The Emperor's New Bride

In Progress
Spoilers for The Curse, Meridian, Forsaken and The Cure.
Season 6

Disclaimers:

Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, the Sci-Fi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.

The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.

Author's Notes:

To be clear, this fic idea and, more generally, Osiris' quest to find a Jaffa replacement, pre-dates considerably the existence of the kull warriors in canon.

Acknowledgements:

My thanks to my overworked beta reader, who by now seems more familiar with my continuity than I do.

The Emperor's New Bride

P3X-888

With a howl of straining inertial drives, a sleek, black-hulled star-yacht dropped with stately grace towards the primordial waters of the Goa'uld homeworld. At the edges of the lake, Unas appeared from the treeline and roared at the craft in fury. On the peltac of the yacht Lord Osiris, right hand of the Supreme System Lord Anubis, watched the screens with a sneer on her face.

"Is it ready?" she asked her handmaiden.

"Yes, My Lord," Orisha confirmed. "But can we truly afford to lose so many symbiotes?"

"We can," Osiris confirmed, in a cold voice. "We must. Open the tank."

On the bottom of the yacht, a hatch opened, dropping nine Goa'uld symbiotes into the water. They were adults, able to survive almost indefinitely in a suitably mineralised fluid medium if that medium contained nothing hostile. These waters were perfectly suited to Goa'uld life, but they were already home to a form of life stronger and deadlier than the supple, sophisticated parasites.

Osiris watched with satisfaction as the water seethed. Sensing the weakness of their distant kin, the primitive, predatory Goa'uld who teemed in the rivers of this world closed in for the kill. Purple blood suffused the bubbling water.

"Excellent." Osiris pressed down a control crystal.

A set of rings dropped from the underside of the yacht and plunged into the frothing water. In a blaze of light, the transporter swept up the tattered remains of the nine evolved symbiotes, four thousand cubic feet of water and several dozen of the predators.

Osiris activated the intercom circuit. "Subdue and catalogue the prisoners," she ordered. "Place any drones with the others and report at once if I have my prize." She drummed her fingers impatiently on the console.

There was a loud clang as an Unas threw a rock at the yacht; the primitive projectile could not have harmed the ship, but it annoyed Osiris that her power and authority were not instantly recognised.

"Shall I fire a volley from the ventral turrets, My Lord?" Resh'ek asked.

"No," Osiris replied. "Power up the main cannons and route control to my console. I want to make a real impression on them."

The yacht turned slowly to face the howling Unas, lateral shafts melting open in the smooth lines of the prow as the weapon hatches were withdrawn. The vessel was the cutting edge of Goa'uld technology, equipped with a multitude of stealth features, shields that would resist even an Asgard cannon and enough firepower to level a small town. The primary plasma battery incinerated almost an acre of forest, turned the beach to glass and flashed a dozen Unas to ashes.

"Hah!" Osiris gave a satisfied cry. "That certainly hit the spot. Take us back to low orbit," she commanded. "I am going to check on my catch."

*

P7A-121

Amy Kawalsky lifted her hand and pushed a naked man away from her trestle table. "No!" she said firmly. The man backed obediently away. He watched Amy for a long moment, then lost interest and wondered off.

"How come they never bother you?" Amy asked her supervisor and team mate, Dr Lauren Collister.

"I don't know," Lauren admitted with a shrug. "Maybe you just smell more sluttish than me?"

Amy stuck her tongue out at Lauren. "Maybe you're too old," she suggested, dryly.

"Cheeky." Lauren grinned. "Anyway, they ignore almost everyone but you. They don't seem to consider humans in clothes to be the same species."

"Hmm." Amy stood up and walked across to the edge of the camp.

SG-11 had set up their tent on a rocky outcrop about fifteen-hundred yards from the Stargate. Below them, the Eloi wandered here and there in their own camp. They made no tents, but they gathered grass and the long, feathery leaves of the local palm trees to line their sleeping hollows, or retreated into the cave systems in the rocky outcrops when the weather turned bad. Most of the Eloi – Lauren had given them the name; they had none of their own – were foraging in the berry shrubs. A few were lying by the river, tickling trout from the water. Two of them lay together in the long, soft grass, but Amy swiftly turned her gaze from them.

"Did the results of the blood tests come back?" Amy asked.

"They did," Lauren acknowledged. "Genetic tests confirm the physiological assessment. Although they hail from a slightly divergent gene pool, the Eloi are genetically identical to us; well within a one-percent margin of modern human DNA anyway, which is as much as anyone can claim. They are, to all intents and purposes, Homo sapiens."

"So why no culture?" Amy asked, rhetorically. "Why no advanced thought? No sophisticated language? We know they've got the equipment for speech; some of them have even started to mimic us. Yet the most sophisticated communication they can manage is a detailed mime of: 'do you want to go for a roll in the long grass?'"

"I've asked for a specialist to come and check out their brain activity," Lauren said, "but I want them to bring Tok'ra equipment if possible."

Amy's eyes were fixed on the horizon. "Go on," she said, when Lauren paused.

"I doubt that the Eloi would much care for having wires and electrodes strapped their heads," Lauren explained, "but a Tok'ra biomonitor would hardly register with them. I thought that..."

Amy ignored her completely and walked back to the tents with an urgent stride.

"Amy?"

"Where's the Major?" Amy asked. "And Duck?" She ducked into her tent.

"They cycled up to the lake to look for ruins," Lauren replied. The team had brought bicycles to the planet to allow them to get around quickly without polluting the pristine environment. "Why? What's...?" She broke off as Amy emerged, carrying a sniper's rifle. "Amy?"

"Call them!" Amy snapped. "Get them back here and tell them to keep an eye out." She lay down on the edge of the outcrop and loaded the rifle.

"Keep an eye out for what?"

"Large predators," Amy replied, putting her eye to the scope. "Good God!"

"What is it?" Lauren demanded.

"Something like a tiger and something like a boar," Amy replied.

Lauren followed the barrel of the rifle and saw what Amy had spotted a few moments before; a large, black shape, stalking slowly towards the couple in the long grass.

"Amy..." Lauren began, but before she could offer a caution the rifle boomed.

The creature reared back and gave vent to a hideous roar. The Eloi looked up and turned towards the beast, but there was no fear in their pose. Amy fired again and again and the beast looked around in baffled frustration, unable to spot the thing that stung it so. After six more shots, it finally fell down, but its limbs continued to twitch.

Amy set down the rifle and picked up her P90. "I'm going down to check on it," she said.

"Be careful," Lauren warned.

"Always," Amy assured her. "Call the Major back," she repeated. "Then contact base camp and get a message to General Hammond. You saw how the Eloi reacted to that thing; it doesn't belong here."

"What do you mean?" Lauren asked.

Amy turned to face the academic. "You know what I mean," she said. "After all, you're way smarter than I am."

"Someone brought it here," Lauren agreed.

Amy nodded. "Someone who doesn't like us."

Lauren gave a sharp laugh. "Is there anyone who does?"

*

Jack O'Neill led his team through the Stargate; the Marines of SG-3 followed. The grasslands of P7A-121 stretched away in front of them, sun-kissed and peaceful.

Amy was waiting for them. "Colonel O'Neill," she said, saluting.

"Kawalsky," Jack replied. "Good to see you safe and well. Same goes for your team, I hope?"

"Yes, Sir," Amy assured him. "Major Patterson and Duck ran into a second beast on their way back and killed it. They're both unharmed, although I'm afraid that Duck's bicycle didn't make it."

"It shall be remembered," Jack assured her.

"I'm more worried by the mess that thing's teeth made of a high-strength, titanium bike frame than of Lieutenant Caldicott's sense of loss," Amy admitted.

"We've brought some scanning equipment and we'll set up a perimeter," Jack told her. "Once we're secure, we'll quarter the area and search sector-by-sector. If we don't find anything, we'll extend the search."

"Yes, Sir."

"You are sure about this?" Jack asked.

Amy stifled a sigh; this was the third time she had been asked the question, but it was not advisable to show impatience with a superior officer, even one so understanding as Jack O'Neill. "The Eloi had no fear of the beast," she explained. "None at all. It came within three feet of eating two of them and they just went right back to...what they'd been doing. Moreover, there's nothing but the Eloi for anything that size to eat and it would need to eat two or three of them a week; two of them would scarf down the whole tribe in a matter of months. Fecund they may be, but the Eloi'd never regenerate their numbers that fast, even if the beasts were transient. Unless there's an encroaching ice age to Gate-north, someone must have brought those things here and – without wishing to sound arrogant – I don't think they brought them to hunt the Eloi."

"A simple yes would have sufficed," Jack assured her.

Amy blushed. "Yes, Sir."

"We're going to beat the ground in pairs," Jack went on. "Carter will be setting up the scanning doohickey; as your team's fourth is a non-combatant, I need you to partner Jonas."

"We're calling Doggett a combatant now?" Amy asked.

"He can handle himself," Jack replied, coolly. "Keep an eye on him though. You know how enthused he can get."

"Yes, Sir," Amy agreed.

Jack grinned. "I haven't told him he'll be working with you," he added. "You want to break the news?"

"Yes, Sir," Amy sighed. "Did...Did you bring it?" she asked.

Jack nodded. "Jonas is carrying it, although I still think you're mad. Classy; but definitely nuts."

Amy grinned, and then dropped back along the line until she reached the Kelownan. He was, as usual, beaming. His smile was almost as wide as Amy's.

"First big game hunt?" Amy asked.

Jonas nodded, a little nervously. He had never completely recovered from his initial fear of Amy and still harboured suspicions that she might be unstable.

"Gimme gimme gimme," she urged.

Jonas swung a long, wrapped bundle from his shoulder and handed it to Amy. "Glad to get rid of the thing," he assured her, passing over a leather pouch.

Amy laughed. "That's because you didn't see that thing shrug off a brace of 7.62 rounds like I was throwing stones," she assured him, removing the wrappings. "I'm not checked out for a fifty-cal, but I've fired just about every kind of hunting rifle there is at the pigs down on Rancho Kawalsky, including one of these beauties."

"Isn't it a little excessive for a pig?" Jonas asked.

"You haven't seen the pigs they have in New Mexico: half-peccary, half-razorback, with a healthy dose of Alamogordo glow; like Godzilla with bristles. Besides," she added, letting the sunlight play along the twin barrels. "Isn't it just the coolest?"

Jonas sighed. "I pity anyone who's too close by when you fire the thing," he assured her.

Amy's grin became positively demonic.

"No way," Jonas said.

"Yes way. Come on, Doggett; let's hit the trail."

*

Jonas was starting to get tired of caves, especially caves that might turn out to contain a cosy pair of Eloi without any real warning.

"Eloi was Lauren's idea," Amy explained, "after Wells. I wanted to call them the Innocent; it's the kind of name these people always give themselves, if they can. The Major argued that their behaviour wasn't particularly innocent and my argument that they clearly don't have any sense of guilt was overruled. Of course, the Eloi weren't all that sexual either..."

"Can we talk about something else?" Jonas asked.

Amy grinned. "Has anyone ever told you that you're cute when you're prudish?" she asked.

"Louise has," Jonas confirmed.

"Of course. Well, don't worry about disturbing anyone in this next cave," she told him. "It's one of the sacred caverns."

Jonas shook his head. "How can it be sacred if the Eloi don't have a ritual culture?" he asked. "Please tell me SG-11 haven't established their own religion."

"It isn't quite sacred," Amy admitted, "but this land does appear to be taboo in some sense. They never come here. Also, they do have a sparse ritual life; they bury their dead and celebrate birth."

"Spawn," Jonas said.

"Same to you."

Jonas gave an indulgent sigh. "Animal tracks," he said. "And...other indications."

Amy knelt and examined the trail. "There's blood; drag marks, from something hauling in a kill. Not fresh, though. It could be the trail of one of the two we already killed, and the word is spoor, by the way."

"How far have we come from the camp?" Jonas asked.

"A few miles," Amy replied. "If the kill was an Eloi from our tribe then we would have spotted one missing. Duck's been giving them names and there are only about a hundred of them."

"Naming them?" Jonas asked. "Isn't that a little...presumptuous?"

Amy shrugged. "He says he isn't taking away their names, just giving us something to call them. If they have some secret names of their own, we can't – and wouldn't – take them away. Like cats."

"Cats?"

"Cats," Amy confirmed. "They have three names; so can people. Like you, Doggett."

"And thank you so much for that," Jonas groused. "But what would have been killed if not one of your Eloi?"

Amy's face grew sombre. "There's another tribe whose range is just the other side of these hills," she said.

"I suppose they must be in mourning tonight," Jonas noted.

Amy shook her head. "They don't mourn without a body. They don't have the imagination." She slipped her rifle into its scabbard and unslung the P90 from her chest.

"I thought you weren't putting your trust in anything but that...cannon," Jonas noted.

"Whatever the merits and flaws of the calibre, there's a limit to what magnitude of detonation I want to let off in a confined cave," Amy replied. "If we do run into a beast down there, I suggest we keep it at bay with small-arms fire until we can get clear. Unless of course it's asleep, in which case we just leave, quietly."

