Disclaimer: 'Stargate' and 'Harry Potter' both belong to their respective creators, so I don't own them; I'm just borrowing them for the immediate moment in time and space
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Truth and Revelations
Daniel couldn't even afford to give himself a moment's pause; if he took too long to think about this, all he'd accomplish was to get himself killed.
Having a Death Eater here at a time like this would have been bad enough, but adding in Hestia's current control of Bellatrix's body and he was definitely not interested in sticking around longer than he had to.
He'd hoped that he wouldn't have to do this- convincing people that you were trying to help them wasn't something that they tended to believe after you broke out of prison, even if the reason you were in there in the first place was fairly flimsy-, but if it was a choice between creating a good impression with their captors and getting killed by a terrifying blend of two of his greatest nightmares, it really wasn't a contest.
"Hold on!" he yelled, sticking one hand through the cage to grab Jared by the arm before he focused desperately on one of the more rarely-used aspects of his magic- even with Hermione and the others back in his life he hadn't managed to practise that well-, willing himself to hold everything together and praying he remembered the location he wanted clearly enough...
After the usual disconcerting feeling of being sucked down a massive straw had passed, Daniel opened his eyes to find himself standing in Jared and Leda's old house on the outskirts of the city- the first safe location he could think of that Hestia might not be able to sense immediately; it would definitely be abandoned by this point and it was far enough away to escape the attention of Rand's leaders-, checking that his wand was still secure in his sleeve before he turned to look at the now-stunned Jared.
"OK," he said, raising his hands in an attempt to placate his friend, "I know that what I just did was... unexpected, but-"
"Did... did we just... teleport?" Jared asked, looking at Daniel as though he wasn't certain whether he should start to panic or collapse in relief.
"Well... basically, yeah," Daniel replied.
"And... that woman?" Jared asked, evidently trying to take this latest twist on the situation on a step-by-step basis to stop himself from panicking. "Who was she?"
"Essentially?" Daniel replied. "She's a Goa'uld who's using the body of an old enemy of mine as a host-"
"And... she can do... what we just did?" Jared continued, waving a hand uncertainly between him and Daniel. "I mean, she just... appeared..."
"Yes, she can teleport, among other things, just like I can, and before you ask, I never used those particular abilities when I was here before because..." Daniel began, pausing for a moment to contemplate lying before he concluded that he was too committed to his current path of telling the truth to back out now. "Because I'd walked away from the part of my life involving these abilities years before I joined the Stargate program back on Earth for... various reasons; recent events just meant that I... had to go back to the way I'd been before."
"And... that woman is connected to... whatever happened to you back then?" Jared asked, his expression making it clear to Daniel that his already-uncertain ally was having significant doubts about the value in continuing this conversation given the negative aspects he'd heard so far.
"Well, basically; she was one of the people involved in some... stuff... that happened when I was younger..." Daniel said, his voice trailing off as he looked at Jared, whose expression had reached a point that suggested to Daniel that Jared would have tried to attack him if it had been anyone else saying this. "Look, I know how this might look, but trust me, I had no idea Bellatrix was going to be here, and I had even less of an idea that she was going to be possessed by a Goa'uld; I'm as shocked about this as you are. Right now, our main objective has to be-"
"Hey, Jackson," Mitchell's voice suddenly said, Daniel's original sentence cut short as he found himself and Jared standing on the bridge of the Prometheus, his friends looking at him in evident relief as the white light that had momentarily filled his vision faded to reveal his new location.
"Harry!" Hermione's voice said, before Daniel found himself with a faceful of brown hair as the Minister of Magic gave him a tight hug, Jared only able to look at their surroundings in shock at his second teleportation experience in almost as many minutes. "You're OK!"
"Uh... hi," Daniel said, patting Hermione awkwardly on her back as he looked around at the others; he might have gone through a couple of drastic upheavals in the last few minutes, but at least these ones were pleasant. "How...?"
"Well, when we tried and failed to beam up your locator beacon, Tonks here had the idea of using some of the tracking charms her better half developed for that map of his," Fred explained, smiling slightly at Daniel as he indicated the metamorphagus. "Hermione and Sammy managed to modify the charms to work with this thing's... senses?"
"Sensors," Sam said, turning to glare slightly at Fred. "And for future reference, don't call me 'Sammy'."
