A/N:
Okay, I freely admit that I've been holding this chapter back. There's a perfectly good reason for that (beside the general hecticness of my life right now) and I actually blame you. :) You see, originally the Unknown Slayer of the previous chapter was slated to die in this one, which is why she remained unknown. I thought I'd left enough clues for those who had seen the relevant episode (SG-1, 10/07 – Counterstrike) to guess what was about to happen. Apparently I hadn't (my bad) because the response to the idea that a Slayer might turn to Origin was overwhelming. It got my muse thinking and wondering the whole time I was writing this chapter, and after I moved on to the next one, I delayed the posting of this while I decided whether or not to kill off the Unknown Slayer. Long story short, taking a break to fly to New York last week helped me make up my mind, and as soon as I got back and got over the jetlag, I began rewriting scenes I'd already written. Which really didn't take as long as I'd feared so, three days after my return, have a chapter! :D
Unfortunately it's not all of Counterstrike as I've made the executive decision to split the episode over three chapters so that Faith's new arc is also concluded by the end of the episode. Thanks to SG-13 and the Unknown Slayer (who you'll now meet), there's quite a lot of deviation from the episode although, as always, the core events remain the same. Some unaltered scenes have been included to help make sense of the plot for those who haven't seen the show. The chapter title is in keeping with the chess-themed title of the original episode, and the title of this part refers to the switcheroo the Powers are about to make. Kudos to the first person to guess who takes the Unknown Slayer's place. Shouldn't be hard. :)
Important Information:
Following the success of Lost, in LA, chapter four of this story, SG-13, has been edited. Nothing major, certainly not enough to require a re-read, but my brain has developed a new plot-twist for my plans for the upcoming SG-1 episode, Momento Mori, and the Earth Ba'al Clone, inspired by a review from Greywizard. Regular readers should be aware that all reference to Giles' emotions has been removed from this story. Also, this vital clue will vanish when the plotline kicks in. ;)
If you started reading this story after Lost finished, don't worry about it. The edit was done before I posted the last chapter.
Now, I've rabbited on for more than long enough, so the only thing left to say is, enjoy!
Slayer's Gambit – Part 1/3: Powers Play
Faith smirked as she sauntered towards the fence and the line of men stood there, watching them as they shuffled their feet awkwardly. They looked like a bunch of naughty schoolboys, not sure if they should run for it or bluff her out. They'd watched her girls train while they were here. Now they were gonna help, whether they liked it or not.
"I need two volunteers," she announced loudly once she was close enough for them to hear.
There was a long moment while men avoided each other's eyes and shuffled their feet some more. Finally one man was nudged forward by his friends. Almost immediately, three more stepped forward.
"You," Faith chose, picking the biggest. "Congratulations, you two're Priors. Rest of you, you're Ori soldiers. You're gonna attack my girls. Priors, you're in charge, an' you get special powers..."
l
Adria stood still, patiently waiting for her cue to walk out onto the balcony as Deama fussed with the train of her long golden dress. Her new Clava was certainly taking her responsibilities seriously. Adria had been waiting for her when the young girl had finally returned to her home, after leading the Prior and soldiers Adria had sent after her on a long and futile chase. After the deaths of her companions, it hadn't taken much to convince the backward girl of Adria's divinity and once Deama had accepted Origin into her heart, her mind and the power it possessed had opened to the Orici. Adria had wasted no time in forging ties between their minds, creating unbreakable bonds between them. She had been working on the task for most of the morning, forcing her to miss leading the morning prostration.
Unconsciously, Adria touched the wide fabric collar that hid the ugly scar that stretched across her throat. Now that she had one member of her Oriclave by her side, she burned to possess the others. With the possible exception of the blonde bitch who had scarred her. On second thought, it would be ultimately more rewarding to break her to her will, as Adria fully intended to do to Faith. How much more sweeter would her victory be when she had the blonde looking adoringly up at her, heard her call her Divinity as Deama did, and could force her to slay the man she loved?
Wrapt in happy thoughts, Adria almost missed her cue. Only the tentative touch of Deama's hand on her arm called her back to her duty. Her head held regally high, Adria stepped out onto the balcony and faced the crowd, Deama half a step behind her.
l
"Aw, crap," Jon muttered when Adria appeared on the balcony followed closely by a timid-looking teen in a blue dress almost as fancy as the Orici's.
"I thought she was supposed to be on Langara?" Andrew whispered as she began to speak to the crowd.
"The unbelievers among you sought to hinder our message!" Adria's voice rang out in the small square. "They took up arms in an attempt to suppress the truth."
"Looks like she left..." Jon shot back.
"But they failed and were vanquished," Adria informed the crowd. "A reminder to all that Origin cannot be extinguished."
"Who's the girl?" Oz asked, frowning as he sniffed deeply.
"How the hell should I know?" growled Jon.
"It will flourish through this world and countless others," said Adria, and the crowd cheered her.
"Captain..." the Doc said through gritted teeth and Jon looked at her for the first time since Adria had stepped out. She was quivering, every muscle in her lithe body locked as she glared up at Adria. "Talk me down..."
"Uh..." Jon floundered, put on the spot.
"The believers among you have been richly rewarded," Adria told them, gesturing to the black-haired girl beside her. "With truth... With Origin."
"Think of tea," Andrew suggested. "A nice cup of hot tea..."
"Not helping!" the Doc told Andrew.
"It is now up to you to help others to see as you have seen," Adria said.
"Scones?" tried Andrew.
"Andrew!" snapped Jon as the Doc took a predatory step forward.
Adria's voice rose, "To spread the message by joining the armies of the Ori!"
"You were excited about the Goa'uld healing device," Oz remembered.
The Doc's lip curled back. "Jonas," she snarled, tensing further as Adria beckoned the girl who accompanied her, slipping through the curtained doorway and out of sight.
"If you promise not to cause another pile-up I'll give you a driving lesson when we get back," Jon offered desperately.
"Really?" she asked, turning to face him.
"Re-" Jon started speaking a split second before the Odyssey beamed them up. "Ally," he finished.
"That is so cool!" Andrew enthused.
"What happened?" Jon and Mitchell spoke at the same time. They looked at each other and after a moment, Jon stepped back, deferring to the senior officer. He tried not to scowl about it. He really did.
"That's what we're trying to find out," Colonel Emerson told them.
"Dude, you've been onboard before," Oz quietly reminded Andrew.
"Sir," said Marks. "I'm not picking up any life signs on the planet."
"What?" asked Carter.
"Yeah," Andrew replied excitedly. "But this is so cool! Life signs!"
"But that's impossible," Carter continued over the top of him.
"What is it?" Emerson asked Marks. "Sensor malfunction?"
Andrew squeaked excitedly. Jon glared at him.
Marks shrugged. "All systems are operating normally," he told them, baffled.
Andrew squeaked again as Daniel stepped forward, concerned.
"There are thousands of people on that planet," the archaeologist said.
"He's right," Sam confirmed, reading the information over Marks' shoulder. "We're not picking up anything."
"Question," said Oz, still standing next to Jool. "What happened to Adria?"
Vala's hands twisted together, writhing as the two SG-teams turned to look at her. Daniel's face softened compassionately as she bit her lip and he took a half-step towards her.
"I'm just... going to find the restroom," Vala told them, pointing at the open door. She fled from the room.
"Good idea," Jon approved of her plan. "Me too."
l
When the radiation wave from the Stargate hit the village, Adria had a tight grasp on Deama, both physically and mentally. Her necklace was clasped around both their necks as the two clung together, in an attempt to extend the Orici's protection to her Clava. Adria pushed her rage and fear aside, focussing all of her resources on shielding Deama from the radiation that buffeted them, on keeping herself and her Clava alive.
l
Back on Earth, Caroline Lam was making her rounds of the SGC's latest wounded. Entering Jonas' room, she observed him for a minute before she touched his chart. Considering his injuries when he arrived, and the length of time it had been since, he was doing remarkably well. His treatments with the Goa'uld healing device had certainly made a difference. They should be able to remove the shunts in his chest within the next day or so.
