The Ghosts that Haunt

Complete
Action/adventure, Drama
Season 6
FR-T
Violence, Torture
Spoilers for Hathor, Serpent's Lair, Nemesis, Crossroads, Divide and Conquer, Watergate, Absolute Power, Double Jeopardy, Exodus, Enemies, Redemption, Allegiance

Disclaimers:

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

Author's Notes:

This is the second part of the two-part fiction begun in The Ties that Blind.

On Athena:

The Aegis was a protective emblem used first by Zeus and then by Athena, usually consisting of rays emitted form a central hub. For Zeus it was a cloud with thunderbolts, but for Athena the device usually took the form of the head of medusa. Athena wore it on a small shield over her heart, or carried it at the centre of a full-sized shield.

Pallas was one of Athena's appellations, taken from the Titan of that name, whom she killed, using his skin to make the Aegis. It was associated with her martial nature, but was not the title of rank that I use it as here.

Acknowledgements:

Sho.

Superb beta-reader.
Helpless Danny-fancier.
Out of her mind.

The Prophet, 1st December 2002

The Ghosts that Haunt

Stargate Command,

Earth

"You're late," Jack O'Neill commented.

"I know," Jonas Quinn replied. "I just…never mind," he finished, awkwardly.

Jack raised an eyebrow at the usually eager young polymath. Quinn looked more than usually out of place in the Gate Room today, and the Colonel was already on edge.

"It's just that I'm worried," Jonas admitted. "About Teal'c. And Captain Kawalsky," he added, after a moment's pause.

"Are you still scared of her?" Sam asked, trying to maintain a bantering tone, although her tension was obvious.

"No," Jonas insisted. "Why would I be?"

Sam gave him a long look.

"She only threatened to kill me that one…week. Twice a day for one week," he admitted. "But that was months ago now."

"So what is it?" Sam asked.

"I just don't feel she'd want me worrying about her. After what happened…"

"She doesn't feel you have a right?" Jack asked.

"Something like that, Colonel; yes."

Jack turned his face to the Gate as it began to dial. "Has she said anything?"

"Not as such," Jonas replied. "It's not like she talks to me much. It's just a feeling I get from her; you know?"

"Oh yeah," Jack assured him, remembering the short period when Amy Kawalsky had borne a grudge against him for trying to save a Goa'uld host; a concern he had not extended to her brother, one of his best friends. There were reasons of course – good, solid reasons in this case; reasons that even his guilt found it hard to argue over – but for a woman who had lost her favourite brother that had not seemed important. Then of course for a while she had blamed him for Daniel's death as much as Jonas. Yes, he knew what Jonas meant about the feeling he got from Amy. "You're probably right," he added. "I'm sure she wouldn't want you worrying about her."

With a rush of spray, the Gate opened.

"Still," Jack went on. "Doesn't mean you shouldn't. Anyway; if this all goes right, then there'll be nothing to worry about and we can fetch them both straight home."

He led off, and the three of them went up through the Gate to the planet Cimmeria.

*

Dahkleh

Seln'auc sat cross-legged on the floor of her cell, performing kelno'reem. Her prison was a tiny, barred chamber in the back of an al'kesh bomber, cramped and uncomfortable. It had been designed to hold torpedoes, not prisoners, but ordered to find a place to confine Seln'auc on the surface of Dahkleh, Helena had improvised.

It had taken the Jaffa almost an hour to find a position comfortable enough to even begin kelno'reem, but she had almost reached the regenerative stage of her meditation when a flash of searing pain tore through her focus and snapped her back to the waking world. She cried out, flinched away from the tip of the pain-stick and pressed herself to the back of the tiny space. By flattening herself as far as possible, she was barely able to move out of range.

"Bitch!" She hissed.

"Why waste time in kelno'reem?" Helena asked the Jaffa. "You'll be dead in a day anyway."

"It is not for me to choose to sicken myself," Seln'auc replied. "If I am called upon to serve then I must be fit and ready. No death is so certain as to take away that duty. If you had the least understanding of honour you would know that."

Helena lashed out with the pain stick again, but could not quite reach her rival. "I shall enjoy watching you die," she spat. "Almost as much as I will enjoy consoling your lover."

Seln'auc bellowed in anger and leaped forward. Helena struck at her with a cry of triumph, but the Jaffa knocked her thrust aside and reached through the bars of her makeshift cage, wrapping a powerful arm around Helena's neck. She dragged the woman close, pushing the pain-stick out wide and crushing Helena's throat against a cross-bar. Rhea's lo'taur thrashed helplessly in the Jaffa's grip, her strength not even near to a match for her attacker, until at last she managed to turn her hand and jab the pain stick into Seln'auc's side.

Seln'auc cried out, but held firm for a moment, until Helena found a better angle and held the stick tight into her abdomen. Screaming in pain, the stick's fire pouring from her face, the Jaffa fell back into her cage. Helena gasped raggedly for breath, and plunged the pain stick through the bars into her enemy's leg. She drew her arm back for another blow, but then a powerful hand gripped her wrist.

"Our Queen has yet to declare a punishment for the traitor," Teal'c said, his tone ominous. "You would not presume to usurp her judgement, I trust?"

"Of course not, Master Jaffa," Helena assured him. Her breathing was still heavy and uneven, but she still managed to assay a tone of wounded innocence. "She attacked me; I merely…"

"I saw what happened," he assured her. Helena's eyes widened in fear. "Now go; attend to our Queen."

"At once, Has'va," Helena whispered, venomously. Teal'c met her savage glower with equanimity, and after a moment she gave up and slipped away.

"Thank you," Seln'auc said, her voice wavering. "But you have made an enemy now."

"And perhaps a friend," he replied.

Seln'auc laughed, bitterly. "One that will bring you little profit," she assured him. "Much as I hate to admit it, the bitch is right. I will die just as soon as our Queen feels inclined to order it, and that moment is not far off now."

"And what will Broa'c do?" Teal'c asked.

"He will mourn for me, I hope," Seln'auc said.

"I am sorry to have brought you to this," Teal'c told her, sincerely. "To have raised doubts in your mind as to Rhea's divinity."

Seln'auc gave another humourless laugh. "Are you converted now?" She asked. "Born anew in Rhea's divine light? Rest easy, servant of Rhea; you did not cause me to doubt. We have all doubted, even Helena, since Cronos fell. We were told that he was in hiding at first, and then that Rhea had grown weary of his dominion and overthrown him, but the rumours had already begun. Too many people had heard that he was slain by a Jaffa shol'va, in the service of the Tau'ri. I have not believed since the day I heard the news that he had vanished, and my doubts began long before that."

"Why stay in the service of a false god?" Teal'c demanded.

"For Broa'c," she said, as though it should not have to be asked. "It is not Rhea who holds my love and my loyalty, Teal'c; it never was. I serve for your brother's sake; because I know that he could never turn from his mother, and I could never turn from him."

"You give much for him," Teal'c said, approvingly, adding more darkly: "It would seem that he will do less for you."

Seln'auc eyed Teal'c, shrewdly. "You are not changed," she said, ignoring his criticism of Broa'c. "You do not believe."

"I am…unsure," he admitted.

"Why did you come here?"

"You were a priestess?" Teal'c asked in reply.

"I was. And a healer."

"Did you ever serve as a keeper of the relics?"

"I did," Seln'auc admitted. "For a time. Thirty years. I am – I was – Rhea's ha'he," she added, using the Goa'uld term for a field engineer.

"So you know something of the technology that Rhea uses?" Teal'c pressed.

"Very little," Seln'auc said, although as ha'he that little would be more than most Jaffa. "I can maintain Jaffa weapons and armour, or repair a death glider or this al'kesh, but I could not build one from components, nor tell you how they function, and I was not so trusted that I was given access to the deeper mysteries of Goa'uld magic. I know little of any hand device; only the ritual devotions to speak over them in the reliquary."

Teal'c approached the bars, and took Seln'auc's hands in his. "I only want to know what it is that she is doing to me; not how. It is something to know that it is a hand device," he added.

Seln'auc sighed. "The device is held within the clawed gauntlet she wears on her right hand," she explained. "It…‘stirs the dreams of the sleeping god', to quote from the devotions. Using it, she is able to invoke the memories of a god's ancestors, and so gain some measure of control over them. I had never known that it could be used on a Jaffa though," she admitted.

"They would not ordinarily be willing to use it on us," Teal'c realised. "They would not want us to touch their thoughts; to know their mortal fears. But she is stirring my father's memories – the memory of his death – not those of her ancestors."

"That's impossible," Seln'auc said. "Even if a prim'ta had some means of accessing the memories of the Jaffa who bore it, the one within Ron'ac was killed along with him. How could that memory have been passed along?"

"I do not know," Teal'c admitted. "I must meditate and perform kelno'reem before we leave," he said. "Perhaps there I can find answers."

"How?"

"By allowing my mind to touch that of my symbiote," he explained.

"Is that possible?" Seln'auc asked.

"It is," Teal'c replied. "But dangerous. The prim'ta seeks to attack and deceive its carrier, especially if they have turned from the Goa'uld, as I did."

"Then what do you hope to achieve?"

Teal'c gave a half-smile. "It may be that I can learn something from what it will not show me; or from what lies it tells."

"Thank you for what you have done for me," Seln'auc said.

"I will speak to Broa'c," Teal'c offered. "Perhaps…"

"No," Seln'auc said. "He will not turn, and I will not ask him. I will honour him with a brave death."

Teal'c reached out and touched her face, gently. "I hope that my brother is worthy of such a sacrifice," he said.

*

Amy sat up with a sharp cry, expecting pain but finding none. Instead she felt light-headed, almost elated, and even the dawning memory of where she was did little to sour that mood. She struggled to recall the events of the last few hours, but the fabric she pieced together was a patchwork. Sometimes she remembered Regan all but dragging her through the Goa'uld complex, into Sekhmet's inner sanctum; at others she recalled pursuing the warrior-woman there in a last ditch attempt to neutralise her.

She put her head between her knees, breathing deeply until her head felt clearer, but still her own memories of Dahkleh were jumbled with Thoth's. Or was it that his memories were jumbled with Amy Kawalsky's?

No, she told herself firmly. I am Amy.

Amy put a hand out to either side of her, and felt the edges of the sarcophagus around her. That explained her mood then, and perhaps the confusion. Death and rebirth might have broken down a few more of the walls between her own memories and Thoth's; or she might have been brainwashed, as Teal'c had been. She wondered if this was the first time she had woken here, or the thirty-first.

She slid her hands back towards her shoulders, intending to rise from the sarcophagus, but her left hand touched warm flesh. She leaped as though burned, and twisted in the confined space. A woman was kneeling beside the sarcophagus, her arms folded on the edge. Her head lay sideways, pillowed on her forearms, and she was watching Amy with a lazy, curious gaze. Her skin was bronze, her eyes gold and her hair a tawny brown that all but matched the other two colours.

She was Sekhmet.

Amy tried to speak, but managed nothing more than a squeak. She felt at her sides, but in her servant's garb she carried no pistol, and she had given her zat to Regan.

Sekhmet slowly raised her head, never taking her eyes from Amy.

"Where is my Mistress?" Amy asked in Goa'uld, almost managing to control the quaver of fear in her voice. She was dimly aware that she was speaking more fluently than usual, and that disturbed her further still.

"Mistress?" Sekhmet asked. Her host's voice had a mellow, husky richness to it that blended with her Goa'uld overtones into a sonorous purr. Somehow, Amy knew that much of the sensuality which Sekhmet displayed in her sparing movement came from the host as well, and a part of her that was once Thoth nearly welled up and complimented her on her choice.

Amy wracked her brain for the name that Talitha had been using, but she could not remember.

"The child, Regan, is well," Sekhmet assured her. "Whether the Goa'uld within her will live…I can not say," she concluded, disinterestedly. She stood, and walked away from the sarcophagus, the ease with which she turned her back showing how little she thought of Amy's chances of taking her. She had doffed her armour – as she struggled up and out of the sarcophagus, Amy saw the mail and plates arranged carefully on a pedestal – and seemed to have found a change of clothes, not ravaged by time. The sword hung at her hip, in a fresh scabbard, and she appeared to have re-bound the hilt as well. Her hair was washed and brushed out, her skin looked scrubbed and clean.

Amy was impressed that she had managed to do so much without a servant to help her.

"How long was I out?" Amy asked.

"Not long," Sekhmet assured her. "Hardly a heartbeat." She laughed then; a laugh that caused Amy to reassess the Goa'uld. She was not dangerous; she was insane.

She's been in a sarcophagus for several millennia, she reminded herself. That would wear on anyone's nerves. "Where is Regan?" She asked, eager to regroup with her ally if possible.

"Safe," Sekhmet assured her. "Resting. Healing." She gestured towards a doorway. "Come; eat. You must be hungry."

"You have food?" Amy was surprised. "I mean, I know you did have…This was your hiding place; your last refuge."

Sekhmet swung about to face Amy. "You seem very well informed for a servant," she said. "Things have plainly changed a great deal since my day. I must have been asleep a long time," she added, with a distracted air. The Goa'uld turned away again, and as she did so, Amy caught a glimpse of something glittering beneath her hair; perhaps she had not shed all of her armour.

Amy followed Sekhmet through the door, into what appeared to be a small dining room. A second door probably led to a kitchen, but for a moment Amy did not care, as the sight and smell of food drove everything else from her mind. "I'm so hungry," she murmured to herself.

"Healing takes energy," Sekhmet told her. "Energy that must be replaced with flesh. Please, be seated and help yourself."

Amy shuddered a little, but the meat on the table did not look like it came from anything too unpleasant. She also knew that Sekhmet was right; after regenerating in the sarcophagus, she needed protein. She sat on a faded cushion, easing herself down a little awkwardly, and watched with a certain awe as Sekhmet settled opposite without even needing to steady herself with her hands.

"I caught it while you were healing," Sekhmet explained. "It seems that the vermin have grown large without anyone to control them." Amy paused in the act of chewing, but the meat tasted good, and hunger overcame delicacy. "I had servants here once to keep them under control," Sekhmet went on, rambling a little. "He must have killed them when he left."

"They killed themselves," Amy replied without thinking. "He tried to take them away, but they would not desert you." Sekhmet looked at her, shrewdly. Great, Amy thought. Memories by Thoth; mouth 100% Amy Kawalsky.

"What are you doing here?" Sekhmet asked. "The Goa'uld I understand, but why bring a servant? Why not a Jaffa? Or several? The host was somewhat unclear: Are you a gift for me perhaps?"

"Gift? Me…No! I mean…I am my Mistress' favourite," she improvised. "She never goes anywhere without me. We had a Jaffa escort, but he was…lost in the mountains."

"Let me tell you what I like," Sekhmet said. "I like openness. I like honesty. I'm not good at politics, but I know deception when I hear it, so I prefer to cut right through it. Often literally." She reached out with a lazy motion, yet still much too fast for Amy to even flinch before her wrist was held in a firm but gentle grip. "Now," the Goa'uld continued. "Let me tell you what I see.

"I see a woman with a warrior's hands; a warrior's eyes. In the sarcophagus you looked for a weapon, and while you call the Goa'uld your Mistress you do not avert your eyes when addressing a Goddess, and her host stood over you as a guardian when you were wounded. That impressed me, which is why I spared you both. It seems a shame that the host must be submerged again, but she will not survive without the Goa'uld – not with that head wound – and she refused to be healed in the sarcophagus."

Amy sat, frozen; almost mesmerised. She felt like a rabbit, caught in the headlights of an oncoming car and unable to move to preserve herself. This woman had an incredible presence and charisma; the air of a born leader. She wondered how much of that air was an act.

"Eat," Sekhmet said, releasing her arm. "And tell me why you are here, warrior."

"Where is Regan now?" Amy asked, forcing the words out.

"In my mineral pool," Sekhmet replied, patiently. "It will help the Goa'uld within her to heal. Now I think I have answered that question three times, so it is high time you answered one of mine. What is your name?"

"Hetah…" Amy began to give her cover name, but Sekhmet stopped her, reaching across to lay two fingers over her lips.

"No more lies," she said, gently. "Or I will become angry."

"And I wouldn't like you when you're angry," Amy agreed. "My name is Amy Kawalsky," she admitted. "Captain, United States Air Force. I am a warrior, and I was sent here to seek your aid."

Sekhmet stared at Amy for a long moment, then started to laugh. It was a rich, full laugh, redolent with genuine amusement and good humour, but touched by an edge of hysteria that sent a shiver down Amy's spine. If she had harboured any doubts before, it was now clear that Sekhmet was insane.

"What aid do you seek of me?" Sekhmet asked, the laughter still in her voice.

"Our world is to be attacked by the Goa'uld called Athena," Amy replied. "We seek to bring the Wadjet to her defence."

Sekhmet snorted derisively. "What foolishness is this?" She demanded. "I know nothing of the Goa'uld of whom you speak. I owe nothing to your world, or your Lord, and I will not fight to defend the realm of one God from another."

"You owe Regan and I your freedom," Amy reminded her.

Sekhmet rounded on Amy, pinning her again beneath her glower. "You freed me for your own ends," she replied. "To gain my assistance. I owe you nothing for an action performed out of self-interest."

Amy wracked her brain, trying to dig through Thoth's memories, yet flinching from their contents. She felt as though she were searching for something precious in a particularly foetid dumpster, and she was having little luck finding anything. She sensed that Sekhmet appreciated sincerity, honesty and sacrifice, but nothing more than that.

Okay then; sincerity. "We need your help," Amy begged. "Please." She caught Sekhmet by the arm. "I…I'll give you anything you ask," she added. "Whatever is in my power to give you – and whatever I have a right to give," she added quickly. "It's yours; if you aid us."

Sekhmet gently removed her arm from Amy's grasp, regarding her with a lazy, feline gaze, as though she were something that might just prove interesting. It was a relief after  the penetrating stare, but in its way was just as unnerving.

"I will consider your offer," Sekhmet said. "Eat; I will return soon."

After she had gone, Amy ate, trying to escape the feeling that she had just done something very foolish.

*

Rhea led her entourage in the hunt in person, a rare act for a Queen, but then her ambitions were so much more in line with those of a System Lord. Broa'c assigned three of the Corvus Guard to walk immediately before their Queen, and four to follow behind her. Four more brought up the rear of the column, five went one hundred yards in advance of the main party, and Broa'c and Teal'c were some fifty yards further forward, with the trackers. Broa'c was alert for any sign of an ambush, but he seemed more distracted than before.

"You are thinking of Seln'auc," Teal'c accused, his voice hard.

"That is not your concern," his half-brother replied.

"I believe that it is, if your preoccupation endangers my Queen."

"It will not," Broa'c assured him. "You seem well settled in your new role," he added, acidly.

"I performed kelno'reem before we came out on the hunt," Teal'c explained. "Much that remained clouded became clear to me then. I am concerned that the opposite may be true of you."

"My mind is clear," Broa'c repeated.

"Yet your lover is to be executed," Teal'c pressed. "How can you think clearly, knowing this to be the case? Do you not care for her?"

Broa'c stopped short, holding up a hand in warning. He slid up ahead of the trackers, and beckoned for Teal'c to follow. Moving quietly, the two Jaffa made their way through the boulders to the pile of fallen rocks that had blocked their initial pursuit. A passage through the obstruction had been blasted with staff weapons, but there was no sign of the section he had sent after the fugitives.

"This would be a fine place for an ambush," Broa'c said. "Since they are less likely to fire upon you, you should go first."

"And if my former companions discern my treachery, and kill me?"

