Chapter Thirty Eight: Talking to the Enemy

"OK, make the call," said Jack to Sergeant Paisley. "Let's give it a go. At least we'll be able to distract Mister Pop head."

Jack and Sam waited quietly while the sergeant transmitted his message to Apophis's ship. "They've acknowledged," he reported shortly. "I'll put them on the speaker."

"This is the voice of Apophis," said the voice coming from the other ship. "If you are ready to surrender to your god then speak. If not then prepare yourselves for destruction."

"Yeah, well I know the voice of Apophis and it's not you," said Jack. "But I expect you're listening aren't you Apophis? This is the voice of Jack O'Neill but I expect you already know that."

"I hear you O'Neill," said another voice. A typically deep, somewhat mechanical Goa'uld voice. "Even you, I will spare if you surrender now. Otherwise you and everybody from your world will be destroyed."

"The same old Apophis," said Jack. "A word of advice, you might want to throw in 'Resistance is futile' next time. There's a reason it's a classic and it's always good for a laugh. Anyway it's time to sing another tune. Listen to this old snake. We've transmitted bombs to all of your ships. We can blow them all up any time we feel like it. We haven't done it yet because we're the good guys and we don't want to kill any innocent people. But if you don't withdraw and take all your ships with you, we'll blow them all up and you with them."

"A poor bluff O'Neill," said Apophis. "If you could do that you would have already done it. The defences of my ships are proof against any such action. My Jaffa are even now taking possession of this planet. Very soon you will run out of allies."

"I rather hoped you'd say that," said Jack. He then turned to Sergeant Paisley. "Transmit!" he ordered. He made sure to let Apophis hear the order he gave. Sergeant Paisley was now transmitting the code to explode the first bomb aboard one of Apophis's ships.

"That's one down," said Jack. "That's just a demonstration. You know you can't hurt us here. Nothing you've sent against this ship has even scratched it. The longer you stay here the smaller your fleet will become. You'd better get out while the going's good."

Abruptly the connection with Apophis was terminated at the other end. Jack turned to Sam. "What damage did we do?" he asked.

"We blew the engines on one of his capital ships," said Sam. "It'll stay in orbit for the time being but it's not going anywhere in a hurry. The explosion shouldn't have caused any casualties."

Apophis had been right in his accusation that Jack was trying a bluff. But it was only a partial bluff. Whilst the group of witches still aboard Marduk's former flagship had agreed to cooperate in transmitting bombs aboard some of Apophis's ships they had only done so on the condition that their magic did not cause any human casualties.

Only small bombs could therefore be used and they had been transmitted to only a few of Apophis's ships. A major limiting factor was the availability of explosives which were of the right size. What was needed was something that would cause an explosion that was not too small and not too large.

The latter requirement ruled out using any of the major weaponry aboard the spaceship. What had been used had been constructed from the grenades and other explosives carried by the various SG personnel on board. Transmitting these explosives to an appropriate location had not been easy. In each case what was needed was a place where sufficient damage could be caused which would disable the ship. At the same time the bombs needed to be in an area where they were not likely to be noticed, were hard to find in the event of a search and were not likely to cause casualties.

With this in mind the option taken in most cases was to target the inner part of the ships' engines. That had been difficult for the witches because they had needed to be careful not to let the power from those engines blast back through the magic portals they opened. There had therefore only been a limited number of successful transmissions.

The witches had also found it more and more difficult to open and maintain the magic portals. They had needed to use increasing amounts of magic power to do so and they had finally declared it impossible to open portals any more. Jack's claim that he could destroy all of Apophis's fleet was therefore far from accurate.

Given time, more explosives could be obtained from the SGC but allowing Apophis to continue with his attack on Kallistien, without interference, was a big risk. Jack had therefore taken the decision to go with what he had now, even if it only disabled part of the Goa'uld fleet.

One immediate benefit of acting as quickly as possible would be to divert the attention of Apophis's forces, including perhaps his witches, from the ongoing battle planetside. This could prove something of a handicap for the Jaffa campaign down on the planet and make things easier for the Kallistian witches who were fighting the Goa'uld.

The question now was; would the bluff work? Would Apophis now withdraw his fleet? "Set off the next one," ordered Jack.

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"It's the hotel," said Paige.

"What do you mean the hotel?" asked Prue. "What hotel?"

"That house over there, it's exactly where our hotel is back in the future," replied Paige. "Although it's a completely different building. This is countryside now but back in the future it's all part of the big city. Sometime in the future this house will be rebuilt as the hotel we stayed in back in the future."

Paige had orbed Prue and Lissie as far north as she was able, which was the location of the future hotel. They were now stood at the back of a large country house, in amongst a small copse of trees. The sun was still shining and they were able to see that the building was occupied. Armed guards were stationed at the rear entrance to the house. Guards armed with swords and spears who were obviously on the alert for any possible enemy attack.

