Chapter 111: The Rescue Operation Part 4
Palace of Apophis, Saqqara, November 9th, 1999 (Earth Time)
"They're about to raise the wall!"
As soon as he heard Bow's announcement, Jack O'Neill snapped: "Everyone, get ready!" and ducked behind the remains of the console, staff weapon aimed at the door. If only he had his gun! He'd prefer a zat, but the staff weapon was more effective against multiple enemies about to rush you.
He quickly glanced at the rest of the group. Teal'c was at the corner, staff aimed, not showing any tension. Bow was next to him, arrow notched but not yet drawn. And Daniel was in the corridor leading to the cells, zat ready to shoot at anyone running towards him, flanked by Ryla'c and Drey'auc. Having those two with weapons at his back made Jack a little nervous. Not because they might betray them. But they were civilians with weapons, thrust into a battle. Jaffa civilians, but still. At least Teal'c saw nothing wrong with it, and Jack trusted his friend.
The wall started to rise, and Jack tensed. If they shot a grenade through the gap… he got ready to blast it back.
But instead of a grenade, he heard screams and shots. And blasts from staff weapons.
"Hold fire!" Bow yelled, holding his communicator. "Adora jumped down!"
Ah. That explained it. Jack grinned as the wall quickly rose, revealing She-Ra in full armour fighting a few dozen Serpent Guards. They were shooting staff weapons and zats at her, to no effect. And in the back, he saw a group setting up a staff cannon.
A couple of blasts from him and Teal'c put an end to that, wrecking both the cannon and the crew.
To the left, Bow had hit three guards with a net arrow, entangling all of them. They were still struggling and trying to bring their weapons to bear, though, so Jack took them out with a blast from his staff weapon.
The wall had risen all the way to the top at that point. Adora charged forward, her sword turning into a shield to smash two Jaffa into three others, then changed back to slice through a fourth.
But more came running out of a side corridor. Teal'c caught the first with a shot to the chest that threw the guard back, and Jack shot the next one as he stumbled over the body, but then he had to duck when the rest opened up with a volley of blasts that finished wrecking the console more and blew up more of the guard room.
Things were getting heated. Jack clenched his teeth, took a deep breath and rushed out of his rapidly disintegrating cover to the entrance of the prison sector, drawing and wildly firing his zat one-handed.
A staff blast missed him but blew up the floor behind him, and he felt fragments hit his armour - and his bare legs.
The pain followed a moment later when he slid into the corner next to the door, out of the Jaffa's field of fire. Gritting his teeth, he quickly checked his leg. Nothing serious. He could still run.
"Watch out!"
"Hold fire! The others are coming!" Bow, now across from him in the other corner next to the door, yelled.
Jack leaned around the corner and caught a figure landing on a Jaffa trying to get into Adora's rear. Catra. She drove the guard into the floor, then ripped his neck open with a swipe of her claws.
Jack grimaced as she leaned out a bit more, checked above for anyone else dropping by, and shot a Jaffa who was getting up after Adora had smashed into him.
More shots from above followed. A couple of not-very-well-aimed staff blasts that at least suppressed another Jaffa rush and a zat shot that took out another wounded Jaffa. That would be Glimmer and Carter, respectively.
Jack forced himself to ignore the pain in his legs and get up, then push on. They had to get out of here. "Just how many guards does Apophis have?" he muttered as he moved through the door, then crouched down on the other side.
"This is his capital," Teal'c replied, mirroring his move on the other side - which forced Bow, who had been about to do the same, to fall back, Jack noted.
"Set up our present!" he yelled at him. Bow didn't have many arrows, and with everyone else joining the battle, he wouldn't be very effective either.
"Alright!"
"Make way! Whee!"
He glanced up again and almost gasped. Entrapta was climbing down the hole, her hair tendrils reaching from wall to wall - and half-carrying Glimmer and Carter. It looked like out of a movie.
Shaking his head, he advanced some more, shooting at a straggler. Teal'c did the same, securing the other flank.
By the time Entrapta reached the ground, the Jaffa had been driven back into the hallways they had used to gather for the assault. They would rally again, though.
"Everyone, come on - time to leave!" Jack yelled. The longer they stayed, the more troops Apophis could bring in.
"Where is Sha're?" Daniel asked as he and Teal'c's family joined them.
