Author: Lizardbeth Johnson
Rating: PG-13 (adult situations)
Spoilers: Season 8 Speculation, no specific plot spoilers. Small spoilers for S.7, "Death Knell" and "Lost City".
Category: Drama, Romance
Sequel: Sequel to 'Tok'ra Allegiance'
Disclaimer: If I owned the Tok'ra, they'd be getting more screen time. But, alas, MGM does.
Personal Note: I have to thank the Tok'ra Resistance group for running the Season 8 Speculation fic contest and getting me inspired enough to find the time to write. It's been awhile!
To head off possible confusion, Ishtar, the Goa'uld queen introduced in my story "Tok'ra Allegiance" is no relation to Ishta, the Jaffa priestess from the episodes "Birthright" and "Sacrifices". Ishtar was a goddess of the Babylonian pantheon, and famous for her role in the epic of Gilgamesh.
text -- internal host/symbiote conversation
Enjoy! Reviews cherished and adored -- especially since I've been away from fanfic for awhile.
GOING HOME
Prologue: "We will not surrender,not even in death"
"Deserts are boring."
Although my comment was not serious, there was some truth to it in this case. The desert around the Stargate on Tlepadi was nothing but dull gray rocks and tan sand, with a few small, spiny gray cacti scattered as far as the eye could see. The sun in the sky was hot and bright, and even the sky seemed grayish with the sand in the air. Our brown Tok'ra uniforms were probably visible for kilometers.
Jacob was always good with a quick response and he didn't disappoint. "What more do you want? A circus and dancing girls?"
I replied, "The dancing girls would be nice. But since we're going to have to go back to desert uniforms if we come here, I'm afraid they would all flee in horror."
Jacob laughed. "Such are the sacrifices we make for the cause."
In my head, Malek pretended affront. The Tok'ra desert uniform was designed through extensive study.
"Extensive study by whom?" I asked aloud, so Jacob and Selmak could share. "A committee of blind Unas?"
Jacob answered blandly, "No. By Anise."
That made all four of us laugh. It felt good -- there were not too many opportunities to laugh these days.
Still, I had to defend her a little. "You really shouldn't talk that way about one of your defenders, Jacob. Without her support, I am not sure I could have kept Delek at bay as long as I did."
Jacob sobered and glanced at me, slowing his steps. "I never really thanked you for that, did I? You risked your own position as well."
I shrugged, now a little uncomfortable. I hadn't done it for Jacob's thanks, after all. I had worked against Delek because he was wrong.
And because the accusations he was leveling against Jacob and Selmak could eventually be used against us as well, Malek reminded me.
True. Delek complained that Jacob had too much influence over Selmak. And since I was generally more outspoken than Malek, the same accusation of 'excessive influence' could come against us too. Which was ridiculous, of course. No one could seriously accuse me of any other allegiance than the Tok'ra. But the same was not true of Jacob. Delek had been very persuasive that Jacob's attachment to the Tau'ri was warping Selmak's priorities. Which was also ridiculous. The Tok'ra and Tau'ri shared the same goal, even if we pursued it slightly differently. But certain members of the council refused to see the bigger picture. It was amazing how my beloved symbiote friend had been spawned in the same batch as that Goa'uld-ish power hungry fool Delek, since they were nothing alike. "At least all that nonsense is behind us."
"I still wish you'd been able to block this recall," Jacob said. "Which idiot proposed it?"
I sighed. "Thoran, who do you think? But Anise and I didn't fight it."
"What? Why the hell not?"
"Jacob, how long do you think the Tok'ra would have continued, with all the forces and beliefs and issues pulling us apart?" I asked. "How long until certain council members' short-sightedness would destroy us, without the help of our enemies? Or until beliefs like Delek's about who we are and what we should be, spread beyond all hope of saving what Egeria believed in?"
He was silent. I knew that Jacob understood what I was saying.
For a moment we walked over the sand in silence.
