SG-7 in White as Snow

Complete
Action/Adventure, Drama
Set in Season 8

Disclaimers:

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

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

Author's Notes:

Danica, Djanka...I'm sorry, okay. This is just what happens when you bring back characters from separate stories.

Acknowledgements:

Many thanks to Sho, the British Rail of beta readers.

SG-7 in Kalshek'tak: White as Snow

P9Z-138

Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Ferretti looked about as the Stargate closed behind him and he shivered, despite the insulation of his Omega suit. "Did I miss something?" he asked. "When did they put a Gate up in Alaska?" Ahead of him, the landscape was blanketed in thick, white snow and dominated by a mass of large and densely-packed conifers. The Gate was sited in a clearing, some fifty feet across.

Lieutenant Alexa Rasputin took a step forward. "Nice weather," she commented.

Ferretti supposed that it might be, if you had been born in Siberia. He turned his attention to the nearest trees. "I'm no botanist, but these look like some sort of relative of the giant redwood."

"How can you tell?" Lieutenant Roberts drawled.

"Well the fact that they're huge and red was my first clue," Ferretti admitted. "Roberts, Rasputin, spread out and give me a fifty yard sweep. I know the MALP says no active Scourge transmissions, but I'm not taking any chances."

"Pine forests," Sergeant Pearson mused. "That's probably a good sign."

Ferretti turned to face the younger man. "How so?"

"Well, pines are hardy trees," Pearson replied, "but vegetation on this scale could never grow on a world leached by The Scourge. For these trees to grow, there can't have been large-scale Scourge activity in over a millennium."

"Cool," Ferretti said. "Merlyn; where's our target in all this?"

"Eight miles, bearing eighteen degrees," Captain Lloyd replied, checking her Gate compass. Given the unreliable nature of alien planetary magnetic fields, SG teams reckoned all of their bearings from a planet's Stargate. In order to accommodate this system, the SGC had developed the Gate compass, based on a Goa'uld homing device used to locate the Gate itself. "We can't see the abandoned fortress from here, but it should be just below that black peak." She levelled a finger to point at a single black spine that rose up in the midst of a range of blue-tinged, snow-capped mountains.

"What did Roberts call it?" Ferretti asked.

Merlyn chuckled. "He said it looked 'like a corrupted tooth in the jaw of a colossal, geologic wolf', Sir," she replied.

"Sometimes I wonder if he's not just putting it on," Ferretti admitted.

"Why is there no snow on it?" Pearson asked, rhetorically.

"Ask me tomorrow," Ferretti suggested. "Or better yet, I'll ask you. We're sure there was a Scourge presence here?" he asked Merlyn.

"We believe so," Merlyn replied. "When Tamira's mother emerged from the temple ruins on Yeth she wrote down everything she could remember from being inside the war machine. Her kin did not know what she was writing, but at least a part of it was a directory of Gate addresses. As near as we can make out, these are known Scourge worlds, to be contacted in the event of a rising. We've done some initial surveying and now we're checking out the worlds where The Scourge seems most dormant."

"What about the worlds where it's awake already?" Ferretti asked, warily.

"It isn't, but if a world is still a source of significant control signals, we put the address to the back of the list and slate it for exploration once we've developed better weapons to use against the Scourge."

The team's radios crackled into life and Roberts spoke. "Seven-niner."

"Go ahead, Seven-three," Ferretti replied.

"We are not alone."

Roberts was waiting on the eave of the forest. "There," he said, as Ferretti approached. He pointed to the ground and a disturbance in the snow. "It must have snowed since they came through and covered up the tracks back in the Gate clearing."

Ferretti bent and examined the impression of a foot, smooth-edged and spur-soled; a hob-nailed, metal boot. "Jaffa," he sighed. "How many?"

"As few as three, as many as seven," Roberts replied. "Heavy armour, probably élite guards to judge by the damage to the branches overhead."

"Branches overhead?" Merlyn asked.

Ferretti reached up and tugged on a snapped twig, some six feet above the forest floor. Merlyn could see that there were many other instances of such damage.

"You don't crack that many sticks with your head unless you're wearing a protective helmet with a limited field of vision," Ferretti explained. He lifted his radio. "Seven-five; code amber. Rendezvous at twenty-two on the clearing's edge, at the double."

"Affirmative," the young Russian replied.

"Threat assessment?" Ferretti asked.

"Return to the SGC and return with reinforcements," Roberts advised. "Seven Jaffa, even elites, isn't beyond the five of us, but this place obviously gets a lot of snow; a whole company could have been through here in the past week and we wouldn't know until it was too late."

Ferretti nodded. "Captain?"

"Part of me agrees with Roberts," Merlyn admitted, "but there's a more pressing concern. If there's a Goa'uld here, then they may be looking for the same things we are. We have to be sure."

Lieutenant Rasputin crashed through the edge of the forest at breakneck speed. Her feet slithered on the snow and she barrelled into Ferretti, who caught hold of her and steadied her.

"I said at the double, Rasputin, not sprint!" he accused.

"Gate opening!" Rasputin gasped.

Ferretti swore. "If that's more Jaffa," he said, ominously.

"Our tracks will lead them straight to us," Roberts agreed.

Merlyn nodded. "And the MALP will tell them exactly who we are."

"Alright," Ferretti decided. "Onward we go. Roberts on point; follow the trail. Let's make sure we at least know where the Jaffa in front of us are."

SG-7 plunged on into the forest. They moved as quietly as they could, but there was no hope of their going untraced by the newcomers. Even when it began to snow once more, there was little chance that the fall would be heavy enough.

"Of course, if they weren't Jaffa, we're going to look like idiots," Ferretti noted during a brief pause. He had sent the lieutenants to reconnoitre again, Roberts to the front, Rasputin to the back.

"They were Jaffa," Pearson confirmed. He held up his SGC issue palmtop computer; slightly smaller than an airport paperback and more processing power than a Swiss bank. "I accessed the MALP camera controls and..."

Pearson activated the playback. Ferretti watched as almost three-dozen Jaffa warriors emerged from the Stargate. They wore black armour, but their tattoos and helmets were not in shot.

"I apologise for the limited view," Pearson said, "but I was trying to direct the camera on the run."

"They were carrying something," Merlyn noted. Indeed, the Jaffa were bearing eight litters, on each of which lay a long, black capsule like a high-tech coffin. "I wonder, is this a burial world."

"If so, we might be in luck," Pearson suggested.

"Or out of it," the captain returned. "It's rarely good to assume you'll be welcome on holy ground."

"Well, be that as it may I have good news and bad news," Alexa announced as she approached. "The good news is that they are not following us."

"And the bad news?" Ferretti asked.

"They are not following us. If they were, we could double back and maybe get to the Gate; as it is, I think they must be settling in at the clearing."

"There's more good news/bad news, I'm afraid," Roberts announced.

"Dyow!" Ferretti snapped. "Cough when you come back into camp, lieutenant."

"Sorry, Sir," Roberts replied. "There's a firefight going on up ahead," he reported. "The Jaffa are fighting someone; I can hear staff blasts."

"And the bad news?"

"We're on a Scourge world."

"Da...rn it. Alright, full Omega; lock 'em down." Even as he spoke, he reached up and snapped closed the seals on the collar of his Omega suit. The helmet responded automatically and extruded the mimetic faceplate from its housing. Ferretti had wanted Area-51 to provide them with Omega helmets that collapsed entirely into the suit's collar, but apparently such mastery of Goa'uld mimetic engineering was not a priority at present, however cool it might look.

With practiced ease, the team checked each other's seals and made fine adjustments to the balance of their helmets.

"Roberts, you take point again," Ferretti ordered. "Let's find out what..." He broke off as a familiar sound cut through the chill air of P9Z-138.

"Shotgun!" Roberts announced.

"Home team," Ferretti said. If there was a shotgun on this planet then past experience said that it must belong to a stranded SG team. "I don't know how, but...Move out! At the double. I think someone needs our help."

*

Roberts led the team up a small ridge at the base of a mountain spur. He had more training in this kind of work even than his CO and besides, the rifle component of his M181 Specialist Combat Weapon was better designed for sharpshooting than the MPX. Cautiously, he raised his head to peer over the ridge. He ducked back down and turned to the team.

"Well?" Ferretti asked.

"Jaffa vs. Jaffa," Roberts replied. "They're pretty well occupied," he added, motioning for the rest of the team to join him.

Ferretti frowned, but moved forward with the others. Soon, all five were looking down into a clearing that was bounded by two ridges, the one from which they watched and another, lower one opposite. The ground was rocky and large boulders gave cover to the two groups of Jaffa who sent blast after blast of plasma hissing through the falling snow.

One group – the smaller of the two – were defending a narrow pass which led up into the mountains. Ferretti guessed that it probably wound its way up towards the black peak and the fortress at its foot. So much for 'abandoned'. This group were clad in white armour; brilliant, bone-white armour that would have been a camouflage disaster anywhere but here. Their leader wore a helmet in the shape of a skull. The second group, the aggressors, had almost twice the defenders' numbers. They wore the same black armour as the new arrivals at the Stargate and the élite who led the assault also wore skull helms.

"Skull Guards," Ferretti murmured. "The élite warriors of Czernobog."

"The Goa'uld who abducted Colonel O'Neill?" Merlyn asked.

"The late and unlamented. Someone must have taken over his domains and armies. I'm not sure about the others."

"Same armour, different colour," Merlyn noted. "Maybe a breakaway faction under a different lord, or..."

"Phantoms," Alexa said, in a voice that was as cold as ice.

"Lieutenant?" Ferretti asked.

"They are the Phantom Guard," she whispered. "The élite in the service of Byelobog; the late and most thoroughly unlamented."

Ferretti winced. "Byelobog," he echoed. "The one who...Are you alright, Rasputin?"

"I am well, Sir," she assured him. "You may rely on me."

"Good." Ferretti nodded, satisfied. "What about that shotgun?"

"The leader of the Phantoms carries it," Alexa explained. "She...took it from a Russian Spetznaz team who were killed on assignment."

"She?" Ferretti asked. "I only see one élite and he doesn't have a shotgun."

"I...I saw her a moment ago," Alexa offered, weakly.

"I see her," Roberts said. "Opposite ridge, eleven o'clock."

Ferretti looked and, after a moment, saw what Roberts had seen. A small group of Phantoms, all skull-helmed, were moving along the ridge, seemingly as insubstantial as their namesake against the background and the snowfall. Even as Ferretti spotted them, three of the Phantoms broke into a run down the ridge towards the Skull Guards' flank, while four more opened up with their staff weapons.

The Skull Guards were taken utterly by surprise. Half-blinded by snow, they fired wildly at the immediate attackers and barely noticed the others until they were among them. Now the shotgun – as Alexa had said, a Spetznaz issue RMB-93 – spoke again and a Skull Guard fell, while plasma blasts tore into the more lightly armoured Jaffa. Ferretti counted only a single black-armoured élite remaining but that one fought valiantly, firing wildly to keep his enemy away from a black capsule, just like those which had been brought through the Gate.

"Impressive tactics," Roberts mused.

"Not your standard Jaffa performance," Ferretti agreed.

"What is in that case?" Merlyn wondered. "A Goa'uld, perhaps. Do you think it could be a form of sarcophagus?"

With the attention of the officers on the battle, it was Sergeant Pearson who first noticed that there was something wrong with Lieutenant Rasputin. She had a hand pressed to her faceplate, as though trying to push through the helmet to clutch at her head.

"Ma'am?" Pearson asked, warily.

"We have to leave," Alexa hissed. "There's a ship coming. We have to..."

In the clearing, the last Skull Guard fell. The Phantom with the shotgun moved forward and crouched beside the casket. A few moments later, she and her warriors were fleeing back towards the Phantom lines.

"Fire in the hole!" Roberts warned.

The three officers ducked their heads down as a brilliant flash lit the clearing. When they looked back, the casket was gone, only a smouldering hole and a few twisted metal fragments remaining.

"Score one for the boys and girls in white," Ferretti said.

"Looks like the black team are out to even the score," Merlyn suggested.

As the smoke from the detonation cleared, another group of Skull Guards and their subordinate Jaffa were emerging from the edge of the forest. A brilliant flash lit the clearing and left many of them unconscious or disoriented.

"What was that?" Ferretti demanded, blinking furiously to clear his head.

"Shock mine," Pearson replied. "Luckily the filters in your faceplate will have protected you, otherwise you would have been blinded, even at this range. Colonel, Lieutenant Rasputin says there's a Goa'uld ship approaching and we have to leave."

"Is that an option?" Ferretti asked. "It looks as though the reinforcements from the Gate have moved up at last."

Pearson grimaced. "Sorry, Sir," he said, holding out the palmtop.

"They really are digging in," Ferretti said. "Roberts, how many do you reckon?"

"At least fifty," Roberts replied, studying the image. "Probably more. Looks like they've moved in some portable air defence as well. I guess Alexa's incoming isn't on their side."

Even as he spoke, a bright glow flickered from earth to sky like lightning in reverse. Once, twice, three times the weapon fired.

"I think you're right," Merlyn agreed.

"Czernobog's successor probably can't bring anyone in by ship," Pearson noted. "We're a long way from his old territories."

"We have to get away," Alexa said. Her eyes were haunted. "They will find us otherwise."

