A/N: Ok, so you're all VERY lucky – I usually don't get to write on the weekends because I work, but I had this chapter running around in my head all afternoon so I had to write it tonight – usually I'm WAAY too tired after work, but you've got a special effort.

Thanks for the encouragement, especially to do with Baal. Bekki, I swear you made my day with your review! And trtlsoup, you may have few words, but that just makes them all the more precious – thanks! Thanks of course to my faithful regulars too.. you know who you are.

On with the show! This is a bit shorter, basically cos it's coming up on midnight and I have to be up at 6am… hope you like.

Part XV – And the ground shook
Jack was pacing around the cavern, snarling at everything that appeared in front of his face. He'd had enough of being trapped in the glowing atmosphere of this secret area under Uluru. This was not where the needed to be; this was not what they needed to be doing. He looked at the immobile bodies, now on the opposite side of the cavern to him, and grunted again with dissatisfaction. They needed Fodor, they needed to do all they could for the soldier still alive. Most of all, they needed to get out of there, away from Turramulli – and blast that Baal out of the sky once and for all. In his angry mood, he hadn't noticed Sam watching him carefully. She had risen from the ground and was now walking slowly, hesitantly, towards him.

"Sir?" Sam could see Jack was elsewhere, in a turmoil mixed with fear, anger, and the feeling of helplessness. She knew he hated to be in such a position – uncertain, with no clear action possible. There was no indication that he'd heard her. As she reached his position, she moved so she was standing right in front of him so as not to startle him. "Jack?" she whispered, her eyes now staring straight into his. Slowly she moved her hand to touch his forearm, resting her fingers on his coarse skin. She felt goosebumps form at her touch as his eyes finally seemed to focus, the pupils no longer dilated.

Jack looked down to where Sam had placed her hand on his arm. He had been so caught up feeling angry and useless that he hadn't even heard her speak. It was only the shiver that moved down his spine at her touch that finally brought him back to reality. He retracted his arm slightly to take her hand in his, revelling at the softness of her clear skin before looking back into her eyes.

"T?" Jack hadn't stopped looking intently at Sam, nor had he released her hand from his grasp. Instead he'd brought the communication device to his mouth with his other arm. "You still there?"

"Indeed I am, O'Neill." It took almost a minute for Teal'c to respond. "I apologise for the delay. I was alerting General Hammond to the presence of Baal."

Jack squeezed Sam's hand in reassurance. The mention of Baal had caused her breath to catch, worried about his possible reaction. He saw a ghost of a smile appear on her lips, and returned it warmly, thanking whichever higher power it was that had led to their introduction so many years before.

"Good." Jack looked around the cavern again quickly before resting his eyes once more on the woman in front of him. "T, we need a plan. We need to do something. We're sitting ducks here if we give Baal the time he needs to do whatever the hell he wants to do."

At that moment, there was a slight rumbling inside the cavern, and Sam and Jack both looked around them in alarm. The bright aqua light that surrounded them on the walls seemed to be failing, darkening in parts where the shield appeared to breach. Jack looked quickly behind him to see Turramulli had notice and was now standing, looking intently through the shield, waiting for it to crumble enough for him to get through. Without thinking, he let Sam's hand drop, thrust the tok'ra communicator into it, and raced to grab the orb within his hands.

"Any ideas Carter!" he barked at her urgently, trying with all his might to concentrate on the integrity of the shield.

Sam had swooped down on her P-90 on the ground and was now standing next to Jack, pointing it intently at Turramulli, just in case he managed to penetrate the shield.

"Channel your emotions, sir." She had to shout to be heard over the now cacophonous rumbling of the cavern as the shield flashed a cascade of different colours.

"Dammit Carter, I'm TRYING!" As Jack said the final word, the rumbling suddenly stopped and the shield was fully re-established. As a result, his shout was resonated through the cavern, jarring both their ears.

Sam was breathing heavily with the adrenaline keeping her alert despite their fatigue. "Well done sir." She rasped between breaths, still unwilling to relinquish her weapon again.

Jack let his hands drop from the orb and hung them limply to his sides. He looked at Sam, completely bewildered. "But I don't think I did anything…" he shrugged in puzzlement.

On top of Uluru, General Marty let his jaw drop as he realised the full implications of the American operation which had been set up in the space of only 18 hours. He looked behind him to the vast expanse of desert stretching out to the east of the rock, and appreciated even more the necessity to resolve the operation as soon as possible.

Not only were there now hundreds of baffled tourists, wondering why they couldn't visit the natural wonder they'd travelled so far to see; not only was there the persistent, unmoving, but nevertheless unsettling presence of the indigenous community; not only was the media now setting up what appeared to be a mobile broadcast city with more satellites than the yanks had even brought with them; but to make things resemble a veritable circus, the full contingent of the annual Harley Davidson Uluru Rally had just arrived.