"Check," Fred said, nodding anxiously at the pointed stare the astrophysicist was giving him before he continued. "Anyway, she modified this thing's sensors to draw on the energy generated by our magic- based on some tests she'd done earlier, apparently- and was able to use that to work out where you were on the planet based on those same... cans..., and we got you and the other guy up here; if you didn't have your beacon, odds were good that you were in trouble, so anyone you were standing that close to was probably a friend."
"Actually, they're called scans, Fred, but apart from that you've got the essential details correct," Sam clarified, shaking her head in slightly amused exasperation (Daniel had to wonder how much of Fred's mistakes were deliberate and how much was him just being amusing). "It won't work for longer than a few moments at a time- given what you said about technology being unable to work at Hogwarts due to the high concentrations of magic in that area I'm reluctant to use it as a power source for longer than I have to-, but after we had to adapt Daedalus to draw on power from a ZPM when it first went to Atlantis, modifying a few systems to use magic as a power source is relatively simple by comparison."
"Magic?" Jared repeated, looking at the group incredulously. "Now there's actual magic...?"
"Just a few of us who've... mastered the ability to manipulate the natural world in a manner that others can't; it's a matter of evolution rather than mysticism," Daniel said, hoping that the explanation would be enough to satisfy Jared; giving his friend too much too fast wouldn't help anything (And it wasn't like that explanation was even a total lie; now that he was once again back in the thick of a magic-related crisis, he did have some interesting ideas about how magic could exist even after everything he'd seen of the Goa'uld and the Ancients). "Anyway, the important thing is that we've got a chance to stop Hestia before she can do anything else-"
"Hold on; Hestia's down there?" Mitchell asked, looking at Daniel in surprise. "I thought it was just the Ori?"
"I think she only got there recently- it's possible that she was one of the gods responsible for relocating the human population of Tegalus; it's not like their records ever specifically named who was behind their presence here-, but that's not important right now," Daniel said, shaking his head resolutely as he looked at his friends. "What matters is that she's taken Bellatrix as a new host, and if we don't-"
"Bellatrix?" Hermione interjected, her eyes widening in horror at the news. "Bellatrix Lestrange?"
"Remind me; that's the woman who tortured a couple of people into insanity because they might have known where her boss went after an incident which every bit of available information indicated had killed him, right?" Mitchell asked.
"Basically, yes," Hermione confirmed.
"Damn..." Mitchell groaned, rolling his eyes as he exchanged glances with Teal'c and Sam. "Don't suppose there's any indication about what becoming a Goa'uld host would do to someone who was insane before it got to them?"
"Not immediately, anyway," Sam replied apologetically. "If the reason for the insanity was simply physical brain damage caused by an accident, it's possible that they'd be able to cure the host and stabilise their condition, but since nobody's been able to precisely determine what drove Bellatrix mad in the first place, coupled with the fact that Hestia would have been using a sarcophagus for centuries if she's meant to be one of the original six Greek pantheon, it's more likely that..."
"She'll go even more whacko on us, huh?" Mitchell said, shaking his head grimly as he looked over at Daniel. "Well, guess that deals with any questions about whether or not we get involved in things any more, huh?"
"Correct," Daniel said, nodding in confirmation at his friend before he looked over at the rest of the group. "We need to move quickly; Hestia didn't strike me as interested in waiting for us to get down there, and if she makes herself known to any remnants of Soren's old group, things could get even more difficult."
"Doctor Jackson?" Colonel Pendergast said, looking uncertainly over at the archaeologist. "Does this mean that any attacks on the satellite should be suspended?"
"With everything else going on down there, I don't think we should try anything that might discourage the Tagalens from listening to us," Daniel replied. "If we can take care of Hestia, we can pay more attention to the issue of the satellite; right now, the satellite isn't an immediate threat, but Hestia's definitely unstable."
"I... have to agree with that," Jared put in, looking slightly awkwardly between the other people on the bridge. "I mean, I admit that I don't understand the full details of who this 'Bellatrix' is, but the satellite isn't going to be used again for another day or two according to everything I heard, but she's a complete unknown with no way of knowing what she'll do next..."
"In other words, we should focus on her right now while she's still sorting out her plans and deal with the satellite after she's out of the picture?" Fred asked, drawing his wand and smiling at the Tagalen native. "Sounds like a plan-"
"Sorry, Fred; you're not going down now," Tonks said, looking resolutely at the Weasley twins. "Bellatrix was dangerous enough when she was normal- well, as normal as a total lunatic can be, anyway-; if we add a centuries-old alien snake with a god complex to the list of reasons we have to be worried about her, I'm not sending anything less than a fully-trained professional down there, and I think we can all agree that combat isn't your speciality."
