them enough to obey."

Gisko's eyes narrowed. "I have no interest in debating you on this subject, Colonel. Hand over your weapons to me. Now."

"You'd better do as he says, Colonel," Leeza advised, glancing at the other members of Gisko's squad that surrounded them.

O'Neill shook his head in frustration. "Does it bother you in the slightest that the Quantum Mirror you've got is about to blow to pieces, and that the planet is about to get smacked by an asteroid big enough to kill off your scaly ancestors?"

"Once we have Ms. Blake's ship in our possession, along with it's drive crystals, and passcodes, then that will be of no consequence to us," Altjira answered.

"I won't tell you what the codes are," Leeza said defiantly.

Altjira smiled again. "Ms. Blake, once your body is under the control of a symbiote, you will have little choice in the matter."

"Like hell!" Lance snarled, and started to reach for his blaster. Altjira's hand device threw him over the ship's control station before he had a chance to draw it. He landed in an unconscious heap against the wall.

"Stop it, now!" Leeza cried out.

"You see the futility of resistance, Colonel?" Altjira said. "Hand over your weapons, before I find it necessary to provide further, and more lethal, demonstrations."

"Jack, it might be a good idea to do what he says," Daniel advised, glancing over to where Lance lay.

"Crap," O'Neill muttered to himself, holding out his MP5 stock first to Gisko.

"And your zat, Colonel," Gisko reminded him.

O'Neill pulled it out and give it to the big lizard with ill grace. "Right, right. You happy now?"

"Yes," Gisko stated. He spun in place and fired the zat at Altjira in one smooth motion. The gou'ald went down without even having a chance to raise his hand in defense.

"What the frack?" Terinu asked, startled.

"Really, Colonel O'Neill, that would have gone much quicker if you hadn't argued so much," Gisko said, as he made a hand motion to his warriors, who stood down and ceased aiming their guns at Jack and his team.

"Okay, I'm confused. Whose side are you actually on at the moment?" Daniel mercifully asked before Jack had to.

"I needed to disable my Lord Genemage without injuring him, and the only means I had to do that was to get hold of one of your remarkable zats, Dr. Jackson," Gisko explained.

"So all that stuff about following the Genemage whoever was in charge of his body was just a lie?" Leeza asked, as she helped a moaning Lance back to his feet.

"A necessary deception," Gisko agreed. "I serve the Genemage, not a 'parasitic worm.' Nevertheless, I could not permit any of you to bring harm to his person."

"Yeah, well, I can't imagine he's gonna be real happy with you either when he finally wakes up," Jack said.

"Undoubtedly I will be executed for my inexcusable assault on my god's person. But if that is the price to be paid for his freedom from the worm, so be it."

"Well, while you're piling on the demerits, how about taking off Altjira's hand device and waking sure he doesn't go anywhere?" Jack said, tossing Gisko several sets of plastic zip ties/handcuffs. "And gimme my gun back."

"One question first," Gisko said, and O'Neill couldn't help but notice that his warriors, though not pointing their weapons in anyone's direction, hadn't bothered to put them away yet either. "Why did you leave my warriors and myself behind when you activated that teleportation device?"

"Honestly? Because I don't trust you worth a damn," O'Neill said flatly. "You serve a guy who claims to be a god, and attempted to enslave the Earth, a planet that I've got a certain fondness for no matter what universe it's in. You're willing to die at his whim, and frankly people like that scare the living shit out of me. And I wasn't sure when it came down to the crunch whether you'd be willing to fire on your 'god' when we tried to capture him. So I figured it was better to cut you out of the loop and explain things later, preferably over a beer."

Gisko paused for a moment to consider Jack's little speech. "Understandable. A disgusting example of how low and dishonorable humans can truly be, but understandable. Thank you for your honesty in this matter, Colonel." He handed Jack's MP5 and zat back to him.

"Thanks," Jack said. Turning to Leeza he asked, "Is Lance there alright?"

"Just shook up," Lance insisted, as his cousin helped him to his feet.

