A/N #1: I am not sure when I'll get the next chapter posted. It almost certainly will not be on my normal schedule. I'm moving to a new country soon, and I'm up to my eyeballs in all the tasks associated with moving to a new country.

A/N #2: Before you read this chapter, please note this timeline change. In this alternate reality, The Serpent's Venom (4x14) does not happen because Apophis and Heru'ur have already been defeated by the Furlings.


In the weeks following Dr. Jordan's death, Daniel's return to earth, and the capture of Osiris, life returned to what passed for normal these days. Well, to what passed for normal for Daniel these days. Life for Sarah and for Steven (who had barely survived his injuries even with Ragnar's healing device on hand, which tells you in how awful shape he was when we found him!) would never be the same again.

Freeing Sarah from Osiris' control had been easy once she had been brought to a Furling facility with the right equipment to conduct the extraction, but that was only the beginning. For a week or so, Sarah had been forced to watch as her body was puppeted around, as Dr. Jordan and the curator died by 'her' hands, as Steven and Daniel (her old friend and her ex) were attacked by 'her' hands. All the horrible things that had happened had been done by her body, and that was what would live on in Sarah's nightmares, even though Osiris had guided her hands, not Sarah herself. To top that off with a revelation that earth was not alone in the galaxy; that aliens were real and not necessarily at all friendly (in the case of the Goa'uld … and several other races); that so much about Egyptology, her life's work and entire academic career, was upended. All that was just the icing on the proverbial cake. In an instant, Sarah's life had been upended, had turned into a waking nightmare. Healing would take time.

And the way things ended … I don't think Sarah or Steven will be returning to the Oriental Institute for a while.

For Sarah … that would be returning to the scene of her own living nightmare on earth.

And there've been some quiet questions about what exactly happened those last couple of days there and with Steven and the amulet.

Egypt sure wasn't happy about losing both canopic jars and the amulet from the collection. "Was not happy" was an understatement. The ministry was … livid.

Better they both keep their heads down for now.

Now would not be a good time to ask the Ministry for permits.

Steven … now that was almost as complicated a situation in its own way as Sarah. Steven had survived his injuries inflicted at Osiris' hands only by the skin of his teeth and only because Ragnar had had a healing device with him. Sarah watched Osiris use her body to almost kill Steven, and Steven watched one of his closest and oldest friends almost kill him. That would put a hitch in any relationship. One more thing they both have to work through. The list of his injuries that the Furling healers at the SGC had given Daniel had been lengthy … and horrifying. (As the only person there who knew them at all, Daniel had found himself as … medical proxy … of sorts … for both Steven and Sarah.) Broken ribs. Broken pelvis. Internal injuries. Internal bleeding. Lacerated organs. It was nauseatingly awful.

But Steven had survived.

He survived. That was what counted, though he too had a long rode ahead of him. Advanced alien technology was not a miracle cure or a magic fix-it. Not even a Furling could suffer the amount of injuries Steven had and be quickly back up and at 'em. It just didn't happen.

What Steven would do now, what Sarah would do now … after their recoveries … that was yet another giant question mark.

Whatever they did, both Steven and Sarah would have to sign the usual stack of non-disclosure forms that usually preceded learning anything about the Stargate Program. They did it backwards, unlike the rest of us. Unpleasant revelation and then unpleasant paperwork.

There was talk of hopefully recruiting both into the Stargate Program. There was always a need for more skilled archaeologists and linguists, especially those whose specialty was Egyptology. Daniel understood the reasons behind the plan but wasn't so sure about it himself at first. With Tok'ra passing through the SGC from time to time, would Sarah want to be around them, feel the buzz of the naquadah in her veins? Would she want to work in the Stargate Program given everything, or could Egyptology, the program, studying alien artifacts, just keep what had happened to her too fresh in her mind?

