Chapter Twenty Four: A Key Event
Cutting air to the areas occupied by the invaders was such an obvious move for the Goa'uld to take that the invaders had prepared for it. Everybody wore breathing apparatus ready for immediate use and had been given some instruction by the SG people in how to use it. Everybody that is except Angel and Drusilla.
"We don't need air to breathe," Angel had explained. "In fact we don't breathe at all."
Sam still didn't understand how that could possibly be true. Not unless Angel was some sort of a robot or android. Perhaps that was it? Angel and the other alleged vampires might really be some sort of machine, an artificial...
Sam's train of thought was interrupted by the sound of firing. The firing of Jaffa energy weapons and from not very far away. There shouldn't be any other invaders in the vicinity so perhaps the Jaffa were wasting their time blazing away at the fake Replicators.
"In here!" said Angel grabbing hold of Sam's hand. He forced open the nearest door and pulled Sam inside the room with him. He immediately shut the door and stood with his ear to the door to listen for people passing by.
"Jaffa," said Angel quietly to the watching Sam. "I heard them coming. We'll carry on once they've gone by."
Robot hearing as well thought Sam? And how does he speak if he doesn't pass breath across his vocal cords? Well his hand didn't feel like a robot thought Sam, although some robots hands don't. But it didn't feel quite human either she thought, much too cold. Shut up Samantha Carter, she told herself. Concentrate on what we're doing or we'll never get it done.
Anyway who arranged these groups she thought. I should be with Jack and this guy should be with Buffy. She had seen Buffy and Angel together and those guys obviously had some sort of a history. She had asked Phoebe about it to which Phoebe's response was a grin and near certain confirmation with the remark "What do you think?"
But Sam knew why the groups had been arranged in this way. It was her own fault. She had suggested that somebody from the SGC military be included in each group and the others had agreed. They had the most experience in dealing with the Goa'uld and their Jaffa. The members of SG-1 had been on Goa'uld ships before.
Angel and Sam, like Jack and Buffy, were disguised as a Jaffa and a technician but they had decided to avoid meeting any of Marduk's people as far as possible. Like Jack, Buffy and Xander they were heading for the Control Centre, otherwise known as the bridge of the ship. They were taking a different route in order to maximise the chances of somebody making it.
As all was now quiet outside the room Angel led the way outside and along the otherwise empty corridor. A few minutes later they reached their first objective, a transport point. A place for transporting personnel via the Goa'uld teleportation rings.
The transport controls were of course defended by a Jaffa unit, a unit of four men. As Angel and Sam walked towards the transport point the rings came to life and five more armed Jaffa arrived to take part in the battle. Angel and Sam stepped aside to allow them to pass by in their usual tramping style of march, on their way down the corridor.
The newly arrived Jaffa ignored Angel and Sam but not so the unit guarding the transport point. As the two Earth people walked forward they found the weapons of all four Jaffa pointed directly at them.
"Drop your weapons!" ordered the Jaffa in command of the unit. "I don't recognise you two. You're not supposed to be here. Who are you?"
Angel and Sam laid down their weapons but Angel closed the gap between himself and the Jaffa.
"We're spies," said Angel, "spies for the Lord Marduk. We've come to report to him about the attack of the Kallistians and what they're planning to do. We have to see him urgently, we don't have much time."
"I have the ear of Lord Marduk," said the Jaffa officer suspiciously. "And I don't know about any spies. You'd better tell me everything. I'll report it to him."
"Not good enough," replied Angel. "There are traitors on board. We need to speak to Lord Marduk ourselves. We can't risk any of the traitors finding out what we know. Our orders are to trust nobody."
At that moment an alarm sounded from the control panel of the transport control point and from the small communicators that the Jaffa had with them. The alarm consisted of a rapid series of beeps. "Grab hold," said the Jaffa commander. "This is it."
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"Dialling up now," said Sergeant Harriman through the PA as he looked at General Hammond down below in the Gate room. He also glanced at Phoebe Halliwell who stood next to the General and wondered if it really was possible for the witch to do what she was attempting.
How do these witches really operate wondered the sergeant. If this works the General will want us all to learn to do magic he thought. Hah! We'll need our own magic school, our own Hogwarts.
Down below Phoebe had begun her spell. Of necessity the Gate room was full of soldiers ready to deal with any threat coming through the Gate so she felt a little self conscious about doing a magic spell in such company. But there really was no alternative because she had to be close to the Gate and the soldiers had to be there.
At least most of these guys have seen enough strange things that one more might not be that memorable she thought. They must be good at keeping their mouths shut or the Stargate programme would be all over the news or at least all over the web by now.
Nevertheless Phoebe hoped that the soldiers thought she was some sort of visitor from an alien planet with strange religious beliefs or some such. To encourage that idea Phoebe had not spoken to anybody in the Gate room apart from the General and was dressed like a Kallistien witch, with a hood shading her face. That way the soldiers might not keep a good memory of what she looked like. Phoebe and her sisters really didn't want to become famous on Earth because they knew what that could lead to.