Ferretti shook his head. "Not in this snow," he said, reassuringly. "We'll find a place to camp tonight and in the morning we'll scout the Gate. Let's hurry; it's getting dark and I don't much like the idea of being out in this weather when the sun goes down."

*

Ferretti assigned three watches for the night and took the first himself. Alexa was not assigned, but she sat up, unable to sleep. After a short while, she crossed to sit next to her CO.

"Something on your mind, lieutenant?" Ferretti asked.

"Yes, Sir."

"I'm not a counsellor, Rasputin, but I'm here if you need someone to listen."

Alexa hung her head. "It's not like that, Sir," she said. "There is something that I have to tell you; something that could affect our safety on this planet. I have never told anyone this, but there is something missing from my report on the failed mission to Byelobog's naquadah mines."

Ferretti looked at her. "Does this have anything to do with why you know so much about the Phantom Guards?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir."

Ferretti nodded and turned his face out into the darkness again. "Does it have anything to do with the fact that you lied to me earlier."

Alexa hung her head. "Yes, Sir," she whispered. "I did not know you had realised."

"Took me a while. You've never lied to me before and I didn't recognise it at first."

"I'm sorry," Alexa whispered.

"So what did you need to..."

Ferretti broke off as Alexa stood bolt upright and lifted her MPX to her shoulder. He was on his feet in a moment, standing beside her.

"What is it?" he asked.

"There's something out there," Alexa said. She was breathing hard and fast, her voice betraying a barely contained panic. "A presence; or maybe more than one."

Ferretti moved back and nudged the frame of Pearson's tent with his foot. The Sergeant woke and stuck his head out of the flap with a grunt of annoyance, but swiftly registered his commander's urgency and struggled out of his bedroll.

"Get the others," Ferretti whispered. "Quickly."

"Sir," Pearson agreed. After a brief pause as he reaffixed his helmet, he emerged from the tent and headed first for the tent which Lieutenant Rasputin would have been sharing with Merlyn. By the time he had communicated the need to rise to the Captain, Lieutenant Roberts was already up of his own accord.

"Tell me more," Ferretti prompted Rasputin. "What kind of presence? Scourge? Something like Nodens?"

Alexa shivered. "Nothing that powerful," she assured him. "But stronger than a human mind and hard; something cold and dark, just like the forest. It...They are sending out their thoughts and emotions in waves. I can not get the sense of words, just impressions. I can tell you that whatever they are, they are violent, alien – almost as alien as The Scourge – and hungry. Above all else, they are hungry."

"Oh, whacko," Ferretti muttered.

"And they are coming for us," Rasputin added.

"Sensational." Ferretti raised his fist and motioned for his team to take up defensive positions.

Moments later, a figure burst out of the darkness at incredible speed. It was dressed in black and raven hair flowed out behind it; Ferretti had a brief impression of a pale face, red lips and huge, dark eyes, before instinct took over and he fired on the attacker. Alexa fired also and the creature halted under the hail of bullets.

The firing stopped. The creature – the man, although his body was more slender and his features more angular than any human Ferretti had ever seen – examined the ruin of his chest with an expression of mild annoyance. Then he looked up and snarled.

"Eyes!" Roberts barked, swinging his M181 over and levelling it between Ferretti and Alexa. They averted their gazes as an incandescent stream of superheated plasma, hotter than a staff blast, stabbed out and engulfed the attacker.

The creature gave a hideous scream and ran, still aflame, back into the forest.

There was a moment of stillness, then Ferretti and Alexa moved as one to reload their MPXs. "I don't like people who are bullet-proof," Ferretti muttered.

"We hit him," Alexa said, with certainty. "We hurt him. I saw the blood, but it hardly phased him."

"You said 'they'," Ferretti reminded her. "Are there others out there?"

"Yes," Alexa replied, with certainty. "But they are all in the same direction for now.

"We're too exposed here," Ferretti decided. "Go to night vision; lights out. Fall back to the mountainside where we can try to create a kill zone. Roberts on the six and move like...Like that was behind us. Go."

They went, running in darkness with the light intensifying circuits in their faceplates throwing the scene into a sharp false-contrast. Roberts, at the rear, could hear the sounds of pursuit and knew that the enemy were faster than SG-7; they were trying to force them in a particular direction.

"Colonel!" he called. "We're being herded."

Ferretti paused for a moment. "Any better ideas?" he asked Roberts.

"No, Sir," Roberts admitted.

"You take point then, Roberts. See if you can cut us through with that lance."

"Sir."

The team ran on, more slowly, but still too fast as it turned out. Even Roberts did not spot the shock mine until its proximity sensors had fired and the grenade sprang high into the air. Roberts' reflexes were good enough to turn away and, between that and the protection of his helmet, he was only dazed by the flash and the squeal. The rest of the team were less fortunate.

"Damnit!" Roberts snarled. He quashed the impulse to apologise for his language, as Merlyn was unconscious. He squinted through his visor, trying to see something other than the white blobs left by the reflected light from the shock grenade. His head was swimming and his limbs felt wobbly; he barely had the strength to lift his weapon to his shoulder.

Somewhere in the distance he heard a deep, booming noise that might have been hunting horns, which was cut off very suddenly.

A dark shape moved at the edge of Roberts' vision; he turned and fired at it. The barely human scream sounded very far away and the distortion. Everything seemed distant although, when something slammed hard into his shoulder, the pain was surprisingly immediate.

Roberts fell onto his back and his assailant loomed over him, battering the rifle aside. Through the blur, through the blobs of colour and the pain, Roberts could just about make out a face. The attacker was a woman, beautiful but cold; pale-skinned, raven-haired, her eyes burning like red-hot coals in snow, her mouth a crimson slash across her ashen features and her teeth...Good God, those teeth. She gave a low hiss and bent towards Roberts.

For a moment, Roberts genuinely thought that he was about to die, then the air was filled with the hiss and sizzling of staff blasts through falling snow. The monstrous woman vanished from his view.

Although a squadron of Jaffa were not quite the cavalry, Roberts decided that they would have to be good enough. He closed his eyes and passed out.

*

Merlyn woke to darkness, complete and impenetrable. She reached for her flashlight and found that her Omega suit was missing. She was wearing some form of gown; the material was cool to the touch and felt like silk. Alarmed, she sat up too fast and felt dizzy; she put out a hand for support but found nothing. She started to fall, but strong hands caught her. Merlyn tried to struggle, but the hands held her with an unmistakable efficiency.

"Roberts?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the lieutenant replied. He set his superior officer upright, steadied her and then let go of her arms. "Your eyesight should return before too long."

"Shock grenade?" she asked.

She sensed movement beside her, then Roberts said: "Yes. I'm sorry; a nod isn't going to mean much to you at the moment."

"I take it you can still see. Why is that?"

"Pure and undeserved good luck, Ma'am," Roberts assured her. "It was a bouncer, so it went off behind me. I was out, but only for about half-an-hour."

Merlyn shook her head in amusement, almost explained what she was doing and then remembered that it was unnecessary. "Without wishing to sound like a cliché; where are we and...what are we wearing?"

"We're in a room," Roberts replied. "Large and mostly bare, decorated almost entirely in white, but quite cosy for all that. I guess we're in the fortress, which is less abandoned than advertised. I can see daylight through the windows, but no view since they're all thirty feet above us. I guess they don't want us leaving that way. You're wearing a rather fetching safaran in red and silver, over a white blouse, with a yellow, silk belt and silver slippers."

Merlyn put her hand to her throat.

"Oh, yes, and a triple string of pearls that would cost about as much as my house back on Earth."

"And what's a safaran?" Merlyn asked.

"A sleeveless dress," Roberts explained.

Merlyn smiled. "So are you wearing a safaran?" she asked.

"No," Roberts said, patiently. "The Colonel, Pearson and I have been dressed in gold-embroidered kaftan coats over white, Russian trousers and long, black leather riding boots. Very flash; no expense spared, apparently. My kaftan is green, the Colonel's is white and the Sergeant's is a sort of beige; mine at least is a good enough fit to feel tailored."

"I'm sure I'll see for myself soon enough," Merlyn noted. "Everything is grey instead of black, now." She paused for a moment. "What about Lieutenant Rasputin?" she asked.

"Ah," Roberts breathed. "Alexa seems to have deserved special attention. Her safaran is blue, embroidered in silver and gold and a lot more elaborate than yours. She's wearing some kind of tiara with a headdress and two rings on each hand, as well as a pearl necklace and earrings. The rest of us are decked out like the lower ranks of the Tsarist Russian nobility; she looks more like a princess."

"I really meant was she here," Merlyn assured the lieutenant in a wry tone.

Roberts chuckled. "I know. Ah; I think the Colonel is waking up."

Gradually, the remaining members of SG-7 rose from the depths of unconsciousness. For the most part, they were concerned by their capture but not overly discomforted, but Alexa seemed on the verge of panic. The first thing she did upon gathering her bearings was snatch off the headdress and divest herself of the jewellery which marked her out from the rest of her team.

"What's eating you?" Ferretti asked.

"Sir?"

"Something's bugging you, Rasputin; I don't need to be able to see to be able to see...that."

"The Scourge," Alexa admitted. "They are here, underneath the fortress."

Merlyn looked towards the blue blur that was the lieutenant. "Are they still dormant?"

"No," Alexa replied. "Not dormant, but...contained. There is something here, older than the fortress, but more recent than The Scourge. It keeps them down, but it is weakening and they sense that there are other minds searching for them; the minds that pursued us in the forest."

"The upirbi," Roberts said.

Alexa's blind eyes turned sharply towards Roberts and she spoke quickly in Russian. Even Merlyn could only catch a few words, but she was certain that Rasputin was issuing a knee-jerk dismissal of Roberts' words.

"I am not a fool," Roberts replied, levelly, "and I know what I saw."

"It is impossible," Alexa insisted. "A myth; nothing more than that."

"So is ESP," Ferretti reminded her. "Now can one of you tell us what an Oo-PB is?"

Roberts sighed. "Upirbi is another word for a vampire," he admitted. "Pale skin and burning eyes; superhuman vigour, impervious to the cold and invulnerable to steel or lead. Maybe they aren't actually the animated corpses of sinners, but I can't think of a better word for them."

"I can," Merlyn assured him.

"Captain?" Ferretti prompted.

"The word is kalshek'tak," she said. "It's..." she hesitated, before continuing: "It's Goa'uld for upirbi."

Ferretti gave a slightly desperate laugh. "This just gets better and better. So we're caught between The Scourge and the undead now?"

"Looks that way," Merlyn agreed. "On the upside, I think my vision has pretty much cleared."

"Speculation," Ferretti invited. "Why does that fang gang out there want to get in here?"

"I think they must be with the Skull Guards," Pearson suggested.

Ferretti groaned. "Please don't tell me that's what they brought in their coffins?"

"Every myth that concerns the Goa'uld has a grain of truth in it," Merlyn reminded her commander. "If we assume the same of the kalshek'tak, that they have some sensitivity, or even vulnerability, to sunlight, an armoured capsule would be a good way to travel; especially if it incorporated the functions of a sarcophagus."

"And there was certainly something in there that the Phantoms were eager to destroy," Pearson added. "There's only one other instance of an SG team encountering a reputed kalshek'tak and that's in the files relating to UA1763; the Jolly Green Space Gun. I've studied the files on that artefact thoroughly and Czernobog's Queen was said to have a kalshek'tak host. I'm also convinced that, despite superficial similarities to other pre-Ancient designs, the weapon itself was in fact of Scourge origin."

"So," Ferretti reasoned, "this Queen..."

"Djanka," Merlyn supplied.

"This Queen Djanka is using a six pack of vampires and her SO's army to try and get a new Scourge toy to play with. What about the Phantoms?"

"Caught in the middle," Alexa said, with absolute conviction. "She isn't interested in The Scourge. If she's even sensed them then she wouldn't..." she broke off, awkwardly.

"There was something you were going to tell me, Rasputin," Ferretti reminded her.

With a clank of heavy locks, the door to the room opened. By now, all of the members of SG-7 had recovered their eyesight enough to see that the woman who entered was no warrior. She was slight and lovely, the model of a Goa'uld's handmaiden. She had fair skin, her long hair was so blonde it was almost white and her eyes were the palest blue-grey imaginable. As though to make up for the absence of colour in herself, the woman was dressed in a riot of colours. Her safaran was red and decorated with gold and silver embroidery; fine, gold settings held rubies, sapphires and emeralds glittering at her throat and in her ears.

She smiled at the sight of the team and curtseyed low before them. "Welcome," she said. Her voice was clear and light, but her eyes betrayed a hint of frailty. "I am the Chatelaine of the Lady Danica, and you are honoured guests in the house of my mistress. You may call me the Ghost, if you wish."

"Are honoured guests usually stripped and disarmed?" Ferretti asked, dryly.

"Your weapons will be returned to you if you wish it, Lieutenant-Colonel," she assured him. "Your clothes were changed simply because they were soiled and damp...and because they seemed inappropriate either for sleep or for a formal audience. However, all will be returned at your request and you are free to leave at any time, once you have attended on my mistress, of course. The Lady Danica Vasilisevna is most anxious to meet with you all."

"She didn't get on with her father, I take it?" Roberts asked.

Ferretti raised a questioning eyebrow. "Lieutenant?"

"Vasilisevna is a matronymic," Roberts explained.

