Chapter 133: Tense Negotiations Part 1

Underground Base, Euronda, December 16th, 1999 (Earth Time)

Yes! Tralan had dropped the detonator. Adora beamed, relieved - he had seen reason! They could save this work without further deaths!

Jack was moving towards the D.H.D., and Catra had already snatched up the remote detonator and was handing it over to Entrapta, but Adora walked to the sobbing Tralan and crouched down to gently pat his shoulder. "We'll save your people," she promised.

"From themselves as well," Catra muttered before joining Jack in removing explosives from the D.H.D.

"Uh… speaking of saving people…"

Adora turned to look at Bow.

He grimaced. "We need to stop that fire. Or contain it."

"Yes!" Entrapta chimed in. "The scanner shows it's spreading on this level - and if it reaches this room, we won't be able to move in supplies or evacuate anyone. Not unless they're fire-proof."

"And if the defence shield goes down, the bunker will likely be bombed by the Eurondan Alliance," Sam added. "The fire's already covering a third of this level. Although no essential areas have been touched yet, the air quality is dropping - the filters must be straining."

Adora heard Tralan gasp. "No!"

She shook her head. "Alright. We have to stop the fire from spreading any further."

"And the rest of the Eurondans from shooting at us," Catra added.

Right. Tralan wasn't their leader. And Alar was still stunned.

"We've got enough explosives here to put out an oil well fire," Jack commented. "Just saying."

Tralan gasped again, and Adora frowned at Jack. Sometimes, like now, his jokes were a bit disturbing. At least she hoped that he was joking. "No explosives," she said. "We'll get Mermista. And Frosta."

"Oh! Good idea!" Entrapta nodded. "I thought about modifying some of my bots to shoot fire suppressants, but that would probably have taken too long."

"That still doesn't solve the problem with everyone else shooting at us," Jack said.

"Glimmer, please open a Stargate and get Mermista and Frosta," Adora said, rising. "We'll deal with the Eurondans in the meantime."

Glimmer opened her mouth, and Adora half-expected her to say that she was needed here, but after a moment, her friend nodded. "Right." She turned to Sam and Entrapta. "Dial to the forward base."

Adora was tempted to tell them to dial straight to Etheria - that would be faster; they still had to fetch Mermista and Frosta to the Stargate - but she knew the procedure. They wouldn't expose Etheria's address like that.

While the Stargate started dialling, Adora walked back to the gate room's door. Catra joined her.

"I can smell the smoke through the mask," she said. "We don't have much time left."

Adora pressed her lips together and lifted her mask for a quick check - the air was getting worse indeed. They would have to contain the fire somehow, and quickly. But they couldn't do that with the Eurondans shooting at them. Or, they could, but it would make everything more difficult and cause more deaths.

She couldn't see anyone in the hallway. Were they already fighting the fire? That would make sense - they couldn't stand up to Adora and her friends, and the fire was a much more dangerous threat. But the Eurondans hadn't struck her as very sensible. Not at all, actually - they set fire to their own bunker, after poisoning the entire planet, and both times to defeat an enemy? That was suicidally stupid!

Well, it was time to talk some sense into them. "Can you tap into their communications?" Adora asked, looking back at Entrapta. The Stargate was collapsing - Glimmer and Bow had just left.

"Can we? We already did!" Entrapta smiled. "Though they aren't saying anything interesting. It's mostly calls for help and complaints about cowardice."

"Alright. I need to talk to their leader. Their new leader," Adora said.

"Whoever that is," Catra said, looking down the hallway. "And we need to ensure that they don't set this room on fire as well."

"Isa, Campbell - secure the checkpoint!" Jack snapped behind them. "Lenkova, secure the explosives. Carter, plug those air vents or something!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Yes, General!"

"Yes, sir."

