Chapter 78: The Intervention Part 3

Gate Area, PZ-921, January 12th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"Beta! Watch out! You've got a flood wave incoming!"

Jack O'Neill froze for a moment when he heard Catra's warning over the radio. "A flood wave?" They were near a lake, and…

Carter gasped and started typing quickly on her laptop. "The bomb that went off - it was in the lake! Sir, we've got a localised tsunami incoming!"

"What?" Daniel went over to look at her laptop as if he was an expert.

"What is a tsunami?" Scorpia asked, leaning forward to look upside down at Carter's screen. "Oh, that's a big flood wave. We heard about them in Force Captain orientation. Once. Or was that a briefing?"

"The bomb went off at the other end of the lake, underwater, and caused an underwater landslide - and the form of the lake is creating a tsunami aimed at this base!" Carter spoke in that tense, clipped tone she only used when they were in mortal danger. "And this structure won't resist the power of the wave. We need to get to higher ground - but the wave will hit the shore here in four and a half minutes!"

The area around them was pretty flat.

Carter kept talking. "We can dial out and evacuate through the gate, provided we can get it upright and stabilised! We just…"

Jack cut her off and thumbed his radio. "Beta shuttle, lift off and land at the entrance to the gate building - we need to be gone in three minutes." He almost felt bad upon seeing Carter blink and then blush. For all her brilliance, sometimes she missed the easy solution. "Everyone else - head to the entrance right fucking now for evac! We've got a tsunami incoming!" He could only hope none of the marines was trying to be stupid. They should know how deadly a tsunami was.

"Good call!" Scorpia nodded. "So… do we take the gate with us?"

Right. Jack had to remember that she could carry the damn gate as if it was a heavy backpack or something. "Take the D.H.D. with you," he said, already moving towards the doors. The gate would survive this. The D.H.D. was more fragile.

"Alright!"

Jack reached the broken door and saw that the marines in the building were already rushing towards the entrance. "Squad leaders, check no one's left behind!" he yelled. Probably not necessary, but better safe than sorry. "Move!"

"I'm moving!"

He turned and blinked. Scorpia had misunderstood him - she was carrying both the gate and the D.H.D.! He opened his mouth to tell her to drop the gate, then stopped. Despite the weight, she was moving at a decent clip.

"Three minutes left, sir!" Carter was behind the princess, followed by Daniel and Teal'c.

"Noted," Jack replied. "Move!" He clenched his teeth. They could make the entrance easily - but would the shuttle be in time?

But as he approached the main gate, he could hear the shuttle's engines - they were coming in to land.

He still reached the landing spot before the shuttle touched down, but they had the ramp lowered already - and kept hovering instead of actually landing.

"Go! Go! Go!" the Marine Lieutenant shouted. He looked like he wanted to push and carry his men up the ramp.

Jack knew the feeling.

"Two minutes!"

Jack thought he could already hear the roaring water. But that might just be his imagination.

It shouldn't take too long to get inside the damn shuttle, but two marines were wounded and had to be carried.

"One minute!"

Still plenty of time, Jack told himself. "Get inside!" he told his team.

Daniel jogged past him up the ramp, followed by Carter. Teal'c didn't move.

Jack knew better than to urge his friend on. He watched as Scorpia, grunting, stepped onto the ramp - and winced at the sound the metal made under the weight of the woman and the gate. But the Ancients made solid shuttles. Solid anything.

"Watch out - don't get crushed - pull your legs back!" Scorpia yelled, panting, as she stumbled up the ramp.

"Move! Give her some space!" Jack heard the Lieutenant yell.

"Sir!" Carter stood at the top of the ramp, next to the swaying Scorpia. "The wave's moving faster than predicted! It's already here!"

Too early. "And that's our cue!" Jack rushed up the ramp. "Let's go." Don't look back. Don't look back.

He looked back anyway, and his eyes widened. The wave was taller than the walls of the base. And coming in way too fast.

"Lift off!" he yelled as Teal'c passed him, both of them barely inside the shuttle. "Pull the ramp in!" He barely heard himself over the noise, but the pilot didn't need to understand him anyway.

The shuttle started to fly up just as the wall facing the lake was crushed by the wave, concrete and metal parts flung around by the water, and Jack had to grip a handlebar to keep his balance when it suddenly turned.

They were still too low - the wave was too fast. Too high. It would crush them in a…

The engines screamed, and Jack was almost thrown out of the shuttle, only the closing door stopping him - painfully - when the shuttle boosted away, a moment before the water reached the gate building - and swallowed it.

