Author's Note:

Seems like all I do every chapter is apologise for how long its taken me to get it posted. This time though, I do have good excuses... No sooner had I wrestled the muse back from Farscape then I got dumped by text, had an operation, went to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, lost a prestigious industry competition, finally finished college, went to the Goodwood Festival of Speed (where Jenson Button recognised me as the girl who was hanging off the TV truck at Silverstone)... and this chapter is over 19,000 words long. Phew! Thank goodness its all over and the summer holidays are here at last!! Not that you'd know it from the weather...

Enjoy!

Outsiders - Part Two

The Prior was still talking, his hypnotic voice holding everyone in place as he attempted to threaten and cajole the Jaffa into surrendering. Behind the ruins of a well, Faith shifted uncomfortably, her eyes meeting Mallie’s as the blonde girl crouched behind a half-destroyed wall across the street, whispering urgently to Nya. Faith felt as though a thousand ants crawled over her skin, an unfortunate side effect of being so close to a Prior. Absently, she made a note to check with the others and see what effect their slaydar had on them. It was different for every slayer. She shifted again, glancing at Kay and Gelan as they sheltered with her.

“Anyone else sick of the sound a this guy’s voice?” she asked them.

Kay nodded emphatically, strangely green beneath her deep tan. “Oh yeah!” she gasped, looking queasy.

“As am I,” Gelan agreed, peering around the side of the well. “What do you propose we do about it?”

Faith hefted her knife thoughtfully. Energy shots bounced straight off the Prior’s personal shield, but would a more traditional weapon get through? On the one hand she had her sacred duty to slay the albino freak, and in the other she had her beloved knife, one of her few remaining links to her life back on Earth. She was just opening her mouth to make the suggestion, figuring Kay or Gelan would have had more experience with shit like this and would be able to tell her if it was worth the risk, when, on the other side of the street, Nya broke free from Mallie’s grasp and out from behind the wall, firing wildly as she charged towards the Prior.

“Shit!” Faith said instead, covering her as Mallie darted after her.

Gelan and Kay were also firing at the Ori soldiers, who, initially taken by surprise, slowly began to fire back. The Prior, distracted, faltered and then stopped talking. As though a spell had been broken, the sound of distant shots reached Faith’s ears once again and she smiled grimly. The fight was back on.

Jaffa staff weapon shots from behind them flew above their heads and all around them as Nya reached the Prior. With a languid sweep of his glowing staff, he sent her flying back into the wall she had been sheltering behind. Already crumbling, the wall disintegrated with the impact and Nya flew through it, coming to rest a good five feet beyond the rubble that remained.

Mallie was in front of the Prior before Nya had finished moving. She threw a punch. He blocked it. She tried again. He blocked her attack once more, a serene half-smile on his face. Rage bubbling up inside her, she lashed out at him and with a subtle gesture, he pushed the air between them at her, striking her squarely on the chest and knocking her off her feet and into a pile of rubble ten feet away. Pain seared through her leg and she cried out, looking down to see a thin metal bar poking through her thigh and blood blooming on the fabric of her skirt.

Neither Faith nor Kay had been idle in the short space of time that the two encounters had taken. Kay had leapt to Nya’s side, dragging her behind the shelter of the well and ordering Gelan to look after her before she took off again, racing to help Mallie. Faith had headed straight for Mallie and the Prior only to find herself facing the Prior alone after he threw Mallie aside like a ragdoll. Desperately, she fought to keep his free hand too occupied in fending her off to attempt any kind of hocus pocus. Meanwhile, firing at any Ori soldier who looked like he was about to shoot the blonde slayer lying on top of a heap of rubble, Kay flung herself down beside Mallie.

“You alright?” she asked before she caught sight of the metal sticking through Mallie’s leg. “Ouch! That looks painful. Can you walk?”

“I think so,” Mallie said and hissed through gritted teeth as she lifted her leg free of the metal bar. Fresh pain radiated down her leg and up her spine, making her head spin.

“Good,” Kay continued firing at the Ori even as she helped Mallie to her feet. “Nya’s back there. Get her and then get out of here.”

“But...” Mallie protested, her eyes on Faith as she fought against the Prior.

“You’re both too hurt to be anything more than a liability,” Kay interrupted, pressing one of the zat’nik’tels she carried into the blonde slayer’s hand. “Get to the Chappa’ai. We’ll meet you there.”

Giving the young girl a small push on the back to get her moving in the right direction, Kay kicked out at a soldier who had got too close for comfort, cursing the skirt that hampered her movements even as her heel sank into the soft flesh between his legs. He howled, dropping to his knees and curling into an anguished ball. She barely noticed, too busy concentrating on the next threat, and the next, and the next.

The shield that had protected the Prior was now protecting her too, Faith noticed as several shots aimed at her by Ori soldiers washed harmlessly over the shimmering shield. It was good to know that there were some benefits to getting so close to a Prior, ‘cause the smell sure as hell wasn’t one of ‘em!

“Do all Priors stink as bad as you?” she asked him, hoping to goad him into making a mistake. Hopefully one that would let her past his defences instead of sending her flying. “Or is it just you who smells like roadkill?”

He roared in anger, his fingers twitched, the staff he held in his other hand began to glow; Faith span round on the spot, building momentum for a powerful kick to his stomach. Caught off-guard, the Prior used his staff to block the kick and as her foot hit it the Prior cried out in pain, shuddering as he dropped to his knees, cradling his flickering staff in his arms as tenderly as a mother holds her newborn babe.

“Witch!” he screamed up at her.

Faith could see a small splintered break in the wood of the staff, although it was unbroken. She grinned triumphantly.

“Bitch!” she corrected as she raised her foot and brought it down on the Prior’s staff.

A loud crack echoed around the battlefield as the staff broke, and the Prior tipped his head back and screamed. The fierce fighting broke off as men and Jaffa turned to look. Faith stumbled back as the Prior continued to scream, the noise making her ears ring. Kay popped up next to her, her lips moving as she said something but Faith shook her head, pointing at her ear.

“I can’t hear you!”

The Prior’s scream went on and on. No human being could have produced a note so inhuman or one that lasted for so long. Faith’s eyes widened as she caught sight of the flames creeping around the hem of his crumpled robes.

“Oh shit!” she said, grabbing Kay’s arm and pulling her away from the Prior.

Kay resisted only until she too saw the flames that were slowly engulfing the Prior and then they were both running headlong down the street, passing horrified Jaffa in a blur. The scream reached a new feverish pitch and then ended abruptly with an ominous whoosh. The buildings in front of them reflected a red light back at the two slayers as they raced through the streets of Duran, followed by a growing stream of Jaffa. A crackling sound filled the air and Faith caught a glimpse of flames out of the corner of her eye.

Turning her head, she stared in horror at the greedy flames tearing through the houses that edged the street, keeping pace with her as she ran blindly down the street. She tripped on some debris and the fire raced on ahead as she stumbled, finding herself in the middle of a crowd of running Jaffa once she stabilised herself. There was no sign of Kay and she could only hope that the older woman was still running.

Ahead, the street widened, burning houses giving way to fields that, miraculously, hadn’t caught light yet. The houses around her began to disintegrate as Faith ran, burning fragments raining down on her. She put her head down and ran faster, overtaking Jaffa as flames licked at her heels. And then she was past the last roaring house, out into cooler air that didn’t burn her lungs with thick smoke.

She risked a glance over her shoulder and was horrified to see that not only was the whole town burning, but there was no-one behind her.

As she watched, a burning figure separated itself from the wall of flames that engulfed the town, staggering a few steps before falling to the ground. He lay perfectly still as the flames continued to devour his body. Trying not to throw up, Faith turned her attention back to the road that led to the Stargate.

Expecting to find the clearing a chaotic shambles, Faith was pleasantly surprised to find that it was almost completely empty as she and the last of the Jaffa from the town arrived. The Stargate was active and only a troop of Jaffa warriors guarding the clearing and Gelan remained behind. Winded from the long fight and fast run, Faith jogged over to him as the Jaffa she had been following ran straight through the ‘Gate.

“Where’s Kay?” she rasped, resting her hands on her knees as she gulped clean air into her smoke-choked lungs.

“I’m here,” Kay’s voice came from a small tangle of shaking undergrowth and the short-haired slayer emerged backwards, dragging their cases with her.

Glad someone had remembered that she’d insisted they stash the majority of their belongings near the Stargate before they went to bed, just in case, Faith grinned, straightening.

“Mallie and Nya?” she asked.

“They are safe,” Gelan told her, gesturing towards the open Stargate. “We must join them in all haste.”

Faith could hear the distant engines on the air too, and her superior eyesight allowed her to pick out the threatening shapes on the horizon before the Jaffa could. She frowned, suddenly terribly aware that her zat was gonna be useless against Ori fighter ships. Would a staff weapon work?

“Good idea,” she said and they ran for the ‘Gate.

There was the usual disconcerting flicker of nothingness between stepping into the ‘Gate and stepping out and then Faith was running down stone steps into a large and dusty circular plaza lined with imposing buildings and a temple carved into a large mountain.

“Faith!”

Faith heard Mallie’s cry moment before the young slayer slammed into her, giving her just enough time to raise her arms before she was gripped in a tight hug. Awkwardly, Faith patted Mallie on the back, her eyes scanning the seething crowd of refugees for Nya.

There she was, the left side of her face a raw and bloody mess and her left arm hanging useless from a dislocated shoulder. Passing Mallie over to Kay, Faith walked over to Nya, taking a firm hold of her injured shoulder and arm.

“This is gonna hurt,” she warned, seconds before she popped the arm back into its socket.

To her credit, Nya didn’t so much as whimper. She did pale, biting her lip so hard that she drew blood, but she didn’t make a sound as Mallie and Kay made their way through the seething mass of Jaffa over to them.

“You did good,” Faith told Nya quietly before they arrived, seeing the dejected look on her face. The undamaged side of her face twisted bitterly and Faith got the feeling that she woulda said something if only Mallie hadn’t popped up beside them then.