"I never wanted us to be so vulnerable. The risk of bringing us all together was too high." I stepped over a cactus carefully. I had already stepped on one and discovered the spine was sharp enough to penetrate the sole of my boot. It had taken Malek three minutes to stop lecturing about carelessness, even while he healed it. The next lecture was likely to last hours. So I was now very cautious about my footing.
I continued, "But if it was inevitable, then I had to use it to get what we wanted. And I was right. The majority do not agree with the direction the council's been taking. Faced with a break in our ranks, the others finally acknowledged the truth. And you, my friend," I glanced at him with a bit of a smile, "get the unenviable task of restoring relations with the Tau'ri."
He snorted. "At least I get to go back and see the kids."
I felt his gaze on me, as we headed back to the Stargate, which was the only thing in the landscape that was interesting at all.
Finally Jacob said what was on his mind. "You're really pretty good at this political stuff. What the hell were you before you met Malek? Selmak doesn't know."
For a moment I was tempted to tell him. Jacob was my friend, and I knew he could keep a secret. But he's heard stories about me, without knowing they were about me, and I knew that if I said too much he might connect it together and figure out the whole truth. Not even for Jacob, did I want to look at those memories again.
"I ran a rebellion against the Goa'uld who ruled my planet," I answered carefully. It was a fairly common story among Tok'ra hosts, who tended to be rebels against the Goa'uld, victims of the Goa'uld, or like me, both.
It happens to be true, Malek observed.
It was also a dismal failure, I retorted.
Before Jacob could ask which Goa'uld and make me lie to him or Malek could say something well-meaning, I went up to the dialing device. "We are going to recommend moving here, right?"
Jacob gave the Tau'ri positive hand sign, of his thumb pointed upwards. "Bad clothes or not, I think it's better than staying on Mekardin. The people are friendly enough, but it only takes one."
I started pressing glyphs for Mekardin. One hundred sixteen Tok'ra, all that was left of the thousand of Egeria's children, had flung themselves on the mercy of the Mekardin people, who had long been Tok'ra allies. They were a good people, farmers and fishermen, who had been caught between Apophis and Cronus for thousands of years. They hated the Goa'uld with a religious passion.
But Jacob was right. It would take only one to betray us, and I did not discount the possibility that betrayal might come from one of the Tok'ra. The others did, roughly denying the very possibility at a time when we were so desperate, but I knew better. People, even Tok'ra, can do very selfish things when they are desperate or afraid. I did not forget Cordesh, who had betrayed the council to Apophis. Garshaw believed that he had been coerced in some way, perhaps been a za'tarc before we knew there were such things. Perhaps it was true, but we had no way to know. Regardless, Anubis had already proven to be very capable at extracting information from those who would never have otherwise revealed it.
So, at my instigation, we had been exceedingly careful, telling no one in the field about the extraction or the final destination until it was done. Everyone had been searched for communication devices and all ships had been scanned for anyone wearing an invisibility screen.
It wasn't just our safety I worried about. Our presence put the Mekardins in danger as well.
I put my hand on the activator and the wormhole opened. Jacob waited for me on the steps so we could go through together.
We stepped out, and I immediately choked on dust and smoke in the air. While coughing, I looked around, trying to figure out what had happened.
It was really all too horrifyingly clear. All of our precautions had been futile.
Once there had been a thriving settlement of some five thousand people nestled beside a picturesque half-circle cove. Their fields were on the bluff around the Stargate and they had their ships to fish and trade with other settlements along the coast. It had been a prosperous town, in part thanks to the technical improvements that the Tok'ra had introduced.
But all that was gone. Some of the wooden buildings had been blasted apart, others were still burning. Still others were buried, in the collapse of the tunnels beneath them. The wharf was also gone, and the bits of wood floating there suggested some large wave had come and smashed it and all the boats there.
"What the hell?" Jacob murmured, shading his eyes with his hand.
"An attack." And one, by the silence, that I feared was all too effective. I started to run down the path toward what remained of the village. Jacob followed.