"I'm sorry, sir!" Carter said as he got up, "My projections were faulty - I didn't account for the narrowing width of the lake, which sped up the wave, and so…"

He shook his head. "Stop it, Carter. You did your best. No one's perfect. And we've made it out alive."

At literally the last second, but they'd made it.

"So… can I put this down now?"

Oh, for… He turned around and winced. Scorpia was still holding the Stargate - and her strength was the only thing keeping the gate from crushing a few marines.

Damn.

In Orbit above PZ-921, January 12th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"...and yes, everyone got out - we didn't lose anyone to the wave. Over."

"Thank you." Adora sighed with relief. Jack sounded a bit annoyed for having to repeat himself, but she had to make sure that no one had died in the flood. Losing people in the fighting was bad enough, but this?

She looked at the screen with the feed from Jack's shuttle - beta shuttle - again and winced. She had only seen pictures of the gate area on the planet, not the best pictures at that, and holo-projections, but even so, the scene she saw on the video was shocking. The entire base was pretty much gone, replaced by a stretch of murky water. What buildings hadn't been swept away by the waves were buried in the mud. Only the gate building was still standing. Somewhat at least. It looked as if the front had collapsed, or maybe the foundations had given way there - that part was also under water, while the roof of the rest was still visible. It must be full of mud inside… "Do you need assistance? Over."

"Not at the moment. We achieved our objective. Over."

Next to her, Catra chuckled. "Technically, he's correct - since Scorpia carried the gate and the D.H.D. into the shuttle before everything was buried in water, we have taken control of the planet's gate."

She was right, but the entire base was gone. That hadn't been planned. Of course, they were planning to create a new base underground anyway, but…

"Remind me not to needle Mermista as much as I used to," Catra commented, leaning a bit forward and cocking her head.

Against her will, Adora snorted. "I don't think Mermista could do this," she said.

"I bet I could make her mad enough to manage it," Catra retorted as their shuttle stopped its approach and hovered next to the other shuttle.

Adora wasn't sure about that but she couldn't rule it out. "Everyone got out," she said. That was one of the good things about this.

Catra nodded. "And the enemy didn't get a call for help off."

"As far as we know," Adora reminded her. She pushed a button on the console, and the image on the screen changed, showing buildings on solid ground, built at the foot of a cliffside, a number of them smoking. Bots were walking around between the buildings, and the ground was covered with bodies. The feed was from a bot as well - Adora could tell from the angle of the view.

Catra whistled. "Wow, that must have been bloodier than I expected."

Adora once more was forced to agree. Glimmer's report had been on the short side - 'The mining complex is under our control. No active enemy forces remain in the area'. "The Jaffa must have fought to the death." Horde troops - Hordak's Horde troops - would have retreated or broken long before… before dying like this.

And they hadn't died alone - she could see at least two bodies wearing Earth uniforms on the ground. And there were three wrecked bots. Had the Jaffa managed to focus enough staff weapons on the bots to overload the shields? Or had they used heavy weapons?

"Looks like Entrapta needs to work on adapting Emily's shields for all the bots," Catra said. "How's the third site going? Did they manage to clear the mines?"

Adora winced. The third force, led by a French officer, had been forced to land a bit further away due to the terrain, and by the time they had overrun the base there, the Jaffa had fallen back into the mines. And digging them out of there… "We might have to reinforce them."

"You mean, you want to go and do it yourself," Catra corrected her.

Adora blushed a little. "I can shrug off their weapon fire," she pointed out.

"You can't shrug off the mines collapsing and the mountain falling on you," Catra retorted. "And if they're willing to flood their base, they're willing to blow up their mines. Send bots into the mines."

"The mine shafts aren't large enough for the bots," Adora told her.

"Then send smaller bots." Catra stared at her.

"We don't have combat-rated bots that small," Adora said. Her lover knew that - Catra just didn't want her to enter the mines. Adora pressed her lips together. There were slaves inside the mines. Hostages. They couldn't starve the Jaffa out. Or bury them inside the mines. They had to go in and save the hostages. And she was the best person for this mission.

Catra kept glaring at her for a few more seconds before she sighed. "Alright. But we'll do it smartly. With the Tok'ra tunnelling tech, after scanning for their explosives."

Adora nodded.

"Your Divine Highness!" Priest's voice filled the shuttle's bridge. "We have destroyed both enemy forces in space! Although I am sad to report that even when their ships were crippled, the enemy crews refused to surrender and preferred to destroy their own ships to deny them to us. Our secondary objective failed. I take full responsibility, Your Divine Highness, and await your judgement!"