"Okay then. Carter, get this tub moving into orbit so we can intercept that asteroid, Leeza, you and Lance had better stay here and cover her." Not to mention keep two people who'd been recently injured from having to move around much. "Gisko, I'd like two of your people to cover the bridge as well. You, me, Daniel, Rufus, and Teal'c will head down to where the sarcophagus is and get Altjira out of the Genemage's brain."

"What about me?" Terinu asked.

Jack ran his hand though his hair. "Up to you kid. As far as I'm concerned you've done your bit already."

"I don't want to get left behind."

"It might be wiser if you stayed to protect Leeza Blake, and Lt. Freeman," Teal'c advised.

The little grey kid looked torn, but finally nodded in agreement. "I won't let anything happen to them."

"All right then," Jack said. "Let's move out and finally finish this."

"What the frag is the Major doing?" Terinu whispered to Leeza, as the both stood back to watch Carter tap a rapid-fire series of commands into the control panel at the front of the throne room. The thing looked way too small to be able to handle all the aspects of flying a ship this big, but the frell did he know anyway? At least Lance was being quiet, resting on the floor of the throne room after being tossed about by Altjira's hand device.

"Don't look at me, Teri, I don't read Ancient Egyptian either," Leeza admitted.

"Just trying to figure out… ah, there we go!" Carter pressed a button, and the panel let out a loud beep. "We just sealed all the Jaffa fighting the fires down in Engineering in the corridors."

"Which means they won't be able to harass Rufus and the Colonel as they head down to the sarcophagus. That's good," Leeza concluded.

"What about those creepy guys in the black armour?" Terinu asked.

"Not a problem," Carter said. "The average drone's metabolism runs at such an overheated pace, that they really don't have much more than a day or so's endurance. When they're not out blasting at things they're basically kept in cold storage, being force fed nutrients while in stasis to keep them going the next time they're sent out. I mean if they were going to attack us on the ship I'm sure Altjira would have sent them out with the Jaffa who were ordered to fight the fire."

Terinu's tail began to twitch. The fate of the drones sounded far to close to what the Genemage wanted to use him for, at least the parts that involved force feeding crap from a tube into him to keep him going.

Oblivious to his discomfort, the major continued her preparations. "Right, now we just have to launch this ship and intercept the asteroid and we'll be home free." She punched few more buttons, and the panel let out an annoyed beep, and the major's face fell.

"What's wrong now?" Terinu demanded.

"Not, um, wrong exactly," Major Carter hedged. "Just a minor difficulty."

"Such as…" Leeza prompted.

"The Quantum Mirror's power loop appears to be drawing power more quickly than I was expecting."

"We do have enough power to launch, don't we?" Leeza asked. "Don't we?"

"Um, no," the major admitted. "But that's okay. All we have to do is get Major Dalton to disconnect the Naquedah generator from the Stargate temporarily and attach it to the ships' power system. Once we're clear of the planet's orbit and on course for the asteroid, we can disconnect it and bug out using the ship's Death Gliders."

Leeza leaned over the panel, and Teri edged over beside her, to look at a bunch of graphs with designations he had no chance of reading. "It's not going to work," she said. "If I'm interpreting this correctly, the power draw the Quantum Mirror is experiencing is increasing exponentially. By the time someone could run the generator from the Stargate to us, either the loop will have collapsed and everyone in the surrounding area will be toast, or the asteroid will have landed on us and we'll still be toast."

Carter raised her hands up in frustration. "Well we have to do something. I mean… maybe I can run some power from the Death Gliders…"

"In less than a half-hour?"

They were still arguing over what to do when Teri slipped out the door.

Sir, we've got a problem, Carter's voice came over O'Neill's com.

"When don't we have a problem, Carter?" he replied. Gisko's warriors had just managed to manhandle the Genemage's unconscious body out of the emergency access tube that had led them down to the sarcophagus' level, the elevators having cut out when Carter had sealed off the Jaffa. It would have gone a lot faster if the bunch of them hadn't insisted on both treating the big guy like he was made of spun glass and refusing to let any infidels touch his body. The zat stun that he took earlier can't last forever, O'Neill thought, we've got to get him in the sarcophagus before he wakes up.