"So, I take it that means you and me?" Hermione asked, drawing her own wand with a smile at the Metamorphagus.
"And Teal'c and I," Daniel said, the resolute expression on his face halting Hermione's initial response even before Daniel continued. "Look, as much as Hestia might be using Bellatrix's body now, we can't forget that she was a Goa'uld first and she'll probably be relying on what she knows more than what Bellatrix knows; Teal'c knows the Goa'uld better than any of us, and given that Bellatrix seemed fairly interested in attacking me it's possible that my presence could keep her focused on me enough for the rest of you-"
"Daniel, if you're thinking about using yourself as bait-" Sam began, walking over to stand in front of her friend with an intense glare on her face.
"I'm not going to let her attack me, Sam; I just meant that I need to be down there because I'm the only person Bellatrix and Hestia are both going to want dead," Daniel clarified. "Bellatrix already hates me for my role in Voldemort's previous deaths; combined with what Hestia said when she appeared in my cell- she doesn't appear happy about the fact that I basically gave Voldemort a chance to become a Goa'uld-, and I think it's safe to say that she isn't a particular fan of mine either."
After a moment of frustrated staring at her friend, Sam sighed.
"Fine..." she said grimly, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him. "Just... be careful, OK?"
"When we've still got to sort out the satellite issue?" Daniel replied with a smile that was almost overly casual for the subject he was discussing. "Trust me; I'm not going to do anything that could jeopardise our chance to sort that problem out..."
"Actually," Hermione said, smiling as she looked up from the computer screens she'd been studying, the grin on her face the same one Daniel remembered seeing whenever she had a particular idea, "as long as we're on that topic, I do have an idea that might allow us to solve both of our current problems at once..."
As he walked uncertainly around some of the still-abandoned streets of Rand's capital- reconstruction in this area didn't seem to have progressed much further than it had gone the last time Daniel was here; most likely the government had focused their resources on building the satellite rather than working on things here-, Daniel resisted the temptation to draw his wand; having the freedom to use magic again might give him more options when it came to a fight, but if he made his wand obvious he ran the risk that any potential enemies would try and break it before he could use it.
Of course, that didn't stop him wishing that he had a better idea about how to attract Bellatrix/Hestia's attention beyond his current strategy of 'walk around until she sees me'. Hermione had been fairly confident that Hestia would be drawn to him based primarily on the fact that he was the only magical presence on the planet- she, Teal'c and Tonks were waiting for his signal so that they could teleport down in order to limit the possibility of her catching one of them off-guard before they could effectively fight back-, but that didn't stop him feeling concerned about his chances alone against her in the few moments between her discovering him and his friends arriving...
God, he hadn't even felt this apprehensive back when he'd originally killed Voldemort; he'd been scared, but then at least he'd had the advantage of knowing that it would soon be over one way or the other. He might be reasonably confident of the assembled team's chances of defeating Bellatrix on her own, but Hestia's control of Sirius's cousin introduced an unknown factor into this whole mess that he really wasn't comfortable with...
"POTTER!" a voice suddenly roared from behind him, Daniel's thoughts being instantly cut off as he spun around to face Hestia/Bellatrix as she hurtled towards him, an insane roar obvious on her face as she charged. Quickly mentally going through everything Teal'c and Jack had ever taught him about hand-to-hand- she was too close and moving too fast for him to draw a weapon-, Daniel grabbed one of her outstretched arms and threw her over himself as he allowed himself to fall backwards, rolling away from her before she could recover to send a quick signal back to Prometheus.
As he got back to his feet, he noticed Hestia/Bellatrix regain her balance and turn to face him, but his thoughts about how to respond to this attack were rendered unnecessary when the white beam of the Asgard transporters deposited Hermione, Teal'c and Tonks around him, Teal'c instantly firing his staff weapon at Bellatrix while the two witches launched curses. The Goa'uld witch before them instantly raised a shield charm to deflect the blasts from striking her, but the power of the staff weapon's blast was enough to knock her off-balance long enough for Teal'c to spin his staff around and strike her with the other end, leaving her dazed long enough for Tonks to fire off a Stunner.
