"From the same co-ordinates?" Sam asked. "You mean the same gate? That's impossible – I was in earshot of the Stargate for at least an hour before we came here and the only time it activated was when another team came back."

"Oh really?" Ayodhya said a mite sceptically. "Well, we do have some conflicting information then, don't we. I don't suppose that you have any ideas how this contradiction can be resolved?"

"You're the one who says that they came from the same place," Jack pointed out. "How to you know -"

"Of course," Sam said suddenly. "You said that the coordinates were the same for both arrivals – you mean the coordinates on the gate, don't you?"

"That's correct," the Admiral said. He frowned and then his eyes glowed. "I think I see where you're going Captain, please continue."

"Well those coordinates don't specify a particular gate," explained Sam. "They refer to the location of the gate, and not all that precisely. Basically they track the position of stars and when they're dialled they open up the primary gate in the vicinity of that star. But if there's more than one gate active – you remember how we wound up in Antarctica, Colonel?"

"Yeah," Jack said, shivering slightly at the memory. "So there's another gate in the solar system and someone's using it? Little green men from Mars."

"There's another Stargate on Earth," Sam reminded him. "The gate from Antarctica was shipped back to the States for more study…"

Jack frowned. "Aw crap. You think someone's using it to run their own project behind our backs?"

"Let's face it, Jack," Daniel reminded him. "There are more than a few people in the government who want us to take a more aggressive stance in obtaining alien technologies. If some of them got hold of the other gate…"

"This is all very entertaining," Ayodhya pointed out, "but even if I take your word for this, which the Angrezi may not, there's no actual proof. And I'm not about to screw up the negotiations with the Padishah – who takes attacks on his soldiers rather personally – by letting the closest thing he has to culprits just walk away."

"Yeah, you're a real prince," Jack snorted.

"Yes, it's one of my titles," the Goa'uld confirmed. "Beyond that, I'm a politician, Colonel. Surely as a soldier you're used to being screwed over by that profession. Unless of course you have any ideas of how to prove this theory of Captain Carter's?"

Teal'c frowned suspiciously at Ayodhya. "If you can determine past uses of the Stargate then can you not check for departing wormholes?" he asked.

Ayodhya nodded, smirking slightly. "I wondered whether any of you would think of that. Yes, my people can run such a check and we have. All the activity since your arrival can be accounted for our own activities in the exercise – bringing the 33rd Heinessen through to simulate a Jaffa attack and so forth. So unless whoever came through from Earth had a ship waiting for them, they'll still be on that island. Now if only I had a way of finding them…"

"So you want us to hand them over to save our own skins?" Jack asked, in disbelief.

"The question isn't whether or not I want them handed over, Colonel," Ayodhya explained reasonably. Then he grinned wickedly. "The question is whether you want to be released enough that you're willing to hand them over to, as you put it, save your skins."

There was an uncomfortable silence as SG-1 looked at each other.

"So you're a Goa'uld," Jack said. "How's that working out for you?"

"Very well thank you."

"Do you have a name of your own or should I call you 'that snake inside the Admiral'?"

"My name is Nekhrun, Colonel," the Goa'uld replied in a booming voice. "I am sure that your son can tell you all about me."

"My son!" exclaimed Jack, rising to his feet, face red with anger.

Nekhrun frowned, apparently surprised. "Yes, your son – Doctor Daniel Jack's Son. I can only presume that he favours his mother…"

"It's a different Jack," Sam inserted quickly, in the not entirely unreasonable fear that her commander would do or say something regrettable – uh, Daniel's father that is. Not Colonel O'Neill."

For the first time the Goa'uld looked slightly disconcerted. "Really?" He muttered something that only Teal'c could make out – "So much for my highly paid support staff." – and then shrugged. "Nonetheless…"

"Nekhrun, right," Jack agreed. "Is that ringing any bells for you, Daniel, Teal'c?"

"He's an obscure part of Egyptian mythology," Daniel said hesitantly after a moment in which Teal'c remained silent. "A god of darkness. The few references that have been found suggest that he rebelled against Ra and later that Ra tried to excise him from history. If I recall correctly he was the god of bats too and had the ears and wings of a bat."

