Ian didn't have a lot of time for chitchat. For one thing, Bra'tac, Teal'c and even Jack had drilled it into him that talking in the middle of a battle was a good way to lose that battle – although a few well placed insults was a good way to piss someone off enough to make them make a mistake or lose their focus before the battle even began. For another thing, he was well aware of the fact that he was standing on the bridge of a time bomb that was going to go off in a very short amount of time.

He didn't want to wait around for that if he could avoid it.

Anubis caught the hesitation as well, and flung another bolt of enery at him – which was again absorbed by the shield that was protecting him. This one was in pure frustration, really. The system lord wasn't used to actually having anyone stand against him – and even less used to having them survive.

"Who are you!" he screamed, shooting yet another bolt at Ian. "I'll kill you for this!"

With a lot more calm than he felt – mainly because if this didn't work he knew he was going to die – Ian reached into his pocket and pulled out one last surprise for the system lord. As Anubis blasted yet another futile shot of energy at him, the New Yorker threw the device to the floor between the two of them. There was an instant concussion that knocked him back against one wall of the bridge – and knocked Anubis off his feet as well, tossing the system lord across to the opposite side of the bridge. The entire ship shuddered once more, and suddenly everything on the bridge shut down. Machinery, lights, all the little blinking indicators on the panels – and the panels themselves – it all went off in that instant, leaving the entire room in an eerie silence, that was punctuated by emergency lights blinking in the corridor outside.

Stunned, Ian scrambled to his feet and threw himself at Anubis, who was just regaining his own. The system lord saw the attack and flung his hand out for yet another crack at Ian, but this time nothing came from the device in his hand. Which was a good thing for Ian, since he knew the shield that was protecting him wasn't working any more.

And neither was the one Anubis had on him.

Surprised, Anubis fell back under Ian's attack, and both of them tumbled to the floor and gave Ian the only opening he needed.

The New Yorker found bare skin – in the form of the system lord's forearm – and grabbed hold, instantly submerging himself into the Goa'uld's system. Anubis gave a strangled cry of shock, and then the symbiote was frozen as Ian found its nervous system and paralyzed it, using the same idea that was behind the weapon that he'd killed the Jaffa with. He took hold of the individual cells and excited them – although this was all coming from him, now, and not any form of technology.

The Goa'uld's connection to its host was severed – painfully for both of them, unfortunately – and the host screamed as the symbiote tried one last time to hold its position, physically as well as mentally.

Boy! Release me! You can rule your world…

There was a glimpse of promises from the Goa'uld as it sought Ian's mind with its own consciousness, telling him silently that he could have anything he wanted if he would just stop what he was doing.

Ian met the offer with silent scorn and contempt. He didn't want to rule. He wanted to be obscure and be left alone. It was all he'd ever wanted in his life. With the host separate from the symbiote, Ian turned its system loose on the parasite, using the host's body to accelerate the demise of that which had invaded it so many years before.

The symbiote that called itself Anubis, greatest of all system lords and god of its people, gave a last silent screech as it was killed by its own host. There was a shuddering gasp from the host, who was now held tightly in Ian's mental grasp – and then grabbed hold himself.

Thank you!

Ian was blinded momentarily by a light so bright it was as if a sun had exploded in front of his face – although there was no heat. The arm he'd been holding so tightly was gone, and the cowled robe that Anubis had worn fell to the floor, empty. Ian sprawled on the floor, and opened his eyes just in time to see that same light rising up into the air and then vanishing, leaving the bridge once more in darkness, and his head filled with images that he couldn't shake.

"What the hell was that?"

He looked over and saw McKay standing at the entrance to the bridge, his face pale – even in the light from the corridor behind him. He lurched to his feet, unsteady, and realized that it wasn't just because he was exhausted from the battle with Anubis.

"Come on, we've gotta get out of here…"

He staggered against McKay, who grabbed him.

"What's going on?" the astrophysicist asked. "The ship is going crazy!"

"I knocked out all the bridge systems," he answered, taking McKay by the back of his jacket and pushing him towards the corridor that led back the hangar. "Life support, artificial environment, the works…"

Which explained why he couldn't seem to keep his footing. They were losing their gravity – slowly, but surely.