"She's with Bra'tac," Carter told him before addressing Jack. "Sir, it looks like a regiment of guards is covering the upper levels."
That complicated things.
A regiment? Adora looked around - there were no enemies left near her. None who were alive or awake, at least. But that was a large number of guards to go through. "They're blocking all the exits?"
"Yes," Sam replied.
"Then we'll have to make our own exits," she said. "As long as we avoid more such walls, we should be able to cut through any wall - or ceiling."
"And we can use the gravity sled," Entrapta added.
Catra cocked her head to the side. "We could - if the guards hadn't blown it up right now."
That meant they would soon be coming through the shaft they had left leading up - or dropping bombs down. "Let's move!" Adora snapped and moved forward.
As the others followed her, Jack turned and shot the controls of the door behind them as soon as it closed. "That should slow any pursuit. If only I had some spare charges…"
"We could rig one from the staff weapons," Catra suggested.
"That will take too long. We need to move," Adora cut in. "Come on." She turned to Entrapta and the others. "Plot a route to the surface. Don't bother with lifts and stairs."
"But look out for traps," Catra added - unnecessarily, in Adora's opinion. Their friends knew what to do.
Sam ignored the comment, but Entrapta nodded. "Alright! If we stick to the route we took going in, there shouldn't be any traps. Though… Hmm…"
"I think we should take an angled route," Sam said, pointing at the display on Entrapta's tool. "Here!"
"Oh, yes!" Entrapta's hair flared out, then formed a hand, finger pointing at the ceiling. "Cut here!"
Adora nodded, hefted her sword and jumped. Two curved slashes later, she dropped to the floor and caught a piece of the ceiling, grunting at the effort - and with surprise when Catra jumped on top of the ceiling piece, then up through the hole. "Catra!"
"Clear!" her lover yelled back. "Hurry and come up!"
"Well, we don't have a gravity sled," Glimmer said, eyeing the hole.
"I should be able to…"
Adora lowered the piece she was holding. "Step on it."
"Right!"
Adora had to lift it up twice. Not because of the weight - she could throw a tank; the steel piece, even with all their friends on it, was no problem. But the piece she had cut was too small to fit everyone, even with Entrapta using her hair to climb up.
But they all arrived safely on the floor above them and quickly moved to the next spot Entrapta and Sam had picked.
This time, a group of guards must have heard the floor dropping off, but Catra made short work of them before Adora could set down the platform and jump up.
The next floor, though, had Jaffa shooting at them as soon as Adora dropped down, and…
"Grenade!" Catra yelled.
Adora gasped, then flung the floor piece up as everyone dived into cover. A moment later, something exploded above her, and the slab of metal she had hurled came back down in pieces.
"That didn't take out everyone!" Catra snapped, already moving towards the hole.
Adora beat her to it, though, pushing the fragments on her away and jumping straight up. A zat blast hit her on the way up, but she ignored it. Two staff weapons fired at her when she landed on the floor above. She caught both on her shield and charged.
A Jaffa on the ground, hurt by their own grenade, tried to raise, but without stopping, she kicked him in the head, sending him flying against the wall. Then she crashed into the line of Jaffa facing her and bowled them over.
A moment later, her shield changed into a sword, and she slashed at the groaning guards before they could recover.
She whirled. Catra was already laying into the surviving guards on the other side, followed by Teal'c arriving in the hole, pushed up by Entrapta's hair. A couple of staff blasts later, the guards were down, and Entrapta brought the rest of the group up.
"The Jaffa are spreading out on the floor above us," Sam reported. "They must have realised we change the location where we go up." With a frown, she added: "And they are taking out the cameras - they must have realised we hacked them."
That limited them to the short range of Entrapta's scanner in her multitool. Adora briefly bit her lower lip. There was no helping it - they had to continue. "Let's go!"
They caught the Jaffa by surprise on the next floor, but the guards quickly rallied - and tried to keep their distance, shooting at them from prepared positions instead of rushing in.
"They're trying to slow us down," Jack said, gritting his teeth as he poked a burn on his thigh.
It didn't look too bad, but it must be painful anyway.
"To gain time to bring in more reinforcements?" Catra frowned.
"Something like that," Jack agreed.
"Then we need to hurry," Glimmer said.
"And we need to skip the gates," Catra added. "They'll expect that."