She checked them, making sure they weren't clogged, before she picked up his chart. Flipping through it, she was pleased to see that the latest CAT scan of his head showed almost no more swelling. They could take him off the medication that was keeping him in a coma.
The swelling had also gone down on his spine, but what it revealed wasn't encouraging. In that case, the swelling had masked the fact that some of the nerves in his spine had been severed. Jonas would definitely have mobility problems. Only time would tell to what degree.
In the meantime, Caroline made a note on his chart to take him off some of his medication. It was time for Jonas to wake up.
l
Onboard the Odyssey, Jon was on his way back from a quick bathroom break when he caught sight of the Doc, dressed in a red hazmat suit with the helmet tucked under her arm, her long hair pulled back in a plait that swung across the small of her back as she hurried towards the bridge. Jon frowned. What the hell?
"Hey!" he snapped. "Doc!"
She jumped, stopping to turn around and face him. "Sir!" she replied, looking away guiltily. "Um, hi."
"Whatcha doin'?" Jon casually asked as he reached her.
"Oh, um..." she said as he indicated that they keep walking. "I'm, uh, going down to the surface with the survey team."
"No, you're not," Jon ruled.
"What?" she demanded, staring up at him in disbelief. "Yes, I am."
"No," Jon told her firmly. "You're not."
"I am," she said stubbornly.
"Not."
"Am."
"Not."
"Captain!" protested the Doc, stopping in the middle of the hallway to glare up at him with her big cats eyes.
"Doc," Jon said evenly, looking back at her. "You knew I wouldn't like it or you wouldn't have waited until I left to get dressed. Congratulations by the way, you change quicker than Carter." Jon awkwardly stopped talking when he realised how his words could be construed, feeling self-conscious as he started walking again.
"There could still be people down there that need my help," the Doc argued, trotting beside him.
"No life signs, Doc," Jon reminded her.
"But I could help find out what happened to them," she insisted.
"We know what happened," Jon snapped. "Big energy wave covered the planet. No life signs left. Mystery solved."
"Colonel Emerson and Cam don't agree with you," she told him pointedly.
Cam? Jon frowned, glancing at her.
"They want me on the survey team," she continued. "I want to be on the survey team. I'm going!"
"What if there's radiation?" Jon asked, trying to change her mind one last time. He knew it was a possibility Carter was worrying about, she'd mentioned it to Emerson.
"Hence the hazmat," she said, gesturing to the bright red outfit she was wearing.
"Matches your hair," commented Jon, trying to diffuse the situation. She glared at him and Jon hastily backpedalled, "In a good way."
She was scowling as they entered the bridge and quickly moved away from him to join the rest of the survey team, waiting for one last briefing from Emerson. Jon watched her thoughtfully with a frown. When had she started calling Mitchell by his first name?
l
Jool wandered around the square, wondering what she should do. There were no bodies for her to examine, no way for her to analyse the effects of the energy wave. Everyone was just gone. There weren't even any animals left. It was like LA. Except it wasn't because she'd never been to LA and, as far as she knew, the people there had taken their clothes with them when they vanished. Eerie didn't even begin to describe the atmosphere.
Quarter of an hour ago she'd been standing right there. Next to a woman in that brown dress that was puddled on the floor now. Jool shivered. If it hadn't been for the Odyssey...
"What's up, Doc?" Jool jumped as the Captain's voice broke into her thoughts, delivered directly to her ear by the small earpiece she was wearing.
"Not a lot, sir," she admitted. "To be honest, I'm superfluous here."
"Oh-kay," he said slowly and she wondered if he knew what superfluous meant. He should. He was fifty years old after all. "Guess it's a good job there's been a change of plan then," he continued jovially.
"What?" asked Jool as the square around her melted away, replaced by the bridge of the Odyssey.
"We're beaming down to the Mothership in five minutes," he informed her personally, standing next to Cam and Andrew. He grinned at her and her stomach did backflips, "Time for another quick change."
l
Bright light filled a deserted corridor of the Ori Mothership. As it faded, it left behind nine heavily armed people dressed in black battledress uniforms. The shortest of the group, a man with bright red hair, screwed his face up in disgust as the large band cautiously spread out, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand.
"Gothic," Jon commented, looking around the hallway. "Think I preferred gold."
"You know your way round this tub?" Cam asked Vala.
"All the hallways look the same," she told him defensively. "I haven't got my bearings yet."
"And the goosebumps are back," Jool announced, shivering.
"There's got to be a control room," Carter told them. "I'm guessing it'll be in one of the forward sections."
"We've got a lot of ground to cover," Cam realised. "Time to split up."
There was an awkward moment when SG-1 looked at SG-13 and SG-13 looked back.
"I'm with Carter," Oz informed them all. "Looking forward to my first alien computer. Got a tablet and everything." He held it up so they could see.
"Shiny," commented Andrew. "I'm with Teal'c!"
Teal'c's eyes closed. A pained rumbling sound came from deep within his throat.
"I'll get Sam and Oz pointed in the right direction," Vala volunteered. "Daniel can protect me!"
"Uhh..." Jon wasn't sure that was a good idea. He glanced at Mitchell.
"I'll go with them, sir," seeing the look on his face, Jool volunteered. She wanted to talk to Vala about Adria's death anyway. Two birds, one stone.
"Guess that just leaves you and me," Mitchell said genially to Jon.
Jon stared at him. Joy.
l
The slayers creamed the villagers. Faith reran the scenario, casting herself as Adria this time. This time they struggled, losing Jem and Kay to the villagers. Kay left herself wide open trying to protect Jem and Jem went down moments later. Her shoulder screaming with pain, Faith ran it again. This time, they didn't lose anyone. Finally, when the sun was high in the sky and the villagers looked like they might mutiny, Faith called a halt. Even her girls were looking rumpled and Jem's rags really were falling off him now. Faith noticed Mallie sneaking peeks and suppressed a smirk. Looked like Jem wasn't the only one with a crush.
As the slayers followed the men gratefully trudging off the field, Faith noticed a giant of a man moving against the horde. It was Gelath, dark shadows under his eyes and a triumphant grin on his face. Realising that she'd spotted him, the large blacksmith raised one massive hand in an enthusiastic wave. Faith broke into a jog to meet him, the others streaming behind her as she moved through the crowd, cradling her injured arm against her body.
"Yo, Papa G!" she called as soon as she was within earshot. "What's up?"
"The sky!" he boomed back, with a hearty chuckle at his own cleverness.
Faith grinned, unable to resist liking the behemoth of a man, as she slowed to a halt in front of him, the others spreading out into a semi-circle around her. There was something so innocent about his cheerfulness.
Gelath grinned back, announcing simply, "It is done."
l
"Keep heading up," Vala advised Sam. She held one hand out flat in the air, "Storage," her other hand hovered above the first, "Living quarters," the bottom hand moved up, over the other, "Engines," she swopped hands a final time, "Priors and authorised men only. I never got that far."
"Got it," Sam told her. "Keep checking in."
"We will," Daniel promised absently, looking down another dark hallway. "Ladies, shall we?"
Vala beamed at him, "We shall!"
"Be careful," Oz warned Jool quietly.
"You too," she said seriously before turning and following Vala and Daniel. Oz turned to Colonel Carter, looking up at her.
"So..." she said. "Up?"
"Up," Oz agreed.
He had a bad feeling about this.
Jool had a bad feeling too. Her goosebumps were spreading. Trailing silently behind Daniel and Vala as they crept through the deserted corridors of the Ori ship, encountering only piles of clothes, Jool kept her slayer senses on full alert. Something was rotten in Denmark...
"Can I ask you something?" Vala asked Daniel suddenly.
"Just the fact that you have to ask makes me think I should say no..." Daniel sighed.
"Back on the Odyssey, you said you knew how I felt," said Vala and Jool suddenly began to feel awkward. "What did you mean?"
"What?" said Daniel.