"Agreed," Jonas replied, eagerly.

"Slow and easy," Amy added. "And infra-red," she added, retrieving her night-vision goggles from her pouch.

Jonas nodded and dug in his own pack. The goggles were unfamiliar to him and the limited view was disorienting. Amy flipped a switch on the top and the view changed from green to grey.

Amy slipped a filter onto the lens of the flashlight on the rail of her P90. "Light-enhancement is good for starlit nights," she explained, "but underground there won't be anything. With these filters, we can see by infra-red. The filter blocks out all other wavelengths so our beams don't give us away. Maybe this thing can see infra-red, but it's a daylight hunter so I'm damned if I'll give it the warning of a bright-white beam."

Jonas nodded his understanding.

"Any questions, Doggett?"

"Yes," Jonas replied. "Why 'Doggett'?"

Amy grinned. "My secret," she told him. "For now, anyway."

It was fifteen minutes later that Jonas made a discovery. "I'm not sure in these goggles," he admitted, "but I think it's getting lighter down here." He pulled off the night-vision gear. "Yes," he announced. "I can't see well, but there's definitely light. I think..." He prodded the roof. "Yes," he said again.

Amy followed his arm to a crack in the rocks, from which a chink of light emerged.

Jonas took a small box from his belt and ran it over the wall until it chirruped softly.

"EMF meter?" Amy asked.

"There are wires in this wall," Jonas agreed. He pushed on a stone and it slid aside to reveal a small control knob. He twisted it and the corridor was filled with light, shining brilliant and white from cracks and hollows in the rock.

"Ow! Damnit!" Amy exclaimed, ripping off her goggles.

Jonas grinned, sheepishly. "Sorry," he said.

Amy shook her head. "Well if there is someone down there and the lights didn't warn them we were coming, my cries of pain must have done." Still blinking, she fumbled with her radio. "SG-1-niner from SG-11-two," she said. The only response was static. "We should go back and report this," she told Jonas.

"Hmm."

"Jonas..."

"I think there's a door in this wall," Jonas said. "The control would be..." He reached out his hand.

Amy sighed. "All the more reason we should go back for reinforcements."

"Alright," Jonas agreed.

Amy stared at him. "Alright?" she asked. "You're actually taking my advice?"

"Well...You're the expert."

Amy laughed. "Push the button, Jonas. If I walk away it'll just eat at me." She shook her head sadly. "I never thought I'd see the day. It's usually the civilians getting me into trouble; in a non-pregnancy sense," she added.

Jonas raised his eyebrows, and then pushed against the wall. There was a sharp click and a section of the wall slid inwards. Bright, white light flooded into the corridor.

"Do we go in?"

Amy drew her knife and rammed it into the mechanism of the door. "Why not," she agreed.

"Because that door mechanism will fold a tempered-steel blade like paper?" Jonas suggested.

"One: rhetorical question," Amy sighed. "Two: it's trinitanium."

"Fancy."

"I get the best presents," Amy assured him.

The chamber behind the door was clearly a storeroom, because it was full of stores. Familiar-looking shipping crates were stacked in neat ranks.

"Goa'uld," Amy sighed. She turned the controls on one of the crates and a manifest appeared on the lid. "Laboratory glassware, chemicals...Mnemosynolase?" Amy asked, surprised.

"What's mnemosynolase?" Jonas asked.

"It's an enzyme produced in the body of a Goa'uld symbiote," Amy replied. "It functions as a genetic memory inhibitor; it's what the Tok'ra used to help me deactivate Thoth's memories."

"A lot of these other chemicals could be used in genetic research," Jonas noted.

Amy looked at Jonas. "What do you reckon?" she asked. "Back out and call the cavalry or take the next door?"

"Well, it seems so quiet and we've come this far..."

"Too true. Just give me a moment to booby-trap this door then."

Amy set a Claymore at the secret door. The brilliance of the light would make it hard to spot the thin tripwire and she was banking on any Jaffa who saw the door open to be in something of a hurry. She checked the door controls inside the room, and then pulled her knife free of the workings. "If we have to make a run for it, close the door once we're both out. As well as slowing any pursuers down, it should set of the Claymore."

"Right," Jonas agreed.

Jonas worked the controls of the second door while Amy crouched ready, P90 raised. The door slid open to reveal a laboratory, as shining white as the storeroom and almost as quiet. Only the soft hum of solid-state crystal computers ticking over broke the silence. The walls were lined with consoles and in the centre of the room a square of workbenches surrounded a mainframe. Various experiments had been set up, one of which involved a living symbiote, but nothing else in the room seemed alive.

As they entered, the symbiote on the bench turned and glowered at the intruders with its glowing red eyes.

"Why Grandma; what big eyes you've got," Amy noted.

"And what big gills," Jonas added.

"All the better to extract oxygen when swimming in free waters without a host's bloodstream to provide my vital gases, my dear," Amy replied.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Red Riding Hood."

"Who?"

"Never mind." Amy moved quickly into the room, sweeping her P90 across to cover all of the corners. There was a door in the opposite wall. On her left, she saw something quite unexpected; a pair of eyes, looking back at her. A girl, no more than twenty years old, sat cross-legged in a small cage, gazing at the intruders with soft, placid eyes. Her skin was coppery, her hair a soft brown and her eyes like amber. A grubby, white dress covered her to the ankles and her skin and hair showed the signs of a lifelong lack of grooming.

"Hello," Jonas said, softly. He moved slowly toward the cage. "What's your name?"

"She can't tell you," Amy assured him. "Smock not withstanding, she's an Eloi."

Jonas looked into the girl's eyes and smiled. She smiled back.

"I'm Jonas," he said, tapping his chest.

The girl tapped her own chest. Amy fully expected her to repeat the word 'Jonas', or some approximation thereto, but instead she said: "Elizabeth."

"She seems chattier than most," Jonas noted, with just a trace of smugness.

Amy narrowed her eyes, warily. "An Eloi who speaks is like a talking dog," she assured him. "Sufficiently rare as to be suspicious. A chatty Eloi with a terrestrial name is like a talking dog in dark glasses and a trench coat; clearly up to no good. Let's go."

"Wait a moment," Jonas said, approaching the cage.

Amy sighed. "Give them an inch...Jonas; don't even think about opening..."

The front of the cage swung open and an alarm began to wail. Jonas grinned, sheepishly.

Amy narrowed her eyes fiercely. "Sometimes I think I should have killed you a year ago, Doggett," she told him in an exasperated tone.

"Everyone makes mistakes," Jonas protested.

"And mine was not killing you a year ago!" Amy agreed. "Honestly; you picked a hell of a time to rediscover your intellectual curiosity."

'Elizabeth' sprang nimbly down from the cage and moved towards Jonas, stopping just out of his reach. She crouched low and stared around in fear, trying to find the source of the klaxon.

Jonas took her hand. "Come with us," he said.

The girl nodded.

"'She just followed me home, Colonel,'" Amy muttered. "'Can we keep her?' Get down!" she added, as the door in the far wall hissed open.

Jonas pulled Elizabeth down and Amy fired two short bursts through the opening door. Two armoured bodies fell on the far side of the doorway. There was no other movement.

"Move!" Amy yelled. She took a grenade from her belt and pulled the pin. "Go, go, go! Fire in the hole!" She rolled the grenade through the door. As she followed Jonas, she called after him: "And make sure she jumps the tripwire!"

She had no real idea how Jonas might persuade a woman with a limited grasp of English to leap a tripwire in the middle of a frenetic foot chase; she only knew that if Elizabeth did trigger the Claymore it was her face – Amy's face, that was – that the mine would go off in.

The flash of a stun grenade blazed through the laboratory door behind Amy, but somehow, Jonas had managed to get Elizabeth past the tripwire and Amy sprang after them. Jonas hit the door control and they ran on, leaving the sharp report of the Claymore behind them.

"Did...Did you see the tattoos?" Amy asked, breathlessly.

"Didn't you?"

"Too busy shooting," she panted in reply. "And I'm not the hyperaware one!"

Jonas managed a ragged laugh; Elizabeth echoed the sound at once. She looked as though she were enjoying herself immensely, but then even a panicked flight would probably be exhilarating after imprisonment in so small a cage.

"So come on, Mr 'I see everything'?"

"Anubis," Jonas gasped. "They wore Anubis' tattoo.

"Oh...fun."

A bellowing roar echoed down the corridor after them.

"Oh fun, fun, fun!"

Elizabeth and Jonas sprinted from the cave and scrambled down the slope. Amy came after them, deliberately letting them get ahead of her. Jonas was already calling for assistance, but Amy knew that they would not arrive soon enough.

Another roar rolled out of the cave, not far behind her, although the echoes made it hard to judge. Amy turned, let the P90 fall on its strap in front of her and drew the rifle from her back. She tucked the walnut stock hard against her shoulder and levelled the twin barrels at the cave mouth. She drew back the hammers and touched the safety catch.

The tiger-thing hurtled out of the cave and Amy squeezed both triggers. The weapon kicked hard, but she held it under control. The sonic boom of the speeding bullets drowned out even the beast's roar and the creature recoiled, twin gouts of blood exploding from its back. Amy hurled herself aside as the dead weight of the tiger tumbled and flopped down the slope towards her in a whirl of fur and talons.

There was no sound of any other beasts and so Amy slung the elephant gun on her back without reloading. She turned and followed Jonas down the hill.

"Alright," Jonas admitted, as she caught up with him, "I admit it came in useful."

"Good thing, too," Amy replied. "I'd have looked damn silly if I'd brought it all this way and never fired it." She fixed him with a ferocious glower. "You're even more dangerous than Daniel was," she announced.

Jonas was momentarily speechless; it was unheard of for Amy to mention Daniel Jackson without a catch in her voice. Jonas might have stopped to comment on her progress, but at that moment a volley of staff blasts struck the rocks around them and they ran on in silence.

*

The holographic communicator on the peltac of Osiris' yacht glowed into life. The commander of her laboratory garrison appeared before her.

"My Lord."

"Oh dear," Osiris sighed. "Do I take it that something has gone disastrously wrong?"

"Not...Disastrous might be..."

Osiris closed her eyes to contain her impatience. "Just the facts, Jaffa."

"My Lord..."

"If you say My Lord one more time without delivering any actual information, I shall certainly have you gutted and fed to my dog," she said. Sensing that her thoughts had turned to him, her beloved wish hound padded over and laid his long, white muzzle in her lap. "So let me guess the start of this: The Tau'ri who so unfortunately stumbled on the testing ground. They are at the heart of this?"

"Yes, M...Yes," the Jaffa agreed.

"And they are not dead?"

"No, M...Two of the beasts were killed and afterwards, two of the Tau'ri penetrated the forward laboratory."

"Oh, good...me," Osiris muttered. "Did they damage any of the tests subjects?"

"The subjects are undamaged," the Jaffa replied, too quickly. "But...As ordered, we offered no resistance in order to conceal the presence of the laboratory. Unfortunately..."

"Just tell me that Elizabeth was safely in the main laboratory when they broke in."

The Jaffa was silent.

"Who took her?" Osiris demanded.

"The intruders were identified as Captain Amy Kawalsky and Mr Jonas Quinn," the commander replied.

"Then SG-1 are there," Osiris said. "Alright. So much for subtlety. Release the remaining beast and in the confusion..."

The commander's look stopped her in her tracks.

"Give me strength. Then turn out the garrison. See them off; kill them or drive them away, but Carter and Kawalsky are to be taken if possible and any Jaffa who harms a hair on Jonas Quinn's head will put a dent in Daniel's diet." She stroked the hound's blood-red ears fondly.

"And...the subject?"

"Recover if feasible. The possibility of contamination can not be ignored, however; no extraordinary effort should be made to preserve her."

"Yes, My Lord."

Osiris shook her head as the image faded. "You simply cannot get the help," she sighed.

*

"...I say again, we are under fire from Jaffa and pinned down near the head of the taboo gully," Amy Kawalsky reported. "The enemy appear to be rather good shots," the young captain added. "Damn Osiris and her newfangled training regime. Help would be very much appreciated."

"Hold tight, Eleven-two," Jack replied as he followed Teal'c along the ridge. "We're almost with you." Very close ahead, he heard the tell-tale hiss and crack of staff fire, punctuated by brief bursts of the P90's high-pitched chatter.

There was a burst of static from the radio, and then Jonas' voice came on the line, with a hint of panic beneath his forced calm. "She's hit! Amy's been hit!"

Jack swore, softly. "Carter. Are you in position?"

"Ready, Colonel," the reply came at once.

"Then go!" Jack ordered.

Suddenly, the noise of the P90s outweighed that of the staff weapons as Carter, Patterson and Caldicott gave suppressing fire. With Teal'c beside him, Jack crested the ridge and slithered down into the gully behind the Jaffa. Even with Teal'c's impulse to give fair warning before firing from behind, the three warriors fell quickly.

"Move!" Jack ordered. "Carter! Get Kawalsky and head back to the Stargate. Teal'c; Claymores."