That was handled. Adora smiled and grabbed her communicator. She cleared her throat, then switched to the channel already highlighted by Entrapta. "This is She-Ra calling the leader currently in charge of the Eurondans. We have control of this planet's Stargate. The fire you set hasn't hurt any of us, nor Alar, which we took prisoner. But it's spreading and will soon reach critical parts of your installation. We want to save you before it's too late, but we can't do that with you fighting us."

Well, they probably could, but it was better for everyone if the Eurondans stopped fighting right now.

"How did you get on this channel?" a young voice asked.

"Laren! That's not the point!" another voice, slightly older-sounding, added. "And don't give them any information!"

Adora sighed. "This is She-Ra. I want to talk with your leader. If we don't do something soon, you're doomed. There has been enough loss of life - and all of it on your side. Let's end this."

"Really?" Catra stared at her.

Adora winced. That probably hadn't been the best way to word this.

"Alright! This is like dealing with a lab fire. Just a lot bigger. And we don't have a lab with automated fire-fighting systems, nor do we have bots ready to step in. And we can't just evacuate the place and let the fire burn itself out. OK, it's not like dealing with a lab fire at all."

Despite the situation - and the correct, if not very encouraging summary - Samantha Carter had to smile at Entrapta's comment. "We might still have to evacuate the Eurondans, even if we manage to get the fire under control," she pointed out. "If the reactors or their command centre are lost to the flames, the Eurondan Alliance will likely exploit this and launch strikes on this facility." It might take them a while to realise it wasn't a trap, though Sam was pretty sure it wouldn't take them longer than it would take to replace a reactor - or a command centre. Although if they just had to build an adapter and could connect a mobile power generator… it depended on the power demands of the Eurondans.

"Also, we can't seal off the burning areas and pump the air out," Entrapta added. "Or they would have done that already. Their construction isn't very optimised. We had better bunkers in the Horde."

Sam was happy that the Eurondans hadn't thought to add such features - they would have used them against Sam's friends and herself. "Sealing off the burning sections will still help. It will at least slow down the fire," she said, "even if it might not stop it."

"OK! Let's do that then!"

"Once Adora gives the go-ahead," Sam said. Adora was still negotiating with the Eurondans. Judging by her grimace, things were not going too well. "The Eurondans have to agree to stop fighting us."

Entrapta blinked. "But why wouldn't they? If they keep fighting, they'll lose the facility. They can't fight us and the fire. It's not logical."

The Eurondans hadn't acted very logically at all, in Sam's opinion. 'Suicidal' would be a more precise term. Although Tralan - who was begging the others over the comm channel to stop fighting - showed that some of them retained a modicum of common sense. Or the ability to face facts, even if they had to be shoved in their faces by a magical princess breaking through your entire force. "I think they'll see reason," she told her friends. Eventually, at least. "So, what can we do to seal off the burning areas?"

"We can't use their defence field - since the fire is spreading, it must not repel heat," Entrapta said. "That's actually an interesting weakness, though you can probably compensate by adding enough insulation, space or just armour around your projector and shield generator to avoid it catching fire. Anyway! The doors should be able to withstand the flames for some time - long enough for Mermista and Frosta to arrive - but I think the air ducts are the problem."

"I concur." Though Adora and the others smashing their way through all doors, the fire hot on their heels, couldn't have helped. "And the ventilation system is likely supplying the fire with fresh oxygen. We need to cut that." Taking out the entire ventilation system would doom the facility, with the surface and atmosphere poisoned.

"Alright - let's check the air duct layout!" Entrapta pushed a few buttons, and a holographic projection of the facility - as far as they had managed to scan it - appeared between them and Adora, who was now gesturing wildly with one hand as she glared at the communicator in her other hand.

Sam focused on the air vents. "I see the problem," she said, wincing.

"Lots of redundancy," Entrapta said. "We'll have to seal off… these, these, and these air ducts. But only if we can manage that in the next ten minutes. Or this area there will be lost as well."

Sam nodded. "And if that area starts burning, this area could be cut off." She pointed at a large section of the floor below them.

