I need to apologize for the time it took me to get this up. First my computer crashed (and we had to buy a whole new one) and then I had to leave for a business conference, and then I came home to three of five children sick, which they kindly shared with me. So, I spent a week feeling like crud, and another week without a voice and dealing with school issues with my kids and trying to communicate with clients without being able to speak with them. I literally have not had time to write. So, if this seems disjointed, it's because I started it AGES ago, and have just now gotten my life to a point where I could work on it again. I promise that the next chapter won't take as long. Thanks for your patience-and if you've reviewed and I haven't answered, I'm so sorry. I do appreciate all your support.

Koho Koho

(Choices)

"Well, lookee here." The Colonel sounded bored, but Sam could hear the disgust infused within the flippancy. "It's Nirrti."

"Colonel O'Neill of the Taur'i." The Goa'uld's tone carried something else—something not too far from facetiousness—a sneer of recognition, a smidge of mild amusement.

Sam bit her lip as feet shuffled on the carpet. Blinded in the darkness of the alcove, it seemed as if her other senses were heightened in comparison. She could practically smell the odor of the Goa'uld who hovered so near, and feel the heat of the host's body as she shifted on the other side of the draped velvet.

"You know." Sam could just imagine the sneer on her CO's face as he drawled out his syllables. "If we keep having these little intimate meetings, people are going to start talking." O'Neill's boots scraped against the smooth floor as he moved in his cell. "You catch my drift? You keep following me around like this, folks are going to think you have a thing for me."

"Your attempt at humor neither impresses nor amuses me." The Goa'uld's tone was calm. "Rather, it is indicative of the insignificant nature of your race."

"Ah. So, I guess you're going with the superior rant here?"

"As it is in truth." Low, lush, her voice edged around the curtains and into Sam's space. "You are, after all, only a vessel. Humans are destined to serve the Goa'uld."

Deceptively easy, the Colonel's manner seemed conversational. "You know, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that point."

A low chuckle made its way through the heavy fabric. "It amuses me how you cling to your insignificant beliefs. Do you think I care if you protest? It will not change the outcome. You will still be my prisoner. And you will still, ultimately, serve my needs."

"There's this cliché about eggs and counting. You might want to study up on it."

A sharp exhale burst into the hall, and—behind her own closed lids—Sam could see the expression on the face of the Goddess, her dark eyes little more than slits, her sharp mouth curled in a sneer. "It is of no consequence. Your capture has merely afforded me time in which to complete my research. I have no use for you."

"Then why keep us around?"

"Your presence amuses me. For so primitive a race, the Tau'ri have become something of a novelty."

"Like those babies over there? Is that what they are? Something to play with?"

Silence. The quiet movements of the infants on their tables in the other room the only disturbance. Sam flared her nostrils, trying to lessen the sound of her own breathing. Her throat was dry—she desperately wanted to swallow, but clenched her jaw shut, instead. Another sound sidled through the drape towards her—fabric on stone, a slap of skin. A palm, perhaps, on a wall, or on the smooth tile of the floor.

Sleepy, seemingly disembodied, a new voice intruded. "Jack?"

Daniel. Sam bit her lips against the groan that threatened. A slight moan came from the cell to her left, and she could hear her team mate as he moved—stretching, she presumed—and then a faint clicking noise told her that he'd found his glasses and put them on.

"Where are we, Jack?"

The Colonel took his time before answering. "We're up a certain creek, without a specific paddle."

A pause, punctuated by a sigh. "Well, that sucks."

"And, we've got company."

"Really?" More movement—a boot heel on the tiled floor, a hand slapped flat on a knee. Then a noise like air being let out of a balloon. "Well—that really sucks."

"While I am aware that you have never revered me or my kind, Doctor Jackson." The Goa'uld's tone held a hint of what Sam measured to be amusement. "I would have expected, perhaps, a bit more reluctance to anger me."

"Yeah—well. That's me." Daniel stood, evidenced by a crack of a joint and harder boot treads on the ground. "I try not to be too predictable."

"Hey. Come on, you two. Let's not get off track, here. Nirrti—you haven't answered my question." The Colonel's tone had twisted, somehow. Morphed from congenial to intense. "What do you want with the kids you've got over there?"

"My plans do not include you. You need not concern yourself."

O'Neill made an oddly strangled sound. "Come on, Nirrti. You know I'm not going to leave it at that."