And Steven? Daniel was especially unsure about him as a fit for the Stargate Program, though he had to be honest and admit to himself that was partially because of their old feud from back in the day when they were both at the Oriental Institute. Times had changed, and Daniel had to leave the possibility open that Steven had changed. Don't judge people only by how they act after a close friend, a valued mentor, a long-time teacher, has just died tragically and unexpectedly! Daniel would have once had some pretty harsh descriptors for his once-friend's personality, and doubted that he would have ever recommended him for the heavily cooperative work of the SGC. But how much of their former conflicts and his opinions of Steven had been based on misunderstandings? Daniel had never wanted to show Steven up or replace him or displace him in Dr. Jordan's eyes or anything else Steven might have thought or accused him of. Academia was not always a nice place, and it was especially complicated for child prodigies, and Daniel had learned a lot in the intervening years and become a little less … self-absorbed and single-minded in his research and his personal life.

I screwed up things with Sarah and Steven.

And Steven, he could be quite personable. We were friends once. He was an excellent researcher and a solid teacher, had usually gotten on well with the other grads. The undergrads loved him, and not all good scholars are good teachers. He was a skilled linguist and archaeologist. Steven would have a lot to learn about the changes to Egyptology because of the Goa'uld, would have to reorient and resettle himself, but it was not beyond his capabilities by any means. And once the debacle at the Oriental Institute blew over—more problems with the Ministry than anything else. No one's fingering them for the murders, and no one's blabbed about Steven and the amulet—they both certainly more recent contacts in Egyptological circles than Daniel did and would probably still have better access to museum collections.

I'm probably still a disgraced, laughing-stock, PNG.

What had happened with the artifacts from the Steward expedition had been a stark reminder that Goa'uld artifacts could get mixed in with regular ancient Egyptian artifacts. More could show up somewhere someday. They likely will, and having people like Steven and Sarah to keep an eye out would be beneficial. It was a miracle that more Goa'uld artifacts had not been showing up in museum collections or private collections, especially now as cataloging entered the digital age more and more. As widely spread as Egyptian artifacts were across the globe, there really was a real risk of Goa'uld stuff appearing … most anywhere in the future, especially as continuing excavations across Egypt dug up more and more artifacts.

Stealing the artifact had not been Steven's finest hour by any stretch of the imagination. And if he joined the SGC, he'd probably have someone keeping a closer eye on him for a while, but in the end, he would have nothing to gain by exposing anything … as long as he had no physical proof and maybe even if he did. There were always a few crackpots in academia who spouted ridiculous theories—like me … according to 99% of our circles outside the SGC—and like Daniel, Steven would likely find himself lumped into that category. Carbon dating was not a foolproof science, and well, weird findings had been explained away before in various academic circles. And once he's NDAed, he'd get disappeared if he tried anything.

Daniel ended up needing to make several brief trips back to earth to help with getting Steven and Sarah acclimated to their changed reality. And wonder of wonders, Daniel actually found himself sitting down and having cordial, if somewhat stilted, conversations with Steven as the weeks passed. What had happened had changed Steven. The world was changing. They could grow up and change, too. They could find a way to work cordially together, even if they were never friends again. We're adults. I'm an adult. We can interact without all our old sniping.


Back home in Asteria, Shifu was still growing like a weed and babbling more words. Sometimes those words were Furling, sometimes Abydonian, and sometimes English. As many languages as his son was being exposed to, Daniel and Sha're wondered if they might have a little budding linguist on their hands.

Sha're, however, was rather displeased with Daniel, given all the trouble he kept on getting himself into … given how his last two adventures on earth or with the SGC had ended up. Me getting kidnapped and finding a System Lord trapped on earth. Aside from that, Sha're herself was doing quite well. She was well adjusted to Uslisgas by this point—had been for some time. She was running the house with great efficiency, cooking and cleaning, and seemed to enjoy bending them all to her will … and taking care of us! (It was very clear that she was still the same woman who had helped lead the rebellion against Ra.) Now that she could speak near-fluent, though somewhat accented, Furling, Sha're was helping the computer techs input Abydonian into the matrix of the Furling translator system. She was still wowing the merchants in the city with her skill at bartering, and they were learning to up their game to try to keep up with her. She had also gained somewhat of a following of the children who lived nearby, who would always try to convince her to tell them stories whenever she appeared in the Great Market.