Later, it would occur to me that we should have reconnoitered a little more before heading in there. But whatever had happened had not happened long ago, and we still hoped to find survivors.
We stumbled across our first dead, townspeople lying across the path, as though they had tried to flee. They had been shot in the back, by what looked like a staff blast. We came across four more, also shot in the back while fleeing. Then we found our first Tok'ra.
Billin, my security chief. He and his host were dead, blasted also, and half-buried in the beams of a fallen building. He held a zat in his hand, as though he had been firing at the enemy when this had happened.
But there were no enemies on the ground.
A little further along, I found another Tok'ra, this one blasted in the face so I wasn't sure who she had been. She too had a zat in her hand.
Malek and I were growing more nervous. This was not an ashrak. Ashraks prided themselves on efficient, clean kills. This was messy, like a Jaffa attack. But Jaffa did not usually take their own dead with them, and I found it hard to believe there had been none.
"Malek!" Jacob's alarmed voice brought us running.
Sometimes I hate being right. It had been neither an ashrak nor Jaffa.
At Jacob's feet lay one of the black-suited kull soldiers of Anubis that now belonged to Baal. There were two dead Tok'ra nearby, one carrying the only weapon that worked against the kull. I grabbed the weapon before going to him. The charge was only twenty percent on the power supply.
"Baal," Jacob snarled and kicked the drone at his feet.
I flinched, half-expecting it to rise. It didn't move, and I relaxed slightly, "Yes. Baal. Somehow --"
A sound behind us made us both whirl around, and I raised the weapon to point it down the street. One of the buildings on the right side was now a pile of timber, and next door, smoke was creeping out from beneath the tiles of the smithy roof, suggesting its roof beams were smoldering. But I saw nothing which had obviously made the noise.
Perhaps some rubble settling, Malek suggested hopefully. But I knew he really didn't believe it. He thought there was another drone out there. We had seen enough death between the two of us, to know that the kull which the pair of Tok'ra had killed, had not killed them.
"Maybe it was a survivor," Jacob suggested, but in a very low voice that suggested he doubted it. "We should go see."
"After you," I invited, not moving.
"You're the one with the gun."
"So I can cover you."
"Yeah, right." He drew his zat and held it ready as we moved off. "God, I hate this," he muttered.
We found more dead. Mekardin and Tok'ra all together, and all dead. They had tried to fight, but for nothing.
No! Malek froze my step, to keep my foot from falling on something in the ground and I looked, to see what he had noticed separately. A symbiote was lying dead, limp in the dust. A glance to the right, no more than an arms length away, was Delek's unnamed, unknown host, impaled on a house beam that had gone flying in an explosion.
We found another drone, dead. Anise was not far away with another of the weapons beside her. Her hand moved. At first I couldn't believe it, then I rushed over to her. "Anise!"
"Not enough..." Freya whispered, her large eyes even larger by shock. "Malek..."
Her hand moved again and I took it in my own. "Freya. I'm here, with Jacob." Some found Anise and Freya difficult, since Anise could be extremely single-minded. But I had found them loyal allies and friends. Without Anise I could never have handled the council at all.
"Kull," she whispered.
"We know. How many?"
"Ten."
Jacob swore behind me, but I paid no attention.
Her hand spasmed on mine, pain lining her beautiful face. "Anise is hurt too..." she managed. "We're dying."
"Oh, Freya, I'm so sorry..."
"... breached the tunnels... not enough weapons... all gone, Malek. Everyone." Her voice faded, sorrow replacing the pain.
Long ago Freya had come to me, sensing my grief. She is open about intimacy, it is the way of her homeworld, and she offered one night of solace and forgetfulness. I wanted to accept, even Malek urged me to accept. But I could not. Instead of becoming offended, she sat with me all night long, while we watched the waves in the moonlight. And she had sung softly, and never had spoken a word about the tears on my face. We had been friends ever since.
And now she was dying.
"Please, tell me..." she requested hoarsely, "your name."