"Well, with Adria," Vala explained. "You said, "believe it or not, I know how you feel." What did you mean?"
"Yeah..." Daniel said awkwardly, stopping and glancing at Jool. Jool struggled to hide her interest in what was starting to sound like a very personal conversation. "Um..."
"Oh, look..." Jool said, faking interest in what lay beyond a pair of open doors in an attempt to give them some space. She was definitely surplus to requirements right now. "I wonder what's in this room?"
Vala looked up at Daniel as Jool tactfully disappeared from sight. Daniel sighed, resuming their search of the Mothership.
"Ten years ago, my wife was taken as host by a Goa'uld," he admitted in a hollow voice, moving down the hallway, away from Vala and Jool. Vala stared at him, astonished by his out of the blue revelation.
"The framed picture..." she realised, as he walked away from her. She hurried after him, "On the wall in your office. Is that her?"
"Yeah," Daniel nodded. "Uh, her name was Sha're. We'd been married for just over a year when she was... taken," stumbling over the word, he glanced at Vala, the first time he'd looked at her since he'd started this confession. She was looking right back at him, her usually merry face more serious than he'd seen it before, even when she'd declared her relief at Adria's death earlier, onboard the Odyssey. Quickly Daniel looked away as he continued, "I swore I would get her back."
"What happened?" Vala asked compassionately as he peered into a room.
"Uh..." sighed Daniel, turning to face her. "I joined SG-1 and searched for her for over two years, but in the end I couldn't save her," he confessed soberly, his eyes haunted and far away. "For a long time I felt guilty that I'd failed her."
"And now?" Vala asked him quietly, her eyes intently taking in every nuance of his facial expressions.
"Now... at least I can draw comfort from the fact that she's no longer suffering at the hands of the Goa'uld," Daniel told her with a shrug and a sigh. "I guess, in a small way, I feel relieved too."
As Vala gazed sympathetically at him, Daniel mustered the smallest of half-smiles for her. One side of her mouth lifted sadly as she watched him move off. Behind them, Jool stopped lurking just out of normal human earshot, approaching Vala. The two friends shared a look loaded with feminine meaning as they ambled forward together in Daniel's wake.
"Explains a lot..." Jool whispered to Vala.
"Doesn't it?" Vala replied, equally quietly. Neither of them accounted for the excellent acoustics of the hallway however...
"I heard that!" Daniel called back and the two women winced.
"Hey!" rallied Jool, speaking clearly, and not wholly to Vala. "Did I ever tell you about my parents?"
"No!" Vala said loudly, going along with it. "Were they nice?"
"They were," Jool told her, projecting her voice so that it reached Daniel. He slowed as she continued, "They died in a car crash when I was six."
"Oh," Vala said quietly. Not quite the happy story she'd been hoping for...
"They refused to hand me over to the Watchers Council and died two days later," Jool elaborated. "I've always felt guilty about that. If I wasn't a slayer, they'd still be alive."
"It's not your fault," Daniel told her. He'd stopped walking, letting them catch him up, "There was nothing you could do. You were six."
"I know," admitted Jool. "But I always wonder, what if...?"
"Oh, I see what this is!" Vala accused suddenly. "You share your pathetic stories with me and I talk about mine in return? Well it's not going to happen!"
"Actually..." Jool said, glancing at Daniel. "I shared my pathetic story to make Daniel feel better about me eavesdropping on his."
"Oh, well, I feel better," Daniel said sarcastically.
"Oh," Vala said in a small voice. "In which case I apologise. Go on. What happened next?"
Jool shrugged, "The Watchers Council got custody of me of course. It wasn't so bad. My Watcher actually adopted me when it looked like I wasn't going to be a slayer. He's..." she grinned fondly. "Eccentric."
"I hate to interrupt the girly chit-chat," Daniel said smoothly. "But can we please keep moving while we have it?"
"By all means," Vala told him, gesturing him onwards. Daniel started walking and she immediately added mischievously, "Let's go back to stealing the ship."
"We're not stealing the ship," Daniel frowned, correcting her.
"Um...?" Jool objected, "Technically we are."
l
Faith held her shiny new sword delicately, getting a feel for its weight and balance. Although it was both heavier and thicker than a broadsword, almost a foot wide at the hilt, the weight was no problem for the Boston-born slayer who flexed her wrist, sending the double-edged blade cutting through the air. It was perfectly balanced and, although she was holding it in her left hand, the grip wasn't uncomfortable. Ignoring the way her shoulder protested, she switched hands, discovering that the grip was comfortable in either hand and long enough to be gripped in both although she wouldn't need to. The cross-guard was plain and functional, as was the pommel, but the blade... The blade was a thing of beauty.
Steel glittered bluely in the sun as Faith switched hands again and wove the sword in an intricate pattern, uncaring of the staring spectators surrounding her and the other slayers. Wider and thicker than any sword blade she'd ever seen before, it had clearly been forged for someone with her strength. Broader at the base, it curved gently in and then back out, almost as much, before tapering to a fine point with a pattern of flowing lines running the length of the blade. It was perfectly made. Flawless.
Reluctantly, Faith slowed her movements, lowering the sword before she turned back to Gelath. One look at his shining face told her that her idea of trying to pay him was a bad one. He looked like a kid who'd just found out it was Christmas. Who was she to cancel it?
"Gelath..." Faith said, struggling to find the right words. "This sword... It'll be my honour to fight the Ori with it."
"The honour is mine, Lady Faith," Gelath told her, bobbing his bald head in respect.
"It's Faith, Papa G..." Faith sighed, knowing that correcting him was useless. "Just Faith..."
Gelath bobbed his head again in acknowledgement, "Yes, Milady."
Totally useless...
l
Mitchell whistled as he peered into yet another room while Jon watched his six. Immediately abandoning his post, Jon peeked over the Colonel's shoulder. Directly in front of them, accessible by a fenced walkway, in the middle of the large chamber stood a conical structure, a glowing ball of white light suspended in its centre.
"Wow," said Mitchell. "Check it out."
"Shiny," Jon agreed. "Looks kinda important..."
"Exactly," Mitchell said, opening his breast pocket. "Which makes me think... Feel like dropping off some C-4 while we're here?"
"You have to ask?"
l
"You are incorrect," Teal'c solemnly informed Andrew Wells as the two traversed the hallways of the Ori ship. "The U.S.S Enterprise would be defeated by the Death Star."
"No," disagreed Andrew. "Think about it..."
"Main cannon," Teal'c pointed out.
"The Enterprise has shields," Andrew defended it.
"Capable of withstanding a hit from a laser cannon able to destroy planets?" Teal'c arched one dark eyebrow.
"But all they'd have to do is get close enough to transport a tribble on board!" Andrew revealed his master plan.
"I am unfamiliar with this tribble you speak of," Teal'c admitted as he opened one of the closed doors in the hallway. "However, I feel obliged to point out the Death Star's superior shielding technology."
While Andrew glanced quickly into the revealed bedroom, shrugging and moving on, Teal'c lingered, struck by the sense that something was out of place in the room, that something about it was wrong. At first glance it appeared to be identical to the other bedrooms on this level but when Teal'c looked closer he could see that the furniture was more study, made of solid metal. Moving into the room, Teal'c took hold of a nearby chair, pulling it towards with all his strength. The chair stayed immobile, welded to the ship's floor.
"What is it?" Andrew Wells asked, about to step into the room.
"Stop," Teal'c ordered, throwing up his hand.
Andrew froze, "What?"
"There are no door controls on this side," Teal'c noticed, examining the doorframe closely. "This is a prison."
"Pretty fancy," Andrew commented, looking around the luxurious room from his position in the doorway. "Who do you think it's for?"
Both of Teal'c's eyebrows rose this time and he regarded the young man in front of him with disbelief for a moment before moving past him, back out into the hallway.
"You don't think...?" Andrew Wells said eagerly, following him.
"It could be," Teal'c told him.