"My mistress takes her name not from her father or mother, but from her host," the Ghost explained. "Vasilisa..."

"Vasiliovna Rasputina," Alexa finished. Her eyes were closed and brimming with tears, but with her gifts she could feel the astonishment, dawning horror and disappointment of her team mates without having to look at them. "I am sorry, Colonel," she whispered. "I am so, so sorry."

The Ghost took a handkerchief from her sleeve and approached Alexa. "Please do not cry, Alexa Vasilisovna," she begged, dabbing at the tears.

Ferretti felt as though he had been stabbed in the gut. "What...?" he began, but got no further. "Alright," he agreed, at last. "I suppose we had better meet your mistress then."

*

"I lied in my report," Alexa explained. They were following the Ghost through the marble-walled, scarlet-carpeted corridors of the fortress and even with her extrasensory abilities, Alexa could not be sure that any of her team were listening, let alone cared. Nonetheless, she felt that she had to explain, before it all came out anyway.

"I said that my sister was killed by Byelobog, and she was; as was I. We were both killed several times and revived in the sarcophagus. He had never seen anything like our connection and he wanted to know what affect it would have on us to feel the other's death. But Vasilisa was not dead when I left Byelobog's custody. The fate that he had in mind for us was far crueller. He planned to use me as his new host, to control my powers by controlling my body. In order to be sure that there was no risk to him in trying to master a gifted mind, he allowed his newly-matured daughter to infest my sister.

"His plan backfired. Vasilisa did influence Danica and as a result, Danica killed her father and set me free. I would not go with her, although she asked it of me, and I returned to Earth. Always, however, I have been aware that my sister's mind is still present in the corners of my consciousness, and that Danica is always there with her. If I let my guard down too far, if I tried to reach for Vasilisa, Danica would have seen into my mind. I do not think that her control of Vasilisa's abilities is sufficient to probe my mind while my defences are strong, but she must have sensed my presence on this world and sent her Phantoms to find me."

There was a long pause.

"Good thing, too," Ferretti said at last.

"Sir?"

Ferretti's eyes were like flints. "Don't get me wrong, Rasputin. We are going to have a much longer talk about this, but for now I'm grateful to be here and not out there with the OTDs."

"Yes, Sir. I'm sorry, Colonel, really I am. I didn't want to let you down, but it gets very difficult to go back on a lie once you've told it. I didn't think that she had learned anything from me, but I suppose she must have done, if she knows who you are."

Ferretti smiled, reassuringly, although the expression was a fragile façade over his inner turmoil. "It may not say Colonel anywhere on my uniform, but I do wear dog tags and somebody undressed me."

Alexa gave a thin smile. "I just hope that it was the Ghost and not one of the guards who changed my clothes."

"What's her story?" Roberts asked. "Most Goa'uld slaves I ever met were either alarmingly chipper about their lot or mired in flagellatory self-hatred and resentment. She looks as though a harsh word would scatter her to the winds."

"Her mind and body were abused by Byelobog," Alexa replied. "He used..." She fell silent as the group reached a pair of high doors, carved from white marble.

Two of the Phantom Guards stood to attention beside the portal and at a signal from the Ghost they grasped the ivory handles and pulled the doors wide open. The Ghost strode forward, leading SG-7 into a magnificent, vaulted throne room which featured some of the most eccentric interior décor ever to grace a Goa'uld's lair.

The room was lit through a huge, crystal skylight dome, almost sixty feet above the floor. The walls of the chamber were pure white, but they hung with rugs and tapestries of a thousand hues. Directly ahead of the doors, a great throne of dark mahogany stood on a marble dais. A crimson carpet spilled down the steps and across the floor and the throne itself, the smaller chairs which flanked it and the surrounding platform were all-but smothered in brightly-coloured cushions and dark, fur throws. Long, silken banners hung from the rafters, some black, some blue, some red, and all bearing the same yellow sunburst design that adorned the foreheads of the Jaffa.

"Someone changed their mind about the all-white scheme," Pearson noted.

Whoever had made that decision, they had apparently also eschewed the use of the throne. The Ghost led SG-7 straight past the dais and on through a smaller door at the back of the chamber. This led them into a small, cosy parlour, where a fire blazed in a marble hearth. Once again, the basic white of the walls was offset by a riot of cushions, rugs, hangings and dark, hardwood furniture. The ivory-shelled figure of the lead Phantom stood by the wall, her head encased in her skull helmet.

A ring of comfortable chairs surrounded the fire and on one of them a familiar figure reclined. Pearson gave a low whistle of astonishment at the sight of her.

"Holy...cheese is usually Swiss!" Ferretti exploded.

"It is rather uncanny," Roberts agreed.

The Goa'uld rose gracefully to her feet. The safaran that hung to her feet was identical to Alexa's. The face that rose above the collar of the white blouse was identical to Alexa's as well. If Alexa had not divested herself of the jewellery supplied for her, the only thing marking one from the other would have been the length of their hair. The Goa'uld had long, luxuriant tresses that hung around her shoulders in the kind of soft, glossy brown waves that only came from hours of painstaking attention.

The Ghost moved to stand at her mistress' side.

"Hello, Alexa Vasiliovna," the Goa'uld said.

"Hello, Danica," Alexa murmured.

Danica turned to the rest of SG-7 with a warm smile that was the mirror of the one they saw so rarely from Alexa. "Welcome, all of you," she said. "Shura has shielded all actual knowledge of you from me, and yet I feel that I know you all. I look on you and I feel such affection for you as she knows. Please, be seated, my friends; the samovar is boiling and the Ghost can bring you anything else that you might want."

Alexa looked to Ferretti.

Ferretti shrugged. "Sure; stand easy, boys and girls." He moved to one of the chairs. "And just tea will be fine. Thank you."

All except Alexa followed the Colonel's lead. Danica took a step towards her double. "Won't you sit, Alexa Vasiliovna?" she asked. "Please."

"It's alright, Rasputin," Ferretti said. "Good manners cost nothing, as my mother always said."

"Sure," Alexa agreed.

Danica settled back into her seat; Ferretti followed her lead and the others followed him. The Ghost busied herself serving tea from the ornamental samovar.

"I apologise that it took so long for my warriors to locate you," Danica said. "Of course, I knew as soon as my shuttle entered orbit that my sister was on this world, but she worked so hard to hide from me. We did not know exactly where you were until you triggered one of Anya's static defences; I am sorry about that, by the way, but I hope that Anya's timely intervention will have made amends."

"Who is Anya?" Ferretti asked.

"My First Prime, Anya Mikhailevna Voskova; formerly a Captain with the Russian SG Spetznaz team," Danica explained. "Another of my father's victims. Anya," she called to the Phantom.

The skull-helmed warrior approached and reached up to lower her helmet. Close-to, it was apparent that her armour was far more ornate than that of the regular guards and showed some sign of more practical customisation. The skull melted away to reveal a head of short, dark hair and a hard, handsome face. "Strasvuyte," she said. "Welcome."

"I am afraid that Anya does not speak much more English than that," Danica admitted. "She is extremely loyal, however, highly skilled and the most gifted killer of kalshek'tak that I know of."

"Then they are kalshek'tak?" Merlyn asked.

Danica inclined her head in acknowledgement. "Since the death of Czernobog, Djanka has laid personal claim to Svarog's throne. She has been throwing all of her might into subduing the other minor lords and claiming their force for her own. Half of them fell victim to her charms and died in her embrace, the rest have been overwhelmed by the savagery of her vampire army. She has brought terror and suffering to three worlds that once lay under my control and I have been unable to halt her advance, though I have paid dearly in the attempt. The ranks of my Jaffa are decimated and my resources now stretched. I have no ha'tak vessels and no way to reinforce this place, now that Djanka has thrown her weight against it."

"Why not retreat?" Alexa asked. "There is nothing here; no mines, no farms, no population. What can you want so badly?"

"I want nothing of this place," Danica admitted. "This was my mother's favourite palace before my father killed her; my attachment is purely sentimental and even then I had to redecorate completely before it was tolerable to occupy. My father's tastes ran to the bland."

Alexa tried not to respond to Ferretti's meaningful glance, worried that if she thought of the things hidden here, Danica would sense her fears.

"You're fighting to the death for your summer home?" Roberts asked.

"No," Danica replied, earnestly. "I am fighting to the death for my existence. I do not have a sufficiency of warriors or weaponry to meet Djanka's armies head-on, but this place is strong. On any other world my Jaffa would be massacred, but here, far from her territories, in this isolated fortress, I may be able to hold her. Perhaps."

Ferretti sipped his tea, thoughtfully. "You don't sound very sure."

"The kalshek'tak," Danica explained. "They are an ancient and deadly race from the harsh and twilit world of Nign. Once, the dominion of the vampires rivalled that of the Goa'uld. At last, their empire was riven by internal politics and war against another race, one that also battled the Goa'uld. From that struggle, only the Goa'uld emerged unscathed and the others were driven back to their homeworlds. Their power was broken, but none have ever succeeded in conquering Nign. Until now." She sighed. "What little intelligence there is to be gleaned from their dark and silent world suggests that Djanka has succeeded in taking as her host the queen of one of the most powerful kalshek'tak clans. This has given her an unprecedented foothold on Nign and access to hundreds of vampiric hunters; few even suspected that their numbers had recovered so. She lacks spacecraft still, but on the ground her armies are unbeatable. Even the kull warriors are never sent against her except in great numbers. Now she is throwing the bulk of her strength against me; against my father's former territories. There are other threats to her, far greater than I. I can not fathom what it is that has drawn her anger against me."

Ferretti risked a glance at his team mates. They were all keeping their faces concertedly blank, but whether she read it from Alexa or skimmed it from their minds using Vasilisa Rasputina's gifts, Danica sensed their obfuscation.

"What do you know?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Ferretti replied.

"Then what do you suspect?" Danica glowered at each of them in turn. "You are free to go, as I promised," she said, "but Djanka now controls the Stargate and that is your only route home. I have one ship here and it was too badly damaged on landing to escape from the guns a second time. If you wish to leave, you and I will have to reach an accord, Colonel Ferretti. An alliance – of convenience, at least – is in all of our interests and some disclosure at least is in the interests of an alliance."

"Not yet," Ferretti replied. "I'm sorry, but it's a risk that I can't take. Allow us some time to...discuss things," he suggested.

"Of course," Danica agreed, reluctantly. "But perhaps it would aid your deliberations if Anya were to brief you on the most effective methods of combating the kalshek'tak?"

"Most of my team aren't combat specialists," Ferretti admitted. "But your First Prime could explain the basics of vampire hunting to my lieutenant while the rest of us discuss options."

Danica studied his face, long and hard; reading him, he realised, the way he had seen Alexa do. He wanted to trust the Goa'uld because she resembled Alexa, but he had encountered too many Goa'uld who hid behind a friendly face to be taken in by her. The team were bearing up, all except for Alexa. Her confession had isolated her and she was vulnerable now; if her defences should slip, Danica would know everything.

As though she sensed his anxiety – and perhaps she did – Alexa turned towards the Colonel, but with her eyes lowered. "My sensitivity is greater than Danica's," she said. "It might be of assistance if I were to isolate myself; perhaps I could gain an insight into the positions of the kalshek'tak."

Ferretti nodded. "You do that," he agreed. "With our hostess' permission, of course."

"The tower would be ideal," Danica assured him. "Perhaps I could help you, Alexa Vasiliovna. With our gifts combined..."

"No!"

Miraculously, the Goa'uld did not attempt to press her wishes. "As you wish. Does your lieutenant speak Russian?" she asked. "Will he and Anya require a translator?"

"Apparently not," Ferretti drawled, with a meaningful glance at Roberts. Not for the first time he promised himself a long talk with the lieutenant that he knew would never come about. Too much of Roberts' past was buried in the shadows of intelligence work, although in the case of the Russian-speaking, Ferretti knew that he had most likely not read the file carefully enough.

"Very well," Danica agreed, finally. "Do not take too long in your speaking, however," she cautioned. "My warriors have been successful in resisting the advance of the Skull Guard, but our counterstrikes against the contained kalshek'tak have been limited by the growth of enemy numbers. You were incapacitated for several hours and it is now late morning; in another six hours, the sun will set again and the enemy will come. I advise you to have reached a decision before then."

*

Danica instructed the Ghost to escort Alexa to the tower chamber and the former voice of Byelobog seemed only too eager to obey. As she led the way, she hovered close to Alexa, straining towards her until, unable to stand it any longer, Alexa took the young woman by the arm.

"How are you, Ghost?" she asked, "or is it 'the Ghost'?"

"Ghost will do," the Ghost replied. "And I am well, my friend."

Alexa looked at the pale woman, doubtfully. "You are not my friend," she said, "or I am not yours, rather."

"You set me free," the Ghost replied. "You and your sister released me from Byelobog's control, liberated me from the cruelty of my false god and the lechery of that...monster."

"The albino?" Alexa asked.

"I was his chattel," the Ghost said, quietly. "You changed that. You saved me."

Alexa shook her head, sadly. "That was Danica," she admitted. "Danica saved you; she..." Alexa stopped in her tracks; she released the Ghost's arm, but the pale chatelaine stopped with her. After a long, long pause, she was at last able to speak the words that she had been denying for four years: "Danica saved us both."

