Chapter 6: The Moon of Enchantment

In Orbit above Etheria, July 11th, 1998 (Earth Time)

Those people had multiple civil wars? All currently going on on their planet? Catra couldn't help but stare at them. That was…

"That's like the Age of War," Glimmer said, shaking her head.

"The Age of War?" Adora asked, to the relief of Catra - so she wasn't the only one who didn't know what that was.

"A time of great upheaval in Etheria," Bow started lecturing, "when every kingdom was pitted against every other kingdom. This was about eight hundred years ago - the exact date is contested amongst historians. Some say it started when the precursor kingdom of Plumeria attacked Bright Moon's first settlement. Others claim the Age of War began when that conflict spread to involve the Kingdom of the Forest and the Serpent Empire."

Right, Bow was the son of two historians, Catra remembered. Or amateur historians - neither Bow nor Adora had been completely clear about that, and Glimmer had only chuckled at both when the topic had come up.

"I've never heard of those two kingdoms," Adora said. "And I've studied all kingdoms when we prepared for the Princess Prom."

Catra snorted. Adora hadn't changed at all - she still overprepared for everything.

"They didn't survive the Age of War," Bow said. "The Kingdom of the Forest occupied parts of the Whispering Woods. When they faced defeat at the hands of Bright Moon and their allies, they tried to use the Whispering Woods' monsters against them. But the monsters turned against them, and so the kingdom was abandoned and taken over by the woods. Parts of it were absorbed by Plumeria two centuries afterwards, following their conflict with Salineas, but they never managed to recover the whole area."

"Yes, Mom told me about that time. Bright Moon was one of the most advanced kingdoms, and everyone wanted a piece of it - or wanted to destroy it," Glimmer explained. "But Mom had already bonded to the Runestone, so the enemy armies couldn't break through the shield."

Queen Angella had been around that time? Catra had known that the former Queen of Bright Moon had been around for a while, but to have lived for centuries?

"Ah… how long is a year on Etheria?" Daniel asked.

"Three hundred and sixty days, why?" Bow replied.

"How long is a year on Earth?" Entrapta asked, recorder out.

"Three hundred and sixty-five days," Daniel replied. "And a quarter day, more or less."

"How does that work?" Entrapta cocked her head. "Do you have quarter days or how?"

"Wait, wait - are you saying that your mother, the former queen, was alive eight hundred years ago?" O'Neill asked.

"Yes." Glimmer nodded, apparently confused about the question.

Catra wanted to sigh at her naivety. "She was an exception. No one else is that long-lived," she explained.

"You forgot Madame Razz!" Adora objected. "She was around when Mara arrived a thousand years ago."

Catra hadn't forgotten the witch - though she had tried to forget her. The old woman's ramblings made her skin crawl.

"Right. A thousand years old." O'Neill sounded sceptical.

"It's not really unbelievable," Daniel said. "We're talking about an alien species."

And someone who was trapped between dimensions because of Catra's fuck-up. She cleared her throat. "And what about the Serpent Empire?"

"I know! They were located where the Crimson Waste is situated now," Entrapta said.

"Yes," Bow went on. "Back in the Age of War, the area was, well, not a waste. Still arid, but they could grow crops. But they were expansionist and pushed out against the neighbouring kingdoms. They had various alliances but tended to betray their allies whenever they felt they could gain an advantage. They did well in the Age of War, but the desertification of their lands doomed the kingdom. Some scholars claim that this was caused by their attempts to construct a runestone to control the earth. Others think that the Princess of Salineas used her runestone to drain most of the area's water into the ocean."

Catra blinked. "Mermista could do that?" she asked before she could control herself.

"Err… not to my knowledge," Bow told her. "That's why it's not a popular theory. Its proponents claim that Mermista's ancestor used dangerous rituals to enhance the power of the runestone."

"Ah." Not a safe topic, then.

"Anyway, the Age of War ended with the Treaty of Bright Moon, seven hundred and five years ago," Bow said. "But during that time, there was not a year when no kingdom was at war."

"And afterwards, peace reigned until the Horde arrived?" Daniel asked, cocking his head.

"Ah, no," Bow replied. "But the wars were generally smaller and more limited. The treaty started the regular gatherings that would become the Princess Prom to settle conflicts diplomatically."