I could never refuse a dying request, even though Garshaw was the only Tok'ra who had ever learned my name or history. So I leaned forward and whispered in Freya's ear. "Asheron, son of Marthudor the Fifth of Naritania." She smiled faintly, satisfied, and then I sang softly, the same lullaby she had sung to me, until she was gone.
I laid her hand on her chest and closed her eyes. Grabbing her weapon, I checked it, to find it was even lower on power. I threw it to Jacob and stood. "We should leave here."
"Sel wants to find Garshaw," he said reluctantly.
As do I, Malek added, subdued. Anise may not have been correct that everyone is dead.
He was trying to hold on to hope, and I didn't want to crush it. I kept my doubt as much to myself as I could, but I saw very little likelihood that the drones had left anyone alive. If they had breached the tunnels and methodically killed all that they ran across, then the only true hope was that some had escaped through the Stargate. But I didn't think that was likely either -- it appeared that the Tok'ra had stayed to try to protect the Mekardin.
They cannot all be dead, Malek insisted. They cannot.
I hope you're right.
As Jacob and I went through the rest of the ruins, I was less and less hopeful. When we found Garshaw, Thoran, and Per'sus all together I knew Anise had been right. The Tok'ra had been overwhelmed by the enemy. Garshaw still held one of the kull weapons in her hand and there were two dead kull before her, but her weapon was out of charge. There had been a third, who had slaughtered them.
Jacob and I stood for a moment, letting our symbiotes mourn. Malek withdrew from me, until I could barely feel his presence, but his shock lingered.
It was an effort to speak. "Jacob, we need to go." He nodded slightly, but didn't move.
When he spoke, he said, "Three-nine-four-two-two." At my utter incomprehension, he pulled the Tau'ri device to open their protective iris from his pouch and wrapped it around his wrist. He repeated the string of numbers again and added, "Just in case. One of us has to make it to Earth."
I nodded.
He inhaled a deep breath. "Okay, let's go."
The fire was starting to catch hold of the buildings of the central square and spreading. We had to dodge some flying embers, and the smoke was thick.
From within the burning main hall, I heard a crash, as if some timbers had fallen. Instinctively, I whirled, nerves rubbed raw by this place of death.
There was tall, dark shadow in the midst of the fire, a shape that was walking through the flames untouched. It was coming this way.
A drone. Its hand lifted, even before it cleared the flames. "Jacob, go!" I shoved him in the back, hard, and followed, diving out of the way of the blast.
Heat passed harmlessly behind me, and the steps up to the sweet shop exploded.
Rolling on the ground once, I pushed to my feet and started to run. Jacob had caught his balance from my shove and was in front, making directly for the Stargate. Two streets up, he swerved so abruptly I nearly ran into him. "There's another one!" He grabbed a handful of my tunic and yanked. The blast passed to the side, and I caught a glimpse of another kull warrior in front of us.
We dashed down the side street, hoping to evade them long enough to get to the path to the Stargate.
The "good" things about the drones are that they are stupid and slow. But the really bad things about them are that they are all but indestructible and they are relentless. I was really hoping we could work the first two to our advantage along with our weapons, or we were going to join the rest of our brethren.
A blast striking somewhere behind us gave warning that one of them had entered the street.
I followed Jacob in a sharp right turn between buildings. He asked as we ran, "Do you think we can take both?"
"If we can get to the Stargate, we won't need to."
"There's no cover getting there," he objected.
He was right. The lack of cover around Stargates was a useful thing when enemies came out of the gate, but not when your enemies were already there. Worse, the path up the bluff had no cover either, just stone retaining walls up to the knee. So if we wanted to get to the Stargate, we would have to at least slow them down.
We ran a random course between houses and through gardens, skirting the collapsed areas, until I was pretty sure we had lost them. Unfortunately, the drones were patient and probably smart enough to realize we had nowhere to go but the gate.
Jacob and I rested against the side of a house. We had circled back toward the central square, and the smoke from the fires was thicker there.
Jacob peered around the corner into the square. He ducked back and whispered, "They're both coming from the west."