This time it was the Ghost who put her arm through Alexa's. "My Lady could not have won her freedom without you," she assured the lieutenant. "You were never a victim; not as I was."

Alexa shivered. She had suffered horribly at Byelobog's hands, but it was nothing compared to what the Ghost had been through. To the best of Alexa's knowledge, the Ghost had served Byelobog all her life and had never had a name of her own.

"I will take you to the tower chamber," the Ghost prompted, gently, "then I will bring your gear so that you may change. If there is anything else that you need, you can call upon me. The refreshments that we have available are limited, but I will try to bring you something."

"I should not receive special treatment," Alexa insisted.

"My mistress agrees," the Ghost replied. "Of course, she would like to show you the hospitality due to a visiting System Lord, but she knows full well that you would never accept it. All of your comrades will receive the best food and drink that we have to offer. The only distinction will be that I will serve you myself and that is my decision, not hers."

"Why?"

"Because I owe you my freedom," the Ghost replied. "I owe you everything. Perhaps Danica rescued me, but it was because of you; you and your sister."

"My sister is lost," Alexa sighed. "But thank you anyway."

*

"This...is my...work-shop," Anya Voskova explained, speaking Russian with deliberate slowness as she placed a finger on the door switch. "As well as First Prime, I am my lady's arm-our-er."

"I'm American," Roberts told her, dryly, "not deficient. Russian is just one of the seven languages I speak, and one of the better ones."

Anya shook her head, ruefully. "So I see," she chuckled. "Indeed, you are quite fluent, Lieutenant Roberts. Your accent is...Ukrainian? Balkan?"

"A little of both, Captain Voskova."

"Anya, please," the Russian corrected. "I have not been a Captain for a long time." She pressed the switch and the door slid open. "After you, Lieutenant Roberts."

"Just Roberts," he said, inclining his head in acknowledgement.

He entered the workshop and looked around him. The walls were hung with weapons; blades, staffs, zat'nik'tels, the shotgun, and an array of devices fusing terrestrial and Goa'uld technology. The centre of the room was given over to a long bench and a rack of tools. A weapon lay on the bench with its breach open and the workings exposed; it was one of the hybrids, built like a rifle and with a long magazine housing behind the trigger mechanism, but with a Goa'uld power cell as well.

"Stake thrower," Anya explained. "Bullpup configuration, twelve round magazine, plasma fired."

"Plasma fired?"

Anya nodded. "The weapon generates firing pressure behind the trinium-steel stake using a staff weapon's plasma chamber," she explained. "The muzzle velocity is in excess of twelve-hundred metres per second."

"Impressive," Roberts allowed.

"Unfortunately the barrel attrition is appalling; the heat generated is so great that the barrel warps after less than fifty rounds. I either need to find a way to reduce barrel distortion or include a replaceable barrel assembly in the design without sacrificing accuracy."

"Tricky," Roberts agreed. "But you said it fires stakes; so all that is true, the stake through the heart?"

Anya shrugged. "Stakes, spears, bullets; the key is to penetrate the chest cavity towards the meridian line."

"Why is that?" Roberts asked.

Anya paused for a moment. "Would you rather begin by getting to know your enemy?" she asked.

"That might be preferable."

"Very well," she agreed. "I will take you to meet one."

*

Ferretti took Merlyn and Pearson out onto one of the parapets of the fortress to survey the situation through field glasses. It was immediately apparent that Danica had not exaggerated her claims; Djanka's Jaffa had come in force. From the fortress, perched as it was high up on a cliff, the black-armoured warriors looked like ants, arrayed in a broad semi-circle just beyond the range of the defenders' mounted plasma weapons.

"Not looking promising, is it?" Merlyn noted.

"The glass always used to be half-full with you, Captain," Ferretti noted. "Roberts is rubbing off on you."

"Oh, please," Merlyn scoffed. "There are over two hundred Jaffa out there already; 'not promising' is half-full."

"Yes, well it can't be our primary concern," Ferretti said. "Even if it means we go down in a blaze of glory, we can't let Djanka get hold of any more Scourge technology. I'm afraid that means destroying whatever is here, by hook or by crook. Pearson, without access to a micronuke, what are our options in that regard?"

"If The Scourge remain dormant – or contained, if that's what they are – then we should be able to safely make our way, in Omega gear, to the Mind chamber and destroy it. Without a guiding Mind, The Scourge can not create any more units and the ones that are already extant will go dormant. We can then set charges to destroy those units. Of course, if there are a lot of units already..."

"Alright," Ferretti sighed. "Reconnaissance first. Captain, you take Pearson downstairs and find the way into The Scourge tunnels. If you can find out what's containing it, see if that can be adapted to help destroy it. Locate and incapacitate the enemy presence if you can, otherwise fall back and we'll consider options."

"Lieutenant Rasputin seems certain that Danica wouldn't risk using The Scourge," Merlyn reminded her CO. "She might be persuaded to help destroy them, simply on the grounds that Djanka wants them."

"Maybe," Ferretti sighed. "But I'm not prepared to take Rasputin's word alone on this. We'll keep the option in reserve until we know what we're facing."

"Yes, Sir," Merlyn agreed.

"Meanwhile, I'll set up a relay and let the General know what's happening at the scheduled contact time. I make that about ninety minutes away. Reset your scramblers for code five, by the way; best that Rasputin doesn't hear what you find."

"You really don't trust her, Sir?" Merlyn asked.

Ferretti lifted his glasses and surveyed the assembled enemy once more, not to see if there had been a change, but to avoid having to meet Merlyn's gaze. "Right now, I don't think she trusts herself," he said.

*

Alexa cleared a space in the centre of the tower room. It had been set up as an astronomer's study, complete with powerful telescope and writing desk, but none of that was of much interest to her at present. She settled down, cross-legged, and tried to clear her mind, as she had been taught in the Special Directorate. With an effort, she conjured up the soothing voice of her meditation coach, Senior Lieutenant Esen Oghlu Beg. Unbidden, she remembered reaching out to her sister's mind to steady herself; she felt the touch of Danica's mind on hers and started violently back to full consciousness.

She tried to focus again, but calm would not come. Danica was too close, Alexa's awareness of her presence too sharp. Tears welled up in her eyes and she began to weep for what she had lost. She was sobbing uncontrollably when the Ghost entered the tower room.

"Alexa Vasiliovna!" The Ghost dropped her bundle of Alexa's gear and ran forward. She knelt beside Alexa and wrapped her arms around her.

"I can't do it," she whispered.

"You can," the Ghost assured her, with blind confidence. "Of course you can. You beat Byelobog, after all."

"It wasn't me!"

The Ghost hugged Alexa tightly. "He took Vasilisa from you," she whispered, "but you still wouldn't break. He died without ever conquering you. You beat him, Alexa Vasiliovna and you can beat this."

"You don't even know what I'm talking about," Alexa accused.

The Ghost shrugged. "I know you are strong." She pulled out her handkerchief again. "Dry your eyes."

"Thank you, Ghost," Alexa said, sincerely.

The Ghost blushed. "It is only a handkerchief."

Alexa laughed. "It helps to have someone who believes in me," she explained. "Thank you for that."

"You are welcome."

*

"Lieutenant Roberts," Anya said, "meet Volodya."

The kalshek'tak thrashed in his chains, straining to reach his two visitors. He looked almost human, as those in the forest had done, but close up the creature's more inhuman characteristics were apparent. The long features, prominent cheekbones and large eyes gave him a superficial beauty, but the face was too long, the cheekbones too high and the dark irises were red with an awful hunger burning in their pupils. The bare, scarred chest was almost painfully thin and the ribs that were visible beneath the skin were too wide and too few. He had no nipples. The fingers were too long and narrow, the nails too pointed and the teeth...The teeth were like needles, every one of them pointed and the canines almost twice the length of the incisors. The heavy shackles that held the creature down had been twisted and warped by more-than-human strength.

"Don't meet his gaze," Anya warned. "He is not strong, but better safe than sorry."

"How long have you had him in here?"

"About eighteen days," Anya said. "We brought him here with us; he was captured in the last attack on one of My Lady Danica's worlds. He is the last of almost a dozen that we have held; the others were killed in weapons testing."

Roberts nodded his head in understanding. If the idea of testing weapons on a live subject bothered him, he gave no sign. "Tell me a little about 'Volodya' then," he said.

"Well, we know nothing about him in person, as he has not even told us his real name," Anya admitted, "but he has taught us a lot about his species. We knew that they were tough, but since capturing Volodya and his comrades we have begun to doubt many of the presumed kills made before that. Their flesh is tough, their bones tougher. Kalshek'tak have great strength and multiply redundant organs, ribs like ceramic armour plates and incredible regenerative abilities. To kill them requires massive trauma, near-decapitation or a solid blow penetrating the heavy bone of the cardiac casing; they may have chambered lungs and a secondary air-sac, but they only have one heart. Head shots can do the job, but their brain can shift functionality from one sector to another and, unlike us, they can heal damage to their nervous system – even their brains. Plasma burns have a greater effect on them than regular jacketed rounds, but high-velocity, solid, armour-piercing projectiles like my stakes or the solid slugs in my shotgun shells are best."

"Zats?" Roberts asked, without much confidence.

"Same to you."

"Zat'nik'tels?"

"Completely useless," Anya confirmed. "The electrolytic profile of the kalshek'tak body conducts the blast too perfectly; conventional electric shock is similarly ineffective."

"Nasty," Roberts commented.

"Well, that's just a regular kalshek'tak," Anya told him. "Against those, your weapons will have some effect, although you might have to expend almost a full magazine on a single target. There is worse to be faced: Few Goa'uld are strong enough to take a kalshek'tak as host, but those who succeed are quite deadly."

Roberts chuckled. "I've heard tales of a number of Goa'uld who took a kalshek'tak host; they didn't seem that bad." He glanced warily towards Volodya, who hung in impotent fury and glowered at his captors.

Anya shrugged and turned to lead Roberts out of the cell. "It is quite common for a particularly pale Goa'uld to claim to be a kalshek'tak," she admitted, "but the last System Lord to truly possess such a host was Sokar. There are ways of telling the difference. Typically, if the Goa'uld hates sunlight but can survive a three-hundred foot fall or a dozen gunshot wounds at point blank range, they're genuinely in a kalshek'tak host."

"Does sunlight really burn them?" Roberts asked.

"It hurts their eyes, confuses and frightens them and they burn like an Englishman on the Costa del Sol, but they do not turn to ash. Nor are they adversely affected by religious imagery; indeed, they were once a very spiritual people."

"Mind-control?"

"They are capable of projecting an electromagnetic influence and bending a weak mind to their own will. Most of them can barely influence an animal, but their leaders can control anyone. Such is the legend, anyway and certainly they seem to find traitors easy enough to come by; we keep our captive secured here, deep beneath the fortress, to isolate him from untrained minds. The effect, such as we have been able to discover, seems to be focused through the eyes; that is why you should avoid their gaze as much as possible. We also believe that they have a degree of interconnectedness; a kind of mental gestalt which binds the members of a kalshek'tak hunting pack together."

Roberts gave a low whistle. "The ultimate in small-unit coordination," he realised.

"Fortunately, although each one knows what the others are doing, such packs are neither common, nor well-ordered," Anya assured him. "They vie for supremacy, compete for the favour of stronger vampires; although they can function as a perfect unit, they do not play well with other children."

"Well, that's good."

"Unfortunately, these kalshek'tak fear Djanka sufficiently to set personal glory aside in the quest to gain her favour; the success of a pack's mission is more important than who makes the kill."

"That's bad."

"They are traditionalists and they enjoy bloodletting at close quarters; therefore they tend to restrict themselves to the use of zat'nik'tels and long knives rather than more lethal weapons."

"That's good."

"Although they are deadly enough with such limited hardware."

"That's bad."

"The keys to defeating them are good communications, training, and the appropriate equipment," Anya went on. "We have managed to increase the plasma temperature of our staff weapons by some 15% and this has made some difference. While you were unconscious I studied your plasma weapon; quite fascinating. I believe that there are elements of its design which will allow me to make further enhancements to the Phantoms' staffs."

Roberts frowned. "I can hardly claim to be glad to have given any Goa'uld better weaponry," he noted.

Anya gave him a grim smile. "I do not believe that you need fear us. We are few. And ever fewer. Ours is a dying cause, Roberts; we are a dying light."

Roberts looked at her long and hard. "Do you mean the Phantoms?" he asked.

"No."

"Of whom do you speak, Anya Mikhailevna?"

"Of the Goa'uld," Anya replied.

*

"Hello Sierra-Golf-Charlie this is Sierra-Golf-Seven-niner; come in Sierra-Golf-Charlie." Ferretti tweaked the controls of the relay. "Come in Sierra-Golf-Charlie." He tapped the signal gauge, but the needle did not flicker. With a sigh, he set the relay to automatic alert and turned his attention to the slopes of the mountain below the fortress. It was not a reassuring sight.

"What's the word on the psychic front?" he asked, as a familiar figure moved alongside him.

"I would not know," Danica assured him. "My psychic senses are severely limited."

"Oh, it's you," Ferretti sighed. "Did you ever think that might have something to do with having a snake coiled around important parts of your brain?"

"I once believed that it was an act of defiance on the part of my host," Danica agreed, "but now I know that it is more a matter of perspective. As Shura put it to me, I can not truly touch the minds of others if I do not care about them. It is an area of deficiency that I seek to overcome."