"I shall avenge you," Broa'c promised, earnestly.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow, but he nodded and moved cautiously through the breach. "This was not a natural rockfall," he noted.

"No," Broa'c agreed. "A staff blast precipitated it during the fight. Perhaps an accident…"

"I do not believe so," Teal'c replied. When no ambush emerged from the rocks ahead, he motioned for his half-brother to follow him, and pointed to one of the walls of the crevasse. "The fall was caused by a very precise blast; I believe it to have been deliberately caused as an obstruction."

"Then why not wait for my troops to come through?" Broa'c asked. "They could have finished the pursuit here."

Teal'c shook his head. "The position is exposed," he said. "There are two other approaches, and they did not know how many you might have sent after them. Captain Kawalsky can be rash and impulsive, but she is not foolish. After setting this to delay your Jaffa, she would seek a more defensible position before allowing them to catch…"

Teal'c had been examining the ground at the crossroads, tracing the splatters of blood to see which way his erstwhile companions had fled, when the mace-head of Broa'c's staff weapon caught him in the back of the neck and pressed him against the hard stone of the ravine wall.

"You are a traitor twice over now," Broa'c whispered. "The fact that you live in favour when Seln'auc is to die is an obscenity. I do not trust you, brother or not, so I want you to know that I am watching you."

Teal'c struggled, but his brother was as strong as he was himself, and had the advantage of position and leverage.

"But more than that," Broa'c went on. "If you ever speak to me about Seln'auc again – if you so much as utter her name – I will kill you, and to Netu with the consequences. What was between her and me is no concern of yours."

Broa'c took the staff away from Teal'c's neck, and stepped back as the older man rounded on him. They faced each other for a long moment, each man looking into his father's eyes.

"I understand," Teal'c said, finally.

"Good," Broa'c replied.

"Broa'c! Teal'c!" Rhea strode through the breach, and the two Jaffa unconsciously straightened themselves out for their Mistress' approval. Little of it was forthcoming. "Broa'c," Rhea said. "We have just been contacted by our servant, Europa. She tells us that the mothership's sensors have detected an al'kesh leaving the planet's surface and heading into deep space. Why do you suppose that might be?"

"I could not say, Mistress," Broa'c assured her, with perfect sincerity. "Unless…perhaps if Helena attempted to administer her own punishment to Seln'auc…" Teal'c studied his half-brother intently, but if he was guilty of any duplicity, or any part in Seln'auc's escape, he was not showing it.

"You think that the shol'va might have hurt our lo'taur?" Rhea demanded, angrily. "For that we shall hunt her down and see her burned alive." She reached into her robes, and withdrew a small communication sphere, which she held out to her son. "Make it so, First Prime."

The sphere glowed in Rhea's palm, and a woman's face appeared, framed by dark, coiled bangs.

"First Prime," she greeted Broa'c, in the voice of a Goa'uld. "A pleasure, as always. How may I serve our Queen?"

"Lady Europa; initiate the recall device on al'kesh 5," Broa'c ordered. "Take the ship on board the ha'tak, and place the pilot in custody."

"Yes, First Prime," the Goa'uld replied. For a moment her attention was distracted, then she turned back to Broa'c. "Our sensors show a response from the recall device," she said, perturbed. "It is on the planet still."

"Track the cruiser then," Broa'c ordered. "The mothership is faster than an al'kesh; capture it and bring it back here."

"We are unable to get a lock on the course," Europa replied. "The vessel's hyperspace engines have been spiked to disperse the trail."

"Then begin a search," Broa'c ordered. "She can not have gone far with a spiked engine; either the hyperdrives will burn out or she will have to stop and realign them, allowing you to pick up the trail again."

Europa bridled. "Do not presume too much, First Prime," she snarled. "I am not yours to command."

"No. You are ours," Rhea said, turning the sphere so that Europa faced her instead of Broa'c. "And we have told you before that you should consider a command from our First Prime as though it were issued in our own voice."

"Yes, my Queen," Europa replied, flustered. "Forgive my impertinence."

"We shall discuss your impertinence at a later time," Rhea promised. "For now, pursue that ship, and bring that shol'va bitch to us."

"Yes, my Queen."

Rhea made no response, simply returning the sphere to her robe. "Broa'c," she said. "The trail."

"At least one of the women was injured, perhaps both," he confirmed. "The trail is clear."

Rhea nodded. "Then we follow."

*

After finishing her giant rat fricassee, Amy began to grow increasingly jittery. Time was wasting, Athena's fleet was poised to attack her homeworld, and God only knew what was happening to Teal'c. Under the circumstances, she could only think of one thing to do, and it made her feel a lot better that the influence of Thoth's memories did not want her to do it.

"What are you doing?" Sekhmet asked, startling Amy.

It took a great deal of self-control not to leap up and turn towards the Goa'uld, but Amy forced herself to finish. "Amen," she whispered, at last.

"What were you doing?" Sekhmet asked, as Amy rose from her knees and turned to her.

"Praying," Amy replied.

"For what?"

"For God to watch over my friends," Amy replied.

"You have no sacrifices," Sekhmet noted, impatiently. "No offerings; no altar even. Would not your god be angered to see you come before him empty-handed."

"My God doesn't care what's in my hands," Amy explained. "But what's in my heart."

Sekhmet tilted her head slightly, giving Amy a quizzical look. "And who is your God?" She asked.

"We do not speak His name," Amy said. "He is He that is called I Am."

"I have never heard of him," Sekhmet said.

"I'm not surprised," Amy admitted.

"Tell me of him," she commanded. "And why he sends you to beg my aid."

"Huh?" Amy asked. "What?" Her eyes widened in realisation. "No; I don't…He didn't send me. God doesn't talk to me, or tell me what to do."

"A strange kind of God," Sekhmet said. "Then how do you know how to honour him?"

"We have teachings," Amy said. "A book."

"And that is all you have?"

"We also have…" Amy paused, baffled; even her new fluency in the Goa'uld tongue failing her. "Belief without question," she said, failing to find a Goa'uld word that conformed properly to the concept of faith, as she understood it.

"Interesting," Sekhmet whispered, stalking slowly around Amy. "Your people sound fascinating. And your God is an enemy of this Athena?"

"No!" Amy exclaimed, feeling frustrated. "My God isn't a Goa'uld, or an Asgard or anything like that."

"Then what is he?"

"We don't know! That's what faith is," she added. "To believe without questioning. I do not know what He is, or where He is."

 "And what does your God grant you?" Sekhmet pressed. "In return for this belief without question? What other service does he require."

"He doesn't require service," Amy replied, wishing she had paid more attention in catechism. "Just faith. And communion with his church."

"This communion? That is what you were using just now to speak with him?"

"Ah…" Amy blushed. "Actually I lapsed a long time ago," she admitted. "I still go to church, sometimes, but I…I guess I don't believe all the things I was taught as a child."

"Yet you believe he will grant you what you ask?"

Amy shrugged. "Maybe not exactly what I ask; but what I need. I don't know."

"But you have faith."

Amy nodded. "I guess you could say that I believe in Him; I'm just a little disillusioned with some of his temporal representatives."

Sekhmet nodded her understanding. "It is a strange way of life," she said. "But I can see how it is appealing. What I do not understand is why Ra allows this."

"Ra?" Amy asked. "Ra doesn't have a say anymore. The Tau'ri booted Ra back into space a few thousand years ago."

"You are Tau'ri? Then who is your Lord?" Sekhmet demanded.

"We haven't bowed to any Goa'uld since we got shot of Ra," Amy replied, defiantly.

"Truly?" Sekhmet asked, searching her prisoner's eyes.

"Truly," Amy assured her. "You said you wouldn't take sides in a fight between Gods, but you can see that this isn't between Gods. Now, I know you once defended Corana from Anubis…"

"How do you know of that?" Sekhmet demanded, defensively, sounding almost embarrassed.

"You don't deny it, do you? You protected a defenceless world from an invading Goa'uld; against Ra's commands!"

"Anubis was a butcher," Sekhmet said. "A slaughterer of the innocent. I merely chose to…voice my disapproval of his methods. He was also an enemy of my Lord Ra, whether Ra would recognise that fact or not. I maintain," she added. "That it was not I who betrayed Ra's cause, but Ra himself, when he grew weak, decadent and afraid; becoming as Sokar was before his fall."

"Well…" Amy began, hesitantly. She drew a steadying breath. What the hell; let's go for broke. "Ra is dead."

"What?"

"We killed him."

"You did?"

"Well, not me personally," Amy demurred. "He tried to destroy us, and we returned the favour."

"Your God…"

"Not our God," Amy said. "Us. Two men did it; two humans."

"Yet now you need my help? A race mighty enough to destroy Ra?"

"On a planet's surface we are strong," Amy said. "But we have no defence against an attack from space."

"Ah," Sekhmet breathed. "So it is not truly I that you require; it is the Wadjet."

"Yes!"

Sekhmet stood in front of Amy, watching her for a long, long time with her fierce, golden eyes. Amy met her gaze as best she could, although the Goa'uld's pride and power made her shiver to her core. "It would seem that the Tau'ri have come a very long way since I was imprisoned by that shol'va, Thoth." She reached out a hand and stroked Amy's face. "You have become a race both intriguing and challenging, and it would seem a shame to allow you to be wiped out."

Amy shivered at the Goa'uld's touch, keenly aware of the deadly power concealed under the woman's sarcophagus-softened skin. "Then you'll help?" She asked, uncertainly.

"I will consider it," Sekhmet replied. "But not merely for charity's sake. If I can think of anything you might be able to give me in return – as you promised – then I will help." She turned quickly, and moved away from Amy. "Make yourself comfortable," she said. "Your friend is two levels down if you wish to see her. I must attend to our release from this place; it seems that you triggered Thoth's security lockdown, and we are trapped for the time being."

Amy dimly recalled instructing Regan to trigger the lockdown so as to keep Rhea out. "How long?" She asked.

Sekhmet shrugged her shoulders. "I do not fully understand Thoth's methods," she admitted. "I truly can not say. But I at least have time on my side."

*

Broa'c and Teal'c moved cautiously along the side of the cliff, following the trail of blood.

"If this is from the Tok'ra, she must be near to death by now," Broa'c commented. "If it was the human…"

"Then she must be dead already," Teal'c agreed, impassively. "So it would indeed seem."

"You do not believe it?" Broa'c asked.

Ahead of them the trackers signalled that they had found the cave mouth. With skilled movements, the two veteran warriors approached, stepping around the corner to cover the cave with their staff weapons.

"I have seen the Tau'ri survive against the odds before," Teal'c continued, once they were certain the way was clear. "And Captain Kawalsky is stubborn." Side-by-side, they moved into the cave.

"You sound as though you admire her," Broa'c noted.

"That would be because I do," Teal'c replied.

"A human?" Broa'c scoffed.

"I have great admiration for many humans," Teal'c assured his half-brother. "The men and women of the SGC, and those like them, have a source of strength within them that our prim'ta can not match."

"They are weak and fragile," Broa'c insisted.

Teal'c gave a half-smile. "They are more resilient than you imagine," he assured Broa'c, then held up his hand for silence.

Ahead of them, the passage curved around, and from around the bend Teal'c could hear a faint sound of metal on metal. Broa'c nodded, and they moved forward as one, staff weapons raised and snapping open.

"First Prime!" The Corvus Guard leaped to his feet and turned to face his commander. He stood beside a door of Goa'uld make, with a panel beside it torn open and a mass of crystals exposed. In front of the door Laur'tac, Broa'c's newly-promoted section leader, lay very still. "What happened?" Broa'c demanded.

"We…pursued the Goa'uld and her servant," the Corvus Guard replied. "Mok'na fell from the cliff and was killed. Laur'tac and I…were ambushed," he explained, the moment of hesitation giving away the lie. "They incapacitated us both. When we came to we pursued them, but when Laur'tac tried to open the door, he was killed."

"How?" Teal'c asked.

The Jaffa stared at Teal'c, realising that this was his former enemy.

"Answer my brother," Broa'c said, softly.

The Jaffa's eyes widened in surprise. "There was some blast of energy," he said. "I was seeking a way to bypass the controls…"

"Show us," Broa'c commanded.

"First Prime?"

Broa'c gazed at the younger man, sadly. "Laur'tac was foolish. I ordered him not to pursue beyond the rockfall, and he disobeyed. He has paid the price for that disobedience, but that leaves you to answer for his failure. Our Queen will be here in moments, Jaffa," he added, kindly. "Believe me; this is better."

The Corvus Guard swallowed hard. "Yes, First Prime," he said, bowing his head.

"Good lad," Broa'c commended him. "May you find rest and forgiveness beyond the grave."

The Jaffa turned, and touched the door control. The panel flashed with light, and a surge of electricity arced along his arm. His body twitched and writhed, then fell motionless across Laur'tac. Broa'c looked behind him, then stooped briefly to close the young warrior's eyes, a look of pain and regret crossing his face.

"Gods of Kheb and Amenti, receive this soul," he whispered, almost too low for Teal'c to hear. "Look kindly on him, for his was a life lived in duty, and in duty death came to him."

"You are a heretic," Teal'c observed, critically.

Broa'c shrugged. "I have been called worse."

"First Prime!" Rhea rounded the corner, and the two Jaffa turned to face her. "What happened here."

"This appears to be the entrance to the tomb that we seek," Broa'c reported. "It seems that these were killed by some defence mechanism which permitted those we seek to pass."

"It is possible that they triggered the defences behind them deliberately," Teal'c added. "To prevent pursuit. The memories held within Captain Kawalsky's blood might have shown her how."

Rhea nodded slowly. "First Prime. Summon our ha'he to afford us entry."

"Mistress…" Broa'c began, hesitantly. "Your ha'he…"

"What?" Rhea demanded.

"She currently flees from my Queen's mothership in a stolen al'kesh."

Rhea swore, violently, then drew the communication sphere from under her robe. "Europa," she commanded. "Return to Dahkleh; we have need of Argus' skill." Teal'c could not hear Europa's reply, but from the look of murderous fury that crossed Rhea's face, it was clearly not one that the Queen wished to hear. "Abandon the pursuit!" She snapped, her iron control slipping to reveal a little of the raw desperation behind her anger. "The wench is a single Jaffa; do not bother us with such trivialities."

Teal'c looked on the Queen with pity, wishing to comfort her in her time of fear and confusion, but knowing that he must not expose her weakness to the other Jaffa in her following. A glance at his brother showed that he felt the same conflict. They were the pillars of her power, he realised. The foundation of her remaining strength, and their loss would be catastrophic for her.

"What is your wish, my Queen?" Teal'c asked.

"We wait," she snarled. "Then we enter, and kill all within."

*

Amy saw no sign of Sekhmet as she made her way down through the sanctum to the natural cave which housed her mineral pool. On entering, it was immediately clear why the Goa'uld had chosen this particular God-forsaken wilderness for her hideaway. Goa'uld symbiotes thrived on certain minerals, mostly those found on P3X-888, and while all of the necessary nutrition could be drawn from their host, they had a love of natural springs that carried those minerals. They valued such pools especially for spawning, but also enjoyed simply bathing and soaking in them, and such immersion allowed an injured symbiote to heal faster than usual.

The heady steam of the volcanic springs which fed Sekhmet's pool made Amy feel safe and relaxed, enough so that she felt only the slightest twinge of alarm to realise that she had known nothing of Goa'uld pools before today. She was also aware that, previously, she would have been disturbed to see Regan's small form lying on the bottom of the pool, instead of feeling the urge to slide under the water and lie there beside her. Fortunately, Thoth's memories were still distinct enough that Amy remembered that – unlike a Goa'uld host – she was unable to breathe underwater.

She watched for a while as Regan lay there, drawing water in through her mouth, funnelling it over Talitha's gills, until at last the girl opened her eyes and saw her.

Regan smiled and sat up, ejecting a stream of water from her nose and mouth so that she could breathe air again. "Hello, Amy," she said. "I'm pleased to see you well again."

"Thanks to you," Amy replied, smiling. "For now anyway," he added. "I get the feeling that Sekhmet's mood could turn at pretty much any moment. Not exactly the most stable of Goa'uld, and that's not exactly judging her against a very reliable field. I guess a couple of millennia in a box will do that to you, though," she allowed. "How's Talitha?"

Regan gave a slow blink. "I am well, Captain Kawalsky," the Tok'ra replied. "And most proud of Regan."

"She did good," Amy agreed. "Just needed a little encouragement, I guess."

Talitha smiled. "You seem to have been more successful in that regard than I. Before we came here I had all but given up on her. I have never been happier to be proved wrong," she added.

"Well, if she hadn't stood up to Sekhmet, we'd probably all be dead," Amy said. "Sekhmet actually seems like she'll be sorry to see her submerged beneath your personality again."

"Tok'ra share the body…" Talitha began.

"Yeah. I know that," Amy agreed. "But she doesn't. In fact, as far as she knows, Egeria is still Goa'uld and there's no such thing as the Tok'ra. For her, rebel Goa'uld are still just myths and fairy stories told to keep your under-Lords on their toes," she finished.

"Curious," Talitha replied. "So, how do we go about securing the Wadjet?"

"She says she'll help us, if she can think of anything we can give her in return," Amy told her.

"Should we try to seize control of the vessel ourselves?" Talitha asked.

Amy shook her head. "Now I've seen her…Thoth's memories of her are coming in stronger than ever, and I think she'd make pretty short work of the pair of us. We wouldn't stand a chance of taking her, not even if…If Teal'c were here."

"You seem troubled," the Tok'ra observed.

Amy sighed and settled herself on a rock beside the pool. "I am," she admitted. "I don't feel good about leaving Teal'c behind."

"We had no choice," Talitha assured her. "And he instructed us to go. He felt that he had become a liability; he would have refused to come with us."

"Colonel O'Neill wouldn't have let him," Amy retorted. "SG-1 would not have left a man behind, and I shouldn't have either. If they took him back to a sarcophagus, they could be half-way to turning him by now, and he barely survived the last time that happened. If he'd been dead…"

"I understand how you feel," Talitha assured her.

"I don't think you do," Amy replied. "I'm not sure you can. The Tok'ra…you accept losses in a way we are just not capable of."

"There is more to this, isn't there," Talitha observed, shrewdly.

Amy shrugged.

"Amy?" Regan said. "Tell me what's worrying you." Somewhat awkward on the wet stone, the girl climbed out of the pool and drew a towel around herself.

"Teal'c has always been very supportive of me," she said. "When I first joined the SGC, he was the first member of an SG team that I met. You see…he killed my brother, when Charlie was taken by a Goa'uld, so General Hammond was worried that I would not be able to work with him. I told them that I would be fine, and Teal'c…Teal'c looked me in the eye and said that he believed me.

"When we first learned of General Keyes' conspiracy, Daniel and I put together a plan for me to infiltrate his group. General Hammond was reluctant to send someone with so little experience, but again, Teal'c vouched for me. He praised my performance on the Arcadia mission. He said that…" He voice cracked for a moment. "He said that I showed great courage, and set the safety of others above my own.

"And I ran away and left him to be captured by the one Goa'uld in the galaxy with the most reason to hate him."

"How so?" Talitha asked.

"If this is Cronos' Queen," Amy explained. "Then she must know that Teal'c killed her husband. Now, she might not care about him on a personal level, but Teal'c took away her power. Her control over Cronos and his domains was what made her great, and she won't forgive the loss of that." She shook her head. "I can't just leave him," she said.

