Cassie winced slightly before turning her head to shrug at the newcomers, "Nothing we couldn't handle, Jack."
The gray haired man took a few steps into the room, looking around and cocking his head at the civilian thieves before turning back to look at where Cassie was sitting a few feet away from the awakening prisoners, "Yes ... I can see that."
"What the hell is going on here, Sam?" Alec asked, the hacker's eyes wide with fear as he looked straight at the blonde woman who had entered with the men. He pointed a shaky finger at the man now identified as Malichi, "His eyes glowed."
The blue eyed vixen took a few steps toward him, her hands held out soothingly, "Alec," she said softly, "Calm down. You having a panic attack will help no one."
One of the younger men who had come in with Sam and Jack frowned and looked at the prisoners. His eyes flickered to Teal'c, "They glowed?"
"Indeed, Daniel Jackson" the rock of a man inclined his head minutely. "It would appear the Goa'uld are ready to attempt to reassert their power."
Alec pointed an accusing finger at Sam as he took a step back toward Eliot, "You said that was done with."
"What was done with?" Nate demanded, "What the hell is going on here?"
"That's classified," the final man that had come in with the others said with a frown.
"Well," Sophie put in, "Un-classify it. All of us know something strange is going on here and none of us will leave it alone until you tell us."
Eliot frowned as he looked at where Cassie was still getting her hand bound up by the other chef. "Are you an alien?" he asked seriously after a moment of silence.
A pregnant silence filled the room as Cassie looked into Eliot's eyes and attempted to work something out within her own mind. After a few minutes she nodded minutely and turned to look at the newcomers, "Jack, you might want to do something about the prisoners. They might know something useful and they can't stay here."
The gray haired man nodded sharply before letting his eyes flicker to one of the men behind him, "Mitchell, get ahold of the Hammond. It'll be best to keep this in house and not let the NID know about it just yet."
"Yes, sir," Mitchell said with military precision as he went off to make the necessary phone call.
"You cannot win," Malichi spoke with the deep timber of a Goa'uld symbiote. His eyes flashed as he turned to Cassie with a sneer, "There is a new order in the universe and you will bow to the will of your god."
Cassie looked at him unflinchingly and unimpressed as she responded, "And which god would that be? Ni'irti? Sokar? Ba'al?" Her disgust at the names filled her face as she spat at the creature before her, "They're dead, along with the rest of the System Lords."
Malichi's eyes flashed again as he barked at them all, "Hear me, Tauri! Before the child Colonel Carter carries is born, you will all be dead or serving your god, Hera."
"We will never serve you," Cassie said calmly, her face now a picture of serenity.
His response was maniacal laugher before he said, "I am but Hermes, herald of the great Hera. You will tremble when you feel his wrath."
Jack's icy gaze cut through the Goa'uld before him. "Been there. Heard that." His hand came up holding his side arm cocked and aimed at the knee cap of the prisoner, "Do you know how many of your so called 'gods' I've killed? You don't scare me any more than Ba'al did right before the Tok'ra cut him out of his host. Now shut up."
Mitchell walked back into the room in time to witness his C.O.'s outburst. He has his cellphone in his hand and motioned toward the prisoners, "Everything's all set for transport to The Hammond for the prisoners and me."
"I will accompany you, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said in his calm, deep rumble.
The younger man shook his head, "No offense, Teal'c, but you're more useful here. Not to mention I know you haven't seen Cassie in months."
"Very well," Teal'c replied while Jack put away his side arm.
"I'll expect an update at 07:00 tomorrow morning," Jack ordered without preamble.
"How is Hailey going to bypass the anti-beaming technology in place around the apartment?" Sam asked with a note of confusion lacing her voice.
"She doesn't have to," Mitchell replied with a glare toward the prisoners, "Apparently it's already been disabled."
"That would explain the lack of noise," Cassie commented blandly as she went to check the apparatus that apparently was on the fritz.
"When are they going to --?" Vala was cut off as a beam of light encompassed the room and as it disappeared a few seconds later the prisoners and Mitchell had vanished. She smirked slightly, "Guess that answered that question, eh?"
Sophie looked at her with a touch of awe on her face, "And yet there are so many I can think of that have yet to be addressed." She turned accusingly toward Cassie, "Who the hell are you people?"
"I would have thought a professional grifter would have known that before walking into a stranger's house," Vala pointed out.