Much to the shock of her opponents, however, the Stunner didn't immediately knock its target down. Hestia/Bellatrix appeared to be slightly off-balance as she looked up at the four in front of her, but she was nevertheless still standing, rapid blinking and an intense concentration on her face the only sign that she felt anything from the attack.
"Now you've made me mad!" she yelled in the usual dual-toned voice of a host, raising her wand and swiping it as she spoke. The blast of raw magic sent her current opponents flying backwards from the shock, training and experience the only thing that allowed her opponents to adjust their sudden flight to avoid hitting anything in a fatal manner.
Scrambling back to their feet, Teal'c and Daniel pulled out their guns and fired at the Goa'uld, only for their foe to swiftly establish a Shield Charm that slowed the bullets down just long enough for her to neatly step out of their path. Before the Jaffa and the archaeologist could do anything to move further out of the way, the Goa'uld had extended her hand device at them, sending her foes flying before she spun around and launched another blast at Tonks. As Daniel tried to regain his footing, he saw Hermione try to charge towards Hestia herself, only for the Goa'uld to grab Hermione by the throat, casually tossing Hermione's wand aside before she turned her attention back to her latest prisoner.
"Nice try," the woman who had once been only an above-average Death Eater said, following up the comment with a dismissive wave of her wand that left Daniel suddenly unable to move any part of his body (Evidently a silent Body-Bind of some kind; she might not be as physically sadistic as Bellatrix, but Hestia definitely had her own ideas about how to torture her enemies) as she glared at the woman in her hands, "but unfortunately for you, I am not going to go down as easily as my host; I have centuries of experience and knowledge of humanity to draw upon, and-"
"That means... nothing..." Hermione spat, glaring scathingly at the other woman. "You've... already lost... this planet..."
"Pardon?" Hestia asked, her grip briefly tightening around Hermione's neck before she stepped back and relaxed her grip to give her prisoner a better chance to talk. "What do you mean by that?"
"You don't really think that they're going to let you just take them over, do you?" Hermione asked, smirking in an exaggerated manner at the former Death Eater and current Goa'uld host. "Haven't you paid any attention to recent events on this planet?"
"What are you talking about, mudblood?" Hestia spat at Hermione.
"The satellite weapon that the forces of the Ori have given to these people, of course," Hermione replied with a nonchalant shrug, hoping that her bluff would pay off. "You don't think they won't use it against you to stop you assisting their enemies against them? You might be tough, but I somehow doubt that you can survive a blast from something like that-"
"INSOLENCE!" Hestia yelled, Hermione's throat suddenly clasped in her hand once again as she glared at the Minister of Magic. "I am a god!"
"Maybe... you are..." Hermione muttered, still trying to smile despite the pain in her throat. "But... do you... honestly... think that... you can destroy... something... in orbit?"
For a moment, Hestia could only stare back at Hermione, turning over her possible response to the witch's challenge, before she scathingly threw Hermione away.
"You know nothing of my power, mortal," she said, as she raised her wand to cast an apparently reinforced bubble-head charm around herself. Based on her limited knowledge of lip-reading, Hermione thought that Hestia was saying something about showing what she could do- the charm was so powerful that it was apparently unable to transmit sound either-, but then the Goa'uld vanished and interpreting what she was saying became relatively unimportant.
"Prometheus to ground team," her radio suddenly said, the voice on the other end sounding somewhat sceptical. "We've got... someone's attacking the satellite... without a fighter... or even a spacesuit."
Hermione would be the first to admit that her knowledge of astrophysics was limited- as much as she'd tried to keep up with some developments in the muggle world, running the Ministry of Magic was a pretty full-time job-, but she didn't need to be a genius to know that something like that was not normal.
As she stood on the edge of the satellite that the Ori interlopers had dared to establish around a world claimed by her, its circular framework providing an ideal location for her to observe the weapon, Hestia smiled in satisfaction.
Had any of her fellow gods ever known such power? With the 'bubble-head charm'- a foolishly childish name, but it served its purpose- providing her host with oxygen, and various warming incantations keeping her body at a decent temperature in the vacuum, she no longer even required the inconvenience of a spacesuit in order to accomplish what her fellows would require a whole ship to accomplish, if they had ever felt like they could even be bothered to attempt it in the first place.
It might be demeaning for a god to take a 'hands-on' approach to things like this, but if it gave her this kind of opportunity to demonstrate her new powers, Hestia could live with a certain indignity.