Adora closed her eyes and sighed. That was… She shook her head. "You did well, Priest. I am proud of your task force."

Next to her, Catra snorted again. "He's very hard on himself."

"Thank you, Your Divine Highness. But we could have done better. I await your divine insight."

Oh, no! Adora really didn't want to debrief Priest right now. "Ah, I am sorry, but… we have a… situation on the planet that requires my personal attention. Secure the system and await further orders!"

"Your wish is our holy command, Your Divine Highness!"

"Only you would prefer to assault a suicidal enemy holed up in a mine ready to collapse over debriefing your subordinate," Catra commented, shaking her head.

Adora didn't answer. Instead, she called up the feed from the second mining complex and started looking for the best way to deal with that.

Near the Gate Area, PZ-921, January 12th, 1999 (Earth Time)

Samantha Carter took a - subtle - sigh of relief when Scorpia finished manhandling the Stargate out of the shuttle and put it down on the ground - facedown. Not just because of the danger that the gate would shift during flight and crush the troops near it, but mainly because if anyone had dialled in, the vortex forming would have wrecked the craft - the shuttle simply wasn't big enough to survive a gate activation.

"Whew. Adora makes it look so easy." Scorpia wiped some sweat from her brow, then flexed her pincers. "I guess I need to work out more," she added with a chuckle.

Sam couldn't tell if the princess was joking or not - Scorpia had a self-deprecating streak, at least in Sam's opinion. Maybe low self-esteem, but Sam didn't know her well enough to tell. So she shrugged. "She's She-Ra." That covered a lot, in her experience.

"Right." Scorpia grinned. "But we did well." Then she looked at what used to be the base housing the gate, and her grin vanished.

Sam understood the feeling. And shared it. They were a good distance away, on the closest hill in the area, and so had a good view of it. The base was simply gone. Wiped away and buried in water and mud. Irradiated water and mud, at that, according to Sam's sensors. It was relatively weak as far as radiation went, but still a concern for long-term exposure.

"Cleaning this up will take some time," she commented. And a lot of effort. "And it has to be done quickly because when it dries up, the winds will carry radioactive dust to untouched regions."

"Yeah." Scorpia nodded. "It might be easiest to unlock the planet's magic and have Perfuma grow some plants over the area."

"That would help contain the radioactivity," Sam agreed. The right plants would keep the soil together and stop it from becoming a radioactive version of the Kansas dustbowl.

"We still have to dispose of the plants once they sucked up the radiation, of course," Scorpia went on, "but we've got some experience with that in my kingdom." She chuckled again. "The Horde wasn't very environmental-friendly, so we had to clean up a few dumps like this. Maybe worse. Perfuma helped so much..."

Sam ignored the slight twinge of envy that she felt after seeing the sappy smile that had appeared on Scorpia's face and made a mental note to check if Perfuma actually could create plants that 'sucked up' radioactivity. If she could, that would be a game changer for several regions on Earth - and the war, of course. "This has to wait until we've secured the planet, though," she said.

"Yeah. But we've wiped out the space forces, and all that's left on the ground are the Jaffa holed up in that mine. And scattered guards and the patrols caught too far away to join the battle, I guess." Scorpia shrugged. "And with the gate secured, we pretty much control the planet."

"There might be more such bombs hidden on the planet," Sam pointed out. "Entrapta's running a thorough scan from orbit." They should have done that from the start, but… 'You can ask me for anything you like, except time', as Napoleon had put it. Still, Sam wasn't looking forward to the debriefing of the mission. The things she had missed…

She glanced at the Colonel, who had dropped all pretence of not being in charge and was ordering the troops around to secure the hill until the troop transports arrived. He would claim it was his fault, but Sam should have spotted the bomb before it went off. Should have expected something like this.

Although… Why did they put a bomb into the lake? It was a very convoluted way to self-destruct. Was it meant to wipe out an attacker and leave the base mostly intact? That wouldn't really work out; the mud would harden quickly, and clearing it out would probably take as long as building a new base. Although the Stargate and D.H.D. would survive a flood. A bomb powerful enough to wipe out a base would destroy the D.H.D. and might even damage the Stargate.

Sam wasn't convinced, though. The whole plan went against what they knew of Heru'ur. They'd have to interrogate the prisoners about this. Too bad they hadn't caught the Jaffa giving the signal for the bomb.

