Chapter Seventeen: Re-entry
Finally SG-1 received an invite to the main Kallistien HQ to meet with the senior witches and the Kallistien Military. Although they were not told this, the reason for the invitation was because of the insistence of Prue Halliwell and her sisters. Paige had made the others aware of the frustration being felt by Jack and the rest of SG-1 at being side-lined. As Prue explained to the Kallistians:
"You want the help of the Tau'ri, well it's all or nothing. You don't get us without getting them. These guys know all about war and they know all about the Goa'uld. If you people are serious about defeating the Goa'uld you'll listen to them."
On finally reaching agreement following a threat to return home themselves, together with Cordelia, Faith and Giles, Prue asked Paige to bring SG-1 to the HQ as quickly as possible by orb.
SG-1 received a briefing from the Kallistians about the current position of the war and in particular the dilemma that they had of needing to defeat Marduk quickly in order to prepare for the return of Apophis.
"Go for the head," was Jack's solution. "We've fought these Goa'uld before and the only way to get quick results is to take out the head honcho himself. Once you do that all the little Goa'uld underlings start to look out for themselves. They will most likely withdraw from your world to secure control of Marduk's other worlds before they get gobbled up by other Goa'uld. You might even get extra time before Apophis returns because he'll want his slice of Marduk's cake."
"More like the whole cake," said Sam.
"We would like nothing better than to deal with Marduk himself," said Lagathe. "But we cannot find him, even with magic. We think he is using some of his kidnapped witches to shield himself from our scrying."
"You do not need magic to find Marduk," said Teal'c. "He will be on his flagship at the center of things. A Goa'uld engaged in a campaign like this would be nowhere else."
As the discussion continued Daniel felt a tap on his shoulder from behind. He turned to find a man stood behind him. An Earthman judging by the way he was dressed.
"Doctor Jackson?" said Giles taking Daniel aside. "Doctor Daniel Jackson?" Daniel nodded.
"Giles," said Giles shaking Daniel's hand. "Rupert Giles. Faith and Cordelia may have mentioned me."
"Oh yes," said Daniel having a good look at Giles. "But from their description I expected an elderly gentleman with a long white beard and the wisdom of the ages, rather like Merlin the Magician."
"Yes," said Giles. "I've known them both since they were of High School age so they've always seen me as rather, um elderly. Anyway enough about me. I understand you have a background in ancient languages and know a lot about the Goa'uld?"
"Yes I suppose so," said Daniel. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"If you can spare the time," said Giles. "I've been doing some research in the witches' main library downstairs about what exactly happened when the Goa'uld were overthrown last time. I think it's something that could be useful again. I have one or two ideas. With your knowledge and experience I think we might be able to work out the details from the ancient writings that have survived."
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The result of contacting Leo Wyatt with his wife's letter proved to be both rapid and spectacular. One moment General Hammond was conducting a tactical meeting with SG-12, the next they were joined by Leo orbing into the room. But Leo was not alone.
Leo held an unconscious man in his arms and he now let the man down to lie on the floor. The man was obviously a Jaffa, even though he was dressed in Earth clothing.
The General set the members of SG-12 at ease by introducing Leo and then added to Sergeant Rees: "Get a couple of armed security men in here."
"Don't worry," said Leo as Rees left the room. "He won't wake up for a few hours yet. I've got others where that one came from plus some other people who seem to be locals who've been working with them. I expect you'll want to talk to them all. I'll be back in a minute."
Over the next few minutes Leo delivered the other Jaffa and the others who had been captured in Sunnydale. He also delivered those who had been captured in Seattle, those who had not been left behind with Colonel Maybourne. These were the people who had been persuaded to show Willow and the others exactly how the Stargate worked.
Leo explained that on receipt of Piper's letter he had made some enquires and had found that the Goa'uld or rather Jaffa acting on their behalf had been active on Earth where they had been working with some locally recruited people.
"These Goa'uld have been kidnapping witches and other magic users using magic portals and another Stargate," said Leo.
