A/N: Have some faith. I like happy endings. Nearly there.

Chapter 27

Area 51
South Nevada
23 October 1995

Jack.

Duty warred with grief as she stared blankly at the radar screen on her terminal, trying but not quite succeeding in gaining control of the tempest of emotions that refused to be calmed.

"Sam? Er…Sam?"

It was McKay's light, reassuring touch on her shoulder that anchored her back in reality, a look of sympathy so incongruent on his features that it made her insides ache anew with the already-familiar pang of loss.

"Come on, Sam. We still need you here. It's not over yet," he gently told her. "He was a soldier, a leader, and he would have wanted you to continue on."

His words dimly filtered into her mind, its soft calmness fighting against the overwhelming despair that was edging its way in.

Dead.

Jack was dead.

Blown apart in an exploding F-16 while protecting his squadron. She'd always known it was a possibility. Still, nothing could have prepared her for the expected outcome.

McKay was right. Jack would have expected her to soldier on, to put on that game face and push on. Until her last breath was forced from her.

With a gargantuan effort, she nodded and drew from an inner reservoir of strength she hadn't known existed, turning to study the screens again.

And did a double take.

"Deep-space sensors detecting another cluster of ships that has appeared in Earth's orbit. Establishing visual feed."

"Is that…" McKay started out, then trailed off, dumbfounded by the sight.

All Sam could do was nod once in mute amazement as the screens shifted again to the cluster of new arrivals.

The four ships that had completed their jump out of hyperspace were all sleek lines of dark metallic grey that seamlessly blended the aesthetic and the technological, each shaped like a small 'T' that was supported by two large, rear-propulsion thrusters. Dwarfed by the larger greenish-gold ships, two of the battle cruisers positioned themselves at the back of the manta fleet, and another two in front, like a David to a Goliath.

It was one of the most brilliant sights that anyone could have seen.

The meaning was clear. Somehow, help was on the way.

Going out in a blaze of glory.

Dying to protect his country or maybe even the world – how sweet that would sound on paper.

Or on his gravestone.

It was sure as hell a lot more preferable to dying with a bullet in his head.

Jack had been that man a few months ago, wanting to end his life in obscurity, having thought it would be a fitting end after his son had died because of him. But now that he was facing certain death, he knew without a doubt that there was merely cowardice in that act that he'd mistakenly assumed to be justified recompense.

The arid desert landscape, now filled with the buzz of fighters both alien and local, whizzed past his canopy.

In his years of service, he'd come to terms with the fact that there was always the chance of never returning from the field, but he never thought that the moment would sneak its way in, now, not when he'd finally, finally decided that he truly had something else to live for beyond Charlie and Sara.

He studied his radar. Red blips signalling two rapidly approaching crafts. He banked left, then rolled right again, trying to shake them, but they'd stubbornly stayed on his tail. And now they were closing in, weapons engaged and firing.

A beam from one of the ships caught the F-16's hydraulic systems, sending the plane into a nosedive despite his last-ditch efforts to stabilise the systems.

Engine failure, the monitor read. Eject.

Even if he launched himself out of his seat, there was no way in hell he'd survive parachuting straight down near ground-zero, not when the enemy ships still circled for prey within a 100km radius.

But Sam's last words to him still rang in his ears. She hadn't been ready to give up. He'd heard her desperation, her determination.

An unfamiliar emotion bloomed in his chest, as painful and as glorious as the revelation surfaced. Gone was that man who looked for death because of his chequered past; in its place was one who suddenly couldn't bear the thought of dying without having more of her in the days, weeks or months to come.

In the midst of death and destruction, he knew then, never more certainly, that he wanted to live.

He'd live, for her. Or would die trying.

Jack reached up to the ejection levers just as he heard the sounds of the beginnings of an explosion in the engines.

In the orange glow of superheated gases and fuel, he swore he saw a blinding white light engulf him just as the searing heat became unbearable.

The light disappeared into black bits that floated in front of his retinas for a few seconds. When his vision slowly cleared, Jack found himself half-squatting on the highly-polished floor of…of something, still in his Kevlar flight suit and his combat helmet, with the visor drawn down and the oxygen mask still attached.

Then, as though the invisible strings holding up his frame had been cut, his knees gave out and he collapsed heavily onto the ground, the coolness of its surface seeping through the thick material of his pants.

