Chapter Eleven: Escape

The Jaffa opened the door to the room and pushed Buffy inside. Or rather he tried to push Buffy inside but Buffy didn't push. She did a lightning turn around and hit the Jaffa, hit him hard. He fell as if poleaxed and didn't move.

Buffy quickly picked up the body from the ground and carried the Jaffa inside the room before anybody else appeared in the corridor. She placed the unconscious body on the bed that was in the corner. A quick search of the Jaffa produced a strange looking hand weapon and a set of what might be keys. Buffy pocketed both. She then tore strips off the robe of the Jaffa, tied him and tethered him to the bed.

On leaving the room Buffy tried to find some way to lock the door but the keys, if that's what they were, didn't fit any hole that she could see. Not wishing to waste any more time she settled for firing the strange weapon at what looked to be some sort of lock mechanism. She tested the door and found it would no longer open so she hoped the Jaffa would not be able to raise the alarm for some time after he woke up.

Buffy now set about exploring the premises, and seeing if she could find a way out. She had been taken by the Jaffa along several corridors, interrupted by a trip down several levels in an elevator before arriving at her present position. She now once again had her sword and knives which she had retrieved from the unconscious Jaffa.

Always best to walk around places like this as if you have every right to be there thought Buffy. There seem to be all sorts of odd characters in this place she thought remembering the people she had seen whilst in the custody of the Jaffa. She hoped that one more might not cause any alarm.

As she began to walk away from the room where she had left the Jaffa Buffy had a sudden thought. If she was being taken to some sort of detention area there might be other prisoners around there. They might be people who would be on her side. She turned back the way she had come and examined the corridor once again.

Ten doors, five on each side, regularly spaced. Cells? Buffy went to the first door on the left, the door opposite to the one where she had left the unconscious Jaffa. Locked. However a locked door wasn't usually a big barrier for a slayer and so it proved this time. A little super-powered force and Buffy successfully broke open the door.

There was indeed somebody inside, somebody who was presumably a prisoner in view of the locked door. Lying on a bed but now having been woken up by Buffy's entrance was Drusilla.

But Drusilla wasn't the main point of interest for Buffy as she entered the room. The room had a large, full length window in the wall opposite the door. Buffy walked over to the window and looked out. Or rather she looked down because it was perfectly clear from looking through the window that the room was part of a spaceship or space station that was in orbit far above a planet, a planet that was certainly not the Earth.

After finding Drusilla, Buffy searched all of the other rooms in the corridor only to find them all empty. There were therefore no other captives to release. The corridor seemed to be in a particularly remote part of the space ship or space station and nobody had come along to disturb them.

Buffy and Drusilla exchanged details of how they had each come to arrive on the Goa'uld vessel. Drusilla had been meeting a coven of witches with whom she sometimes worked when they had all been attacked by unknown enemies with energy weapons. Drusilla had helped the others to escape but had been hit by fire from an energy weapon at the last minute and had not woken up until Buffy had come into the room.

Buffy explained about the Goa'uld and that it seemed they were presently located aboard a space vessel belonging to one of the Goa'uld which was in orbit about another planet, probably the planet Kallistien. It seemed possible that Drusilla had been brought through a Stargate, in fact the Stargate that Buffy believed she had seen when she arrived on the Spaceship.

It was at that stage that Drusilla informed Buffy about the SGC and the involvement of the Halliwell sisters in dealing with the little metal monsters.

"Let me get this straight," Buffy said. "As well as these Goa'uld and their magic portals and Stargates kidnapping people we've now got the military people of this SGC and who knows who else interested in witches."

"From what you said they only snatched you and Faith because they thought you were witches," Drusilla pointed out. "Same for me I expect,"

"Well whatever, it's got to stop," Buffy had said. "Putting the world of slayers and witches with Government and technology and aliens from outer space, well it shouldn't be done that's all. That sort of thing never works well."

