Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the TV people.
Author's Note: Hi! This is an idea I had ever since I saw that one episode with the Goa-uld manipulating the Tolan to make weapons that could be out of phase to go through the SGC iris, but that was a long time ago and I never saw the one that came after it, so I'm sure my continuity is miserable. But it makes sense in my head... AU, obviously...
Explosions went up all around them as they ran, and Death Gliders screamed through the air. Then they were at the Stargate.
"Wait!"
She stopped for just a moment and looked at Nareem.
"I...I hope this isn't good-bye..." he told her.
"Me, too."
And then she was gone, through the Stargate, and he was running again. A blast hit near him, the shock wave almost knocking him over. Around a corner he came to an old building. He went in and, entering the right code into the scanner, stepped into the turbolift shaft. It carried him down, at a speed that seemed unacceptable. Everything was so urgent, everything was happening outside. He had to get there faster. But there was nothing to do but wait as the turbolift went down and down, clicking as each level was passed. Nothing to do but wait, and think.
Nareem pressed his back against the metal wall, and slid down. His jumpsuit, in the traditional Tolan grey tones, was ripped and burnt in places, from the Death Gliders' runs. As his heartbeat returned to normal, his racing thoughts refused to slow as well.
The Goa-uld, never a threat before, had managed to overcome their most advanced, most reliable defenses. Then they had used that new-found power to black-mail the Tolan High Counsel into making weapons for them, weapons that would be able to destroy the Tau-ri's base, the rest of the Tolan's defenses, and any ships he knew of. He had been so trusting, so naive. His people had been at peace so long. They had become arrogant in their superior defenses. At first he hadn't been able to believe this could even happen. It wasn't supposed to happen.
It had taken SG-1, who was more than familiar with the ways of violence and conspiracy, to make him see. And so the weapons had been destroyed, and now the Goa-uld were beginning to firestorm his world.
Nareem put his head in his hands. Now he understood. It had taken this, the likely destruction of his new world, to remind the Tolan. Now he remembered how they had developed their advanced technology, the shields, the cannons, the phase-shift devices, all the systems, and even their version of the Stargate, that he had taken for granted until now. It had been through absolute necessity and perhaps desperation that they had achieved their superiority.
This was all before the destruction of their sister planet, the part of the story of their history that they had never told the Tau-ri, the part they assumed had never happened. And it was in remembering this history, of so long ago, that Nareem knew without a doubt what he had to do. A secret that he had long buried in shame and contempt and that he thought he would never have to deal with again.
But, just like in those old days of desperation, he realized that there was something that was worth fighting for, even killing for, and that was the survival and freedom of his people. He must save the Tolan form the Goa-uld. The rest of his life, and his reservations, were even now being blasted away by the Death Gliders' strafing runs, and from the Mothership in orbit.
Maybe this was why the Tau-ri did what they did.