"We must," Talitha insisted. "We can do nothing to save him. We must only hope that Rhea does not learn from him that we can lead her to Sekhmet, or at least that he holds out for long enough that we are able to leave before Rhea finds us."

From the complex above them, a wailing of alarms began to filter down.

"Hold that thought," Amy said. "It looks like we've been made."

*

The Goa'uld engineer, Argus, replaced the last crystal, and the door hissed open.

"Finally," Rhea snarled.

"Forgive me, my Queen," the engineer grovelled. "But the mechanism was ancient, and the method used to secure it…"

Rhea put out her hand, and threw Argus through the door on a wave of force. Once he had landed, largely unharmed, she gestured to Broa'c, who tossed the engineer his staff weapon, almost immediately receiving a replacement from one of his warriors.

"Lead the way, engineer," Rhea said, in a soft and deadly voice.

*

Amy and Talitha returned to the central chamber at a run, with the Tok'ra pulling on her clothes as they moved.

"You are recovered," Sekhmet noted. "Excellent." The Warlady had donned her armour once again, and was buckling on her sword. She swept up a zat'nik'tel and threw it to Talitha. "Somebody has breached Thoth's perimeter seal, and as you locked down the doors behind you, I do not think it would be wise to assume them friendly."

"I'd go along with that," Amy agreed. She held out her hand, and after a moment, Sekhmet tossed her a staff weapon. "What other defences are there, besides the lockdown?"

"Few enough still functional," Sekhmet replied. "Goa'uld technology is built to endure, but even working in naquada and trinium there are limits that we have not yet transcended. Our only true defence will be our skill," she added. "But then, that is ever the case. We are all of us ultimately alone in the universe."

"Uh-huh," Amy replied. "Well, be that as it may, I've got your back in this one."

"As you wish," Sekhmet said. "But do not fire too soon," she added. "If they do not enter shooting, then allow at least some of them to enter the room and begin a dialogue. It will make them less likely to roll in shock grenades."

Amy nodded, accepting the wisdom of this as the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor. Jaffa boots pounded on the metal, freely announcing their impending arrival. The heavy tread was deliberate, intended to frighten; Amy had seen experienced Jaffa in full armour move as silently as any special forces commando, and she had no doubt that these would be Rhea's Corvus Guards.

The first man through the door was not what Amy had expected, a slight man, who looked more nervous than any Jaffa she had ever seen. The second man was more of a surprise, however.

"Teal'c?"

The Jaffa gave no response as he moved into the room, followed by Rhea's First Prime, and six other warriors, who fanned out, staff weapons trained on Amy and Talitha. They all but ignored Sekhmet, and Amy realised that they did not consider a Goa'uld with a sword to be an immediate threat. Teal'c and the First Prime made no such mistake, holding their weapons aimed squarely at the Warlady.

Behind the Jaffa, Rhea entered, resplendent in her power and confidence, and trailed by another group of at least as many warriors as stood in the sarcophagus chamber. She strode between her guards, to stand facing Sekhmet, while the nervous man stepped aside.

"Welcome to my home," Sekhmet purred, a deadly sound that sent a shiver along Amy's spine. The Goa'uld stepped forward to stand face-to-face with Rhea, her dark bronze colouring eclipsed by Rhea's golden radiance, but her power and strength undeniable. "I am Sekhmet," she continued. "Mistress of the Wadjet, Warlady of the Goa'uld. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

Rhea fumed, the rage burning behind her eyes, but Amy realised that there was more than a mere snub behind Sekhmet's question. If Rhea had even been born when Sekhmet was placed in her perpetual stasis, she must not have been any kind of power.

"I am Rhea," she hissed. "Queen of the Goa'uld, Mistress of the Titans, Lord of nineteen Systems, widow and heir of Cronos the Great. I am your mistress, warrior."

Sekhmet shifted her weight, ready to act. "I do not think so," she replied.

Rhea visibly bit back a petty jibe, and raised her right hand as though to strike. The stones set into the palm of her gauntlet glittered brightly. "You who once served Ra, remember duty and obedience, and do honour to me," she whispered, gleefully.

"I do not think so," Sekhmet repeated.

Fear flitted across Rhea's face, and the Goa'uld took a step backward as she looked to her gauntlet in confusion.

"Leave, now," Sekhmet ordered, turning and walking back to Amy and Talitha.

"No!" Rhea snarled. "You will give me the Wadjet, on pain of death."

Sekhmet looked back over her shoulder. "It has been millennia since I last felt blood on my hands," she said. "Try me if you wish, nothing could please me so much; but I say again, leave my home."

Teal'c and Broa'c snapped open the tips of their staff weapons as one.

"Teal'c?" Amy asked again.

"He is mine now," Rhea gloated. "As his father was, and as you shall be in the days before your death."

Sekhmet turned to face Rhea once more. "Do not threaten a guest beneath my roof," she cautioned. "You, Mistress of the Titans, have now outstayed your welcome. Leave now or die."

"Give me the Wadjet, or die," Rhea replied, mistaking the repeated request for weakness and vacillation.

Amy swallowed hard. She felt that Thoth's memories gave her a pretty good handle on Sekhmet, and she did not believe that she was given to bluff. "Go," she told the Goa'uld, not much caring for her life, but unwilling to see Teal'c sacrificed for her pride, be he brainwashed or no. "If you stay, you're a fool; she'll kill you all."

Rhea's eyes hardened, and Amy knew she had pressed too hard. "Fool?" Rhea asked. "I am not the one who puts her trust in traitors."

Amy felt the sting of that barb, but after a moment, she smiled. "Oh, but you are," she replied.

Rhea looked around, and saw Teal'c's staff weapon pointed, unwavering, at her head. "What is this?" She demanded. "You are mine! You are bound by your father's love!"

"You know nothing of love," Teal'c assured her. "Nor of my father. Your ‘memories' were false, created by your own wishes. You have no control over me."

"No!" Rhea cried in denial, as Broa'c charged by her and ploughed into Teal'c.

Seemingly all but forgotten, Sekhmet stepped forward and drew her sword.

"Kill her!" Rhea commanded.

The Corvus Guards moved to obey, but several found their shots obstructed as their commander staggered past them, locked in combat with Teal'c. Two managed to get clear shots, but Sekhmet raised her left arm, and the staff blasts struck an invisible shield. The effect was not quite like the personal forcefields used by the System Lords, and Amy got the impression that Sekhmet was using something more like a police riot shield. This impression was confirmed as Sekhmet waded into the Jaffa, swinging her arm so that the unseen barrier caught a Corvus Guard hard across the chin.

Sekhmet fought with an unconscious grace, every movement clean and efficient, almost beautiful in their economy. Amy was tempted to just stop and watch her work, but there were at least a dozen enemy, and she knew that she had to help out. She turned her staff weapon on one of the attacking Jaffa and fired, but before she could take aim for another shot, she was knocked from her feet by a ribbon wave, and sent skittering across the floor to fetch up against the sarcophagus.

"Curse you!" Rhea shrieked, grabbing Amy by the throat. "You've ruined everything!" Amy tried to struggle, but the Goa'uld held up her left hand, and her hand device let out its ribbon of burning energy.

Amy felt that maybe she should be quipping bravely, or making some show of defiance, but in the final analysis she found herself unable to do anything but scream. The light filled her vision, blinding her, and the most excruciating pain she had ever felt – notwithstanding that she had once received a major gut-wound from a Goa'uld's khopesh – tore through her head.

Amy was fairly sure that she could not have blacked out for more than a few moments, and when she came to the pain was fading, but her limbs still felt sluggish and heavy. With some effort, she lifted herself up the side of the sarcophagus, and found herself face to face with Rhea once more.

Amy shrieked and stumbled back, barely keeping her feet. As she did so, she saw that Rhea's perfect features had been squashed and deformed, no light – Goa'uld fire or otherwise – showed in her lifeless blue eyes, and her golden hair was streaked red with blood. Sekhmet stood behind Rhea, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings as she buried her face in the back of the Goa'uld Queen's neck, sucking the symbiote's blood – rich with Rhea's genetic memory – from a ragged wound.

Amy felt her gorge rise, and simultaneously a hunger gnawing inside her; a desire to share the blood, and to steal Rhea's secrets. She was aware, as though she had known it all her life, that to feed on another Goa'uld would allow a symbiote to combine some of its memories with her own. It was an imperfect transfer, but a useful one, and the part of her that believed itself to be Thoth was keen to participate. The fact that, without a symbiote, the blood would probably do nothing more than make Amy nauseous kept her from digging in; that and the fact she found the idea revolting.

Somewhat concerned at Sekhmet's level of rapt concentration, Amy turned to try and protect her from the remaining Jaffa, reaching down for her fallen staff weapon as she did so.

Amy's eyes widened, and she felt another wave of nausea pass over her. Teal'c stood over the First Prime, holding a staff weapon on him, while Broa'c stared in horror as Sekhmet devoured his goddess. Besides those two, not a single Jaffa remained mobile, and few of them could be said to be in one piece.

"Oh…God!" Amy gasped. "What happened?"

"She killed them all." Amy turned and saw the slight man, apparently unharmed, but pressed in fear against the wall. His eyes were riveted on Sekhmet, like a rabbit in headlights. The resonance in his voice betrayed him as Goa'uld.

"Not all," Sekhmet corrected him, her voice distorted. Amy did not turn around, not wishing to see the blood running from Sekhmet's mouth as she spoke. "Some are merely unconscious for now. Is this a friend of yours?" She added, pointing at Teal'c.

"Yes," Amy replied, emphatically.

"Are you going to kill that one?" Sekhmet asked Teal'c.

"No," Teal'c replied.

"You would be wise to do so," Broa'c warned him.

"Shall I?" She offered.

"He is my brother," Teal'c said, grabbing Amy's attention from the butchered Jaffa.

"You killed her," Broa'c whispered, appalled.

"Your goddess? Yes," Sekhmet replied, blandly.

"My…mother," he said, in a strangled voice.

"What!" Amy could not help shouting it. "Teal'c? Does that mean…?"

"My half-brother," he corrected himself.

"So…when she was talking about your father's love…?" Talitha asked, warily. The Tok'ra seemed unhurt, but like the Goa'uld seemed shell-shocked by what she had just witnessed.

"My father was Rhea's has'va," Teal'c explained. "He revered her, and she used a form of memory device to invoke his feelings as a means to control me."

"Can we talk about this later?" Amy asked. "I mean, it's fascinating and all, but we need to decide what to do with your half-brother and…this guy," she added, waving vaguely at the Goa'uld.

"I am Argus," the man said, regaining a little of his Goa'uld dignity.

"Rhea's chief engineer," Teal'c added.

"He raised no hand against me," Sekhmet said. "He is free to go. This one" – she indicated Broa'c – "is not."

"Kill me then," Broa'c responded. "I care not."

"No!" Teal'c said, interposing himself between Sekhmet and his brother.

"If you spare me today, I shall kill you tomorrow," Broa'c swore. "You have brought my mother to this, and I will avenge her."

"Do not be a fool, Broa'c," Teal'c pleaded, turning to face Broa'c, putting his back to Sekhmet. "She was no mother to you. She used you, as she used our father and sought to use me."

Sekhmet looked to Amy.

"What?" Amy asked.

"Should I kill him?" Sekhmet asked. "Or not?"

"Why are you asking me?" Amy asked, as both Jaffa turned to look at her.

"I thought you might have an interest," Sekhmet said. "As your friend is seeking to protect him. You are my guest, and I would not wish to offend you by slaying someone you cared about."

"I don't…" Amy paused, aware that she held Broa'c's life in her hands, and also that Sekhmet was judging her by her reactions. "Can we leave here now?" She asked. "Leave this planet."

"Now that the defences are down, I can leave whenever I choose, more-or-less. You may leave with me if you wish."

"Then let him go," Amy said. "If we take their gear, they can't warn their comrades in time to stop us."

"If I kill him, he can never warn them," Sekhmet pointed out.

"Please," Amy begged. "He's Teal'c's brother."

Sekhmet frowned. "I believe that you are making a grave mistake," she said. "But I shall do as you ask, Amy. The Jaffa may leave with the Goa'uld."

"I shall not leave without my mother," Broa'c said. "And the warriors who yet live."

"You dare make demands of me?" For a moment, Amy thought that the First Prime had sealed his own fate, but then Sekhmet let out a hearty laugh. "You have spirit," she told him. "Very well; take your Queen, wake your soldiers."

"But won't he be able to raise her?" Amy ask, concerned, as Broa'c moved among the fallen, waking those who could be woken.

Sekhmet smiled, grimly, watching the Jaffa move warily to the sarcophagus and lift the shattered body of the Queen in his arms. "You might have though of that before putting me in a merciful frame of mind." She turned to Broa'c. "I should hurry," she advised. "The injuries I inflicted were great; even the sarcophagus will have difficulty restoring her, and every moment counts."

"We shall meet again," Broa'c warned.

"And if you threaten me then, you will die," Sekhmet replied. "Now go, before I change my mind. Leave your weapons."

"Thank you," Teal'c said to Sekhmet. His half-brother glowered at him, but Teal'c shrugged it off and approached Broa'c.

"Don't touch her!" Broa'c snarled.

Teal'c locked eyes with his brother, staring him down as he reached out, and stripped the gauntlet from Rhea's right hand.

Broa'c weighed up his chances, and in the end settled for shooting Teal'c a final, murderous look, before striding from the chamber, with Argus and the other Jaffa following nervously in his wake. The Goa'uld looked as though he expected Sekhmet to spring after him and cut him down, and the Corvus Guards could barely stand, but the First Prime moved with a calm and even stride.

"He has your courage," Sekhmet complimented Teal'c. "But you were a fool to let him go."

"He is my brother," Teal'c replied.

"I did not spare my brother when he tried to kill me," the Goa'uld replied, harshly. "The ring transporters have been disabled," she added, her tone defensive and her words directed towards Amy. "I must summon a ship to collect us. I will call for you when it is time to leave." With that, she stalked from the chamber.

Without another word, Teal'c set Rhea's device on the floor, and fired three zat blasts into it, leaving nothing but a scorch mark where it had lain.

"Let's go back down to the caves," Talitha suggested, unsure what the significance of the device might have been. "Away from…" She gestured around the room.

Amy nodded. "Let's."

*

Once they had settled in the cavern, surrounded by the warm steam from the mineral pools, Amy found herself more able to relax, but the image of the carnage upstairs – and the other memories, from thousands of years before her birth, that the scene touched off in her Swiss cheese brain – stayed with her.

"Are you well, Captain Kawalsky?" Teal'c asked.

"Physically? I've got a splitting headache," she admitted. "I've never had one of those things used on me before. Not for that. Daniel said it hurt, but…" She shuddered. "What she did up there?" She asked.

"I've never seen anything like that," Talitha replied.

"Nor I," Teal'c agreed.

"I have," Amy said. "Or Thoth had. You gave me a scare coming in on Rhea's side like that," she told Teal'c. "I thought you'd been brainwashed or something."

"I was not," Teal'c assured her. "But not for want of trying. I apologise for causing you concern, Captain Kawalsky," he added.

"That's okay," Amy replied. "I never should have left you there, whatever you told me."

"You could not have saved me," Teal'c assured her. "There were too many."

"Then I should have killed you," Amy replied, darkly. "I know what they can do to you, if they get hold of you. I should have made sure there wasn't enough to bring back."

Teal'c gazed at the young officer in concern, then gave Talitha a pointed look. She nodded, and moved away to let them talk privately. "You are troubled by the memories of the Goa'uld Thoth," he said.

"Troubled?" Amy asked. "That's the understatement of the decade. The things I've done…" She began. "The things he did. The horrors he inflicted in his time, and the joy he took in doing it." She shivered, despite the warmth of the air.

"That joy is not yours," Teal'c assured her. "However real it feels to you."

"But it could be," Amy said, in a small voice. "I know that, deep down, there's a part of me that could become like him."

"I do not believe it," Teal'c replied. "I believe that you could become twisted by Thoth's knowledge," he went on, before Amy could stop him. "I also know that you might do terrible things if you were lost that way, but I am certain that you would do them for the right reasons. The memories within you are not to be taken lightly, but while they might lead you to do evil things, they can not make you evil. I do not believe that you have that in you."

"What about the sarcophagus?" Amy asked. "If I go through it enough…"

"You will cease to be Amy Kawalsky," Teal'c agreed. "But Amy Kawalsky will not become evil. When Daniel Jackson was under the influence of the sarcophagus, he ceased to be the Daniel Jackson that I knew. I feared that we might not be able to recover my friend, but once he was himself again I did not hold any grudge, because I knew that the actions were not truly his."

Amy smiled, sadly. "Daniel once said that you always seemed to think better of him than he did."

"There were few people who knew Daniel Jackson and judged him as harshly as he judged himself," Teal'c replied. "That he doubted his own heart was perhaps his greatest weakness."

"And you think I'm doing the same thing?"

"There is much of him in you," Teal'c said. "His strength, and his frailty."

Amy sighed, wearily. "It's just so confusing," she said. "I don't know sometimes if a memory is mine or his."

"In your mind there may be confusion," Teal'c replied. "But in your heart you will know."

"How can you be sure?" Amy asked.

"Because that was how Rhea tried to control me," he said. "She made me believe that I was in love with her, by invoking the memories of my father's desire that were held in the blood of my symbiote. I almost fell, but in my heart I knew that those memories were not mine. When I had the opportunity, I performed kelno'reem, and so learned that what Rhea had presented as my father's memories were a fabrication, fashioned from her own perception of his devotion, but more than that it was that inner certainty that allowed me to fight her influence.

"Perhaps," he added. "Having been brainwashed by Apophis once, it was easier for me to fight the false memories again, but I believe that you have the strength to defeat that influence, Captain Kawalsky. As I told my brother, the Tau'ri are stronger than the Jaffa; you are what we were, and what we might be again."

"Thank you, Teal'c," Amy said, sincerely. "But we have another problem," she added. "Sekhmet."

"You believe that she will turn on us?" Teal'c asked.

Amy shrugged, helplessly. "Talitha!" She called, turning her head. She waited for the Tok'ra to return before continuing. "We've seen how dangerous Sekhmet is, but I'm afraid that's not the worst of it. She's also completely mad."

Talitha nodded her agreement. "She will be difficult to anticipate, and impossible to trust; even by Goa'uld standards."

"Teal'c?" Amy asked. "You've seen her fight. Could the three of us take her."

"Possibly," Teal'c replied. "If we were able to fire a zat'nik'tel blast into the sarcophagus when she was resting."

"Uh-huh," Amy said. "What if she were just sleeping?"

"I would give little for our chances of surprising her," Teal'c admitted. "However, violence may not be required."

"You think we can talk her round?" Amy asked. "She's completely cracked."

"Not we," Talitha said. "You."

"Me?"

"Sekhmet appears to hold a particular…fondness for you," Teal'c agreed. "While I do not think that you should trust her for a moment, she may respond to you where she would not to the rest of us."

Amy shook her head. "And what if she finds out I had Thoth in my head?" She asked. "I doubt she has many fond memories of him."

"Nevertheless, that is also to your advantage," Talitha reminded her. "You know more of her than we do."

"I – or rather, Thoth – knew how to deal with her when she was just a badass warrior babe with a code of honour lodged up her butt. Back then, she wasn't crazy, and that changes the rules, a lot."

"You are still best placed to make the attempt," Talitha assured her.

"What about you? You're the one who impressed her."

The Tok'ra shook her head. "Regan impressed her, and Regan is now – as far as Sekhmet is concerned – buried underneath my will. I don't think she would have much success beginning her negotiations by trying to explain the Tok'ra to Sekhmet."