"That's… the infirmary and part of their quarters," Entrapta said after checking their scanner's result.

Sam nodded. "We might have to evacuate them soon."

And if the fire took this area, then two of the stasis vaults would be in danger next.

"Let's prepare to seal the air ducts," Entrapta said. "I think we'll have to use armour plate for that. And sealing those will be tricky."

Sam winced again. "We could ferry special equipment from Earth," she said, "but that would take too long."

"Bow's trick arrows!" Entrapta perked up. "They could seal the most crucial air ducts!" She blinked. "But he left with Glimmer."

Sam wanted to curse. That would have been a solution. Although… "We won't have time to whip up a reagent from the available resources here," she said. "We'll have to go with the armour plate, but getting that seal tight enough will be difficult. Cutting armour plate so it fit an air duct and sealed it was nigh impossible on the fly. Or in time.

"The Eurondans should have some industrial glue," Entrapta said. "And I think I know how we can jam the armour plate into the ducts."

She was looking at Adora, Sam realised. Oh. Of course.

"...no, we don't have the time to wait until you can discuss this further with your officers! You don't have the time - the fire's spreading as we speak! And we can't stop it while you're still trying to fight us - we'd have to take your forces out first! So stop being stupid and agree to stop attacking us so we can save you!"

Catra shook her head as Adora tried again to make the Eurondans see reason. Her ears twitched as she listened to the Eurondan's answer.

"We can't trust you! You're as bad as the Breeders!"

"We aren't trying to kill you all!" Adora retorted. "We're trying to save you!"

Catra couldn't resist. She rose on the tips of her toes, bent towards the communicator Adora was holding and added: "And you started the war with the Eurondan Alliance."

"They were about to destroy us!"

Adora glared at her, of course.

Catra shrugged. "Can't let them forget that," she said. If those idiots would rather doom their entire people than stop the war and accept help, then it might probably be better to wipe out their leaders.

"That was then, this is now," Adora said through clenched teeth. "You're both fighting over a ruined world - and you're losing. We're offering you a way out of this."

"We won't abandon our home world! It's ours by right!"

Catra shook her head and sighed.

Adora rolled her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath to calm down. "No one says you have to abandon your world. I - we - can restore your world. But you need to stop fighting us."

"We're only defending ourselves!"

The man was technically correct, Catra had to admit - the Eurondans were holed up at several choke points and not attacking the gate room any more. They had learned that, at least.

"You are letting the fire spread. Soon, it will become uncontrollable," Adora said.

"We're fighting the fire."

Catra looked at Entrapta and Sam. "Is the fire still spreading?" she asked. According to her nose, it was, but her friends had their magitech scanner.

"Uh… yes," Entrapta replied. "Although it slowed down a little for a while, it's spreading as fast as at the start again."

"Did you hear that?" Adora asked. Without waiting for an answer, she added: "Whatever you're doing is not enough. We're running out of time, so this is our last offer: Stop fighting us, withdraw your forces, or we'll have to take them out so we can save the rest of your people! We won't let your pride destroy your people!"

"If we have to destroy you to save you, we will," Catra heard Jack whisper under his breath and chuckled.

"Please, Kaltur. We cannot stand against them. We cannot hurt them. The longer we try, the worse we suffer," Tralan added on the comm.

"I won't listen to someone who got taken prisoner. Or worse."

Catra looked at Alar, who was still on the floor, stunned. "I guess that means their leader is now their former leader."

"This wouldn't happen if this were a kingdom," Adora muttered. Louder, she said: "Then ask your surviving troops, those who have faced us. You have no chance. The longer you refuse to accept that, the worse your situation will become - if you wait too long, you'll have to evacuate the entire facility. And not because of us but because it will be a burned-out husk!"

Catra sighed, shaking her head. "If they won't listen, we'll have to take out their troops." That might actually make it easier to stop the war. If the Eurondans had no forces left, they couldn't fight on. Though after listening to the negotiations, she wasn't sure if even that would be enough for the Eurondans or if they'd try to mobilise everyone else and send them out as cannon fodder or something. According to her research, a few Earth kingdoms had done that in past wars.

