A/N:

Sorry for the relatively short post, I'm currently overseas on a business trip. We're beginning to get into the endgame for the story, so the action is picking up. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 36:

Lord Ba'al, goa'uld System Lord, had a smug look on his face; and well deservedly, he thought. Capturing the 'Fire-Haired Banshee' was a boon, and picking up SG-1 in the process was, as the tau'ri would say, icing on the cake. His robes swished as he walked down the corridor and examined the human amazon's futuristic helmet. His leather soled slippers padded softly on the polished corridor flooring, making soft squeaking noises that he just now realized he could hear again that the alarms had stopped.

He smiled, perhaps his Jaffa had finally gained the upper hand over the fire in his Death Glider bay? It was a nasty trick the tau'ri had pulled, and a masterful distraction. He would have to find out which of his prisoners' idea it was. Somehow, though, he already knew it must be the newcomer. It certainly fit her personality, at least from what he could glean from Athame. He put that from his mind and returned to the amazing piece of armor in his hands.

As a technophile he marveled at its complexity, well beyond anything the goa'uld or the tau'ri had yet deployed. He wondered what manner of technology was packed into it, what breakthroughs it and the rest of the Banshee's armor might provide. And therein lied the problem; he wondered. He should know! Not because he was a god like those idiot-Jaffa were raised to believe, but because his newest associate, Athame, should have been able to tell him. Athame, as the goa'uld he had implanted into the blue beauty had come to call herself, had been up and about for nearly two days now, and she had still yet to provide him with much useful information.

Sure, she had provided some intel, and all of it interesting; just hardly any of it actionable! It didn't help him to know she was from another dimension, or that she had come here with her flame-haired mate. It was only marginally useful to know that her mate was a war hero and a soldier of exceptional power, skill, and cunning, he had seen that already! and that she would surely come to rescue her. Athame indicated that the abilities her host had displayed at the dig site were a phenomenon from her dimension called biotics. When pressed for a demonstration, however, she couldn't muster much more than a brilliant blue glow and some shaking flatware. Athame claimed that her nervous system was still recovering from the trauma of the concentrated zat'nik'tel fire. She claimed the same excuse when Nirrti asked her detailed questions on Asari biology; she was having difficulty remembering for now, but things were 'coming back'.

Once again Ba'al quietly questioned himself if implanting the Asari, as she was apparently called, was a good idea. Goa'uld were ambitious and treacherous by nature. If she really was as powerful as he thought she was, he had quite literally handed a loaded weapon to a potential rival. Perhaps Athame's nervous system was still recovering from her host's capture. Then again, she might just be playing him, biding her time until she could kill him and take over his empire for herself. Was the display she put on during the capture of SG-1 indication her powers had returned? Fortunately this goa'uld was young and impressionable, and more than a little hedonistic; he would keep a close eye on Athame. For more reasons than one, he thought with a libidinous grin.

Ba'al rounded a corner and entered his lab. Separate from Nirrti's biology laboratory, here is where Ba'al and his disgusting minion Nerus were pouring over the technology they had netted along with the exquisite Asari. As Nerus was hunched over the device which they had come to know was called an omni-tool, Ba'al decided to more closely inspect the helmet. He turned it over in his manicured hands, it looked weathered and battle worn. A battled-hardened warrior indeed. We don't allow many of those amongst the Jaffa women, perhaps that's an untapped talent pool, Ba'al mused to himself. An odd 'N7' symbol was emblazoned on the side. On a whim he placed it upon his head. It hardly fit, and it smelled oddly of strawberries. He cocked an eyebrow, the blue creature smelled like that before Athame had summoned a group of scantily-clad human slave-girls to bathe her and sew her that odd, yet elegant, dress.

He removed the helmet from his head, "What have you learned!" he shouted at his vile underling, enjoying the sudden jump of surprise.

"M'lord Ba'al, you startled me," he said, as he tried to conceal something in his robes. Ba'al narrowed his eyes. He knew Nerus wouldn't dare steal from him. Seeing he was caught, Nerus sheepishly produced some sort of pastry.

