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Chapter Four: Secrets Revealed

*
Later that morning, Isabel walked into the Crashdown, and found Max and Liz having breakfast. She looked around, hoping to see Alex in the diner as well, but he was no where to be found.

"Hi, Isabel," said Liz. "Come on over and join us."

Isabel walked over and sat down at the table.

"Hey, sis, what's wrong?" asked Max.

"Have either of you seen Alex this morning?" asked Isabel.

"He was here a few minutes ago," said Liz. "He had to go meet the people he called for last night at Sheriff Valenti's office."

"I'm surprised you aren't there, Max," said Isabel.

"We don't want to draw attention to ourselves unnecessarily," said Max.

"Oh, yeah," said Isabel.

"Isabel, you don't seem yourself this morning. What happened?" asked Liz.

"Its Alex," said Isabel. "I...I dreamwalked him last night."

"You did what?" asked Liz. "Isabel, how...why would you do that? He's your friend..."

"I had to try and find out what is going on," said Isabel. "Anyhow, I saw...things, in his head. Confusing things."

"Like what," said Max.

"Not now, Max, really," said Isabel. "I can't talk about it. I told Alex...what happened, and he took off. He was upset."

"That explains it," said Liz. "When he was here earlier, he was so...flustered. I guess that's why."

"Look, I have to meet up with Michael," said Max. "So, I'll see you two later."

After Max left, Isabel asked Liz if they could take a walk. They left the diner, and headed down the street. Over the years, Isabel and Liz had become like sisters, and talked about a lot of things. Now, Isabel needed a friend to talk to about Alex.

"Liz, I didn't...mention something, about Alex and I," said Isabel. "After I...dreamwalked him, I...we...slept together."

"You slept with him!" said Liz in a startled expression. "Damn, I lost the bet."

"What bet?" asked Isabel.

"Michael, last night, laid odds that you and Alex would, quote, be 'doin the horizontal mambo by night's end'. I said I thought you two wouldn't. Boy, was I wrong."

"Yeah, well, I told him about the dreamwalk this morning, when we woke up," said Isabel. "He was pissed! Said I had used him, and just...took off. God, Liz, I screwed up! I just...I can't seem to get anything right with Alex, I keep hurting him!"

"Look, Alex has always had a special place in his heart for you," said Liz. "He always will. Give him some time, then apologize to him. He'll forgive you."

"I hope so," said Isabel.

"So, was it...nice?" asked Liz. "Before...when you two were..."

"Liz! Come on! I can't...its...private. But, I will say this. I loved being in his arms when I woke up this morning. It felt so right! I think he felt the same way about it."

"So, what you saw in Alex's head," said Liz. "Did it give you any insight into who or what the Goa'uld are?"

"I'm not sure," said Isabel. "The images were so...confusing. I saw Alex fighting in this battle in some desert. No where around here. Then, the dream...changed, I guess that's what happened, because I saw...other things, in his mind."

The two women continued to walk and talk. What they did not know was that a man had overheard part of their conversation. He watched them walk down the street, and pulled something from his pocket.

"Kel nock, ree," said the man.

"What have you to report?" asked a voice through a small communications device.

"I have overheard two of the humans talking," said the man. "They mentioned the Goa'uld. They may know about our presence, my Lord."

"Follow them," said the voice in reply. "I will come, and together we will collect them for interrogation."

"At once, my Lord," said the man.

**
A black, government issue car pulled up in front of the Roswell Sheriff's station, where Alex and Sheriff Valenti waited. The members of SG-1 got out of the car, and Alex approached Colonel O'Neill.

"Sir," said Alex, coming to attention. "Welcome to Roswell."

"At ease," said O'Neill, shaking Alex's hand. "Got here as soon as we could, Whitman."

"Colonel O'Neill," said Alex, "this is Sheriff Valenti. Sheriff, Colonel O'Neill."

"Colonel," said Valenti, shaking his hand.

"Sheriff," said O'Neill. "We here you've got yourself a bit of trouble with a mysterious dead body. Mind if we have a look at it?"

"Not at all," said Valenti. "Come with me."

A little while later, Valenti, Alex, and SG-1 were in the morgue, standing around the now infamous corpse with the infamous burn mark on his chest.

"There is no doubt, O'Neill," said Teal'c, his Jaffa emblem on his forehead concealed by a black, wool cap. "This wound was made by a staff weapon."

"Um, Teal'c," began Jack. "The Sheriff..."

"Knows about the staff weapon," said Alex. "I was heard using the word, last night, on the phone."

"What?" asked O'Neill. "I thought you were on a secure line!"

"It wasn't his fault," said Valenti. "Someone eavesdropped through the door, and heard Alex mentioned the staff weapon."