Though with their magic scanner, the chances of the Jaffa managing to hide from the Alliance were very, very low. They could track their symbionts and most technology from orbit. There would be no guerilla war on the planet. Not unless the local slaves turned out to be a lot more loyal to the Goa'uld than expected.

She noticed the Colonel walking over to them, Daniel and Teal'c in tow, and straightened.

"So, who's up to play tunnel rat?" he asked with a wry grin when he reached them. "I hear we have some fascinating caves to explore. Or to make, I guess."

Sam nodded. "Yes, sir." Despite her blunder, she still was the best choice to handle the technological side of the assault on the mine. Except for the tunnelling part; that part would be handled by the Tok'ra, of course.

"I'm up for it!" Scorpia flexed her pincers. "Let's finish this so we can focus on helping the people!"

To Sam's surprise, the Colonel didn't make a cynical joke about it. Then again, he had just been checking on the casualties of their force - both the wounded and the dead. Even though it wasn't his fault that they had died, he would be blaming himself for it anyway.

Secondary Mining Site, PZ-921, January 12th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"This wouldn't work if that were a Naquadah mine - well, it would not work as well. We probably could calibrate the sensor to ignore Naquadah ore, unrefined Naquadah, but it would be quite the challenge since Goa'uld larvae have so little Naquadah in them, so it would still be a little tricky to discern them from the background. But since this isn't a Naquadah mine, we can track all Jaffa in the mine shafts! So, that's a good thing, kinda - even though having a Naquadah mine would have been great."

Catra nodded at Entrapta's explanation. Of course, if this world had Naquadah deposits, it would have been defended with far more forces, and Apophis would have picked an easier target, so it was all hypothetical anyway. What mattered was that they knew where the Jaffa holed up in the mine shafts were.

She studied the holoprojection in front of her. It showed a maze of twisting tunnels where they followed the ore veins. And a smattering of red dots - the Jaffa guards who had made it into the mines. They were concentrated at several choke points. An obvious deployment, but that didn't make it any less of a pain to deal with - if you had to attack them from the front. But there were also a number of Jaffa on the lowest levels. "Did you detect any explosives?" she asked.

"Yes! A lot, actually - but since this is a mine, that's kinda expected, right?" Entrapta turned to Emily and nodded, and the projection floating in front of the bot changed, orange dots appearing at various locations. A lot of them. And spread out. "That's not ideal," she commented. There were three concentrations of explosives, but the rest of the stuff was scattered all over the tunnels.

"Yes," Adora agreed. "It would be easier if they had concentrated all the explosives in one spot."

Catra also wondered if the Jaffa took the explosives from the central magazine outside when they were falling back or if they had another magazine in the mine. But that was an academic question right now.

"What about their hostages?" Glimmer asked. "If we can get them out, the Jaffa can blow themselves up as much as they want."

"That would ruin the mine!" General Soissant objected.

"It's a single mine on a backwater planet," O'Neill retorted. "And we already control the main mining site on the planet."

The one Glimmer and Bow had secured, while the French-led fore had failed their objective at the secondary site. Something Catra wasn't tempted to bring up.

"The hostages are our priority," Adora spoke up. "Where are they?"

"They're gathered at the deepest part of the mine," Sam explained as blue dots lit up on the projection.

"That allows them to kill them all if we launch a frontal assault," Soissant said.

"Or they just moved them there to get them out of the way," O'Neill pointed out. "They might not see them as hostages - the Goa'uld wouldn't care about the lives of slaves, and the Jaffa might not be aware that we aren't working for a rival System Lord."

That was a good point. But it also meant that the Jaffa might kill the slaves in case this turned into a siege. Or to deny them to the enemy. "Well, that makes it more urgent to get them," Catra said.

"We can reach that, but it will take a while," Martouf told them. "We could also dig tunnels to all the other locations, but we only have two tunnelling devices. So we would have to dig the tunnels one after another, leaving a thin wall to break through when we are ready."

"And if the Jaffa detect a tunnel, they'll know what's up and start taking countermeasures," Catra said. "And they'll expect more tunnels."

"Do they have the sensors or scanners to detect that?" Glimmer asked.

"They might hear us tunnelling," Soissant suggested. "Even if they didn't have any sensors."

"And they might have sensors to detect cave-ins," Bow added.

"We didn't detect any such technology," Entrapta said.

"The snakes don't really care much about their slaves." O'Neill shrugged. "Though they would care about cave-ins holding up the mining."

"Anyway, even if we focus on the hostages and write off the mine, the explosives could bring down the mountain on us while we're getting the hostages out. So, we need to deal with the explosives and the hostages," Catra summed up. In the Horde, that kind of mission would have been assigned to expendable troops. Or a budding rival you wanted to get rid of.