“What happened?” Mallie asked urgently. “Kay will not tell me. She says it is your story to tell. What happened to the Prior?”

“He’s toast,” Faith told her, meeting Kay’s sympathetic eyes.

“How?” Mallie pressed.

“Snapped his staff,” Faith said succinctly. Seeing the eager look in Mallie’s eyes, she sighed, knowing that the younger slayer wouldn’t give up until she had the full story, “He went up in flames. We bailed. Whole town caught fire. Don’t recommend it.”

Catching sight of the blood on Mallie’s skirt for the first time, Faith suddenly realised that the young girl had been limping badly earlier, “What the hell happened to you?”

l

Stepping out of the gloomy castle into the brilliant sunshine of the courtyard, Jon screwed up his eyes tightly before he slipped the sunglasses perched on the top of his head down onto the bridge of his nose. The sun diluted, he was able to properly see the courtyard. Across from the stone gateway, Andrew was stood in front of the Stargate, muttering to himself as he threw a pink powder over the huge Ancient artefact.

Sulkily, Jon kicked at a pebble as he made his way across the courtyard. Ba’al had clones scattered across the galaxy and Hank wouldn’t let him help hunt them down. It wasn’t fair. Ba’al had asked specifically for SG-13 but Hank had given the task of proving the clones existed to SG-1. Just because the Doc broke his nose.

“How much longer?” he asked Andrew grumpily.

“Shh,” Andrew hushed him, picking up a small bowl of blood and turning to face him. “I’m about to start the main invocation. I need absolute quiet and concentration.”

“Or...?” drawled Jon.

“The Stargate could implode,” Andrew told him, turning back to the Stargate and biting his lip uncertainly before he dipped his finger in the blood and began drawing symbols on the ‘Gate.

“Okay!” Jon said, “I’ll just... be over here,” he pointed to a corner of the courtyard. “Being quiet.”

Walking over to his self-assigned position as Andrew continued drawing on the ‘Gate with snake blood, Jon frowned as his boot scraped against something on the floor. Bending down, he picked up the cheap plastic lighter. It wasn’t even refillable he noticed absently, turning it over in his hand and testing the flint.

“Whatcha got?” the Doc asked him and Jon jumped, not having heard her approach. Her increased agility and strength had meant that she could reach areas of the castle that he couldn’t and so he’d left her alone to explore. Evidently, she was done.

Wordlessly, he handed the lighter over and she examined it carefully for a moment before giving it back. Jon wondered if she’d seen what he’d seen in the small piece of plastic and metal as he placed it in his shirt pocket. The metal was too shiny for the lighter to have been there long, not corroded in the slightest despite the salty atmosphere that permeated the castle collapsing into the sea. Even if he hadn’t known that no-one on SG-1 smoked, he would have known that the lighter couldn’t belong to the last SGC team to set foot on the Ancient world.

“Think its Faith’s?” she asked him and Jon shrugged, looking beyond her at Andrew as he placed one last dab of blood on the ‘Gate and set the bowl down. “You should show it to Oz,” the Doc continued, her yellow eyes earnest. “He might be able to get a scent off it.”

“Ya think?” Jon said caustically but quietly, irritated that he hadn’t thought of that.

Bristling, the Doc opened her mouth to retort only to be interrupted by Jon placing his finger over his lips as he slid down the wall into a sitting position. He pointed behind her and she turned to see Andrew in front of the ‘Gate, his arms outstretched to the sky.

“Oh,” she said softly. “Has he been chanting long?”

“Just started,” Jon told her, and she joined him on the ground, her back against the wall and her legs bent.

“Might as well get comfy,” she explained in response to his enquiring look.

The silence between them stretched uncomfortably, tension thickening the air. Stealing a peek at Jon, Jool snapped her eyes back to Andrew as soon as she realised the young officer was looking back at her, feeling a faint blush colour her cheeks. This was ridiculous, she realised. She should say something. After all, she was older. He probably didn’t have a clue what to say.

“About this morning,” she began.

“I didn’t mean...” he said at the same time.

They both stopped talking at once, embarrassed confusion written on their faces as they each avoided the other’s eye.

“You first,” Jon told her.

“No, you,” she insisted.

“I, uh,” Jon said quietly, his eyes trained on Andrew. “I didn’t mean you should get an abortion.”

“Then what did you mean?” she asked promptly as he paused to grope for words.

“That we’d work something out, “Jon told her. “Custody... child support... a replacement slayer to take your place...”

“Replacement slayer?” the Doc’s voice crept up a decibel in outrage.

“Well, yeah,” Jon said, feeling a little like a deer in the headlights as he struggled to work out what was wrong with that. “I mean, you wouldn’t be able to go off-world while you were pregnant and after the kid was born you’d probably want to stay with it,” realising that he was only making things worse as the Doc turned bright red with anger, Jon wisely shut up.

“Why not?” she wanted to know. “Nikki Wood slayed until the day she gave birth and went back out patrolling the next night! Several of the slayers called in the battle against the First are mums. Okay, so they’re all married or living with their child’s fa-”

She stopped talking as seven of the sigils marked into the Stargate resting against one wall suddenly glowed with an eldritch light. Fumbling for her notebook and pen as Jon stared open-mouthed and Andrew punched the air, whooping with elation, she quickly jotted the symbols down. Not a moment too soon as they quickly faded from view.

“Tell me you got that,” Andrew demanded excitedly, turning around to face them. “Oh, hey Jool,” he greeted as she waved her notebook at him.

“I got it,” she told him.

“Cool,” said Andrew. “How long have you been there?”

“‘Bout five minutes,” Jon told him, checking his watch as he got up. “We good to go?”

“I just need to hook up the naquada generator,” Andrew said. “Colonel Carter told me how to.”

Jon and Jool exchanged a look as Andrew pulled a sheaf of scribbled notes out of his pocket and referred to them before he bent and opened the large case containing the generator. Pushing herself to her feet, Jool stretched sinuously.

“I’m just going to go for a quick run,” she told them as Andrew carefully lifted the generator out of its case. “Check out the outside.”

“Hey!” Jon called after her as she sprinted through the castle gate. “Doc, wait!” Despite the distance between them he knew she could hear him. She just chose to ignore him.

“For crying out loud!” Jon said to himself. It wouldn’t take five minutes to hook up the naquada generator and then they’d be forced to hang around waiting for her. He wanted to get back to the SGC and find out if Ba’al was telling the truth, dammit! Catching Andrew’s eye as the blonde man crouched on the flagstones staring up at him, Jon scowled, jamming his hands in his pockets.

“She won’t be long,” Andrew told him. “She probably just needs to burn off some energy. Slayers do.”

“Don’t you have a generator to attach to the Stargate?” Jon asked him acerbically.

Andrew coloured and hunched over his notes, his lips moving silently as he read. Feeling guilty for snapping, after all it wasn’t Andrew’s fault the Doc had disobeyed him, Jon kicked at a rough flagstone for a moment before coming to a decision.

“Wanna hand?” he offered generously.

It took them less than five minutes to get the Stargate working. To Jon’s annoyance, the Doc jogged into the courtyard seconds before they were finished. She wasn’t even breathing hard. Jon promptly ordered her to dial Earth. It was petty but it meant that he and Andrew didn’t have to struggle to turn the inner ring. She did it without complaint, neatly skipping back as the wormhole engaged.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said as Jon punched their code into his GDO. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Never a truer word was spoken, Jon thought ruefully as his GDO lit up green and he signalled his team to move through the ‘Gate. Ten-year-old ghosts lurked around every corner and it was just plain weird being back here with a different team. Alone, he took one last look around the courtyard before he stepped through the ‘Gate, back home to the SGC.

l

Rummaging through their cases, Faith kept up a running stream of absent curses. Space was at a premium on this new planet, with thousands of displaced Jaffa joining those who lived here, and no-one had room for four human women. Gelan had managed to convince two Jaffa to give up their tent at the edge of a refugee camp which spread far beyond the city’s walls but he had plenty of other people to see settled in to their new home and had left shortly afterwards. Now, Faith sat outside of the small tent, their belongings strewn about her as the few Jaffa passing by gave her a wide berth and suspicious stares. In all fairness she did look more than a little mad, with her battle-stained BDU’s, wild hair and the way she was muttering to herself.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kay, emerging from the tent.

“We got chocolate, ammo for a gun we don’t have, coffee, saucepans, wires,” Faith said, picking up one of each item in turn and tossing them back into the open case in front of her. “But no first aid kit.”

“What does it look like?” Kay asked, sitting down beside her and pulling a case towards her.

“White box, ‘bout so big,” Faith measured a rectangle with her hands. “Got a green cross on the top. But it’s not here,” she sighed, kicking the case in front of her away. “We musta left it on the planet.”

“Duran or Simarka?” Kay began to pack their possessions back in the cases.

“Nah,” Faith said, absently stroking her cigarette packet. “The glowy one. Damn!” she kicked out at the unfortunate case once again.

“Why do you want it?”

“It’s got bandages and shit in it that we need to patch up those two,” Faith told her, jerking a thumb back at their tent.

“Can we do without it?” Kay asked.

“We’ll need a lot of stuff we don’t have,” Faith warned her.

“Like what?”

“Like bandages, tweezers... pointy things to get the grit out of Nya’s face,” Faith explained when Kay frowned, making a tweezing motion with one hand. “The strongest liquor we can get, stuff to clean the wounds, antibacterial cream if we can get it.”

“Anti... bat... what?”

“Never mind,” Faith stared morosely at the trees in the distance. Her fingers caressed the cigarette packet she held.

“Give me the ammo,” Kay said, reaching for all that she could see. “I may be able to trade it for some of the things we need.”

“You think you can?” Faith’s face lit up at the thought.

“Tau’ri weapons are in great demand,” Kay explained. “The ammunition for one should fetch a good price.”

She separated the clips into two piles, placing half in one of the cases and tucking the rest into the folds of her gown as she stood.