Well, two problems actually, Carter went on. First is, the Quantum Mirror is sucking up so much power now, that we don't have enough to launch.

Can't we just hump the Naquedah generator from the Gate to here and give it a boost? Lance chimed in.

No time, Lance, Blake answered, the asteroid is due to impact in less than a half-hour.

"Carter, I really hope you've got some solution in mind that's better than 'make a run for the Gate and pray we make it in time.'"

We might, but it's far too dangerous, Blake said. Teri went missing sometime while Major Carter and I were arguing over what to do. I think he's heading towards the power core to try and give it a boost.

"Stupid kid!" Lance exclaimed.

Teal'c, who had been guarding one end of the corridor said, "Indeed. Even now he still far too drained from his activation of the Stargate to attempt such a feat."

You're right, Blake agreed, There's no way he can pull something like that twice in one day. But I'm not sure how to stop him at this point. He's not answering his com and right now we don't dare abandon the bridge to run after him.

"Allow me to try," Teal'c said. He pulled out his com unit and said, "Terinu, this is Teal'c, are you able hear me?" There was no answer over anyone's com, so Teal'c repeated his call.

I hear you, Teal'c, came Terinu's answer. Lemmee alone, I'm busy.

"I do not think you appreciate the danger you are placing yourself in," Teal'c said. Terinu's reply was unintelligible to O'Neill, as he removed his headset briefly and motioned to Daniel to come over.

"Daniel, get the Genemage and everybody else to the sarcophagus," he said softly, "Teal'c and I will try and intercept the kid before he does something terminally stupid."

"Okay, Jack," Daniel said, and headed over to where Gisko and his warriors were impatiently waiting.

"You are not at your full strength, Terinu," Teal'c continued, "It would be foolish for you to place yourself at risk for what may be little benefit." O'Neill motioned to him, and the big Jaffa began to follow him down the access crawlway, heading towards the power core.

Don't tell me I'm being stupid, Terinu said. My whole fragging race was designed by the Genemage just to be a bunch of walking batteries, like the drones are born to just be warriors. This is what I was made to do.

"Listen kid," O'Neill said, "the average Anubis drone doesn't have the collective brainpower of a GameBoy running Pokemon Burnt Sienna. You're a thinking, feeling person, okay? Not a damned replaceable part!"

Try telling that one to the Genemage, or Freeman's precious GSA. They both want to cut me open to see what makes me tick. One guess why.

"That does not have to be your destiny, Terinu," Teal'c went on. "On my world, the Jaffa were raised to worship the System Lords as gods. Ra, Apophis, Anubis, Sekhmet, all were greater beings to us, and we served them with no thought of our own lives. In turn, they treated us as little better than animals, useful tools to be discarded when broken on the wheel of war. But we rebelled against them, and now many of my people live in freedom, to live their lives as they see fit, not as their false gods demand."

They came to the level of the power core. Beyond the walls of the crawlway, O'Neill could hear the shouts of the Jaffa warriors, most without their weapons, who were trapped in the corridors.

Great speech, Terinu said sarcastically, you write that yourself? Must be nice to have a 'people' to fall back on. Me, I just got myself. What I do, I do because I want to. And if I blow myself up doing it, so what? Ain't nobody going to mourn over my body. So just deal.

"Damnit, Teri!" There was a hissing noise in O'Neill's ear as Terinu's com channel cut off. "Carter, we're almost at the power core, you see anything weird on your monitors?"

No… Yes! There was just a big spike in power. We've got more than enough to launch now.

"Then get us up in the air. I'm gonna try to pry the kid loose before he hurts himself." They finally reached the opening to the power core's reactor. Jack wasn't surprised to find that it was already open. They rushed inside the chamber, nearly tripping over the bodies of a couple of techs that were lying unconscious on the floor, probably courtesy of Terinu's bion blasts.

"Terinu! Where are you!" Teal'c called out, moving ahead of Jack to search.

