Chapter 13 – Resolution
"Yes, what is it? What do you want?"
Kefnu clenched his jaw, repressing the anger that he felt at Warlord Hetarn's words. The tall, impressive figure belied the personality within, and fear shone in the man's eyes as he realised that Kefnu had locked the keypad, stopping anyone from entering.
"I want power," he told him, his voice taking on a deep resonating quality. "I want control." He walked steadily towards the now less than impressive warlord as he pulled out his hand device. "I want you," he told him as he brought the glowing jewel to bear, paralysing the man.
Within seconds, he had entered his new body, and his eyes glowed for a second before they faltered and flickered and he fell to the floor. He was alive, but his eyes remained open, staring blankly ahead for a few moments before they glowed once more, an odd reddish tinge to effervescent glow.
He stood, eventually, a puzzled expression on his face as he came to the realisation that he was neither Hetarn…or Kefnu…but an amalgamation of both…personality traits, skills mixed to create new person.
He smiled evilly and reached for his belongings before calling in a guard. "This man tried to threaten me. Take him away and dispose of him," he told him, voice natural and smooth. "And send for the captain."
Corran met Sam at the bottom of the ramp of the Peacemaker, greeting him and giving him a huge grin as she handed the dress to him.
"What's with those three?" he asked, looking towards her three friends. Sam frowned.
"I'm not sure. We had a run-in with a bounty hunter just before we left. I think it shocked them a little," she replied uncertainly. Corran nodded thoughtfully for a moment before changing the subject.
"Right, well. Seeing as we don't want word of this Stargate leaking out, I suggest we take those three for a retinal scan for their new IDs."
"Right…this should be interesting," Sam told him, smiling. "Oh, is Cilghal on Yavin at the moment? I want her to take a look at Teal'c."
"Sure, why?" Sam shook her head in reply, indicating that now was not the time.
Once she had explained to them that they needed a background, something they could draw on to keep the 'Gate a secret so that no-one like the Hutts could take it from Telk, they had headed to meet one of Boosters…tenants. He would use retinal scans and details to create their IDs.
"Right, last one," the small, watery-eyed man said, turning to Teal'c. "So that's Teal'c, with an apostrophe?"
"Indeed."
"Age?"
"109."
"No, really, I need your age."
"I am one hundred and nine standard years old," Teal'c told him sombrely. They had worked out their 'standard' ages from their earth ages, finding that they were only slightly different.
"Yeah, and I'm a son of a Hutt," the man replied. "He's older than you," he said, waving a hand at Jack, who smirked.
"Well, he's not exactly human," Daniel told him, levelling his gaze at him.
"Sure, fine, whatever…it's your ID! Species?"
"Jaffa." The man didn't think twice about what species he may be; there were a lot of aliens in the galaxy.
All of them had their home worlds put as Coruscant, covering for each of their accents and mannerisms, respectively.
Jack watched as they completed Teal'c's ID, only half paying attention, as was Daniel. What they had just seen on the planet had thrown them quite a bit.
Sam had just unflinchingly killed the man.
None of her usual trying to talk them out of it, finding another way around it – at least to the extent that she always had done before – she just waited for the moment and shot him. She then took his money to pay for 'the mess' as if it was normal. And she had seemed so at home in that underworld area, as if she belonged there.
He was still in his own little world, thinking about the things that had recently happened as they walked back to their quarters, breaking out of his musings only as he was handed a cup of Caf. He took it with a brief smile, not meeting Sam's eyes.
"What was that, back on the planet…Coruscant, Sam?" Daniel suddenly asked a puzzled and slightly worried look on his face.
"A bounty hunter," she replied shortly, apparently able to sense what they were feeling. "What is it, Daniel?" she asked, with a pained sigh.
"The, the way that you dealt with him. It was so callous, uncaring. It was like you were a completely different person," the archaeologist replied from the sofa, where he sat next to Teal'c. Both Jack and Sam had remained standing, not wanting to sit next to each other, just in case there was a repeat of what happened earlier.
"What, you expect me to care about some guy who just wants to kill me so that he can get a few credits to squander on booze and Twi'lek dancing girls?"
"Hey!" Jack interrupted, suddenly angry at her for getting annoyed at Daniel. "Daniel's right, you were acting like a different person."
"Well, maybe that's because I am a different person. I stopped being the person that you knew when Telk put me in a spice factory because I refused to be his little whore. I stopped being that person when, three years later, I was sold to a man who used people as if they were disposable. He knew that I was their only hope to last long enough to get out of there, that there was no help coming any time soon," she bit back angrily. "How dare you judge me and compare me to someone who I haven't been for six years? You don't know what I've been through, you don't know what I've seen and you have the audacity to tell me that I've changed!" she asked them incredulously, consciously pushing down her anger, but letting them know that it was there and that they were wrong.