"Generally, as long as the Elemental Princesses were in agreement, they could enforce their decision on anyone," Glimmer added. "So, most wars were either between smaller kingdoms or short-lived affairs between Elemental princesses, like the Orange War four hundred years ago. Few wanted to risk war after the horrors of the Age of War, so such conflicts were very rare."

"The Orange War?" Adora asked.

"A sailor from Salineas stole - allegedly stole according to Mermista - an orange from Plumeria. A prized orange the then-princess had cultivated herself. She demanded restitution, the Salinean princess offered the price of a normal orange, the Plumerians insulted them, and war broke out. A failed invasion at sea and a failed landing on the shores of Plumeria later, the war was over," Glimmer said.

So, the Plumerians weren't always such pushovers. Good to know.

"You went to war over some royal orange?" O'Neill sounded surprised.

"The USA and the United Kingdom had a war over a pig," Daniel said.

"Yes, yes," Catra cut in. No need to dwell on that. "But let's get back to the point: You have multiple civil wars going on in your world?"

Daniel grimaced. "Right. That's true."

Jack O'Neill suppressed a grimace - he knew Daniel could be more subtle - and took a step forward. "Yes. We have several civil wars going on on our planet. However, the vast majority of our people is living in peace."

"How many wars are going on?" Adora asked.

"Ah…" O'Neill frowned. Angola, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia, Algeria… he was sure that he was forgetting a couple in Africa. Burundi, for one. But there were bound to be more. "I think about a dozen," he said.

"A dozen?" Adora gasped.

"How many kingdoms - countries do you have?" Bow asked.

"Almost two hundred," Jack replied. "We've got almost six billion people on Earth."

"Six billion people!"

"That's…"

"How do you feed so many?"

"Rations. Must be rations. They don't have magic to speed up growth."

Jack cleared his throat. "We've got very advanced agriculture." He glanced at Daniel, but, for one, his friend wasn't about to mention the environmental impact of industrialised agriculture. "We don't generally eat rations outside the military. And even in the military, rations are generally limited to the field."

"Hunger is a fact of life for many, though," Daniel piped up. "But there is enough food for everyone - or would be, if it were distributed evenly."

"No shit. Logistics must be hell with so many wars," Catra muttered.

"And why don't you intervene and stop those wars?" Glimmer asked.

Jack suppressed a sigh. "We do try that. But it tends to be bloody." He had operated in such countries - he knew the score. "No one really likes foreign powers trying to control your country. If you invade, soon, many hate you more than their enemy. ."

"But if those are local wars, can't you just smash their armies with superior forces?" Adora asked. "You have to outnumber them, right?"

Oh, damn. The kids thought those civil wars were fought like their wars apparently were fought. "Most civil wars aren't fought with armies," Jack told them. "They're asymmetrical conflicts. Guerrilla wars. One side is generally outnumbered and hiding, striking at their enemies before fading away. They can fight for years with just small arms - they don't need or have heavy weapons."

Catra got it first. "Damn. And they hide amongst the civilians, right?" Jack nodded, and she winced.

"Oh." Adora looked abashed.

"How can you tell the soldiers from the civilians in such a war?" Entrapta asked, looking puzzled.

"You can't," Catra told her.

"Oh."

Jack nodded. "Yes. But as I said - the vast majority of Earth's population lives in peace."

"In ignorance," Glimmer said. "You said they don't even know they're at war with the Goa'uld."

Jack looked at her. They had gone over that already.

Adora cleared her throat. "So… now that you've seen the space plant, do you want to see anything else in orbit before we return to Bright Moon? There isn't much to see, though. Just the First, Second and Third Fleet, basically."

"And the moons!" Entrapta added. "Though they aren't inhabited. But it's neat to visit them - although you'd need spacesuits. I think I can adapt a few we have for you!"

To walk on a foreign moon? Jack was tempted. That had been his dream as a kid. How could anyone have seen Apollo 11 land on the moon and not wish to become an astronaut? But… "Don't go to any trouble just for us," he said.

"Oh, it wouldn't be any trouble!" Entrapta beamed at them. "I'd like to explore the moons some more, too - there might be valuable materials on them that we lack on Etheria."

So, they hadn't yet explored the moons. That was interesting. They had spaceships, but old ones. And foreign ones. And no orbital infrastructure.