On an unhappier note, the ongoing saga of Martouf-Lantash and Rosha was a continuing reminder that those who really deserved happy endings did not always get them. Sadly, there had been only about a month-and-a-half between her reappearance and Martouf-Lantash's near-demise because of their Za'tarc programming. A mere month-and-a-half after Rosha's long captivity and disappearance. I'm not even sure how long she was Kryse's host, how long before Nasya she and Jolinar were separated. Daniel's sense of news from the Fleet, the Army, or Headquarters generally was limited largely to what Sujanha was involved in with the periodic additions from what he overheard. He knew Rosha had gone to Ilea after being released from the healers' care on Ardea and had been promptly entrusted to the care of the healers on Ilea. Different healers. Mind and soul healers. Martouf-Lantash had not stayed in Asteria with his mate—his duties for the Tok'ra apparently would not allow it, or his superiors won't … greater good and all that maybe?—but he had become the most frequent messenger between the Tok'ra and the Furlings so that he could at least see Rosha more frequently. And Rosha had improved slowly in little increments during that period. Had stopped thinking that the two people left in the universe who loved her most were hallucinations or something similarly terrible.

And then had come the Za'tarc incident. During the treaty signing ceremony at the SGC, Martouf-Lantash had attempted to assassinate the man whom they thought was the American president, revealing themselves as a Za'tarc. While being subdued, Martouf had been, by all rights, fatally wounded with over a dozen gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen. Equipped with Furling tech, his fellow Tok'ra subdued and sedated him before his programming could force him to commit suicide, their actions aided by the emergence of some hint of Martouf-Lantash's true personality. Two Tok'ra operatives with medical training had nearly killed themselves using two Furling healing devices to keep Martouf-Lantash breathing, their heart beating, and some amount of their blood still in their body while they got him to the healers'. A miracle. A miracle that could easily have ended with all of them dead, Sujanha said.

All that had been five (earth) months ago, and Martouf-Lantash had largely been in healing-induced stasis ever since. The pod kept them alive and slowly enacted repairs, and the hoped-for surgeries had taken place in the interim once they had a hope and prayer of actually surviving the surgeries. Healing pods can't remove spent lead or set bones or remove bone fragments. The occasional piece of news had reached Sujanha that Martouf-Lantash had survived thus-and-such surgery and spent lead had been removed from near his heart or around his spine. Or something equally horrible. The same technology that had helped Shifu with his Harcesis memories was being used to develop a cure for Za'tarc brainwashing, but that was still very much a work in progress. Brains are a complicated thing to mess with.

Rosha was … surviving. The initial news about Martouf-Lantash's injuries and near-death had sent her into a self-destructive tailspin, undoing weeks of recovery. She had eventually clawed her way back out of that tailspin with the help of her healers, though she was still extremely physically and mentally fragile. (Daniel had seen her once at a distance when Sujanha had gone to visit the facility where Martouf-Lantash was in stasis and where the research was ongoing. She looked like a stiff wind could bowl her over.) Rosha apparently spent a good chunk of time at the facility from what Daniel had overheard. Some of the healers had taken her under their wing, and Rosha seemed to have found some sort of purpose to keep her going until, if the Stars were kind, Martouf-Lantash were healed and freed from the Za'tarc programming, and then maybe they could have some sort of happy ending … peace, at last.


In the Milky-Way, the war against the Goa'uld continued apace. Olokun had been captured … along with his Ancient transporter, which he had been using to transport naquadah between his occupied worlds. (Strangely enough, that device only worked when on a large body of water—a quirk not caused by power demands—and was puzzling the Furling and Asgard scientists to no end, Sujanha had said.) The bodies of the missing Ohnes Freedom Fighters had been found in Olokun's palace on his homeworld and had been returned with all honor and care to Oannes for burial. Olokun's empire, however, was still being dismantled, underling's territory by underling's territory. Tanen, one of Ptah's underlords, had also been captured, along with several of Ptah's worlds, but Ptah himself was still in the wind despite the Furlings' best attempts at hunting him down.