“Will you come with me?” she asked. “You might learn of Master Bra’tac’s whereabouts.”

“Bra’tac?” Faith said with a frown. “Isn’t he on Dakara?”

Kay laughed, “This is Dakara.”

It was? Sorely tempted to go with her and track down this Bra’tac who could take her home, Faith glanced back over her shoulder at their tent, thinking of the two injured slayers within. She had a responsibility to look after them. What was it Giles called it...? A duty of care. She’d dragged them into the fight and it was her job to look after them now they were hurt.

“Better not,” she said reluctantly. “Got a lot to do before you get back.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” Kay promised.

Faith grunted, waving a hand in her direction, too busy packing their stuff away to watch her go. Snapping the latches of the cases closed, she shoved them into the tent.

“Ow!” Mallie cried out.

“Sorry,” Faith apologised, cringing.

Twitching the tent flap closed, Faith stood, brushing off the seat of her pants and stretching before she headed in the direction of the forest, in search of firewood. Walking underneath the massive trees, she was disappointed to see that the woods had already been picked clean of anything larger than a twig. Thinking about the sprawling camp of refugees, she guessed it made sense but it meant that she had to snap limbs from the trees unless she wanted to go back to the tent empty-handed. Before long, she was carrying a huge pile of tree branches and, almost completely obscured, she made her way back to the camp, dumping the branches in front of the tent.

“Water...” she said to herself, snatching up the largest pan they had.

Of course, she didn’t know the way and spent a lot of time wandering around the camp before someone was finally willing to acknowledge her long enough for her to get directions. She almost wished she hadn’t bothered when she caught sight of the long line stretching back from a well but she joined it anyway, fidgeting impatiently until it was her turn. To her disbelief, instead of pouring her water from the bucket like he had everyone else, the huge bald Jaffa with a seagull tattooed on his forehead picked up a ladle and used that to pour out a meagre amount. Faith stared down into her saucepan in disbelief as he motioned the next in line forward. The water it contained was barely enough to cover the bottom.

“What the fuck?” she said, refusing to budge from her position at the front of the queue. “Are you kidding me?”

“Rations,” the Jaffa grunted, pouring water from the bucket into a large copper cauldron. He dropped the bucket back down the well.

“Yeah, well I’m fetchin’ for four,” Faith said, sticking the saucepan further out as the hulking Jaffa pulled the bucket back up. “Fill ‘er up big guy.”

Ignoring her, he poured the bucket of water straight into the cauldron and tossed the bucket into the well. Faith heard it land with a splash and saw red.

“I thought you said this shit was rationed! How come she gets as much as she wants?” the Jaffa continued to ignore her, pulling the bucket up again. “Yo, baldilocks! I asked you a question!”

The gathering crowd took a collective breath as the bald Jaffa dropped the bucket, turning to Faith with a steely glint in his eyes. The stout owner of the copper pot hurriedly picked it up and dumped the contents in Faith’s pan. There was too much for the saucepan to hold and water spilled over the edge and down Faith.

“Run,” the Jaffa woman advised, placing herself between Faith and the bald Jaffa.

“Nah,” Faith said, stepping around her. “Baldy wants to go some, I’m game. Wassa matter, baldilocks? Chicken? Brrr bk bk bk bkerrr!”

Enraged by her incomprehensible taunts, the bald Jaffa swung a meaty fist at her gut. Neatly sidestepping, Faith planted a foot in the back of his knee, elbowing him in the back of the head when he dropped to his knees. He fell forward into the muddy ground face first and lay there unconscious. Satisfied, Faith stepped back, pleased that she hadn’t spilled a drop of water from the brimming pan.

“Thanks,” she said to the open-mouthed Jaffa woman.

The circle of watching Jaffa drew back respectfully to make way for her as she sauntered away, a small smirk quirking the corner of her mouth. Those staring after her as she made her way gracefully through the camp had no clue that her feet were squelching unpleasantly in her soaked boots and that her elbow was still numb from making contact with the Jaffa’s hard head.

l

Jool sighed as she stared at her computer screen. Most of the SGC personnel affected by the canine Prior plague had recovered enough to be sent home to recuperate, freeing up space in the infirmary for casualties of the capture missions scheduled tomorrow. Just a few of the more serious cases remained at the SGC, Oz included. The werewolf was recovering slowly, a side effect of the silver still in his system. Hopefully the full moon cycle that started tomorrow would burn the last vestiges out of his system and he would be fine. And she wouldn’t have to call Giles and explain that she’d managed to cripple her team-mate after less than a month working with him. She looked up from her computer at a knock on her door to see Colonel Carter standing in the doorway.

“I got a message saying that the DNA results were through,” the blonde woman said crisply, entering the room.

“Ah, yes,” said Jool, pulling up the relevant screen and gesturing to a nearby chair. That was quick, she thought. She’d only just sent the email.

“I’d rather stand, thanks,” Colonel Carter told her stiffly, doing just that behind Jool’s left shoulder.

“Oh, okay,” Jool said politely, flustered by the Colonel’s stern demeanour. “Um...”

“Are those the results?” she asked abruptly.

“Yes,” Jool leapt on the conversational starter. “As you can see they’re completely identical,” she told Colonel Carter, pointing at her computer screen. “I wish I had better news,” Jool said apologetically as Colonel Carter stared at the test results.

“So, you’re saying there’s no way to tell them apart?” the blonde woman asked.

“We mapped out DNA profiles from all four samples using a range of analysis techniques,” said Jool.

“Sorry?” the Colonel interrupted. “Four?”

“We tested the Goa’uld and the host separately, “Jool told her. “It was actually rather fascinating.”

“Right,” Colonel Carter cut her off again, clearly uninterested.

“We ran each test three times and each time we found a perfect match across thirteen specific markers,” Jool said. “I’m sorry Colonel Carter, but either the clones are genetically indistinguishable from the original Ba’al...”

“Or we have two clones on our hands,” Colonel Carter finished for her. “I see. Thank you,” she added on her way out of the door.

Staring after her, Jool sighed. Why did she get the distinct impression that Colonel Carter didn’t like her?

l

Inserting one leg into damp pants, Faith grimaced. Unfortunately, the blood-stained, scorched and filthy clothing she had been issued so long ago aboard the Korolev were the only clothes she currently possessed. On the bright side, she’d finally managed to get rid of the fugly Ori dress by leaving it in her room on Duran and she wasn’t as bad off as Nya, who was still stuck in the concealing robes of her homeworld. Pulling her t-shirt on over her head, Faith flung the tent flap open, crawling out to stand upright. Breathing in a lungful of fresh air, she stretched the kinks out of her back. Oh, that felt good!

“Morning,” Mallie said. “Coffee?”

“Hell, yeah,” said Faith, dropping down to sit next to the young blonde and accepting the tankard of coffee she was holding out. It was hot and she juggled it between her hands before setting it on the ground in front of her. “Where’re the others?”

“Collecting wood for the fire,” Mallie told her.

They’d be a while then, Faith thought to herself, “Cool. How’s the leg?”

“Painful,” Mallie glanced ruefully at her injured leg. “But better. Thank you.”

Faith grunted in reply, gulping down large amounts of too hot coffee so that she didn’t have to acknowledge Mallie’s thanks. Gratitude made her uncomfortable, especially when she didn’t feel like she’d earned it.

“So what is the plan for today?” Mallie asked eagerly when it became obvious that Faith wasn’t going to volunteer the information.

“Dunno what the others are up to,” Faith told her, setting her empty tankard on the ground. “But I’m gonna go see if I can track down this Bra’tac guy.”

“Now?” asked Mallie as Faith stood, brushing dirt from the seat of her pants.

“Yup,” said Faith. “Catcha later.”

“Would it not be better to wait until the others have returned?” Mallie said but Faith had already gone. She sighed, “So that they can go with you,” she finished quietly.

Malina scowled bitterly at her injured leg, throwing a nearby twig into the dying fire with more force than necessary. She felt useless, unable to walk to the nearby forest to collect wood, unable to go with Faith. She did not like the idea of the Tau’ri slayer going to find the Jaffa who knew the location of Earth by herself. Malina had pledged to follow her wherever she went and right now she could barely hobble three steps, even with her increased healing abilities.

And what would happen to her, and Kay and Nya when Faith returned to Earth? Would they be able to go with her? Where would they go if they could not? What would they do? There was no way that Malina would go back to Terluna and Nya could not return home without the address of her world. Perhaps the Jaffa would allow them to remain on Dakara in return for their help in the fight against the Ori?

“Hey,” Kay’s voice broke in on Malina’s thoughts and she looked up at the other woman, blinking in surprise. “Where’s Faith?”

Faith was jogging lightly up the stone steps of the old temple she had had pointed out to her as the most likely place to find ‘Master’ Bra’tac. Reaching the top, she headed for the huge open doors only to find her way blocked by two armoured Jaffa, carrying staff weapons.

“What is your business here, human?” sneered the one on the left.

“Came to see a man about a dog,” Faith told him flippantly. “Bra’tac’s the guy.”

“Master Bra’tac is in Council meetings all day,” the Jaffa on the right said.

“He is too busy to see you,” Lefty added, just in case she hadn’t got the message.

“Cool,” Faith said even though it wasn’t. “Do me a favour?” she asked Righty. “Tell him Faith stopped by when you see him.”

“I shall,” he promised, inclining his head slightly as Lefty glared at him.

Hopefully he’d get the message, Faith thought as she walked back down the steps, and hopefully the SGC had put the word out that she was MIA. In the meantime, there was more than one way to skin a Klanta demon... which was fortunate ‘cause it was the only way to kill ‘em. Looking back over her shoulder at the impressive front entrance to the temple and the guards there, Faith grinned. Time to case the joint. She might get lucky and find an unguarded back entrance or a window or something.