"So it's down to me," Amy sighed. "No pressure then."

Amy took a deep, steadying breath, and almost managed to convince herself that she was calm. When Sekhmet's voice spoke from the walls around them however, she yelped and leaped as though stung.

"Amy Kawalsky," the voice said, with a quiver of rage that made Amy's skin crawl. "Please come to my private shrine."

"Oh God," Amy said. "Do you think she can hear us?"

"I doubt it," Talitha assured her. "A speaking system like that is common in Goa'uld palaces; surveillance devices are much rarer."

"She will be testing you, always," Teal'c cautioned her. "Do not let her put you off balance. Try not to show fear, but do not be arrogant. You will be well," he promised.

Amy smiled her thanks for his support. "Well," she said. "Here goes nothing."

*

To reach the shrine, Amy had to pass through the central chamber, where the bodies of Rhea's slain Jaffa still lay. Behind the sarcophagus was a curtain, behind the curtain a door, and behind the door a long stairway winding up into the mountain. As she ascended, Amy was struck by the similarity of Sekhmet's sanctum and the Cheyenne Mountain Station. Obviously, this complex had more gilding than NORAD, but both were hidden deep within the rock for protection, the one from atomic blasts, the other from Goa'uld sensors.

At the top of the stairs, Amy passed through another curtain into a small antechamber, lit only by two oil lanterns that hung on the walls. There was a small bench to either side, beneath the lanterns, and a curtained doorway ahead of her. Although the fabric was only a fine gauze, Amy could see nothing behind it, but she could feel Sekhmet's presence beyond the portal, and it made the hairs on the backs of her arms stand on end. She paused, filled with fear of the deadly, irrational creature that awaited her.

"Enter," Sekhmet called, softly, half-invitation, half-command.

Her heart in her mouth, Amy pushed through the curtain, and entered Sekhmet's private shrine.

It was an austere chamber, with bare but incredibly smooth rock walls. The Goa'uld had set out a ring of candles on the floor, and was sitting cross-legged within it, her eyes closed and her muscles relaxed. The scene reminded Amy of Teal'c's room at the SGC, when she had visited him just a few days ago, to ask him to kill her if she could not maintain a distinction between her own memories and Thoth's.

"I am glad to see that you found me," Sekhmet said, seeming to look straight at her visitor, without opening her eyes. Her voice was even again, her anger obviously under control for the time being. "Many people find my shrine difficult to locate; but then that is the point of concealing it."

Amy shivered, aware that it was Thoth's memories that had guided her here. "I…" She began, but tailed off.

"It was Thoth, was it not?" Sekhmet asked.

"What?"

"I do not sense the presence of a Goa'uld within you," Sekhmet said. "But I sense the absence. I have known that you were once blended, and it was not difficult to discern that it was Thoth."

Amy swallowed hard. "Yes," she admitted. "Just for a few days," she added.

"You followed his memories here. Why? What do you want with me?"

"Just what I said," Amy replied. "My home is going to be attacked by Athena, and we need your help to defend it. We have no armada, our allies are destroyed or tied down in their own wars. The Wadjet is our only hope."

"What of the Goa'uld who travels with you? And the Jaffa? Are you not allied with Apophis?"

"Apophis?"

"I know that the boy is young, but he showed potential when last I was active. Ra was worried about him, and with good reason."

"Apophis is dead," Amy said. "Teal'c turned on him in the hope of winning freedom for his people, and helped us to destroy him."

Sekhmet opened her eyes. "The Jaffa? Turning on their masters in search of freedom? That would be a sight to behold. Can they not assist you?"

"Like us, they have few ships," Amy explained. "Teltacs mostly, and a handful of death gliders."

"I…do not know those names," Sekhmet admitted. She shook her head in wonder. "Tell me, Amy: How long have I slept?"

"I don't know," Amy admitted. "You were down for…maybe a thousand years before Thoth was frozen in the ice. We think he was trapped for around five millennia."

Sekhmet gave a sharp, high laugh. "Six thousand years?" She asked. "Child, what makes you believe that the Wadjet will be of any use to you? They were venerable when I was imprisoned, and now they are more than six millennia old."

"But the Wadjet was bleeding edge technology when it was constructed," Amy replied, earnestly. "And it is all we can hope to find."

Sekhmet stood and stretched. "I have managed to locate most of the capital vessels," she said. "But I will not know for some time if any save the Eye are still mobile, let alone combat-worthy."

"Most of…" Amy was confused. "You mean the Wadjet is not just one ship?"

Sekhmet laughed again, this time a much lighter sound. "You mean you thought that…? Dear Amy, how desperate your people must be." Amy bristled. "The Wadjet was my warfleet. The only true fleet in the Empire at the time," she added.

"But that's wonderful," Amy said. "Except…oh. Will we be able to find enough pilots?"

"No need to worry about that," Sekhmet assured her. She laughed once more, then suddenly broke off and approached Amy with a quick enough stride to put the young officer in momentary fear of her life. "You're very pretty," Sekhmet noted.

"Um…thanks," Amy replied, flattered, but suddenly worried that she knew what the Goa'uld would want in exchange for her assistance. And can I give it? She wondered. I'm not afraid to die for my country, but to be blended again…?

"I've never seen someone so pretty, and so old," Sekhmet went on, touching her face with gentle fingers.

"Huh?" Amy asked, offended.

"Or at least one that is free," the Warlady amended. The slight quiver had returned to her voice, but close to, Amy could hear that it was not anger, but fear that brought it on. "Most pretty girls are chosen by the Gods; or they were. It was rare for anyone so attractive to be left past the age of your Goa'uld friend's host without being taken as a handmaiden, or a priestess. Or a concubine."

"Or all three," Amy suggested.

Sekhmet inclined her head in agreement. "Or a host," she added.

"Is that what you want from me?" Amy asked, warily.

"I could not if I felt the desire," Sekhmet replied. "But this host suits me well. It took me many years to get it just the way I wanted it."

Amy suppressed another shiver as she realised that hosts were to the Goa'uld as cars or houses were to humans. A Goa'uld with a particularly desirable host would probably make many diplomatic visits – or stage many invasions and consequent triumphs – to show it off, parading it like a middle-aged businessman cruising up and down in his shiny new sports car.

"It seems to have survived the years well enough," Sekhmet added. "No signs of serious sarcophagus damage."

"Sarcophagus damage?" Amy asked, but she knew before Sekhmet explained that too long in a sarcophagus could cause severe tissue damage. "How did he get you into the coffin?" She said. "Thoth's memory of the event is unclear."

Sekhmet shrugged. "He followed me here, and told me he wanted to talk. He appealed to my sense of duty, my loyalty to Ra. He also told me that if Ra were forced to expel or kill me, then Anubis would go unopposed. What became of Anubis?" She asked, suddenly. "Did the Tau'ri kill him, also?"

"We're working on it," Amy replied.

"I permitted Thoth to enter my shrine, unarmed, but he deceived me."

"He didn't need weapons," Amy realised. "He could already focus the power from the naquada in his blood without technology."

"Yes," Sekhmet agreed. "So clever. So handsome. We could have…Are you cold?" She asked, as Amy shivered again.

"No," Amy replied.

"Do I frighten you?"

"Yes." It seemed pointless to deny it.

Sekhmet nodded. "You are very brave," she said. "And honest. I like that. I think I will help you, Amy. Your people sound strong, and you are enemies of Anubis. I would dearly love to see him fall."

"Thank you," Amy said, with feeling. She hoped that Sekhmet would never learn that Athena was also gunning for Anubis, or she might decide that a minor Goa'uld with an armada was a more useful ally than a planet full of surface-bound humans.

"As for the price…" She paused, staring intently at Amy. "I will name that at a later time."

"Hang on," Amy said. "No. That's not…I can't go with that," she said. "I have to know what you're going to ask of me. I might not be able to give it."

"It will be nothing beyond your power and right to give, as you stipulated," Sekhmet promised. "You have my word on it."

"Alright," Amy agreed, that overwhelming feeling that she was doing something really dumb welling up again.

"Bring your friends to the entrance," Sekhmet said. "My transport has arrived."

*

"She says she'll help," Amy announced. "We still have some haggling to do over the price, but her transport ship is here and she wants to leave now."

"Are we all going?" Talitha asked.

"I think so," Amy replied. "She said to meet her at the entrance."

"Then let us go," Teal'c suggested.

Sekhmet was waiting at the cave mouth, scouring the sky with her intense gaze.

"Where's the ship?" Amy asked.

"There," Sekhmet replied, pointing into the distance.

Amy followed her finger, but saw nothing except a small bird, high above. But then she realised that it was not a bird, but a plane; or rather, a space ship. As it grew nearer, the peace of the barren mountainside was split by a howling whine, more like a terrestrial fighter than a Goa'uld vessel.

"What kind of drive does this thing have?" Amy asked.

"Compression thrusters for atmospheric flight," Sekhmet replied. "Plasma rockets for space."

The vessel stooped sharply, and swept towards the mountain at a leisurely pace. The howling grew to a deafening wail, until at last the ship was hovering less than three feet from the path, and Amy was able to look it over properly.

It was not much to look at.

The vessel was visibly more primitive than a modern Goa'uld vessel, although equally more advanced than anything Earth-built. It was built around a pair of broad wings, with a squat little cabin resting between them. A massive funnel, like a jet engine, was built onto each side of the cabin – presumably the compression thrusters – and a prominent bulge broke the smooth lines of the prow. All in all, it was somewhere between the size of a death glider and a teltac.

"It is a khab!" Talitha exclaimed, amazed.

"Khab?" Amy asked, shouting to be heard over the engine noise. "A chariot?"

"An assault shuttle," Talitha explained. "Used to deliver troops and materiel from a transport ship to a planet's surface. They were superseded by the teltacs about four thousand years ago."

"Do not be afraid," Sekhmet yelled. "She is still quite safe." With a careless ease, she sprang across the gap and landed on the prow of the khab; the small vessel barely wobbled. "See?" Behind her, a hatch rippled open, and Sekhmet motioned for the others to enter.

"I shall go first," Teal'c said. Amy nodded, and the Jaffa jumped across. He was heavier than Sekhmet, and the khab pitched a little before righting itself. As he went through the hatch into the vessel's interior, Talitha followed across.

Finally, Sekhmet beckoned to Amy. "Come quickly!" She called. The engines are overtaxed; the khab can not hover much longer!" As if to prove her point, the ship shuddered, and the whine of the engines took on an almost desperate note.

Amy swallowed hard. She wasn't afraid of heights, or of flying, but the idea of leaping form a cliff onto a hovering aircraft just seemed a little insane.

"Jump!" Sekhmet commanded, and something in her tone reached out to Amy's Air Force training, and she reacted. She took three steps and jumped…just as the engines groaned and the khab shuddered sideways.

Amy cried out as her foot hit the curve of the bulge and slid sideways. She toppled helplessly, knowing that the smooth surface of the khab's skin would offer her no grips or handholds. She had almost given herself up for lost when powerful hands caught her in a rough grasp and dragged her upright.

"I have you," Sekhmet assured her, the possible double-meaning of the statement doing little to ease Amy's mind.

With care, but little gentleness, Sekhmet hauled Amy – still mostly helpless with shock – through the hatch, which sealed behind them. Inertia tugged at them as the small craft pulled away from the cliff, and Amy let the feeling of the floor against her feet soothe her nerves.

"Are you well?" Sekhmet asked, solicitously.

Amy nodded, catching her breath. "Thank you."

"No need to thank me," Sekhmet said. "It would be foolish to let you die while you are still in my debt."

"Well, now I'm twice in…" Amy narrowed her eyes. "Was that…Was that a joke?" She asked.

Sekhmet smiled, slyly, then led Amy through to the intensely Spartan troop section of the khab.

"Are you alright, Captain Kawalsky?" Teal'c asked.

"I'm fine," Amy assured him. "Thanks to Sekhmet."

"What is our destination?" Sekhmet asked.

"The Aksos Nebula," Amy said.

Sekhmet nodded. "Very clever. No Gate access, nowhere to hide, and the movement of the gases will reveal the approach of cloaked ships."

"We figure that's the plan, yes," Amy agreed.

Sekhmet nodded. "She is clever then, this Athena. A challenge. This sounds more interesting already."

"We have a copy of all the intelligence our informant gathered," Talitha said, passing a data crystal to the Warlady.

"Excellent," Sekhmet replied. "I shall study this as we travel."

"How fast can this khab go?" Amy asked. "How long will it take us to reach Aksos?"

"In this?" Sekhmet answered, with a dark laugh. "We would all be dead before we left this solar system. No; we shall travel in the Eye."

"The Eye?"

Sekhmet smiled, secretively. "Come forward with me, Amy; I shall show you."

Amy followed Sekhmet into the cabin of the khab. The sky was darkening around them as they lifted from the atmosphere into space. Lights flickered, and the bulge on the brow of the ship seemed to flatten and split open at the front.

"What on Earth…?" Amy gasped.

"The ship is adapting for interplanetary flight," Sekhmet explained. "The hydrogen intake for the plasma rockets opens, while the compression thrusters close." The Warlady leaned forward, rapturously, gazing out into the void.

"Are you alright?" Amy asked.

"Alright? Dear Amy, I have spent the last six millennia in a box. To look out on the infinite expanse of space again…So long I have dreamed of this," she whispered, reaching out to touch the screen. "You have no idea what it means to be confined like that, always conscious, unable to move."

"Good God," Amy whispered, horrified. "You were awake? For all that time."

"Perhaps not awake," Sekhmet replied. "But aware, yes. Aware, and alone."

No wonder she's a few cards short of the deck, Amy thought to herself, pitying the Goa'uld in spite of herself.

"There," Sekhmet said, pointing out into the darkness.

"What?" Amy asked.

"Wait," Sekhmet counselled.

Amy waited, and looked at the stars, the same stars she saw from Earth, yet they looked so different. Slowly, it dawned on her that amid the unfamiliar constellations there was a blackness; a space without stars. Below them, the Dahkleh sun peeked around the dwindling horizon.

Amy gave a low whistle.

"Is she not magnificent?" Sekhmet asked, breathlessly.

Amy stared, momentarily speechless, as the sun's light spread across the surface of a mighty vessel. Here in space she had little frame of reference for the size of a distant object, but every contour of the ship gave an impression of a grand scale. At a rough guess, Amy would have placed it at around one-and-a-half times the size of a ha'tak vessel, but without the pyramid section that would have housed the landing module; clearly this was no general assault vessel, but a dedicated ship killer. Overall, the ship was a massive triangle, with two tips smoothly curved, and the third – the prow, Amy guessed – sharply pointed, and decorated with a beak and eyes.

"The Eye of Ra," Sekhmet said. "Or one of them. All of Ra's greatest weapons were his Eyes."

"Weren't you one of Ra's Eyes as well?" Amy asked. "The sun's scorching gaze, if I recall my mythology aright."

For a moment, Sekhmet almost looked bashful. "So I was called, for a time; although my bitch of a mother stole that from me along with everything else when I fell out of favour," she added, angrily.

Amy shrugged. "Hathor too fell, in her turn," she assured the Warlady. "Ra banished her to Earth before the Tau'ri buried their Gate. Sealed in her sarcophagus," she added.

"This pleases me," Sekhmet replied, coldly.

While the two women were speaking, the khab had been closing in on the Eye of Ra. As it drew close, a hatch gaped open in the flank of the mighty vessel, and swallowed the shuttle. For a long moment, everything was dark, but then the space around them filled with soft, bluish-white light, and Amy saw that they were within a great hangar, filled with what appeared to be an early form of death glider. They were larger and chunkier than their modern counterparts, but looked quite serviceable.

"Six thousand years, and you can still see the same designs," Amy marvelled.

"Our race moves forward slowly," Sekhmet admitted, as the khab came to a halt in front of a walkway, at the end of a row of similar vessels. "Today at least, that may prove to our advantage; if fortune smiles upon us, then Athena will not have a sufficient technological edge to defeat me."

From the hangar, Sekhmet showed her ‘guests' to a set of Spartan chambers. She asked Teal'c and Talitha not to wander, but invited Amy to accompany her to the peltac. Once more, Amy felt her heart rise into her throat, as the certainty that Sekhmet wanted her for her new host grew ever stronger.

"This is the heart of the Wadjet," Sekhmet said, proudly, stepping out onto the Eye of Ra's bridge.

The peltac was a large, domed chamber, which Amy guessed must be located somewhere in the middle of the ship. The inner surface of the dome was almost black, decorated in gold and lapis lazuli. Instead of the usual arrangement of a throne, behind the vessel's control panels, all facing a viewscreen, there was only a single seat, at the exact centre of the room.

"Come here, Amy," Sekhmet said, again issuing an invitation and an order simultaneously. "Sit in the chair."

Not without trepidation, Amy stepped forward. She noted with some relief that the headrest of the seat would cover the back of her neck completely when she sat. Warily, half-expecting manacles to burst from the arms of the chair and pin her down, she settled herself onto the leather cushions, and was surprised by how comfortable it was. She said as much to Sekhmet.

"Sometimes I have had to sit in that chair for many hours, even days at a time," Sekhmet told her, working some hidden control to move the seat into a reclined position. "Now, relax," she said, inevitably causing Amy to tense up completely.

"What are you doing?" Amy asked.

"I am activating the neural interfaces to connect you to the ship's sensor systems," Sekhmet told her.

"Wait," Amy said. "What?"

A moment later, she felt every nerve-ending in her body tingle, as though under the influence of a powerful electrical field. The peltac seemed to fall away around her as the sensation grew, and then it was back, and so was the rest of the ship. Amy saw – or more accurately felt – the peltac, and Sekhmet standing over her. She felt the crew quarters where Teal'c and Talitha sat and waited. She felt every inch of the ship – its corridors and hangars; its drives and its hull; its weapons and its shields – as though they were a part of her own body.

It was a rush, to suddenly feel herself possessed of the power to pound a Goa'uld ha'tak vessel into scrap metal. Just as suddenly, however, that arrogance and assuredness was swept away by the awesome, humbling majesty of space. With the ship's sensors acting as her eyes and ears, Amy could not only see the stars and the sun, and the planet Dahkleh rotating beneath her, she could feel them. She could know the heat of the sun, and the distance between the stars; she could feel the titanic mass of the planet as a looming presence at the back of her consciousness.

"Wow," she breathed.

"Incomparable, is it not?" Sekhmet asked, rhetorically.

A string of characters swam before Amy's vision, and she was aware that Sekhmet was somehow present with her, within the consciousness of the Eye of Ra, feeding the ship the coordinates of their destination. After a moment, the stars blurred, and Amy felt herself – felt the ship – peel away from the planet and slam through the window into hyperspace. Behind her, she felt Rhea's mothership, but it seemed so insignificant now; everything seemed insignificant as her perception shifted, every sense alive with the constantly changing environment of hyperspace.

The ship's sense faded away, leaving Amy breathless.

"Enough for now," Sekhmet said.

"That was incredible," Amy gasped. "Let me see more."

Sekhmet smiled, indulgently. "Too much too quickly will damage you," she said. "I will show you more later, and teach you how to control the ship. We have plenty of time, after all."

"We do?" Amy asked, nervously.

"You are not going anywhere," Sekhmet added.

"I'm not?"

"You will stay here, with me."

"Okay; now you're just trying to freak me out," Amy accused, scrabbling out of the chair and at the same time putting it between herself and the Goa'uld.