"The good news is, some friends of mine have already shut down the Goa'uld Stargate," Leo continued. "We don't think the Goa'uld have used the magic portals recently but I've got a lot of eyes and ears alerted ready to raise the alarm if they see or hear about it happening again or if there are any more unexplained disappearances."
"So where is that Stargate now?" asked General Hammond. "We'd better take custody of it. I'll get a team moving right away."
"Sorry," said Leo. "I can't help you there. I was only told about it in strictest confidence. Some witches have already gone though the Gate to get some of our friends back, so the Gate has to stay where it is until they return."
General Hammond was not at all happy with that. He pointed out to Leo that a Stargate, an active Stargate, could be used as an entry point for both Goa'uld and other hostile forces. The only way to deal with that was for this other Stargate to be under the control of the SGC who had the resources and the experience to deal with it.
Leo refused to be budged. He did not admit that he even knew where the Stargate was but he did insist that the dangers were fully realised by the people involved who were quite able to deal with any unwelcome visitors.
"In fact they have some resources, magical resources, that you don't have," he explained. "But I do know they don't want to babysit this Gate forever. When all their people get back I'll try to persuade them to let you have the Gate."
"I'll give you fair warning," said General Hammond. "We will find that Gate. You'd better warn your friends to be ready to give it up when we do. This is a matter of National Security and I can't compromise that in any circumstances."
"You seem to be assuming this Gate is in the States," said Leo. "I deal with people all over the world. Anyway I understand your Colonel Maybourne already knows about this other Gate. When my friends took it over they left him with the Jaffa and some of the people who were running it. I think he was disappointed he didn't get the Gate as well."
Leo could see from the General's face that this news about Colonel Maybourne was new to him. "I can see the Colonel didn't tell you anything about all this," said Leo. "Perhaps you'd better have a word with him."
"Yes, perhaps I should," agreed the General. The General knew very well why he had not heard from Colonel Maybourne. Obviously the NID wanted to get their hands on the other Gate and use it themselves. Leo orbed away and the security guards removed the unconscious prisoners to the detention cells.
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Willow, Tara and Angel watched as the inbound shuttle craft came aboard the hanger deck of the Goa'uld spaceship. They watched as it landed and waited while the shuttle was emptied of occupants. They were watching via a monitor from their HQ within the ship.
Their HQ was a room that no longer existed, as least as far as the crew and computers of the Goa'uld ship were concerned. None of the crew could see the door to the room which had been concealed by magic to give the appearance of just another part of an ordinary corridor. Willow had arranged for the ship's computers to forget about the room.
"OK," said Tara. The others nodded and she orbed them to a pre-selected corner of the hanger deck where they were hidden from immediate observation by the crew. They watched as the prisoners were gathered under guard of a group of armed Jaffa.
Jenny Calendar had walked off the Goa'uld shuttle as part of a line of Kallistien captives and like them found herself standing in the large space of a hanger deck on an orbiting spaceship. Dressed like a Kallistian she did not stand out from the other captives and was not recognised by the three hidden watchers who watched the Jaffa rather than looking closely at the captives.
Jenny had known soon after takeoff that the shuttle was not heading north but was instead going straight up but she had decided not to orb back to join Wesley and Eve. For one thing any orbing would have been obvious to everybody on the shuttle, including the Jaffa guards. For another Jenny did not want to waste any more time. Quite apart from wanting to find Giles as soon as possible Jenny had her Whitelighter duties and could not stay away from them for too long even though she had arranged for colleagues to cover for her in her absence.
Wherever the shuttle was headed it was clearly going somewhere important and that should give her the opportunity to find out a few things, give her a chance to actually get somewhere at last. Jenny was confident of being able to orb back to the planet's surface from a spaceship. If the ship left orbit for another planet she had decided to orb away at once.