"If that's what you think, then I'll go find people who like this me," she told them, holding out her hand to grab the Jedi robe and calling her comlink to her by the Force. "Goodbye," she told them, slipping the robe on and putting the comlink in the pocket. She brushed past Corran as she exited, walking briskly off, her robe flapping behind her.
Jack's eyes slid across to the thundery face of Corran.
"What did you say to her?" he bit out. They just gaped and shrugged, but Corran apparently gathered the gist of it from them because he sighed, his shoulders slumping as he shook his head.
"Are you complete idiots?" he asked them sadly.
"Well, maybe not complete…but ninety-nine percent," Jack told him, catching the small black cylinder that the short man threw to each of them.
"Comlinks," he told them, explaining how they worked briefly. "Feel free to wander, but don't cause trouble. And Booster says to remind you all that drinks have to be paid for. Try not to rub any of the crew up the wrong way. The only reason they'll think twice before shooting is that they've seen Sam mad."
"Oh. In that case, I think we'll be fine right here, don't you, kids?"
"Indeed."
"Oh, yeah."
Corran shook his head, hiding his amusement.
"Right. We'll send food down."
"Thank you," Daniel said, giving him his best fake smile—the one that was almost real.
"Anything for Sam," he said, letting them know that it was at Sam's behest that they were being trusted, and looked after.
Jack watched him leave, quashing his jealousy and pain, glad that Sam had found a decent man, who obviously cared. He berated himself for being so fickle. He had just all but accused her of being someone he didn't know and yet, here he was getting jealous because she had found herself someone else. He had watched the scene in the clothes shop with the dress with a deeply hidden pain that he was trying to deny all existence of.
"We're a pair of asses, Jack," Daniel told him as the older man flopped onto the sofa.
"I know."
"I mean, she must have been through hell…a slave for years…and we go and throw it back in her face."
Teal'c remained silent as they consigned themselves to having lost their friend.
"It's not as if she's really that different. She's mostly Sam, just some small changes and that kind of thing and-"
"Daniel."
"Jack?"
"Shut up."
Sam left the quarters oddly calm, briskly walking away, her feet taking her to a place that she knew she would find something therapeutic to do.
There was no denying that she was upset. She'd known that she had changed, and that they would have to accept that, but she'd thought they'd be a little more supportive, a little more accepting.
She arrived at the Peacemaker to find Dentralla there, already continuing work, repairing the damage that had been caused during the escape from Telk's planet.
Asides from cosmetic damage that added to the dents and carbon scoring that had already been there, there was a leak in the hyperdrive modulator, a few overloads of minor systems, and one blast that had gotten through the shields had made a rather large hole. It was a fluke shot that managed to hit right over the engine array, and her new sub-light engine systems were running at forty percent capacity: something that needed fixing right away, or the next time they had to get anywhere, they would need to walk to get there sooner, rather than later.
"I'm fine, just thought we should get those repairs done." She brushed off Dentralla's concerned whine, and shed her robe, moving to grab a tool kit.
The Wookie had already fixed a few of the smaller systems, but she knew not to mess with the bigger ones, the ones that Sam had upgraded herself and that Dentralla wasn't skilled enough to handle.
Sam immediately went to work on the sub-light engines, using the Force to boost herself as she jumped up to the top of the ship…three or four times her own height. Prying off the damaged hull plates, she started work on it, stripping the unusable parts and replacing them with the new replacements that she carried, concentrating on her work entirely.
"'Tralla, pass me the size two hydrospanner, would you?" she called out, the noise muffled by the innards of the ship.
She was hanging upside down, inside the ship, her knees crooked around the top of the hull to get the best position for the fine manipulative work she was doing.
"Thanks." She took the tiny hydrospanner without looking, sensing through the Force that it was Corran, and not Dentralla that had handed it to her.
Without hurrying the critical work, she finished what she was doing, throwing the hydrospanner back up, knowing that Corran would catch it. Closing the casing on the unit, she tensed the muscles in her abdomen and pulled her torso up, grabbing Corran's hand gratefully as soon as her head was above the hull plating. "Thanks," she said, taking the proffered glass and drinking down the clear water, sighing in relief.
"My pleasure." Corran grimaced as he wiped his now greasy hand on a rag he found lying next to Sam's now discarded jacket.
"Where's Dentralla?" she asked, looking around when she noticed the absence of her friend.
"I sent her to get some food and then some sleep."