The most unusual events (on the war front) had occurred during the attacks against Ares. His chief underlords—Eris, Phobos, and Deimos—had all died during the early weeks of the campaign, though their fleets remained troublesome beyond their deaths under the command of competent lieutenants or competent Jaffa commanders. Ares, however, managed to escape capture twice and survived until the siege and capture of his own homeworld, Geronthrae. Among those who were rescued from the depths of his dungeons included an Unas-hosted Goa'uld, a former underlord of Hephaestus, named Ulysses, who had been a prisoner for centuries, at least. He had learned compassion, tolerance, and acceptance from a fellow prisoner, forsaking the ways of the Goa'uld and becoming a Tok'ra in spirit. He had not consented to join the ranks of the Tok'ra as of yet, and what he would do after he recovered enough from those years of torture had yet to be determined. For now, he would remain among the Furlings.

Late in August, less than desirable news came from the SGC. SG1 had been ambushed by a group of Jaffa and had only gotten home in one piece by the skin of their teeth, and in the wake of that mission, General Hammond had decided to retire and was replaced by General Henry Bauer, a stickler for … a whole lot of things, whose new policies and procedures turned the entire SGC on its head, lock, stock, barrel, SGC teams, academics, and medical staff. Not that long later, a quiet warning reached the High Command from what used to be SG1 that General Hammond's decision to retire had been entirely precipitated by a clear threat to his only granddaughters, still young children, by no one else than the NID, who once again had raised their ugly head.

(Daniel had still not forgiven nor forgotten how Maybourne and his ilk had gotten him exiled from earth, though a lot of good had come from that change.)

Needless to say, Sujanha had opinions about that, first and foremost, about the utter barbarity of threatening children for political gain, but also about the change in leadership at the SGC, as well as the continuing problems caused by the NID. Democracy, the lack of knowledge of the Stargate Program more broadly on earth, and the utter political disunification of having nations numbering in the hundreds on one planet had never set well with the Furlings. The continuation of the Furling treaty with the SGC had largely been predicated on the continuing presence of General Hammond, who was liked and trusted by the Furlings … and by the SGC. General Bauer just seems to be shaking up a lot of stuff and not exactly winning friends in the process. That General Hammond's retirement had been brought about by such underhanded tactics—Sujanha's description was much less polite—did not exactly help anything, especially her trust in earth.

The NID was proving that it still had a long arm and a long shadow.

She's right to be wary. I might need to start watching my back again if the NID starts getting ideas.

The treaty's done a lot of good for the SGC. A lot of people have survived just because of their healing technology.

I hope this won't end things.


23rd of Tliu, 6546 A.S.

(September 10, 2000)

Valhalla, Avalon

The alarm that suddenly rang out across the bridge of the Valhalla one morning made Daniel almost jump out of his skin, and sitting by Sujanha's chair, he started so hard that he bumped his head on the arm of her seat. For a moment, he didn't even understand what the alarm was for—has something gone wrong on the ship? Then he recognized that particular look of alarm and almost fear on Sujanha's face, a look mirrored on the faces of her crew.

It was a distress call. A Furling distress call.

Sujanha's paw tightened convulsively on the arm of her chair. "Ship or personal beacon?" She almost snapped.

"Personal beacon," came an answering shout from the rear of the bridge. It didn't sound like Mekoxe's voice. Was he off duty? "Our ships are the closest." There were three other motherships that had joined the Valhalla the previous day. "It's from … Midgard."

Earth.

Daniel felt a wave of horror, mingled with utter confusion, strike him like a battering ram. What had happened on earth? What was happening? A personal beacon probably meant that it was from one of the Furling contingent at the SGC. Why were they calling for aid? Was earth under attack? The SGC? Were they themselves in danger? Did the NID do something? He remembered all too well how the Tollan had almost disappeared into the black hole of some government black-site never to be seen or heard from again. They couldn't try that on our people, could they? They aren't that stupid, are they?

"Are there any signs of enemy vessels from our satellite?" Sujanha asked.

"No, Commander," Rusa answered from the navigator's chair to one side.