"It's inside, the Key's inside," said Lissie. "I can feel it. Low down in the basement or cellars. They must be ready to start the ceremony down there. You've got to get me inside. I've got to be there."

"Can you get us in there?" Prue asked Paige. "Orb us into the basement or as near as you can get and Lissie can lead us the rest of the way."

Paige nodded. Deciding action would be its own reply she put her hands on her two companions and the three of them disappeared in an orb.

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Daniel was now sleeping on a divan on the other side of the room. Glory had made sure he would remain unconscious until after the ceremony was concluded. After all that had happened she had no intention of taking any more chances than absolutely necessary.

Daniel meant well but he kept forgetting that he was only an observer. She didn't want him to interfere at the wrong moment. He might need to know things back in the future but if that still applied after the ceremony had taken place then she could tell him everything he needed, or rather everything she thought he had a need to know.

Glory was now ready to go ahead with the ceremony. This time the ceremony would continue until the Key had been fully charged, when she would use it to drive away the Goa'uld and make sure they stayed away. She had thought to use the power of the Key to destroy the Goa'uld but had decided that expulsion was a better long term plan.

Using magic directly to kill was against the code. Glory was nevertheless prepared to do it if necessary, if there was no other way. But tainting the Key with blood was probably not a good idea. She had no idea of what the long term consequences of that would be but it wouldn't be good so she didn't want to find out.

Anyway if she simply destroyed this particular Goa'uld invasion then sooner or later, most probably sooner, another Goa'uld would attack. She had no illusions about the Goa'uld. Killing one would not deter another and there were other Goa'uld out there who had more resources than Mitra and Ninurta.

No, what she needed was a permanent solution. One that would not just drive the Goa'uld away but would provide permanent protection for Kallistien. She wanted to avoid the need for visitors from the future to repeat the process she mentally added. Visitors from the future she thought. Of course the rest of them will be turning up before long. Best wait for them to get here rather than have them disrupt everything once we've started.

Since the preparations were all complete Glory decided she could afford a short wait. What she was waiting for didn't take long. She became aware of the arrival of Prue, Paige and Lissie in the next room. Glory continued to wait and was ready when the two sisters and the Keeper cautiously entered the room set aside for the ceremony.

As Prue, Paige and Lissie entered the room they saw Daniel still sleeping on the divan. Paige went straight over to him to make sure he was alright. "Don't worry about Daniel," said Glory. "He's fine. He's just going to sleep for the next few hours."

"We've got to shut down the Key," said Prue. "Or rather Lissie here's got to shut it down." Prue explained that shutting down the Key was necessary so that she could travel back to meet her former self and thus reset things to the way they were. "We can make sure there is no interference this time, no changing of the time-line. Everything from then on will go exactly the way it went originally."

"Will it?" asked Glory. "Do you really think you and the others will make no difference at all the second time round, however well you explain things to them? I don't. I think no matter how many times you try to do this 'reset' there will always be ways left for you change things. No, I've got a better way. And since there are seven of us and I've got the Key we'll do it my way."

"You're risking a great deal if you do that," said Prue. "What you're doing is different to the way it was before. We know it worked before. Doing it differently risks letting it all fall apart."

"You still don't get it do you," said Glory. "It didn't work before, not permanently. That's why you're here. What I'm going to do this time is do it properly. This time I'll make sure it is permanent."

"But that will unravel everything," said Prue. "It'll mean we don't have any reason to come back here. That will mean that everything we've done won't have happened. What you're doing now depends on us being here so everything will eventually unravel and we're back to where we started."

"Exactly! Either I get something permanent, which is what I want, or it all unravels and resets back to what happened before you came back in time," said Glory. "That's second best but at least I get things to be as good as they were the first time."

"It's you that doesn't get it," said Prue. "Think it through. Do it your way and things unravel and go back to the way they were. But we'll have no knowledge of what happened this time round because we've had no chance of speaking to our former selves. So we come back in time... again and we end up standing here... again. Who knows, maybe we've done all this before but we don't know it. What you're doing could create an endless time loop."

"No, it doesn't have to work that way..." began Glory.

Glory and Prue were now so engrossed in their argument that neither of them took much notice of the others in the room. Glory however had made sure to remain between the time travellers and the table upon which was placed the bowl containing the Key. The other six witches in the room, the other members of the Central Coven of Kallistien were also gathered around the table.

Glory had only glanced briefly at Lissie when she entered the room. Lissie was wearing a hooded cloak concealing her face, a precaution that Piper had suggested, but Glory had no doubt about her identity. However although Glory knew that Lissie was the Keeper she did not realise what power that gave to her. She was therefore completely taken by surprise, as was everybody else in the room when Lissie acted.

Up until then Lissie had stood quietly to one side, making no attempt to approach the Key or take part in the discussion. She did not really follow the argument between the two witches but she knew that anything to do with the Key was the Keeper's business and the sooner she got her hands on it the better. The sooner she took control of it the safer everybody would be.