He'd seen the approaching flood of bikies from the air as he had approached via helicopter. Like a swarm of sparkling jewels on the desert floor, they had raced towards the containment barrier now held by the armed forces, a great billowing dust cloud rising up into the sky. As if the situation wasn't already bad enough, they now had a couple of hundred scary motorbike yobbos all carrying on like disgruntled cavemen to add to the rest of the ever-growing audience.

(A/N: No idea if you know the expression 'yobbo'. It's kind of like a redneck… any other aussies feel free to give your own definitions in a review)

Just as he wondered exactly how the situation could possibly get any worse, it did. The ground around them started shaking, and a beam of light, directed at Uluru from the sky, seemed to be intensifying into a concentrated burst in the middle of the pack of technicians surrounding the disappearance site. The light faltered, disappearing and reappearing sporadically while the earth continued to shudder, until suddenly, everything stopped.

Stirred into action, he half-ran towards where the men were standing to see what had happened. As the General neared them, however, he again stopped still on the spot. There was another flash of light, although this time it wasn't a beam directed from the sky, but a quick proliferation of light from a concentrated spot. When the light receded, there was a small, grey figure standing amongst the cluster of people.

"Captain Hindmarsh?" He didn't move his eyes from their fix on the strange being. He could hear Stacey catching up to him from behind. "Am I to understand that an alien has just beamed onto Uluru?" He finally looked around to see the young officer approaching him. She didn't seem to be nearly as taken aback with the arrival of the grey thing as he was – but then her reports from the last day had been progressively more unbelievable. By now he didn't think anything would really shock her.

"I can only imagine so, sir." Stacey puffed as she moved passed General Marty, taking great confident strides towards the group in front of them.

"If you didn't do anything…" Sam was thinking out loud, trying in vain to understand what was going on. A familiar voice, thought lost to them, gave her an immediate insight into what had just happened.

"Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter?" Thor's calm voice carried through the Tok'ra device in Sam's hand, causing her to nearly drop it. "I apologise. I believe my attempt to contact you at your current location may have destabilised the defences protecting you from Turramulli."

Sam flashed a smile at Jack, mirroring the evident relief that had washed over his face. She held her hand out to offer the communicator to him, which he took gladly.

"Thor! Buddy!" Jack exclaimed into the device. "You're all better!" He paused for a moment, holding the communicator in front of him. A look of confusion spread across his features "Where are you? Why are you using a Tok'ra gadget? Why can't we see you?"

"As I said, O'Neill," Thor's patience was impressive. "I attempted to present a holographic image of myself to you, but was prevented from doing so by the extremely effective shield surrounding your location."

"Ah." Jack suddenly realised why everything had started shaking. "Do us a favour yeah? Don't try that again."

"I would do no such thing, O'Neill," Thor said. "I am well aware of the danger you face… Turramulli."

It was so uncommon, Jack thought he'd imagined it. Thor's voice, in expressing that last word, had not been the epitome of calm and decorum it usually was. Instead, there was a discernible streak of fear and apprehension in his voice. Jack looked at Sam, and saw she'd seen it as well.

"Sir," she said quietly. "If even the Asgard truly fear Turramulli…" she had also taken to expressing the monster's name in a kind of revered whisper.

"He should try calling him 'Mr Hairy-Pillock'," he mused, looking towards Turramulli. "Makes him seem kinda ridiculous."

Sam snorted at this suggestion, and realised quite unexpectedly that he was right. "That why you always make up nicknames for the various goa'uld we encounter?" she joked.

"You bet." Jack replied frankly, his eyes twinkling. "Most of the time it works too." He brought the communicator back to face level. "Ok Thor, we need your help." He moved around the cavern in a small circular pattern, describing everything he could see, hoping some of it would sound familiar to their small friend. "So we need a way to help your friend, to help our guy, to get out of here, and to get the naquada outta here – provided we find it – and all hopefully without getting killed by Turramulli." He paused, covered the device with his hand, and looked briefly at Sam, who had again crouched down beside Fodor. "D'you think we're asking too much?" he asked, his eyebrows wriggling comically.

"O'Neill, my knowledge is unfortunately somewhat limited." Thor's calm voice permeating through the air stopped Sam from finding a suitable response. "However, I believe with concentration you should be able to maintain the force shield protecting you and complete other tasks."

"Such as?" Since Jack hadn't managed to get them out of there, even before their little encounter with Turramulli, it didn't seem that this information would do him any good.

"The internal transport system should enable you to transport the stasis pod to your location," Thor said. "This should allow Fodor to regain consciousness and provide any further help you require."

"Ah." Jack nodded his head slightly. "Ok. Hold on a sec." He looked at Sam, who was now standing, looking somewhat concerned. "So Carter…" he grinned slightly as his shaking hands reached for the orb again. "We're about to find out if men really can multi-task."

TBC

A/N: So, can men multi-task? I think it's an important scientific and philosophical question really…

Ok. I'm exhausted, bed time for me! As always, reviews are much appreciated – it looks like I'm going to have a hell of a week so I'd really like to hear from you guys… writing is what keeps me calm, but what keeps me writing is your reviews!