"No," Sekhmet assured her. "This is my price. I will bring the Wadjet to your aid, and strike down your enemy. In exchange, you will remain on the Eye of Ra."

"Then we're prisoners?"

"Your friends are free to leave at any time," Sekhmet promised, managing to sound hurt by the suggestion. "As are you. But if you go, then we have no bargain."

"So that's it," Amy said. "You do want me as a host."

"I told you, I could not take you if…" She gave a charming smile, but Amy could only see the predator behind her eyes. "You would make an excellent host," she admitted.

"It's been said before," Amy remarked, trying to sound nonchalant; trying to sound like Colonel O'Neill.

"But I have neither the desire nor the ability to leave this body."

"You don't have the ability?" Amy asked, wrongfooted.

Sekhmet turned her back on Amy, reached up, and parted her hair. She unlaced the top of her mail shirt, and opened it to expose the back of her neck.

"Sweet Jesus," Amy whispered.

The top of the device disappeared under Sekhmet's hair, and the bottom dipped beneath her shirt, but the middle of it was clearly visible; a long chain of silver bands, running down her spinal chord and fixed to her flesh by gleaming, trinium pins.

"Do they…?" Amy began.

"The needles pierce the flesh of my host, then pass through my body to connect with the interface between my two central nervous systems. It took almost a year for my brother, Ptah, to implant it, fixing the links in one at a time, and allowing me to heal before moving to the next one. He began at the bottom of the device, at the small of my back, and worked up. Each link was more dangerous and more painful to implant than the last; the first almost killed me, and there are thirty-four of links."

"Thirty-four?"

"One pinned to each vertebra, and three penetrating the skull of the host to connect to the sensory centres. So long as the device remains, I can not leave my host, and because it transfixes several of my most important organs, it can not be removed without killing me."

"Wow," Amy whispered. "That's…harsh. What…?" She stopped, and changed her question. "If not a host, why do you want me?"

Sekhmet laughed, a crazed note entering her voice and reminding Amy of the true danger here. "Is it not obvious."

Amy swallowed hard. Twisted, psycho love-plot, she thought to herself. "Ah. Look; Sekhmet. It's not that I'm not flattered, or that think you're unattractive or anything. I mean, you're not, you're…I'm not attracted to you," she insisted. "But you're attractive, and…"

"What are you babbling about?" Sekhmet demanded, but she was clearly baffled, and there was an unevenness to her hard tone that betrayed hurt and confusion. "Amy; I have been trapped in a sarcophagus for six thousand years. I have my ship back, and I am free to travel where I will; but I do not want to be alone. I can not be alone. Not again."

Amy was thrown by the genuine vulnerability in Sekhmet's plea, and she started babbling again to try and buy time to regain her footing. "So you want…what? A travelling companion? Some kind of wacky, odd couple, road movie type arrangement where we bum around space, smoking, shooting would-be rapists, boning Brad Pitt and driving off cliffs?"

Sekhmet's brow furrowed into a frown of confusion. She looked utterly lost, unable to follow anything that Amy was saying, and that only made her seem more vulnerable. That was not the effect Amy had been aiming for.

"What do you want from me?" Amy asked. "Just tell me."

"I just want somebody here with me. Another voice to…keep away the madness," she finished, voice cracking. "So I do not have to listen to her!"

"Her? Your host?"

Sekhmet nodded.

"Well…why not talk back?" Amy asked.

"Talk to my host? But she is…"

"A host?" Amy offered. "A human? So am I, and I intend to stay that way. Besides, you've got more in common with her than with me; a spleen for starters."

"No!" Sekhmet insisted, in a slightly desperate tone. "She is…nothing. An echo; a shadow. Nothing of the host survives," she added, clearly wanting to believe it.

"That's what they tell you," Amy agreed, searching Sekhmet's eyes, trying to gauge how far to press this subject. "But you hear her…"

"A madness!" Sekhmet snapped, turning her face from Amy's accusing glance. "Brought on by too many years of solitude."

"Okay," Amy said, hearing the brittleness in Sekhmet's voice. "Whatever you say."

"I need  real company," the Warlady explained. "To keep me from that madness."

Amy frowned. "You know I won't last, right? Even if I stay, I will not go in a sarcophagus."

"I do not have one anymore," Sekhmet assured her. "I left the last that I owned on Dahkleh. I could not shut myself in anything that small again. I want the stars; I want the void. I want what you just saw."

"But you'll die," Amy pointed out.

"I shall," Sekhmet agreed. "In about twenty years at the most. While my host has not suffered extensive sarcophagus damage, she has become dependent on the device for her physiological integrity. But for the last few years of my life, I want to roam freely, and to do so in agreeable company."

"Well," Amy admitted, resignedly. "I guess that does make sense."

*

Stargate Command

Earth

Two days later

"Shes'ti for your thoughts?"

Jack looked up from the Stargate, but instead of turning he merely faced Freya's reflection in the window-glass. "Here they only fetch a penny," he said.

"One shes'ti is not so much," Freya assured him. "Perhaps you are mistaking it for a shes'ta."

"Difference being?"

"There are sixty shes'tis to a shes'ta," Freya explained. "Much like your doll'ars and shents, but using a sexagesimal base."

"That's cents," Jack corrected. "But don't feel bad about that, because I don't know what sexagesimal means, except that it sounds dirty."

"It's a base sixty place numbering system," Freya told him with a smile, approaching and handing him a mug. "All very respectable, I promise."

"Thanks," Jack said, finally turning to face her as he took the coffee. After a long and slightly awkward moment, the duty technician got up and left the control room, leaving Jack and Freya alone; or as alone as they could be with Anise lurking in Freya's cerebellum.

"You have been here since you returned from Cimmeria, six hours ago," Freya noted.

"Where contacting the Asgard, once again, proved to be a spectacular waste of time," Jack snorted, angrily. "I mean, I get that they're busy with the Replicators, but you'd think they could spare one little battleship to come and show Athena how they do things downtown."

"Downtown?"

"Never mind," Jack replied. "And I know they can't be sure that a single battleship could do the job anymore; especially not one of the older ones. It just gets frustrating, having these immensely powerful allies who can never help out."

"And…" Freya prompted.

Jack sighed. "And who we can't help out either," he admitted. "I know Thor could actually kick my butt, but I don't like sitting here, knowing him and his buddies are getting chewed up and spit out by the robo-spiders. It scares me," he admitted, "when the Asgard have to come to us for help, but at the same time I'd rather have something that I can do. The same goes for Teal'c and Kawalsky. And Talitha," he added. "I just hate sitting around doing nothing."

"You are, as your people say, preaching to the choir," Freya assured him. "Understand that I have no real desire to be involved in combat, but I have often become frustrated that I could not play a greater role in Tok'ra operations. I know that Anise feels the same."

Jack gave a lopsided grin. "I know a few people on base seem to feel that it's about time SG-1 learned how it feels," he said. "I'm just used to being the one out saving the world instead of waiting to get saved…"

Freya gently covered Jack's hand with her own, a gesture so naturally and casually intimate that Jack found it more moving by far than the time she had tried, apropos of nothing, to suck the tongue out of his head. This reaction surprised him, and to cover his awkwardness he turned away and took a long drink from his mug.

"Hey," he said. "This is…really good. Where'd you get this? You haven't been in Sergeant Tabor's stash have you, because he gets really cranky about that."

"This is from my own ‘stash'," Freya assured him.

"You have coffee?" Jack asked.

"Anise," Freya replied. "Caffeine is one of the few stimulants that has any affect on Goa'uld symbiotes. The Goa'uld cultivate it on any planet where the plants will grow, and the Tok'ra steal it from the Goa'uld. There are Goa'uld who were elevated to the lower ranks of the System Lords solely for their control of noted coffee plantations."

"You're kidding me," Jack said.

Freya shook her head, gently.

"All this time, roaming the galaxy, drinking the filth we get in our ration packs, and we could have snagged a classy cuppa Joe like this from any snakehead's kitchen? Now we find out."

The Tok'ra woman gave Jack's hand a gentle squeeze. "I have been running simulations," she told him. "Using the zatarc deprogrammer. As you know, we have now managed to perform more then three dozen successful deprogrammings, and I have been looking at ways to modify the effect for use on Captain Kawalsky."

"To do what?" Jack asked, suspiciously.

"To remove from her brain the activated neural patterns associated with Thoth's genetic memory. She would still have the genetically encoded memories in her blood, but the pathways in her mind which have been opened up by accessing them would be removed so that they would not trouble her. I hope," she added. "The simulations have not been conclusive yet, but they are promising."

Jack looked her in the eyes, the first time he had done so since that night in the holding cell. "Thank you, Freya," he said. "And Anise too," he added.

Freya smiled, warmly, but the moment was interrupted as the control room door opened. The duty technician returned to his seat, followed into the room by General Hammond and Lt. Colonel Samuels.

"General?" Jack stood, disentangling his left hand from Freya's in order to pass over his coffee and salute.

"Colonel O'Neill," Samuels said. He also had coffee, and had to juggle both that and his cap to return the salute, which was really why Jack had bothered. Jack smiled, and otherwise ignored the man as best he could. "And…Anise, isn't it," Samuels added, oozing insincere charm.

"Freya," Freya corrected.

"Colonel O'Neill," Hammond said. "We're beginning preparations for Genesis evacuation to the new Alpha Site; just in case," he hastened to add. "We need to ensure that the site is secure. I'd like you to take teams 1 and 5 for a force reconnaissance to the prime option on P2E-118. If you give the all clear, 7, 9 and 10 will follow to help set up the Genesis receiving facility."

"Yes, Sir," Jack replied.

Once the SGC had established its first permanent offworld presence at the original Alpha Site, the risk of detection had become so high that the decision had been made to find a new Genesis location. The potential Alpha Sites – three of them, so as to keep the options open – were all but untouched. None appeared on the  Abydos cartouche, or on any other known, Goa'uld Gate map, and to preserve secrecy the SGC had only performed a basic local exploration and dropped off a number of well-hidden cargo shipments, rather than actually setting up any kind of base.

"As you know," Jack added. "SG-1 is a man short at the moment; I'd like to request that Freya accompany us on the reconnaissance to stand in for our expert on the Goa'uld."

"By all means," Hammond agreed. "You'll brief at oh-nine-thirty and be ready to go at eleven-hundred hours."

"Yes, Sir."

Freya followed Jack into the corridor. "Colonel! Jack."

"Yes?"

"What was that about?"

Jack turned and smiled at her. "You didn't want to be just sitting around," he reminded her.

"Thank you, Jack."

"Just don't make me regret it," he told her, turning to walk down the corridor again. "And don't ever say I never do anything for you."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she assured him, following.

*

Athena's Mustering Ground

The Aksos Nebula

"Precision," Athena said, apropos of nothing, and apparently addressing either nobody, the world at large, or the large, dark-feathered owl perched to the left of her throne. She was standing with her back to the viewscreen, but wore a red glass over one eye that constantly displayed a full tactical display for her attention. "Discipline. These are the keys to tactical victory. Precision achieves your goals, discipline maintains precision. You understand this, do you not?"

"Yes, Mistress," Glaukos replied, although she had not turned to face him. The hereditary First Prime of Athena, although young he knew the moods of the Goddess and had been schooled by his mother – the Goddess' previous Glaukos – to know when to respond to her. The Jaffa stood beside his Mistress' throne, on the opposite side to the owl, his head uncovered to display the many-rayed, golden Aegis tattoo on his forehead.

Athena turned and sat, straightening the many folds of her dark chiton as she did so. She looked to the screen, where her mighty armada floated, waiting. Her servants manned the control stations, her Jaffa stood guard, and her lo'taur, Antigone, stood ready to attend to her comforts. This was how a Goddess should live, but Athena knew that she would fall if she allowed herself to be lulled by the comforts. Two thousand years with only a handful of servants and her faithful Glaukos to her name had increased her already obsessive sense of caution, and she knew that she was playing a deadly game now.

"The loading operation is complete, Pallas," one of the pilots reported. "The last of the barques is docked with the ha'taks, and all vessels report readiness for hyperlaunch at your command."

"Very good," Athena replied.

There followed a long, pregnant silence.

"Pallas?" Glaukos asked.

"Yes, My Servant?" Athena replied, quietly.

"Shall we commence the attack?"

"Pilot!" Athena called, sharply.

The Goa'uld at the control station started slightly. "Yes, Pallas?"

"Did I give the order to attack?"

"No, Pallas," the Goa'uld replied.

Athena turned her nutmeg eyes on her First Prime, but said nothing.

"Pallas," he said. "Forgive my impertinence, but why do we wait?"

Athena smiled indulgently, as Glaukos had known she would. At times, the Goddess enjoyed explaining herself; at others she did not. The distinction between such times was just one of the things that the previous Glaukos had taught her son to recognise. The pilots, not having Glaukos' day-to-day experience with Athena's whims, looked appalled, and seemed to expect sudden and violent retribution for the Jaffa's impudence.

"Because I have not given the order," Athena said at last. This time, Glaukos knew not to press. "This fleet will attack at my signal, and at my signal only. Pilot; instruct the captains to maintain full readiness."

"Yes, Pallas."

"The Earth is not going anywhere," Athena assured Glaukos. "Whenever we arrive, we shall be on time."

*

Amy was roused from her turbulent thoughts as the Eye of Ra dropped out of hyperspace. There had been a warning, but she had been so wrapped up in herself that by the time she had run the message over in her head, she was already being thrown across the cabin by the sudden deceleration.

Sekhmet's voice burst from the intercom. "Amy; would you join me on the peltac?" The Goa'uld asked; as polite a request as was possible in the Goa'uld tongue.

Amy shuddered slightly. For the past two days she had avoided Sekhmet as much as possible, but now she would have to go back into her presence. The Goa'uld's insanity – her erratic mood swings, her unpredictable bouts of affecting vulnerability – had begun to wear on Amy, until she felt certain that she was going crazy as well. More than that, the longer she was with Sekhmet, speaking Goa'uld, the more fluent she became, and the more she realised that she was thinking in Goa'uld; and thinking in a language with no real words for ‘please', ‘compassion' or ‘gentle' was not a good thing.

On the peltac, Sekhmet gestured for Amy to sit in the immersion chair, and once more the young officer felt her senses merge with the Eye's sensors.

"Groovy, man," Amy commented, as wisps of pink and purple planetary debris floated slowly past her.

"This is the Aksos Nebula," Sekhmet explained, apparently ignoring the pop culture reference, since she could not possible have understood it. "Most of what you see is the remains of Aksos III, and the comet that destroyed it."

"That's a lot of comet," Amy said.

"Indeed," Sekhmet agreed. "Almost twice as massive as the planet itself, and containing substantial quantities of both naquada and naquadria. Even as it approached the Aksos III it pulled four of the outer planets of the system out of their orbits. One was drawn so close it was destroyed in the collision, one fell into its neighbouring gas giant within a thousand years, and the other two will fall into the sun in the next three thousand."

"How do you know so much about the Nebula?" Amy asked.

"Aksos III was one of Sokar's most important military bases. On the day it was destroyed, my father toppled Sokar's power and became Supreme System Lord. On that day, I took my first host."

"Oh," Amy said. "So the destruction wasn't an accident?"

Sekhmet gave a grim laugh. "If it had been, there would have been time to evacuate before the comet's gravity became too great for any ship to escape. Ra made certain that the comet's approach would not be detected in time, then maintained an open wormhole to prevent any of Sokar's Jaffa escaping that way. It was a massacre," She added, bleakly.

"You don't approve?"

"There were women and children on that planet," Sekhmet said. "Innocent lives."

"Why do they matter to you?" Amy asked.

"Because I was supposed to protect the innocent," she replied. "I was the avenger, the punisher of wrongdoers, and they had done no wrong."

Amy wondered if this was the madness talking, but Thoth's memories suggested otherwise. This was why Sekhmet had been imprisoned; for buying into her own divine press, and not merely purporting to give protection to the innocent, but actually trying to do it. Naturally, Ra had disapproved, but she had refused to yield to her father.

Thoth, Amy became aware, had been convinced that the cause of Sekhmet's malady was the device implanted in her host's neck, but Ptah had insisted that its removal would kill her. To that end, Sekhmet's brother had tried to kill her before attempting to reclaim the device, and died on her sword for his troubles.

"What is that thing?" She asked, a moment before realising that her mind had wondered, and she had voiced none of her realisations out loud. "The device in your neck," she explained. "What did you to deserve that?"

She had a sense of Sekhmet smiling. "I served my lord well and truly," she replied. "The device is not a punishment; its implantation not a torture. It is the next generation version of the chair in which you sit. It connects my mind to the Wadjet; to all of the ships in the fleet if need be, all of the time."

"Except when you were in the sarcophagus?"

"That is correct," Sekhmet agreed. "In there I could see nothing but the lid of my prison. Hear nothing but…"

"Your host," Amy prompted.

"No!" The Warlady insisted. "Her voice, but not her. She's gone."

"You seem very keen to convince yourself of that," Amy noted.

"Amy. Stop," Sekhmet ordered, in hard, cold voice.

"I'm sorry," Amy said, and she was; although not for bringing the subject up. "Is Athena's fleet here?" She asked, when Sekhmet made no move to resume the conversation.

"We had better hope so," Sekhmet replied, Amy's transgression seemingly forgiven and forgotten. "I have been studying the schematics given to me by Talitha, and these modern ha'tak vessels would easily outrun my Wadjet. If they were en route, we would be unable to reach them before Earth was destroyed."

Amy shivered. "Then lets hope we find them," she said.

"And before they find us. If I am unwary, then they will see us before we see…There!"

The Eye of Ra slid swiftly to the side, and Amy felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. "What was that?"

"Long-range scanning beam," Sekhmet replied. "We've found them."

Amy looked around her, and she saw them; a mass of small, dark shapes in the thick, psychedelic mist. "What is there?" She asked.

"We dare not try and scan them," Sekhmet said. "But from the silhouettes, I would say eight…nine ha'tak vessels, and three of these Ha'kal gunships. I see no cruisers, but they would likely be locked down for hyperspace transit. The ha'taks are in a holding pattern, defending a central vessel, much larger than the others."

"The Parthenon," Amy guessed. "Athena's mothership."

"There are support vessels moving among the fleet; finishing the supply runs, I suspect."

"Speaking of support ships…" Amy hinted.

"Ours will be here soon," Sekhmet assured her. "I am setting safe approach vectors and arrival coordinates."

Amy felt something pressing at the edge of her consciousness. "Is that…?"

"One of the battlecruisers has entered control range," Sekhmet affirmed. "It shall not be long now. I will keep you from sensing through the other vessels for now," she added. "You will need more practice before that will be safe for you."

"How many do we expect?" Amy asked.

"Two battlecruisers, somewhat lighter than this vessel, but of the same scale. Then three heavy cruisers, nine light cruisers and sixteen destroyers; that is all the vessels that responded to my summons. I am afraid that the destroyers are the only vessels in the Wadjet equipped with shrouds – the forerunner of the modern cloaking device – and they are little larger than the teltacs currently…" Sekhmet stopped, a note of concern hitting her voice.

"What is it?" Amy asked, immediately alert.

"The teltacs loading the ha'tak vessels," Sekhmet explained. "They're just shuttling back and forth; none of them are arriving or leaving."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that the fleet has finished loading," Sekhmet explained.

"They're just trying to look busy," Amy realised.

"So if they're ready, why have they not launched their attack?" Sekhmet wondered aloud.