"Is it really that late?" Sam frowned, glancing at her chrono. "Huh, I guess it is." She'd been working on The Peacemaker for 5 hours solid, a fact at which her stomach grumbled loudly. Corran raised an eyebrow at her.
"I think the same goes for you," he told her, handing her jacket to her.
"Yes, Mom," she told him, smirking and taking the jacket from him. He pulled a face at her and took a theatrical step backwards.
"Whoa, but not before you take a shower." Sam grimaced. She really didn't want to go back to her quarters, despite the fact that the men would probably be asleep.
"Come on, you can use the 'fresher in my quarters." Relief flooded through her at his words and she smiled her thanks, leaping down to the floor before heading inside the ship to grab a change of clothes…there would be no point in a shower if she was just going to put her sweat-soaked clothes back on.
Corran had just reached the bottom of the ladder by the time she re-appeared. Without telekinesis, he would have probably injured himself jumping down, and he certainly wouldn't have been able to jump up there, so he had to do it the 'normal' way…the way Dentralla and other non-Force sensitive beings did it.
They walked in silence for a few minutes before Corran finally spoke.
"You're angry at them for expecting you to be the same as you were six years ago?"
"They told you?" she asked, surprised.
"Not in so many words…"
"Ah. No, I'm not angry. I was for a few minutes when they first commented on it, but it's more that I'm hurt," she admitted. "I didn't think they'd be that naive, especially not Jack," she told him, the pain evident in her voice as she thought about the things Jack had been through and done. He, of all people should have known that experiences change people—a lot.
"I think they realise that now; they were just shocked to see you different." He comforted her. "If it helps, they looked really miserable earlier, when I took them dinner. Not to mention uncomfortable." Sam let out a half sob, half laugh, smiling a little. "Except that Teal'c guy…he just looked…"
"Stoic?"
"Yes! Does he have any other expressions?"
"Yeah; angry, vengeful, and full-blown laughter; all three of them are very scary." Sam laughed, thinking about the one person who had not seemed surprised at the change in her.
Shivrall Telk appeared completely calm in the eyes of everyone around him, but inside he was terrified.
At the first meeting he'd had with Imperial Commander Hetarn, the man had seemed a considerably weaker man, using his imposing looks to cover the fact that he was a snivelling, power hungry idiot: exactly what Telk had been looking for when he had sought help from one of the many bickering renegade Imperial Warlords.
Since then, he had turned out to be a much more competent, awe-inspiring man, still using his imposing presence to the fullest.
Standing in the Grand Admiral's quarters on the Star Destroyer he had re-named Chariot of the Gods, he turned his eyes toward his new guest. The lights glinted on his blue-black hair and made his skin seem ever so slightly bluish.
"It has been five days. What do you have to report?" he demanded, his eyes; brown with the merest hint of red seemed to burn through him as he squelched his fear and put on a cocky mask.
"Those Jedi scum went storming in there, tried to take over, but we drove them off. Lost a lot of people though, and we had a visitor through the WHD," he told him nonchalantly.
Telk could have sworn that the other man's eyes actually flashed - not the kind of flashed that they used to describe angry people in Alderaanian novels; the glowing light behind your eyeballs kind of glowing – and his cocky mask slipped at the Imperial's next words.
"The device that you speak of is called a Chappa'ai, not a 'Worm Hole Device' as you so crudely seem to think," he barked angrily, his voice taking on a deeply resonant tone as he lifted his left arm to reveal a small crystal on his palm, secured by a few thin strands of moulded durasteel that snaked around his hand and connected at the back, holding it firmly in place.
The crystal began to glow and all of a sudden he felt as if his head was going to explode as he was brought to his knees by the pain.
Hetarn smiled; seeing his specially adapted version of the Goa'uld hand device take effect on the man in front of him pleased him. It gave him a power that none of the other Imperial Warlords had, and it was so much more efficient and effective than backhanding him, or having the guards do it. It showed that he held the power, and not through mindless others and that gave him an undeniable edge.
"I am tired of your foolish posturing and lies," Hetarn told him, his voice back to normal as the smuggler writhed at his feet. "Yet you are still useful." He finished, breaking off the crystal device and stepping away from the trembling man.
"Who was it that used the Chappa'ai?" he demanded of the other man.
The only sign of shock that he gave at the description of the people who came through the Stargate was a slight pause in his pacing.
Sam didn't see hide nor hair of the rest of her team - ex-team she corrected herself – until the Errant Venture had dropped out of hyperspace and taken up a synchronous orbit over the Great Temple that was the home of the Jedi, and that suited her fine. At least that was what she kept telling herself.
