Author Notes: Thanks for your reviews - it's nice to know people are still reading this! Finally, we come to the chapter I've been planning for a very very long time. I apologise in advance for, erm... not being very nice. But hey, at least you get action!
Chapter 13
The plan had been pretty simple, all things considered, especially when compared with some of SG-1's previous plans. Get in, destroy the equipment, capture (or kill, let's face it, the attempt at capture would have been half-hearted regardless) Nirrti, and get out. Alive. Simple.
Even with the expected problematic factor of Beren's father potentially getting in the way, it should have worked.
It should have worked.
But as Beren lay pinned, unable to move, covered in dust and blood, staring into the dead eyes of his father, the man he had been too slow to save, crushed grotesquely into the palace floor...as he listened to Vala's screams, heard Jack's yells...
...he found it hard to believe they could have been so naive.
Jonas' head hurt. Like, really, really hurt. More so than when Jack had knocked him around the head with his gun, definitely ranking up there with brain surgery. He blinked groggily, trying to remember what had happened, but unable to do so. He vaguely recalled the group splitting up, just like the plan.
Jonas and Kera were to get into the depth of the facility and place the C4 charges, while Daniel, Jack and Teal'c were to hunt down Nirrti. Vala and Sam had been tasked with clearing the area of Jaffa, with Beren staying at the palace and Stargate to cover their escape.
So why did he feel like he had been run over by a legion of Jaffa?
And then it all came rushing back. The Jaffa, the zat; he had been too slow – Kera – No! Despite his body and mind protesting, Jonas' eyes snapped open and he struggled to sit up.
Immediately, the sight of death met his eyes, as he found himself starring into the unblinking gaze of a woman. She was stunningly pretty, or at least had been in life; he vaguely recalled seeing her before he had been knocked unconscious, but couldn't quite place who she was. A trickle of deep red blood marred the otherwise flawless pink lips. She lay in all her finery next to a machine that rang horrifying familiar to Jonas, but was far more Goa'uld in design than the one he remembered.
He blinked, trying to clear his thoughts and vision as he noticed the stoic Jaffa standing at the exit in front of him. And then-
"She is perhaps plainer than my preferred type, but her advancements by far make up for her deficit. If only I knew what Neith had been planning, I would not have bothered myself with this disgusting excuse for a world." Jonas turned to the sound of the all-too-familiar tone of voice, and froze.
The dead woman suddenly made sense, but beyond that, god, his whole world had just turned over.
Kera, still wearing the standard-issue gear the SGC had kitted them in, stood smiling down at him. But it was not her smile, it was not her body language. That girl was gone.
Replaced by one of the few people Jonas could truly say he hated. "Nirrti." His voice croaked out the name, cracking under the strain of what was happening.
"Who else, Jonas?" She smiled seductively, the same smile she had worn so long ago when she had tried to tempt him to rule with her.
"Let her go." He didn't care he sounded pathetic. He didn't care he was practically begging. The girl, his sister, who had been a solid presence in his life for longer now than he even needed to acknowledge, was gone, entirely.
Kera – Nirrti – laughed with a cold humour that made Jonas wince internally. Kera should not laugh like that, her first spoken words should not have been given to her puppeteer, "Why would I do that? I finally have my Hok'tar. Her defective vocal-chords were but a trifle to repair. I have you, another of Neith's creations at my feet, and will soon have SG-1 and this world." She crouched down to his level, and Jonas found himself unable to suppress a flinch as he saw the gold that twisted up her arm to connect with the jewel in her palm. This was so wrong, "You should have accepted my offer when you had the chance, Jonas. I do not take to rejection kindly."
"Go to hell." He pronounced the words carefully, taking sanctuary in normalcy.
She twisted a smile as she raised her palm to his head, "No, Jonas, you will go there first. Because I know you as my host knows you, and as she screams with you, so I shall watch you both go mad."
