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 going. Ferretti kept glancing back, but the main gate was still holding. They were almost to the small door when, out of nowhere, a narrow, dark figure vaulted onto the walkway ahead of them.

The Jaffa were burdened with their friend, but Ferretti reacted at once, firing into the kalshek'tak's chest until the clip ran out; the creature, a feral-eyed female, seemed more angry than anything. She did seem a little off balance and Ferretti chanced his arm, pushing past the Jaffa and slamming the stock of his MPX into her face. The vampire staggered a little; Ferretti shoulder-checked her and she fell, but she grabbed at him as she went and they tumbled in a heap of flailing limbs.

"Will you just die!" Ferretti yelled. He found himself somehow on top of the struggling, spitting kalshek'tak and he punched her hard in the face; the shock jarred up his arm as though he had driven his fist into a rock face.

A thin, powerful hand gripped Ferretti by the throat. The female dragged his face close to hers and hissed at him. In a moment of abstraction, Ferretti noticed that her breath was not the cold, corpse-reek that he had expected, but rather was warm and smelled vaguely of coffee. Then she straightened her arm and hurled Ferretti halfway off the walkway.

As he turned in space, Ferretti grabbed wildly at the passing stonework. He caught hold of one of the battlements, slipped, then held himself, hanging by one arm from the wall and wedged uncomfortably between two cold, stone blocks. The MPX slipped half from his shoulder and dangled down, caught in the crook of his elbow.

He looked up, and the woman's hard, narrow face appeared in front of him. She raised her hand and levelled a zat'nik'tal at Ferretti's face.

"You know, I was kidding about the dying thing," Ferretti assured her, desperately struggling to keep a placid expression while his free arm fumbled to catch hold of his weapon without dropping it altogether. "I'm sure you're a very nice person, really and..."

At that moment, someone must have reached the relay and triggered the anti-tamper device. With a vivid flash and a roar of hot wind, the relay's naquadah power cell detonated. The kalshek'tak looked around in fear, then she looked surprised, and a moment later she was lifted from the walkway and hurled bodily over Ferretti's head.

I didn't think the blast was that powerful, Ferretti thought to himself.

An armoured hand, clamped down on Ferretti's wrist and pulled. Against all reasonable hope, Ferretti found himself lifted up and set down on the walkway. Two of the Jaffa he had been accompanying rushed to the battlements and began firing down after the kalshek'tak.

Ferretti looked up at his rescuer. "Thank you," he said, unable to hide his astonishment.

"Tomorrow we may fight, but today we are as brother and sister, Colonel," Danica assured him. She was dressed for battle in the armour of her Phantoms, but had chosen to repaint that armour in indigo; it was a tactical nightmare and marked her out for any sniper, but such things rarely concerned the Goa'uld. A mantle in the form of a golden eagle, spreading its wings over her shoulders and down across her back made sure that she would not be mistaken for a Skull Guard; the bird was currently headless, but this would presumably not be the case when her helmet was raised. "Can you walk?" she asked.

Ferretti nodded.

Danica looked over his shoulder. "Can you run?"

Ferretti nodded again.

"Then run!"

*

Alexa had been in the middle of some rather half-hearted psychic reconnaissance when the blow came. First of all, she felt the eyes, roving across the fortress, doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing to the enemy camp; clearly Djanka's seers were better trained for remote viewing than Alexa. It pleased Alexa to find that when she sent her thoughts after that psychic probe, the enemy Seer backed off. If the fortress was being remote-viewed by a scary kalshek'tak psychic, it was nice to know at least one scary thing was scared of her.

Then came the fist; a wave of psychic energy that, until a year ago, Alexa would not have believed possible. Now it seemed like small potatoes, but it was probably more juice than Alexa could have managed and it felt like a multitude of minds acting in concert. It was not aimed at Alexa, for which she was grateful, but it was worrying enough to know that it was targeted at the fortress where she was sheltering.

Alexa had retreated before that wave, pulling her psychic senses back as far as she could behind her defences, but now she reached tentatively forward again. The wave was still breaking; in fact, it was more like a stream now, pouring from someone outside to someone inside the fortress. Alexa probed it, gently, and received no reaction. She looked closer and realised why there had been no response. The many minds behind the beam were not in concert at all, rather they were guided, forcibly, by a single, dominant will. It was powerful, but it was a mess; Alexa could have joined her mental presence to the stream and even the guiding mind would not have noticed.

She did not join it, but she did follow it to its source. Astral projection had never been her forte, but she had learned the basic techniques as part of her training with the Special Directorate, under the guidance of an impatient shaman with poor hygiene. Her sense of direction, astrally speaking, was limited, but here she had a clear beacon to follow. Her senses were dull without sensory organs and she was only dimly aware of passing through the walls and moving by the rocks and trees in front of the fortress. What was not dim, however, was the sight of the source.

She saw two women; two kalshek'tak. The first was radiant, her aura a glowing light that seemed at odds with the driving, hungry mind which controlled the stream. The second woman explained that dichotomy. She was more human in appearance than the other kalshek'tak, but she burned with a dark flame. Tongues of black fire flickered from her forehead and wrapped themselves around the first woman. Where those abyssal tendrils touched, the light retreated and was held, contained. The controller, fierce and ruthless, was using the other as a conduit for her own power and she was also – Alexa saw – drawing her strength from others. Lines of psychic force flowed to her from the battlefield, from the fortress walls, from inside the fortress and even from the tower from which ran the silver chord which bound Alexa to her body.

The glowing woman looked up and for a moment her huge, dark red eyes fixed on Alexa's astral body. "Run!" she hissed, urgently.

Alexa did not need to be told twice. In a desperate rush, she hurled herself back along that chord. In the tower chamber her body waited, dormant and vulnerable, while a vampire climbed the wall to her window in some devilish parody of a romantic tryst. Racing against the inevitable, she hurled her spirit through the tower wall. She had a brief glimpse of her own face – oddly unfamiliar when seen from this angle – and of the glowing, psychic force that lay behind it, then her physical eyes were opening and the kalshek'tak was tearing through the window to reach her.

Alexa could feel his hunger stretching out for her and terror swept through her being as she met his gaze. For a split second she was paralysed, helpless as the monster drew himself to the windowsill and crouched there, but then she saw the fear for what it was. Like the influence of The Scourge, this was a feeling imposed from outside herself and – unlike The Scourge – this kalshek'tak did not have the strength to breach Alexa's defences.

The kalshek'tak did not know this. Secure in the belief that his prey was helpless before him, he did not draw the zat'nik'tel from his belt, nor did he spring down at once to overbear her before she could react to his presence. Instead, he posed, baring his teeth and revelling in the fear he inspired.

That was his first mistake.

Alexa reached down and picked up her MPX. She knew that the weapon would not pierce the kalshek'tak's breastbone or skull and so she did not aim for his chest or head. Instead she aimed for his right hand, which gripped the broken window frame to steady him on the sill.

Realising that he was not facing a helpless victim, the kalshek'tak bunched to spring.

That was his second mistake.

The vampire's weight shifted back for just a moment; the same moment that Alexa's bullets shattered the frame and broke two of the vampire's fingers. Unsupported, his weight carried him backwards, and despite a valiant effort at recovery, he fell.

As his scream faded and Alexa rose to her feet, the door burst open and the Ghost entered, holding a heavy pistol at the ready. "Are you alright, Alexa Vasiliovna?"

"Fine," Alexa replied, calmly. "How far can a kalshek'tak fall without injury?"

The Ghost shrugged. "Perhaps thirty or forty feet; they can survive greater, but not without harm."

"I see," Alexa said. "We'd better get to the foot of this tower then."

*

The door to Vicas' cell opened and two Phantoms entered. One of them held a stake thrower, the other a staff weapon.

"Don't look into his eyes," the second Jaffa cautioned, but the warning was futile.

Vicas was, for a moment, the embodiment of all the strength of the royal clan Kryadyas. All the psychic force at their disposal was gathered in him and at that moment he did not need eye contact. With all of that strength, he sent out a psychic command and his victim obeyed. The executioner was felled by a single staff blast; moments later, the chains were burned from Vicas' wrists.

"Very good," he told the Phantom, who stood frozen in his power. Vicas knew he had to move fast; by using the power he had overtaxed the link and soon he would simply be himself once more. "Open your helmet," he instructed.

Shaking with a futile effort to resist, the Phantom raised his hand and touched the stud. His helmet slid smoothly back into his collar.

Vicas smiled, then he lunged forward. One hand knocked the staff weapon aside and pinned the Phantom's arm; the other wrenched back the Jaffa's head to expose the flesh of his neck. Vicas sank his vicious, razor-sharp teeth into his victim's throat and bit deep.

Minutes later, Vicas was away. Following his mistress' command he plunged deep into the fortress, always heading downwards towards the catacombs and her Majesty's prize. On the lowest levels he became momentarily lost in a labyrinthine library, but then two voices drew him to a small door, hidden in a dark corner and labelled 'access forbidden'.

The man held little interest for Vicas, but the woman was a different matter. Her short-cropped hair was almost the colour of blood; he could sense her power and she smelled pure. His mouth grew moist with hunger at the sight of her, but his Queen had entrusted him with a secret mission and he must go swiftly and unnoticed. It was difficult to resist the kill. His bloodlust burned within him after weeks of enforced abstinence and the woman was so fresh. But he was a warrior and he knew discipline. He held to the shadows and merely watched.

"Reactivate the fields," the woman ordered.

"Sorry, Ma'am," the man replied. "The controls only work for a few people; I could rewire..."

"No time," the woman interrupted. "We'll just have to hope no-one wanders down there to do the dusting while we're gone."

Vicas watched them go with a cruel smile on his lips. He hoped someone wandered down; a nice plump chambermaid or a fresh, strong warrior perhaps. The Phantom he had killed had been a veteran and his flesh was tough and bitter. He had already passed up the opportunity to sample the taste of three of the Goa'uld's slaves on the way here and his hunger was driving him to distraction.

Forcing such things from his mind, the warrior entered the small door and went down into the catacombs. Her Majesty's prize – and with it her eternal favour – was his for the taking.

*

Within the body of the keep, Ferretti and Danica paused. "How are we doing?" he asked.

"The outer gate has fallen and a handful of my Phantoms are slaughtering the Jaffa who pour in that way," Danica replied. "Meanwhile, the kalshek'tak are attempting a flanking attack by way of the cliffs which protect the fortress. They are proving rather more successful at this than I might have hoped, but Anya is not unprepared and the keep remains secure. Your bomb seems to have given them pause as well."

"Not a bomb, as such," Ferretti admitted. "We just don't like leaving bits of technology lying around for the Goa'uld to knock off."

"Especially not communications equipment," Danica agreed. "Which reminds me." She lowered her head and spoke into her collar. "Anya, my precious; what is your status?" There was a pause. "I see; and the good Lieutenant Roberts?" Another pause. "Excellent."

"Good news?"

"Quite; my First Prime is leading your Lieutenant by sixty-six points to fifty-nine."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It seems they have a wager," Danica explained.

"How very Helm's Deep," Ferretti drawled.

"I do not suppose that you would care for a...what is the word? A little 'flapper'?"

"Flutter; I think. What? On which of us can kill more bad guys?"

Danica laughed. "Now, Colonel; I think that would be a little beneath our dignity as commanders. I was thinking of a bet on which of our warriors killed more, as they are already keeping score."

Ferretti shook his head. "You're crazy."

"I am prepared to wager...three honest answers that my First Prime wins her bet."

"Three honest answers?"

Danica nodded. "If you win, I will answer three questions without evasion or deception. Will you take the bet?"

"Three honest answers that Roberts wins the bet." Ferretti thought for a moment. "No IDCs or Gate addresses," he said.

"Done."

They shook hands on it; it was not something Louis Ferretti had ever imagined he might do.

"Alright," he said. "Now that's taken care of, what say we..." A voice crackled in his ear. "Just a second; go ahead, Captain."

"I say again, three Scourge vessels and at least two dozen war machines," Merlyn repeated. "All of the devices are moderately user-directed and Seven-four believes that the Minds in the ships are probably of lesser strength than a temple Mind. If Djanka gets this then either The Scourge will walk unchallenged or, with the kalshek'tak's psychic force, Djanka is going to have a very, very good day."

"Roger that," Ferretti sighed. "Rendezvous somewhere around the throne room; Two and Five, you as well."

"Yes, Sir," Alexa confirmed.

"Sir," Roberts added.

"Roberts; how you doing there?"

"Sixty-two, Sir; only six behind now."

"Good man." Ferretti turned to Danica. "After you, My Lady."

*

"You can get me to the throne room, right Ghost?" Alexa asked, half-turning on the stairs to call up to the handmaiden.

"Yes, Alexa Vasiliovna."

"Just...Shura will do."

The Ghost blushed. "I could not," she protested.

"I insist."

"No," the Ghost replied. "Not while you refuse that honour to My Lady."

Alexa sighed. "You and I have shared suffering," she said. "Danica and I have shared nothing but bits of my sister's mind and, since she took those by force, I can not count them as common ground."

"She did not force your sister," the Ghost insisted. "Well, not entirely. She has been forced to make accord with her on many things."

"Yet still she subsumes Vasilisa beneath her own mind."

The Ghost shook her head. "It is more complicated than that," she said, softly. "The Goa'uld is not two minds in one body; not unless the blending is deeply flawed. Even with the Tok'ra, the two bleed into one another. Danica and Vasilisa Vasiliovna no longer exist as independent beings, although I suspect that either might argue the case. If you separated them today, Danica would remain forever changed by their shared experience, as would your sister."

"That doesn't make it a good thing," Alexa replied, tightly.

"She is a good mistress," the Ghost pressed. "She works hard to honour the memories and values that Vasilisa Vasiliovna has brought to their partnership..."

"That is no partnership," Alexa hissed, but the Ghost did not take the warning.

"She is kind to those who follow her; she is kind to me. She has worked hard to rebuild her armies, yet found time to seek one whom I can..." She broke off, suddenly awkward.

Alexa stopped and turned to face the Ghost. "Whom you can what?" she demanded.

"My Lady believes that it would do me good to take a lover. After the treatment that I received at the hands of her father, however, I find it impossible. I can not bear any man to touch me. She has tried to find one whom I could allow so close, but so far to no avail."

