Chapter Ten

Sam aimed the zat gun directly at the Goa'uld in front of her.

"You cannot take me back," Alex replied.

"Oh I think I can," Sam said.

"Were we fighting hand to hand you would lose," Alex stated.

"But we're not," Sam replied.

Alex swiftly moved forward and knocked the zat clean out of Sam's hand, but not before she'd squeezed it. The electricity hit the Goa'uld as her limp body fell to the ground, the electricity still dancing around her body for a few moments before disappearing completely.

"Sorry," Sam said, picking up the limp body and throwing her over her shoulder.

Alex's body wasn't used to the effects of a zat gun, therefore Sam figured she should be out long enough to get her back to Teal'c and Daniel.

She stepped back out into the hallway and made for the fighter bay, her physics student thrown over her shoulder.


The next thing Daniel knew he was lying on the floor, Teal'c standing next to him. He sat up slowly, his head was pounding and he could feel he needed medical attention to the rest of his body.

"Where are we?" he asked drowsily.

"Outside the fighter bay," Teal'c replied. "I am glad to see you are alive DanielJackson."

"Yeah well…I dunno if that's such a good thing," he cringed in pain as he attempted to stand up slowly.

Teal'c placed a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from standing up, but causing him more in doing so. Seeing Daniel's obvious pain as he sat back down and shoved Teal'c's hand away from his shoulder Teal'c spoke.

"I am sorry DanielJackson," Teal'c said. "But you must remain rested, and that is more easily achieved if you are seated."

Daniel nodded slightly, acknowledging that it made sense. Although the cold hard floor and wall of the Goa'uld hallway did not make for the best seat, he was grateful to not be standing.

"Why are there no guards?" Daniel asked.

"I have had to evade a few patrols on the way, but I do not think this fleet is overly large," Teal'c replied. "And it is also undermanned."

Daniel looked at his watch. "The Tok'ra attack in half an hour…"

"O'Neill will have blown the mothership's core by that time," Teal'c informed him.

"He's really doing it?" Daniel said, a sadness to his voice.

"Indeed," Teal'c said.

Daniel sighed. After all the years they'd spent fighting this was it. They may or may not escape, Jack was going to die. To Daniel the only thing that really mattered was destroying the Goa'uld and Sam getting back to Earth safely.

"Where's Sam?" he asked, suddenly realising her absence.

"Saving the Earth child," Teal'c replied.

"Ah," Daniel said.

The fell into silence again. After a few moments they both heard footsteps from down the hall. Daniel stood up as quickly as he could, using the nearby wall for support, as Teal'c flung around and raised his P-90 in the direction of the footsteps.

A few moments later Sam appeared, Alex slung over her shoulders. She looked exhausted. Teal'c took Alex from her, being the stronger of the two, Sam suddenly looked extremely relieved.

"OK lets get outta here before it blows," Sam said.

The three of them sped into the fighter bay, headed for the fighters.


Jack thankfully let the bag containing the Naquadah fall to the ground. The stuff was heavy, he didn't care what anyone said, no matter how small a bit you carried it still weighed tonnes. Surprisingly enough, besides the two Tok'ra guards, he had met little resistance in the halls of the Goa'uld mothership.

Opening the compartment he knew he was supposed to use to shove the Naquadah down. He yanked the bag open and pulled the Naquadah out, the weight pulling down on his now untrained arms.

He lifted it up to shove it into the compartment and froze.

The hole was too small.

Atum knew what they'd done to the other System Lords and fixed the problem.

"What are you doing?"

The voice came from behind him, followed by the distinct noise of a staff weapon arming. Jack sighed and turned around, in the process pulling his hand gun out of its holster.

"Hi, nice to meet you, but I need your weapon," Jack said, shooting the lone Jaffa square in the forehead.

The Jaffa stood upright for a moment before falling to the ground. Jack shoved his weapon back into its holster and grabbed the staff weapon. He checked his watch quickly, twenty five minutes until the Tok'ra attacked.

He stood back from the block of naquadah and took aim. He fired, splitting the unfortunate piece of metal into four pieces, a leaving a black mark on the ground below it.

Jack threw the staff weapon back at the Jaffa. "You should learn to build more compact weapons," he muttered before turning back and picking up one of the naquadah pieces.

He shoved it down the small opening, it fitted nicely.

He shoved down the four pieces one by one and when he had finished pulled the C-4 out of his bag. Shutting the small compartment he stuck the C-4 on the outside. He eyed his watch again, twenty minutes remaining.

That gave him enough time to possibly escape.

He set the timer for five minutes and grabbed his pack, sprinting for the fighter bay.


Jonas sat within the system, tapping the control console of the cloaked cargo ship. He'd made a short half second jump to hyperspace and then cloaked and was slowly making his way back into the system, to avoid being spotted by the Goa'uld.

The fleet was bigger than he had imagined it would be. Sure they'd seen Goa'uld fleets before, but this one was large. His orders were to remain in silence until he was ordered otherwise by the General.

He was yet to hear anything.

As he stared into the deep expanse of space, the large Goa'uld fleet just becoming visible in the distance, he noticed a ship exiting hyperspace nearby. However Jonas recognised the ship as Tok'ra, not Goa'uld. He looked at his watch…there was still another twenty minutes until the Tok'ra were scheduled to attack.

He debated for a moment whether to communicate with the vessel or not. He decided against it. There was something very wrong about the ship being there, flying uncloaked towards the Goa'uld at full speed – alone.

As it sped off Jonas followed.

That Tok'ra was up to no good…


The two gliders shot out from the underbelly of the spacecraft, completely unnoticed by the surrounding Goa'uld ships. Teal'c had constrained Alex to the back seat of his fighter, leaving Sam and Daniel in the other one.

Sam hit her radio. "Jonas you read?"

There was static for a few seconds before a reply came through. "Sam, I'm following a Tok'ra ship that mysteriously appeared out of hyperspace early, no cloaking or anything, heading towards the fleet."

"Odd…we're heading back your way in gliders," Sam said, looking around cautiously as the sped under a second Goa'uld ship.

"That's not going to get you very far," Jonas replied.

"To the contrary JonasQuinn, these gliders are equipped with new hyperspace technology, while it may not get us to Earth, it will provide us enough distance to locate a Stargate," Teal'c injected.

"Reading you, are you all there?" Jonas asked.

Sam paused, remembering the absence of her CO. "We've accomplished the mission," she replied, pausing again. "General O'Neill was left behind."

"Well do you want me to get him?" Jonas asked.

"Negative," Sam replied.

The temporary lapse in concentration proved to be as much of a danger as she would have expected.

"Sam!" Daniel said from the other fighter.

She looked up in time to see a blast come from the nearby ship, hitting the wing of her glider.

"Teal'c, Daniel we're going down! Get out of here," she said as their ship started to fall towards the planet.

She felt another hit, clipping the other wing. Suddenly they found themselves spiralling down faster and faster, the ground drawing nearer at every moment.

If Teal'c replied they didn't hear it.

Sam watched as the ground got closer with every passing second…


A/N: Aaw don't you HATE cliffhangers? I know I do :D