Ba'al rolled his eyes, "You better not be getting crumbs in the equipment again," his deep voice warbled. He privately longed for the day he would dispose of this foul cretin. Alas, he was just too useful to do away with. Yet.

"Of course not, m'lord."

"What have you found?" Ba'al demanded a report as he gently placed the amazon's helmet on the work bench next to the small omni-tool device.

"It is as Athame says, m'lord," he began wringing his hands, "the device seems to have suffered some ill effects from the manner in which the blue beauty was captured. From what menus I have been able to access and translate, it is currently in a diagnostic mode and attempting to effect repairs."

"Does it estimate how long it will take?" asked Ba'al, becoming increasingly frustrated with the entire situation. He could feel the technology just outside of his grasp, and he wanted it badly. He was also growing increasingly convinced that Athame was playing him, at least a little. The Asari had undoubtedly already installed translation software for the goa'uld language. Those SGC cretins would have made sure of it if it was possible. He was also somewhat surprised they had even allowed her to take such an advanced piece of technology offworld in the first place. But their stupidity was his gain, if he could just unlock its secrets!

"No m'lord," Nerus recoiled at Ba'al's facial expression, "It does not."

Ba'al scowled at Nerus who recoiled visibly, hoping to avoid his master's wrath long enough to finish the pastry he had shoved into his pocket. He was granted a moment's reprieve when Lord Ba'al's first prime entered the laboratory trailed by one of his engineers and dropped to a knee before his god with a swish of his cape, "I report, my Lord."

Ba'al looked at his underling. He still hadn't had an opportunity to find a replacement for his First Prime, so he couldn't yet execute him for his failure to capture the Amazon woman; the forms must be followed after all, regardless of how competent this aged Jaffa usually was. He was pleased that the knowledge of his impending doom was not hampering the quality of his First Prime's performance, though. He made a mental note to see that his survivors were not destroyed as was the usual custom for disgraced Jaffa commanders. Ba'al prided himself for being more refined than his other System Lord associates. If his vast memory served, his First Prime was a widower, who now only had one child, a teenage daughter. Perhaps Athame could use a serving girl, he pondered. Then he smiled, maybe that wasn't quite looking after her after all.

"Rise, Jaffa," Ba'al said regally, "What is it that you report to your god?"

"My Lord," said the First Prime with his head bowed, the engineer hadn't risen from his knee, "this station will be of no military use for some time, and may need to be evacuated," he said plainly.

Ba'al's eyes narrowed. I'm definitely throwing his daughter to Athame, he resolved. "Explain," he commanded.

"My Lord," the First Prime said, motioning to the kneeling Jaffa engineer, "your chief engineer and leader of the damage control party has come to deliver a detailed summary of the damage."

With a curt nod of Ba'al's head, the engineer rose and addressed his god. Generally Jaffa weren't allowed to learn the intricacies of goa'uld magics, but the goa'uld were too limited in numbers and too snobbish in temperament to boast many technicians; necessarily they trained some of their more astute and loyal, "M'lord, the tau'ri weapon destroyed 80% of the death gliders and al'kesh in the affected hangar outright." The engineer spoke matter-of-factly, but he did not raise his eyes to look at anything but the floor before him. "The secondary explosions amongst fuel and improperly stored ammunition destroyed the rest."

"Improperly stored?" Ba'al demanded.

"Yes, m'lord. The commander of your air group was running drills on rapidly loading the gliders in preparation for a surprise attack by any of your foes. He is dead, m'lord." He swallowed hard, resigning himself that the old adage, don't kill the messenger probably didn't apply to this situation, and continued. "The armored doors to the main magazine were closed; else the station would have most likely been destroyed. Loading hatches to the two adjacent death glider bays, however, were not. The fire spread to the adjacent hangers, as well the associated workshops and maintenance areas. Fuel storage was compromised, and firefighting activities are ongoing, but so far proving difficult.