With tentative hands, he lifted the visor and the mask, realising that the atmosphere was perfectly breathable, the air carrying a very slight salty tinge like the brine of the sea. The entire combat helmet came off his head in a more confident move as he tried to get to his feet, his legs surprisingly shaky with the drain of the initial adrenaline rush.

Where…or what…the hell was this?

Jack looked around, seeing the spacious red, black and silver interior that was lined with consoles and large screens filled with rapid scrolling runic inscriptions. Belatedly, he realised that he was standing on the bridge port of a ship that flew above the orbit of a blue-green planet that resembled earth.

Unless…that planet below really was earth and he'd been somehow transported past everything – past the earth's atmosphere and the firefight taking place below – onto an alien mothership. God, he grimaced, he wished he had his gun on him despite the lingering thought that Earth's crude firearms would be, in all likelihood, useless against a hostile but advanced threat.

"You were beamed here just as your small fighter vessel exploded, human."

He whipped around, searching for the source of the voice through the organised chaos, his eyes finally picking out a silver high-backed chair at the back of the bridge, elevated and built behind a small semi-circle of control consoles.

But what, or rather, who was in that chair made his mouth drop open in incredulous shock.

A small, grey alien with a large oval head and tiny body was blinking at him calmly, looking suspiciously like the fully reconstructed version of one of the creatures recovered in the classified Roswell photo bank.

"I am Thor, the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet."

His lips moved of their own volition as his mind still struggled to make sense of a tiny…being speaking to him.

Words tumbled out of his mouth. Unrehearsed, honest.

"I'm Jack O'Neill. Call me Jack, or O'Neill. You actually understand what I'm saying? And where am I, by the way?"

"We speak many languages, O'Neill," Thor said evenly, "You are on the Biliskner, the flagship of the Asgard fleet. We came as soon as we heard about the Zuu'lesq invasion."

The grey being regarded the tall human who had moved cautiously from the viewing platform to stand before the commander's high-backed chair.

"So that's what they're called? Why the hell are they doing this? Does this mean you're the good guys then?"

"I have come to offer our assistance," the alien serenely announced, unperturbed by the series of questions the human had fired at him.

That was unexpected. "Really? No! I mean, that's great!"

"The Asgard are friends and protectors of all except to those who threaten the peace of the known universe. Know this. Your planet's enemy, the Zuu'lesq, are a long-lived race inhabiting the molten surfaces of the planets in the Xarraile galaxy, five hundred trillion light years from what you call your Milky Way. They are also a war-like race, part-droid and part-life form with a predisposition to hostility and conquest," Thor continued, ignoring Jack's blatant attempt of self-correction.

"The…what?"

Undeterred, the alien continued speaking. "Forty-eight of your human years ago, a Zuu'lesq Szarweut engaged an Asgard starfighter in battle in this part of your galaxy. In the battle, both ships lost control and crashed on your planet. However, the great distance between the Milky Way and the Xarraile galaxy meant that Zuu'lesq's search for the fallen Szarweut's distress transmission took many Zua'el cycles. The Zuu'lesq searched a quadrant of a galaxy at a time, finally finding the signal through the means of interstellar probes that are built to withstand hyperspace travel. When the probes located your planet, a Zuu'lesq fleet was sent to wage war on the race that had downed this craft."

Jack rubbed a hand over his eyes tiredly. "OK, I get a feeling I'm missing something here. They thought some pilot from Earth shot down a Zook space craft?"

"Indeed. It is the Asgard who engaged the Zuu'lesq in battle, not the humans of Earth. And for that, we must apologise for this unfounded attack. Our feud with the Zuu'lesq began a million ár ago, when the Asgard were a more combative, warrior-like race, during a time when our ancestors were different in stature and in appearance. We have changed our ways considerably since," Thor finally said, lifting a tiny finger in contrition. "We will render our help to the humans of Earth. The Asgard starships and fighters will be engaging the Zuu'lesq fleet in battle. Our weapons can and will penetrate the shields of their motherships."

Jack processed that revelation as he tried to ignore the unblinking black eyes of the Roswell grey that bore through him.

"You know, we would really appreciate your help, if your space tech is anything to go by. And not that I don't appreciate the history lesson, but the last I heard, these Zalax guys are going for a ground offensive in less that what, forty minutes? And seeing their weapons, I don't see how we're gonna make it."