"But... that would mean that she was onboard the ship when the radiation wave hit!" Andrew panicked. "Oh, God, Faith's dead! Buffy's so going to kill me!"
"There were no clothes present within the room," Teal'c said absently, frowning as he tried to work out if he'd just heard a noise or not. "Be quiet."
"So she's not dead?" Andrew sighed happily. "Phew! That's a relief!"
"Silence," Teal'c hushed him.
"Because Buffy would not be happy if Faith died," Andrew would not be silenced. "Neither would Willow, or Xander... or– Murrph!"
Unexpectedly cut off when Teal'c large hand closed over his mouth, Andrew stared up at the imposing Jaffa looming over him. "Mmph mm mmmph?" he asked
A zat blast hit them and all they knew was blackness.
l
Oz's eyebrows raised as the doors opened and he and Sam walked into a surprisingly small room. In the centre of the room sat an ornate chair on a platform, an empty set of Prior's robes and a discarded staff lying on the floor next to it. Opposite them, a fan-shaped window showed the world outside, the deserted village streets.
"Jackpot," he commented.
"Guys, I think we've found something," Colonel Carter spoke into her radio.
"What have you got?" Daniel Jackson asked her.
"I think it might be the bridge," she told him. "And it looks like the main command interface is a chair, similar to the weapons platform in Antarctica."
"Well it makes sense that the technology would be similar," mused Daniel over the radios as Oz removed one of the panels below the computers lining the walls of the room.
"Vala, you said most of the people on this ship were simple villagers, right?" asked Colonel Carter, crouching down by the control chair to pick up the Prior's staff.
"Yes, why?" Vala replied.
"Well, I think it's likely the Priors who are flying the ships," Colonel Carter told everyone. Oz concentrated on finding somewhere to plug in his computer tablet. He'd figured that out the moment he'd smelt the place. Nothing human had been in here in a very long time. Probably not since it was built. He listened with half an ear as Colonel Carter kept extrapolating, "Unfortunately that probably means the chair is keyed to their unique brain physiology."
"Don't sweat it," Colonel Mitchell told her over the radios. "Plan B is in place."
Oz's eyes met Colonel Carter's. Plan B involved blowing the ship up. Good as a last resort, but was this the last resort?
"Okay, let's not jump the gun just yet," Colonel Carter said into her radio. "At the very least I'd like to try getting some information out of this database before we start blowing things us."
"I hear you, Sam," Mitchell's voice echoed around the bridge of the Ori ship. "But it won't be long before the Ori come back for this ship. We're not gonna let 'em..." Mitchell's voice trailed off mid-sentence and Oz looked at Colonel Carter again. She was looking straight back at him, a worried frown on her face.
The sound of multiple energy weapons priming came out of their radios.
"Cam?" Colonel Carter asked immediately. "Sir? What's happening?"
"Not much," Mitchell replied, his Southern accent deeper than usual. "But we got ourselves some company."
Oz frowned. What kind of company? Did it matter? Company of any kind was of the bad.
"Cam, report," said Colonel Carter, obviously thinking along the same lines.
"It's alright, Sam," Colonel Mitchell told her. "Just a little misunderstanding with some of our Jaffa friends. Go back to work."
Colonel Carter looked over at him. "How's it going?" she asked Oz.
"I'm in," Oz told her, looking at the complex code scrolling down his tablet. He shrugged. "Not sure what I'm looking at."
"Okay..." she sighed, turning to one of the alien consoles.
She touched something and there was a sound of something powering down as the lights dropped and the flow of code on Oz's tablet altered. Oz lifted an eyebrow, looking at her.
"What did you do?" he asked curiously.
"I'm not entirely sure..." she admitted as their radios crackled into life again.
"Sam, we've got trouble!" Daniel Jackson urgently warned them. "And Jool just ran off!"
"Odyssey," Colonel Carter instantly spoke into her radio. "This is Colonel Carter, requesting immediate extraction."
Oz disconnected his computer from the Ori machines, wishing they could have had longer for him to try and crack them, packing the tablet away in his backpack and slinging it over his shoulders as he stood. Waiting for the familiar sensation of beaming to kick in, he coiled his computer leads neatly. Tucked them into his pockets. Adjusted the straps of his backpack. Double-checked he had everything... Ran out of things to do.
"Odyssey, what's happening?" asked Colonel Carter.
"We're getting too much signal degradation for successful beam-out," Colonel Emerson told her over the radio. "As far as I can tell, the malfunction's not coming from our end."
Signal degradation? Oz frowned, taking his backpack off and pulling out his computer tablet again. He started plugging it back in as Colonel Carter relayed the bad news to their teammates. What was causing that?
"Guys, we've got a problem," Sam announced into her radio. "The Odyssey can't beam us out."
"Why not?" asked Daniel.
"Did you turn the shields on?" asked the other Daniel, sat on the floor on the other side of the room tapping on his computer tablet.
Sam winced as she examined the console she'd touched earlier, "Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it looks like I might have reactivated the shields."
"Why would you do that?" Vala wanted to know.
"It wasn't intentional," Sam snapped, annoyed at the implication that she'd done it on purpose.
"Oh."
"Can you reverse it?" Daniel asked
"I'll give it a try," Sam told him.
"SG-1, this is Odyssey," it was Colonel Emerson again. "Three ha'tak vessels are moving into positions around the planet."
"Don't chance it Odyssey," Sam told him. "We can't risk losing another ship."
"Alright," Emerson agreed grudgingly. "Be advised that we're leaving range to avoid detection."
"Busy, busy," Oz commented as Colonel Carter started to plug in her own computer tablet.
"Just another day at the office," she agreed. "What have you got?
"Not a lot," Oz admitted. "Don't think these guys use binary."
"They don't," Sam told him. "It's tertiary. There should be an emulator loaded onto your tablet to help you decode it."
"Found it," Oz said a few moments later.
They worked together in companionable silence for several minutes, each working on the shield problem. Eventually Oz frowned, finally realising what had been niggling at him since the earlier radio conversation.
"Uh... guys?" this time it was Oz's turn to speak into his radio as Colonel Carter looked up curiously from her tablet. "Has anyone heard from Andrew and Teal'c? Or Jool?"
l
Several minutes earlier Cam had been walking down a hallway of the Ori ship, talking to Sam over the radio when he was shushed by the teenager walking next to him. Who also happened to be the clone of General O'Neill, former leader of SG-1. Cam shut up. At the end of the day, he might technically be O'Neil's superior officer, but the Captain had years of experience on Cam. Once he'd shut up, Cam could hear the distant sound of metal boots marching nearby.
Something scraped along the floor behind him and he and Captain O'Neil whirled to face it, their weapons raised. Four Jaffa soldiers stood behind them, wearing full armour. They were pointing zats at them and as Cam watched, two of them activated their staff weapons.
"Cam? Sir? What's happening?" Sam's voice echoed out of their radios and Cam's hand inched up towards it as he shot a look of warning over at Captain O'Neil.
"Not much," Cam said into his radio, pressing down the button to activate it. "But we've got ourselves some company."
"Bo'rel has claimed this vessel in the name of the Jaffa Free Nation," the one in the lead announced. "Surrender!"
"Slow down, brother," Cam told him. "We were here first."
"Cam, report!" Sam's voice echoed out of his radio.
"It's alright, Sam," Cam told her. "Just a little misunderstanding with some of our Jaffa friends. Go back to work."
"There is no misunderstanding!" snapped the talkative Jaffa. "The victory is ours, and therefore the spoils!"
"Victory?" scoffed Jon O'Neil. "Is that what you're calling mass murder these days?"
"They had joined with the enemy," the Jaffa informed him.
"They were invaded by an army with massively superior firepower," Cam pointed out. He could feel control of the situation slipping away from him. If he'd ever had it to begin with.
"They should have resisted," the Jaffa said stubbornly. "No-one is innocent who joins with my enemy."
"Gee," snarked Jon O'Neil. "Wish we'd known you felt that way when we helped you overthrow the Goa'uld!"