A problem contained to the SGC then, maybe? That could still mean one of any number of imaginable horrors. An incursion. A spreading disease. Unless … the satellite's malfunctioning again? Daniel had not forgotten what had happened during the multi-month time-loop that had encompassed earth earlier that year. I doubt it. The techs made a lot of upgrades.

"Orders?" someone called.

"Tell our strike-group to follow us," Sujanha replied, beginning to briskly and calmly issue commands, however unsettled she might be feeling internally. "Make for Midgard at best possible speed. Come out of hyperspace beyond Mani's[1] orbit. Immediately cloak and shield. No one fires at anything except on my command."

Within sections of her finishing speaking, the blue of hyperspace filled the holographic view-screens at the front of the bridge, replacing the inky black darkness of deep space, flecked with the light of distant stars. There was a low murmur of voices and the bustling of bodies back and forth, but all was calm and controlled. As fast as the Furling hyperdrives were, it would take only minutes to reach earth, so there was little time to prepare.

No more than two minutes later Rusa began a countdown, and the blue of hyperspace was replaced by the black of space with the shining figures of the earth and the moon highlighting the view screen. Immediately, shields and cloaks were raised—unlike some ships, Furling vessels could do both simultaneously, and it seemed like a glaring strategic weakness to NOT be able to do so in Daniel's opinion—and Sat'a armed weapons, though his armored hands didn't even seem to move. (Across the motherships accompanying the Valhalla, the same steps would be being taken.)

At first glance, nothing seemed amiss. There were no ships visible and no ships on scans, either. Nothing. Absolutely nothing … this far out, at least.

"Take us in," Sujanha ordered.

Under sublight power, the Valhalla slipped forward unseen, sensor technology enabling the motherships making up her strike-fleet to fall into formation behind it. Nothing still seemed visibly amiss as the ships approached earth. The gleaming sphere of Daniel's homeworld looked exactly the same as it always did … in pictures. This was actually the first time Daniel had ever seen earth from orbit. He had missed the Death Glider trip and subsequent ride home on the space shuttle after Apophis' attempted invasion, as I was dead and then took the long route home.

"Hail whoever activated the distress beacon on our emergency channels," was Sujanha's next order.

Within seconds of the hail going out, S'Hakarix, one of the Boii healers assigned to the SGC, appeared in a hologram at the front of the bridge. She was dressed in surgical attire, with blood-stained gloves and gown, and even though almost only the strip of her eyes above her surgical mask were visible, it was clear how harried she looked.

"Report!" Sujanha snapped.

"Base-wide evacuation. Gamma radiation through the Stargate," the healer rattled off the explanation. "We have patients in surgery and bed-bound patients who cannot easily or quickly be moved."

The entire base is being excavated?

Gamma radiation? What the h**l happened?

Daniel blanched.

Jack, Sam, Teal'c, Nyan?

Are they in all that?

Radiation spreading throughout the base, radiation exposure was just bad. Anything was bad, but exactly how bad was it? How badly had the base personnel, how badly had his friends been exposed?

Sujanha called back to Mekoxe, if he had arrived, or whoever was currently in charge of communications, "Tell the Acamar to beam the SGC's Stargate out into deep space or into orbit around Mani. Get our healers down to the main bay." She was now speaking half to S'Hakarix, apparently, to keep her apprised of the strike fleet's response to the crisis and half to the communication's officer. "We'll evacuate the infirmary to our main bay, equipment and all, and the healers can distribute you all appropriately as needed to the other ships." There was probably not room to beam the entire SGC infirmary and ORs into the Valhalla's infirmary.

"If your sensors pick up anyone still on the levels below the infirmary,"—anyone on levels 22 through 28—"get them out, too," S'Hakarix added. "Radiation levels were already approaching critical in the gateroom by the time the iris was closed. Anyone on, at least, levels 27 and 28 at the time of the incident will need to be checked for radiation poisoning."

(Daniel gulped and could only hope that his friends, his teammates were okay. The other archaeologists—like Robert and Nyan—all had offices on Level 18, like Daniel had. Hopefully, they would be far enough removed to be okay.)

How is radiation coming through the gate? What the h**l happened?