Jack and Teal'c set a line of Claymores to block the gully, and then followed the others. Jack was relieved to see that Kawalsky was still on her feet, although the fact that she was leaning heavily on Jonas of all people could not be a good sign.

"We've sent the rest of the mission back to the base camp," Carter was explaining, "but we can't hold the Gate if Osiris sends Jaffa in force. We'll retreat to the SGC as soon as we join them."

"What about the Eloi, Ma'am?" Kawalsky asked.

"Scattered," Jack replied. "I figure Osiris is after us, anyway; she hasn't hurt the Eloi up to now and there's no reason for her to start now."

"Poor Eloi," Kawalsky sighed. She stumbled and half-fell, but Jonas held her up and a girl in a white dress caught her other arm.

"Who's your friend?" Jack asked.

"Her name's Elizabeth," Jonas replied.

"Local?"

"Far as we know."

"I never like picking up strays," Jack said, cautiously.

"She was in a cage, Colonel," Jonas protested. "A cage no bigger than a shower cubicle!"

"All right," Jack sighed. "Just remember how your last alien blonde turned out."

"Sandy wasn't an alien," Jonas protested.

"I was thinking about the Hebridan," Jack admitted.

"She was a brunette."

"Which of course makes all the difference."

*

Stargate Command

Elizabeth was assigned to a VIP room until she could be given a medical examination and Jonas showed her the way. Her verbal communication skills were extremely limited, but when Jonas tried to leave her and make his way to the briefing, she made it clear that she was not happy being left alone in non-verbal terms that made Sam, acting as escort, feel more like a chaperone.

"No!" she screamed, clutching at his arm. "Jonas stay!"

"Elizabeth," he said, gently, "I have to go. I have to see the General. He's a very important man who runs this place," he added. "I have to go and tell him what happened. I have to go," he repeated, and tried to withdraw his arm.

"No!" Elizabeth gripped Jonas's arm with alarming strength. She pulled him close to her and nuzzled his throat. "Stay, Jonas," she murmured. "Like." She closed her eyes and began to croon softly as she rubbed her face against his. "Like Elizabeth?"

"I like you very much, but we've only just met." This argument did not appear to carry much weight with Elizabeth.

Jonas shot a look of appeal at Sam and, after a moment, she departed. Jonas could only hope that she had understood his meaning because Elizabeth was growing more insistent by the moment. Thankfully, Sam returned after a short absence, with Dr Janet Fraiser at her side.

Janet crossed to the girl, took her arm and produced a syringe. Until she saw the instrument, Elizabeth did not even acknowledge the presence of the diminutive physician, but her reaction to the needle was immediate and dramatic.

"No!" Elizabeth snatched back her arm. Finally finding something more urgent to concern her than Jonas, she struggled madly as Janet tried to administer the sedative.

"Can't you keep her still?" Janet demanded.

"Give me the needle," Jonas suggested. He took the syringe from Janet and the doctor retreated.

"Nothing to be scared of," Jonas promised. "I won't hurt you."

"No hurt?"

"No hurt."

Elizabeth grew calm and stood stock still as Jonas pushed the needle gently into her arm. Within moments, her body relaxed into a drugged sleep.

"That was what you had in mind, yes?" Sam asked. "You didn't just want some alone time?"

"I think you should take a blood sample," Jonas suggested, deliberately ignoring Sam. "She was clearly important to Osiris; I think we should find out why."

"So, you're not just a pretty face," Janet noted.

"Working with the Colonel, something had to rub off," Jonas replied.

*

The briefing was tense, as they always were when a member of the SGC had been injured in the line of duty. Jack gave a brief summary of the findings of the other search teams – "squat" was his precise terminology – before yielding the floor to Jonas, who explained what they had found in the secret laboratory.

"Whose idea was it to ignore protocol and go in alone?" Jack asked.

"Initially Captain Kawalsky's," Jonas replied, "but she warned me not to open the cage." He looked awkward. "She's going to be alright, isn't she?"

"Sure," Jack agreed. "She's tough as old boots; something about the naquadah apparently."

"Her blood – like mine – contains trace levels of Goa'uld cellular regenerators," Sam replied. "We're as mortal as the next woman, but we can take a lot of knocking about before we go down for good."

"Thankfully," Jack agreed.

"We'd be even tougher if the bulk of these regenerative chemicals weren't functioning as a fixative for the naquadah suspended in our bloodstreams," Sam added. "The Goa'uld tapped into an awesome source of power when naquadah became integrated into their physiology, but only at the cost of some of their physical strength."

"So what was the laboratory for?" Hammond asked, once more hurling himself manfully into the breach to try to bring the debriefing back on topic.

"We didn't get much chance to examine it before the alarms went off. Before I set off the alarms," Jonas corrected himself. "It looked as though they were conducting genetic research on Goa'uld symbiotes, however."

"Why would Osiris want to experiment on symbiotes?" Jack wondered aloud.

"There is a rumour among the Jaffa," Teal'c suggested, "that Anubis now considers all Jaffa to be a dangerous liability. Despite his successes in limiting the growth of the Jaffa rebellion by encouraging Jaffa to abandon their old gods in favour of worshipping him, he sees my people as a nation of potential traitors. We have heard it said that he seeks to destroy us utterly and raise a new army in our place."

"A new army of genetically engineered Goa'uld?" Sam asked uncertainly. "Surely they would be an even greater threat than the Jaffa?"

Jonas shook his head. "Not necessarily. Egeria managed to breed symbiotes without memory; Anubis could do the same...if he could find a Queen he trusted."

"That's a big if," Sam noted.

"But Osiris was experimenting with genetic memory," Jonas noted. "Captain Kawalsky found a supply of a genetic memory inhibitor; Osiris might be planning to block, or even remove, the memories of the new symbiotes; or even the Queen herself."

"Is that possible?" Hammond asked.

"The short version is, we just don't know," Sam admitted, "but it's certainly not beyond the realms of probability."

"Opinions," Hammond sighed. "What are our chances of retaking the Stargate and holding it until we can find out what was in that laboratory?"

"Pretty good, if the defences aren't in place yet," Jack replied. "Nil if they are. If we led with a MALP and UAV recon, used one of the Falcons for air support and took a couple of jeeps from the Beta Site for transport, a two-team special-ops mission could make it. If we wanted to tip the odds, we could send a back-up team to make a heavy-weapons drop near to the Stargate so as to give us a little extra firepower if we need to fight our way back to the Gate."

"Get ready to go," Hammond said. "SG-5 will accompany you if the MALP shows clear and SG-3 will act as back-up at the Gate. Mission briefing in two hours."

*

The two guards on the door of Elizabeth's VIP room were taken completely by surprise. Dr Fraiser had said that the girl would be out for at least three hours and Jonas Quinn had assured them that she was quite peaceful. They were therefore not expecting the door to burst halfway off its hinges, nor for the girl to emerge, eyes blazing like flame, and demand "Where Jonas?" in a voice like thunder.

The first SF tried to grab Elizabeth's arm. She let him take hold of her, and then swung him against the wall with incredible force. He collapsed in a stunned heap on the floor. The second guard went for her sidearm, but Elizabeth lunged forward, pinning the guard's right arm and pressing her forearm against the struggling SF's windpipe.

"Where Jonas?" she growled. "Want Jonas. Why take him? Where? No hurt!" She slammed the woman against the wall. "No hurt!"

She turned as a technician rounded the corner. The man took one look at the scene, turned and ran. Elizabeth took off after him and caught him as he reached for the intercom.

"Where Jonas?" she screamed.

"I don't know!" the man pleaded. "Let me use the intercom and I'll find him for you. Just let me use the intercom." He pointed to the phone, in the hope that she would understand.

At that moment, a dart struck the girl in the throat. She reached up and pulled it out, then held it up in front of the technician.

"What?"

Two more darts hit her and she collapsed. As the technician slid down the wall, almost paralysed with relief, Dr Fraiser ran over, a tranquiliser gun in her hands. She was followed by a pair of similarly-armed SFs.

"Alright, she's safe...for now," the doctor announced. "Get them both to the infirmary and restrain her while we prep the MRI; we'll check on the guards."

Jonas Quinn hurried up, a look of baffled alarm on his face. "Dr Fraiser? What's going on?"

"Your friend went berserk," Fraiser replied. "Fortunately, I was already on my way here."

"With a dart gun?" Quinn asked.

Fraiser nodded. "I did the blood test you suggested," she explained. "I found something rather revealing."

"What?"

"Goa'uld mimetic RNA."

*

"So...that's the replacement for the Jaffa?" Jack asked, watching as Elizabeth was manoeuvred into position on the MRI table. "Easier on the eye, perhaps, but..."

"I don't think she's the finished product," Sam replied. "It's just a feeling, but I bet..." She stopped and scribbled something on a piece of paper.

"What's that?" Jack asked.

Sam shrugged. "Just want you to be impressed by my brilliance if I'm right without having made a fool of myself if I'm wrong," she said. To change the subject she said: "We really need to stop him picking up strays."

Jack followed her gaze to Jonas, who was standing beside the MRI tunnel, gazing at Elizabeth in concern. "Would you really want to change him?" he challenged.

Sam thought about it for a long moment. "No," she admitted at last.

The lights dimmed and Janet brought the MRI scans up on the display. "So, there it is," she announced. "Or should I say, there she is."

Without a word, Sam passed Jack her piece of paper.

"She's a Queen," Jack read. "Alright, I'm impressed. How did you know?" he asked Sam.

"Osiris would need a breeding Queen to create a new strain," Sam explained. "If this girl was something important, that made the most sense."

"Well, this isn't just a Queen," Janet said. "Like the specimen that Jonas and Captain Kawalsky noted in the lab, this is not a modern parasite Goa'uld; the bone structure and especially the gills make it a match for the fossils and live specimens retrieved from P3X-888."

"She's a primitive?" Sam asked.

"Hence she has no genetic memory, except perhaps of being eaten by fish," Jonas noted. "Essentially, the girl is an innocent."

"She knocked out two SFs," Jack replied. "One of them has a broken collar bone."

"She was defending herself," Jonas argued. "And me. She didn't want to hurt anyone."

"Shouting 'no hurt' as you punch someone doesn't stop it hurting," Jack insisting.

Jonas shook his head. "She wasn't saying it wouldn't hurt," he explained. "She was telling them not to hurt me. She thought that they had taken me away to do...something to me. I bet she saw that happen to dozens of her kin – the other Eloi, I mean – during Osiris' tests."

"All very tragic," Jack drawled, "but innocent or not, she's dangerous."

"Not if she doesn't feel threatened."

Jack put on his best unconvinced face. "Not going to try and talk me round?" Jack asked Sam.

"I agree with you," Sam assured him.

"As do I," Teal'c added. "As Major Carter explained, a primal symbiote is, physically, a more formidable foe than a modern Goa'uld."

"How did Osiris get hold of a primitive symbiote?" Hammond asked.

"By visiting the original Goa'uld homeworld," Teal'c replied. "I recall that recent data from the monitoring equipment on P3X-888 indicated that there had been a forest fire of some magnitude. This could well be a sign of a Goa'uld presence."

"The question we need to ask is: Was Osiris successful?" Hammond decided. "Did she manage to create the warrior-breed she wanted?"

"I can't answer that," Janet admitted, "but I do know that the Queen has spawned at least once while in the host body. The girl herself is not sexually receptive at present, so her eagerness to...get to know Jonas better most likely implies that the Queen wants to spawn again."

"Maybe she just hasn't got much sweet loving lately," Jack suggested.

"Actually, she's never had any sweet loving," Janet replied. "When the Queen spawned she was artificially inseminated. The girl..." She broke off, feeling a little awkward. When things got this personal, it felt almost like breaking patient confidence.

"Elizabeth," Jonas said.

Jack was nonplussed. "Huh?"

"The Virgin Queen," Jonas explained.

*

Osiris beamed down to the cave mouth, suppressing a shudder as her molecules reconstituted. The reengineering of the Asgard transporter technology had been perfected now, but each time the world phased in and out around her she still expected the fierce, searing pain that had once accompanied the transition; it was small wonder that most still preferred to use the tried-and-tested system of transport rings. A ha'tak vessel had arrived in orbit just before Osiris' yacht and she was not surprised to see, as she entered her laboratory complex, that her ever-efficient lieutenant, Lady Lamia, was already taking charge of strengthening the defences and surveying the damage.

The forward lab, where tests had been carried out on captured natives, was a mess. Stray plasma blasts had shattered the tank and the test-symbiote was dead; a month and a half of experiments reduced to what little could be salvaged from an autopsy. If the warriors who gave chase had not been killed already, she would have had them disembowelled – a punishment that she favoured more because she liked the feel of the word in her mouth than for any other reason – and fed to the Goa'uld in the tank. Fortunately the main laboratory, with its huge tank full of predator-Goa'uld and its precious data-cores, had not been penetrated.

"Strip the lab," Osiris ordered. "Secure the larvae and the adult specimens for transport and upload the data to my yacht's computers. Load as many of the idiot locals as you can round up onto a barque," she added.

"Yes, My Lord," Lamia acknowledged, in her soft, velvety voice. "I shall summon the teltacs to transfer the freight.