Rounding a corner, they finally found the kid. He'd torn open a panel at the base of the towering reactor core, and grabbed a power cable with his bare hands. Rather than get electrocuted, the kid was surrounded by a glowing corona of energy, his eyes shut as his body grew visibly more emaciated with ever second passing.

"TERINU!" Jack shouted, "Get away from that damned thing!" But the kid wasn't listening.

Teal'c unsheathed his zat and fired at Teri. The beam struck the corona and was absorbed with no effect.

O'Neill's com crackled to life. Sir, we're clear of the planet's gravitational field and on course to the asteroid. You can tell Terinu he can stop feeding power to the ship.

"Teri, you hear that! You're done, you can stop!"

"Terinu!" Teal'c shouted, when the boy failed to respond, and neither of them could tell whether it was because he was ignoring them or was just that far gone. Before Jack could him, Teal'c rushed forward and grabbed Terinu's glowing body. The big Jaffa let out a scream of pain, but succeeded in yanking the kid away from the power core, the both of them dropping to the floor.

"Teal'c, you okay!" Jack demanded.

Teal'c's arms and hands were covered in blistering second and third degree burns up to his elbows, but he just gritted his teeth and said, "I will heal, O'Neill. What of Terinu?"

Jack knelt beside the boy, who had gone from grey to white in color. He put on ear to the boy's chest, and said, "He isn't breathing. Crap, he isn't breathing!" Jack opened the front of the boy's tunic and put his hands over chest to… do what? It wasn't as if Teri's heart was going to be in the same place as a human's. He tried anyway, shoving down on Terinu's chest, then breathing into his mouth, trying to get the boy's heart restarted.

Colonel O'Neill, what's happening down there? Blake demanded. Please, tell me what's going on!

"What's going on?" Jack said, gasping for breath as he stood up, away from the body on the floor. "What's going on is… Terinu is dead."

"Jack, what was that again?" Daniel asked. Beside him, Rufus' ears flicked back in surprise. Even Gisko looked concerned, though Daniel had his doubts it was for Terinu's overall well being.

I said Terinu is dead. He hooked himself up to the power core to boost us out of the atmosphere. It took so much out of him there was nothing left.

"That's not necessarily true," Rufus said. "I've seen the boy survive hard vacuum for nearly fifteen minutes. He's hardier than you can guess."

Fine, I'll bring up his body to the sarcophagus. You tell me how well off he is.

"We're almost there," Daniel told Jack. Actually Gisko and his warriors were carrying the Genemage through the doors of the sarcophagus' chamber right now. The large golden coffin, really an incredibly advanced healing device originating from the Ancients, was at the center of the chamber. Daniel kneeled beside the small control panel on the side of the great machine and tapped in a few commands. The sarcophagus' top panels slid open like petals, revealing a space just barely large enough to accommodate the Genemage's massive form.

"You are certain this device will remove the worm from my Lord the Genemage's brain?" Gisko asked suspiciously.

"Honestly? I haven't the faintest idea," Daniel admitted. "It was designed for humans, or at least human bodies, though its possible that the Gou'ald had them back when they were using the Unas for hosts. But at the moment, given how long that thing has been in the Genemage's body, it's the best chance he's ever likely to get, short of convincing Altjira to leave voluntarily."

"That is unlikely to happen," Gisko noted. "Very well." On Gisko's order, his warriors lay the Genemage's unconscious form in the sarcophagus. Daniel tapped another command, and the sarcophagus closed once again, and softly began to hum.

"Shouldn't be more than a few moments," Daniel said. The hum faded, and the panels opened again on their own. The Genemage lay within, seemingly unchanged.

"My Lord?" Gisko asked, sounded oddly tentative to Daniel, much different from his usual gruff and bluster. "My Lord Genemage, are you well?"

The tall, robed form sat up slowly, blinking his eyes and taking in the group around him. "General Gisko, my creation," he said, and a warm smile came to his lips, "I am well. Thanks to your decisive actions and the generosity of Doctor Jackson, I am free of that despicable worm."