"They've seen us cut through the floor multiple times," Bow retorted. "They'll have to surround the entire palace."
"We can have Bra'tac fetch us," Glimmer pointed out. "If we reach a landing pad further up."
"They'll cover those gates as well," Jack said. "But it's harder to block all of them, and if we're quick enough, we should be able to get away."
"Uh…" Entrapta spoke up. "Bra'tac just sent us a message: A Ha'tak is descending on the palace."
A Ha'tak? If it was bringing reinforcements, it could land directly on the palace to deliver them. Or to pick up Apophis if the System Lord was present - taking command of a Ha'tak would give him an excuse to leave his palace in the middle of a crisis.
Either way, the ship could cover every entrance with its guns.
Samantha Carter looked at the Colonel. "Sir, if they target the gates or any opening we make…"
"...we won't have the time to embark on Bra'tac's ship, yes." He nodded with a grim expression.
"We need a distraction," Catra said. "Something to draw their attention and fire away from the real exit."
"And we need to keep going up," Adora added. "We can't waste time. Look for an alternative way out while we move." She raised her sword, bent her knees and then jumped, striking at the ceiling.
Sam moved back with Entrapta and Bow while the others - mostly Adora, Catra, Teal'c and the Colonel - fought their way up and through the Serpent Guards waiting there.
It was a holding action indeed. By the time she joined the others on the next floor, the Jaffa had fallen back and were attempting spoiling attacks in small numbers. Wasteful but not entirely ineffective, Sam thought.
"Could we fool them into thinking that this is a coup attempt? Make them fight each other?" Glimmer suggested.
"If we had control of their communications," Sam replied. Which they didn't have. And the security system was rapidly losing coverage of the rest of the palace, with all the cameras near the Jaffa being destroyed.
"I have an idea. Is the Ha'tak landing?" the Colonel asked.
Sam relayed the question to Bra'tac. It was dangerous - the Tel'tak was in stealth mode, but any communication could theoretically be detected - but justified. And the comm channels had to be full of orders and reports right now.
"It seems to be set on landing on the palace," Bratac told them.
"Alright. We've prepared a surprise for Apophis," the Colonel said. "I didn't want to use it while we were still inside the palace, but we don't have much of a choice. But we need to get to the surface floor before the ship touches down."
A surprise? What could… Sam's eyes widened. The Colonel couldn't have! Then she saw Bow wincing. No, of course, they could have. "We need to hurry!" she said. And they had to signal Bra'tac so he could be ready to pick them up. They wouldn't have much time to pull this off!
"Then let's go!" Adora announced.
They had two more floors to clear. And they had to reach the outer wall. All before the ship touched down on the top of the palace.
Sam indicated the shortest route to the outer walls, and they sprinted down the hallway, past dead and wounded Serpent Guards. This time, Adora didn't cut a hole into the ceiling - she jumped and smashed a hole into it, using her sword like a ramming tool. And Catra didn't wait for Adora to jump in first and draw fire - she bounced off the wall and disappeared in the cloud of smoke before Adora could jump again.
Sam heard shots from above, followed by screams, and clenched her teeth. As much as she wanted to help fight the Jaffa, she couldn't do much until she was up on the next floor. Not with her weapon, at least.
But she could do other things. The security system was in shambles, but she could still fill it with fake signals. It might not fool the Serpent Guard, who must have received orders not to listen, but the servants and slaves? A few fire alarms might be enough to disrupt whatever Apophis was doing. In a small way, at least.
But then she remembered the likely reaction of the guards to a bunch of panicking slaves trying to run past them - or at them. No, she couldn't do that. Not for such a paltry chance of improving their situation.
Instead, she focused on what intel she could gather with her rapidly shrinking means: The positions of some enemy troops - and the movements of others. By the time Entrapta's hair put her down on the next floor, she had a new route plotted out.
That left another floor before the surface level. A Ha'tak on a landing approach was slow, but not that slow. "We are running out of time! We have to break through and then immediately go up again - without clearing the area of enemy troops!" she told the others.
"I'll keep them busy on this side," Catra said, pointing towards the inner part of the palace. "You suppress the rest."
"That's…" Adora started to protest.
"We don't have time!" the Colonel snapped. "Do it!"