It didn't look like Etheria had been to space for long. They might not even have the infrastructure to produce spaceships. Although the clones or whatever they were would have such facilities, they were likely not in this system. Or they had been on that huge space station and were now turning sunlight into plant mass.

"I think we have a lot of other things to do first, though," Glimmer said.

"Like a potential war with parasitic snakes," Catra added. "And a bunch of stranded soldiers we need to get home."

Jack smiled, showing his teeth. "Right, exactly that!"

Catra frowned at him in return.

"So, no moon expedition?" Entrapta asked.

"Maybe later," Bow told her. "Although… is your scanner ready?"

"Right! My scanner!" The princess perked up. "I just need to add some finishing touches, and we can scan for Naquadah on the entire planet from here!"

Jack smiled. That was good news! Once they found the DHD, they could dial home. And let the professional diplomats handle negotiations. The general would be mad enough about what they - mostly Daniel - had let slip already about Earth.

"Do you want to help me?" Entrapta asked.

Carter - of course - as well as Bow agreed, and all three left the bridge.

"So…" Daniel beamed at the others. "How many people live on Etheria?"

"Well… We've got about fifty million people," Glimmer said. "Kingdoms rarely take a census at the same time, so it's all just guesswork, and with the war, most numbers are out of date anyway."

That was… both more and less than Jack had expected. For a planet seeded by the Goa'uld, it was a lot. But for a native civilisation left in peace? That was very little.

"How long back go your records?" Daniel asked.

"Records? About a thousand years," Glimmer said. "The time of the First Ones. Anything before them isn't very well known."

"And you have almost six billion people?" Adora shook her head.

Six billion people. That was… Adora couldn't even imagine so many people. Most planets they had visited - which, admittedly, hadn't been more than a handful in the months since Horde Prime's defeat - had populations more in the range of Etheria's. Or, rather, had had such populations before Horde Prime had conquered them.

But six billion people! That was like… over a hundred times Etheria's number! The population of a hundred planets, all living on one planet? How did they fit everyone onto one world?

"You must have gigantic armies," Catra said. Of course she would think of the military first.

"I wouldn't say gigantic, but we do have a few million under arms," O'Neill replied.

"Only a few million?" Catra sounded almost disappointed.

"They're normal people, not an army with a planet," Glimmer snapped.

Catra frowned at her. "They're also fighting a war."

"You heard them - it's not that kind of war," Glimmer retorted. "They can't send an army through a Stargate."

"But once we have a fleet there, they can move it with spaceships," Catra said. "The Second or Third Fleet can transport a lot of people. They can't supply as many, but the First Fleet's fleet train should be intact, and they don't need as many transport ships any more, so that should compensate."

Daniel blinked. "Are you already planning to launch invasions from Earth?"

Adora frowned. Why did he sound surprised? Preparing for all eventualities was what a good commander did. And Catra was a good commander, even though she might not think so. She had almost beaten the Alliance, after all, when she had been leading the Horde.

"Of course!" Glimmer cut in. "If you have so many soldiers but no ships to transport them, and we can provide you with ships, then it only makes sense to use both our strengths."

"Yeah," O'Neill agreed. "Though preparing an actual invasion on a planetary scale will take a long time. You don't just send an army off without sufficient training and exercises."

"And the political implications…" Daniel shook his head. "Not to mention the problems with coordinating all the different militaries."

Right. Adora nodded - she knew all about that. The scattered nature of the Alliance forces had almost driven her to despair a few times. She didn't miss the Horde, of course, but she did miss their organisation, at times at least. And their discipline.

"Well, the heavy lifting will be done by the fleet. Orbital bombardment will deal with most defences. We can sort out the details when we reach Earth," Catra said. "But your planet needs to be protected at all costs - it'll be a prime target for the Goa'uld once it turns into a staging area."

Adora nodded again. That meant a full fleet - Second or Third. Second was more, well, reasonable. They wouldn't cause much trouble with the Tau'ri. The Third were fanatics. But if they left for Earth and the Third stayed guarding Etheria and the rest of the sector, would the clones behave without Adora being present? Would they even stay? She clenched her teeth. As much as she disliked it, they would have to take the Third with them to Earth.

"Yes, we are - the Goa'uld really don't like us. And we have six billion civilians to protect," O'Neill added. "Poor helpless civilians."

Glimmer frowned at him. "Yes."