Alexa held up her hands. "Enough!" she snapped. "That is leaning towards too much information, Ghost and I really don't think that this is the time or the place. I appreciate that she has been good to you, but so long as that thing is inside my sister's head, I really do not care." She met the handmaiden's gaze, evenly, and hoped that she was good enough to hide that lie.

A scream echoed up the stairwell and the tension between them was broken; Alexa could almost have sworn that she heard a twang.

"The vampire!" Alexa snarled. "Quickly!"

She turned and led the way downstairs at a run. They emerged from the tower onto the roof of the keep; not three feet in front of Alexa was a large bloodstain; a trail of gore, as though from something being dragged, led towards the nearest roof hatch. Alexa plunged through it and slithered down the ladder beyond.

In the passageway below, the kalshek'tak lay on the carpeted floor. His left leg was clearly broken and his face was a mess of blood. The scream they had heard had originated in the throat of the handmaiden who lay sprawled beside the vampire. His shark's teeth were poised over her throat and he looked up at Alexa with the enraged snarl of a disturbed predator.

The vampire drew his zat – he was not about to make the same mistake twice – and fired. Alexa hurled herself aside in time to avoid the first shot, but he tracked her movement and fired again. Alexa fell. Painfully, the kalshek'tak dragged himself upright, leaning on the wall for support and clutching at his chest, as though it were painful for him to breath. He steadied himself, sniffed at the air and smiled.

"Yes," he said. "You are much better than this..."

"Leave her alone!" the Ghost demanded. She stood poised on the ladder, pistol held in a firm, two-handed grip, eyes fixed on the vampire's face.

The kalshek'tak hissed in triumph and locked the Ghost's gaze with his own. "Watch and tremble," he challenged.

Alexa, her body immobile, could feel the waves of terror stretching forth from the kalshek'tak's eyes to overwhelm the Ghost. He lifted the zat towards Alexa for the killing blast, intent on making the Ghost watch the execution, powerless to intervene.

That was his third mistake, and the last he would ever make.

The pistol's roar was incredibly loud and echoed within the passageway. The Ghost was rocked back hard against the ladder and the kalshek'tak's face crumpled in surprise as the heavy bullet punched through the cracked bone of his breastplate and tore through his heart.

"I can't help feeling," Alexa mumbled as the Ghost helped her up, "that the terrifying psychic powers of vampires are a little oversold."

"I am protected," the Ghost assured her. "My Lady's blessing protects me from such tricks of the mind." She looked down at the supine serving girl. "Is she...?"

"No," Alexa replied, steadying herself. "Just unconscious. I'll check her condition while you get the hatch closed. How about you?" she added. "Are you alright?"

"My arms hurt," the Ghost admitted. "Anya warned me that the weapon was powerful; I should have known that she would not exaggerate. I trust that you are well?"

"Fit as a fiddle," Alexa promised. As she knelt by the servant, she spoke into her communicator again. "This is Seven-five," she said. "Be advised that there may be kalshek'tak loose in the keep. Advise sweep of upper floors, especially roof hatches and tower doors."

*

Roberts relayed Alexa's message to Anya, who passed it on to the troops. They had fallen back behind the wall to a small wardroom, where the First Prime paused to attend to the disposition of her troops.

"We may need to abandon the second wall if the keep has been breached," she sighed. "I had hoped to hold another night here." She shook her head, sadly. "Fol'ka," she said, "confirm status of prisoner Volodya." She gave a worried frown. "Fol'ka?"

"No reply?" Roberts asked.

"This could be trouble," Anya admitted. "We must get to the throne room, but from here that will mean crossing the low balcony overlooking the inner courtyard. It will be dangerous and will probably involve close quarters fighting. Now where is that Jaffa with...ah!"

The aide whom Anya had sent to the armoury returned, bearing gifts, including Anya's stake thrower.

Anya took from the Jaffa a small tube. "This is for you," she said. "It is the traditional weapon of the ashrak kalshek'tak."

Roberts grinned. "If I get nothing else from this mission, at least I now know the Goa'uld for Vampire Slayer," he quipped.

Anya smiled back. "I hope that you will take something else at least," she said. "Now, the kal'hek." She passed the tube to Roberts. "Squeeze," she instructed.

Roberts did so and the object changed. Instead of a smooth, uniform cylinder if became contoured, shaping itself to his hand. At the same time, a spike grew from one end and formed itself into a blade, not unlike that of a commando knife. The surface of the weapon was matt black.

"Mimetic blade with a mono-molecular edge," Anya explained. "It is forged of tritanium, an alloy of trinium and titanium; lightweight and almost indestructible. Hit hard enough and it will punch through just about anything, including a kalshek'tak's breastplate."

"I even like the colour," Roberts assured her.

"Then this you will love," she promised, taking another weapon from the Jaffa.

"A sword?"

"The kal'hek is for self-defence in the last instance," she said. "This is the stage before that." She strapped the sword belt around her waist, then drew the blade. It was thirty inches from pommel to tip, broad and deeply curved. The cutting edge was on the outside of the blade, but there was no stabbing tip; it looked like a weapon designed for removing limbs. "This is the weapon of a Shay hunter," she explained. "The alloy is unique, the edge as sharp as a Siberian Winter." Anya made a few passes with the sword, sheathed it, then took a second blade from the Jaffa. "This one is yours. If I may?"

"I am honoured," he assured her.

Anya reached around Roberts' body and buckled the sword about his waist. She nodded respectfully.

Roberts leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. "Keep yourself safe out there," he admonished.

Anya blushed. "And you," she replied. "Be careful when it comes down to hand-to-hand combat. Don't go getting all Errol Flynn on me, as you Americans might say, just because you have a sword by your side. You haven't trained and..."

Roberts drew the sword to feel its weight. The balance was good and the blade swung easily as he made two practice passes.

"Alright; now..."

Anya broke off again as Roberts let the second pass move easily into a complex, figure-eight twirl. He then executed a smooth parry-and-riposte movement, followed by a measured cut and finally an all-out swing that cut a large chunk out of the metal doorframe.

"You're right," Roberts replied, gazing at the blade in a kind of wonder. He snapped out of his reverie and slid the blade easily into its scabbard. "I love it."

Anya shook her head in astonishment. "You are a rare one, Lieutenant Roberts. Stay close," she said, earnestly. "Jaffa, with me; we go to our Lady."

*

The door to the Scourge cache was closed, but not locked, and Vicas was able to open it with a single thrust of his powerful arms. He raced along the corridor, drawn inexorably to the power that he felt before him. A dim consciousness flared up in the air and tried to overwhelm him, but he was still aglow with the Queen's blessing and his mental powers were more than enough to send the vector nanites back to sleep.

When he came to the cavern his eyes were worthless; the darkness was too dense even for a kalshek'tak's night vision. Instead, he moved by touch and hearing, finding his way towards the source of a low hum that filled the chamber, far below the human hearing range. Now, his psychic senses could make out the Minds ahead; three glowing reservoirs of mental force, dormant, waiting to be unleashed.

Vicas served for a very particular reason. He was, even by the standards of his race, a wanton and a sociopath. He saw emotional attachment as weakness and despised others for indulging in it; the only emotions that he valued were the thrill of power he felt when he killed and the fear he engendered in his victims. This was a psychological condition that suited him well to the ranks of Djanka's élite terror troops, the Kalash'rak. But even compared to his fellow Soul Hunters, Vicas was a loose cannon. He recognised no bonds of loyalty or duty, but he served the Queen faithfully; this was because, when he had first been presented to her, he had encountered something unknown to him: a hunger for power that exceeded his own lust for carnage. He served Djanka because he recognised in her a superior desire, but now he was again faced with a change of priorities.

The Mind of The Scourge also had a hunger and that cast a shadow over even the divine appetites of Djanka. Had he not been so recently touched by her power and favour, Vicas would have abandoned the Queen in a heartbeat and fallen to his knees in worship of the triptych of rapacious wills before him. He had just been touched, however, and these Minds were sleeping. Djanka's desire for dominance filled his senses and he thought how glorious it would be if he were to bend one of these titanic wills to his own desires.

Beneath this, another emotion stirred. For the first time in his life, Vicas was genuinely afraid of something. He could not bend all three Minds, he knew that, and so he decided that he would destroy two of them. But how could he do that?

The answer came to him as his questing hands met a smooth, flawless surface. In response to his touch, the war machine hummed into life and its carapace split open to reveal a welcoming cavity, just like the coffins in which the Kalash'rak sheltered from the sun. Here, he sensed, was the power he needed to destroy the Minds.

Willingly, eagerly, he stepped forward to his own destruction.

*

The throne room was eerily quiet as Ferretti and Danica approached. The bulk of the Goa'uld's troops were now moving to the edges of the fortress to meet the invading army and this was the heart of the structure.

"What now?" Danica asked.

"First we wait for the others, and..."

Dark, armoured figures stepped out from the shadows at the sides of the chamber, staff weapons levelled. Danica's bodyguard responded in kind and Ferretti scanned for the leader.

"Kree-ta! Put up your weapons," Anya ordered. The First Prime stood beside the throne; at her shoulder was the familiar figure of Lieutenant Roberts; Anya's white armour was splattered with dark blood.

"Lights," Danica ordered.

With barely a flicker, lamps high on the walls banished the shadows. Ferretti could see now that Danica's Jaffa had seemed to be the enemy because they too were smeared in blood and ash, hiding the palor of their armour. Roberts had blood on his sleeves, but otherwise had barely a hair out of place.

"What kept you?" Roberts asked.

"We took the scenic route. You've got red on you."

Roberts glanced ruefully at his bloody gauntlets. "We took a short cut," he explained. "Had a disagreement regarding our right of way."

"How you doing?" Ferretti asked, nonchalantly.

"Eighty-eight, Sir," Roberts said, "but I'm eight behind now."

Ferretti was astonished. "Eighty-eight!"

"There were a lot of kalshek'tak on the walkway; five points each." He grinned. "I'm hoping to make a ton before sunrise."

Danica looked confused. "Ton?"

"A century; a score of one-hundred," Roberts explained. "It's a cricket thing."

Ferretti shook his head. "Too much time spent cross-training with the SAS," he told Danica. "Would you believe he prefers soccer to football?"

"Soccer is football," Danica and her First Prime said in unison.

"Damn Russians," Ferretti muttered.

"Right here, Sir," Alexa called.

Ferretti tried to stifle his smile, remembering that he was angry with Alexa, but it was too good to see her safe and when Merlyn and Pearson appeared in her wake he grinned, openly. Ferretti knew he could never admit to his team just how good it felt to see them all safe and well, they'd think he was going soft on them, but just for a moment it felt right to show it.

Alexa and the Ghost looked battered, but whole. Merlyn and Pearson seemed to have avoided combat altogether. They all wore their helmets open and Ferretti scanned their faces quickly for signs of incipient panic; he was pleased – proud even – to see how composed they all were.

"You look like you've been in the wars, Roberts," Merlyn observed.

"Not so much a war; more of a tiff," Roberts returned. "Rough night?" he asked.

"You know me and tunnels," Merlyn replied.

It took Ferretti a moment to puzzle out the last exchange, but on closer observation he could see that Merlyn's face was pale in the shadows of her helmet. Clearly she had been rattled by what she and Pearson had found. Alexa's eyes showed similar alarm.

 "What was all this talk of scores?" Pearson asked. "We've heard it over the channel, but I feel we've only got half the story."

"The lieutenant has a bet on with Captain Voskova," Ferretti explained.

"Oh," Pearson replied.

Alexa frowned. "Isn't that a little..."

"Helm's Deep?" SG-7 chorused.

"Yes," Ferretti agreed, "but we may all die here tonight, so I'm letting it slide." He did not add that he was willing to accept anything that brought a little light relief to his trouble team. "Okay, people," he said. "Report." Immediately he held up a hand for silence and looked guilty. "I'm sorry," he told Danica. "Your house; you get to say that."

"But you say it so well," Danica assured him. "Anya, my dear; your assessment?"

"We have been forced to abandon the outer and inner walls in order to defend the keep; it seems that the kalshek'tak flanking manoeuvre was more successful than I had anticipated. This fortress has many secrets and I believe that we can easily retake the inner wall after daybreak. We will not hold a second night, however."

"I may have a solution for you," Ferretti told Danica. "I've been in touch with the SGC; if we can establish a booster to relay my signals to the Stargate by dawn, General O'Neill can time an attack to co-ordinate with a break out from the fortress."

Danica shook her head. "We would never have time to evacuate the servants," she said, "and they would be exposed on the way. I had hoped to remove my presence by ship, but Djanka has brought too many defences."

"Hear me out," Ferretti begged. "If you lend us enough of your Phantoms to make the break, we can also hit the air defences; from the angles when you arrived, they kept those right near the Gate. You can lift off in safety with the remaining personnel and then collect the Phantoms through the rings at the Stargate. I assume there are rings at the Stargate?"

"Naturally," Danica agreed. "Anya?"

"It is a good plan," the First Prime agreed. "If we survive the night. Unfortunately, I believe that there is at least one vampire at large in the keep itself; the last of our prisoners would appear to have overpowered the guards and escaped. I thought that I had taken every precaution," she added, apologetically.

"He had help," Alexa assured her. "The kalshek'tak were gathering their mental powers through a conduit and transmitting it to someone inside. I did not have time to see who was receiving this power; my body was found by an assassin and I had to withdraw."

"A psychic gestalt," Danica whispered. "The potential power would be...How could Djanka control so much psychic force?"

"By putting herself in the middle of it," Alexa replied. "She was the conduit, although she was using another, a seer, I think, as a transmitter. The seer..." Alexa paused. "The seer warned me to flee; I think that she did not serve willingly."

Danica laughed. "If Djanka controls such a powerful gestalt, she would not need willing slaves."

"If I may suggest?" Roberts said.

"Please," Danica agreed.

"This vampire is the biggest threat," he explained. "We should find and dispose of him."

Ferretti nodded. "SG-7 can sweep the lower levels," he suggested. "Merlyn and Pearson have already been exploring there."

Danica eyed him, shrewdly. "Yes," she mused. "That would be workable. However, I think that I would sooner Lieutenant Roberts remained up here. If the kalshek'tak break through, we may need him on the front line."