Nekhrun smirked viciously and ran one fingertip along the curve of his right ear. "I'm in disguise," he explained. "As for being a rebel god… well that's about half-right, which isn't bad after all this time. No great surprise that the Shol'va over there doesn't remember me – the Goa'uld only like stories about how their enemies are crushed, if they could get away with it they wouldn't let anyone know about Anubis either. They're such cretins. Information like that always causes trouble when it gets out."

"Half right?" Jack asked sarcastically. "So you're not a rebel?"

"I'm sure that this will break your heart, Colonel," Nekhrun chuckled. "But I'm not actually a god, I'm just an egotistical parasitic snake wrapped around someone else's spinal cord."

"I, uh, knew that already," Jack replied.

"As do I. Though I would not have expected to hear one of the False Gods admit to it," Teal'c added.

"That would be where the whole 'excised from history' came from," explained Nekhrun.

Sam leant forwards. "So you're a Tok'ra?" she asked hopefully.

Nekhrun's smile dropped off his face. "That band of incompetents?" he sneered. "Certainly not! They've been 'against Ra' for about five thousand years, Captain Carter, and what exactly have they accomplished? Not a thing. You're the ones who defeated Ra, not that bunch of second-rate skulkers. No, no. I'm in this for myself – I'm just smart enough to know that solid alliances work better, and are more fun, than simply using people."

"The Tok'ra don't use people!" Sam protested.

"Hah!" Nekhrun sneered. "When the Tok'ra get rooted out by the Goa'uld do they stop to help the people they've been sheltering with? Not in my experience! They run away like kicked puppies and sacrifice their human pawns to protect themselves. Utterly worthless as allies. I wouldn't join them on a wager."

"You didn't kill Ra either though," Daniel pointed out. "However little the Tok'ra have accomplished, what have you done against the System Lords?"

The Goa'uld raised one eyebrow. "You don't think I'm going to spill all my plans to you now, do you? Please, wait until I've locked you up in an easily escaped death-trap first, we have to abide by the courtesies of the situation." He shook his head. "However, if you don't mind having the obvious pointed out to you, the Confederacy of Free Systems is an interstellar polity with a total population larger than that of Earth or of any individual System Lord's entire domain and unlike Earth or the Goa'uld's slaves, most of my people aren't peasant farmers. And the Confederacy has military might sufficient to hold every one of our systems against anything less than a concerted effort by multiple System Lords. That's what I've accomplished, Doctor Jackson. The only reason that I didn't dethrone Ra years ago was that doing so would very likely unite the other major System Lords against me and I'm not ready for that. How does that compare to the scanty resources of the Tok'ra, would you say?"

"Big honking spaceships win," Jack conceded. "But it still looks like you're just another Goa'uld making a power play."

"I object to the 'just another Goa'uld' remark," responded Nekhrun, "although the rest of it is quite correct. This is a power play, Colonel. What's wrong with that?"

"Let me guess, this Confederacy isn't a democracy, is it?"

"No Colonel, it isn't. There are some democratic politics at low levels but it's more of a -" he hesitated. "Well, I'm no political theorist, but I suppose that the answer would be that it's a constitutional monarchy – and no, I'm not the monarch – with a feudal gentry and a rather complicated senate stuck between the two. It's worked quite well for the last couple of hundred years."

There was a knock on the door and a moment later it slid open to reveal von Pinn, leading a small group of soldiers carrying trays of food. "Your pardon, Admiral, but the meal you ordered is ready and there is a message from the Padishah's Minister of Foreign Affairs."

"You know," Nekhrun said thoughtfully. "I'd respect the man more if his office didn't sound like he was responsible for covering up for the Padishah diddling the locals on state visits to other planets. Alright, what does he have to say?"

Von Pinn cleared his throat after what looked rather like a snicker to Jack. "Stripped of the colourful language, he wants to know when the Angrezi military police will be able to take possession of the malefactors responsible for the incidents that interrupted the exercise yesterday. Apparently the trial is going to be quite public."

"Oh the joy," the Admiral growled. "The idiot's probably advertising it planet wide. What a fucking circus."

"Well the Padishah hasn't left the capital since his state visit to Heinessen last year," von Pinn pointed out. "Possibly he hasn't had any diddling to cover up for."