"The heat and fumes are almost instantly lethal to the human slaves in the damage control parties, and even our symbiotes barely protect us from the toxic gases released by the combustion. The fires have mostly abated for lack of fuel, but we cannot enter the area to assess what damage might have been done to the magazine armor, or the power plant."

"Then vent the affected compartments to space. That will put the fires out, dispose of the toxic gases, and allow at least some of the heat to radiate away into space," Ba'al responded flatly. It was a basic engineering problem with a basic solution, why had this underling not already done what was obviously the next step?

"But, m'lord, that will kill all of the slaves and Jaffa working in those compartments."

Ba'al moved in a blur. He reached out his gilded hand weapon and held it out over the insolent engineer's forehead. His knees buckled in pain and he shrieked. "I care not for the lives of slaves or your work crews if it means keeping this station operational. Do not presume to know my will when prioritizing the expenditure of assets, as that is all that you are."

Ba'al released the Jaffa, he crumpled to the ground. "You will lead the damage control party personally, after you designate a successor for when you succumb to the heat and fumes. You will regard that as punishment enough for presuming to know the mind of your god, and you will not die shol'va!" His eyes flashed menacingly, "Go now!"

Well, sometimes he was more refined than his colleagues.

Major Carter had a bad feeling about their chances. Things were not going their way. SG-1 had been captured and disarmed, then brought to a holding area under the watchful eyes of a squad of Jaffa and the goa'uld Athame. Commander Shepard was a catatonic lump on the floor where the Jaffa had left her. The alarms that had started after the detonation of their distraction in the death glider bay had just ceased. She couldn't tell if that meant they had the fires under control, or if they had just gotten tired of the incessant hooting and shut them off; but she had to assume the worst. It had been well over fifteen minutes and there was still no sign of Yu's forces' detection and Ba'al's troops' reaction to it; though, honestly, Samantha couldn't decide if that was a plus or a minus given their current situation. Worst of all, the object of their rescue mission was not just a hostage, but a host to a goa'uld symbiote; and Athame seemed to be eying her rather troublingly.

One of the Jaffa guards finally realized that the folded rectangle on Shepard's back was some sort of weapon and puzzled over it for a few moments before snatching it away from her. Odd, Carter thought, Athame should have pointed that out to him. He looked it over dubiously and presented it to his goddess with a bowed head, "Some sort of weapon, Mistress."

Athame snatched it from the Jaffa with an annoyed facial expression and deployed it to its unfolded position. She ejected the spent thermal clip and snatched a fresh one from Shepard's belt with a twitch of her biotics. With smooth, well-practiced movements she slotted the new thermal clip home, cycled the charging handle, and deactivated the safety. In a single, fluid motion she brought the weapon up to her shoulder, pointed it at the Jaffa guard's face, and squeezed the trigger. The Jaffa's head disappeared in a cloud of red mist. Flecks of skull and grey matter speckled Daniel Jackson's glasses. The rifle's report echoed throughout the holding room. Then, stunned silence.

"A goddess expects her Jaffa to be more observant when searching prisoners for weapons. He paid for his carelessness." She paused and looked about the room at the remaining Jaffa. To their credit, their faces did not show the surprise they were feeling. "How vigilant will you be in the future?"

Athame absentmindedly tossed the Valiant rifle to one of her Jaffa and turned to look at Carter. Samantha swallowed, hard. She knew that this wasn't Liara. Liara would never do something so cold and calculated. Or would she?

"You look upset Samantha," Athame said with smile. Carter realized her mouth was agape. She closed it. "There's no reason to be," she continued as she approached. Carter wanted to retreat, but the staff weapon pressing into the small of her back said otherwise. "You and I will have a long and," she paused, smiled, "enjoyable life together." Athame reached out with her hand. She gently trailed her fingers along her jawline. Samantha tried to recoil, but, again, the staff weapon said no. "I may even let you continue your career in science, perhaps you can be my Lucen?"