"I'm not sure..." Ferretti began. He glanced around, weighing up his team's chances if things turned nasty.

"Or, you could tell me what it is that you are hiding from me," she suggested. "Roberts is strong and I know that you think my Skulls are 'only Jaffa', but Anya has trained them well; I hope that you realise that fighting is not an option."

Ferretti glanced at Roberts, who shook his head.

"Sir," Merlyn said. "I do not think we have a choice. We can't destroy them alone."

"We don't have much time, though," Pearson added. "If there is a kalshek'tak in the lower levels..."

Ferretti nodded his head. "Rasputin; fill your sister in on what's going on."

"Sir," Alexa agreed, although she frowned at his turn of phrase. "Lady Danica; in the cellars of your keep..."

"Time is of the essence!" Ferretti snapped.

Alexa's eyes widened in panic. "Sir, please..."

"We don't have time," Ferretti pressed.

Danica reached out and took Alexa by the hand. "I swear," she whispered, "that I shall go nowhere that you do not wish me to go. Remember that my power is granted only at the leave of the part of me that is Vasilisa."

Alexa swallowed hard. She shot a last, desperate, pleading look at Ferretti, but the look he returned was stony.

"Sir," she acknowledged.

Pearson moved close to Ferretti. "Colonel; are you sure about this?" he asked.

"She has to know and we don't have time for long explanations," Ferretti insisted, trying to convince himself as much as Pearson. He turned and looked at the sergeant so that he did not have to watch the agonising slowness of Alexa's movements as she laid her brow against her sister's.

"Yes, Sir," the sergeant agreed, reluctantly.

Ferretti made no reply, but he turned at a gasp from Alexa to see that tears had sprung into both pairs of dark, almond-shaped eyes. A moment later, Alexa pulled away from Danica. She turned and hurried into the shadows and the Ghost followed.

Ferretti's hand tightened on the grip of his weapon; he was aware of his team mates and the Phantoms doing the same. This was the moment of truth.

Danica looked up at Ferretti through her tears. She nodded, just once. "I understand," she said. Her long, delicate hand flickered towards a trio of Phantoms. "Kree, Jaffa; take explosives from the armoury and accompany Colonel Ferretti. Take a relay transmitter as well, so you do not lose contact. I..." Her head twitched as though listening to something.

Anya swore. "Spetznas eight," she told Roberts, who turned to his colleagues and said: "Go to channel five, unscrambled."

They did so and the Phantoms' radio traffic broke across their communicators.

"...shek'tak have breached the west door. They are coming up from the Gatehouse, we cannot..."

Ferretti had heard enough. "Roberts; go with Captain Voskova. We need this building secure."

"Sir."

"The rest with me to the catacombs; Captain Lloyd, you have point."

Danica bowed her head to Ferretti. "Thank you, Colonel," she said.

He returned the gesture. "Do me a favour?" he asked.

"Name it."

Ferretti nodded towards the shadows where Alexa was hiding. "Look after her."

"Like my own life," Danica assured him. "Go."

"Let's move, people!" Ferretti barked. "At the double; go!"

Danica turned to Anya. "My blessings go with you; and with you, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, My Lady," Anya replied. "We shall not fail you."

Roberts merely nodded his head in acknowledgement. He stared at Danica, as though seeking something in her familiar face that would tell him why this Goa'uld should be trusted.

Anya laid a hand on his arm to get his attention. "Come," she whispered. "The swiftest route is a concealed passage from the kitchens to the dining area in the roof garden. From there we can reach the flat roof and take the emergency descenders to the west door. With any luck, we will be able to hit the attackers in the flank."

"Lead on," Roberts agreed.

Left with but a handful of Phantoms, Danica turned and followed Alexa into the shadows. The young lieutenant had fled through to Danica's sitting room and was curled up on one of the cushions beside the cold fireplace. The Ghost stood by her side, resting a hand on Alexa's shoulder.

Danica crouched in front of Alexa. She reached out and stroked the hair of the human she had come to think of as her sister. "Shura," she whispered. "Alexa Vasiliovna?"

"Leave me be," Alexa whispered.

Danica laid her cool fingers on Alexa's forehead. "Do they know how you suffer, my love?" she asked, tenderly. "Do you let them see how raw the wound has grown?"

Alexa looked up at the Goa'uld with fear and loathing in her eyes. "I can control it," she insisted. "The opening in my mind makes me stronger; I can sense things that I never dreamed of."

"But you are vulnerable, Sh...Alexa. Your have grown so much since we last touched, but for all the defences that you have developed, now that I know it is there I could use that wound to enter your mind at any time."

"I would stop you."

Danica smiled, sadly, and tears glimmered in her eyes. "You know that you could not. You know that anything more subtle than The Scourge would find that hole and tear you apart. You should look to your healing, beloved. Why do you push yourself so hard?"

Tears welled up in Alexa's own eyes, but she could not find the words to answer.

"Come with me," Danica said. "I must be where the Jaffa can see me and I would not leave you alone."

"Why do you care?" Alexa demanded, angrily. "You are not my sister."

"No," Danica accepted. "But I love you as she did. Even if I had sought to suppress my host's personality, I would still be a slave to anything so deeply felt. And I have not suppressed her, Alexa; did you not feel that when we touched? You must know that she is a part of me; I am no more purely Danica than I am Vasilisa."

Alexa looked away. "I know," she murmured. "There is no way to separate you. Even if I took the Goa'uld from the host, I would never get her back."

Danica sat back on her heels. "People change, Shura," she said, and this time Alexa did not protest the name. "Even twins. One day you would have found someone else to love and you would have drifted away from Vasilisa. It would have changed the way you felt about each other, but it could never have torn you apart from one another." She touched Alexa's cheek. "Please come with me," she begged. "I would die if you came to harm."

Alexa looked up at her. She had never imagined that a Goa'uld could openly – and honestly, she could sense that – display such vulnerability. "Alright," she said. "But only because I need to do my part as well."

Danica stood and offered her hand. "As you say," she agreed.

*

As Merlyn led her team and their Jaffa escort through the library to the catacombs, she had to fight the temptation to break into a run. She had only seen the first kalshek'tak to attack SG-7's camp, but the idea of such a savage creature gaining access to the cache filled her with horror. Whether kalshek'tak or Scourge gained the upper hand, they would form a terrible partnership.

"I'm picking up weak biotransmissions," Pearson said as they entered the catacombs. "Something is waking up down there."

Ferretti sighed. "Plant that relay and keep together," he ordered. "Stay sharp. Phantoms, your job will be to slow the enemy down; our disruptors should be able to take them out, but we need a shot."

"Yes, My Lord," the lead Phantom agreed. His cohorts set down the transmitter that would allow them to keep in contact with their comrades on the surface.

"Just Colonel will do," Ferretti assured them. "You still receiving, Lieutenant Roberts?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Great; we'll yell if we need you. Merlyn; let's move in. Go to infrared."

"Yes, Sir," Merlyn agreed. She slid her fingers to the selector of her MPX and activated the disruptor. Harmless to humans, that part of the weapon had no safety, but training was everything and Merlyn still kept her finger lying alongside the trigger guard.

"Can you guys see alright?" Ferretti asked the Phantoms. He was suddenly aware that he knew nothing of their low-light capabilities, but when he turned he saw that the three had raised their helmets and their eyes flashed diabolically in the invisible light of the IR lamps.

"We can see," the leader assured him.

They passed through the library without incident and found the door wide open.

"Oh, hell," Pearson muttered. "We left this closed."

Ferretti nodded. "Slow and easy, Merlyn," he called, softly.

The team moved cautiously along the passageway, weapons ready. Ferretti was so concerned about the kalshek'tak ahead of him that he quite forgot to worry about the Jaffa walking behind him.

"We're at the edge of the chamber," Merlyn reported. "No sign of movement."

"Alright," Ferretti said. "Pearson, ready a flare; we go in fast and cover all directions. Sound off."

"Ready," Merlyn replied. Pearson echoed her and clearly the Phantoms had the idea.

"On three," Ferretti said. "Merlyn; your count."

Merlyn raised her left hand and counted off: one, two, three. On the third she moved, running forward, body low and weapon level. Pearson fired his flare from the edge of the passage before following; Ferretti and the Phantoms were close behind, fanning out into a loose semicircle around the tunnel mouth.

As the flare burst, Ferretti was momentarily stunned by the scale of the cavern. He looked up, following the dome of the ceiling. It was ribbed and ridged even more than the other Scourge structures he had seen, loops and hooks projecting all across it, like some sort of infernal climbing wall.

"Clear," Pearson reported.

A chill seized Ferretti's heart. A climbing wall, he thought. He turned fast and aimed up, above the tunnel mouth. "Move!" he roared.

Ferretti threw himself into a backwards roll. Merlyn and Pearson, used to obeying him, instantly dived forward, but the Phantoms were slower.

The war machine sprang from its hold on the wall and landed with a dull clatter of metal feet. It lashed out with a mass of tentacles and seized one of the Jaffa; the cables lashed around his limbs, holding him fast and lifting him off his feet. One tentacle ripped the staff weapon from his hand, while another touched the release stud of his helmet. Before anyone could react, another tentacle whipped around and sliced through the Jaffa's neck, severing his head from his shoulder.

"JeSUS!" Ferretti gasped.

Merlyn did not waste breath on chiding the Colonel. She slipped her finger through the guard and fired. Five weapons opened up on the war machine, plasma and disruptor bolts spattering across the black carapace. To Ferretti's horror, the energy from the blasts seemed to be dissipated through the surface of the armoured shell, in the same way that staff blasts were diffused, harmlessly, across the armour of the kull warriors.

For a moment, the machine did nothing, but then it moved with horrifying speed. It swung the headless corpse by the legs and hurled it at Merlyn, knocking her down. Then it charged.

*

The emergency descenders were magnetic harnesses, designed to allow those in the upper levels of the keep to escape in case of fire. Coupled to lodestones in the crenellations of the roof, the harness controlled the descent of a falling body; you could jump from the roof in the harness and land safely on the ground, a hundred feet below. Roberts and the Phantoms only needed to drop forty feet to the walkway, but Roberts was still not sure if Anya were really doing him a favour by allowing him to go first.

"It makes sense," she insisted. "Your plasma lance is more of a flame-thrower than anything; if I lead, I'll just be in your way."

"And of course, you bet on me," Roberts added.

"There will be plenty for us both," Anya assured him, tightening the harness around his waist. "You'll want to hit the release as soon as you are down," she reminded him. "It's not as bad as trying to fight with a rope on your belt, but it is a burden."

"I understand," Roberts replied. He walked to the edge of the roof and looked down. Anya had sent the bulk of her group to reinforce the defenders on the door, but the enemy were still well inside the building itself. Of course, that made it easier for Roberts; he did not have to worry too much about who he would hit. He closed his helmet. "Ready," he said.

Anya nodded. "We'll be right behind you," she assured him. She squeezed his shoulder. "Good luck."

"And you."

Roberts winked at her, then turned and stepped into space. He resisted the urge to throw himself into a skydiving sprawl – or, big floating target in the sky, as he thought of it – and instead kept his legs together and aimed the M181 down between his toes. At thirty feet he fired, unleashing a stream of burning plasma upon the enemy below. Screams rose up from the walkway. At twenty feet he stopped firing. Blazing figures scattered beneath him to avoid another blast, inadvertently clearing a landing space. He had reached his maximum speed by now and it was slightly disconcerting to find that he was free-falling at roughly the speed of a gentle elevator ride.

His feet touched the stone and he crouched, firing two short bursts with the plasma lance to keep his foes off balance. He punched the release switch on the buckle of his harness and it fell away; the magnetics deactivated so that it fell to the walkway instead of snatching the belt back to the parapet and striking the next descender in the face.

The attackers began to recover their balance and close on Roberts again; that was not the smartest thing for them to do, of course, since the staff weapon, although deadly in an open melee, was not the weapon of choice for close quarter fighting. Roberts thumbed the selector and shot the first Jaffa as he charged. The second was too close and so Roberts brought the weapon up in a tight arc and smashed the stock into the man's face.

A zat blast was fired and caught the M181, but Roberts released the rifle fast enough that the charge did not transfer to his body. The kalshek'tak aimed the zat again, but fell under a barrage of staff fire. Anya slammed into the walkway beside Roberts; two Phantoms landed in front of them and drove short spears into the ground. A kashek'tak tried to charge, but rebounded from a force field.

"Mobile field staves," Anya explained, tapping a third spear slung on her back beside her shotgun. "Cover in your backpack. You made fourteen, in case you were too close to tell."

"Nine," Roberts corrected. "One of the kalshek'tak took a dive off the walkway; no confirmation."

"I like an honest man," Anya said. She turned to the Phantoms. "Hold here; we'll join up with the others inside."

"Yes, First Prime," they acknowledged.

"Your rifle?" Anya asked Roberts.

Roberts shrugged. "Other side of your force fields," he replied.

Anya passed him her stake thrower and drew her shotgun. "Remember, careful shots; the weapon will overheat if you fire too fast."

Roberts nodded and raised the weapon to his shoulder. "Down!" he snapped.

Anya dropped at once and Roberts fired; the weapon bucked like a high-powered rifle and tore a hole through the Skull Guard who had been the first to notice that his friends had stopped following him through the door.

"Thank you." Anya cocked the shotgun. "After you."

"Ladies first," Roberts insisted.

"Both together?"

"By all means."

A handful of attackers had turned, but they were unprepared for the ferocity or efficiency of the counterstrike. They were mostly Jaffa and the weapons that were turned on them were strange and terrifying. The lone kalshek'tak in the group managed to grapple the stake thrower from Roberts grasp, but he rolled backwards, allowing Anya to put a slug through the vampire's chest. Ahead were the sounds of fierce fighting, but more of hand-to-hand combat than staff fire and that suggested things were not going well for the Phantoms.

The stake thrower was held tightly in the kalshek'tak's death grip. Roberts drew his tchul'da to cut the weapon free, but two more of Djanka's warriors rounded the corner ahead. Anya's shotgun was held ready, but still she only shot down the one on her side at the same time as Roberts, springing forward, sliced open his.

"Bozhe moi," Anya gasped. "You move like...like the kalshek'tak."