The lights in the hallway flickered and the Jaffa reacted, spooked. Cam glanced at O'Neil, who was looking at him with a gleam in his eye. Sam... Well, he'd told her to go back to work.
"Enough of this!" snapped the head Jaffa. "The ship is ours! We have already captured Teal'c and the boy who accompanies him. Now lower your weapons."
"Yeah..." Cam said slowly, struck by the mention of Teal'c and Andrew. "That's not gonna happen."
"Mitchell," O'Neil muttered and Cam turned to see what he was staring at.
Another Jaffa patrol had flanked them and was trying to get the drop on them from the right. Cam fired at them. Simultaneously, O'Neil opened fire on the Jaffa in front of them. Cam sensed, rather than saw, them duck for cover but he was too busy keeping the other patrol busy. A zat blast hit him and Cam crumpled to the floor, his limbs like jelly, but somehow, still conscious.
l
On Camelot, enduring an impromptu and lengthy farewell ceremony, Faith suddenly found herself with pins and needles. All over. Like she had with Muerik's speech, she gritted her teeth and bore it.
l
Cam fought to focus his eyes on O'Neil's boots as the Captain backed up, seeking cover. The radio on Cam's chest burst into life as his teammates panicked but he couldn't reach it to let them know what was happening. Metal boots appeared behind O'Neil's black SGC-issue and Cam opened his mouth to croak a warning. Too late.
O'Neil collapsed to the floor, his head facing away from Cam. Cam couldn't be sure, but he was willing to bet he was unconscious. Footsteps approached him and Cam shut his eyes, praying like hell that his warning had gone unheard over the sound of weaponsfire.
"Pick them up," the head Jaffa ordered. "We'll take them to Bo'rel."
Interesting. So the chatty Jaffa wasn't the one in charge. Cam sagged as two people grabbed hold of his arms. He was starting to get some feeling back in his fingers and toes and he twitched his big toe, just to make sure he could. He started planning his next move, ready for when the effects of the zat wore off enough.
Something barrelled into the Jaffa holding his right arm, pulling him away. Falling, Cam grabbed hold of the other Jaffa's arm with his left hand, yanking him off-balance. Sprawled together in a heap on the floor, Cam flailed his way on top of the Jaffa, punching him as hard as he could.
The Jaffa threw him aside. Landing in a heap against the wall, Cam watched the Jaffa rise, heading straight for the redhead currently fighting two Jaffa further down the hallway. Reaching for the zat strapped to his thigh, Cam shot him before he got there.
He couldn't get a clear shot on the last two Jaffa though. Not that it mattered. Grabbing hold of each Jaffa's head, Jool backed out from between the two men, knocking their heads together in the space she had just vacated. Cam winced as the two Jaffa slid to the floor. That had sounded painful. Without even looking at Cam, Jool hurried over to O'Neil, crouching beside him to check his pulse.
"Captain?" she said gently. "Can you hear me?"
"Jool..." Cam croaked and she stiffened, her head snapping up to look at him. For a moment, he thought he saw something predatory in her eyes and then it vanished.
"Colonel!" she exclaimed, surprised. "I thought you were unconscious."
"Should be," Cam told her hoarsely, pushing himself to his feet. His legs weren't quite ready to support him yet, so he leaned against the wall until they were. "Got zatted."
"You look remarkably conscious for someone who just got shot with a zat," she commented, producing a penlight from her BDU breast pocket and shining it in his eyes. Cam winced as the bright light hit the back of his skull. "It must not have been a direct hit. Lucky for you. How do you feel?"
"Like crap," Cam informed her succinctly as Sam announced over the radios that the Odyssey couldn't beam them out. "Don't!" he warned Jool as she reached for her radio to participate in the conversation. "They've already got Andrew and Teal'c. Probably listening in."
Jool frowned, clicking her penlight off, to Cam's relief, and popping it back into her pocket. "Okay..." she said slowly. "What do we do?" Cam stared at her and she shrugged. "I'm a slayer," she explained. "Point me at the Ori or demons and I slay. Stick me in front of aliens and I flounder. I didn't even realise what I was sensing was Jaffa until I got here."
"Help me get O'Neil to the bridge," Cam told her. Sam and Oz were there. They could look after the Captain until he woke up and he could help them defend the bridge if necessary. "Then we'll get Teal'c back."
"What about Andrew?" Jool asked, pulling her backpack off her shoulders.
"And Andrew," said Cam as she pulled a long coil of rope out of her backpack. "How could I forget Andrew?"
"You sure you're alright to move?" Jool asked him solicitously, cutting off smaller lengths of rope.
"I'll walk it off," Cam told her, frowning. What was she planning on doing with the rope?
All became clear when she trussed up the nearest Jaffa and tossed him into a nearby room. Remarkably quickly, she had all of the Jaffa similarly disposed of, and the door shut on them all. Stuffing the rest of the rope back in her backpack, she quickly shouldered the heavy pack, leaning over to carefully pick up O'Neil.
"Want me to carry his pack?" Cam offered, pushing himself away from the wall and walking over to them on legs that were definitely wobbly. Jool looked at him and bit her lip, her eyes dancing merrily as O'Neil's head lolled against her shoulder.
"What?" Cam asked suspiciously.
"Nothing," she said diffidently, turning to go. "It's just I was going to ask if you wanted me to carry yours."
"Thanks," Cam told her sardonically, falling in beside her. "But no thanks. I can manage."
l
The ceremony was gruelling. The sun shone directly overhead, beaming down on the heads of people gathered in front of the empty stone. Faith was gasping for something to drink by the time Meurik finished his lengthy speech. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the ceremony. Oh, no! According to Meurik, the villagers had some small tokens of esteem that they wished to bestow on Faith and her followers...
Those small tokens of esteem had turned out to be baskets of food, bolts of cloth, more dresses, live chickens, jewellery, cooking pots filled with herbs and spices, perfume... the list went on and the heap got bigger. It looked like everyone there had brought something to give the slayers. No-one had given them shoes yet, Faith noticed. And apparently word had gone round that they were looking for weapons because there was an arsenal building up in a separate heap. Faith already had her eye on a set of five matched throwing knives and one of the longbows. She couldn't wait to find out if the Prior's shields protected them from arrows...
It was getting out of hand though. There was no way they could carry this much stuff. Faith was about to call a halt to it when she noticed the small parcel being placed almost directly in front of her. Pushing her way forward, through the piles of stuff, she stopped the woman who'd put it down, grabbing hold of her by the wrist to prevent her from slipping into the crowd as Faith scooped up the folded back leather.
It felt buttery soft in her hands. Shaking the folds out, Faith examined the leather pants closely. They looked exactly like the demon-goo covered pair she'd had in her bag when she'd left Earth, but this pair clearly hadn't been made in a factory. Faith had a strange feeling they'd be her size too.
"Do you not like them?" the young woman asked anxiously.
"Love 'em," Faith told her, letting go. "Wondered where you got the design." The woman's eyes flickered past Faith, up at the slayers still gathered around the stone. Faith sighed, "Val..."
She'd known there was something off about Val's reaction to the mention of her bag. Clearly, the newest slayer had clearly rifled through it before she'd handed it over to Daniel.
"Is there a problem?" Meurik asked, popping up beside them.
"Actually, yeah," Faith told him turning to face him. She vaguely noticed the woman slip away but Faith had other things on her mind. "That's enough."
"I beg your pardon?" Meurik asked, confused.
"Stuff," Faith explained, waving her arm at the piles of goods heaped in front of the slayers. "We really appreciate all of it, but we can't carry that much."
"Fendrel and Brom have already anticipated that problem," Meurik informed her, beckoning someone forward.
Faith watched in amazement as the crowd shifted and two men led a horse and cart forward. She'd assumed the horse and the cart it was attached to were background decoration, not yet another gift. Shoulda remembered... Never assume.
"M, we can't take that," Faith told him once she'd picked her jaw up off the floor. "There's no way in hell we'd get a horse and cart through the Stargate."