Gisko bowed his head and dropped to one knee. "I am not worthy of your praise, Lord Genemage. I physically attacked your person not once, but twice. My life and honor are forfeit, Great Lord, for my unforgivable actions."

"Stand, General," the Genemage said as he stepped out of the sarcophagus and placed his hand on Gisko's head, bidding the General to his feet. "What you did was for the betterment of the Varn Dominion as a whole. Had Altjira succeeded in his plans, then he and the Gou'ald would have placed the Dominion and the rest of galaxy at grave risk. You and your men are to be commended for your loyalty, not punished for the actions you took to ensure my safety."

"Thank you, Lord Genemage," Gisko said reverently.

"Oh, I do believe I would like to see the Genemage and one your Gou'ald meet under social circumstances," Rufus said softly to Daniel. "The clash of godheads would be like a proton and anti-proton smashing into one another."

"Now, Doctor Jackson, what of the Gou'ald that lately inhabited me?" the Genemage asked, turning to Daniel after reassuring Gisko. "I would like a chance to examine it in my laboratory when I am able to return to my homeworld."

"Ah, I believe whatever was left of it was absorbed by the sarcophagus' recycling systems. Sorry," Daniel answered. Not that he would have given the Genemage the chance to examine one of the Gou'ald anyway. Anyone who could engineer someone like Terinu's race probably wouldn't have too much trouble gaining the secrets of the Gou'ald's abilities.

The Genemage looked disappointed. "A pity, especially given that my general, in his zeal to originally escape and regroup, shot and killed all the members of his Galapados warriors that had originally been possessed by the creatures."

"Yeah, well, forgive me if I don't cry on your behalf," Jack said from the doorway. Teal'c stood beside him, looking uncharacteristically pained, which was no surprise given his injuries. But it was Terinu's body that Daniel was more focused on at the moment, cradled gently in Jack's arms. Jack hadn't been kidding about the kid being dead. In appearance, he resembled nothing so much as a photograph Daniel had once seen of a survivor of a Japanese World War II prison camp, skin flapping off of bone as the body had consumed muscle fibers to survive.

"Oh, by the Holy Den Mother," Rufus muttered softly.

Rufus, what's happening down there? Daniel heard Leeza demand. Has Jack brought Terinu up yet?

"Yes, Leeza, and its…" Rufus swallowed, "Its quite bad."

"Don't worry, I've seen the sarcophagus bring back the dead," Daniel said. "And I mean people dead for several days."

"I sincerely hope you are right, Daniel," Rufus said.

"Colonel, please place the boy in the sarcophagus," the Genemage ordered. "He should not have suffered as he appears to have."

"He was trying to save the rest of us," Jack said, who for once did as he was asked without argument. "Nobody put him up to it."

The doors to the sarcophagus slid shut again, and the device began to hum again, at least for a moment. Then it let out an alarming breep and the panels opened again, to reveal Terinu looking no better than when he had entered.

"What just happened, why isn't he healed?" Jack demanded.

"Uh, let's see," Daniel said, checking the readouts on the side of the sarcophagus. "If I'm looking at this right, Terinu's physiology is so alien, that the sarcophagus can't actually revive him. He's just too strange for it to properly diagnose him."

"That is unacceptable, Doctor Jackson," the Genemage said, looking perturbed. "He is the last living example of his race that I have been able to locate. He must be revived."

Daniel raised his hands in supplication. "I'm sorry, but he's really dead."

"That is not acceptable," the Genemage said, his voice resonating throughout the room. "Let me see the controls to this device." He motioned for Daniel to step aside, and began to examine the readouts himself.

Sir, I'm very sorry, Samantha's voice said over the com, but if we're going to get out of here before this ship hits the asteroid, we have to get to the hanger bay right now.

"Dammit, Carter!" Jack said angrily. "We're in space already. Can't you just… I dunno… slow us down a little? We need more time!"

I'll see what I can do, sir, but we really can't afford to delay much longer.

"Just do it."