The little alien tilted his large head towards Jack, looking like a patient teacher who waited for an errant student to work out his own mistakes.

"So? You guys are going to help blow them out of the sky?" He asked hopefully, some impatience surfacing in his voice. "Isn't that why you brought me up here? To tell me this?"

"We brought you up from your exploding craft because our transporter beams recognised a DNA anomaly in your genes, a strain that we have not encountered since another great race left the known universe. You, O'Neill, represent an evolutionary step forward for human development. And it is for this reason that we believe you will come to make a difference in transforming your planet's and your people's path to advancement, even though your race has much to prove before we may interact on that level."

Jack waved his arm uncomfortably in response, not entirely sure what the little Asgard really meant. All he thought to do was his job, and the last thing he wanted to have was some messianic burden placed on his shoulders – shoulders which were definitely too small to carry the whole world's fucked up problems.

Hell, he couldn't even get past his own issues to begin with.

"Thor, buddy, let's…let's just leave that for now, OK?" Jack asked pleadingly, gesturing vaguely towards the bridge windows. "We've got bad guys on our asses and that's got to be the most important thing to take care of now."

"It is your help that we need, O'Neill."

The statement made him reel back in incredulity. "For cryin' out loud, is this a joke?"

But the alien had gotten busy. From that distance, he saw Thor moving a few oval stones across his console, moving the Bilisker to complete the attack formation that the other Asgard ships had already formed.

A burst of Asgard starfighters emerged from another Biliskner-class ship heading towards Earth, in a move that left him stumped with utter astonishment. A blow from the Zuu'lesq's mothership soon shook Thor's ship, throwing him to the ground when it suddenly disappeared beneath his feet. The Supreme Commander was already forcing the Biliskner into a hard dip to draw fire away from the other Asgard ships by the time he stood up on shaky feet.

All conversation halted as the crossfire began, a brief but stunning lightshow that lit the dark heavens with energy pulses of green, orange and red. The Asgard ship deftly wove its way around the pulverised mass of rock and metal, returning fire in precise blasts that weakened and destroyed the blue layer covering Zuu'lesq's manta ray wings.

A second later, another Zuu'lesq beam hit the shields of the Biliskner, causing the Asgard battle cruiser to shudder under the burst of energy. Thor's answer was a fancier and sleeker version of an Immelmann manoeuvre that led a pursuing Zuu'lesq to accelerate into the flight path of another one.

The resulting glow of the explosion lit the Biliskner's bridge a blinding yellow.

The Asgard had style, Jack had to admit, along with a morbid but magnificent sense of theatricality.

Who would have thought?

"The other ship commanders and I will engage the Zuu'lesq's motherships in space," Thor said after a few minutes as he directed his ship away from the battle and closer towards Earth's orbit. "But it is the Szartjol, or the ground offensive transporter carrying group troops as you call it, that is heavily fortified and frequently modified by the Zuu'lesq so that it will be their deadliest weapon of all. Constructed with a newer make of shields that the Biliskner's ion cannons cannot penetrate, we would need more of your kind to ensure that the shield is first destroyed. Listen carefully, O'Neill. A symbiotic relationship exists between the Zuu'lesq soldiers and the Szartjol. Their power supply is shared and distributed along the same conduits that run through the shield generator chamber. Destroy the Szartjol, and you will also eliminate the remaining Zuu'lesq soldiers when the last reserves of their energy run out."

Jack couldn't believe his ears. If the Asgard hadn't the means to do it themselves, how then, would the lesser races cope? And since when had the Asgard started to think that he was uniquely qualified to do it?

He raised his eyebrows in question. "And how are we to do that?"

Thor gestured left.

A schematic of the Szartjol immediately appeared on the screen closest to him, the tracking red dot enlarging each section of the readout as Thor pointed out the circuitous route to the chamber housing its shield generators.