"So, three main sites for the explosives, one for the hostages. And we have to hope they don't detect us before we can surprise them." Glimmer shook her head. "It might be better to return magic to the planet - I could teleport inside, dropping off soldiers. Perfuma could use plants to take control of a shaft. Frosta could freeze the explosives. But even with magic, I don't think we can reliably take control of all the explosives without the Jaffa managing to blow up at least a few of them - they aren't stupid and will be ready for an attack."

"We can jam electronic detonators," Sam said. "That would only leave manual detonators."

Which wasn't really reassuring. Catra was sure that Heru'ur's guards were willing to die if it took their enemies with them.

Adora leaned forward, frowning at the projection, then turned to Entrapta and Sam. "Can you build a shield generator that can protect the hostages as long as we need to get them all out?"

"Uh…" Entrapta scrunched her nose.

"I doubt it," Sam replied. "Not if the Jaffa have wired the mine to collapse. If the tunnel is safe, maybe." She looked at Martouf.

"We can't guarantee that," he said. "If the explosives have enough force to cause a localised earthquake…" He trailed off with a grimace.

So, that was a bust as well. Damn. Catra clenched her teeth. No matter what, it looked like they would have to take a huge risk. And that meant Adora would take the risk.

"I have an idea," Bow spoke up with a hesitant smile. "But we need Glimmer's magic for it - and those spy bots."

Oh? Catra cocked her head to the side.

"You have an idea?" Glimmer asked, smiling at him.

"Yes." He nodded and leaned forward. "So… we have samples of the explosives they use in the mine. All we need is…"

Jack O'Neill peered at the bottom of the hole in front of him, checking if the explosive was prepared correctly. It was - Jack had done it himself, after all. Then he moved back to the trenches, well, back to the reinforced laboratory-slash-observation post, as Entrapta was calling it. "It's ready."

"Goody!" Entrapta beamed at him. "Sabotage Bot Three, go!"

One of the spy bots gathered in the room beeped and left. Jack could see it outside, moving towards the hole in the ground.

"It should work," Bow said. "The lab trials were successful."

"Nothing beats a test under field conditions," Catra said. "Except for actual field testing, of course. And Kyle."

Adora chuckled at that, but none of the others did, Jack noticed. An obvious in-joke.

"Three's approaching the test site," Carter reported. On the screen next to her, they could see the bot's point of view as it moved into the hole, then sprayed the explosive down with the solution Bow, Carter and Entrapta had cooked up in less time than it had taken the ground forces of the task force to disembark and set up forward bases.

"Good work, Three! Now get to safety!" Entrapta said.

The bot's feed changed as it climbed out of the hole.

As soon as it was clear, Carter spoke up: "Attempting to detonate the explosives." She pushed a button, and the scene changed to show the feed from the camera they had installed next to the explosives. "Detonating." She flicked a switch, and Jack saw a small spark on the screen.

"Detonator was activated, but the main charge remained inert," Carter reported. "Test successful."

"Impressive as always, Captain," Jack commented with a smile as Entrapta and Bow cheered.

"It was Bow's work, sir," she immediately deflected. "He already had the base solution for a fire-suppressant arrow; we merely adapted it to the specific explosive, produced sufficient quantities of it and modified spy bots to deploy it."

And she honestly thought that whipping all this up in a few hours wasn't impressive. Jack chuckled - and caught himself before he patted her shoulder. Moving to parade rest, he nodded. "Good work anyway, Captain. I'll go check up on the rest of the force."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll come with you!" Adora said, joining him as he approached the door.

"Can't leave the generals unsupervised for too long." Catra, as expected, followed her, as did Glimmer.

"You never know what they get up to," Jack agreed.

They walked over to the centre of the field base that was springing up around them - well, the part of it that was above ground, at least. Which was mostly composed of fortifications, a heavily guarded entrance to the bunker being grown below them, and storage buildings that would turn into decoys as soon as enough underground storage room was created.

And tanks and other heavy weapons, of course. "The cats are out in force," Jack commented as they passed a platoon of Leopard 2s placed to cover the road leading to the landing site of the transports. Two Gepards were behind them, covering the skies. They weren't really necessary, given the sensors and guns on the transports near them, but Jack approved of covering the bases. They were at war, after all.

"Hm?" Catra cocked her head at him.

"The Germans name their tanks after big cats," he explained.

"They've got taste," Catra replied with a grin.

Glimmer snorted at that.