As long as it held, the closed iris during the minutes between it being closed and the Furlings arriving probably would have slowed or, perhaps, even could have stopped the flood of radiation coming through the Stargate. That, however, would do nothing to slow the spread of the radiation that had already come through the open gate.

With those words, S'Hakarix's hologram disappeared, and Sujanha started issuing orders for her ship to evacuate the infirmary and for another mothership to beam out anyone left in the lower levels.

"The Acamar has beamed the Midgardian Stargate into geosynchronous orbit on the dark side of Mani," the communication officer—definitely not Mekoxe by his voice—announced to the bridge as soon as those orders were distributed. That'll keep any astronomers from freaking about why something strange just appeared around the moon.

Talk about freaking out, though … there was probably more than a little of that in the SGC right now when the Stargate, then the infirmary (lock, stock, and barrel), and then anyone left on the lower levels started disappearing into thin air … combined with the possible panic from the evacuation. Beaming everyone (or everything) out was a faster method of evacuating the base than evacuating on foot and on ladder through alternate routes. The base was almost certainly on lockdown to keep the radiation from spreading into NORAD, and the alternate evacuation routes did not take the maneuverability of infirmary patients into consideration.

"There's a security station on Level 16," exclaimed Daniel suddenly, looking up at Sujanha. "If anyone was staying behind to monitor the gate, they're probably there. I can go down and see if I can update them … before people start panicking."

Sujanha nodded. "Go, but only in holographic form. I do not want any more of our people down there until the radiation levels are known. Your personal shield cannot protect you from the radiation."

Okay. Good to know.

"Yes, commander." Daniel climbed to his feet, wincing at the feeling of pins and needles in his lower extremities after sitting awkwardly for too long. Ouch. Slightly limping, he left the bridge for a secondary room one hallway over where holographic meetings could be carried out. Formerly carried out extensive scans of the entire SGC enabled him to now pull up a holographic representation of the base, and he quickly found the security station where he wanted to appear and activated the machine.

Doing anything as a hologram was a very … strange … experience … almost literally being in two places at once … and could be quite disorienting at first.

The security station was occupied, as Daniel had hoped, had guessed it might. Sam and Teal'c were both there (and looked alright to his great relief) as well as an officer, tall, thin, with half-a-head of white hair—a study in contrasts with General Hammond. Is this General Bauer? Sam was studying a screen that showed a video feed of the now empty gateroom and was expounding something in a tone of sheer puzzlement as Daniel shimmered into being behind them by the open doorway.

For some reason, holograms always made some sort of noise as they appeared, and at his appearance, everyone whirled to face him, Sam stopping mid-word in her … explanation? Her face filled with surprise and relief at the sight of him. "Daniel?!" she exclaimed.

"Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c echoed her greeting.

"Who is this, major?" General Bauer asked brusquely. Now that he had turned, Daniel could see the name-tag on his uniform and confirm that this was indeed General Hammond's unpopular replacement.

"It's Daniel," Sam answered. "He was on SG1." Her attention focused on Daniel. "What … just happened? The gate disappeared. We have people disappearing all across the base."

What happened? I was about to ask you that question.

"They're all safe," Daniel quickly explained. "S'Hakarix, one of the Furling healers in the infirmary, called for aid. Supreme Commander Sujanha, with her flagship and three other motherships, responded. The gate has been beamed into geosynchronous orbit on the far side of the moon to stop the spread of radiation, and all those in the infirmary and on the lower levels have been evacuated to safety onboard our ships."

"Ships?" Sam's eyes widened momentarily before her face went just as quickly blank. Had she just realized that there had been no warning from the Furling satellite in orbit about the ships, that no ships had appeared on the radar downstairs? The satellite sensors deliberately did not react to Furling or Asgardian ships nor show them on radar … a security measure that hitherto the SGC had not seemed to know about, as far as Sujanha knew.

"On whose orders, mister?" General Bauer blustered. "This is a sovereign US military base …" I miss General Hammond.

"On Supreme Commander Sujanha's orders," Daniel replied bluntly, not backing down as he might once have done. "Saving lives is more important than asking by-your-leave."