She hadn’t got far when the hair on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end and she froze. What the hell was a Goa’uld doing on Dakara? Her gaze raked the crowded market as Faith tried to pinpoint the alien snake.

l

Jon sulked as he watched SG team after SG team deploy through the ‘Gate. It wasn’t fair. Hank had scrambled every available team, bulking out teams with members on sick leave with the marines who usually guarded the SGC, to capture the Ba’als scattered throughout the galaxy but SG-13 still weren’t allowed to join in the manhunt. Instead they had to wait until everyone else had gone Ba’al hunting before they ‘Gated to P4-whatever to search for Faith.

He’d tried logic, pointing out the benefits of having SG-13 join in the hunt for the clones. Then he’d tried threatening to call himself, only he hadn’t put it quite like that. Finally, in desperation, he’d sicced Andrew on Hank. None of it had worked and so he was sulking.

Yes, it was childish and immature but so was his body for crying out loud. Was it really asking too much to be allowed to help capture the Goa’uld who had tortured him to death? Repeatedly! Okay, so it hadn’t actually been him, even if he did remember it. But it wasn’t like it was the real Ba’al either!

l

Faith’s ears caught a snatch of a familiar voice and she spun around, her gaze zeroing in on a tall brunette haggling with a trader. Her jaw dropped. No way...

“Yo, Anise!”

Freya flinched as Anise reacted to the cry with fear and alarm. Quickly, her symbiote urged and Freya found herself agreeing to an outrageous price. Hurriedly, she exchanged money for goods and turned away as Anise’s name was shouted again. She hurried through the market, expecting to be stopped at any moment, and ducked down an alley only to discover it was a dead end. Freya turned to retrace her steps and leapt back when she saw the figure standing in the entrance to the alleyway.

“F-Faith,” she whispered.

“Going somewhere, Anise?” Faith asked, staring at her forehead.

Freya’s eyes glowed momentarily as Anise assumed control, “Do not speak that name aloud!” she commanded. “Many Jaffa do not distinguish between Goa’uld and Tok’ra.”

“So what should I call you?” asked Faith, still staring at her forehead. “‘Cause ‘snake’ just screams for attention.”

“Call me Freya,” Anise told her.

“Freya,” Faith rolled the name around her tongue experimentally. “Cute. It hers?”

Anise relinquished control, pushing Freya to the front so that she could answer for herself. Faith frowned as she watched the change, her gaze boring into their forehead.

“Yes,” Freya replied meekly. She flinched as Faith moved closer, “P-please don’t hurt me.”

“Relax,” Faith said, spreading her hands out peaceably, “I’m not gonna hurt ya. That real?” she asked, motioning at her forehead.

“N-no,” said Freya, touching the Jaffa tattoo she had painted onto her forehead not so long ago.

“Cool,” Faith said. “Looks real.”

“What do you want?” Freya asked fearfully.

“Hot bath, clean clothes, world peace,” Faith shrugged. “Mostly I wanna go home and I’m wondering if you can help a girl out.”

Freya smiled as Anise flooded her with feelings of confidence and encouragement, “Oh yes,” she said. “But I don’t have my GDO with me. We’ll have to go back to my lab.”

“GDO?” Faith asked.

“Garage Door Opener,” Freya explained the strange acronym, leading the way out of the alley. “Why weren’t you issued one when you left the SGC?”

“Long story,” Faith said, thinking back over all that had happened since she had left Earth. If anyone had told her then that she’d find slayers in space, she’d have laughed in their faces, even after her slayer dream. “Damn!”

“What is it?” Freya asked, worried.

“We’ve gotta swing by and pick up some friends of mine first,” Faith told her, adjusting their course. “That gonna be a problem?” she asked as Freya frowned.

Anise ramped up the encouragement a notch but Freya hadn’t been host to her for all these years without learning to detect the traces of curiosity mixed in with the emotion. “Of course not,” she said, wondering if Anise’s eagerness to help the Tau’ri woman had anything to do with the possibility of her being a Hok’taur.

l

The event horizon of the wormhole rippled as three figures stepped through it. Squinting in the sunlight, Jon surveyed the clearing. Nothing had changed since he had last been there. Ruined stones still lay where they had toppled long ago, the grass was still about knee-height and the trees still edged around the steep slopes surrounding the clearing.

“Okay campers,” he said to the other two as the Stargate shut off behind them. “Let’s magic the last address out of the ‘Gate, check in with the locals, make sure that Faith’s not crashing with them and get outta here. Hopefully we’ll make it back in time for The Simpsons.”

“You really think it’ll be that easy?” the Doc asked him, coming up to stand alongside him as Andrew pulled off his large pack after a brief struggle.

“Ya, sure, you betcha,” Jon said flippantly. “Piece of cake.”

“No SG team has been here for eight years,” she said, frowning. “Who knows how the local culture will have changed in that time.”

“Plus you just jinxed us,” Andrew added.

“Did not,” Jon said indignantly.

“Did too,” Andrew said placidly, carefully setting out spell ingredients.

“Did not,” Jon petulantly tried to get the last word in.

“You kinda did,” the Doc told him with a shrug.

Flipping his sunglasses down over his eyes, Jon scowled, “I’m gonna go check the perimeter,” he told them. “Let me know when you’re done with the mojo.”

“Someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning,” commented Jool, watching him as he stamped towards the treeline.

l

Kay was the first to feel the warning tingle of her ‘slaydar’ and she stood in response to the feeling, looking around. Nya looked up at her as she stood there with a frown on her face and then her stomach cramped painfully. She gasped, clutching her belly.

“What is it?” she asked.

“What?” asked Mallie, looking first at her and then up at Kay.

“Goa’uld,” Kay growled, stalking forward to meet Faith and the brown-haired woman following her.

“What is a Goa’uld?” Nya asked Mallie.

“What happened?” Kay asked as soon as she was in range of Faith and the Goa’uld. “I thought you were going to find Master Bra’tac.”

“Yeah, he’s locked in meetings all day,” Faith said. “His people are gonna call my people and we’ll do lunch sometime but in the meantime I bumped into my ole buddy Freya! She’s not just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum snake, oh no, she’s a Tok’ra. And she’s gonna take us back to Earth.”

“All of us?” Mallie asked from her seat by the fire.

“All of us,” Faith confirmed, ruffling her hair with a grin. “How long’s it gonna take to pack?”

“It is already done,” Nya told her respectfully.

“Jeez Ny, why are you still wearin’ the veil?” Faith said, getting a good look at the dark-haired slayer. Not that she could get a good look at the woman behind the concealing robes. “You’re outta the harem girl, time to live it up a little.”

“She’s worried about the scarring on her cheek,” Kay said uneasily as Nya ducked her head. “Faith...”

“I thought the Tok’ra were just a myth,” said Mallie, wide-eyed as she gazed up at Freya.

“I assure you, we are very real,” Freya said gravely.

“So we’re good to go?” Faith asked. “Cool,” she said when Nya nodded. “Can you walk?” she asked Mallie.

“Anywhere you can,” Mallie insisted, struggling to stand. Faith reached down and easily lifted her to her feet. “Thank you.”

Nya moved forward to help Mallie stay standong as Faith ducked into the tent. Kay glanced at the Tok’ra only to discover that she was looking at her with a calculating gaze. Quickly she looked away as Faith emerged from the tent, clutching the cases of their belongings. Using the cases as an excuse to get closer to the Tau’ri woman, Kay caught Faith’s eye as she took two of them from her.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she whispered.

“It’s the best one I got,” Faith said quietly. “Yeah, she’s a snake but at least she timeshares.”

Faith moved away from her, clapping Nya on her good shoulder as she walked past the other two slayers to join the Tok’ra. Kay fell in at the back of the procession as they made their way through the busy Jaffa camp, her eyes boring into the Tok’ra’s back. For the first time she noticed how easily the eyes of the Jaffa surrounding them slipped away from the small group of human women and the Tok’ra disguised as a Jaffa. She had a bad feeling about this, she thought as the Chappa’ai appeared in sight.

“My lab is some distance from the Stargate,” Freya was telling Mallie as Kay joined the small group milling in front of the Chappa’ai. “Will you be able to walk there?”

“Of course,” Mallie insisted as Kay sidled up to Faith.

“We’re going to her lab?” Kay asked Faith quietly. “I thought you said we were going to Earth.”

“We gotta pick up her iris controller first,” Faith said just as quietly. “Unless you wanna splat up against it before you’ve stepped out the ‘Gate.”

That... wouldn’t be good, Kay thought as Faith stepped away and the Chappa’ai flared into life. Faith and Freya were the first through, followed shortly by Mallie and Nya and leaving Kay alone in front of the ancient device. She stared at the flickering energy that filled the Chappa’ai and frowned. A really bad feeling, she thought as she stepped into it.

Across the other side of the plaza, at the opposite end to the Stargate, Master Bra’tac walked out of the temple doors, deep in conversation with one of his fellow Council members. A long-seasoned warrior, he registered the Chappa’ai flicking out of use in the distance, but barely bothered to notice the two guards in front of the temple entrance until one of them called his name. Telling Cha’ra to go on without him, that he would catch him up, Bra’tac turned to the guard.

“Forgive the interruption, Master Bra’tac,” the Jaffa said, bowing his head respectfully. “But a human woman tried to gain entry to the temple today. She said she had come to see you about a dog.”

“But I do not own a dog,” Bra’tac said, frowning. A human woman?

“She asked me to tell you that Faith had stopped by.”

“Faith?” Bra’tac asked urgently, tightly gripping the guard’s arm. “How long ago? Which way did she go?”

l

The Doc had been right about things changing, Jon thought grimly as he stared through his field binoculars. The Shavadai had gone; he really hoped that they had just moved to better grazing or something. They’d spent a good couple of hours tramping around looking for signs of civilisation before he’d finally allowed the Doc to go off scouting on her own. Not a good move on a planet that routinely subjugated women, but one that had paid off as she’d come back a few minutes later with the news that a there was a camp about a mile or so to their left.

It was a large camp. Surveying it from a ridge not far from the treeline of a large forest, Jon could see women moving about in a cloistered area in the middle of the camp. Not an enlightened tribe then.

