Chapter 160: The Double Cross Part 6

PT-1853 System, February 27th, 2000 (Earth Time)

They were surrounded by dozens of Ha'taks and their escorts, commanded by one of the worst Goa'uld they knew of, and the enemy had just disabled their engines.

Samantha Carter had been in worse situations, but not many.

She checked the readings from the Steel Fist's systems on her computer. The Goa'uld had destroyed the sublight engines, but the hyperdrive was still functional. Although it relied on power from the main reactor, and the readings she got from the engine room weren't good.

Sam switched through a few windows and frowned. The reactor output was fluctuating - the engines' destruction must have damaged it, likely through a power surge. She clenched her teeth. That wouldn't have happened if they had used the latest Horde technology, but the Alliance had been worried about that falling into the hands of the Goa'uld even if the ship was scuttled, and so they had used designs that the Goa'uld already knew. Inferior designs. But the damage seemed repairable - though it would take some time. And even if they could open a subspace window, they still needed some form of propulsion to push the ship through it before the Goa'uld destroyed them. Although…

"Bridge secured. What are the snakes doing?" The General's voice came over the comms.

Sam checked the holoprojection. "Holding their positions, sir."

"Can we get away?" Adora asked.

"We need the reactor repaired and a way to accelerate the ship for a short period," Sam replied. "Then we can escape into hyperspace."

"How long will that take?"

"It depends on how fast we can repair the reactor and rig up a directed explosive to propel the ship," Sam replied.

"I like that plan," the General said. She had known it would appeal to him.

"Bow, Sam - get started on it," Adora ordered. "Have the Goa'uld tried to contact us yet?"

Sam didn't know if that question was aimed at her, but she checked her data anyway as she got up. "No contact yet," she said. "I'm moving to the reactor room."

"I'm headed there as well," Bow added.

Why haven't they contacted us yet? Sam wondered as she ran past a dozen dead Jaffa. They had disabled the ship's engines as soon as Adora had taken the Goa'uld captive, so what were the Jaffa waiting for? Or were they waiting for someone? What if they hadn't captured Sokar, but another Goa'uld serving him? Maybe as a decoy?

She clenched her teeth. She couldn't worry about that - she had to focus on repairing the reactor and setting an explosive charge powerful enough to accelerate the ship forward without destroying it.

She would have to trust that the others could handle the rest.

Catra had been in worse situations than being stuck in a crippled ship surrounded by enemies, but that wasn't a high bar to clear given her experiences.

"Should we call them and tell them we have a hostage?" Daniel asked.

Before Cara could tell him how bad that was, Sha're spoke up: "No. If this is a coup attempt, or a plot by a rival, that might push them to destroy the ship to ensure Sokar is dead. And if this isn't a coup, we would give them information without gaining anything in return."

"Yep." Jack nodded. "If they realise that this was a trap all along, they might just blow us up. As long as they think this is a superweapon, they might still be wary."

"If they think this is a working superweapon, why haven't they boarded us?" Glimmer retorted. "Aren't they afraid that we'll blow them away?"

"They have us surrounded, and our shields are down." Catra pointed at the radar display. "If we powered up a weapon, they'd notice and blow us up." And even if the superweapon were real, they wouldn't be able to kill the entire fleet in one volley - the Goa'uld had had a week to study the fake schematics and documentation, and they knew how it supposedly worked. They might fear a self-destruct that wrecked the entire area, but those were fanatically loyal Jaffa, so who knew how they would react to such a threat?

"Even if it were a coup, they would want to make sure Sokar is dead, so they should have been calling us," Jack said. "Maybe pretending to be loyal to him or something." He shook his head. "I don't think our guy is Sokar."

"You think they're waiting for the real Sokar to arrive and handle this?" Catra cocked her head.

Daniel frowned. "Wouldn't he have ordered them to secure the ship before that?"

"If he thinks it could be a trap, he might expect that to trigger it again," Catra replied.

"He has a reputation for twisted plots," Sha're said. "But this could still be a coup - or a plot by a rival, like Ba'al. If they had to improvise, they might still be trying to take control of the fleet surrounding us."

"I'd expect them to have started shooting each other in that case," Jack commented.