Roberts squirmed, uncomfortable with the simile and surged onwards. Around the corner the passage opened out into a t-junction. The Phantoms had been pushed back and thus forced to fight on two fronts. The bodies of dozens of Djanka's finest lined the corridor, but only a handful of white-armoured Jaffa remained and these were being cut down by a group of kalshek'tak, led by the largest that Roberts had yet seen. Even as the arrived, he had a Phantom by the throat and was squeezing the life out of him.

Anya fired towards the vampire's back. He turned with lightning speed and held out the hapless Jaffa, so that the slug only ended the suffering of his victim.

"Kill them," he hissed.

Four kalshek'tak sprang forward, two at each of their opponents; they were fighting with long, wickedly curved knives. Anya shot one, then parried a slash with her shotgun. She pushed with all her strength and when the kalshek'tak pushed back she let herself fall into a roll, using her enemy's strength to flip him over her body. She dropped the shotgun as she went and the kalshek'tak came swiftly to his feet, but Anya had designed her armour specifically for fighting vampires. As he caught her shoulders and tried to overbear her, she drove a short punch into his chest. The Kalshek'tak almost laughed at the futility of this gesture, but then a plasma charge launched a trinitanium stake from the tube concealed in the mouldings on Anya's bracer and his heart was shattered.

Roberts blocked two swings and followed through with a sweeping cut to the legs of the leading opponent, a male. A swift reverse of the motion sliced through the creature's throat and he turned his attention to the female. This opponent was less reckless and more agile than the first; she feinted at Roberts, probing his defence for weaknesses, but he refused to let her control the fight. He launched a wild swing from her right; she swayed back and lunged inside his reach, allowing him to slam his kal'hek into her heart with his left hand.

Anya cried out as she was swept up and swung around. She struggled, but she was dangling in the grip of the big kalshek'tak and his strength was too much for a mere human. For the first time, she wondered if she had been right to refuse the prim'ta, but then even a Jaffa's strength would not have matched this enemy.

Roberts rounded on the kalshek'tak, but he held Anya before him as a shield. The surviving Phantoms moved to support Roberts, but they could not find a clear shot past their commander. Roberts was impressed, in a detached sort of way; past experience of Jaffa suggested that they would just have shot through their First Prime for fear of their master.

"Drop your sword!" the kalshek'tak commanded; his voice revealed the Goa'uld within him.

"Kill him!" Anya demanded. "He is Asreth, Djanka's general! You must destroy him, whatever the cost."

"Drop your sword or she dies!" With his eyes on Roberts' sword, Asreth placed his knife beneath Anya's breast. Roberts had no doubt that the blade could pierce her armour and impale her heart in a moment. One movement of his sword and Anya would die.

*

"Alexa Vasiliovna," the Ghost said.

"Ghost?"

The Ghost held up her heavy pistol. "I do almost as much damage to myself with this thing as I do to my target. You might need its power; will you take it."

"Thank you," Alexa said, "but you should be armed."

"I have my kal'hek," the Ghost assured her. "Besides, we are as safe here as we are anywhere in the keep."

"Perhaps," Alexa demurred.

Danica caught her by the arm. "You feel it too," she said. "There is danger, here with us."

Alexa nodded. "I just do not know where."

"Perhaps...together?"

Alexa shivered. "I am not sure..." But as she spoke, the feeling of menace deepened. She reached out and took Danica's hand; physical contact was not necessary, the bond she had shared with Vasilisa – that she still shared with Danica – was deeper than any touch could ever be, but it was symbolic and as such, important.

Alexa focused on the sensation and felt Danica doing the same. Their minds touched, joining at the common point that was the distant awareness of a hostile mind.

Their eyes snapped open and they spoke as one: "The skylight!"

They caught hold of the Ghost and dragged her to the side of the chamber, falling in a tangle of limbs among the pillars, just as the crystal dome above them shattered into a thousand shards. Razor edged glass fragments almost two inches thick rained down. The Phantoms scattered, although one luckless warrior was caught in the fall and the glass sliced through his armour as though it were paper. Then the kalshek'tak came.

As Anya had explained to Roberts, the kalshek'tak could survive falls from great heights and sixty feet was nothing to them. Four of them followed the fall of the glass and landed smoothly in the centre of the floor. Three wore Skull Guard uniforms and carried a zat'nik'tel in each hand; the fourth wore the black armour of a kull warrior, complete with wrist blasters. He caught the injured Phantom and snapped his neck without a moment's pause. He glanced around and his eyes burned within his helmet as they settled on the three women lying on the floor.

"Shalok'sha!" the Goa'uld commanded: Kill them all.

The Phantoms raised their weapons and fired; the kalshek'tak began to circle and returned fire. The Goa'uld's first targets were two exposed Jaffa, while one of his comrades fired on Danica, Alexa and the Ghost.

Danica leaped to her feet. To Alexa's amazement, the golden eagle seemed to spring from Danica's back and wrap its wings protectively about her body. The zat blasts coiled harmlessly around the glowing apparition; the appearance of the eagle was merely a minor, aesthetic refinement of the regular personal shield.

Alexa had a moment of revelation. The enemy were hidden behind Danica, but she knew exactly where they were. Her mind was still linked to Danica's and their senses were as one. Danica threw herself flat and Alexa rose up, firing; the pistol roared four times as Alexa put two pullets through the chest of their attacker and two through the back of a second kalshek'tak. The Phantoms were outmatched by the speed and precision of this élite team, but they had the weight of numbers and the third vampire was overwhelmed by plasma fire and died in flames. Only one remained, but that one was stronger and faster than any of the others and protected by impenetrable armour to boot.

Danica and Alexa moved with a single mind. One went left, the other right, splitting the warrior's fire. Danica drew a kal'hek from her wrist sheath and Alexa abandoned her useless pistol to snatch a knife from one of the dead vampires. As they closed, the Goa'uld drew a pair of knives from scabbards on his back. The sisters slowed and there was a momentary standoff.

"I would not have thought you had the guts to come for me yourself, Rijasci," Danica taunted. "Sending others to die is more your forte.

The Goa'uld named Rijasci hissed, angrily. "I would not want to give any other this pleasure," he assured Danica. "I promise you, Lady Danica, your death will be exquisite. I shall bleed you a drop at a time and know you as intimately as a lover.

Alexa knew – because Danica knew – that this was one of Djanka's commanders and that he was vain and proud even by Goa'uld standards. Danica was goading him to make him careless and it would probably work; he would feel invulnerable in his kull armour. Unfortunately he probably was.

"It is unlike Djanka to risk her pets," Danica added. "Could she have grown weary of you? I know I have and I have only met you once."

With a savage cry, Rijasci lunged at Danica.

*

The war machine looked ungainly, with its four, spidery steel legs and bulbous body, but like a spider it moved with uncanny speed and grace. It was just possible to remain beyond the reach of its tentacles, but their weapons had no visible effect and unlike them it did not seem to be getting tired. After a few moments, the group scattered. Unable to harm the beast, knowing that they could not easily evade it in the open, they sought shelter in the only place available; among the dormant shells of the other war machines.

Ferretti found a place behind a sled, alongside one of the Jaffa.

"Pearson!" Ferretti cried, relying more on radio than voice. "Any ideas?"

"Base of the tentacle clusters; maybe the eye," Pearson replied.

The skittering of metal feet grew closer. "You got a favourite?" Ferretti asked the Phantom.

"Eye," the Jaffa replied.

Ferretti nodded. "On three...Three!"

The Jaffa leaned around the hull of the sled; Ferretti ducked low and fired from the other side. His disruptor bolts hit the side of the casing and some found their way to the flailing tentacles; those he hit quivered and went limp, but the others in the bundle lashed out, striking the sled with a shriek like a million tortured puppies.

As Ferretti ducked back, he saw the machine's single eye flash green. A brilliant, sickly emerald light filled the room for a moment and a horrific scream was cut violently short. The Phantom crashed to the ground; his head, shoulders and chest were gone and his upper body terminated in a tattered and blackened line. It did not look burned or cut so much as decayed, as though the Jaffa's torso had simply rotted away, armour and all.

"What was that?" the lead Phantom demanded.

Ferretti forced himself to swallow bile; veteran or not, he wanted to vomit, but the idea of throwing up inside a sealed helmet did not bear thinking about. "Aim for the eye," he gagged. "For God's sake, take out that eye; there's a weapon in the..."

Tentacles reached around the sled and Ferretti ran, diving as the killing beam flashed over his head. He rolled on his back and saw the machine rush towards him. A steel cable lashed around his ankle and swung him effortlessly into the air. The eye flashed green.

*

One of the Phantoms shifted his grip on his staff weapon and Asreth turned at the movement. Roberts knew this would be his only chance. His left hand flicked out; his kal'hek snapped towards Asreth, but an inch too low. The tip of the blade struck the stud in the collar of Anya's armour, slicing a long gash through the armour itself and triggering the retraction of her skull helm.

Asreth hissed, disdainfully.

"Duck!" Roberts shouted...in Ukranian.

As he had hoped, although Asreth spoke medieval Russian, his knowledge of modern dialect was poor. He paused a moment to work out what Roberts was saying, while Anya put her chin against her chest. She felt the wind whistle through her short hair as the blade of the tchul'da swept past. A few drops of blood ran down her neck.

Asreth's body dropped to the floor. His head flew towards Roberts, who controlled it on his chest, held it on his knee and then kicked it into the hands of a nearby Phantom. The Jaffa turned the head to look into its eyes and they flared, once.

"Cross-training with the SAS?" Anya asked, her voice shaking slightly.

Roberts smiled.

She raised her hand to the gash in her collar. "You're very precise, Lieutenant; and very cunning. I'm grateful. And of course, that is ten points for you."

"As long as you're alright," he said, sincerely.

Anya turned away to hide her smile. "Never mind the pleasantries," she said. "Let's close the door."

*

As Rijasci struck, Alexa darted forward and slashed at his unguarded flank. The knife cut into the kull armour, but not all the way through. Rijasci spun around; only by hurling herself away did Alexa avoid a disembowelling. His blade still sliced cleanly through the armoured layers of her Omega suit to draw blood. With his left hand, Rijasci parried Danica's attack. A Phantom ran to aid his mistress, but his knife broke on the kull armour; a backhand thrust drove a knife deep into his chest, then Rijasci sent the body spinning at Alexa. Still recovering from the first attack, Alexa was forced into another desperate evasion and she realised that they stood no chance of victory.

Throughout their lives, Alexa and Vasilisa had possessed an edge in any fight; their ability to act with a single purpose and perfect coordination was their greatest asset. Four years of separation and the presence of Danica had eroded the perfection of their partnership, however, and in all their lives the sisters had never faced a foe so deadly. Rijasci was an expert fighter and, moreover, needed only to wear away at them. As they sought desperately for an opening that would allow them to make a killing blow through his armour and into his heart or head, he slashed with abandon. His knives pierced their armour with ease, drawing much blood; every shallow cut weakened them, while he seemed to grow stronger.

"This is more entertaining than I had anticipated!" Rijasci crowed.

Danica did not reply. Talking did not seem to break Rijasci's concentration, but she needed all her wits just to survive.

"You have made me work for my pleasure and it shall be all the sweeter for it," he promised her. "I shall take my time with you, Danica; after I have cooled my heart with the blood of your harridan!"

As he spoke he thrust at Alexa. She tried to dodge his attack, but the main thrust was just a feint and his left-hand blade cut a long gash along her arm. Alexa screamed and her knife fell from nerveless fingers.

"No!" Danica's cry was desolate and it made Rijasci smile all the more.

*

Ferretti knew that his hour had come. He sought desperately for a final prayer, or at least a pithy one-liner to be his epitaph, but nothing came.

Sparks flew from the machine's head and the green light erupted.

It took Ferretti a moment to realise that he was not dead, but gradually it became clear to his doom-fogged brain that the flash had come when the eye was shattered. By the time a disruptor crippled the limb holding him, his instinctive brain at least had brought itself up to speed sufficiently to turn a nasty fall into a controlled tumble.

The war machine wailed and ran. It sprinted to the walls, sprang up and clambered with its hooked limbs up to the shadows of the ceiling.

"Are you alright, Sir?" Merlyn asked.

"I think so," Ferretti replied. "I believe I owe someone a drink."

"That would be Dori'ac," Pearson noted. "That was some shot." He held up his fingers, less than an inch apart. "Came this close to taking your head off himself."

Ferretti turned to the Phantom. "Thank you," he said. "I am very grateful to you for not decapitating me."

Dori'ac made a short bow. "You are welcome, Colonel," he said, "but for now we still have to deal with that thing that killed my Jaffa. I saw Krid'l's body; no warrior should die like that."

Ferretti nodded his agreement; he felt bad, because his first reaction had been to thank God that it was not one of his team who had died that way. "Pearson; another flare. I want to know what it's doing. Roberts; I think we need the big guns down here."

"We're still a little busy up here," Roberts replied.

"I'm not screwing around, Lieutenant; we're about to get slaughtered, and/or fed to The Scourge down here."

There was a short pause. "I'll see if we can hurry things along," Roberts promised.

"Don't put yourself out," Ferretti muttered.

Pearson raised the flare gun and fired. Once more, the cavern was filled with white light. Past the glowing spark of the flare, they could see the black bulk of the war machine, hanging above them.

"What is it doing?" Ferretti wondered.

Pearson swore. "It's healing," he realised. "It's repairing its own damaged systems. We have to do something to stop it."

Ferretti gave a slightly desperate laugh. "Like what?" he demanded. "It's out of range and almost invulnerable. Why aren't our disruptors working, anyway?"

"Internal power supply," Pearson sighed. "There's no feed to disrupt. I just don't know what to...Don't touch that!" Pearson cried.

Dori'an had wandered over to one of the war machines and laid a hand on it's skin. A crack appeared where none had been before and a hatch swung open, invitingly. Dori'an moved towards it.

"He has no nano-shield!" Merlyn realised. "He's been infected."

Pearson did not hesitate; he raised his MPX and fired. The disruptor bolts struck clean in Dori'an's back.

"Disruptors don't work on people!" Ferretti reminded the Sergeant, thumbing the selector, but he held his fire.

Dori'an suddenly jerked back from the war machine. "What...?" he gasped. "What was I..."