Lamia was night to Osiris day, black-haired and brown-skinned, with dark, gentle eyes that concealed a nature as deadly as the tiny, venomous snake that she kept in her bodice. She had many traits that Osiris treasured – loyalty, intelligence, ruthlessness – but the most precious was an ability to obey commands without questioning them and to improvise without impudence. Lamia never said 'My Lord', over and over again for lack of any other words to say. The Jaffa had given her a name that spoke of her closeness to Osiris and their liege lord had adopted the title.

"What progress, My Shadow?" Osiris asked.

"They mature fast, these primals," Lamia replied, with a hint of a mother's pride. "The first brood will be ready to implant within eighteen months. I am afraid that we will know only then what percentage of the brood will blend successfully."

"And...the Empress?"

Lamia smiled. "The Empress is well," she promised.

Osiris nodded. "Excellent."

*

Elizabeth had been moved to a cell and placed in irons. She was quiescent now, but her eyes showed her terror and frustration. She looked up as the door of the cell opened and the sight of Jonas brought further confusion to her face.

"Jonas?" she asked. "No hurt?"

"No hurt," he assured her.

"Why cage?" she asked, lifting her shackled wrists. "Free Elizabeth."

Jonas grimaced. "I wish I could," he said, "but they think you are dangerous."

"No hurt," she promised, plaintively, bringing her hands to his face with some difficulty. "Jonas."

He took her hands from his cheeks and squeezed her fingers, gently. "I will try to persuade them, but they do not trust the Goa'uld."

"Elizabeth," she insisted.

"I know, but..."

"Trust Elizabeth!" There was a desperate edge to her voice.

"Alright," Jonas agreed, brushing a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry. I understand; you're Elizabeth, not Goa'uld."

"Yes." Elizabeth leaned forward and kissed him.

Jonas backed off a little. "Now, don't start that again," he said, kindly. "You're a very sweet girl, but really, I don't kiss on a first date. Not that I consider sitting with a woman chained to a chair to be a date. I'm sure Captain Kawalsky would tell me I'm missing out," he mused.

"Free," Elizabeth begged.

"Will you stay in your room?" Jonas asked. "Promise that you'll stay in here and I think they'll let me unchain you. Will you promise?"

"Promise," she replied.

Jonas searched her eyes and he was sure that he saw understanding there. "Alright," he said. "I'll talk to the others. You stay here, quietly, and I'll be back soon."

"So. Lay it on me," Jack said. "What exactly are we looking at?"

Sam took a deep breath. "Goa'uld mimetic RNA is stored in the symbiote, but generated in the host's cells," she explained. "This means that the Goa'uld only possess genetic recall of events that occur while within a host body. A primitive Goa'uld will only remember its own short life swimming around in the primeval lakes and avoiding the che'hal fish."

"Which makes them useful grunts."

"Quite," Sam agreed. "If I had to guess, I'd say that Osiris plans to take the Eloi, a race with no language or culture, but with the capacity for full human intelligence, and implant them with primal symbiotes. They will then indoctrinate the resulting Goa'uld to worship the modern breed and serve as warrior-slaves. The primals will process this indoctrination into genetic memory to be passed down to the next generation via one of more of their Queens. Osiris will keep a breeding population of the Eloi to use as hosts, so that no niggling doubts find their way to the primals that way."

"They will be bred to serve," Teal'c agreed. "Without ambition, their natural aggression will be channelled into battle, pure and simple."

"Elizabeth isn't aggressive!"

Jack turned to face Jonas as the young man entered. "That was quick," he noted, dryly.

"She isn't aggressive," Jonas repeated. "She's just very, very frightened."

"I agree that the host's passivity dominates her personality," Teal'c said, "but it does not matter."

"How do you mean?" Jack asked.

"Whether their natural aggression must be drawn out through the calm of the Eloi or not, the birth pangs of this new race will be the death knell of the Jaffa," Teal'c explained. "The Jaffa rebellion has spread too far; given an alternative, the Goa'uld will not long delay the extermination of my people, even those who remain loyal to them."

Jack nodded, slowly. "Then we don't let that happen. We go back to the Eloi world and burn out the laboratory. The Goa'uld aren't big on off-site back-up, so that ought to do the trick."

"Osiris might be more cautious than most," Sam cautioned.

"Then we move fast," Jack replied. "Let's go."

*

On the plains, Osiris' Jaffa were rounding up the locals. It was slow work; in their innocence, the tribe had no idea that they were supposed to be afraid of the Jaffa. Constrained by their orders against harming them, the Jaffa had little choice but to use zat'nik'tels and shock grenades to bring the locals down in twos and threes, then carry them to barques.

Osiris and Lamia stood on a ridge overseeing the operation, the one resplendent in white, gold and rubies, the other almost as striking in silver, jet and lapis lazuli. Two handmaidens stood close by, waiting to attend to the needs of the two Goa'uld. Osiris toyed with a Long Island Iced Tea as she watched the Jaffa scrabble back and forth.

"The prim'ta?" Osiris asked.

"All loaded aboard my ha'tak vessel," Lamia replied. "All but the Empress; I have transferred her to your yacht and given the little Bushi responsibility for her care. The remaining supplies are being loaded as fast as the freight rings in the transports can manage. I hope that I have not misjudged."

"In using the freight rings?" Osiris asked, casually.

"In entrusting the Empress to your Samurai girl. She is a traitor once already."

"It is a good choice," Osiris assured her aide. "I trust Sakiko. She is highly capable, possesses a keen intelligence and, having once betrayed, she is more faithful even than you, my good Shadow."

"Surely not?" Lamia asked, with false indignation.

Osiris smiled, sweetly. "You know that I trust you beyond any other of my Goa'uld servants, just as I know you would sell me in a heartbeat if you believed that you could benefit from it."

A flicker of something akin to real offence flickered across Lamia's dark features.

Osiris' smile deepened. "Not so cheaply, then?" she asked.

"I should want your place in Lord Anubis favour, at the least," Lamia replied.

"It is ambition that constrains you, then?"

Lamia chuckled. "Not that, but I should need considerable incentive to surrender the rarest and most valuable asset that any Goa'uld who has not attained absolute supremacy can hope to enjoy."

"Which is?"

"The favour and protection of a master – or mistress – whose whim is governed by prudence," Lamia explained. "If you were gone, I would be left to serve one of Anubis' other councillors and ultimately face execution for their failure." She smiled slyly. "Even if I became the new Councillor of Wisdom, I would have to face Anubis' moods instead of letting you weather them."

Osiris shivered at the thought of Anubis' 'moods'. As his most trusted aide, Osiris knew that her lord was not the comical figure that many – especially the Tau'ri – took him for. Although given to flights of eccentric melodrama in the throne room, in his private audience chamber, Anubis had a succinct and expressive way with a paingiver. He also possessed a shrewd and canny mind, albeit one that was swayed too easily to imprudence by the promise of power.

She schooled her thoughts away from such considerations before answering Lamia: "It is always good to know that one's lieutenant has a high asking price," she assured her.

Lamia smiled and, as she had been truly offended before, now she seemed genuinely flattered. "The Empress...?" she began.

"My gift to our beloved Lord Anubis," Osiris replied. "A hybrid created from the Elizabeth's DNA and that of the Dúnedain."

Lamia's face fell; her mouth hung open in astonishment. "But...But the Dúnedain? That was pure fantasy," she protested. "You even invented the word!"

Osiris shrugged. "Well, strictly speaking that would be Tolkien; I just adopted it." She assayed an air of disinterest, but in truth she was delighted by how completely she had managed to surprise her perceptive and ceaselessly curious Shadow. Not much escaped Lamia and it was a sure sign that a secret was well-kept if she did not know it.

"But nonetheless, it is...a theory, at best," Lamia insisted. "Anubis wiped out the line; one of his lesser crimes, but he did not become the Supreme System Lord by letting the little details slide."

"Maybe," Osiris accepted. "Nevertheless, life is a very persistent thing. In his day, Anubis was almost as energetic as I was in the field of seduction and we must not forget that he was ancient indeed. While his mortal by-blows are of no interest to me, he spawned almost a million symbiotes by Queen Nephtys over the centuries. Even if we assume a conservative survival rate of one in one thousand, that is one thousand first-generation children. Not to mention those he begot on the Queens of other Lords."

"Of other...?"

"You begin to see?" Osiris asked. "Anubis insinuated the code of his life into the prim'ta of a dozen Queens. He sought to gain a hold on those lines, but of course this became a curse on him when he was seized by the desire to annihilate his descendents. Nephtys' children and their progeny were easy to track down, but he could not be sure which of the spawn of other Queens he might need to destroy. It is through one such line that I have tracked my Dúnedain; quite a young symbiote, but the only survivor of his brood."

"And what became of this scion?" Lamia asked, concerned. "You know that Anubis will want to see him destroyed."

Osiris gave a casual shrug. "So far as Lord Anubis is concerned, all that remains of the Dúnedain – and thus all that remains of his original genetic memory – is the Empress; the nearest he will ever get to a daughter of his flesh."

"And so far as you are concerned?"

Osiris chuckled. "I still have some use for him," she replied. "Some day, Shadow, I may introduce the two of you. I think you would like him and I know that he would like you." She stopped speaking and stood a while in thought. "Maths was never my strongest subject," she sighed at last. "Tell me how this project stands."

Lamia inclined her head, acknowledging not only the command but the change of subject. "If there is no improvement and the blending rate remains at fifty percent, given the growth rate and spawning numbers for the primitive symbiotes, the Jaffa will become redundant in ten years."

"Excellent," Osiris said, pressing the tips of her fingers together. "I believe that we can accelerate that still further, however. The new symbiotes were spawned using donor DNA from a human source; that means that a Jaffa can be used as an incubator for the duration of their development."

"Indeed," Lamia agreed, "but they grow so fast..."

Osiris held up her hand. "Choose our most loyal Jaffa and use them as the first generation of incubators," she commanded. "Let those of our old servants who are loyal become the first of our new army. With the cleansed minds of the symbiotes, the wills of our faithful shall dominate. They shall be our officers and our instructors, training the new breed in the art of combat."

"A brilliant plan, My Lord," Lamia agreed, "although I will need to begin working with the first of them almost immediately if we are to instruct our...how did you put it?"

"New model army," Osiris replied.

"Yes. If we are to instruct our new model army in a more tactical style of combat."

Osiris' expression was gently superior. "Dear Lamia; I have been teaching my Jaffa to be less careless with their lives since my return. It is but one of the reasons that I came so far in so short a time."

Lamia gave a low curtsey. "A thousand pardons, My Lord. I did not mean to imply that you had miscalculated."

"I favour you because you do not follow blindly," Osiris reminded her aide. "Never feel that you need to apologise for pointing out my oversights. So long as you do not do so in company," she added. She took a sip of her Long Island Iced Tea. "Now, My Shadow; you have worked very hard and really must allow Mya to mix you one of her famous Singapore Slings before you leave."

"My Lord is too kind."

*

The SGC jeeps rolled out of the Stargate and nudged through the debris of the hastily prepared defences. The Jaffa had been half-way through establishing their line when the MALP arrived and Hammond had only just been persuaded to give the mission a go. The SGC's Gate assault tactics were becoming very efficient, however, and the arrival area had been seized without losses.

"Clear to two kilometres," Lieutenant Hannah Waverley pronounced; her head turned sightlessly, encased in her VR rig. "I've got Jaffa movement all across the plain, though; it appears that they are rounding up the local population and loading them onto a pair of heavy troop lifters. There are fires starting up in the brush." Her voice was cool and dispassionate as she discussed this scene of destruction. The Marines called her Harmony; before she became the secondary pilot for the Falcon UAVs, her Air Force colleagues had called her the Robot.

"Bring Angel-2 back down," Jack ordered. "Dial up the Gate and take her home. Warren; get the heavy weapons up to the drop point and stand by."

"Sir." At a sign from Major Warren, the Marines of SG-3 lifted their heavy packs and cases and they moved away, at the double, towards the low hills to the west of the Gate.

Jack turned to the other Marine team. "Parker, SG-5 are in Wells-2 to the plain," he said, using the call-sign for the second jeep. "Try to take out those transports and get as many of the Eloi away as you can, then fall back to the drop point. No stupid risks, though; I want to bring everyone home, even if it is with our tails between our legs. We can't drive off a Goa'uld assault, only hope that we can make it more trouble than it's worth for them to carry on here."

"I understand," Major Steven 'Daredevil' Parker acknowledged.

Jack nodded. "Carry on."

"Punch it, Duke," Parker ordered and the jeep pulled away towards the plain.

Jack looked around at his own team, seated in the jeep designated Wells-1. Due to a momentary lapse in his judgement, Jack had allowed Carter to drive.

"To the lab?" Jonas asked.

Being familiar with his 2IC's driving, Jack made sure he was settled securely in his seat before answering: "To the lab. And don't spare the horses, Carter."

*

"Jonas!"

Janet sighed and walked over to the door of the isolation room. "Jonas isn't here right now," she told Elizabeth. "You'll just have to wait for him to get back."

