Teal'c was convinced he was going to die, that all those times he and SG-1 had evaded death had finally caught up with him. His position offered no cover and the last hit he had taken had knocked his staff weapon out of his reach.
He saw one of the enemy Jaffa point his staff weapon towards him and he closed his eyes calmly as the shot flew towards him, holding a picture of his son in his minds eye, hoping he would one day see his people freed from slavery.
He felt a surge of heat as the bolt hit, but there was no accompanying pain, he opened his eyes and found that the shot had dissipated a few centimetres in front of his face. He did not stop to think about this new development, instead gathering up his energy and managing to throw himself over a few feet, just enough to put him behind the cover of an ornately carved pillar.
He took the moment of respite to assess his injuries, there were various small burns and cuts, but the main problem was the deep wound made by an enemy staff weapon in his side. In time the Goa'uld within him would heal it, but in the meantime there was a distinct possibility that it would limit his ability to defend himself, the pain was already agonising as he lay still, the only thing keeping him conscious was strength of mind and a well honed survival instinct.
He spotted a discarded zat gun to his left, beyond his reach and out of the shelter of the pillar. Knowing his only real chance was to get to it, he moved as close as possible without presenting a target intending to make a quick lunge for it. However the movement caused blinding pain to course through his body and he was forced to remain still to try to regain control of his body.
He was almost ready to give up hope when he felt his body gaining energy from some unseen force and the searing pain from his wound was muted to a dull throb.
He quickly glanced around the room, taking in everything around him, O'Niel had taken cover behind a large stone alter and Daniel and Sam were continuing to fire on the Jaffa, occasionally getting a hit, but mostly just stopping them advancing.
No one was paying much attention to his position, but if he wanted to make that work to his advantage then he would need to get that weapon.
To his shock and surprise as he thought this, the zat began to move towards him, as he looked around for the source of the movement he noticed the crystal on his chest glowing. As soon as he focused his attention away from the zat gun it stopped moving and the crystal dimmed.
Teal'cs thought through the facts logically and figured that maybe Willow had given him some of her powers, so he turned his attention back to the gun on the floor and focused his thoughts on getting it within arms reach.
The gun slid smoothly across the floor until it hit his leg, and he was once again armed and ready to fight.
'Damn it' Willow was not pleased, the teleportation spell was supposed to take her to Teal'c, but instead she was left wandering about corridors that looked like the cheesy set of some ancient Egyptian porn movie. Did the ancient Egyptians even have porn? When the Pharaoh's wives said, "not tonight dear we've all got headaches" did he go to bed with some naughty papyruses?
Willow shook her head to clear out the useless thoughts, and continued following the corridor, hoping to finally find something, well anything that would give her a clue as to where Teal'c was.
After two minutes of random walking she heard noises up ahead of her. She stopped, listening intently and made out the distinct rattle of gunfire, instinctively she strengthened her shields and checked her magic reserves. She still had a single crystal and her personal reserves were fairly low since she had pushed a lot of energy to Teal'c but she figured she had enough to deal with whatever was going on, as long as she wasn't too showy. Anyway, if she got desperate she could use the natural magic of the planet as a boost but she wasn't too keen on that idea, after last time she had decided to err on the side of caution where the magics on other planets were concerned.
She continued towards the fight, not having to worry about being heard since any sound she made would be covered up by the fight. Her first look at the situation came when she turned a corner and ran into the back of a heavily armoured Jaffa, the guard stumbled forward as Willow clutched her head where it had smacked against the metal armour.
When she returned her attention to the matter at hand she found four staff weapons pointed at her head. 'Hey guys,' she raised her hands in the air, 'would you believe I'm just a tourist here to admire the beautiful architecture.' She flashed them her best innocent smile and watched silently as they conferred rapidly in another language.
'Hello,' she tired to interrupt but they simply ignored her, 'Yoohoo, remember me? Does anyone here speak English, or French?' They glanced at her briefly before gesturing for her to go with them back the way she had come.
