Mark III

In progress
Drama
Set in Season 7
FR-T

Spoilers for Resurrection 

Disclaimers:

Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi 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.

Acknowledgements:

Many thanks to my beta reader, Sho.

Mark III

Karnak – 875BC

Karnak: The Jewel in the Crown of the Goa'uld Empire. A world of awe-inspiring natural beauty which housed the airy sprawl of Ra's capital. The imperial city stood in the midst of the great grasslands, on the crest of the highest hill in the region. The sides of the bluff were rocky, but the city was kept green and growing by the water from a hundred fountains and the ceaseless labour of the army of slave gardeners. The population of the city was close to one million: Twenty-seven Goa'uld, six thousand priests, thirty thousand Jaffa and more than nine hundred thousand humans, every last one of them a slave.

The metropolis was arranged in concentric rings; the grey-roofed slave dwellings surrounded the red tiles of the barracks and the blue slate of the priests quarter. The villas of the lesser Goa'uld were topped by verdant roof gardens and this belt of green encircled the golden crowns of the precinct – the hundred-acre compound that was the sole domain and residence of the Supreme System Lord Ra and his Queen, the Most Beautiful and Beloved Hathor. Even amid the many palaces and temples of the precinct, one building stood proud, towering above the rest: The great temple of Asar; the holiest of holies and the most magnificent structure ever erected by the Goa'uld.

On this particular day, the hallowed halls of the temple rang with a woman's cries. The voice was defiant, but there was a note of fear as well that was pleasing to the ears of Ra. The Supreme System Lord waited in the inner sanctum, in the shadow of the great statue of Asar. His Queen stood to one side; a sickly-looking Jaffa priestess slumped at her feet, struggling not to collapse and so shame her mistress. A small smile played across Hathor's perfect lips, deepening almost imperceptibly with every cry.

At a sign from Ra, the doors to the shrine were flung wide by unseen hands to admit those who stood outside. The Sun God's most loyal servants, falcon-headed Harakhty, First Prime of the Horus Guard and Anubis, Ra's personal champion. The two warriors hauled on a pair of chains, fastened securely to either end of the wooden yoke which pinioned the wrists and neck of the screaming woman. She was a superb specimen, Ra noted; beautiful and powerful, with a proud bearing and manifest courage.

"You have chosen well," Ra purred. He prowled forward and held up his hand before the girl; the stone of his ribbon device burned and after a moment her struggles ceased. She hung limp and stunned in the yoke as Ra raised her chin to examine her more closely. "Tell us of this one," he commanded.

"She is both a princess and a warrior of her people, My Lord," Anubis replied. "Her father led a rebellion against your rule and was slain by those of his warriors who remained true to you. The one who now rules in your name sent her to you as a gift; I knew at once that your hand had moved in these matters, for one so perfect to be sent before us at this time."

"She is perfect," Ra agreed. "It has been worth the wait. Release her from the yoke, but hold her still. Beloved; bring the child."

Hathor bowed her head in humble acquiescence. "Yes, our most beloved Lord," she replied. At her signal the priestess struggled weakly to her feet. Hathor thrust her hand into the woman's pouch and withdrew the mature symbiote; the handmaiden staggered, but Hathor paid her no mind. She stroked the slippery skin of the symbiote with the loving hand of a mother and approached the captive princess.

Mindful of the solemnity of the occasion, the priestess stumbled away, to find another symbiote or to expire, quietly, in the darkness of the corridors where her death would not disrupt the rite. Her masters cared not which, for her task was done.

Anubis and Harakhty unlocked the yoke and set it aside. Then they took hold of the girl's arms. She was beginning to recover from the effect of the ribbon device and she struggled, but the servants of Ra were powerful.

"Kneel," Ra commanded. Both men obeyed, forcing the girl down between them.

Hathor approached. "You will be pleased, My Dread Lord," Hathor promised. "This one shall be a worthy successor to your favourite."

"We only hope that she shall be less troublesome," Ra replied.

Hathor lowered her hand and the symbiote slithered onto the girl's shoulder.

"No!" the girl gasped. "Please; not..."

With a sudden rush, the symbiote burrowed into the back of the girl's neck and vanished. The lovely, amber eyes flared white as the young Goa'uld seized control of the body and all protest died on her lips. She looked up at Ra and smiled. "Father," she said.

"Welcome, child. Release our daughter," Ra commanded. His servants obeyed and prostrated themselves.

"They have dared to lay hands upon me," the new Goa'uld purred. "Let me see your faces."

The two men rose to their knees and touched the studs of their helmets, withdrawing them into their collars. Both were tall and powerfully built, but Anubis was well-favoured and handsome – were he not a Jaffa then some Goa'uld might well have taken his body for its own – while Harakhty was rough-featured and ugly.

The newborn looked down at Anubis. She smiled in approval and trailed a finger along the ridge of his collar bone. "With the right...penance, I may forgive you your impertinence," she told him. She turned on Harakhty and her eyes blazed in fury. "But it sickens me that one so hideous would think himself worthy even to look on me."

Harakhty cast his eyes downwards, but his fate was sealed.

"Beloved," Ra said, "bring a weapon for our daughter."

Before Hathor could respond, the newborn had bent down and seized Harakhty by the neck. She lifted the big Jaffa into the air like a rag doll and drove her fingers into the soft flesh of his throat. "You disgust me," she hissed, then with a violent twist tore out the Jaffa's windpipe.

Hathor's lips curled into a cruel smile. "It seems that my husband will need a new First Prime," she told Anubis.

Ra had eyes only for his daughter and he looked on her, enraptured, as she delicately licked the blood from her fingers. "Magnificent," he breathed. "Welcome indeed, my Eye; my avenger. My Sekhmet."

*

P4G-38E – AD 2003

Amy Kawalsky poked her head above the rock, then ducked down to avoid a volley of incoming fire. "They're still there, Major," she reported, "and I think they've brought some friends."

Major Patterson sighed, wearily. "I make it nine grenades we've used," he said. "I don't suppose you'd care to correct my counting."

"Sorry, Sir."

"And neither of you was carrying any extra ordnance?"

Lieutenant William ‘Duck' Caldicott shrugged his shoulders. "We could knock up a couple of decent concussion charges out of C4," he offered.

"Thanks," Patterson said, "but I'm not sure that'll cut it against a platoon of determined Jaffa."

"I'd say more of a battalion by now," Amy corrected.

"We have to do something," Duck insisted. "Lauren's..." He dropped his voice. "Lauren's in a bad way."

"I know," Amy replied.

Patterson held up a hand for quiet. "We all know," he said, tensely. "There must be something we can do. They haven't blasted us out yet..."

"Which means there must be something in this cave that they want," Amy pointed out.

"What does Anubis want with a Furling vault?" Duck wandered aloud. "He wouldn't at first glance seem to have much in common with a bunch of fluffy pacifists."

Amy shook her head. "Look; all we know is that some of them opted out of the world and that vault door behind us looks like it was built for someone at least nine feet tall. Colonel O'Neill wouldn't be able to reach that handle without stretching."

A staff blast struck the rock which half-blocked the cave mouth. "Is this really the time for this discussion?" Patterson demanded. "Much as I admire your continuing dedication to the disciplines of academic discourse..."

"Yes, Sir; I'm sorry," Amy replied, contritely. "The point is that this is a vault; we could work on that lock for a week without getting the door open and three pounds of C4 isn't going to crack it, so whatever is in the vault it's pretty academic."

"You're so negative," Lauren Collister chided, the effort of speaking bringing a look of pain to her face. She had taken the first shot from the enemy and Duck was right; she was not going to last much longer.

Patterson poked his periscope over the top of the rock in the vain hope that the Jaffa would be gone.

"We'll think of something," Amy assured Lauren.

Major Patterson cried out in alarm as a bright flash surrounded the Jaffa, half-blinding him in his periscope eye. A thunderous crash sounded and a wave of searing heat washed over the team.

Duck gave a low whistle. "Nice going, Captain."

"Your confidence is touching," Amy replied, dryly. "I just wish I could believe this was a good sign," she added, as a second plasma blast dropped out of the clear sky to scatter the enemy like rag dolls.

"Where's the bad?" Duck asked.

"Those are Goa'uld orbital plasma cannons," Patterson sighed. He held out his left hand, palm up. "Frying pan" – he held up the right hand and mimed tipping something from left to right – "fire."

A brilliant flash lit the sky above them.

"Yowza!" Duck cried.

"Reactor detonation," Patterson declared. "Someone just lost a perfectly good ha'tak vessel on this deal. The Jaffa are still taking orbital fire, which kind of begs the question: Who the hell has the balls to go toe-to-toe with one of Anubis' ha'tak vessels and the firepower to pull it off?"

The clouds parted and the low whine of inertial engines split the air as a vessel emerged and dove swiftly towards the cave mouth. Amy stood up.

"Kawalsky! Get down!" Patterson ordered.

"I don't believe it!" Amy cried, as the ship – a wedge-shaped vessel with something of a teltac about it, but spitting plasma blasts at the surviving Jaffa from a cannon on either wing – drew to a halt in front of them. She raised her arm and waved.

Slowly, the ship rotated until one of its flanks was towards SG-11. A hatch slid open, invitingly.

"Captain?" Patterson asked.

"It's alright, Sir," Amy assured him. "It's a friend."

"What friend?"

"It's Sekhmet!"

Patterson looked at his 2IC for a long moment. "This is obviously some strange usage of the word ‘friend' that I wasn't previously aware of," he mused.

*

PG3-191

Major Steven Doyle paced stealthily towards the sleeping figure, leaned close and shouted: "Kree Jaffa! Kill the Tau'ri!"

Lieutenant Grogan woke with a start, scrabbling for his weapon. "Wha...? Huh...?"

Captain Kris Dane and Lieutenant Matt Sawyer looked over from the mouth of the grotto and laughed at their young colleague's discomfort.

"How did you even manage to get through the academy, Grogan?" Doyle demanded.

"I always attributed my success to my ability to catnap," Grogan replied, gathering his wits fast.

Doyle shook his head. "I know we're working three on and one off on this exploration, but I didn't expect you to actually pass out. Do you have no intellectual curiosity whatsoever?"

"Not much of an archaeologist, Sir," Grogan replied. "If there's engineering to be done, I'll be right there."

"Well, it's your lucky day," Captain Dane assured him. "Archaeology's turned up a door; now we need an engineer to open it."

"Yes, Ma'am," Grogan replied, pushing himself to his feet. He followed the captain into the grotto, wading through the ankle deep water to the back of the cavern, where a section of the rock wall had swung away from a metal door. "Goa'uld design," he mused, running his hands along the edge of the frame until he located a circuit panel. "Very old; somewhere in the middle of the era of Ra at the latest."

"You can tell the age just by looking at the crystals?"

Grogan shrugged. "I've been thinking of writing a monograph on the subject."

Dane grinned at him. "Can I preorder my copy," she laughed.

"I'll get you a signed advance," Grogan promised. "Should be worth something when I'm famous." He bridged two of the crystals with a fibre-optic cable and the door slid open. "Say what you like about the Goa'uld; they build to last." Grogan shone his torch through the doorway and saw a richly coloured frieze extending before him. He whistled in appreciation.

"What is it?" Dane asked.

"Looks like you're up again, Ma'am," he noted, moving aside.

Dane took a peek and echoed the whistle. "Major!" she called. Doyle joined her and, although he kept his awe under tighter control, he could not help but feel a buzz at the discovery of the ancient tunnel, its smooth walls lined with rows of Goa'uld hieroglyphics.

After a brief conference, Major Doyle ordered Dane and Sawyer into the tunnel. "You stay here," he told Grogan. "We'll whistle if we need you, but otherwise you keep a lookout towards the Gate. And Grogan..."

"I know," Grogan promised. "I'll stay awake this time."

*

The destroyer carried SG-11 from the surface of the planet. The massive, night-black shape of a Wadjet battleship blotted out the stars above them. The destroyer moved close, then transferred them by ring transporter to the larger vessel. The dimensions of a black ship were difficult to judge against the darkness of space, but Amy thought that she might have been slightly larger even than the Wadjet's former flagship, the Eye. A pair of small, hovering drones were waiting for the team on their arrival. They extended manipulating limbs which transformed into a rather nifty snap-stretcher and carried Lauren away, presumably to the askap'on – the infirmary. Patterson and Duck followed.

Amy, meanwhile, headed for the peltac, following an ineffable sense of the vessel's layout which proved to be eerily accurate. She was still walking when an uncanny intuition made her brace herself, just in time to keep her feet against the sudden acceleration of hyperflight.

At last she reached the control deck of the massive vessel. "If I didn't know better I'd swear the Eye had left something in my brai...agh!" Amy broke off with a squawk as a tawny, powerful woman swept her into a crushing bear hug.

Sekhmet gave a booming, hearty laugh. "Welcome to the Claw of Aksos, Amy!" she said, setting the startled Earth woman back on her feet. When she had first met Sekhmet, Amy had immediately thought of a lioness, graceful, proud and strong; acquaintance had done little to change that image.

"Hi, Sekhmet," Amy said, dazedly. "And Lanar...?"

In response, Sekhmet's smile changed, becoming a shyer and less effusive expression. "It is a pleasure to meet you at last, Miss Kawalsky," Sekhmet's host replied. She held out her hand.

"And you," Amy assured her, shaking the hand warmly. "Your timing is impeccable," she added, gratefully.

"Your likeness is well-known to Anubis and has been circulated to his commanders," Lanar explained. "Your capture has been considered a high priority since he learned of your involvement in the theft of one of his weapons."

"I'm flattered, although I wonder how he found out."

"I believe through the questioning of the project engineer," Lanar explained. "A Goa'uld of our mutual acquaintance named..."

"Argos," Amy finished. "I always knew it would be a mistake letting that weasel live."

Lanar gave an encouraging smile. "I have been monitoring Anubis' communications networks as best I can and it seems that he believes you have knowledge of the Ancients which he greatly desires. It was from my monitoring that I received word that your team had been pinned down by Anubis' troops. Fortunately, the Claw was in a position to reach you before any of Anubis' other ha'tak vessels."

"How are you tapping Anubis' communication channels?" Amy asked. "I thought he used Asgard holographics these days."

The smile which accompanied the answer was Sekhmet's, as was the voice that said: "We have salvaged many such systems from Anubis' vessels when they were captured or destroyed. We have also been able to incorporate many of Anubis' advances into the fabric of the Wadjet's vessels. Do you like my new flagship?" she asked.

"She's a beauty," Amy admitted. "She's not like anything I've ever seen before, but I seem to know my way around her."

"When your mind was interfaced with the Eye it created certain, specialised pathways in your brain; at such close proximity they will be picking up the linking signals from the Claw. Do not be afraid, the ship's computer can not truly link to you without the chair, nor can it access your mind, even in such a limited way as you sense its."

"Riiight."

"Your friend is being treated by my keir'os in the askap'on," Sekhmet said, apropos of nothing. "She will take several days to recover fully but I suspect that your comrades would be pleased to depart as soon as she can be moved. You will be my guests during that time, but I shall return you and your team to Earth at the earliest possibility. Does that sound well?"

"Yes," Amy assured her, warily. "Although I'd have to clear it with Major Patterson."

Sekhmet nodded her understanding. "That is good. I have so looked forward to meeting with you again, Amy. The Claw is returning to my brother's shipyard; you can rest there and I shall show you all that I have built since our last meeting."

"I'd like that," Amy replied.

Sekhmet regarded Amy with her intense, golden gaze, a slight smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "You have changed, Amy," she said, softly. "Would you still be willing to travel with me if I asked it?"

Amy looked away, suddenly unable to meet Sekhmet's gaze. "I...I did promise," she began.

Sekhmet reached out a smooth hand and touched Amy's cheek, turning her face back towards her. "The last time we met you were almost as lonely as I," she murmured. "There is a new light in your eyes, Amy; a lust for life that was lacking."

Amy blushed. "There's someone...I lost him, but now he's back."

"Daniel Jackson."

"How...!" Amy gasped, alarmed.

"Dr Jackson's affairs are of great interest to Anubis."

Amy's blush deepened. "His...? No! I mean, we're not...Not that I...I mean..." She stopped talking and coughed, embarrassed. "Or maybe you don't mean affairs as in..." Amy shook her head with a chuckle. "You know you could have stopped me from babbling on like that at any time," she said, accusingly.

"I know," Sekhmet assured her.

Amy rolled her eyes skywards – or as near as she could manage on a starship bridge. "Lord preserve us; a playful Goa'uld."

Sekhmet laid a hand tenderly on Amy's cheek. "Happiness suits you," she said. "Dr Jackson is a fortunate man."

"Can we talk about something other than my love life?" Amy asked, plaintively.

"Of course," Sekhmet replied with a nod. "But if you desire advice I have known many men in my life."

Amy blinked, owlishly. "I'll pass," she said. "Thanks. Why don't you tell me what you've been up to, since the details of my life seem to be a matter of public record."

Sekhmet laughed. "Come," she said. "Join me in my cabin; we shall drink and speak as friends."

Sekhmet's cabin was Spartan, but pleasant and Amy felt at home in the simple surroundings of a warrior's quarters. A curtained alcove contained Sekhmet's bed – Goa'uld did not always have beds in their quarters, but Amy knew that Sekhmet would sooner die than rest in a sarcophagus – and a desk stood in one corner, covered in writing pads and charts. Sekhmet guided Amy to a small table with two chairs and bade her sit.

"Do you play?" Sekhmet asked, gesturing to the chess board which sat on the table.

"Not well," Amy admitted.

Sekhmet gave a satisfied nod. "That is as well," she said as she set up the pieces, "for I am terrible at it. This set was made for me by one of my Jaffa, however, and it seemed rude to refuse the gift; I suppose he had heard of the set which I kept aboard the Eye and which was lost with my old flagship. That one had been a gift from my father; a thing of beauty, but I have a particular fondness for this set."

Amy picked up one of the pieces and gave a low whistle. "It's magnificent," she whispered.

The board was divided into squares of ivory and ebony and the pieces stood in their ranks with black and silver facing white and gold. Sekhmet took the latter army and Amy noted that the king was carved in the perfect image of the warlady herself. The silver and black queen in Amy's hand had been fashioned in the likeness of a raven-haired beauty with dark skin and a crafty expression; Sekhmet's archrival Athena, she presumed. She was somewhat disconcerted to note that her king wore a voluminous robe and a shimmering faceplate. The pawns in each row were Jaffa, the bishops Goa'uld ladies and the knights lords in armour; the silver-black rooks were ha'tak vessels and their white-gold opposites resembled cruisers of the wadjet.

Amy set down her own queen and picked up Sekhmet's. "This is incredible," she murmured. "I can see that this is Lanar, rather than Sekhmet and..." She laughed as she caught sight of the piece at the king's side. "A bishop?" she asked. "Well, Mum and Dad would be proud."

Sekhmet – or perhaps Lanar – had the grace to blush as she brushed an invisible speck of dust from the top of Amy's likeness. "I never felt that he quite captured the essence of you," she admitted in the host voice. "Perhaps you could meet him and he could carve me a better image?"

"Who knows," Amy replied, noncommittally. "So, I get to play as Anubis, huh?"

Lanar smiled. "It's only a game," she promised.

*

In the gleaming, silver surroundings of the askap'on, Patterson and Duck stood watch over Lauren as the keir'os ministered to her wounds. As near as either man understood, a keir'os was a Jaffa triage specialist and battlefield surgeon; hardly an ER resident, but the nearest any Jaffa came to being a doctor. This one seemed skilled enough, but Patterson was still worried.

"It's just that with the level of healthcare the Jaffa have, I wouldn't put it past him to amputate something or drill a hole in her head," he explained.

Duck shrugged. "At least he hasn't got any leeches," he pointed out.

"I don't like this," Patterson admitted.

"What's to like?" Duck asked. "It's not as though we had much choice and this fella's at least doing better for the Doc than we could have done. We had no way out of that cave and we both know it, Sir."

Patterson shook his head, but did not try to contradict the lieutenant. "I just don't see how this can end well."

"He gets Lauren mobile, we land on a world with a Stargate and we go home," Duck suggested.

"I don't like it," Patterson repeated.

Duck gave his CO a concerned look. "She's going to make it, Sir," he said, with more confidence than he felt. Neither he nor Amy were oblivious to the fact that Major Patterson's feelings for Lauren Collister were more than merely professional, but by unspoken agreement, they said nothing. So far as they could see, the Major's judgement was unimpaired and that was what mattered to them.

Patterson sighed and nodded his head. "Thank you, lieutenant," he said.

*

As they played and Amy lost game after game, Lanar and Sekhmet took turns explaining what they had been doing in the past eighteen months. Aside from laying claim to Ptah's old shipyards, they seemed mostly to have been fighting a guerrilla war against Anubis and recruiting allies to that struggle.

"Recruiting?" Amy asked. "I thought you were a one-woman star fleet?"

Lanar gave a self-deprecating smile. "The Wadjet's control systems are all linked, one to the other and all to the device imbedded in our spine," she admitted.

"Of course," Amy agreed.

"But the autonomic systems have their limits," Lanar went on. "Many of the ships are in far from perfect condition and others are, for one reason or another, beyond the reach of my control signals. The various ship's systems need a living crew to maintain them. It is not much use having a self-repairing ship if the self-repair systems go down. Think about it, Amy: if the Wadjet were designed to go unmanned, Ptah would not have built them with infirmaries and standing room."

The host gave way to the symbiote and Sekhmet continued. "My brother's shipyards also require hands to work their machines and spaceships are only the beginning of any battle. My work requires many other warriors: engineers, gunners, pilots and infantry. Then when you have such numbers you must have someone to support them: farmers, traders, cooks and armourers; medics and physicians. It all becomes very complicated, very quickly, but fortunately I am not without skill in the field of logistics."

Amy looked a little worried. "So you have Jaffa again? An army?"

"Not merely Jaffa," Sekhmet assured her. "Some of those who have joined me are Jaffa, but with the rebellion still on the rise, few of those who lose their masters now seek a different Goa'uld to serve. I have also recruited humans of all stripes and many from other races as well."

She laid a finger on her queen's-side knight, a rather splendid-looking Unas, and smiled. "Ke'kan, for example," Lanar said, fondly. "My Gatekeeper and one of our most trusted friends." She picked up the piece which looked like Amy and moved it to take one of Amy's bishops. "You know, you would play a better game if you were not so eager to sacrifice that piece," she pointed out.

"Hmm," Amy agreed, setting the figurine of Osiris aside. "I can't think why that is."

"Enough of us, then," Lanar said. "Tell us of you, Amy. What has occurred in your life? Are there any great developments among your people that we should know of?"

"We, um...We found you on Earth," Amy said, feeling deeply awkward.

"I have not been on Earth in many thousands of years," Sekhmet assured her.

Amy looked at the floor. "I know," she replied. "We – or rather someone else – found another Sekhmet."

There was a moment's pause, then Sekhmet leaped up, hurled the chessboard violently against the wall and screamed: "No!"

Amy jumped back in alarm. Her hand strayed towards her sidearm, but she did not draw it. It did not feel right to raise a weapon against Sekhmet, her friend; only later did she think about it logically and recall how insanely futile it would have been for her even to try.

"You lie!" Sekhmet roared. "It is not..." The warrior broke off in mid flow and clutched her hands to her head. "It is not..." she gasped, and she pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes, almost as though in pain. "I...Ahh; yes, alright," she whispered at last.

The tawny head rose and Lanar spoke. "I am sorry, Amy," she said, gently. "Sekhmet is deeply sorry to have frightened or offended you," she added. "It was not your fault. I have persuaded her to leave me control for a time, while she settles her nerves." Lanar moved over to the wall and began gathering up the chessboard.

Amy moved to help her. "I hope it isn't broken," she said.

"Nothing that can not be repaired," Lanar assured Amy.

"I guess I upset her," Amy offered. "For that, I am sorry."

Lanar shook her head. "You are not at fault," she promised, as she picked up the heavy board and set it back on its place. "It is just that it is a bitter pill for Sekhmet to swallow."

"I am a little unclear on that," Amy admitted. "The Sekhmet we found...Well, what we found was a clone; half-human and half-Goa'uld, created from the DNA of a symbiote found on Earth. But that symbiote; was that really..."

"Another Sekhmet," Lanar confirmed. "It would have harmed Ra's credibility if it became widely known that his Eye had betrayed him and had had to be imprisoned. He could not conceal completely the fact of her defection, but the easiest way for him to regain face would be to breed another Sekhmet. He could produce her, advertise that Sekhmet had returned to the fold and never mention that this was the Mark II. I believe that my partner always knew there was a possibility that this had happened during her slumber – he was forever producing Jaffa champions to wear the mantle of Anubis, after all – but nobody likes to feel that they can so easily be replaced."

"Breed...?" Amy gave a small gasp. "You mean...My God; you mean that Ra and Hathor produced another symbiote to take her place. But of course," she realised. "The Queen controls the memories that she passes on to her offspring."

"Quite," Lanar agreed. "It would be a simple matter for Hathor to recreate the initial genetic predispositions which resulted in the original Sekhmet, with perhaps a little less empathy and a little more sadism to prevent her developing that inconvenient sense of honour." She shrugged. "She would not be the same Goa'uld, of course. The control of genetic makeup is not so precise and anyway, from birth onwards, the new Sekhmet would be evolving away from the original, following her own path, but she would be something close enough to convince some that it was merely the same enforcer in a new host."

"Of course," Amy agreed, tactfully. "For what it's worth...She wasn't that bright. The new Sekhmet; bit of a loon really and rather slow on the uptake."

Sekhmet chuckled, softly. "It is good to know that my name was in safe hands," she whispered. "Please forgive me, Amy," she said, a white flare sparkling into rainbow colours through the teardrops that clouded her golden eyes.

Amy gave an encouraging smile and – despite a sense of great trepidation – reached out to cup a hand to Sekhmet's cheek, consciously mirroring the gesture that Sekhmet seemed to believe gave comfort to Amy. "You're forgiven. I'd be pissed too."

Sekhmet sat down, heavily. "I should not..." She shook her head in despair. "I would not have thought that I could be hurt so much to learn that I had been replaced in the affections of a father from whom I turned millennia ago and whose death I do not mourn."

"It's okay," Amy told her. Her face split into an impish grin.

"Why are you smiling?" Sekhmet asked, warily.

"It's nothing," Amy said. "Just that I was about to say: you're only human."

*

"This is incredible," Dane said, surveying the chamber with her gaze. "It is like a tomb, but with no sarcophagus."

"Thank God for that," Doyle remarked. "Keep a sharp eye out for stasis jars; the last thing we need is an ornery snake slithering about in here."

"Yes, Sir," Dane acknowledged, "but there isn't much here at all. It's very strange, almost as though it were built but never used."

"But built for whom?" Sawyer asked.

Dane shrugged. "No idea. I'll take a look at the inscriptions; there might be some names."

"I thought they didn't have tombs," Sawyer mused, playing his torch across the walls as Dane went about the work of translation. "The Goa'uld I mean. Don't like to be reminded that they can die."

"They like to bury their enemies," Dane explained. "Hence the risk of stasis jars. This was probably intended to be the final resting place of some great enemy."

"Like Seth imprisoned Osiris and Isis," Doyle added.

"Or like Ra imprisoned Hathor," Dane went on. "Fortunately, as there is no sarcophagus, then any prisoner would have to be held in stasis." She leaned close and brushed the dust from an area of inscription. "The...The Eye of Ra," she murmured.

"I thought that the Eye was destroyed," Doyle said.

"He had a lot of Eyes," Dane reminded her CO. "Any powerful weapon could be the Eye of Ra. I think this is a cabinet," she decided. "There's a locking mechanism and I think this is the release." She turned to look at Doyle. "What do you say, Major?"

Doyle paused and thought for a long time, then took out his radio. "Grogan," he said, "we're cracking open a cabinet. If it all goes south, you get back to the Stargate, pronto, and bring a quarantine team to pick us up. And do not stop for a nap along the way."

"I...Yes, sir," Grogan replied, nervously.

Dane shook her head. "You don't always have to rib the poor kid," she chided.

Doyle grinned. "You know he's got a crush on you?"

"Grogan has a crush on everyone."

"Even me?" Sawyer asked.

"Level A," Doyle ordered, unpacking his own biohazard hood. He waited for his two companions to don their own protective hoods, then signalled for Dane to work the lock.

There was a sharp hiss and a long, straight crack split the wall from floor to ceiling. Slowly, the two sections of wall slid outwards, then swung upwards like the wings of a sarcophagus lid. A heavy, cold mist rolled out from the space beyond. Doyle and Sawyer raised their MP5s as Dane stepped cautiously forwards.

"You see anything?" Doyle asked.

Dane shook her head and took a step closer. "I need to wait for the mist to clear. I think...Wait! I can see..."