"Please," she heard Adora whisper with a grimace. She hated this, Catra knew.

Catra clenched her teeth. If they had to take the Eurondans out to save them, she'd personally take care of Kaltur. A leader who would rather sacrifice their people than their pride couldn't be tolerated.

Kaltur still hadn't answered. During the whole discussion, he had been quick to reply. Was this a good sign? She leaned closer, but her ears weren't picking up anything; they must have closed the channel.

Or they might want to leave them hanging to gain more time or something. Catra eyed the hallway leading to the 'frontline'. Were they preparing more traps? Even after their arson backfired like that?

"We're withdrawing our troops."

"Thank you!" Adora replied, smiling.

That meant they couldn't rely on help from the Eurondan troops to fight the fire. Catra didn't mind, though - she wouldn't trust them anyway.

"Alright! As soon as they have withdrawn, we'll move in," Adora told Kaltur.

"And after we have run a scan for traps," Catra added.

Once burned, twice shy or something like that.

Jack O'Neill couldn't help looking over his shoulder as he followed Adora, Catra, Carter and Entrapta to the evacuated area closest to the fire. He didn't trust the Eurondans. They might have agreed to stop the fighting and withdraw their troops from the area, but that didn't mean they had surrendered. Or agreed to make peace. It was a truce at best, in his opinion. And truces could be and were broken all the time, as soon as it was convenient for someone. Worse, Euronda wasn't Earth, where you needed at least an excuse to break a truce or you might be out of luck the next time you wanted a truce - and you might get some stern looks thrown your way by the United Nations, but that didn't really matter. The Eurondans had no reason to care for any supposed damage to their reputation. Their local enemies already hated them - attempted genocide tended to get that reaction - and the Alliance wasn't going to let them continue their war of extermination either.

So, as soon as the fire was contained, or looked contained, the Space Nazis would try to double-cross them. Maybe even earlier, if they had a death wish and decided that killing their enemies was more important than surviving; they certainly seemed to have thought so when they started the fire. Or they had been too arrogant or stupid to consider the consequences. That kind of fanaticism, arrogance and stupidity fit the Nazis perfectly.

"Please, save my people!"

Alar, dragged along by Teal'c, on the other hand, was now veering hard into playing the victim. Also something many Nazis had done.

"We're doing what we can," Adoa told him.

"And we'd already be done if you had stopped fighting us sooner," Catra added.

"That was Kaltur's ill-advised decision," Alar said. "There will be consequences for his shortsighted attempt to usurp my leadership."

Jack rolled his eyes. If Alar expected that the Alliance would put him in charge of the Eurondans so he could take revenge on his former underlings who had decided that he was an acceptable sacrifice, he would be disappointed. Probably - the Alliance might not intervene if Alar managed to get back into power since Kaltur had managed to thoroughly annoy even Adora, but the princesses weren't exactly fans of purges and bloody revenge.

"We have to focus on fighting the fire, not revenge," Adora told him.

"Of course!"

Jack rolled his eyes at Alar's toadying up. We should have left him back in the gate room with the others, he thought. But his knowledge of the bunker might be useful, and so they had dragged him along.

"And here's the storage room we need!" Entrapta announced. "We can get the armour plates here! And the glue we need as a sealant. It's too bad that you don't use this particular heat-resistant glue for everything - we would have more than enough to seal off all ducts!"

"It's an essential part for constructing new aero-fighters, and our supplies are limited, so we can't spare any of it for other tasks," Alar said.

They had been waging their world war on a shoestring budget, hadn't they? Jack thought.

"Well, you won't need more aero-fighters," Adora said as she grabbed a stack of armour plates. "That the right size?"

"Yes. Well, larger than we need, but that's better than too small," Entrapta replied.

"Adora can make everything fit," Catra added. "Brute force for the win."