Ferretti turned to study the Goa'uld's face. In all honesty, he could not see a trace of the usual, cold arrogance there; when they did not burn white, her eyes sparkled with life, as his Rasputin's eyes so rarely did. Try as he might, Ferretti could not escape the feeling that Danica looked the way Alexa was supposed to look.

"Have you been able to contact your commander?" Danica asked.

"Not yet, but we're due a call any minute now."

A series of sharp cracks rang across the courtyard.

"I hope that call comes soon," Danica commented. "Djanka has begun her advance."

"You have sniper rifles?" Ferretti asked. "I didn't think that was part of the Goa'uld repertoire."

Danica smiled. "Anya is not a typical First Prime; I am most fortunate to have her. Those that you hear are the heavy, swivel-mounted rifles that she has designed for engaging the enemy at long range; we also have a few lighter rifles to supplement the Phantoms' staff weapons."

"With such a skilled commander, I wonder how you come to be losing your war against Djanka," Ferretti said.

"That is your fault," Danica replied, sourly. "It is the SGC who have forced the evolution of the Goa'uld at such an inopportune time."

Ferretti frowned. "Evolution?" he asked, baffled.

Danica gave a mirthless laugh. "My army has been depleted by casualties in the battle against Djanka, but many hundreds of Jaffa were disillusioned by the death of my father. Byelobog called himself immortal and, even if slain by another god, his death shook the pillars of their faith. I myself made no claim of divinity, offered them no more than a leader steeped in her ancestor's wisdom and served by a powerful warrior; it is perhaps this and this alone that has saved me so far."

"I still don't understand," Ferretti admitted. "Put it into dumb Colonel speak for me, will you."

"The Jaffa have been losing faith," Danica explained. "Do you know what happens when faith begins to wane?"

"The Jaffa become free?" Ferretti suggested.

Danica scoffed. "I am not talking of this specific case, but of all humanity," she assured Ferretti. "When faith fails, people become afraid. Some, the bold and the strong, embrace change and rationalism; in this case, this would encompass not only the Free Jaffa, but also those who remain in service despite knowing that their masters are not gods. Others, the weak and fearful, embrace radicalism, zealotry and fanatical mysticism. The Jaffa have begun to develop cults; the old scourge of Mithraism is rife among the warriors, the mysteries cults of Kheb are on the rise in the temple precincts, the common Jaffa turn to the animist reverence of rocks and trees, and a perverse form of Anubis worship has taken hold of many hundreds of thousands from all walks of life."

"Anubis is gone," Ferretti said, stubbornly.

"When Lord Yu believes it, so shall I," Danica replied. "He may be old and failing, but while the eyes grow weak the mind sees clearly. Lord Yu knows more of Anubis than any other; if he says that Anubis is the power behind Baal's throne then I must believe him. Yet Anubis is not the source of my troubles.

"When my father died, he commanded an army of almost seventy-thousand Jaffa warriors, six ha'tak vessels, dozens of worlds and innumerable non-combatant subjects. I lost almost one half of these forces at a stroke when Free Jaffa agitators, building on the word of Byelobog's death, persuaded the ha'tak crews and thirty-thousand infantry to rebel, seizing nineteen worlds, including three of my primary industrial centres. Many more have defected since, slipping away in squads, stealing small vessels to carry their families and bearing away munitions and other resources as a show of good faith for the rebels.

"When Djanka attacked, the remains of my forces were scattered across my remaining worlds. I had begun to recruit new troops; not warriors, like the Jaffa, but professional soldiers. I planned to build my own – what is the phrase? – my own New Model Army, trained and equipped according to Anya's specifications. Alas, Djanka struck before I had a chance to make anything of this plan. Her forces remained strong. The kalshek'tak are not only her shock troops, but also her enforcers and her spymasters and terror of them and their Queen could not be broken by the death of Czernobog, for which Djanka has of course claimed full credit. What allies I had would not join me against her, claiming that they had to concentrate on battling Lord Baal's ambitions; the truth is that they feared her too greatly.

"Anya's most trusted officers were sent out to rally the forces as best they were able. Her lieutenant was able to gather ten thousand Jaffa warriors and civilians and many others have similar numbers gathered in my remaining fortresses; but without motherships there is no way to regroup while Djanka holds the Stargates on so many of my worlds. If I only had more Jaffa...So, in a way, it is the SGC who will have handed Djanka the dominion that she so greatly craves."

"That's not fair," Ferretti told her.

"Nor is my death," Danica replied in a harsh tone. "I wanted to change things, Colonel; to try to rise above my breeding. Now, I shall be denied that chance. A mere handful of Goa'uld shall emerge from the current crisis with power of any kind," she whispered, "and they shall all be of Djanka's kind, or of Anubis'. The weak and fearful who choose fanaticism instead of change."

"Do you think that the Goa'uld could change?"

"I like to think of myself as proof of it," Danica replied. "Or the Tok'ra, perhaps."

Ferretti gave a sharp laugh. "I'll take you rather than them," he assured her. "The Tok'ra are too...differently the same for my liking."

"And I? Do I remind you more of the Goa'uld...or of Alexa?"

"I'm not the one to ask about Alexa," Ferretti said, turning away from Danica. Suddenly he did not want to look at his lieutenant's face. "I don't know her. I thought maybe I did, but I was wrong."

"She was afraid, Colonel," Danica said. "Simply afraid."

She laid a hand on Ferretti's shoulder and he flinched from her touch.

"I might have to work with you," he said, "I don't know yet; but I don't have to like you."

"Don't have to...or don't want to?"

"Stay out of my head," Ferretti growled.

"As I suspect Shura has told you many times, it is rarely necessary to look into someone's mind; their body tells you all that you need to know. I will leave you, however," Danica promised. "I do not wish to add to your burdens. Where might I find your comrades, Colonel?"

"Why do you ask?"

"It is not that I do not trust you," Danica assured him, "but until our alliance is confirmed I would feel safer knowing where you were, while you are in my home. You are nervous in the company of a Goa'uld; although few of us would show it, do we not have far more reason to fear the presence of the Tau'ri?"

"Well..."

"We have killed a few of you, I know," Danica went on, "but you do the same to your own kind. More Tau'ri die in New York city every day than have been killed by the Goa'uld or their armies in modern times, but you have destabilised our empire and killed thousands of Jaffa."

"I don't know about thousands..."

"SG-1 alone have accounted for almost ten thousand, including the destruction of Ravenna's sun and the massacre of Anubis' fleet. I do not say this in judgement," she hurriedly added, "but merely to make the point that, for all that I might seem to have the advantage over you, I have good cause to be nervous of Tau'ri wandering unmonitored in my halls."

Ferretti shrugged with a carelessness that he did not feel. "I think they're checking out the tactical situation. Supplies, choke points, anything in the lower levels that could be used as a secondary stronghold."

Danica inclined her head in acknowledgement. "Thank you, Colonel Ferretti."

"Any time, Your Ladyship," he replied.

"You may call me Danica if you wish," the Goa'uld assured him.

"I'll stick with Ladyship."

*

"Is it just me," Merlyn asked, "or are these walls not like the other walls?"

"It's not just you," Pearson assured her. "This is a completely different architectural style and construction method. Even if you stripped all the marble cladding off the walls upstairs, you wouldn't find anything like this." He put out his hand and ran his fingers across the surface of the stone, cutting long, dark slashes through the dust. The stones were a deep indigo in hue, a stark contrast to the floors, which were the same white marble as the upper levels. It was also more enclosed, the passages narrow and low-ceilinged; the architecture felt utilitarian, rather than processional.

They had found their way down to the lowest levels of the fortress easily enough. All they had had to do was follow the stairs in the right direction and go through all of the doors marked no admittance.

"No-one has been down here in a while," Merlyn observed.

"Was it the dust that gave it away, Ma'am, or the fact that I had to crack three force fields to get us this far?"

"What do you suppose they're so scared of?" Merlyn mused, ignoring the sergeant's sarcasm.

"Colour?" Pearson suggested.

"I beg your pardon?"

Pearson took a tiny chisel from his belt and scratched at the join between two stone blocks. There was barely a gap; the stones locked together in a perfect line, but just at the surface there was a groove and it was from this that Pearson scraped out a tiny quantity of pale grey powder.

"And that is?" Merlyn asked.

"Plaster," Pearson replied. "I think they tried to redecorate this place to match the Goa'uld structure above. They tiled the floor in marble, but the plaster that held the wall panels on wouldn't take. Such a refusal to bend to the whim of a god can't have gone down well with Byelobog."

"Then why not destroy it?" Merlyn asked.

Pearson cocked his head on one side, thinking. He put the chisel away and took out a small drill. "Face," he warned.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Faceplate," Pearson explained, matching action to words by lowering his own.

Merlyn followed suit. When her face was covered, Pearson put the drill to the stone and switched it on. The powerful motor whirred for a moment, then there was a sharp crack and something struck Merlyn's faceplate.

"Not a mark," Pearson observed.

"What about this?" Merlyn raised her hand to a long blur that cut across her vision and confirmed that there was a deep scratch in the toughened glass of her faceplate.

"Sorry," Pearson said. "I meant on the stone."

"So what hit me?"

"My drill bit shattered," Pearson explained. "I thought it might."

"Diamond?"

"Adamantium."

"Pre-Ancient stonework?" Merlyn asked.

"Could be Ancient," Pearson replied. "It looks a little too regular and non-creepy to be Elder Threat."

Merlyn nodded. "Alright," she said, "We go further in. I want to find something that will tell me why the Ancients – or whoever – built on top of a Scourge temple."

"You're thinking some kind of seal?" Pearson wondered.

"If it is, we could be in luck," Merlyn replied. "Replicating an Ancient device may be difficult, but it's easier than finding a way to contain The Scourge on our own."

They moved deeper into the catacombs, advancing warily towards the nesting place of The Scourge Mind.

Pearson checked the monitors on his Omega suit. "Air is still clean," he said. "It's a little stale, but there is no trace of vector nanites in the atmosphere."

"I wish I knew if the Mind had noticed us," Merlyn said, "but I suppose we can't ask Rasputin." She paused. "Pearson; you were linked with her mind once; right?"

"Yes, Ma'am; but I promised never to tell anyone what I saw there."

"Even if you were ordered by an officer?"

Pearson gave a lopsided grin. "With all due respect, Ma'am, not even if I were ordered by the President. What passed between the two of us that day is nobody's business but hers, mine and God's, and we already know."

"Fair enough," Merlyn agreed. "Just answer me one question: Did you, at any level, see this coming?"

Pearson shrugged, helplessly. "I had no idea it was coming, but it didn't surprise me; if you understand my meaning."

"Last year I wouldn't have done; now, I know exactly what you mean."

"And I used to think exploring the universe and fighting jumped-up tapeworms was the weirdest job in the Air Force," Pearson quipped.

"I wonder if anyone is doing weirder than this?" Merlyn mused. "Who knows, perhaps...ooh, writing!" she exclaimed, as they entered a high, wide chamber. After the narrow passageways, this room was almost as much of a shock as if they had emerged into the open air.

Merlyn turned her head to scan the text that she had spotted. The lamp on her helmet cast its light across the carved surface.

"Why do ultra-advanced civilisations always write their secrets in foot-high letters, graven into the walls?" Pearson wondered. "Didn't they have computers and psychic archives and stuff?"

Merlyn shrugged. "Maybe they just liked having hardcopy."

"Backups I understand," Pearson admitted, "but this must be the hardest hardcopy I've ever seen. Is it Ancient?"

Merlyn did not answer for a long time. At last, she said: "No. The script is similar, clearly an ancient-derived alphabet; I think that the language is similar as well, but I need a little time to study it." As she spoke, Merlyn unpacked a halogen lantern from her bag, switched it on and deactivated her helmet lamp. The brilliant, pure-white light filled the chamber, revealing carved text on every wall. The vaulted ceiling was decorated with a field of stars – if she had not abhorred gambling as a sin, Merlyn would have bet money on it being an accurate star chart – with unfamiliar constellations labelled and illustrated with inhuman characters; some animals, some altogether alien. Somehow, the images attributed to these star groups seemed less fanciful than those used on Earth, as though these were based in reality, although how that might be so eluded Merlyn.

"Oh my God," Merlyn murmured.

Pearson felt the hairs rise up on the back of his neck and he drew the MPX from his side. It was a recognised fact in SG-7 that when Merlyn spoke the name of the Lord, it was time to be very afraid. "Captain?" he asked.

"I've seen these constellations before," Merlyn told him. "In the church; in the temple to Cthulhu. These were the animals carved on the walls. I don't know what they mean, but I'm willing to bet it isn't a good sign that..." Merlyn cocked her head to one side.

"Someone is coming," Pearson agreed. He turned to face the passage by which they had entered and Merlyn killed the halogen lamp and drew her own weapon.

"Infra-red," Merlyn ordered.

The lights on their helmets came on again, but instead of white light they emitted a light that was invisible to the naked eye. Only the ingenious filtering devices built into their Omega faceplates allowed them to see by it. The image had no colour depth, but was otherwise surprisingly detailed. Two strong, white lines darted out as they activated the infra-red laser sights on their MPXs.

At the end of the corridor, a pale glow indicated an approaching light and the sound of footsteps was now very clear.