"I designed the Ferin to endure," the Genemage said to no one in particular. "Even given what he has gone through, he should have merely entered a state of protective stasis. Revival with the aid of the sarcophagus should be possible, if he had the proper nutrients. That seems to be what is lacking the sarcophagus itself."

"There's almost nothing left of him," O'Neill exclaimed. "He used up everything getting us to launch."

Wait, wait! Nutrients? Like what you were feeding him when he was hooked up to the Crust Breaker? Leeza almost shouted over the com. Altjira used the same thing to feed the drones!

"Excellent suggestion, Ms Blake. General, from my memories of Altjira's possession, the drone's maintenance bay is on this level," the Genemage said.

"On my way!" Gisko replied, rushing out the door with one of his warriors.

Impact with the asteroid is in less than ten minutes, Carter reported. I can't do any better than that.

"Understood, get yourself down to the hanger bay now," Jack ordered. "Daniel, Rufus, that goes for you too.

"I would prefer to stay," Rufus said.

"Yeah, me too. Sorry, Jack," Daniel said apologetically. A minor eternity passed until Gisko re-entered the room, a large canister under his arm.

"Excellent," the Genemage said. "I believe there is an attachment point for an umbilical at the end of the sarcophagus." Gisko took a length of tube attached to the canister and inserted it into the receptacle. "Now, we shall see if this works." The sarcophagus closed once again and began to hum, this time remaining operational instead of beeping warnings.

Daniel held his breath. Finally, the sarcophagus' hum ceased, and it open once again.

"Terinu, are you all right?" Rufus asked, stepping close. The boy looked much better than he did before, his body returned to something close to his normal physique, but his eyes remained closed.

"Terinu, are you well?" Teal'c asked in turn.

The young Ferin let out a brief moan and covered his face with his arm. "Yeah, yeah… fragg it, can't a guy just lie down for a couple of seconds? I haven't felt this good in months."

Rufus barked a laugh as he helped Terinu climb out of the sarcophagus. "All fine and well, son, but we really must be going."

"Quite right," the Genemage said coolly. "Come to me, child. It's time that we take our leave of your friends."

"Oh, I don't think that's really fair," Daniel began to say, "I mean I'm sure he appreciates being resurrected and all but…"

"Silence!" Gisko shouted, raising his weapon.

"Oh, now you see, I really hate it when conversations start off like that…"

"The rest of you may go, for I am grateful in your efforts to release me from my internal captor, but the boy must stay with me," the Genemage insisted.

Terinu grimaced, and seemed to be struggling against some sort of invisible force. "I don't wanna go with you!"

The Genemage's voice softened. "You have no choice in the matter, my beautiful child."

The conversation probably would have gone further downhill from there, but that was when the transport rings suddenly fell around Terinu, Rufus, and the two humans, depositing them in the hanger bay.

Carter's little trick with the Ring controls had done the trick, Leeza had to admit. When Rufus' group appeared in the hanger bay, Terinu included, she let out a sigh of relief. Then she went back to prepping her Death Glider for launch, using Sam's hastily written notes, as Lance sat in the back doped out on painkillers.

"Nice timing, Carter," O'Neill called out, heading towards a fighter, Teal'c following along.

"We've got two minutes, sir!" Carter reported, as she climbed into her own ship. "Captain Ru-Ofanus, you and Terinu have the last glider. It's already prepped. Daniel, you can fly with me."

"Righto!" Rufus agreed, climbing into the fighter as Terinu hopped into the back.

Com check. You hear me, Blake? O'Neill said over Leeza's communicator.

"Just fine, Colonel. Any chance the Genemage and Gisko can catch up with us before we launch?"

Not unless they can run faster than the kid there.

One minute! Sam called out. Her Death Glider dropped free of it's launch cradle and maneuvered towards the hanger doors. Leeza followed in turn, trying to keep on the Major's tail instead of paying too much attention to the half-comprehensible pictograms of the heads-up display.

The launch accelerator caught hold of her Death Glider and flung it clear of the Ha-tak mothership. She had a chance to look briefly behind her, and gaped at the sight of what looked like a flying pyramid on a collision course with the bloody fragging huge asteroid!