The hatch swung closed, but once more Pearson moved almost without thinking, following the savant technical instincts which allowed him to comprehend the nature of Scourge bioengineering in the first place. He pushed his weapon through the closing crack and fired.

This time, the disruptor did have an effect; the war machine spasmed wildly, blue fire pouring over its surface. It collapsed with a crash as its legs jerked in four different direction and lay helpless, its tentacles thrashing weakly.

"The disruptor does effect Scourge technology within a human body," Pearson explained. "They're working on an anti-nanite screen for the Stargate at the Delta Site, using that effect. Clearly" – at this point he wrenched the hatch open and inspected his MPX for damage – "it also effects the components inside the war machines."

"All well and good," Ferretti remarked, "but it doesn't stop that machine squatting on the ceiling until it's time to come down here and rot us to death."

"Maybe it will," Merlyn mused. "It wants to resurrect this cache," she pointed out. "It can't rouse The Scourge on its own, it doesn't have the power. It needs these other machines to transport enough life-forms."

"You think if we break enough of its toys it will come after us, eye or no eye?"

"I think it might?"

Ferretti grinned. "Smashy, smashy."

*

Danica made a last effort to finish the fight. It was a desperate move, leaving her wide open to retaliation and Alexa knew that this was a deliberate sacrifice. She wanted to do something, to help or to stop her sister throwing her life away, but the shock of her wound was too great and she could only watch and pray.

Rijasci was too skilled even for such valour to prevail, however; Danica did not even succeed in cheating him of his torture. He moved with impossible speed and battered Danica aside, weathering a deep cut to his arm in exchange for removing the Goa'uld from the fight.

Danica hit the ground hard; her kal'hek spun away across the floor. Alexa gasped out loud as she felt Danica's pain; it seemed to hurt even more than her own. A Phantom tried to come to Danica's aid was cut down by Rijasci's wrist blaster and the Goa'uld cried out for her servants to stay back. Again, this seemed to amuse Rijasci.

With a demonic gleam in his eyes, the kalshek'tak turned his full attention to Alexa. "Let us see what kind of warrior-woman you are, shall we?" he taunted. "Are you as pretty as your mistress?"

It was only when he reached down to tear the helmet from her head that Alexa realised she had fallen to her knees; dimly she wondered how much blood she had lost.

"Bas'harak," Rijasci breathed. "Two of you, Danica?" he asked. "A spare host? Perhaps when I have killed you I can keep this other to amuse me. Call her a keepsake; a reminder of your slow and agonising death."

"No," Danica muttered, dragging herself halfway to her feet. "Take me, but leave them be."

"I could keep her in a cage and bring her out to demonstrate the finer points of your demise to my...Gah!"

Unseen, or at least unnoticed, the Ghost had managed to come within striking distance of Rijasci; most likely he was simply so used to servants tiptoeing around him that even in battle he did not give them a second thought. He spun around and Alexa could see that a kal'hek was lodged in his back. The blade was angled towards his heart, but the Ghost's thrust had barely pierced the heavy armour. Rijasci was hurt, but not slain; the wound was just enough to make him angry again.

"You little bitch!" he snarled. He lashed out, grasped the Ghost by the throat and lifted her from the ground so that he could direct his malevolent stare into her eyes. She struggled vainly against his strength, completely unarmed now.

"Or maybe I should kill you both and keep this dainty thing to play with," he gloated.

Alexa could feel him willing the Ghost to submit, but it seemed that Danica's 'blessing' truly did protect her. She held her head as high as she could, summoned all her courage and spat violently through the eyeslit of the mask.

Rijasci's eyes flashed. "So be it!" He raised his hand for a killing blow.

Danica sprang up and seized the Ghost's kal'hek in her right hand. She set her left palm and the crystal of her ribbon device against the flat pommel. "I said leave them be!" she roared. She thrust upwards and the crystal flared with an angry, red-gold light. The force of the ribbon wave slammed into the pommel and drove the kal'hek's blade through the armour with the full force of Danica's might and fury.

Rijasci died without a sound. His eyes flared one last time and he slumped in a nerveless, twitching heap upon the floor.

*

"NO!" Djanka's roar of fury split the sky above the Skull Guards camp. She reeled back from the seer and withdrew into herself, closing her mind against the waves of pain that flooded along the shredded bonds that had once tied her to the dead. The seer, released from Djanka's hold, collapsed gratefully into sweet unconsciousness.

Djanka tried to comprehend what had happened and who it was that she had lost. First Asreth; brave, noble, loyal Asreth, her mightiest son had been struck down by a Tau'ri peasant. Then Rijasci, her own beloved consort, slaughtered by the vermin he had been despatched to exterminate. To lose but one of those two magnificent killers was unthinkable; to lose both in a single night was disastrous. Finally, all contact with Vicas had been lost; the triumph that had lain within her grasp was slipping away.

"Jaffa!" she bellowed. "Kree, Jaffa!"

A Skull Guard ran over to her.

"All warriors are to advance," she commanded. "Crush all resistance; kill them all."

"B-but My Lady," the Jaffa protested. "General Asreth's orders made it clear that to advance the main force before the defences were completely destroyed would be to walk the Jaffa into a deathtrap. We must wait for the keep to be breached, or..."

With a frustrated shriek, Djanka grabbed the Jaffa by his collar and dragged him towards her. She sank her sharp teeth into his throat and tore it open, gulping deep drafts of hot blood as his life spilled out, into her throat and over her face.

She flung down the corpse and turned to another Jaffa, one who had seen the entire incident. "All warriors are to advance," she said.

The Jaffa stared at the blood that covered the front of the Queen's body. "Yes, Majesty," he agreed.

"Summon the reserve from the Chappa'ai. I want every life in that castle snuffed out by daybreak."

*

The Ghost collapsed and Danica scrambled over Rijasci's body to reach her.

"My Lady!" one of the Phantoms called. "Are you injured?"

Danica ignored him and knelt beside the Ghost. She gently brushed the hair away from the girl's throat and examined her bruises. "Ghost?" she whispered.

"My Lady?"

Alexa turned at the voice and realised that one of the Jaffa had crouched down and was addressing her. "Your arm, My Lady?"

"I'm fine." Alexa waved him away and looked on as Danica gently tended to her injured servant. That image brought a memory to her mind; a memory of a holiday taken when she had been ten. She had fallen and cut her legs on the rocks; Vasilisa had tended her then, exactly as Danica was now tending the Ghost.

The Ghost coughed, painfully. "My Lady. My throat hurts."

Alexa struggled up, her cuts stinging, and walked over to Danica's side. "Will she be alright?"

"I don't know," Danica admitted in a broken voice. "I...I think so."

Alexa bent to examine the handmaiden herself. Her throat was horribly bruised, but there was no sign of serious damage. She put an arm around Danica's shoulders. "She'll be fine, Vasya," she whispered.

Danica turned, sharply and stared at Alexa. Alexa stared back, shocked by her own slip; she did not withdraw. Danica raised a hand to Alexa's face.

"Shura," she whispered.

Alexa pulled away, embarrassed. "I...I've never seen a hand device used like that before," she commented, forcing herself to sound casual.

"I was not sure that it would work," Danica admitted. She raised her head and suddenly she was the Goa'uld lady once more. "Jaffa; take my handmaiden to her chamber and see that she is cared for," she commanded.

The Phantom bent down and gathered the Ghost into his arms. He was gentle, but the Ghost still shrank from his touch.

"Be calm, my precious Ghost," Danica whispered, laying a soothing hand on the girl's brow. "He shall not harm you, I swear it." She looked deep into the Ghost's eyes, as she had done so often with Alexa and – just as Alexa always did – the Ghost grew calm. "Harm her and I will kill you," Danica told the Jaffa.

"Yes, My Lady," the Phantom replied, stiffly.

Alexa looked around at the other guards; they were watchful, but deliberately averting their gazes from their mistress. Alexa wondered what they were hiding, but the answer came in an instant when she caught the gaze of one of the Jaffa. The Ghost was as precious to them as she was to Danica; she was the warm and vibrant face of their unapproachable lady and they loved her. To the Phantoms, harming the Ghost in the least way was as unthinkable as betraying their mistress. For her to doubt this was an insult, but they hid their reverence for Danica's handmaiden and so they could not blame her.

Feeling awkward, as though she had intruded on something very private, Alexa looked up at the shattered skylight dome. "Why did we not consider that?" she asked.

The dome is at the top of a tower which rises above the roof," Danica replied. "To reach the skylight, the kalshek'tak must have climbed a twenty-foot column of sheer marble. Is there no end to their threat?"

"Not while Djanka lives," Alexa replied. "I could feel her, egging them on."

"I hope she chokes on their deaths," Danica spat. "But you are hurt, Shura; let me see your arm."

"It is a scratch," Alexa demurred.

"I felt it, Shura; I know it was deep." She took Alexa's arm and keyed the code to release the seals at her elbow. Ordinarily that part of the suit would never be unlocked from the main body, but various parts were designed to break away as necessary to allow medical access. It was only a slight worry for Alexa to realise that Danica must have pulled the code from her mind.

Alexa started in alarm. "My, that is deep," she realised.

"If it were on the inside of your arm it would have severed your artery and killed you; it is a good thing that Rijasci wanted you alive." Danica produced a healing device from her belt and held it over Alexa's arm.

"Why didn't you use that on the Ghost?" Alexa asked. Her arm tingled as the device's light shone down on it.

"Because as you saw before I, she was not so badly hurt," Danica explained, "and I wanted to make sure that she stayed out of the rest of the fighting. She is willing, eager even to fight to protect me, but I will not see her come to harm." She lowered the healing device; all traces of the wound were gone.

"You know, I've a few more cuts..."

Danica shook her head. "Keep them. It is better to let them heal on their own anyway and the scars will be a reminder."

All around the keep, alarm horns blared.

"Well, Djanka's certainly mad about something," Alexa said.

Danica's eyes narrowed. "Good," she snarled. "Then we can hope that she will do something foolish."

*

"How do you plan to 'hurry things along'?" Anya asked.

Roberts smiled, beatifically. "Can I borrow that field stave, please?" he asked.

"It will not hold for long," Anya told him, but she handed it over anyway. "Those at the door will soon be destroyed, if they have not been overcome already. It is like a personal shield; only energy blasts and high-velocity projectiles will be deflected."

"Then we'd better hurry," Roberts replied. "All I need you to do is get their attention for me."

"Whose attention?"

"The enemy."

Anya thought for a moment. "I believe that I can do that," she agreed. She opened the loading gate of her shotgun and took a shell from her belt. The casing was bright red and decorated with black flames.

"Do I want to know?" Roberts asked.

"Devil's Breath," Anya replied.

"Devil's Breath? Is that like Dragonsbreath?"

"You know when you walk on nylon carpet?" she said. "You collect an electrical charge; when you touch something that earths the charge you feel a shock, yes?"

"Yes."

"Well...That is like lightning," Anya noted, pumping the Devil's Breath shell into the chamber.

"Subtle for you is just something that happens to other people, isn't it?"

"There is a time and a place for subtlety," Anya assured him. They rounded the corner and saw the west door ahead of them. One of the Phantoms was down and the other was injured. He was holding only because the enemy had to squeeze slowly around the field barrier. Anya's eyes narrowed. "This is not such a time."

"No," Roberts agreed.

Anya stepped forward and raised the shotgun to her shoulder. She squeezed the trigger and a gout of black and red flame erupted from the barrel. Jaffa and kalshek'tak leaped, burning from the walkway to the courtyard below; the press of the enemy slowed. Roberts noted that the field barrier was now down; clearly neither the shields nor the staves were fireproof.

"You have the floor," Anya said.

Roberts handed her the stake-thrower and stepped onto the walkway. The courtyard seemed to be on fire as plasma bolts rained down and tac beams crisscrossed, cutting down the black-armoured enemy like cattle before machine guns. Coupled with the blast of Anya's Devil's Breath, the slaughter below had the enemy – even the kalshek'tak – off-balance and afraid. Roberts knew that he had moments to capitalise on that.

"Kree, Jaffa!" he bellowed. "Kree, kalshek'tak!" He lifted the field stave and stabbed it down into the stone. In the bloody glow from the courtyard, Asreth's head – impaled atop the staff – possessed a demonic aspect as it stared blindly at the warriors its owner had once commanded. "Alright! Who wants some?" Roberts asked.

They were already uncertain. Fear took hold in moments, giving way to panic. They fled from the broken door, heedless for the moment of their mistress' inevitable rage. They ran and left the Phantoms in control of the west door once more.

Roberts calmly walked out a little further, picked up his M181 and walked back to the door.

"'Who wants some'?" Anya asked, sceptically.

Roberts shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?" He checked over the M181, then set it down against the doorframe. "Which is more than I can say for this thing."

"I suppose it did," Anya admitted. "Jaffa! Barricade this door and reinforce with field posts; it needs to hold for at least an hour, although we should have time for more substantial repairs during the day. Lieutenant Roberts." Anya proffered the stake thrower. "Would you care to accompany me to the catacombs?"

Roberts took the weapon and smiled. "Charmed," he assured her.

*

"How we doing?" Ferretti asked.

"We're as ready as we'll ever be," Pearson replied, looking down from the hull of one of the sleds. His voice sounded strained; his intuitive understanding of technology allowed him to comprehend The Scourge, but it was also a weakness in his psychic armour. "How's Charlotte?"

Ferretti looked up at the sergeant. "Charlotte?"

"The spider," Pearson replied. "Charlotte's Web? E.B.White? Does fifty years in print mean nothing?"

"Are you okay, Sergeant?" Ferretti asked.

"Well, can you think of any other famous spiders?" Pearson challenged.

"Is that really the issue," Merlyn demanded. She also sounded very stressed, but then Ferretti supposed he must do as well. "What is the war machine doing?"

"I believe that it is beginning to suspect," Dori'ac reported. "It is stirring in an apprehensive manner. Also, spiders have eight limbs, this being has seven."

"Only counting tentacle clusters as single limbs," Pearson corrected. He swung over the edge of the sled and slid to the floor. "All set, Sir," he reported.

Ferretti nodded. "Explain to me exactly what you've done," he said. "In dumb Colonel this time; you and the Captain lost me before."