The dial up was continuing. "Chevron 6 encoded," declared Sergeant Harriman.
This was Phoebe's cue. She started the last part of her chant and walked up the ramp. She finished the chant and threw her magic potion over the Stargate itself before quickly jumping off the ramp to one side to avoid being engulfed by the incoming wormhole connection.
"Chevron 7 locked," called Sergeant Harriman and the wave washed over the ramp in the usual way. This time however things were a little different from normal because the connection was accompanied by a brief but violent vibration of the whole Gate. After a few seconds the Gate settled down with the usual watery curtain in place.
"Did you cause that vibration?" asked the General, looking at Phoebe.
"Probably," said Phoebe shrugging. "But the spell seems to have worked. We seem to have made the connection."
"Closing the Iris," announced Sergeant Harriman and the Iris closed as previously arranged.
The General turned away from Phoebe and walked over to Colonel Marker who was in command of the troops waiting to go through the Gate. The Colonel was stood at the back of the room with two of his team behind the troops on duty to guard the SGC.
"Are your guys all ready to go?" asked the General. "We could receive the OK signal at any moment."
"Everybody's ready Sir," replied the Colonel. "All equipment and weapons checked, including bayonets. Everybody did extra bayonet practice this morning since we might not be able to rely on our guns. And everybody will have their breathing masks on when they go through, just in case."
"Good," said the General who then turned and went back over to Phoebe. General Hammond had checked on all this before but it was best not to take anything for granted he thought.
"Have you been told there's a limit to how long we can keep the connection open?" said the General to Phoebe. "We should receive the OK to go through long before that but just in case I don't suppose your erm, magic spell will alter that?"
Phoebe shrugged again. "No idea," she replied. We just might find out. But I'm ready to do the counter spell and break the connection if it's a problem. Is there any reason why we couldn't reconnect after the connection time expires?"
"No," said the General. "Not in normal circumstances, no. Not unless the Gate at the other end is disabled somehow." And just so long as we don't break the Stargate with all this magical messing around he thought.
"I'll mix a bit more of my potion in case I have to do a repeat," said Phoebe picking up her bag of ingredients.
Phoebe had been given the dial up address of the Stargate, which was on board Marduk's space HQ, by Willow. That was the address just dialled by Sergeant Harriman. The plan was to keep a connection open to Marduk's Stargate for as long as possible in order to stop Marduk from using the Gate either to bring in reinforcements to fight against the attack that had just been launched against him, or as a way of escape.
As part of the attack on the space HQ, an attempt was being made to take control of Marduk's Gate at the other end. If this was successful a message would be sent through the Gate and the troops ready at the SGC would go through to join the fighting. Until that message was received the connection would be maintained but the Iris would remain closed.
The General had thought about sending Colonel Marker and his troops through as soon as a connection was established but had been persuaded not to do so. The witches thought there was a way to take control of Marduk's Gate at the other end without too many casualties on either side. A force direct from the SGC coming through the Gate with all guns blazing might mess up that plan. In any event as Phoebe pointed out:
"Marduk's expecting an attack. He knows we have his Gate address. You can't be sure he doesn't have something like your Iris set up by now," she had said. The General of course had already considered this.
The General had explained about the use of the robot probes to avoid risks such as that but had agreed that using a robot probe in the current circumstances was not appropriate. It could well be destroyed and would take too long.
Phoebe's role was to use magic to force a connection with Marduk's Gate, even if it was currently locked onto another location. In addition the magic was intended to lock the connection and prevent Marduk's people from breaking the link to the SGC Stargate. All the time the connection was maintained Marduk's Gate would remain effectively useless to him.
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Teal'c and Drusilla arrived on the hanger deck under the cover of darkness. They had travelled to the spaceship along with the others but had now transferred to the hanger deck by way of a secondary portal that Willow had opened for them. Willow remained with Tara back at the centre of the area now held by the attacking force.
As well as opening a portal to the hanger deck Willow had arranged for a brief blackout to cover the arrival. Teal'c and Drusilla were accompanied by a small unit of Kallistien soldiers and a few US troops.
The hanger deck was an obvious target for an attack by the Kallistians and their allies so it was well defended but Teal'c, Drusilla and their companions were at first mainly concerned to hide themselves in the depths and darkness of the hanger deck and bide their time. They had deliberately been sent through a portal away from the immediate area of the Gate in the hope that their arrival would not be noticed.
Everybody hunkered down behind shuttles, piles of equipment or anything else suitable. They were all concealed before the brief darkness ended. The extra alertness of the Jaffa present around the Gate because of the black out now began to settle down.
Teal'c gave a brief curious look at his strange companion when he thought she was not looking, one of several in the past few minutes. He had taken the opportunity to talk to Drusilla during the short wait before going though the portal although he had had some difficulty in understanding her strange accent until he managed to 'tune in' to it.
From what Drusilla said anybody, well anybody human, could become a vampire and she had once been fully human. But according to Drusilla becoming a soulless vampire was a curse, not a blessing. Drusilla had explained about the nature of vampires and how they sustained themselves by feeding on people.