*

The Stargate whooshed open as General Hammond strode into the control room, closely followed by Lieutenant-Colonel Samuels and Colonel Chekhov, the two men still going at it hammer and tongs – after almost four hours – over the evacuation priorities of the Genesis list.

"It is our Stargate!" Chekhov insisted. "You are only renting it!"

"At a considerable cost!" Samuels reminded him. "And that Stargate belonged to the USA first!"

"Before you lost it!" Chekhov crowed. "In international waters! By international treaty, clearly…!"

"Thank you, Gentlemen!" Hammond snapped, livid with rage that they could bicker at a time like this. "I think we're all aware of the Stargate's long and twisted history. Sergeant?" He added, turning away from the two officers.

"Receiving IDC, Sir," Sergeant Davis replied. "Code Red!"

"Damnit!" Hammond leaned forward to the microphone. "Defence teams on full alert. Close the blast doors," he added, as a staff blast zipped out of the event horizon, and scorched the reinforced window in front of him.

As the metal shield came down, General Hammond was already moving, heading for the Gate Room.

Sergeant Thomas of SG-5 was the first to arrive, diving quickly through the wormhole and coming up to cover the event horizon with his M-16; just like the dozen airmen already in the room. Next were Majors Carter and Parker, leaning on each other.

"Get them off the ramp," Doctor Fraiser instructed, as another blast shot through the Gate. "And get me three more nurses up here, now!"

"Where are the rest of the patrol?" Hammond demanded of Parker.

"Right behind us, Sir," the CO of SG-5 replied through gritted teeth, as he and Sam were lowered painfully to the deck. "Colonel O'Neill ordered us through while he and the Tok'ra went after Sergeant Fowler."

"The Sergeant was covering us as we fell back to the Gate," Sam explained, as Janet had Parker ferried away. "She got cut off, so the Colonel went to extract her. Freya went with him while Wayne and Jonas covered the Gate."

Everyone in the room flinched as a blast of earth and shrapnel erupted from the event horizon, carrying Captain Wayne and Jonas Quinn with it. The two men hit the ramp hard, but both were soon struggling up, torn and slightly toasted from the explosion which had thrown them through.

"Wayne?" Sam asked, trying to wave Janet away with her hand, but gasping as a jolt of pain stabbed through her shoulder.

"They should be right with us," the Captain replied, and sure enough, the last three members of the patrol soon followed, looking somewhat the worse for wear.

Jack's face was bleeding in about a half-dozen places, and his fatigues were torn and scorched where the blast must have gone off practically in his face. Freya had obviously avoided the worst of the explosion, but her robes were still torn and bloodied, especially on the back, and the Tok'ra woman was rather shaky on her feet. Sergeant Fowler, borne in a fireman's lift across Freya's shoulder, appeared to have escaped the blast entirely, but a hit from a staff weapon had burned a gash in the side of her neck.

"Does somebody want to tell me why we had to dial home three times?" Jack barked, trying to blink the blood out of his eyes and failing.

"Is that everyone?" Janet asked, as the Gate closed, ignoring the Colonel.

"That's all of them," Hammond confirmed.

"Alright then, let's get everyone back to the infirmary. General Hammond; I can't treat this many here and now."

"I'll call the Academy Hospital and let them know we'll have wounded inbound," Hammond promised. "You get them stable and ready to move out."

"Thank you, Sir."

"We only have two seriously wounded," Sam said. "Okay, three if you count me," she allowed, bowing under the weight of Janet's glower.

"Three injured from SG-5," Hammond told her. "All four from SG-1, I'm not prepared to make any calls on how badly until I hear from Dr Fraiser."

"Seven, then," Sam agreed. "But how does that overload the infirmary?" She asked, as Janet helped her to her feet. "I mean…" She stopped, looking around in shock and horror.

What must have been all of the fully trained doctors and nurses in the facility, together with a number of regular airmen with first aid training, were swarming over the deck of the Gate Room, and beginning the slow process of moving about twenty wounded to the infirmary. Sam had only seen the place look this busy on three or four occasions; usually during a major, planetary evacuation.

"What happened?" Sam asked, appalled.

"Once Dr Fraiser has checked you out, I'll see everyone – everyone who isn't on their way to hospital – for debriefing, and we'll try to work that out."

*

"Pallas," Glaukos protested, anxiously. "The fleet is ready. Why do we not launch the attack?"

"We shall attack when I am ready, Glaukos," Athena assured him. "Not a moment before."

"Yes, Pallas."

*

Teal'c found Amy on one of the Eye's small observation platforms, gazing out at the nebula.

"You seem troubled," Teal'c noted.

Amy shrugged.

"You have seemed troubled since we came aboard this vessel, and more so than would be accounted for by going into battle against a Goa'uld fleet."

"That bad, huh?"

"Indeed."

"She wants me to stay," Amy admitted. "After this is over, if we're not dead, she wants me to stay with her and keep her company."

Teal'c raised a questioning eyebrow. "And what did you say?"

"I said yes," Amy replied. "This wasn't a friendly request, it was the price of her aid."

Teal'c nodded. "I will see to it that you leave this ship with us," he promised.

"No," Amy said. "No, you can't do that."

Teal'c's eyebrow went up another half-inch or so. "I am aware of Sekhmet's power," he said. "But I believe that an escape would be possible."

"I don't want you to do it, then," Amy told the Jaffa.

The eyebrow practically left the top of Teal'c's head.

"I promised her," Amy explained. "I gave her my word."

"She would not keep her word to you, if she believed she would gain by doing otherwise," Teal'c assured her.

"Yes she would," Amy replied. "It's like Anise said; she has a code and…And I think right now, that's about all she has. She's all alone, Teal'c; she can't even keep herself company because the voices in her head scare her too much. She's lost and confused…"

"She is a Goa'uld," Teal'c insisted, harshly. "And a war leader. Even I can only attempt to imagine the sheer number of people she has slain with her own hands, let alone the number who have died at her command."

"It doesn't matter, anyway," Amy assured him. "It doesn't matter what she is; I gave her my word. I don't do that lightly, Teal'c."

"I said that there is much of Daniel Jackson in you," Teal'c reminded her. "There is much of Colonel O'Neill as well."

Amy smiled, sadly. "If I manage to live to be half the scholar Daniel was, and half the soldier the Colonel is, I can die satisfied," she said.

"You will be missed at the SGC," Teal'c told her. "And the Tau'ri can ill afford to lose a warrior, or a scholar, of your talents."

Amy blushed. "You're just saying that," she accused.

"I never ‘just say' anything," Teal'c reminded her.

"I'll miss you," Amy admitted, in voice that suddenly seemed very small. "And the others. But I have to do this; I gave my word. Besides…if I can talk Sekhmet round, maybe this won't be losing a warrior, so much as gaining an armada."

Before Teal'c could reply, the deck beneath their feet began to throb, and the gasses beyond the window boiled as the Eye of Ra began to sweep through them. Not far away, Amy could see another vessel, of similar design to the Eye, moving parallel to them; one of the Wadjet battlecruisers. She looked for any other ships, but a massive shutter slid closed over the great bay window of the observation platform.

"I guess the fleet arrived," Amy said. "We must be moving to attack."

"I would prefer to be somewhere that I can see what is happening," Teal'c commented.

"Me too," Amy agreed. "Let's head up to the peltac and find out what's going down."

By the time they reached the peltac, Talitha had already arrived. Presumably for the Tok'ra's sake, Sekhmet had activated a viewscreen, but the Warlady herself was merely staring into the middle distance.

"We're attacking?" Amy asked, more or less rhetorically.

"I am sending the destroyers ahead as a screen. They will give us an advanced warning before the rest of the fleet can be contacted if there is anything unexpected. The lead destroyer is coming up on the first ha'tak vessel now," she added. "I am commencing an active scan."

Amy leaped into the chair, while Teal'c joined Talitha at the viewscreen. She felt the needles punch into her, and the nebula opened out before her. After a moment, one of the distant ha'taks lit up with displays and annotations, as the destroyer's sensors penetrated its hull.

"She is more lightly armed than we are," the Warlady commented. "But her shields are strong and…Wait! That can not be right," Sekhmet whispered.

"What?" Amy asked.

Her viewpoint shifted, and Amy knew that she now saw from the destroyer. She felt the decks as her sensors probed them, finding…

"Nothing?"

"What is wrong?" Teal'c asked.

"There's nothing there," Amy replied. "Thirty Jaffa, at the most. No gliders. A dozen heavily shielded, empty…!" She cried out, and leaped up, as something set her skin on fire, breaking her connection to the ship.

"It's all right," Sekhmet told Amy, pressing her down with cool hands and a soothing tone. "Relax. It was just the destroyer being…"

 "Destroyed?"

Sekhmet nodded.

"What about the cloak?"

"We have seen the Goa'uld defeat cloaking devices before," Teal'c noted.

"The intensity of scan needed to pierce the shielding on the crates made the destroyer a plain target," Sekhmet assured them.

"But why shield empty crates?" Amy asked.

"So that your enemies think you are loading munitions," Sekhmet replied. "I am breaking off the attack," she said.

"You can't!" Amy begged.

"I must!" The Goa'uld replied. "Before…Curses!"

"What?" Amy asked.

The viewscreen rippled, and on it Amy saw half-a-dozen ha'tak vessels decloaking.

"We are cut off from escape," Sekhmet said. "And the ha'taks are generating hyperspace inhibitor fields as well as high-intensity scanning beams. It seems we have no choice but to fight."

*

"Pallas!" Glaukos gasped, alarmed.

"I see them," Athena assured him. "Order the al-kesh and Ha'kals to defend the Parthenon, and the ha'tak commanders to engage the enemy."

The viewscreen flickered, and a woman's face appeared, slim and gamine, with a boyish cut to her blue-black hair. Her olive skin was flushed and her lips curled into a small smile at the mere prospect of battle.

"Pallas," the woman greeted her mistress. "What is your command, my Captain?"

"Nike," Athena replied. "Your timing was impeccable, as always. Continue according to the plan, and close the net on the enemy. I shall inform you if I require anything else."

"Yes, Pallas," Nike acknowledged, and her image vanished.

"Pallas?" Glaukos asked, a catch in his voice. "Why was I not informed of this plan? Did I displease?"

"Sweet child," Athena replied. "I trust you with my life, but I am more cautious with my secrets. You are the soul of discretion in most way, but you are too free of speech with your lovers, and always have been; especially when your lover is a Tok'ra spy."

The First Prime paled in fear, but did not question his mistress' claim.

"Peace, First Prime," Athena said, soothingly. "I do not hold you accountable in this. I know your weaknesses and I keep a close watch on those you take to your bed. All that has occurred has done so with my knowledge, and by my design. The girl's perfidy was useful to me, although it is no longer. Now she is a danger."

"I shall deal with her at once," Glaukos promised.

"Do so," Athena agreed. "And then return to your post. This shall be a famous day, and you deserve a part in it."

*

General Hammond sat at the head of the briefing room table, and he did not look happy. Of the twenty-four men and women whom he had sent through the Stargate that morning, nine now sat with him, five remained in the infirmary for observation, six were on their way to the Air Force Academy hospital, two were lying in the morgue, and two had never made it back through the Stargate. The last – Captain Peter Rourke of SG-4 and Lieutenant Ellen Ramsey of SG-6 – weighed heaviest on the General's mind: two more families who had lost a child, as well as two children without a father and both a wife and a newlywed husband now widowed, none of whom could even have the closure of committing their loved-one's body to its final rest.

"I haven't exactly been comparing figures," the General said, sadly. "But I believe that this may rate as one of the blackest days in the history of this command."

He looked slowly around at the faces that surrounded him: Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter and Jonas Quinn of SG-1; Lieutenant Jones, the sole survivor of SG-4; Sergeant Thomas of SG-5; Sergeant Frost of SG-6; Lieutenant-Colonel Ferretti and Lieutenant Roberts of SG-7; and Lieutenant Tsarev of the Russian team; SG-21. They all looked shell-shocked, Jones and Frost especially. Not trusting in either man's sensitivity in this situation, Hammond had ordered Samuels and Chekhov to stay out of the debriefing.

"Sir?" Jack asked, speaking slowly, clearly struggling to make sense of the past two hours. "What happened?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to tell me," Hammond replied, gently.

"We came out of the Gate on P2E-118," Sam explained, when Jack appeared unable to. "The terrain around the Gate is rough and densely forested; it hasn't been heavily travelled in decades. We left Jonas and Sergeant Fowler to watch the Gate, and made our way to the clearing selected for the Genesis receiving facility, where we found that the supply dumps had been destroyed.

"It was as we headed back to the Gate that we heard the first shots."

"They came at us out of nowhere," Jonas said, taking up the account. "Fowler saw them first…" He paused. "Fowler saw them. I didn't at all. She'd gone up on top of a small bluff overlooking the Gate to keep lookout; the first I knew was when she started firing and a Jaffa collapsed out of a patch of bracken right next to me. I backed off to the Gate and we held them off as best we could. I'm no expert," he added. "But I'd guess they hoped to take us by surprise and ambush the others when they got back to the Gate."

Hammond frowned and turned to Ferretti. SG-7 and SG-21 had been dispatched to check the security of the secondary option. The leader of the mission had been Colonel Bakhtin, who was now in the hospital.

"Much the same, Sir," Ferretti confirmed. "Only we didn't have time to make the first supply dump before they hit us. About twenty feet from the Gate on P4C-921 you hit bog; one of the plans in putting together the Genesis facility was to bridge that, but we'd waded halfway when the attack came. We were lucky to be able to pull out in time. Damn lucky not to lose anyone; we really owe the Tok'ra for that one," he added, grudgingly.

Hammond nodded his agreement. Selmak and Anise had been able to use their hand devices to stabilise several of the wounded, including Bakhtin and his XO. They were currently sleeping off the effort in the VIP quarters.

"Lieutenant Jones?" Hammond asked.

The young woman kept staring into space, apparently oblivious. Jack was not entirely surprised. Her team – comprised of SG-4 and SG-6 – had been hit the hardest, and all four of the deaths had occurred at the tertiary option on P2H-456.

"Lieutenant?" Jonas called, gently, getting no response. "Kit." He put out a hand and touched her on the arm.

Lieutenant Kate Jones started suddenly, and shook her head clear, but her haunted expression, that thousand-yard stare, remained. "They hit us as we were coming through," she said, looking almost, but not quite, at the General. "I…tripped over the Captain; that's why they missed me. We tried to hold them off, but there were too many. We had to open the Gate straight away."

Jack swallowed hard, knowing what was coming next.

"We…" She choked, appalled by her memories. "God help us, we forgot to move the bodies. We forgot to get Captain Rourke and ER out of the way, and then they were gone."

Jack felt like he was going to be sick, and not just because being vaporised by an opening wormhole seemed like a pretty lousy way to go.

SG-1 had been running the training evaluation when Jones had been up for membership of the SGC. She had aced every test, overcome every obstacle set in her path, and emerged as the natural and unquestioned leader of her training team. She had guided the weaker members through the programme, risking her own chances to help others, putting the team first, even in exercises. Jack had given her a glowing report – one of the only glowing reports he had ever written – and predicted great things for her.

Everyone who saw her work agreed with Jack's assessment of Jones, and more incredible, everyone liked her. All of the civilians and half of her fellow airmen knew her as Kit, and she always knew your first name, even when she did not feel it appropriate to use it. She spent more of her free time studying than Carter did working, learning about the Goa'uld; getting to know her enemy. In just three months she had become one of the best Goa'uld speakers on the base, and had racked up two commendations from the late Major Roberts, CO of SG-6. She would have made Captain fast, and probably been a Major by thirty. Kate Jones had been an officer who was going places.

But not anymore.

The day had provided plenty to douse Jones' enthusiasm, but the real clincher was Ellen Ramsey. Ramsey had been in the same training group as Jones, and had only made it through by the skin of her teeth. Ramsey was a smart, gutsy kid, and she would have been a great lieutenant; but that was all she would have been. But although there were light years between their future careers, Ramsey and Jones had been as thick as thieves. For any soldier – even an officer as uniquely gifted as Jones – to bounce back from the loss of her entire team so early in her career would have been a miracle. But on top of that, her oversight, perhaps the first she had made in a long time, had disintegrated her best friend's body.

From the look in her eyes, Jack knew that Kate Jones' career was over, and it would be a wonder if she didn't spend at least a year or two in a psychiatric institution.

"They knew we were coming," Jack said, desperately wanting to change the subject, but knowing that the issues and their implications had to be addressed. "Had to of done."

"And when," Ferretti agreed. "The Goa'uld keep a tight rein on their Jaffa these days; they wouldn't send a team – especially not a team that size – out unless they expected them to see combat within a couple of days. Could they have tracked the wormholes somehow?"

Sam shook her head. "They were waiting for us," she said. "They knew we'd be coming. They must have known where and what the Alpha sites were, and that we'd be heading for them now."

"An ambush," Thomas agreed. "They knew if they attacked from space we'd run through the Stargate, so they set a trap to make sure we couldn't."

"Athena must have discovered the locations of the three options," Tsarev said. "If she had teams in place then the attack must be about to begin." Like Jones, Tsarev was young and talented, although a little less of both, and Jack disliked him less than most of the Russians. He was impressed that the young man had not wasted time with asking how Athena might know the locations.

"Do you think they know the location of the original Alpha Site?" Hammond asked.

"I don't know, Sir," Sam admitted. "But even if they don't, if there's a risk they are tracking our wormholes…"

"It's not Athena," Jonas said.

"What?" Tsarev asked.

"Then who is it?" Hammond demanded.

"I've been thinking back," Jonas said. "Playing the attack over in my mind, trying to come up with some identifying mark."

"And?" Jack prompted.

"I saw the tattoo on one of them, and I'm not sure, but it sure looked like Anubis' sign. Also, they seemed a lot like the ninjas that attacked us on Anubis' ha'tak vessel. Same style of armour; same mode of dress."

"The would make sense," Sam admitted.

"How so?" Hammond asked.

Sam sat forward, gesturing emphatically with her spread hands. "The only way I can think for Anubis – or anyone else – to have all three locations, is if they captured a member of the original survey team; SG-12."

"Lieutenant Andrews?" Hammond asked. "But he was KIA when Anubis caught SG-12 offworld."

"He might have been revived and tortured," Jack replied.

"But how would Anubis know that the attack was coming?" Ferretti asked. "If he knows Athena is about to lay the smack on Earth to steal a march on him, wouldn't he be better off stopping her than stepping up to mop up survivors?"

"If she's trying to steal a march on him," Jonas agreed.

"Oh no," Jack whispered, as the implications of that sank home.

"There's more than that though," Jonas noted.

"What?" Jack asked.

Jonas frowned. "Well, if they were lying in wait for us now, then that suggests that they not only know that we'll begin evacuating through the Stargate as soon as we know they're attacking from space. They must know that we know."

Jack pounded his fist on the table. "We've been suckered," he snarled.

Sam nodded her agreement. "Which means Teal'c, Captain Kawalsky and Regan-Talitha are walking into a trap."

*

"A trap?" Amy asked, incredulous.

"A trap," Sekhmet affirmed, her eyes darting around like those of a cornered animal as her manifold senses searched for an escape route. "For me, and the Wadjet. A fleet of empty hulks to draw me in, and you were the bait, Amy. I should have known it; what chance would it be for this fleet to muster in the nebula that marked my birth?"

"Who would set a trap for someone long lost?" Teal'c asked.

"Someone who will not be satisfied until I am dead," Sekhmet replied. "My oldest and direst foe."

"Anubis," Amy whispered.

"He is no small power is he?"

