Hey guys! I hope you're all having a fantastic weekend. Thank you so so so much for all your reviews last chapter. I was honestly expecting you all to chew me out, but it seems like you actually liked the twist. Go figure. I'm so glad though. Please keep the reviews coming! :)

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The moment they transported down, Jack took off down the hallway, his weapon held up at chest-level in front of him. The corridor didn't look familiar, but thankfully, there appeared to be only one direction to go.

"Jack," Daniel whispered loudly. "What's going on? Is she okay? Is she still getting the research?"

Jack ignored him and kept close to the curved wall, trying to focus on the situation at hand. Unfortunately, Carter's words kept running through his head, making it extremely difficult to concentrate.

"Colonel, it doesn't matter…"

Jack hated being lied to, being used…manipulated. Still, he couldn't help playing those words over and over, knowing deep down how true they were. As angry as he was, Jack still felt a profound sense of loyalty towards this girl, his girl, no matter what she was, and there was no way he was going to let her be torn to pieces trying to save all of their lives.

"Jack!" Daniel hissed from behind him.

"I don't know, Daniel!" Jack said sharply over his shoulder. "All I know is she is not who we thought she was."

"Yeah, we heard that part," Daniel replied. "But is she still getting the research? Are we going to help her, or are we-"

"Yes, Daniel," Jack whispered back, irritated that his friend would think otherwise. "Now please, be quiet."

He pressed his ear to the wall, hearing the faint metallic sounds of the Replicators somewhere within. He felt his pulse quicken and glanced down the hallway, lifting the Asgard communicator up in front of his lips.

"Where to, Carter?"

There was a pause, and then Sam's voice came across clearly.

"Take your next left, and follow that corridor until it forks. The Replicators will be drawn to the energy from the beaming technology, but it looks like they'll be coming from the other direction, so you should be clear until you get close to the main computer core."

Jack glanced briefly at his watch, and then promptly wished he hadn't.

"We haven't got much time, guys," he said over his shoulder, breaking into a swift jog as they followed Sam's directions and ducked off to their left. The ceiling dropped down lower, and the sound of the Replicators slowly began getting louder as they made their way down the long hallway.

"Carter," he hissed into the communicator, trying to keep an eye out for bugs as he ran. "There are some pretty nasty noises down here. How close are we?"

"Just a little farther, sir. The computer core will be coming up on your right, and directly across from it is the corridor you need to take. The room we were in is the second door on the right."

That doesn't sound so bad.

"You may have to fight your way through, Colonel. The room containing the core is sure to be filled with Replicators. Please be careful, sir."

Jack groaned audibly and dropped the communicator into his pocket. Teal'c fell in step beside him, shifting the strap on his weapon.

"O'Neill," he whispered loudly. "I do not believe we will have time to return to the materialization device. Thor's ship must be allowed to leave orbit with the others. Retrieving the cloning research will be of no use if his ship is destroyed by Repicators."

"I get it, Teal'c," Jack said with a frown. "If Jade doesn't release those controls, we're all toast."

They rounded the next corner and skidded to a stop. The floor appeared to be moving, small mechanical limbs skittering in every direction. The bugs poured out of holes in the walls, climbing up the high, metallic beams as they worked on slowly devouring the facility from the inside out. Jack took a deep breath and lifted his weapon, his jaw tightening as he glanced at his friends beside him.

"All we have to do is get to Jade," he assured them. "We can hold them from there."

Daniel looked a little skeptical, but he nodded his head slowly and faced the swarm of bugs in front of them. There was a momentary pause as Jack tried to prepare himself for what he was about to do, and then he gave a short yell and took off running down the corridor, firing a continuous spray of bullets into the mass of mechanical insects in their path.

The Replicators reacted immediately, the entire swarm leaving their separate places to merge together and attack the intruders. Jack fired into the center of the mass, sending individual replicator blocks scattering across the floor. He didn't hesitate, but immediately hurried through the thin path that was left between the bugs still skittering towards him, Teal'c and Daniel close on his heels. He heard continuous fire from his friends behind him as he turned down the corridor that Sam had indicated, but he had no desire to turn and see just how many Replicators were on their tail. He broke into a dead run, continuing to fire his weapon into any clusters of bugs he ran across, and only slowing when he reached the familiar room on their right. His boots slid on the smooth floor as he stopped, ducking into the open doorway, and his jaw dropped at the sight before him.

Jade was nowhere to be seen, the computer panel she had been hiding under swarming with Replicators. They crawled over its surface with their mechanical bodies consuming the circuitry, and Jack scanned the room in a panic, searching for anything to give him a clue as to where Jade had gone. His heart stopped when he saw one of the bugs with a small, clear device between its limbs. Daniel came up behind him, panting loudly, and he followed Jack's line of vision to the foreign object on the floor in front of them.

"Uh, Jack?" he asked nervously. "Isn't that what Jade used to send us all back up to the ship?"

One of the Replicators on the computer panel spotted the group in the doorway, and Teal'c grabbed Daniel and Jack by their collars, yanking them out of the way as the bug coiled backwards and sprang out at them. It was only then that Jack noticed the swarm of Replicators still chasing them down the hallway, and he fired into them a few more times before taking off the other way.

"Where is she?" Daniel asked as they ran, spinning backwards to fire into the bugs behind them. "You don't think…"

"There was no evidence of human remains," Teal'c said between the loud spray of gunfire, and Jack cringed at the thought.

"She's here somewhere," he assured them, and he pulled the communicator back out of his pocket, dropping his weapon to let it hang around his neck. He pulled his pistol out of its place against his thigh and continued to fire as he called out to Sam.

"Carter, how's it coming?"

He ducked his head as one of the bugs shot out a spray of liquid towards him, and Teal'c fired into it, Replicator blocks flying in every direction as Sam's voice came in over the device in Jack's hand.

"I'm working as fast as I can, sir! I don't know what she did, but the transport systems are offline on all three of the Asgard ships. I'm not sure there's anything I can do without her help, at least not in five minutes!"

Daniel pushed his two friends into an open doorway and hit the panel next to it, the door sliding closed and giving them a second to breathe. Jack held the communicator up to his lips and panted into it as Teal'c scanned the room for another exit.

"You'll figure it out, Carter."

There was a loud scurrying sound on the other side of the door, and Teal'c tugged at what appeared to be a vent in the wall behind them. Daniel helped him rip it off of the wall, revealing a small hole, just wide enough to crawl through. Jack slipped his pistol back into its holster and followed the other two out of the room, one eye on the door as he slid backwards into the small opening and whispered into the device in his hand.

"But first, there's one other thing I need you to do…"