"The Szartjol's shields are reinforced with Tetrinium. It is a by-product of the Trinium refinement process that the Zuu'lesq have recently incorporated into their technology, using knowledge gleaned from the outer regions of their galaxy that is yet unknown to the Asgard. On its own, the Szartjol carries insufficient firepower, its defences being the troops that it carries as well as its shields," Thor said, flicking another stone to pull out a three-dimensional model of its engineering systems. "Once you reach the shield generators, you will find a weakness in the core system that is linked to the ship's hyperdrive system. Disconnect this link and the generators will immediately become susceptible to external pressure. "

Jack squinted at the diagrams, trying his best to commit them to memory. It didn't look too hard. But a wrong turn would trap him in a maze that he probably couldn't get out of.

The Roswell grey stepped off his silver chair nimbly and handed him a glowing white stone, delicately engraved with runes around its perimeter.

Jack studied the teardrop-shaped object, its weight surprisingly solid and heavy in his hand.

"This is an Asgard communication stone. You can contact me with this. Now I will transport you down to your base, O'Neill. Gather a team of your best warriors and destroy the shield generators. Only when you have succeeded can the Asgard weapons function," Thor spoke in farewell. "I wish you the best, O'Neill. A legacy has been bestowed on your planet. Use it wisely."

"Hang on, you're talking about the Stargate, aren't you?"

"As they say in your world, 'Good Luck'. We will meet again when the time is right."

"But you didn't say how exactly we're supposed-"

The blinding white light engulfed him once more, his last question left unanswered.

"-to get out after we…"

Talk about bad timing.

This time, when the spots in his eyes cleared, he found himself standing in the middle of the command centre, his sudden appearance and half-finished question eliciting loud gasps and wide-eyed stares from everyone in the room.

Inevitably, his were only drawn to a blue pair that belonged to a pale face only a few paces away.

"Jack?"

He hated how her voice sounded small and shaky, like a whisper lost quickly in the wind.

With a slight smile of reassurance, he asked, "Hey, Carter, how ya doin'?" Turning slowly to face Hammond, he greeted the man whom he suddenly remembered was his commanding officer. "Hi, Sir."

It was all he could manage.

"Colonel, we thought we had lost you," Hammond finally said, giving voice to the incredulous expressions that hadn't faded.

"Long story, Sir," he replied without skipping a beat. "I'll explain it all later, but now, we've got a ship to blow up. I've been given the schematics of the ship that's coming with ground troops-"

"Who gave them to you?" Hammond interrupted.

"A cool, grey guy called Thor, whose race the AF dug up in the Roswell crash. One of them, at least. The good alien."

"You were brought up to their ship?"

"Yes, Sir, and it's really the coolest thing-"

Hammond interjected, "How can we know Thor can be trusted?"

"We don't, Sir" Jack told him bluntly. "But I figured that having their help is better than having none at all. Trust me, Sir, I've seen those things out there. There's no way in hell we'll beat the bad guys ourselves without their help. Not to mention Thor saved my life. That's got to count for something, right? And with all due respect, Sir, right now, we've got to pick a team to get past the troops in the alien ship – Thor told me what must be done. But I'm going to need back-up for this, Sir. Please."

It was clear to all who studied the General's face that he was waging an internal battle. Not that Hammond didn't trust Jack. It was the unseen alien being Jack talked about in whom he found difficult to place any confidence, having merely heard about another race's decision to help Earth through the Colonel's curt and brief recommendation.

"Sir?" Carter had turned to him, awaiting his assessment. "I'd like to volunteer for this mission, if you approve."

Not for the first time, Hammond wished that he wasn't in pole position to make a decision that would ultimately impact millions of lives. But simply put, all it came down to was this: accept the alien's help and risk destruction, or risk being annihilated anyway by the invading hostile forces.

The second consequence was merely placing Earth on the slightly slower path to the same endpoint.

He gave them a brief, sharp nod. "Do it," he ordered decisively, hoping that he wouldn't live to regret it.

From their vantage point behind the low cliff face, they could see the approaching bulk of a ship as it descended.

The Szartjol broke through Earth's atmosphere with the force of level-4 hurricane winds, its sheer bulk whipping the desert sand into vortices of dust and debris. Landing in the Area 51 encampment, its shields glowed a metallic teal, a darker hue of shimmering, translucent matter compared to the light blue that had covered its fleet of small fighters.

The troop transporter was not nearly as massive as the Zuu'lesq's motherships. Blockier in form and shape, it hovered briefly above the whirling desert sands, then landed on the Nevada basin.

Ferretti whispered in awe, "God, look at the size of that thing."

