CHAPTER FOUR: RETURN TO ANTARCTIC

SG-1 knew that time was not on their side. They'd shipped to a planet that O'Neill had called 'Proklarush Taonas' in the hopes of finding the lost city of the Ancients. What they'd found didn't resemble a lost city at all. It resembled a lost room. A big lost room, but nothing more than that. The team had watched as Jack had taken a seat in the chair on the dais and fiddled with the settings of the room, first making the atmosphere safe, and then by showing the group a three-dimensional map of the entire galaxy.

"Sir…why are you showing us this?" Sam asked after O'Neill had made the star map hone in to earth and its solar system. She was fascinated by what the map showed, but they didn't have a lot of time to be looking at all the incredible things the Ancients had left behind. Had there been more time, she'd have let herself be amazed at what the map was showing.

"Terra Atlantis," Jack replied concisely.

"Terra's Earth," Daniel translated. "Atlantis…"

"The lost city of Atlantis!" Sam asked incredulously.

"Are you saying the lost city of the Ancients is here?" Daniel asked, pointing to the image of earth.

"Antarctica," Sam said, following O'Neil's line of sight. That didn't bode well. Things had never gone well for any of them whenever they were in Antarctica.

"Subo glacios," Jack affirmed.

"Under the ice," Daniel explained. "The city we've been looking for is under the ice of Antarctica."

"It's been on Earth the whole time?" Sam asked.

"Jack, we were just there!" Daniel said in frustration.

"So we came all this way just to find out that we have to go all the way back," Sam surmised, joining Daniel in his indignation.

"No!" O'Neill yelled, fiddling with the settings of the room once more. The holographic image disappeared and the chair straightened. He pulled the top of his Hazmat suit on, and the others quickly followed his example.

O'Neill stood and walked to the edge of the dais, kneeling at the corner. He waved his hand over a portion, and a glowing device rose out of the step. With a reverence that the team usually never saw from their commanding officer, O'Neill pulled it free and handed it to Sam who stared at it in confusion before recognising what it was.

"A power source," Sam said in satisfaction. The trip hadn't been a waste after all. She clicked her radio on to transmit a signal up to the waiting Al'kesh on the surface of the planet. "Bra'tac, we're on our way. We know the location of the lost city. It's on Earth."

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Two Jaffa warriors stood before their lord, eyes down as Anubis sat, still and silent on the throne-like chair in the peltac of his ship.

"We were able to restore the controls of the ship, my lord," one of the Jaffa said quietly. "We have not yet been able to enter the room that the Tau'ri woman has barricaded herself within however."

Anubis was not impressed. "Set a course for earth. The Tau'ri will feel my wrath, and they shall finally know what true fear is. The fleets of my armada will destroy their defences and I shall rule their planet."

"Of course my lord," the second Jaffa said, grateful for an excuse to scurry from the unhappy system lord.

"And the Tau'ri woman?" the Jaffa asked. "Somehow she has locked the door from the inside, and even the main control crystals have been unable to gain us access."

"She will have to come out of there eventually," Anubis replied. "And when she does…she'll be just in time to see us destroy the planet she so loves."

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Janet Fraiser woke once more to bright white lights, her eyes quickly adjusting as the lid to the sarcophagus slowly opened. The headache that she'd worried over earlier was gone, but…something was different. Something had changed.

She gave a mental shrug as she awkwardly climbed out of the sarcophagus, glancing at the door with a triumphant grin, thankful it had held throughout the two hours she'd been in the sarcophagus. Every injury that she'd sustained since being shot on P3X-666 had healed, and she felt better than she had in days. Moving to the top end of the sarcophagus, Janet pulled open a small panel and removed the four blue crystal rods she'd taken from the zat's. She'd known they would come in handy, and they'd effectively doubled the speed that the sarcophagus should have taken had the crystals not been in place.

She pocketed them again, not knowing why, but trusting the Knowledge to let her know when it was necessary.

That thought brought her up short. The Knowledge. She still had the Knowledge within her mind, but the headache was gone. The urge to build anything was gone, and she could actually think straight.