O'Neill smiled, and it looked… Well, not quite like Catra's smile when she thought she had pulled one over Adora and her friends, but she was sure it wasn't an innocent smile. "We will protect your planet anyway," she said. "Just as we will protect everyone else."

Catra and Glimmer were frowning at her, but Adora ignored that. This was the right thing to do. As she had said before.

"Thank you!" Daniel beamed at her. "And we will do our best to help you."

"Speaking for SG-1," O'Neill added. "We cannot speak for our country, much less the Earth."

Which was really inconvenient, Adora found. On the other hand, without princesses and magic, it made sense that the Tau'ri wouldn't send their leaders to the front. It probably made governing easier as well, especially with the frontlines being on another planet or in space.

"Yes, yes, we know that," Catra replied with a snort. "You're just good soldiers doing your duty." Why was she being so… sarcastic?

O'Neill smirked in return. "Well, we've been known to act independently in the field, as any good soldier would."

Ah. Adora sighed.

"But we really cannot speak for Earth," Daniel said.

"I am sure once the leaders of the Tau'ri are aware of the situation, they will do the right thing," Teal'c said. "Their history shows that they haven't shied away from going to war."

"Not forever, at least," O'Neill said.

"It's not a bad thing to hesitate to start a war," Daniel added.

"But you're already in a war," Catra objected. "I doubt that the Goa'uld will just stop if you don't want to go to war." She frowned. "Well, Plumeria did, but even they got the message after their kingdom almost fell."

Right. That hadn't been Adora's finest hour. Trying to figure out how to heal the forest… She felt embarrassed just remembering it. But that was in the past. They had a new war to fight now. A war on a scale that was even bigger than she had thought. And with much higher stakes.

She almost missed the time fighting the Horde on Etheria… No, Adora firmly thought as she glanced at Catra standing next to her, reaching out to grab her hand, I don't miss that at all.

Catra looked surprised when Adora gently squeezed her hand but didn't pull away. Instead, she smiled at her with that happy expression Adora loved to see on her face.

"Can you hand me the calibrated crystal, Bow?"

"Sure! Here it is."

"Thanks! What do the readings say?"

"Everything nominal."

"Good!"

Samantha Carter felt a little out of her depth, and she didn't like it. She was used to not understanding alien technology - at least at first - but she wasn't used to being the odd one out when working on said technology. Both Entrapta and Bow were familiar with this, but while Sam could easily identify parts of the scanner they were building - and help with assembling those - she was at a loss when it came to magic crystals. "How do you calibrate the crystals?"

"You tune them to the right frequency."

That sounded logical. And not very helpful. "And how do you do that?"

"I'll show you," Bow told her, stepping over to the table on the side of the workshop. "You have to align the crystals with each other and the master crystal, then run a pulse through them. Ah, a pulse from this crystal."

"Are you using magic?"

"Yes. Crystals generally use magic. You could use electricity, but it's not nearly as efficient - the Horde did that for some of their gear," Bow explained.

"And who creates the crystals?"

"Most are mined and then refined," Bow replied. "Or tuned." He shrugged. "It's not exactly complicated, but it can take a while."

"But that only gets you blanks. You have to program them with the right matrix to do anything, and that's where the fun starts!" Entrapta cut in.

"Like… ROMs?" Samatha asked.

"ROMs?"

Sam explained the process.

"Oh! Yes, something like that! We generally use crystals for that. I have to try out your method!" Entrapta beamed at her, and Sam couldn't help but smile back. The woman's enthusiasm was contagious.

"I think the crystals are ready now," Bow pointed out.

"They are? Good! Now let's connect them to the power source and run some tests."

That, too, made sense. Sam could easily track how those two components worked together. And the sensor itself was not much of a secret, either. She didn't recognise a few components, but she had a rough idea about how to replace them with more familiar technology. Maybe a few bits from Goa'uld gear… She cocked her head. If you could substitute electricity for magic and she understood the program that the circuits used, she could duplicate this. Probably. It would certainly be fun to try - a planetary scale Naquadah detector would be very useful. Though… "How much less efficient is electricity compared to magic?"

"Oh, it depends. If you just want to shoot lasers or lightning, it's decent. But if you want to use some of the more flexible parts of magic, like we are doing here, it's generally a few orders of magnitudes less efficient. And you need a way to duplicate the principle of similarity."