Nekhrun paused. "Please don't throw my words back at me, Lieutenant. Not when there are outsiders around. If nothing else, they won't know which one of us you're sassing." He sighed heavily. "I suppose I can talk to him while our guests are eating. Please excuse me," he added to SG-1. "I'm just going to go… talk… to the Minister of…" sigh "Foreign Affairs. I would rather face a thousand deaths, I really would."

"Is the Minister of Foreign Affairs really that bad?" Jack asked von Pinn, once the Admiral had left the room.

Von Pinn considered the question thoughtfully and then nodded his head vigorously. "One of the major reasons that the Padishah has been so enthusiastic about joining the Confederacy is that he won't have to deal with another generation of – oh, the Ministerial positions on Angrezi are hereditary – another generation of that family handling his Foreign Affairs. Of course, the general idiocy is only to be expected: the man's trying to protect his family's political influence and it's not like there had been any Foreign Affairs between the Padishah's illustrious predecessors uniting Angrezi and first contact with the Confederacy. At least Lord Nekhrun is hosted by Admiral Ayodhya this time, not his usual host. Among the Minister's little faults is that he's a raving bigot who refused to believe that she could possibly be anyone of importance."

"He has a female host?" Jack asked.

"I don't know all the details," von Pinn confessed, "I've only served with Lord Nekhrun twice before, but I gather that he customarily selects his hosts from a particular family and only shares with outsiders like Admiral Ayodhya when service to the Confederacy requires it, which isn't more than a fifth or so of the time. His current host is a very sweet lady who's been with him for a couple of generations. You'll probably meet her if you don't wind up in prison." He gestured towards the table were the meal had been laid out. "Please, help yourselves."

Jack shrugged. "Sure. Why don't you join us."

The lieutenant hesitated, "Ah, that might -"

"Please," Daniel asked. "It would feel very rude to eat while you didn't." He gestured to one of the seats. "The Admiral said that the Confederacy was 'a couple of hundred years old', and I was wondering…"

.oOo.

When Ayodhya returned to the room, he found the five involved in a spirited conversation and paused in the doorway to listen.

"You seem to be on pretty good terms with Nekhrun given you've only served with him a couple of times," Jack was saying. "I don't think I'd throw my commander's words back at him like that."

Von Pinn smiled. "I said that I didn't know Lord Nekhrun very well, Colonel," he explained. "But Sario Ayodhya and I are have known each other for years. He commanded the assault transport Iskander back when I was just an Ensign and he was instructing at the War College when I attended."

"And judging by the way that you punched through the Padishah's Fourth Cavalry in the exercise, you must have been paying some attention," Ayodhya advised and von Pinn almost jumped out of his seat, having had his back to the door. "No need to rise. I trust," he added, looking at SG-1, "that the Lieutenant has been a tolerable host?"

"No complaints," Jack told him. "Are you going to let us in on the secrets of your conversation or will you just hint around?"

"Hmm," the Admiral said, sitting himself down at the table. "Decisions, decisions." When he looked up, Jack was certain suddenly that it was the Goa'uld who was addressing him. "It is time for you to decide, Colonel, whether you will assist me in locating the bandits who attacked the Angrezi or whether you will share their fate when they are captured. And they will be captured, do not doubt that. The Angrezi have confirmed that they are happy for me to remove the Stargate immediately and then search the island inch by inch."

"Then why do you want our assistance?" Sam asked. "You don't need us."

Nekhrun smiled thinly. "Such a search will take time, Captain Carter. However, whoever attacked the Angrezi was presumably trained in much the same way as yourselves. You therefore have a much better chance of predicting their behaviour and shortening the delay that this is causing to the negotiations." He leant back in his chair. "And there are also the strategic consequences of throwing the four of you into an Angrezi dungeon to rot. You've proven to be quite a goad to the System Lords and as long as they're focused upon you, they are substantially less likely to blunder across the Confederacy."

"So you're perfectly happy for Earth to fight the Goa'uld while you sit back and spectate?" Jack asked. "Are you sure you aren't a Tok'ra?"

There was a flash of anger in Nekhrun's eyes but his voice was dispassionate as he said: "What I am willing to do for the Tau'ri is contingent upon what the Tau'ri are willing to do for me. It is entirely probable that your people can be valued allies. Certainly, the Confederacy can provide technology to you well in advance of the gear that was stolen from the Angrezi. I am not obligated to you however and nor are my people."