"Sir, I know this is going to be difficult, but...you can trust Sheriff Valenti," said Alex.

"Oh, I see, and when did you become a General with authority to hand out security clearances, huh?" asked O'Neill.

"This is my town, Colonel," said Valenti. "If something weird is going on here, I want to know about it."

"That's classified, top secret, Sheriff," said O'Neill. "Need to no basis. You don't need to know."

"The hell I don't," said Valenti.

"Excuse me, Jack," said Daniel Jackson. "We may not want to shut out Sheriff Valenti completely. After all...he knows the lay of the land around here."

"So does Lt. Whitman," pointed out Teal'c. "The Sheriff's presence is not required for this investigation to succeed."

"Alright, I don't know who the hell you people are," began Valenti. "But if there is going to be an investigation of this death, I WILL be involved in it!"

"Sheriff, please try to understand," said Major Carter. "This is bigger than you can imagine. It is way over the head of anyone who is not experienced with dealing with the forces involved here."

***
Liz and Isabel walked through the alley behind the Crashdown towards Liz's car. "Thanks, for listening, Liz," said Isabel.

The two women hugged each other. "It will be alright," said Liz. "Tell Alex how sorry you are, flash him those big puppy dog eyes of yours, and he'll forgive you."

"Excuse me," said a strange sounding voice.

The two women turned and saw a man standing at one entrance to the alley. He was tall, with a tan complexion, steely blue eyes, no hair, and a small black goatee beard. His voice startled Liz and Isabel because it sounded...inhuman, somehow.

"You know something about the Goa'uld," said the man, as his eyes seemed to glow.

"Liz," said Isabel. "Run for it."

They turned to head the other way down the alley, but saw two men approach them with strange looking hand held devices, shaped sort of like curled snakes. They pushed buttons that caused the tops of the devices to pop up, then aimed them like weapons at Isabel and Liz.

"You will come with us," said the voice of the man behind them.

Isabel reached out with her power, and sent the two armed men flying back against the wall.

"Run, Liz, NOW!" yelled Isabel.

Without another thought other than survival in mind, Liz ran past the two knocked down men towards the back entrance to the Crashdown. But before she could follow, Isabel was grabbed from behind and spun around.

Isabel tried to reach out with her power and shove the man's grip away, but before she could, he raised a hand to her forehead and revealed a gold gauntlet attached to his hand. A light emanated from the gauntlet that paralyzed Isabel and robbed her of ability to move, or even think clearly. She collapsed as dead weight into the man's arms.

"ISABEL!" screamed Liz from the door to the Crashdown.

"Jaffa, cree!" yelled the man now holding an unconscious Isabel.

The other two men got up and fired their weapons in Liz's direction. Blue energy bolts emanated from the weapons, but missed as Liz slammed the door before the shots could hit her.

The two men started towards the door, but the other stopped them.

"No!" he said. "We must go! We have this one, and I want to study her and her strange powers! Come!"

"At once, Lord Imhotep," replied one of the men.

Liz listened at the door and heard what they said. As they left, Liz closed the door all the way shut.

"I have to find Max," thought Liz.

****
About a half hour later, Alex and the members of SG-1 entered the Crashdown diner.

"So, this used to be your high school hangout, Whitman?" asked O'Neill. "Cute. They've got the whole...alien theme."

"Indeed," said Teal'c. "I believe Thor would love it." This was referring to Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard, an alien ally who looked much like the gray aliens described in the Roswell stories.

All of them turned to give Teal'c a strange look. "You've been hanging around Jack O'Neill too long," said Dr. Jackson.

"Just as long as they have good coffee," said Major Carter. "We've been up all night."

"ALEX!" screamed Maria, running out of the back room of the diner. Following her were Max, Michael, Tess, Kyle, and Liz.

"Maria, what's wrong?" asked Alex.

"They took her," said Maria.

"Who took who?" asked O'Neill.

"Who are these people, Alex?" asked Michael.

"These are the people I called," said Alex. "This is Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, Dr. Jackson, and Teal'c. Now, who has got who?"

"Isabel," said Liz. "The...Goa'uld took Isabel."

*****
A short time later, everyone was gathered in the back room of the Crashdown. After a flurry of questions from Colonel O'Neill about how his friends knew about Goa'uld, and who Isabel was, they were all now hearing Liz explain what happened. Alex sat on the arm of the couch, in shock to here that the woman he loved was now a prisoner of the Goa'uld.

"They fired these weapons at me," said Liz. "They shot some kind of blue lightening, but hit the door instead of me."

The members of SG-1 looked at each other knowingly, recognizing the description of a Zatnickitel weapon (called Zat guns for short).