Merlyn emerged from behind the sled. "Basically, we've planted a bomb on the sled," she explained. "Or rather, three bombs."

"I've used a shaped charge and a kal'hek to improvise an AP weapon to pierce the Mind casing and kill the central organic brain," Pearson expanded, waving a remote detonator. "Then there's a two-stage charge on the reactor; a shaped charge to crack the housing and a Goa'uld pulsed energy implosion/explosion charge surrounding the modulated power source from my MPX's disruptor; the implosive effect will rupture the source and the explosive blast will pick up the disruptive modulation. We'll be down a weapon, but without the disruptor energy to negate the Scourge reaction core we'd all be irradiated and killed."

"Wait, what?"

"As a final precaution," Merlyn added, hastily, "I've inscribed a containment formula on the casing of the implosion charge and sung it into the metal."

"Sung?" Ferretti asked. "No, wait; it's a resonance thing, I know, and you're just trying to distract me from this irradiation issue, which I notice you did not mention earlier. Neither was the word 'reactor' used."

"I do not wish to interfere with your command relation protocols, Colonel, but I believe I saw a flicker of green from 'Charlotte's' eye."

Ferretti groaned. "Do we need to stand back?"

"The entrance is probably the safest place," Pearson agreed.

"Move." Ferretti led the way back to the passage mouth. "Roberts," he called, "we're about to go toe-to-toe with one angry-ass war machine; any chance you can be here for the show?"

"On our way," Roberts confirmed. "I can't give an ETA but we're entering the lower levels."

"Quick as you can, then," Ferretti sighed. "Pearson, do the necessary."

"Sir. Eyes away; fire in the hole!"

The sharp crack of a C4 detonation reverberated around the chamber, followed by a blue pulse, a vivid green flash and a scream that seemed to tear through the team's minds. Ferretti looked up as the light faded; the sled was a wreck, its two companions had been knocked sideways and the war machines were scattered around the room. Flickers of disruptor energy coiled angrily around the wreckage. A strange, eldritch echo hung in the air, like the final strain of a song sung by inhuman voices.

"Did I tell you lately that I love your work, Sergeant?" Ferretti asked.

"It seems to have achieved it's purpose," Dori'ac noted. "The machine approaches."

Sure enough, the war machine was scrabbling its way down the wall; it was moving more slowly than before, but still far faster than was comfortable.

"It's blind," Pearson realised. "The eye is still not functional."

"Small mercies," Ferretti agreed. "Still seems to know where we are, though. Merlyn, Pearson, break left; Dori'ac, you're with me to the right."

"Remember, Sir," Pearson said, "we have to find a way to crack its shell and get a disruptor blast to the circuits inside."

"You hear that, Lieutenant?"

"I hear, Sir," Roberts confirmed. "We're entering the catacombs and..."

The war machine sprang the last hundred metres of its descent and Ferretti missed the end of Robert's statement as he threw himself desperately to the right. Blind it might be, but the war machine was also angry. It's tentacles flailed wildly.

"Everyone okay?" Ferretti called out as he ran back and dived behind a fallen war machine.

"I'm not hurt," Merlyn replied, but there was a new tension in her voice.

"Captain?"

"One of the tentacles caught me; it's torn my suit behind the knee. The helmet display is reading a complete integrity breach. Even if we survive this, I'll have been infected by vector nanites."

The machine behind Ferretti was suddenly lifted into the air. He threw himself forward and came up firing, but even aimed at the shattered eye, his disruptor bolts had no effect. Once more he was forced to hurl himself aside as the machine hurled its shattered brethren at him. "Look on the bright side!" he yelled. "You may not survive at all!"

*

Alexa was horrified by the scene of carnage that met her eyes as she looked down into the courtyard. She was alarmed to see just how many Jaffa Djanka had brought to the planet, let alone how many she was willing to sacrifice.

"Would this qualify as doing something stupid?" she asked, fighting down her nausea.

"Yes and no," Danica replied, weakly. "It is a horrific waste of life, but there is method in her madness. Even with the static defences, I can not hold this fortress against such insanity. Already the fire is slackening; weapon cells designed to last for decades are being depleted, half of my tacs have been destroyed and one of the gunnery galleries is ablaze. Djanka's warriors are firing blindly, but even indiscriminate fire can be effective if it is heavy enough."

"Then we need to thin out their ranks a bit. Do you have..." Alexa began.

"I hope so," Danica replied. She turned to one of the Phantoms who were escorting them. "Shock grenades, however many there are in the armoury."

Alexa looked down onto the battlefield. "We've lost the centre; we need to coordinate the flanks, direct fire to the middle. We could..."

"Yes," Danica agreed.

"Would you stop doing that, please," Alexa snapped. "I don't like you picking things out of my brain."

"But that is what you are talking about, is it not? You at one end of the line, I at the other, exchanging perspectives?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"And I am not picking," Danica added. "Shura, you are throwing ideas to me, like we used to do."

"It's not...That wasn't us," Alexa insisted, her face darkening. "And don't call me Shura."

"My apologies," Danica said. "You did not seem to mind."

"Well I do! Now, I'll share as much as I must to keep us all safe, but that's all. We are not sisters, Danica."

Danica inclined her head in understanding. "Of course, Alexa Vasiliovna."

Alexa stifled a sob.

"Alexa?" Danica asked, genuinely baffled; the storm of emotions that engulfed the young Russian was almost impossible to comprehend.

Alexa looked up, suddenly and clasped Danica's face between her hands. "You've grown so much," she whispered, "and so much like her."

Danica bent her head to touch her brow to Alexa's. "We do not have time," she whispered. "Action now, emotion later. Please, Shura; I need your help."

Alexa nodded. "I am alright," she lied. "I will take..."

"Agreed." Danica gave a rueful smile. "I am sorry."

Alexa smiled. "Good luck."

*

Merlyn realised that they had gone too far. The destruction they had wreaked upon its 'kin' had driven the war machine into a homicidal rage and it was hurling the lifeless husks of its kind like bowling balls. So far they had managed to survive, just about, but only because it was unfocused. If it decided to lock on to any one of them, they would be finished; already it had decided that Dori'ac – with his staff weapon – and Pearson – with his PDW – were harmless and was switching frenetically between Ferretti and Merlyn. Each time it was about to crush one, the other would fire on it and draw its attention.

The war machine closed on Merlyn, sweeping debris aside and flinging it at her. The eye glowered sightlessly in her direction and the tentacles groped after her. She backed off, her weapon silent; Ferretti shot it in the back, disabling another batch of tentacles; the war machine did not turn. Merlyn turned and ran, but the machine crashed after her.

A tentacle wrapped around her ankle and snatched her violently into the air; a second cable slapped the MPX out of her hand and a third...The third tentacle stroked her face in an obscene parody of tenderness.

Deep within the heart of the war machine, Vicas' dimly recognised the woman he had coveted and he paused. Part of him still desired her, although whether he desired to lie with her or to drink her blood he could no longer remember. It was the war machine that gave him an answer to that puzzle; it had its own ideas about what should be done with the young woman with the powerful spirit. It could sense her potential as surely as the vampire had done; in its thoughtless, autonomic fashion, it called her 'sorceress' and it knew what should be done with sorceresses.

One of the other tentacle clusters grabbed one of the fallen war machines and dragged it over. Merlyn struggled madly; she drew her knife, but the blade made no mark on the metal of the cables.

"Hey!" Ferretti scrambled over the wrecks and fired at close range. He tried to get around to aim at the tentacle which held Merlyn, but a slashing cable cut his MPX in two.

Pearson ran out, searching for Merlyn's weapon as the war machine beneath her cracked open.

Merlyn dangled, helpless, staring down into the cradle. She struggled to think of a binding formula which might help her, but they took time to intone. In the end, she could find only one thing to speak in these final moments: "Dominus reget me et nihili mihi deerit; In loco pascuae ibi me conlocavit super aquam refectionis..."

Perhaps the prayer worked, because it seemed to summon the man whom Merlyn was coming to regard as her guardian angel. With the crack of a rifle report, the cable holding Merlyn shattered, dropping her onto the smooth casing of the second machine. With a great effort she was able to drag herself away from the open hatch and slither down the shell, following the rough direction in which her MPX had fallen.

A shotgun boomed and the active war machine stumbled, one of its legs badly damaged.

The two weapons spoke again, Anya's shotgun and the stake thrower in Roberts' grip, and the heavy slugs punched two holes in the shell. Two more shots followed, then two more.

The war machine found its balance and began loping awkwardly towards these new and deadly assailants.

"Any time you want to use those disruptors!" Roberts called.

"Yeah; there's a problem!" Ferretti admitted.

The war machine picked up speed. Roberts went left, Anya went right; the war machine went between them and slewed to an ungainly stop. Roberts rolled onto his back and shot two rounds into the base of a tentacle cluster. The machine swung towards him and made a short, vicious spring. It drove a hard claw through his left arm and a second stabbed towards his heart. He would have died, but it was the claw of the damaged leg that struck his chest and it slid upwards, snagging and tearing the seals at his neck.

The undamaged tentacles snared his arms and clutched his stake thrower in an iron grasp. It was fortunate for Roberts that the cluster had suffered such damage that it had no further tentacles left to throttle or decapitate with.

"Roberts!" Anya dashed forward, dived and slid to a halt beside Roberts.

"Hello," Roberts said.

"Hello." Anya reached under the tentacles and pulled the MPX from Roberts' shoulder holster. "Selector to the left?"

"Correct," Roberts replied.

The war machine reached around from one of its other clusters and snatched at Anya's legs, but the tentacles were disabled by a burst of disruptor fire from Merlyn. Anya pushed the muzzle of the MPX through one of the holes now gaping in the machine's shell and pulled the trigger. The war machine reeled back, shaking and shuddering as blue lightning arced across the surface of its shell.

"If someone could catch this thing!" Roberts called, desperately.

Dori'ac was the first one there. He caught hold of a bundle of tentacles and pulled; Ferretti and the others joined him, while Roberts and Anya managed to bring their legs up to support the heavy bulk of the machine.

Roberts turned towards Anya. "Thank you," he said. "I guess we're even in the life-saving stakes."

"Yes," Anya agreed, "but I do wonder one thing."

"Oh, yes?" Roberts asked.

He and Anya pushed, the others pulled and the machine toppled over onto its back.

Roberts gave a hoarse scream as the barbed foot tore out of his left bicep. "Well that hurt. So what were you wondering?" he finished.

"How many points is a thing like that worth?"

*

"Two more grenades!" Alexa ordered. In her mind's eye she saw a group of warriors on the wall above her; invisible to her, but right in Danica's line of sight. "Full squad to reinforce the East door gallery," she ordered. "Ready to..."

Alexa stumbled and put a hand against the wall to steady herself. "Ready..." A stabbing pain struck her head.

"My Lady?" One of the Phantoms crouched over her and Alexa realised that she had, once more, fallen over.

She toggled her communicator. "Colonel! Get out of the catacombs!"

"Lieutenant?"

"Get out, now! Please!"

There was a pause that seemed terribly long. Please let him believe me, she thought to herself. Please believe me, Colonel.

"You heard the lady!" Ferretti barked. "Everyone out. You owe me an explanation, Rasputin."

"I look forward to it, Sir," she assured him. "What happened after I fell?" she asked the Phantom. "What are the attackers doing?"

"They are gone, My Lady," the Phantom replied. "The sun is rising; they've gone, for now. We muster for a counterattack in three hours."

"Good," Alexa said. "Good. Well then, I think I'll get some sleep."

And to the Jaffa's surprise, she closed her eyes and did just that.

*

Ferretti looked over his exhausted team, sitting in the ruins of the throne room. "So," he said. "Does anyone have an intact suit?"

Silence followed.

"Pearson?"

"Tore a seal on the wreckage looking for the Captain's gun," he apologised.

Ferretti sighed. "So we may all be infected?"

"Fortunately, it seems unlikely," Danica assured him. "As Alexa will tell you when she wakes, The Scourge was deep in sleep until the kalshek'tak found it and afterwards, when he used his power to try to control it, he succeeded in keeping it...sedated. She warned you to leave because The Scourge has now come fully awake."

"Are you sure?" Ferretti asked.

"I feel like my brain is full of worms. With teeth."

"We'll call that a yes."

"Psychic sedation," Merlyn muttered to herself. "Of course."

"Captain Lloyd?" Ferretti asked.

"I always wondered how Czernobog managed to get his hands on a Scourge cannon in the first place," she explained.

"This will make it tough to destroy them," Pearson noted, "especially given that all our suits are damaged."

"Perhaps not," Danica observed. "Once she wakes, Alexa and I can attempt to join our powers and do as the kalshek'tak did; coupled with Captain Lloyd's magic..."

"It is not magic!" Merlyn insisted, defensively.

Danica stared at her for a long moment. "Forgive me," she said. "Foolish superstition; however, your...what do you call it?"

"Resonant phonemic formulae," Merlyn replied.

"Yes, your formulae, together with our abilities, should enable us to sedate The Scourge."

"For how long?" Roberts wondered.

"I hope long enough to destroy it. Afterwards, we can overload the reactors and destroy the entire fortress." She sighed. "Seems a shame when I've spent so long having it decorated, but it seems best to be sure."

Ferretti was taken aback. "I quite agree," he said. "I just wasn't sure you would. Will the self-destruct be enough to take out the catacombs?"

"Well, rock is a good defence," Danica admitted, "but the reactors here are very powerful. They are cooled by funnelling heat into shafts cut deep within the mountain behind us; that exhaust process keeps the entire peak warm enough to melt snow."

Ferretti looked to Pearson.

"That's a lot of power," the Sergeant admitted. "Should leave quite a crater."

There was a sharp knock on the door.

"Enter!" Danica called.

Dori'ac entered and bowed to Danica. "My Lady; there is a transmission on the SGC frequency for Colonel Ferretti."

"Ah," Ferretti said. "I'd better take this. I'll arrange for the SGC to launch their strike when your Jaffa counterattack in..."

"One-hundred-and-six minutes," Anya supplied.

"One-hundred-and-six minutes. Alright; the rest of you get some sleep; I need you all alert in one hour; that should give us time to destroy the cache before we have to leave."