Athame then ran her fingers through Carter's hair, seemingly reveling in the sensation as she let the strands slide between them. "Of course," Athame made a fist and pulled Carter's hair savagely. Carter yelped. "You'll have to grow your hair out like Shepard's," she said smiling, "I do love the feeling of long hair between my thighs." Carter gulped. Shepard sobbed loudly. Athame bobbed her tattooed eyebrows and smiled a wolfish grin.

Oshu, First Prime in the service of the goa'uld System Lord Yu-huang Shang Ti, looked out of the view port on the pel'tak of his command ha'tak and beheld Lord Ba'al's space station and its security picket, still blissfully unaware of his approach after the rapid destruction of its pitiful recon screen. It was exactly where the mysterious intelligence reports said it would be. It was exactly as massive as the mysterious intelligence reports said it would be. And so, all of Oshu's training and combat intuition told him that this was a setup. This made him cautious. After all, in his long service to the great Lord Yu, he himself had laid many a trap such as this; all warfare is based on deception. But, despite the implied and more direct adage, 'do not swallow the enemy's bait', his course was set. His lord had given him his orders, and the destruction of this station was certainly a prize worth risk. The fact that his ship's sensors revealed that the station had already sustained massive damage only added to his wariness; but he was not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, as the tau'ri would say.

Oshu had long suspected a large installation or, if it was his to design, an integrated network of smaller ones, in this sector of space. How else could the cursed Ba'al project such power in this corner of his master's domain? But he was taken aback by its sheer size. If he could destroy, or even just cripple the station, his master would have enough strategic breathing room to direct his attentions elsewhere in his realm.

He only hoped that his Lord Yu realized that somewhere forces were playing him, and that a time of reckoning with them would soon be at hand. It must be. He was growing increasingly doubtful, though. Despite all of Oshu's skill and dedication to his master, like those who had come before him, Lord Yu's increasing age and failing health made conducting operations more and more difficult. Oshu held no false impressions that Yu was a god like many Jaffa did, but he was loyal nonetheless; for many reasons.

He opened the fleet-wide communications device, his words broadcasted to nearly two dozen ha'tak and twice as many more al'kesh supporting vessels. This message, and the soon to follow explosions, would be the first indication for Lord Ba'al's forces that something was amiss. Oshu, First Prime in the service of Lord Yu closed his eyes and took a breath to center himself. He thought of his duty to his master, his loyalty to him, and the gratitude he felt for the honor of being entrusted with this task and of the kindnesses his lord had shown him and his family. He would never fail them.

"In the name of The Jade Emperor, the exalted Lord Yu-huang Shang Ti; open fire!"

Nirrti, temporarily-renegade goa'uld System Lord, marveled at the ancient device's display. She was not one to be easily impressed; but this thing, was remarkable. The tiny organism, just barely entering what the tau'ri would call the gastrula stage of development, was a treasure trove of genetic information; and it was hers! She smiled to herself knowing that for all of his technical prowess, that idiot Ba'al would never know how to fully exploit all of the secrets the blue creature's progeny offered. Gadgets and toys could dazzle, but true power lied in the ability to manipulate life itself! Her mind raced as to how she could advance her hok'tar research by leaps and bounds by just the data she'd collected in the few days she'd had to study Athame's cells and that of her embryonic spawn.

She smiled, however, with the knowledge that the hok'tar which she had sought for so long was no longer the end-all-be-all she had striven for. No, she thought, hok'tar is just the beginning. This, Asari, is the future of the goa'uld! she thought. Even if she couldn't duplicate the biotics, which that manipulative bitch Athame obviously refused to demonstrate properly for them, the longevity alone would make a superior host than the tau'ri. Nirrti pondered the benefits of a thousand-year lifespan without need of a sarcophagus and its debilitating long-term effects on the mental faculties. And with judicious sarcophagus use? She arched an eyebrow, this definitely bears more study.