"I'll go out and meet them," Merlyn said. "Whoever it is, I don't want them to see this chamber."

"I'll go," Pearson suggested. "If necessary, I can divert them while you keep working." He opened the thigh pocket of his BDUs and passed a small device to Merlyn. "The overrides for the force fields are still programmed. Just punch the main button and they should open right up."

"Thank you, Sergeant," Merlyn replied. She reached up and switched off her IR lamp. "Good luck."

Pearson nodded in acknowledgement. He lowered his weapon, switched the helmet lamp back to white light and strolled out to meet whoever was approaching.

As he approached the corner, a woman shouted a challenge in Russian. After a moment, she repeated herself in English. "Who is there? Captain Lloyd?"

"Ain't nobody here but us sergeants," Pearson called back. He quickened his pace and made sure that he rounded the corner before the approaching handmaiden. "Miss Ghost," he greeted her, politely.

"Just Ghost," the Ghost corrected. She halted in front of him. "I have no such salutation."

"Why not?" Pearson asked.

"Society assigns such things to roles. I do not rule or command and so I have no rank. I am neither bride nor maiden and so I have no honorific; unless it were 'the', of course. I suppose that I might consider myself to be unique."

"I see," Pearson said. "Or at least, I think I do. Very well, the Ghost: could you be so kind as to escort me from this catacomb? I wandered down here by accident and I can't seem to find my way back."

"You...wandered down?"

"Yes."

"Quite without meaning to?"

"Yes."

"Bypassing an alarm system and three force fields..."

"Did I really?"

"...all quite by accident?"

"Absolutely, the Ghost."

The Ghost gave him a sceptical look, but she smiled. "My mistress wishes to speak with you," she said. "If you follow me, I will take you to her."

"Thank you," Pearson agreed, warily.

"If it is not impertinent to ask, do you know the whereabouts of Captain Lloyd?" the Ghost added, as though it were an afterthought.

"I have no idea," Pearson lied. "Am I my officer's keeper?" he asked, helplessly.

"As I understand your military, yes," the Ghost replied. "No matter, however. Please come with me."

"A very great pleasure," Pearson assured her.

As the voices faded away, Merlyn sat in absolute darkness. She waited for almost five minutes before allowing herself to switch her helmet lamp back on. Many people would have been disturbed by such utter blackness, but not Merlyn; she had been raised away from the constant lights of the modern city and the pitch dark was no enemy to her. What frightened Merlyn was the knowledge of what waited in the light; the terrible images that would be revealed in the brilliance of the halogen lantern. That was why she prayed as she waited, letting the familiar syllables of the Ave Maria reaffirm her faith and give her strength.

When at last she put the lights back on, Merlyn quickly unpacked her digital camera and took detailed images of the ceiling. After that, she focused on the walls and their blocks of dense, barely-familiar text as a way of shutting out the designs above her.

*

The Ghost led Pearson up into the light. As they passed each of the force fields, she held her hand over the control keypad and the defences reactivated.

"A biometric trigger," Pearson realised. "That's why the keys on the pad aren't actually connected to anything; the door recognises you."

"And few others. Aside from Lady Danica, only the First Prime and myself have authority to deactivate the catacomb security devices. Not that that appears to have stopped you, Sergeant," she added. "You must be a resourceful man."

Pearson shrugged. "I get by. Why does your mistress want to see me?"

"I do not know," the Ghost admitted, "although I suspect that you have a shrewd idea."

"I could guess. You seem a lot more relaxed than you were earlier; I don't suppose that means the siege is off?"

"Alas, no," the Ghost said, "but I must confess that some of your companions made me uneasy. I find it easier to be in the company of those who do not desire me."

Pearson was alarmed. "Then you..." His face flushed with sudden anger.

"I am skilled with people," the Ghost assured him. "It is a gift I have always possessed. Lady Danica says that it is because I like people so much and I suppose that is true. Even as a child I loved strangers; I am fascinated by the endless variety of human lives."

"You sound almost ashamed of it," Pearson noted.

"In my former role it was my place to assess those who were brought before Lord Byelobog, among other things. Through me, he who had no understanding of humanity was able to perceive their weaknesses. Because I yearned to know as much about as many people as ever I could, Byelobog was able to use me to hurt them. And to use them to hurt me."

"None of my team would ever hurt you, Ghost," Pearson assured her.

The Ghost looked at him. "I think that Lieutenant Roberts might," she said.

"No," Pearson replied. "He might kill you, I can't deny it, but not hurt you."

"I am greatly reassured," the Ghost drawled.

"There are people in this world who won't use you, simply because it would be wrong," Pearson said. "I hope that you have a chance to learn that, Ghost."

"I hope so too," she admitted. "Thank you for your kindness, Sergeant Pearson."

"Xander."

The Ghost smiled at Pearson and waved her hand over another control. A section of the wall melted away to reveal a small, spiral staircase. "My mistress awaits you in the private roof garden, Xander," she explained. "I am not to accompany you. I hope that you find my mistress in a good humour, although she is seldom at ease of late."

Pearson mounted the stairs and climbed to the roof garden. He had expected a flat garden, planted with grass and floral tubs; instead, he emerged onto the sharp slope of the roof at the rear of the fortress, angling vertiginously towards the mountainside. Long grass covered the roof; trailing creepers grew down from the peak and climbers grew up from the eaves. There were even a few small trees that had been carefully coaxed into growing at a right angle to the slope of the roof.

Danica stood with her back to him, some thirty feet away, standing disconcertingly upright, so that her body was at an angle of some forty degrees to the trunks of the trees. Only when he took his first, faltering step away from the stairs did Pearson realise that the roof had been cut into broad steps in order to accommodate visitors, with the grass cut so as to present the image of a smooth slope beneath.

On uneasy feet, Pearson tottered towards Danica.

"Do you like my garden?" the Goa'uld asked.

"It's incredible," Pearson admitted.

"As a garden?" Danica turned to face Pearson. "Or as a feat of engineering?"

Pearson could not help staring. From the back, the long hair made it clear which twin was which, but the faces were identical. "A little of both," he said, when he had remembered the question. "I admit I'm not exactly green-fingered, but I can still admire the beauty of nature."

"The post of gardener here is hereditary," Danica explained. "Father trains son – or daughter – to take charge; an entire family devoted to caring for this little patch of greenery. The current gardener is thirty-six years old; she has taken armour and a staff to defend the wall and keep Djanka from her garden. She refused to stand by and see this place taken, but should she die...Her son is an infant; her husband knows nothing of how to keep this garden fair. It strikes me that if I fall, there will be others to take my place, but she, a mere mortal, is irreplaceable. It is a sobering thought."

"If you invited me up here to discuss philosophy, you'd be better off with Captain Lloyd. Or Lieutenant Roberts, although in the circumstances you might find him rather too downbeat."

"That is not what I wish," Danica assured him. "Come; there is a bench beneath the cherry tree. Sit with me."

"I'm honoured."

Danica settled herself gracefully on the wrought-iron bench and motioned for Pearson to sit beside her. He did so, warily.

"I wish to ask you a question," Danica asked. "I will not be offended if you refuse to answer."

"Alright," Pearson agreed.

"How is my sister?"

Pearson raised an eyebrow. "Your sister?"

"So I consider her," Danica replied. "If you prefer, how is my host's sister? How is Lieutenant Alexa Vasiliovna Rasputina? She has closed her mind to me, Sergeant Pearson, fearing that I would try to steal from her the secrets of your Earth; this means that I can not sense her, save when she is distracted by fear or pain. It would ease my heart to know that she finds joy and laughter, as well as the suffering that I can perceive."

"I wouldn't know," Pearson said. "We do not talk much."

"But you do not need to," Danica insisted. "I knew as soon as I met you that my...that Shura had shared her mind with you. You would know if she were troubled."

Pearson sighed. "If you know that, then you must know that I would die before I told you anything that I learned from that connection. It is not something to be discussed with anyone; not even her real sister."

"I only wish to know if she is well," Danica insisted.

"Her twin sister was ripped away from her by a Goa'uld," Pearson said, coolly. "How do you think she is?"

"I am what I am," Danica replied. "Vasilisa has accepted that and we have become one mind."

Pearson snorted in disbelief.

Danica shrugged. "I do not need you to believe me," she said. "If you can not tell me what you know from her mind, can you tell me what you see with your eyes. Is Shura happy?"

"No," Pearson replied. "Sometimes she seems at ease, but I do not believe that she is ever happy."

"I see. Again, you are free to not reply, but will you tell me what your feelings for her are?"

Pearson shook his head. "I don't like her," he admitted. "I want to, but she learned a lot more about me than I did about her and I resent that. But I respect her and I can not help worrying for her. I wouldn't want to follow her, but I am...I was happy to work with her. That's as far as my feelings go."

Danica nodded, once. "Thank you, Sergeant, for your candour."

"Anytime," Pearson assured her. "And for what it's worth, I feel much the same about you as I do about her."

Danica gave a short, seated bow. "Again, thank you. Perhaps we should go in now; the garden grows cold at night and the sun is almost gone. We should prepare for the night." She turned, slowly, drinking in the sight of the garden. "I am glad that you have seen this place, Sergeant. I doubt whether it will be here for much longer."

*

Roberts put his eye to the sighting scope on the mounted rifle. The magnification was impressive; from the upper rampart of the fortress he could see the detail on the Skull Guards' helmets. As he panned across their line, he saw the gleaming black lozenge of one of the kalshek'tak transport pods.

"How many of those coffins do you see?" he asked Anya.

"Six; perhaps seven. There will be more further back; these are just a reminder to us of the terror that we face."

Roberts raised a hand to the adjusting wheel on the side of the rifle sight.

"You are joking?" Anya laughed.

"They've brought the coffins up just outside what they've established as the limit of our sniper range," Roberts pointed out. "This thing should have the power to at least damage the coffin where it is."

"Yes," Anya agreed, "but that shot..."

Roberts took his eye from the scope and looked up at her. "I've made worse," he said.

Anya stared into his eyes, looking for any sign of bravado. "They'll move the coffins as soon as you hit the first one," she said, "and you'll need at least three rounds in each coffin to make sure."

"Then I need suppressing fire," Roberts agreed.

Anya grinned and moved to the next rifle. "Move aside, Jaffa," she ordered. "Give me one minute," she told Roberts.

"Sun's almost down," he replied. "Call it thirty seconds."

"I got more respect as a Captain," Anya muttered, but she lay down on the gunner's couch and put her eye to the scope all the same.

Roberts allowed himself a brief moment to admire the graceful curve of her neck and the easy, confidant way in which she handled the rifle, then bent to his own sights. He lined up the sights on the coffin at roughly heart-height; he had adjusted the scope to aim high to compensate for the range. Exactly thirty seconds after Anya began adjusting her own sights, he gently squeezed the trigger. He felt the gun-mount stiffen as the rifle fired, locking the weapon in place and absorbing the recoil. The weapon kicked gently against his shoulder and the sights never wavered from the coffin; the capsule was still dead centre of the sights as the heavy, solid round shattered its smooth, black surface.

Roberts squeezed again and was rewarded with a second hit within half-an-inch of the first. The third he fired lower, just to be on the safe side. As he panned across to the next coffin, he heard Anya's rifle bellow and saw a Jaffa fall.

Three rounds pierced the second coffin and by now the light was all but gone.

"Reset the sights," Anya ordered.

Roberts did not bother to question her.

"Kree Jaffa! Prepare for incoming," Anya barked. "Floodlights on. All sharpshooters stand by." Great pools of white light shone out in front of the fortress. "Lieutenant Roberts; would you care for a wager?"

"It's a little Helm's Deep, isn't it?" he asked.

"Confirmed kills only," Anya went on. "Are you afraid to take the bet?"

"Don't try and work on my machismo," he laughed. "I'm too secure in my arrogance. I'll take the wager," he agreed, "but I'm betting on you."

Anya gave a sharp laugh. "You have a bet," she said. "Gunners, spot for us."

"They are coming!" one of the Jaffa warned. Moments later, the battle horns began to blare, alerting the entire fortress.

Anya must have drilled her Jaffa in the Tau'ri system of dead reckoning, because the young Jaffa at Roberts' side called out to him: "At the enemy line, one o'clock."

Roberts swung the rifle around, took careful aim and fired, took aim and fired, dropping a pair of Skull Guards. "One-for-one?" he called, "or do the élite score extra?"

"One for regular Jaffa and three for the Skull Guard; five for a Goa'uld or kalshek'tak..." Anya's rifle spoke three times. "...and ten for a Goa'uld in a kalshek'tak."

Roberts fired again. "Well, that's seven then. Not wishing to pun, but what's the stake?"

*

In the catacombs, Merlyn regarded her notepad in dismay. While much of the information contained in the writings on walls was relevant, it could only be described as useful in a theoretical sense. The text described the arrival on the planet of an advanced, post-Ancient culture, perhaps six-hundred-thousand years before the Goa'uld came to Earth. This culture built a city on the ruins of a previous civilisation, without realising that in the bowels of the ruins slept the very thing that had destroyed that culture; The Scourge.