"Not if the rest of the fleet doesn't know about it," Sha're retorted. "But you're right - we should see some signs of internal fighting soon in that case. It's unlikely that a coup or a rival's sabotage would work perfectly."

"As we just proved," Jack said. "Carter? Any update?"

"We're working on the reactor, but it will take a while yet - we're still assessing the damage and need to recalibrate the controls, sir."

That wasn't good. Maybe they should have taken Entrapta and Hordak with them… But if everything went wrong here, those two would be needed more than ever.

"If this doesn't work, what are our chances if we retreat into the stealth compartment and scuttle the ship as we originally planned?" Daniel asked with a glance to Sha're.

"I think whoever is in charge of the enemy here will collect every single last speck of dust left behind," Catra told her. That was what she would do in their place. "We might escape with the stealth field active, but if we're unlucky, someone could spot stuff hitting us or disappearing in the stealth field, and then they'll have us. And even if it worked, we'd still be drifting in space - and no one's coming to our rescue here since no one knows we're here." They were out of range of the Spy bot network, so they couldn't even call for help.

"Well, I guess it's do or die then," Jack said. "Let's hope the snakes wait a bit longer to sort out what they want to do."

A moment later, the console behind him lit up with an incoming communication.

Catra glared at him.

There were times when Jack O'Neill was sure that the universe was out to get him. Like, this time right now. He turned to glare at the communication console. Teach him to dare Murphy. He cleared his throat. "Well, let's not make our dear caller wait."

"But you said…" Daniel started to say something, probably about Jack's earlier comment, but trailed off when Jack accepted the call.

A man - a Goa'uld, his eyes were glowing - appeared on the screen in the centre of the bridge. He was sneering, his skin was unnaturally pale, almost as pale as a clone, and Jack could see some veins crisscrossing his bald skull. Compared to the other snakes Jack had seen, this one looked downright alien.

"Colonel O'Neill." And there was the snake voice as well. "Of course, it would be you. Your reputation precedes you."

"Actually, it's 'General O'Neill now," Jack replied. Sokar - if that was Sokar - must have used old intel. How that kind of information spread might be useful to find out.

The snake scoffed. "You have been an annoyance for Apophis."

Jack smiled. Genuinely - he was proud of that, and if the snake wanted to make some small talk about other System Lords, that meant more time for Carter and Bow to fix the reactor. "Well, he didn't really make it hard."

The Goa'uld's laugh sounded like he was coughing, and his lips twisted into a sneer. "That made you complacent." The snake flashed his teeth again. "Your last mission failed."

Jack shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. He had to keep the Goa'uld talking so they could get away. "Really? Looks to me as if both Apophis and the Horde failed. Neither of them is in control of this superweapon. Mission accomplished."

He tensed up. If the snake had seen through their deception, then this was the point where he would gloat. Probably.

"Your 'superweapon' is crippled and surrounded by my fleet, O'Neill."

"So you say." Jack bared his teeth. "But we still control it. And we can destroy it."

"Only at the cost of your own lives."

Had the snake's smile slipped for a moment? Was that the reason why he hadn't sent his Jaffa to board them already? That would mean he didn't know this was a decoy and thought the superweapon was real… Jack shrugged again. "A small price to pay for saving Earth from it. And, well… you've got a kinda reputation. Dying seems preferable to getting captured by you."

The Goa'uld laughed again, slightly longer. And creepier. Jack felt himself shudder when the snake suddenly stopped and stared at him. "Commendable. But you have not done so yet. I wonder why…"

Jack resisted the urge to wet his lips. He just had to keep the snake talking. Long enough for Carter and Bow to fix the damn reactor. "You haven't sent in your warriors yet."

"You still have hope of escaping your fate?"

"We're hard to kill. If I had a nickel for every time Apophis thought he had us dead by rights…" Jack grinned.

The Goa'uld frowned for a moment, then matched his grin. "I am not Apophis. I will not make his mistakes."

"You're Sokar." Jack nodded.

"Did you hope to take me hostage?" Sokar - if that was really Sokar - snorted. "I am not as foolish as Apophis."

"The thought has crossed my mind," Jack told him. He wanted to check back with Carter and get an update, but that would give the game away.

"Another failure of yours, General O'Neill." Sokar slowly shook his head. "You would have had better chances to escape if you had taken over the ship before arriving here. In fact, given how quickly you took control of the ship, I wonder why you didn't do so - you had ample time for it during the trip."