*

Alexa woke up feeling woozy and nauseous; the touch of The Scourge was still present, its cloying, miasmal touch squirming around the edges of her mind. She sat up, cautiously and looked around. She was lying in a huge, soft bed in a richly appointed chamber and had once more been stripped, cleaned and dressed in a blue sarafan. "This is becoming a habit," Alexa muttered to herself. Slowly she focused on a slim, pale figure beside her bed. "Hello, Ghost."

"Are you well now, Shura?" the Ghost asked. She reached out a cool hand and touched Alexa's brow.

"I am fine," Alexa assured the girl, trying not to flinch from the touch. With The Scourge touching her mind, everything around her took on an unpleasant hue: the soft blankets felt oily; what she knew to be a down mattress seemed more like corpulent flesh; the Ghost's fingers were like jagged claws, raking against her skin. "Where's my gear; I need to get ready to leave."

The Ghost looked embarrassed. "It's over there on the chair. I have done my best to repair the damage that it suffered, but I do not think I did a very good job."

Alexa struggled up and examined her Omega suit. She could not help smiling when she saw that the Ghost had patched the cuts in the fabric by stitching panels of blue silk over them. "It's...beautiful," she assured the girl.

Alexa slipped off the sarafan and quickly stripped. Years of military life had left her with no qualms regarding changing in front of other women – and those she had about changing in front of men mostly originated from the time of her captivity – although she was glad to find that her underwear had not been removed. "Was it you who undressed me?" she asked, as she pulled on the lightweight fatigues that she wore beneath the Omega suit.

"I and My Lady," the Ghost replied.

Alexa felt a moment of awkwardness, which was odd considering that Danica must have all of Vasilisa's memories, including many of inadvisably swimming naked in the almost freezing water of the lake when they were younger.

At that moment, the door opened. Caught off guard, Alexa hurried to dress and managed to pull her t-shirt on the wrong way around.

"Shura; I am glad to see you are not seriously hurt," Danica told her.

"I'm fine," Alexa said again. "It was just the shock of the awakening; it took me by surprise."

"I am sure," Danica agreed. "My own senses were almost overwhelmed."

"But you didn't pass out," Alexa mumbled, embarrassed, as she struggled to reverse her t-shirt without taking it off. "You always were the stronger one," she added, before she could think what she was saying.

Danica smiled, softly. "And yet it is you who has once more succeeded in closing your mind against me," she noted.

"It's my mind," Alexa replied. "I keep it to myself these days. You wouldn't understand."

"Of course I understand," Danica told her. "It is as though you have enjoyed the most wondrous, rapturous love affair imaginable, but that has been taken away from you and you do not dare to begin anew for fear of sullying the memories. It is like when we were first at the Academy and we...that is, when you and Vasilisa visited Dominika Modestova's family."

Alexa could not suppress her smile. "When Vasilisa spent the weekend flirting with Mika's brother..."

"...and on Sunday evening he asked if you would go out with him," Danica laughed. "But you remember how Mika swore her mother made the best borscht in the world, and you did not want to try it because you always said that Mama made the best borscht in the world and you were afraid that you would not like it and you would offend Mika, or that you would and you would be betraying Mama?"

"Yes."

"That is how you feel and a hundred time more; is it not?"

"Yes."

"Allowing me to touch your mind will not sully what you and your sister shared," Danica told her, "and it will not betray that memory, either. I know that we can never be bound as close as you were. You were two sides of a double-headed coin; I make us too different for us to ever be that close."

"I can't," Alexa insisted. "It's too dangerous. I want to trust you," she confessed, "but I can not take that risk."

Danica stepped forwards. "Your defences are strong," she told Alexa.

"They have to be."

"My Lady," the Ghost said, softly; she sounded startled and concerned.

Danica smiled at the girl. "Wait outside, my dear," she told her, in a gentle yet firm voice.

The Ghost gave a reluctant curtsey. "Yes, Danica," she replied.

Danica made no move to chide her servant for using her given name, perhaps because all of her attention was on Alexa. "You know, though, that I can reach you any time I want, now. There is a hole through which I can step at will."

Alexa swallowed hard. "I know."

"Then there is no security in closing yourself to me. Why suffer alone, then?"

"Because I have to try."

Danica gazed long and hard into Alexa's eyes. "I love you," she said.

Alexa tried to say the same; she wanted to say the same. What she said was: "I understand."

Danica put her hands on Alexa's face, tilted her head down and kissed her gently on the forehead. The touch alone, filtered through the vile psychic light of The Scourge, would have made Alexa recoil, but at the same moment, Alexa felt another pressure, this one on her mind.

"No..." she gasped, struggling against Danica's grip, but Vasilisa had always been the stronger and with Danica she was stronger still.

I will not hurt you, Danica's voice whispered in Alexa's mind.

Danica's voice? No; surely it was Vasilisa's? Or did the Goa'uld simply speak without distortion through her thoughts? Alexa did not know, but the touch that she felt against the weakness in her defences was not aggressive; it made no effort to pierce her mind. Instead it was cool and soothing, a gentle balm that eased an ache that had been with her so long that she had almost forgotten it was there. She felt as though a painful tooth had finally been pulled and it brought with it a sense of profound inner peace.

Vasya? She thought.

Invincible, the voice in her mind told her.

Indestructible, Alexa replied, and a moment later the touch was gone.

"There," Danica whispered. "How does that feel?"

"The Scourge," Alexa murmured. "It seems...weaker." She lifted her hand to her brow. "The hole...It's...."

"Smaller," Danica interrupted. "I could not close it completely. A small weakness is a part of us both and we would not be us without, but your defences will be stronger still and I certainly could not force myself into your mind."

"How?"

"I have studied your sister's power in great detail, from a unique perspective," Danica replied. "I will likely never possess your strength or sensitivity, but technically I have become quite brilliant; if I do say so myself. I could teach you," she added, hopefully. "You could help me to understand and I could help you to develop your powers. If you were to stay with me." As she said this, the Goa'uld seemed almost bashful.

"You have made this offer before," Alexa reminded her.

"But you had somewhere to return to then," Danica said. "I know that you care for your friends and I have sensed that they care for you, Shura, but will they ever trust you again? Will they allow you to remain at the SGC, knowing what they know now?"

Tears glistened in Alexa's eyes. "Maybe they will not. Maybe they should not. And I will never know if I do not go back to find out."

"But why?" Danica demanded, petulantly. "Why risk rejection when you have a place here? A place where you will not be doubted, or questioned, or endlessly assessed for psychiatric instability? Why not stay with me?"

Alexa took Danica's hands. "For the same reason as before," she replied. "Because you are not my sister. If we tried to pretend that you were, we would be living in the past; living a lie. You talked about not wanting to move on in case I sully something pure; I think you don't want to move on either. I always felt safer with Vasya; she was my comfort and my protection. I never realised before that I was the same for her. I didn't think she needed my help, but she did, and now you do. But it's no good, Danica." Alexa gave Danica's fingers a gentle squeeze. "We both have to move on. I have to come out of Vasya's shadow and be my own person, and you have to come out of mine." She gave a rueful smile. "I know you want to be more like Vasya and for a Goa'uld that is admirable, but you also need to stay a little bit Danica, I think."

"I love you," Danica repeated.

"I understand," Alexa said again. This time she made the move to touch her forehead against Danica's and initiate a momentary mental contact so that the Goa'uld could feel the truth behind her next words. "I can not love you as I loved her, but I...I do love you, Danica. That is why I can not stay."

*

One hour before the planned attack, General O'Neill contacted Ferretti again to confirm arrangements. That was when Ferretti broke the other news.

"We'll be accompanied by three squads of Jaffa," he admitted. "They'll be breaking off to take out Djanka's anti-aircraft guns, so that Danica can make her escape, but they need to get picked up through the transport rings and might get back to the Gate while we are still evacuating."

There was a long pause. "Seven-niner," General O'Neill said, slowly and deliberately, "are you, perhaps, extremely high on something?"

"Just on life, Sir," Ferretti sighed.

"We'll need to relay through a dead world in case they see the coordinates of the Animal House," O'Neill reminded Ferretti. "That's a dangerous delay if we have wounded."

"It doesn't matter," Ferretti admitted. "We can go straight back to the House.

"One of our more closely guarded secrets, if you recall. If the Goa'uld knew..."

"Danica...already knows," Ferretti interrupted. "The Village, Test Bed, the Lake and the Animal House," he went on, using the codenames for the SGC's offworld facilities, "she knows all of them."

"Seven-niner...!" O'Neill's voice was dangerous.

"I can't explain over the radio," Ferretti sighed. "Code Myers," he added.

O'Neill sighed. "Myers? Help me out, here Seven-niner. What's a Code Myers when it's at home?"

"Need-to-know rating, regarding Seven-five's special duty status," Ferretti replied, wishing that regulations would allow him to simply say 'telepathy'.

"I told you it was a mistake assigning her," O'Neill sighed.

"Actually, I think I told you that," Ferretti countered, "but you're the boss. I'll understand if you decide not to rescue us at this point," he added. "I mean, you'll be off the Christmas card list..."

"We'll be there," O'Neill retorted, "but I'm putting the offworld facilities on alert. The operation will go ahead as scheduled, but that talk is just getting longer and longer."

"Naturally," Ferretti agreed. "Sierra-Golf-Seven-niner, out."

Ferretti closed his eyes and wondered how they could have triumphed over such incredible odds, and yet have everything go so terribly wrong. Lieutenant Rasputin had been all-but possessed by a titanic, alien god and it had not kept him from trusting her. He had always known that her abilities made her vulnerable to psychic influence – he knew far more about her than the rest of the team, and had certainly read more of her files than she was cleared for – and that had not changed the way he looked at her. Why would this be different?

"I do not actually know the coordinates of your bases."

Ferretti looked up, not entirely surprised to see Danica standing in the doorway. "Have you been listening in?"

"You are using my communications room," Danica pointed out. "Everything is monitored; I confess that I inherited much of my father's arrogance, but Anya's paranoia is one of my greatest defences." Danica walked across and sat beside Ferretti at the communications console. "Yours, in this case, is my sister's...is Alexa's mindset."

"Meaning?"

Danica smiled, fondly. "It was really their mother's decision that they join the Army. She was in the Army and it made sense for her that they should follow her path."

"Seems like a bad reason to join the military," Ferretti commented.

"At the time, they were quite a pair of tearaways," Danica commented with a shrug. "Matka decided that she would rather see them reluctantly in the military than following their father into a life of bar-fighting, horse-stealing and gun-running, which was certainly the way they were heading, although most of their fights had been in the playground, rather than in bars.

"Vasya took to the military life rather well, but Shura was always less comfortable. Conversely, while they both found the Special Directorate preferable to ordinary service, Alexa was always more at home there. She is curious, you see, and romantic; she thinks of things in a way that is...not military. When our minds touch, I see the things that are important to her: people that she loves, sights she has seen, the feelings that she has hidden. Coordinates and military secrets are things that she deals with, but they do not matter to her.

"I know of the facility at Lake Kawalsky, as you call it, because the sight of the Black Tower rising from the water filled her with such awe. It is an image that is etched also into the minds of all Goa'uld, so I do know that one of your facilities is on Shayara. It is safe, however," she assured him. "No Goa'uld would go there."

"At least one has done," Ferretti corrected her.

"Then you will be prepared for an attack. My knowledge makes no difference to you. Anyway, I would not go there."

"I hope the General believes you; it's a big operation to move a facility like that."

Danica sighed. "That I know, being in the middle of relocating myself. I must make sure that I am not abandoning any further Scourge caches to Djanka's troops," she mused.

"You wouldn't want to use The Scourge yourself?" Ferretti challenged.

Danica laughed. "Oh, no, Colonel; I am not likely to forget that you owe me three honest answers. My First Prime proved stronger than your lieutenant."

"More experienced in fighting kalshek'tak, maybe," Ferretti allowed, "although I think they should have split the thirty points for the war machine."

"Nevertheless, Anya's one-hundred-and-thirty-six beats Lieutenant Roberts' one-hundred-and-twenty-nine," Danica pointed out. "Therefore..."

"You owe me three answers," Ferretti interrupted.

Danica frowned. "No," she said, patiently. "Anya defeated Roberts."

"And Roberts bet on Anya," Ferretti noted. "Didn't you know that? And our bet was on their bet, which means..."

Danica looked thunderstruck for a moment, then she laughed aloud. "What a delightfully perverse and...human thing for them to do. I envy you so."

"Not sure I get that," Ferretti admitted, "but I'm not going to ask about it; you won't trick me into wasting a question. First question: Why didn't you try to control The Scourge?"

Danica paused a while in thought. "Many reasons," she replied. "Primarily because I am not a complete fool. I have seen their power in Alexa's mind and I know that they have a hunger and a power far in excess of my own. My father died because he tried to move beyond his limits; false telepathy was not enough for him, he wished to control the powers of the twins he had captured. As a result, I killed him; I will not repeat his mistakes. I will not attempt to control a power greater than myself and I shall never attempt to absorb an energy field larger than my head."

"Somebody's read the handbook," Ferretti noted. "Alright, question two is in two parts."

"Not quite what we agreed to, but I'll allow it," Danica agreed.

"How much of Rasputin's sister remains in you?" Ferretti asked, "and how much will be lost each time you use a sarcophagus."

"I do not know, in answer to the first part," Danica admitted. "I am close to my host," she explained. "Closer than most Goa'uld. I am bound to her. She made sure of that and, as a result, I have no way to tell how much of me is her. Host and symbiote always blur, to the point that some Goa'uld speak of 'their symbiote' as often as 'their host', but we have...meshed. As to the second part, it is a moot point; I shall never use a sarcophagus, certainly not for the two centuries that this host will sustain me, perhaps not ever."

Ferretti raised his eyebrows. "How can I believe that?" he asked. "No! Wait. Rhetorical question."

"I know that," Danica assured him, with an air of perfect innocence. "You could ask Shura, if you really wish to know why I will not use a sarcophagus, but I beg you to be careful in asking her. Time grows short; what is your third question?"

"I'm thinking."

"You might ask me why Shura agreed to explain The Scourge to me by mental contact, when she had gone to such great lengths to keep me out up until now."

"I ordered her to do it," Ferretti said, impatiently. "Stop trying to distract me."

"Do you think so?"