"If there's anything that I learnt a while ago, Ferretti, is that size really isn't everything," Jack snapped in reply, keeping his eyes on the binoculars that he had trained on the transporter.

In the end, it hadn't been difficult to convince Hammond that he needed a solid field team to infiltrate the Szartjol.

Hammond hadn't disappointed him.

Samantha Carter had been the General's first recommendation, her scientific knowledge an asset when it came to analysing and breaking down alien technology. He had also asked for Kawalsky and Ferretti to fill the last two spots.

Hammond hadn't hesitated to recall them, quick in recognising already-existing team dynamics.

Jack couldn't have asked for a better team, vowing there and then to thank the man with a bottle of aged whisky.

The advancing Zuu'lesq army came into sight armed with pulse weapons, the ground trembling beneath their many feet. Light green-skinned with eight limbs and a long head that was more sharp teeth than anything else, they were terrifying even in appearance.

More limbs meant there were more weapons to hold and use. But more worrying was the direction in which the weapons were pointed.

"Colonel, our position is compromised," Sam spoke in turn, readying her P-90.

"Ya think?" He shot back sarcastically.

They ducked as weapons fire from the Zuu'lesq's guns flew past their heads and singed the rocks behind them.

"Shit!"

The blasts loosened the rock face, threatening a rockslide. Quickly, they threw themselves off the sides, rolling and ducking as the plasma beams burrowed deep holes in the vertical surfaces.

"Get down!"

They scattered for cover, then returned fire with all of their armoury present, activating the additional machine-powered ground systems that Hammond and Jack had gotten set up.

The M-198 howitzers howled their projectiles across the landscape, some immediately disintegrating the Zuu'lesq's soldiers, others exploding harmlessly against the Szartjol's reinforced shields.

It was gratifying to see those…things fall, even though it took lots of bullets to get one down, Jack thought as he fired, over and over, feeling the heat from the enemy's beams close to his face. At least he now knew that their own crude weapons could still inflict some damage to advanced alien threats.

By his side, Carter was doing the same, her movements with her P-90 confident and steady.

In the midst of the gunfire, Thor's voice sounded from the communications stone. "O'Neill, you must hurry. My sensors have detected an abnormal amount of Tetrinium and Neutronium in the Szartjol's storage chamber. It would seem that the Szartjol is carrying a weapon that can destroy eighty percent of the integrity of your planet's core by the deep implantation of a probe-droid that will discharge an overload of the-"

Fucking hell.

He really didn't want to hear more of that doomsday message that Thor was relaying.

"Don't give me the odds, Thor," Jack growled in response and shifted the communication stone in irritation, a motion that unceremoniously cut off the words of the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet.

Just when he thought he was getting tired of the clichéd rhetoric of aliens destroying the earth, Thor had to confirm that things were getting much worse. Couldn't that grey guy have actually told him this sooner? Or could it be that Thor hadn't yet discovered all the features of the new, improved version of the damn Szatty ship until now?

Keeping an eye out for the Szartjol's troops, Jack checked the status of the rest of his team.

Ferretti and Kawalsky had taken cover beneath a crumbling rock and were now steadily taking out the green bastards.

An artillery shell from a howitzer had momentarily split the Zuu'lesq's ranks and in that gap, he saw his opportunity.

It was time to get behind enemy lines. And hopefully, save the whole world with the help of a tiny Roswell grey.

He signalled for the Ferretti and Kawalsky to move closer to the Szartjol.

"Time to go, Carter," Jack yelled above the din, creeping his way across the rocks, swiftly calculating the odds of getting past those green things.

It was doable, he noted in grim satisfaction, but it would take a move either so foolhardy or so stupid to go ahead with it.

It was right up his alley.

"With me, Carter?"

"All the way, Sir."

He radioed the other two members of the team in response and yelled into the mike. "Kawalsky, Ferretti, cover us from the entrance, we're going in!"

Then they ran. Gun fire meeting energy pulses. Two soldiers clad in desert browns in a sea of green.

"Come on, Carter!"

"Yes, Sir!" She automatically replied, squeezing off more rounds as she saw him near the entrance of the transport.

Reverting to a relationship of CO and subordinate came more easily than she had expected as she sprinted towards the gap, providing covering fire for Ferretti and Kawalsky as she saw them run a distance towards the Szartjol. The weeks she and Jack had spent together had given them a measure of wordless communication, their actions almost seamlessly blending as a single unit.