"I do not see how you have any choice. You are my prisoner."

"Oh—yeah—right. Thanks for the update."

Footsteps on the rug in the hall signaled the arrival of more Jaffa. Frowning, Sam tried to ascertain from the sounds she could hear how many there were, but the noises in the hallway were too intertwined to provide any clue.

"My Queen." One of the guards had saluted somehow—Sam could imagine from the dull clunk how his fist would have hit the armor on his chest. "We have returned from our search."

"And what have you found, Jaffa?"

"There are no more of the Tau'ri in the forest."

"Are you certain?" The Goa'uld turned, and her voice became softer—more muffled. "These two are usually found in the company of two more—a female and the Shol'va known as Teal'c."

"There was no sign of them, My Lord."

"Continue patrols and inform me immediately if they are found."

"Yes, My Lord." Heavy treads brushed along the rug as the Jaffa turned and made their way back down the hall. Boots on stone told Sam that they had gone out the way she and Teal'c had come in—through the side door and its stone steps outside.

Airy, light, the fabrics on the Goa'uld whispered as she turned again. "Do not fret over your fate, Colonel O'Neill, and Doctor Jackson. You should not fear that about which you have no power."

"Come on, Nirrti. You hold the cards, here. Throw me a bone."

"You are in no position to make demands."

"You're right. I'm a prisoner."

"Yes." Nirrti's tone held overtones of a question. "And therefore completely at my mercy."

O'Neill didn't even breathe before he responded. "So, use me."

Silks shushed in the relative quiet of the hall. A low, deep chuckle arose from just on the other side of the curtain, punctuated by a footfall on the soft rug below. "For what purpose?"

"Whatever it is that you're trying to do with those kids in there." The Colonel had stepped closer to the doorway. His voice was being distorted by the force field and by his anger. "Whatever you want with them—do it to me. Leave them alone."

From within the walls of the laboratory to Sam's right, an infant made a half-hearted cry. Tiny, weak, it sounded like a desperate kitten. A single boot fall crackled along stone, and the cry came to an end, but Sam couldn't tell if someone had moved closer to or farther away from the child—couldn't tell if the child was being comforted or merely silenced. She closed her eyes against the images that invoked, juxtaposed so wrongly beside other memories—dancing visions of the village's mothers cradling their healthy, thriving babies close, laughing faces and loving gazes. Sam's jaw clenched even as her heart sank a little more.

And then the Goa'uld broke through again—issuing a laugh really more akin to a bemused sigh. Sam could readily imagine Nirrti's face, her deep-set eyes shining with interest, her thin lips curved upwards in what would pass for a smile for a Goa'uld. "What do you care about these specimens?"

"Those 'specimens' are complete innocents here."

"They are empty pods of flesh. Too small, too weak to be of use to you."

O'Neill's voice turned chilly. "Then why do you want them?"

"I have my purposes."

"What are they?" This was Daniel's question, his voice closer, now, too. "Are you going to engineer yourself a new host?"

"We know you, Nirrti." O'Neill slapped the palm of his hand against the smooth stone around the doorway. "We know you like to futz with other people's lives. What are you going to do to these babies?"

"I have already told you. You have no need to know."

"Use me, instead." This time, the Colonel's voice had lowered, become more insistent.

"I'm afraid you lack specific characteristics for the purpose I have in mind."

Daniel answered her, understanding in his tone. "So, it was planned. You took these kids specifically. It does have something to do with Kama pua'a."

The following pause seemed assessing, more than anything else. After a long silence, Nirrti made a sound low in the back of her throat. "You two should find your comforts while you may." Turning again, the Goa'uld's lithe movements were mirrored by the harsher sounds of armor and heavier bodies of her Jaffa. "I assure you that this respite you currently enjoy will not last for long."

"Damn it, Nirrti—"

But the Colonel's exasperated exhale told Sam that the Goa'uld had ignored him and crossed over into the lab. Sam shifted, angling again towards the room to her right. Waiting until she was certain that the contingent had entered the lab, she allowed the curtain at her right to edge open, affording a slivered view into the room. Sam watched through the slit as Nirrti crossed to the table in the center of the room, reaching into the storage niches below to extract a hand device. She slid the gold links over her wrist and secured it before fitting her fingertips into the thimble-like ends. Leaning over again, Nirrti retrieved another instrument from the storage area—an elongated disk fitted with a strap. As the Goa'uld inserted her other hand through the binding, Sam caught a glimpse of a huge smooth jewel set into the face of the device, which flashed a deep orange as soon as the strap was tightened across the back of Nirrti's hand.

