Chariot

Lapyx and Horogia stand a little to one side from the rest of the team, gathered at the temporary buildings. Beneath their feet, the ground shakes, the chariot awake after thousands of years slumbering under the ground, held in place by the time-lock Horogia has placed it in. She leans momentarily heavily on her scythe, drawing strength from its cooling silversilk under the Mediterranean heat and then, with a nod to Lapyx, explains to the team what they plan to do.

'…and the ship will be released from the time-lock by me at the same time as from the ground by Lapyx. You will need to be clear of this area, your temporary buildings should be safe enough. Once the engine wheels have arrived, we will assemble the ship and return to Pantheon where Aelix and Kyna will be sent back safely through the Gate Pool. We will seal the gate Pool and your planet will be safe from Theia.'

With that, the two Guardians watch as the group moves back inside the buildings to watch on a bank of screens what happens from the cameras and sensors sited across the ancient site. It is less than hour since they arrived but the earthquakes are louder, more insistent, scattering rocks from old buildings, felling trees and buckling roads. They will need to work fast to stop any more destruction.

Lapyx and Horogia stand under the lintel of the Lion Gate, the two Guardians of the Giants fitting neatly under its arch. Lapyx wraps his wings around Horogia, protecting them both with his golden feathers, as she lifts her scythe just high enough to touch the Two Guardian Lions chevron carved on the lintel above them. The stone above jumps slightly and the time gate spins into action, the lintel stone disguise melting away to reveal the top of a gate, set into the ground. As the gate spins, a large vortex forms, swallowing the two Guardians and transporting them deep into the heart of Chariot, buried in the ground below the ancient site. For a second the vortex swirls around them, the gate a bright shining halo and then they are gone and all that remains are the stone lintel and ancient walls, as solid as they have ever been.

In the heart of the mothership Horogia sets to work, unpicking the time-lock she had placed on the ship's navigation system. It takes her a while to run through the centuries, choosing the right seconds to piece together the complex sequence to use as a key. She can feel time slipping from her, solidifying at her feet in large crystals as she carefully constructs the time sequence, fading in and out of synch with the present as she works. Lapyx watches her start work and then turns to his own task, knowing the physical toll it will take on Horogia to remove the time-lock. He finds an exit hatch and steps out into the cavern containing the ship buried deep underground. Here he starts to fly around the craft, each wingbeat catching the ancient atmosphere and propelling it forward until he has formed a swirling cloud of energy around him, rushing through the cavern at breakneck speed. As he flies, he unravels a skein of fine silversilk, attached at one end to one of his arrows. It forms a delicate mesh around the hull of the ship, barely visible, a net woven of strong spider silk.

Inside the ship Horogia adds the last second to the sequence and the key, complete, clicks into place, time unravelling all the way back to when they buried the ship, creating a time pocket through which the ship can travel to the present day. Horogia sets a course for the present time and picks a spot just above the atmosphere over Earth as Lapyx fires his silversilk arrow straight up through the roof of the cavern, piercing the rock, soil and ruins above, propelled forward by a great rush of swirling air as the silversilk net attached to the arrow pulls the ship with it, travelling through thousands of years and into the present and then out into space, as Lapyx swoops back in through the hatch, slamming it shut behind him and flying to where Horogia has collapsed next to the navigational system, a sea of time crystals swirling around them as they reach space.

In the temporary buildings near the ancient site, the monitors register nothing. After the Lion Gate had returned to its resting state once the vortex had vanished, there is nothing to see. Only the quakes increasing minute by minute let then team gathered there know that anything is out of the ordinary. Out across the sea, the sound of an approaching helicopter signals the arrival of the two silver discs, suspended in silversilk, ready to be dropped, away from any danger.

Then, for little more than an instant, what feels like a sonic boom runs through everyone. For a moment everything seems to stop and time hangs, a second where even breathing is impossible and then a jolt, time skipping a beat and passing through them all in a breath, followed by a glimpse of a flash of silver on the monitors and then nothing.

'What was that?' Commander Jack O'Neill asks, 'Felt like I missed a heartbeat!'

'There's nothing on the external monitors.'

'The seismic activity has ceased in the area.'

'The discs have been safely delivered to their rendezvous point.'

The reports from various away team members slowly build a picture as Jack and the team decide it is safe to exit the building and see if they can spot any clues as to what might have happened on the remains of the ancient city. Out to sea, far beyond the sight of land, the two silver discs start to rotate again, this time the silversilk lets them as they rise to the surface of the Mediterranean Sea and then, as one, they zoom straight up into the sky, into the blue and beyond to the very edge of space where Chariot now waits.

Epilogue

The team, now back at SG:UK HQ sit through Professor Peter Cromwell's debrief, each of them wondering if they will ever know how the spaceship managed to pull through the fabric of time and reach space without destroying the planet in the process. Each of them wondering whether they would ever see the extraordinary Horogia and Lapyx again and each hoping that they had been successful and Kyna and Aelix would appear back through the gate pool soon.

'And finally, it seems our team is growing and I am delighted to formally welcome Gail Overton, she has been officially sequestered here permanently at my request and Professor Galbraith who will be joining us as an independent specialist as and when we require his knowledge.' There is a brief round of applause and then Jack adds, 'And don't forget our very own five star General!'

Peter stares at Jack, slightly nonplussed, he didn't think he'd missed anyone and then, from under a nearby desk, at the sound of his name, the General replies with one loud bark and everyone laughs.

In the central hall of the palace, under her cobweb trees the last giant Spinner of Maere sits, quietly waiting for news. After what seems for ever, a single silver strand, running from the inky gate pool to her throne, vibrates with hundreds of drops of water running along it, ringing like a bell. Spinner smiles to herself. Chariot is free from the clutches of the ground and her plan is beginning to fall into place. The engines, wrapped in her silversilk will be under her command and soon, she will have her revenge on the homeworld of the Giants. She lets the single thread play out, feeling it stretch from Maere across the universe, spinning out, over thousands of years and millions of miles.