In the depths of the mist, something moved.

*

The Claw of Aksos – Interstitial Space

About five hours into the flight, Amy put her head around the door of the infirmary. Duck was sleeping on one of the spare operating tables, while Patterson sat beside Lauren. The keir'os was nowhere to be seen.

"How's she doing?" Amy asked.

Patterson made an effort to hide his tears before he looked up and it was not immediately clear to Amy if they were tears of grief, or of relief, or of frustration. "She'll pull through," he said at last. "She lost a lot of blood and the damage to her hip is extensive, but she isn't going to die today."

"That's good. We're going to get her home," Amy promised. "Sekhmet will send us back through the Stargate on her base as soon as Lauren is strong enough to travel. She could come down and see what she can do with a healing device," she added, "but I don't think she wants to offer. She's worried you won't want her going near."

"She's right to be worried on that account," Patterson confirmed. "Not that there's much I could probably do to stop her."

"Not a lot," Amy agreed. "She is...good at what she does."

"That really doesn't worry you, does it?" Patterson realised.

"No, it doesn't."

"Why is that?" he asked. "Here we are, trapped on a ship, deep in interstitial space, with only a few Jaffa and a Goa'uld killer for company and you aren't bothered in the least. How come?"

"Because I trust her," Amy replied.

Patterson nodded and turned back to his vigil. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from Lauren's face, then took her hand and held it in his own. "It's been an honour serving with this team," he said, without taking his eyes from Lauren.

"Sir?"

Patterson shrugged his shoulders. "Man's gotta do, Captain. I hate to be the Yoko, but I can't keep on serving with her; not after this. I hope they keep the three of you together when I'm reassigned."

Amy bit her lip. "I, ah...I don't want to be a downer about this," she said, "but Lauren is like, the only person in the entirety of space and time who doesn't know how you feel about her. Shouldn't you find out how she feels before you go getting reassigned."

Patterson turned his head and gave a wry grin. "Doesn't matter what the answer is," he told her. "If you're asking, you're too close."

Amy nodded her head in understanding. "The honour was ours, Major Patterson," she assured him.

"Thank you, Captain." He turned away from her again. After a long moment, Amy turned to go, but Patterson called her back. "Amy," he said.

"Sir."

"You really trust Sekhmet?"

"With my life," Amy replied, without hesitation.

Patterson nodded. "Would you ask her to see if there is anything she could do for Lauren, please?"

Amy felt a glow of pride deep in her chest; Patterson did not know it, but such a show of trust was the greatest compliment he could have paid to his 2IC. "Yes, Sir," she replied. "Thank you, Sir."

So it was that Lauren Collister was already on her feet by the time the Claw of Aksos reached its home base, two hours later. She stood with her team mates on the peltac and leaned against Major Patterson, ostensibly as a support for her injured right hip. In front of them, the main screen showed their destination.

"There it is," Sekhmet sighed. "My home from home; the great shipyards of Memphis."

Patterson gave a low whistle. "Welcome to Gracelands."

"Wow," Lauren agreed. "Big isn't it."

Sekhmet came to stand beside them. "The shipyard was built into the body of an asteroid some four hundred miles in length; at its widest point it is two hundred miles across and it averages almost sixty-five miles from top to keel, relative to the induced gravitational plane."

Amy gazed in frank admiration at the shipyard. The surface of the asteroid was clustered with buildings and structures; great mooring pylons jutted out at various angles and ships of all shapes and sizes were docked with them. Vast, metal-lined openings gaped in the rock and smaller craft flew in and out of these, confirming that they were hangars. Amy counted about two dozen capital ships and over a hundred lesser vessels.

"Part space station, part foundry, part fortress," Sekhmet went on. "Her engines..."

"Wait, wait, wait," Amy interrupted. "Her engines?"

Sekhmet grinned. "Oh yes, my dear. Memphis is not some stationary lump of rock, trapped in orbit around a single sun. She is as mobile as any starship, although the cost of moving her is great. Such power as is harnessed by her engines can not be generated easily."

"I can...no, wait; I can't imagine," Duck admitted. "What on Earth could power something like that?"

"Nothing on Earth," Lauren said.

"It is most useful for avoiding the eyes of your enemies," Lanar noted. "A system that has once been searched for a shipyard will not be searched again; after all, where could you have hidden a shipyard? Now, you shall see my home." As she spoke, the Claw dipped below the edge of the asteroid. The base of the colossal rock was almost clear of structures, but at the centre, sheltered in a deep valley, was a shining dome, surrounded by weapon turrets and shield domes. "There. My fortress."

"Nice," Amy said. "You, uh...You do know that it is upside down, don't you?"

Lauren laughed. "It's only like living in Australia," she pointed out.

Sekhmet clapped a powerful hand down on Amy's shoulder. "The Asteroid does not have sufficient mass to sustain a comfortable gravitational field anyway," she explained. "This is actually most useful in the yards and foundries, but in the living quarters we use an induced field. I could build my fortress on any side of the asteroid field and still stand easily. In fact, the fortress is a separate vessel, capable of independent flight in emergency."

"It's very impressive," Patterson noted. "However..."

"It also houses my Chappa'ai," Sekhmet assured the major. "We can send you home from this system's point of origin. If Dr Collister feels well enough to travel, it is a matter of a few hundred paces walk from the embarkation chamber to the Chappa'ket; the Stargate atrium, in your terms. You will be home before...One moment."

Sekhmet turned away, a distant look in her eyes. Amy heard a buzzing close to her ear and waved a hand to try and drive away whatever insect was flying too close to her. Duck gave her a funny, sidelong look and Amy realised that there was no insect. Clearly those pathways in her mind were able to sense the medium, if not the matter of whatever signal Sekhmet was listening to in her head.

The Claw swept down, turning as it did so. On the screen it appeared as though it were the asteroid and not the ship that was turning, a sensation emphasised by the fact that the Claw's own induced gravity remained constant during the manoeuvre. As a trained pilot, Amy was aware that the accelerations which the ship was currently undergoing should have stretched, twisted and hurled its occupants about the peltac, if they had resulted from conventional thrust. Fortunately, the inertial drives used by the Goa'uld avoided such violent effects and the ship docked with barely a shudder.

"Makes the Prometheus feel like a real boneshaker," Patterson said. He forced himself to sound light, but Amy could tell that he was nervous at the thought of entering a Goa'uld stronghold. His hand moved, almost subconsciously, to clasp Lauren's.

"I feel well enough to travel," Lauren assured him. "We should get back soon. We're overdue as it is; it can't be long before our IDCs get locked out."

Amy turned her head away to hide her smile from Lauren and Patterson; she could count the hours that they had spent as a couple on the fingers of one hand, yet Lauren seemed quite naturally to have fallen into making excuses to conceal Patterson's frailties. Sekhmet caught Amy's eye and winked. Then the faraway look returned to her gaze.

"Your Stargate awaits," Lanar announced.

As SG-11 followed Sekhmet through the main corridor of her fortress, Amy felt a pang of regret that there was no time to look around. The structure was as old as the pyramids, a relic of the First Goa'uld Dynasty; as an archaeologist in training and a dedicated student of the anthropology of the Goa'uld, Amy was fascinated by it. Unfortunately, she knew that Major Patterson would never allow her to dawdle; he had allowed Sekhmet to help Lauren, but he was still uncomfortable being here.

As they entered Sekhmet's Gateroom – a vast, high-ceilinged chamber at the heart of the dome – Patterson's mood could not have been helped by the presence of the Gate's custodian. Ke'kan – Amy recognised him from the chess set – was not the largest bull Unas that she had ever seen, but he sported a particularly impressive set of chin horns and wore a suit of ridged and spined armour that made him seem almost twice as bulky as he truly was. The Gate itself was almost as heavily armoured, covered by a great sheath of metal that must have duplicated the function of the Earth Stargate's iris.

Ke'kan stepped forward as they approached and bowed before Sekhmet. "My ladies," he growled, reverently.

"Ke'kan," Lanar greeted him. "These are my friends. They require the use of the Chappa'ai."

"Of course, Lanar," the Unas agreed. He turned and bowed to the Tau'ri. "It is an honour to meet you, friends of Lady Lanar."

Patterson managed to return the bow neatly, despite his nerves. "And you, Ke'kan. Cha'a chaka."

Ke'kan gave a soft grunt of laughter. "I have not heard that tongue spoken in many year."

"And never so badly, I bet," Patterson admitted.

"Never," Ke'kan agreed.

"Your English is excellent," Amy said.

"Thank you. My symbiote taught me, long ago, before it was removed by the devices which the Asgard installed on a protected world."

"You were a host?" Amy asked, noting as she did so the ribbon device on his left hand.

"I was," Ke'kan replied. "I was raised to that destiny and I worshipped the Goa'uld as my god. I willingly did its bidding and when it was gone I felt lost. It was my Lady Lanar who taught me that my life can have meaning as something more than the vessel of a Goa'uld."

Lanar smiled. "I hope that we shall have time for stories another time," she said. "Time presses, however. Ke'kan, please unlock the Chappa'ai."

Ke'kan bowed once more. "My Lady." He raised one massive paw to his wrist and touched a control on the ribbon device. With unnerving swiftness, the metal shield melted away, in much the same manner as a Jaffa's helmet. The floor at the base of the Stargate's dais slid open and a DHD rose into place.

"I admire your security," Patterson told Ke'kan, as Duck went forward to enter the Gate address. The address was that of a barren world that they would use as a stepping stone; with the Goa'uld, trust went only so far and the fall of the SGC could not be risked under any circumstances.

"If you should wish to return," Sekhmet said, "you must make certain that you contact us before attempting passage. If you were to arrive with the shield still in place..."

"Of course," Amy agreed. "We have a similar device ourselves."

Sekhmet smiled. "I was forgetting how formidable – and resourceful – your people have become."

Amy inclined her head in acknowledgement of the compliment. She took the tac radio from her pocket and proffered it to the Goa'uld. "Here," she said. "If we have to contact you, we can do so using this."

"I hope that I will have cause to use it soon," Sekhmet said. "My blessings and those of your God go with you, Amy Kawalsky."

"Thank you, Sekhmet," Amy replied. "Godspeed to you."

"Time to go," Patterson called. "Thank you, Sekhmet; for all you've done. I guess...I guess we kinda owe you one."

"Amy owes me two, and do not think I shall forget it," Sekhmet promised.

*

Stargate Command – Earth

SG-11 emerged from the Stargate and found themselves staring down a dozen rifles at the grim faces of the SFs. Amy was taken aback; they had signalled a code amber, just in case something had followed them from Memphis, but that would not have accounted for such a hostile reception. Things became clearer when Amy saw the bloodied figure crouching at the foot of the ramp.

"Grogan?" she asked.

The lieutenant looked up, his face ashen where it was not stained with blood from a wound in his scalp. "Captain," he replied, swaying as he tried to stand and salute.

Amy hurried down and caught Grogan, lowering him gently to the ramp. "Easy, Lieutenant," she whispered. "Lie back; doc's on her..." Amy winced. "...on his way." Sure enough, moments later, Dr Dandridge – Janet Fraiser's temporary replacement – hurried into the Gateroom and knelt beside the young man. Amy stood up and stepped away to give the medics room, although her own, limited medical understanding suggested that Grogan's wounds were not life-threatening.

General Hammond followed Dandridge through the door. "What happened?" he asked Amy. "Where are the rest of SG-10?"

Amy shrugged her shoulders, helplessly. "We weren't with them," she said. "We arrived just after."

Hammond gave a curt nod and turned his gaze to Grogan. "What happened to the rest of your team, son?" he asked, kindly.

Grogan looked up with bleary, unfocused eyes. "They're dead, Sir," he reported. "She...She killed them, then she came after me. I wouldn't have got away, but she knocked me over a ridge and I crashed through the trees almost on top of the Stargate."

"Do you know who ‘she' was?" Hammond pressed.

Grogan nodded and then winced in pain.

"Hold still," Dandridge instructed. "General; we need to get him to x-ray, just to make sure."

"Of course," Hammond agreed, but as the medics lifted Grogan onto a stretcher he hovered at the young man's side. "Who was it?" he asked.

"Sekhmet," Grogan whispered.

*

"I tell you that it is not possible!" Amy insisted.

"And I tell you that it was her!" Grogan snapped, angrily. "Captain Dane translated the inscriptions on the cabinet to read ‘The Eye of Ra' and Sekhmet made it pretty clear who she was when she was...toying with me." He paused and his cheeks flushed red as he recalled who he was talking to. "Ma'am."

Patterson shook his head. "We were with Sekhmet when this happened," he assured Grogan. "Lightyears from where you were."

"Then who the hell murdered SG-10?" Hammond demanded.

"D'oh!" Amy pounded the heel of her hand into her forehead.

Hammond subjected her to a level stare. "Captain Kawalsky? You know who did this?"

"Yes, Sir," Amy replied. "It must have been Sekhmet..."

"But you said..."

"...but a different version of Sekhmet. We know for a fact that Ra made a new Sekhmet at least once; after the original betrayed him he made another, who also turned on her father. SG-10 must have accidentally set loose a third version, who also seems to have wound up in stasis."

"You'd think he'd give up eventually," Duck noted.

"I wish he had," Grogan muttered.

"Whatever her provenance, there's no question that this Sekhmet is dangerous and that she's got access to three GDOs. Suggestions?"

"We could send the Marines in," Patterson suggested.

"You have something against the Marines?" Amy asked.

Hammond's stare never wavered. "If you have something other than sarcasm to bring to this briefing..." he said, darkly.

Amy cast her eyes downwards. "I'm sorry, Sir, but we just don't have enough Marines to hunt Sekhmet on her own turf. In fact, I think there's only one person we could reasonably expect to bring her down."

Hammond nodded. "We can recall SG-1 within the hour," he said.

"All respect to Colonel O'Neill," Amy assured him, "but I've seen a Sekhmet fight. No-one on this Earth is good enough."

"Then who did you have in mind?"

Amy blinked. "Well...Sekhmet of course," she replied.

Silence fell across the table.

"What?" Grogan asked, appalled.

"The first Sekhmet," Amy expanded. "She is a friend, to me at least, and she is the only person who could hope to match her replacement on a level field. If we are to stand the slightest chance of recovering SG-10, in any state, without massive loss of life, we have to go to her." She turned all her attention to General Hammond. "You've read my reports, Sir; you've read Teal'c's reports on the elder Sekhmet. This newer model won't be any less capable."

"You think that we should call on a Goa'uld to perform a rescue mission?" Hammond asked.

"She did rescue us," Patterson allowed. "Although there's only so far that I'd feel comfortable putting us in hock to any Goa'uld."

"Memphis is currently only hours away from PG3-191 by ship," Amy pressed. "We could avoid the bottleneck of the Gate and maybe reach the holding facility without even encountering the younger Sekhmet. Yes, we'd owe her a little more, but I know she'll do it."

"The MALP we sent to PG3-191 has seen no sign of activity at the Stargate," Hammond noted.

"She won't forgive intrusion on her territory," Amy insisted. "A machine is of no interest to her, but this Sekhmet is built on the same genetic foundations as the original and she never forgave a trespass." She touched a finger to her temple. "Thoth knew that and I saw it for myself on Dahkleh."

Hammond gave a curt nod. "That will do, Kawalsky."

Amy drew breath, but thought better of it. "Sir," she acknowledged.

"You have six hours to report on your progress. After that we lock out your GDO; we can't afford to take risks on this one."

"Sir?" Amy tried to hide her surprise, but failed.

"You have a go to contact the elder Sekhmet and persuade her to assist in dealing with her younger self," Hammond explained. "You'll be on detached assignment from SG-11 on this mission. As his wounds are minor, Lieutenant Grogan will accompany you to identify the attacker of SG-10. In the event that the two Sekhmets do prove to be one and the same you will do all in your power to depart without incident; do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir," Amy replied.

"In case that should prove to be impossible, you'll be armed with P90s and I'm assigning two Marine gunners to accompany you; Sergeants Pellinor and Goodge."

"Sergeants..." Amy stared at Hammond in amazement. "You were already planning to send us?"

"Contrary to the beliefs of certain members of the incoming administration, I'm not entirely senile yet," Hammond assured her. "I do remember your reports, Captain; they made for compelling reading. Gear up; you brief in one hour and leave in ninety minutes."

*

Memphis

Amy stepped out of the Stargate with Grogan at her side, anxiously fingering the stock of his P90; the two Marine sergeants followed. Leo Pellinor was a lean, hungry wolf of a man, while Max Goodge was a hulking bear who carried his SAW almost as though it were a toy; they were both half as old again as Amy, which would make command relations interesting. In most company, the two Marines would have been an imposing escort, but with Ke'kan at her shoulder, Sekhmet had all the trumps. Amy knew with a sick certainty that – for all her warnings – the two Marines had their eyes fixed on the Unas and would fire on him first in a fight; they thought that he was the dangerous one.

"Amy," Lanar said, happily. "I had not thought to see you again so soon." She approached with her hands held out in welcome, for all the world as though her friend had not returned with an assault team. She had changed out of her armour for once and wore lightweight fatigues of silver and gold fabric.

"Lanar," Amy replied. "We have a problem; I hoped that you could help us out. This is Lieutenant Grogan," she added. "Lieutenant Grogan's team were attacked – probably killed – by..." she paused. "Grogan, you don't know this woman, do you?"

"No, Ma'am," Grogan replied.

Amy nodded, satisfied. "Well, this is Sekhmet," she said. "The original and best."

Lanar's slight diffidence shifted into Sekhmet's confident poise and she turned a curious gaze on Grogan.

Grogan looked startled. "Oh," he said. "I just...The other one was different."

"Naturally," Amy agreed. "Sekhmet; Grogan's team were killed by...it seems to have been another of your replacements."

Sekhmet hissed, quietly. "But she was...different?" she asked.

Grogan met her gaze for a moment; he took on the startled look of a rabbit in headlights. "Yes, Ma'am," he replied. "She was younger, I think...prettier."

Ke'kan's eyes narrowed and he gave a growl.

Amy closed her eyes and gave an impatient sigh. "The diplomatic corps missed a trick when they let you slip through their fingers, Grogan," she said.

"I think he's rather sweet," Sekhmet assured Amy with a soft chuckle, but her face quickly turned serious and concerned. "Where did this so-called Sekhmet attack your friends, Lieutenant Grogan?"

"PG3-191," the young man replied.

"Abissa," Amy added.

Grogan gave her a strange look. "Where's Abissa?"

"PG3-191," Amy replied. "Sorry; that just popped in there."

"It was once Ra's prison world," Sekhmet explained. "One moment."

When she spoke again, a few seconds later, it was in Lanar's voice. "Sekhmet is interrogating our computer systems for information on Abissa. The Claw of Aksos has been directed to make the journey to the planet at once; we shall follow soon via the Chappa'ai." She spoke to Amy, but her eyes kept flickering nervously towards Grogan; Amy found the effect rather disconcerting.

"Will it be safe to use the Stargate?" Grogan asked.

Lanar turned to him, but seemed unable to meet his gaze. "Sekhmet will protect you," she promised. "We will also have your two heavily-armed friends, Amy and – of course – Ke'kan."

Grogan looked nervously in the Unas' direction. "You're coming with us?" he asked.

"If my lady asks it," Ke'kan rumbled, glowering at Grogan. Amy did not think that the Unas liked Grogan very much; perhaps he did not like to hear his beloved lady compared unfavourably to another woman.

"And when do we go?" Amy asked.

"Soon," Lanar promised. "Ke'kan will see to your refreshment. Sekhmet and I must ready ourselves for travel; and for battle."

*

Abissa

The stag strode through the wood, his footfalls confident. Abissa had no large predators; the deer – tall, strong, proud creatures – were the monarchs of the forest and this particular stag was the undisputed lord of his domain. The deer stopped at the edge of a river and lowered his antlered head to drink. Generations of peace left him woefully unprepared to deal with another creature hurtling out of the undergrowth towards him and all the stag did was lift his gaze to watch the tawny shape approach.

The younger Sekhmet slammed her full weight against the stag's chest, lifting his forelegs off the ground and throwing him onto his back. The deer kicked and thrashed, struggling back to his feet. His eyes were wide and his nostrils flared in panic. Sekhmet kicked out and swept a leg from under the stag; he clambered back to his feet once more and desperately fought for purchase to retreat from this strange, terrifying apparition. The Goa'uld snatched his leg away again, and again, enjoying the animal's fear.

At last, Sekhmet pounced; she hurled herself on the stag, grabbed it by the muzzle and shoulder, then twisted hard. The stag's neck broke with a hideous crack; the animal kicked a few times and then lay still. Sekhmet lay down alongside the cooling flank and pressed her cheek against its hide. She sighed, contentedly.

Sekhmet reached for her hip and drew out a knife. The long, thin blade looked ridiculously fragile to her, but the steel was strong and the edge was sharp. In her expert hand it sliced easily into the stag's belly, slashing through hide and fat and into the tough muscle underneath. Her nostrils twitched at the scent of warm blood and she licked her lips in anticipation. The hand holding the knife began to tremble as she hacked off a thick slab of meat. She snatched up the bleeding flesh and tore at it with her teeth, tilting back her head to swallowing it down in great gobbets.

"What a sorry sight you are, My Lady."

Sekhmet's head snapped up. A man stood in front of her, where none had been a moment before. He wore a long robe of black and silver; his eyes were dark and piercing, his long, black hair swept back in an immaculate widow's peak. She sniffed, but there was no scent.

Sekhmet turned her head curiously to one side. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"Look at you," the man scoffed. "The mighty Sekhmet, soaked in the blood of animals and wearing the torn clothes of a slaughtered, Tau'ri; little better than an animal herself."

"Tau'ri?" Sekhmet asked. "No. Smell of oil; machines; Tau'ri are savages."

"No longer. Lady Sekhmet..."

Sekhmet gave an impatient snarl. "Enough," she growled and she sprang. She reached the man and passed clean through him to land smoothly on his far side. "What are you?" She turned and crouched at bay.

The man turned. "Impressive," he purred. "Most people who try to attack a hologram fall flat on their face."

"I am not most people," Sekhmet hissed.

The man smiled, charmingly. "I would hardly be here if you were," he told her. "I am Amentiu, herald of Anubis. My Lord Anubis has sent me to greet the most perfect and sublime warrior ever produced by the Goa'uld."

"Then face me in person," Sekhmet demanded.

"As you wish."

Sekhmet recoiled in alarm as a bright blue light exploded in front of her. Suddenly there was scent; a lot of it. Three men, armour, weapons. Amentiu looked just like his holographic image; his escort were armoured from head-to-toe in black.

"My Lady..." Amentiu began, then Sekhmet sprang.

One of the armoured warriors stepped out and swept its arm around. It struck Sekhmet with more force than any warrior she had ever faced and barely flinched from the impetus of her charge. Sekhmet flipped to her feet, but the second warrior bowled her over again. They stood over her, taunting her as she had taunted the stag.

"Oh dear," Amentiu sighed. "I had hoped that it would not be necessary for me to offer such an immediate and practical demonstration of the power of my kull warriors."

Sekhmet tried to lunge past the warriors to attack their master, but one grasped her arm and the other drove an armoured fist against her head.

"You will be ready to talk soon," Amentiu assured her. "Then..."

This time when Sekhmet fell, she made no effort to stand; instead she caught hold of an ankle and flipped one of the kull warriors onto its back. She darted past the second warrior's legs and drove Amentiu to the ground. The herald cried out in alarm, but before Sekhmet could slit his throat the kull warriors had her by the arms.

"These things..." Sekhmet spluttered. "Do they never pause?"

"Rarely," Amentiu sniffed. "Her legs," he told the warriors, and they hooked their legs around Sekhmet's so that she could not kick.

She tried to unbalance them, but their strength was greater even than hers.

The herald rose to his feet. His robe was muddied, bloodied and crumpled and his hair was disarranged. His eyes flared white in his fury. "Rash, Lady Sekhmet," he snarled. "Very rash indeed." He stepped forward and drove his fist into her stomach. When she made no sound, he struck her again, then punched her in the ribs for good measure. "You will learn compliance, however," he promised her, before driving yet another blow to her face.

Sekhmet spat blood. "You punch like a human," she told Amentiu, drawing a flurry of savage punches in reprisal.

"You will learn!"

"Not unless you can do better," she challenged.

"What?"

"Hit me harder!" Sekhmet demanded.

Amentiu lashed out with all of his strength, snapping the warrior-woman's head back and forth on her neck. "As! You! Wish!" he gasped as he pummelled her.

When Amentiu stopped, Sekhmet hung limp in the grip of the kull warriors. Her face was a bloody mess, yet somehow he had been unable to remove the mocking smile from her lips. Now her lips moved and her voice emerged in a soft whisper.

"I did not hear you, Lady Sekhmet," Amentiu panted, bending his head close to hers.

With a rush, Sekhmet fixed her teeth in his ear. He pulled away with a yelp and she called after him: "I said harder, damn you!"

With a roar of fury, Amentiu snapped his booted foot up into Sekhmet's jaw, rocking her backwards. She sagged forward again and hung, limply.

"Pilot," Amentiu said.

After only a moment's pause, the holographic image of his pilot appeared before Amentiu. The lesser Goa'uld took one look at her dishevelled lord and gasped in horror. "My Lord! Are you injured."

"What does it look like, you idiot!" Amentiu demanded.

The pilot cringed.

"Bring us back to the ship," he commanded. "Set course for home and engage the hyperdrives, then attend on me. I require healing."

"Yes, My Lord," the pilot breathed, delightedly. "It will be my honour to give my strength in your..."

"Activate the transport beam!" Amentiu snapped. "And have another healing device brought to Sekhmet's cell. My Lord Anubis has plans for this witch and they will be for naught if I let her die."

*

Amy and her companions were too nervous to accept more than water from their host, mostly because of their concern for SG-10, but at least partly because their host was a giant, heavily-armed lizard. Grogan swiftly set about wearing a hole in the floor, impatiently stamping and shuffling his feet, while the Marines stood by. Pellinor had the placid look of a man who could stand around idly for hours and still be ready to move at a moment's notice, but Goodge soon started to get twitchy.

Fortunately, Sekhmet was not gone for long; she returned after less than ten minutes, dressed in her chainmail and armed to the teeth. "I am ready," she announced.

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that a supersoldier's blaster?" she asked, pointing to the black, metal gauntlet on Sekmet's right hand. "How'd you manage to get one of those?"

Sekhmet gave a self-effacing shrug. "How do your people say it?" she asked. "They're not ‘all that'." She gave Grogan a broad wink, then turned to her lieutenant. "Ke'kan, the shield."

"My Lady," the Unas acknowledged. As the protective casing slid away from the Gate, Ke'kan hefted a bulky weapon, with the body of a glider cannon but two additional barrels fixed above and below the main plasma array. Amy might have called that overkill, but she had seen how a Sekhmet could fight.

Sekhmet strode to the DHD and entered the address of Abissa. "This Sekhmet is a savage," she explained, without taking her eyes from the Stargate. "She was a brutal, berserk animal, who took great pleasure in the harming of other living things. Even Ra considered her a failure, so wanton was her appetite for slaughter. He forbade her to kill except on his express command and she took to torturing animals instead. Eventually he had her imprisoned in a fortress on a world with no Stargate. He seems to have given up on the name of Sekhmet after he contained her excesses, perhaps because he could never recreate the genetic base without Hathor. Whatever the reason, this was the third and last to bear the name."

"But Abissa has a Stargate," Grogan pointed out.

"This is so. Sekhmet remained in this prison until Hathor rose against Ra. Knowing that reaching Ra himself would be a suicide mission, she freed her daughter with the intention that Sekhmet should kill her father. Sekhmets have always been good at beating the odds and besides, Ra might welcome his daughter's return, even if he did believe her imprisoned. Anyway, Hathor doubtless did not much care if such an unstable agent were slain."

Grogan looked confused. "So what happened?" he asked. "Obviously she didn't kill Ra."

"No," Sekhmet agreed. "Even though he had locked her away, Sekhmet remained loyal to her father and would not betray him; a savage, but a noble one. Since she would not turn against her mother either, she was persuaded by Hathor to enter seclusion until the revolt was done and serve the victor. Hathor locked Sekhmet in a stasis chamber on an unknown world – Abissa, as we now know – rather ironically foreshadowing her own fate when the revolt ended badly."

"And you never knew about this Sekhmet before?" Amy asked. "Only, you seem to have an awful lot of data on her."

Sekhmet shook her head. "She was unknown to me. This information was withheld during the reign of Ra and forgotten thereafter; I would not have access to it now if Anubis had not reclaimed it. We must be wary, therefore. He will know of this Sekhmet's fate, in which case he may also know that she has been released. There was an alarm, intended to warn Ra of Sekhmet's escape, and it has been triggered. Any who know what to listen for will know by now that she is free and that she is on the planet Abissa."