He couldn't tear his eyes away from the ones he no longer knew, yet still knew so well, as a shroud of orange light descended on his vision, and his mind was attacked by a thousand nails.
"Beren!" Vala skidded down to her knees beside him. She touched his leg, only to have him cry out in agony as the already splintered bone pressed further out from his skin. He had managed to avoid the majority of the roof collapse thanks to his speed, and had been by far luckier than the rest of the court, but he still hadn't been fast enough.
The palace had been fired upon by gliders as soon as Nirrti had realised what was going on, in an attempt to cut them off from the Stargate. Thankfully, only the DHD had been damaged, and Sam was already working on getting it back online.
"Argh!" Beren panted as Vala touched the beam, "Please don't do that again."
"Daniel! Teal'c! He's here!" Jack was still provided them cover from the entrance, aided by the uprising of the people in the streets. Vala turned back to Beren, hissing in part anger, part fear, "What were you thinking? That man was not worth you life!"
"He was my father." Beren bit back through gritted teeth, "I had to try, regardless what kind of a man he was in life."
Vala's features softened, though she could not help but think back to Drek as she looked over Beren. So much had happened since they last were in these halls... "Crap." Daniel swore as he was met with the situation, but immediately pushed his worry aside, shirking off his jacket, "Vala, take this, put pressure on the wound as soon as Teal'c and I lift this off Beren."
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Beren moaned, knowing how the slightest touch was painful enough.
Teal'c received a radio call, "Major Carter has the Stargate online. We need to get him through to the SGC."
Daniel nodded, "Can you carry him through while Vala keeps pressure? I have to find Jonas and Kera. Hammond won't send another team after this."
"I'm staying!" Vala snapped.
"No, you're not."
"Like hell!"
"Vala, that's an order!" Daniel had unconsciously said it, and equally unconsciously accompanied it with the appropriate body language and signal he had left unused for so long. She visibly flinched in shock, but nodded numbly. Ever since they had got to this place, they had been unable to help falling back into what they knew as a unit. She could still picture Jack's face when he saw her take down three Jaffa.
"We should move now." Teal'c stated, breaking the silence, "The roof is unstable and the gliders could come around again."
Daniel nodded, "On three then. One, two, three!"
Beren couldn't help the scream that ripped from his throat as renewed pain laced through his nerves.
The three of them immediately moved, Daniel yelling at Sam to dial Earth; Jack had caught up with them, firing at something unseen. Beren had passed out as Teal'c and Vala ran in tandem towards the event horizon, Daniel's eyes meeting hers for only a fleeting instant before they were gone.
"Daniel! Carter! Go through!" Jack yelled as he ran. Sam obeyed instantly, but Daniel didn't move, "Daniel, what the hell? I said get going!"
"No – I'm not leaving without Jonas and Kera, not without doing what we came here to do."
"What?" Jack spat in disbelief, his disbelieving gaze meeting Daniel's cool resolve before sliding down the take in his friend's appearance. His muscles were tense, and his face impassive. Blood was barely visible against the black BDUs, but shined bright against the blade at his side, and the hand grasping the zat. And Jack knew. Daniel had never come back to them those months ago. He had long ago been lost, changed, the moment he had been kidnapped all that time ago. There was no before and after. There was just now, and everyone was just starting to realise what Jonas and Kera had always known.
People evolve. There is not one state of being, not one mindset. Jack nodded, and Daniel smiled grimly in thanks, "I have an IDC. We'll get through."
"You've got an hour before Hammond locks your code out of the computers."
" I know."
Jack nodded tightly, "Good luck."
Jonas fell to his side, the orange light suddenly gone. His head swam, unable to focus on anything. And then strong hands grasped his shoulders, pulling him to sit up. One hand cupped his cheek, trying to check if he was okay. He struggled to focus, and then frowned as the face swam into view... "Renn?" He croaked in disbelief.
The man nodded grimly, relief in his eyes, "Yes. Can you stand?"