Jack clenched his teeth. Sokar was getting close to unravelling everything. Or had he guessed the truth already and was playing with them? He licked his dry lips. "As much as we make it look easy, we still have to prepare for taking over a superweapon."

"And for ambushing a god."

Jack spread his hands. "Can't fault us for trying."

"Oh, I can - and will. Daring to strike at a god deserves a punishment equal to the crime." Sokar chuckled again. "Did you get greedy? Did you decide that in addition to capturing a superweapon, you would capture a System Lord as well?"

Jack grimaced. That would have been stupid. But it would explain why they hadn't bailed before.

"And how did you manage to hide from my warriors for so long? I did not send fools on this mission. They knew that their lives would be forfeit if they were fooled by you."

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jack smiled broadly at the snake. Let him worry about what they had done here to hide. If Sokar was as paranoid as the rest of his peers, he'd make up threats even Jack wouldn't think of.

"I would - and I will. And do you know why, O'Neill?"

"I guess you're dying to tell me why," Jack said.

"Your situation is hopeless. Even if a fleet arrived to save you, my ships would destroy you before they could rescue you. A fate worse than death awaits you - eternal agony for your defiance. And you know all that. And yet, you hope. You don't want to die. You don't want to kill yourself and your men. And that is your fatal weakness."

Jack narrowed his eyes. That sounded very confident. Had he overlooked something? Were they missing a crucial threat? "You want this superweapon. You don't want us to destroy it."

"Correct. But I would rather destroy it than let someone else control it - and use it against me."

Ah. Jack nodded. "You wouldn't be content with our solemn promise not to use it against you, I guess."

Sokar laughed again. "I have studied you, General. You are no fool. You would not keep such a promise."

That sounded like a compliment. But coming from a snake, that was an insult. "Worth a try." What was Sokar planning? Was this just a sick way to keep them hoping right until the end? Or did Sokar have a way to get the ship before they could blow it up? If there were any cloaked Tel'taks on the way, their scanner would have detected it.

What was he planning? Jack blinked. And why was the snake's picture getting blurry? He shook his head and almost swayed. Wait…

He glanced to the side. Daniel had taken off his glasses and was blinking rapidly. And Glimmer looked like she was about to fall asleep. Even Teal'c seemed a bit off…

Jack gasped.

"Poison!" he hissed.

Poison? Adora looked around and gasped - her friends were reeling, and she had been so focused on Sokar that she had missed it! "Catra!"

Her love was blinking and frowning, her ears twitching. "I'm…"

Adora summoned her sword and healed her.

"...OK." Catra finished. "But the others…"

"The poison is already working! If you want to survive, you have to…" Sokar was cut off when the screen blacked out.

"Bastard must have poisoned the fall guy!" Jack muttered.

Adora quickly healed him, then the others - Daniel and Sha're had already collapsed, and some of the soldiers with them weren't looking any better.

"Thank you," Campbell said.

"Thank you," Isa added, even though the Socrpionwoman hadn't really seemed affected that much.

"Thanks… Carter!" Jack snapped.

"We're about to finish repairs, sir." Sam sounded fine.

"Bow?" Glimmer asked.

"Since we were working near the engines and at the reactor, we never removed the space suits," Bow replied.

Adora sighed with relief. She had managed to heal everyone, and they would soon leave this place.

"Sokar's sending in cloaked Tel'taks!" Catra hissed. "And he's trying to contact us again."

"Probably to gloat." Jack scoffed. "And to offer us the antidote in exchange for the weapon."

"After he told us we'd suffer for eternity?" Adora shook her head.

"Technically, he told Jack that," Daniel said. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment.

"Still a bad plan," Catra said without taking her eyes off the screen showing Sokar's ships approaching them.

"Sokar probably had the underling who visited carrying poison to spoil any assassination attempt." Sha're, too, took a few deep breaths. "I think that might be standard practice for him, and he just exploited the opportunity here."

"Sounds like it'd fit Sokar, yeah. And he'll claim it was all planned." Jack nodded. "How much longer, Carter? We're about to have visitors!"

"We're placing the charges - one more minute, sir!"

"We don't want to start the reactor until the last moment," Bow added.