"Yes, we can," Mallie piped up. "Easily." Faith glared at her. Mallie bounced excitedly, "Please can we keep him?"
"You think you can get a horse and cart through the 'Gate?" Faith asked her dubiously. Mallie nodded. "This I gotta see. Pack it up. We're leaving."
"Now?" asked Meurik, taken aback.
"Now," Faith told him.
She kept a tight hold on her brand-new leather pants until they were safely stowed in her bag.
l
In an entirely separate plane of existence two beings met in a place (as far as such a plane can be said to have places, or even something as basic as geography) where the planet known to a select few from Earth as P3X-29J could be easily observed. Not that beings of such power required to visit such a place (if you can call it a place) to observe the lower planes, but it was more convenient to ensure that they were both observing the same details.
"The Believer has survived," announced the first being, who was the second to speak on their previous encounter.
"I am aware," said the second being, who had spoken first the last time. "You have failed. Again."
"Not I," protested the first being. "I have placed the other Champion in position, ready to be Called to the Omega's cause, and arranged their reunion to come. Ensuring the Orici did not find the Believer was your responsibility."
"It was not," objected the second speaker. "I had no such responsibility."
"I beg to differ," the first being said politely. "Am I expected to do everything for you? Might I remind you that I have my own plans in place to prevent the Orici from threatening us?"
"Plans which I am also assisting you with," the second being pointed out frostily.
There was an angry silence as both beings shielded themselves from the other. Natural enemies, even the thought of working together was anathema to them but more was at stake then themselves, and they had been forced to collaborate. The Ori and their Avatar posed a serious threat to the Powers that inhabited this plane. For all their sakes, these two beings were co-ordinating their defence.
Eventually the first being opened itself to the other, its tone smooth and soothing, "Come, we must work together," it said. "And this is not the disaster it seems."
"How so?" the second being asked suspiciously. "The Orici begins to gather her Oriclave."
"The Omega's coven numbers more," the First pointed out. "Now that the Believer is Clava, the Omega will activate her substitution in her stead and she will have the full complement by her side when the time comes."
"But the endgame!" fretted the second being. "With Clava by her side, the Orici will be too powerful."
"Not if all goes to plan..." the First said with a hint of satisfaction.
There was a silence and then the second being cautiously asked, "Which plan?"
l
Oz frowned as he skimmed through the coding scrolling down his screen. At first the Ori coding had seemed like gibberish, but since Colonel Carter had taught him how to convert tertiary coding into binary and he'd cracked that they were using base-eight, it was making a lot more sense. Except for one thing...
"Uh... Colonel Carter?" he said hesitantly.
Looking up, Sam smiled at him. "Call me Sam, Oz," she told him. "What is it?"
"Could be reading this wrong," Oz admitted, shrugging. "But I'm pretty sure you didn't switch the shields on."
Sam frowned. She'd rapidly been working towards the same conclusion herself, tracing back to try to reverse what she'd done but how had Oz reached it before her? She'd had to show him how to read the tertiary coding...
"What have you got?" she asked, abandoning her tablet to move over to his side of the room.
"I went through the ships log," Oz told her, angling his computer tablet so she got a good view of what he was working on. "The shields came on shortly after we beamed aboard. We hadn't found this place then."
"Good work," Sam complimented, her mind racing.
If the shields had been activated before they'd found the control room then that meant that someone else was in control of the ship. Which in turn meant that their position had been compromised. Reaching for her radio to inform Daniel and Vala, she paused as it crackled to life.
"This is a message to all of the Tau'ri on board this vessel," a deep, unfamiliar voice announced. Sam's eyes met Oz's and her hand dropped away from her radio as the voice continued, "My name is Bo'rel. My brothers and I have taken this ship in the name of all free Jaffa. We have Teal'c and the boy," Bo'rel sneered the word. "Who accompanies him in custody. Surrender now and no harm will come to them."
Sam whispered to Oz as she realised, "He didn't mention Cam or the Captain."
"If you do not identify yourselves immediately, we will have no choice but to assume your intentions are hostile," Bo'rel told them. "In which case, we will deal with the prisoners harshly."
Sam and Oz stared at each other. Sam bit her lip, wondering what Cam, or the General would do now. Should she answer?
"So be it," Bo'rel said finally.
"No! Wait!" Andrew's panicked voice was the next thing to come out of the radios attached to their chests and Oz rolled his eyes at his teammate's histrionics. The sound of a staff weapon opening carried clearly over the radios and Andrew said in a very, very small voice... "I don't want to die..."
Sam's hand was already halfway up to her radio when the doors to the room opened and it changed course, heading for her gun instead. Oz had no need to resort to a weapon. At his will, his body half-shifted into that of the wolf, his face lengthening and teeth sharpening, claws sprouting from his fingernails and his stance shifting as he bolted to his feet before Sam had drawn her gun.
"Nobody answer that!" Cam ordered as he and Jool hurried through the door, the latter carrying Captain O'Neil. "Whoa!" Cam recoiled at the sight of one gun and a half-shifted werewolf staring him in the face.
"Bo'rel, this is Daniel Jackson of SG-1," Daniel's voice blurted out of the five radios in the room simultaneously.
"God dammit, Jackson!" Cam swore, kicking the plinth of the Ori control chair.
"What happened?" Sam asked Jool as the red-haired slayer set the Captain gently down on the floor.
"They got zatted," Jool quickly filled her in. "Cam only got a partial blast."
Cam frowned as he listened to Jackson try to convince this Bo'rel that they should work together. He knew full well that he'd gotten the full blast of the zat earlier, he could remember the bolt hitting him. But here he stood, chasing the last of the pins and needles from his extremities. Pins and needles...?
"You doubt our ability to fly this ship?" Bo'rel's insulted voice brought him back to the conversation he was eavesdropping on. So the negotiations weren't going well then.
"I'm just saying, there's not a lot of time," Jackson placated him. "And it would be in everyone's best interest if we pooled our resources."
"My orders are to take this ship and all on board," Bo'rel said furiously. "You will reveal your location to me now!"
Jackson hesitated before replying, and when he did it was in a very different tone, "Uh... That won't be necessary."
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" Cam exclaimed. "At least things can't get any worse."
Oz groaned as Sam replied, "Actually, Cam..."
"You just jinxed it," said Oz.
l
Walking round the altar they had been sheltering behind, with their empty hands raised above their heads, Daniel and Vala shared a glance, each drawing comfort from the fact that the other looked unconcerned. In truth, both had separately and jointly been in worse circumstances in the past and each was confident in their ability to talk, or otherwise extricate themselves from the situation. Besides, they had several people on their side who had yet to be captured.
"You're making a big mistake," Daniel told the four Jaffa confidently as he and Vala stood where they were shoved and roughly patted down for hidden weapons. "More Ori ships will be here soon."
"Mmm-hmm!" Vala agreed emphatically, nodding.
"Then they will suffer the same fate," the Jaffa holding their radios informed them.
"I think not," disagreed an all-too-familiar female voice.
With a feeling of dread, Vala looked around the empty room, searching for the source of the voice. Beside her, Daniel did the same as a familiar black-haired girl in a blue dress sped into the room, crashing into the nearest Jaffa and knocking him to the ground as her foot lashed out to kick another in the head. Daniel and Vala exchanged bemused looks as the girl knocked another Jaffa out with an uppercut before whirling on the fourth. A statuesque brunette woman with eyes the colour of whiskey appeared in the open doorway, clad in a floor-length golden gown complete with a thick choker in the same fabric, clinging to the doorframe to support herself.
"Adria?" Vala gasped, feeling as through the floor had just dropped out of her stomach as the last Jaffa hit the floor. So much for an easy escape...
Next to her, Daniel quickly knelt, scooping up a zat that had landed near him and pointing it at Adria. Against his will, his hand opened, the weapon tumbling uselessly to the floor as a staff weapon levitated up, pointing at him. It activated and Daniel's arms moved up, his hands encircling his throat as Adria forced him to strangle himself and the teenaged girl took an angry step towards him.