Teal'c was beginning to wonder if some of the old tales told to him when he was a child might have more truth to them than he thought. O'Neill and his team had not known the truth about vampires on Earth so it was possible that such creatures existed unrecognised on other human worlds as well. They seemed to have a way of concealing themselves from public notice. Or perhaps they just benefited from a general human reluctance to accept that they really existed.
Teal'c broke off from his musings to concentrate on the task in hand. He made a mental note to look into this in more detail at a later time. If there were vampires preying on humans on the Jaffa worlds then something needed to be done about it.
The hanger deck still housed Marduk's Stargate which had been restored to full working order some time before by the witches working for the Goa'uld. The witches, after much effort had dissolved the shut down spell applied by Willow and Tara.
As the attackers remained in hiding and watched the operation of the Gate they saw Jaffa troops come through it to join in the fighting elsewhere on the ship. The latest group had just cleared the Gate ramp when it jumped, literally jumped two feet up in the air and down again with a loud crash.
In the silence that followed, the sound of a new wormhole connection was the only sound to be heard. The new wave of the new connection washed out in the usual way causing a great deal of consternation in the watching Jaffa. Something remarkable and totally unplanned had happed, as least as far as they were concerned.
The event was not unexpected as far as those watching were concerned but it was not what they were waiting for to launch their attack so they continued to watch, now doubly secure in their hiding places because all of the Jaffa and technicians present were totally concentrating on the Gate.
"What happened!" demanded the Jaffa commander in a loud voice. "What's going on?"
"It jumped," replied the chief technician. "It just...
"I saw that," said the Jaffa commander, evidently very annoyed. "We all saw that."
"No," said the technician. "I don't mean that. I mean the connection, the wormhole. It just jumped to another destination, another Gate."
"Isn't that impossible?" asked the Jaffa commander.
"Yes," said the technician. "Well, it should be. I don't understand it."
"So where's it connected to now?" asked another Jaffa.
"Earth," replied the technician. "Not our Gate on Earth, the Gate used by the Earth people."
"Why would they..." began the Jaffa commander but he didn't finish because the moment the watchers had been waiting for had arrived and they launched their attack.
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Daniel Jackson opened his eyes and looked up. He saw the sky above through the gaps in the canopy of trees, Kallistien trees. He slowly remembered where he was and then tried to recall what had happened. There was some sort of an explosion he thought, that green glowing thing in the bowl had seemed to explode.
"Are you going to lie there all day," asked a voice from somewhere above and behind him, a woman's voice. A voice he recognised as the voice of Glory.
Daniel sat up and looked around. His head felt delicate, as if it was on the edge of a headache, as if he had received some sort blow to the head, which he probably had he thought. He was indeed still in the forest. The only other person visible, alive or dead, was Glory who was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree nearby.
"What happened?" asked Daniel. "Did something go wrong?"
"Oh no," said Glory sarcastically. "I planned for the Goa'uld to mess everything up, to turn up unexpectedly and start killing all my friends."
"I'm sorry," said Daniel who found that standing up provoked a real headache. "Do you know..."
"...what happened to your friends?" finished Glory. "No idea. In fact I couldn't care less."
"Where are we?" asked Daniel. "I saw a lot of Jaffa and a lot of people being killed..."
"While you did precisely nothing," said Glory. "You and your friends just sat there and watched. Thanks for nothing."
"You know why we couldn't..." said Daniel.
"I know what you said," replied Glory. "I also know I was betrayed and now your witch friends are nowhere to be found. How very convenient."
"That Key thing gave off a lot of energy," said Daniel. "That would have shown up on the Goa'uld instruments big time. They may have just sent in an armed force to check it out on general principles. There might not have been any betrayal at all."
"You know all about Goa'uld instruments do you?" asked Glory glaring at Daniel. "What else do you know about them?"
"You know I can't do anything that might change the timeline," said Daniel. "That includes giving out information. That especially includes giving out information."
"So if your friends have been captured by the Goa'uld you're going to do nothing about it?" asked Glory.
"You think they might have been captured?" asked Daniel. "How did we escape? Where are we?"
"The ceremony was meant to build up energy using the Key as a focus," said Glory. "The energy was meant to concentrate in the sword. The sword would then be powerful enough to destroy any Goa'uld fortress or bring down any of their flying machines or any of the machines they use to travel to other worlds."
"But it went wrong?" asked Daniel.
"You know it went wrong. We were attacked. The ceremony was disrupted," said Glory who bent down and picked up the sword. The sword was broken. Only a short fractured piece of metal still being attached to the hilt. "The sword is useless," she added and tossed it away.
Daniel said nothing but continued to wait for the answer to his question.
"We escaped because some of the energy entered me," said Glory. "I was able to teleport over here. I saw you fall out of your tree so I took you with me."
"What happened to the Key?" asked Daniel at the same time thinking that he didn't remember falling. His last memory was watching from his arboreal perch as the Jaffa attacked.
"Don't worry about the Key," said Glory. "That's my business and not something I'm gonna discuss with you."