That made sense, of course.

"Might not have a minute," Catra said. "They're about to dock at the lower airlocks - closest to the engine rooms."

"Prepare to repel boarders!" Jack ordered the soldiers and started to move towards the door leading off the bridge. "Damn, I sound like a Navy puke! And suit up!"

Adora was already running, easily passing him and the others. "I'm covering the starboard airlock!" she snapped.

"They're docking now. I've sealed the airlocks, but that won't stop them for long," Catra replied on the channel. "I'll join you!"

Adora knew better than to tell her love to stay back. She reached the starboard lower airlock and took up a position opposite it.

A moment later, Catra, suited up, took the corner behind her, running on all fours - and along the wall for a second. Behind her, the blast doors snapped shut, isolating the compartment.

"Smith! Suit up, damn it - they'll blow the doors again! Isa, Campbell - cover that door. Everyone else, fallback positions one blast door back!" Jack bellowed over the communicator.

"Propulsion charges have been set," Sam reported. "We're moving to start up the reactor and hyperdrive."

"Let's hope Sokar won't have the ship blown up once he detects the reactor powering up," Catra whispered.

Adora bit her lower lip and nodded.

Then the airlocks were blown open, and Adora changed her sword to a shield as she let the air drag her forward. As soon as she reached the remains of the door, she grabbed the edge and swung around, entering the Tel'tak with her shield up. She caught two shots on it, another bounced off on her back, and then she started tearing into and through the Jaffa assembled inside the small craft, Catra at her side.

Half a minute later, it was over. The last Jaffa, his suit slashed open by Catra after Adora had torn his weapon away, was still trying to reach her with his arms, but a kick from Catra sent him outside the ship.

"Watch out for grenades! Isa, keep it up!"

The other battle wasn't going as well, but they didn't seem to be losing.

"Reactor starting up!" Sam announced.

"Hyperdrive on standby!" Bow added.

Adora grabbed Catra and hurried back into the ship. The Tel'tak was docked, but better safe than sorry.

They had barely made it inside the wrecked airlock when the ship shook again.

"We've entered hyperspace."

Adora sighed with relief. They were safe - for the moment, at least. But safe enough. Now, all they had to do was to find the closest Stargate and get home. If one of the Two Tel'taks had survived the transition into hyperspace, they could just take it and be gone long before anyone might find the wreckage of the decoy, and…

"Daniel collapsed!" Sha're yelled through the communicator. "The poison's still active!"

What? But Adora had healed him - she had healed everyone!

"Man down!" Jack reported.

"I don't feel so well either, sir," Campbell said.

What was going on?

Hyperspace, February 27th, 2000 (Earth Time)

They only had a few minutes - the way they had set things up, the Steel Fist couldn't travel too far through hyperspace. Just enough to get away, to travel far enough so Sokar's fleet would have to search an area too large to find them quickly or easily. Samantha Carter should be preparing the next trip through hyperspace - calculating the course, checking the drive and reactor, setting up another propulsion charge, in case the Tel'taks docked to the ship hadn't survived the transition to hyperspace…

But the General and the others were suffering from poison - even after Adora had healed them. Twice, now.

So, Bow was checking the hyperdrive and reactor and preparing another charge from their remaining supplies while Sam ran her scanner over the General, trying to find out how a poison had resisted She-Ra's magic. The results she got confirmed what she had suspected.

"So, what did the magic scanner reveal?" he asked with forced levity - she could tell he was tense.

She pressed her lips together. "She-Ra's magic purged the poison from your bodies, but the poison itself wasn't destroyed - enough was left outside your bodies to affect you again. And it still lingers inside the ship." Another quick scan, now that she knew what to scan for and had the time, showed it had spread quite far through the ship.

He cursed under his breath. "I should've known Sokar wouldn't use a poison that breaks down quickly! He probably considers area denial a bonus."

They had been under attack by Sokar's forces and trying to escape with a crippled ship when the poison had struck, but Sam knew the General wouldn't allow that to excuse his oversight. Nor would Sam allow it to excuse her own, of course.

"We couldn't expect him to poison a ship he wanted to use," Sha're disagreed. "Nor that he obviously never considered that he might be affected by lingering poison himself in certain circumstances."

"Unless he has rendered his host immune to the poison," Teal'c pointed out. "Such is known to have happened."