Adora glared at him but jumped up, once more breaking a hole into the stone ceiling. She managed to get a grip on the broken edge somehow and swung herself up with a roar, followed by Catra. Then Entrapta started to move Teal'c and the Colonel up. Then Glimmer and Bow.
Then it was Sam's turn.
She was dropped on the floor, zat out, and started firing at the Jaffa moving at the end of the corridor. Smoke hindered her aim, but the goal was suppressing them, not taking them out.
A staff blast passed above her head. Teal'c turned and shot down the hallway as well.
"Brace yourself!" Adora yelled.
Then the ceiling exploded, and Sam ducked, holding her arms above her head as metal and stone pieces rained down on them. One hit her shoulder, and she yelled at the pain. Bruised. Not dislocated or broken, she thought, but it was hard to tell. Before she could resume shooting at the enemies, hair tendrils grabbed her and lifted her up to the hole. She reached out to haul herself up with one arm, but then something exploded below her, and she was falling, the hair releasing her.
Staff weapon blast, she realised a moment before she hit the ground - on her already hurt shoulder. And she couldn't help screaming as the pain grew much, much worse. Broken, probably. She rolled on her back, holding her shoulder, as torn strands of Entrapta's hair floated down on her. Entrapta!
"My hair!"
So, she was alive! Sam smiled despite her wound.
Some appeared at her side. Sam almost shot them - or tried to, using her off hand - before she recognised Catra.
"Get up!"
Before Sam could do so - or say anything about her shoulder - Catra grabbed her and jumped.
And Sam hissed through clenched teeth as her shoulder flared with more pain each time it was jostled.
But she was now on the surface level. And they had to keep moving. Groaning, she got up. Catra had already jumped down again. The Ha'tak would be landing any moment.
She looked around. The Colonel and Teal'c were firing their staff weapons as fast as they cycled, suppressing a group of guards trying to rush them. Catra reappeared, carrying Ryla'c. Entrapta appeared in the hole, hair tendrils moving to pull her up - though not as much as before. And Glimmer and Bow were climbing up the hair tendrils instead of being lifted.
Ryla'c started shooting a staff weapon down the hole. Covering fire for Daniel and Dry'auc, Sam realised.
She crawled to the edge of the hole and added her own fire. Damn, her shoulder hurt!
"The ship's about to touch down!" Entrapta yelled.
"Tell me when it's landed!" the Colonel yelled back.
Catra appeared, carrying Daniel. Dry'auc was climbing herself.
Sam fired at the Jaffa charging at them from below. One Jaffa got hit and went down. Another dropped to the side when Ryla'c shot a staff weapon at them. Then Dry'auc reached the surface floor and pulled herself up next to Sam - and exposed her bleeding back to her.
But before Sam could say anything, Entrpata yelled. "The ship has landed!"
"Hit it, Bow!" the colonel yelled.
A moment later, Sam heard a loud explosion - and then the whole building trembled.
The crazy bastard had rigged the charges in the dungeon to explode! Catra grinned as she felt the floor shift slightly under her feet. Then she heard the sound of metal straining and stone cracking and cursed. "We need to leave! Right now!"
Adora was already charging towards the outer wall closest to them. "Call Bra'tac!" she yelled over her shoulder.
"Sam's hurt!" Entrapta.
"It's just my shoulder!"
"Everyone's banged up!" Catra snapped. She had caught some shrapnel herself. Nothing too bad, though. "Call Bra'tac - we need him to pick us up before the ship recovers."
Adora slashed the wall, once, twice, then kicked it - sending a section flying outwards. Catra could see the sky outside - and Jaffa on the ground getting up. Damn! That was too much firepower for Adora to cover.
And the sounds from the palace were getting louder, even though the floor wasn't shifting any more… The Ha'tak on top must be mangling the structure!
But there was a staff cannon whose crew had been taken out, next to the opening. Catra dashed forward on all fours, trying to ignore the staff blasts whipping past above her head as everyone started firing, and Adora tried to shield them.
"He's coming! Homing in on our signal!" Entrapta announced.
"Tell him to hurry!" O'Neill snapped.
"I can walk, sir!"
"You stay put!"
The corpse of the Jaffa gunner lay slumped over the controls. Catra kicked it away and started turning the cannon around. Her foot claws dug into the stone floor, but the weapon swivelled until the barrel pointed at the opening. And at Adora's back. "Move right!" Catra yelled.