Ah... she thought, flexing her host's muscles as she took in the unique view around her, the sight of a strange-looking ship in the distance nothing to attract her concern as she focused on the satellite. A tiring experience... but oh so very worth it...
She might not be able to do this for long yet, but so long as she gave herself the chance to practise her skills- combined with the enhanced power she had already provided her host with by her mere presence in this body-, she would soon be able to wield a power and authority that no other Goa'uld could match...
First, however, she had to eliminate the most obvious threat to her establishing her authority on this world; with the satellite eliminated, she could continue her efforts to rebuild her power (And eliminate her current ally once she had learned everything she could about the new world he had opened up to her, of course).
Taking advantage of the zero-gravity nature of her environment, Hestia walked around the rod connecting the circular frame to the main satellite, aimed her host's wand- she needed to work on a better focusing mechanism for her new power; maybe hand devices could be modified accordingly- at the core of the satellite and launching a powerful hex at its power source.
As she watched the satellite begin to crackle and overload from the power she had poured into it, magic overloading the technological power of the satellite and sending it into a destructive explosion, Hestia allowed herself a few moments to observe the sight in front of her before she vanished into thin air, barely registering a sudden sharp pain from somewhere as she did so...
It was only after she reappeared back on the planet that Hestia realised the source of the pain she had felt as she was disapparating; whether it was the distance she was travelling combined with the short amount of time she'd had to form a clear picture of her destination, she'd left her left leg behind.
"NO!" she cursed, falling to the ground before she could adjust her balance to compensate for the missing limb. Before she could get back on her feet, a foot clad in the distinctive uniforms of Potter's filthy Tau'ri allies stamped down on the hand where her kara kesh was worn, cracking the device and leaving an uncomfortable pain in her hand as the fingers twisted in a manner that even her limited knowledge of human medicine knew couldn't be healthy.
"What's the matter, Hestia?" a slightly sarcastic voice asked, Hestia turning her head to take in the sight of the mudblood standing close to her, her wand in her hand as the Jaffa shol'va stood over Hestia herself, his foot now on her back as Potter and the host's ridiculously-named cousin took up position a short distance from their 'ally'. "Pushed yourself too hard?"
"You dare to doubt a god-?" Hestia began, enraged that this inferior would doubt her control over her new host's body.
"I doubt a spiritual parasite who's using power that she didn't even know existed until a few weeks ago and believes that she can use it better than people who've been training for decades," the mudblood countered in a nonchalantly resolute manner. "The wizarding world may not have tried going into space ourselves, but that's only because any magical means of doing so are too risky; the fact that you accomplished anything like what you did owes more to the fact that you only did it for a few seconds rather than any skill on your part."
Glancing down at the space where Hestia's leg had been, the mudblood had the gall to actually look sympathetically at the absence before she looked back at Hestia's new face.
"Of course," she continued, her wand lowering slightly as she spoke- it was still in a position where it could be used against Hestia if she attacked, but it was no longer an obvious threat-, "if you're able to tell us something about what Voldemort's actually doing out here-"
Hestia might not like the idea of having been essentially forced into an alliance with a being who had gained her peoples' powers by accident, but she was even less interested in making deals with primitives who dared to feel sorry for her. Roaring in rage, she attempted to force herself back to her foot with one arm, raising the other in a weak attempt to shove the shol'va off her back, only for the Jaffa to catch her injured wrist with frustrating ease-
"Stupefy!"
Everything went black.
As he found himself standing in the street- that 'teleprompter' thing was really great; all the fun of Apparation without the worry about losing concentration and splinching yourself-, George didn't take long to see what they'd been sent down here to see; the battered body of Bellatrix Lestrange, dressed in a ridiculously elaborate costume that he couldn't imagine anyone wearing back home, Harry, Hermione, Tonks and Teal'c standing casually around it as the rest of their teams- with the addition of Jared Kane, who'd insisted on coming back with them- arrived.
"Hi," Harry said, nodding at the group in acknowledgement. "I take it that she destroyed the satellite?"
"Concentrated blast of magic right at its heart; damn thing went up like a Christmas tree," Colonel Mitchell confirmed as he nodded at George's old Quidditch teammate.
"Still can't quite believe it," Fred reflected, his expression unusually serious for once as he looked down at their beaten enemy. "She went up into space..."
