Ch. 44 — Some Teams are Just Cursed

"Admiral?" It was Lee's voice from the comm. Harry, Hermione, and Ron had been on their way back to the Library after dinner when the call came in. He and Ron were in one of the bathrooms.

"We've got a situation. One of the planets, P3X-974, Cimmeria to the natives, is being attacked by the Goa'uld — and they've asked Stargate Command for help defending themselves."

Harry took a deep breath. "What do we know?"

"Well, it's a planet we sent a drone through earlier, so I've got the report from that. Apparently, several hundred Jaffa and workers arrived in one of their pyramid ships and are building two more to act as docking bases for a larger mothership. They've slaughtered anyone who got close to them. They've killed a large portion of the natives in the area."

He sighed. "Making it a bit worse is that Stargate Command is responsible for the Goa'uld being there. The basic story is that the planet was protected from the Goa'uld by something the natives called Thor's Shield. When SG- One first visited the planet, Teal'c was trapped in whatever it was. To free him SG-One destroyed Thor's Hammer.

"Unfortunately, Stargate Command is . . . reluctant to help, now."

Harry sighed. "And you think we should."

"If nothing else, we can evacuate the natives before their ship and main force arrives."

"Can we get there in time?"

"Marietta says it's only about five hours away at best speed." He paused. "The Marines can engage their ground forces while we ambush the Goa'uld ship when it arrives."

"Can Stargate send through X-wings?"

"With the Stargate under watch by the Goa'uld? I'm not sure they would want to risk it — and I don't blame them. Any ship going through it would be destroyed before it could clear the gate enough to take-off."

Harry sighed. "Okay. Clear the Requirement of non-combatant personnel, notify the Marines and all the XE-wing pilots that they have fifteen minutes to board or miss all the fun."

"Fun?" Hermione said, appalled.

"You know the Marines, Hermione," he said. "How do you think they'll respond to actually going head-to-head with Jaffa — and not in a mock battle?"

He heard her sigh.

"Plus, the other XE-wing pilots have all been disappointed that they missed the action with Apophis' ships."

"True," said Ron, nodding.

Five minutes later, using the secret tunnel to get outside the Hogwarts protection spells, they apparated aboard the ship.

Ten minutes later, they were on their way.

Five hours later, as they approached Cimmeria's star system, Harry launched both XE-wing squadrons. "See if there are any other villages or areas under attack by the Goa'uld," he said as they left the outriggers. "Keep your shields up, full cloak. Maintain a sharp watch off-planet, too. We don't know which direction the Goa'uld ship will come from. Don't take a Felix Felicis gel until ordered, unless you think you are in immediate risk of being attacked.

"Marines? You're going in under stealth. Take your gel-tabs as soon as the Drop-craft hits the atmosphere. Drop-crews? Take yours, now."

He watched with a bit of trepidation as the four heavily armoured and modified Runabouts followed the XE-wings in launch. Each one was half the size of a regular Runabout, but carried double the plasma- and laser-cannons. Each held a Marine platoon, three squads of three teams each — twenty-seven fighters. With the Pilot, Co-pilot, and Gunner, that made the total complement thirty.

With magic on their side, the Marines should easily be able to roll up the Jaffa troops. They probably didn't need this many troops, based on how easily their smaller numbers had handled Death Eater attacks, but it would be better to err on the side of caution.

One ship, Requirement DC-1, would secure the Stargate, to prevent any incoming Jaffa reinforcements and to prevent any escapees warning their headquarters of what was happening. DC-2 would surround and protect the cave the locals had barricaded themselves inside.

The other two would surround and neutralize the Jaffa at the building sites. From the chatter, they were quite looking forward to clearing the ships.

Shortly after they left Earth orbit, Captain Bell, from the Galileo, had relayed to them that SG-1 had been given permission to do what they could to help the Cimmerians.

However, once they entered the system, the monitoring drone uploaded what SG-1's drones had recorded. The hoverboards and camouflaged suits made a huge difference, but the Jaffa were using the sounds of their rifles and the movement of the plants around SG-1 to locate and forestall their attacks.

Daniel had been trying to access something called Hall of Thor's Might in the hope that additional weapons might be discovered that the natives could use. Or perhaps somethings with more hitting power that a staff weapon or machine-gun could muster.

There was also a System Lord, Heru'ur, on site, apparently.

"Zach?" Harry said. "Have you had any luck identifying which of the people down there might be hosting Heru'u?"