"Key!" proclaimed Lissie suddenly, holding out both arms. "To me!" she commanded. The Key now rose out of the bowl into the air and moved rapidly towards her.

"NO!" yelled Glory holding out her hands. "To me!" she commanded and the Key stopped moving towards Lissie and wavered back towards Glory. For a moment the Key hovered between the two of them, Glory's greater witch power battling Lissie's greater affinity with the Key.

Both Lissie and Glory, as well as trying to bring the Key towards them had started moving towards the floating Key to take hold of it. As they did so the Key began to glow with a bright green light, brighter and brighter.

Just when it appeared that Glory would reach the Key first Paige took a hand. Holding out her hands she used her own power. "Key!" she ordered. If she could get hold of the Key she could give it to Lissie to close it down.

Normally Paige's power caused the thing called to disappear and reappear where she wanted it, usually in her hands. This time, either because of the nature of the Key or because of the other powers acting on it, the Key didn't disappear but it did suddenly move directly towards Paige and out of the immediate grasp of Glory.

Glory and Lissie were exerting their powers on the Key from opposite directions and their powers were largely cancelling each other out. There was therefore nothing to stop Paige's power from bringing the Key into her hands. Nothing that is except Prue's power.

With a sweep of her arm Prue sent the Key flying away from her younger sister and back towards Lissie. In the instant she'd had to consider the situation Prue had decided that she very much didn't want Paige to lay hands on the Key.

As far as Prue could work it out the Key had been involved in some sort of merging with Lissie/Dawn at some stage, a merging which was still in place back in the future. The Key might also have something to do with the transformation of Glory from witch to Hell God. She certainly didn't want anything like merging or transforming to happen to Paige.

The Key arrived in Lissie's hands but only an instant later Glory also laid her hands on it. As she did so Glory realised that she had made a terrible mistake.

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Captain Wright walked over to Colonel Maybourne. "Everybody's ready to go. You've just got to give the word and we'll move in," he said.

Maybourne nodded and turned away. He walked over to where Lilah Morgan was sitting on a table in the middle of the room. "We're ready to go in," he said. "One last time, what exactly are you getting out of this? You're not doing all this just to settle a few old scores with Angel and his friends."

Didn't the senator tell you?" asked Lilah. "Wolfram and Hart are a vital part of the defence of this country. We provide vital information and we can do things, go places, other agencies can't reach."

"The senator said nothing about you being a government agency," said Maybourne. "He just told me to co-operate with you because we're all on the same side."

"Of course we're not a government agency," said Lilah. "We don't claim to be. You'll never find us on any official balance sheet. But we're just as much committed to winning the war with the Goa'uld as you are. Haven't we proven that?"

"Not to my satisfaction you haven't," said Maybourne. "I think you've got your own agenda and it only coincides with what the NID want in a small way. I don't know what you've got on the senator to get him to agree to work with you but I'll give you fair warning. Don't try a double cross. You won't live long enough to make it worthwhile."

"Troops!" called Lieutenant Johansen from across the room. The whole room fell silent and Maybourne rushed across the room. Johansen was the NID communication officer who was in touch with the various NID units which were now in place around the Sunnydale Slayer HQ.

"What troops, and where?" asked Maybourne.

"There's a troop convoy moving towards the target area..." The lieutenant continued to listen to reports coming in. "They're coming from the north... And another one... A second convoy moving up from the west... Armoured personnel carriers in both groups... Helicopter... two, three... maybe more... They're arriving above the target now." As he spoke the unmistakable sound of at least one helicopter close outside the building could be heard.

"Abort and disperse," ordered Maybourne. "Abort and disperse, all personnel. Transmit code Seven twice and then everybody get out of here."

Maybourne broke off what he was saying because in the middle of the room an incoming orb appeared. It cleared to reveal Leo Wyatt, Amy Madison and General Hammond.

Maybourne walked up to the General having decided immediately to try to put the best face possible onto what could be a disastrous situation for both him and the NID. "I'm pleased to see you sir," he said saluting. "Is this the SGC's new method of transport?"

As Maybourne spoke armed troops from General Hammond's command began to enter the room.

"Never mind that Colonel," said Hammond. "Perhaps you can explain what the NID is doing here and why you're about to launch an attack on one of the Stargates controlled by the SGC?"

"An attack?" said Maybourne looking around the room. He now for the first time noticed that Lilah Morgan and all of the Wolfram and Hart people had disappeared. He wasn't surprised. At least he didn't have to explain their presence. "Oh no sir, I think there are some wires crossed somewhere. We're here to stop an attack. We got wind of some strange goings on around here. We're here to help."

"And how exactly does it help to have all of the Stargates closed down and unusable?" asked Hammond. "What have you done Colonel?"