"I know what you mean," Hermione commented, her expression grim despite their recent victory. "I mean, Bellatrix Lestrange was never a slouch, but to Apparate across that kind of distance, with a Bubble-Head Charm and all the warming charms she'd need to stay alive up there, while still having time and energy to destroy the satellite? I just taunted her to do that because I thought that trying to provoke her into attacking it to prove herself was the only thing I could say that might not prompt her to kill us instantly; I didn't think she'd actually succeed..."
"As interesting and worrying as that is, Hermione, we do have more immediate things to think about right now," Tonks said, indicating the body before them. "We can probably tie Hestia up, but we still need to work out what we're going to do with her afterwards; stunning her repeatedly isn't practical, but I'm just
"And, in case you're forgetting," Jared pointed out, a slightly uncomfortable attitude about his stance belied by the resolution on his face, "there's still the problem of what's to be done about the tensions caused by the satellite; just because we can accurately state that none of us destroyed it doesn't mean-"
"Wait a minute..." George said, snapping his fingers as a thought struck him with an intensity that he'd never felt for anything that wasn't related to the latest product for his and Fred's shop. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"What?" Mitchell asked, looking at the Weasley twin curiously.
"Well, we've got a body-controlling alien here whose kind came here at least at some point in the past- if I remember what Harry told me about these things, anyway-, we've got a bunch of dead leaders on both sides of this conflict, and we have the Priors showing up ... am I the only one seeing the potential here?" George said, smiling in an attempted encouraging manner at the others.
"Hold on; you're suggesting that we... fake evidence that both sides have been manipulated by those races?" Jared asked, looking at George with an extremely focused stare. "There has been tension between our two sides for generations-"
"I'm not suggesting we set things up so that the Goa'uld and/or the Ori appear to have been responsible for everything you lot did wrong here, I'm just saying that maybe you could claim that they were the reason things went so... nuts... in the last year or two; suggest that the Goa'uld fired things off and then the Ori decided to try a public campaign to show the other guys up, that kind of thing..." George clarified, before he indicated the street around them with a slight shrug. "I mean, I know it's a long shot, but I only just got here and I don't want your planet to get blown up before it's got a chance to stick itself back together; doesn't seem unreasonable to want to find somebody to blame for setting this whole mess off that won't result in your lot and the other lot trying to kill each other..."
Even as Jared continued to stare at George with a focused glare, the slight relaxation of tension in his shoulders demonstrated that he could see the point that his new allies had made.
They had a body-jumping alien that could control peoples' minds, and they had several recently-deceased leaders on both sides; all they had to do was create the impression that the first had been responsible for the actions of at least some of the others, and Rand and Caledonia might have a chance at some kind of peace for the first time in far too long...
"And... our escape from prison?" Jared asked, looking uncertainly at Harry.
"The Goa'uld have access to various means of teleportation; it wouldn't be impossible to assume that Hestia took us out because she wanted to eliminate the threat we might have posed and ended up underestimating us," Harry suggested. "It's not a perfect solution, but it covers the essentials; with the Ori currently limited to their Priors in this galaxy, we could probably protect you from possible retaliation by providing you with something similar to the Iris so that you can stop them from using your 'gate while still giving you the option of contacting us if you need us again."
For a few moments, Jared simply looked solemnly back at Daniel, and then he slowly nodded.
"If you could... take me back to your ship to... go over the timeline of events," he said, his words slowly and carefully chosen, as though he was afraid that something would overhear him and know that he was lying, "I... might... be able to help you determine... when the Goa'uld... would have started... escalating the current crisis?"
"Good thinking," Daniel said, nodding at Jared with a slight smile as he looked over at Sam. "Does the Prometheus have the ability to hack Rand's computer systems?"
"With Jared's access codes to the system, it should be possible; even if they've been deleted after he was imprisoned, it gives me somewhere to start," Sam replied with a nod before she looked over anxiously at Jared. "We didn't install that kind of system into Prometheus intending to do this to anyone; it was just so that we could access Earth's computer networks-"
"Don't worry, Colonel Carter; I wouldn't have come to you for help if I thought that you would do... well, anything like what we're about to do," Jared replied, allowing himself a brief smile before he turned to look at the rest of the group. "Well, let's get this over with."
AN: I'll provide some description of what happened to the planet after this in the next chapter, but given what's coming up- coupled with the fact that the really interesting bits have all been dealt with-, I feel that it's time to move on to more large-scale events as the group finally find the time to turn some attention back to more... potentially-magic-related discoveries, shall we say?