She disappeared from Sam's view as she crossed towards the opposite side of the room, presumably to where the third child had been placed on a table. A tiny sigh arose from that side of the room, and then a glow of red light, followed by a flash of orange—the jewel in the unknown device?—and a humming sound that would have seemed innocuous, if it hadn't been for its source.

"This one is not suitable. Too weak. Too human." Nirrti's voice arose from around the hum, dissatisfied, annoyed. With an abrupt sound, the glow dissipated, and the Goa'uld stepped back into Sam's field of vision while a Jaffa sidled past her and towards the rear of the room. "You may dispose of it as I had directed."

The Jaffa's quiet answer was muffled by the room itself, and Nirrti nodded at him before turning her attention back towards the other two tables. Moving past the center station, she stopped at another of the examination areas. Calmly, she observed the infant it held for a bare moment before raising her right hand, where the ribbon device wrapped like golden tendons around her fingers. Steadily, the beam gathered strength in her palm before coursing down onto the child on the table. With a tiny, startled cry, the infant relaxed, its posture unnatural and still.

"Let us see what you are made of." Nirrti passed her hand over the child's body, the light pulsing gently as it caressed its small form. Sam couldn't see which of the three infants lay so quietly on the table. Above the lip of the surface, all that was visible were vague shapes of coffee-colored skin and black curls.

As well as the bottoms of impossibly tiny feet. As the reddish light passed over the tiny toes, they flinched, and Sam's hand tightened on her weapon, her fingertips digging painfully into textured stock. Her entire body shook with anger—with fury.

Control. She needed control over this sudden, intense urge to throw back the curtain, take aim, and start firing. More than anything, Sam Carter wanted to kill Nirrti. Because of Cassie, and her people—all dead. Because of the other worlds that had been destroyed. But most of all, for those toes, for all three of those helpless, quiet forms lying so still and vanquished on the exam tables. Because of all of that, Sam needed to see the Goa'uld die.

But it wasn't the time for that, yet. She hadn't been able to see how to remove the force field keeping Daniel and the Colonel inside the cell, and there were too many Jaffa—at least three that she was able to see—still in the room. She couldn't be certain that she could eliminate all of them before they could take her out, and although she knew that Teal'c was somewhere, she didn't know exactly where. The question still remained of Nirrti's seemingly unending abilities to evade capture or harm, and Sam had not been able to determine whether she was wearing a personal shield of any sort. A personal energy field would repel bullets, causing them to ricochet, hitting the babies, or even Sam herself. Close quarters, not enough information. Control. As she forced her breathing to return to normal, her heart to stop racing, she listed the reasons not to act in her head. Tried to focus instead on a plan that would allow all of SG-1 to return to the village with the children whole, and well.

"Interesting." The Goa'uld lifted her right hand, the glow illuminating a portion of the wall, now. "This one is different, somehow." With a flicker of fingers, her palm swallowed the light, and she raised her other hand, with its larger stone set into the oval-shaped instrument. The humming began again, accompanying the easy strobe of the orange light. "Stronger. She is infused with more power."

"Is this the one, My Lord?"

"Of that I am not yet sure, Jaffa." Nirrti passed her left hand over the child again, her own face basking in the glow emitted by the device. She turned her face to look at her guard, and Sam could see her expression—giddy—delighted—an impure sort of joy played across her normally even features. "But the potential is there. The flesh would need to be developed."

"And the third, my Lord?"

"I require only one for my purposes." The Goa'uld turned away from her prize and aimed herself towards the third quasi-crib. "Although if two present themselves as viable possibilities, I could make use of them both."

"For what?" Daniel had joined O'Neill at the force field, his voice rising through the curtain of energy that coursed in the doorway. "Use them both for what?"

But Sam could see that Nirrti had no intention of answering him. The corner of her thin, sharp mouth curved upwards, and just a hint of golden glow coursed around the Goa'uld's pupils. Both hands held ready, she stood at the third table, within full view of Sam's hiding place, gazing down on the infant resting upon it with a look of near-parental pride on her face. "Malleable. The human infant form is so very malleable. I can make it into whatever I desire, should the potential be present."