"The principle of similarity?" Sam asked.

"Yes. Like attracts like," Entrapta said. "We will be using a sample of Naquadah as the primer to look for more. Magic is quite useful for such feats."

That sounded as if the scanner wouldn't just look for certain characteristics of Naquadah using data from prior scans, but that the presence of actual Naquadah affected and enhanced the process. That was… quite fascinating.

Sam smiled and looked at the scanner, then frowned. "And where is the sample?"

"Oh, we still need to get it. You've got it in your blood."

Sam froze. "You want my blood?"

"Only a small sample - this is a scanner, after all," Entrapta told her. "It's powerful enough to only need traces of the element."

"About this much," Bow explained with a rueful smile, holding up a small transparent vial.

Well, she could spare that much blood. And the Colonel wasn't here to object - or, worse, make fun of her. And she really wanted to see how this worked. So Sam nodded and rolled up her sleeve. "Alright."

They extracted the blood using an old fashioned syringe. Not quite a bloodletting, but Janet had better instruments in the med bay back home.

"Done!" Entrapta smiled widely. "Now, let's put it in the scanner and see what we get!"

"Yes!" Sam smiled back.

Entrapta put the trace - stored in a crystal vial, or so it seemed - into the scanner, then took a step back. "Ready!"

"You're running it here?" Sam asked.

"Yes. Being inside Darla shouldn't affect it. We might get more range if we placed it on the hull, but it already covers the planet."

That was impressive. And a little worrying. "The scanner won't affect us?"

"Oh, no - it's perfectly harmless. Even for people with Naquadah in their blood."

That was reassuring - and concerning. What if something else could affect her blood? Something to keep in mind.

"Booting up! Running diagnostics! Oh, it's working beautifully! No tendency to explode at all!"

Sam hoped that the princess was joking. But Bow grimaced as well. Damn.

"Ok! Here we go!" Entrapta announced, her hair pushing several buttons at once.

And Sam heard a humming noise that quickly grew louder and louder. Just as she was about to plug her ears, the humming stopped.

And Entrpata frowned. "Oh. There's no concentrated Naquadah on the planet other than the Stargate."

Sam pressed her lips together. This wasn't good. Not at all. They were now completely reliant on their hosts to get back to Earth. And on technology that she didn't understand. Not yet.

"We need to check the moons," Entrapta said. "There's no second Naquadah concentration on Etheria, which means there is no D.H.D. there, but they could've moved it to a moon for, ah, safety reasons."

"To keep people from using the Stargate?" Catra asked. As O'Neill and his group had shown, people could still arrive on the planet, but it would keep them from leaving. Not exactly a good way to stop an invasion.

"Or because they wanted to analyse the device without risking parts of Etheria," Entrapta replied, mimicking an explosion with her hands.

That was… Catra hissed at the idea.

"Naquadah isn't actually that dangerous," Carter cut in. "Unless you deliberately wanted to prepare a Naquadah-enhanced bomb, you won't get it to explode with sufficient force to be a threat to a planet."

That didn't sound as reassuring as the woman likely meant it to be, Catra knew.

"So… you just lose a building, not the kingdom?" Adora asked.

"Captain Carter hasn't lost any buildings due to Naquadah. So far," O'Neill said. "I can't speak for her labs, though."

"Sir!" The woman looked embarrassed, and O'Neill was laughing.

Catra snorted as well and ignored the looks from Glimmer and Bow. "Well, we can just quickly scan the moons for the thing."

"And tell Third Fleet to not come too close to avoid interfering with the scanning," Adora added.

"Actually, more ships shouldn't affect the process at all," Entrapta pointed out.

"But there's no need to risk it, right?" Glimmer asked.

"Well… if there is interference, that would be valuable data, and we would need to test it anyway to see if we can deploy the scanner in a fleet - say, to detect other ships," Entrapta explained.

That was a good point. Better find out now if that would work than in the middle of a battle. But if they had to listen to Priest again...

"Uh…" Daniel raised his hand.

"Yes?" Entrapta turned to him.

"There are no other concentrations of Naquadah on the planet?" Daniel asked.

"Not any which would be big enough to be the device you want," she told him.

"But… didn't the First Ones use this technology?" he asked.

"Apparently not." Entrapta shrugged. "Most of them used magic as a base for their technology. It would've been nifty to find all their ruins, though."