Buried in the heart of the city, The Scourge slumbered in their temple, trapped beneath layers of force fields and suppressing wards. At length, the newcomers dug down and learned what lay beneath their great city. They read the texts and learned that, in the dying days of their race, a group of soldiers, scientists and mystics had gone down into the heart of the temple and given their lives to set those defences. They had destroyed the Mind and created a mystical barrier, a web of resonance formulae that The Scourge could not pierce. Without the guidance of the Mind, the many limbs of The Scourge which ravaged the surface had withered and died, but something slept on, contained within the barrier; waiting.

The newcomers, what little remained, retreated from the catacombs. They built this structure – the Temple of Warning – around the entrance to the old Scourge temple and then they buried it. They razed their own city to the ground, sealing every tunnel that they had opened, leaving nothing but a bare mountainside and, beneath it, the Temple of Warning. This done – assuming that they had achieved all that they set out in the text, which had been written before the temple was sealed – they left that cursed world, never to return.

"And then the Goa'uld came," Merlyn sighed. They must have breached the Temple of Warning and clearly had begun to excavate the Scourge temple, before even Byelobog realised that he had bitten off more than he could chew.

Merlyn tried to contact her team, but there did not seem to be a signal this deep. She considered her options, checked the suit monitors for signs of vector nanites and, finding none, decided to risk deeper exploration before returning to the main fortress to report. There were only two passages leading out of the chamber and she took the one that went deeper into the catacombs. She activated her suit's recorder as she set off.

"This is Captain Meredith Lloyd of SG-7," she began. "Exploration of catacombs on P9Z-138; local name unknown. Having deciphered the writings in what I am referring to as the Library – for details of which, please refer to my notebook, always assuming that sufficient remains of my body and gear for you to have recovered the notebook, and that this recorder has not simply been retrieved from the belly of a very large badger – I am proceeding further into the catacombs in search of the entrance to the Scourge temple. In the event that my body has been recovered, I would like the funeral arrangements stipulated in my will to be altered so that my epitaph reads: 'Just a few steps further'.

"Actually, now that I think of it, that wouldn't be a bad epitaph anyway.

"The tunnel here slopes down about ten degrees and is really quite slippery. What idiot decided that smooth marble as just the thing for the floor of a wheelchair ramp? My boots are finding a purchase, although..." Merlyn broke off with a cry as her foot skidded out from under her. She fell flat on her back and, to her horror, immediately started to slide down the sloping passageway. Only by slapping her hands and feet down as hard as possible was she able to halt her descent.

"Now that I think of it," she went on, "this thing should be recording video from my helmet as well as audio and all of my monitor feedback, so narration is probably not required. I shall therefore be as quiet as possible and try to concentrate on not breaking my neck."

Very carefully, Merlyn rose to her feet and backed up the corridor to the Library. She took a piton gun from her pack and fired it at point blank range into the marble floor tiles. She checked to see that the piton was secure, then took the climbing line from the pack and clipped one end to the piton's loop. She threw the rope down the slope, double-checked the piton, then backed slowly along the passage, holding the rope as she went. To her relief, although she could not reach the bottom of the slope before the rope ran out, after only a dozen yards the marble flagstones were replaced by worn rock.

"Ah," she breathed. "Looks like I've reached the limits of Byelobog's attempted occupation of the Temple of Warning. There's rubble ahead of me, where the tunnel levels out; that must be where they were still clearing the passage when he pulled out."

A warning light flashed amber on the inside of Merlyn's faceplate. She checked her monitors. "My suit is registering the presence of minute levels of nanite in the air. No sign of biotransmission focus, but they could be dormant vectors. If concentrations increase..." The light turned red. "Biotransmission focus detected. Switching to internal air supply," Merlyn announced. "I can see a door up ahead; it looks to be sealed. I'm going to investigate that and then turn back. Before I do that, however, I'm going to take a few precautions. The Library recorded the formulae used to contain The Scourge. I'll use the same formula to sedate the nanites in the air around me. That should prevent the Scourge detecting me and so releasing more nanites."

Merlyn sat down on the floor of the passage and took a notebook from her pack. She leafed through to a particular page, composed herself and began to chant. Before long, the catacomb was ringing with the echoes of her voice; it was a sound that did not quite seem human.

*

"Hello Sierra-Golf-Seven-niner, this is Sierra-Golf-Charlie; come in, SG-7-niner."

Ferretti heard the crackling voice from the relay and, being a little preoccupied, switched his suit comms over to the relay channel. "Are you ever a sound for sore ears, Sierra-Golf-Charlie," he said.

General O'Neill's voice replaced the technician's: "What's your situation, Seven?"

"I'm standing on top of the world, looking down on creation," Ferretti replied. "Unfortunately, creation is full of angry Skull Guards."

"Goddamn sons of bitches!"

"Good to know you don't hold a grudge, SGC."

"Can you identify the enemy commander?" O'Neill asked.

Ferretti took a deep breath. "We're told it's Djanka."

There was a pause, the silence broken only by the sound of weapon fire behind Ferretti and the vicious oaths of General O'Neill at the other end of the channel.

"Stand by, SG-7," O'Neill continued at last. "We'll send relief troops through as soon as they can muster. How many do you need?"

"Negative, SGC," Ferretti replied. "The enemy hold the Gate in large numbers; losses among a relief force would be too high, especially at this time. Far as I know the MALP camera is still active; you should be able to patch in if you don't shift it around too much and draw attention."

There was a pause. "Crap," O'Neill commented. "Suggestions from the ground?"

"I suspect they'll be attacking through the night, so you might have better luck at around...oh-nine-thirty Zulu. If nothing else, the vampires should be asleep by then. I suggest a sweep with the MALP cameras, then lead with a Falcon, just in case. There are plenty of Jaffa on the ground and you'll be in the way of any retreat, but..."

"SG-7-niner, please confirm; did you say vampires?"

"Believe me, Sir, I wish I didn't, but I did. We have confirmed, I say again, confirmed presence of marauding, photosensitive bloodsuckers. Currently we're in one of those weird alliances with a Goa'uld who is opposed to Djanka's faction, but I do plan on getting out if and when possible."

"Glad to hear it. Well then, pray continue with your tactical assessment."

"Sir," Ferretti confirmed. "If we can hold out until daybreak and time a counteroffensive to coincide with your attack, it should be possible to cut through the Skull Guards lines and get to the Gate. The only problem is that we will have to find and neutralise the target before we leave."

"Target is confirmed?"

"Seven-five confirms dormant presence, although...There are problems with Seven-five. It pains me to say it," he went on, "but I need you to treat Seven-five as a hostile guest on arrival."

O'Neill sounded wary. "Please say again."

"Seven-five may be compromised," Ferretti repeated. "Please treat as hostile guest; I don't want to hurt her, but I don't think we can trust her. You should also ship about a dozen extra SFs to the Animal House and treat our IDC as an automatic Code Red."

"Long talk time?" Jack asked, wearily.

"After I've had a long talk with Seven-five, I'll need to have one with you, yes, Sir," Ferretti confirmed.

There was another pause. "Alright, 7-niner, sit tight. Do what you can to make trouble for the Skull Guard, keep them looking away from the Gate, but focus on the target so you're ready to go when we get there."

"Roger that, SGC," Ferretti agreed. "I've sketched out an overview; you should have the file with you now."

"Uh...Negative, SG-7."

Ferretti shuffled over to the relay post. "Damn," he swore, then looked about guiltily. "One moment, Sir...Technical glitch." He reached up and pressed the send button on the relay's data transmitter.

"Okay, we got it," Jack confirmed. "That's a big file."

"My assessment is brief and to the point," Ferretti assured him, "but I added a lot of pretty pictures, just for you."

"Thanks. Okay, we'll be in touch. And Seven-niner?"

"Sir?"

"Do not – I can not say this strongly enough – do not underestimate Djanka. She's more dangerous than you think."

"I think she's pretty dangerous, you know."

"Yeah; but she's more dangerous than that."

"Roger that, SGC. Seven out."

Ferretti leaned back against the battlements. He closed his eyes, but the sound of a staff blast brought him back to full alertness; the enemy were moving into small arms range. "No rest for the wicked," he sighed.

*

From the shadows of the forest eaves, Djanka watched her troops begin their relentless advance. Throughout the day, battalions of her Skull Guards and regular Jaffa had been arriving, bringing with them the cased forms of the kalshek'tak. She herself had come to this backwater world not long before sunset, the Goa'uld part of her lending the strength for her vampire body to walk under the fading sun. Around her, she could feel her vampires gathering, their minds sharpening as they rose from field-wrapped sleep and shucked off their capsules. Already those who were fused with one of her Goa'uld servants moved along the line, watching for deserters, while the strongest of the others led the charge against Danica's fortress.

Djanka herself had chosen to remain under cover of the trees, since the enemy clearly had some form of long range weapon; she might be the nearest any System Lord came to true indestructibility, but that did not mean that she could afford to be careless. Only as night fell and the shadows of the trees stretched out towards the fortress walls did she emerge to watch the show.

Asreth, Djanka's Goa'uld son and one of her most trusted aides, stood at the centre of edge of the enemy range and watched the battle. From time to time he would frown in concentration as he sent a mental impulse to one of the vampires on the fighting line, for Asreth was a kalshek'tak as well as a Goa'uld.

The woman in Asreth's arms was also a kalshek'tak, although she remained unblended. Among her race she might be considered beautiful, but Asreth's grip on her was no passionate embrace. He held her hard against him, one powerful arm around her waist, the other pinioning her arms; her legs kicked wildly as she thrashed in terror. Djanka knew the source of the vampire's fear and it pleased her greatly. The woman's name was unknown to the Queen; for all her vampire's strength she was as anonymous and meaningless in herself as a mere human being. What mattered to Djanka was that the woman came from a clan of kalshek'tak noted for their psychic sensitivity and that this one was remarkable, even among her kin. Now she sensed the presence of that which Djanka sought, the weapons which would give her power, even over Baal. Djanka was pleased.

"I must know," she purred.

Asreth nodded and bent his will to controlling the woman, locking out her fears and forcing her conscious mind to respond to questioning. "She is ready," he gasped, the effort of keeping the girl lucid evident in his voice.

Djanka moved in front of the woman. The psychic's eyes were dilated and Djanka took a moment to preen at her reflection in the enormous pupils. "Listen to the voice of your Queen," she instructed. "Do you hear me, slave?"

"I hear, Majesty," the woman replied. Her terror did not touch her voice, Asreth saw to that.

"What do you sense?" Djanka whispered.

"Power."

The Queen hissed in triumph. "The power of the weapons," she crooned.

"No."

Djanka stared at the woman for a long time, almost as though she were trying to remember what 'no' meant. "What do you mean?" she demanded, at last.

"I feel the power of the weapons, but it is bound; it slumbers. The mere touch of it fills me with fear, but there are other powers within the fortress."

"What powers?"

"One mind in two places; it strives upon the walls and it watches from the tower and its strength is beyond that of the kalshek'tak."

Djanka scoffed. "Beyond you, perhaps."

"Beyond me; beyond Asreth; beyond you, even, your Majesty. It is a strength born of a union beyond that of Goa'uld and host, beyond that of the clan. It is...It is the strength of twins," she gasped. "Two who are one; the legend..."

Djanka slapped the woman hard across the face. "I will hear nothing of legends," she snarled. "If there are twins in there they are human twins; they mean nothing. Even if your foolish folk tales have meaning, they speak of vampire twins, not humans."

"There is more," the woman whispered.

"Tell me."

"There is a disturbance. Something deep within the fortress that hangs in the air and makes it bend and fold; a power that is not mind, but is of the mind."

"She is raving," Djanka accused. "Asreth, hold her steady."

"I am trying, Majesty," he promised.

"And there is...There is a Dragr within the fortress!" she gasped.

Djanka scowled; she preferred the kalshek'tak to speak the Jaffa tongue as a sign of their subjugation and in particular it displeased her to hear them use the word 'Dragr', the word that they used for themselves. It had too many connotations in their superstitious culture, overtones of divinity and mystical power unsuitable to a race who lived only to serve her. Nevertheless, this was no small news; a kalshek'tak already within the enemy stronghold was not to be overlooked.

"Tell me of the kalshek'tak," she commanded.

"He is bound," the woman replied. "His captors are wary of his powers."

"Not wary enough," Djanka decided. "I will show them power. Bend your strength that way, wench," she said. "You will touch his mind and he shall know my blessing."

"But Majesty, he is so far..."

Djanka clamped the woman's head between her palms and stared deep into her eyes. She reached out with the awesome power of the kalshek'tak's brain, wrapped the black tendrils of her influence around the woman's mind and squeezed.  "You will do as I command, woman," she hissed. "Asreth, release her to my control and gather a raiding party. Send out all of the kalshek'tak. I want them on the cliffs, climbing the walls; I do not care how you get them there, but I want them inside the fortress when I am ready."

Asreth bowed. "Yes, My Queen," he acknowledged.

"I can not do this," the unfortunate seer whimpered.

Djanka tightened her mental stranglehold. "You shall, if I have to squeeze every last drop of strength from your mind to do it." She licked her thin, carmine lips as though in eager anticipation of such an act of psychic violation.

The woman shuddered as Djanka's cold, relentless will smothered and constricted her. "Yes, Majesty," she whispered. "As you command."

"Good," Djanka breathed. "Then the fortress will soon be ours and with it, the power to conquer all things."

*

"I should find Captain Lloyd," Pearson declared. "Her locator is either not receiving or not broadcasting; she may be too deep to know that the attack has started."