Standing behind General Bauer, so her face was hidden, Sam looked a mixture of pained and pleased. Being a civilian had its downsides, but him being able to have an opinion to a general without the risk of getting court-martialed was a definite perk.

"The far-side of the moon," Sam hastened to add before General Bauer could say more and stick his foot in it further, either—I don't think it would go well if Sujanha meets him—"that's good. We don't want it visible to anyone with a powerful telescope in their backyard."

"S'Hakarix says that anyone on Levels 27 and 28, at least, will need to be checked by the doctors because of the radiation. Risk of radiation poisoning."

Sam winced and nodded, exchanging a glance with Teal'c. "We know." She turned to General Bauer. "You should go topside, General. I can liaison with the Furlings for how best to get our people and the Stargate back."

General Bauer's moment of bluster had quickly passed, and now he looked almost slightly shell-shocked. What happened? He agreed and left, and after another look passed between Sam and Teal'c, Teal'c followed him, leaving Daniel and Sam alone in the security station.

Sam almost physically sagged and leaned heavily against the desk, looking exhausted. "General Bauer's feelings aside, it's good you came. The iris wouldn't have held forever. He wanted to set the self-destruct, but even burying the gate under a mountain of rock wouldn't stop the radiation once the iris melted … melts."

"What happened?" Daniel asked that had been plaguing him since S'Hakarix's first explanation. "Where is this radiation even coming from? Did you dial into something unexpected? Like with the black hole?"

Sam grimaced and shook her head. "Weapon's testing. General Bauer is very interested in the enhancing effect of naquadah on nuclear ordinance." Her voice was so terribly flat. "Very interested. And the planet picked to be the testing site had naquadah in the soil. There's a good chance we turned it into a ruin of molten slag that could power the gate for months."

Oh, stars.

That is so not good.

You blew up an entire planet?

Were there people on it?

Stars!

Daniel cringed. "Do you need to talk to … the Commander? Or was that just to get Bauer out of the room?"

Sam made a face. "Both. She saved our bacon and kept the lower levels from getting flooded with even more radiation. If I could talk to her briefly, I can thank her for her help—someone needs to—and we will need to discuss how to get our people and … maybe the gate … back."

If it stays open, pumping out radiation for months … the gate's going to be unusable.

Are their teams off-world? What are they going to think when they can't contact earth? Daniel had been off-world during the black hole incident and remembered the gut-curdling, gut-churning fear of not being able to dial earth and wondering if there was still an earth to even go home to ever again.

The unknown was the worst.

Daniel nodded. "Let me go check with the Commander to make sure it's alright for you to beam up. I'll be right back."

He deactivated the holographic projector and found himself back only in the one room on the ship. The switch was momentarily disorienting, but that soon passed. Daniel returned to the bridge and threaded his way through the crew to Sujanha's side. "The whole mountain's been evacuated. It was a weapon's test on another planet gone wrong. They were about ready to set the self-destruct, before the Acamar got the gate out."

Sujanha looked at him askance. "Weapon's test? They could have irradiated their whole base!"

"The new general has different … interests from General Hammond." Though the brass won't take kindly to this … accident. I wonder how long Bauer'll still be around.

Sujanha's gaze sharpened.

"I can tell you more later," Daniel hastened to add. "Sam would like to come up and pay her respects, if she could, and talk about how best to get the SGC people back down earth-side and get the gate back … if it actually shuts down anytime soon."

Sujanha did the Furling equivalent of raising an eyebrow at those final two words. "Very well. She may be beamed up. A healer can check her over, if she consents, before we speak."

Daniel returned to the holographic projector room to give the news to Sam. Within ten minutes, she had been beamed up to the Valhalla, checked over by a healer, and cleared as having, thankfully, only very minor exposure. Once the healer had left, Sam scanned the room with a scientist's eyes, cataloging everything … design, consoles, control stones, and all.

"So where are we?"

"The Valhalla. The Supreme Commander's flagship." He had to consciously remind himself not to say 'Sujanha.' "This is a communication's room off the bridge. You ready?"