Ferretti looked at Danica. She had a sweet way about her that made it easy to forget what she was, but from the little that Ferretti knew of Vasilisa Rasputin, that sweetness was no more natural to her than to a Goa'uld; that meant that it must be an affectation and was therefore not to be trusted. Nevertheless, on this issue she seemed both sincere and curiously insistent.

"Alright," he allowed. "Why did Alexa – Lieutenant Rasputin – agree to explain to you by mental contact?"

"I'm glad you asked me that."

"Spare me the smart comments, please," Ferretti begged.

"You could not have ordered Shura to allow me contact with her mind. She would have faced a court-martial before restoring our bond; after all, she believes that she will be court-martialled for lying in her report of my death as it is. You could have held a gun to her head and she would not have changed her mind."

"Then the danger," Ferretti suggested. "She knew that Djanka would find the Scourge cache."

Danica shook her head. "She would have taken the chance on explaining by mouth."

"Then why?" Ferretti sighed.

"She let you down," Danica explained. "You trusted her; cared about her; believed in her. Even if I had not been able to sense it when you spoke of your disappointment, you speak of her as Alexa in unguarded moments."

"That's what Roberts calls her; and Merlyn."

Danica gave him an understanding smile that told her she did not believe him. "As I said before, what I saw when our minds were joined included those she cared about; she has a fondness for all of your team, but you have secured a special place in her heart. You must be a fine commander to engender such fierce loyalty in my...in Shura."

"Loyalty?" Ferretti snorted.

"Yes!" Danica snapped, angrily. "She did this to prove herself to you! She wanted to win back your good regard, whatever the cost to herself. We are going down into the catacombs now. If you ask it of her, she will stay behind and hold the bomb in place."

The Goa'uld reached out and took Ferretti's hand in hers. "I know that she will have to work hard to regain your trust and respect, Colonel, but please remember that she has been hurt more terribly than you can imagine. I beg you: Be kind to her. She has given much this past night; she will sacrifice all that she has left to find your favour again. If you are harsh to her now, she will ultimately sacrifice herself. She will not remain with me, so I must ask you to watch out for her. Please?"

Ferretti closed her eyes. He wanted to say yes, but he was hurting too much to do that. "I'll try not to be cruel," he allowed at last.

*

The Scourge screamed as it burned and the scream echoed through the minds of everyone in the fortress. Ferretti hoped that nothing was left, since they had only one functional disruptor remaining; the power supplies of his broken MPX and of Roberts' backup had been sacrificed to destroy the two sleds. He also hoped that Djanka had heard the scream.

It was a tired and dishevelled SG-7 who assembled in the foyer of the keep after that scream, ready to join the Phantoms in their strike against Djanka's air defence weapons. Ferretti was somewhat concerned. Merlyn was exhausted from the effort of maintaining the formulae, Alexa – Danica was right about that; he did think of her as Alexa, more often than Lieutenant Rasputin – even more so from her psychic exertions. Pearson was not merely sleepy, he was troubled by his communion with the technical secrets of The Scourge. Ferretti himself felt the way they looked. They were heading through enemy territory in a rather poor state for a fight, but the Phantoms who were to escort them seemed fresh and Roberts was as alert as ever.

"I have to ask, Lieutenant," Ferretti admitted, "are you, in fact, human?"

"To the best of my knowledge," Roberts replied. "I've shed rather too much blood in my time to believe I was a robot."

"You sure it wasn't battery fluid?" Merlyn asked.

Roberts thought about it for a moment and laid his hand tentatively on his arm; with a little attention from Danica, the wound was healed, but it still seemed tender. "No; this was definitely red."

"Anyway," Pearson added, "if he was a machine I'd understand him."

"What about Captain Voskova?" Alexa asked. "She does not seem tired either."

"Sometimes I wish I was Jaffa," Ferretti muttered.

Obviously realising that she was being spoken to, Anya held a short conversation with Roberts. She then smiled, sweetly at Ferretti. "I am not the Jaffa," she assured him in slow, halting English. "Lieutenant Roberts and I are good at the napping of cats," she explained. "We also slept much of afternoon."

"But I did that!" Ferretti protested. "Guess I'm just getting old."

"I can offer you passage on board my ship," Danica told him. "You can be delivered to the rings at the Stargate as I pick up my Jaffa."

"There you are," Roberts said. "Why not take it easy, old man? Lie back and cruise."

Ferretti laughed. "Don't write me off just yet, you young punk," he said. "I'll slog it out with the rest of the team. I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to them in my absence."

"I know you wouldn't," Danica assured him. "While the last thing I wish is to take liberties with your personnel, I could use another strong hand. If Lieutenant Roberts were planning to leave the Air Force in the near future, he might consider a career in my service."

Ferretti turned a questioning gaze on Roberts. "Well?" he asked. "Any thoughts?"

"It's flattering," Roberts admitted, "but I am happy with the Air Force for now."

"You are sure?" Danica pushed. "I am sure that Anya would very much like you to stay."

Anya blushed and moved hurriedly away towards the door, muttering something about walking point.

Roberts' face also coloured. "And in some ways I would like to stay," he assured the Goa'uld, "but I can not. I think that Anya understands why," he added, pointedly.

Danica inclined her head in understanding. "I must go now and prepare the ship," she said.

"What about the garden?" Pearson asked, sadly.

"The garden will be gone," Danica replied. "The garden does not matter; the gardener is already aboard with her son. And you will remember it, Sergeant Pearson; I am glad of that. I wish you luck, Colonel Ferretti and I hope that we shall meet again. Shura..." She sighed. "You know my thoughts, even without a link; there is too much to speak of, so I will simply say farewell."

SG-7 said their goodbyes, a little off-balance. They had not been called upon to say a polite farewell to a Goa'uld before.

The Lady swept away, but Alexa hurried after her. "Danica!"

Danica turned, a flicker of hope swiftly fading from her eyes. Alexa's face was serious and it was clear that she was not about to alter her resolve.

"Yes, Shura?" Danica asked.

"I figured out what you did," Alexa explained, "and it was very wrong."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes you do, Danica. When you wanted to talk to me alone, you cut her off as though she was nothing. Don't you know how much she relies on you?"

Danica averted her eyes. "You know then."

"I could feel a third presence when we were linked," Alexa said. "Even if she had not told me your 'blessing' protected her from the kalshek'tak's mind control it was not hard to see which of your servants you were closest to. You honour my sister's memory, Danica, but you have not her sensitivity yet; you did not know how much your Jaffa love the Ghost and you can not see how much she loves you."

"I only broke the link to her for a few moments," Danica protested.

"She did not know that."

"She knows that I care for her."

"She thought that you had found me again and that you no longer needed her," Alexa said.

Danica looked confused. "I'm sorry," she said. "I will not do it again."

"Thank you," Alexa replied. "And it is not me you should apologise to. She may know that you care, but it doesn't hurt to say it from time to time."

Danica bowed low. "As always, you show me how to be a better sister, Shura. I shall miss you all the more for meeting you again."

Alexa nodded. "Goodbye, Danica," she said. "Take care of yourself as well, won't you."

"That at least I am good at," the Goa'uld assured her.

*

The strike force left the fortress through a hidden gate in the foothills. Anya led with a squad of Phantoms; two more squads covered the flanks, leaving SG-7 in the middle, relatively safe. The Jaffa wore long cloaks, dappled in green and white, to break up their outlines in the snowy woods. The forest was quiet; almost too quiet.

"They lost a great many last night," Merlyn mentioned. "Maybe Djanka retreated?"

Roberts shook his head. "No-one who throws men at a wall like that retreats; not while she has anyone left. But her eyes are on the fortress and if Anya can sneak us though to the Stargate unopposed she can hit the enemy guns from behind while the Skull Guard still expect the enemy to be bottled up in the fortress. She is trying to avoid the enemy and she is good at it." His finger drifted idly to the safety catch of his MPX. "Unfortunately, nobody is perfect. Down!"

Roberts turned and ducked; the rest of the team dropped where they were. Staff blasts erupted from the forest, accompanied by the thunder of Anya's shotgun and the rattle of the MPX. Ferretti reached for his sidearm, but it seemed a very long way off.

"Sierra-Golf-Seven-niner, this is Sierra-Golf-Five-niner. We hear shots; what is...?"

"Man down!" Alexa called. "We are under fire and we have a man down."

Ferretti wondered who had been hit. He tried to look around and the searing pain in his side told him who was down, even as he blacked out.

"He's coming round."

Alexa's worried face swam into view before Ferretti's eyes.

"Hello," he said. He raised his head a little and saw the Marines of SG-5 standing guard, along with his team and a group of Phantoms.

"Well he might," Sergeant Anne Fowler said. "It's just a flesh wound; he's got decade old scars that probably cause him more pain."

Alexa shot the Marine a disapproving look, but although she was upset, she knew better than to argue with a Master Sergeant. She turned back to Ferretti. "How do you feel, Sir?" she asked.

"A series of nerve endings send electrical impulses to my brain," he replied. "Right now, I wish they didn't."

"You're okay," Alexa said, relieved.

"You?" Ferretti asked.

Alexa nodded. "They were aiming at me, you know. Aiming at Danica's face."

Ferretti laughed until his side ached. With a staff burn over his ribs, that did not take very long. "Don't go getting delusions of grandeur," he told her.

"We're good to go!" Major Steven Parker called. "Soon as the Jaffa are on their way."

"We know Colonel is well and are away," Anya assured him.

"Take care, Anya," Roberts enjoined her.

"And you," Anya replied. "But almost I forget." She lowered her shotgun, turned, wrapped her arm around Roberts' neck and kissed him, passionately.

"Good God!" Lieutenant Maybury Wayne exclaimed. "Why does that never happen to me?"

"You really want an answer?" Sergeant Thomas Thomas replied.

"Dosvedanya, Roberts," Anya said in a husky whisper.

Roberts gave a slight smile. "Dosvedanya."

"Oh; and this is for you," she added, slipping him a piece of paper.

He took a quick look at the paper and smiled. "That's sweet," he said. "Thank you."

Anya stepped away and a melancholy expression faded from her face, until she was all business. "Kree, Jaffa!" she snapped.

Parker watched as the Phantoms disappeared into the trees. "Dial it up, Artemis," he ordered Sergeant Fowler, using her personal callsign as was the wont of the SGC Marines. "Daredevil to SG-Four-niner and Eight-niner. Withdraw and evac; go, go, go!"

*

The Animal House,

SGC Delta Site

The Stargate closed down with a whoosh and the iris slid closed.

"Medic!" Parker called. "The rest of you know the drill; weapons to the armourer – including that sword, Lieutenant – and through to the scrub room, then isolation and nanite screening."

"Sir," Alexa said, quietly.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"I should be confined," she went on, "pending my court martial."

"Really?" Parker shrugged. "First I heard about it, but you're in isolation for six days anyway; I'll have an SF keep an eye on you." He looked her over, quickly. "Once you scrub up, they'll be fighting over who gets the duty."

Alexa blushed.

"Now into the scrub room," Parker added, more gently. "I'll talk to the General and find out what he wants done with you."

"So, what was that about?" Merlyn asked, coolly.

"This is what I hate about decontamination," Roberts mused. "The unavoidable cross-examination."

"I seem to recall," Merlyn went on, "that someone promised me he would cut down on his womanising."

Roberts smiled, brightly. "I promised to think about it," he told her. "Besides, I didn't sleep with Anya. Despite your incredibly suspicious mind, I haven't slept with anyone in several months."

"Oh," Merlyn said. "Well, that's good of course. I'm sorry, Roberts, but..."

"Not more than once, anyway."

Merlyn closed her eyes and sighed. "Roberts."

"I'm just winding you up," he said, apologetically. "I guess the kiss was a bit of a mislead; not my choice though. The agreement was one kiss, the style to be of her choice; mine if I'd lost the bet."

"The bet!" Merlyn exclaimed. "That was your bet?"

"Again, her choice, but yes. It seemed harmless enough." He shrugged. "Besides which, she was very attractive."

"She used to have a scar," Alexa chipped in. "Before Byelobog...I was glad to see her kiss you like that, Roberts; if she was comfortable with that – and she was – then what he did to her can not have hurt her too much."

There was a pause.

"Well, that brought the mood down," Pearson noted.

"So...What did happen between you?" Merlyn asked. "If you don't mind me asking."

Roberts looked away. "I've rarely felt quite so close to anyone else." He admitted. There was an odd note in his voice and it was not the tone of a lover.

"You could have stayed behind," Merlyn said. "We couldn't have stopped you."

Roberts chuckled. "It wasn't like that. We could never have been lovers; I knew that and so did she. We were both cold in the same places. We connected and I was attracted to her, but I need someone warmer and so does she."

"That's a harsh way of thinking about it," Alexa noted.

Roberts shrugged. "We're harsh people."

"I maintain that you just make your life more painful," Merlyn told Roberts.

"I know you do," Roberts agreed.

"And yet she writes you poetry?" Alexa noted.

Roberts chuckled. "That wasn't poetry; it was the blueprints for a wrist-mounted stake thrower."

Merlyn stared at him for a long moment, then laughed. "What about you, Sergeant?" she asked. "What's your position on this subject?"

"Oh, I've been girl free for ages," Pearson admitted.

Merlyn turned to Alexa. “Rasputin?”

“I'm girl free as well.”

General O'Neill laboriously sealed the biohazard suit and stepped through the airlock into the isolation ward.

“How do you feel, Lou?” he asked.

Ferretti looked up from his bed. “Hi, Jack. Like I've been bitten by a radioactive monkey,” he said. “Do they think I'm going to grow an extra head and try to kill everyone?”

“Well, this is the maximum containment quarantine facility,” O'Neill pointed out. “They're short on regular hospital rooms. I brought grapes, but they were confiscated.”

“It really is just a flesh wound, Jack,” Ferretti assured him.

Jack sat down beside the bed. “So; Lieutenant Rasputin?”

Ferretti sighed. “They don't need you back any time soon do they?”

“Not for anything I'm not eager to miss; take your time.”

“Sure thing, Jack,” Ferretti agreed, “but it's not all good news. You're going to have to talk to Colonel Chekhov about this.”

“Son of a…” Jack muttered. “Okay, Lou. Tell me the worst.”