And Sokar's host certainly looked alien enough to have undergone several questionable treatments, in Sam's opinion.

Sha're conceded the point with a nod.

"And he would have a way to decontaminate the ship," Sam said.

"At the risk of revealing his tactic and poison of choice," Daniel retorted.

Sha're shook her head. "He would simply leave no witnesses alive."

"Charming fellow," the General commented. "But we've got his poison to deal with. How do we decontaminate us so Adora doesn't need to keep healing us?"

"Her magic purged the poison from your body and its immediate vicinity," Sam said. "If you wear your spacesuit and she healed you, you should be fine."

"Should?"

"I will have to scan each individual to check, but your suit is clean inside, sir," she told him.

"Couldn't you have opened with that?" he complained, though he was grinning. "So, do it. We need…" A beeping noise interrupted him.

Sam checked the alert on her laptop. "We're exiting hyperspace in twenty-five seconds."

"Alright - focus on getting us to the next Stargate, then check everyone. And keep your suits on, everyone!" the General ordered.

They dropped out of hyperspace, and Sam checked the coordinates. Slightly off but within expected tolerances.

"Where are we?" Adora asked.

"In the middle of nowhere," Catra replied, pointing at the display on the bridge.

Sam nodded as she got up. Deep Space, away from any system nearby that Sokar's forces might control or search. "Bow and I are going to check the Tel'taks, sir," she reported. If one or both had survived the trip intact, they could leave with them and scuttle the decoy ship.

But Sam wasn't very optimistic - even under optimal conditions, taking another ship with you through hyperspace wasn't easy. Doing it with a crippled ship pushed through a subspace window by an explosive charge… Sam didn't like those odds.

"The starboard Tel'tak has been completely ripped off," Bow reported before Sam reached the airlock on the port side. He'd had a headstart.

"Copy," she confirmed as she opened the blast doors, revealing the wrecked airlock in front of her. "I'm checking the second Tel'tak."

It was still docked to the ship, which was more than she had expected. But it had been exposed to vacuum - still was - as part of the boarding tactics Sokar's Jaffa had used, and that hadn't done it any good during the transition through the subspace window and subsequent travel through hyperspace. And that didn't even take the damage from the fight inside it into account.

"What's the verdict, Carter?"

She suppressed a sigh as she checked her readings - such as they were; most of the ship's systems were dead, and the rest…

"The ship's systems suffered severe damage," she reported. "Reactor, sublight drives and hyperdrive are nonfunctional. Control crystals are damaged, and the navigational console is a total loss." From a stray staff weapon blast, or so it looked.

"So… can you repair it?"

She hesitated. It wasn't a total loss, but repairing it would be what an old instructor at the academy would have called 'quite a challenge'. Still, it was possible. They'd have to cannibalise the decoy ship for it, though - this time, the decision to use Goa'uld technology for critical parts had turned out to be helpful since the parts were somewhat compatible.

The question was, would it be better to repair the Tel'tak or to rig the Steel Fist for another trip through hyperspace to a world with a Stargate? They could only do either; the Tel'tak wouldn't survive another trip through hyperspace, and to repair it, they had to sacrifice the Steel Fist.

"We can," Sam started to explain. "But it would take longer than rigging the decoy ship for another trip, though such a trip would almost certainly wreck the Tel'tak beyond repair, meaning…"

Deep Space, February 27th, 2000 (Earth Time)

Repair the Tel'tak or another jump with the decoy? Catra frowned. The decoy ship was already damaged, and while she wasn't a tech, she was pretty sure that improvised propulsion by explosions wasn't helping that. "How many more times can we enter hyperspace with the Steel Fist before it falls apart?" she asked.

The slight hesitation was answer enough for her.

Then Bow clinched it. "Uh… One more time for sure. Two, maybe?"

Her old Horde instructor, bloody bastard, would have called out: 'Are you asking or telling, cadet?' Catra looked at Adora. Her love looked grim.

"We cannot guarantee more than one additional subspace transition," Sam replied over the communicator.

"Betting everything on the next planet? With our luck so far?" Catra shook her head.

"What if they find us here before we can repair the Tel'tak?" Daniel was looking kind of pale, still. "We'd be stuck."