“Andrew, you and I’ll go to the camp, see if we can speak to the Chief. Doc, you stay here,” he ordered, passing the binoculars to her and getting to his feet.

“And do what?” the Doc asked indignantly from her position on the ground as Andrew popped up, an eager grin on his face.

“Recon,” Jon told her. “See if you can avoid being captured. These folks don’t take kindly to unprotected women.”

Sputtering with rage at the thought that she couldn’t protect herself, Jool watched the two men descend the hill together, heading towards the camp, only thinking of several possible retorts once they were out of earshot. Fuming, she settled down for a long wait until their return.

l

Faith stared at the purple crystal walls of Anise’s underground lair as Freya led them from the ring platform through the circular hallways. When Freya noticed her interest she started a long and technical lecture on how they were created. Tuning her out, Faith concentrated on making sure she could remember the way back to the rings.

“Wait here,” Freya said, leading them into a large chamber. “I will fetch the GDO. Would any of you like refreshments?”

“Nah, we’re good,” said Faith as Mallie looked up eagerly. “Be even better once we get to Earth.”

“I won’t be long,” Freya promised, slipping out of the room.

“Faith, I don’t like this,” Kay said as soon as she was out of earshot. “Can we trust her?”

“‘Bout as far as we can throw her,” Faith said and immediately frowned. “Less even.”

“Then why are we following her?” Nya asked, helping Mallie sit down on a chair.

“‘Cause right now, she’s the best chance we got of getting to Earth,” Faith told her. She sighed, “Look, once we get to the SGC we can find out the address for Simarka. They’ll help us get your kid back.”

“You truly think so?” Nya whispered hopefully.

“Yeah,” said Faith.

“Get out!” Kay yelled the warning as a small gold-coloured metal ball rolled into the room.

The four slayers reacted instantly, heading for the opposite door, but they weren’t even half-way there when the ball activated, emitting a brilliant light and an intense high-pitched sound that worked in tandem to render them all unconscious.

l

“Don’t shoot,” said Ba’al, cowering on the ground. “I am the real Ba’al.”

Cam looked sceptically at him, keeping his P-90 trained on the Goa’uld as he reached for his radio. “Sam,” he said into it and then stopped as the world suddenly went dark and the ground lurched beneath his feet, forcing him to stagger blindly.

Cam heard scrabbling below him and struggled to keep his weapon pointed in Ba’al’s general direction as the Goa’uld began to run away, crashing through the undergrowth. From beside him came the unmistakable sound of a zat firing and something heavy fell to the ground not too far away as Cam began to see a faint blur.

“Are you well Colonel Mitchell?” Teal’c’ss voice sounded faintly concerned, something that wasn’t at all reassuring. It was probably the most emotion he’d ever heard from Teal’c, Cam decided as he groped for the Jaffa’s shoulder.

“I’m okay,” he told him, able to distinguish shapes and colours now. “Just a little dizzy I guess.”

Moving away from Teal’c as the world came back into focus, although a little blurrier than before, Cam blinked rapidly and then squinted. Was it just the fuzziness or was Teal’c actually looking mildly concerned? His vision crisped up around the edges and then popped back out of the tunnel it had been in.

“Then perhaps you had best inform Colonel Carter of that fact,” Teal’c informed him solemnly, all traces of an expression gone.

Realising that Sam was talking over their radios, demanding to know what was happening with a note of panicked concern in her voice, Cam grabbed his radio, “We’re okay,” he told her as Teal’c prodded Ba’al with his foot, turning the unconscious Goa’uld over, “Ba’al almost got away from us.”

“Really?” asked Sam over the radio, sounding smug. “Ours didn’t.”

l

Chaia didn’t want to go through the Chapp’ai again. She liked this place with its tall stone tents. She wanted to stay here. Maybe, if she stayed, her mother would find her. And the people who lived here were nice when they weren’t being scared by the Bad Lady.

But the Bad Lady was leaving and Chaia and the Mean Man who had brought her here had to go with her. The Bad Lady had said so.

She’d tried screaming to convince the Bad Lady to let her stay but she’d just looked at her funny with those scary flames in her eyes and Chaia hadn’t been able to make another sound. She’d tried but nothing came out of her mouth. It had taken two of the women who lived here two hours to get her calmed down enough to make the trip through the Chapp’ai.

Now, her voice restored, Chaia hung back as the Bad Lady stepped through the shimmering water of the Chapp’ai. Maybe if she waited until they’d all gone through, she wouldn’t have to follow them. Her hopes were dashed when the Mean Man grasped her shoulder and all but pulled her through the Chapp’ai.

The clearing on the other side of the Chapp’ai reminded her so much of home that she almost started crying. Fortunately she was diverted by the sight of a large black cloud that hung in the sky and the danger passed. She hadn’t cried in front of the Bad Lady yet and she wasn’t going to! Her mother always said that big girls didn’t cry.

Immediately she felt like crying again, homesick for her planet and her mother, but Chaia distracted herself by concentrating on the Bad Lady. She was talking to a man with a big nose and floppy hair. Listening to the Bad Lady’s conversation, she learned that the man with the big nose was called Tomin, they were somewhere called Duran and that one of the Bad Lady’s Mean Men had died. Chaia smiled. Good.

l

Alone on the hillside, Jool grimaced as she looked through the binoculars at what looked like the entire camp praying to the setting sun. Strictly speaking, she didn’t need the binoculars, they only restricted her field of vision, but using them enabled her to see close-up details that she might otherwise miss. Like the tattoo on that guy’s arm. Or the black eye just visible in the shadows of that woman’s veiled face. Unfortunately they didn’t help her to see either Andrew or Jon amongst the gathering of people. And now she really didn’t like these people.

Where were the guys? She hadn’t been able to keep a watch on the camp all of the time; several times she’d had to hide from the roving patrols that had thundered out of the camp shortly after Jon and Andrew had been escorted to the big tent in the centre of the camp. But she hadn’t seen them once after that. Were they alright?

They hadn’t responded to her enquiries over the radio and she could only guess that they no longer had them. So were they prisoners? It seemed likely. In which case she should probably go and rescue them. But what if they weren’t? What if they were simply ignoring her because they were busy talking to the chieftain or something? Except that she was pretty sure that the guy with the entourage was the chieftain.

Her watch beeped insistently, a reminder that the moon was rising back on Earth and Jool swore silently. Sod this, she thought. She had things to be doing, a werewolf to be observing, back on Earth. Time to grab the guys and go.

l

As the nurse fitted another vial to the needle in his arm, Ba’al scowled, “Surely you’ve taken enough already?”

“Last one,” she said in a manner that was in all likelihood meant to be reassuring.

Unappeased, Ba’al allowed his gaze to drift beyond her, across the row of beds full and empty, to the team that had brought him in, laughing and joking amongst themselves and the medical personnel giving them their post-mission check-up. He allowed a silent snarl of rage to twist his lips as he stared at them.

“Crap.”

The quiet exclamation came from the man lying in the bed closest to him and Ba’al frowned as he looked at him. His black hair seemed too uniform to be natural and surely he was below the minimum height required to join the military on this backward planet. Not that he was an expert on such matters, never having been assigned to Earth, but the man appeared significantly shorter than even the women of the Tau’ri that he had seen so far. As Ba’al lazily assessed the man, his skin suddenly rippled, shifting and stretching as he grew into something monstrously dog-shaped.

Yelping in horror, Ba’al jumped backwards, and off the hospital bed. He yelped in the most godly of manners... not the girlish shriek that certain of the SGC personnel took great delight in later describing,

Unceremoniously hauled back on his feet by the two airmen assigned to guard him, Ba’al watched from the relative safety of behind one of them as a tall woman in a white coat who looked like she could have come from Yu’s former territories bustled up to the man.

“What happened?” she asked him exasperatedly. The man shrugged, a sheepish expression on his canine face and she sighed. “You two,” she said to two of the men who had captured Ba’al, “Escort him to an isolation room,” she ordered them with a nod at the monster lying in one of her beds.

Turning around, she spotted Ba’al and frowned. The airman in front of the Goa’uld moved aside as she approached and took hold of his arm, removing the full vial of blood from the needle in his arm and handing it to the nurse on the other side of his bed. Removing the needle, she patched the wound on his arm with a sticky strip of material and turned to the airmen guarding him.

“Take the prisoner to his cell,” she ordered, her voice cold and hard.

Ba’al was happy to go.

l

Cam slowly got ready for bed. His hip with the metal pin in it ached. He felt older than he was and it showed in his haggard face.

Because of his black-out on P3X-242, Dr Lam had confined him to the base until she was certain it was an isolated episode. With the Infirmary full to capacity with SG personnel injured in the Ba’al hunt (Cam idly wondered who had first coined the now popular phrase) and those few still recuperating from the Canine Prior Plague (and whoever had come up with that unimaginative term deserved to be shot), Cam was billeted in his quarters, with orders to report to the Infirmary first thing in the morning.

Sam had tried to drag the Mind-Melder out of storage to run more tests on it but it wasn’t there. Daniel Osbourne had checked it out of the storeroom over a week ago to run his own tests on the device and Daniel Osbourne was currently residing in the infirmary, recovering from the new Prior Plague he had inadvertently spread to Earth. Cam didn’t think that more tests would make a difference, although Sam was agitated enough about it to consider asking Osbourne for permission to take it back. But the Mind-Melder was dead. He and Faith had destroyed it so that he could travel to Camelot and he really wished that they hadn’t. If only he could talk to Faith again, mind to mind, then he could show her the way home.

But if wishes were horses then beggars would ride, as his Grandpa would say. They had destroyed the Mind-Melder and Faith was lost somewhere in the galaxy with no clue how to get back to Earth. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe, right now, she was with SG-13, on their way back to the SGC.

It was a faint hope, but he held on to it as he fell asleep.

l

“Where do you think everyone went?” Andrew asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

“I don’t know,” Jon said patiently, through gritted teeth.