Eyes blazing, Elizabeth seized hold of a chair and flung it at the window. The bullet-proof glass shivered, but did not crack.

"Carry on like that and I'll put you back in restraints," Janet warned.

To her surprise, a flash of fear crossed Elizabeth's face. She picked up the chair and sat down, looking for all the world as though she would not harm a fly.

"So you understood that, then?" Janet asked.

Elizabeth looked up with sullen eyes. "Understand," she echoed.

"What are you?" Janet wondered aloud.

"Elizabeth," Elizabeth replied. "Omphalos. Primordial mound. The act of creation made manifest in human form."

Janet moved closer to the window and looked down at the girl. She looked less than twenty years old, now that she had been cleaned up, but if she understood what she was saying she must be brighter than she had yet let on. At present she wore an expression of serene calm that was so far removed from her flash of rage that it was hard to believe that it had been the same woman throwing the chair.

"I am the first," Elizabeth went on, her voice becoming more confident. "I am the new dawn; the Eve to a new race of warriors. I am the genesis of an age of conquest." She paused. "I am hungry," she added, at length.

"You sound different when you're proselytising," Janet noted. "More like Osiris."

Elizabeth hissed angrily, her face contorting with rage once more. "No Osiris," she snarled. "No Osiris. No Osiris!"

"Right, right!" Janet held up her hands. "No Osiris; I get it. Don't worry; no Osiris here. She's off on the planet we got you from, just like Jonas and the rest." Janet turned away from the window, but Elizabeth's next words made her freeze in horror.

"Jonas with Osiris?"

With a sinking sensation, Janet realised that Elizabeth understood far more than she let on.

"Osiris has Jonas?" Elizabeth demanded. "No!"

Janet turned. Elizabeth seized the chair once more and flung it with all her might at the window. Some inner voice warned Janet to duck, regardless of the toughened glass, and that saved her. The glass smashed into a thousand tiny fragments and the chair bounced off the far wall of the gallery. Janet dived under a desk for shelter and so she only heard the thump as Elizabeth landed on the desk top above her.

The intercom phone was knocked from the desk and swung on its flex until it hung just by Janet's head. Moving slowly and silently, Janet reached for the phone and pressed the security button.

Before she could speak, a long, tanned arm reached under the desk and seized Janet by the collar.

"I want security teams on full alert," Hammond told Sergeant Davis. "We have to anticipate SG-1 will come in hot and I don't want any surprises."

"Yes, Sir," Davis agreed. "I'll have the entire watch on stand-by and..."

"Sergeant?"

"Is that Dr Fraiser?"

Hammond turned and looked down into the Gateroom. Elizabeth stood on the ramp, holding Janet by the scruff of the neck.

Hammond activated the PA. "Release Dr Fraiser at once," he insisted.

"No Osiris!" Elizabeth raged. "No Osiris have Jonas!"

"General Hammond," Janet called, with forced calm. "I think our guest wants to go home and I really think it might be a good idea to let her go."

*

"What we have here," Sergeant Thomas 'Boomer' Thomas whispered, "is a standard Goa'uld naquadah fuel cell; impressive energy output in a safe, reliable package. Zero risk of catastrophic malfunction or accidental overload, so long as the inner housing retains integrity." Carefully, he slipped a detonator inside the casing of the device. He slid the covers closed and replaced it in the packing crate.

"Will that do the trick?" Captain Maybury 'Duke' Wayne asked, doubtfully.

"No problem," Thomas replied. "The detonator will crack that inner housing and the cell itself becomes the primary charge. This, plus the PBX charges, should be enough to total the cargo deck of a ha'tak vessel, if not trigger a chain reaction and take out the whole mothership."

"Very nice work Sergeant," Wayne declared. "Back to the jeep."

On silent feet, the two Marines began to pick their way back through the piles of crates waiting to be placed on board the transports and shuttled to the waiting mother ship. From the edge of the loading area, they had a quick climb under dense cover and they would be on the ridge where they had left their transport.

They were about to make the short dash from the edge of the loading area to the comforting cover of the scrub at the base of the ridge when a warning brought them up short. "Hold it, Duke; two Jackals on your right. Over." In the parlance of the SG Marine teams, Jackals were Jaffa warriors; a Goa'uld was a Wolf. Priests were Dogs and other servants – particularly handmaidens – were Foxes.

"Confirmed, Artemis," Wayne whispered. "Over."

On the ridge, Master Sergeant Anne 'Artemis' Fowler set down her field glasses and shouldered her sniper rifle. The MSG90A1 felt almost fragile after so many years using a PSG-1, but her faithful old rifle had finally given its all, taking a piece of shrapnel that might otherwise have severed her spine. She had buried it with honour and requested another PSG-1, but apparently hers had been almost the only example of the police sharpshooter's rifle in the Marine Corps and she had been issued with its skinny, military-spec kid brother. Fowler missed her old friend and, although she had to admit the MSG90 was a fine weapon and an easier carry, she doubted its ability to shield her back against flying shards of metal.

Pushing such considerations aside, she steadied the rifle and settled the crosshairs on the taller of the two Jaffa heading for Wayne and Thomas's position. Her finger lay alongside the trigger guard; she had no intention of firing unless it became absolutely necessary.

As things panned out, it did not. The Jaffa moved on, Fowler checked the area with her field glasses and her comrades made their way back to the jeep.

"Daredevil from Duke," Wayne whispered. "How are things on the hunting ground?"

"Hopeless," Major Parker replied. "It's like trying to start a stampede at the world taxidermy championships. The only way we stop these poor saps getting taken offworld is to blow the transport before they get there. I'm heading back to you; you make sure you blow at least one of those crates in the transport itself. Radio silence until; there're some Jackals coming to look around."

"Understood, Daredevil." Wayne sighed, softly. "Well; looks like we're pretty much done here."

On another ridge, just above the Stargate, Major Bradford 'Grizzly' Warren watched with growing anxiety as the Stargate opened. The initial assault had already brought a dozen Jackals to the scene; many more and three SG-teams would be hard-pressed to fight their way back out.

Warren's radio crackled. "SG-1-niner from SGC."

At the sound of General Hammond's voice, Warren straightened his back a little, even though he was lying down. "SGC from 3-niner," he replied. "SG-1-niner is currently out of radio contact."

There was a pause, then Hammond went on. "Be aware, 3-niner; you have an incoming traveller, designated Gloriana."

The event horizon rippled and a lean, savage-looking creature tumbled out. It took Warren a moment to recognise the demure little thing that SG-1 had brought back from this world in the first place. She looked about for a second, and then threw herself on the nearest Jaffa, knocking him to the ground. As the other warriors moved towards the unarmed Goa'uld, she caught the first by the wrist and swung him around in a circle, bowling three Jaffa to the ground, then released him so that he flew through the air and crashed into a fourth. Before the remaining Jaffa could react to this unexpected savagery, the Goa'uld had sprung away, scrambled down a steep slope and disappeared.

Little less shocked than the Jaffa, Warren lifted his radio and spoke with greater calm than he felt. "3-niner to SGC; please confirm IFF on traveller 'Gloriana'?"

"Consider traveller neutral," Hammond replied. "Fire only if attacked."

"Understood, SGC," Warren replied. "3-niner out." Much as he would have liked to ask more, SOP called for limited radio contact through a Gate in enemy hands. If it remained open for too long without any other travellers emerging, the Jaffa would know that radio messages were being exchanged. "Jeeves, pass the word to SG-5," he ordered.

"Yes, Sir," Sergeant Ablewhite replied, somewhat redundantly, as he was already in radio communication with Captain Wayne; SG-3's communications and technical specialist had earned his callsign for his uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing, without anyone having to ask him. "Duke, this is Jeeves. We have incoming."

*

Deep underground and well out of range of communications, SG-1 entered Osiris' forward laboratory.

"I guess we know where the guards went," Jack noted. The laboratory had been stripped back to its shining, white walls and, in a few places where the panelling had been torn from the rock, even further.

Teal'c pointed to the far door, which stood slightly open, the mechanism apparently damaged by Amy's shots. "There is movement within," he warned in a whisper.

Without further speech, SG-1 moved into action. Jack and Sam moved to flank the door, Teal'c pressed himself to the door itself and Jonas stood well back. Jack took the periscope from his pocket and peeked through the crack between the door and its frame. After a moment he waved the team to the back of the lab.

"Osiris, a dog and two Jaffa," he explained. "It looks as though they are stripping out the last of the data crystals and storing them in a case. If we play this right we can steal the data cores and snatch Osiris."

"Kidnap Osiris?" Sam asked, confused. "Do you think we can risk bringing her back to the Gate?"

"I kind of feel we owe it to Daniel," Jack admitted. "If we can get her back to the Tok'ra, they can take the symbiote out of Dr Gardner."

"If she works out what we're doing, Osiris will kill Gardner in a heartbeat," Sam protested. "It's too risky. We should blast the data crystals and run."

Jack paused, thoughtfully. "T?"

"I believe that we can retrieve Sarah Gardner if we act swiftly," Teal'c said.

Jack looked at Jonas.

"I'm in," the young man agreed.

Sam nodded, slowly. "Alright then," she agreed.

"Ready zats then," Jack ordered. "Carter, go straight for Osiris; Teal'c and I will take the guards. Jonas, you drop the dog if it causes trouble."

*

Parker was not at all happy to hear that Elizabeth had returned to P7A-121; he knew the value that Goa'uld placed on their queens and what her return must mean. "If they hear she's on the planet they'll never leave without her," he fumed. "There's nothing else for it, we'll have to try and panic them into making a break for it."

"Us panic them?" Wayne asked. "There's an awful lot more of them than us," he noted.

"But we're smarter," Parker insisted, "and a hell of a lot cuter. Boomer, how do we stand for booby traps?"

"Several have been lifted to the ha'tak already," Thomas assured his CO. "I can set them all off as soon as the next one goes into that heavy transport; if you want panic..."

"Do it," Parker agreed. "Fowler, start whittling down the Jackal numbers a little. Duke; you're with me. We'll take the jeep down onto the plain and try to seem like a battalion or two."

"You're an ambitious man, Major," Fowler allowed.

"Not to mention optimistic," Wayne added.

"Well, we have to do something while we wait for the boss," Parker insisted. "But once the shooting starts, Thomas, you keep trying the radio until you raise SG-1. I don't plan on sticking around for long. When it all goes south – as I'm sure it will – we meet up at RV point one and hightail it back to the Gate."

*

At Jack's signal, Jonas worked the door control. Jack and Teal'c led the way into the lab, with Carter hard on their heels. The two Jaffa dropped easily enough, but Sam's zat blast coiled harmlessly around Osiris' shield. As Jonas followed the others into the room, the Goa'uld lifted her hand and bowled Jack over with a ribbon wave.

Teal'c drew his knife, intending to strike Osiris through her shield, but a dark figure broke from beside the door and caught his wrist in and iron grip. As Teal'c struggled with the dark woman, Sam charged Osiris and was knocked dismissively aside. Jonas raised his P90 to club the dark woman on the back of the head, but Osiris' red-eared hound sprang at him and bowled him over. Its long teeth fixed hold of the P90 and tore it so violently from Jonas's grip that the strap around his neck snapped.

Jonas's head was yanked up and then fell back to strike the floor. His vision filled with red, then everything went black.

The shol'va bore down on Lamia; they were approximately equal in skill and his superior strength told against her. With a last effort, she twisted away from him and released his wrist, seeking to put distance between them once more. The Jaffa was on her in a flash, but Lord Osiris stepped forward and cast him down with her hand device.

There was a slight movement from the fair-haired Tau'ri, but the wish hound padded over and growled at her. Whether unconscious or simply wise enough to feign it, the woman lay still. Osiris walked over and bent beside her, peeling back the woman's eye to be sure that she was out cold before she called her pet away.

"Good boy, Daniel," she said, rubbing the animal's throat. "Who's a clever puppy? Smelled the nasty Tau'ri coming."

"Are you hurt, My Lord?" Lamia asked, concerned that her mistress might have suffered a head wound of some kind.

"Quite unharmed," Osiris assured her. "And the other Tau'ri?"

Lamia cast her eyes over the fallen warriors. "Colonel O'Neill is alive and..." She stopped, then snatched up a zat'nik'tel and ran to the open door. "Jonas Quinn is gone," she said.

"Really?" Osiris asked, perturbed. "I had thought..." She broke off as a zat'nik'tel discharge arced around her.

The shol'va pushed himself upright and fired at Lamia. As she dived under the blast and rose to catch her tottering mistress, Lamia saw that Colonel O'Neill seemed also to be regaining consciousness. She activated her shield and snatched up the case of data crystals, then lifted her wristband to her mouth. "Internal transporters online," she ordered. "Emergency shift; armoury."

The light of the transporter beam filled the white-walled room for a moment as it swept the two Goa'uld away.

*

Thomas watched, impressed as always, as the Jaffa standing around the loading area began to crumple. Three of them were dead before the muffled crack of Fowler's suppressed rifle had even reached Thomas from the top of the ridge, four before the Jaffa reacted to the sound. Several of the enemy took cover by the transport ship, but this was a bad move; one of the booby-trapped crates had been loaded mere moments before.