Adora pouted at that. "Let's go. The fire's spreading as we talk."

"We should have enough time to get the planned fire barriers up," Carter said.

"Let's hurry anyway," Catra added. "I can smell the smoke growing worse through the mask."

They double-timed it out of the storage room, Adora leaving two cracks in the door as she manhandled the armour plates through it, and continued toward the fire.

"Are the Eurondans holding their positions?" Jack asked Carter as they approached their goal.

"Yes, sir. I am constantly tracking them," she told him.

"Good." Between her magic scanner and Catra's ears, they probably were safe enough to pull this off.

Jack would still be on his guard. It wasn't as if he had anything else to do here than watch out for his friends, anyway - he wasn't a firefighter. Nor could he lift a piece of armour plate over his head like Adora was doing.

"Good! Now bend it a little and push it in!" Entrapta told her. "Not too much, so it fits snugly."

Adora grunted a little as she bent the plate, then stuffed it into the air duct opening - without bothering to remove the grate there first. Jack winced at the sound of screeching metal and crumbling concrete-like material.

"Great! Now, let's seal it up!" Entrapta's hair tendrils wielded two glue dispensers and went to work. A few seconds later, they withdrew. "Done! Off to the next one - we've got all the air ducts we need to seal marked down."

"And then my people will be safe!" Alar said.

"Well, safe for the moment," Entrapta corrected him as they rushed out again. "Given enough time, the fire will spread anyway as the heat breaks down the glue - though I think your doors will fail first if our material analysis is correct. And it should be unless our scanners were malfunctioning, which I don't think they did."

"What?" Alar gasped and stumbled, Teal'c carrying him more than dragging him for a few steps. "But…"

"They will hold long enough for our friends to arrive and put out the fire," Carter told Alar as they entered the next room.

"Now be quiet, we're working," Catra added.

Alar fell silent. Following orders was another trait of Nazis, Jack reminded himself, though he couldn't tell yet if that was a good thing or not in this case.

"And here we are! On foreign shores, to save the day!" Sea Hawk raised his fist to the ceiling as soon as he had stepped through the portal.

"Ugh. It's not a shore - Glimmer told us explicitly that this base has no access to the ocean. Or any large body of water." Mermista scowled at him, then looked around.

"My dear Mermista! It's the principle of the thing - the symbolism!"

Adora felt relief filling her as Glimmer, Bow and Frosta followed the two down the ramp. Her friends had arrived just in time. Not that she had really doubted them, of course. "Hello!"

"Welcome to Euronda," Catra drawled behind her.

"Hello." Mermista nodded at them. She was carrying her trident. "Glimmer said you needed us urgently."

"Where is the fire?" Frosta cracked her knuckles.

"This way!" Entrapta's hair pointed towards the door. "And then all the way down the hallway. Oh, and you should wear masks - the air in the burning areas is really bad." She blinked. "But you need to wait until Adora restores magic to the planet, or you can't really do much."

"You haven't done it yet?" Frosta asked, then looked at her hands, flexing her fingers. Probably trying to use her power.

Adora shook her head. "You were told about the situation here?"

"Yes," Mermista said, frowning. "Those people here poisoned their entire world to kill everyone else because they wouldn't submit to their rule. And now they are not only losing the war they started but also in danger of dying to the fire they started to kill you." She rolled her eyes. "And we're going to save them anyway. Ugh."

She didn't mean it, Adora knew. Mermista was just a little… snarky about such things. She would do the right thing even if she complained about it. Adora was a little more concerned about Frosta. But only a little. Both were here, after all. Adora nodded. "Yes."

"Even if we have to crush them for that," Catra added with a smirk.

"Anyway," Adora went on. "Since we need to return magic to the planet and we also have to purge the poison, it'd be best to do that on the surface so I can, ah, use the magic surge for that, but the Eurondans aren't cooperating."