Sam nodded, and Daniel led her across to the bridge. Her eyes widened at the sight—maybe at the tech, maybe at the array of species, maybe at something else entirely, or maybe at a combination of all of the above. Her eyes got even wider at the sight of the holographic view screens. Sam shivered slightly as they approached Sujanha, still in her chair, probably as she got close enough to sense Malek.

"Commander," said Daniel. "Major Sam Carter."

"Major." Sujanha inclined her head but did not rise. "Welcome to the Valhalla. I am glad to see you well. We were quite concerned for the fate of Stargate Command when I received the distress call from my people."

Sam winced. "Thank you for the … rescue, Supreme Commander. Things could have gotten a lot worse if you had not gotten the Stargate out when you did. That limited the amount of radiation getting into the base."

"The Acamar tells me that your Stargate is still connected. The cold of space has slowed the degradation of your iris, but it will still eventually fail if the Stargate itself does not shut down."

Sam winced again. "We had a … malfunction … with a new weapon's platform we were … testing. We … uh, may have turned the planet into molten slag. The Stargate may not shut down for months."

There was a very long beat of silence as Sujanha absorbed that information and just stared steadily at Sam, who was somehow managing not to squirm under the weight of the commander's gaze. Does Sujanha even know what slag is? Context, though.

"A malfunction … that doomed an entire planet," Sujanha said in a pointed tone that was terribly quiet and terribly audible simultaneously. "That must have been quite a weapon's platform. I hope, for your sakes, that the planet was not inhabited." 'With great power comes great responsibility and a great accounting before the Maker,' as they say.

"There was no sign of habitation within 50 miles of the gate," Sam replied.

Sujanha cut a glance at Daniel, looking for a translation of the US imperial measurements into Furling. Her face was grave when she heard the translation. "On many worlds, that can mean little. You were blessed that you did not doom your planet, as well."

"We tried to stop it at the last minute … once we learned some … new factors, but General Bauer …" Sam's voice trailed off, and she simply shook her head.

"General Hammond's leadership must be greatly missed," Sujanha noted idly. Someone from a station at the back of the room came forward and whispered something in her ear. "Midgard's Stargate is still open. If it has not closed by the time my ship is ready to depart, we will take it and bring you a new one from an uninhabited world."

"And do what with ours?" Sam asked, puzzled.

That's a very good question.

"Given the radiation pouring out of it … probably either leave it in deep space with a tracker where we might retrieve it in future months or years, if the connection actually ends, or consign it to the depths of … how do you say it? … a black hole, which will end that problem once and for all."

Too much risk if you leave it in inhabited space, I guess.

You wouldn't want someone retrieving it and getting a ship-full of radiation.

Sam's mouth opened and then shut, and then finally she replied, "Whatever you think best, Supreme Commander. What will be trickier is getting our people back down earth-side. The whole SGC is sealed off and will be until the radiation levels are checked and decreased to safe levels. And the people in the infirmary can't exactly be beamed down to the academy hospital …"

"I will check with the healers shortly," Sujanha replied. "At their approval, the wounded and the equipment from your base can be beamed from my ship to the Acamar, which I can spare for now. That will provide the best solution to returning your people to the ground to be decided."

The discussion quickly wrapped up, and as Sam was ready to depart, Sujanha added, giving Daniel's old teammate a pointed look as she did so, "I hope you will convey to your superiors my deep concern with these events and the current leadership of the SGC. The Furling High Command greatly regrets the retirement of General Hammond."

A little smile quirked up the corner of Sam's mouth, and she nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I will." She drew herself up and gave a textbook salute, which Sujanha returned in the Furling fashion.


Somewhat miraculously, earth's Stargate shut down before the Valhalla was ready to depart from orbit, and the Furlings were able to return it to the SGC gateroom.

Several days later, a message arrived on Uslisgas from Jack, forwarded by one of the bases in Avalon: Bauer was out, Hammond was back … after Jack had gone on an adventure blackmailing Senator Kinsey … couldn't have happened to a nicer guy … with Maybourne's help. Ugh.

At least General Hammond is back.

Sujanha was quite relieved by that fact.


[1] The Asgardian name for the Moon.