It was, for the most part true; she didn't think she could have dealt with the hurt she would have felt whenever she caught what they were feeling about her changing, but it didn't change the fact that they were people she still cared about.
She pushed aside her fear as she entered the code for their quarters and strode in, shields put up against their feelings.
"Sam!" Daniel yelled, even as Jack slipped back into past habits, yelling "Carter!" Teal'c merely nodded deeply.
Both Earth men looked deeply guilty.
"Look, were sorry…we just weren't expecting it," Jack told her, shrugging sheepishly.
Sam felt relief flood through her as she allowed herself to feel them through the Force, and felt their sincerity and their acceptance of her.
"It's not a problem…I knew you'd realise sometime…"
"And yet it still hurt you more than you are willing to let on," Teal'c finished for her.
"Yeah," she said, surprised. "How did you know that?" Teal'c didn't reply, instead asking a question of his own.
"For what reason did you come here…have we arrived at our destination?" Sam saw the slight indication of a smile on the edge of the Jaffa's lips and she couldn't resist a smile of her own; trust this particular Jaffa to deflect a question so easily.
"Uh, yeah…I just came to get you to take you dirt side," she told them, gesturing over her shoulder.
"Well then, let's grab our gear, kids." Five minutes later, they were heading back towards the Peacemaker, the comfortable silence of before replaced with a tense one, all four of them more than aware that they needed to adjust to each other before they could return to that.
"Sam," Jack found that her given name fell off his lips much more easily now that he had a way to differentiate between the old Major Carter, and the new, slightly different Sam Carter. "What about Sorrell?" She gave him a brief smile.
"He'll be sent down on one of the transports so that we can give him a proper send off," she told him, knowing that it would give them some closure, let them lay the inexperienced young Lieutenant to rest within their own minds, though they would always feel for his loss. Jack nodded his thanks as they continued into the ship, greeting Dentralla in the cockpit, still completely clueless as to what the tall Wookie was saying.
"How far into the start-up sequence are we?" Dentralla barked a reply as she continued to flick switches, running an extra diagnostic of the repairs, just in case. "No problems with the repairs?"
"Repairs?" Jack asked incredulously
"You didn't honestly think we managed to take all those hits on the way up from the surface without suffering a little damage did you, Jack?" Daniel asked, strapping himself in.
"We took hits?" Jack asked in bewilderment.
"I believe O'Neill was too engaged in making use of the weapons to notice," Teal'c told them with a Jaffa smirk. Jack grinned.
"Hell yeah…that was what I call a honking Space Gun!" he crowed childishly.
"Uh, no…the Death Star was a 'honking space gun'," Sam told them with a slightly grim expression, her pilot gloves already in place as her hands flew over the controls.
"Death Star? Do you have any idea how cliché that sounds?" Jack asked incredulously, all the time watching what she was doing, the pilot part of his mind in overdrive.
"As cliché as Luke blowing it seconds before it fired and wiped out Yavin 4 and the Rebel base that was on it."
"The rebels who now run the New Republic?" Daniel asked, trying to get his head round the complex changes that had happened in this galaxy over the last hundred years.
"The very same."
"SamCarter, how big was this Death Star? Not even a standard Goa'uld mothership could take out an entire planet." Teal'c told her, frowning slightly and leaving any mention of Anubis's decimated ship, of which there had been none before, and none since. Sam paused for a moment, concentrating on guiding the ship out of the Star Destroyer's docking bay.
"I'm not entirely sure, but it was mistaken for a moon from a distance."
"Oh," Daniel said, as Jack gave an awed whistle.
"Well, there you go, kids…this is where the Jedi call home. The gas giant is Yavin, this particular moon is Yavin 4. As we come into land, you can see debris from the first Death Star, where it still floats 21 years after its destruction," She told them, giving a bad impression of a tour guide as she flew into the atmosphere.
"First? Just how many were there?" Dentralla barked a reply, which Sam translated as 'only two, thank the Force'.
"I'll show you some holos when we get to the temple." They remained silent as Sam took them down through the clouds, emerging over the canopy of the trees to the awesome sight of the giant stone ziggurat, sending Daniel into an ecstatic rant about cultures of some sort. Dentralla barked a comment at her and she smiled.
"Does he ever shut up? Only when he's dead, or asleep," she teased, catching SG-1's attention, as Jack smirked at Sam's comment. Dentralla whined another question at her. "Oh, more times than I can remember. How many times have you died since you descended, Daniel?"
"Three," Teal'c supplied for her.
"Only three?" Sam asked in mock surprise, hiding the guilt and fear that tugged at her at the idea of her friend dieing. Again.