"We'd be stuck at the next planet, too," Catra retorted. "And how likely is it that they'll find us? We didn't exactly make a smooth transition." And they were jamming whatever homing devices the Jaffa might have snuck past them.

"While we deviated from our set course, the distance was within the expected range," Sam spoke up.

Adora shook her head. "A working Tel'tak can get us home by itself if everything else fails."

In theory, Catra silently added. They would have to stop for supplies and avoid cabin fever quite often.

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "Start repairing the thing, Carter."

"Yes, sir."

And that was it. Now, it was up to Sam and Bow. Catra leaned back in her seat. Travelling in the Tel'tak would be even more cramped than in the stealth compartment, but it beat being stuck in space because the system you picked had had its Stargate removed or whatever.

Deep Space, February 28th, 2000 (Earth Time)

"We've finished repairs!"

Catra, curled up next to Adora in what remained of the Stealth compartment after it had been stripped for parts, looked up.

Bow looked tired, but he was smiling. Hell, he looked as if he were about to topple over.

"Yes! Finally!"

And now he did topple over thanks to Glimmer hugging him too enthusiastically. Even in their spacesuits, that had to hurt a little.

"Oof! Bow!"

"I'm OK!"

He looked OK, at least. Not that Catra cared too much as long as he wasn't bleeding or unconscious right now. Not after they had spent almost a full day in their suits. Granted, mostly because of the poison still lingering in the air, especially with the filters being dismantled to replace the Tel'tak's, but still! They could finally get off this wreck and return home.

Eventually, she amended as she followed Adora to the jury-rigged airlock leading to the Tel'tak. They still had to find and reach a Stargate. But with a working ship - and one with a stealth generator at that, even if it was not as good as the one built into the decoy's stealth compartment - that shouldn't be too hard.

Their luck had to get better at some point, at least.

As expected, the ship was cramped with the whole gang and two fire teams inside. Not to the point that it was standing room only, but it made a Horde Transport look roomy. And the bathroom facilities would be strained with so many people, too, even if they weren't hastily repaired like everything else.

She shuddered at the thought of the smell after a day or two. It made spending more time in the suit look like the lesser evil. At least the suit was rigged to take care of that.

Melog, next to her, turned green. Sickly green.

She patted their flank, then slipped past Isa to the cockpit - it was too small to be called a bridge. "Everyone on board," she reported.

Adora nodded at her. "Good."

"Airlock's sealed," Bow said from the pilot's seat.

"Let's go!" Adora ordered.

Catra heard the ship's magnetic docking locks disengage with a slightly screeching noise, but neither Sam nor Bow looked worried, so that was probably OK. Through the cockpit's windows, she saw the decoy ship's battered, holed hull fall out of sight as the Tel'tak turned away.

"Thrusters performing at the expected level."

"All systems nominal."

A small cheer went up from the fire teams. Most of them who hadn't worked a lot with Sam, Bow and Entrapta probably had been worried about the ship blowing up. Catra snorted softly at the thought as the ship continued in silence.

"We're at a safe distance," Sam announced as the ship swung around until it pointed at the small form of the Steel Fist again.

"Alright. Trigger the scuttling charges," Jack said.

"Yes, sir."

A moment later, the ship vanished in a silent, expanding fireball.

Sam's hands flew over the keyboard, and the scanner strapped into the nook next to her seat vibrated a moment. "Destruction complete."

"Good."

Catra shrugged. They had already removed all the pieces of technology the Goa'uld didn't already know, like the scanners and improved stealth generator. But that way, the snakes might not realise it had been a decoy if they ever found it. No loose ends, even though the thought of Sokar and the other System Lords realising they had been fooled completely made Catra grin.

"Alright. Take us out of here!" Jack spoke up. "Let's go home!"

"Yes, sir. Course set."

The ship sped up again, away from the still expanding cloud of dust left from the Steel Fist, and entered hyperspace.

Smoothly, this time.

In Orbit above PT-9714, March 2nd, 2000 (Earth Time)

"We've arrived in orbit above the target world. Scanning for the Stargate."

Jack O'Neill nodded at Carter's report. "Doesn't look like a good vacation spot," he commented.

"We're not here for a vacation," Catra retorted. "We just need to get to the Stargate and get off."