Thomas pressed the trigger on his remote detonator. Two other crates in the loading area exploded. Inside the barque, the initial blast from the rigged generator ruptured the housing of the ship's reactor and the liquid naquadah core further magnified the blast. The ship's hull seemed to swell and distend for a moment; plasma flame flashed from the open hatch and leaked through the seams of the hull. The welds between the hull plates melted and the ship was torn apart, its component parts hurled across the loading area on the crest of a wave of fire.

"Everyone okay?" Thomas asked, feeling the heat on his cheek as he averted his eyes from the flash.

"I looked away just in time," Fowler replied. "Thanks for the warning," she groused, sarcastically.

"Fine and dandy, Boomer," Parker replied. "That was one hell of a bang."

"My best yet," Thomas assured him.

The low rattle of machine gun fire cut across the channel.

"You've certainly got their attention," Parker went on. "The herding parties are all heading your way."

"I see them, Daredevil," Fowler replied. "There's quite a few of them. I just hope Sierra-Golf One get back to us soon."

Reminded of his secondary duty, Thomas picked up his radio. "SG-1-niner," he said, "this is SG-5-four; please respond."

But answer came there none.

*

Sam sat up, slowly and painfully. "Ow," she muttered.

Jack rubbed the back of his head ruefully. "So many Goa'uld rely on their Jaffa," he said. "Sometimes I forget how dangerous they can be in person."

"There was a second Goa'uld, hidden from us," Teal'c noted. "I believe that the canine detected our presence; Osiris called it Daniel," he added, glowering at the dog, which gazed levelly back at him.

"I wonder if that's meant as a compliment." Sam mused.

"Where did they go, anyway?" Jack asked. "I thought they needed rings to transport."

"Not since they drained Thor's brain," Sam corrected.

Teal'c looked pensive. "The Goa'uld spoke of an 'internal transporter'," he said.

Sam nodded. "The rock of this mountain must block their sensors and communications. Their shipboard transporters can't pick them up unless they have a booster – the transport rings," she added.

"So they'll be heading for the rings?" Jack asked.

Sam nodded. "Most likely." She moved to a console on the wall and worked the controls. "It looks as though the internal transporter has only been used once and..." She worked a few more controls.

"You're suddenly looking rather smug," Jack told her.

"Sorry, Sir. I've just told the computer to run a full diagnostic of the internal transporter system," she explained. "A full diagnostic would use one of the main computers and Osiris has stripped the cores out of those, so the system is jammed, trying to find the command to tell it to abort the diagnostic, but that would have come from another of the main computers."

"Most impressive," Teal'c commended her.

"It won't catch or retrieve Osiris," Sam admitted, "but if she wants to get to the transport rings, she'll have to walk."

"Then we go up and out," Jack decided. "We need to contact the other teams. After that, we can try to find out where Jonas has got to." He stood up and limped to the door with as purposeful a stride as he could manage. "And Teal'c; bring the dog."

Teal'c looked at Daniel. The hound looked up at the Jaffa and growled.

Weakened by the zat'nik'tel blast, Osiris blacked out during transport; she regained consciousness in the armoury. In addition to the usual staff weapons and zat'nik'tels, Osiris had stocked this chamber with some of the weapons that her engineers had designed for her new army. She saw that Lamia had changed into a suit of the new armour – black as night, with a surface like silk – and armed herself with a heavy plasma rifle. She had dragged her long, black hair back and wound it up so that it would fit beneath a helmet.

"It suits you," Osiris said.

"I feel awkward," Lamia admitted. Although skilled in personal combat, she was no soldier and was a stranger to battledress.

Osiris rose to her feet. "I meant your hair, actually. Pass me one of those carbines. Internal transporters; shift to ring transport antechamber."

There was no response.

"The Tau'ri have disabled the transporter system," Lamia explained. "With the primary computers offline, there is no way to restore function. We shall have to reach the rings on foot."

"Then we had better move quickly," Osiris declared. "SG-1 are still out there somewhere and I feel the need to put the reassurance of a star yacht's hull and a few miles of vacuum between us."

"You fear these Tau'ri?" Lamia asked, surprised.

"If you are not a fool – and I would have killed you long ago if you were – then you will fear them also," Osiris assured her. "Although of course, no-one else need know that."

"Of course," Lamia agreed.

At the mouth of the cave, communications were re-established and the radio came alive with the sound of weapon fire and urgent voices. To the south, a truly biblical column of smoke rose over the spur of the cliff. The hound set up a keening howl at these signs of devastation.

"I say again, SG-1-niner," Sergeant Thomas said, "we are under heavy fire from the surviving herding parties. Note that neutral party, designated Gloriana, has entered play."

"Gloriana?" Jack asked.

"Elizabeth," Sam declared.

Jack sighed. "Acknowledged, 5-four," he said. "1-four is still in the frying pan. Hold as long as you can, but be ready to fall back."

"Acknowledged 1-niner," Thomas agreed. "5-four out."

"Right," Jack said, decisively. "Carter, watch the door and maintain contact with the Marines. Teal'c; let's go get our nerd back."

Lamia led the way into the ring chamber, signalling for her mistress to follow once she was sure that there was no danger. Osiris left her lieutenant to watch the door while she checked the ring controls and the particle stream alignment.

"I have a lock on the private ring circuit in your ha'tak vessel," she noted. "Strange; I can not seem to acquire your primary or freight rings. No matter," she decided. "Return to your vessel and organise a surface scan. Root out my enemies and rout them from the field."

"My Lord," Lamia replied, "I will remain here until you are safely aboard your yacht."

"No," Osiris declared. "You must manage affairs above while I complete my business below."

"What business?" Lamia asked.

Osiris smiled. "First I have to make certain that none of my equipment falls into Tau'ri hands. After that, I am going to get my dog back," she announced.

*

Jonas woke in pain. The back of his head throbbed horribly where it had struck the ground and a thick, metallic taste in his mouth told him that he had bitten his tongue. As the overwhelming awareness of pain receded and he became able to turn his attention to his surroundings, he realised first that he was not in Osiris' custody and second that where he was, was not much better.

He was lying in a cave, on a bed of grass, with a warm body beside him. There was no light, but he was certain that he was in a fairly enclosed space.

"Jonas," Elizabeth purred.

"Hello, Elizabeth," he replied. He fumbled in his pockets for a packet of glow-rods and snapped them in his palm. Their soft, amber glow filled the tiny cavern.

Elizabeth leaned close, smiling warmly, and lifted a hand to Jonas' face. As she did so, he could see that her skin was bruised and cut along her forearm.

"You're hurt," he noted, concerned.

"Nothing," she assured him. "Found you. No Osiris."

"Yes," he agreed. "No Osiris, for which I am grateful, but also no friends."

Elizabeth pouted.

"No friends except Elizabeth," he hurriedly added. "Where are the others? Teal'c? Major Carter?"

The Goa'uld Queen shrugged her shoulders. "No know," she replied, sulkily. "Want Jonas, not May-jor C'ta."

Jonas sighed and sat up as best he could in the confined space. "Elizabeth, we have to get back."

"Stay!"

"You're a lovely girl, Elizabeth," Jonas assured her, kindly. "I would like a chance to get to know you better; to prove to the others – to my friends – that you're a friend as well. To do that, we have to go back," he explained. "We have to help them and make sure that they're all safe. If we do that, we can all be friends..."

"No!" Elizabeth exclaimed, angrily. "Jonas my friend!"

"I have lots of friends," he explained, patiently. "I want you to be one of my friends, and maybe we could be special friends," he suggested. "But I can't leave my old friends and if you try to make me, you're not my friend because friends don't do that." Jonas was not sure that he was making much impact on Elizabeth, who was clearly not the fan of the teen fiction oeuvre that he was and had her own, rather idiosyncratic ideas regarding best friends.

Elizabeth stared at Jonas in incomprehension, then – entirely without warning – she burst into tears.

"Elizabeth," Jonas whispered.

The Queen whimpered.

Jonas leaned forward and laid an arm around her shoulder. Elizabeth was shaking with tears and she pressed herself against his chest as though she wanted to burrow inside his chest. Certainly, she seemed pretty much intent on burrowing inside his clothes, her hands seeking out the clips and buckles of his tactical vest with an adroitness that was impressive in a woman who had never had to cope with any clothing more sophisticated than a simple shift.

"Elizabeth, stop!" Jonas protested, squirming away as best he could as her mouth sought hungrily after his. This was worse than the assault she had made on him at the SGC, not merely because she was even more predatory – her tears drying up as though they had never been – but because here there was no hope of rescue, no Dr Fraiser with a much-needed sedative. Elizabeth would have her way and there was nothing that he could do to stop her; a prospect much less appealing in fact than it might have seemed in detached concept.

On the breast of his vest, Jonas' radio crackled into life. "One-four. Can you respond?"

He snatched at it like a drowning man clutching at straws. "Colonel!" he gasped. "Help!"

"Where are you?" Jack demanded. "What is Osiris doing?"

"Damned if I know," Jonas replied. He expected that at any moment, Elizabeth would snatch away the radio, but it seemed that a voice without a scent did not make a person to her. "I seem to have been abducted for...immoral purposes."

"By Osiris?"

"No," Jonas replied. "Elizabeth." Then he said in near echo: "No, Elizabeth!" but she paid him no heed.

"Just...hang in there," Jack said, stifling a laugh.

"Colonel!" Jonas wailed.

"We're heading for the ring chamber to intercept Osiris," Jack explained.

With a great effort, Jonas wrenched himself from Elizabeth's grip. "Colonel!" he growled.

"We'd come after you if only we knew where you were," Jack promised, becoming serious again. "You just have to try and get away from her and make for the ring chamber if you can."

"Right," Jonas sighed. "Fine."

*

Lamia swept onto the peltac of her ha'tak vessel, accompanied by the blare of alarms and the cries of her embattled crew.

"Report!" she ordered.

"My Lady," he pilot replied. "There were explosive devices in several of the crates brought up from the surface and they were detonated in the receiving bay and hangar. We have lost much of the cargo and the hangar has suffered considerable damage."

"What is the status of our gliders?" Lamia demanded.

"The larger part of the squadron is undamaged," the pilot assured her. "However, the damage to the hangar area has cut all power to the launching hooks and the main bay doors."

"Then we can not send our birds against the worms on the surface." Lamia paused for a moment in thought. "Very well," she declared. "Initiate a full surface sweep of the area around the caves and find the Tau'ri. Once you have the location of My Lord's enemies, bring the ship down to an altitude of one thousand paces, directly above them, and activate the light guns."

"The light guns?" the pilot asked, incredulous. "Those are designed only for defence."

"They will suffice to deal with a few infantry," Lamia assured the Jaffa. "Targeting may be difficult against a grounded target, but life would be bland indeed without the occasional challenge."

*

When Jonas told Elizabeth to get off him, he meant it far more than many men might have done, but that did not mean that his ego took no damage from her response. The Goa'uld suddenly looked up and released her grip on him. Before Jonas could quite recover his wits, she had risen to her feet and was gone, slipping nimbly through a gap in the rock wall of the cavern.

Jonas sat up and groped for his radio. "Colonel," he said, breathlessly.

"What's happening, Jonas?" Jack asked.

Jonas stared at the gaping crack into which Elizabeth had vanished. "I seem to have lost my charm," he admitted, ruefully. "Elizabeth just took off. She looked up before she went, as though she heard something."

"Really?" Jack asked, with real interest in his voice.

"Colonel?"

"The dog ran away about a minute ago," Jack explained. "It looked like it had heard something before it went; something we couldn't hear. Like a dog whistle."

Jonas frowned. "I'm going after her," he said.

"Be careful," Jack cautioned. "Jonas?"

Jonas did not answer; he was already on the move, squeezing through the opening. Elizabeth had come through so swiftly that her trail was easy to follow in the dust of the cavern passage and he hurried along the passage after her as fast as the dim light of the glow rods would allow. After about a hundred yards, the passage opened out onto the main corridor of the laboratory complex. There was no dust on the floor here, but the lights in the corridor were dark, save for a glow that came through an open door to the right.

Jonas turned and ran towards the light.

*

The clouds above the plain split apart and the belly of a ha'tak vessel hove into view. Fowler spoke into her radio. "Daredevil," she said. "I think we've got their attention."

A plasma bolt stabbed down from the underside of the ship and boiled a small crater in the plain.

"Looks like, Artemis," Parker replied. "One-niner from Five-niner; we are under aerial bombardment. Please advise."

The ship fired again and another voice, that of Major Warren, broke across the channel. "One-niner, this is Three-niner. SG-3 also under bombardment."

After a short pause, the reply came from Major Carter. "Acknowledged, Three-niner," she said, addressing the senior of the two Marine majors. "Fall back to SGC."

"Acknowledged, One-two," Parker agreed, reluctantly. "Artemis, Boomer; we'll meet you at the rendezvous. And hustle," he added. "I'm putting the hammer down."