"They don't believe in magic," Entrapta added. "They think this is a ploy to discover their aero-fighter bays, even though we already know where those are thanks to our scans." She pouted. "We showed them the data, but they still didn't believe us."

"Charming fellows," Jack said. "They must be the life of any party."

"Anyway," Adora repeated herself. "So, we have to do it here." And she would have to channel the magic to the surface blindly.

"Just don't turn the bunker into a plant," Jack told her.

"Sir!"

"She's only done that once," Entrapta said. "So, it's not really likely."

"Don't give her ideas."

"Let her focus!"

Adora closed her eyes and raised her sword above her head. This was it. She had done this before. Just focus and release the magic. Reach out and do it. She could feel… there!

She concentrated on the familiar feeling of the blockage. Visualised it.

And cut it.

Once again, she felt the magic surge, into and through her, filling her with power. Urging her to release it uncontrollably, on a whim.

She gritted her teeth and fought the urge, even if she felt as if she was about to burst. She would use this power, not waste it! Heal this world.

At the mere thought of healing, the magic reacted, pushing against her, trying to reach out to the others in the room - in the bunkers, seeking wounds and sicknesses.

Once again, Adora held back, groaning with the effort. The pressure was growing stronger, straining her even more. Demanding to be released. But she had to heal the world, not the people here. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Above her, five hundred yards above her, was the surface. Poisoned. Dead. She couldn't see it, not directly, but she had seen the images on Entrapta's scanner.

She focused on those pictures. The memory of the wasteland above. Imagined the poison seeped into the soil. Drifting through the air. Polluting the world.

And poured magic into it. Through her sword. Through herself.

For a moment, it almost felt as if the magic was cheering as it flowed through her, surged upwards, pushing through metal, stone and earth to reach the surface, then bursting forth like a giant fountain, magic spreading through soil and air.

Purging. Healing. Restoring. Seeding.

Spreading.

On and on it went. Healing. Restoring. Purging. Seeding.

Adora trembled. Panted with the effort. Grunted with the strain and pain of channelling a world's magic far longer than she had before. Guiding it to cover the entire world. Heal the world. Restore it. Purge the poison. She couldn't give in. She couldn't release the power. Not before she was done. It was too important. She had to keep going. Let the magic spread. Cover the entire world.

But she felt the magic slipping from her control. Her focus weakening. Her body shaking.

And then she felt herself falling.

"Adora!"

Samantha Carter gasped when she heard Catra scream and saw Adora collapse. All that magic, all that power, channelled through her, through her dropping sword… Sam threw herself to the ground.

"Adora!"

"Take cover!"

"No!"

Sam clenched her teeth as the room was filled with blinding light and deafening noise, drowning out the screams from the others as She-Ra's magic ran out of control. She should have taken precautions - taken shelter somewhere else instead of staying at ground zero. She closed her eyes. They would all die. Or worse. And just because she had been too stupid to take basic precautions. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!

The noise cut off. She opened her eyes a tiny little bit, squinting. And wasn't blinded by magic.

"Anyone dead? Sound off if you're dead!"

The General! He was alive!

Sam raised her head and looked around. The General was just getting up.

"You idiot!" Catra was kneeling on the floor, Adora in her arms. "You idiot!"

"Whoa! Half my sensors are fried - Adora released so much magic, the sensors couldn't withstand it! We completely underestimated the stress from prolonged channelling of magic on that scale! Note to myself: Upgrade sensors!"

Entrapta was obviously fine, Sam noted.

"Ugh."

"What a harrowing Adventure!"

Mermista and Sea Hawk were fine as well.

Sam turned and checked the rest of the room. The Stargate was fine - as was the D.H.D. It looked like the magic surge had…

She blinked and brushed some hair from her face.

…completely vaporised the ceiling. And everything above it - she could see the sky above them. She-Ra's magic had created a huge shaft reaching the surface. No - a huge crater. Sam shivered. If that had happened with the sword pointed in their direction…

"Adora?" Glimmer asked.

"The idiot's still alive. But exhausted."