"Why should we trust you?" Teal'c asked grimly. "You are a Goa'uld."

"That's up to you," Nekhrun said flatly. "If you don't trust me then throw yourselves on the mercy of the Angrezi Courts of Justice. I don't expect them to execute you, but when they sentence someone to life imprisonment I'm told that they mean it quite literally. Maybe you will be resourceful enough to escape, but I would not be inclined to wager on you doing so."

Jack's eyes narrowed. "And if we do help you, then what?"

"Then you will be free to return home, immediately that the actual culprits are captured," Nekhrun promised. "I'll even throw in an invitation to attend all the pomp and ceremony of the Angrezi joining the Confederacy. Once that happens they'll have quite a lot of surplus military hardware to dispose of and, who knows, maybe they'll be interested in selling it off to defray the costs of integrating the Padishah's forces into the Confederacy's Fleet."

Sam's eyes went wide and she looked at Jack. That was… a formidable carrot to dangle in front of Stargate Command. The Angrezi were clearly at least as advanced as the United States in terms of military hardware, even if the zat weapons were discounted.

"What will you do to whoever did attack the Angrezi?" Daniel asked. "Will they get thrown into prison?"

"Without a doubt."

"Jack…" Daniel looked appealingly at Jack, who closed his eyes for a moment.

"Okay."

"Jack!" "O'Neill?"

"Dammit," Jack snapped. "Whoever did this brought this on themselves. But I want to see them," he added to Nekhrun. "Which means going down with whoever you send to capture them. And going down armed."

The Goa'uld nodded, a satisfied look on his face that made Jack want to punch it. "Certainly, Colonel." He turned to von Pinn. "Andre, I think it would be best if the Angrezi carried the operation out. Please contact General Soor and have him prepare some troops, you can handle liaison."

Von Pinn rose to his feet and saluted, fist to shoulder, clicking his heels. "Immediately, my Admiral."

"Clown," Ayodhya sighed as the younger man left the room.

.oOo.

Teal'c had still not said anything by the time SG-1 had reached what was evidently a prep room. Von Pinn was waiting for them, dressed in field gear that didn't look very different from their own. On the bench in the middle of the room were the team's own packs, although not their weapons.

"The Angrezi aren't very keen on having suspected criminals armed," the lieutenant explained, "So we've come to a compromise – they'll provide you with stunners of the same kind used in training exercises so at least you won't be armed with lethal weapons."

"Not lethal?" Sam asked. "But what if someone was shot twice?"

"Twice?" von Pinn asked. "Oh, you've only seen the Goa'uld versions. Our stunners are a little different, we have to deliberately select for lethal effect, and stun shots won't kill no matter how many of them hit."

Jack whistled. That implied that the Confederacy had a much better understanding of how Zat's worked than anyone had managed yet on Earth. Of course, he reminded himself, they'd also had almost a hundred times as long to study them.

"Other than that, all your gear should be here," von Pinn confirmed. "The weapons and ammunition have been packed away but we can send them down as soon as the targets have been apprehended."

"Right," Jack said, sling his pack over his shoulder. "Let's get this over with."

Von Pinn gestured to the room's other door and SG-1 filed through it to see a small room with a ring transporter. "Drop us down to the armoury," he ordered and the metal rings appeared around the five of them.

A moment later, the rings disappeared and they were standing on a beach. Above them, a cliff-face rose up and Jack could see openings in it that would have looked natural were it not for the artificial lights inside them and the dozen or so mini-tanks outside, half of them open topped, that were being loaded by dozens of turbaned soldiers.

"General," von Pinn said, saluting a tall man who was standing apart from the activity. "Lieutenant von Pinn of the 33rd Heinessen Light Infantry Regiment, reporting with the experts."

"It's funny," the general observed, before returning the salute, "how much these experts resemble the louts who beat up some of my men and stole a cavalry vehicle when I was trying to roll up your lines. There are a lot of unhappy people trying to decide how that affected their betting."

"Glad to hear that we weren't any trouble," Jack joked, drawing a frosty look from the General.

"That remains to be seen. Colonel Rao will be assisting you in this search, Lieutenant."

Von Pinn saluted again as the General stalked away. "Thanks Jack. Please don't try that with Colonel Rao – his regiment is the one I chewed up during the exercise and he's not well known for his sense of humour at the best of times."

