Jonas Quinn stood at the bottom of the steel ramp leading up to the Stargate alongside a Jaffa with short blond hair. It was Her'ak, leader of the Jaffa invading the SGC for the gou'ald, Khonsu who had earlier arrived with his force of Jaffa. Behind him was General Hammond, kneeling on the floor in handcuffs along with several other SGC personnel. Blue shimmering energy filled the gate, marking the existence of a wormhole to another planet somewhere across the galaxy. A pair of Jaffa emerged from the gate, followed by a figure dressed in an elegantly decorated deep red outfit, with a large upturned collar revealing a black studded interior and a tunic of concentric rings rising up to his neck.
Several of the Jaffa in the Gate Room knelt as the man and two more Jaffa guards followed him down the ramp. When he finally reached Her'ak and Jonas, the man stopped. His eyes glowed with a yellow light as he spoke and his voice was a deep, altered sound, as if spoken from under water. "Her'ak, why have you launched this attack without my authorization?" The newcomer was the gou'ald himself.
"Lord Khonsu," the Jaffa said with a slight bow of his head, "this attack was an opportunity. When we captured these Tau'ri, we only had a short time before their codes to this base would become inactive. If we delayed to send you word, we would not have been able to use their men to infiltrate the base and send in your troops." The Jaffa leader with a gold brand etched upon his forehead looked steadfastly on the gou'ald.
"I should kill you for your impudence and presumption, Her'ak. Now, take your men and go back through the choppa'ai and await me there. I will extract what I want from these Tau'ri myself." The gou'ald commanded imperiously.
Her'ak did not move or bow. "As I thought," he commented. Then he looked to his left and right. The Jaffa warriors at the bottom of the ramp immediately grabbed the Jaffa guarding Khonsu, and two more grabbed the gou'ald. "You are no true god. You are a traitor—a Tok'Ra!"
"What is the meaning of this?" the alien demanded as Jonas leveled his zat'nik'tel at him. "How dare you—" he blustered as his hands were secured behind his back.
"I will take you to Lord Anubis, Tok'ra spy, where you will be executed for your…"
The blond-haired Jaffa never finished his sentence as the Stargate began to activate. One by one, the chevrons matched up with symbols and began to lock in place. Then wormhole energy burst out of the gate like an underwater explosion, only to implode back and reform as the gate's event horizon once again. It was a sight that had been seen thousands of times in Stargate Command.
But then something unexpected happened. The event horizon suddenly became utterly black and a dark mist began swirling out of it. Just as suddenly, there was another burst from the Stargate, but this time it was nothing like blue water, or even the black mist that had started to pour out from the gate. What it was, was an inferno of fire that blasted outwards with an intense heat that raised the temperature of the entire room and set the ground briefly ablaze. Then the fire was sucked back into the gate and the wormhole collapsed.
Leaving SG-1 standing there on the ramp.
Colonel Jack O'Neill looked at the SGC and let out a great sigh of relief. He was home. There it was. The Stargate. Stargate command. Military people. A room full of Jaffa holding General Hammond and all the soldiers as prisoners.
Damn.
.
"Well, this wasn't the welcome I had expected," Jack said as he was being lined up against the wall as a prisoner with the rest of SG-1.
The Jaffa had quickly stripped SG-1 of their energy weapons, firearms, and explosives. Somehow, the SGC had fallen to a gou'ald attack in their absence. There was apparently also a new member of SG-2, and all of that team had decided to betray the Earth. There was plenty of bad news all around.
"Well, colonel," Sam replied with a hint of a forced smile, "it could be worse. We could have arrived after aliens had completely destroyed the entire world. At least we're getting back in time to be captured as the invasion is just starting."
"Major Carter speaks the truth, O'Neill. It may be fortuitous that we are arriving precisely at this time." Teal'c added with his deep voice speaking softly.
The group watched as there seemed to be some confusion among the Jaffa. Oddly enough, it seemed as if the First Prime was giving the orders while the gou'ald was actually a prisoner. It was clear there were some divided loyalties.
"How dare you raise your hands against a god!" the deep, altered voice of the alien was thundering. Several of the Jaffa still standing on the sidelines looked uncomfortable.
"Because, traitor, you are not a god. You are an imposter. You work against the System Lords, while I, I serve the greatest of all gods," Her'ak said dramatically and with the conviction of a fanatic.
Daniel saw that all of the Jaffa had their attention on the discussion between Khonsu and Her'ak. None of them were paying any attention to disarmed prisoners. He did a quick check of what he was still carrying to see if he had anything that might still be of use.
"Guys, the Jaffa didn't take my wands when they were taking our weapons," Daniel whispered to the group. "Of course, they have no idea what they are, so not surprising."