Sam looked up, seeing Jack having just breached the ship's entrance. She stood up from her crouch, then followed him in.

"Chief, what do you have?"

"General, this…this is unbelievable. Radar readings show that a squadron of star fighters from the second cluster of ships has arrived from Earth's upper atmosphere, and they are now attacking the enemy crafts."

Hammond nodded, wondering if the tide of the battle had somehow turned in their favour.

If they did somehow survive this unprecedented attack, he was going to put in his retirement papers at the end of it all.

Life was too short to not enjoy the rest of his time on Earth with his granddaughters.

The coolness and the silence of the cavernous interior was an abrupt but not unwelcome change from the din of battle. The whole chamber was glowing green, Sam realised, as it appeared to draw energy from its generators, the consoles lining the walls emitting the various notifications broadcasted by the motherships' communication pods.

In front of the consoles, the holographic tactical display was lit, the blinking green and yellow lights showing a visual analysis of the geology and the lay of the Nevada desert; next to it, corresponding reports scrolled up quickly in an alien text.

God, the science of it all was amazing and if only she could just-

"Carter!"

His voice shook her out of her scientific wonder. Now wasn't the time, she reminded herself ruefully.

Jack was already running to the blast doors that were open from the starboard side of the Szartjol, just as she realised that the transporter had most likely discharged its last soldiers into the fray.

The lights blinked out a section at a time, leaving a low hum that grew steadily in volume and pitch.

The ship's power was gradually being re-routed. But to…where?

She followed Jack's trail then stopped in her tracks, suddenly realising that the transfer of energy was in fact, the a portal or a channel of sorts that was drawing all the ship's energy in preparation for the implantation of the heavy element deep into the Earth's core.

She had heard what Thor had said to Jack. And it was happening too fast for her liking.

He had turned around to see if she was following, stopping when she did.

"Come on, Carter."

"Oh my god, Jack," she breathed, forgetting their military ranks for a moment, "the ship's probably on auto-pilot. It's programmed to start the heavy compound transfer into the Earth's surface after all the ground troops leave!"

"Not gonna happen on my watch, Carter," he replied flatly, then turned back to wind his way down the south-western corridors of the Szartjol.

Damn, that route was a lot longer than it looked when Thor had showed him the schematics of the ship.

A quick turn right, then a slope down, then an upward incline leading to another empty hallway.

Carter was right on his heels, readying the C4 as she ran.

Finally, they hit a long but narrow corridor that stretched for what seemed like miles. Jack recognised its physical dimensions, having already once seen its floor plans.

"Sir, ground troops vessel has dispatched what looks like the last contingent of troops."

"Tell Colonel Smithson to hold the line of fire. I repeat, hold the line of fire. Keep the alien troops within five miles of striking range."

Hammond stood rigid in front of the big screen, lost in thought. He had taken a risk and sent O'Neill's team into the enemy ship, not knowing whether he'd condemned both them and Earth to a fiery end.

All they had were Asgard reassurances to O'Neill that the humans of Earth had their help. Seeing them down the onslaught of enemy fighters, it looked as though they were keeping their promises.

"Sir!" A harried voice brought his out of his sombre musings.

"Report, Harriman!"

"Sensors detect a convergence of energy cells in the main core of the alien vessel. Sir, it appears that the ground ship is preparing to strike a major blow."

"Patch me in," Hammond ordered. "Colonel O'Neill, do you read me?"

A burst of static was his only response.

"The vessel's shields are affecting communication systems, Sir."

Hammond pursed his lips and remained silent.

Not far now. Jack heard her hard breathing behind him, her footsteps pounding along the strange metal floor, reassured by her watching his six again.

A minute and a half later, the corridor opened up into a high-ceilinged, hexagonal compartment, in the centre of which stood a colossal, tree-like structure of plasma lights and fibre tubes that spanned the entire height of the Szartjol.

Synchronising the timer with her watch, Sam slapped several blocks of C4 onto the generators, then nodded her satisfaction.

"Three minutes, starting…Now!"

They took off in the reverse direction, spurred on by the countdown, consciously pushing their strides faster and longer. Jack calculated would take them about three minutes and twenty-seven seconds to get the hell out of the Szartjol.