"Ah," Jack said, somewhat at a loss for words as von Pinn walked over towards one of the vehicles, leaving the four of them alone for the first time.

"Maybe we should let Daniel do the talking," Sam suggested.

"Hey, I can be diplomatic," Jack protested.

"Maybe you shouldn't let me do the talking," Daniel said in a worried tone of voice. "I'm really not sure about this, Jack."

"I know Daniel," he admitted. "I'm not a hundred percent on it either, but it's got us on the planet and near the Stargate. Let's face it, if these people did attack the Angrezi then they're not doing Earth any favours and this might be the only way to repair the situation."

"And what if Nekhrun betrays us?" Teal'c asked in a voice that made it clear that he considered that to be more than merely a possibility. "We will have been his agents in capturing his enemies."

"Maybe – but we'll be here, on the spot and we'll be armed. At least here we can have some sort of control over the situation," pointed out Jack. "Look, I know that this isn't ideal but it's what we've got to work with."

"Colonel!" von Pinn called from the back of one of the mini-tanks. "Come have a look at this map would you?"

.oOo.

"There are several different routes that they could have taken," Jack noted as he examined the map, which contained considerably more information on the island's topography than the relatively quickly compiled map that the SGC had provided based upon a single UAV survey. "Do you know if they took a vehicle with them?"

"Not from the armoury," Colonel Rao replied. The Colonel was even larger than Teal'c and appeared to be utterly focused on his responsibilities. "All of those here have been accounted for. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that they might have brought a vehicle with them. To have reached here on foot within the required timeframe would not be impossible, but it would be extremely challenging."

"Yes," Jack said thoughtfully, looking at the ridges that separated the armoury from the location of the Stargate. "There would have been tracks though… Did you find any when you searched?"

Rao shook his head. "Unfortunately, several of our transports had unloaded outside the armoury in the hours before the raid. We have not managed to identify anything out of the ordinary, but such could easily have been disguised by our own tracks."

"No tracks for vehicles were located at the Stargate," von Pinn advised. "My scouts would have noted them during the exercises."

"So they were probably on foot," Jack mused. "The road doesn't lead in the right direction."

"Unless," Teal'c said thoughtfully and then hesitated, seeming almost reluctant. Then he frowned. "Unless they only used the road for a short distance."

"If it was only a short distance then my scouts would have found traces," von Pinn objected.

"Not if they travelled in the air," Teal'c pointed out. "The land above the cliff is clear and quite even. A light aircraft could use it as a landing strip."

"Did you check for that?" Jack asked Rao, giving Teal'c a grateful look.

"We checked for ground vehicles," the officer replied. "What markings should we expect a light aircraft from your world to make? We do not manufacture powered aircraft that could pass through the Stargate."

"Narrow parallel tracks," Sam advised. "Like those of two or more bicycles moving side by side. Er, a bicycle is -"

"Those, we do manufacture," Rao interrupted her. "I will have my men search again. If you are correct however, we cannot track the passage of the raiders and must determine their hiding place."

"It would have to be somewhere near the Stargate so that they'd know when they were clear to use it," Jack pointed out. "And somewhere with a landing area. There can't be too many places like that."

.oOo.

Jack was perhaps being a little overoptimistic. As it turned out, there were some tracks on the grass above the armoury that Sam was sure indicated the presence of three ultra light aircraft. Colonel Rao had a thing or two to say to the soldiers who had carried out the initial search for tracks having not reported them, but even he had to admit that he wouldn't have expected them to indicate the presence of an aircraft.

Unfortunately, Sam also calculated that the space necessary for such an aircraft, laden with two men and the missing equipment, could be quite a bit shorter than had been assumed, increasing the short list of areas to be checked up past a hundred sites.

"The most likely places are those in this area," Jack decided, indicating the mountains near the centre of the island. "If they're travelling by air then they would probably want a refuge that's hard to reach on the ground, to make it less likely for someone to blunder over them. Daniel, you've got the map we brought?"

Daniel looked at him for a moment. "Yes, wait a moment." He opened up one of his backpack's side-pockets and produced the photo-recon map.

"That's not much of a map," von Pinn observed, looking at it and then back to the detailed maps that they had been working off.