It came to her in an insight she knew wasn't her own. The sarcophagus hadn't removed the Knowledge from her. What she couldn't work out was why it had worked the way it had.

And then it hit her. She could recall Daniel Jackson discovering that the Goa'uld sarcophagus had actually been a hybrid of Ancient technology. She'd known how to tamper with the device because it had once been Ancient technology, rather than the Goa'ulds. And if the Knowledge was correct, the Rings, the Stargate and the DHD would be at her disposal as well.

The sarcophagus had integrated the Knowledge fully within her. It had given her the necessary time to cope with what it was trying to do, and the sarcophagus had healed the damage it had done in overwriting her memories.

Except, regardless of what she'd told Jack O'Neill so long ago, it hadn't removed her memories. It had given her new ones. Or old ones, actually. Very, very old ones. If she was right about this, she had the memory of all the Ancients that had ever lived. She supposed it was much like the inbuilt genetic memory of the Goa'uld.

And speaking of Goa'uld, she was still on Anubis' ship. Except…he wasn't just a Goa'uld. He was a half Ascended Goa'uld, stuck between corporeal existence and being pure energy.

The Knowledge whispered within her mind, words and images flowing quickly, telling the doctor what it wanted from her. She absently nodded in agreement before grabbing hold of the zat she'd laid beside the sarcophagus. Letting the Knowledge guide her movements, she opened the door, zatted the Jaffa guards and dashed to the peltac, where Anubis sat on his throne, gazing out the main window of the mothership.

"Tau'ri!" Anubis yelled as he spotted the small woman enter the peltac. He waved his hand for the Jaffa guards to lower their weapons. He wanted the satisfaction of crippling this woman's spirit completely, and having her watch the destruction of her planet would work nicely. He stood and moved down the stairs, watching her in fascination. He hadn't been expecting the woman to walk into his presence voluntarily.

"Garone," she replied, spitting at his feet in disgust.

Anubis stopped short and glanced at the Jaffa guards, who shifted nervously at the confrontation.

"Leave us," Anubis ordered.

The Jaffa's hesitated a moment before scattering throughout the ship.

"It is true then…all the knowledge of the Ancients…at my mercy."

"I know who and what you are Garone," Janet said, the words coming from her lips, a strange and lyrical –Ancient- language that she was barely aware of speaking. It came to her naturally, and the very idea of speaking in English seemed foreign to her somehow. She stared up at the black shield that housed the energy field of Anubis. "I know how to destroy you."

"And I know how to destroy your planet, Tau'ri," Anubis replied, pointing to the massive window behind Janet.

Janet glanced over her shoulder, taking in the sight of earth from so far away. Her eyes widened as she realised where exactly they were headed. The Antarctic. She knew what was hidden there.

As if merely thinking about the hidden outpost had brought it to life, she could hear the Ancient technology below humming to life, a gentle swell of music rising in her mind, calming her down and reassuring her that this was a battle that Anubis had no hope of winning.

Someone had activated the Opelia. It hadn't been used in centuries, and had in fact, remained hidden. It had been used many times before, many millennia ago when the Ancients had roamed the earth. The Opelia was awake, and it would not fail.

Janet glanced back at Anubis, smirking slightly.

"Surrender Garone," she said firmly. "You will not find what you are looking for. You will die with dishonour, and you will be banished from all worlds."

"Do not say that name," Anubis demanded. "I am not Garone!"

"You were. Once," Janet replied, the words tumbling from her lips before she had a real chance to even think about them. "Before you became power hungry. Before you decided to abuse that which you were freely given. You were an Ancient, infested by a Goa'uld who attempted to Ascend. You were banished from the Ascended, and the System Lords wanted nothing to do with you. You are an outcast. A disgrace. And you, Garone, will be sent to oblivion."

"Perhaps," Anubis said after a moment of silence. He was rattled, but there was no power in the galaxy that could make him admit that. "But so will your planet Tau'ri. If I am to die, then I will not be doing so alone."

"Yes…you will."

Enjoy, and please review!

Toodles

DKG.