Her body changed as she raised her hands towards the table, bringing her right hand to hover directly over the baby's head. Nirrti's eyelids flickered as she focused her attention on the infant, and the instrument attached to her hand. As the jewel in the hand device gathered power, it seemed as if she had harnessed fire in her palm. A red beam wafted down to pan across the limp body on the table. After a few seconds, the beam seemed to retract back into Nirrti's hand, and the Goa'uld lowered her arms. "This one is as the first. Not possessing the qualities I require."

"Shall I dispose of it as well?"

"As we have already discussed, Jaffa." She sighed as she stood, staring down at the infant lying so unnaturally still before her. "It is no longer needed."

"And the other, my Lord?"

"I will take it with me." Nirrti yanked gracefully on the bindings on the instrument attached to her left hand. Turning, she took a few steps towards the central station in the room and bent to remove an ornate basket from a storage niche below the main table. Placing the tool in the basket, she added a few more items before handing the bundle to the Jaffa who stood nearest her. "Take those to my quarters."

Bending again, she removed a length of fabric from the bottommost storage area. "Mak-tra."

The Jaffa that had been standing near the chosen child came to attention. "Yes, my Lord?"

The Goa'uld reached out a hand to deliver the material to her guard. "Wrap the child in this. Give it to me."

With a few deft motions, the task was accomplished. The Jaffa raised the infant off the laboratory table and handed her over to Nirrti, who tucked the bundle into the crook of her left elbow. Turning, the Goa'uld stepped towards the door, gesturing for the basket-carrier to follow with a flick of her right hand.

Sam flicked her finger in the curtain, sealing the tiny gap as the Goa'uld drew near. She flared her nostrils, slowing her breathing in an effort to remain as quiet as possible. The heavy fabric billowed and then swayed near her feet as Nirrti and her Jaffa passed, and Sam could see the toe of her own boot clearly as light surged beneath the hem of the disturbed drapery.

"Where are you going, Nirrti?"

The footsteps ceased. "I grow weary of your impertinence, Colonel O'Neill."

"Hey—I'm just asking."

The Goa'uld's movement disturbed the curtain again. "It is of no concern to you."

"What are you going to do, Nirrti?" O'Neill's voice rose, angry and staccato, from his cell. "Make a bomb out of her like you did Cassie?"

"You grow tiresome, Colonel O'Neill."

"And you're getting predictable. Come on—just tell me. Are you going to rig her to explode and then send her through the 'Gate?"

"I warn you, human—"

"Hiding behind babies again, are you?" A thud came from the doorway—a fist, perhaps, against the stone. "Too much of a coward to fight your own battles?"

"Jack—"

"No, seriously." The Colonel spoke over Daniel's protest. "Take me, instead, Nirrti. Leave the kids alone."

"Cease your speech!" The Jaffa holding the basket took a step nearer.

"You're afraid, aren't you?" O'Neill's fist impacted the stone, now. "Too chicken to go up against someone actually able to fight you."

Nirrti growled, and a sudden movement disturbed the drape again. Sam sensed, rather than saw the Goa'uld's arm lift, and then a massive burst of energy forced Sam backwards into the wall behind her. Her shoulders and the back of her head slammed against the stone, and she couldn't quell her resultant cry. The intense heat of the ribbon device's beam blasted through the energy field, creating an explosion that flashed in the hallway with a deafening roar. The sound, the smell, the brightness permeated even the dense fibers of the drape, bathing the Major in an eerie red glow before collapsing back into blackness.

"Jack!" Daniel's shout sounded at the same time as a weight hit the floor—hard. "Jack—"

"Jaffa—Kree!" The Goa'uld took a few steps towards the doorway, the boots of her guard close behind. After a few feet, Nirrti turned back towards the undulating force field. "You would do well to accept this situation, Doctor Jackson. Angering me will not be to your advantage."

But if Daniel made an answer to that, it was lost within the clank of armor as the remaining Jaffa bagin to move in the laboratory across from the cell. Sam strained to hear more, but failed—and then the moment was lost as, in a whisper of silks and the metallic ring of her guard's uniform, the Goa'uld made her way down the corridor and turned into the other connecting passage.

And Sam was left in the darkness, with only Daniel's voice eking its way past the force field, through the heavy fabric of the wall hanging. "Jack—come on. Breathe."