Jack swallowed the comment he could make about the - likely intended - double-entendre; things were already tense enough after two days in hyperspace in a ship so cramped, Jack could finally top whatever stories submarine crew members could come up. Even trekking through a jungle for a week wouldn't have people on edge like that; at least on a patrol or march, you had something to do, and the exertion helped as well. Here, though? Best not to tease people. "It looks like a dustbowl."

"Correct, sir." Carter nodded. "The atmosphere is filled with dust particles."

Jack frowned. "Does that match our data?"

"We don't have much data about this planet, sir. Only that it has an Earth-like atmosphere and a Stargate." Carter sounded defensive even though it hadn't been her decision to pick this world; it simply had been one of the worlds they knew had Stargates in range and had been picked at random.

"Is that natural?" Adora asked with a frown.

"We don't know enough to tell," Carter replied. "But the preliminary data doesn't match what would result from volcanic eruptions. There's no radiation, though."

So, not the result of someone going crazy with nukes.

"Is it dangerous?" Glimmer asked.

"Our suits can handle vacuum and a moon's surface," Bow replied. "Dust won't be a problem."

She glared at him. "We've spent too long in suits already! Can we breathe the air down there?"

"Ah!" Bow's smile turned sheepish, and Jack chuckled under his breath. "It shouldn't be that bad on the ground."

"Then let's get down!" Glimmer blurted out. "Before I lose my sense of smell!"

"Oh, please! It's not as if you had much of one before!" Catra scoffed. "Now, me, on the other hand…"

"You grew up in the Fright Zone! I've been there; as bad as the smell is here, it's still an improvement over the stench there!"

"Sam, did you find the Stargate?" Adora spoke up, a little more loudly than usual in a blatant attempt to curb the brewing argument.

"The scan just finished," Carter replied, staring at her screen. "We've found a mass of Naquadah that matches the mass of a Stargate…"

"That means 'yes'," Jack cut in with a grin.

"...but we also found significant other concentrations of Naquadah," she went on with a slight frown aimed at him. "Refined Naquadah."

Oh. Refined Naquadah meant technology - Ancient technology, most likely. Jack sighed. It looked like they couldn't just land next to the Stargate and go home. "Let's take a look before we open a gate back to our lines. I assume it's close to the Stargate?" Hopefully, it wouldn't take too long to verify there wasn't anything dangerous waiting to follow them back home, and they could leave exploring this planet to someone else.

"Yes, sir. But there's something else."

Or not. Jack looked at the screen in front of Carter and muttered a curse.

Gate Area, PT-9714, March 2nd, 2000 (Earth Time)

"Yeah, someone really didn't like whatever was here," Jack O'Neill commented as he stared at the cratered area in front of him. "At least they didn't blow up the gate." The destruction stopped a few hundred yards short of the Stargate proper.

Catra knelt down and stared at a piece of twisted metal that had buried itself into the earth nearby. "Doesn't look like Horde steel. But I can't make out any markings."

"Let's check out the rest of the wreckage!" Glimmer, who had finished coughing and resealed her helmet, said.

"Is it safe?" Jack turned to look at Carter and Bow, who were huddled over the magic scanner.

"No dangerous radiation as far as we can tell," Carter replied. "But there's residual exotic radiation."

"Exotic radiation?" That didn't sound good.

"It matches the effects of Horde beam weapons," Bow added.

Jack narrowed his eyes and looked at the craters again. Orbital bombardment by a Horde task force? They weren't even close to the borders of Horde Prime's former empire. "How long ago did this happen?" The craters weren't grown over much, but that didn't mean anything with the dust blocking sunlight and, well, this being an alien planet.

"We have to run more precise tests, sir. But judging by the rate of particles in the air… If our models from Earth fit this world, then I would guess a couple of years at most.

So… either in the last days of Horde Prime's rule… or after he had been defeated.

Jack's curse was matched by Catra's.

"The explosives in the Telt'ak's are set."

Adora nodded at Campbell's report. It was a shame that they had to destroy the ship, but they couldn't take it through the gate with them. In theory, they could leave it and then send a recovery crew through the Stargate to fly it back, but the closest Alliance-controlled worlds were months away, and neither Sam nor Bow were sure the ship would manage to make such a trip without a major overhaul first, not after everything it had gone through. It simply wasn't worth the effort. Not even for spare parts since most of the parts were cobbled together from other parts. Of course, some people - mainly outside the Alliance, but some inside the Alliance as well - would disagree and consider the risks worth it anyway. Blowing up the ship would prevent that kind of mess.