“What do you think Jool is doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think-”

“Andrew!”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

Silence reigned. Then...

“This is all your fault,” accused Andrew.

“What?” Jon asked incredulously. How the hell did he figure that?

“If you hadn’t told Chakka where to shove his Book of Origin...”

“I wasn’t the one who asked him if the reason the women all wore veils was because they were ugly!”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You did! Maybe not those exact words...”

“I didn’t!”

“Did!”

“Didn’t!”

“Did!”

“D-”

“Is this a bad time?” Jool interrupted, amusement lacing her voice as she stood in the doorway, her eyes on the two young men tied back to back against a thick tent pole. “I could come back when you’ve finished...?”

“Jool!” Andrew exclaimed happily. “I knew you’d rescue us! The fearless slayer-doctor, raiding a camp full of angry natives to rescue her captured watcher and his military sidekick...”

“Hey!” Jon objected as the Doc cut the rope binding Andrew and him to the pole. He massaged his wrists absently, helping the blood to flow back into his numb fingers. “If anyone’s a sidekick, it’s you,” he told Andrew.

“You’re both sidekicks,” Jool said hurriedly as Andrew pouted and opened his mouth to argue. “The camp’s deserted while the natives pray to the sun and can either of you ride?”

“What?” asked Andrew, successfully diverted. “No.”

“Not well,” Jon told her.

“Well it’s the only way we’ll beat them to the ‘Gate,” she told them.

“Joy,” Jon commented in a sarcastic monotone

l

Groaning, Faith stirred. Her first thought was that her bed was hard and cold. Her second, more conscious one was a memory of the mad scramble for the door. She jumped to her feet, staring wildly around her.

She was alone. The room she was in was made out of the strange crystal material of Anise’s underground lair. One wall opened onto a corridor. A single bed and something that she could only guess was meant to be a toilet were in the room. There was no sign of Mallie, Kay or Nya. Her weapons, even her beloved knife, were all gone. There was a slight line in the rock of the floor, between the open wall and the hallway.

Logically, she was in a cell; not an unfamiliar situation for her. Illogically, there were no bars. So there had to be something between her room and the hallway, even if she couldn’t see it. Gingerly, Faith extended her hand towards the line marked on the floor...

The air around her fingers flashed blue and pain leapt up the nerve endings in her arm. Yanking her arm back, Faith sucked her stinging fingers. It was a force field then, she thought distantly. Damn.

Where the hell were the others? Crowding as close as she dared to the force field, all she could see was a little more hallway, stretching off in both directions. Were there more cells on this side of the hallway? She couldn’t tell.

“Mallie?” she shouted. There was no reply. “Nya? Kay!”

Still no reply. Maybe the force field deadened sound? She kept shouting.

Her voice was getting hoarse when she heard footsteps. Shutting up, she stepped back from the force shield and waited.

It wasn’t long before Anise appeared. It was definitely Anise; she didn’t have Freya’s slightly cowed and eager-to-please look. Seeing that Faith was awake, she raised her eyebrows and made a note on the small hand-held device that she carried.

“What the fuck is going on?” Faith demanded without preamble, and with a lot of venom.

Anise didn’t flinch. “Silence hok’taur,” she commanded, tapping the device she held.

“What did you just call me?” asked Faith in a deadly quiet tone.

“Hok’taur,” Anise told her dispassionately, her eyes on her device. “It means advanced human. I am attempting to discover how the Tau’ri were able to alter you in the hope of duplicating the effect to aid in our war against the Goa’uld.”

She wanted to make more slayers? Faith began to laugh.

Anise looked up then, annoyance written over her cold face. “I fail to see the amusement inherent in the situation,” she informed Faith. “This would proceed more quickly if you co-operated with me.”

Faith told her exactly what she could do with her suggestion, managing to insult both Freya and Anise’s ancestors in the process. Anise listened attentively, her head tilted slightly to one side.

“Very well,” she said when Faith had finished and aimed a zat at her.

Faith managed to dodge the first shot but the second and third hit her before she dropped to the floor. The fourth flew harmlessly over her head to wash over the crystal wall at the back of the cell but Anise adjusted her aim and a fifth shot found its target.

Lying on the floor, her whole body numb and her limbs like jello, Faith played dead and hoped Anise would buy it. Footsteps approached her and then stopped. Anise called her name. Faith ignored her. She could hear the tapping of Anise’s fingers as she made another entry on her device. Her right foot twitched convulsively as pins and needles erupted on the sole. Anise shot her again and this time Faith really did lose consciousness.

l

Nothing was said at the briefing about the NID breathing down their necks, mainly because Agent Barratt sat in on it. Likewise, nothing was discussed that they didn’t want the NID to know. The hard-earned distrust that the SGC had for the NID still ran too deep, although the enmity had faded now. Instead SG-1 and their General discussed ways and means of interrogating the Ba’als in their custody and their objectives were set out before the team once again. As a final note, General Landry dryly reminded them all that they didn’t want a repeat of the fiasco that had been the last attempt at interrogation (the closest any of them had come to directly mentioning SG-13) and dismissed them.

Lingering behind as his team filed out, Colonel Mitchell requested a minute of the General’s time. Privately. The General agreed and, leaving Agent Barratt alone in the briefing room, they entered General Landry’s office. As soon as the door closed behind them, the formal atmosphere that had presided over the entire briefing evaporated.

“Make it quick,” Landry told Mitchell with a glance through his window at Agent Barratt as the NID man stood staring at the bank of screens displaying live video feed of each of the Ba’als.

“Yes sir,” said Cam. “It’s about SG-13.”

“Mmm,” Landry sat down heavily in his chair. “I presume you heard that they’re back early.”

“Yes sir,” said Cam. Sam had been extremely upset by the news that the feminist movement on Simarka had ended since the SGC’s last visit. “Did they find any sign of Faith?”

“Not one,” Hank told him, and felt guilty as he watched the spark of hope in Mitchell’s eyes fade. “Wells did manage to ‘mojo the latest address out of the ‘Gate’ as Captain O’Neil informed me. Kelowna.”

“Kelowna?” Cam frowned. “We sent them Faith’s photo when we warned them about the Ori coming through the Supergate. Why haven’t they told us she’s there?”

“I don’t know,” said Hank, standing. “But I intend to find out. Now, if you don’t mind, I have an NID agent to babysit.”

l

Faith didn’t bother groaning the second time she woke up. The pins and needles would fade soon. Ignoring the way that every inch of her body itched and prickled, she pushed herself into first a kneeling and then a sitting position on the crystal floor. Fucking zat! Motherfucking Tok’ra! At least Anise had left a tray of food and water beside her. There was no reason to starve the lab rats after all.

Speaking of lab rats... Faith called out, “Mallie?”

“Faith?” Mallie’s excited exclamation came from her left. “Are you alright?”

“Five by five,” replied Faith, standing up as the pins and needles roaming her body finally faded away. “Where’s Kay?”

“Here,” Kay’s voice came from her right.

“Nya?” Faith asked.

“She is not yet awake,” Mallie told her.

“But she’s here?” checked Faith.

“In a cell to my left,” Mallie confirmed.

“We had a short amount of time in which to confer before the Tok’ra arrived and shot us with a zat’nik’tel,” Kay explained, spitting out the name of Anise’s people as a bitter insult.

“We were worried about you,” added Mallie. “Are you sure you are alright?”

“I told you, I’m fine,” said Faith, sitting down on her bed. She sighed as she ran her hand through her tangled hair, forcing her fingers to break through the snags. B would probably have a fit if she saw and would definitely have refused to even consider wearing her stained and ragged outfit but Faith couldn’t care less. She was more concerned with how the hell they were going to escape. It wasn’t likely that Anise would take them to Earth once she was done playing Frankenstein and even if she was intending to, did they really wanna stick around that long?

“Are you sure?” Kay pressed. “You were unconscious a long time. I’ve never heard of anyone being so susceptible to a shock grenade.”

“Is that what that thing was?” Faith made a mental note to run like hell if she ever saw another one, not spend precious seconds staring at the damn thing. “I woke up earlier, had a nice chat with a snake and got zatted asleep.” She stared at the packet of cigarettes in her hand, wishing that she still had her lighter.

“What?” said Kay.

“What happened?” asked Mallie

“What did she say?”

“Why is she doing this?”

“She wants to work out how to make more slayers,” Faith told them.

“What?” Mallie’s voice exploded with disbelief.

“Can she do that?” Kay asked Faith, audibly concerned.

“Why does she want to?” asked Mallie without giving Faith time to reply to Kay.

“What makes her think she can?” Kay’s question didn’t seem to be directed at anyone in particular.

“What will she do once she has?”

Faith dropped her head into her hands. She was getting a headache.

“What is happening?” Nya’s voice came from further down the hall.

Mallie and Kay promptly turned their attention to her instead of Faith, competing with one another to pass on the little Faith had told them, their voices getting louder and louder as they talked over one another. Faith kneaded her aching forehead. This wasn’t helping, she thought helplessly.

“Everyone shut the fuck up!” she roared over the others. An expectant silence fell. “Do you want Anise to hear us?” Faith asked them. They stayed silent and she took the opportunity to keep talking. “Nya, are you alright?”

“I am well,” Nya replied quietly. She hesitated before adding, “Faith?”

“What?” Faith asked tiredly.

“How are we to escape?” Nya asked in a small voice.

The others waited expectantly for her answer. Faith could almost feel their anxiety pressing in on her.

“I’m working on it,” she told Nya eventually. It was all she could say.

A babble of voices broke out, offering suggestions and advice. Faith’s head throbbed painfully.

l

There was one slice of cake left. Rich and moist, it sat on a small plate, practically oozing chocolate. Andrew had clearly been let loose in the kitchen, thought Jool as she reached for it. Another hand took hold of the plate at the same time and Jool followed the hand up to its owner, grinning when she realised who it was.

“I’ll arm-wrestle you for it,” she offered.