"We should just beam them all into the brig, then sort them out," he grumbled.

Harry shook his head. "It's better to stun and marble them, first. That way there won't be any chance of mistakes."

"Harry," Hermione unsteadily said from her station. "I've been reviewing the footage from Daniel's drone in that Hall of Thor's Might. Check the left viewscreen."

He glanced over. "Yes?" he said, studying the image of a thin humanoid with very large cranium, and grey and hairless skin. Its eyes were large, black and almond-shaped, with facial features restricted to little more than a pair of small slits in the place of the nose, and a small mouth.

He turned back to Hermione at hearing her make a slightly strangled noise. She was staring at him disbelievingly.

"Harry, it's a Roswell Grey!"

He just stared at her.

She huffed. "All the UFO believers have been saying that the Roswell Greys have been watching the Earth for centuries! That an alien race actually looks like them is big news!" She shook her head. "For all we know, this ship might have been one of theirs!"

The others on the bridge looked just as startled as she was.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Huh. I guess we owe them a big thanks, then, don't we?"

She just stared back him. She shook her head and looked back at her display. "It seems that The Hall of Thor's Might is simply a communications room, and 'Thor' kicked Daniel and Samantha out."

She shook her head with a wry smile. "He's apparently unhappy that SG-1 disabled his 'Hammer' and just now accidentally revealed his true likeness to the Cimmerians before the Cimmerians had developed enough to contact Thor on their own."

Lee looked up from his station. "The XE-wings report there are only scattered settlements over this continent, perhaps two hundred thousand inhabitants, all told." He paused. "They also say that the only Goa'uld Jaffa presence is in the vicinity of the Stargate." He paused again. "The Marines have reached their landing zones and started moving to their objectives."

Over the next half hour, only positive reports came. The Marines established a perimeter protecting the Stargate with minimal effort, the same was true of the area around the cave with the local natives.

The DC-2 platoon made contact with SG-1, and regrouped closer to the cave. They left one squad in a loose perimeter around the cave, with the other two joining the Marines from DC-3 and DC-4 in assaulting the pyramid ships. The Jaffa had caught on that someone was attacking their positions and sounded a recall alarm.

Hermione had sent down one of the PiMPS to Colonel Jack. She had suggested to Colonel Jack that because SG-1 had a bit of a rapport with the natives, they should be the ones to begin treating the injured and sick natives. One of the crew talked SG-1 through their first use of the unit, and then waited on standby in case there were any problems.

Which was a ploy to keep the SG-1 team away from the fighting where they might have seen the Requirement's Marines using magic to take down the Jaffa.

In addition, the Requirement began disassembling the two pyramid docking units. They could have just grabbed the three and pulled them into space for the disassembly, but preferred removing the Jaffa and any workers in them, first. That way they didn't kill anyone unlucky enough to be on the ships at the time.

Angelina coordinated with the Marines, making sure their 'heads-up' displays kept them advised as to the positions of the enemy. As a result, it was, according to the Marines, annoyingly easy to capture the Jaffa.

They had emptied the two units under construction and were giving the third, the original ship, a final check for anything interesting when Hermione said, "Admiral, a ship has just entered the system. It's not a pyramid ship. It's about the same length as the Requirement, and under half the size of a mothership."

"Angel," Harry said, "Prepare to hail them. Like last time, use all frequencies."

"Aye, aye, sir! The system is on!"

That was a bit faster than he had anticipated. He took a moment to think.

"Incoming unknown spaceship!" Harry started. "This is Admiral Potter of the Defensive Space Force Ship Battlestar Requirement, you are entering an active-combat system. To avoid being drawn into the hostilities, please withdraw to the edge of this star system and await further orders. I repeat, you have entered a live-combat system, approaching further might put you under attack by the Goa'uld. We expect the arrival of a Goa'uld mothership at any moment. Please withdraw to the edge of this system."

Meanwhile, Ron was saying, "To Crew, Marines, XE-wings, and SG-One, an unknown alien ship has entered the system. It may or may not be a Goa'uld. Crew, prepare for combat manoeuvres. Marines, I show no more Jaffa or other personnel in the Goa'uld emplacements or surroundings. Move to your extraction zones. Both XE-wing Squadrons, take the first gel-tab now. First Squadron, when the ship has settled into orbit, form a globe around it and ready your lasers. Second Squadron, prepare to defend the known villages. Organize at your discretion. SG-One, please explain to the locals that an unknown ship has arrived and we may need to evacuate them to our ship at any moment. Keep them calm."