*

Jonas drew to a halt outside the door. Voices drifted from the room beyond. One was Elizabeth's, the other was Osiris'.

"How fascinating," Osiris purred. "And yet, how apt."

"Hurt Osiris," Elizabeth growled.

"You are stronger than me," Osiris agreed, "but you are also unarmed and have too much desire to live to risk charging a woman with a pistol."

Jonas drew his pistol and took a deep breath. He was about to step out into the doorway when he heard a soft pattering on the floor behind him and a pair of powerful jaws clamped down on his wrist. He cried out, but the teeth did not break the skin. Instead, the dog turned its head so that Jonas' wrist was twisted and he was forced to drop his sidearm.

Osiris gave a soft laugh. "Come in, Mr Quinn!" she called, although she could not have seen him from inside the room.

The hound tugged on Jonas' wrist and all-but frogmarched him through the door. The room was small and most of it was taken up by a pear-shaped metal canister, from which emerged an array of wires and pipes. Osiris stood beside this device, a pistol of unfamiliar design held in her slender hand, while Elizabeth stood in front of her, a slightly dazed expression on her face.

"Jonas!" Elizabeth cried out, alarmed.

The dog released Jonas, and then threw his powerful frame against the Kelownan's hip, sending him stumbling to the floor at Elizabeth's side. Then he padded to his mistress' side and Osiris fondled his ears, adoringly.

"Good boy, Daniel," she cooed. "Oh, yes; who's a clever doggy?"

Elizabeth started up, but Osiris' pistol followed her movement precisely – although she kept her attention on the dog – and the weapon gave a soft hum of building power. There were emitter vanes along the sides of the pistol and the air around these began to ripple with a slight heat-haze.

"No hurt Jonas," Elizabeth hissed.

Osiris looked up at the primitive and laughed.

Elizabeth's hands curled into fists. "No hurt..."

Osiris stepped forward and slammed the butt of her pistol into Elizabeth's face. Elizabeth fell to the floor at Jonas's side.

"Leave her alone!" Jonas snapped, his temper threatening to overwhelm him.

"Calm yourself, Mr Quinn," Osiris cautioned. "It would be a shame if someone as fascinating as you were to be killed over a silly little bitch like this."

"Don't call her that!" Jonas fumed, although he knew that his rage was impotent.

Osiris smiled, sweetly. "But why so upset?" she asked in an innocent tone. "After all, she did respond to my dog whistle."

The Goa'uld touched a brooch at her breast and a near-inaudible whistle that Jonas had barely been aware of was silenced. Elizabeth shook her head and the stunned look left her eyes. Confused and disoriented, she grasped Jonas's hand fiercely.

"Where Elizabeth?" she asked, plaintively.

"It's alright," Jonas assured her, with as much confidence as he could muster.

"Liar," Osiris accused. "You know, I will never cease to wonder at the number of creatures in this galaxy who seem to become besotted with members of SG-1."

"Including yourself," Jonas accused.

Osiris' smile grew cold. "I must disillusion you," she told him. "My fascination for you is purely academic."

"I didn't mean me," he assured her. "I meant Daniel Jackson."

"I care nothing for him!" Osiris snapped, her air of cold aloofness cracking. "I inherited some residue of my host's desire for him, but I have not thought of him since I learned of his death. As he is no threat, he is of no interest," she sniffed.

"Major Carter said you seemed pretty upset."

"Silence!" Osiris roared. She threw out her left hand and a ribbon wave plucked Jonas from the floor and hurled him against the wall.

The air was forced from Jonas' lungs and he collapsed in a heap, but the distraction was enough for Elizabeth. Freed from the influence of Osiris' 'dog whistle', Elizabeth was faster than her creator had anticipated. She knocked the pistol aside and drove Osiris to the ground, holding her left wrist pinned in a vice-like grip and pressing down hard across Osiris' throat with her left forearm.

Jonas clawed at the ground, struggling to reach Osiris' pistol, but Daniel's long jaws swooped down and snatched the weapon away from him. With a flick of his head he sent the pistol clattering across the room, then he lunged at Elizabeth and the two of them tumbled across the floor in a flurry of limbs and fur.

With mounting horror, Jonas watched the desperate struggle. After only a few seconds, a sharp scream was cut off into a gurgle and Elizabeth's body flopped limply to the ground. Immediately, Daniel backed away, his muzzle red with blood.

Osiris struggled up and stroked her pet's ears again. "Good boy," she panted, breathlessly, holding one hand to her bruised throat. "Clever doggy."

Jonas hauled himself into a sitting position, but before he could find his feet, Osiris had retrieved her pistol. Elizabeth lay very still, but her chest still rose and fell with her breath. Although his chest was tightening and breath still eluded him, Jonas managed to drag himself over to the Queen's side. Her throat was a bloody, bubbling mess and her lovely face was pale and set in a look of absolute incomprehension.

"I suppose that I overestimated her," Osiris mused, with a note of disappointment. "Either her desire to live or her intelligence was insufficient to dissuade her from attacking an armed opponent...and her dog," she added, as Daniel nuzzled her hand.

"She was protecting me," Jonas gasped, at last managing to force the wind back into his lungs. He spoke with equal parts anger, affection and guilt and Osiris laughed to hear his tone.

"If so, her action was merely possessive, there was no finer feeling in it. Love is an invention of the idle intellect and she had no intellect, idle or otherwise."

"You're wrong," Jonas insisted, struggling to staunch the bleeding at Elizabeth's throat.

"I am never wrong," Osiris told him. She levelled her pistol at him, but then seemed to change her mind. She holstered the weapon and delivered a swift kick to the chin that rendered him unconscious.

*

"My Lady!" the sensor officer called out.

"Report," Lamia replied, not taking her eyes from her targeting grids. She had injured one of the Tau'ri, but two of the others were now carrying their wounded comrade and they were jinking from cover to cover in order to avoid her fire. She had tried to herd them by starting a few scrub fires, but even the light plasma guns used for anti-fighter work were too powerful for that kind of work and tended instead to blow smouldering – but not flaming – holes in the landscape.

The sensor officer routed a scan image to Lamia's weapons' station. "Tau'ri land craft detected," he explained, "moving at speed towards the Chappa'ai."

Lamia took in the scan data. Her fingers flew across the control panel and her targeting grid refocused on the location of the small vehicle. It was a wheeled craft – an archaic technology, but a robust and reliable one – and moving at impressive speed for something so utterly land-bound. Lamia allowed a few seconds for the ship's most powerful directional scanners to gather as much detail as possible about this primitive, yet fascinating, device, then activated the targeting beams. Fast it might be, but the vehicle was larger than a human and turned more slowly; it would be an easier target.

The computers in the weapons' console calculated the velocity of the target. The crosshairs on the targeting grid turned red as the calculations were completed. Lamia touched the firing stud; from initialisation, through weapon charging and plasma discharge to the moment of impact took less than three seconds, even at this range. In an atmosphere and within the influence of a planetary magnetic field, the guns had a projected impact radius of five paces, but against an object moving in a straight line, a kill was almost certain.

And yet the blast missed its target.

"Fascinating," Lamia murmured. "He knew."

"My Lady," the pilot asked, confused.

"The pilot of that craft," Lamia explained. She locked the targeting computers onto the craft again, but did not fire; nonetheless, the driver jinked his vehicle hard to the side. "Incredible." She turned a fierce gaze on the pilot. "Don't say it," she warned.

The pilot nodded in acknowledgement, the words 'my lady' hanging unspoken on his tongue.

"I have known Goa'uld who could recognise the atmospheric ionisation caused by a targeting beam," Lamia continued, "but that a human could do the same, and react so fast..." She paused for a moment in thought. "Stand down light guns," she instructed. "Activate the transporter and route control to my targeting console."

"Sierra Golf Charlie, this is Sierra Golf Five-three!" Fowler yelled. "Please verify arrival location as The Village."

"Negative, SG-5-two," Sergeant Davis replied. "Arrival location is Area-52. Code Red has been triggered," the Gate technician went on. "The Eye will be closed if there is nothing to see."

"Oh, crap," Fowler muttered. Under a Code Red alert, the Iris would be sealed behind an incoming team until and unless another team sent their own IDC. This was not a great problem for SG-5, but what was a problem was that they would have to abandon their vehicle and run to the Gate; the main SGC facility had no room for an incoming jeep.

Major Parker slammed the wheel to right lock, throwing the jeep into a sharp turn as a beam of bright light stabbed down from the heavens. In its wake, a collection of rocks and bushes disappeared.

"That's new," Fowler noted.

"Never mind that, Artemis!" Parker snapped. "Stand by with the IDC, but tell 52 we're coming in hard and fast. Get them to clear the ramp and stick as many mattresses and the like as they can bring at the foot of it."

"You're not serious," Wayne scoffed, alarmed.

Parker shot him a manic grin. "Buckle up, Duke," he cautioned. "This could be a bumpy ride."

Lamia opened an intercom channel to the transporter chamber. "What is the maximum radius of the transporter's molecular field?" she demanded.

"Nine paces, My Lady," came the reply.

Lamia considered this. That would be large enough to contain the entire vehicle, but if the driver jinked in the wrong direction, he could be sliced in half by the edge of the field and she would have no prize; or worse, half a prize. Fortunately, there was one place where she would have a better chance of making a catch; at the Chappa'ai.

The jeep drew closer and closer to the Stargate and Parker relaxed his foot on the accelerator. His comrades breathed a sigh of relief as they realised that their CO was not going to drive the jeep at speed through the event horizon with a wall less than twenty feet from the far end of the wormhole.

"Stand by to make a run for the Gate," Wayne ordered the two sergeants.

"Belay that order," Parker replied. "Keep your harnesses tight."

Lamia switched off her targeting computers. Locking on to the area in front of the Stargate required no tell-tale beams to warn this particularly impressive human with their ionising effect. She watched the jeep slow and the driver looked up, giving the Goa'uld her first sight of the man who had so aroused her interest. He was a dark, brawny man with shrewd, penetrating eyes; he was handsome as well, and intelligence glowed in those dark eyes.

He looked straight up at the ha'tak vessel – straight into the scanner – and winked.

Lamia's eyes widened. "Incredible," she whispered. Her fingers groped for the firing stud, but she could not tear her gaze from the man's face.

"Code Red! Transmit!" Parker fixed his eyes on the Gate and slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. He slewed the jeep around the DHD as Fowler fumbled with her GDO. Parker felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as the transporter field powered up.

The hood of the jeep hit the event horizon and the world shattered into streamers of speeding stars.

"Transporter chamber!" Lamia shrieked. "Transporter chamber, have we got them?"

"We have nothing, My Lady."

Lamia gave a scream of rage.

The jeep burst from the event horizon. The wheels skidded on the smooth metal of the ramp, slewed sideways and finally crashed into a huge pile of mattresses. At the top of the ramp, the iris slid closed.

After a short pause, Parker began to laugh. Wayne stared at him in alarm. For a few seconds, Parker laughed alone, but then Thomas began to laugh as well; Fowler and Wayne soon joined in. The four Marines sat in their jeep, surrounded by crushed mattresses, and howled with laughter.

In the control room, General Hammond leaned over the microphone. "Welcome home, SG-5," he said.

*

Jack stepped around the edge of the door as Osiris approached, P90 held at the level of her face. The Goa'uld half-raised her hand and her hound tensed to spring, but then Teal'c stepped out behind her, zat'nik'tel unfurling in his hand.

"Not so fast!" Osiris cautioned, raising a hand to tap a slender gold band that circled her head. A jewel set at her brow sparkled, as though lit from within.

In fact – Jack realised – it was lit from within. "Hold it, Teal'c," he said, but he did not lower his weapon.

Osiris lowered her hand, raised herself up to a more dignified pose and straightened her robes. Her dog sat down, primly.

"Alright, you have my attention," Jack admitted. "What's with the tiara?"

"Pretty, isn't it?"

"Stylin'," Jack agreed. "But if that's all, then we'll get on with rendering you unconscious and removing you from your host."

Osiris chuckled. "No. It is not all," she admitted. "This jewel is a psychometric relay; it modulates my neural activity into a pulsed transphasic transmission, so long as my thoughts remain calm and ordered, that is. If I lose concentration, the crystal will stop transmitting."

Jack sighed. "A dead man's switch."

"More of an angry woman's handle," Osiris replied. "If you so much as make me unhappy with you, the signal will be interrupted."

"And then...something blows up?" Jack guessed.

"This laboratory complex," Teal'c surmised.

"Correct," Osiris agreed. She kept her eyes on Jack. "A Jaffa who thinks," she laughed. "What will they think of next?"

Teal'c's hand tightened on the handle of his zat.

"Easy, big guy," Jack said.

"As an added incentive," Osiris went on, "even if you were able to escape the blast, your friend is strapped to the self-destruct charge. Kill me and he will die. Defy me and he will die. Delay me and he will die. And if you hurt my dog, please believe that I will not hesitate to kill your friend. Allow me access to the ring chamber and he might live."

Jack had to bite his lip to keep from saying something he might regret. "I need fifteen minutes," he growled."