As soon as Aodra did so, Catra started firing. Her first volley went wide, but she quickly adjusted, and her next blasts wiped out a squad of charging Serpent Guards. She swung the cannon to the side and started raking the grounds with suppressive fire, scattering more ranks of the guards outside.
"Incoming inside!" O'Neill yelled.
More explosions inside followed. Staff blasts. Catra gritted her teeth and kept firing. O'Neill arrived, half-carrying Sam, followed by Daniel and the ragged-looking Entrapta - part of her hair was still smoking. "Bra'tac's almost here!" she announced.
The sound of screeching metal drowned out whatever Daniel said to that. A moment later, a piece of metal and stone the size of a skiff crashed into the ground outside, shattering and throwing up a cloud of dust.
Then a shadow fell over the area outside, and Adora screamed: "Get out! Right now!"
Catra released the cannon's controls - it was overheating anyway - and dashed outside. Looking up, she froze for a moment.
The Ha'tak was looming over them, listing to the side and dragging part of the palace's top with it as its engines were straining to get the ship clear.
Entrapta almost cooed. "Oh! It must have gotten stuck on the pyramid connector when the explosion rocked the structure! The distance would have leveraged the slight shift on the underground level, resulting in…"
"Escape now, physics lesson later!" O'Neill snapped. "Where is Bra'tac?"
Behind him, Dry'auc and Ryla'c appeared in the opening, Teal'c bringing up the rear with Bow and Glimmer.
But the Jaffa outside were rallying, and the fire was picking up. Worse, the guards inside were barely being held back by the others laying down suppressive fire. They were boxed in!
"He's almost here!"
More stone and metal bits slid down the palace's side, one hitting a landing pad and ripping it off. The Ha'tak was slowly righting itself, twisting the landing structure it was stuck on.
Catra's ears twitched - that was an engine noise. A familiar one! It was coming closer! She looked but saw nothing - there! A slight distortion!
A moment later, a door swung open, seemingly from nowhere, revealing the interior of the Tel'tak they had stolen.
"Everyone inside!" O'Neill yelled. "Go! Go! Go!"
But even as he started to run, dragging Sam with him, the Tel'tak's stealth field started to ripple - the Serpent Guards outside shooting at them were hitting the ship instead! Catra clenched her teeth. The shields were deflecting the shots, but that disrupted the stealth field.
And the Jaffa must have realised what that meant since the fire intensified. O'Neill had reached the ship, followed by Daniel. Adora moved to cover the ship from the front, but she couldn't shield it entirely.
Catra picked up a staff weapon and started laying down suppressive fire on their flank while Dry'auc and Ryla'c sprinted to the ramp. "Hurry up!" she yelled to the rest. "They'll call in air support any moment!"
They had already done so, she realised a moment later, when two Death Gliders swooped down, their canons stitching a line of explosions into the ground - and then into the Tel'tak.
The shields flickered but held. Apophis wouldn't have trusted his life to a weak escape vessel, Catra thought. Good for him - and for us!
She started to move towards the ship herself, still firing wildly to break up the Jaffa formations trying to charge them. They just needed a little more time for everyone to…
The sound of stone and metal breaking, tearing, made her look up. The Ha'tak had torn off the top of the palace's pyramid top! And while the ship was stabilising, the structure it had wrecked was falling down in several large and countless smaller pieces - right on them!
"Take cover!" Catra dropped the staff weapon and dashed forward, slamming into Bow and Glimmer as they left the palace and pushing them back inside moments before a slab of stone smashed into the wall above them, shattering the stone and everything below.
She rolled on her side, jumping up - next to Teal'c still covering their rear - and whirled around.
Just in time to see the tip of the pyramid hit the Tel'tak's shields and shatter them, then crush the ship. She gasped. Adora!
Then the pain hit her, and she noticed the blood running down her side.
Outside the Palace of Apophis, Saqqara, November 9th, 1999 (Earth Time)
One moment, Jack O'Neill was reaching out to grab Ryla'c to drag the kid to a seat inside the Tel'tak and strap him in. The next, Bra'tac yelled something, and Jack found himself thrown against the wall. And the ceiling. Or the floor - it was hard to tell with all the smoke and…
He blinked and shook his head, glancing around. He was on the floor - and the floor was the wall. Or trying to be. All angled wrong. And broken. Like the rest of it.