A lesser goa'uld might have thrown a tantrum that so many centuries of effort had been rendered obsolete, but not Nirrti. She was objective enough to accept this odd turn of events, and use them to her advantage. Begrudgingly, she appreciated this trait in her host Ba'al as well, and was happy that few others shared it. If more of the System Lords were as rational, she thought, then the constant battle for supremacy would be much more complicated and vicious. It's already bad enough as it is.

She discreetly looked over her shoulder to see one of Ba'al's Jaffa observing her. True to his word, Ba'al had been a perfect host; providing all of the equipment she needed, and the guards, servants, and trappings due any System Lord. The guards, of course, were his; undoubtedly waiting for the command to kill her at the slightest hint of treachery. At least his minions know their place and maintain the appropriate distance, she thought as she checked a small data device she had set to hack into Ba'al's computer network. No luck yet; network security no doubt the work of the vile cretin Nerus.

Nirrti had no intention of sharing her findings with Ba'al, no matter how suave he tried to pretend to be. He was using her, plain and simple; and she him as no one thought to look for her here. Hopefully her hacking tool would soon penetrate Ba'al's computer network and give her access to a means off of his station, as well as a means of purging all of her research data from his storage devices. As of yet, no luck, so she left it to continue it work. Instead she directed her attention back to her display. There were fascinating hints of a defect in the genetic code for the nervous system with delicious implications if she could fully understand them. Nirrti was so engrossed in her study she almost didn't notice the floor thud beneath her.

She didn't fail to notice the 'battle stations' alarm sound.

The floor thudded dully beneath their feet, the 'battle stations' alarm blared loudly. Lord Yu's forces had apparently breached Ba'al's defensive picket and were engaging the space station proper. Better late than never, thought Samantha. Athame's Jaffa cast furtive glances up at the ceiling and the exterior walls, obviously just waiting for that one lucky shot to hole the compartment and vent them to space.

Major Carter glanced to her side and met gazes with Colonel O'Neill; he was worrying about their prospects as well. Thus, her attention was on her commanding officer when it happened, so she almost missed it in her periphery. Athame had once again taken Shepard's face possessively in her hands, looking down upon her with a combination of superior smugness, lewd affection, and barely contained lust. It happened quickly; Carter almost lost it in a blink. Athame's eyes flashed to black, then glowing orange, and then back again to their blue-within-blue. Then, just as quickly, Athame's eyes rolled up into her skull and she collapsed.

The Jaffa guards looked at each other worriedly and sprang into action. A pair kept their staff weapons trained on SG-1 while the rest attended to their goddess. They all seemed to ignore Shepard who was slowly pulling herself up onto her knees. "Mistress!" one of them shouted. He knelt beside the fallen Asari, laying his staff weapon beside her. "Mistress, are you well?" he asked leaning over her, gently shaking her shoulders. Carter looked into Liara's face. That must be Liara, she thought. Her eye closest to the floor opened. At just the wrong angle to see it, the assisting Jaffa didn't react. Liara locked gazes with Samantha, smiled warmly, winked, and then glowed like the surface of a blue star.

Once you see the flash, Carter thought in a sardonic historical reference, it's already too late.

The actinic Cherenkov glow emanating from Liara was so quickly joined by a similar light radiating from Commander Shepard that Major Carter instantly understood that this was a coordinated attack. That's what that flash of the black-oil-eyes must have been, she thought. Shepard was off like a shot, flashing the distance between herself and the nearest Jaffa in an instant. Breaking the speed of sound with a thunderclap she left a glowing ghostly after-image behind herself. Shepard pushed the Jaffa into the nearest bulkhead and his body impacted with a loud thud. A fraction of a second later his bald head whipped around on his shoulders and impacted the wall with a sickening wet slap. The back half of the Jaffa's skull crushed flat against the gilded metal bulkhead, his eyes bulged, dilated, and bled.