West was the direction of the Stargate, which put us against the fire spreading behind us. We had no choice but to take them on now.
"We wait and shoot," Jacob whispered. "I'll take the left."
I raised my rifle and nodded.
Jacob's 'plan' smelled of desperation and I generally hated desperate plans. But then again, they had worked for me before, so maybe this would too.
Jacob gave a silent count of five on his fingers. At zero, we both leaned out, rifles extended.
I found my target on the right, but I held back to see the effectiveness of Jacob's shot. At such low power, I wasn't sure his weapon would penetrate the drone's armor.
It didn't. The blast sparkled and flowed across the surface of the black armor, rocking it back a step, but didn't stop it.
Jacob fired again and I added my firepower to his.
But both were firing back now. They have generally terrible aim, but as with any rapid fire weapon, accuracy isn't all that important. They just keep firing until they hit their targets.
The drone on the left faltered and fell.
We ducked back behind the corner, as the other drone fired our way. I shoved Jacob to make him go.
The wood at my back exploded. I was thrown to hands and knees by the force of the blast, slivers of wood like knives striking my back.
"Malek!" Jacob yelled in alarm.
"I'm okay. Hurry, back that way," I called back. Straightening to rise, I nearly fell over again. My skin felt on fire. Then, the blessed relief like cool water spread from my spine as Malek did his magic. I got to my feet and raced after Jacob.
The wounds are mostly superficial, Malek said. But there is one splinter lodged deeply just above the shoulder blade, restricting our range of motion. But do not remove it until we are safe -- it will bleed profusely.
Safe. Right. Wherever that might be. There was a family of Mekardins lying in the alley, including a toddler still clutched in his mother's arms, beneath her body where she had tried to shield him. Once I saw that, I couldn't pass by, I had to know if he was alive. I knelt down, pushed the mother over, and reached down to touch the little one. He was cold and so terribly still. We were too late.
"Malek, come on!" Jacob shouted from the end of the block.
I stood and pulled my zat'nik'tel, firing it three times at the boy and his family, until there was nothing left. Only then did I hurry after Jacob.
With at least one drone still alive and very low charges left on the weapons, it was not likely that we were both going to escape through the Stargate. There was no question in my mind which of us it should be.
Jacob had a family on Earth, two children and two grandchildren who loved him and would miss him if he never returned. I had no one, no ties to anywhere or anyone but the Tok'ra.
Malek knew it too. We will get Jacob and Selmak to Earth, he promised. We were completely as one in that moment, determined to do whatever was necessary to help Jacob reach Earth. If only one could live, better that it be one who had more to live for.
Not that I was eager for death. I had fought death for too long to give up now, but Malek just wanted our deaths to mean something. We were Tok'ra, and sacrifice had always been a possibility.
With the rest gone, it seemed more probable than ever.
Jacob and I paused on the western outskirts of town, near to the path to the Stargate.
"Do you have any charge left at all?" I asked him, in a low murmur, trusting to symbiote-enhanced hearing for him to hear me. We didn't know exactly where the drone was, and I would rather not find out the bad way.
He grimaced and raised the weapon for me to see the power supply gauge. It read barely two percent -- not enough to sting one of the drones. But maybe we could use it another way.
I held out my hand for the power supply which Jacob gave me with a frown. I tucked it in my pocket. I knew that putting the power supply on overload would not do any more damage, but one never knew when a good explosion would be useful.
Jacob set down the useless weapon and glanced around the next corner. "It's there," he confirmed in a whisper.
I peeked too, and saw the drone standing in the middle of the street, before it became the path up the slope to the bluff with the chappa'ai.
"They're like the damn Terminator," Jacob muttered.
I frowned at him, and he waved off the tacit question. "Earth film. Never mind." His gaze met mine.
Before he could speak, I laid out the plan in a murmur near his ear. "I should have enough to put it down. But not enough if there is another one nearby. Get in place behind it, and when it's down, run for the gate and dial out. I will follow."