"Then, the man with the gauntlet ordered the other two, the ones he called Jaffa, to leave me be and go with him. They took Isabel, but didn't say where they were going."

"Why would these things take Isabel?" asked Michael. "Was it because they used her power on them?"

"Yeah, what exactly is...her power?" asked Major Carter.

"Not so fast," said Max. "You people haven't actually been overflowing with information either. Just what the hell are these Goa'uld and what are they doing here in Roswell? How do you know about them?"

"That's classified..."began O'Neill, but was interrupted by Alex.

"The Goa'uld are a parasitical life form who take human hosts, and use other humans as slaves," said Alex. "They rule many worlds across the galaxy, and once ruled this world as the gods of ancient civilizations such as Egypt."

"Whitman!" said O'Neill. "What the hell do you think you are doing!? You could be court marshaled for this?!"

"I don't care!" said Alex. "All of this...secrecy is not helping Isabel. And these people can help us, because Max, Isabel, Michael, and Tess are not entirely human."

"ALEX!" yelled Max and Michael at the same time. "What are you doing?!"

"The end to the secrecy goes both ways!" yelled back Alex. "I don't care about any of it anymore! That snakehead has Isabel, and I think the only way we are going to get her back is to work together! The Goa'uld being here in Roswell could be a major threat to this planet, too. So, its time we stop dancing around each other and work together! That means NO MORE SECRETS!"

"How do you know about these Goa'uld, Alex?" asked Kyle.

"We are part of a military command that uses something called a Stargate to travel to other worlds," said Dr. Jackson.

"DANIEL!" said O'Neill. "Now you're doing it!"

"Jack, Lt. Whitman is right," said Jackson. "The Goa'uld being here in secret on Earth is a major threat, and these kids apparently can help us. I mean, from what Liz here says, Isabel threw two Jaffa through the air with some kind of mind power."

"What did Alex mean by you not being fully human?" asked Major Carter. "I mean, if we are going to be exchanging information here, let's exchange some."

Max looked at Tess and Michael, who both gave him silent looks that said "its up to you." He nodded, and turned to reply to Major Carter.

"We are...alien/human hybrids, left here on Earth by aliens many years ago," said Max. "We were meant to be the saviors of another world called Antar, but...we've instead built lives for ourselves here. We are mostly human, have human emotions, grew up as human children."

"But you do possess special powers," said Teal'c.

"Yes," said Tess, backing their leaders decision. "We do. Max is our leader, and the others....Alex, Liz, Maria, and Kyle...are our friends. And spouses." She said the last part taking Kyle's hand in hers.

"Holy shit," said O'Neill. "So that whole Roswell story was true. I always thought that it was just hillbillies in trailer parks seeing too much through their moonshine. Then, later, I thought it might be the Asgard, but..."

"Look, what matters now is getting Isabel back," said Liz. "We can deal from the fallout of all of this later."

Sheriff Valenti came into the room. "I just got some news," he said. "A state trooper spotted three men fitting Liz's description, along with a girl matching Isabel's likeness, traveling on the road outside of town towards the place where that body was found."

"Sir, they might have a concealed ship near that spot," said Major Carter. "Perhaps a transport, cloaked so as not to be detected. It's a good place to start looking."

"Agreed," said O'Neill.

"Liz," said Jackson. "Did the Goa'uld or Jaffa say anything else, that might clue you in to where their base was, or what they are doing here?"

"No," said Liz. "But I do think the Goa'uld's name is Imhotep. Its what the Jaffa guys called him."

"Imhotep," said Jackson with a startled expression.

"Wait, wasn't that the mummy from those movies?" asked Maria.

"Yes, well, the producers of those films took a name from real Egyptian mytho-history, and used it for their own...fictitious and totally flippant stories," said Jackson. "The real Imhotep was a brilliant architect and scientist from the early part of the Old Kingdom period of ancient Egypt. He was one of the designers of the pyramids. It was also said that when he died, Imhotep ascended into god hood."

"Which would mean this Imhotep became a host to a Goa'uld symbiot," said Teal'c. "I have heard of humans who served the Goa'uld and who showed great intellectual prowess being taken as hosts by younger Goa'ulds."

"I see," said Carter. "Thus combining the intellect and abilities of both host and symbiot."

"So what do we do about it?" asked Michael.

"We gear up," said O'Neill. "And crash Himhostep's party in the desert."

"Um, Jack, that's...Imhotep," said Jackson.

End of Chapter Four. Chapter Five coming soon.

Well, what did you think? Are you breathless with anticipation? Don't miss the next exciting chapter, and please do leave some feedback in reviews if you would like. I'd continue to love to hear any comments you have about the story.