The Jaffa guard was already dead, but Shepard didn't stop there. She balled a fist, wreathed it in a biotic glow and punched the Jaffa through the abdomen. She came away with his symbiote in her glowing fist, and crushed it with a snarl. In a smooth, ballerina-like movement Shepard released the dead man, pirouetted, snatched the staff weapon from his now lifeless hand, and twirled it to bear on the Jaffa standing behind Colonel O'Neill. She fired the weapon a fraction of a second before Liara made her move. The staff weapon bolt streaked past Jack's ear, singing the hair over his right temple, and impacted the Jaffa on the bridge of his nose. The top of his head disappeared in a steaming, charred lump of grey matter and skull.

But Carter did not see any of this. Her attention, rather, was focused on Liara. Mesmerized by the elegance of movement and brutality of violence that was about to unfold before her; also, to no small extent, and much to her surprise, by the Asari's beauty of form and grace.

Liara placed her right hand, palm down, on the gilded floor. She took a breath, her freckled breasts bulging slightly over the top of her dark blue dress, and closed her eyes. A biotic bubble formed above her. The surface shimmered and crackled. The hair on Carter's head and arms stood on end even from several meters away in the static electric field. What dust there was in the room gathered at the surface of the bubble and danced on its perimeter. Suddenly Liara balled her off-hand into a fist and the bubble rapidly expanded. The surface of the biotic field accelerated hypersonic almost instantly and Carter witnessed a distinct shockwave form ahead of it. A near discontinuous change in air pressure, the shockwave looked like a crack in glass and it moved through the room; the air just couldn't get out of the way. It left a faint Wilson Cloud in its wake.

Carter, a holder of an advanced degree in Aeronautical Engineering, couldn't help but wonder at what she was seeing. The expanding condensation cloud reminded her of the Crossroads Baker shot in Bikini back in 1946. The sudden drop in pressure behind the atom bomb's shockwave had created a condensation cloud that wasn't often seen on subsequent tests because the fireball heated the water droplets and evaporated the cloud. Which was exactly what was happening now, she realized. Liara was also radiating an intense heat; the Wilson Cloud disappeared nearly as quickly as it formed. Some corner in the back of Samantha's brain wondered if Liara was radiating in the ultra violet band, it felt as if she might be getting as sun burn her skin was so hot. Doctor Samantha Carter PhD marveled, this is incredible!

The biotic bubble / shockwave impacted the Jaffa trying to assist his goddess. It hefted him upwards as if it were a physical wall. With a grunt the air was forced from his lungs as his torso rose towards the ceiling. His silver-colored boots flew off with centripetal force and one impacted Daniel Jackson in the groin; he doubled over with a yelp. The helpless Jaffa was going for a ride; his legs, however, had just enough inertia to not keep up with the rest of him. Muscles stretched, tendons groaned. The stocky Jaffa's legs separated from his body with a blood-curdling ripping sound, and hurtled across the room, barely missing another Jaffa's head. Carter imagined that he might have screamed if not for his head whiplashing around and slapping hard against the virtual wall of air and biotic energy hurtling towards him.

Blood geysered from the Jaffa's open hip sockets as he continued to rocket towards the ceiling, propelled by Liara's expanding biotic bubble. A fraction of a section after it had begun for the now legless Jaffa, it ended; or at least started to. The holding room had a fairly high, uniformly flat ceiling with recessed lighting. The ballistic Jaffa impacted the ceiling with a sickening crunch, obviously already dead. The still-expanding biotic bubble and preceding shockwave was right behind him. It impacted against the Jaffa and the ceiling and spread out like an expanding hemisphere of glowing blue energy, squeezing the Jaffa's corpse as if he were in an inverted mortar under a pestle.

Muscle and bone flattened, flesh split open, the ceiling was literally coated with the Jaffa; and all the while Liara's face was a vision of calm beauty which Major Carter couldn't take her eyes off of. She was astonished. Not just in the sheer power Liara could yield, but that she would be more focused on how elegant she was. Once again she found herself wondering what she might do if given the opportunity to meet more Asari.