"Are you sure?" Bow looked concerned. Sam felt concerned as well.

"She hasn't transformed back. And I know how exhaustion looks on her," Catra replied.

"Oh."

Right. Sam nodded and didn't think about the implications. There were more important things to focus on.

"Oh! Let's check the surface! And the atmosphere!" Entrapta beamed.

"Check for poison," Glimmer added. "And keep your masks on!"

Sam quickly picked up her scanner and had to scroll through several notifications about damaged systems. The magic sensors were out. That was… not ideal, given that they were now exposed to the planet's atmosphere.

But the working sensors didn't detect any of the poison they had scanned before. "It seems that Adora managed to clean at least our immediate surroundings of the poison," she reported, turning to the General. Who was, she noted, staring at her. "Sir?"

"Carter? That haircut isn't regulation."

She froze for a moment, then reached up to her head. And then behind her back.

Her hair had grown. A lot. It now reached down to the small of her back.

"Oh! That must have been a side-effect of the magic used to restore the surface. Or maybe a stray strand when Adora fell unconscious," Entrapta said, cocking her head as she ran a scanner over Sam's head. "Can you manipulate it?"

"No," Sam replied.

"Too bad! We could've been hair buddies. Hair science lab buddies."

For a moment, Sam didn't know if she should be happy or disappointed. She settled for being happy.

"So… anyone else got some rapid hair growth? Or some additional limbs? Or got turned into a plant?" the General asked.

"Jack!"

"Just asking. Magic is unpredictable."

Sam clenched her teeth again and quickly and discreetly checked herself. She should have noticed any change to her body, but she had missed her hair growing, and with magic on such a scale, anything was possible. Relieved, she confirmed that she didn't have any appendages that she hadn't had her whole life.

But she would get a thorough medical scan as soon as they were back on Earth. Just to make sure she hadn't suffered any less obvious change.

"No change here… I think."

"Not here either."

"As far as I can tell, I am fine."

"I can scan you!"

"You've doomed us all!"

What? Sam turned. Alar was staring at the sky, pale and shaking. Tralan didn't look any better, Sam noted.

"Oh, don't worry - the air and ground above us are safe. I will need some larger sensors - probably hooked up to Emily, once she arrives - to check how much of the planet was affected, but I think we're pretty safe from contamination - Adora channelled the magic for a long time. Relatively, of course," Entrapta tried to reassure them.

"No! We're doomed!" Alar retorted, shaking his head - and crying. "The Breeders will not miss this - our base is completely open!"

"You still got your fancy defence field," the General said.

"No." Alar sank to his knees. "There were at least three projectors above us… the field won't be able to last like this. We're doomed!"

Right. The Eurondans were at war. A war fought in the air. And they just created the perfect bomb trap right at the planet's Stargate. While a fire was still raging inside the facility, drawing resources and threatening their military facilities.

"Oops!" the General said, and Sam winced.

Catra was going to kill Adora. After she made sure her love was alright. To exhaust herself like that, channelling enough magic to fry… a small fleet, probably. She glanced up at the sky visible above them. Clearly and easily visible thanks to the crater Adora's magic had created.

Then she looked at Adora. She was limp, laid across Catra's lap, eyes closed, mouth half-open, breathing steadily.

"You idiot," Catra whispered, pulling her closer for a quick, squeezing hug. As much of a squeezing hug as she could manage with Adora still being She-Ra. That, at least, was a good thing - if Adora had really hurt herself, she would have changed back, wouldn't she?

Catra didn't want to know. She just wanted her love to wake up so she could properly scream at her for being stupid.

"You've doomed us all!"

And she wanted to claw Alar's face off to stop him from whimpering and crying. But she would have to drop Adora for that. And her friends wouldn't like Catra killing a prisoner.

So she turned her head instead and spat: "Shut up! You aren't doomed. You just lost the war - but you were losing it anyway!" Really, as if he was the first leader of an evil horde finding themselves in the ruins of their headquarters with the enemy at their gates! Catra knew exactly how that felt, and she hadn't been such a whimpering mess when it had happened to her.