"We had better hurry then," Amy suggested.

"Indeed," Sekhmet agreed. "I shall lead; the rest of you follow close on my heels and do not dawdle once we reach the far side. Lieutenant Grogan, you shall have to lead us to the tomb."

"Yes, Ma'am," Grogan replied, resolutely. His forehead was beaded with sweat.

The Goa'uld clasped a gauntleted hand on his shoulder and spoke in the voice of Lanar. "Do not be afraid," she whispered. "Sekhmet will protect you."

"So you said," Grogan replied. "It's just a strange idea: Sekhmet protecting me from Sekhmet." He flashed a nervous grin at Lanar and she smiled.

Ke'kan gave vent to a soft rumble, as though heavy rocks were slowly rolling over in his chest.

"You are correct," Sekhmet agreed. "Time is of the essence." She pressed the centre of the DHD and the Gate burst into life.

*

Amentiu's yacht – Interstitial Space

Aboard his yacht, Amentiu ordered the kull warriors to see that Sekhmet was healed of her worst injuries and then secured in the cell he had prepared for her. He went to his cabin and dispatched his slaves to see that Sekhmet was washed and appropriately attired. He stripped off his soiled robe and left it lying on the cabin floor; he hated to wear dirty clothes almost as much as he hated to have dirt on his skin. There was a full length mirror on one wall and Amentiu stood before it in only his pants and boots, regarding his ruined ear with horror.

"That bitch," he muttered, angrily.

The cabin door slid open and the pilot of the yacht, the Lady Djeta, entered. Amentiu saw her in the mirror, her face a picture of appalled outrage to see her Lord so cruelly disfigured. Djeta was beautiful, as all Goa'uld were, but Amentiu never really noticed that; the only reason that the pilot interested him – beyond the utility of her skills – was that she worshipped him, and Amentiu loved nothing more than the devotion of others. Even now, with the livid ruin of his ear to divert her, she found it hard to keep her eyes from his bare, muscular torso.

"My Lord," she whispered, as she hurried to his side, "are you badly hurt?"

"Look at what she did to me!" Amentiu snapped. "Of course I am hurt. Now mend this injury before there is time for any scarring to form."

"Yes, My Lord." Djeta took a healing device from Amentiu's dresser and lifted it alongside his head. She closed her eyes in rapt concentration, pouring all her strength into the treatment of an injury that would have healed by itself in a few hours and been eradicated from sight as soon as Amentiu rested in the sarcophagus that waited on board his ha'tak vessel.

"It is done," she panted, breathless from her redundant exertions.

"Is it?" he asked, dabbing at the ear with his handkerchief. "I can not tell with all this blood still around it."

"Allow me, My Lord!" Djeta insisted. She leaned close and ran her tongue around the circumference of Amentiu's ear.

"Cease this molestation, you stupid slattern!" Amentiu snarled, pushing her away with a powerful thrust of his arm. "Bring me water and a cloth; I do not want your slobber all over the side of my face."

Djeta steadied herself and bowed her head, chastened, then hurried into his private bathroom.

Amentiu allowed himself a cold smile at his absolute supremacy over her, then sat and regarded himself once more, in the smaller mirror that stood above his dressing table. A third mirror – a small, round looking-glass for shaving, or applying make-up – stood on the table's surface. A portrait of Amentiu hung over his bed and the bathroom in which Djeta was busying herself with her master's every whim was walled entirely in mirrors. It would not have taken the Fab Five to recognise the fact that Amentiu liked looking at himself.

Djeta returned with a bowl of water and a cloth and set them on the table.

"Well?" Amentiu demanded.

Djeta flushed red. She picked up the cloth, wet it in the bowl and began to wipe the blood away from her master's flawless ear with painstaking care.

"Now my hair," Amentiu demanded.

Obediently, Djeta took the comb from the dressing table and ran it through the thick, glossy hair, straightening it and pulling it back from Amentiu's face in the style that he preferred. In a moment of rare self-indulgence, she allowed her fingers to linger in the mass of Amentiu's heavy locks, enjoying their luxuriant warmth and the feeling of contact with her master.

"Will there be anything else, My Lord?" Djeta asked, hopefully.

Amentiu stood, turned and looked deep into Djeta's eyes. She shivered, as she always did when her gaze met his. Looking at him with adoration, she saw her own emotions reflected back at her and so imagined her Lord in love with her. She would never realise that he did see the one thing in the world that he loved as he looked at her; his own reflected image.

"There is," he said at last, his voice muted to a low, soft rumble, deep within his chest.

"Yes, My Lord?" she whispered.

"My Lord Amentiu!"

Djeta jumped as a woman's voice spoke from the intercom, her face suffused with anger.

"Yes, lo'taur," Amentiu hissed.

"Your...guest demands to speak with you at once," the woman went on, breathless with fear. "Mya and I came to bathe her and...she has Mya by the throat, My Lord. She says that she will destroy her if you do not come."

"And you disturb me with this?" Amentiu demanded, incredulously. "I shall attend on Lady Sekhmet in my own good time, lo'taur, and not before she has been properly bathed. Do not disturb me again."

There was a sharp scream across the intercom channel. When the lo'taur spoke again, her voice was thick with barely restrained tears. "Y-yes, My Lord," she mumbled.

Amentiu stood for a long moment, brooding silently.

"My Lord?" Djeta asked, at last. "What is it that you desire of me?"

Amentiu cast an idle glance over the pilot. "Take charge of my lo'taurs," he said at last, in a dismissive voice. "See to it that Lady Sekhmet is made presentable. Use whatever means you require to subdue her, but ensure that she suffers no lasting harm."

"Yes, My Lord," Djeta acknowledged, sweetly, but once she had turned away from Amentiu, her face turned sour.

*

Abissa

Amy had spent her life surrounded by the military. Her parents and her six brothers had all been in the Air Force and she knew a pro when she saw one; Sekhmet definitely qualified. The Goa'uld moved with a primal grace that bordered on inhuman, but the habits of the professional were all there; the way she instinctively looked for choke points and potential ambushes, her habit of halting periodically to listen for absent or misplaced sounds. During the twenty minute walk through the sparse woodland to the tomb, she saw many potential dangers, but she heard nothing untoward and there was no attack.

As they approached the cleft in the rock, she signalled for Amy to move up beside her. "It seems unlikely that she would move far from her lair," she whispered. "I will lead the way in; you follow me while the others guard the entrance."

Amy nodded her agreement and signalled to Grogan and the Marines. If Sekhmet passed word of her intent to Ke'kan, it needed neither word nor gesture. The Unas took his station beside the cleft without speaking, lifting his weapon and holding it at shoulder height without apparent effort or strain.

Sekhmet drew her sword as she entered the narrow gap; Amy saw a flicker in the air around the Goa'uld's left hand and knew that she had activated her energy shield. Amy shouldered her P90 with the barrel pointing low and followed Sekmet; behind her, she heard Grogan slip through the entrance.

"Lieutenant," she hissed, "your orders were to wait with the Marines."

"They're my team," Grogan replied, in a pained voice.

Amy sighed. "I know, Grogan," she assured him. "That's why I don't want you..." She broke off, knowing that she would never accept such reasoning herself if one of SG-11 were missing. "Alright," she allowed. "Keep close and watch where you point that thing."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

Less than ten feet into the tunnel, Sekhmet quickened her pace, then crouched down to examine something that lay on the floor of the passage. Grogan crowded alongside Amy to try and see what it was.

"Oh, God," he gasped, sounding nauseous.

"One of your comrades?" Sekhmet asked. It was not possible to immediately identify the body as a member of an SG-team, because it had been stripped of uniform.

Grogan looked away. "It...It was Captain Dane," he murmured.

"A strong woman," Sekhmet commented. "She was not dragged here. The other Sekhmet must have slashed her open and left her to bleed to death. After Sekhmet left Captain Dane, she was able to come this far before her strength gave out. Good, good."

"Good!" Grogan exclaimed, appalled. "You think it's good that my friend took hours to bleed to..."

"Lieutenant!" Amy snapped. "Control yourself," she chided, although she also looked to Sekhmet for an explanation.

Lanar looked back and gave a gentle smile. "If Sekhmet's successor was stored within her host body then her prison – like mine – must have been a sarcophagus. As she died slowly, your Captain Dane is not long dead; she will be easy to restore." She sheathed her sword, stooped and lifted the captain in her arms. "We should hurry now; the other is not here, but if the rest of your team died more swiftly then every moment counts."

The Goa'uld strode away; Amy and Grogan followed, fighting down their nausea at the smell of death that hung in the corridor and the tackiness of Dane's blood where it coated the floor. In the tomb chamber, the carvings were splashed with blood; Amy did not need forensic training to recognise the signs of a frenzied attack and she tried not to look at Doyle and Sawyer as Sekhmet set Dane upright in the cabinet.

"Lieutenant Grogan," Sekhmet called, gently. "You are an engineer?"

"I...Yes."

"I require your assistance, then. The power of this device is almost depleted; could you use a zat'nik'tel's power supply to supplement the levels?"

"I...I guess," Grogan replied. "It won't do the thing much good, though. The energy is at the wrong frequency; I can jury-rig a modulator, but I wouldn't give it more than four or five uses before all the crystals fracture and render the device useless."

Sekhmet turned to face him. "We only need three," Lanar reminded him.

Grogan nodded. "Yes," he said, more conclusively. "Yes. I can do it."

"Amy?" Sekhmet prompted.

Amy nodded and drew the zat from her hip.

*

Several hours after his departure from Abissa, Amentiu finally received word from Djeta that Sekhmet was ready to wait upon him. The herald rather doubted that Sekhmet would have seen it in that way; if he was ignorant of the deeper emotions behind Djeta's obsession, he was well aware of how it manifested in her dealings with other women, especially those who occupied more of Amentiu's thoughts than Djeta herself did. Having given her a free hand in subduing the warrior, Amentiu did not doubt that Djeta would have taken the opportunity to release some measure of the colossal, twisted ball of frustration that sat at the core of her being.

Two of the kull warriors stood guard at the door of Sekhmet's cell. Amentiu suppressed a shudder at the sight of them; like most of Anubis' Goa'uld servants he feared the kull and looked on them as an unholy abomination of his own race. He looked away from them to the more pleasant aspects of Djeta and his two lo'taurs, Mya and Lyli. With a degree of annoyance, he realised that, while Sekhmet had not made good on her threat to destroy Mya, she had torn the skin of the slave's face – apparently with her fingernails – mangling the girl's beauty and removing her decorative value. Her twin sister's face was also marred, puffed and blotchy from weeping.

With a disgusted snort, Amentiu turned to focus on the one unspoiled visage in sight. "Djeta. Take the wounded girl away and see that she is mended; I do not wish to have such an unsightly thing in my presence."

"Yes, My Lord," Djeta agreed.

"And Djeta; please see that the other is suitably punished for interrupting me over such a trifling matter."

Djeta gave a cruel smile and grasped Lyli's shoulder, tightly. "Yes, My Lord," she purred. "I shall see to it personally."

Amentiu turned his back as the three women left. Again, the sight of the kull warriors made him shiver to think of the twisted, fanatical creatures that lived within those black shells. Goa'uld with no will or ambition save to serve were worse even than the Tok'ra. So long as they knew their master to serve Anubis in his turn, they were absolutely obedient, but with no resistance to overcome, Amentiu could feel no pleasure in their subjugation.

"Open the door," he ordered.

One of the warriors touched the controls and the heavy door slid open. Sekhmet stood behind the door, waiting with her eyes fixed ahead. She looked battered, but alert and Amentiu instinctively took a step away from her. He took some comfort from the knowledge that a force field still barred the portal, but that defence proved unnecessary; Sekhmet made no move to attack, simply stood there and fixed Amentiu with her fierce, tawny gaze.

"I was rash before," she said. "I shall not attack in anger again." Sekhmet had been bathed, as Amentiu commanded, but her skin was darkened by many bruises. Her mortal wounds had been healed, but she was still injured and the more recent marks he took to be the signs of Djeta's handiwork. To judge by the injuries, the pilot's weapon of choice in this endeavour had been a brace of kull warriors.

"That is good," Amentiu answered her at last. "You recognise your position here, then? You understand that you are here to serve, My Lady?"

"No, My Lord Amentiu," Sekhmet replied. "I understand that I can not overcome your guards by force alone. I shall not attack in anger, but when I do attack, I shall not be so easily subdued."

Amentiu allowed himself the indulgence of a gloating chuckle. "I think that you will find that the kull warriors are beyond even your ability to dispatch."

"You are not," she noted.

"I shall be!" Amentiu's eyes flashed, angrily.

"I do not think so, My Lord."

Amentiu chuckled. "We shall see. Kull, kree."

The kull warriors moved to flank Amentiu, then at his signal they advanced through the force field, their armour dissipating the field's energy. Sekhmet recovered well from her surprise and was able to unbalance the first warrior and throw him to the ground. She was injured however and the second warrior kicked her hard in the back of the leg, bringing her down.

When the two warriors left the cell, Sekhmet was bloodied and broken, but still alive and conscious. Amentiu lowered the force field and entered the room. "You are weakened by your long slumber," he told her, "and the kull warriors are strong. You shall be strong again, however, if you agree to serve."

"I will never serve you," Sekhmet replied in a bloody, foaming whisper.

"Not I," Amentiu agreed, crouching beside her. He held out his hand and let the ribbon beam from his hand device play across Sekhmet's bloodied forehead; she squirmed in pain, but did not cry out. "You will serve My Lord Anubis," he went on.

"I serve Lord Ra."

"Ra is dead," Amentiu snapped, impatiently. "Anubis is his successor. You will serve him." He reached inside his robe and drew out a small, metal ball. As he held it up before Sekhmet's blurred gaze, a series of long, slender spikes projected from the surface of the ball.

"What is that?" she demanded, a trace of fear at last entering her voice.

"A device to ensure your compliance," Amentiu explained. "It is a modified interrogation device that will act to suppress your natural urge to kill and destroy, when it is directed in undesirable ways. Rest assured that you will still be able to express your instincts, but only in such a fashion as I deem appropriate." The spikes retracted, leaving only the ball.

"The moment that that object leaves your hand..." Sekhmet began.

"Oh, I do not hold it," Amentiu assured her. With a benevolent smile, he touched the ball to Sekhmet's forehead. "The device shall be in your keeping, My Lady."

Sekhmet's eyes widened in horror. A single spine sprang from the ball and plunged deep into her brow. The warrior woman screamed. Her cries echoed along the corridors as the spike dug its way inexorably into her brain.

Outside the door, the kull warriors stood at their posts, unmoved.

*

Amy and Grogan made camp while Ke'kan and the two Marines stood watch. It was six hours since SG-10 had made their way back through the Stargate to Earth. Doyle had been longest dead and had required the assistance of his team mates to walk, although Lanar assured Grogan that exercise would restore his coordination and muscle mass. Grogan had felt obliged to return with his team, but Doyle had excused him, allowing the lieutenant to stay where he wanted to be: in the vanguard of the hunt for the killer.

Amy had some doubts about Grogan's qualifications as a bounty hunter, but no more so than about her own. If he was only along as a colleague of the victims, she was present as no more than Sekhmet's friend. Anyway, it was not as though they were particularly placing themselves in harm's way at present; they were setting up camp for the night, while Sekhmet hunted for a trail in the woods and they waited for the Claw of Aksos – with all her sophisticated sensors – to arrive.

"We'll take three watches," Amy decided, once they had eaten.

"I can watch," Ke'kan said.

"What about when you sleep?" Amy asked.

"I will not require sleep for some thirty-one of your hours," the Unas assured her.

"Impressive," Amy allowed. "I'd be more comfortable with two watchers though. Grogan, you sit up with Ke'kan first; wake me after three hours, then I'll wake Pellinor. A two hour shift is hardly worth the effort, so you get to sleep through this one, Sergeant Goodge."

"My lucky day," the big Marine replied with a wry grin.

"Heads down, Sergeants," Amy ordered. "We're going wabbit hunting tomorrow and it's going to be a very long day."

Grogan sat with his back to the fire, facing out into the darkness with his P90 in his lap. The sky was pale with moonlit clouds; Abissa had two moons and the dual source gave the soft light an unearthly quality. The gentle sounds of the forest were all around him; it would have been a very restful scene, if not for the deranged killer on the loose and the huge lizard in battle armour over his shoulder. Grogan found the presence of Ke'kan very distracting; he kept looking back at the Unas and, once or twice, he saw Ke'kan glowering back at him.

Through the still air, Grogan could hear the sound of water, gently lapping at a shore. He stood up.

"What are you doing?" Ke'kan demanded.

"I...uh. I need to go," Grogan explained, awkwardly.

"You are on guard. You must stay."

Grogan shook his head. "No. I mean I have to...Go."

There was a pause. "I understand," Ke'kan replied.

"Good."

"Humans are weak creatures. They lack endurance."

"Yep," Grogan agreed. "That's us. No endurance, lots of sleep, poor night vision." He unclipped the flashlight from his belt and flicked it on to light his way.

"And switch that thing off."

Grogan made his way towards the sound of water, pausing briefly near to a convenient tree. The clouds parted as he emerged onto the shore of a small lake and one of the moons, hanging fat and blue in the sky, shone down across the pebbles and glittered on the flat surface of the water.

After a moment, the clouds closed over again, but in that last moment something sparkled on the beach and the light caught Grogan's eye. He turned and fumbled with his flashlight. He played the beam along the shore until it fell upon a mass of shining metal; a suit of chain mail covering a body that lay slumped on the shore.

"Lanar!" Grogan hurried forward and knelt beside the still form. As he ran, the beam of his flashlight flew wildly about him and he could not get a good look at the body until he dropped alongside it. The ‘body' was low and round and greyish-black, shot through with veins of quartz.

The body was a rock, high and dry above the water's edge, with Sekhmet's clothes and armour draped across it.

Grogan breathed a sigh of relief, but just as he began to relax, a gentle splashing at the water's edge made him turn and struggle to raise his weapon. He dropped the flashlight and fumbled for the switch of the one that was attached to the barrel of the P90.

"Stop!" he challenged. "Who...?" As the flashlight came on, he broke off and dropped the beam to point at the pebbles. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. He turned his face away, but could not stop himself looking back to see if he really had seen what he had thought he had seen.

Sekhmet, standing waist deep in the water, seemed to smile in the pale light, then she turned her head aside and, with a harsh, gurgling gasp, ejected a considerable volume of water from her mouth.

Grogan took a step forward. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"I am well," the Goa'uld assured him. She wiped her mouth with a delicate motion.

"I...I didn't see you," Grogan offered, weakly. He felt sure that he should look away again, but he could not seem to drag his gaze away from the tawny sparkle of Sekhmet's eyes. I'm only looking at her eyes, he reminded himself. She may only break my legs.

"The lake is very deep," Sekhmet explained. "I was at the bottom."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Not for me," Sekhmet assured him, walking out of the water and up the pebbled beach with a confident stride.

Grogan looked at his feet and felt a blush spread up the back of his neck.

Sekhmet's bare feet appeared in Grogan's line of sight. "You know, of course, that Goa'uld are capable of breathing water?"

"I...uh...no. I mean..."

"What have you done?" Sekhmet asked, gently.

"Nothing!" Grogan gulped.

"Really? Then why are you sorry?"

"Sorry?"

"Yes, you said that you were sorry."

"Well, you were...I mean you are...That is, you haven't got any..." He coughed awkwardly.

Sekhmet sounded amused when she answered. "If I have made you uncomfortable then surely it is I who should be apologising?"

Grogan mumbled something inaudible. He could not feel a single inch of his skin that was not blushing now.

Sekhmet laid a hand on Grogan's chin and tilted his gaze up to meet hers once more. "Tell me, Lieutenant Grogan..." Her hard face softened in a quizzical frown. "What is your given name?"

Grogan gave an awkward cough. Out of old habit, he leaned a little closer to Sekhmet and whispered his name into her ear.

Sekhmet raised an eyebrow. "Shall I continue to call you Grogan?" she suggested.

"I'd appreciate it," Grogan agreed.

She smiled. "Then tell me, Grogan; do you still think that my replacement is more attractive than I am?"

"Oh! Well! I...I mean...That is...I...Ah..."

Sekhmet lay a finger across Grogan's lips. "It's alright," she assured him. "Now try again."

"I...I never said more attractive," Grogan offered, weakly. "I said prettier. Sort of...daintier; less...noble."

"And is she more attractive?" Sekhmet teased.

"No."

Sekhmet smiled, then she brushed her lips against Grogan's. He made a soft, squeaking sound and flinched away.

"You could give me a little help with this," Sekhmet suggested. "If you want to."

Grogan cleared his throat, awkwardly. "You need my help? You know, I haven't had a serious date since my second year in the Academy."

"I have not had a ‘serious date' in several millennia."

"Okay," Grogan allowed. "You win."

Sekhmet leaned forward again and this time Grogan met her halfway. The Goa'uld smiled as their lips parted. "So I do," she whispered.

*

Amentiu was not satisfied by the current progress of his latest project. Once her resistance had been broken, Sekhmet seemed to have accepted his dominion almost as readily as any other woman and the device in her head would ensure her compliance, if not her loyalty, but she still looked at him with insolent eyes. Even in her obedience she resisted him and her directness, her fearlessness, both fascinated and frightened Amentiu. He found neither emotion to be much to his taste; no Goa'uld should admit to fear and he far preferred to be the object of fascination.

Lady Djeta was also behaving erratically. Amentiu knew her well enough to be confident that her acts of rebellion would be petty, but her jealousy made her recalcitrant and unstable. She had deliberately botched the healing of Mya's face and then brutalised Lyli's so that both of Amentiu's lo'taurs were now disfigured. That angered Amentiu greatly, for the matched beauties were a source of great status among his fellows. They were noted by all for their loveliness, but, more importantly, they had been a gift to him from the Lord Osiris, who knew of old his taste for pretty things. Osiris was now lost, but a gift from one's superiors should be diligently looked after and not allowed to fall into such disrepair. Unfortunately, to repair them would require a spell in his sarcophagus and that would make them arrogant, for a short time at least. Amentiu did not like his servants to be arrogant.

At her own insistence, Sekhmet was in training with the kull warriors. Amentiu found combat intensely dull and so he had left her to her beating while he took a little refreshment in his quarters. He dined alone, as Djeta was out of favour, and he was served by his scar-faced lo'taurs, which did little to ease his temper. After his luncheon, he returned to the viewing gallery above the training room to see how Sekhmet was holding up.

Sekhmet, her dark-blonde hair dragged back and clasped into a tight ponytail at the back of her neck, was engaged in single combat with a kull warrior. She had donned armour, but that would only delay the inevitable in a fight with one of Anubis invincible kull warriors. Despite the certainty of her defeat, Sekhmet – fighting with a long, bladeless spear – was making a good account of herself. Impressively, there appeared to be scratch marks on the kull warrior's armour, where the needle-like tip of the spear had managed to fray and even cut the uppermost layers of the fibres. Sekhmet, however, was cut and bloodied, surely at the end of her strength.

The kull warrior lunged and obscured Sekhmet from Amentiu's view, as the lady stabbed desperately with her spear.

The spear's point emerged from the back of the kull warrior's neck, smeared with the blood of both host and symbiote. Sekhmet twisted aside and the spear shaft snapped off. The kull warrior stumbled after Sekhmet while one hand groped uselessly at the stump of the shaft.

"Impossible," Amentiu breathed, but although it took long minutes, at last the warrior fell to the ground and lay still.

"The armour is impressive," Sekhmet said. Her back was to Amentiu, but he knew that she was speaking to him. "These warriors are in many ways formidable, but they are not without their weaknesses. The armour is nearly impossible to break or burn, but it can be pierced if the fibres of it can be cut with a blow of great enough power and a weapon of sufficient sharpness and slenderness. I thank your servants for supplying this spear; it suited my needs precisely."

"How did you know?" Amentiu demanded.

"It is my place to see such things," Sekhmet told him. "I am Sekhmet, the Eye of Ra. It is what I do."

"What is?"

She reached back, removed the clasp from her ponytail and turned her head to look up at Amentiu through the curtain of her hair. "I kill." Sekhmet spun on the ball of one foot, crouched down and then sprang in Amentiu's direction.

Amentiu had flinched back, instinctively, by the time he realised that she could not possibly have reached the gallery from a standing start. He had barely managed to recover his composure when Sekhmet's fingers hooked over the gallery rail and the assassin swung her body smoothly up and planted her broad feet firmly on the rail. She fixed her captor with a fierce, burning gaze, then hurled herself upon him.

Amentiu cried out and fell heavily to the gallery floor with Sekhmet on top of him. "Stop!" he commanded her in a panicked voice. His frightened mind tried to understand how Anubis' brainspike could have failed so completely.

Sekhmet lunged downwards and fastened her lips hard against his.

"Stop!" Amentiu ordered once more; he liked to consider himself irresistible to women, but only to the degree that it gave him power over them.

Sekhmet ignored him. She kissed him again and this time fixed her teeth in his lower lip.

"I told you to stop!" Amentiu cried, desperately.

"I know," Sekhmet replied, resting her hand tenderly on his throat. "Do not do it again." She looked down on him with smouldering lust and Amentiu felt himself shiver in fear.

*

Amy was sitting on watch when Grogan returned.

"Captain," He mumbled, failing to meet her gaze. He looked a little shell-shocked, like a man who had just survived a near-miss from some devastating weapon.

"Lieutenant," Amy replied. "You didn't wake me up," she accused.

"Sorry, Ma'am," Grogan mumbled.

Ke'kan turned to look at the young man. "Did you find something?" he asked in a menacing rumble.

"Nothing but me," Sekhmet replied, emerging from the shadow of the trees. Grogan was glad that the fire was dying; in the dim, red light his blushes must be harder to see.

"Get some sleep, Grogan," Amy ordered. "Unless you've found anything vital, Sekhmet?" she added, almost as an afterthought.

Sekhmet shrugged. "Nothing...dangerous," she demurred. She settled herself on the ground beside Amy. "Good night, Lieutenant."

Grogan mumbled something that might have been: "Goodnight, Ma'am."

Amy and Sekhmet sat in silence, until at last Grogan's breathing settled into the steady rhythm of sleep. Amy turned to Sekhmet. "You are terrible," she accused.

"I do not know what you mean," Sekhmet insisted.

"The boy has suffered a great shock," Amy said. "The last thing he needs at the moment is an incorrigible old mantis like you fixing her teeth in him."

"Mantises do not have teeth," Sekhmet replied.

"It isn't fair," Amy pressed. "He's an odd sort of boy; he's no fool and he's got guts to spare, but he's a dreamer. He's not the type to take a break-up well."

"Who suggested that I have any intention of breaking him up?" Sekhmet asked.

Amy laughed. "Breaking up with him," she corrected. "Not that you couldn't do the latter...But you can't mean to carry on with him, can you?"

Sekhmet shrugged. "Well, admittedly I have no such intention, but Lanar has. She is very taken with the young man, but terribly shy herself. I took it upon myself to give her a little push in the right direction."

"You're all heart."

"Lanar is all heart," Sekhmet corrected. "My interests lie in...other parts. And please do not think because I do not seek a long term relationship with young Grogan, that I have any objections to such an arrangement. He is a very pleasant young man, and a thoroughly stimulating one also."

"You are awful," Amy accused.

"And you are very presumptuous," Sekhmet replied. "Do not think that having carried Thoth within you gives you the right to address me as a younger sister." She chuckled. "I am not sure that Grogan would care much for your speaking of him as a child."

The wry smile faded from Amy's lips.

"Amy?" Sekhmet asked, gently.

"Being around you always brings him close to the surface," Amy said. "I don't like it. I don't like catching myself thinking like him, I mean," she hastened to add. "I like being with you. I don't know if that's Thoth or me."

"It must be you," Sekhmet assured her. "Thoth never liked me."

"I think, if nothing else, I'd know that better than you," Amy said. "I take it, since you weren't hurrying back, that you didn't find your opposite number out there?"

"No," Sekhmet replied. "She was here. She hunted. Killed. Began to feed. Something interrupted her, however; she was taken."

"Taken?"

Sekhmet nodded. "Kull warriors. Anubis' black-husked perversions. If they are involved, then so is he. He is using her to get to me."

"Either that or he needs a warlady of his own," Amy suggested.

"He still has Athena," Sekhmet said. "She is a better general than my successor."

"How can you be so sure?"

Sekhmet looked away, awkwardly.

"Sekhmet?"

"I know it because Athena is a better general than I am. Even with the Wadjet answering directly to my will, I am barely a match for her. I find myself hoping that, with the advent of these new warriors, he will decide that Athena is surplus to requirements. I should dread to face the kull if Athena were given command of them."