The guard troops at the entrance here were a mix of French and German soldiers, straightening as they approached. The officer in charge even saluted them - which you shouldn't be doing in the field. Then again, Adora was the Supreme Commander of the Alliance and quite distinctive in her outfit.

Inside, they found the familiar chaos of a headquarter in the middle of a huge exercise - or an invasion. Officers and noncoms coming and going every which way, people talking into dozens of radios and phones, people staring at maps and screens… well, also holoprojections in this case. And the walls were distinctively alien-looking.

But it was still a NATO standard field headquarters at its core. "Seen one, seen them all," Jack muttered under his breath as they approached the generals' corner.

The generals, too, straightened when they spotted Adora. "Supreme Commander," General Duchemin greeted her. "Commander Glimmer," he added with a nod at the queen.

"Generals." Adora nodded back. "The tests were successful. All that's left before we can assault the mines is the tunnelling equipment and magic."

Jack caught the German general wincing a little but he couldn't tell whether it was because of the magic or the fact that Adora had made it clear before that she would be leading the assault. Duchemin, though, smiled. "Very good. We are proceeding on schedule and will soon commence mopping up operations - motorised recon units are already shadowing the remaining enemy forces." He pointed at the screen behind them, where red symbols showed the locations of the remaining Jaffa thanks to Entrapta and Carter's magic scanner.

"Good. What about the civilians?" Adora asked.

This time, the French officer grimaced a bit. "Our soldiers are keeping away from them. They seem wary of our presence, and we have focused on deploying our force and dealing with the remaining military threats before further pursuing this."

"They shouldn't be a factor for the operation," the German general added. "Besides, Dr Jackson has volunteered to take the lead on handling the civilian population and is currently talking to the local village."

Jack blinked, then suppressed a sigh. He should have expected this, but he had been so busy with handling things until the invasion force had landed, then handing over command to the generals and following the preparations for the assault on the mines.

Adora, though, beamed. "They're in good hands, then!"

"Yeah, right," Jack added, trying to sound sincere. His friend was great with people. Most of the time. Sometimes, though, he tended to mess up. Jack hoped this wasn't one of those times.

Outside the Former Gate Area, PZ-921, January 12th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"Alright. We're ready."

Adora took a deep breath as she heard Glimmer over the communicator. The bots were ready. Glimmer was ready. It was time. They couldn't really wait much longer, anyway - the longer they waited, the greater the risk that the Jaffa would do something drastic. As Jack had pointed out, they might not even be aware that the slaves were hostages as far as the Alliance was concerned. If they decided that they couldn't afford to feed them…

She took a step forward, away from the shuttle waiting behind her, and stared at the huge field of mud in front of her.

"Don't worry," Catra said next to her. "Even if you mess up, you can't actually make things worse here."

Adora slowly nodded, though she could make things worse if she made a mistake. Or lost control. The power of magic returning… She almost shuddered at the memory. But this was the best plan they had come up with. Much safer than trying to use the magic to deal with the Jaffa in the mine. If she made a mistake there…

"You won't mess up," Catra told her. Full of trust. Full of love.

Adora clenched her teeth and forced her doubts away. She couldn't dwell on that. Wouldn't. She was She-Ra. She had the duty to save people. And she would.

She raised her sword and closed her eyes. Focused. She felt the power. The magic. Reached out. Connected.

She gasped as the magic of the planet filled her. It wasn't the same as Earth's magic, but still somehow like it. So much power! Trying to flow through her, like water trying to get around a dam. And she…

Gritting her teeth, she cut the pattern holding the magic back. And shuddered with relief as the pressure lessened - the magic was returning to the world.

But she still was filled with power. She felt as if the magic would burst through her skin any moment. And if she didn't focus, didn't control this…

She pointed her sword at the muddy field below her. Focused. Thought. Imagined. The mud. The water. The radiation contaminating, poisoning both.

Eyes blazing, she moved her sword from one side to the other, a beam of light reaching out, sweeping over the area.

She barely heard Catra whistle next to her as she directed the magic into the water. Into the mud. Into the very earth. Cleansing. Healing. Changing.

When the pressure, the power from the planet's magic, was gone, she opened her eyes and took another deep breath, shuddering slightly.

The radioactive muck covering the area was gone. As were the ruins of the Goa'uld base. Replaced by vast fields filled with plants ready to be harvested. Wheat. Corn. Lentils. There were orchards full of trees with ripe fruits on them. Apples. Olives. Oranges. Rows upon rows of vegetables. As far as the eye could reach.

