Author's Note:  Well, Lets see where this can go, shall we.. I'm sort of writing this off the cuff, as it were, so please be gentle.  I break easy.  J Hopefully, as I continue to write my skills will improve.

Chapter 2 – Faller Star

Everything dissolved into a flash of bright light.

The next thing Lawson experienced was a great force lifting him off the ground and propelling him a feet back and to the side, rolling him on his back.  There was no searing, burning  pain he would have expected from some sort of alien energy weapon..  There was no gaping hole he could feel burned through his body…  The only thing, other then being temporarily blinded by the flash that a heavy weight rested on his chest.

His vision returned in slowly lifting haze of white pinpricks.  It had felt like an eternity but somehow he now realized that barely a second or two had passed.  The face of the woman he had temporarily forgotten in his fear looked down at him.  She lay on top of his body, having tackled him out of the way of the Alien's fire.  Over her shoulder he could see the robotic-like walking jackal stepping closer to them, his weapon retrained on their position..  Lawson felt the panic rise in his mind, screaming like some primordial animal.

But when his eyes locked on the woman's, that fear stopped faded away.  Her eyes, like sparkling emeralds, stared into his.. as if reading him like some book.  Everything slowed around them.  Like someone had hit the half-speed on a DVD player.  The Jackal's movements were painfully arduous, exaggerated.. The woman's eyes bore deeper into his… Then in a single, profound moment everything snapped back into clarity as he saw that she had found something.. The strange female's face softening.

"Do not be afraid." She said in soft, slightly accented English.

Then here green eyes flashed gold with an inner light and though it was the same face, it's demeanor changed.. Became harder.. More authority.. the face of someone else entirely.. It changed with the fluidity of water.

Before Lawson could react to this amazing and frightful change, she rolled off of him, bringing her hand up.  Palm outwards and fingers splayed, he could see she wore some sort of device made of what looked like jeweled gold.  A thimble like covering adorned each fingertip and in the center of her palm rested a large ruby like stone.

And it glowed with the same intensity her eyes had for that one moment.

The Jaffa stopped in his tracks, looking confused, his staff swiveling to aim at the woman.  He didn't fire.  He didn't have time.  The woman just sneered at him and said two words that Lawson couldn't understand in a voice that set his hair on end…Like a dual harmony of resonances, slightly out of phase.  But while he could understand her words, notr how she spoke that way, he did recognize the strange, cruelly taunting and mocking tone of contempt in her voice.

"Jaffa!" She said, then narrowed her eyes.

"Kree!"

The crystal in her hand flared and distortion wave, bending the image of whatever it passed like looking through a glass of rippling water, blew outwards.  The wave of force struck the Creature square in the torso and lifted him off the ground, throwing him against the sphere 10 feet back with a sickening crunch-like sound that reverberated throughout the hollow.  The creature slumped to the ground, the glowing red eyes in the exaggerated Jackal's 'face' dimming.. dimming…

Gone.

All was quiet for a few long moments… Then the woman slowly stood up.  She walked carefully towards the fallen alien, her glove-thingy always pointing at it. When it was apparent she thought the thing was dead, she turned to look at Lawson, who was just watching her with a shock induced glaze in his eyes.

"Are you injured, Tau'ri?"  she asked, the melodious harmony of her voices seeming tinged with concern.  Lawson's gaze never faltered from her, his jaw still slack as his mind tried to comprehend what he had just seen.  So she asked again, putting a bit of forceful authority in her voice.  "Tau'ri!" she said, louder this time. "Are you injured?"

This knocked Lawson out of his self induced shock, causing him to blink and shakes his head a few times to get the cobwebs out.  He slowly looked back at Her, her golden-reddish hair flailing in the smoky breeze.  He licked his dry lips, wetting them, and swallowed hard once.  "I.. I'm okay." He said, shakily, and then looked at the unmoving creature prone on the ground.  "Is.. Is that monster dead?" he asked, pointing at it.