"Carter?"

"It seems that this culture didn't rely on Naquadah, except for the Stargates, Sir," Carter told O'Neill. "I'm sorry for not mentioning it sooner. They might have developed a new technology base."

"A magical civilisation? Huh." The man shook his head.

"Or they limited Naquadah to military uses," Daniel said. "If there was a shortage of the metal, that would be a logical measure."

And you didn't risk civilians blowing you up by accident.

Carter nodded in agreement. "That is a possibility as well."

"Or they moved it to a moon!" Entrapta blurted out. "We should explore them!"

"Right. Let's go scan the moons," Adora said. "If there are some First Ones bases on them, it's better to find out now."

"Before some doomsday device gets activated," Catra added.

The way their guests nodded in agreement wasn't very reassuring, in Catra's opinion.

"Alright! Darla, fly us closer to... the closest moon!" Entrapta used her hair to carry their scanner and sat down in her favourite seat - the 'science seat', as she called it. "It's time to discover what the moons are hiding from us!"

"She's as eager as she was about space," Glimmer muttered as Darla turned and started to fly towards the closest moon.

Catra shrugged in return. Entrapta was a little quirky, but there were not many other people Catra would trust with her life. And most were in this ship.

They quickly reached orbit around the moon, and Entrapta, Bow and Carter got busy with the scanner. Catra clenched her teeth as the infernal humming noise started up again. "First improvement will be to get rid of the noise," she muttered. She wasn't going to suffer every time they scanned something.

Adora didn't say anything. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Catra and pulled close to place a quick kiss on the top of Catra's head.

"Dummy," Catra whispered. That didn't help with the noise at all. But it helped with her mood. She ran her hands over Adora's back. She could still feel, or thought so, where she had scratched her once. She tensed a little at the memory, but Adora held her firm - she knew Catra, after all.

Daniel cleared his throat next to them. "So, uh…"

Before Catra had to snap at the man, the scanner's noise ended, and Entrapta spoke up: "There's a large amount of Naquadah on the moon!"

"Carter?" O'Neill asked as Catra pulled away from Adora.

"Several concentrations, Sir. A few are large enough to possibly be a D.H.D. All in close proximity to each other."

O'Neill smiled at that. "Great. Let's go take a look."

Catra bit her lower lip - this was a logical suggestion, not an attempt to order them around. At least it should be.

"Yes!" Entrapta cheered. "Let's suit up.! Oh, I didn't make you customised spacesuits yet! You'll have to make do with standardised ones, sorry!"

"That's OK," O'Neill said. "We're not picky."

"Alright! Follow me, then!"! Entrapta led them to the locker room. Catra trailed behind them - she wasn't needed on the bridge to land Darla, and someone had to keep an eye on Entrapta with those people.

Catra knew better than most how trusting her friend was.

The First Moon of Enchantment, July 11th, 1998 (Earth Time)

"So, you come here often?" Jack O'Neill asked as they entered what looked like a locker room. A space locker room. "To the moon, I mean," he added after a moment and a glare from Carter and Daniel.

"Oh, not really," Entrapta replied. "There was so much to do, we haven't had time to explore any of the moons. We just checked if there were clones stranded here or crashed ships. Or any ruins - but we didn't do any deep scans or exploration. Which is why we must have missed this base; it's underground."

They hadn't even explored the moons? Another clue that these people hadn't had spaceships for long. And now they had entire fleets at their beck and call. Fleets manned by the brainwashed former soldiers of a genocidal conqueror. Great.

"And, of course, there's the fact that, from a certain point of view, the moons belong to Glimmer," Entrapta went on.

"They belong to her?" Daniel asked.

"Well, she's the Queen of Bright Moon - and the Moonstone, her runestone, is connected to the moons," Entrapta explained. "If they are in alignment, certain magic processes are strengthened or rendered more efficient."

Jack clenched his teeth and suppressed the urge to sigh. Magic influenced by moons? Astrologians would have a field day back on Earth if they heard this. And some idiot congressman would likely want horoscopes to be used by the government.

"How does that work?" Carter asked. "Is it tied to radiation?"

"Kinda," Entrapta replied. "They influence the magic field, of sorts."

"Yes. Attacking Bright Moon when all three Moons of Enchantment were in the sky would've been suicide for the Horde," Catra added.

