SG 1, minus the recently promoted Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, had just been forced to work with a Gou'ald named Ba'al to defeat the Replicators. They'd barely had a chance to take a breath, when the half Ascended Anubis attacked them. The human form Replicator made in Samantha Carter's image had kidnapped and killed Daniel. The Ascended woman, Oma Desala, who'd saved Shi'fu, had tried to convince him to Ascend. Apparently, she'd been watching him since she'd Ascended Shi'fu. He'd refused and she'd sacrificed herself to save them all from Anubis. Daniel had been descended naked into Jack's office. Not something either of them had appreciated. Less then a day after it happened, Jack got a call from the guards up top that Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase were here and needed to see SG 1, especially Daniel. Curious, Jack ordered them escorted down and called SG 1 to the conference room.

Xander saluted as soon as he saw Jack and Lt. Colonel Carter. "General, Colonel, congratulations on the promotions. I hope General Hammond is alright?"

"He is. He got promoted to a newly formed department called Homeworld Security. What brings you two to Colorado? Not more trouble with the military, I hope."

"General, what would you say, if I told you a very strong and very scary woman with apparently magical powers recently came to Sunnydale looking for something she called the Key, which turned out to be something the Alterrans made to open that thing they were using to try to make their Potentia?"

"Crap, a Gou'ald found its way to your town."

"That would be a good guess. You don't need to worry about it though. This particular self proclaimed goddess was a little more powerful then those parasites you usually deal with. So powerful, one of the Ascended sacrificed himself to save us. Apparently, they were equal in power."

"Crap, I say again. Another Anubis."

"This particular Ascended gave me a couple of messages to pass on. One to all of you and one to you, Dr. Jackson."

"Me? What was the message?"

"Shi'fu said to tell you, he would have called you father if he had the chance."

"Shi'fu? Shi'fu sacrificed himself to save you all?!"

"He sacrificed himself to save you. He somehow stopped time for a moment or slipped into my mind, I'm not sure which. He asked me why I was fighting. What was my reason? Was it worth it? I told him, I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try. And that she was a threat to those I love and that was reason enough to try. He agreed. It was mutual annihilation."

"Oh. Thank you for telling me." Daniel sat down, clearly stunned and trying to wrap his mind around what Xander had just told him.

"He told me about the Gou'ald. About the one calling himself Anubis and how he destroyed your wife's homeworld. About Oma's mistake. What the other Ascended did. And this is where the message for the rest of you comes in. When the Alterrans left Earth, they went to a galaxy 3.1 million light years from here. There's something there that Shi'fu thinks we should know about. The true location of the lost city of Atlantis. It was an Alterran city, not an Earth city. Have you gotten that collection device working yet? That's the kind of power you need to get there."

They were all silent as they stared at Xander and then Sam focused on something else he'd said.

"This thing she called a key. What was it?"

"According to her, dimensional energy collected to open a passage to another dimension. You'll understand when I say, I am very glad Shi'fu stopped her before she found what she was looking for. Something like that in the hands of someone like her. Very, very bad things would happen."

"You could probably add a few hundred verys to that and still come up short." Jack said.

"I also think, given how badly it turned out for the Alterrans, I'm very glad she never had a chance to open that thing. Who knows how destructive that could have been."

"Oh, let's add a couple hundred verys onto that thought, too." Colonel Carter said. "The physics of this other dimension appear to be very different from our own. The only reason the Alterrans were able to close it in the first place, is that they had this Key. We don't. If she'd gotten it open, we may not have been able to close it. Earth could have been destroyed."

"Which was probably her goal." Daniel said.

"As good an answer as any." Xander said. "Colonel Carter, if you have a moment, I have some things I'd like to show you. Separate from these messages. Since, I was coming here anyway, I thought I'd bring them along."

"What are they?"

"You know I'm studying mechanical engineering. They're prototypes for two devices I thought up. Three actually." He pulled them out of a bag and laid them on the table in front of them.

"What are they?" She asked again, she'd never seen anything like them.

"This one is a uv laser. Short range, five feet. Will burn through quite a bit. This one, is a uv grenade. Lights an area up real good for about ten minutes. Could probably damage someone's eyes if they were too close when it goes off. The laser is powered by a battery I designed. I patented them. I'm actually not that certain about an application for the laser, but I figure the grenade may have some uses. Some military, as it could stun people without killing them. Short term lighting in a dark area, like a cave. Maybe others. Not to mention, the battery which is about the size of my thumbnail, but equal in power to a car engine."

Sam was definitely interested.

A/N I'm aware that as a civilian, Xander is not required to salute a military officer, but he does respect them and the military knowledge in his head, makes a response almost automatic.