Amy shivered. "Alright," she said, "so what's our next move?"

"I think she was taken by ship," Sekhmet replied. "When the Claw arrives, we will know for sure. Until then, you had better get some rest. Ke'kan and I will keep watch."

Amy nodded. "Thank you," she said, as she lay down on the ground. "Thank you for everything."

Silence fell across the campsite, the Goa'uld and the Unas sitting wordlessly in the growing gloom as the fire burned down to embers.

"Speak," Sekhmet said, after a long while.

"There is nothing to say," Ke'kan replied.

"She will not hear," Sekhmet promised. "Say what you must, my dear."

"If he hurts her, I will tear him in half," the Unas growled.

"I know."

"I do not want her for myself," Ke'kan assured Sekhmet. "Lanar is not of my kind and I desire her no more than she desires me, but I do feel great affection for her. Love, even. I will not see her hurt; not while I have strength to prevent it."

"I know."

"And I will hold you accountable if she is wounded," Ke'kan added.

Sekhmet looked at him, curiously. "I?"

"You encouraged this. She would not have made so bold a move with a man she had but met. Lanar knows nothing of this boy..."

"And left to her own devices she never would have," Sekhmet assured him. "She would have smiled at him demurely until he left with Captain Kawalsky and we should never have seen him again. Besides," she went on, "I doubt that I could conduct a courtship that would not seem hasty to you, Ke'kan. Even without your Goa'uld, you could live for another six hundred years or more. Lanar and I have less remaining to us than these humans. Our body is still strong, but its ability to renew itself has been exhausted by millennia in the sarcophagus. We are dying, Ke'kan; would you deny us our final fling? Especially as it is also to be her first."

"I would not," Ke'kan replied. "But I would not have her wounded, either."

"Nor I, Ke'kan. Nor I."

*

Amentiu waited for the long-range holographic transmitters to fire up and send his image half-way across the galaxy. After a moment, the signal was answered and a figure appeared before him. The figure was robed in black and reclined upon a great throne, but it was not his master, Anubis. Nonetheless, Amentiu dropped to one knee, wincing as he did so; his body still ached from its receipt of Sekhmet's attentions.

"Amentiu," the woman purred.

It had been a shock for Amentiu to see his erstwhile lord, Osiris, stand before him in his new body. Once, he had stood at Osiris' side as they chose the beautiful girls who would serve them and they had poured scorn on the weakness of such fragile creatures. Then Osiris returned, wearing the body of just such a girl and Amentiu could not help thinking his lord weak for making such a choice, even as it chafed to take orders from a female. Osiris' death had been a blessed relief for Amentiu, who had hoped that Anubis might appoint him as the new Councillor of Wisdom. Instead, the post had gone to Osiris' protégé and now Amentiu was obliged to obey her.

"My Lord," he whispered, fighting to hide his disgust.

"You will address me as My Lady," Lamia commanded. Her dark eyes flickered dangerously.

Amentiu knew that Osiris' successor did not like him and that meant that he hated her. She had never made a secret of her feelings and he had savoured the prospect of punishing her once he sat at Anubis' right hand. It was small consolation that he had been circumspect enough to conceal the depths of his hatred, otherwise he would probably have been quietly killed upon her accession.

"Forgive me, My Lady," he said, almost choking on his own honeyed words.

"Does your mission proceed according to plan?" the woman demanded.

"Yes, My Lady," Amentiu replied. "The assassin is in hand; the device that you provided functions as predicted, although there have been unforeseen...complications," he admitted, touching a tentative hand to his sore ribs.

Lamia gave a teasing smile. "My poor herald," she chuckled. "What a trial it must be for you to face a woman who is not cowed by your beauty."

"My Lady..."

"Be silent, Amentiu," Lamia interrupted. "I did not bid you contact me so that you could regale me with tales of your conquests, nor even of your overthrow, however amusing the latter might be to hear. Besides these ‘complications', the Lady Sekhmet is in hand, correct?"

"Yes, My Lady."

"Excellent, my herald; then attend me further. There is one slight alteration to the plan. Our Lord Anubis commands you to send me a sample of Sekhmet's blood before you proceed. Send it to me, do you understand? It must reach the foundry worlds without delay and My Lord is at present engaged in battle against the treacherous Lord Baal."

Amentiu's curiosity was piqued. While she might be telling the truth, it might also be that Lamia wished to keep something secret from Lord Anubis? If so, what might that secret be worth? "Yes, My Lady," he agreed.

"You were ever a faithful servant," Lamia commended Amentiu. "Continue to be so and you will reap great rewards. I await the delivery and I hope to hear of your further success very soon."

"I shall not disappoint you, My Lady," Amentiu promised.

The hologram of the woman flickered and vanished. Amentiu rose to his feet. "Pilot!" he called. "Prepare a courier pod to transport a biological sample and alter course that we may pause in a system with a Chappa'ai. Also, prepare a message to Lord Anubis, informing him that the sample has been relayed to Lady Lamia as per his instructions."

"Yes, My Lord," Djeta replied.

Amentiu smirked. "You see, My Lady; I am a faithful servant and I shall reap my reward."

*

"She has gone," Sekhmet announced, conclusively.

"Good morning," Amy replied.

"Good morning," Sekhmet said.

The Warlady sat beside a campfire with Ke'kan. The smell of grilling meat rose up and swirled around the clearing.

"Smells good," Amy said, struggling out of her bedroll. "Catch it yourself, Ke'kan?"

Sekhmet smiled. "This was the deer that my namesake caught. She was taken before she could eat very much and it seemed a shame to waste it. I tested it for poison," she added. "It is quite safe, or will be when it is cooked."

Amy sat down by the fire. "How?" she asked.

"By grilling it on a hot stone."

"I mean, how did the other Sekhmet leave?"

"A ship came," Sekhmet explained. "I knew it must have, or I would have scented the trail to the Stargate, but now I have proof. My Claw has arrived and scented the trail of an engine; an Asgard engine."

"Asgard?" Amy asked, surprised, and then she realised. "One of Anubis' new ships."

"Complete with transport beams," Sekhmet agreed. "I would like to capture that technology; I am still reliant on transport rings. We shall leave after breaking our fast."

"Can the Claw pursue a ship like that?" Amy asked, doubtfully.

"Not a chance," Sekhmet assured her, cheerfully, "but it does not matter. I know where Anubis is taking her."

*

Corana

Amentiu felt exposed. He had planned to land in the town square of Corana in the midst of a full squad of seven kull warriors, sheathed in his own impenetrable armour, with Sekhmet at his side in shining bronze, ready to draw attention to herself and away from him. Unfortunately, Sekhmet had other plans.

"You realise that Lord Anubis will not easily forgive the deaths of three of his kull warriors," he muttered, as they stood in the transporter chamber of his yacht. "He keeps careful tabs on these...things."

"If he did not wish them dead, he should have made them stronger," Sekhmet accused. The assassin looked splendid in her black armour, but Amentiu would have preferred to be in the suit himself. She had donned the armour before he could stop her and had not seemed in the mood to discuss the matter of giving it back. "Are there many people below?"

"Very many," Amentiu assured her, grimly. "And we have only four kull warriors to control them with."

"We will need only four," Sekhmet assured him. "We do not need to control them; we want them out of control, afraid. They will present us with no challenge; trust me. Your pilot knows what she must do?"

"She does," Amentiu hissed. He was notionally in charge of this mission, still, but Sekhmet appeared to have completely forgotten this. "Lady Djeta is quite capable," he assured her. "My crew have been briefed on their tasks."

Sekhmet nodded. "Good. Then shall we begin?"

"By all means."

"Oh," she added, brightly, "bring the lo'taurs."

"Why?" Amentiu demanded. "They're not fighters."

"The fighting will be brief. We shall require someone to attend to our needs afterwards." Sekhmet flashed a predatory smile. "Trust me, my sweet. This is my domain. We are not here to invade this world; we are here for an assassination." She kissed him, passionately. "Trust me," she said again.

Amentiu closed his eyes, tightly. He had never thought that he could hate having a woman so passionately pursue him, but it was not the same as when he was in control of the relationship. He could not dismiss Sekhmet or send her away. He could not tease her and taunt her; if he paraded another woman in front of her she would probably slaughter her rival on the spot.

"Let us get on with it," he said. "Kull, kree!"

Sekhmet shook her head, sadly. "You have no patience, my darling," she chided, "but as you wish."

Flanked by the four kull warriors, they stepped into the circumference of the transporter. Of course, the version on board this yacht was advanced enough to transport them point-to-point, but the chamber remained from Osiris' early prototypes of the system and the process was marginally more stable when boosted from one end.

"Lady Djeta!" Amentiu called. "Activate the transporter."

"My Lord." Djeta's voice was relayed from the pel'tac.

Lights flared around them and in a heartbeat they stood on a high balcony, looking out over a magnificent square, crowded with people. In the centre of the square stood a great statue on a high pedestal. Two of the kull warriors were with them – the other two had been sent elsewhere on separate orders – and the scarred twin lo'taur.

"Find the Justiciar and bring him here," Sekhmet ordered Amentiu.

The Herald of Anubis almost gave way to apoplexy, but he could see that Sekhmet's bloodlust was rising and he did not dare press the limits of her behavioural inhibitor. "Yes, my love," he groused. "Kull, kree."

Sekhmet looked out over the square and smiled. People were starting to notice her. She raised her arms and called out. "People of Corana!" As she had expected, at least half of the people paid her no attention whatsoever. She lowered her arms and lifted her wrist to speak into her communicator. "Fire," she commanded.

A plasma bolt struck like lightning from the cloudless sky and blasted the pedestal of the statue. The figure itself fell with a crash and the woman's arm broke off. People scattered; some were too slow and the falling statue crushed them. Sekhmet smiled at the irony of these insects being snuffed out by the stone carcass of their legendary ‘saviour'.

"Let them hear my voice," Sekhmet ordered, and when she spoke again her voice was relayed through the sky-speakers of the yacht. "People of Corana! Now that I have your attention. Tremble, for your doom has come."

She held out her arm and the blaster on her wrist spat a rapid stream of plasma bolts across the square. The kull warrior followed suit. Soon the square was clear, but the sounds of screaming drifted up from the streets. "Lady Djeta, you know what to do?"

"Continue occasional fire at the city gates and exit roads to prevent escapes, yes," Djeta replied, snippily. "I am more than capable of following orders."

"Indeed, my dear; you seem almost uniquely skilled at doing as you are told."

"Not by you, assassin!" the pilot snapped. "I do as My Lord commands and no other!"

"Then be a good girl and I am sure he will reward you. Perhaps he will let you lick his hand, or feed you titbits from his table."

"You may not speak to me this way!"

Sekhmet turned her face towards the sky. "Then press the button," she challenged.

There was a pause, and when Djeta answered she sounded afraid. "What?"

"You have aimed the yacht's plasma weapons at me, have you not? Does it make you feel strong to target me? If you were strong, you would fire. But then, if you were strong, you would not feel the need. Go about your work, lapdog," she sneered. "Sooner or later he will turn back to you; you are the only one of his whining bitches who will last the test of time."

"When you die, I will sing songs of joy," Djeta hissed.

"When you do, I shall not notice." Sekhmet broke contact with the ship. Moments later, the plasma blasts began to fall around the suburbs. "Find the kitchens," Sekhmet told the twin lo'taurs. "Prepare a light lunch; we much be prepared to properly entertain the Justiciar as he surrenders his planet to us."

Sekhmet leaned on the balcony and grinned down at the fallen statue. She lifted her hand once more and blasted the face of the statue of the Saviour of Corana; the statue of the first Sekhmet.

*

"Corana was a world rich in resources and learning," Lanar explained. Sekhmet had once more lapsed into silence. "It was a peaceful world, with few weapons; when Anubis decided that he wanted their scientific secrets, there was no way for them to defend themselves. They had known no wars for generations; they had no contact with other worlds. Their fleet – more of a system rescue patrol than a navy – was wiped out by a single ha'tak vessel. They surrendered after the first four shots were fired, but Anubis annihilated them anyway, cutting them down as they fled. When the Justiciar came to negotiate the planet's surrender, his shuttle was shot down."

"What does the planet have to do with you?" Grogan asked. He wore an expression of horrified fascination.

"At that time, nothing," Sekhmet replied, grimly. "However, it was their cry for help that changed my life. I was worshipped across a hundred worlds as a goddess of justice, the bringer of just revenge and protector of the innocent. I saw their faces and I knew that I was a fraud; I did not protect the innocent, I merely destroyed in Ra's name. At that moment I decided that I must try to be what I was seen to be.

"I took the Wadjet to Corana and I engaged Anubis' ha'tak vessels," she explained. "I destroyed one, crippled another and forced two to flee; at the time, that was all that Anubis commanded. My Jaffa mopped up Anubis' forces with support from my khab gunships." She shook her head. "It was easy enough to manage, there was no fleet to touch mine, but it brought me no feeling of triumph.

"The cost to them was so high, but they welcomed me as a saviour. I still felt like a fraud."

"You did save them," Amy assured her.

"At that time I did," Sekhmet replied, "but who knows how many times they have been invaded since then and I have been helpless to aid them. Now that thug, Anubis, will use that poor, suffering world to draw me out. I can summon other ships to defend me in battle, but by unleashing my namesake on the populace, he is assured that I will be on the ground myself; vulnerable. It is a trap and it is one that he knows I must walk into."

"We could call up reinforcements, though," Pellinor suggested. "Bring a few Jaffa through the Stargate, park some of your cruisers in orbit for fire support..."

"No," Sekhmet interrupted. "That we can not do. Anubis does not dare to challenge me in space; not yet. This was a small ship. The engine traces were minute. There will be very few of the enemy and they will keep the civilians in place around them; orbital assault would be a slaughter and any invasion in force would create a panic. No; all shall be arranged so that I must come down and attend to matter personally."

"But not alone," Grogan assured her.

Sekhmet smiled. "Thank you, Lieutenant, but I believe that will be Captain Kawalsky's decision."

Grogan blushed.

"You are correct," Amy agreed, "but I'm with Grogan on this one; provisionally. I'm not about to let a peaceful, civilian population..."

"With advanced technology we could trade for," Goodge noted.

"...with any level of technology be overrun and slaughtered by something that we released; no offence, Grogan."

"None taken, Ma'am," he assured her. "But in that case, what's the provision?"

"We can't just go down there and expect to win through with the cleansing might of righteousness, more's the pity. Sekhmet scented kull warriors; we need a way to fight them."

Sekhmet raised an eyebrow. "The great Tau'ri have not yet found a way?"

"We're working on it," Amy replied, evasively. In truth, she herself knew little more than that. The powers that be had been promising the SG units a defence against Anubis' supersoldiers since they were first encountered, but the word on the grapevine was that nothing had moved beyond the stage of advanced prototype, as yet.

"As are we," Sekhmet assured her. "My sword has proven effective in the past, but I do not think that will suffice for the rest of you."

"We'll think of something by the time we get to Corana," Amy promised.

"And if we don't?" Pellinor asked.

Sekhmet looked him in the eye. "I will make sure that you get home," she promised, "but I can not turn away from this."

*

Mya and Lyli were servants of prodigious skill in many areas and the meal that they prepared for Sekhmet, Amentiu and the Justiciar of Corana was both lavish and excellent. Unfortunately, only Sekhmet seemed to be enjoying the meal; the Justiciar and his family were too frightened and Amentiu was fuming over Sekhmet's domination of the situation. To the Justiciar's clear frustration, Sekhmet did not even touch on the question of surrender until the meal was finished.

Amentiu had found the first family of Corana in their bunker. The door was thick, but the kull warriors had made short work of it, and the guards within. A good-looking young man in civilian clothes had tried to be a hero; a kull warrior had shot him down as he reached for a weapon. He had been lucky to survive the blast, although the Justiciar seemed disinclined to consider this piece of good fortune while his son lay bleeding to death.

The young man had been carried back to the dining room, where Sekhmet waited. She had immediately taken Amentiu to task for his poor care of the Justiciar's family and called for a healing device.

"We do not want these people to think that we are unreasonable," she told him. She had healed the wound herself and smiled warmly at the frightened youth, who now seemed almost as infatuated as he was terrified.

In addition to the son and the ageing Justiciar himself, there was a daughter – a slim, pale girl of fourteen – and a trophy bride not much older than the son. Sekhmet addressed herself to the old man.

"I am the Lady Sekhmet," Sekhmet had begun; that had shocked the Coranans. "You have already met my trusted lieutenant, Lord Amentiu. Pray tell me who has the pleasure of addressing me?"

The Justiciar straightened his back and tried to look unruffled. "I am Justiciar Redon Phaid," he announced. "This is my good wife..."

"Adequate at best," Amentiu muttered.

"...Sala; my son, Kessandris – for whose life I am in your debt, My Lady – and my daughter Katrinta; Rin for short."

Sekhmet smiled, graciously. "How charming. As you may have gathered, we have come to take control of your miserable little planet from you," she explained. "Yes, I know; you thought of Sekhmet as your saviour, but that time is past. Now, you should see me as your goddess. You have two choices, Justiciar; surrender all power to me, or watch your world die in flames."

Phaid took a deep breath. "I am willing to discuss terms," he agreed.

"Good," Sekhmet said. "Please, won't you join me for a little refreshment."

"But the fighting still continues!" Phaid protested. "We must arrange the surrender, make announcements, stop this killing before..."

Sekhmet reached out and idly caught Rin Phaid by the throat. She swung the girl around in front of her and lifted her up so that she stood on tiptoes in Sekhmet's throttling grip. The Justiciar and his son each took a step forward, but a gentle squeeze drew a squeak of terror from Rin and they stopped.

"You will do as you are told, Justiciar," Sekhmet told him, "otherwise your daughter shall be lost as easily as your son was restored. It would be a shame to harm something so fragile and fair. Her mother must have been far more beautiful than this strumpet of yours; did she fade with age until you could not stand the sight of her, or did she die of grief at your infidelities?"

"She was taken by fever," the Justiciar fumed.

"Curb your temper," Sekhmet cautioned. "I could do worse than kill her, you know." She bent and planted a tender kiss on the crown of the girl's head, then released her throat. "Come; dine with us," she invited again. This time there were no dissenters.

"Now," Sekhmet said, as she sipped a glass of the Justiciar's finest dessert wine, "we can discuss terms."

"Y-yes," Phaid stammered, eagerly.

"You will instruct your people to cease all efforts at resistance," Sekhmet instructed. "All citizens of Corana will come to the city of Sekh-ma-ket within the next week and be registered as tributaries of my empire. They will be required to bring with them a full accounting of their wealth, that Amentiu may make an accurate assessment of the tribute which they owe. The usual tribute is one-quarter of all goods and one-half of all profit made in commerce."

Phaid started up. "That is...!" He caught Sekhmet's sidelong glance at his daughter. "That is...acceptable."

"I knew it would be." Sekhmet smiled, benignly. "Do not think ill of yourself, Justiciar; you do not only save your own daughter, but the daughters of all the families on Corana. Now, to celebrate the transition of power from a corruptible to an incorruptible throne, there will be celebrations and sacrifices. I think that one hundred oxen and one hundred of your less desirable citizens will suffice."

"Citizens?" Phaid gasped.

"Do not worry that people will think badly of you," Sekhmet assured him. "You will be offering the unwanted: criminals, vagrants, tax collectors; the elderly and infirm. They will love you for freeing them of such burdens, and for making the ultimate sacrifice yourself."

"What?" Phaid's face grew pale; his daughter went quite green.

Sekhmet's smile never wavered. "Well, naturally the old – that would be you – must pass to make way for the new – which would be us. I will lay you on the altar myself as a symbol of the transfer and your blood shall be spilled by my first priestess upon this world. It is a great honour."

"I am nothing special," Phaid demurred.

"A great honour for you," Sekhmet said, firmly.

"I am only an elected official," the Justiciar pleaded.

Sekhmet nodded her understanding. "Perhaps justice would be best served if we also executed your campaign managers," she suggested.

Overcome by fear and disgust, Rin Phaid doubled over and vomited. Almost immediately, one of the lo'taurs was there to hold her hair and the other was beside her with a shovel and a bucket of sand.

"You may go with dignity to the altar," Sekhmet said, "or you may be dragged to a scaffold by your own people. Do you think that the mob will spare your poor daughter for her youth?"

"Alright," Phaid moaned. "Just...don't hurt her."

"Hurt her? Never. Why, on the day that you die, she shall be inaugurated as the first of my priestesses on Corana."

Now it was the son, Kessandris, who grew pale. "But you said that your first priestess would..." Amentiu could not help noting that the boy seemed less enamoured of Sekhmet now.

Sekhmet took a communication sphere from her robes and rolled it across the table to Phaid. "When you are ready, this device will relay your words across this planet's surface. The sacrifices will be performed at sunrise tomorrow, so I should not take too long deciding on a list of your fellow offerings. I bid you good night, Justiciar Phaid; and pleasant dreams. Lyli, Mya; see to their every need."

Amentiu hurried after Sekhmet. "That was needlessly sadistic!" he accused.

Sekhmet turned and embraced him, forcing her lips hungrily against his. "Yes," she crooned, "it was."

"It is madness! There will be an uprising!" Amentiu accused. "Have you no concept of how to dominate a planet, Sekhmet?"

With a savage snarl, Sekhmet rounded on Amentiu and slammed him against the wall of the passageway, her claw-like nails digging into the soft flesh of his throat. "Of course I do!" she hissed. Her face contorted with pain as the spike in her brain began to bite. "I am older than you, herald; I bear the wisdom of the greatest conquerors the universe has ever know and I know these people as I know myself. If I wanted to conquer this world then I would conquer it, but I do not want to rule this meaningless, pitiful backwater planet, Amentiu. I want her to come to me and for that I need these pathetic people to be angry enough to rise up and attack me."

Sekhmet released Amentiu and held her aching head. "Darling Amentiu," she sighed. "This is their world. If we attack them they will melt away; with only four warriors, we would not be able to kill more than a few hundred of them. Only if we drive them into a frenzy will we be able to slaughter them in numbers that she can not ignore. I do not intend to rule this world, or even this city; I just want to make the streets of Sekh-ma-ket run red with blood. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sekhmet," Amentiu gasped.

Sekhmet ran a finger over his bruises. "Call me, ‘my lady'," she advised. "We are not equals, Amentiu and I can kill you before that thing in my head could save you. I would rather not," she added, kissing him again.

"I would rather you did not," Amentiu agreed.

"You see," Sekhmet said, easing her body against his, "we think alike in so many ways. Work with me and you will go a long way."

*

In the workshop of the Claw of Aksos, machines worked tirelessly at building machines. They built the porters that had carried Lauren Collister to the infirmary, the probes that spied out planets before landing, the assault drones that fought alongside their mothership and the battlebots which protected her corridors so long as Sekhmet did not have enough followers for a full crew. Now, some of the machines had a new job; they were using all of the usual components, but what they were making was a weapon.

"Is this going to work?" Amy wondered aloud.

Grogan shrugged. "I have no idea. If it's your plan, shouldn't you know, Captain?"

"I rarely know if my own plans are going to work," Amy admitted. "I'm a devil for spotting flaws in someone else's scheme, but anything I cooked up myself I have to get a five year old child to look over. Since my niece Hannah isn't here, I'll have to make do with you."

Grogan looked up from his work. "So I'm a substitute toddler? Wonderful."

"Don't be silly," Amy chided. "Toddlers are only about two. So if you can't tell me if it will work," she went on, "can you at least tell me if it will function?"

"Oh, yes," Grogan replied. "I've double-checked the design through the Claw's CAD systems and neither of us sees any functional problems. Unfortunately neither of us has enough information to determine whether the harpoons will be sharp enough."

Amy was concerned. "How sharp do they need to be?"

Grogan shrugged again. "We know that nothing we can make on Earth will do; Sekhmet's sword is sharp enough, but it has a monomolecular edge. That's an edge that's only..."

"Only one molecule wide; I know," Amy assured him. "I may not be an engineer, but I am a geek."

"Sorry, Ma'am," Grogan replied. "I had no idea. You look so..."

"Normal?" Amy suggested. "Mundane? Trust me on this one, Lieutenant; I wept openly when Adric died."

Grogan tried to raise just one eyebrow and almost succeeded.

"I suppose I even based this design on the bowships in Doctor Who," Amy admitted.

"So this is a bowdrone?"

Amy waggled her head thoughtfully form side to side. "Sort of," she agreed, "but with a less lame name. So, can we not give the spears a monomolecular tip?"

"Unfortunately, no. Even for the Goa'uld that requires some pretty specialised equipment. I mean, I'm sure there's a nanolathe somewhere on Memphis, but not on the Claw. We'll just have to hope that holy-crap-that's-sharp will do the job. It should do," he added, optimistically. "After all, anything moving fast enough should have enough kinetic energy to hurt even a kull warrior, and these spears will be going at oh-good-God speeds."

"You couldn't be more precise, could you?"

"If they think you're technical, go crude," Grogan replied.

"And you're a very technical boy," Amy agreed. "Speaking of which...Sekhmet?"

Grogan blushed bright red. "Construction's almost finished," he said, far too quickly. "Better just sort out a few tests."

Amy smiled to herself as the young man hurried away. "And I thought I picked the difficult ones."

*

Amentiu reclined on his couch, trying to meditate in order to clear his mind. Sekhmet had been more gentle this time, as insistent as ever, but almost tender; almost. It seemed that she was coming to desire him as more than just a handy and hardy example of the male gender and that, of course, endeared her to him. Still, she was worrying and her obsessions could endanger his mission on Corana.

"Lady Sekhmet will not be joining you for refreshments, My Lord?"

Amentiu opened his eyes. Lyli stood before him with a tray, two glasses and a decanter of dark sherry. He could tell that it was Lyli because her perfect features were marred not by raged, vertical scars but by the ugly, lateral welt of Djeta's lash.

"Why did I bring the two of you here?" Amentiu asked, rhetorically.

"To serve you," Lyli replied.

As she knelt and placed the tray on a small table beside his couch, Amentiu searched her face for any signs of impudence, but he found none. He concluded that she was simply too dense to understand the concept of a ‘rhetorical question', and told her so in no uncertain terms.

"As you say, Lord," she agreed. She poured his drink and set it close to his hand. "I was taught to serve, My Lord; nothing more."

"Quite," Amentiu sighed, contentedly. "Your place is to pour drinks, prepare and serve food and to entertain me; why would you need to know what a rhetorical question was?" He looked at her marred face again. "Of course, you were also chosen for your decorative value and that has been rather lessened of late."

"Indeed, My Lord. I am sorry."

"I once met a Goa'uld who told me that the only way to truly appreciate beauty was to participate in its destruction," Amentiu mused. "She was an artist, in her own way. She had scarred and deformed her own face in such a way that she was truly hideous, yet the perfect beauty of her original appearance could still be seen. Each time she lay in the sarcophagus the damage was repaired of course, and so each time she would repeat the process, but never in quite the same way." He reached out his hand and stroked Lyli's face. "I wonder, could I do the same with you and your sister."

Lyli reached up to brush the back of his hand reverently with the tips of her fingers. "Of course you could, My Lord," she assured him. "Nothing is beyond your ability."

Amentiu snorted and pushed her roughly away from him. "Nothing but to control this assassin. Women fall to their knees before me," he went on.

"It is true!" Lyli declared, enthusiastically.

"Yet she, with a device implanted in her brain to ensure her compliance, defies me. And then again...She is a most stimulating companion. Such power; how could any Goa'uld resist her?"

"You could, My Lord," Lyli assured him.

He scoffed, forgetting himself and his company for a moment and allowing his true feelings to show. "Yes. Of course," he agreed. With a slight effort of will, he restored his mask of impassive arrogance. "Is there news of her, my sweet lo'taur?"

Lyli smiled at his compliment, but did not allow herself to be distracted. "Yes, My Lord," she replied. "Lady Djeta has been monitoring her movements; she sent word that Lady Sekhmet had herded a group of rebellious Coranans into a warehouse of some description and set fire to it. She has one of the kull warriors watching each exit and shooting any who attempt to escape. Lady Djeta demanded that she be permitted to speak with you in person, but I told her that you did not wish to be disturbed."

"You did well," Amentiu commended her. "I will speak to her in my own time or if she detects the approach of the other Sekhmet's vessel. What of our ‘guests'?"

"They are fearful. The Justiciar has made his declaration."

"Yes; I heard it," Amentiu chuckled. "A most successful gambit on the Lady Sekhmet's part. She may be a bitch, but she is an inventive bitch; I must allow her that."

"The girl has declared that she will refuse to sacrifice her father."

"She will do just that. Sekhmet chose her well."

"Did not Lady Sekhmet choose her to carry out the killing?" Lyli asked, baffled.