"In myth, our moon was often said to have magical properties as well, such as influencing werewolves," Daniel pointed out. "And many people believe that it influences humans - Tau'Ri."

Superstitious folks did. The only thing the moon influenced was visibility at night and the tides. But that was without magic. If their hosts 'brought back' magic to Earth, would that change? Would they have trouble with actual werewolves?

"So… Here are our spare suits!" Entrapta pushed a button, and a panel slid back, revealing a rack of suits in various sizes. None of them looked as bulky as the suits Jack had seen at NASA. "They're not customised, as I told you before, but I can easily adapt them to your body type. Though yours might still be a little large," she added with a smile to Teal'c. "You're too big for a standard size and too small for a Scorpia size."

Teal'c nodded back. "I shall manage."

"Good!" Entrapta pulled the suits out and handed them over. "Now… just put them on as you would put on normal clothes. They'll seal automatically!"

That sounded very advanced. Jack wasn't an astronaut, but he knew that suiting up was a complicated process. But the suit he was holding did look pretty simple.

Carter looked impressed, too, as she studied her suit. "Do they use magic?"

"What? No. I didn't want them to have to rely on magic."

"You made them?" Carter asked.

"Yes! I used the pattern stored in Darla but adapted it to my own technology!" Entrapta beamed at them. "Do you like them?"

"They're very advanced," Carter told her. "I wish we had such suits at NASA."

"I can get you the pattern," Entrapta said. "It's really easy to construct."

Jack had his doubts, but he was sure the scientists at Stargate Command could construct such suits. Good work, Carter, he silently praised her.

The ship suddenly shook a little - they must have landed.

"Oh, you've missed the landing! I'm sorry - I got carried away a little," Entrapta said.

"No worry," Jack told her with a smile. "Once you've seen one landing, you've seen them all," he lied.

"Well, they're actually very different - but now, let's get you suited up!"

Suiting up was actually as easy as the princess had claimed.

"We do need such suits," Carter exclaimed. "If they can handle the environment on the moon's surface..."

"Why wouldn't they?" Entrapta replied. "That's what they are made for - that and space!"

"They work," Catra told them - her suit had a tail and cat ears on the helmet, Jack noted. They took their customisation seriously here. "We've tested them on various planets."

That was reassuring. Jack wasn't an expert, but he knew that constructing suits that could handle Earth's moon had been a challenge. He closed up his own suit and moved around a little. The suit barely hindered his movements.

"Are you ready? Oh!" Glimmer entered, followed by the others. Not Adora, though, Jack noted. Was she staying back?

"I got carried away with explaining things," Entratpa said. "Sorry!"

"No worry," Bow told her. "We've got time."

They grabbed their own suits - which were quite distinctly customised, down to different boots and patterns. Entrapta's suit had openings for her hair in her helmet - god only knew how that was sealed. Probably magic. Even though she'd said that she didn't use magic in the suits, the hair was supposedly magical. And Bow's suit had a… not a boob window, an abs window? Jack stared.

"Excuse me… Is there a reason for this?" Daniel asked. "Is showing your stomach of cultural significance?"

"What?" Bow blinked and put his helmet down again. "No. I just like it."

Catra snorted. "You should have seen his suit for the Princess Prom."

"And Catra's!" Entrapta added. Catra smirked in return. Was that related to being Adora's consort, as the clone leader had called her?

A question for another time - now they were about to explore a moon base. On a magical moon. Jack wasn't looking forward to writing a report about this.

Adora had second thoughts about keeping her transformation a secret from their guests. Sure, not revealing to them right away that She-Ra wasn't her normal form was just being cautious. Until they knew if they could trust the Tau'ri, it was better not to let them know that they could attack Adora instead of She-Ra if they planned an ambush. But their guests didn't seem to be evil people. They hadn't shown any sign of planning to betray or attack them. O'Neill was snarky and grumpy, but in a kind of nice way. And he reminded her of Catra, in some way. Carter was fascinated by technology like Entrapta. And Daniel… Well, he gave the impression of an older Bow. Earnest, well-meaning and a little naive. She couldn't imagine him planning to betray her. Nor Teal'c, though she couldn't say much about the tall Jaffa - he didn't say much, after all.