Maximum acceleration, people! O'Neill ordered, and Leeza shoved her ship's throttle forward. There was no feeling of acceleration at all, inertial dampeners protecting her and Lance from the more than ten-G's of thrust her little ship was putting out. It was barely enough for them to clear the silent blast corona that suddenly engulfed the asteroid, as the mothership impacted and the broken and overstrained Quantum Mirror finally immolated itself and everything around it.

"Rufus, we've got a massive debris field heading straight toward us!" she warned, checking her aft sensors.

Not to worry, Leeza, he answered back cheerily, Terinu and I are both quite adept at dodging things flung at us.

She flung her fighter into a roll to avoid a Treona sized chunk that had nearly flattened her and Lance both. O'Neill's Death Glider spun on it's axis to blast away at a few chunks that came too near, while Rufus and Carter were bobbing and weaving around every obstacle in their path.

But in less than a minute they were past the worst of it. Leeza followed Carter's lead as they settled into a stable orbit some three hundred kilometers above the planet. Below her, Leeza could see flashes of light, as small meteors entered the atmosphere to burn up or break apart harmlessly.

Did anyone see any escape pods launch from the mothership as we were leaving? O'Neill asked.

"Negative," Leeza said, "but then I was a little busy at the time."

I fear the same goes for me, Rufus agreed.

"Hey, Lee," Lance said woozily from the backseat, "maybe Gisko and Hornhead are finally out of our hair."

When have we ever been that lucky? Terinu asked moodily.

Terinu enjoyed the ride in the backseat of the Death Glider as Rufus set them down beside the Treona. According to O'Neill, Major Dalton's unit had cleared out the Jaffa guarding the ship without any trouble, zatting them unconscious on the chance that a couple might want to go over to Teal'c's Jaffa resistance group, so there weren't any unpleasant surprises waiting for them after they set down.

Blake and Rufus had gone onboard to finsh fixing the Treona's drive, while O'Neill discussed something with the major. While he was waiting for something else to happen, Teri took the time to go over where Teal'c was resting against a tree, his hands swathed in bandages and burn gel.

"Can I help you, Terinu?" the big Jaffa asked, eyes half closed as he rested, but still alert.

"Nah," Terinu said, his tail whipping back and forth "I just wanted t'… I dunno, say I'm sorry… that you got burnt and all I mean."

Teal'c smiled slightly. "Do not trouble yourself. Even without my symbiote, I still have a unique capacity for healing, compared to ordinary humans. I will recover. And you should not blame yourself for my injuries. Without placing yourself at such a terrible risk, we would not have able to launch the mothership, and the asteroid would have destroyed this world along with ourselves."

"I guess… I guess you're right." Terinu admitted.

"You did very well."

"Doesn't frelling feel like it. I'm sure Freeman is gonna find some way to get on me about what happened."

"I would not overly concern yourself with Lt. Freeman. Even he expressed concern for your safety, when it became obvious what your intentions were. I suspect he cares more for your well-being than he chooses to express."

Terinu barked a laugh. "I don't think Lance is ever gonna be the touchy-feely type."

"Perhaps not," Teal'c admitted.

He jammed his hands into the pockets of his tunic. "Why do you care so much about me anyway? I'm nothin' to you. You go back through that Gate, and I'll be gone outta your life forever."

Teal'c thought about that one for a moment, and answered, "You remind me of my son, in many ways. At your age he was filled with anger, much as you are now. I had abandoned both him and his mother when I choose to betray Apophis and join with the Tauri in their quest to defeat the System Lords, and he rightly saw that as a betrayal. Later, when we had reconciled, he was still wracked with uncertainty, as he constantly compared his own abilities as a warrior to my own. But eventually he found the maturity and wisdom to forge his own path. He is strong, and has the makings of a wise leader. I believe that such is within you as well. An empire of ten thousand years might be overturned and defeated, if one person with potential such as yours is in the proper place, and with the will to do what he believes is right."

"Huh. You don't know me very well then."

Teal'c gave him a nod. "Perhaps not. Perhaps there is much for you learn about yourself."