"I think you need to find something to slay," said Drusilla. "Just like I need to feed."

After exploring the other rooms in the corridor Buffy and Drusilla had arrived back outside the door to the room where Buffy had secured the Jaffa. Drusilla now forced open the door and went into the room.

"Don't worry," said Drusilla as she walked over to the unconscious Jaffa. "I won't kill him."

It went against all of Buffy's vampire slayer's instincts but if Drusilla needed the blood it made sense for her to take it from the Jaffa.

Drusilla completed her feeding. "He's not dead," she said. "This way I'm stronger and he won't be in any condition to raise the alarm or cause us any trouble for at least a day, maybe longer. He certainly won't be getting up off that bed for hours yet."

After feeling the man's pulse and confirming he was still alive Buffy followed Drusilla from the room and used the captured weapon to do her best to seal up the door again.

"So where do we go from here?" asked Buffy. "You're the one who sees the future, the one with the hot line to the mystic whosits. Any idea what's gonna happen next?"

"Don't you have prophetic dreams yourself?" asked Drusilla. "Prophetic slayer dreams."

"You want me go to sleep?" asked Buffy sarcastically. "I don't think so. Anyway most of my muddled dreams only make sense after everything is all over. Do you have any other suggestions based on your second sight?" Second sight didn't warn her about being captured by the Goa'uld Buffy thought. Or perhaps it was meant to happen like that so she could come here and help out.

"Don't ask me," said Drusilla. "These things come when they want to, not when I want them. Over to you. You're the fearless leader."

"OK," said Buffy who already had a plan in mind. A plan that went against her wish to have nothing more to do with the Military and Government but the only plan that she could see made any sort of sense.

"In that case," Buffy continued. "I vote we see if we can find some way to go back through that Stargate. If we can get back to Earth you can take me to the SGC and we'll see if we can get them to link up with the Kallistien witches and get back all the kidnapped people."

"And if they don't agree?" asked Drusilla. "How do we get back here to help your friends?"

"Oh I wouldn't worry about that," said Buffy. "Prue and her sisters can be pretty persuasive it they want to." So can Willow she thought. I'm sure this SGC wouldn't want their Stargate to stop working would they?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Replicators are suspiciously quiet thought Daniel as he looked through the window to try to see if anything was going on out there. In fact it was strange that so far the 'human' Replicators seemed to have done nothing. Maybe they're busy making more little Replicators out of the fabric of the ship he thought, if they can. On their journey through the ship to the control room it had been obvious to SG-1 that much of the ship had already been cannibalised for this purpose.

SG-1 had patched the holes made by the Replicators as best they could. Paige's spell had preserved them from losing their air and being depressurised but as Jack said, "Best to take no chances." Jack never raised it as a query because he didn't want to upset Paige but he wondered if all of her magic unravelled if anything happened to her.

Suddenly the intercom burst into life: "I don't know where you think you're going," said a voice. "But if you don't hand over control of the ship to us we will destroy it and everybody in it, including you."

"Stay alert," hissed Jack to everybody before turning on the intercom to reply. "This will be the start of their next move to take us out."

"Sounds like you've been taking lessons from the bad guys' manual of empty threats," replied Jack on the intercom. "You don't get it do you? The reason why we've taken you and all your little friends out here is to destroy you. If that means we get destroyed as well then so be it."

"Oh we won't destroy the Replicators," said the voice, "or ourselves. You know better than that. We will all come together again after the explosion, but you certainly won't."

"And just how do you intend to deal with the conservation of momentum?" asked Sam. "We've been accelerating this ship for hours now and of course everybody and everything aboard is travelling at the same speed. If you blow it up all the little Replicator pieces will still be travelling at an enormous speed into outer space, and you'll have no engine to slow you down. You'll probably keep going until infinity. We don't really care whether you reconstitute yourselves or not."

"We've got a few more tricks that you haven't allowed for," said another voice, this time the voice of a 'human' Replicator actually in the room with them.