“I believe you would win,” Teal’c said, bowing his head to her and letting go of the cake as, beside him, Vala scoffed at the idea. “I suggest that we leave it to the fates,” he held up a coin.

“Heads,” called Jool and Teal’c tossed the coin into the air, snatching it out of the air and placing it on his muscled forearm before he peeled back his hand to check.

“Heads,” he confirmed and put the coin back in his pocket as he picked up a plate of soggy-looking strawberry cheesecake.

“I told you you should have arm-wrestled for it,” Vala whispered loudly to him.

“I still would have won,” Jool told her with a teasing smile as she moved towards an empty table. Vala and Teal’c followed her.

“Against Muscles?” Vala made a rude noise of disbelief.

“I’ll prove it,” offered Jool, sitting opposite Teal’c and offering him her hand, her elbow resting on the tabletop. She raised her eyebrows at him, a small smile playing around her lips.

Moving his tray to one side, Teal’c placed his elbow on the table and his hand in the petite redhead’s. The muscles on his arm bulged. Sweat sprung out upon his brow. Teal’c glared at their clasped hands as they remained at ninety degrees to the table. Jool picked up an apple with her other hand and nonchalantly tossed it up into the air, deftly catching it and taking a crunching bite. Vala stared, open-mouthed with disbelief. Slowly, as Jool ate her apple, Teal’c’s hand moved inexorably towards the table. The stoic Jaffa grunted in defeat and his hand fell the last few inches to the table. Jool smiled smugly at Vala as she placed her apple core down on her tray and let go of Teal’c’s hand.

“But... how?” Vala managed to ask as Teal’c shook the lactic acid out of his forearm and picked up a bread roll. She poked his bicep experimentally. Still muscley.

“Magic,” Jool replied mysteriously. “So, how go the interrogations?”

“Not well,” rumbled Teal’c.

“You can say that again!” Vala rolled her eyes, picking up a chip from her plate and eating it.

“To do so would be repetitive,” Teal’c informed her solemnly. Both women frowned at him, trying to work out if he’d just made a joke.

Teal’c engrossed himself in his lunch.

“We’re just grabbing a quick bite to eat before we have to check in with General Landry,” Vala explained to Jool.

Eyeing Teal’c’s loaded tray, Jool’s eyebrows rose. If that was his idea of a quick bite then she’d hate to think what a proper meal looked like. And she thought slayers had large appetites!

As Teal’c rapidly demolished the contents of his tray, Jool and Vala chatted companionably, bringing each other up to date on the little snippets of gossip each had missed during their time off-world. It wasn’t until Teal’c had finished and the two members of SG-1 had left (Vala trying to convince Teal’c to let her arm-wrestle him and Teal’c declining) that Jool had a brilliant idea.

Pushing her chair back from the table with a loud scrape, she rushed from the mess, oblivious to the curious stares she attracted. It was inspired, she thought. All she needed was her lab coat and a very large needle. In her haste, she completely forgot that General Landry had forbidden SG-13 to have anything further to do with the Ba’als.

l

In the briefing room, Cam flicked idly through the interrogation transcripts, looking for something, anything, that he could use against Ba’al in the second round of interrogations. Ignoring the armwrestling contest that Teal’c was winning against Vala, across the table, he kept half an eye on the array of screens depicting each of the Ba’als while he waited for Sam and General Landry to appear. Had he known that in the control room below, Walter was inputting the sequence that would dial Kelowna he might not have been there to witness the events that followed.

l

Jool’s heart thumped in her chest. Everything depended upon her ability to bluff her way past the guard on the door and she’d never been a particularly good poker player. Her hands shook slightly as she approached him and she stuffed them in the deep pockets of her snow white lab coat, nervously fingering the syringe that rested there.

“Time for his pain meds,” she lied as soon as she was within speaking distance of the guard.

“‘Bout time,” he said, reaching into his breast pocket for his security card. “He’s been shouting his head off, asking for it, ever since Mal Doran left. Funny, he’s not in too much pain to raise a ruckus.”

He swiped his card and stood to one side as the door slid open to allow her to enter the room. Ba’al had his back to her and the guard stepped back from the door allowing it to close before Ba’al turned around and reacted, something which Jool was grateful for.

“You again!” Ba’al’s eyes flashed golden, a sign of his surprise and discomfort at the sight of the bloodthirsty doctor.

“Me again,” she confirmed coolly, taking a syringe filled with blue liquid out of her pocket and taking the cap off of the extremely large needle. Raising the syringe to the light, she tapped it a couple of times and then gently depressed the plunger slightly. Liquid spurted from the sharp needle.

“What is that?” Ba’al asked warily.

“Well, it’s not your pain medication,” Jool told him, her lips twisting in a slight smile at the thought that that was probably the last truth she’d tell for the rest of the interrogation as she moved towards him.

Ba’al backpedalled, “I demand to know what it is!”

She hesitated, “I suppose every dying man deserves a last request,” she said with a shrug and watched his eyes glow in panic. “It’s a drug that will send you into a deep coma while I perform an autopsy to prove that you’re a clone.”

“But I am the real Ba’al!” Ba’al protested vehemently, continuing to back away from her.

“To be honest,” Jool said confidentially, advancing on him again. “I’m really hoping that you’re not. They wouldn’t let me perform a living autopsy on the original Ba’al.”

“No, wait!” Ba’al futilely commanded. “I am the real Ba’al!”

l

“What the hell?” Cam said, dumping the file to one side and coming to his feet in one smooth movement as he stared at the monitors. Distracted, Teal’c and Vala looked up from their armwrestling match.

“I believe it is Doctor Wilson,” said Teal’c, rising as Vala gingerly shook her hand.

“What’s she doing in there?” Vala asked, getting out of her chair and coming around the table to get a better look at the screen.

“Threatening Ba’al with a really big needle?” Cam suggested doubtfully, and turned on the sound.

“It’s worth a try,” Vala shrugged.

“No, wait!” Ba’al said as the doctor advanced on him. “I am the real Ba’al!”

“They all say that,” she told him, grabbing hold of his arm.

“I can prove it,” Ba’al said quickly and she stilled, her eyes narrowing at she stared up him.

“It appears to be a most effective threat,” commented Teal’c as the doctor on the screen spoke.

“I’m listening...”

“Merlin’s weapon!” Ba’al said, struggling to free himself from her grasp. “The address of Merlin's weapon is one of those that Colonel O’Neill entered into your database when he was under the influence of the Ancient Repository Device.”

“Yeah, well it looks like she wasn’t the only one who decided to go it alone,” Cam said, drawing the others attention to a different screen where Agent Barratt was talking to another Ba’al. “Whoa!” he exclaimed as Barratt punched Ba’al and the two grappled before Ba’al managed to grab his gun and knock him unconscious.

l

“I’m not interested in Merlin’s weapon,” Jool told Ba’al, making a mental note to research the incident... and the Colonel O’Neil he had mentioned. Was he a relative of Jon’s? That would explain Jon’s familiarity with the SGC. If it wasn’t a top secret base. She pushed her thoughts to one side and concentrated on the issue at hand, “How do we find Faith?”

Ba’al gaped at her and all hell broke loose as alarms sounded and an irritating flashing yellow light came to life.

“Well?” she asked, implacable despite the alarm.

“I don’t know,” Ba’al told her honestly. Did she really think he did?

“Then what do you know?” she asked him, folding her arms and raising her eyebrows questioningly.

l

Walter was just waiting for the seventh chevron to slide into place to announce a lock when the alarm started. Automatically, he hit the button that would abort the dialling process and placed his hand on the iris control pad. Standard SGC protocol forbade an active connection while prisoners were on the loose. He turned around to look at the General but he was already halfway up the stairs to the briefing room, with Andrew and O’Neil in hot pursuit.

“What’s going on?” Hank puffed as he reached the top of the stairs. He really needed to get back into shape, he reflected. All of these hours spent behind a desk were taking their toll.

“We’re losing containment, sir,” Cam told him, turning his attention back to the screen.

“Is that Jool?” Andrew piped up from behind General Landry a split second before the screens blinked into static.

“Ah, for cryin’ out loud!” Jon exclaimed.

l

Glorying in the sound of a successful plan, Ba’al decided that he could afford to be magnanimous in victory. Especially if it kept the doctor distracted with her back to the door. So he told her the truth.

“I know only of your search for her. Imagine, if you will, my surprise when I discovered that for all my... connections, on Earth, the newest SGC team remained a mystery to me. Other than your mission statement and designation, everything else about you was locked away under layers of security that my... associates, could not penetrate,” Jool frowned as she noted both of Ba’al’s slight hesitations. Suspicion stirred but he continued to talk, “Naturally I was curious and so I decided to request a meeting with you upon my arrival. I never imagined that it would be quite so bloody,” Ba’al smiled widely as behind her, the door slid open. At last... the cavalry.

Hearing the noise of the mechanism, Jool spun around in time to register a dark saturnine figure in the doorway before a bolt of blue energy struck her in the chest. Dropping to the floor, she played dead, hoping that they’d be fooled.

Footsteps from the doorway squeaked towards her... but stopped just that little bit too far away. The first Ba’al’s boiler suit rustled as he bent down, possibly to peer at her. Jool willed them to believe she was unconscious.

“Fascinating,” they both said at the same time and the zat one of them carried chirruped again as another bolt of energy hit Jool.

This time she really did pass out.

l

Jon quietly inserted Andrew and himself at the back of SG-1 as they followed General Landry through the corridors, towards Bill Lee’s office. Like SG-1, the two members of SG-13 were dressed in heavy combat gear, and heavily armed. Unlike SG-1, it had taken them slightly longer to get changed, as Jo had insisted upon using the main facilities and not the small changing room attached to the armoury on level twenty-eight. That way, no-one could notice what they were up to until it was too late to stop them from joining them. A member of his team had been caught up in the chaos of Ba’al’s escape from his cells and Jon had no intention of leaving her to fend for herself.