"But, will they even work here?" Samantha Carter questioned. "If it's magic that makes it work, they might only work in that other universe. Who knows if magic like that even exists here? If on the other hand, it turns out to operate on some sort of advanced alien technology which works on principles we don't understand, though admittedly I am starting to doubt that theory myself, still, if that's the case, then will it still function away from that world? It could be like cellular phones and won't do us any good without a satellite in orbit."
"Only one way to find out," Daniel whispered, handing one of the thin magical items to Dr. Carter. How about you, Teal'c? Still feeling any connection to Tyr?"
The former Jaffa paused as if contemplating. "Not like when we were still on the world of Toril, Daniel Jackson. Still I do feel a connection, but it is as though he is very far away. I would not count on being able to contact Tyr for assistance if something goes terribly wrong." But then Teal'c slowly turned his head to look at the rest of the team. "However, I do feel a sort of energy within me, the energy I receive to do the work of justice in Tyr's name. I believe I may still be able to use it even while back here in our own universe."
"Well, worth a try. Worst case scenario, we attack the Jaffa with a bunch of sticks that do nothing at all and they think we're insane and shoot us all," Daniel said. "Sam, how about if…"
.
Back in the middle of the room, Khonsu could see his bluff had failed. The Tok'ra operative had underestimated Her'ak, both in terms of his fanaticism to the myth of the false gou'ald gods, and Her'ak's ability to see through his acting. He couldn't blame the Jaffa with Her'ak, either. After all, he was not really a deity, and it was hard to ask them to continue to believe such a falsehood when he was being held down by his own servants. What kind of god couldn't see something like that coming?
"You are right, Her'ak, I am no god. None of the gou'ald are," Khonsu declared loudly for all the Jaffa to hear. "The Jaffa shall be free people, no longer under the oppressive yoke of the System Lords. Stand up now and fight for your freedom. Do not be fooled Her'ak's false claims of serving yet another god gou'ald."
The gold-headed Jaffa leader sneered and shot the fully revealed Tok'ra agent with a zat'nik'tel. Khonsu fell to his knees in agony, the energy of the weapon curling around his body like electricity. But he did not lose consciousness.
Her'ak took a step towards his former superior, but then paused when he noticed something was wrong.
"Where is SG-1?"
The Jaffa who had been guarding them turned back to look at where the group was supposed to be kneeling to see nothing at all. There was a hasty look around the Gate Room, but none of the four could be spotted anywhere. They had simply vanished.
"How do four prisoners escape from in the middle of a room full of Jaffa?" Her'ak screamed. "Who is responsible for this? They could not just have disappeared on their own!"
But he was wrong. It was several seconds later as the guards in the room looked for the missing prisoners that a bolt of lightning exploded out of nowhere directly through an entire line of Jaffa loyal to Her'ak and Anubis. On the other side of the gate room, a giant ball of fire exploded where a group of Jaffa had clustered together. Burnt fragments of the fanatic soldiers blew apart across the room.
The group of Marines who had been sitting unarmed and under guard suddenly sat up with guns in their hands and opened fire at those who were supposed to be guarding them. Colonel Jack O'Neill appeared beside them as if he had been invisible (which in fact he had been) with an M9 9mm Berretta and fired at the Jaffa in the room.
A column of flame descended down upon a pair of Jaffa sentries guarding the doorway out of the room. Teal'c became visible, startling the Jaffa near him. "All Jaffa who would be free," he cried out, "throw down your weapons and you will be free of the hold of the gou'ald!"
Some of them did as the legendary former First Prime of Apophis, and member of the team who killed Apophis, bade them. They threw down their weapons and prepared to surrender. But not all of them did so. Some of them tried to shoot their weapons at Dr. Daniel Jackson and Dr. Samantha Carter, who had appeared on each side of the Gate Room with strange slender sticks in their hands. The Jaffa missed both of them horribly.
The pair moved faster than humanly possible. And where they pointed their little wands, bursts of lighting or fireballs erupted to explode through the air. Between the two of them, a suddenly re-armed human force, and both Jack and Teal'c firing their weapons under the effects of a haste spell, it was a clear rout.
Her'ak saw things fall apart right before his eyes. He didn't know what was happening exactly, but he did know he was about to lose. He called out to the members of SG-2 up in the Operations Room to dial the gate to Anubis's home planet. It took a minute for the gate to dial and in that time most of the Jaffa Anubis had given him to command were slaughtered. Her'ak began to run towards the gate.
Khonsu rose up to prevent his escape. Jonas Quinn, still under mind control, saw Khonsu trying to prevent his master's excape and shot the Tok'ra with a 9mm. Khonsu fell to the ground and Her'ak made it through to the event horizon. Jonas tried to follow, but he was cut off by Daniel Jackson who ran up the ramp ahead of him.
Without hesitating, Jonas fired three rounds directly into Daniel's chest. The Langaran blinked in surprise as the bullets bounced off from a magical barrier. Jonas tried to rush past Daniel, but the archeologist/wizard was moving much too fast and managed to grapple him to the ground. Unfortunately, once on the ground Daniel's speed advantage was negated. Jonas Quinn quickly took the upper hand in their grappling match.