As Jenny followed the person ahead of her in the line she found herself as part of a group standing gathered together under the eyes and weapons of a group of Jaffa. As the last of the captives joined the group a loud speaker announcement began. It was heard all over the ship:
"We know you're hiding on the ship and we know what you've been doing. Either you give yourself up right now or we start executing our prisoners. You can see them on any one of the video screens about the ship. You have thirty minutes before the first person dies. Executions will be one every minute after that. And there are plenty more where they came from."
No sooner had the announcement been completed than all the lights went out. This had already been a part of Willow and Tara's plan if necessary. They decided to implement the blackout immediately in order to rescue the captives. They had known nothing about the captives. There were on the hanger deck in order to take control of a shuttle craft and fly it down to the planet.
Tara and Angel weren't sure of the wisdom of trying to fly a spaceship, even a small one. Willow was excited by the prospect. "It's the last thing they'll expect," she had argued. "I'm sure they've staked out the teleport controls somehow. Don't forget what Buffy said. There are witches on this ship working for the Goa'uld. Anyway they could rig those teleport controls to deliver us to a cell somewhere and not to where we want to go."
The hanger deck was now the blackest black with no source of illumination at all. It wasn't a question of eyes becoming accustomed to a very low level of light, there was no light at all to become accustomed to. Although everybody strained to see something, anything at all, there was simply no light to see by.
Before the lights went out Tara had taken a good look into the cabin of the shuttle. Now under cover of darkness she orbed Willow aboard the shuttle, making sure not to make any light while doing so. Meanwhile Angel moved towards the captives. Like everybody else he could see nothing but his other vampire senses were quite sufficient to enable him to move about easily. His task therefore was to get the captives back aboard the shuttle and away from the Goa'uld, disabling any Jaffa who got in the way.
Jenny had realised that all of the prisoners were in danger, imminent danger of being killed. The darkness was almost certainly not part of the Goa'uld plan but was either an unintended malfunction or the result of an action by somebody working against the Goa'uld, probably the person to whom the announcement had been addressed.
Jenny didn't wait for the lights to come back on. She immediately took hold of the two people next to her and, without revealing any orbing light, orbed back to the planet, to the local Kallistien HQ from where she, Wesley and Eve had been transported north into Goa'uld occupied territory.
After very quickly explaining matters to the rescued people and the local Kallistians Jenny orbed back to the ship, intending to repeat her action and rescue the remaining captives. On her return to the space ship however she found that things had started to change.
The Jaffa were now improvising some lights by starting small fires with their weapons. Their backs were to Jenny so nobody saw her return in the shadows away from the fires. In the light from the fires both the Jaffa and Jenny were surprised to discover that all of the captives had now disappeared. In fact Angel had already quietly led the remaining captives back aboard the shuttle.
The engine of the shuttle now burst into life and lifted off the deck. At the same time the space doors began to open and the alarms began to sound. Knowing that the opening of the space doors meant a loss of air to breathe and a depressurisation of the deck the Jaffa rushed over to the teleportation controls and transported themselves to safety. Realising what was happening Jenny orbed away.
In the control cabin of the shuttle Angel joined Willow and Tara after leading the captives back into the shuttle and took the seat next to Willow.
"I hope you know what you're doing sweetie," said Tara to Willow. "Please be careful." Tara left Willow and Angel sat at the controls and went back to speak to the rescued captives about what was going on and deal with any injuries.
Prior to takeoff Willow had ordered the shuttle's computer to transmit a takeoff request to the main ship's computer in order to have the hanger doors opened. Willow now had more knowledge of the ship's systems than previously. She didn't want to again put herself in the position of trying to work directly against the sheer power of the ship's machines. This time she worked with the ship's systems and simply used the magical connections that she had built up to ensure that her requirements were fulfilled by the ship's computers, even if there were countermanding orders from the crew.
Willow had decided to fly the shuttle down to the planet. How difficult could it be? Well very difficult as it turned out. Willow was so far using a sort of magical telepathy to control the shuttle's guidance computer. She told the computer what she wanted to happen, in this case take off and leave the ship, and the computer made it happen. The difficulty was it took a while for the messages to be understood and translated into action. The shuttle began to move slowly forward towards outer space.