Jacob frowned suspiciously at me, and glanced down to where my fingers casually covered the power gauge. He knew me too well, the Tau'ri general. "No stupid heroics, right?"
"Of course not," I answered, confidently. "If you have a better plan..." The best way to lie is to tell as much of the truth as possible. I never said I could kill the drone, because I was not at all sure that I could. But I could distract it long enough for Jacob to get up the path and escape.
"No, I don't." He searched my eyes and added softly, "I don't know if Sel could take being the last. So please ... make it to the gate."
I put a hand on his arm. "Jacob, go. Five minutes."
He nodded and left to get into position, glancing back once. I raised my hand, smiling slightly to encourage him, but I wasn't sure he was fooled or not.
Unlikely, Malek commented, and I was glad to 'hear' something from him. His numb withdrawal was worrying. But he will know that it must be done.
I settled into a crouch at the corner and breathed slowly and deeply to ready myself for combat. My father had taught me the technique when he'd first brought me to stand beside him in formal audiences, so I wouldn't embarrass him by fidgeting nervously.
My adrenaline level was still high, so the enforced calm tightened my focus. With heightened senses, I could hear the fire to my right, crackling hungrily at the wood, and the breeze blowing most of the smoke out to sea.
The thought brought a reflexive cough, but Malek suppressed it.
Finally, five minutes passed and it was time to move. Hopefully, Jacob was ready.
Every shot had to count, since I had no power to waste.
I extended my weapon beyond the corner, sighted the ugly drone, and fired.
My first shot took it entirely by surprise, and it rocked backward under the barrage. It turned toward me, and I had a better target at its chest.
Everything then seemed to happen so slowly.
I continued firing, but it raised its arm to return fire. That volley went wide and short, but mine were on target. Despite that, it took two steps closer and its aim improved.
I didn't move. I saw Jacob, behind it, scrambling into the open and up the path. I kept firing, keeping the drone fixed on me.
It stumbled and went down to one knee, still firing back and still missing.
My weapon emptied, directly into its head. It jerked and toppled over like a tree.
But not before its last shot slammed into me, spun me around, and into the opposite stone wall.
The breath rushed out of me at the impact, as the world grayed out. Instinctively, believing it was the end, I called out for Malek. I didn't quite pass out though, clutching to some tendril of awareness, which I regretted the moment I opened my eyes and the shock wore off.
I was slumped against the stone wall, and everything hurt. Just breathing sent stabbing pain all through my body, especially the side of my head which must have struck the wall.
And it wasn't going away. It wasn't easing, because I couldn't sense my symbiote at all.
In a sudden, complete panic at the absence in my mind, I yelled aloud, "Malek!"
He suddenly was there, and sent love and comfort across the bond, but could only speak shortly, Trying to keep us from dying. And he was gone again.
That was ominous. As I lay there, I tried to catalog what was so wrong. The worst pain came from my left side. Looking for the wound was a mistake -- when I saw the cooked and mangled meat of my shoulder, the agony flared and I nearly passed out again.
Through everything, I remembered that I was easy prey if the drone wasn't actually dead. But the reminder wasn't quite enough to motivate me to look.
I told myself that I had felt worse than this before, and I hadn't had Malek there to help. I wasn't alone now. The thought helped, and I forced myself up to my knees to look in the direction of the street.
The drone lay unmoving in the packed dirt.
I glanced above and saw Jacob at the top of the path, looking back down at me. I tried to lift my other arm to wave.
But I stopped the motion, catching my breath with a hiss. The splinter embedded in my back was still there, and its sharp stab contrasted roughly with the nauseating throb in my shoulder.
Keeping a wary eye on the drone, I climbed to my feet, feeling each one of my fifty-eight true years. My vision swam and I had to rest a moment before moving.
I kept my distance from the drone. It still had not twitched and so I presumed it was dead, but unlike Jacob, I felt no need to prove it to myself by kicking it in the ribs. I started up the path slowly, wishing that Malek would fix the dizziness, but he was too busy trying to keep physical shock from taking over our body.