Catra snorted. "You know, if Perfuma was the envious sort, this would make her mad."

Adora turned to look at her lover. "She didn't get mad at the space plant."

Catra grinned, flashing her teeth. "I know. That's why I said if she was the envious sort." She reached over and patted Adora's back. "Well done!"

Adora nodded.

"Of course," Catra went on, "if any of the locals here saw that, they'd worship you as a goddess of fertility."

Adora smiled. "That's why we were doing this here." There were no settlements near the former base. The planet's population, except for the Jaffa, had been concentrated at the mining sites and the farming villages feeding the miners. And any Jaffa left behind had died in the flood.

No, she wouldn't be worshipped as a goddess just for returning magic to the planet and putting the spillover magic to use. "Let's get back to the mine," she said. "We've got people to save."

Catra nodded. "And enemies to defeat."

Secondary Mining Site, PZ-921, January 12th, 1999 (Earth Time)

Everyone was ready when they returned to the mining site. Glimmer met them at the landing pad. "There you are!"

Adora smiled at her. Glimmer seemed to be bursting with energy.

"Bet you teleported a few times just for the heck of it," Catra said with a grin.

Glimmer frowned at her, but she was blushing just a little. "It would have been irresponsible not to test it before we start."

"Sure, sure." Catra folded her hands behind her head as she stepped down the ramp.

Adora nodded at Glimmer with a smile. She understood her friend - it must be terrible not to be able to use the power you had grown up with. Adora herself hadn't grown up with magic powers, but she remembered the time she had lost her sword and hadn't been able to turn into She-Ra, back in the war. She had felt terrible. Weak. Useless. A failure. Glimmer was so strong to be able to bear that whenever she travelled in space - or visited planets without magic!

They walked over to the area where the force for the mission had been gathered. Dozens of spy bots, fading in and out of view as their stealth systems engaged. Soldiers with stun weapons, in case the slaves were too cowed or indoctrinated to let themselves be saved. Medics.

And Adora's friends - Bow, Entrapta, Scorpia, Jack, Sam and Teal'c. No Daniel - he was busy with the local people, or so she had been told.

"Hey! Done with turning the ruins into a space plant?" Jack grinned.

Adora rolled her eyes. "Everything worked as planned," she told him. And he had known she hadn't been planning to create another space plant. She turned to look at Sam and Entrapta. "Any changes?"

"No. They haven't moved from their positions, except for a few swapping positions," Sam reported.

Adora nodded. "Good. Let's go then."

"Let's teleport!" Glimmer corrected her with a grin. She turned to look at the holoprojection in front of Emily.

This was tricky, Adora knew that. Glimmer had never been inside the mines. And as good as Entrapta and Sam's scanner was, it couldn't fully replace seeing the actual location. But Glimmer was very experienced with her power, and the holoprojection was detailed enough and to scale so she could estimate the distances. It would be safe enough for Glimmer.

At least, that was what she had told Adora. Of course, Glimmer wouldn't lie - not about this - and Bow didn't seem worried, or not more worried than would be normal.

Adora still worried, of course. Teleporting into an unknown location full of enemies and explosives was dangerous. And Martouf was doing their best, but the tunnel couldn't really get close to the mines until the explosives were dealt with.

Glimmer nodded to herself, then took a deep breath. "Alright. I've got this." She turned to the bots. "Who's first?"

A few of them beeped, one warbled, then two skittered over to her, their stealth coating flashing briefly.

"Trust your sensors!" Entrapta told them.

"OK. Now, this might be a bit disorienting…" Glimmer reached out to grab a leg of both bots, closed her eyes - and disappeared with the usual popping sound and sparkles.

Adora looked at the holoprojection. Three new, green dots appeared. Two split off and started moving. And the third…

Glimmer reappeared with a wide grin. "Next!"

Two more bots moved toward her. Glimmer grabbed them and teleported away again.

A minute later, a dozen bots had been transported. And Glimmer looked a little winded.

Catra shook her head. "Bit out of shape, huh?"

Glimmer glared at her. "Teleporting into new locations is not as easy as you think it is."

Catra shrugged. "As you say."

But Glimmer straightened. "Let's go down the tunnel so we're ready."

They moved to the small bunker they had erected to hide the tunnel entrance - they would have to clean that up afterwards, Adora reminded herself - and then began their descent. Sam and Entrapta stayed behind, updating them on the bots' progress.

"...Five and Six have reached their targets… Good bots! That's one stash neutralised! And Seven has gotten to that tiny stash at the air shaft! Yes!" Entrapta cheered.