"I am sure she would know that it is night," Danica pointed out. "She seems a most capable young woman."

"That she is, but I should still check. As you say, in many ways I am my officers' keeper. I'd be the laughing stock of the sergeants' mess if I managed to leave a captain in the cellar."

Danica paused for a moment. "Perhaps you are right. I will send the Ghost to bring Alexa down from the tower; no-one should be alone at this time. You seek out your captain."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

"Not at all, Sergeant."

Pearson turned at the corner; Danica stood watching him and seemed to have made no move to signal the Ghost. He put that from his mind and began to jog towards the catacombs. As he went, he spoke into his radio. "Colonel?"

"Sergeant. Any joy?"

"I had an interview with our host," Pearson admitted. "Captain Lloyd was continuing reconnaissance."

"She spoke to you too, huh? Wonder what she's really after."

"Call me crazy, but I think she wants the lieutenant to stay here and be her sister."

"You're crazy," Ferretti agreed.

"Thank you, Sir."

"But probably right."

"Yes, Sir. I was afraid I might be."

"Why afraid?"

Pearson sighed. "Because even the friendliest of Goa'uld don't much like taking 'no' for an answer," he explained, "and I don't like the idea of leaving Lieutenant Rasputin here."

There was a long pause. "Maybe this is where she belongs," Ferretti said at last. "God knows, she never seemed that happy at the SGC."

"Maybe, Sir, but I don't believe it. I'm heading for the catacombs now, Sir; I'll find the captain and come back up to report."

*

Shrouded in a spell of binding, Merlyn made her way down to the temple door. The 'magic' of the pre-Ancient and palaeo-Ancient civilisations had been superseded by rational science long before the Ancients built the Stargate network, but it had a utility that was undeniable; if one had the skill to master it. Merlyn was fortunate in that she possessed the perfect pitch necessary for a human voice to weave together the phonemic formulae. Unlike her research assistant, the white witch Eleri Gofannon, Merlyn did not fear the mystical overtones of the formulae – she knew them to be a form of advanced science, rather than any supernatural force – but she was nonetheless aware that they took a toll on her, physically and mentally. She preferred not to use them save in direst need, but entering a Scourge temple alone counted as 'direst need' if anything did.

The formula she had chosen, the 'spell of binding', wove a resonance pattern around her which should – according to her translation of the inscriptions – paralyse the nanites in the air around her and so blind The Scourge to her presence. While she was undetected, she would remain immune to the controlling influence of the Scourge Mind and the nanite concentration would remain relatively sparse.

That was the plan at least.

"The door seal appears to be a biotechnological lock," Merlyn whispered into her recorder. "It has its heart in the centre of the door, but extends all the way around the frame. Parts of it are clearly alive, even after all these millennia, while others are mechanical. Whatever race built the Temple of Warning up above, this door is Scourge technology."

She thought back to Pearson's tech briefings on The Scourge. She knew that they fused organic tissue with inorganic parts; she knew that in some ways the technological components were as alive as the flesh and fluids and she knew that in other ways the organic elements were as lifeless as the deposited mineral parts. The Scourge were – or perhaps was – alive, yet unalive; animate, but without the ability to sustain its own life; dependent on other beings, those truly alive, to fuel the unholy abominations that were its limbs. But a handful of Scourge parts were alive, including the Mind at the heart of it all and – it seemed – this lock. The lock was a creature, all-but ageless and utterly mindless, waiting only for the right signal to unseal the door.

"I am going to attempt to force the lock," Merlyn went on. "The creature can not feel pain or alarm and so should be incapable of alerting the Mind to my presence, especially in the Mind's dormant state." She drew the knife from her belt. "I can only hope that Sergeant Pearson's work on the physiology of The Scourge is correct. According to the Sergeant, living Scourge devices are centrally controlled by an extremely simple brain; that is, the creature knows to do only one thing and the brain exists only to tell the body to do that thing."

There was a bulge at the centre of the door, which Merlyn had identified as the heart of the device and she slid the blade of her knife beneath a crack in the shell of this bulge. The organic parts pulsed uncomfortably.

"This being so, when the Mind is dormant it should be a relatively trivial effort to override the programming of the creature by triggering a neural discharge within the brain."

Merlyn stepped back, leaving the knife lodged in place. She drew the zat'nik'tel from her hip.

"I just hope this proves to be the case."

She squeezed the handle of the zat. The blast arced along the knife blade and into the lock; it gave a soundless quiver and at once the seals around the edge of the door contracted. The door swung open.

"Good old Pearson," Merlyn whispered. She examined the hinges and found, as she had expected, muscles and tendons to open or close the door; these she slashed with her knife so that the door could no longer move without external assistance.

Merlyn paused for a long moment. "There's no indication of a reaction from the Scourge Mind," she noted. "I suppose that I would notice; Lieutenant Rasputin is always telling me that I am sensitive to psychic phenomena, although unreceptive to influence; which is nice."

She took a steadying breath and stepped through the door into the tunnel beyond. This passageway was clearly the work of The Scourge, there could be no mistaking the smooth, chitinous surfaces or the tough, membranous conduits which lined the walls. All of those conduits were dark, however. In an active Scourge temple they would have pulsed with distributed bio-energy, extracted from the psyches of living, intelligent beings and distributed to power the temple and its servitors.

"It looks as though the passage opens out about one hundred yards ahead," Merlyn said. "I just want to see what's beyond that. I'm setting my recorder to remote receive; I'll leave it at the door and turn back when I begin to lose contact with it. If the worst comes to the worst, at least I should leave a record of how far I got. If my sense of direction isn't too messed up, the chamber ahead should be directly beneath the fortress."

Merlyn began to move forward. As she did so, she felt a palpable wave of menace sweep over her and she stopped to gather her courage, murmuring softly under her breath: "Dominus reget me et nihili mihi deerit; In loco pascuae ibi me...Gyah!"

"Dyow!"

Pearson snatched his hand back from Merlyn's shoulder and jumped away from her. Merlyn's embarrassment at being found in such a highly-strung state was only a little mollified by the fact that Pearson was clearly as nervous as she.

"Sergeant," she gasped. "Useful conference?"

Pearson shrugged with an unconvincing air of nonchalance. "Family stuff," he said. "Nice work with the door, Captain."

Merlyn smiled at he genuine compliment; approval of one's technical skills was high praise from Pearson. "Thank you, Sergeant, although I'm glad to have you here with me now. Scourge technology is basically a mystery to me. I was planning to check the chamber ahead, then go back for reinforcements."

Pearson nodded. "Good plan, except that the fortress is under attack at the moment."

Merlyn checked her watch. "Oh...balls," she muttered.

"Captain!" Pearson exclaimed. "I never thought I'd see the day."

Merlyn smiled, glad of the chance to break the tension. "I'm a Catholic," she reminded him, "not a Vulcan."

As they spoke, they moved forward, weapons ready and disruptors armed. Bullets had little effect on The Scourge, but the technology adapted for use against shoggoths and the like seemed to cut Scourge units off from their power source and so destroy them. Still there was no sign of response.

As they emerged from the passage, they turned about, shining their helmet lamps across the chamber. The cavern was larger even than the library, easily twice the size of an aircraft hangar. As the beams played out, sinister, unnatural shapes could be glimpsed, but details were elusive.

"Flare," Merlyn ordered.

Pearson flipped on the safety catch and strapped his MPX onto its chest holster. He reached into his leg pocket for a flare gun and fired a single round towards the distant ceiling. It burst into brilliant life and cast a white glare down across the chamber.

Merlyn swallowed, hard. "Oh," she whispered.

"We're going to need bigger guns," Pearson agreed.

The chamber was a hangar and it housed three vessels, each the size of a B2 bomber. The vessels consisted of a sled-like base, with five pods along each flank; Merlyn immediately recognised the chambers in which human captives were held to siphon off their psychic energy. Between the rows of pods – the ships' fuel tanks – long, curved pylons lovingly cradled the weapons; vast, silent and dark, but very clearly of the same type which had once been encountered by SG-1 in their own clash with Djanka.

Between the ships stood rows of silent figures, squat-bodied with four, jointed legs and three clusters of whip-like tentacles in place of arms. The nearest of these figures clearly possessed only a single, great eye. Neither Merlyn nor Pearson had ever seen such a thing before, but these too they recognised at once from the images shown to them in Yeth.

"War machines," Merlyn said.

"There are no other exits; no power flowing at all. This isn't even a temple," Pearson realised, "it's a weapons cache, pure and simple. Look at the siphon chambers on the sleds; everything here is the Scourge equivalent of plug'n'play technology. Each of those sleds probably has a controlling Mind, but everything here is self-powered. No distribution required. If Djanka got her troops down here she could have a hundred war machines and all three sleds ready to go in minutes."

"But the Minds in the sleds would be in charge," Merlyn pointed out.

"And what do you suppose they'd do?" Pearson asked, rhetorically. "The war machines would gather up any spare Jaffa and sweep them off to a world which did have a full Scourge temple."

"That would give the temple all the power it needed," Merlyn realised. "The Scourge would wake up, right across the galaxy."

"We need bigger guns," Pearson repeated.

"Right," Merlyn agreed. "Fall back. You know; something tells me we might have to mention this to Danica after all."

*

In his cell, the kalshek'tak known as Volodya strained against his bonds. He could sense the presence of his Queen beyond the fortress walls and he yearned to feel her benediction again. For weeks now he had been cut off from others of his kind, denied the touch of other Dragr minds and the reassuring authority of a queen's mental guidance. The need to feel that touch – if only to receive just punishment for his failure – gnawed at him, even as the metal of his chains bit into his wrists.

Kalshek'tak.

Volodya's struggles ceased and instead he strained to hear the voice whispering at the corner of his mind. "My Queen?" he murmured.

Yes, my kalshek'tak, the voice of the Great Queen Djanka whispered. What is your name, warrior? Give me your name that I might be one with you.

The vampire's heart pounded in his chest. A Dragr's name was the key to his power and sharing it an act of great trust. The Great Queen had the right to know him, of course, but for her to join her will to that of a common soldier was a great honour.

"Vicas ka Kryadyas," he said. "I am of your clan, Majesty."

Perfect, Djanka crooned. Flesh of my flesh, you shall be thought of my thought; through you, the strength of the clan shall flow and you shall bring my wrath to my enemies.

"As you command, Majesty, so shall it be," Vicas swore.

*

It was instinct as much as anything that made Roberts turn. Perhaps it was the scrabbling of hard, clawlike nails on the wall or the laboured breath of the kalshek'tak as he hauled himself up onto the top of the battlements, but something alerted Roberts in time to turn, snatch up his M181 and fire on full-auto into the creature's chest. Ordinarily, he would never have been so frivolous with his ammunition, even at point-blank range, but against this enemy a three-round burst would be futile. As it was, if the kalshek'tak died it was most likely not from the gunshot trauma, but because the impact of the bullets was sufficient to unbalance him from his perch. With a scream, he toppled back into space and fell seventy-five feet to the base of the tower.

"Thirty-seven," Roberts said as he switched the weapon's selector. The plasma lance hummed as it charged.

Anya snorted. "If we find the body," she allowed. "They must be coming through the hills at the sides of the fortress; I was sure not even a kalshek'tak could climb those." She spoke quickly into the collar of her white armour. "Kree Jaffa! Response D; execute."

"Response D?"

Anya shrugged. "Just because I thought it was impossible, doesn't mean I didn't plan for it," she assured him. "Down."

Roberts ducked as the Russian lifted her shotgun and fired. He turned in time to see the kalshek'tak fall back again, this time with a massive hole in its chest.

"Thirty-six," he allowed.

"To Forty-one," Anya reminded him. She turned to one of her Jaffa aides. "This will come to hand-to-hand combat soon; spikes and blades, go!"

"First Prime," the Jaffa acknowledged.

Anya spoke to her armour once more. "Prison detail; kill the vampire. No insiders."

Roberts shook his head. "Jaffa with field comms; never get used to that. You've worked wonders with these guys."

Anya blushed with pride, and to cover the expression she touched the switch which raised the skull-helm of her bone-white armour. "Come on. You're still nine behind on points," she said. "Let's see if we can get you caught up."

*

From his position on the first wall, Ferretti could see that the position was doomed. There was no sign of the kalshek'tak, but the black-clad Skull Guard were throwing everything they had at the front of the fortress. The walls were magnificently strong, but under the ceaseless rain of plasma the stone was beginning to melt, the gate was riddled with holes and there were few defenders left standing. Soon the gate would fall and the attackers would pour through into the first courtyard. The Courtyard was a killing zone, of course, lined with murder holes, gunports and tacs, but that would not help the few defenders stranded on the outer rampart; the Skull Guard and kalshek'tak would swarm up through the gatehouse and overrun the wall.

Aware that he had left it too late to carry the relay away from his position, Ferretti had no choice but to set the anti-tamper mechanism and flee his post. A group of Jaffa were struggling to carry a fallen comrade; Ferretti could have pushed past them, but he chose to slow to their pace and cover their backs.

"Where we headed?" he asked one of them.

"End of the wall; there's a small gate into the main keep, if we can reach it before the enemy come in. Too dangerous to open up otherwise."

They pushed on as quickly as they could, but the injured man was the largest of his squad by almost a hundred pounds and it was slow goin