So focused on putting one foot in front of the other, I needed several seconds to realize that Jacob was shouting. "Malek! Run!"
Like an idiot, I turned to see why, instead of just running.
The drone was on its feet, turning and looking for me.
I glanced up the path to see Jacob still there, crouching beside the little walls to get as much cover as possible. "Dial the gate!" I yelled, but he didn't move, just gestured me to hurry.
Anger as much as fear made me lurch into a fast walk. Jacob Carter had been a general and far more used to giving orders than taking them, but he had better dial the gate or we were both dying here.
The drone fired, but its poor marksmanship and distance kept me safe as I reached Jacob. He stared in alarm at my shoulder and grabbed for my other arm as if to help, but I shook him off.
"We'll live. Open the chappa'ai, Jacob. It's following."
One glance showed I was right but he still lingered. "Don't get killed," he ordered, and finally went.
As I followed him, more slowly, I took out the power supply and made a few adjustments to set it to explode.
But no more shots were coming my way, I realized and looked to see why.
The drone was now tracking toward Jacob, instead of me.
"Jacob!" I screamed in warning, but too late.
The blast hit him. For one moment, his arms went out as if to hold himself up on the wind, but then he toppled out of my sight.
"Jacob!" My yell was echoed within by Malek. Selmak!
It spurred us to a run, praying they weren't dead.
His wound looked bad, square in the middle of his back. He still had a pulse, when I checked, but it was a fragile, unsteady beat.
He needed help and I couldn't give him any, not with that drone behind us.
Heedless of my injury, I hurled the power supply down the path, hoping its overload and explosion would delay our enemy.
Then I bent to grasp Jacob's wrists with my own and started dragging him toward the gate. I could feel the splinter shifting and cutting deeper with every step, and my opposite shoulder burned. Get Jacob to Earth, I ordered myself, again and again, in a litany to beat back the threatening dark. I had to get him home. That was all that mattered.
The power supply blew up, sending up a shower of dirt and rocks somewhere behind me. I hoped the drone had been buried or at least thrown backward, but I had only bought a little time at most.
I set Jacob down and ran to the dialing device, punching the glyphs for Earth as quickly as I could. My hands nearly refused to cooperate, shaking with strain, but I finally managed to put my hand on the activator dome. The wormhole opened, and I hurried back to Jacob, grabbing his unconscious arm and keying in the code.
Not waiting for any confirmation, if there was supposed to be one, I took hold of Jacob again and dragged him toward the gate. I could feel Malek distantly, working to help as much as he could, but each step was doing more damage. He was overwhelmed.
Sweating and dizzy after mounting the three steps to the platform, I had to stop. I couldn't catch my breath, and I was trembling so hard it was a struggle just to stay upright. But there was no time to rest. The drone emerged into the far end of the clearing.
It walked nearer with measured, implacable steps. It raised its arm.
I shoved Jacob into the wormhole, not gently. But I had to make sure that he entirely passed through.
I collapsed to my knees, my breath coming in gasps and unable to see with the black spots clouding my vision. The drone was going to kill us. But at least Jacob was safe.
No, Malek's presence suddenly returned, bright and clear as the sun in my mind. We must tell the Tau'ri to close the iris.
Or the drone and its weapons fire could come through. He was right. The task was not yet finished.
I let myself fall backward into the event horizon, rolling to make sure that all of me entered. The cold of the wormhole was pleasantly numbing, as it carried me toward Earth to safety.
Unless the Tau'ri no longer recognized Jacob's code, in which case we would shortly disintegrate against their protective iris.
If this is the end, Malek, I'm glad I've spent these years with you.
The feeling of his presence was a gentle warmth wrapped around my entire being. I treasure each moment we have spent together, beloved Asheron, he answered. We face the end together.
Never alone, I repeated the promise he had made to me right before our blending.
Never alone, never again.
The wormhole carried us into blinding bright light, and together we waited calmly for whatever came next.
tbc...