"Incoming transmission," Angelina said, "On front viewscreen."

The section directly in front of them switched from the planet below to the same image of an alien that Hermione had shown them before.

"Focus on the Admiral," Ron called, "and transmit."

"I am Thor," the creature said. "I did not expect to find you here."

"That's okay," Harry said, "we didn't expect to see you here, either. I suggest you withdraw from the system unless you wish to engage the Goa'uld mothership we have been told is on its way.

"It is of no consequence." Thor paused. "Are you a Tok'ra?"

"No, sorry to disappoint you. We have, though, taken care of all the Jaffa on the surface. When it arrives, we will take care of the mothership, as well."

Thor stared at him.

"What are your intentions towards the Cimmerians?"

Harry shrugged. "Nothing. We have no need for another planet, nor the responsibilities and problems in ruling one. We are here only because the Stargate One team accidentally destroyed the inhabitants' protection from the Goa'uld, and the Cimmerians requested their aid."

"Are you part of this Stargate?"

"No," Harry answered simply. "We heard that the Cimmerians needed help fighting the Goa'uld, so we came to help."

"This Stargate, they did not know you were coming?"

"No, they did not. They do know we did come here, and are on site at the moment."

Unfortunately, Thor being a non-human meant that Harry could not tell if he was happy, angry, or ambivalent to their conversation.

Lee and Hermione were both talking to him over his suit's comm.

"Well, then," Harry continued, after a moment, "Because you seem interested in this planet, are you capable of handling the incoming Goa'uld mothership? Or would you rather we do it?"

"I will withdraw to the orbit of the furthest planet and watch."

"Thor's ship is moving away from the planet," said Angelina.

Harry smiled. "Would you like us to remove the Stargate once we finish with the Goa'uld? I assume you are here to replace your 'Hammer', which will prevent any further incursions by the Goa'uld. However, leaving the Stargate will still allow someone else to interfere with the locals and possibly again disable your Hammer, either by accident or on purpose."

"Do you need it?"

Harry shrugged. "Not really. If we get it, we'll just put it on an unoccupied but habitable planet for later use."

"Have you done this before?"

Harry frowned. "We've retrieved three from worlds that haven't the capacity for life, anymore — all were worlds wiped clean by the Goa'uld — and one from a world where the inhabitants did not want its presence."

"You have placed these on planets with life?"

"Two of them, the other two we only recently acquired. Would you like the addresses?"

Thor was silent for a short while.

"You may take it."

"Thank you," Harry said.

The signal from Thor cut out.

The Goa'uld mothership slid into the star system not much later — the central pyramid made it a rather easy identification.

Harry hailed the ship the same as he did Thor's ship, then added, "This world is interdicted to the Goa'uld. You will leave or suffer the consequences."

The Goa'uld stared at him from the viewscreen, frowning. "I demand to speak to System Lord Heru'ur!"

It was Harry's turn to frown. After a moment's consultation with Lee and Hermione, he said, "If this Heru'ur was on the planet, he is not anymore. He is of no concern of yours."

The Goa'uld stared at him a long moment.

The screen returned to the view of the planet below, then the Goa'uld mothership turned and left the system.

Hermione sighed. "I bet we just put a new System Lord in power."

"With any luck, there will be a power struggle and they will be too busy to be concerned with us," Lee said.

Harry clapped his hands together. "Alright, let's send SG-One back through the Stargate, and then portkey it up here." He looked at Lee and Hermione. "On the way home, we can comb through our captives and find this Heru'ur. Once we copy his memories, we can see if Snape's potion can kill the prim'ta without harming the host."

The professors weren't happy that an unusual number of students had missed classes on Thursday to apparently play a game of some kind. However, their grades were good enough for the Professors to overlook them skiving off those classes, with the stern warning of not to do that again.

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Friday night, Harry was just getting ready for bed when his comm went off. Naturally, it was Lee.

"Merlin," the Commodore said, "I will be so happy when you get out of Hogwarts!" His projection shook his head wearily. "That SG-1 team is cursed!"

Harry grinned and shook his head. "What happened this time?"