She spoke various extremely insulting phrases in ancient Sumarian, Greek and Hebrew before ruling all of them out due to lack of response. 'Look, I don't mean to offend any of you but you're really not my type, so if you don't mind I'm just going to go and visit my friends.' She turned round beginning to walk away from them, only to find herself once again in the position of having four staff weapons in her face.
She quickly muttered a spell that made any living thing within three feet of her unable to move an inch and simply walked calmly between them. She figured she could hold the spell for around twenty minutes without any serious drain to her resources but after that it would take major amounts of concentration and power, she just hoped she would be away by then.
This time she paid far more attention to her surroundings and she managed to stop before she collided with any of the enemy. No one noticed her appearance since all their attention was centred on the room where she was sure SG-1 were fighting for their lives.
Jack briefly stuck his head around the side of the altar he was using for cover, he could see at least twenty Jaffa just within the doorway and through it, outside of the room. He knew there was no way they could fight off that many, and there were probably more outside of his vision.
The only hope they had was to get to the ring transport in the centre of the room. He had picked up the remote activator earlier in the mission and if he could just get the team together in the right place, without them all getting killed, they could use the rings to transport to the stargate.
Unfortunately he had see Teal'c take a hit, so it was unlikely that he would be able to move quickly and he was fairly certain that the Jaffa shooting at them didn't understand the meaning of 'time out'.
'Teal'c.' He spoke over the radios, hoping the enemy wouldn't hear it over the din of the fight, 'how are you holding up, can you move in a hurry?'
There was a brief moment of static before Teal'c replied, 'Indeed I can O'Neil, do you have a plan?'
'Yeah, we need to get to the rings, some how we need a distraction.' At that exact moment a loud shout from outside of the door cause most of the Jaffa to lose focus and turn to see what was going on.
Since Jack had never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth he shouted to the others in his team to get to the transport, waiting a moment to provide them with cover fire before getting himself into position and activating the rings. An immense feeling of relief swept over him as the light of the transport flooded around him, he smirked and looked though the gaps at the Jaffa left in the room.
At the Stargate they quickly checked around for more enemy guards but were surprised by the absence of anyone in the area. The place was completely deserted, this fact made Jack so suspicious he couldn't relax as Daniel dialled home and the familiar watery surface of the gate appeared. Until the last second when he stepped through the gate to safety, he scanned behind him expecting a fight that never came.
Willow listened carefully, the Jaffa in front of her still hadn't noticed her presence and she could hear Jack shouting inside, '…a distraction.' Was all she could make out, but it was all she needed to spur her into action.
Sounding like a bad martial arts B-movie she shouted at the top of her voice 'HAAA-EEEE-YA,' before pushing some of her magic into a small force that pushed the group of just enough to get their undivided attention. They quickly surrounded her and she put a lot of energy into reinforcing her personal shields before using magic to grip the staff weapons that were once again directed at her and lifting them into the air.
Some of the Jaffa refused to let go and she almost dissolved laughing as the large armoured men lost their dignity as they hung from their weapons as their fellows tried to avoid their feet as they struggled unsuccessfully to return themselves to the floor.
She swirled them around for a while, enjoying the spectacle, before looking up into the room just in time to see SG-1 disappear in some circular light thing.
Feeling her job as chief distracter was over she gathered her magic from within herself and tried to transport back to the gate, only to find that she was almost completely drained.
On the verge of panic she tried to use her remaining crystal as a power boost but found that it too was empty.
In complete panic she dropped her shields and started to pull power from the planet, but to her horror something was stopping her, cutting her off from the natural energy of the planet.
Desperate she tried to force her way through the barrier but she didn't have enough power left. For the first time in years, she was completely at the mercy of the people around her and her last thought before something crashed into the back of her head and she blacked out, was that next time she would definitely find friendlier people.