"But he's right - if the Eurondan Alliance forces know what they are doing, they'll spot this little hole quickly and will attempt to capitalise on the opportunity to finish off their enemy for good," Jack said. "And this is one nice bomb trap - even some old World War 2 bombers couldn't miss such a target."

"We're doomed!"

Someone shut him up!

"Although unless they already have a force close by in the air which they can reroute on the fly, we have some time left to fix this. Somehow," Jack went on.

"But… they surely will notice that the poison's gone? And attempt to investigate first?" Daniel said.

"They have been fighting for their lives for decades," Glimmer told him. "I don't think we can count on them stopping their attacks to investigate what they might assume was a reactor blowing up in this base or something. They won't want to give their enemies time to fix things."

Catra nodded. She wouldn't do that either in their place.

"And they might not even notice that the poison is gone," Entrapta added. "If their sensors are not significantly better than the Eurondans', and I don't think they are, or the air battle would probably have been won by them much earlier thanks to superior sensor ranges, they can't detect poison from afar - or its absence."

Right. Catra looked up. The fact that the crater was perfectly spherical might catch the attention of a scientist, but a military pilot would just see an opportunity. And speaking of the crater… She narrowed her eyes. "How stable are the crater walls?" she asked. If the walls started coming down, the Stargate - and anyone around it - would be buried under tons of stone and earth.

"Good question!" Entrapta beamed and looked at her tool. "Oh."

"The crater's surface wasn't hardened in any way, as far as we can tell," Sam reported.

"That means?" Jack asked.

"The top parts will start to crumble very soon, and the material sliding down into the crater might destabilise some of the material forming the lower parts, sir."

Uh-oh.

"Creating the world's worst landslide. Great." Jack shook his head.

"And it's starting!" Catra hissed - she could see the crater's surface moving. Dirt was starting to loosen and roll down the crater. Taking more dirt with it.

"That's… Something's moving inside the crater walls!" Sam exclaimed.

"What?"

"Yes - the entire wall is… on top of the surface as well," Entrapta confirmed. "That's… Oh."

Green spots appeared above them, rapidly spreading across the bare earth and stone walls.

Green plants, Cara realised. Growing through the walls, covering them. She almost checked if they had taken Perfuma with them - this looked like her going all out. But this was Adora's doing. Shaking her head, Catra smiled at her love. "Showing up the other princesses, huh?"

A clump of Earth hit the ground nearby, followed by another. And more, smaller specks fell down.

"Sir. While the plants are stabilising the crater walls, their rapid growth has shaken loose a lot of material," Sam said. "And it's all coming down."

"And She-Ra can't plug the hole because she's still out," Jack summed up. "Well, we…"

"...don't need She-Ra." Frosta raised her arms, and a pillar of ice rose in the middle of the room, covering the hole. Grinning smugly, she announced: "Problem solved!"

"Until it melts," Catra said, earning her a scowl.

"I'll just maintain it!"

"And, speaking of melting ice… don't we have a fire to fight?" Mermista said.

"Right." Glimmer nodded. "Follow me. Both of you."

Catra watched them leave. Between Frosta and Mermista, they should have the fire covered. And the ice here would hold long enough for the princess to get back and fix it. The sight of that had shut up Alar, too - the man was staring at the ice as if he had gone crazy. Crazier. Probably the straw to break his back after Adora's display. And the Eurondan Alliance might not have advanced sensors, but they wouldn't miss the plants growing in the crater. That should keep them from bombing it.

Should. Catra wasn't entirely sure she could trust anyone on this planet to have a little bit of common sense left. "We better contact the Eurondan Alliance," she said. "And quickly. We can't wait until Adora wakes up."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "Daniel? How do you feel about arranging a truce between two blood enemies?"

Daniel winced. "Ah… I'll see what I can do?"