But the real battle was over. Those Jaffa who had not already been slain raised their hands over their heads in surrender. Jonas was pulled off of Daniel as the wormhole closed, and the brainwashed member of SG-2 was restrained by Marines with a lot more upper-body strength than Daniel.
The voice of Khonsu drew everyone's attention to the Tok'ra agent laying at the bottom of the ramp. "Please, forgive me." The Tok'ra struggled to rise to a sitting position. "I did not intend for this to take place on your world. I am, as he said, a Tok'ra agent." The man's voice became weaker.
Teal'c was at his side in a moment. "Hold on. I will heal you through the power of Tyr." Moments later, the healing magic had the badly wounded person back on his feet. "Bring any of the wounded to me. I will see what I can do for them."
General Hammond had just witnessed several minutes of events which he had no idea how to process. SG-1 had mysteriously come back to save them from a Jaffa who was attacking a gou'ald? The Stargate shot fire out instead of wormhole energy? Daniel and Sam were throwing lightning and fire at the Jaffa? Teal'c was healing the wounded with a touch?
"What the hell is going on here?"
"That should be 'hells', sir. 'What the hells is going on here," Jack corrected. "You see there are several of them. We passed through at least two hells just to get here."
.
Tamil Farlong looked around the portal room where Zeeaire had entered and SG-1 had left. Githyanki bodies were strewn around everywhere. There were bullet holes in the walls. With a shake of her head, Tamil began picking through the many bodies lying there.
"Well, that was fun," Bishop muttered sarcastically to no one in particular. The ranger ran his fingers over several wounds he had taken in the battle. He hadn't traded blows with Zeeaire, he had kept his distance and put as many arrows as he could into her, but he had taken some wounds from her underlings.
Neeshka stood staring at the portal where her friends had departed and wondered what happened to them, especially Daniel. Would she ever see them again? She barely even cared about all the rich loot the group was collecting from the dead. There was a hole in her heart now that SG-1 was gone.
Shandra Jerro approached the heroes with a calm that surprised her. After all she had been through she was sure she should have been an emotional wreck. Instead, she just felt normal. "I am getting so tired of you guys coming to rescue me. At least once I'd like it to be me rescuing you for a change."
Tamil turned to the farmer from Highcliff and gave her a smile. "Well, I think all that is over, at least. We can finally go home."
Bishop didn't waste the opportunity to insinuate that Shandra owed him a debt she could pay in his bedroll. The comment earned him the contempt of everyone in the group. Casavir was particularly protective of the innocent farm girl, warning the ranger to . Bishop waved contemptuously and started back through the caverns ahead of them.
The group slowly made their way back out of the githyanki cave. It was time to head back to Neverwinter to recover. There was a lot to think about on their return trip, and time to consider things now that there was nobody who needed immediate rescuing.
"So, Tamil, now that the threat to your home has been answered for, and you know the origins of the shards that drew them to you, what will you do?" Casavir asked.
The bard chuckled. "Well, there are still some questions left unanswered. Like, how did I get a piece of a githyanki silver sword stuck inside my body? And who the hells was that bald guy who thought it would be fun to bring the demons and devils into the gith caves? I'd sure like to have a conversation with him. And then there's that 'Garius' we were hearing about."
"Sounds like a lot of trouble to me," Neeshka commented.
"I agree," Bishop added, "Why is that any of your concern? You've done what you needed, got rid of the threat. Just let the world fend for itself."
"Eww," Neeshka made a face. "Bishop agrees with me, yuck." The tielfing glanced at the cocky, ill-mannered human and thought what it meant that the most disgusting person she knew, next to Leldon, thought the same way she did about something like that.
"It may not be our problem, Bishop," Casavir retorted, "but if there is something wrong in this world it is the responsibility of those capable of dealing with it to do so."
"Oh, please. Bloody fool paladin," Bishop snorted.
"Well, I don't know about it being a duty. Nothing says we have to go looking for every trouble in the world to right it," Tamil responded. "Anyways, we really have nothing to go on about these mysteries for now. I think I'll go back to Neverwinter and finish out the rest of this month with the Watch. And then I think I'll head out with Elanee to see what's going on with the druid circle and the strange things in the swamps." Tamil gave a pointed look to Bishop. "It may not be my problem, but I'm sure the druidess has earned our help in at least checking into this. I won't leave her to this alone."
The group travelled along the road back to Neverwinter, making a straighter course of their journey than the last time when they had to trail the githyanki. Soon they were back on the high road and making good time. The walls of the City of Neverwinter quickly came into view. Somehow, however, some of the grandeur of the city seemed to be missing.
"I wish Daniel, Jack, Teal'c, and even the blond girl were still with us," Neeshka sighed.
"I hear ya," Tamil echoed. "It was a lot more fun with them along."