"Are you sure their instruments won't be able to detect this ship and fire on us after we leave?" asked Angel as the ship exited the hanger deck. While Angel had been taking care of the captives and getting them aboard, Willow and Tara had improvised a spell which was intended to keep the shuttle invisible to detection.
"Huh?" said Willow turning to Angel. With Willow's concentration disturbed the shuttle wobbled in its slow path to the outside.
"Never mind," said Angel. "Keep your mind on what you're doing."
Willow kept concentrating and manoeuvred the shuttle away from the mother ship. Now I want to fly down to the planet and land somewhere nice she thought. The shuttle did not change course. Huh, thought Willow, 'somewhere nice' is a bit vague. How about land at the very western end of the big blue island down there she thought whilst concentrating on the nearby planet.
Tara now walked back into the control cabin. She leant forward and placed a kiss on her partner's cheek. This caused the shuttle, which had started to dive towards the planet, to wobble even more violently than before.
"Tara!" pleaded Willow as she brought the shuttle under control. "Please honey, this is difficult enough."
But Tara ignored Willow and this time leant forward and placed a full on mouth to mouth kiss onto Willow. That was it. Willow completely lost control and the shuttle careered forward.
But Tara, Willow and Angel were no longer aboard. As Willow lost control Tara, who had taken a firm grip on both Willow and Angel, orbed. Jenny had orbed into the shuttle where she had met Tara. The two whitelighters had already orbed the captives down to the planet. Now Tara took Willow and Angel to join them.
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"OK," said Faith on entering the witches' library. "I'm bored. How about you guys telling me what you're researching?"
"Sit down, grab a book from that pile and I'll tell you what to look for," said Giles.
"Hey, I'm not that bored," said Faith holding up her hands in protest. "I just want to know what you're looking for. You know the rules Giles, watcher researches, slayer slays."
"Slayer?" said Daniel. "So are you The Slayer, The Vampire Slayer? The Chosen One mentioned in one of those old books I've got."
Faith glanced at Giles who nodded. "Well I suppose so," said Faith. "If you find any vampires you want slaying give me a ring. I'll give you a quotation, we can haggle a bit and if the price's right your vampire's dust."
"Faith!" said Giles.
"Oh yeah," said Faith. "We've got a special offer on at the moment. First vampire gets dusted free. According to Giles so does the second and the hundred and second. But Giles is British, doesn't understand American free enterprise. Anyway what exactly are you guys looking for?"
"We're trying to find out what the ancient witches of Kallistien did to get rid of the Goa'uld the last time," said Giles.
"And why they stayed away for so long," said Daniel. "We're hoping it's something we can use again."
"So?" said Faith. "How's it going? Have you got to the point yet where you come up with the secret formula or the long lost magic spell or do you have to wait for the last minute for that?"
"We think we know what it is in principle," said Giles. "We think it's some sort of stay-away spell. The sort that keeps the Goa'uld away without their realising it."
"The sort of thing that makes them forget they even heard of a place like Kallistien," said Daniel.
"Well that's all good," said Faith. "But?"
"But?" said Daniel puzzled. "What do you mean 'But?' "
"I know Giles," said Faith. "There's always a 'But' "
"But," said Giles, "if it works it'll probably keep everybody away. Everybody including us."
"You don't want to go home?" asked Faith. Now it was her turn to be puzzled.
"It's just that we hoped to find something we could use ourselves back on Earth and elsewhere against the Goa'uld," said Daniel. "But it probably won't be like that."
"Because?" asked Faith. "Come on guys. This is like pulling teeth."
"Because if it's the sort of thing we think it is it'll take a lot of power, a lot of witch power. Something like a world of witches to carry it out," said Giles. "Kallistien is probably the only place that could pull it off. Anyway we've got a lot more research to do because whatever it is we've only found hints so far."
"Well there is another sort of research you could do," said Faith.
"You mean try to find out if the Goa'uld have any records about what happened?" suggested Daniel.
"Nope," replied Faith. "I have something quite different in mind."