Amentiu chuckled fondly and patted the girl's head. "You are perceptive when it comes to humans, but the ways of the gods are a mystery to you, Lyli. As it should be. Lady Sekhmet needs no-one to kill for her; she has chosen a martyr, not a disciple. When the girl defies her and Sekhmet tears her heart out before an already incensed mob...She has a gift for chaos."

"It is true that I can not read the hearts of the gods," Lyli confessed, "for you speak as though in admiration of Lady Sekhmet, yet you have told me that you despise her."

Amentiu frowned, displeased by his servant's perspicacity. "The Lady Sekhmet will not be my concern for long," he said, impatiently. "What of the other two?"

"The boy is...quiet," Lyli said with a giggle. Amentiu's frown deepened; his servants were not supposed to cast eyes at other men. "He does not know what to make of his salvation in the face of the destruction of his people; he can not face his father or his sister."

"And the woman?"

"Weak," Lyli declared. "She is on the edge of panic; she is a pathetic and needy creature who has whored herself for power and her husband has proven powerless. At first she cast imprecations upon him, now she sits and shivers, waiting for death. Should I bring her to you, My Lord?"

Amentiu considered it for a moment. Such a woman would provide little to amuse him, but it might alleviate some of his frustration if he could revenge himself on her for his humiliation at Sekhmet's hands. "You know my pleasures well, little Lyli," he said.

"I live to serve, My Lord."

"Bring her," he said. "Bring her here and leave us be. And leave the second glass." He gave a mocking laugh. "A lady should be received in the correct fashion."

*

"Ma'am."

"Sergeant?" Amy, seated at a conference table with Sekhmet, barely looked up at Pellinor's entrance.

"Begging the Captain's pardon, but do you know what you're doing, Ma'am?" Pellinor asked.

Amy turned and gave a self-deprecating smile. "Strange as it may seem, yes," she replied. "I know what you're thinking, Sergeant, and you're right. I am young; probably too young to be a Captain and I certainly got promoted for all the wrong reasons. I've only been serving for about six years and I've never really led a unit before. All this is true," she admitted. "But I know the Goa'uld, to a degree that you can't imagine, and I know that if we don't do our damndest to stop it, this situation is going to turn very ugly for everyone on Earth."

Pellinor looked her in the eye.

"You with me, Sergeant?" Amy asked.

"Yes, Ma'am," Pellinor replied.

Sekhmet watched the sergeant's back as he walked away. "A strange way to deal with insubordination," she noted.

Amy smiled. "I think the only reason I'm not the youngest Captain in Air Force history is that they promoted a dog one time," she explained. "Other officers tend to be okay with it – well, with the exception of a few older lieutenants – but I have to walk on eggshells with the NCOs. I haven't earned their respect; I got my rank because a crazed old Nazi wanted to get into my panties and on paper at least I'm not experienced in command. If I try to force them to do what I want they won't; they'll think I'm going to get them killed."

Sekhmet snorted. "Your ability speaks for itself; your bearing proclaims your right to lead."

Amy laughed. "All well and good among the Jaffa," she replied, "but NCOs don't quite work that way. They just need that little extra to let them know I'm solid."

"You are their superior; it should be enough."

"Really shouldn't," Amy retorted with a grin. "On Earth, a military force is only as good as its sergeants, but they promote officers for the wackiest reasons; Pellinor has reason to worry."

"You are a generous soul," Sekhmet said. "I have summoned the sergeants back," she added. "Ke'kan and Lieutenant Grogan also. It is time to brief them on the plan."

Amy nodded her agreement as Pellinor returned. "You're the boss," she said. "You take us through it."

Sekhmet inclined her head in acknowledgement. She waited until all had arrived, then activated a holographic display.

"This is the planet Corana," she explained. "The planet is slightly smaller than the Earth, but the population is focused in sixteen large cities on the northern continent, here. The capital is called Sekh-ma-ket; the Seat of Power. It is above this city that Amentiu's starship has entered geostationary orbit in order to facilitate surface bombardment."

She touched the hologram and the image zoomed in on the ship.

"That little thing?" Pellinor scoffed.

"It is only a yacht, a personal transport armed with a single heavy plasma gun, but it is enough to cause panic on the surface; to sow chaos," Lanar assured him. The image zoomed out again. "The Claw of Aksos is equipped with the latest cloaking technology, but Sekhmet and I would still prefer to be cautious. We will therefore enter orbit along a stealth trajectory to avoid the yacht's sensors." The image traced the path. "I have launched reconnaissance probes already; based on their intelligence, we will take a khab and land in the city itself, cloaked of course. Our goal will be the elimination of the enemy forces, which can not be strong. When that is done, I shall engage the yacht with the Claw; it will not be a long battle."

"Sounds easy," Grogan remarked; he did not sound convinced.

"There are complications," Lanar assured him.

Goodge stepped forward. "Such as?" he asked.

Sekhmet spoke once more. "We will be dealing with a small, well-armed enemy force in a built-up urban area," she explained. "As the weapons on my combat drones will be ineffective against the kull warriors, we shall go down alone."

"In fact, the only effective weapons in our arsenal are high-penetration, hypervelocity shells," Amy added.

"Meaning?" Pellinor asked.

"Don't miss," Grogan explained. "The needlers should stop a kull warrior in its tracks if you hit; miss and you could take out the best part of an apartment block."

"We're calling them needlers?" Amy asked.

"With your permission."

Amy shrugged. "Beats ‘bow drone'," she agreed.

Sekhmet nodded. "Maps of the city will be provided, of course, but I suggest that you familiarise yourself with the layout in the next two hours. My ha'he has adjusted your field comms to operate in conjunction with the Wadjet's network, so we will all be in constant contact. With that ship, we expect a maximum of fifteen enemy Jaffa or kull warriors, probably far fewer. This is a trap for me, so they will not have brought reinforcements through the Stargate."

"And if they have?" Goodge asked.

"There are three cruisers of the Wadjet en route," Sekhmet replied. "Even if they have a whole fleet cloaked around that planet, I guarantee that they will regret picking this fight."

"Will we?"

"That's enough, Sergeant," Amy replied. "This is not a suicide mission, as long as you remember not to try and go toe-to-toe with a kull warrior."

"Or the other Sekhmet," Lanar added.

"Or the other Sekhmet," Amy agreed. "Although if you do bump into her, may as well give it all you've got, because I doubt you'll outrun her."

"What a cheerful thought," Pellinor remarked.

"Two teams," Sekhmet finished. "Captain Kawalsky, Pellinor and Goodge will sweep the suburbs; Lieutenant Grogan, Ke'kan and myself the inner city, where Sekhmet is most likely to be found. If you have any further questions I will answer them in two hours, when we brief aboard the khab."

The intelligence data made for grim viewing. It was Sergeant Pellinor who voiced the thoughts of all.

"This makes no sense," he said, his lupine eyes gleaming fiercely. "Houses burned at random, cars – if that's what they are – left untouched, but surrounded by bodies. This isn't the work of soldiers; it's like a biker gang torching a trailer park." His voice held a note of certainty that spoke of experience and a touch of bitter rage that told Amy he had not been a biker.

"She knows I won't be able to stand by and watch this happen," Sekhmet growled. "She hurts them because of me."

"They are few, however," Ke'kan noted.

Sekhmet nodded. "Only five power signatures matching the weapons of kull warriors," she agreed, "and one of those is Sekhmet herself."

"How can you tell inside those helmets?" Grogan asked.

"I can tell," Sekhmet assured him. "We are thirty seconds from the southern suburbs," she added, indicating a point on the map. "Amy, you will leave here. At present there is a kull warrior three blocks to your east and another about half a mile further on."

Amy nodded her understanding and strapped on her helmet. Kevlar and steel would not do much against a kull warrior's plasma blaster, but it was better than nothing. "Good luck, Sekhmet," she said.

"Good luck, Captain," Sekhmet replied. "Touching down...now."

The khab settled with barely a bump and the hatch slid open. Sergeant Pellinor led the way through the hatch; Amy followed with Goodge on her heels.

"Take care!" Lanar called out as they left.

As the shuttle lifted up again, a plasma blast struck her shields.

"We're seen!" Grogan exclaimed.

"The boy is fast," Ke'kan huffed. "The shields will not absorb another blast."

Sekhmet gave a dangerous grin. "I believe it is time to make our presence felt," she said.

*

On the peltac of Amentiu's yacht, Djeta's heart pounded as she made her report. "Yes, My Lord," she confirmed. "A small vessel; we shall destroy it in moments."

"Do not destroy that ship!" Amentiu screamed. "Damn you, Djeta, if you destroy that vessel I shall..."

"My Lady!"

Djeta looked up to the screens. "Oh," she whispered. For the first time in her long life, she wished that she had a god to pray to.

"Djeta! Do you hear me?"

Djeta swallowed hard. "My Lord," she whispered. "I have always loved you."

On the screen she saw the Claw of Aksos open fire and the plasma flares filled her vision.

"Djeta!" Amentiu snapped. "Djeta!"

The doors behind him flew open and Sekhmet bounded in.

"Answer me, Lady Djeta!" Amentiu demanded.

"She is dead," Sekhmet told him. "I am sure that you can find another pilot and I notice that you already have another slattern in your bed, my love, although to judge by her condition she will not long outlast poor Djeta. It is unimportant; she is here."

Amentiu abandoned his communicator. "You are sure?" he asked.

"I knew that she was here before that stupid bitch fired on her. I can smell her presence; feel her in the air around me." She grinned, maniacally. "Have the sacrifices brought to the square," she said. "I must prepare myself."

With that she strode away, leaving Amentiu smarting to have been given orders by one supposedly in his authority. If he had begun to feel some deeper interest in the challenging enigma that was Sekhmet, it had evaporated now.

"Lo'taur," he growled.

"My Lord?" Lyli replied.

"Bring my weapons," Amentiu instructed, "and summon my command vessel at once. We must be ready to leave at a moment's notice."

*

Anubis was not a god to be troubled with names. His ordinary servants would keep the names given to them at birth, but his truest worshippers would surrender such mundane signifiers as a mark of their devotion. His élite Jaffa were known only by numbers and his kull warriors had not even that distinction. They were simply kull warriors, each one indistinguishable from all of the others. They knew only that they were born on Tartarus, they desired nothing but to serve Anubis and they remembered nothing but orders. The places they went, the lesser Goa'uld to whom they were entrusted and even the faces of their countless victims were wiped forever from the table of their memory.

One kull warrior, and only one, had been ‘born' different, and his fellows had turned on him for his difference and cast his body into the deepest ravine on Tartarus.

The kull warrior who stalked through the southern suburbs of Sekh-ma-ket, firing on anything that moved, was thus identical to the one who devastated the north, or to the one who had pursued Major Sam Carter from the ruin of the SGC Alpha Site. When it saw the two armed men appear and fire on it, it reacted with the same instinctive violence that any of its brothers would have exhibited.

One of the two turned and ran as the kull warrior raised its blasters and fired; the other did not and he died, even as his shots struck harmlessly against the black shell of the kull warrior's armour. If the warrior registered even that the man who ran was smaller and leaner than the one who stood, by the time it reached the corner that did not matter; it would have known the man that it pursued anywhere, but it had forgotten that the dead man even existed.

It rounded the corner and saw its quarry, standing still in the street. The kull warrior did not think to wonder why, it did not pause to question this action. It was not conditioned to anticipate ambushes, because it would always be able to respond to them; it did not fear them because it knew not how to fear. It simply saw its target, raised its weapon and died.

Sergeant Pellinor had to admit to a certain degree of surprise. Although at first caught up in her enthusiasm, he had not truly expected Captain Kawalsky's plan to work. He had been feeling like a fool for going along with anything so insane just because it had been suggested by a girl with a pretty smile and now that it had worked he felt like a fool for doubting. Still, the sight of the smooth tip of the iron-cored, trinium-steel jacketed harpoon emerging from the kull warrior's armoured chest was undeniably impressive. He punched the air, impulsively, and gave a fierce whoop of victory.

Unlike the kull warrior, however, Leo Pellinor was cursed with the burden of memory and recollection quickly sobered him.

"Gog!" he called, doubtfully. "Goodge?"

"I'm sorry, Sergeant," Captain Kawalsky said, softly.

A variety of scathing retorts flashed across Pellinor's mind, but all he said was: "You did say run away." He knew he was cutting her far more slack than he would a male officer of her age and he could not stifle a grim smile at the thought that she would probably be offended to realise that. He looked up at the window where the Captain was stationed. "Do you think he...?"

"I can't see him from here, but I don't think there's any doubt," she replied. "Kull warriors are pretty thorough."

"I'm going to go check," Pellinor told her. He hefted his SAW into a carrying hold and began to move towards the Captain's position.

Captain Kawalsky stood up as he approached and he saw her break open the needler. It still seemed a ludicrously audacious idea; to use the stripped down inertial engines from one of Sekhmet's probes to fire the heavy harpoon. The beauty of the design was that the inertial impellers accelerated the harpoon without exerting conventional force, so that it could be launched with all the kinetic energy of a hypervelocity missile and minimal recoil.

"Approach with caution," Kawalsky called. "We made quite a noise; the other kull warrior might be on its way."

"I have to know for sure."

"I understand." Framed by the window, the captain slid another harpoon into the needler. "I...Pellinor! On your six!"

Pellinor turned and saw the second kull warrior rounding a corner behind him. He began to level his SAW, but he remembered what had happened to his partner and instead of firing he moved, throwing himself into the shelter of a porch. As he scrambled out of sight, a plasma blast seared through his ankle and he screamed in pain. He dragged his leg out of the kull warrior's line of sight; the warrior kept firing.

"Captain!" he called. "Any time you want to kill that thing..."

"It's firing at my window," Kawalsky replied, "and this thing takes a little time to aim. I only get one shot, remember."

Pellinor turned and saw the wall around the window slowly disintegrating under fire from the kull warrior. "It's just ignoring me?" he asked. "I'm wounded." He looked down at his ankle. "And also...slighted."

"It's not smart, Sergeant," Kawalsky replied. "It saw me after you'd gone out of sight. It'll kill you after I'm dead."

"So...It will keep blasting at the last thing it saw?"

"Sergeant; don't even think..." Captain Kawalsky broke off with a shriek and Pellinor saw a large chunk of the wall fall away in flames.

"Just kill the damn thing!" Pellinor instructed. He leaned out and fired at the kull warrior; it turned, much faster than he had expected, and fired without hesitation.

*

Amentiu had thought that he was beginning to understand Sekhmet, but now he was completely lost once more.

"This is the most advanced armour ever created," he told her. "You have proven that it is not impervious, but it is almost invincible, light, flexible: Why would you not wear it?"

"It is not light enough," Sekhmet replied, "and was made for you, not I." She had abandoned Amentiu's kull armour in a heap and now stood while Lyli and Mya draped her in an ancient suit of duelling armour. "Besides, why did you bring this from Karnak if not for me to wear?" She turned and smiled at him. "Do I not look fine?" she asked.

For a moment, Amentiu's heart rebelled against his purpose. "You look...truly divine," he assured her. "Wear the armour, my love. You will face the mob as well as your namesake."

"Do you not understand?" Sekhmet demanded. "In ill-fitting armour, however impenetrable, she will defeat and kill me. Only if I am free to move will I be able to match and overcome her." She hooked an arm around Amentiu's neck and kissed him, deeply. "I will not be killed, Amentiu. I swear it. My sword, girl."

Mya reverently lifted Sekhmet's blade and presented it to her.

"I shall see you soon, Lord Amentiu."

"Indeed, My Lady," Amentiu agreed. He watched her intently as she swaggered from the Justiciar's apartments. "She is magnificent." He sighed and turned to Lyli. "The ha'tak vessel is on its way?"

"My Lord," the girl confirmed.

"Board as soon as she arrives," Amentiu ordered. "I will join you as soon as possible. Quarters are prepared for Lady Sekhmet?" he added, almost as an afterthought.

"Indeed."

"Excellent," he said, without conviction. "Then we will soon enjoy the rewards of a job well done."

*

Amy had difficulty with her needler because of its weight and bulk; Ke'kan had no such trouble. When the first kull warrior appeared, the Unas merely hefted the weapon to his shoulder and shot the black-armoured Goa'uld down. The second to face Sekhmet's party was more alert, however; on some level it must have recognised the weapon as a danger it fired on Ke'kan at once, destroying the needler and wounding the Unas in the shoulder and chest.

"Down!" Sekhmet thrust Grogan to the ground and sprang away from him herself, narrowly avoiding a stream of plasma.

The kull warrior turned to track Sekhmet as she ducked into a side-street. This allowed Ke'kan to surge forward and grapple with it. Grogan tried to aim his P90, but for all the good it might have done, he could not find a shot past Ke'kan.

The Unas tried to bear down on the smaller kull warrior, but Anubis had bred his supersoldiers strong; too strong even to live without the revivifying power that suffused them and certainly too strong for an Unas with only the vestiges of his Goa'uld-given might. The warrior broke Ke'kan's grip with a shrug of its armoured shoulders, then turned and struck at him with its fists, following the punches with a volley of plasma fire.

Ke'kan staggered back and fell, his huge body crashing down on top of Grogan. Grogan gave a sharp gasp as the air was blasted from his lungs; Ke'kan's mass lay across him and panic gripped Grogan as he realised that he could not draw a breath with that weight on his chest. The kull warrior stalked closer.

How she managed to find her way to a third storey window so swiftly, Grogan never had the presence of mind to ask Sekhmet, but find her way she did. As the kull warrior levelled its blaster at Grogan's head, she broke through the window and plunged down upon the enemy like an avenging angel, tawny hair glowing like a bloody halo in the first, red rays of the dawn. Her sword fell like a woodsman's axe, slicing through the warrior's right arm and smashing the deadly blaster.

The warrior turned and tried to aim his left-hand blaster, but Sekhmet grappled with him, to far greater effect than Ke'kan's efforts. It pushed with all its unholy strength and the two combatants tumbled in a flailing mass of limbs.

Grogan struggled vainly to free himself, but the edges of his vision were beginning to blur and darken. A moment before unconsciousness could claim him, however, his lungs expanded and sucked in a huge gulp of precious air. He scrambled away from the prostrate Unas and realised that Ke'kan had levered himself off of Grogan's body.

"You're alive!" Grogan gasped.

"Don't kill easy," Ke'kan replied, although he did not seem at all well. "Help her."

Grogan wanted to help Sekhmet, of course, but he could see no way. So long as she wrestled with it, he had no chance of shooting the kull warrior and if he did managed to shoot it, he had no chance of hurting it. The needler was a wreck, the casing of the inertial coils blasted open and the coils themselves burned out. Nor could he hope for Sekhmet's victory; they seemed evenly matched in strength, but where Sekhmet needed to angle her blade towards the warrior's vitals – and would probably require three or more thrusts to be sure of a kill – while the kull warrior only required one opportunity to bend his second blaster in Sekhmet's direction. So far as Grogan could see, even the great Sekhmet had nothing in her favour in this fight.

But she had one weapon that even Grogan had overlooked.

*

"You are a very, very stupid man," Amy announced.

"It worked," Pellinor replied.

"How you managed to survive long enough to make Sergeant..."

"Gunnery Sergeant," Pellinor growled. "Ow!" he hissed, wincing in pain as Amy tied off the field dressing with what might be considered an unnecessarily violent tug.

"Don't be such a baby, Gunnery Sergeant," Amy muttered.

Pellinor rolled his eyes. "I have scars older than you, Captain."

"If we're talking about combined age, your scars are older than Sekhmet," Amy retorted, casting a quick glance over his ravaged torso. "Do you enjoy getting shot?"

"Passes the time."

Amy shook her head and handed Pellinor his shirt. "Well, you won't die this time," she assured him, "but you're not going to be carrying that machine gun anywhere for a while."

"I'll be fine."

"You have a hole the size of a nickel in your right bicep and another in your left ankle, Sergeant Pellinor," Amy replied. "We'll get back to the SGC as soon as we have control of the Stargate and the doc can have a look at you."

"And if we don't get control of the Stargate?" Pellinor asked. He pulled his shirt gingerly over his wounded arm.

"Then we don't get back to the SGC, obviously," Amy said.

Pellinor sighed. "You'd better go join the others," he told her. "They might need that needler, after all."

"What about you?"

"I can take care of myself, even if I do have holes the size of nickels in two of my limbs."

"Why am I sure that you speak from experience?" Amy asked, rhetorically.

Pellinor gave a grim smile. "Just get me round the corner where I can keep an eye on Gog," he said.

Amy nodded her head, then bent down and put her shoulder under his arm to help him up. "Had you worked with him for long?" she asked.

"Long enough," Pellinor replied, sombrely. They had rounded the corner and Goodge's body was visible ahead of them. "I was just going easy on you because you're..." – Pellinor considered and rejected in rapid succession the options ‘a woman', ‘Colonel O'Neill's friend' and ‘hot' – "young, but what I said was true, Captain; if he'd done what you said, Gog would've run and he probably wouldn't have died."

Amy lowered Pellinor down alongside his comrade, with his back against the wheel arch of a vehicle that she could clearly recognise as a car, despite its alien design. "Thank you, Gunnery Sergeant Pellinor," she said.

"You earned it. You did good, Captain."

Amy inclined her head in acknowledgement. "By the way, Sergeant," she asked, "what's your callsign?"

"Magog," Pellinor replied.

Amy closed her eyes; even if she had not known the provenance of those callsigns, the similarity would have told her they came as a pair. Pellinor and Goodge must have been like brothers from basic training onwards.

"Don't say you're sorry," Pellinor said, before she could do just that. "Just get out there and kill the bastards who caused this."

*

Two-hundred-and-forty miles above the streets of Sekh-ma-ket, the Claw of Aksos kept station as a ha'tak vessel broke from hyperspace. The commander of Amentiu's ship foolishly wasted time and energy activating his cloaking device in an attempt to approach unseen, but the Claw's sensors had come alive the second the hyperspace window opened and instantly relayed that awareness to Sekhmet. Plasma blasts broke upon the shrouded – but unshielded – hull. Amentiu would almost certainly have required a replacement mothership...if not for the fact that Sekhmet was distracted.

Sekhmet the Younger surveyed her domain from a platform in the main square. She had ordered that the altar of sacrifice be erected directly over the spot where the statue of her counterpart had once stood; it seemed apt. Despite the depredations of the kull warriors, quite a crowd had assembled to see the sacrifice of their now-hated Justiciar. Their eyes brimmed over with the barely sublimated desire for blood. Sekhmet knew that she could take this world now, if only the girl slashed her father's throat as commanded; as it was, she would spark a rebellion that would make Hathor's revolt look like a petty act of protest.

"See, my people!" Sekhmet bellowed. "Witness the transition of power! Your Justiciar will be the first to die for my glory, at the hand of my High Priestess to be!"

She stood aside to reveal the slim, trembling figure of Katrinta Phaid. The girl was dressed in the revealing costume of a Jaffa priestess, despite the fact that she had little to reveal, and had a knife in her hand; a wavy-bladed, ceremonial weapon. Her father was bound and kneeling on the platform and a dozen criminals were tied beside him; the remaining sacrifices still languished in their improvised prisons.

"Now, Katrinta! Strike now and usher in a new era for your people!"

The girl looked up, dazed. "Yes," she murmured at last. "Yes. I will...strike!"

Sekhmet was impressed. The girl's lunge was swift and accurate, but a desire for drama betrayed her and she was clumsy in comparison to Sekhmet anyway. The assassin caught the girl's arm as it brought the knife up; she twisted Katrinta around and held her tight in front of her. Sekhmet snatched the knife out of the air as it fell and held it to the child's throat. The crowd edged angrily forward.

"If this is your choice," Sekhmet murmured, her voice a sensuous purr in Rin Phaid's ear. Her powerful heart fluttered with the intimacy she never felt for lovers, only for her victims. "My people! See the price of..."

Sekhmet had stage managed this event for the maximum impact; she had planned every moment, up to and including the arrival her foe. It therefore irked her beyond bearing to have her thunder stolen.

With a thunderous crash, an antique orbital landing shuttle crashed through the line of shops on the North side of the square, a kull warrior sprawled across its prow. The crowd scattered in a state of abject panic, but incredibly the khab swerved to avoid the civilians, before slamming the warrior into the wall of the palace.

"Her!" Sekhmet hissed.

A tawny-haired figure sprang up onto the roof of the khab, a naked sword in her hand.

"Sekhmet!" the Younger hissed.

"Sekhmet," the Older growled.

The Younger Sekhmet hurled Rin aside; the girl was forgotten, meaningless. She threw down the knife and drew her own sword. "I will kill you, old woman," she promised.

"There is no need," Sekhmet the Older replied. "You have my blood in your veins; you must feel the same disgust I feel for what you have done here. I can teach you, Sekhmet. You were the same as me when you were born; you can be more than just a killer." She dropped smoothly down to the ground.

"What?" the Younger laughed, incredulously.

"I need an heir," the Older explained. "I want to build something, Sekhmet. I need someone to carry on my work when I am gone and I am not long for this world."

As she spoke, a young man walked around the hull of the shuttle; he seemed a little familiar to the Younger Sekhmet, but humans were of too little interest for that to bother her.

"In that you are correct," the Younger assured her.

"I do not want to fight you, Sekhmet."

The Younger Sekhmet's eyes widened in rage. "But you will!" She took a small, jewelled controller from her belt. "One touch of this switch and a bomb explodes. The first task of my kull warriors when they arrived on this world was to seize the largest school in Sekh-ma-ket; this bomb will kill a thousand Coranan children."

The young man started in horror. "No!" he gasped.

Sekhmet the Younger smiled at him, then turned back to her namesake. "Fight me and die, Sekhmet, or I will kill you anyway, destroy the school...and take your boy for my own! And stay your hand, child," she ordered the young man. "If anyone interferes with this fight, the children will die."

The Older sighed. "Hold your fire, Grogan," she said. "This will not take long."

The Younger Sekhmet grinned, maniacally. She put the controller back on her belt. "Then lay on, Old Woman!"

*

"Captain Kawalsky!"

Amy stopped and turned towards the voice. There was a dead kull warrior up ahead, but no sign of any living enemy and so she approached the speaker, cautiously. "Ke'kan!" she gasped in shock.

The Unas was in a terrible state; his body was unmarked, but green blood oozed from his hard-lipped mouth and his right arm bent in a most unhealthy direction. "Captain," he groaned. "My Lady needs you."

"Where is she?" Amy asked, urgently.

"In the square," Ke'kan replied, "but you can not aid her in her battle with the pretender. If she is denied her duel, this other Sekhmet will take many innocent lives."

"How do you know this?"

Ke'kan tapped his collar. "I am the Gatekeeper. My armour is connected to the Wadjet network and can receive signals and convert them to a voice in my head; I can hear her thoughts when she wishes it. She told me to watch for you; she needs you to enter the khab. You will find it..."

"There's a thirty-foot hole in the civic architecture," Amy assured him. "I can find the khab."

"You must interface with the control chair and take command of the Claw from her. Her mind is focused on her own battle and the Claw cannot stand against the enemy's ha'tak without a guiding will."

Amy was baffled. "What about the crew?"

"Too few and too inexperienced. My Lady intends to build a peerless fighting force, but it is early days."

Amy nodded. "Alright. Hopefully we'll have a chance to discuss the extraordinary stupidity of this plan at a later date. I'll send someone for you as soon as I can, but..."

"Go," Ke'kan agreed. "I will heal. There is an inspection hatch at the rear of the khab, in addition to the two side hatches; you should be able to find one through which you can enter unseen."

Amy laid the needler down at the Unas' side. "Thank you, Ke'kan," she said.

"I will see you later," he promised.

*

"You are nothing but a murderer!" the Older Sekhmet accused.

Her counterpart laughed. "And you are weak and foolish," she replied. She followed her words with a fierce cut that was expertly parried. She dropped back to counter the riposte, but none came. "And you are tired," she gloated.

Grogan was torn. On the one hand, he wanted to help Sekhmet; his Sekhmet, that was. She was, as Captain Kawalsky had said, a truly awesome fighter, but her successor appeared to be her equal in skill and the Older Sekhmet was wounded and tired. On the other hand, if there was even a chance that the Younger Sekhmet would blow up a school, he had to stay out of the fight. On the gripping hand, Grogan was dimly and uncomfortably aware that there was nothing he could do to help his...for want of a better word, girlfriend. She was an ancient warlady and her opponent was a millennia-old warrior assassin; he was an Air Force geek of twenty-five who had barely scraped passes in marksmanship and hand-to-hand.

Reluctantly, then, Grogan was forced to conclude that his efforts would be better directed away from that duel. He looked around for – if he were honest – something to distract him. The south side of the square was in chaos. The Justiciar had fled into his palace and now an enraged mob swarmed up the steps after him, wielding improvised weapons and battering rams. Some bright spark had freed the prisoners from the platform and they were joining the general rush. None of them seemed eager to deal with the two Sekhmets either; they sensed an easier target in the Judicial Palace. The mob avoided the khab as well, which meant that the north of the square was empty, save for one small, still figure.