The ship was wrecked, he realised, gasping - only to cough when he inhaled smoke. Something was burning. And that meant the whole ship would burn in no time.
"We need to get out!" he yelled, then coughed again. They never got the smoke quite right in crash and rescue drills, he thought before shaking his head again. He must have hit it hard to be distracted in the middle of an emergency.
Where were the others? He glanced around again.
Ryla'c was a few yards away, groaning. Alive then. On the ground but moving towards his mother. Who wasn't moving. Carter… on Jack's other side, a purple cocoon started to open up. He blinked. A cocoon? Entrapta's hair! She must have wrapped it around herself and Carter.
"Sir?" Carter was alive!
"Get out!" Jack snapped. "We need to evacuate the ship!" Where was Daniel? He had been further towards the front of the ship and… Jack steadied himself against the floor/wall and climbed towards the ship's bridge. Just around a new corner in a formerly straight passage.
"Shit!"
Daniel was unconscious and had a metal rod sticking out of his back - he had been covering Sha're with his body. Sha're's body, which still had a snake in it, Jack reminded himself. Daniel's right leg also didn't look good - what Jack could see of it; the lower half was buried under a piece of wall. Or floor. And behind him, Jack could see more people. In their underwear. They didn't move, and he could see blood on several of them. All unconcious? Or stunned beforehand.
And the bridge… Jack gritted his teeth. Whatever had hit them had struck the bridge and caved it in. "Bra'Tac?" he called out, coughing again. The smoke was getting worse. Where was the old Jaffa? If he had been piloting this thing… Oh.
There was an arm on the floor. In a pool of blood. Sticking out from under a piece of stone that looked bigger than Jack's first car and filled half the bridge's remains. Jack could see the remains of a seat peeking out from under it as well. And more blood.
Fuck.
He couldn't do anything for Bra'tac. And Daniel needed help. "Daniel's wounded!" Jack managed to yell before coughing again.
Kneeling down - he almost lost his footing and slipped - he checked the wound. The metal had missed the spine. And the lung, since Daniel wasn't choking on his blood. And it hadn't gone straight through him.
But if Jack pulled it out, Daniel would likely bleed to death. Quickly. And Daniel's foot was a goner, too.
"Sir? We need to… Daniel!"
Carter had managed to reach him despite her disabled or broken shoulder.
"Careful," Jack said, "We need to transport him without making it worse. And Sha're."
"And the slaves," Carter added. "We took their places."
"Ah." That explained the unknown people.
"Entrapta!"
"Coming! Something's burning in the part we can't get to!"
Hair tentacles reached around the corner, followed by Entrapta. "Oh, no!" She rushed forward.
"Careful!" Jack said.
Hair wrapped around the metal stuck in his friend, and more tendrils slipped under the piece of the ship that was trapping Daniel's foot.
Jack heard a screeching sound, then the hair pulled Daniel away - and Jack had to wince at the sight of his mangled, bleeding foot. "Tourniquet!" he snapped. They needed to stop the bleeding.
Hair wrapped around the thigh while Jack pulled the belt off his stupid armour. A few seconds later, he had stopped the bleeding. But Daniel needed medical help, and quickly.
First, though, they needed to get out of this wreck. The smoke was getting worse, and Jack thought he saw something flicker behind the caved-in parts of the ship. Fire. Or shots from staff weapons - they were still surrounded by Serpent Guards.
Focus on the task at hand! He told himself. First, they needed to get out of this death trap. He could figure out how to escape the other death trap later.
"Move him to the rear. I'll get the others."
"What about Bra'tac?" Entrpata asked as she started to lift Daniel up.
She must have missed the arm. Jack shook his head. "He's dead."
Entrapta gasped. "But… Are you sure?"
"Yes. Move!"
They moved. Jack grabbed Sha're's body and followed them. Just at the corner, the ship suddenly shook again. He was pushed against the tilted wall, almost dropping Sha're, and banged his arm against some piece of broken crystal.
He glanced over his shoulder and cursed again - flames flickered behind him, and smoke started to fill the passage. The ship was burning up with them inside!
The slaves! For a moment, Jack considered going back for them. But he was already carrying Sha're, and with all the smoke… He wouldn't make it out again.