"Dibs on pulling the trigger!" Catra flashed her teeth in a wide grin.

"No fair! You can't call dibs on that!"

"I just did!"

"That doesn't count! Besides, you said it wasn't that bad, Catra! You've got no claim to this!"

"No, I said I've smelt worse! I've got the best nose; I deserve to destroy this thing!"

Also, some people, like Glimmer and Catra, really loathed the conditions under which they had been escaping from Sokar, and destroying the ship would serve as a way to vent that frustration.

Adora shook her head at her lover and her friend bickering and walked over to Sam and Bow, both looking through the data from their scanner. "Did you find anything else?" she asked.

"Well… based on the samples of several destroyed ship parts, all of the same type, and the lack of any other ship parts near them, we think this was a major factory complex. Goa'uld technology, though we haven't found any signs of which System Lord was the owner," Bow said.

"Ground scans confirm this. A shipyard or at least a sort of maintenance facility for smaller craft would be our current estimate," Sam added.

Adora nodded. "And the attackers?"

"The residue left from the beam weapons matches Horde beam weapons," Sam said. "In theory, they could be Asgard beam weapons, although we lack samples of their current arms. However, the odds of both species using weapons with so closely-matching characteristics despite a thousand years of divergences are minimal."

Adora nodded again. "And how long ago did this happen? Was it during Horde Prime's reign?"

"No. We've measured the lingering exotic radiation and managed to determine the decay rate precisely enough to exclude that possibility. This happened roughly one year ago," Sam said.

Adora suppressed a curse. That meant they had a rogue Horde task force flying around and attacking planets with orbital bombardment. And looted the remains, according to the traces Daniel, Sha're and Teal'c had examined.

Adora and her friends had suspected that there were Horde remnants unaccounted for - only Horde Prime had known how big the Horde had been; his clones only knew the fleets they had been serving in and those who had worked with theirs. And, of course, Horde Prime wouldn't have gathered his entire force to attack Etheria - he wouldn't have exposed his empire like that for a planet with only one spaceship for defence. But to have it confirmed was still a blow she could have done without. Especially after a failed mission.

"We need to find them," she said. Find them and find out what they were doing and why. If they started a war with the Goa'uld, then they were potential allies. But if they were still loyal to Horde Prime, or had started to carve out a territory for themselves, they represented a danger to the Alliance - and to the Galaxy.

"We can send a swarm of spy bots through the Stargate once we're back home," Sam said. "And some supporting facilities so they can start scouting this sector of the galaxy."

"Yes." Adora looked at the still-visible signs of battle before her and pondered the problem.

She knew this wouldn't be enough if the Horde force in this part of the galaxy were hostile. Any Alliance task force dealing with them would be operating months from the closest Alliance bases. They would need a huge fleet train, preferably with mobile yards, Horde-style - or new bases and an extended supply line back to Earth. Or a combination of both. Either option would strain current logistics, and there were also political issues with both. First Fleet hadn't fully rebuilt their fleet train yet because without it, they were tied to Etheria and the former Horde factories supplying them. That also gave Hordak additional influence over the fleet thanks to his close relationship with Entrapta, who kept the factories running. Second and Third Fleet, though, were able to operate independently for any length of time. Some princesses and several Earth politicians didn't like that. They preferred more control over the fleets.

But the longer the supply lines got, the more inefficient they became. At a certain point, the effort needed to support fleet operations through bases and transport ships ferrying supplies from Earth and Etheria would dwarf the admittedly considerable resources needed to create and maintain a mobile fleet train. And the Goa'uld Empire was so vast, some System Lords' domains were way past that point.

But Adora and her friends had hoped to be able to delay addressing that problem until the Alliance had dealt with the closest System Lords, like Apophis. That should have built up enough trust and confidence to make it easier to build up fleets that had the resources to maintain themselves and could operate far from their home worlds.

Or without home worlds, which was another can of worms.

Adora sighed. She really didn't like to address that, but it had to be done.

"Let's wrap this up and go home. We've got a lot to do."