"He is unchallenged among the System Lords," Talitha admitted.

"You should have trusted me with that knowledge," Sekhmet told Amy, sounding offended. "But it is too late to start raising accusations now. He must have arranged for you to discover me, and the presence of this fleet. I would wager that he made a similar arrangement to bring Rhea in search of me. She would have destroyed me in my sarcophagus if she could and taken the control device. It would have killed her of course, but the Wadjet would be neutralised and I would be dead. Either that or she would have somehow led me to this battle. There are probably a dozen others before whom he dangled his bait without success.

"One way or another, the trap is sprung, and I am killed." Sekhmet shook his head. "He has the patience and the cunning, but I doubt the labyrinthine craft to pull this off. No; he must have had help…"

"Athena," Talitha realised. "She is not against him, she is his ally. Her cunning is legendary."

"What can we do?" Amy asked Sekhmet.

"Not much," Sekhmet admitted. "I command the entire fleet with my mind; I have little use for co-pilots. If you see any strategic weaknesses however, do not hesitate to sing out," she added, as the ship swung in a deep arc towards the nearest ha'tak.

"You're going to run the line," Amy realised. "Hit one ha'tak at a time."

Teal'c nodded. "The Goa'uld commanders will be slow to assist one another."

"Also," Sekhmet added. "Shrouded ha'tak vessels. If there are any other advances in defence technology that I should be aware of, I would appreciate it if you would tell me, now."

"Nothing springs to mind," Amy admitted. "Or nothing that wasn't on the specs we gave you to study."

"Good," Sekhmet replied, as the first mothership disappeared under a volley of fire from the Wadjet, the disruptions to its shield making the usually invisible shell completely opaque. "If we can only make a large enough hole in the line," she continued. "Then we can get clear of the inhibitors and be away."

The deflector shield on the ha'tak vessel collapsed, and the mothership was burned down in moments.

"One down," Amy said.

"Fourteen to go," Teal'c replied, grimly.

*

Athena snarled in anger as the first ha'tak vessel went down, and the Wadjet flew on, almost unmolested.

"Discipline!" She snapped. "All ha'tak commanders, this is the Pallas speaking. If I see any vessel failing to come to the assistance of its brethren, I shall destroy that vessel myself." With a grunt of disgust, she sat back in her throne and held out her hands. She turned and addressed her owl. "Truly is it said: If a task must be fulfilled to the highest standards, one can not afford to deputise."

At a gesture, a tactical display of the battle appeared in her eyepiece, visible only to her. She held out her hands and moved them through the display – or through where the display appeared to be – like the conductor of an orchestra, each precise gesture sending detailed instructions to one of the ha'tak commanders as she ordered her line to counter Sekhmet's brutal gambit.

"Pallas!" One of the pilots shouted a warning.

"Yes?" Athena asked, impatiently. Her commanders were obeying her, but Sekhmet was adapting faster than she could have believed possible. No matter, Athena was prepared, Sekhmet was on the defensive.

"There is an opening in the line," the pilot warned. "The Wadjet is running for it."

"Yes," Athena acknowledged with a savage grin. "I know."

*

"This must be another trap," Amy said. "It's too easy."

"That may be," Sekhmet agreed. "But it is also the only way out. We must simply try to get clear of the net before…"

The space before them rippled, and a further five warships appeared, hanging dark and menacing in the breach.

"It is him," Sekhmet hissed. "Anubis."

"How can you tell?" Amy asked. "One mothership looks just like all the others to me."

"I can sense him," Sekhmet replied. "Even this far away, I can smell his evil; his darkness. I should have killed him when I had the chance."

"Why did you not?" Teal'c asked.

"He was just returned from his first exile," Sekhmet explained. "Bearing many gifts for Ra; technology beyond his dreams. And in those days, I still served my father faithfully. But when he told me to allow Anubis to live…His fleet destroyed, he was at my mercy. That was the last time I obeyed Ra without question."

"We need a new plan," Amy said. "We're not running this blockade in a battleship, however butch."

Sekhmet nodded. "I doubt that the control systems for Goa'uld vessels have changed much since my day," she said. "Can any of you fly a scout ship?"

*

Glaukos returned to the peltac, carrying a large, leather sack.

"How sweet," Athena said, noting his arrival. "The head, I take it."

"Yes, Pallas."

Glaukos was perturbed, but Athena understood her First Prime well enough to know that his discomfort came from having allowed himself to be used against his Goddess, not from having to execute his own lover. Perhaps one day he would find someone whose life did mean more to him than his service, but such a prospect did not concern Athena. If that happened, she would simply have someone else kill the girl.

"You were not their weapon against me," she assured him. "You were always mine. Take your station."

"Thank you, Pallas," Glaukos replied, moving to her side. His eyes widened in alarm as he took in the viewscreen. "Is that…?"

"Anubis," Athena replied. "Yes. But fear not; as all else this day, his arrival was not merely expected; it was intended."

The air in front of Athena's throne flickered, and a figure appeared; cloaked hooded, his – or as likely her – face hidden behind a mirrored mask. Glaukos began to raise his staff weapon, but at a sign from Athena he brought it back to his side, and knelt in deference.

"Pallas Athena," the figure greeted her, in a soft and deadly voice.

"My Lord Anubis," she replied, reverently, although her true focus never left the battle. "You honour me with your presence. I wish only that I was at liberty to receive you properly. Perhaps," she added, tactfully. "I might suggest a disposition for your vessels that might prove advantageous?"

"Please do," Anubis replied. "I shall give it my fullest consideration. I look forward to finally meeting you in person," he added. "Until then." His image flickered out.

"Asgard holographic communicator," Athena noted in an undertone. "A conspicuous display of his power. How many of our kind have been threatened or warned off by such a device in the past?" She studied her tactical display. "He is reinterpreting all of my commands," she noted. "Slowing him down."

"Pallas?" One of the pilots asked. Glaukos and Antigone both knew better.

"I am speaking to myself," she told the pilot, never letting up in her direction of the battle. "Of matters beyond your comprehension. Do not interrupt me."

At least, Glaukos thought to himself. He is smart enough not to apologise.

The tactical display lit up suddenly, as dozens of readings exploded across its surface.

"Decoys!" Athena snarled, her arms whirling in seemingly chaotic abandon as she issued orders to every ha'tak vessel to tighten the net on the Wadjet. "She's going to try something, I know it."

The surviving vessels in her group and those following Nike closed in around the Eye of Ra, but those in the third group stood waiting.

"No!" Athena cried, even as she ordered two of Nike's ha'taks to try and plug the gap. "Not now, you faceless oaf! Now is not the time to be asserting your dominance." She cursed and swore in all the languages she knew, but Anubis' ha'taks held their positions.

*

Sekhmet led the way through the Eye at a brisk pace. "The ring chambers are in the dorsal and ventral hubs of the ship," she explained. "You can use them to pass into a shrouded destroyer under cover of the countermeasures and get clear, while I finish this."

"Won't the scanning beams catch them?" Amy asked.

"The net is not tight enough yet," Sekhmet explained. "And Anubis' ships have stopped moving. No doubt Athena tried to give them orders directly, and the captains have not obeyed."

"How do you know that?" Teal'c asked.

"It is what I would have done," Sekhmet replied. "This Athena is good," she admitted. "I almost like her."

"And what would you have done when the ships didn't obey?" Amy asked.

"Destroy one of them and reissue the orders," Sekhmet answered, without hesitation. "I doubt that Athena has the leeway; or the firepower. Her ships are mostly old, and have barely the ability to match the Wadjet. If Anubis turned on her she would be killed."

"Sekhmet," Amy asked. "What happens to us after they've gone?"

Sekhmet laughed, softly. "You are a brave child," she said. "And I appreciate your refusal to dishonour your oath, but you can not stay. I will not cause of the needless death of a warrior such as yourself. Down there," she added, pointing along a side corridor.

The ship rocked as weapons fire impacted on the shields. Amy stumbled, but Teal'c caught her arm and held her upright. Talitha was not so lucky, and sprawled across the deck.

"Go on," Sekhmet ordered, waving Teal'c and Amy onwards as she stooped to lift the Tok'ra to her feet. "Gravitic charges," she muttered. "Athena is blasting for the shrouded vessels; she knows what I plan to do."

Talitha nodded her thanks, and made to follow her companions, but without warning, Sekhmet grabbed her arm and flung her backwards.

"What…?" Amy began, but Sekhmet stretched out her hand, and Amy and Teal'c were sent crashing back away from the Goa'uld. As Amy struggled to rise, a crackling wall of force appeared before her. "What are you doing?" She demanded, or at least she planned to do so, but she was interrupted when the ship shook once more, and a large chunk of the hull that stood between her and Sekhmet buckled and ripped outwards.

Amy stood for a moment, facing the Goa'uld Warlady, each safe behind a forcefield for now. Then Sekhmet raised a hand in salute. "Keep going," her voice echoed from the walls. "I shall find another way to the dorsal chamber, or to the ventral chamber, and set Talitha on her way. Do not look back," she added. "Get clear of the ha'taks, and set a course for your home."

"Goodbye, Sekhmet," Amy said, but the Goa'uld was already gone.

*

Athena pursed her lips in concentration. She knew now that her opponent had a significant advantage in terms of response time, although what could possibly allow Sekhmet to relay orders so fast was beyond her. Nevertheless, despite suffering significant losses, she was winning, if only Anubis would close the gap to hold the Wadjet in place.

The Eye of Ra forged on for the gap, and that gave Athena pause. There was no way that Sekhmet could hope to bring her command ship through the level of firepower mounted on Anubis' battlegroup. Why would she even attempt…

Her eyes widened and she smiled in admiration. "Glaukos," she said. "Move the Parthenon closer to Lord Anubis' command vessel, and launch all auxiliary craft to intercept the Wadjet destroyers."

"Yes, Pallas," Glaukos replied, gesturing redundantly for the pilots to obey the goddess. The First Prime frowned, knowing that he was missing something. Pallas Athena only issued such orders vocally if she was challenging her subordinates to solve a puzzle, and he did not know what the answer to that riddle might be.

"Glaukos; Antigone," Athena said. She rose majestically from her throne. "Attend me."

*

Teal'c and Amy reached a large, open chamber.

"This is the ring chamber," Teal'c said.

"Yes," Amy agreed. "I can feel it. It's the naquada, isn't it? I actually know where to stand without needing to check."

"I shall activate the transporters," Teal'c said.

"No!" Amy said. "We wait for the others."

The chamber filled with a familiar high-pitched scream, and the great, naquada rings rose out of the floor of the chamber around the two of them. Light flared before their eyes, and a moment later the rings were dropping away to leave Amy blinking at the interior of a very small Goa'uld spacecraft.

"I touched nothing," Teal'c assured Amy, in response to her confused glance.

"I transported you," Sekhmet's voice assured them. "There was no reason to wait. Talitha can not join you in that vessel."

"We'll wait out here then," Amy said.

"No, Amy," Sekhmet replied. "You will not."

With a throb of power, the destroyer began moving forward. Amy and Teal'c were immediately struck by the great leaps in inertial compensation made by the Goa'uld in recent centuries, and scrambled forwards to the pressure seats.

"If we try to go into hyperdrive, we'll be crushed," Amy protested, as Teal'c began to work out the controls.

"The inertial dampeners tap into the hyperspace field itself," Sekhmet assured her.

Amy worked the viewer controls, almost without thinking about it, so that she could look back at the Eye of Ra. The great ship was being pulled apart by the massive forces expanding from Athena's gravitic charges, and blasted with energy beams and torpedoes. Between the decoy countermeasures and the small popping blasts of the charges, it was impossible to see if a matter stream had left the dorsal rings; but then that was more-or-less the point.

"Come on, Sekhmet," Amy muttered.

Amy's eyes widened in alarm, as the Eye began to accelerate. "Wait," she said, knowing that the Goa'uld must be able to hear her. "What are you doing? Sekhmet; stop!" She turned to Teal'c. "We have to go back," she said.

"We can not," Teal'c said. "I have no control over this vessel at present."

"But she's going to kill herself!"

*

Anubis was as silent and inscrutable as ever behind his silver-black mask, but Osiris had known him for many centuries before his imprisonment on Earth, and since the return of this darkest of Gods, she had become more adept at reading his moods than his other servants. Currently, he was fuming with anger over the temerity of this young upstart, Athena. Scarcely born when Setesh betrayed his brother and sister, defeated them in battle and imprisoned them in perpetual sleep, this arrogant child had dared to attempt to usurp command of the mighty Anubis' battlegroup.

Osiris almost found herself liking the girl, but she quashed the feeling, recognising the respect for rebellion as a worthless artefact of her host's past existence.

"It will not be long," Anubis purred, watching in pleasure as his ancient foe's mothership began to buckle under Athena's onslaught.

Osiris watched with a lump in her throat as a piece of Goa'uld history began to burn, and once again ruthlessly stamped on the feeling. Damn this girl to eternal nothingness, but she is strong. She shook her head at the stubborn futility of Sarah Gardner's struggle, as they drew nearer to the Eye of Ra. No, she realised. As the Eye draws closer to us.

"What is happening?" Anubis asked, sounding disconcerted for perhaps the first time since his return. Beams from the Eye's surviving cannons began to slam into the shields of Anubis' command vessel. "Evasive manoeuvres!"

"I…can't," the pilot protested, desperately. "The Eye…Her hull is permeated with induced gravity waves."

"Then go to hyperspace," Anubis ordered. "Go through it."

"Order the other vessels to disengage their inhibitors," Osiris added, knowing in her heart that it would be too late. Already the shields were overloading, and the Eye was almost on top of them. This was not the way she would have wanted to die, even if she had been prepared to countenance her own demise at all. "Prepare for…Mother of all pharaohs!"

Engines overloaded and glowing white hot, weapons doubled-down and pounding the flank of the Eye, the Parthenon hove into the viewscreen, all but blotting out the approaching battleship. Despite the intervening vacuum, Osiris swore she could hear the shriek of tortured metal as the two dying warships came together, their shields buckling, hulls tearing and collapsing, internal atmosphere boiling into space in clouds of fire and mist.

"Shields!" Anubis demanded.

"Shut down the hyperdrives!" Osiris ordered. "All power to shields. All of it! And rotate the ship!"

The lights on the bridge dimmed, even as the command ship turned to present its rear facing – where the shields were stronger now – to the collision. The two great vessels hung together for a long moment, then one or the other reactor was breached.

The explosion was colossal. The thin nebula gases dissipated the shockwave, but it was still enough to roll the command vessel in her place. As the remaining oxygen stores erupted, the nebula gases caught, and a mighty fireball began to burn in place, consuming the remains of the Eye of Ra and the Parthenon. Chunks of debris flew out at immense speeds, a large metal plate striking the command vessel hard enough to reverberate against the hull, even through the reinforced shields.

A ha'tak whose captain had not been so quick off the mark was less fortunate, and a section of the Eye's hull burst through the mothership's shields and ripped through the hull as though it were paper. After a moment, the hull plate emerged from the far side of the ha'tak, tearing a hideous exit wound, and spewing metal, atmosphere, and luckless Jaffa into the void.

Finally, all was quite, and only the dying flickers of the fireball remained to mark the explosion; that and the damage to the Goa'uld war fleet.

"Report," Anubis commanded.

Osiris obediently stepped to her console. "Most of Athena's decoy fleet has been destroyed, including the Parthenon. Her second battlegroup under Nike has survived more or less unscathed. No Wadjet ships remain active."

"That seems to me a most satisfactory result," Anubis declared. "You shall oversee the claiming of Athena's remaining forces as swiftly as possible," he ordered Osiris.

"Yes, my Lord," she agreed. Such is the penalty for arrogance.

"Please do not hurry with that on my account," Athena insisted, striding onto the peltac. She had a single Jaffa and a human slave with her – and an owl – but she moved with the confidence of a System Lord at the head of her army.

"You!" Anubis hissed, covering his surprise with anger.

"I," Athena affirmed. "You did not think that I would remain on board my Ha'tak when I crashed it into the Eye of Ra did you?"

"Why not?" Osiris asked. "You seem to seek death in all other ways."

Athena turned and met Osiris' accusing stare head on, the two women glowering at each other with such ferocious intensity that the Jaffa around them looked away in fear. Osiris hunkered down to the match, determined not to be stared down by this infant, but then Athena looked away. She turned with a casual air that must have been affected, but it stung Osiris to the quick.

As Osiris fumed, Athena turned back to their master. "You fouled the trap," she accused.

"How dare you?" Anubis demanded.

"Your commanders refused to close, leaving a gap in the net."

"The Wadjet is destroyed," Anubis retorted, angrily. "Sekhmet is dead. Your trap was successful, but if you do not learn to guard your tongue, then you shall not live to enjoy the fruits of your success."

"You are a fool!" Athena spat. A deadly hush filled the peltac, and the Jaffa drew away in fear.

Anubis bristled, rising to his full height, and drawing in all of his power and presence so that he seemed to be almost twice his true, and not exactly intimidating, height. He expected Athena to cower before him, but instead she turned away.

The presumptuous child actually turned her back on Anubis.

Osiris' breath caught in her throat, and again she found herself willing Athena to survive. She crushed the emotion, and pushed the thought away, as Anubis raised his hand to strike her down. Osiris saw the Jaffa finger the trigger of his staff weapon, and slipped a zat'nik'tel into her hand behind her back. The handmaiden would have to go down as well, she realised; Athena would not bring a body servant for decoration.

"Sekhmet is alive," Athena asserted.

The silence was broken, and now the peltac was filled with whispering voices. Osiris looked to her master for a cue, and saw him lower his hand.

"Explain," Anubis demanded.

"At least two destroyers escaped the battle through the hole in your line, along with five more, and I would say two cruisers and a heavy cruiser when your vessels disengaged their hyperspace inhibitors. Sekhmet was on one of those ships."

"How can you be so sure?" Anubis asked.

"I am not certain," Athena admitted. "Shall we assume then that she is dead?"

Anubis hissed at her temerity, but shook his head.

"Had your commanders obeyed me, then there would have been no escapes."

"You go too far!" Osiris snarled. Behind the Goa'uld, her personal guards raised their staff weapons to fire, and Athena's bodyguard did the same.

"Glaukos!" Athena snapped, and at once the Jaffa lowered his weapon. Osiris could not help but be impressed by his discipline.

Athena turned her grey eyes on Anubis. "My Lord," she said, with a questioning tone.

"Attend me in my quarters," he said. "In one hour."

*

Amy sat still and quiet as the destroyer hurtled through hyperspace. When the inhibitors went down, the small craft had immediately activated its hyperdrives and set a course for Earth. A few moments later, manual controls had returned, and Amy had insisted Teal'c return them to the nebula. By then, all that remained of the Eye of Ra was a fireball. There did not seem to be a single ha'tak undamaged, but the Wadjet was gone; done for.

"Outgunned and surrounded," Teal'c noted, taking in the damage to Anubis' forces. "Those were mighty vessels. Truly is it said that they do not make them as once they did."

"Amen to that," Amy agreed, although she was not thinking about the Wadjet. She sighed. "Teal'c; let's go home."

*

Athena entered Anubis' audience chamber alone, dressed in a simple, dark blue chiton, bearing a velvet-wrapped bundle before her.

"My Lord," she greeted Anubis, kneeling and bowing her head.

"Athena." Anubis spoke a moment before he glided out of the shadows, followed by his lo'taur. The human slave carried a silver salver, and on it two glasses of a dark liqueur. "A drink, my dear servant."