"Okay!" Vala burst out. "We all know darling, that you have telekinetic powers. You can stop showing off now!"
Just like that, Adria dropped the staff weapon, sagging further. Daniel's hands relaxed their grip, although she kept them wrapped around his throat for now. A reminder of what she was capable of.
"Mother," Adria smiled happily despite her weariness. "I knew you would come back for me."
"What happened?" asked Vala as the black-haired girl moved towards her daughter.
"She exhausted herself protecting me," the girl told her, easily supporting Adria's weight and helping her to enter the room.
"How is it that you're even alive?" Vala wondered. "Everyone else on the planet was killed."
"The Divinity's necklace," the girl said and Daniel frowned up at her.
"It holds a piece of the Holy City of Celestis," Adria explained weakly. "It protects me, keeps me safe."
"Oh," said Vala, wishing it didn't.
"You keep me safe," the black-haired girl said to Adria, gazing adoringly at her. At their waist-level, Daniel rolled his eyes.
"Always," Adria told her seriously, caressing her cheek before she turned to Vala. "Oh, Mother, I've missed you," she said, wrapping her arms around her. "They said I should forget about you. That you had abandoned me because you didn't care."
"No," Vala told her, awkwardly returning the embrace.
"Soon the other ships will come for us," Adria said to Vala. "And once we're back with the fleet, I promise you Mother, we'll never be separated again."
l
"We need a plan," said Cam.
"You and Oz go rescue Andrew and Teal'c," suggested Jool, dumping her pack on the command chair and opening it. "I'll go get Daniel and Vala while Colonel Carter looks after the Captain and works on a distraction."
"Good plan," Cam approved as Jool began to pull various pieces of medieval weaponry out of her bag, discarding each one. "Once we've got everyone, we get the hell off this ship, understood? We don't know who's in control here, but it sure as hell ain't us."
"I think I can cut the power to the whole ship," Sam told them, as Jool hefted a mace thoughtfully. "The Odyssey still can't help us, it's too far from range, but it must just buy us the time we need to get off the ship."
"Yank it as soon as you hear we've got the others," Cam told her. "We need every advantage we can get."
"I'll keep radio silence until you give the okay," Jool said, snapping the head off the mace and swinging the improvised cudgel experimentarily.
"Why don't you take the staff," Sam suggested.
Looking at the Prior's staff that lay on the floor, Jool shuddered. That thing was evil... she could feel it spilling off in waves from the staff, like an oil slick. "Rather not if I'm honest," she admitted, stuffing her rejected weapons back in her large bag. Looking at the sheer amount of weaponry she could pack in there, Cam was surprised that she hadn't clanked like the Tin Man as she'd walked earlier.
"Why not?" Sam asked, curious.
"Because-" Jool started to snap, bracing one hand on the hand rest of the Ori control chair.
The chair lit up and several new lines of data spilled across the screens surrounding the room. Jool snatched her hand away as the others stared at her in shock, backing away from the chair as the lights faded and the data disappeared.
"Huh," said Oz.
l
Vala watched her daughter suddenly frown, glancing up a section of the ceiling. Unnoticed by Adria or the young girl accompanying her, Daniel and Vala exchanged a desperate look. They needed to get out of there, as soon as possible, before the other Ori ships showed up. But how were they going to escape from Adria? Unless, Vala suddenly realised, they took her with them...
"Listen," Vala said suddenly, seizing her chance, and Adria's hands, while she had it. "We're not rejoining the fleet. You're coming with me."
"What about Deama?" Adria asked, glancing at the girl.
"She can come with us," Vala recklessly promised. She glanced at Daniel, who looked horrified at the thought.
"No," Adria pulled her hands away, rejecting the idea. "I cannot abandon my army."
"It's not your army," Vala told her.
"Of course it is," Adria insisted.
"Well, as your Mother, I'm putting my foot down," Vala informed her. "You're too young to have an army."
"They look to me for guidance, for protection," Adria told her. She turned to Daniel, saying ominously, "And for answers." She released Daniel's arms, concentrating on forcing him to answer as she demanded, "Tell me what happened to my people here on this planet."
His eyes caught in her, Daniel gritted his teeth, refusing to let the answer pass his lips. Pain wracked his body and he shook violently with the effort of resisting her.
"No," Vala protested. "D-Don't. He doesn't know anything!"
Daniel's tongue twisted in his mouth, forming the shape of the words he refused to say. Pain passed into agony as Adria attempted to pull the information from him.
"Adria!" Vala snapped, breaking the Orici's concentration.
Daniel sagged back, gasping for air as he massaged his sore throat, staring up at Adria. And he'd thought the Goa'uld hand device was bad? His brain felt like Adria had just shoved it through a juicer.
"You have a strong mind," Adria told him, and Daniel had a horrible feeling that she meant it as a compliment. And possibly something she was looking forward to breaking.
Kneeling beside him, Vala slipped her arms around him, helping him steady himself. Breathing began to come more easily and Daniel relaxed as Adria walked past them, the young Deama following her. Towards one of the unconscious Jaffa... Suddenly, the bad feeling in the pit of Daniel's stomach was back as Vala helped him to stand.
"Wake up, Jaffa!" Adria commanded and the Jaffa's eyes snapped open, a look of confusion on his face. Adria smiled at him, "Welcome back."
Bending down, Deama pulled the disorientated Jaffa to his feet, easily holding him immobile in front of Adria.
"Now tell me," the Orici said to him as he struggled against Deama's grip. "What happened to the believers who came to spread Origin to this world?"
The Jaffa remained silent and there was a muffled snap as Deama broke one of his fingers. The Jaffa grunted, but refused to reply.
Adria's eyes narrowed before she strove for a more reasonable tone, "Yours is a backward people," she told him. "Too primitive to have created such an effective weapons. So tell me... how did it come into your hands?"
Another snap and still the sweating Jaffa refused to reply.
"Tell me!" she insisted as Deama broke another finger, twisting the Jaffa's wrist painfully.
"Stop it," Vala objected, stepping forward.
With a flick of her wrist, Adria sent her mother tumbling backwards. Only years of honing his reflexes meant that Daniel caught Vala before she hit the altar with considerable force. Still, the impact hurt her.
"Don't interfere, Mother!" Adria snapped, her eyes intent on the Jaffa. "Where, Jaffa...?"
l
Under certain circumstances, even having to abandon a technically superior spaceship because a mysterious other person was in control of it had its upsides, Jool reflected as she sprinted through the ship's corridors. For example, it meant that there wasn't enough time to play Spanish Inquisition with a certain slayer and the Ori control chair. No sitting in the comfy chair for Jool... Which was good, because that small glimpse she'd got of the inside of an Ori Mothership was more than enough for one day. Possibly even the rest of the year.
Colonel Carter had only had a few moments to babble excitedly after Jool had accidentally activated the chair before Cam had interrupted her, but the blonde astrophysicist had made the most of it. Fortunately, as Cam had reminded his teammate, they didn't have time to stop and run experiments. They had to get off the ship. Which meant that Jool had to find Vala and Daniel. Not as easy as tracking down say, a werewolf, in the large ship. At least she knew where she'd left them. They couldn't have got into too much trouble in the meantime, surely? After all, they were kind of under armed guard...
l
Jon groaned as consciousness began to return to him, lifting one hand to cradle his aching head. He was lying flat on his back, and the Jaffa who'd jumped Mitchell and him hadn't bothered to tie up his legs either. That was good.
"Si-Captain," said Carter and Jon frowned. When had the Jaffa captured her? "How are you feeling?"
"Like crap," Jon told her succinctly, opening his eyes and pushing himself up into a sitting position to discover that not only had Carter not been captured but that, apparently, neither had he. His former second in command was hunched over her tablet computer, currently hooked into an Ori computer in what looked like it was probably the ship's control room. Jon frowned, "What happened, Car-Colonel?"
l
Outside the room where Bo'rel was keeping Teal'c and Andrew, Cam watched in amazement as Oz sketched his plan of attack in the air with concise gestures. The gestures might not be military-standard, but they got the message across easily enough. Basically, Oz's plan was to enter the room, chasing the two Jaffa within out so that Cam could shoot them. Cam frowned, seeing a fatal flaw. Why would the Jaffa run from Oz?