Lee sighed. "They were visiting what appeared to be a desolate, airless world, P5C-353. The only reason they went there was because the MALP picked up an unusual radiation combination. After exploring a bit, they found a massive building made to house what they thought might be a time-capsule, a sphere about the size of a quaffle. It had obviously been made by oxygen breathing creatures before the planet lost its atmosphere. They decided that discovering what the power-source was that could still be working after tens of millions' of years, if not longer, was worth taking it to Moon-base. It was very heavy. It took two of them to carry it."

He shook his head, again. "They had been examining it at the base for a while when it started to get hot and emit radiation. Worried it might explode or something, they decided to take it back to where they found it. Unfortunately, just as they activated the gate, the sphere suddenly shot out a long tube that jammed into the floor, then sent a second to a wall." He gave a relieved grin. "That was when Lieutenant Rascal activated the portkey."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Really? And where did he send it?"

Lee rubbed his forehead. "We decided that we should always have a couple of Runabouts parked near the Base. When anything strange comes through, we have them hover at maximum portkey range. He sent it to one of those. It seemed safer than sending whatever came through the gate to a cell where it could still cause damage to the Base, or perhaps spread an aerosol or bacteriological agent. Because this sphere was found on an airless planet, the Roundabout doesn't have an atmosphere, either."

"Good thinking! What happened then?"

"Well, now that we have a permanent connection in the control room, not to mention an office and a liaison in the Moon Base, I told Stargate that we had removed the sphere before it could cause any further damage. And that they might want to examine the damage the sphere did to their base very carefully, in case it was trying to spread a pathogen. The Goa'uld are certainly not above doing something like that.

"Just to be sure, I'll have the ship rescan the impact points and beam anything that appears to be a contamination into space. I've already had the ship scan the sphere, and it appears to be a highly sophisticated computer of some kind, almost at the level of the Library."

"Anything biological?"

"There do appear to be organisms at a virus-level stored in a large cavity inside it, but most appear inert right now."

"Keep it in a parking orbit for now. Destroy whatever components you need to make the engines non-functional for anything but station-keeping, just in case the . . . computer decides to try to take control the Runabout."

"Will do," he said, tapping on an out-of-sight control panel. After a few moments, he said, "Done!"

They were quiet a moment, thinking.

"Send the Su Song," came Hermione's voice, "to pick up the Stargate from that planet, if it isn't contaminated."

"Maybe scan for any other of these spheres, too?" Harry added.

"I think the Su Song should come here and grab that runabout with the sphere in it, instead of heading directly to P5C-353." Ron said over the comm. "Don't take it onboard, tow it and dump it back on its planet of origin. We can check on it later without risking anything here."

Lee nodded, "I can put a monitoring comm-tricorder in the runabout so we wouldn't have to waste time going there to see if anything has changed."

Harry nodded. "Yes, that's better than keeping it here, if it is dangerous."

"I agree," Hermione said.

Lee gave a snappy salute. "Aye, aye, Sirs!"

Harry rolled his eyes, as he imagined Hermione was doing, too. "Anything else?" He waited a beat. "Then it's time for bed for me!"

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At lunch on Monday, Hermione had a few updates for him.

"You know the dozen volunteers the Galileo took to 61 Virginis at the end of December?" She grinned excitedly. "Well, they've gone through full-moons for both the moons, the farther one twice and the closer one three times, without a single nudge from the wolf!" She clapped her hands. "This means the werewolf curse is somehow connected to the Earth-Moon magic-field, and once they leave it, it has no effect on them." She grinned again.

Harry grinned back. "Excellent!" He paused. "That reminds me," he said, thinking. "I need to check with Professor Firenze about moving part of the Forbidden Forest to Mer-island at Rigel Kentaurus, and maybe another part to 61 Virginis."

She nodded. "Also, Teal'c, passed the two-month mark without any issues. It looks like about eighty-percent of all our prisoners will have the operation by the time we are through. General Hammond has suggested planet P2A-509 as a new home for them, and we've started to send groups of them through with prefab-housing. Stargate Command has a rotation of X-wing squadrons for protection, just in case." She sighed. "The ones who refuse to give up their belief in their 'god' remain on Prison Base."

"I'm sure they'll come around once they see recordings of their 'god' dying when we use Snape's potion," Harry said.

"Lee has told me that several of the 'freed' Jaffa have asked if it would be possible for us to retrieve their families." She gave him a speculative look.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Is it possible?"

She wagged her head side-to-side.

"If we can get one of the Battlestars close enough to the planet without detection, we could beam their families directly aboard. But we would have to have some way of identifying them before that."