"I'm sure you know that if you ask for fifteen minutes I will give you ten," Osiris told him. "Therefore, you have five."

"Keep an eye on her, Teal'c," Jack said. He turned and went back into the room where he had been hiding.

"I do like dealing with a reasonable man," Osiris told Teal'c, conversationally.

"If you attempt to turn I will kill you," Teal'c told her.

Osiris chuckled. "Of course, sometimes it can be reassuring to deal with someone with a well-known and predictable mindset."

Jack closed the door. He did not like leaving anyone to guard a Goa'uld on their own, but Teal'c was better qualified than anyone else he knew and he needed to confer with his science officer.

"Carter," he said. "We have a problem."

"Just the one, Sir?" Sam asked. "Things are looking up."

"Osiris has a dead man's switch," Jack explained. "I need you to find out what frequency she's broadcasting on and try to duplicate the signal. If we can override her switch, we can take her out."

"And if I can't?"

"We'll just have to hope you can," Jack told her, "because Jonas is strapped to a bomb somewhere in this labyrinth and if you can't block the signal, he'll be blown to bits as soon as we leave."

*

Jonas recovered consciousness feeling even worse than the last time. His body ached, he seemed to be half-paralysed and red lights flashed before his eyes. Slowly, it became clear to him that he could not move his arms because they were wrapped around the metal canister, with her wrists bound together on the other side. Lights were flashing in front of his eyes because Osiris had thoughtfully tied him up with his face right beside a timer that was counting down.

"Oh great," Jonas sighed. He did a quick calculation in his mind and realised that the timer had about eight minutes left to run. "Oh really great."

Jonas struggled and tugged at his ropes, but to no avail. Clearly, Osiris was well-acquainted with the art of tying men up; either that or Sarah Gardner had been a Girl Scout, or whatever the group analogous to the Kelownan Wilderness Rangers might be in her part of Earth. In either case, the ropes on Jonas' wrists were very secure, the knots very sound.

"Really, really great."

Jonas almost jumped out of his skin when a sticky hand touched his. He strained to see around the edge of the canister and to his great delight he saw Elizabeth, smiling weakly at him.

"Jonas," she croaked. The ragged wound in her throat gaped horribly, but to Jonas she had never looked lovelier. She dipped her head and rubbed her cheek against his knuckles. "Like Jonas," she murmured.

"That's very sweet," Jonas told her, "but could you just untie my wrists."

"Like."

Jonas looked at the timer. He estimated there were now five minutes remaining. "Ah...now, Elizabeth."

*

"I can't do it."

"Not words I like to hear from you, Carter," Jack said.

"I'm sorry, Sir," Sam replied, "but without a Goa'uld transmitter I just can't create a pulsed transphasic signal. I can match the frequency easily enough, but not the signal density. I'm sorry," she added.

"Don't be," Jack told her. "You did your best. We just need to get Jonas out. If we could slow Osiris down and give ourselves a little more time..."

"I can try to scramble the locks using one of the control consoles," Sam offered. "I'm sure Osiris has an override, but there are four more doors to pass before she gets to the ring chamber and overriding each one will take time. Might buy you a few minutes."

Jack sighed. It was not much, but it was all he was going to get. "Do it," he said. "I'll send Osiris on her merry way. While you're tapping into the system, why not see if you can get that computer to tell us where the bomb is."

Reluctantly, Jack opened the door and returned to the corridor. The three waiting in the corridors – Osiris, Teal'c and the dog – were all exactly where he had left them.

"Well?" Osiris asked, gently tapping her circlet with a delicate finger.

"You're free to go," Jack said. "For now."

"Why thank you, Colonel O'Neill," Osiris replied, curtseying. "I am certain that we shall meet again."

"Count on it," Jack replied, with as much menace as he could muster. He waited for the Goa'uld to saunter proudly out of sight, then lifted his tac radio again. "Carter?"

"Go back the way she came," Sam replied. "Take the second passage on the left and keep going."

*

Jonas' radio was a ruin; Osiris had clearly smashed it and left it attached to Jonas' vest just to tease him. With no way to contact his team he just had to make the best guess of the way out he could manage, based on the air currents in the passageway, and head that way as fast as he could. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had other ideas.

"Stay, Jonas," she pleaded, tugging on his hand. "Osiris there."

"Good," Jonas said. "If Osiris came this way, it's the way out and we need to get out before the bomb goes off."

"Stay!"

Jonas turned, laid a hand on Elizabeth's cheek and looked into her eyes. "Elizabeth," he said, "we must go. If we stay here, we will die. Please, trust me; come with me."

She looked at him, long and hard. At last she said: "Yes."

With a sense of profound relief, Jonas turned again and led Elizabeth through the tunnels. After a few minutes, however, she stopped dead. "Osiris," she moaned.

"She's set a bomb; she'll be long gone," Jonas promised.

Elizabeth shook her head. "No," she insisted. "She is there. Must go back."

"We'll die!" Jonas snapped.

"Jonas!"

Elizabeth started at the sound of Jack O'Neill's voice. She dragged her hand from Jonas' and backed away, alarmed.

"Elizabeth!" Jonas held out his hand, palm up in a gesture of friendship. "You must come with me, Elizabeth. Please." He sighed. "Like Elizabeth," he told her. "Elizabeth come."

He heard footsteps in the corridor behind him. Elizabeth started, and then fled.

"No!" Jonas tried to run after her, but strong hands held him back.

"Jonas!" Jack yelled. "We have to go!"

"We can't leave her!" Jonas cried. "The bomb goes off in less than a minute. She'll be killed."

Jack took a deep breath, and then swallowed hard. "Listen, Jonas," he said. "This is what we're going to do." He cocked his fist back and slugged Jonas hard across the jaw.

Teal'c caught Jonas as he fell. He hefted the young man in his arms and he and Jack set off at a run for the cave mouth.

*

Lamia sat in her cabin and stared intently at the screen of her console. The frozen image of the driver hung there, overlaid with the information that she had retrieved from the extensive intelligence files which Lord Osiris had gathered on the subject of the SGC. The information – mostly gathered by Apophis' agents prior to their failed coup – was a few years out of date, but she had found the face she was looking for.

The air in the centre of Lamia's cabin flickered and her mistress appeared. Lamia turned from her console and bowed low in obeisance before the hologram. With some relief, she realised that Osiris must have returned to her yacht; there was no holographic communicator in the laboratory.

"Rise, my Shadow," Osiris said.

Lamia stood. "Your orders, My Lord."

"You are to withdraw to orbit and allow SG-1 to depart," Osiris ordered. "I shall detonate a bomb on their heels and perhaps dispatch a gunship to harry them a little, but they are to depart unhurt, Jonas Quinn in particular."

"But My Lord," Lamia said, taken aback. "If it lies within your power to destroy these enemies of Lord Anubis..."

"I have a use in mind for SG-1," Osiris replied. "Their deaths will not serve me so well as their lives."

Lamia's eyes widened in realisation. "You think that they can destroy Anubis," she gasped.

"If anyone can, it is them," Osiris admitted.

"You run a grave risk."

"Not while my Shadow is true to me," Osiris assured her. She looked over Lamia's shoulder and smiled. "And who is this?" she asked.

"One Captain Steven 'Daredevil' Parker," Lamia replied. "His...sensory acuity was most impressive."

"Indeed?" Osiris drawled. "Well, I have often thought that you needed a hobby. I hope that Captain Steven 'Daredevil' Parker will prove both stimulating and diverting."

Lamia flushed with embarrassment. "My interest is purely intellectual," she insisted.

"That has a familiar sound, but in your case I do hope not," Osiris laughed. "Your celibacy is unhealthy, Lamia. I suggest that you take steps before I feel moved to take steps myself."

"Yes, My Lord," Lamia mumbled, awkwardly. She was deeply ashamed to have been caught out displaying mortal weaknesses, even though she knew that Osiris herself owned freely to such weaknesses. "Although I do not think that this Tau'ri..."

"Nonsense," Osiris corrected. "If you thought him worthy of notice, there must be more to him than a handsome face. Make it your business to know all there is to know about him. I shall even lend you one of my handmaidens to assist you."

"My Lord is too kind."

Osiris smiled, benevolently. "You have earned my great favour, my Shadow," she insisted. "I wish you good hunting. Now, pull back to orbit and I shall send SG-1 on their way."

*

Sam was on the point of heading into the caves when her comrades appeared. Together, they hared out of the caves and threw themselves into cover, just in the nick of time. A thunderous roar and a wall of heat chased them from the cave and washed over the rock; dry leaves smouldered and a smell of scorched hair surrounded SG-1. Black smoke belched from the cave mouth.

Jonas groaned and struggled free of Teal'c's grip. "Elizabeth," he mumbled.

Jack crouched beside Jonas. "She's gone," he said, gently. "I'm sorry, Jonas, there was nothing we could do."

"You could have let me go after her," Jonas said. Sam was astonished to see that his eyes were brimming with tears.

"You'd have died as well," Jack insisted.

Jonas looked at his watch. "No, I wouldn't," he said. "I could have saved her."

"She did not wish to come with us," Teal'c pointed out.

"She was scared!" Jonas wailed. "Of you; of Osiris. She didn't understand what the bomb was; how could that have scared her more than the woman who experimented on her, or the ones who tried to imprison her? She saved my life," he added, in a very small voice.

"Because she wanted to own you," Jack told him. "To use you."

Jonas looked up at him with bleak eyes. "That's certainly what Osiris thought."

Jack's eyelid twitched slightly and Jonas knew he had struck low. Fortunately, Teal'c distracted the Colonel's anger at that moment.

"An inertial drive aircraft is approaching," he said.

"Time to move," Jack decided. "We can talk about this later."

Sam shot her commanding officer a pleading look.

Jack sighed. "You've got until Teal'c and I get the camouflage nets off the jeep," he allowed.

Sam watched Jack move away, and then turned back to Jonas. "She made her choice," she told him.

"So why couldn't I make mine?" Jonas asked. "I chose to go after her and the Colonel took that choice from me."

"You know he never leaves anyone behind," Sam reminded Jonas.

"He left Elizabeth."

"Jonas..."

"Like he left Fifth."

Sam tried to meet Jonas' gaze, but she could not manage it.

"He's a good man," Jonas agreed, "but he sees the world in black and white." He sighed and the anger drained out of him. "I guess...I guess he has to if he wants to live with himself."

"What did you mean you wouldn't have been killed?" Sam asked, seeking a change of subject.

"According to the timer, that bomb should have gone off over a minute earlier," Jonas explained. "Osiris remote detonated the bomb after we were clear. She had a chance to shoot me in there, but she didn't; for some reason, she wants us alive."

"Then...Elizabeth didn't really save your life?" Sam suggested, weakly.

"She didn't know that," he replied. He sighed again. "Any more than the Colonel knew we could have saved her."

At the far end of the gully, a black speck appeared in the sky. At the foot of the slope, Jack gunned the engine of the jeep and revved it loudly.

"Time to go," Sam said.

"Yes," Jonas sighed, glancing back at the cave one last time. "Time to go."

"She was a Goa'uld," Sam reminded him.

"I can't believe that the Goa'uld are genetically irredeemable," Jonas replied. "I won't."

Sam shook her head, sadly. "Sooner or later, you may have to," she said.

*

Stargate Command

Amy was lying in her infirmary bed, watching a game of solitaire collapse in front of her eyes. With a sigh she reached for the cards to bring them back into a stack, but a hand reached down and tapped first a red four, then a black five.

"It should work out from there," Jonas assured her.

Amy grinned at him and gathered up the cards anyway. "It's a boring game anyway," she told him, tilting the tray towards him. "Gin rummy?"

Jonas shrugged. "Okay," he agreed. Dr Collister had taught him the game a few weeks ago and his ability to spot patterns in his cards stood him in good stead.

Amy dealt the cards with a deft hand. "So; what brings you down here, Doggett?" she asked. "Aside from the appeal of losing your shirt at gin rummy?"

"Do you believe that someone – even a Goa'uld – can be born so bad that they can never be redeemed?" Jonas asked.

Amy gave him a long, searching look. "This sounds like eternal truths to me. I think you should talk to a priest," she told him, honestly.

"I just want to know if I'm the only one who believed that Elizabeth wasn't irretrievably evil."

Amy sighed. "I'm a Catholic," she told him. "I'm a rather lapsed Catholic and a terrible sinner to boot, but I still believe in what I was taught and that includes original sin. The basic tenet is that everyone is born tainted, simply by being conceived in the union of two inherently base physical bodies. However, Catholic doctrine also holds that anybody can be redeemed through faith, baptism and communion with the holy mother church."

She smiled at him as she discarded a card. "Of course, as a lapsed Catholic I also put a lot of store by a person's works on Earth – or whatever planet they happen to be born on. Elizabeth could have hurt a lot of people, but she didn't. I don't think that she was past saving, and not just because I've witnessed at first hand – in first person, even – a Goa'uld renounce evil and Ascend. I don't think anyone is past saving, not even you."

"Thank you," Jonas replied.

"You're welcome,” Amy replied. “Gin.”