The Replicator had come up through the floor of the control room. It had been able to enter the space underneath without going outside the spaceship and falling foul of Paige's 'non-stick' spell on the hull.

There were no 'normal' Replicators with the 'human' Replicator. With many of the limited number of Replicators on board having been swept into space perhaps there really aren't that many left thought Daniel, even if they have now made a few more. Like the rest of SG-1 Daniel aimed his gun at the 'human' Replicator but for the moment they all held their fire.

"You see the engine will still be there," continued the Replicator. "It'll just be damaged or in pieces. It won't take long for us to rebuild it, probably rebuild it better than it is now. We've done things like that before. Anyway we don't have to blow up the whole ship to kill all of you and we've now got Replicators in all the best places to rebuild after the explosions."

Jack and Sam exchanged glances. "So what do you propose?" asked Jack. "What you say might be true but it might not. You just might lose a few essential pieces along the way. You'd be taking a big gamble and you might lose. You need to offer us a deal."

"Hand over control of the ship to us and we'll leave you in peace back on that planet," said the Replicator. "We'll be on our way and nobody gets hurt."

"And you just fly away in your spaceship?" asked Daniel who smelt a rat.

"We go on our way and leave you in peace is what I said," replied the Replicator. "We've no reason to harm you. If you prefer we'll let you leave peacefully and won't follow you through to your base."

"Quite clearly you intend using the Stargate yourselves," said Teal'c, "and that we cannot allow."

Suddenly alarms began to sound throughout the ship which had noticeably heated up in the past few minutes. This didn't concern SG-1 and Paige but puzzled the Replicator. He turned towards the control panel and then noticed for the first time that the spaceship wasn't headed for outer space at all. It was heading directly into the sun which was looming larger and larger in the forward window.

The Replicator turned back towards the humans only to see them all gathered around Paige. The alarms were what they had been waiting for, their signal that the time had come to leave. They all disappeared as Paige orbed back to the planet.

The Replicator didn't waste time wondering where the humans had gone and how, but began to press buttons on the control panel. Was it too late to divert the ship away from the sun it wondered? No it concluded, there was still time.

Although travelling at high speed and still accelerating the Replicator calculated from the control panel information that he could still change course and pull clear of the sun's gravity. Once that had been done any damage to the ship could be repaired.

Unlike humans, Replicators could take massive G forces and would not be permanently damaged by a violent change of direction. Clearly the humans hadn't allowed for this in their plans thought the Replicator. The only limiting factor was the structural integrity of the ship itself and this would not cause the break up of the ship before it escaped the Sun's gravity.

Now all I need to do is...thought the Replicator. At that moment the explosive charges planted by SG-1 in different parts of the control room went off and the space ship disintegrated.

Yes, given time the Replicators could reform as the pieces were attracted to each other and given more time the reformed Replicators could rebuild the spaceship and its engine, but there wasn't anything like enough time. All the scattered fragments of spaceship and Replicators were still heading straight for the sun. As they fell into the sun they continued to accelerate and heat up. In a very short time there would no longer even be fragments.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The High Council was very much a council of war. A war that was not going at all well. Now that Marduk was free of the threat of Apophis, at least for the time being, he had started making ground against the Kallistien witches and the Kallistien armed forces.

The strongest magic users had gathered with the high command of the armed forces and the political leadership to plan a way of combating Marduk in the short term and in the long term plan a way to deal with Apophis when he returned.

"I'll know him when I see him," said Cordelia to Faith. "There, over there," she added. "That's him, the guy in the red robes."

After her vision Cordelia had rushed off with Faith to the High Council building. Her vision had made it clear that there was no time to go through official channels with her warning. In any event judging by the vision she shouldn't trust anybody she didn't have to.

The man concerned had just entered the High Council Hall, a building which was guarded by armed guards and warded by magic. It was the meeting place of all the Kallistien big cheeses, and outsiders, most specifically off world travellers, were not invited.