Harry rested his elbows on the table, clasped his hands together, and rest his chin on them, thinking for several moments.

"Why don't you and Lee see what you can come up with in the way of a stripped-down ship. No labs or anything else fancy," he said slowly. "One capable of infiltration into Goa'uld territory with the best shields and magics possible, oversized engines, and as many laser systems as you can fit." He paused, still thinking. "We can use the Rings to send down the free-Jaffa. They can spread out and find their families. When they do, we can beam them back, then stasis the people and shrink their belongings, like we were preparing to do with the Earth Evacuation." He paused. "Be sure to add the same Goa'uld and explosive detections that the Moon Base has. If we plan it right, and we can get there undetected, we can pull all the free-Jaffas' relatives off planet in one trip."

He smiled. "If it works, it would be quicker and safer than trying to shepherd several thousand people through a Stargate without anyone noticing!"

Hermione nodded. "I'll ask Angelina if the Library has any ships designed for running blockades with large cargos." She chuckled. "If it doesn't, I'm sure Lee and I can come up with something."

"Sounds like a plan," Harry said, turning his attention back to his meal.

Several hours later, he again entered the small meadow classroom.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Potter," the Centaur greeted him, as if he had, once more, expected him.

"Good afternoon, Professor," replied Harry as he headed for the Professor's desk. "I thought I would check in with you on what we discussed last time. Are the Centaurs interested in helping us move part of the forest to the Mer-island at Rigel Kentaurus? And are any interested in moving there permanently? We've already talked with the Merfolk." He grinned. "They said 'As long as there aren't any wizards or muggles, we don't care what you do on the land.'"

Firenze gave him a long glance, then looked off in the direction of the real forest. "Mars is still bright, as is Jupiter." He paused. "The Elders are undecided."

"Perhaps a few of the younger Centaurs might be willing to go there for a month, then come back to give their impressions? Maybe one of the Elders could go along to see what the stars say, there?" Harry suggested. "While it is a long way from Earth, the constellations are quite similar because most of them are defined by stars tens or hundreds of times further away. Much like moving from one end of the forest to the other doesn't appreciably change the way the mountains in the far distance look." He paused, then added, "Plus, they could give us their opinion on how the part of the forest we select will fare when we move it. Also, they'll all have comms, like the one I gave you, so they can talk with the Elders, here, anytime they want."

Firenze again gave him a long look. "Many distrust the word of wizards."

Harry shrugged, "Then this is a test of bravery for any that volunteer, and a test of the word of myself, the Admiral of the Defensive Space Force." Harry sighed. "We're merely offering this to you to prevent any more clashes between wizards and yourselves, and discovery of yourselves by the muggles. We aren't going to force you. No matter what, though, we will be moving large sections of the Forbidden Forest to several new planets. We will warn you beforehand of which areas we intend to take. That will give you adequate time to make sure none of your folk are within those areas."

"I will convey your message to the tribes."

Harry nodded. That was odd. He thought there was only one tribe of Centaurs in the forest. "I can't ask for more." He paused, then said, "Would you be interested in visiting the island this summer? Just to see what I'm talking about?

Firenze looked at him speculatively. "Yes," he finally said. "I think I would."

Harry left the classroom pleased that the Centaurs had not rejected the idea out-of-hand.

He wondered if he should approach Professor Flitwick or the Goblins in Gringotts, next? Would the Professor keep their secret from Dumbles?

In between some of their other missions, the Galileo was still charting the nearby stars. Located just twenty-four point eight light-years away was 107 Piscium. It was classified by the muggle astronomers as K1V, indicating it was generating energy in its core from hydrogen fusion. It was, he had been told, somewhat older than the Sun's four-and-a-half billion years at six billion years. The star was smaller than the Sun, with eighty-six-percent of the mass and eighty-two-percent of the radius. In addition, it shone with only forty-six-percent of the Sun's luminosity. The effective temperature of the star was less, too, at 5,172 Kelvin versus 5,772 Kelvin for the sun.

On the other hand, it had a habitable zone that was quite wide, with the inner limit of about half the distance as Earth's distance from Sol and reaching to Earth's orbit at the outer limit.

The important point, though, was the planet that ranged from seventy-to-eighty percent the distance from its sun as Earth's distance from Sol. That gave it a year of about two hundred and fifty-five days.