Grogan ran over to the girl's side. Her costume left little enough to the imagination that it was clear to see that she was only a child. The Younger Sekhmet had not struck her, but she had fallen almost seven feet from the platform and landed badly. It was plain to Grogan that her left arm was broken, but although her skin showed the telltale pallor of shock, she was still breathing. She gave a soft moan of pain as Grogan knelt beside her.

Grogan released the catches of his pack and pulled it around in front of him. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

The girl started up, gripping a stone in her hand as a weapon. Fortunately for Grogan, her attack relied on the use of her broken arm to push her upward; she screamed in agony and dropped the stone.

"Lie still," Grogan advised. "I've only got a little first aid training, but I should be able to bind up that arm at least."

"Who...Who are you?" the girl demanded.

"My name is Grogan," he replied. "I'm here to help, if I can." He pulled an inflatable splint from his pack and took hold of her arm, very gently. "You're lucky you didn't shove the bone right through the skin when you went for me," he told her.

"I'm sorry. I thought you were with Sekhmet."

Grogan smiled. "I'm with the other Sekhmet; the original one. We came here to stop the one who attacked your world."

"Two Sekhmets?" the girl laughed.

"Don't move your arm around," Grogan cautioned.

"What trickery is this?"

"No trickery," he assured her. "Just very complicated." He sealed the splint around her bare forearm and attached a small compressor pump to the valve. The device whirred and the splint inflated. "That will hold the arm still and prevent further damage," he explained.

"I am not unfamiliar with the principles of the splint," the girl replied in a withering tone. She seemed to regret her harshness at once. "Although I would not be skilled enough to treat such an injury; especially not to myself. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Grogan assured her. "I'll put the arm in a sling and I can give you a shot of something for the pain."

"No," the girl protested. "I have to find my father."

"Your father?"

"The Justiciar."

Grogan tried to hide his reaction, but the dismay must have shown on his face.

"What?" she asked.

"He ran inside," Grogan admitted. "About a hundred people just knocked in the door and went after him."

"No!" the girl tried to rise, struggling with her broken arm.

"Easy," Grogan cautioned. "Alright; I'll help you up if you promise not to rush off." He glanced up to the duel, but he wasn't good enough to be able to pick who was winning. Meanwhile, there were screams coming from the palace and he realised that he might be able to do some good there. "I'll come with you and help if I can. What's your name?"

"Rin," she replied.

Grogan nodded. "Okay, Rin; let's find your father and try to put a lid on this...madness."

Sekhmet the Elder fended off another attack. She was beginning to realise that she was outmatched. Until now she had assumed that her successor would be skilled, but essentially crude; now she saw that she was wrong. The Younger Sekhmet was fast, driven and deadly; she might not be quite as strong as the woman she had replaced, but she was quicker and – as she had noticed – she was fresh to the fight. She was not, however, perfect.

"Do you feel the weight dragging at you?" the Younger Sekhmet laughed. "That is your mortality, Sekhmet. That is the certainty of your death." She lunged and her opponent parried; the Younger slipped a small knife into her left hand and sliced at the Older's sword arm.

The Older Sekhmet twisted away from the predictable cut and drove her fist into her rival's face.

"I will kill you for that!"

Sekhmet would have responded with something pithy, but she could not spare the breath.

*

The rear hatch of the khab slid open as Amy approached; she found that rather disturbing. Despite Sekhmet's assurances that the Wadjet network had no access to her brain through the pathways it had created, it did seem to recognise her. She had not noticed before, but Sekhmet's command chair was equipped with the same interface as the chair on the peltac of the Eye of Ra.

With some trepidation, Amy settled herself in the chair. It leaned back beneath her, complex articulations fitting it comfortably to her body. As before, she barely felt the needles that pierced her spinal column and brain stem, but the effect was immediately apparent; the peltac faded away and she saw...stars.

Plasma blasts rocked the Claw of Aksos, but her shields held. As too-few Jaffa struggled to man too-many controls, the return fire was sporadic and ineffectual and the manoeuvring was sluggish. Amy felt the controls against her mind and she sensed the ship's distress; she was in serious trouble.

Main cannons, target the ha'tak vessel, she thought; there was no response from the ship. Auxiliary power to shields, she demanded. Oh, come on you wretched spaceship!  You're supposed to be the deadliest warship ever built!

The Claw swerved violently, avoiding, almost by chance, a concentrated barrage of fire from the ha'tak vessel's primary weapons. Panic gripped Amy and the Claw executed an extraordinary, banking turn that strained the inertial dampeners to their limits.

Calm down. You do not tell your limb to move, you simply walk.

Amy looked around in confusion. Hanging in space beside her was a figure, lean, dark and handsome; she had only really seen him once before, but she recognised him at once.

"Thoth?"

"Amy."

"What are you doing here?"

The Goa'uld sighed. "You are here, Amy, therefore I am here. I am a part of you, or my memories are, at least; apparently I am visible as a separate entity here in this constructed mindscape."

"Why is that?" Amy asked.

Thoth shrugged. "I have my memories, but I'm afraid I'm limited to the use of your mind."

"Oh, fantastic; I'm being dissed by my imaginary friends. Just shoot the damn thing!"

"The ship is controlled by your will, not by your thoughts."

"Meaning what?" Amy demanded.

"When I controlled your body, I did not do it by telling you to walk forward, turn right," Thoth explained. "Neither do you control yourself by naming what you want to do. You must become one with the Wadjet network, Amy; let it be a part of you and simply will it to do as you wish."

"That's what I have been doing!"

"No!" Thoth snapped. "Do not try to direct your hand; just reach out and pull the trigger."

Amy closed her eyes; this initially achieved nothing, as her eyes were currently blinded anyway and all that she saw was in her mind, but slowly she found a new world opening out in front of her. Another vista unfolded, over the top of the starscape and yet underneath it as well; the streets of Sekh-ma-ket. Then a view of a different part of the city appeared, and a third; Amy realised that she was looking through Sekhmet's three probes.

With agonising slowness, Amy became aware of other senses. First, sounds, then smells from the probes' chemical sensors. She could feel the Jaffa running back and forth inside her; she could sense herself within that part of her extended body that was the khab. Then came the senses which had no physiological analogue; there was an uncanny awareness of her own body and the world around her, the data from the many sensors of the Wadjet flowing into her mind in a continual, overwhelming stream. She knew how far the ha'tak vessel was from the Claw; knew the speed and direction of every plasma bolt being fired; knew that the Jaffa on board the Claw were terrified because she could detect their speeding hearts and shallow breathing.

And then, at last, she found what she needed. She could feel the weapons of the Claw of Aksos as though they were her own extremities. She felt the cannons and the missile banks; as sure as throwing a knife, she knew how to aim and release those weapons. More than that, she felt the presence of the assault drones; dozens of mechanical warriors, all inertial engines and weapons, that were the true strength of the Claw. She activated them and her perceptions doubled, redoubled and doubled again.

"Oh. My. God," she breathed.

Amy looked up; the ha'tak vessel hung in space before her. Amy sensed a signal from the enemy ship, demanding her surrender. She opened a channel and responded.

"I can see you," she said, and then she unleashed the full fury of the Claw's weapons.

*

Rin's father had not gone far. The former Justiciar had been weary and battered, his pursuers angry and determined. They had caught him on the landing of the great staircase and thrown him to the foyer floor, twenty feet below.

"He just wanted to save them," Rin told Grogan, with tears in her eyes. "He just..."

A piercing scream echoed around the house.

"Sala!" Rin cried. "My stepmother. Amentiu summoned her to...She's a stupid, selfish cow, but they'll kill her, Grogan."

Grogan turned and charged up the stairs. He followed the screams along a passage to the private chambers; the frightened faces of servants watched him pass. Sala was pleading now, begging for mercy in a great, sobbing voice that was cut off as Grogan reached her door. He entered and, for the first time in his life, saw first hand the brutality of the righteous.

Dressed – although only just – in a flimsy nightgown, Sala hung by her neck from a rope that had been slung over an ornamental beam. Her face was horribly distorted, eyes bulging and tongue projecting obscenely from her bruised mouth. Her feet twitched and kicked spasmodically, four feet off the floor. Crowded into the bedroom, a mob of over thirty enraged citizens howled for her blood.

Fighting down his nausea, Grogan raised his P90 and fired. The beam was not structural and it was barely strong enough to support Sala's weight in the first place. It only took four or five rounds to weaken it enough to crack, allowing the rope to fall and Sala's body to come crashing down on top of the most eager of the spectators. The mob looked up in alarm.

Grogan took a step backwards and lowered the muzzle of his weapon. "Freeze!" he ordered. "Not a step closer to me and don't lay a finger on the woman."

The mob leaned towards him, then thought better of it; he had a firearm and they had nothing but clubs, knives and a spare coil of regulation lynching rope. They paused and in that moment the risk of them rushing Grogan evaporated. A mob was only a mob so long as it remained on the offensive; on the back foot, it disintegrated into a mass of individuals, none of whom wanted to be the first to test the endurance of the P90.

Grogan scanned the room quickly and spotted a second door. "Through there," he ordered.

"But...But that's the wardrobe," one of the rioters protested.

"Move!"

Slowly, the mob shuffled back into the capacious closet. Grogan made his way around to Sala and knelt beside her body. Her skin was cold and she was not breathing.

Gasping for breath, Rin appeared in the doorway. "Is she alright?" she demanded.

The rioters began to mutter.

"No," Grogan replied, "although she has a pulse." He thumbed the selector and then held out his P90. "Here. Take this and keep those bastards covered. It's on semi-auto; one shot for each squeeze of the trigger."

Rin smiled her thanks and braced the weapon over her injured arm. "Don't even think about moving," she muttered, angrily.

"Can you hear me, Sala?" Grogan carefully lifted Sala's chin and cleared her mouth. When she did not respond, he placed his thumb over her nostrils, bent over her and covered her mouth with his own.

The mutters took on a darker tone and some brave soul offered: "She's not worth saving."

"And my father?" Rin demanded. "Did one of you kill my father? Did all of you?"

"We...We did as you showed us," one of the rioters offered, lamely. "You were like an avenging angel; you showed us we could fight back."

"I attacked Sekhmet!" Rin hollered. "You murdered a frightened old man and hanged a stupid, defenceless slut! I'm sure Amentiu is calling off his fleet as we speak." She aimed the P90 at the man who had spoken. "I should just kill you all now so as to stop you breeding."

Grogan looked up from Sala's body. "She's breathing on her own," he said. "You can give me the weapon back now."

Rin glowered at the mob for a long moment, as though weighing up whether it was worth killing them all. At last, however, she handed over the submachine gun.

"Tell us what to do?" the spokesman begged Rin. "Let us make amends."

"What?" Rin asked, incredulously.

"Good idea," Grogan said, quickly. "Rin; perhaps they can help. For starters," he suggested, "they could spread out around this house and make sure no-one else gets hanged."

Rin looked at him for a long moment.

"Is this your command, Angel?" the spokesman asked.

"I'm no angel," Rin replied, "but yes. Yes; go out; find everyone else that's burst in here looking for someone to hurt and get them to stop."

The spokesman gave an awkward bow. "Yes, Angel," he said, then he turned to his fellow rioters. "Quickly!" he called. "To the dungeons."

"The dungeons," Rin muttered, as her impromptu army surged past her. "My brother," she whispered. "They'll want to kill my brother!"

"Go with them," Grogan advised. "If they get in touch with the other mobs they might need that religious awe you're generating to calm them down again. I need to try and find this...Amentiu?"

Rin nodded in acknowledgement. "If he is still here, he'll be watching the fight from the balcony," she said. "He enjoys the suffering of the defenceless. He'll want to see his lover defeat yours; he'd probably enjoy seeing your lover kill his even more. I shudder to think what he must have demanded of Sala. Go back and across the landing, then take the first right and go through the dining room. Good luck," she added.

"And you, Rin."

*

Ke'kan dragged himself to his feet with considerable difficulty. The pain of his wounds was receding, but even though he was granted a small measure of enhanced strength and resilience by the naquadah flowing in his veins he healed as an Unas, not as a Goa'uld. When his mind was not his own, his body would have shrugged off its current wounds; now, he would take days to recover in full, but he could not just lie still and leave the battle to his Lady and her friends.

He picked up the needler and leaned heavily on the weapon. The square was several hundred yards away and it would be a long walk in his condition, but Unas did not give up easily. He took a faltering step forward, then another.

Behind him, the sound of an engine approached. Ke'kan gave a low growl; he turned and shouldered his needler.

*

Grogan moved carefully through the dining room. The door to the parlour was open. He crept through the doorway, P90 tucked tightly against his shoulder.

Amentiu stood at the balcony, picture-perfect in his appearance. He was dressed in black, his hair fluttered dramatically in the breeze, and he had a weapon at his shoulder, aiming down into the square: aiming down at Sekhmet.

Grogan took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. With impossible speed, Amentiu let the stock of his weapon fall and touched his hand device. The rounds spattered harmlessly from his shield. The Goa'uld turned and raised the weapon again and fired at Grogan, blasting a chunk out of the wall; it was like no Goa'uld weapon that he had ever seen, but it was clearly quite deadly.

Grogan evaded another blast and threw a knife; he knew that thrown objects moved slowly enough to pass through the personal shield. Of course, his skill with a blade was insufficient to offer a respectable chance of a kill, but it was enough to distract Amentiu. The Goa'uld waved his hand and knocked the blade aside with a ripple of energy, but he was forced to lower the barrel of the blaster and Grogan charged him.

Amentiu swept up the butt of the weapon and caught Grogan under the chin. Grogan's head spun, but he was able to see the grin of savage exultation on the Goa'uld's face as Amentiu caught him by the shoulder and slammed him hard against the balustrade. Grogan slumped in a daze, the view of the square swimming wildly from side-to-side in front of him. The two Sekhmets still battled, fiercely, although the slighter of the two now seemed to have an edge over her opponent. He wanted to call out to her, but he had no breath in his body to do more than whisper her name.

Grogan's vision blurred with tears of pain and grief. In the square, one of the Sekhmets knocked the other down with a savage swipe of her sword.

"Enjoy the view," Amentiu chuckled. He raised the weapon and squeezed the trigger. The blast impacted in the small of Sekhmet's back. She arched in agony and fell to her knees, blood spurting violently from her mouth.

Grogan's eyes cleared. His Sekmet lay on her back, dazed, bloodied and almost unconscious. The other, the Younger Sekhmet, turned her head, blood running down over her chin. She stared up in horror and astonishment at her lover; her killer.

"Why?" Grogan asked.

Amentiu laughed again. "If you had known her, you would not have to ask," he assured him. "I bid you good day, boy."

There was a flash of blue light and Amentiu was gone. Grogan turned unsteadily back to the square; Sekhmet – his Sekhmet, the Elder Sekhmet – was also gone.

*

Amy felt the surge of power as the transport beam swept across the square. She felt a moment of panic as one part of the Wadjet network – a critical part – vanished for a moment, then reappeared in the crippled ha'tak vessel.

"Sekhmet!" she gasped.

The ha'tak vessel powered its engines; Amy fired everything she could at the drives, but too late. The ha'tak vessel disappeared into hyperspace.

"Sekhmet!" Amy sprang up from the chair; a wave of sickness gripped her as she broke from the network. She staggered to the hatch, tried to catch herself against it and almost fell flat on her face as it opened in front of her.

Rough hands caught her and held her up.

"Easy, Captain. I'm not much of a prop just now."

"Magog?" Amy asked, confused. "Sergeant Pellinor? How did you get here?"

"Realised I was leaning against a car. I'd have been here sooner, but it took me a while to work out the controls and I had to get Gog into the back seat. Then there was a big lizard in the road..."

"Hurry up!" Ke'kan yelled. "They have taken My Lady!"

Amy pushed herself away from Pellinor, almost toppling the wounded sergeant onto his back. "He's right," she said. "We have to find out what happened."

"Right you are, Ma'am," Pellinor agreed. "Oh; and I've got a present for you."

*

Grogan half-ran, half-fell down the stairs to the foyer and stumbled out into the square. The Younger Sekhmet lay on the platform, dying, but still refusing to give in. She clawed her way, inch-by-inch, towards the palace; towards the source of the shot that had killed her. She would die before she got there; if she did not succumb to her wounds, the mob that surrounded her would find the courage to overwhelm her eventually. Grogan fired a shot into the air to clear a path to her side.

"Sekhmet," he whispered. "Sekhmet; Amentiu is gone."

The woman rolled onto her back and glared up at him. When she spoke, she coughed up a fresh gout of blood; deep, red, arterial blood, laced with purple. "He took her?" she demanded.

Grogan crouched beside her and took her hand. "Yes," he admitted.

"He used me!" she spat. "He used me. I am Sekhmet; I have been worshipped, feared, adored...Lovers have crawled on their knees to beg my favour and he..." A thin, wild cry of desperate pain bubbled up from her lips. "Am I dying, slave?"

"Yes," Grogan replied, not bothering to argue over terminology.

"But I shall not die alone." Sekhmet put a hand to her belt. "What...? Where is my detonator?"

"Gone."

"You took it," she realised. Her left hand groped spasmodically for his throat. "Give me my detonator! I will have my final sacrifice!"

"No," Grogan told her. "You will not."

"No!" Sekhmet wailed.

Grogan looked up. The mob was moving closer again. "Get back!" Grogan ordered; he lifted his P90, but the mob kept on coming. They smelled blood and they wanted their kill.

The booming rattle of machine gun fire filled the air.

"You heard the lieutenant! Let's have you then; get back!" Sergeant Pellinor advanced, lowering his SAW to point at the mob. The crowd parted again, partly for fear of his weapon, partly for fear of the Unas at his shoulder, but mostly in awe of the kull warrior heads that Captain Kawalsky held aloft.

"Please," Sekhmet begged. "My glorious sacrifice."

"What greater sacrifice could there be than the great Sekhmet," Grogan asked.

She gave a pained laugh. "So...it ends," she gurgled. Her eyes flickered for a moment, then went dark. But she was not dead.

Grogan bent low over her. "Do you hear me?" he asked.

"Where am I?" she murmured. "What happened to me? What have I done?"

"You have fought a great evil," Grogan replied. "You have fought and at last, you have won. Tell me your name," he said. "What is the name of the woman who has defeated Sekhmet?"

The woman breathed her last, her final words for one ear only.

"Lieutenant?"

Grogan gently closed her eyes and stood up. "Captain," he said. "They've taken Sekhmet. We have to get her back."

*

Amentiu's Ha'tak Vessel – Interstitial Space

"What is this?" Amentiu demanded. The kull warriors aboard his ha'tak vessel had brought the unconscious Sekhmet to her quarters, only to find that Lyli and Mya were busily removing weapons from the chamber. Moreover, the cell was hardly as Spartan as Amentiu would have liked; he was not accustomed to keeping prisoners in the lap of luxury.

"Forgive me, My Lord," Lyli said. "The other Lady Sekhmet apparently sent word asking that her chambers be arranged as they were aboard the yacht and, as none of the servants here were aware that we would be returning with a different Sekhmet..."

"Clear them away," Amentiu ordered. "Remove the weapons, but leave the rest. Let the cursed brute enjoy her final days a little." He glowered at Lyli's ruined features. "Then you and your sister will go to the sarcophagus chamber and be restored. Having been surrounded by mortal inadequacies, I need to see beautiful faces before me."

"Yes, My Lord," Lyli acknowledged, as impassively as though she had been offered a glass of water in the servants mess hall.

"Dump the harridan in there," he told the kull warriors. "I will speak to her when she recovers."

The warriors dragged Sekhmet's body through the door as Mya was leaving. The handmaiden bumped against the warlady and cried out in pain and alarm. Sekhmet seemed to be unconscious still, but her hand had seized Mya by the wrist.

One of the kull warriors released Sekhmet's shoulder, caught the offending limb and broke its wrist with brutal efficiency. Sekhmet's body tipped sideways and slumped face down against the deck.

The handmaiden recoiled in pain and fear as soon as her wrist was released. Her sister struck her hard across her scarred face.

"Are those marks not enough to teach you to be wary?" Lyli demanded, harshly.

"I am sorry," Mya whispered in a quavering voice.

Lyli laid her palm comfortingly over the red marks of the slap. "I fear only for your safety," she assured Mya. "And for the condition of our master's goods," she added.

"Keep the servants away from her," Amentiu said. His eyes narrowed; something glittered beneath Sekhmet's tawny hair. "What is that?" he wondered aloud. He reached down and brushed her hair aside. The interface device glittered against her dusky skin. "Lord Osiris was correct," he realised. "There is a neural device. The interface is crude, but the data-stream converters must be..." He inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent of triumph. "Lord Anubis will be pleased. Put her down carefully," he instructed the kull warriors. "This device must not be damaged."

"And the woman?" Lyli asked.

Amentiu shrugged. "No more than is necessary."

*

"If everything is in hand here, we have to get back to the Claw," Amy said. "We can track the ha'tak; it is slower than Amentiu's yacht and it is damaged, but we can not leave it for long."

"Not yet," Grogan insisted.

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Lieutenant?"

"There's a bomb in this city, somewhere," Grogan explained. "In a school full of children. We have to deal with that first."

Amy nodded, slowly. "Alright," she agreed. "I'll try to use the sensors on the Claw to find the bomb, and the Stargate," she added. "If we're not rushing straight off, we should report. This is of course one of the attractions of rushing straight off. Can you round up some local help to evacuate this school?"

"Yes," Grogan assured her. "Just let me know where to look."

Amy smiled, impishly.

"Ma'am?"

"I was just thinking; I can see what Sekhmet sees in you," she admitted. "I've never known you to be this decisive."

"I usually fall back on authority," he confessed. "It's a bad habit."

"I'll call you with the coordinates," Amy promised. "You get some bodies."

Grogan made his way back into the palace. Rin was not hard to find; all he had to do was follow the chanting. Luckily, the mob remembered him and were willing to let him through.

"I need your help," he said.

"Help?" Rin asked, incredulously. "I'm besieged by my worshippers. Why would anyone seek this kind of power?"

"So give them something to do," Grogan advised. "I need the more reliable ones to help me clear a school; get the rest to start clearing rubble. There's a lot to clean up."

"But why do I have to do it?" Rin asked, plaintively.

"Because you were in the right place at the right time," Grogan replied, "or maybe the wrong place and time."

"Our people are not used to this," she admitted. "We have lived in peace ever since we threw off the rule of Ra, millennia ago. We are lost and afraid."

"That is why they need you."

"I'm fourteen!" Rin wailed.

"I know, Katrinta," Grogan said, gently. "I know it's hard, but you'll be alright. They'll calm down after a few days, but right now I need help and they need guidance, or they'll turn into a lynch mob again."

Rin nodded, sadly. "I'll see what I can do," she agreed. "Grogan; how did you know that my full name was Katrinta?"

"I...I didn't," he realised. "I heard someone...It was someone else's name; someone very brave, like you."

Rin smiled, delightedly. Grogan did not think that she would be so flattered to learn that she shared her name with a Goa'uld's host.

*

Sekhmet came around on the floor, lying face down. Her body ached from a multitude of cuts and the broken bones in her wrist.

As consciousness returned, she kept her eyes closed; habits that were long-ingrained when she was entombed cautioned her to take stock as much as possible before revealing that she was awake. She knew at once that she was on a ship, a large ship. She was lying on a thick carpet, but the floor beneath was hard metal; a soft vibration shivered up from beneath, the tell-tale hum of a stardrive. She knew at once that it was not one of her ships, however; in fact, none of her ships were anywhere in range of the link and that terrified her. She had not felt so alone since her awakening.

Are you still with me? She wondered.

Of course, Lanar replied; she sounded as frightened as Sekhmet felt. You know that they can never separate us. That much was true; with the linking device pinning them together, they could never again be parted without killing them both.

With the evidence from her sense of touch exhausted, Sekhmet listened. There was a slight hiss in the air; it was almost undetectable to Lanar's ear, but to Sekhmet it was clearly the sound of a pulsed energy field. She sniffed the air; it was cool and sterile, the air-conditioned atmosphere of a starship, with just the slightest ionised tang to confirm the presence of a force-field.

At last, Sekhmet opened her eyes and rolled onto her side. She was lying on a dark carpet in a richly-appointed room. In front of her was a bed with silken sheets.

They could have lifted us that far, you would think, Lanar groused.

Be glad of it, Sekhmet said. We would otherwise not be in a position to see that there is a weapon beneath the bed. A javelin, by the looks of it.

That will be helpful when we have to take on the crew of a ha'tak vessel.

Sarcasm does not become you, dear heart. Sekhmet sat up; there were two kull warriors outside the doorway. There was no door, but the hiss and scent of the force-field told her that there was to be no escape that way.

We are on our way to Anubis, she told Lanar. Whatever gods might watch over such as we, I hope they protect us.

*

 "Absolutely not," General Hammond insisted. "You've already far exceeded the parameters of your initial mission, Captain Kawalsky. While I am glad to have SG-10 back alive and well, we're now one Marine down and I don't intend to lose any others in an attempt to rescue a kidnapped Goa'uld."

Amy winced to be reminded that a man under her command had been killed. "I understand your reservations, Sir, but even if Sergeant Pellinor and Lieutenant Grogan return to the SGC, I have to stay; no-one else can operate the Claw of Aksos. The computers possess a form of electronic discretion; they won't let just anyone control the Wadjet network. I was connected at the same time as Sekhmet; the computers know me."

"I'm sorry, Captain Kawalsky," Hammond insisted. "Sekhmet will just have to fend for herself."

Amy closed her eyes. She knew the danger signs and she knew that this was the time to back off, go back to the SGC and write a report, but she also knew that that would be too little, too late.

"We're not just talking about Sekhmet, Sir," Amy said, calmly. "If Anubis can plant one of his little brain spikes in Sekhmet, then it's all over. First he will gain control of Memphis, the most advanced shipyard in Goa'uld history. Coupled with his technology, Memphis would make his fleet invincible; the System Lords are barely holding him at bay as it is. Then there's the Wadjet; not the ships, but the network. If he gains access to the linking technology that allows Sekhmet to connect her mind permanently to the Wadjet, he will be able to duplicate it. No need for inconvenient captains and underlords; he could even link to his kull warriors as Sekhmet sends instructions to Ke'kan through his armour.

"Imagine it: A huge fleet of unbeatable ships and an army of invincible warriors, all answering to a single, unbending will. If Anubis gets Sekhmet, he gets the galaxy," Amy concluded. "Please, General."

There was a long pause.

"Sergeant Pellinor will return Sergeant Goodge's body," Hammond declared, at last. "If I order Lieutenant Grogan to accompany the Marines, is he likely to start pleading with me as well?"

"Probably," Amy agreed.

"Try not to get yourself killed," Hammond warned. "That goes for Grogan as well."

Amy closed her eyes. "Thank you, Sir," she said. "Sergeant?"

"Ready, Ma'am." Pellinor looked at Amy. "Good luck, Ma'am. I hope I'll have a chance to serve with you again."

"But I got your best friend killed," Amy said, too surprised to be delicate.

Pellinor shrugged, then glanced down at the body which lay, wrapped in a dark, velvet cloth on the borrowed Coranan gurney. "A kull warrior got Gog killed, and for the record he wasn't my best friend." He turned, pushed the gurney up to the event horizon and nudged it through. "Go kick some ass, Ma'am." He stepped through the event horizon and vanished.

Amy shook her head, slowly, then she lifted her radio. "Grogan; all set?"

"School evacuated; bomb defused."

"Meet me at the khab," she ordered. "We're going after her."

*

Grogan was beginning to worry about Captain Kawalsky. She had been lying in the control chair for almost an hour now, without twitching once. Only the steady rise and fall of her chest told him that she was still alive and he felt intensely self-conscious watching the rise and fall of a superior officer's chest. He had tried looking out through the main screen, but all there was to see was the steady blur of hyperspace and that was a disturbing shade of midnight blue, instead of the usual sky hues.

Increasingly concerned, Grogan approached Captain Kawalsky and reached towards her shoulder.

"Getting a little restless, Lieutenant?"

Grogan jumped back and looked around in alarm. The voice had definitely been Captain Kawalsky's, but it came from all around him; it came from the walls and the floor and the very air. In fact, the only place it definitely had not come from was Captain Kawalsky's mouth.

"Shipwide address system," Kawalsky explained. "Good innit?"

"You sound like you're enjoying it," Grogan noted.

"It's a rush," Kawalsky admitted. "You know how much more exciting it is to drive when you're in a convertible with the roof down and the wind in your hair and the pedal to the floor?"

"Theoretically."