"So what next?" asked Faith. "Do we wait for him to come out or what?"

"We've got to get into the Council Hall," said Cordelia. "We don't have much time before he makes his move. We've got to be there to stop him." On the way to the Hall, Cordelia had given Faith details of what the vision had shown her.

Cordelia now went up to the main Council Hall entrance with Faith close behind her. "Who was that man, the man in the red robes who just went in?" Cordelia asked the guard.

"That's Lord Shumi," said the guard. He's on the High Council."

"He's a traitor," said Cordelia. "He's going to do something against the Council and we've got to stop him."

The guard called over his officer who was not at all impressed by Cordelia's allegation. "Lord Shumi is most definitely not a traitor," said the officer. "If it wasn't for him we'd have lost this war a long time ago. It was he who found out about the Goa'uld and what they were up to."

"That was before he was taken over by a Goa'uld himself," said Cordelia. "Let us pass. I've got to speak to the High Council and warn them. I can prove to them what I'm saying is true."

"You're an off-worlder yourself aren't you?" asked the Officer. "That means you're not allowed in here. We have strict orders to admit Council members only."

"Let me put it this way," said Faith. "If Cordy's wrong what's the worst that can happen? You get told off. But she is a powerful witch and she does have the power to see the future. If she's right but you don't let us in, a lot of people are going to die." And if you argue about it much longer I'm gonna take out you and all of your guards Faith mentally added to herself.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After the spaceship had taken off with SG-1 and Paige aboard, the three Halliwells had carried out a power of three spell to destroy any Replicators that lingered in the area. The members of SG-12 would have been deeply sceptical of this had they not already seen some evidence of the sisters' power. As it was, nothing appeared to happen, possibly because all of the Replicators had indeed left, either through the Gate or back aboard their spaceship.

The sisters remained on standby to disable the Stargate if necessary but had decided not to take any action unless it became necessary. The Stargate was probably their only way home and, with the Replicators disposed of, everybody thought it best to leave it untouched unless and until action became necessary.

To give themselves the option of escaping via the Stargate but of making sure it was not subsequently used by the Replicators, SG-12 had packed their supply of explosives around the Stargate. The sisters had worked out a way to amplify the explosion to reduce the Stargate to dust immediately after it had been used for a getaway.

"The Stargate seems to be working OK," said Doctor Sarfraz. "We could dial home now."

"No!" said Prue. "You can't do that. We can't go home yet otherwise we'll be back before we left and that would mess up everything."

"You mean even when Paige and the others get back we have to just sit here waiting for time to tick away?" asked Piper. "How boring is that? Can't we do a jump forward spell so when we go through the Gate we arrive back after we left?"

"Better not," replied Prue. "If we're only a little out it would mess everything up. The boring option is the safest option."

"Perhaps these nice Stargate people know some place where we could take a holiday," suggested Phoebe. "How about it Major?" she asked Major Larkham. "Could you dial up somewhere good? Sun, sea and sand plus a few hot guys."

"Hey," said Piper, "I'm a married woman."

"So am I," said Major Larkham wistfully.

"Yeah," said Phoebe. "But what a chance to cheat. Spend a day elsewhere and still get back just after you left."

"How long do you think it will be before SG-1 gets back?" asked Doctor Sarfraz.

"I don't know," said Prue. "They're going to hang on as long as they can to stop any chance of the Replicators stopping the ship diving into the sun. Paige will orb them back here at the last minute."

"What's up sergeant?" asked Major Larkham as the sergeant came up to her having rapidly descended his observation post on top of a nearby hill.

"I've been watching that dust ma'am," said the Sergeant pointing over to the west. The Major put her glasses to her eyes and studied the distant cloud of dust.

"It's coming this way," added the Sergeant. "Whoever or whatever it is it'll be here in a couple of hours."