It had an axial tilt of twenty-degrees, too, which amplified the seasonal changes brought on by the planet's eccentric orbit. Thus, it had much warmer summers and colder winters in one hemisphere, while the other had much cooler summers and milder winters as a result.

Oddly, there were three moons, although they were closer to extremely large asteroids with sizes of six-hundred, four hundred, and three hundred miles. Their orbits were twenty-four days, twelve days, and six days, respectively — give or take a few hours. The largest was the furthest at two hundred thousand miles.

The planet, itself, was slightly larger than Earth, and had a flourishing biosphere, with about a dozen continents in an ocean the covered sixty-seven-point-five percent of the surface. As of yet, they hadn't found anything to suggest there was intelligent life on it.

He thought the Goblins might like it.

It made a good candidate for the other magical creatures, too.

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Harry, Hermione, and Ron had just finished their last Friday class and were headed back to the dorm when their comms went off. Less than a minute later they were in an empty classroom surrounded by privacy spells. A projection of Lee was standing beside Hermione's tricorder, shaking his head. "Cursed, I tell you, they are cursed." He frowned. "Or maybe blessed."

Harry and the others chuckled. "Colonel O'Neill's team?" Harry said.

Lee nodded. "Just as they shut down the gate from sending SG-3 through on a routine mission, another gate connected to them. Before the iris could close, a paper came through."

That got them to raise their eyebrows.

Lee rubbed his forehead. "It seems that Teal'c's son on Chulak, Rya'c, has been taken by Apophis to be his pupil. Teal'c, naturally, wants to rescue his son. Everyone agrees that it is probably a trap of some kind; Apophis is using Rya'c as bait. The moment they step through the Gate, Apophis will know they are there. He's gotta be expecting them, he's not stupid."

Ron made a disgusted face. "If they aren't immediately caught or killed, then Apophis probably expects to use them to expose any disloyal Jaffa who help Teal'c. Or perhaps, even do like he tried to do with Cassandra, slip a bomb or something else into SGC."

Lee shook his head, "And we only just started research on a blockade-runner that would be perfect for this! We could examine each person we brought up and neutralize anything the Goa'uld planned long before we returned home."

"How far away is this Chulak?" Hermione asked.

"Marietta says it's twenty hours away, about two-thousand light years, based on the information we got from the Goa'uld ships when Apophis came here."

Harry puffed out cheeks and exhaled slowly. "Well," he said slowly, "We could take the Requirement as a sort-of proof of concept for the blockade-runner. Test our cloaking and defensive shields. Apophis wouldn't expect that, he's expecting Teal'c to use the Stargate."

"Hmm," Ron said. "We still have the Cimmerian Stargate. We could take that with us. If we run into problems, we can send SG-One back to Earth and they can try to infiltrate while we distract Apophis." He paused a moment, then added, "No matter which happens, it'll give us important information for designing the blockade-runner."

Harry nodded. "Lee, run this by General Hammond and see what he thinks."

"Also," Ron again spoke up, "see if we can send some camouflaged drones through to do a bit of preliminary scouting."

An hour later, they were on their way to Chulak. Travel time gave the students in the Crew plenty of opportunities to finish their assignments without the distractions of the castle, and get a good night's sleep.

Their cloaking-shields worked perfectly, although it was difficult to tell how much to attribute to those and how much to the notice-me-not charms broadcast by the anchor stones in the ship.

There were two pyramid ships parked on the ground not far from the small city that apparently was the capital of the planet. A third one was in orbit. There weren't any of the bigger motherships. Had Apophis only had two?

Still, they were soon in place directly over the on-ground Stargate. Moments later, the SG-1 team was in a deserted alley in the city. They would find Bra'tac first, as Teal'c knew where his friend lived. With his help, they would try to locate Teal'c's wife and son.

Harry stared at the Stargate image projected on the forward viewscreen. "You know," he said out loud, "I wonder what all the Jaffa would think if we stole Apophis' Stargate? Drop a pair of portkey-drones on the dialling device and gate, take them straight to an empty hangar in one of the outriggers." He grinned at Ron. "Not much of a god if he loses his stargate on his home planet, right?"

Hermione, Ron, and the others on the Bridge all stared at him.

Ron smirked. "Take the pyramid ships, too."

Harry sighed. "Too bad we don't know how to fly them."

Ron shook his head. "We can toss around asteroids tens of miles in size, I don't think grabbing and towing three pyramid ships will be much of a challenge. Or once we have them, loot the naquadah and toss them into the sun."