O'Neill and his company had passed through the Stargate and headed home. The Genemage and General Gisko were well out of the way, at least for the moment. The Treona's drive was operational, and they could go wherever they pleased now. Everything was right in the world.

Well, almost everything, Leeza thought, as Rufus looked over the battered remnants of his beloved White Knight. The Vulpine was looking as crushed as his fighter's nose right now, and Leeza herself felt about two inches tall.

"You flew it through the Stargate?" Rufus asked for the third time. He carefully tapped a service panel on the side of his ship with his claw. It popped open and fell to the ground with a defeated clank, and the Vulpine pilot drew his ears back in a pained wince.

"I'd taken damage, the engines were failing," Leeza explained again. "It was either fly through the Gate or eject and be captured or killed by the drones. Rufus, I'm really sorry…"

"No, no. I'd rather have to repair the old girl than bury you, Leeza," Rufus admitted. He glanced at the Gate, which Lance had succeeded in toppling over and was busy welding a steel cover over to prevent activation. "And well, I will have to admit I'm impressed by your piloting abilities. I'm not sure I would have been able to fly her through a slot that narrow at high speed."

"It was a moment of inspired lunacy, believe me," Leeza assured him. "And at least you won't have to buy a new sensor suite once you've repaired the structural damage. The SGC gave us one from a Gou'ald Death Glider that they had lying around."

"Mm, that's true," Rufus said, brightening up slightly. "That and I was glancing at some of the technical information that Major Carter provided on the Death Gliders along with the sensor. If I can adapt the engines from the fighters we landed in the clearing, they might provide more thrust than the Knight's original equipment."

"Who knows, maybe we won't even need space fighters for much longer," Leeza said, looking over the Stargate herself. "If we ever figure out how to duplicate the technology in that thing, it'll revolutionize interstellar travel."

"'If" is the operative word," Rufus noted. "This 'naquedah' that the Ancients used to power these Stargates might not even exist in our universe, after all. Certainly the Ancients themselves didn't, that we know of at least."

Leeza nodded ruefully. "That might be for the best then. Could you imagine if the Varn had this technology, maybe powered by a bunch of Ferin like Terinu?"

Rufus shuddered. "I'd rather not. Come on, Leeza, let's get the Treona in the air, pick up my poor fighter and this curiousity, and head for safer ground. We're finished here for now."

"Aye, let's go home."

He watched the human built spacecraft fly overhead, arcing towards the upper atmosphere, taking away his precious, beautiful Ferin child, and the hopes of the Varn Dominion with them.

Another day, he reassured himself. Another day is nothing, in comparison to five hundred years.

"Lord Genemage," Gisko said upon approaching, bowing to him briefly. "We've succeeding is dismantling part of one of the escape pods. It appears to have a broadband distress beacon that should be easily detected by Varn and Galapados ships up to fifty light years out. We should have no difficulties in being rescued soon."

"Excellent, General. I will be in my quarters in the research compound then. You and your men may consider yourselves at ease."

"Thank you, Lord," Gisko said. He bowed again. "I am sorry that we could not bring you the victory that you desired. The Gou'ald teleportation technology was difficult to defend against. We shall be better prepared in the future, should we encounter it's like again."

"You believe us to have been defeated, General?" the Genemage said gently. "That is not so. True, my Ferin is gone from me once again, but he will return to the fold in time. He has no real choice. And further, there is another prize to be won in the future. The technology of the Stargate will bring much strength to the Varn Dominion, should it's secrets be divined."

"But surely the humans took the Gate with them when they left this world!"

The Genemage nodded. "Yes. Which is why it is more vital than ever that they be found, before they are able to reconnect with their corrupt Galactic Sapiens Alliance. We will redouble our efforts to capture them, and when they are found they will be given no opportunity to escape. With my Ferin restored to their proper place at the side of all Varn, and the instantaneous transport promised by the Stargate, nothing will ever stand in the Dominion's way ever again. Nothing."

It was a beautiful, inspiring vision.

One to be fought for.

The End