Dentralla roared a comment, obviously regretting asking.
They landed in the area cleared in front of the temple, half an hour behind the supply ship with the other Jedi onboard and consequently were met as they emerged from the ramp.
Sam had barely gotten a few feet from the ship when a small, four limbed, dark-haired blur launched itself at Sam.
"Whoa, Valin! God, you've grown!" she exclaimed, a huge grin spreading across her face as she lifted the grinning boy up, returning his hug as he wrapped his arms around her neck.
"I'm glad you're back, you've been gone for so long and Daddy said he didn't know when you were going to come back, but now you're back, so Daddy will be happy, and he'll stop worrying so much, and play with me more, and Grandpa Booster's here too, so he can come play with me!" The small boy's rushed dialogue finally ran to a finish as he leaned back a little to look Sam directly in the eyes as she carried him, shortly followed by SG-1 and Dentralla.
"You aren't gonna run off this time, are you?" he asked her very seriously.
"Nope. And you know what's even better?" The boy's eyes grew wider at the idea of there being anything better.
"No."
"I found some of my friends, too," she told him, smiling to the others as they reached the group, R2 warbling and twittering between Luke and Mara, and Corran standing behind them.
"Valin, this is Daniel, Jack, and Teal'c," she introduced them to the three in turn, and he gave them a contemplative look before twisting back to look at Sam.
"I thought Daddy and Mummy and Luke and Mara and all the other Jedi were your friends?" he asked her confusedly. If she'd been paying attention, she would have noticed that Jack had tensed, he, Daniel, and Teal'c obviously thinking that the boy was Sam's son…he looked to be under 7…but they relaxed minutely when they came to the conclusion that he was probably Corran's son from another relationship, and Sam had adopted him.
"Oh they are!" she told the boy firmly. "But these people are my friends, too…old friends from my home," she told him, flashing Mirax as smile as she joined the group. The boy contemplated this for a few seconds before wriggling to be put down and running across to Mirax and quickly relaying the news to her.
"Oh, is that so?" Mirax asked him with a smile and a raised eyebrow. "Well then, you'll just have to introduce me." Valin seemed delighted at this, and even Jack could not help but smile, despite his more than slightly melancholy feelings towards the idea of Sam having a sort-of-son.
"This is Daniel, this is Jack, and this is Teal'c," he told her very seriously. "This is Mummy," he added, for their benefit.
"Well, hello, Mummy." Jack smirked, gaining a rolling of Sam's eyes.
"Guys, this is Mirax Terrik-Horn, Corran's wife."
One eyebrow went up, and two jaws went down. Sam looked at them in confusion, reaching out with the Force to see what was wrong. When she realised what it was, she burst out laughing, much to the consternation of the Skywalkers and the Horns.
"They…They…" She managed to get only that far before her giggling overtook her. Daniel and Jack looked flustered and embarrassed. Jack glared at Sam.
"I thought I said no giggling," he growled at her, annoyed at being laughed at. Sam took a few deep breaths to calm herself.
"They thought Corran and I were together," she finally managed to gasp. Mara snorted in amusement even as Luke stifled his own laughter, maintaining a calm expression, though his amusement showed in his eyes.
Dentralla's raucous Urf-Urf laugh covered the sound of Corran and Mirax's quiet giggles.
"But you are!" Valin protested in confusion. "Daddy is Auntie Sam's Master, and Sam is Daddy's apprentice."
"No, Valin Honey, they thought Sam and Daddy were dating," Mirax gently corrected him, causing a disgusted expression to flit across his face.
"You're not are you?" he asked, worried.
"NO! No, that would be like me dating Daniel, or Teal'c…uh, it would be like Master Luke dating Princess Leia."
"But they're brother and sister; you're not Daddy's sister though."
"No, but she's like a sister, sort of an adopted sister," Corran explained for his son, and understanding dawned.
"Like Iella!"
"That's right, just like Iella."
"So, now that we have that sorted, how about we get you settled into your quarters and get some food? Kam tells me Tionne has a new song to share with us."
"Sure. That would be nice, thanks," Jack told them, recovering from his embarrassment and feeling a good deal happier than he had been as they headed off towards the temple, leaving Sam to speak to Corran and Mirax.
"I'll take care of Valin for the afternoon, shall I?" Sam asked Corran and Mirax, knowing that they would want to…reacquaint themselves without interruptions.
"Thanks, Sam," Mirax said, with a warm smile, giving her a hug. "It's good to have you back…don't run off like that again!" she admonished the blonde lightly.
"Thanks, and it's not a problem," she told the couple before heading off after her friends, chatting with Valin as she went.