"What about their crews?" Hermione said.

Ron shrugged, "Just beam them out of the ships, either to the ground or to the brigs." He looked at Zachariah. "How many are we talking about?"

He slid the control stones around, focusing the scanners, moved a few more, frowned, and moved them again. "Looks to be about a thousand, each, for the grounded units and three thousand in the orbital."

Ron smirked. "Start with the orbital and beam the Jaffa to a clear spot a couple of miles away from the city, naked, then do the same for the grounded units. Once they're empty, haul-up the ground-bound pyramids and park them beside the orbital one for us to loot."

They considered the logistics, and decided that, if nothing else, they would take the ground Stargate as soon as SG-1 had retrieved Teal'c's wife and son. Once the SG-1 team was back at Earth, then they would see about taking out the pyramid ships.

"Uh, oh," Hermione said quietly.

Harry and Ron stopped talking and waited.

"Bad news for Teal'c," she said. "He found his wife, but she's remarried . . . to someone named Fro'tak, apparently"

Everyone one on the Bridge winched in sympathy.

"Does that change anything?" Harry said, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm not sure yet, they're arguing." She moved a stone on her console and they listened in for several minutes. "Looks like the mission is still a go," she said finally.

"Evidently," she said slowly, a few minutes later, "Drey'auc wanted to get their son out of the . . . camp. I think it's a slum," she said, frowning, "from their description."

The pure-bloods gave her curious looks.

She shrugged. "Knockturn Alley?"

They nodded their understanding.

She sighed. "And it appears SG-One will move out at dark."

"So, Harry said, "Zach, how good of a scan can you get for us of the pyramid ships so we'll know what pieces we want and what isn't worth our time?"

Zach snorted. "The naquadah. Everything else is just raw materials for us. Their personal armour can't hold a candle to ours, their weapons are jokes." He sighed. "About the only other thing worth any effort is draining their computers of all the addresses they have logged. That shouldn't take more than half-an-hour. If Hermione could put together a miniature Library, just something big enough to hold the same amount of information without the remote communications so we don't accidentally transfer in something nasty, it wouldn't even take that long." He shrugged, "Then we could go over what we had at out leisure."

Hermione nodded. "I'll get right on it with Angelina."

The plan SG-1 used worked perfectly. They quietly slid into the hallway that led to Rya'c locked room on their hoverboards, cloaks activated. The guards went down without even a murmur. Blowing open the door with C-4 was just as quick, but noisy, unfortunately.

Rya'c took one look at them and charged past them, screaming "Guards!" Fortunately, the portkey drone was already prepped, and it took only a second to ram into the boy's shoulder and activate.

"The target is secured," Hermione said through the linked comm stones SG-One were wearing. Bra'tac and Fro'tak were looking around, panicked. "Where did he go?" they said almost simultaneously.

Teal'c reassured them that the boy was now safe from Apophis, and they needed to return to Fro'tak's home as soon as possible, which they did.

Ginny was waiting in the portkey room when the boy arrived, and promptly hit him with a stupefy before he even realized he was no longer in Apophis' palace. From there, it was a quick trip to the medical suite for a full scan.

After removing the prim'ta and restoring the child to Earth normal, the Library confirmed that the boy was, indeed the genetic child of Teal'c. There were also no naquadah bombs hidden in him.

However, there were two different viruses hidden in his teeth. If he were to bite down hard, the two teeth would break and the viruses combine. Once combined, according to the projections from the library, a deadly virus that was lethal to all oxygen-carbon-based lifeforms would have been released. His teeth were quickly restored to normal and the viruses torn into the elemental atoms.

Once back at Fro'tak's home, Teal'c explained to them and Drey'auc that the Tau'ri could remove their prim'tas, and restore them to perfect health so that they didn't need a prim'ta to survive. Then he asked if they were going stay or if they wanted to go to the 'safe' planet that the Tau'ri had given them, to join the other two-and-a-half thousand 'freed' Jaffa.

Bra'tac decided it would be better if he stayed to pass-on the message that the Tau'ri had a solution for 'freeing' Jaffa from the prim'tas, and that they were very capable of going up against the Goa'uld.

The other two wanted to wait until morning to make a decision.

After a quick consultation with Hermione, Zach, and Ron, Harry decided they could easily make use of the time to dismantle the pyramid ships. He told Teal'c to tell the two that they needed to have their decision ready in the morning. They wouldn't get more than that.

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