"No movement of the Tok'kals," Sam added. That meant the grenades the Jaffa carried.

The enemy had half a dozen of those, of the explosive variant, but they were spread out - and one of them, or even two, wouldn't be able to collapse a tunnel, much less the mine. But if they were gathered together… Well, as long as they were used as grenades, their main danger would be when used against people. Such as hostages.

"And that's the last one!" Entrapta announced as they reached the end of Martouf's tunnel. "All explosives have been neutralised! Good work, bots! And Bow!"

Bow smiled, looking relieved - even though no one would have blamed him if anything had gone wrong.

"Enlarging the tunnel to connect to the hostages," Martouf announced.

Adora watched the tunnel grow in front of her. It was impressive how smooth it was - the earth and stone seemed to meld into walls. Smooth but slow. No, that was unfair - it was moving quite quickly, for a tunnel. But slowly for an attack. It would take several minutes to reach the part of the mines with the hostages. Minutes in which anything could happen. The Jaffa could decide to kill the hostages. Or…

"Oops! Seven was detected!" Entrpata called out over the communicator.

Or they could spot a bot. Adora clenched her teeth, then looked at Glimmer. "Get me inside!"

"And me!" Catra moved to her side.

Glimmer didn't hesitate and grabbed both of them.

A moment later, they reappeared in a different tunnel - inside the mines. "The hostages are this way!" Glimmer whispered, pointing down the tunnel illuminated by Adora's glowing sword before she disappeared again.

Adora started running, Catra right behind her. She had to duck a bit in spots - the tunnels were narrow and twisted as they followed the ore veins. But people were counting on her, and she wouldn't let them down.

"Two Jaffa ahead of you!" Sam announced over the communicator.

Behind Adora, Catra hissed.

Adora gritted her teeth and sped up. She rounded the next corner and ploughed straight into a guard, slamming them into the rough wall behind them. She followed up with a blow to the head that took the helmet off and knocked the Jaffa out - or killed them. Adora didn't stop to check but whirled around, sword rising…

…and saw Catra withdraw her claws from the bleeding ruin of the other Jaffa's throat as he slumped over.

Nodding, Adora continued to run down the tunnel.

"Two more - no, three, they're gathering at the choke point," Sam told them.

"Got it!"

Staff blasts greeted them, but Adora struck them with her blade and charged through the explosions. A swing of her sword cut the closest Jaffa in half. Another screamed: "Goa'uld!" right before she cut him down as well.

"Goa'uGH!"

The third also died screaming, disembowelled by Catra's claws.

They raced on.

"They've tried to detonate the explosives!" Sam reported a few seconds later.

So soon? Why? Adora asked herself. But she had almost reached the prisoners. Just a bit further.

"They keep yelling 'Goa'uld'," Catra told her as they dashed down the tunnel. "They must think you're a Goa'uld."

"Oh." That was…Was that why they were trying to blow the mines? To kill a Go'auld?

Dim light and more screams greeted her before she found an answer. Scared screams - they had reached the hostages!

Adora lifted her sword above her head. "Do not fear! We're here to save you!" she told them. "We will get you to the surface, to your families! A tunnel will open here soon!"

"It doesn't look as if they believe you," Catra commented as the people shied away from them.

Adora kept smiling at them. How could she make them trust her? Oh! There was one holding his arm, grimacing. He must have been hurt. Perfect! She pointed her sword at him. She could…

…terrify him, she realised when the people started screaming, many falling to their knees and bowing. Pleading.

"I am healing you!" she snapped - and sent magic power at the man.

He yelped when the magic reached him, then broke off, looking stunned.

"You're healed," Adora told him.

He hesitantly touched his arm, then started to move it, a shy, hesitant smile appearing on his face.

The people started whispering, no longer shying away from her. Yes!

Then everyone knelt, their foreheads touching the ground.

No!

Catra snorted behind her. "Good work, idiot."

"At least they trust us now," Adora shot back. And the tunnel would reach them soon. So…

"Oh! The Goa'uld at the main shaft are… they're dropping their weapons!" Entrapta told them over the communicator.

Were they surrendering? Adora started to smile.

Then Entrapta went on. "They're manipulating their weapons - the power fluctuations… but…"

"They're overloading the power cells!" Sam cut in.

What? That meant…

"They're blowing up!"

Adora didn't hear the explosion, but she thought she felt the earth tremble. But that was all. Whew.

"The main shaft is collapsing!" Sam sounded terse over the communicator.

And then the earth was definitely shaking.