Jack smirked. "But," he pointed out, "If they have a map then this is probably about as good as it gets for them. Now look." He tapped his finger on the area he'd pointed at. "On your map I can see at least a dozen areas that they could use, but from this one there's two… no, three place they could be. Here, here and here. So those would be the best places to start."

"Those are going to be difficult to get to," von Pinn noted. "I've seen that plateau," he added, tapping one of the sites, "and I'm not sure I could get up there without climbing gear."

"We will require aircraft in any event," Rao declared. "Finding them is of no use unless we can pursue them should they flee." He picked up a handset from inside the cavalry vehicle. "This is Rao," he declared. "I require the use of a gunship squadron. My priority is Immediate-Actual."

.oOo.

The gunships were roughly equivalent to a Russian Hind, Jack decided, although since the Angrezi apparently preferred vectored-thrust to rotors the profile was completely different. However the essentials were the same: each was heavily armed and could carry an infantry fire team (or SG-1 plus von Pinn) in the rear. He wondered if this was another subtle sales pitch by Nekhrun, a theory that he was only slightly distracted from by von Pinn's slightly pale face.

"Don't you like flying, Lieutenant?" he asked.

"I'm very happy in Confederate assault shuttles," the infantry officer replied a touch irritably. "But with all respect to the Angrezi's engineering, these crates don't have quite the same safety record." His grip on a stanchion noticeably tightened as the gunship banked and outside the window Jack could see a pine-covered hillside flying past them.

"Do you think the pilot heard you?" enquired Jack and von Pinn responded by using the index finger of his free hand to move the corner of his eye up and down a couple of times, which Jack guessed was probably some sort of rude gesture.

"Do you want to be armed or not?" he asked, indicating the small box that he had brought aboard.

Teal'c reached down and pulled the box onto his lap before opening it to reveal four sidearms of the same kind that Jack had seen the Angrezi using before. Once again he was reminded of revolutionary era pistols – long barrelled with short, rounded grips.

"Okay, you see those levers on the top?" von Pinn asked. "Those are the selector switches – currently they're all up, which means that they are safe. Normally, taking it down one notch sets it as lethal but these are training weapons so it doesn't make any difference – still safe. The bottom notch is the stun setting which is the same as hitting someone with a Zak'nik'tel once. There is a grip safety so it won't fire unless you're holding it, but it's quite sensitive so you don't have to be holding it very firmly for it to fire."

Sam took one of the guns out of the box and held it in firing position, aiming at the rear door. "The grip seems a bit awkward," she complained with a grimace.

Von Pinn glanced over, seemingly glad for a distraction as the gunship banked around another bend in the ridgeline. "You're holding it too low," he said. "You… ah, I was wondering why your guns had such large butts -"

Jack stifled a snigger.

"- you use your index fingers to work the triggers. You should lay your finger along the stunner's barrel and hold the trigger with your middle finger. It's a better way to aim – just point the index finger and the whole gun follows."

Sam complied found that he was correct. "Right. That wouldn't work with our sidearms though – the slid would take my thumb off if I tried."

That elicited a shudder from von Pinn. "Remind me to never try using one of your Tau'ri firearms," he muttered. "They sound more dangerous to the user than the target."

"Remember not to try using Tau'ri firearms," Teal'c reminded him, helpfully.

"…thanks. I'll remember that."

There was a chime from above and then the pilot's voice came back over the speaker mounted on the ceiling. "We're one minute out from the first site. We're coming straight down on it, disembark on the bounce 'cause I'm not hanging around in the dirt a second more than I have to."

The rest of SG-1 took their weapons and von Pinn hit a control, lowering the ramp that formed the rear (and only) hatch to the passenger compartment. Trees were still moving fast underneath them and two more gunships were visible trailing their ride. "I suggest you brace yourselves," he advised. "Angrezi jump infantry like to get very macho about the bounce of a hard landing and our friend up front sound like he's going to uphold their honour in front of the foreign visitors."

There was a laugh from the loudspeaker and all of a sudden the gunship plunged downwards, almost shaking a startled Daniel free of his own handgrips, almost in a freefall towards the ground below.

"If anyone has any prayers that might help the altimeters work better…" von Pinn suggested, looking almost cheerful now that the gunship was unquestionably headed for the floor.