"We've gotta get out of here!" McKay said, echoing Ian's own announcement. Time enough later to ask questions. He thought he could already feel the chill of deep space entering the corridors of the mothership – even though it was his own very vivid imagination.

He rushed toward the hangar, with Ian staggering behind him. And ran right into one of the Jaffa patrols, who were rushing back to the bridge themselves to see what was happening.

"Argghhh!"

McKay reached for the gun at his side, even as several shots echoed through the corridor, causing him to drop to the floor and cover his head, certain he'd been hit. The Jaffa dropped as well, two of them dying instantly from gunshots to the head and the third falling back as he tried to get his staff weapon up to fire. Luckily the corridor wasn't very wide and the other Jaffa had fallen into their companion. Blood and brain matter were everywhere, soaking the floor and making it slick, and the Jaffa slipped. Ian fired again, deafening McKay, but finding his last target, and the Jaffa fell back, dead.

"Oh my God! Oh my God!"

There was blood everywhere. Even on him. McKay looked incredulously at his hand, and found it brilliant scarlet. Before he could say anything else, though, Ian was hauling him up to his feet – a job made easier by the fact that they didn't weigh as much as they had only minutes before.

"Come on! The ZPM's going to blow any minute!"

Slipping and sliding through the bloody patrol, the two of them made their way back to the hangar in record time, miraculously avoiding any more patrols – although they could hear shouts off in the distant corridors.

Limping and breathing raggedly, Ian unerringly led McKay to the gateship – and slammed into the edge of the invisible ramp, tripping both of them up.

"I put the ramp down…" McKay said, unnecessarily, as the two lay sprawled on the hangar floor.

Ian gave him a dirty look and got to his feet once more – although it was a lot harder this time. And this time he didn't help McKay up.

"Come on…"

Now that they were inside the cloaking field they could see where they were going, and Ian trotted up the ramp, first.

"Close it up!" he called as he threw himself into the pilot's seat and the systems on the ship came to life at his desperate mental command.

McKay did as he was told, closing the hatch behind him, and then he rushed over to sit in the copilot's chair, watching Ian while he tried to catch his breath.

"How much time until the ZedPM goes?"

"None."

The gateship's engines came to life and the ship lifted off the floor of the hangar, turning and heading for the exit.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Down in the engineering section of the ship there was a slight whine – which was completely ignored by the Jaffa technicians who had rushed there to see if they could restabilize the ship's systems before it was too late. Of course, by then, it was too late.

The ZPM overloaded, and a moment later it exploded, taking all of the engineering section – and most of the rest of the ship with it when it did. The rest of the ship exploded in a silent fireball, large enough to be seen by the naked eye from Earth – had anyone been looking that direction just then. There weren't any pieces. It just disintegrated, leaving a shockwave of mammoth proportions in its wake.

A shockwave that instantly caught up to the escaping gateship and sent it tumbling.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Brakes! Brakes!"

McKay was screaming, clutching the forward console so hard that his hands were beyond white.

"Shut up!"

Ian was holding the controls as tightly as he could, trying to steady the small ship as they headed at an incredible speed for the blue planet they'd been aimed at. Now they were going there, but the ship was dead; its systems overloaded by the explosion it had been caught in and its terrified pilot certain that they'd just managed to survive the explosion of Anubis' ship for a crash that would probably be just as spectacular.

"Brace yourself, McKay!" he screamed as they entered the atmosphere, the ship shuddering so hard, now, that he was certain it was going to disintegrate around them. "We're going to crash…"

He tried to pull it up like he'd seen in the movies, but it was effectively dead. A coffee can with shattered wings and absolutely no stability hurtling through the early evening sky.

"Aim for Colorado!" McKay said, his eyes wide, and then clenched closed as he saw that the continental United States were way too close for his own comfort.

Ian gave him an incredulous look, despite the fact that he was terrified. There was a reason he never flew unless he couldn't avoid it, after all, and aiming for Colorado wasn't going to help them a bit when they crashed into the Rocky Mountains.