Cursing Apophis and himself, he hurried towards the back of the ship.
There they came! Adora gritted her teeth, swatted a staff weapon bolt away with a flick of her wrist while she waited for another second, then jumped. A volley of blasts passed below her, rising as the pilot of the first Death Glider tried to adjust his aim, but she was already too close, her blade swinging out before he could react.
She cut the craft in two, flipped and landed on the larger part, then pushed off it, launching herself towards the Death Glider's wingman.
The second fighter banked, but it was too slow and too late as well, and the tip of her blade slid into its right wing, then through it. The wing broke apart, and the Death Glider entered an uncontrolled spin just as the parts of the first hit the ground and exploded.
Adora dodged a falling piece of broken stone as large as Scorpia, swatted a twisted metal shard away, then flipped again. Arcing downward, she brought her sword down just before she hit the ground. The impact shattered the stone beneath her and sent out a shock wave that threw the dozen Jaffa around her into the air just as more stone fragments pelted the area.
She stood, then cut apart a staff cannon they had brought forward as she whirled - she had to…
She gasped. The Tel'tak was a wreck, half of its hull caved in - smashed - by the broken top of the palace. Her friends! Catra!
She raced back, smashing, cutting through a formation of Jaffa trying to rally, sending them flying with broken and bleeding bodies, until she reached the wreck. It was burning, and its left side had collapsed, tilting the whole thing to the side.
At the back of it, facing the hole she had cut into the palace wall, she could see Ryla'c struggling to drag his mother out of the wreck. But a dozen Serpent Guards were shooting at the wreck - and at the hole, where Glimmer tried to return fire with a staff.
Where were the others? Inside the palace? Or the wreck? Both? Where was Catra? If only Adora had her communicator!
"Adora!" Glimmer called out. "We're pinned down here!"
And above them, the Ha'tak would soon be ready to blast the entire area. Apophis might hesitate to fire on his own palace… No, he wouldn't. They had his queen, and the Serpent Guard were still firing on them.
Adora blocked a ragged volley from the Jaffa, then threw a piece of the palace that had fallen off the roof at them, scattering them. Then she used the sudden lull in the battle and rushed forward, grabbing Ryla'c and his unconscious mother, then leapt to Glimmer, putting the two down. Bow, sitting on the ground with a bandaged leg, slid over to them.
And Catra was there, firing a staff weapon down the hallway, supporting Teal'c, and… She was hurt! Blood was running down her side and leg!
"Catra!"
"I'm OK! Get the others before they burn!" Catra snapped.
She wasn't OK! But Entrapta appeared in the back of the wrecked Te'tak, carrying Daniel - who had a metal shard sticking out of his back! And Sam was stumbling along. Where were Jack and Bra'tac?
No matter. Everyone was hurt. The Tel'tak was wrecked and burning. And they were surrounded by Jaffa, with a Ha'tak above them and Death Gliders rallying.
There was no choice. None at all. They were all going to die if she didn't save them.
Adora raised her sword above her head and closed her eyes. Focused on her power. On her magic. Reached out for that particular pattern and opened herself to the magic.
She connected, hissing through clenched teeth as she became a conduit for magic. For power. Felt as if she was about to burst as the planet's magic filled her. Pushing her. Straining her.
Then she cut the pattern, and the world turned white as the magic was released.
The pressure vanished - but she was still blazing with power. She looked up at the hovering Ha'tak. She could destroy it utterly. She just had to slash her sword at it and let her power go.
And she wanted to do it. Destroy it. And the Serpent Guards. Everyone who had hurt her friends.
But that wouldn't save her friends. Wouldn't save Catra.
Adora clenched her teeth and stepped out of the palace. She was going to save her friends. Catra. Everyone.
A few Jaffa were firing at her, but the bolts didn't reach her - her aura stopped them. They didn't matter.
Entrapta was calling out to her, and she could see Jack behind Sam, almost at the heck of the Tel'tak.
She didn't listen to what they were saying. She couldn't spare the attention. Not with all the power filling her, almost overwhelming her.
She focused, took a deep, shivering breath - and released her magic.
And, once more, the entire area was bathed in white light. In She-Ra's magic.