There was a howl from above as the turbines came back to full power and then a crunch that rattled Jack's teeth as the gunship hit the forest floor and quite literally bounced briefly back into the air. Von Pinn flung himself out the back before it hit ground again, so suddenly that for a moment Jack thought he had simply fallen, and then instinct from his own parajump days took over and he hurled himself after the lieutenant with the rest of SG-1 following, Daniel half-dragged by Teal'c. There was a roar and then the gunship was in the air again along with its comrades, leaving clusters of soldiers scattered around the forest. If it wasn't for the turbans that were under the helmets and the unfamiliar weapons, they could have been any of Earth's elite infantry units as they fanned out through the trees.

"Anything?" Jack asked quietly as von Pinn listened to the chatter on the headset he was wearing. Colonel Rao had been quite firm about not sharing access to the tactical net with the 'experts'.

The soldier shook his head. "No one's been sighted," he confirmed. "Once the Colonel's sure we're not about to be attacked, he'll start looking for tracks. It shouldn't take long."

"The immediate area is clear," Rao told them, ghosting out of the trees on silent feet that would have shocked Jack if he wasn't already familiar with Teal'c's easy field craft. "No one has sighted any tracks so far but the men have only been able to make a cursory examination while securing the area. They shall check more thoroughly now while the gunships search for infra-red sources." Without waiting for a response, he moved on through the trees.

"Abrupt, isn't he?" Daniel observed.

"He's a proud man," von Pinn advised. "The Fourth Cavalry are an elite unit among the Padishah's soldiers but they haven't had a real enemy since before he was born and the rough handling they got yesterday must sting." He grimaced. "In fairness, I really didn't expect to have as much difficulty with them as I did."

"Are you experienced in fighting the Goa'uld?" Teal'c asked.

"Not a Goa'uld," admitted von Pinn. "But I've fought Jaffa a couple of times. Not in open field operations though."

.oOo.

The site proved to be a disappointment and Rao summoned the gunships to collect the infantry before moving on to the next location. This time the craft swooped in more gracefully and landed without more than the lightest bumps.

"They aren't bad," Jack admitted. "You don't use these?" he asked von Pinn.

"We have assault shuttles," he replied as they went up the ramp of 'their' gunship. "Same job, more or less, but larger and they can handle surface-to-orbit and vice-versa. Actually, one of the things that we've been working with the Angrezi on is an update of this so that we'll have something more economical for moving small groups around on planets - so I suppose I'd better get used to this."

"I feel so honoured," the pilot retorted across the intercom and Sam chuckled, then had to grab a stanchion as the gunship lifted off before the ramp was fully raised. "The next site isn't far," he added.

"Do you have similar aircraft," von Pinn asked. "You seem quite comfortable with the general tactics."

"Yes," Jack admitted. "We don't use vectored thrust, well not for this sort of aircraft, but we use external rotors for vertical-take-off-and-landing aircraft."

"External rotors… wouldn't they be quite vulnerable to combat damage?" asked von Pinn in concern.

"To an extent," agreed Jack. "but they're difficult to target so not as much as you might think."

"And do you fly them?"

Jack shook his head. "I mostly flew fixed wing before I went into the special operations line of work," he replied. "What about you? You said that you started out on an assault transport?"

"Oh yes, the good ship Iskander," von Pinn agreed with a grin. "Assault transports are assault shuttles writ large – designed to get down through an atmosphere and deploy a division as fast as possible. They're an absolute nightmare for logistics and generally pretty bad for keeping troops up to speed in their field skills. So naturally, as a green ensign fresh out of the academy, I fell in with bad company almost immediately. I mean, of course, my platoon, who were only too pleased to have an officer who had a lower than average chance of noticing them slacking off."

"Let me guess," Jack said. "You didn't notice them slacking off."

"Worse than that," von Pinn said with a wince. "Admiral – he was Captain then – Ayodhya noticed. The first I knew was when he turned up outside my quarters, dragged me off of one of the assault shuttles – the very one where he'd spotted my first sergeant running an impromptu casino, I later found out – and very firmly explained to me that I wasn't doing my job and that if I didn't get my act together then I could expect a transfer to the general service division to count beans for the rest of the mandatory service that I'd agreed to when I was commissioned."