It was going to be close.

He radioed Kawalsky and Ferretti. "Three minutes to detonation! Retreat to base camp. I repeat, retreat to base camp."

Two minutes, five seconds.

A sonic boom shattered the unnaturally still air in the Szartjol as they started to run down the incline, causing them to fall face down as a wall supporting the inner chambers collapsed to reveal another battalion of the Zuu'lesq troops.

One minute, forty-four seconds.

The Zuu'lesq soldiers were armed and ready, lifting their weapons.

Last of the soldiers, my ass, he thought.

The pathway spilt into two, and without breaking stride, he shoved Carter into the other corridor that had opened before them as the beams of the Zuu'lesq weapons ricocheted around the inner chamber, his mind frantically flicking through any escape routes, then realised that Thor hadn't shown him any.

Fifty seconds.

He was clean out of ammo in the P-90. Quickly switching to the SPAS 12, Jack busied himself by thinking of creative ways to kick Thor's little grey butt hard into the next galaxy.

Thirty-four seconds.

He soon came to realise that the corridor led in circles. It wound right, curved inwards then led them back to where they were.

Thirty seconds of wasted time as they ran themselves ragged in a maze.

Seventeen seconds.

Shit.

"Got a Plan B?" Sam yelled when they came back out, then ground to a halt, causing him to run into her back. Hard.

The unexpected force of him ploughing into her back pushed her to her knees, her hands scrambling to break the fall.

"Carter, what the fu-"

She waved him silent from that unlikely position, looking at the consoles that had just signalled the beginning of the implantation process. His eyes followed the object that had caught her attention, the sense of dread and panic growing from deep within his gut when he realised what it was.

Godammit.

Seven seconds.

Jack turned to her to find her already looking at him, their expressions mirroring each other's, conveying a thousand feelings where words failed.

Three seconds.

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If Thor wasn't able to pull another miracle out of his grey ass, they'd be fried in three seconds. Unless it had been Thor's intention all along for him and his team to go on a one-way ticket into the damn alien ship with no way out. The damn Roswell grey hadn't really made it clear, beaming him down before he could get his sentence in edgewise.

The Asgard really needed to work on their communication issues, he groused unhappily to himself.

Two.

Damn it! Son-of-a-bitch! A sudden thought came to him…he turned it quickly over in his head, weighing its merit. Had the communication stone been a means to their escape? Or maybe that was exactly what Thor had really meant….?

One.

In that sudden, heart-stopping moment, he thought the C4 had failed. Then he felt the beginnings of an explosion in the shield-generator chamber as he grabbed the forgotten oval stone and placed it near his mouth, yelling into it at the top of his voice.

"Thor!"

An advancing ball of fire rushed through the corridors of the Szartjol, licking its way through the heavy metal walls, pressing inwards, closing the distance.

Their bodies dematerialised in a flash of light just as the violent explosion tore through the ship's main generators. Then the Biliskner's ion cannons pierced the atmosphere, vaporising the Szartjol's sensitive hull, obliterating layers of heavy metals and electrical conduits into a superheated cloud of gas and dust in areas that the C4 hadn't reached.

"Report, Chief."

"The ground ship is exploding, Sir! This…this is unbelievable. Another grey ship was briefly seen between the clouds, firing a beam-like weapon of sorts at the enemy ship!"

"What about the ground soldiers? Colonel O'Neill relayed the news that eliminating their power supply would cause the alien beings to cease functioning."

"The alien troops are…" the technician squinted at the visual feed. "They're disappearing, Sir. I…I think that's…that's it! I can't believe it! It's over."

The General shut his eyes, willing his breathing to slow. "Thank you, Sergeant."

They re-materialised in the command centre a second later, drawing for the second time, identical looks of shock and wonder from everyone.

Then they were swamped with numerous handshakes and euphoric hugs that people tripped over to give them.

Not that Sam could remember much of it, having spent the entire congratulatory moment in a befuddled daze.

The Stargate…Jack…Hammond…the attack on Earth…how had it all come to this?

She stole a glance at the man who had helped do the impossible, wondering if he felt the same as she did.

Then Jack turned and winked at her, their eyes meeting and holding as they exchanged a long, meaningful look that was equal parts disbelief and joy in the midst of the standing ovation and the wild cheers.