Samantha's self-reflection was interrupted by a blur of blue flesh and fabric; Liara was moving. A rapid, yet graceful sweep of her left arm morphed the biotic bubble into more of a biotic wall which vectored towards the remaining Jaffa guards in case their surprise wore off enough for them to try something; all the while she angled it such that the Jaffa paste on the ceiling didn't fall on her and foul her dress. A fast-pitch under-hand movement of her right hand and a blue singularity orb sailed in-between them, still too stunned to have even decided who to aim their staff weapons at. With a bong and a ring the singularity field formed and the two men lifted off the deck. Commander Shepard dropped the staff weapon she had just fired and side-armed a warp field at the two helpless Jaffa.

A blinding, actinic flash of light had Carter blinking hard. The thunderclap deafened her. Through the ringing in her ears she could swear she heard Teal'c howl and clutch a ruptured ear drum. Bits and pieces of Jaffa and their ridiculous chainmail uniforms fluttered about the room, yet still Liara's elegant dark dress went unscathed. A few heartbeats thudded within her head, and then Carter realized there was silence. All Jaffa were dead, some spectacularly so. The space station's alarms were offline too for some reason. Teal'c, still clutching his ear, was stoically, if a bit woozily, coping with the pain. Daniel, too, quietly clutched his testicles; gently verifying that they were intact. Colonel O'Neill tugged at his ear to confirm its presence and looked at Carter with an expression of surprise. Neither of the combat veterans had ever seen violence on that particular level. It was sobering. But things weren't quite settled.

Shepard turned to regard her mate. Her face was a hardened mask, devoid of any emotion save for a methodical willingness and capability to deliver mayhem. A flash of biotics and a staff weapon lifted off the floor and came to her; her fingers tightly wrapped around the weapon's grips. Her weathered N7 Combat Armor was speckled with Jaffa entrails. Jaffa blood pooled at her feet. She locked eyes on Liara, her eyebrows narrowed, her grip on the staff weapon tightened further. Her right leg moved back slightly, and she entered a firing stance.

Liara stared back at Shepard. Her tattooed eyebrows narrowed. Her fists balled. There was such a profound silence that Carter imagined she could hear a pin drop. Then, suddenly, Liara flashed a painfully bright blue, her eyes bulged, and she pitched forward and retched onto the floor. Her whole body shuddered. It seemed as if her ample breasts would spill out the top of her dress she heaved with such might. Her headdress skewed to the side. Her eyes flashed a brilliant orange. Shepard covered her with the staff weapon, the harpoon-like tip deployed and sparked menacingly. Jaffa blood ran down Shepard's armored gauntlets, onto and down the weapon's shaft, and dripped off of the sparking tip. The cold look of murder never left her face.

With an agonizing moan the goa'uld symbiote Athame slithered forth from Liara's mouth and flopped onto the floor. Liara squeezed her eyes closed in pain, clutched her neck, and rolled away from the madly-writhing snake-like alien. Shepard blurred into action. SG-1 had never seen a living person move so quickly. A glowing boot stomped down upon Athame with such force that she left a boot-shaped indentation in the metallic floor. With a snarl she ground the goa'uld into a pulp.

Silence.

Panting, Liara rose to her knees and looked at Shepard. Shepard looked her in the eye and loosened her grip on the staff weapon. Liara came to her feet, straightened her dress and headdress, and smiled if a bit unsteadily. They shared a silent moment. Then Shepard said something in a language that Carter had never heard before. It was soft, almost lyrical; a melodic sing-song tonal pattern that reminded Samantha of Mandarin Chinese but with an accent more akin to Spanish. She could only imagine that Victoria was speaking with her wife in her native tongue.

Liara responded in kind and Shepard's face softened. The staff weapon deactivated and lowered to point at the floor. The lovers regarded each other for another moment. Shepard dropped the weapon, rushed to Liara and embraced her. Tears running down their cheeks they kissed.

Shepard was whole once more.