Sophie turned one of her more infamous glares on the other woman, "It was surprisingly difficult to find information about you people. Even Hardison couldn't hack your system."
Hardison snorted and crossed his arms over his chest, "Couldn't? Baby you mean, wouldn't. There ain't no system I can't hack."
Sam smiled tensely as she explained, "Actually, Alec, if you had gone much farther than you did, your system would have completely fried."
The geek turned to her in surprise, "What the hell? Like, totally fried?"
"Like, systems have been known to catch on fire, fried."
"Um ... Sam?" Daniel asked, raising his hand like a student, "Question." He motioned between her and Alec before settling inquisitive eyes on his long time friend, "Who's this?"
Sam blushed as she nodded sharply, "Right. Daniel, Jack, this is Alec Hardison, my best friend from high school." She made eye contact with Alec and motioned toward the men next to her, "Alec, this is my husband, Jack, and a co-worker, Dr. Daniel Jackson."
"Great," Tesa pipped in jovially, "Now that everyone knows everyone else, I think it's time for Cassie to lay down. There's a nasty bump on her head."
Jack stepped toward his adopted niece, "That doesn't sound like, 'I can handle it myself.' Christ, Cassie, what the hell did they hit you with?"
Cassie pulled her head out of Jack's searching hands and shrugged, "My watch fell out of my pocket and I fell on it during the fight."
Jack winced in sympathy, "That looks about right, then."
Eliot swiftly took the few steps necessary to bring him side by side with the Air Force General as he, too, bent down to examine Cassie's wound. "What the hell kind of watch makes a dent like that?"
Cassie abruptly stood and backed away from the two concerned men. "I'm fine," she stated again with as much force as she could as she almost backed into Sam. "A bump on the head is not enough to put me down for the count when we need to figure out why the hell we haven't heard about this 'Hera' before."
Teal'c stepped forward and looked stoically at the group of people around him, "I believe this conversation would be best conducted after everyone has found a suitable seat."
Sophie sat down abruptly in one of the chairs Nate had pulled over from the table. She crossed her arms irritatingly and demanded, "Now what the bloody hell is going on here?"
Daniel snorted as he sat down in one of the recliners, "That's a long story."
"We've got nothing but time," Eliot put in as he sat down on the far end of the sofa from Daniel. "Enlighten us."
Cassie rubbed the back of her neck and sat down wearily in the chair that Jack pulled up for her before leading Sam over to the sofa to sit down. "It's your call, Cas," Jack whispered into her ear before moving away.
"I assume that Alec already knows the vitals?" she asked Sam. At her nod Cassie continued, "Okay, then. I guess what you need to know is that the U.S. government has been in contact with aliens for about the past thirteen years." The young woman waited for any response from the group, but when no one said anything she continued. Her eyes found Eliot's and she said, "I was born on a planet called Hanka that was controlled by a creature who fancied herself the god Nirrti and did genetic experiments on my people."
She took a deep breath as she continued, "When I was about ten, a group of explorers came through to my planet and started a series of events that ended in the death of everyone I ever knew."
"But not you?" Eliot asked, his brow furrowed.
Cassie shook her head, "No. Not me. I was taken to Earth and a few years later it was discovered that Nirrti had altered my genetic makeup. We thought she had changed it back, but ..." she just shook her head again and turned to looking down at the floor.
"The war with Nirrti's kind took a long time, and Earth was almost destroyed a number of times in the process, but it finally ended about three years ago."
"What's this got to do with what just happened?" Parker voiced the confusion the rest of the group felt.
Oddly enough, it was Hardison that answered her, "Nirrti was a Goa'uld. A parasite with a god-complex and way too much power."
"Imagine if Hitler and Mussolini had a child together and that kid had genetic memory and the desire to do more evil than both of those men combined," Sam added to clear up any confusion.
"Oh," Parker said, "That's bad."
"And that's an understatement," Vala shot back. "Anyway, we killed all the major players in the Goa'uld government and ... frankly, I've been expecting this for some time."
"Vala Mal Doran is correct," Teal'c put in with his usual raised eyebrow. "It is a miracle no Goa'uld has arisen to claim power before now."
Nate leaned over toward Sophie and asked her, "Aliens?"
"It would appear so," the British bombshell said with the same note of awe and disbelief.
A/N: Happy Thanksgiving to all of my States-side readers. To everyone else ... please leave the rotten tomatoes at your side until after Thursday. I'll gladly deal with them come Friday morn.