"As you can imagine, I –"

"Incoming fire!" the pilot shrieked and hurled the gunship sideways towards the side of the valley. There was a sudden impact as something smashed into the left wing…

And then a crash as the right wing hit a tree and the gunship went spinning…

.oOo.

Sam groaned as she lifted her head off the hillside. The last thing she remembered before hitting the ground was the brief sensation of flying and before that, seeing the rear hatch of the gunship explode away from the rest of the aircraft after von Pinn yanked on a lever next to it. He must have blown it open, she realised, in order that they could bail out.

A crackle of zat fire convinced Sam to hug the ground and she glanced around to see that she was next to a low outcropping of rock and as far as she could tell, not the one being shot at. On the other hand, the outcropping was probably the reason that her right arm responded with stabbing pain when she tried to move it – she must have hit the rock before she came to a rest.

"No one make another move!" an almost familiar voice shouted from only a few yards away. "I've got a hostage."

Wincing as she did so, Sam dragged herself forwards to look in the direction of the voice, still trying to place why she felt that it was familiar. It wasn't von Pinn, not any member of SG-1… nor had it the slightly sing-sing accent she'd noticed that the Angrezi all had to one extent or another (and she'd definitely been spending too much time with Daniel if she'd consciously noted that). It was almost – she frowned. She had heard that accent before, but not here. It was a slightly nasal New England accent and that was something that was out of place here.

Peering around she saw an unfamiliar face as well – Colonel Harry Maybourne. Fortunately, Maybourne wasn't going to report having seen her – he was on the ground, eyes closed and from the look of him had probably been hit by a Zat gun or one of the Angrezi stunners. Much like the one that other man she could see was pointing down Daniel's ear.

"I've shot him once!" the man shouted, thankfully not looking in Sam's direction. "I'll shoot him again!" Sure enough Daniel was hanging limp from the other man's grasp. Behind them she could see the gunship canted wildly on one side. It looked like it was missing most of one wing and the mess that a tree had made of the cockpit made it clear that the pilot wouldn't be making any more wild swerves at von Pinn's expense.

None of the rest of SG-1 were in view but a moment later, she heard Jack shouting from further down the slope: "Give it up, you idiot! You're surrounded and we've already got half your buddies tied up down here." Damn, looked like she'd missed quite a bit lying behind the boulder.

"I want one of those choppers, with all my team on it," the New Englander shouted back. "Or Doctor Jackson's going home in a coffin! You know what a second zat shot'll do to him!"

Sam frowned. There was something wrong with what he'd just said, but she couldn't work it out. Unfortunately, her own weapon had gone flying when she did, which left her without any particular means of intervening. Not that she'd want to make a shot left-handed with Daniel so close to the man – too easy to hit him and even a glancing shot would ki-

Or would it?

"I can't do that, soldier," Jack shouted up the hill. "I'm not in command here, and these guys know you killed their pals. I don't have a whole lot to bargain with here."

"Screw you, O'Neill!" the man shouted. "Find a way or your friend dies!"

Sam squinted. The weapon that the man was menacing Daniel with was the same type as those that SG-1 had been equipped with. For that matter, it was entirely possible that it was one of those weapons – she'd lost hers and Daniel might well have as well. The lever on the side was – no, the angle was bad. Not up, she'd be able to see that for now. Up was safe. One of the two down positions. One of them killed with one shot, the other stunned no matter how often you were hit. That's what von Pinn had said, anyway. She really hoped that he'd been telling the truth about that.

Jack sounded defeated, but she knew him well enough to know that he was acting. "I'm doing my best, dammit," he shouted. "Give me some time."

"Alright," the soldier agreed. " But if I don't hear from you in five minutes..."

"I get the picture," Jack called back.

Sam rolled over and wormed back behind the outcropping. There had to be something she could do. Maybourne absolutely must not be allowed to get away with this sort of crap. The question was, what could she do? She had her pack, but no weapons and if the man was using the lethal setting then one shot would be –

She paused. Daniel had already been shot once, the man had said. If that was so and he'd used the lethal setting then he'd have killed him already. But if he was using a stun setting then Daniel was hopefully in no actual danger. In which case, there probably wasn't any actual greater risk in having the Angrezi attack. If she could only tell Jack that the man didn't have an actual Zat gun, but a stunner.

After a moment's thought she started to root through the pockets of her BDUs. What was it Nekhrun had said about chewing gum?