"I...what...how?" Jonas blinked as his mind began to sharpen, "Kera! Renn, she's Nirrti, she's..." He trailed off, a wave of shock and nausea crashing over him. Despite all the dead bodies he had seen, and had created serving Neith, this one was too much.
Blood shone as it spread across the smooth floor, mingling with that of the now-deceased Jaffa, and matching that which dripped from the sword at Renn's side. The man nodded softly, "I know."
Kera...Nirrti...lay dead. Renn had killed her in exactly the same way Daniel had killed Neith, right through the spine. Quick, clean...wrong. "Oh god. Why? She was our sister! We could have saved her, we could have done something! You're not even supposed to be here! Why would you-"
"She was not our sister." Jonas barely registered the acknowledged change back from 'my sister' to 'our sister' in the larger man's words, "Kera was already gone, and now she is at peace."
"No! I could-"
"She would have killed you, Jonas." Renn's words were soft, calm, despite what he had just done, "We need to go. Now. I ask again – can you stand?"
Jonas was numb, and could not understand his brother's calm. He fell back on what he knew, what Neith had engrained in them, "Yes."
Renn nodded, handing Jonas a zat gun from the dead Jaffa's belt. They moved with old habit through the corridors of what Jonas now realised was the mothership perched on top of the facility he and Kera had been tasked to infiltrate. They met with little resistance they couldn't handle, both working on autopilot, until suddenly the body of a Jaffa fell to the ground when neither of them had touched him. They dispatched with the other two, and then, "Renn? What the hell are you doing here?"
Renn nodded, clasping Daniel's arm in what to Daniel was a surprisingly warm greeting, "Daniel. It is good to see you alive. The others?"
"Back on Earth. I came looking for Jonas and Kera." Daniel left the sentence hanging.
Jonas filled the sudden gun-filled silence with a dead voice, "She's dead. So's Nirrti."
Daniel flinched, but to his credit, did not say anything further, resolving to ask more when they were out of danger. Renn nodded to Jonas' words, "I came here looking for her, but too soon realised how much I had not wanted to recognise the similarities to Neith in Beren's plight. And then you came through the Stargate, and the Jaffa raised the alarm. I was tracking these two, but they are as good as the day Neith died. I was too slow." His words rang with more than their contents, and both men heard the apology and regret in their meaning.
"We need to get out of here." Daniel acknowledged the apology by brushing over the words with familiar body language, to which Jonas has to swallow down any reflection of Kera.
Jonas shook his head, "We came here to help Beren's people – we still need to set off the charges. We need to get rid of this ship and facility. The Jaffa won't go away because their god is dead. They don't even know she's been killed. But if we blow it up, they'll retreat."
Daniel nodded, "Where are they?"
Jonas paled, "Kera had them."
Renn shook his head, "If we overload the core of the ship, will that not cause it to explode? I recall it almost happening when we orbited over the rebel-" He winced and corrected his words, "The slave planet Medina. I will go – I know how, I think. And where."
"We'll wait for you by the gate." Jonas nodded, automatically accepting a Type A decision without even realising it, already moving off.
"You're not Vala or Beren." Daniel stated. The meaning was implicit. Renn couldn't run that fast.
"I have a debt to pay to our sister, and our brother. I was wrong, and she paid the price."
"Renn-"
"Go Daniel. Look after them as you always have. And do not let them forget this time." His eyes hardened as Jaffa emerged a way down the corridor, and Jonas engaged them, "Go!"
And they did.
They fought their way out as Renn fought his way in.
The force of the resulting explosion was enough to rip them from their feet. It was enough, in fact, to distract a yelling Jonas for Daniel to wrench him through the open gate.
It was not enough to dull the shock that set in as soon as their feet hit the metal grate floor.
To be Continued...
Author Notes: Hope you enjoyed it! I'm quite proud I managed to refrain from offing canon characters really. My beta thinks I'm far too homicidal when it comes to my writing. She's probably right. But anyway, one more chapter left! Can't believe we've come so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter :)