Next to her, Glimmer gasped and shuddered. "Adora…"
Adora looked around. A bit away, a group of Jaffa in broken armour were on the ground, staring at her with wide eyes. Another dropped the weapon he had been firing at her and staggered back, stumbling over a Jaffa who was sitting up with a dazed expression and flexing his fingers.
No one was firing any more, she realised. Everyone was staring. Gaping. But that wouldn't last.
It didn't have to, though - everyone was gathering around her. Catra, Glimmer, Bow, Entrapta, Sam, Jack, Daniel, Sha're - still stunned, she noted. Weird. Teal'c and his family. "Bra'tac?" she asked, dreading the answer.
Jack shook his head.
No! Adora pressed her lips together. She had failed. But she wouldn't fail the others.
"Glimmer! Teleport us to the Stargate!"
Teleport? That would take a while. Catra and Teal'c first, to start taking over the Stargate's control room, followed by the wounded - the civilians, all wounded had been healed - while She-Ra guarded the rest. Or attempted to.
Samantha Carter glanced around, zat'nik'tel in hand. Any moment, the Serpent Guards would overcome their shock and resume fighting. Or the Ha'tak above them would start firing at them. Apophis might be too intrigued by the display of magic to order a bombardment, or he might decide that even destroying his palace was worth it to kill them.
But Glimmer yelled: "Entrapta, grab everyone!", and Sam felt hair wrap around her thigh.
A moment later, she appeared next to the D.H.D. of Saqarra's Stargate in a shower of sparks. With everyone else.
One Serpent Guard shouted an alert, raising his staff weapon, but Adora laid him out with a kick while Catra pounced on the next, and everyone else started firing. Sam stunned the official trying to flee, then crouched down. They had to deal with the guards behind the reinforced walls, and…
Glimmer reappeared in front of her, panting. And the Colonel and Catra were missing. No, not missing - Sam saw flashes behind the firing positions in the walls.
"Everyone behind me!" Adora yelled, her sword changing into a huge shield, covering the group as they backed up to a wall. Several staff weapon blasts hit the shield or the wall next to them as the concealed guards tried to kill them, but it didn't take long for Catra and the Colonel to silence the weapons.
"Dial to the rally spot!" Glimmer snapped, still breathing heavily.
She must have severely strained herself teleporting everyone at once - and then following up with teleporting the Colonel and Catra. Sam hadn't even known that Glimmer could do that. Was it a result of the restoration of magic to the planet? A temporary boost?
Questions for another time, Sam reminded herself as she dialled PK-Z642's gate address. They had to escape and recover.
The Stargate spun, chevrons locking, as the Colonel and Catra returned. "I bet Apophis is currently cursing himself for burying his Stargate so deeply that he can't reach us," the Colonel said with a grin.
"We don't know if he is present," Sam reminded him.
"I doubt that the Serpent Guards would have risked killing Amaunet without his direct command," Teal'c said. He was standing next to his family, but his staff weapon was pointed at the main gate to the room.
He had a point, though Sam was sure the analysts back on Earth would go over it with a fine comb. Too bad they didn't have combat footage to dissect. The sensor readings from Entrapta's tool were rather limited. But they did have several scans and data from the security system of his palace, which might contain valuable intel.
The wormhole stabilised.
"Alright! Everyone through the gate!" The Colonel gestured to the ramp. "It's time to go home!"
Gate Area, PK-Z642, November 9th, 1999 (Earth Time)
Samantha Carter dialled home to Earth the moment the wormhole collapsed. The sooner they were off this planet and back home, the better. They had already lost Bra'tac and narrowly escaped being killed themselves. If the broken tip of the palace that had crushed the Tel'tak's side had fallen slightly to the right…
Sam closed her eyes for a moment as the Stargate dialled. This had been too close for comfort. Far too close. Still, while it had cost them, dearly, they had achieved their objectives. However, she was well aware that the brass back home would not be pleased with the results. Bra'tac's death wouldn't be an issue. Soldiers risked their lives on every mission, in every battle. But the potential discovery of the Etherians and the return of magic - to a planet held by Apophis… that would cause more than some ruffled feathers amongst the Alliance. Pointed questions would be the least they could expect. And quite justified questions, Sam had to admit.
And yet, when she glanced at Teal'c, who was talking in a low voice with his family, and at Daniel standing next to Sha're's body, which was still carried by Entrapta, she couldn't help feeling that it had been worth it.