"Well, this is like that, only instead of a car it's a spaceship."

"Right."

"And instead of having the roof down, I'm plugged into three-and-a-half-thousand sensors scattered throughout the hull."

"Right."

"And instead of the wind, it's the screaming crosstides of hyperspace."

"Right."

"And instead of having the pedal to the floor, I've got the hyperdrives cranked up to eleven; hence the usual view is blue shifted halfway to indigo."

"Right. Do you have a plan, Captain?" Grogan asked.

"Yes," Kawalsky agreed.

"Well?"

"I don't like to say," she admitted. "It's kind of...dumb."

Grogan was shocked. "Captain!" he gasped. "What are you thinking...? I mean..." He stopped and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Captain, it's just..."

"You're worried; I know," Kawalsky agreed. "I am as well. This is just kind of...overwhelming. Please feel free to bring me back down to Earth from time to time."

"Yes, Ma'am," Grogan agreed. "You said yourself that you needed someone else to look over your plans to make sure they were..." He tailed off, uncomfortably.

"Lieutenant?"

"It's very disconcerting talking to thin air," Grogan admitted.

Kawalsky laughed and that was even worse. "You think you've got problems? I'm trying to talk to someone who seems to be inside my head. Hang on a second; there's a holographic communication system on this ship, so I should be able to..."

A holographic image of Amy Kawalsky appeared on the peltac. "Look at me," she laughed. "I'm quite beside myself."

Grogan coughed, awkwardly. "Your plan, Ma'am? So I can make sure it's not..."

"Drek?"

"As it were."

Kawalsky nodded. "As you know, Sekhmet has been rather keen to acquire a working Asgard transporter." She waved towards the screen and the image of a docking bay appeared. A Goa'uld yacht was held in the bay, heavily damaged and surrounded by security drones. Jaffa technicians and repair drones scrambled across the surface.

"Amentiu's transport?" Grogan guessed.

"It was too small a threat for Sekhmet to be forced to destroy it," Kawalsky agreed. "Three shots disabled it, to the cannon, drives and communication array; not necessarily in that order. We have four Jaffa in secure quarters, one more in the askap'on and a rather miserable Goa'uld in the brig. I've used one of the probe drones to tap into the computer core; that's how I've been able to access Amentiu's secure holographic sub-network and track the ha'tak vessel."

"And this is the whole plan?" Grogan asked.

"Oh no," Kawalsky replied. "I also plan to use the transport beams on board the yacht to rescue Sekhmet. There's just one small problem."

"Which is?"

"I have absolutely no idea how it works. So; can you do anything with my plan?"

"I'll think about it," Grogan replied.

*

The holographic Amy stared at Grogan as he paced up and down the peltac. His brow was furrowed and the usual expression of adorably misleading vacancy was quite absent from his face.

"Lieutenant."

Grogan looked up. "I'm thinking, Ma'am," he assured her.

"You've been thinking for the past three hours," she agreed. "I was only going to say: I don't think that Sekhmet will be very happy if she gets back to find you've worn a furrow in the peltac floor." She smiled at Grogan's reproachful look. "Now that's not the look of a lieutenant to his CO."

"Sorry," Grogan muttered.

"And that certainly isn't the tone of a lieutenant to his CO!"

"I'm sorry Ma'am," Grogan corrected.

Amy chuckled. "It's alright. I'm not really used to being a CO. You look pensive, lieutenant."

Grogan shook his head. "Just...preoccupied."

"Uh-huh." Amy tried to perch on a console, slipped through and wobbled a bit before regaining her balance. "How can I lack substance, but not lack weight?" she wondered. "But that's neither here nor there. You're really worried about her, aren't you? Sekhmet, I mean."

"Of course."

"Don't take this the wrong way," Amy said, cautiously, "but...I mean, you don't know her that well and..."

"And?"

"Well, you do tend to form these kinds of attachments pretty often," Amy said.

"I do not!"

Amy laughed. "Right. What about Major Carter?"

"That was just...professional respect," Grogan protested.

"Then there was the Falcon pilot; Lieutenant Frost."

"I never had a crush on Katharine," he insisted. "It was Kerry Cotton," he admitted. "Rhapsody, not Destiny."

"I stand corrected. Lieutenant Satterfield?"

"Those stories are nothing but lies and scandal mongering."

"Dr Wilkie?"

"Presumption and hearsay."

"Louise Stillwell?"

"Jealousy and spite."

"And was there anything to be jealous of?" Amy asked.

"From my perspective, Jonas Quinn," Grogan groused.

"And Captain Dane?"

"Please don't start, Ma'am."

Amy gave him a serious look. "How strong are your feelings for her?"

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Grogan exclaimed, defensively. "She's my CO. Maybe there were some wayward thoughts, but that's just...biology; nothing I can do about it."

"I meant Sekhmet."

"Oh." Grogan flushed red. "I don't feel very much for her, if I'm honest. She's attractive, but so...aggressive. It's unnerving."

Amy stared at him. "You're going to die; you know that, don't you."

Grogan gave a helpless sigh. "I know!" he cried, plaintively. "But I couldn't help it. It's Lanar," he admitted, mournfully. "Sekhmet is...I mean, she's nice, I guess, but Lanar..."

"In all the grand and glorious expanses of the wonderful English language, there are many words that could be used to describe Sekhmet, but I do not think that nice is one of those. I'm not sure you need to worry, though," she added. "Confidentially, it's Lanar who really likes you. Sekhmet's interest is purely physical."

"I could say the same of her," Grogan admitted. "It's very confusing!" he protested, when Amy fixed him with a critical eye. "Anyway, what's wrong with having a purely physical relationship with Sekhmet and a romantic one with Lanar."

"At the same time," Amy added.

"What? You think I should just see one of them?"

"No," Amy admitted, kindly. "I hope you'll get a chance to see both of them again, at the same time, and I may never again say any such thing to any man as long as I live."

Grogan just shrugged, disconsolately. "It doesn't matter, anyway. I don't need to feel very strongly about someone to not want them to be handed over to Anubis."

"You need something to do, Lieutenant," Amy decided.

*

The brig of the Claw was guarded by a trio of the Wadjet combat drones, grim machines equipped with brutal, truncated staff weapons and bladed arms; they did not look as though they were designed to restrain a prisoner who attempted escape. Djeta chose not to probe beneath outward appearances, although her technical skills would no doubt be up to the challenge of the force-field. She was a tremendous physical coward by nature; only her love for Amentiu had loaned her the courage to launch her foolhardy attack on the ship that was now her prison.

The door to the brig opened and a man entered the space between the cells. Djeta paid him very little attention.

"You're Djeta?" he asked.

"Lady Djeta," she replied, with what little venom she could muster.

"My apologies," he drawled, acidly. "You are Lady Djeta, lady pilot of the lady yacht which we have in the lady docking bay?"

Djeta fixed the man with a deadly scowl. He was young, barely more than a boy to Djeta's eye.

"No offence, My Lady," he assured her, "but just at the moment, it makes about as much sense to give the docking bay airs as you. I'm Lieutenant Grogan."

"You are without manners or respect."

"You bombed a civilian population centre and kidnapped my friend," Grogan retorted. "I'm not here to discuss etiquette with you. The repairs to your master's yacht are going well, but we have no experience of managing the transporter; the controls are proving somewhat difficult."

Djeta scoffed. "The system is beyond the comprehension of any mortal," she said. "Only one of divine origins could operate the transporter."

"Yes," Grogan laughed. "We worked out that there was a naquadah sensor in the control system; that was why we couldn't just interface the Claw's computer with the controls. We're not short on viable operators; unfortunately the Jaffa don't have the technical training and Ke'kan may be more dextrous than the average Unas, but he doesn't have the fine motor skills to work that console."

Djeta lay back on her narrow bunk and stretched as languorously as the confined space would allow. "Then you would seem to have encountered an insurmountable difficulty," she noted. "As I am sure you have noticed, without very careful management of the power flow and constant adjustment of the spatiotemporal alignment beams, the transporter is apt to make rather a mess of the transported; especially if you are trying to lock on to a target in a hurry. You seem a bright boy; I am sure you will find a way in time."

"Not in time to rescue Sekhmet!" Grogan snapped, infuriated by her attitude.

Djeta sat up and gave a harsh bark of laughter. "Rescue Sekhmet? That savage slut needs no rescuing. Even if she did, I would not lift a finger to aid you. She took my place and..." She fell silent; the pain of a goddess was no subject for discussion with a mortal.

Grogan touched the control which disabled the forcefield and entered the cell. He took a seat on Djeta's small chair and sat looking at her. Djeta tried to ignore him, but his stare was too distracting; eventually she had no choice but to turn and look at him or go slowly mad.

"I will not help you," Djeta sighed. "My Lord wants her and if all I can do is keep you from taking her, that shall be my final service to him."

"The Sekhmet I wish to rescue is the other Sekhmet," Grogan explained. "The first one. The third is...Amentiu killed her."

Djeta smiled. "Good. She did not show him due reverence."

"You're not a very nice person, are you, Djeta?" Grogan noted with a frown.

"I served him, loyally, for centuries. I was his trusted one, his confidant and adviser; he never loved anyone but himself, but he needed me," she declared. Her voice was brittle with emotion; grief, rage and pain blending together. "No one else could say that. No one. Ever."

"Until she arrived?" Grogan suggested.

"Her," Djeta sniffed. "He never needed her, not as he needed me, but she besotted him. He left me behind, let her give me orders. None commanded me but him, mortal; not even Lord Anubis. I was his and his alone, but she came between us with her arrogance and her strength. She forced herself upon him and turned his head with her wiles."

"It wasn't turned far," Grogan assured her. "He shot her down in cold blood; put a plasma blast in her back when she was busy fighting my Sekhmet."

Djeta sat up, suddenly very interested. "Your Sekhmet," she purred. "Why, you must be rather more than you appear." She leaned forward and laid a hand on the young man's arm. "I wonder what makes you so special."

"My soufflé is like eating a cloud," Grogan replied, moving away from her touch.

"But you are wrong about Sekhmet," Djeta told him, quietly. "He was moved by her; she affected him."

"And you never could."

"No one could!" Djeta snapped, suddenly angry at this presumptuous young human. "Don't you understand?"

"I think so," he replied, calmly. "He never loved you, but he never loved anyone else, either, and at least he kept you around. So long as he never loved, you could tell yourself you were the special one; but if he could love another but he never loved you..."

Djeta rose to her feet in a fury. "Be silent!" she commanded. "Hold your tongue or I shall tear it out and force you to eat it before my eyes!"

"You want me to eat my tongue and then your eyes?"

"No! I...ah!" Djeta threw up her hands in exasperation. "She took away my reason for existence," she hissed. "I served for nine hundred years, mortal. You can not begin to understand what that means."

"You're right," Grogan agreed. "But I don't care. What I want is to get Sekhmet back."

Djeta sank slowly back into her seat. "My last service to him..."

"Yes, so you said," Grogan sighed. "But listen, Djeta: Your master's ha'tak vessel has tangled with the Claw once already today; it suffered more damage than this ship and it does not have the same level of automatic repair systems. We are tracking the ship through hyperspace and gaining fast. If we can not rescue Sekhmet by using the transporter we will be forced to subdue Amentiu's ha'tak vessel by force. We have superior physical armour and missiles capable of tracking and engaging a target, even in hyperflight. The ha'tak's shields and weapons will be inoperative until she leaves hyperspace. In normal space, we outgun her three times over. It is a fight that Amentiu's ship can not win."

"Destroy his ship and you kill Sekhmet," Djeta challenged.

"If the alternative is to let her be taken by Anubis, I'll take the risk," Grogan assured her, "and however bad it is for Sekhmet, it will be worse for Amentiu."

"No!"

"I won't pretend that I don't want to kill Amentiu," Grogan told her, "but if we can use the transporter to rescue Sekhmet without risk to her, then your beloved's escape is a price I am willing to pay."

He reached out and took Djeta's hand. For a moment, she was too shocked to protest at his temerity.

"You want to do him a last service?" Grogan asked. "Save his life. Amentiu does not know it – he may never know it – but he needs you again."

"I...I do not know," Djeta replied, although Grogan's words had affected her; the thought that she could do something to serve her lord that no other could do was an appealing one.

"We could even return you," he offered. "We could even arrange it so that you seem to have done something heroic to escape and prevent his destruction. He would have to notice you then."

Djeta laughed, bitterly. "You do not know My Lord." She tightened her hands on his and leaned forward again. "I am tempted by your offer," she admitted.

"You will help?"

 "I did not say so; not yet. I am considering it," she allowed, her voice no more than an intimate whisper. "Perhaps you could offer me something more to convince me."

Grogan tried to draw back, but she held him fast.

"Such as?" he asked.

"Vengeance," Djeta purred. "The third Sekhmet is dead, so I will avenge myself on her namesake by taking from her what the other had from me." She licked her lips. "She shall be free to return to her lover...but I will have had him."

"No!"

Again, Grogan tried to pull free, but Djeta's hands gripped his with the strength of a vice.

"I know that you desire me," Djeta laughed. "I can smell it on your sweat."

"I will not..."

"You would rather see her taken or slain?" Djeta asked in a cruel, mocking tone. "She need never even know; it will be enough for me to know...and for me to know that you know. Just to be sure that one night, my face will be before you when you lie with her, as hers must forever be before My Lord..."

"You're sick."

"Wounded," she corrected. "Struck to the quick and eager for revenge. Give yourself to me and allow me to return to his side and I shall do whatever you wish; so long as My Lord is not harmed."

Grogan closed his eyes; he looked nauseous. Djeta was glad; she did not want him to enjoy a moment of what was to follow.

"I know a way that you can have him all to yourself."

Grogan seemed as startled by this interruption as Djeta was. Being less experienced, he hid it far less effectively; his relief was equally apparent.

"Ke'kan?" he asked.

"Your Lord Amentiu," the Unas told Djeta. "I can give him to you, and to you alone, for all time. But you must leave the boy alone," he added, darkly.

"I'm standing right here, Ke'kan!"

*

Lord Amentiu retreated to his quarters, identical to those aboard the yacht. When Lyli arose from the sarcophagus, she was summoned at once to bring him a bottle of bokha and she knew that something was wrong.

Lyli had been a handmaiden to the Goa'uld for most of her life, serving first Lord Zipacna, then Lord Tanis; she had briefly been a part of the retinue of Lord Osiris, before being given to Amentiu. She was thus very finely attuned to the moods of her masters and it was clear to her that Lord Amentiu was not happy. He was attempting to conceal his emotional turmoil, but she could see that his good cheer was a mask. Of course he was pleased with the success of the mission, but he was troubled as well. His grim silence was proof enough of his foul mood, but he was also neglecting his customary preening.

The bokha was the true giveaway, however; Amentiu rarely called for the potent fig brandy unless he was in a poor temper. On this occasion, he drained his glass, then held it out for refilling and repeated the process until the bottle was empty.

"Another," he growled.

Lyli was worried. The effect of alcohol on the Goa'uld metabolism was even more volatile and unpredictable than that which it had on humans; an entire bottle of bokha was enough to pitch an Unas directly through the maudlin stage of drunkenness to the edge of erratic violence. This being the case, Lyli was not keen to pour more of the sickly concoction down her master's throat, but also afraid to refuse him.

"Should I bring you other refreshment, My Lord?" Lyli suggested. "Perhaps something to eat...?"

"If I want something to eat I shall ask for it!" Amentiu snapped.

"Of course, My Lord," Lyli replied. "I shall bring the bokha at once. I believe that Lady Imyrta has been asking after your health," she added. It was untrue; the ha'tak pilot's devotion to her Lord was far less than Lady Djeta's, but she would not reject Amentiu's summons, given the chance. "Should I admit her to...?"

"No, curse you!" Lord Amentiu stood up suddenly and flung his glass at Lyli. The tumbler missed her head by almost a foot. By this she knew that he must be considerably inebriated; if sober he would have hit his mark.

"My Lord," she agreed, meekly. She turned for the door of his cabin.

"Stop!" Lord Amentiu stumbled towards her. His face was flushed and his demeanour so perturbed that she took a step away from him, in spite of her long years of training. He caught her shoulder, pressed her back against the door and cupped her face with his hand.

Lyli was disturbed. Amentiu was in many ways an exasperating master – his temper was mercurial, his needs many, his personality demanding – but all he asked of his handmaidens was that they look attractive and adore him. Physical proof of that adoration was not – or at least, had never been – required. The divinely fair Amentiu did not sully himself by bedding the hired help; a great relief after the perverse and satyric appetites of Lord Tanis.

"M-my Lord?" she asked, nervously.

"She was magnificent," Amentiu murmured. "Such strength. Such...passion! And such beauty."

Lyli swallowed hard. "Lady Djeta was..."

Amentiu stepped back and roared with laughter. Although relieved by his retreat, Lyli was, if anything, more alarmed now. She had never known him to abandon his self-possession so completely.

"Djeta?" Amentiu snorted, derisively. "That...That pitiful, whining shrew? She was a good enough pilot, but I am glad to be rid of her pathetic declarations of love." He closed in on Lyli again and roughly encircled her waist with his arm. "I love you more than I loved Djeta. You worship me with your pretty eyes and that sweet, silken voice of yours; you never pester me with drivelling words, nor try to molest me with your grubby, mortal hands. No; I will not waste another thought on Djeta."

"Of course, My Lord," Lyli agreed.

"I am talking about Sekhmet," Amentiu hissed in a pained voice. He pressed his cheek against hers. "Oh, Sekhmet. Ah, my beautiful, perfect killer. Why did I obey? Why did I snuff out your glory?" He turned away and stalked back to his seat.

"My Lord..." Lyli began.

At the sound of her voice, Amentiu looked up and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. With a cry of rage, he struck the mirror, hard enough to shatter the glass. He rose to his feet and swept up his chair, hurling it with all of his might at the mirror above his bed. Seemingly gripped by a frenzy of passion, he plunged into the bathroom and the sound of shattering glass emerged.

When at last the high, sharp crashing ceased, Lyli ventured to the door. Amentiu was bloodied from a thousand cuts; his perfect face was slashed and ruined.

"My Lord?"

Amentiu turned his gaze on her. One dark eye glittered at her; the other was a bloody mess. "Prepare my sarcophagus," he told her in a whisper.

"Yes, My Lord." She turned away, quickly.

"Lyli?"

The lo'taur turned back, clasping her trembling hands behind her back. "My Lord?"

"I was gripped by a moment of madness," he said. "I know not what I said. The bokha spoke through me and made it seem that I spoke treason against Lord Anubis."

"Of course, My Lord," Lyli agreed. He said nothing else and Lyli fled as swiftly as she could.

Perhaps he would leave things as they stood; perhaps he would not. It would not be unexpected for him to kill the slave who had overheard his words; she enjoyed some protection in her position as a gift from Lord Osiris, but she knew that there were limits to this. Almost more disturbingly, Amentiu seemed genuinely upset by Sekhmet's death; certainly a first in her experience. If he were going to act as he had done in his cabin, then even if he did not kill her, her life would be far less comfortable.

A resolution formed in her mind. Something would have to be done.

Sekhmet did not pace. She stood in her room aboard the ha'tak vessel, her limbs poised in the ibis pose of Sekh'lo, the eighth martial art that she had mastered; the first to be entirely of her own invention. But although her body was as still as a statue, her mind paced and fretted and lunged outwards as far as it could go, straining for any sign of the Wadjet. She had accepted that her death was inevitable – after an eternity in a sarcophagus, it was almost desirable – and now loneliness was the one thing left that frightened her.

Lanar was even less composed than her symbiote. She too had accepted her impending demise, but she did not want to fall into Anubis' hands. Not now that she was finally free to speak her own mind; not now that she had found someone to bring a little light to her last years.

You truly love him? Sekhmet asked.

I do not know, Lanar admitted. I think that I do, but how would I know. I have never felt this way before.

You are in love, Sekhmet declared.

There was a long silence within their shared mind as both partners listened for the slightest sense of a Wadjet vessel's presence. Just a touch would be enough for Sekhmet. She could summon the vessel in pursuit, use its transmitters to boost her signal and call others; unfortunately, the Wadjet vessels were few and the galaxy was a very large place.

Have you ever been in love? Lanar asked Sekhmet.

There was a long pause.

Sekhmet?

Just once, Sekhmet replied.

Who was he?

There was another pause.

She?

He, Sekhmet confirmed. He was...He was nobody; a captive from a primitive world, taken in a raid by my father's soldiers. He was just a young peasant, with no power, no strength, and he stood up before a god and defied him. He was no more handsome than any hundred of my Jaffa, but when he stood between Heru'ur and his sister, he was magnificent and I knew that I had to have him. I could have taken him there and then. I could have exchanged the freedom of his people for his favours. I did not. I freed his people, without condition, then I went to him that night, unarmed and alone.

Sekhmet could feel Lanar's pleasure in the romance of this tale; she felt terrible, but she knew that the story must be finished now that it was started.

In the morning, my father annihilated the village I had spared, she said. He told me that they could not be allowed to spread the word that the Eye of Ra could shed tears.

Lanar was horrified. And...the young man?

Some few fled into the hills, but I knew that he would not be among them. It was at that moment that doubts became questions. I had long been troubled by the things that Lord Ra asked of me as his guardian of justice, but from that day I knew that there was no justice in his commands.

I am sorry.

Sekhmet was silent again. Only after a long, long time did she reply: Thank you.

Lanar felt a tickling sensation at the back of her neck. Do you...?

Yes. It is...It is the Claw! she exclaimed. As the sense of her flagship grew closer, Sekhmet sensed another mind behind it, guiding it through hyperspace; she recognised the mind and she smiled. Amy. Is she not incredible?

Lanar gave a soundless chuckle. Are you sure that you have only loved once? she asked.

Not a word, Sekhmet replied.

*

The connection between Amy and the Claw grew ever stronger. It was hard for her to separate the two of them in her mind now; she was the Claw and the Claw was her. The ship had a mind, she had realised; not intelligent, not aware, but there was a personality there, vast, fierce and predatory, and it was infecting her.

"We have them!" Amy declared, her voice springing breathlessly from the PA. "Lieutenant Grogan, are you ready?"

"I feel like such a tool," Grogan replied.

"Don't be a drip," Amy laughed. "Everyone looks good in black."

Ke'kan just gave a sharp laugh.

"Alright, nearly everyone." Amy paused and made a conscious effort to free herself from the hunter's joy which gripped the Claw's machine mind; when she spoke again, her tone was serious. "Are you sure of Djeta?"

"Absolutely."

"Good luck, lieutenant; Ke'kan. Bring her back."

"We shall," Ke'kan assured her.

"Then hold tight," Amy warned, "because we're going in."

The Claw of Aksos lurched forward, reaction drives screaming in their housings as Amy closed the last five second gap to the ha'tak.

*

Amentiu was roused from his sarcophagus by the blare of alarms. He struggled up and hurried to a terminal.

"Pel'tac! What is happening?"

"Sekhmet's vessel has closed on us, My Lord," Imyrta reported. "She will collide with us! She has...Remoc! My Lord..."

Amentiu barely had time to brace himself before the ha'tak vessel dropped out of hyperspace. Moments later, the vessel was rocked by a fierce impact.

"Pilot!"

"Forgive me, Lord. The enemy vessel is armed with missiles and fired them during hyperflight. I had to return to normal space in order to raise the shields. The enemy has re-entered normal space with us."

The ha'tak shuddered, but the impacts were distant, clearly absorbed by the shields.

"They have opened fire, My Lord."

Amentiu bit back a sharp retort at this rather obvious report. "Return fire!" he ordered. "Destroy them! I wish to see their wreckage on the screen when I arrive on the peltac."

*

The ha'tak vessel made a slow, stately turn to keep a charged shield towards the Claw and the heavy plasma cannon fired from the rim of the ship. The Claw's missile batteries discharged and her cannons spat flame. A dozen hatches opened and released the Wadjet assault drones and the ha'tak's gliders launched to fight them. The shields of both vessels flickered and flared with the sheer volume of fire directed against them. Shots broke through and impacted on the hulls.

The Claw accelerated suddenly and swept past the ha'tak, both seeking a weaker area of shield and turning her aft quarter now her own forward defences were weakened. But she had taken a beating in that area during the earlier battle and the shields there were already weakened. On the pel'tac of the ha'tak, Lady Imyrta could not believe her good fortune.

"There!" she said. "All weapons, target the upper weapons point and fire!"

The plasma blasts boiled through the flimsy bubble of the energy shield and struck home. The weapons pod exploded, flames flickering briefly before being swallowed up and stifled by the vacuum of space.

The Claw's photonic engines gunned to maximum and she shot away into space, fleeing, crippled, from her intended quarry. Bereft of control, the assault drones hung lifeless in space.

"Lady Imyrta!" Amentiu barked, as he strode onto the pel'tac. He came right over to Imyrta's station and stood close behind her, laying his own hands on the console beside hers. "Pursue!" he demanded, whispering the order into her ear in an intense voice.

Imyrta leaned eagerly back against him, but her general air was reluctant and apologetically. "Our engines are damaged, My Lord," she protested. "We are reduced to fifty percent offensive capacity and only thirty-six percent defensive. We are in no state to pursue."

Amentiu fumed, but he was no fool. "Very well. Make essential repairs and then resume our previous course."

"Yes, My Lord."

"Pilot." Amentiu slid his arm around the pilot's waist.

"My Lord?"

"Well fought, my dear."

"Thank you, My Lord."

In her cell, Sekhmet felt the retreat of the Claw and her heart sank. She could dimly sense the remaining drones, but without the command relays in the Claw of Aksos the drones could not be directed from the device. After a moment, however, she felt another presence. She opened her eyes, lowered her arms to her sides, planted both feet firmly on the floor and smiled.

*

Amy slowed the Claw's photonic engines and engaged the inertial manoeuvring drives to initiate a long, curving flight that would bring them back onto the trail of the ha'tak vessel. She sent her mind along the sensory paths and felt out the damage to the aft quarter. The weapon point had been isolated and packed with explosives to make a big, showy explosion, but the actual damage was minimal; the repair drones were already rebuilding the turret and bringing a spare plasma cannon out of stores.

Satisfied that all was well with the ship, Amy moved the focus of her concentration and made her hologram appear on the pel'tac of Amentiu's yacht.

Djeta was startled. "I did not think that you would be able to appear here."

"Windows," Amy replied, waving towards the open hatches. "Did it work?"

"Transport was successful," she said. "They have arrived."

*

"My Lord," Imyrta said, concerned. She forced herself to ignore the intimate proximity of her master and touched the controls on her console. "I have filtered the sensor reports from the battle to search for anomalous events."

Amentiu drew sharply away from her; he had no patience with women who found anything to be more fascinating than him. "Have you found anything anomalous?" he asked, disinterestedly.

"A transport signature," she replied.

"What!" Amentiu shoved the pilot roughly aside. "That barbaric woman's ship has a transporter?" He glowered angrily at the reports, streams of letter and numbers which meant nothing to him. He slammed his hand down on the console. "This is nothing but gibberish," he accused.

"Yes, My Lord," Imyrta agreed. "Perhaps I can correct the error," she offered.

Amentiu drew back with an angry grunt to let the pilot access the data. The main screen flickered and a series of signal pulses appeared.

"Sekhmet!" Amentiu realised. "Is Sekhmet still in her cell?"

"Yes, My Lord," Imyrta reassured him. "This transport was inwards; we have intruders on the ha'tak vessel. Two..." She stopped and studied her console intently. "These readings must be incorrect."

"Pilot?"

"The energy dispersal pattern indicates that the intruders are...kull warriors," Imyrta admitted. She sounded completely baffled.

"How long until we arrive at Lady Lamia's station if we execute hyperlaunch at once?" Amentiu demanded.

"More than one solar day," Imyrta replied. "The drives are desperately underpowered. We must carry out repairs."

Amentiu gave a snarl of rage. "Have those warriors stopped," he commanded. "Send all of the security squads."

"And the kull warriors already aboard?"

"Not yet," Amentiu decided. "I am not sure that I trust them. I shall be in my cabin, Lady Imyrta."

"Yes, My Lord," Imyrta agreed. "And My Lord!" she called.

"Lady Imyrta?"

"The signature of the transporter, My Lord," Imyrta said. "It is that of your personal yacht. The ship that was reported destroyed under the command of Lady Djeta."

Amentiu glared into her eyes with a cold, hard gaze. "Cast no doubt on Lady Djeta's loyalty," he cautioned. "She was my most faithful servant. I can but wish that you had her devotion; or she your wit," he added, ruefully. "Secure a holographic channel to Lady Lamia," he added as he turned away. "I must speak with her, now!"

Imyrta turned back to her console. "Initiate intruder alert. Heavy weapon security squads to section nine, level seven."