"Thank you, Lord," Athena replied, steeling herself. If he was bothering to be polite, there must be something more than a simple chastisement on his mind. But then she had known that all along. "I bring a gift to honour you, Lord Anubis," she added, holding out her bundle.

Anubis inclined his head slightly, and took the proffered gift, freeing Athena's hands to take a glass. She sniffed at the drink, enjoying the heady aroma of coffee before sipping delicately, almost coquettishly at the sweet liqueur.

Anubis undid the cords that tied the bundle closed and unwrapped it. "A pain-giver?" He asked. "I have many of these."

"But none so powerful," Athena told him. "I have spent many years steeling myself to pain; an ordinary pain-giver would have little effect on me." She could almost feel the eyes narrowing behind the mask.

"What makes you think that you are to be punished?" He asked.

"I was disrespectful," Athena replied. "You can not let that pass." She set her glass back on the tray, and released the brooch at her shoulder, letting the chiton slip to the floor. Beneath she wore only a loose shift, that left most of her back exposed.

"You are correct, of course." Anubis replied, pressing the pain-giver into the small of her back.

Some time later, Anubis passed the pain-giver to his lo'taur, and settled into a chair. "I am pleased with your gift," he told Athena.

"I am…honoured," she replied, rising unsteadily to her knees.

"Your next display of open insolence will result in your swift death," he went on. "In the mean time, my captains will be instructed to obey your orders in battle as though they were my own."

"My Lord is too kind," Athena said.

"I will give you a new ship. One of my newest Ha'taks, to lead the hunt for Sekhmet. You will find her, and kill her."

"Yes, My Lord. Would My Lord be offended,"  she added. "If his humble servant swept his gift for monitoring devices and booby traps before she took possession of it?"

"Your Lord would be disappointed if you did otherwise," Anubis assured her. He rose to his feet, and walked around behind her. "I am already disappointed," he added, pressing a hand into one of the raw wounds marring the skin of her back. "That you would place yourself so completely at my mercy."

Athena have a gurgling chuckle, and held up a small cameo that had been pinned to the front of her shift.

"What is that?" Anubis asked.

Athena pressed down on the brooch, and with a soft pop the handle of the pain-giver burst. Anubis' lo'taur looked startled, as well he might, for a small hole had been bored in his sternum, and a massive rent blasted from his back.

Unseen eyes bored into Athena, until at last Anubis was satisfied with what he saw. He struck her a back-handed blow, powerful enough to lift her from the ground and send her crashing into the wall. Then he picked up her chiton, and draped it over her as she rose once more.

"That was for damaging my lo'taur," he said. "Good hunting, my servant."

"You knew that you would be punished," Osiris said.

Athena turned slowly to face the other woman, partly to seem disinterested, but mostly because her interview with Anubis had left her unable to do anything else.

"If you had but accepted the blame for the loss…"

"I would have born the blame, whatever happened," Athena replied, although it was clearly painful for her to speak. "But if I had merely rolled over, he would have sent you after Sekhmet instead of me."

"You seek to supplant me?" Osiris accused.

"I have no interest in power," Athena replied.

"Then why hunt Sekhmet?"

Athena smiled, crookedly; again, it was all she could really manage. "Do you know what they say of me?" She asked.

"That you are the finest military mind that the Goa'uld have produced in millennia," Osiris replied.

"No," Athena replied. "They say that I am the finest military mind in six millennia; since the glory-days of Sekhmet. I have always been the best since Sekhmet; always measured against her. Only in defeating her, will I be the greatest military mind that the Goa'uld – that the galaxy has ever known. For that, I can stand a little pain."

"The trick with the pain-giver?" Osiris asked.

"I would not have used it on him," Athena assured her. "If Anubis died, you would kill me and take command of his forces. Only he can and will give me what I need to defeat Sekhmet. But again, he would not have respected me if I simply rolled over; he might have given the task to you. He had to know that I had the strength to defy him, and the desire to serve."

Osiris shook her head. "Be careful," she warned.

"Why?"

Osiris smiled, pleased that there was at least one thing that Athena did not understand. "Because I'm starting to like you," she said.

*

Stargate Command

Six days later

Jack came to see Kate Jones off. Technically she was still a Lieutenant, but only for a few more days. He found her clearing the last of her gear from her dorm room.

"You want to talk about it?" He asked.

"No," Jones replied, looking at him with her flat, dead eyes. Last week there were at least a dozen guys on the base going gaga over those eyes; now there was nothing there to go gaga over.

"You know you'll have to sometime," he told her.

Jones picked up a framed photograph that had been lying face down on the table, and shoved it into her bag without looking at it. Jack could not see the picture, but he did not have to. He knew that it showed Jones, Ramsey and their two fellow trainees on the night of their acceptance to the SGC.

"Is this the bit where you tell me ER would have wanted me to go on?" Jones asked, coldly.

"I wouldn't dream of being so clichéd. This is the bit where I ask you if you want to talk about it, because after you walk out that door, there won't be a soul in your life who will understand." He sat down on the lower bunk. "I'm not here to try and get you to stay," he told her. "But if you go without telling someone whatever it is that's eating you up, then you'll not just be scrubbing your military career; you'll be scrubbing any chance of a half-way decent life."

"My best friend is dead," Jones said, her voice hard, but brittle. Then she added, in a low whisper: "And I killed her."

"What?" Jack could not hide the fact that he was shaken.

"I don't mean…I didn't." Jones put the bag down, and her hands were shaking uncontrollably. Her body was starting to shiver with sobs. "I don't know that I killed her, but I…I didn't get her clear, and I didn't check to see if she was dead. If she wasn't dead…"

"She was on point," Jack told her, gently. "They had time to line up that shot. Believe me, Jones; she was dead."

"I can't be sure," Jones replied.

"I know you can't," Jack said. "But maybe someday you'll be able to accept it now. I hope so."

He stood, and held out his hand. Jones accepted it, and they shook.

"Take care of yourself, Jones," Jack said.

"Thank you, Colonel," she replied, choking back her tears.

"Take it slow," he advised. "One day at a time."

"Yes, sir."

Jack felt as though a weight had lifted from him. It still hurt to lose a good officer, but perhaps he had helped to keep a good person going. As he wandered back through the corridors of the SGC, his thoughts drifted outwards, to Teal'c and Amy, still missing. The Tok'ra had received no further word of Athena's fleet, but no invasion had come; yet. His feet led him to the briefing room, where the rest of SG-1 and the two Tok'ra visitors were becoming more and more caffeinated by the minute.

"Any word?" He asked.

"Nothing, Jack," Jacob replied. "What about the Lieutenant?"

Jack sighed. What Jones had told him would never pass his lips, but Jacob knew that and it was not what he was asking. "She'll survive," he confirmed, sitting at the table. Freya poured a coffee and handed him the mug, and Jack wondered when he had started being able to tell without asking which one was in charge at any given time.

"The Tok'ra sent a scout ship to the Aksos Nebula," Freya told him. "And found the signs of a fierce battle. There were no survivors there."

Jack nodded. "The strategy eggheads reckon the ambushes at the Alpha sites were part of a fall-back plan. If we didn't go for the main trap, Athena could still steam in and cause some damage. Anubis' forces remained offworld, keeping the letter of the Protected Planets Treaty, and killing anyone we tried to evacuate. Even if the Asgard were able to help us, all our top people would have been bottle-necked in the mountain while we tried to find an exit."

"Colonel O'Neill!"

Jack turned sharply as Lieutenant Simmons stuck his head up from the control room below. "Yes?" He asked.

"It's them, Sir."

"Aksos 1, this is Command, we read you loud and clear. Welcome back."

Amy could have laughed out loud with joy to hear Major Davis' voice. With the destroyer's ancient hyperdrive, it had taken them almost a week to fly back from the Nebula to Earth, and both she and Teal'c were starting to go a little stir crazy; she rather more obviously than the Jaffa.

"Thank you, Major," she said. "It's good to be home; Earth never looked so good."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," a different voice assured her.

"That it does, Colonel," Amy agreed.

"Teal'c with you?" Jack asked.

"I am indeed, O'Neill," Teal'c replied.

"Good to hear your voice, buddy. Hey; I'd love to chat but the Tok'ra would like to hear from their girl first."

Amy and Teal'c looked at each other.

"Aksos 1?"

"Talitha didn't make it," Amy replied, sadly. "Neither did Regan. We'll tell you all about it once we're there. Requesting permission to land at the Academy," she added.

"Permission granted, Captain," Major Davis replied. "We'll contact you when we've secured the landing field."

"Thank you, Sir," Amy said. "Aksos 1, out."

She sat back in the pressure chair and closed her eyes. She had only slept in fits and starts on board the destroyer, somewhat disconcerted by her constant awareness of the acceleration sliding her towards the back of her bunk. In the end she had found it easier to doze in the co-pilot's chair.

She knew that Teal'c had been experiencing similar, but not identical problems; every time he tried to perform kelno'reem, his candles would try to tip over and roll towards the rear of the tiny cabin. Like Amy herself, he was holding on, but extremely strung out, and his immune system was weakening to the point that he seemed to be suffering from a cold. The had scared him at first; unused to any disease, even the sniffles was unknown and fearful to him.

"Are you well?" Teal'c asked, gently. "Most humans find themselves at ease when they return to their home, but you seem more to have grown more tense since we entered Earth's orbit."

"I was just wondering…how much of a home it will seem," Amy admitted. "My memories are jumbled; half of me kept thinking we were heading back to Khonsa. Plus I don't know what everyone will make of me; I feel…different." She sighed. "It might have been easier to go with Sekhmet."

"His memories can not change you," Teal'c promised her, again. "And you will be among friends. No-one will be judging you."

"I hope you're right," Amy said. "I just feel so confused."

"It shall pass," Teal'c replied. "The hearts of the Tau'ri are strong; yours will out in time."

"Thank you, Teal'c."

"Aksos 1, this is Command."

"Go ahead Command," Amy responded.

"You are cleared to land at the USAF Academy Airfield; runway two."

"Thank you Command; we'll see you on the ground."

*

Two days later

Jack found Amy in the lab, leafing idly through her notebooks.

"Hey, Kawalsky," he greeted her. "How's it going?"

Amy smiled, wearily. "The Hills may persist in not being alive, but there is music nonetheless," she assured him.

"Have you been talking to Oma?" Jack asked. "Are you about to go glowy?"

"No; and far from it," Amy assured him. "In fact, I think I'm about as far from ascension as I've ever been." She frowned. "Or maybe that's not true. Thoth said it was about understanding; maybe when…if I understand how someone who did those things could go on to ascend, I'll be a good way along the road."

Now it was Jack's turn to frown. "I thought Anise removed all of the memories from your mind," he said.

"She removed the mnemonic pathways," Amy replied. "I still remember them – or maybe I remember remembering – but as something I saw or heard about, not something I did and experienced. On the down side, I'm back to only speaking tourist Goa'uld, but Anise said she didn't think she could be that selective."

"Well, Freya's declared you all cleared out and fit for duty, so they're heading out again tomorrow."

"How's everyone else?" Amy asked.

"Jonas is avoiding you," Jack replied. "As always."

"He's so sensitive," Amy remarked, in a gently scolding tone. "I mean, one time I called him a poisonous cuckoo; just one."

Jack smiled. "Carter's still swooning over the destroyer you guys brought back. Apparently the fact that it's six millennia out of date has only a minor impact on its effectiveness, but makes it way easier to reverse engineer. Teal'c's helping Carter and Jonas go over the destroyer, but mostly he's got some serious catching up to do on his kelno'reem."

"He'll be alright though?"

"Oh, yeah. He malingered a day or two with the cold, getting us to take turns making him chicken soup and stuff. Then it got to my turn to cook and he was right as rain."

"And you?" Amy asked.

Jack looked down. "General Hammond asked me to come see him at my earliest convenience. I just spent almost an hour talking to Teal'c, and before that I was trying to understand what Sam and Jonas were saying about the destroyer and its impact on the X-303 project."

"Brave man," Amy commended him. Her face became serious. "You think he wants you to help pick the new team?"

Jack nodded. "It's about time. SG-4 needs all new members, and SG-6 needs a fourth. I just hate this part."

"So does the General," Amy said. "That's why he wants you with him; so you can hate doing it together. I still can't believe Kit left," she added.

"Some things you just can't get past," Jack told her.

Amy nodded, slowly. "I liked her," she said.

"Everyone liked her," Jack replied.

"Not Kit," Amy said. "Sekhmet. She was mad, and she killed millions in her time; and I saw her slaughter a room full of Jaffa without batting an eyelid, but I liked her."

"That's the Thoth speaking."

"No," Amy insisted. "Thoth desired her, and feared her, and a part of him respected her; but he didn't like her. That was me."

Jack put a hand on the young woman's shoulder. "Then there must have been something to like," he said.

*

"You all set to go?" Jack asked. Freya was standing in the control room, staring out at the Stargate.

"I suppose so," Freya replied.

"Shes'ti for your thoughts?" He offered.

"When a Tok'ra operative is lost," Freya explained. "We hold a short ceremony of mourning, and move on. We do not obsess about where they might be, or send other operatives into danger to save them."

In the background, Jack was aware of the duty technician slipping away again. At this rate, he was going to get a reputation.

"Just one of the thousand differences of opinion that will never be reconciled between us," Jack noted.

"I'm not so sure," Freya replied. "Talitha and Anise were friends, but when she was lost on Bubastis, we accepted that. Now…I keep wondering where she is; if she might have made it to safety."

"You, Freya, or…"

"We both wonder. And I believe that we would both risk capture or death to bring her back from Anubis' captivity." She turned and smiled, shyly at Jack. "And it is all your fault."

Jack pointed at his chest, and assayed an expression of wounded innocence. "Moi?"

"Tu," Anise replied. "You and Daniel Jackson primarily. You…have an effect on people. It is most unnerving."

Jack put a hand gently over Freya's. "We'll let you know if anything turns up," he promised. "But there's a car waiting to take you back to the teltac."

Freya nodded. "It was good seeing you again, Jack," she said.

"I never thought I'd say it, but you too," Jack admitted. "And don't tell Anise I said this," he added. "But it was even okay having her around again."

Freya reached up, and Jack flinched a little before she kissed him on the cheek. She smiled at his hesitancy. "Don't worry, Jack; I am learning."

"That's good to…"

Jack broke off, as the Stargate thundered into life. The duty technician ran back in, and Freya stepped demurely away from Jack, moments too late for the tech not to see it. Definitely getting a rep, Jack thought.

"Unscheduled offworld activation," the PA announced.

"Any transmissions?" Jack asked.

"Receiving Tok'ra IDC," the technician acknowledged. "Defence teams to the Gate Room."

Jack nodded, and pressed his hand onto the scanner, deactivating the iris.

"Why do you always meet us with a full defence team?" Freya asked.

"We do the same for any SG team that's overdue," Jack assured her. "If there's the slightest chance that someone could have been captured and tortured since they were given the code…"

Freya began to nod her understanding, but her attention was seized by the slim figure that stepped onto the ramp. "Talitha!"

As the Tok'ra hurried to the stairs, Jack called after her: "Anyway; since when do you speak French?"

"We were unable to reach a destroyer," Talitha explained, sitting in the briefing room with her two fellow Tok'ra, General Hammond, SG-1 and Amy Kawalsky. "But when the Eye of Ra bore down on him, Anubis dropped his inhibitors to try and flee, and we were able to escape in one of the cruisers."

"We?" Amy asked, trying to sound nonchalant, and failing miserably.

"Regan and I, and Sekhmet," Talitha confirmed.

Amy did not bother to try and hide her relief.

"And what became of Sekhmet?" Teal'c asked. "If she is still at large, and alone," he stressed. "Is she not a danger? Even if she bears us no malice," he added, for Amy's benefit, even if he did not believe it himself.

"I do not know," Talitha admitted. "But she said that her first goal would be to keep out of sight, rebuild her strength and destroy Anubis. She seems to hate him beyond all reason."

"Oh, I think there's plenty of reasons," Jack replied.

"I believe that her pursuit of Anubis will absorb all of her efforts," Talitha went on. "She also said that Earth was safe from her, so long as it did not attack her . She gave me her word not to attack your world or to harm its civilians."

Jack laughed, humourlessly.

"She'll keep it," Amy told him. "She would not bother to make the promise if she did not mean to go through with it."

"Well, it's mostly immaterial for now," Hammond said. "I'll give a standing order that SGC personnel are not to open fire on anyone bearing Sekhmet's symbol, although I'm not going to tell them not to return fire. We'll keep an ear to the ground and see how things shape up; other than that there's not much to do just now."

"If that's all, George," Jacob said. "I think we'd better be on our way."

Amy returned to her apartment in a pensive mood. She was fairly certain that no-one else had seen Regan slip the small recording sphere into her pocket as they said goodbye, but she could not be certain, and that made her nervous about using it. That was one reason she had come out to her place in town rather than viewing it in her quarters at the base.

She set the device on the kitchen table, and looked at it for a long moment, wondering if she should tell somebody about it before she used it. If it was a message from Sekhmet, then her commanders might need to know about it, but if it was personal, then she did not want anyone else to see it. Finally, she decided that she should view the message, and then decide whether to show anyone. And if it turns out to be a bomb, won't I feel stupid.

Amy put her hand on top of the sphere and concentrated. With Thoth's memories in her mind she would have been able to activate the device with but a thought; with only the detached recollection remaining, it took an effort, and Amy was glad of that. After a moment though, the sphere grew warm beneath her palm, and she uncovered it. Almost immediately, Sekhmet appeared in miniature above the sphere, wearing a loose, flowing robe over her armour.

"Greetings, Amy Kawalsky," she said. "Our mutual friend, Talitha of the Tok'ra, has promised to bear you this greeting from me."

Amy was somewhat surprised that Sekhmet knew the name of the Tok'ra, so much so that she missed the next part. She swore at herself, annoyed by her reduced faculty with the Goa'uld language, and restarted the sphere's recording.

"Greetings, Amy Kawalsky. Our mutual friend, Talitha of the Tok'ra, has promised to bear you this greeting from me. I apologise for any distress that I might have caused you, but I was uncertain whether I would be able to survive the destruction of the Eye, let alone make my escape. Fortunately, it seems that Ptah designed the device to withstand the destruction of my primary homunculus, and I have rarely felt better.

"As Talitha has no doubt told you, I have sworn to leave your Earth unmolested. Furthermore, I swear to you that I will not attack your military personnel, so long as I feel a tie exists between us. I shall make no move against any Tau'ri so long as you live, nor against the Tok'ra while Regan lives. Who knows; we might even be allies one day."

The Goa'uld smiled, wistfully. "I shall miss you, Amy," she admitted. "I had so looked forward to travelling with you. Do not fear for me, however," she added. "I shall not be alone. Talitha and I spoke at length while we travelled to find a world from which we could Gate her back to you, and…Well, there is someone I would like you to meet."

Sekhmet looked down for a moment, then back to her audience. "Hello, Amy," she said, in a voice that seemed thin and high, although really it was merely devoid of the Goa'uld resonance. "I am Lanar."

"Hello, Lanar," Amy said, although there was no way that the host could have heard her.

After a moment, Sekhmet spoke again. "She is rather shy and confused at the moment, but I have high hopes for our friendship."

Amy smiled, warmly.

"You will not be forgotten," Sekhmet promised Amy. "Be well, Amy Kawalsky."

"Be well, Sekhmet," Amy replied, as the woman's face faded away. Then she picked up the sphere, went into her bedroom, opened her dresser drawer, and tucked it away out of sight.