And, she added in her mind as she approached the airlock at the back of Darla, if keeping her secret was still necessary, as Glimmer had argued, then what about the fact that She-Ra could survive in the emptiness of space without a suit? Hiding your capabilities from potential enemies was smart, wasn't it? Unless you wanted to scare them into leaving you alone, but judging by their guests' reactions, not a lot scared them if they were ready to fight the Goa'uld.

She sighed, and Melog turned their head towards her, growling a question.

"Just thinking," she told them. She wasn't as good as Catra at understanding their friend, but she could guess some meanings.

"How do you seal the hair?"

That was Carter's voice.

"The helmet has adjustable seals," Entrapta replied.

"But how do they work? The pressure difference would be so significant..."

"It's a sort of semi-permeable force shield," Entrapta replied. "Only keyed to hair."

"Keyed to hair?"

"Yes? It's for my hair, after all."

They turned the corner and found the others already inside the airlock.

"You're not coming with us?" O'Neill asked.

"Yes, I am," Adora told him, stepping inside the lock as well.

"But where's your… Let me guess, magic?" O'Neill shook his head with a snort.

"Magic," Catra told him as she moved to Adora's side. "Same for Melog."

"Well, Melog being a half-energy life form means they can survive in the vacuum of space even without magic," Entrapta explained as the door closed. Adora's using magic to form a sort of magic space suit around her body.

As the air started to be sucked out of the lock, Adora took a deep breath - she knew she didn't have to, but she couldn't help it. Then she started to glow as her magic reacted.

"That's going to be hard for a stealth mission," O'Neill commented.

"She-Ra and stealth don't mix well," Catra said with a snort.

Adora pouted at her lover. She could be sneaky! She had proven that in the war. A few times, at least.

But before she could remind Catra of that - and of the fact that they had foiled a lot of her plans - the outer door opened, and they were facing the moon's surface.

"Whee!" Entrapta was the first out of the door, jumping off the ramp as it extended and throwing up a small cloud of dust as she landed on both feet.

"Don't get your hair all dusty!" Glimmer told her. "I'm not going to clean out the shower again!"

"You clean the shower?" Daniel asked.

"Not this time!" Glimmer replied. "Not when it's all her fault."

"Well, that's going to shock the Queen of England," O'Neill commented. "Royalty, cleaning up after herself…"

"Actually, Queen Elizabeth served in the British Army - the Women's Auxiliary Territory Service - as a mechanic during World War II," Daniel said. "She did menial tasks as far as we know."

"Don't destroy my hard-earned American preconceptions, Daniel," O'Neill replied.

"Jack! Those would be prejudices!"

"Really?"

"Yes, as I pointed out…" Daniel trailed off to glare at his friend, and Adora heard O'Neill laugh as they walked down the ramp. She smiled as well - that sounded familiar to them.

"So, Queen Elizabeth is one of your princesses?" Glimmer asked.

"And she's a mechanic?" Entrapta added, looking up from her recorder.

"She's the Queen of England, a nation allied with ours," Daniel replied. "But I do not think she has worked as a mechanic since she took the throne. And since she was crowned as queen, she isn't a princess any more - at least not by our definition."

That sounded weird to Adora. Glimmer was a queen as well, but still a princess.

"Well, your definition is weird," Catra echoed Adora's thoughts. "Though without magic, your princesses probably don't have any powers."

"Exactly," Daniel replied. "It's a title, nothing more."

Adora looked around while Daniel explained about nobility on Earth. She couldn't see any threat around them, but it never hurt to be cautious.

Catra snorted next to her. "Nothing on the surface. The fun starts once we enter the base."

Right. Entering a First Ones base was always dangerous; Adora's ancestors hadn't been very careful with their weapons and other tools. They probably hadn't cared about a world they were sacrificing anyway, she thought.

She shook her head. This wasn't the time to dwell on that. Unless this base was related to the Heart of Etheria. The Moons of Enchantment did influence magic, after all.

"OK! The base is this way! Darla's seismic sensors indicate that there's a hollow space close to the surface right in this crater!" Entrapta announced.

"Let's go!" O'Neill said. "Before something goes wrong with the magic and you try to breathe vacuum."

"Sir!"

"Jack!"

"It's perfectly safe," Entrapta said.

Adora nodded. She-Ra had faced worse than the vacuum of space. Much worse.

"Yes, yes. Just let's go!"

"OK!" And Entrapta was off.