*

The Jaffa security squads were not used to being ordered out with heavy weapons. It was dangerous to fire such weapons within the corridors of a ha'tak vessel, yet Imyrta had made certain that her teams were drilled to do so as safely as possible. She did not trust the kull warriors any further than her master did and she had long since laid plans for their inevitable – as she saw it – rebellion. Amentiu's Primarch was a vain and pompous man, a pitiful shadow of his master, and so Imyrta had chosen another, Primus Gere'k, to lead her heavy weapon teams.

Gere'k was a warrior of many accomplishments and great devotion to his commanding officer. He was also noted as one of the ugliest warriors in Amentiu's service, a small, broad-shouldered man with the scars of blades and burns crisscrossing his face and one ear a tattered ruin. He was a serious man and a cautious one and his instincts were quivering as he approached the target zone; he knew that whatever tactics had been developed for use against a kull warrior were untested. There was every chance that his warriors would be slaughtered, but he had been ordered and so he went.

From a bend in the corridor ahead came the tramp of armoured feet.

"Kree, Jaffa," Gere'k ordered. His squad took station at the corner of the passage and the alcoves which lined the walls. Even with every advantage, no Jaffa squad could hope to eliminate any number of kull warriors if they stood in the open. Gere'k himself found a position close to an intercom console.

The footsteps halted just before the corner. Gere'k was baffled; kull warriors did not take cover or exercise discretion. He tightened his grip on the handles of his glider cannon and the fingers of his left hand brushed the controls built onto the weapon by Imyrta's technicians. The modifications were intended to demodulate the plasma frequency of the staff blast and defeat the kull warriors' dispersal armour, but Gere'k was keenly aware that this also was untested.

A hand reached around the corner and threw a shock grenade along the passage. This was unexpected.

"Kree!" Gere'k turned his head and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. The scream of the blast still deafened him and he was dizzy when he looked back up.

There were two kull warriors. Or rather there were two intruders in kull warrior's armour, but they were not kull warriors. Kull warriors were all of a kind, the same size and bulk, but these two...were not. The first was huge, bigger even than an ordinary kull warrior and plainly almost bursting out of his standard-sized armour. The second warrior almost seemed lost in an identical suit. One carried a huge cannon with several barrels; the second a tiny rifle.

"Shal'kor!" Gere'k ordered. The demodulated plasma blasts cast a bright-white glow as they flew along the corridor to strike the warriors. It was hard for Gere'k to tell, but they did not seem to be having any more effect than ordinary plasma blasts and, as the intruders began to return fire, he reached for the intercom.

"My Lady Imyrta!"

"What is it, Jaffa?"

"Our weapons are ineffective, My Lady," Gere'k reported. "My squad are being slaughtered. I ask your permission to withdraw."

"Do so," Imyrta agreed. "I will send our kull warriors to engage the intruders. Check the demodulating circuits; it may be that you can find a more effective frequency."

"I will try, My Lady," he acknowledged. "Kree, Jaffa! Fall back! Fall back!"

Grogan watched through the eyes of his kull mask as the Jaffa broke and ran. At his side, Ke'kan kept firing until the last target was gone from his line of sight. Considering the volume of plasma fire that his cannon put out it was amazing that he had hit so little.

"Are you trying to miss?" Grogan asked.

"I am here to rescue My Lady, not to butcher my fellow soldiers," the Unas replied.

"You're a good man," Grogan told Ke'kan. "Or...lizard. But I think those Jaffa were armed to fight kull warriors. Whatever they did to those plasma weapons didn't work, but if they've planned for this we aren't as impervious as we'd hoped."

"How much further?" Ke'kan asked.

"One deck down and about eight hundred yards of corridor back and forth," Grogan replied. "I might be able to shorten that, though. Keep an eye out," he instructed, kneeling in the passage and unshipping his pack. He opened the main compartment and retrieved a small, Goa'uld blasting charge. At a touch of his armoured fingers, the charge extruded a pair of blades, which Grogan forced into the deck with a powerful swing.

"Kull!" Ke'kan warned. He raised his cannon and stepped in front of Grogan as two of the black-armoured supersoldiers appeared. The plasma barrels would be useless against this foe, but he had reconstructed his weapon, replacing the central glider cannon with one of Captain Kawalsky's needlers.

The bowshaft split the armour of the first warrior. The second fired on him, but its blasters were ineffective. As Ke'kan broke open the needler to reload, the warrior charged. Ke'kan dropped the needler and grappled with the enemy.

Grogan left his pack and tried for the needler, but it lay on the deck on the far side of the fight. Once more he founded himself watching, helpless, as Ke'kan struggled with one of Anubis' creations. Grogan weighed up his options and found them rather sparse; he had no other weapons which would function against a kull warrior and no hope of rescuing Sekhmet without Ke'kan.

Ke'kan was giving his all to the struggle, but as had been proven on the surface of Corana, the kull warrior was stronger even than the Unas. It broke away from his crushing grasp and struck at him with a punch that knocked the ill-fitting mask from his face. Within a few moments, Ke'kan had been forced onto his back and the supersoldier was bearing down on him, trying to level one or the other of his wrist blasters at the Unas' face. Despite Ke'kan's best efforts, the kull warrior's hands were inching steadily closer.

Suddenly, Grogan knew what he could do. Ke'kan's mask had been loose already, but the kull warrior's mask would also come off. While the supersoldier was pinned by its struggle against Ke'kan, Grogan reached between the combatants, hooked his fingers underneath the kull warrior's chin and groped for the release catch.

The mask came away in his hand, revealing the kull warrior's pale, sickly face. Grogan recoiled in horror, snatched up his P90 and fired directly into that horrid, barely-human visage.

*

On the pel'tac, Imyrta leaned over her the cerebral feedback readouts on her console and yelled into the intercom. "Listen to me, you black-husked imbeciles! I do not care for your standing orders; these intruders are too strong for you. You must not attack in your assigned patrol pairs; mass for a combined assault."

The readouts flickered, defiantly.

"Override: Authority Anubis, delegated level 3, Wisdom-Herald-Pilot; personal code: A-I-7-V," Imyrta intoned, wearily. "Kull warriors, cease assault."

After a long pause, the cerebral feedback indicated obedience; the kull warriors halted.

"All kull warriors, assemble in section five, level seven and stand by."

The readouts remained static.

Imyrta sighed, impatiently. "Override..."

"My Lady!"

Imyrta bit back a curse and turned to her Jaffa co-pilot. "Report."

"The intruders have moved," the Jaffa told her.

"With the time it takes to persuade these idiots to change their course, I am amazed that the intruders have not died of old age," Imyrta muttered. "Override: Authority Anubis, delegated level 3, Wisdom-Herald-Pilot; personal code: A-I-7-V. Kull warriors, assemble in section five, level six and stand by."

The Jaffa shook his head. "How could they have moved from deck seven to deck six without leaving section nine?" he wondered.

Imyrta checked the sensor logs. "They blasted through the corridor floor into the secondary archive store; with all these alarms going off already we did not notice the internal detonation warning. Silence all current alerts," she added, "let us not encounter the same problem again."

Silence settled back over the pel'tac. "Thank you." Imyrta activated the intercom again. "Gere'k."

"My Lady."

"Leave these intruders to the kull warriors," Imyrta ordered. "I am...concerned and I wish all Jaffa to stand guard on the pel'tac and Goa'uld quarters on the upper decks. Post guards on all access points to deck fourteen and in all upper corridors."

"Yes, My Lady," the Primus replied.

Imyrta looked up at the screens. "Where are they heading?" she asked. At once, she answered her own question. "Override: Authority Anubis, delegated level 3, Wisdom-Herald-Pilot; personal code: A-I-7-V. Kull warriors, intercept intruders in central computer core!"

The lights on the pel'tac died. Imyrta looked at her console, but it too was dark. She raised her wrist and spoke into her personal communicator, hoping against hope that that would still be functioning. "My Lord Amentiu?"

"What is happening, pilot?" Amentiu demanded. "Where is my channel? Why are my lights not functioning?"

"The intruders have breached the computer core," Imyrta reported. "Kull warriors were closing, but all monitoring systems are offline."

"They have come for her," Amentiu declared. "They will not have her. Are the two kull warriors still on duty at the cell door?"

"I..." Imyrta thought for a moment. "Yes," she declared. "I removed them from the communications loop; they would not have received my general signal."

"Then contact them now. Order them to kill her."

"My Lord?"

"Kill her! Kill Sekhmet!"

*

From the moment that her rescuers came aboard, Sekhmet was aware of them, or rather of the relay device which they had brought with them. It had been no more than a small comfort while it was dormant in somebody's pack, but then they had patched it into the ha'tak vessel's central computer core. At once, the architecture of the ship's control systems opened up before her. With her relay in the heart of the machine, it was the work of moments to pierce the system security and wrest total control of the ship from its masters, locking out all manual terminals.

Sekhmet accessed the sensors in the computer core first and her heart lifted to see who her rescuers were. Her next consideration was to tap into the other internal sensors, then to begin sealing the passages with force fields to protect Ke'kan and Grogan and to guide them swiftly to her cell. After that she thought to monitor transmissions within the body of the ha'tak.

"...contact them now. Order them to kill her."

"My Lord?"

"Kill her! Kill Sekhmet!"

Sekhmet's eyes snapped open. She dropped into a crouch and reached underneath the bed for the spear.

One of the kull warriors at the door touched the field controls; when nothing happened, it simply stepped through the field, its armour dispersing the energy around its body. It was halfway through when Sekhmet stabbed it in the head with the spear, the blade punching through its mask and into its brain. It tried to level its blasters, but Sekhmet turned between its arms and – ignoring the searing pain in her recently-healed wrist – used the spear as a lever to hoist it up and over her shoulder. The armour absorbed most of the impact, but the overmuscled body fell sideways and the weight cracked the warrior's neck.

The warlady stood up and turned towards the door. "Come," she invited. "I am unarmed, after all."

Without hesitation, the kull warrior turned towards her. The bowspike struck it in the head as it was in motion and the impact drove it clear of the doorway.

"And my friends are here," Sekhmet added. With a thought she removed the forcefield and went out into the corridor.

"My Lady!"

Sekhmet smiled, broadly. "Ke'kan," she said. "And my dear Grogan," she added.

Grogan lifted off his helmet and smiled, politely. "Sekhmet. It's..." His smile deepened and he sprang forward to embrace Sekhmet and kiss her. "Lanar," he sighed.

"You knew?" Lanar asked, baffled. "You could tell when I took control?"

"Of course." Grogan sounded surprised.

Lanar kissed Grogan again; he swooned against her.

"Grogan!" Lanar caught the young man as he slumped against her.

"Hell of a kiss," Grogan chuckled. "I think it's this armour; it's making me feel all light-headed."

The arms holding him became firmer, more businesslike. "The revitalising energies; there must be a residual trace held in the fabric of the armour. I hope exposure to that vile force won't spoil you, Lieutenant." She kissed him and set him on his feet again. "You are ever so sweet as you are."

Grogan blushed.

"My Lady, the enemy could be here at any time," Ke'kan warned. He snapped the needler closed.

Sekhmet tapped the back of her neck. "We have some time yet. Where do we need to go now?"

"Anywhere," Grogan replied. "With you patched into the system, you can turn the shields off and then Captain Kawalsky can pick us up from anywhere on the ship."

"How?"

"Asgard transporter," Grogan replied. "Think of it as an early birthday present."

Lanar laughed, brightly. "Just what I always wanted." She closed her eyes and spoke as Sekhmet again. "The kull warriors are tracking you; I'm going to start venting a few compartments. That should slow even them down."

"The Jaffa?" Ke'kan asked.

"Assembling on the upper decks," Sekhmet announced. "There..." She paused and cocked her head curiously to one side. "Amentiu's pilot is skilled," she commented. "She is trying to shunt command functions to a secondary computer core. I think we had best speed our escape; I will use the ha'tak's holographic carrier waves to summon the Claw."

"Wait," Grogan interrupted. He looked almost embarrassed. "There is something else we have to do."

"Grogan?"

"We made a promise," Ke'kan added.

"Oh dear. Tell me the worst, then."

*

"Imyrta! I demand that you tell me what is happening!"

Imyrta tried to block the nagging voice out and concentrate on the circuitry in the console base. With deft fingers she rearranged the optical tracks and at last the pel'tac came to life again. She sprang up with a cry of triumph and her hands flew over the controls.

"Pilot!"

"My Lord, I have restored basic pel'tac operations," Imyrta reported. "Primary command systems remain unresponsive; I shall attempt to reroute function to the secondary core and..."

An alarm sounded. Obviously, Amentiu heard it also.

"Pilot?"

"Silence that alarm!" Imyrta snapped. "Depressurisation alert, My Lord. Section...Multiple sections on all lower decks, My Lord; half of the ship is open to space and we have lost dozens of kull warriors. Only the upper decks and servants quarters remain unaffected. Why the servant's quarters?" she wondered.

"Because this Sekmet does not kill the innocent," Amentiu replied. "Have the surviving warriors collect a number of servants to travel with and see that a path is cleared for my lo'taurs to reach me. Make that your first priority."

Imyrta sighed. "Yes, My Lord," she agreed. "I will attempt to regain control of the address system and order them to your quarters via ring transport. The local ring controls were isolated from the central computer when the point-to-point transporter was installed, but the rings are still in place." She turned to her co-pilot. "I told you to silence that alarm!"

"I did, My Lady," the Jaffa insisted.

The pilot checked her console. "Oh," she said. "My Lord Amentiu."

"Lady Imyrta?"

"The self-destruct system has been activated, My Lord; the evacuation alarm has sounded. You must come to the pel'tac so that we can initiate the main escape launch."

Amentiu did not reply.

"My Lord?" Imyrta asked again.

Silence was her only response.

Amentiu stripped off his communicator and hurried to the corner of his private quarters. The ring transporters had been unused for almost a year, but the rings themselves had not been touched. He set his coordinates and activated the system.

Lyli and Mya were clearly startled to see their Lord suddenly appear in the disused servants' boarding ring. They leaped to their feet and hurriedly tried to make themselves presentable.

"Quickly!" he snapped. "Come with me!"

"My Lord?" Mya asked.

"She will not harm servants," Amentiu insisted. "Now come."

*

Amy felt the call and let the Claw have her head. "Stand by," she cautioned Djeta. "It is almost time."

"I am ready," the Goa'uld confirmed.

It was with some reluctance that Amy felt the Claw's yearning for her true mistress and released control to Sekhmet. At once, the yacht's pel'tac dissolved around her and she found herself on the control deck of the Claw, lying in the chair with an ache in the back of her neck.

Djeta did not allow the hologram's disappearance to phase her; the signal from the rescue party's homing beacon was strong and it was the work of moments for her to resolve their location and isolate the necessary matter patterns. She activated the transporter.

*

Imyrta checked her internal sensors. The bulk of the Jaffa were making for the escape pods as best they could with so much of the ship depressurised. In fact, several compartments seemed to be re-pressurising to allow their passage. Her own, trusted squads had all retreated to the upper decks, however and now she called for them to come to the very summit of the pyramid ship; to the pel'tac itself and the sacred ground surrounding it.

"Swiftly, Gere'k! There is little time."

With his customary efficiency, the Primus gathered his forces and brought them into forbidden territory; no Jaffa infantryman would ordinarily be permitted to set foot in this hallowed space.

"Are all within?" Imyrta demanded.

"Yes, My Lady. The hatches are sealed behind us."

Imyrta nodded in satisfaction. "Excellent." Decisively, she keyed the launch sequence; Amentiu had not come, but that was his choice. She had discharged her duty.

With a shuddering start, the summit of the pyramid broke away from the rest of the ha'tak. As it launched, the escape ship's systems were automatically cut off from the ha'tak's computer core and all of Imyrta's controls sprang to life once more. Imyrta began the ignition sequence for the main drives.

"My Lady. We have external sensors," the co-pilot reported. "There is..."

As the Jaffa tailed off, Imyrta brought the sensor image to the main screen. There she was, the majestic Claw of Aksos, poised above the emergency shuttle, plasma cannon primed and ready. Warning lights flashed as the Claw's scanners probed the shuttle.

Imyrta's eyes were fixed on the screen, but she was aware of her Primus advancing to her side. "My Lady..." he began, but he stopped. There was nothing he could offer to do that would save her now.

"You have served well," Imyrta told him.

Then the Claw of Aksos...moved away.

"I do not understand," Gere'k admitted.

Imyrta did not understand either, but she had no intention of letting that slow her down. The engines were primed, the escape course pre-programmed into the navigational computers. She touched just one control and the shuttle sprang away into hyperspace.

*

The ring transporters flared once more, depositing Amentiu and his servants in the cockpit of a teltac.

"I know that bitch," Amentiu muttered as he ran through the launch sequence. The doors stood open, ready for any Jaffa on the hangar decks to make their escape. "She will have conditioned those abominations to kill me as punishment for my failure; anything to keep any blame from attaching to her."

The teltac lifted smoothly from the deck, passed through the force-field and flew out into open space.

"No matter. I will find a place to hide for a time; gather my strength for my return. Oh, how I wish I had not killed Sekhmet; an assassin so deadly might have been just the thing to deal with my beloved Lady Lamia once and for all."

"Then it is fortunate for Lady Lamia that you are so lacking in vision," Lyli commented.

"What...?" Amentiu began to turn and Lyli shot him. The zat'nik'tel blast coiled around him and he fell to the deck, pain wracking his limbs.

Lyli stood over him, her weapon raised. Her sister hung back, fear and shock painted across her face.

"If you had only thought for one moment of the power that you held in your hands," Lyli went on. "Fortunately, you were too easily distracted – by Sekhmet herself, by the Justiciar's stupid wife – to understand that the deadliest weapon of Ra's empire was yours to command. If it were not so pathetic it would be laughable."

"Lyli?" Amentiu asked, confounded. "Why?"

"You are a joke, Amentiu," she scoffed. "None should thank me more than you for this."

She squeezed the handle of the zat'nik'tel and the cabin filled with blue light. A moment later, Sekhmet's flagship shot past them and vanished into hyperspace.

Lyli screamed in anger.

"Where did he go?" Mya asked, artlessly. "I thought that it took three shots to disintegrate a target."

Lyli shook her head, despairing of her sister's stupidity. It had never ceased to amuse Lord Osiris that Lyli's twin could be so like her in appearance, motion and demeanour, yet so devoid of the incisive wit which marked Lyli from the crowd. "Never mind, Mya," Lyli said. "Never mind. I will set our course; you...make us some tea."

*

The Sanctuary, Arcadia

Next day

Sekhmet lay in the healing waters of the Arcadian springs, inhaling the mineral-rich fluid and allowing it to bathe her where she lay within her host. The richest of the springs was now buried for all eternity – sealed as the last resting place of the Serpent-Queen Ophesta – but the lesser pools were still soothing to her aching body.

Sensing Amy's approach, she surface and cleared her lungs of water.

"Once more I must thank my hosts," Sekhmet noted. "It can not be easy for them to trust any Goa'uld after so many invasions and deceptions."

"They trust us," Amy assured her. "I must return to the SGC now; you will be free to remain for up to a day without us. Will you be well enough to leave by then?"

"I am well enough now," Sekhmet replied, flexing her wrist. "Even without the sarcophagus I heal fast; it has been good to refresh my body here and strengthen my old bones a little, but I do not need it any more. Has there been word of Ke'kan?"

Amy smiled. "He made his delivery and is returning to Memphis. He will await you there. I have a gift for you, before we go. Well; two gifts, really."

Sekhmet rose from the pool and strode to the shore. Amy handed her a towel.

"Firstly, this."

Sekhmet examined the long, thin device. When she realised what it was, she gasped aloud.

"Your second gift is a sealed envelope which contains a code, which I'm sure I don't have to tell you should not be shared with anyone, with the possible exception of Ke'kan. It's an iris code, designated Long-Term Special Code 9, which means you'll be met by sealed doors and lots of guns, but for a Goa'uld to get one of these is no small thing."

"I understand that," Sekhmet assured her. "Tell your General Hammond that I am touched by his faith in me and in his debt."

"And how many do I owe you, now?" Amy laughed.

"Nothing," Sekhmet replied. "You rescued me from Amentiu, kept my people alive and my ship safe, finished my business on Corana and brought Grogan to Lanar. If anything, I owe you."

"Speaking of Grogan, he's waiting outside to say goodbye."

Sekhmet nodded. "Tell him that Lanar shall be out in a few minutes," she said.

Amy grinned. "I'll be...well out of the way."

"Wait," Sekhmet said. "Before you go, Amy, there are things...There are things that I want to tell you, but I do not know how."

Amy sat down on one of the stone benches. "Whatever it is, you can tell me," she assured Sekhmet. "I know most of your history already; I won't be shocked."

Sekhmet looked awkward. "It is difficult for me," she admitted. "You saved me, Amy; not just from Amentiu but from the sarcophagus as well. There is no other in the universe who speaks to me as you do and, I think, no other who understands me so well. I think..." The warlady tailed off, uncertainly.

"Hey," Amy said, with a supportive smile. "You can tell me. That's what friends are for."

"Friends?" Sekhmet asked. "Friends," she repeated, rolling the word around inside her mouth, tasting it.

"Yes, Sekhmet," Amy laughed. "Friends. Isn't that what we are?"

"Is it?"

"Well I thought so," Amy replied.

Sekhmet brightened, her eyes widening in realisation. "Yes," she agreed. "Yes, Amy, we are friends."

"So...What did you want to tell me?" Amy asked.

"That we are friends," Sekhmet said, delighted. "We are friends."

Amy was baffled. "What was so difficult about that?"

"I had no idea how to say it," Sekhmet replied. "I have never had a friend before; nor had Lanar. It is a pleasant thing, is it not."

"Yes," Amy chuckled. "Yes, it is."

Sekhmet hugged Amy tightly. "I will miss you, Amy; I trust we shall meet again soon."

"I hope so," Amy replied. "Truly, I do."

Grogan fidgeted as he waited. The idea of facing Sekhmet made him nervous; he still could not find it in him to care for her as he did for her host and the fact that she must necessarily be a part of their relationship – if there was to be a relationship – disturbed him. When she emerged, his heart sank to see that Sekhmet was in control.

"I...Captain Kawalsky said that Lanar..." he began.

"She will be," Sekhmet promised, "but I wanted to speak with you first."

"Oh."

"I do not disapprove of you," Sekhmet assured him. "Even Ke'kan does not disapprove of you now; in fact, he speaks very highly of you."

"Yes," Grogan agreed. "He gave me this." He fished in his pocket and produced a long, curved claw.

Sekhmet looked impressed. "A cave bear's claw. You saved his life, then?" A flicker of envy crossed her face. "He has never given me a cave bear's claw."

"Well, I'd give you this one, but I don't think he'd be very happy with that."

"No, he'd probably tear your head off to avenge the dishonour," Sekhmet agreed. "I would be very upset if that were to happen."

"You would, or Lanar would?"

"I would be upset," Sekhmet assured him. She brushed his face with the back of her hand. "Lanar would be devastated. You are not going to abandon her." It was not a question.

"I hope this isn't going to be difficult," Grogan admitted.

"As do I," she agreed. "There is just one thing, before I leave you and Lanar to your farewells."

"Yes, Sekhmet?"

The warlady laid an arm across Grogan's shoulders. "I have lived for a long, long time, Grogan," she said. "For my host's sake if nothing else, I thought that I might give you a few ‘pointers'."

"Oh good God!" Grogan gasped.

"Yes," Sekhmet agreed, "that is what my worshippers used to think."

*

Cyrene

The Cyrene sun was a vast, angry red star, giving too little light or heat for any of the planets in the system to support life. Once it had not been so, but the experiments of the Goa'uld Lamia had accelerated the star's death. In the space of a few short millennia, a small, bright yellow sun, much like that of Earth, had expanded into a red giant, consuming the two innermost planets of the system and leaving the others to freeze. Failing to restore life to the system, Lamia had retreated to her research station and abandoned an entire ecosystem to a doom of her making.

Amentiu's yacht emerged from hyperspace and set a course for the station. Since Lamia had abandoned the surface of her homeworld, the station had expanded until it was the size of a large city and sprawled in all directions from the central hub. Lyli set a course for the landing pad close to the station's arbitrary North Pole and hailed the command centre at the hub. In the co-pilot's seat, Mya trembled.

Thrust into the melee of Goa'uld politics in the body of a female archaeologist, Osiris had swiftly learned the advantages of going unregarded. As a woman, she had been underestimated by dozens of minor lords and they had paid with their lives. To take full advantage of this phenomenon, she had gathered a cadre of handmaidens and trained them as bodyguards, spies, counter-spies, agitators and assassins. Lyli had been one of the finest agents in this élite company when they had passed into the command of Lady Lamia on Osiris' death; Mya, however, was an unremarkable woman, possessed of no extraordinary talents beyond her beauty and an ability to mix Tau'ri cocktails that was unparalleled in the Goa'uld Empire. The latter did not carry the same cachet with Lamia as it had with Osiris.

Lyli turned her seat to face the holographic display. The slim, dark figure of Lamia appeared before her assassin, majestic in her simple, dark robes.

"My Lady," Lyli said, slipping from the seat and genuflecting. Mya bowed down beside her.

"Lyli," Lamia replied. "I understand from your message that the mission has been an absolute disaster."

Lyli kneeled up to face her mistress, her hands folded across her chest in supplication. Mya, not having the lady's favour, kept her face pressed to the floor.

"Yes, My Lady," Lyli replied, apologetically. "The younger Sekhmet was eliminated, but the elder remains at large. One yacht and one ha'tak vessel were destroyed, over three dozen kull warriors were lost and the Wadjet fleet now has access to Asgard transporter technology. I believe that the survivors of the ha'tak vessel are heading here in an escape shuttle, but this yacht will have outpaced them."

"Hopefully there will be something there to salvage," Lamia sighed. "And Lord Amentiu?"

"Taken by the enemy," Lyli replied. "We presume him to have been killed."

Lamia shrugged. "Every cloud has a silver lining, as Lord Osiris would have said. And we do have the genetic sample of the younger Sekhmet's blood."

"More than that, My Lady," Lyli added. "Mya also managed to obtain a blood sample from the elder Sekhmet." She reached down and stroked her sister's hair. "She almost paid dearly for her initiative."

"Poor Mya," Lamia chuckled, coolly. "It would have been a tragedy for the universe had been denied her Singapore Sling."

"I believe that Lord Osiris once said much the same thing," Lyli replied, protectively, although of course Osiris had been lauding Mya's Long Island Iced Tea. Lyli reached into one of the hidden pockets of her robe and produced the vial of blood. "And it was my bold sister who was able to obtain this sample under Amentiu's very nose. To my shame, I confess that I took her to task for disturbing the prisoner."

"Well, perhaps for once she has earned her keep. If our friends can only make good on their promise we shall have the blood of all three Sekhmets to seed the next generation of Lord Anubis' warriors. Bring the vial to my laboratory. You shall be rewarded, my dear ones."

Lyli bowed low once more. "We live to serve, My Lady."

When she lifted her head once more, the image of the lady was gone.

*

Svalbard

Amentiu woke, slowly, with an ache in his head and a dim memory of Sekhmet's great fist sweeping towards him with appalling force. He lay on soft furs, surrounded by the warmth and flickering light of a flame unquenchable. As he sat up, he saw that the Goa'uld brazier had been set up in the middle of a makeshift living chamber and that, although he was surrounded by the trappings of luxury, he was lying in a rough-hewn cave.

"Where am I?" he asked, to whoever might be listening.

With a bright flash of light, a figure appeared, a powerful human in rough hides and chain mail; in his hand he held a short-handled warhammer. Amentiu leaped to his feet as the figure spoke.

"I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet. The High Council of the Asgard has designated Svalbard a safe world for developing sentient species, by unanimous decree era 40.73.29. The Goa'uld System Lords were so informed. You were warned not to come here, under pain of death.

"For the crimes against the living host and all those you have murdered and enslaved, the sentence is death. This is your prison. Your technology will not function here. There are no luxuries..."

"That at least seems untrue," Amentiu muttered.

"...no worshippers, no slaves to do your bidding. Only basic sustenance and time. When you tire of this existence, go to the Hall of Mjollnir and face the Hammer. There is no escape. Only the host may leave this place alive."

Amentiu groaned. "Oh, such indignity. To languish in the prison of an impotent, near-dead race!"

The sound of hurrying feet caused Amentiu to turn and see a woman enter the cavern from a stone passageway.

"My Lord!" Lady Djeta exclaimed. "You have awoken."

"Djeta?" Amentiu asked. "What brings us here?"

"It is a gift," Djeta replied. "I have saved you, My beloved Lord."

"Oh gods."

"We shall be together here forever!" Djeta declared.

Amentiu sat down, hard. "And where is this Hall of Mjollnir?" he wondered.