"Gotta change," Oz whispered almost silently, slipping into the room next door and Cam suddenly remembered.
Oz was a werewolf. The thought of the half-man, half-wolf creature that had greeted Jool and him when they had entered the ship's bridge should have been enough to keep that fact firmly in the front of his mind but the laconic, currently red-haired, man was so laid back usually that it was easy to forget his supernatural background, especially when he was at his mild-mannered human height of five foot four.
The beast that joined him would have been taller than Cam if it had travelled erect. Instead, it shuffled on all fours in a shambling gait. When it caught Cam's eye, Cam could almost have sworn that it chuckled. It lined itself up with the wall opposite the door, crouching and meeting Cam's eyes again. A nod to Cam and a bound later and the werewolf was gone, springing off the wall to launch itself into the room.
Panicked shouts and cries immediately echoed from the room, followed swiftly by the sounds of alien weapons activating. Concerned about Oz and the others' safety, Cam used the noise to mask the sound of his own zat opening. Two Jaffa tumbled backwards out of the room, firing wildly back the way they had come. Easy pickings for Cam. Two Jaffa hit the floor.
Oz padded out of the room, his mouth wide open and his tongue lolling as his breaths huffed and wheezed out of his throat. Cam frowned, reaching out and giving his fur a rough stroke as he passed.
"You okay?" he asked when the werewolf Oz paused to look up at him quizzically.
Panting, Oz nodded his canine head up and down and carried on, back into the room he'd used to change. Cam went ahead, to free Teal'c and Andrew. To his surprise, Teal'c was already stood at a large table, picking through the SG equipment there to find his own. Andrew was still gagged and tied to a chair, making moaning sounds and rolling his eyes at Cam.
"All right guys, lets hustle," Cam told them, grabbing his knife and heading over to Andrew. "It's time to get off this gravyboat."
"We are in fact aboard an Ori Mothership," Teal'c informed him, picking up his packs of C-4 and stowing them in his breast pocket.
"Yeah, well, it's one ship we don't have control of," Cam updated him as Andrew stood and stretched, reaching for his gag. "Time to get gone."
"Oh my God!" Andrew babbled excitedly as soon as his gag was loose enough for him to talk. "Did you see their faces? That was so cool! I wish I'd got it on tape, we could have called it When Werewolves Go Bad!"
"Good," Oz corrected him mildly, with only a hint of hurt, doing up his shirt as he entered the room. "No Jaffa were bitten in the making of this program."
l
Standing in front of the DHD, Faith took a deep breath. The others were staring at her, and Liss was standing just behind her, peering over Faith's shoulder, notebook and pen in hand as she waited for Faith to start pressing buttons. As usual, Faith had no clue which ones to press. Mentally shrugging, she reached out and hit seven glyphs at random.
The inner circle of the Stargate in front of them began spin, and the horse shifted restlessly. Mallie had blindfolded the animal but his nostrils flared as the Stargate selected the glyphs and he gave a panicked whinny when it activated. Mallie calmed the beast as Faith turned to her.
"Okay, Mallie," Faith said with a grin as Liss wrote the Stargate address into her notepad. "You're up!"
Faith watched with first amusement and then disbelief as Mallie led the blindfolded horse up the stone steps leading to the Stargate. The stuff in the cart shifted dramatically when it hit the incline and there was the sound of breaking crockery. A cabbage fell out of the back while muscles twitched restlessly beneath the horse's coat. Mallie stroked his neck, muttering soothing noises as she urged him on, up the steps and through the Stargate.
"Fuck me," Faith said weakly, amazed.
l
Vala cringed, hiding her face in Daniel's shirt as Daema plunged her hand deep into the Jaffa's stomach and he howled in agony. Although Daema couldn't have been older than fifteen, she easily held the Jaffa with one hand as he struggled against her.
"Where is the weapon?" the Orici demanded.
"Da..." the Jaffa she held captive struggled against her, the answer choking its way up his throat despite his best efforts to stop it. "Dakara."
Adria nodded and Daema snapped his neck. Vala flinched at the sound, moving closer to Daniel for comfort. Her own daughter terrified her, she realised with sickening fear as the Jaffa's lifeless body fell in a crumpled heap on the floor. What had she given birth to?
"Dakara..." Adria mused.
Which is exactly when ten stone, five foot and eight inches of enraged red-haired Englishwoman barrelled into the room, intent solely on slaying the giant source of evil in front of her. Unfortunately, all she had to accomplish that task with was a stick. It was a thick stick, which had until very recently been a mace, but it was a stick nonetheless. And Adria had a slayer to protect her. Daniel jumped convulsively at the sight of Jool and Vala turned to look as the two slayers clashed in the middle of the room.
"No!" cried Vala, breaking away from Daniel and rushing towards them as Deama hit Jool.
Moving quickly, Adria restrained her as Jool swept Deama's legs from underneath her. "Careful Mother," she cautioned. "My Clava can dangerous, as I well know." The Orici frowned broodingly as the two slayers wrestled for the upperhand on the floor.
"Jool wouldn't hurt me!" Vala protested, struggling to get past her while Deama bashed Jool's head against the floor. Repeatedly. "She's my friend."
"But Deama might," Adria said smoothly, and Vala stilled, cautiously looking at her. "And that would be... unfortunate."
Jool had stopped moving and Deama smashed her head into the floor one last time before she rose to her feet, calmly walking towards Adria and Vala. "I would not harm the Holy Mother," she protested mildly and Adria smiled gently at her as Daniel slipped by them to kneel by Jool's side.
"You killed her!" Vala accused.
"She's alive," announced Daniel, his fingers on Jool's pulse.
Adria smiled at Deama again. "Good," she praised and Deama beamed at her. Reaching out, Adria enfolded Vala into another hug. "You have brought me another Clava," she said gratefully. "I could not have asked for a better gift."
Behind Adria and Deama's backs, Vala's worried eyes met Daniel's troubled blue-eyed gaze. They were in serious trouble. Adria was alive and onboard, and their strongest fighter had just been neutralised. Could things get any worse?
"Okay, gang," Mitchell's voice came from their radios and they both stiffened as Adria let go of Vala. "Time to get the hell out of Dodge."
"Too late," Adria commented coldly. They stared at her and the lights went out.
Adria scowled and concentrated.
"On our wa..." Sam started to say over the radios, her voice tapering off as the lights came back on and the distant whine of engines began to build.
"Sam?" Mitchell questioned.
"I didn't do it!" Sam said, her voice panicky as the ship began to lift off.
"Jool, you there?" demanded Mitchell. "Jackson? Vala!"
l
Faith felt Adria as soon as she stepped out of the Stargate, her flesh crawling under her skin. In front of her, a tense Mallie was leading the horse and cart down the stone steps of the Stargate platform, staring straight ahead at the village in the distance and the Mothership rising above it. Faith stared at it as the other appeared out of the active wormhole behind her, knowing that there was nothing she could do to prevent the ship from leaving, while her slayer senses were screaming at her to move, to attack.
"Adria!" spat Liss.
With a bound, the Langaran Slayer was on her way down the steps, sprinting towards the village. Nya moved a split second after her, rapidly overtaking her despite the fact that the Ori ship was accelerating fast, soon a distant pinprick in the sky which disappeared entirely, taking Faith's wiggins with it.
"Wait!" Faith yelled after them as the others shifted restlessly behind her and Mallie stared up at her, waiting for her orders. Nya and Liss paid absolutely no attention to her, streaking towards the village. Reluctantly, Faith sighed. Suddenly she had a lot of sympathy for Giles, who she and B had often left trailing far behind in their dust.
"Let's go get 'em back," she told the others, trudging down the steps.