The woman looked down at the thing.. Then knelt beside it.  Here free hand, the one not with the ruby contraption, reaches behind the base of it's collar like neck and clicked something.  Then she stood up slowly and backed out of the way so Lawson could see what she had done.

The long neck of the jackal telescoped downwards, into itself, the pointed ears folding backwards behind the metallic skill.. Then the skull spilt and folded behind some plates..  More plates shifted, fanned and un-fanned and folded until they were absorbed by the collar.  When the transformation was complete, Lawson inhaled deeply.

It wasn't a monster.. It was some elaborate mask.. or amour.. or both.  Where the jackals head had been was now the recognizable head of a man with a metal skullcap.. Olive of pallor and with a black tattoo of something that looked.. Egyptian in his forehead.

The woman pointed to the man, whose neck was bent at a very unnatural angle.  "This is your monster, Tau'ri." She said, then spit on the dead man and kicked him once for good measure.  "A disgusting Jaffa who continues to serve the Goa'uld when the rest of his brethren have seen the truth."  He leaned over and picked something off the Jaffa's, as she called it, belt.  It looked like a gun of some sort, but the handle was too close to the barrel.  Her fingers curled around the grip and it fold up upwards, like an asp uncoiling and ready to jump.  Depressing the trigger three times, arcs of blue energy lanced out at the Jaffa.  One caused the body to jump.  Two caused the body flail like a marionette.. And the third bolt caused the body to shimmer and collapse on itself as it vaporized.

Lawson Scampered backwards, pulsing himself away from the woman and the body she had incinerated by dragging his but along the ground.  The woman frowned and looked at him, confused as to why he was trying to get away from her.  Then she looked at the weapon in her hands and winced, as if she realized the problem.  She stuck the gun thing ion her belt and waltzed over to the still scampering man and held out her hand to him.

Lawson stopped and stared at her offered hand.. It was the one free of that ruby thing.  He looked into here face, his own a picture of fear and confusion .

"I will not harm you, Tau'ri." She said, her melodious voice soothing and gentle, afflicted with sincerity.  "I swear, on my honor and the honor of the Tok'ra, I am here as a friend. Not an enemy.

It took a moment for Lawson to understand she wasn't going to hurt him.  After what he had just seen.. How she had just dispatched that Jaffa single-handedly, he realized that if she was going to kill him.. He would be dead already.  So he willed his hand, which felt as heavy as cement, to raise off the ground and he slipped his fingers through hers, allowing her to lift him to his feet with surprising strength.  He was really beginning to think that she wasn't quite human.

Duh.

He looked around him.. At the fire and the damage and the sphere and everything else… and then looked back to her.  "Just w.who are you?" he asked, stuttering slightly as he fought to control his tongue.

The woman smiled..  It was a nice smile, even amid the bruises and the smoot.  It made her look almost ageless, defined in grace.  "I am Raylana" she told him.. then her head drooped and hung bonelessly for a moment..  Lawson was scared that maybe she /had/ been injured and was about o pass out.. But he was wrong.. Because less then a second later she raised her head, eyes open, and smiled again.

It was also a nice smile, but somehow different now.. He couldn't place how.  All her features were the same but it was like.. It was like the driver behind the steering wheel had changed..

"And I am Sitka." She said.  This time the voice was different.. Well, not different.  It was the first voice she had used earlier, before she went all harmonic on him. 

Lawson let his hand slide from hers, the whole two voice and two names thing startling him. "Are you human?" he asked, cautiously.  Hey, he might as well ask.  Considering what had transpired the past ten minutes.

Sitka/Raylana pursed their lips and, after a moment, nodded.  "We are mostly human." She told him.  "But this is not important.  We need to get out of here.  Before someone finds my escape pod.  We need to get away and hide."

"Why?"

Her eyes looked at the pod.. then seemed to looked up at the few stars that were beginning to poke through the smoky above them as night set in.  "Because," she told him, "This isn't over."

And Lawson looked up as well… and gulped.