He forced himself to think logically about the situation. If she was able, the Doc would have either stopped the escape attempt or fought her way out by now. She lived on the base and it was entirely possible that she had learned enough of the unofficial ways of moving about the SGC to be able to sneak past the lines. Even if she hadn’t, all she had to do was get to one of the access points and the guards stationed there would have let her through. So, she wasn’t able. Whether she was injured, unconscious or worse, he didn’t know. He refused to consider the possibility of worse.

What did Ba’al gain by escaping? Freedom of movement about the level that the clones had been imprisoned on. But levels fifteen through seventeen had been locked down, as per SGC protocol, to prevent the prisoners from spreading further. So he couldn’t go far and he had shown enough familiarity with the running of the SGC during his imprisonment to know what would happen if he did escape. So it wasn’t that. He had prisoners, but it was pure luck that had given him Sam, Barratt and the Doc. And he had to know that the SGC would never trade their freedom for that of his clones.

Jon had had a bad feeling ever since Ba’al had first crashed on Earth and it had only gotten worse as more and more clones had arrived. Ba’al would never allow himself to be captured so easily without an ulterior motive and they had no idea what that ulterior motive might be. They didn’t even know if they had the original Ba’al or not! For all they knew, the real Ba’al was out there somewhere, orchestrating the entire thing. And they were entering Bill Lee’s office so he’d better start paying attention before they noticed Andrew and he were tagging along.

“What’ve you got for me?” Jon heard Hank ask the scientist as he filed into the room at the back of the group.

“Uh, well...” Bill Lee said, glancing at his computer screen. “We’re thinking our best bet is symbiote poisoning, introduced in gas form into all three levels.” Jon smiled slightly at Vala Mal Doran as she glanced curiously at him. “It-it won’t harm any of our people, but it will kill any of the Goa’uld who come into contact with it.”

“Excellent,” Hank told him crisply. “Do it.”

“Well, it’s-it’s not that simple.” Bill explained, “You see, we’ll have to use the ventilation system to distribute the gas and, eh,” he grimaced at his computer, “It’s not really designed for that sort of thing.”

“What are you saying?” Hank asked him.

“I-I can, uh, run some simulations,” Bill said, pointing at the schematics of the ventilation system on his main screen. “And determine the optimum points to seal off the levels and insert the gas, but even at optimum efficiency, it won’t be distributed evenly.”

“Maybe I can help,” a voice offered from the door and Jon turned around, along with the rest of the occupants of the room, to see a pale but determined Oz standing in the doorway.

“Mr Osbourne,” Hank said, surprised to see him standing there. “I wasn’t aware that you’d been cleared for duty.”

“You could check with my doctor,” Oz told him, moving into the room to look at Bill’s screen. “Oh, wait, I guess you can’t,” he shrugged.

Jon couldn’t stop the snort of laughter that escaped his lips at the werewolf’s laid-back sarcasm. Which was a mistake because it drew Hank’s attention to him.

“Captain O’Neil, what are you and Mr Wells doing here?” the General demanded to know as, behind him, Oz started up a muttered conversation with Bill Lee, gesturing at the screen.

Jon widened his eyes innocently, “You said ‘gear up’, sir.”

“I was talking to SG-1,” Hank told him irritably as Bill started nodding.

“You were?” Jon amped up the innocence a notch. “You didn’t say so.” Jon could practically hear Hank’s teeth grinding.

“Yeah, that would work,” Bill was saying to Oz, his fingers practically flying over his keyboard.

Hank turned on the scientist, “What would?”

“Uhh,” Bill said swivelling his chair around to face him. He glanced at Oz before continuing, “If we concentrate on level sixteen and assume that-that none of the Ba’als spread any further, then, uh, we shouldn’t need as many access points and we might be able to increase the efficiency of the delivery system.”

“Great,” Hank told him, bestowing a rare smile. “Do that.”

“It’s not that simple,” Bill warned him. “There-there’ll still be dead pockets where the gas will take longer before it has any effect.”

“All-alright,” Mitchell said, interrupting him as Hank started to get frustrated. “So what you’re saying is, depending on location, some of the Ba’als may get advance warning, sir,” he said to Hank.

“As soon as they realise what’s happening, they’ll kill the hostages,” said Vala, shaking her head.

“Then we must be prepared to provide a distraction at the moment the gas is released,” rumbled Teal’c with a slight bow of his head to Hank.

“Go,” Hank told them urgently.

Once again, Jon assumed that he was talking to him. “C’mon Oz,” he said, jerking his head at the werewolf while he grabbed Andrew.

“Hold it!” Hank ordered, and everyone stopped heading towards the door, turning to face him instead. “You want to take a sick man into a gunfight?” he said to Jon.

“Well, yeah,” said Jon. “Oz can sniff out... stuff,” he finished lamely, glancing around the scientists that also filled the room

“Good point,” Mitchell said to him. He clapped Oz on the shoulder, making the small man stumble slightly. “You’re with me,” he told him.

“Go,” Hank repeated wearily.

“Boytoy, you’re with me,” Vala said to Jon as they all filed out of the room.

Which meant that Andrew Wells would be accompanying him. Teal’c sighed.

l

“Remember, we can’t afford to be seen until Doctor Lee gives the signal,” Colonel Mitchell ordered from the front of the heavily armed strike force moving through the SGC hallways. Oz struggled to keep up with the pace he was setting.

“Got it,” Jon said irreverently from his position next to Vala Mal Doran.

“No improvising this time,” Mitchell continued. “We stick to the plan, yes, Vala, I’m talking to you.”

“Despite the fact that my improvisations have been extremely useful in the past?” Vala said airily, raising her eyebrows.

“That’s your entry point,” Mitchell pointed at an access shaft door that Jon was already opening.

l

Sam kept her face carefully blank as she was escorted to one of the storerooms on level sixteen. The Ba’al escorting her swiped a security card through the electronic lock and the door slid open. Several Ba’als inside bristled at the intrusion, pointing various weapons at them.

“Bring her,” ordered the Ba’al sitting at the computer station, the one who had crash-landed on Earth; Sam noticed the ‘1’ on his overalls and the puffy nose.

The Ba’al who was escorting her roughly shoved her into the room, turning her around and releasing her restraints as the first Ba’al got out of his seat. Sam was led to the vacant seat. Reluctantly, she sat down and stared at the screen, noticing the display requesting an access code.

“The access code... please,” said the first Ba’al.

Sam frowned in confusion. “You’re trying to download the list of planets that General O’Neill added to the database the first time he had an Ancient Repository downloaded into his mind,” she realised. “Why?”

The first Ba’al laughed mockingly, “As if I would tell you. Now, the access code. I won’t ask nicely again.”

“I won’t do it,” Sam said stubbornly, resting her hands in her lap.

“This would be an, inappropriate, time for heroics, Colonel,” the first Ba’al told her, leaning down so close to her that she could feel his breath crawl over her skin.

“Go ahead and kill me,” Sam told him, her flesh crawling. “It’s only a matter of time before we regain control of this level. Good luck trying to figure out the code before then.”

“I would never dream of killing you,” he said. “But I will kill the other hostages.” He straightened and turned to one of the other Ba’als crowding the room, “You. Start with... the good Doctor.”

The other Ba’al, the seventh captured, Sam noted, smirked and cocked his weapon. Sam’s blood ran cold as he turned to a corner of the room and she noticed the unconscious redhead slumped there for the first time. What the heck was Julie Wilson doing here?

“Wait!” she cried as the seventh Ba’al aimed his weapon at the lifeless doctor. She sighed, defeated, “I’ll do it.”

The Ba’als triumphantly smiled in unison.

l

Her knife was gone. So were her other weapons, but it was the loss of her knife that really had Faith pissed. Picking at the food Anise had so thoughtfully provided, she noticed that the Tok’ra even included a full set of cutlery. She quickly pocketed the knife, hoping that Anise wouldn’t notice it was missing. Once it was safely hidden away in her mattress, she forced herself to eat the rest of the meal, and told the others to eat theirs. They’d need all their strength to escape from the underground lab. It was a good job they did, because Anise arrived for another round of zat-the-prisoners five minutes later.

l

Sam stared tensely at the computer screen as the Ancient addresses downloaded. Behind her, she could hear the first Ba’al pacing.

“What’s taking so long?” he wanted to know.

“It’s a lot of information,” Sam stalled, hoping that he wouldn’t guessed that she’d logged on to the SGC’s secondary computer system, slowing the download to almost twice its usual speed.

“You did something to slow the download, didn’t you?” he accused.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” bluffed Sam.

“It’s doesn’t matter,” he scoffed. “You can’t stop us anyway. Check the perimeter,” he ordered the other Ba’als. “They’ll be coming soon.”

Left alone with the first Ba’al, a download that was halfway finished, and an unconscious Doctor Wilson, Sam bit her lip. She really hoped they were.

l

Out at the front of the strike team, with Colonel Mitchell, Oz stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he smelt the Goa’uld coming towards them. Grabbing hold of Colonel Mitchell’s arm, he shook his head and him and drew him back around the corner. He watched in interest as the Colonel produced a small angled mirror attached to a wire, which he poked out around the corner.

Studying it, he frowned, “I’m not seeing anything,” he whispered to Oz.

Oz pointed to the mirror and, sure enough, a Ba’al popped round the corner, into the hallway. Oz inhaled deeply as Colonel Mitchell reached for his radio. That way, he decided.

“Teal’c, Vala, we’ve got a bit of a dead end here,” the Colonel said quietly into his radio. Oz touched his arm lightly to attract his attention and then pointed back, the way they had come. “We’re gonna have to double-back a bit,” he informed the other groups. “You got Carter’s twenty?”

“Negative,” Teal’c replied in a hushed tone as Oz’s group began to make their way back. “We are immobilised.”

“Us too,” Vala whispered over the radio. “Now can I improvise?”

“No!” hissed Colonel Mitchell into his radio. “Stick to the plan!”

Vala must have held down the transmit button, because her disappointed sigh was audible to everyone.

l

It was very difficult to work while General Landry was pacing his lab. Still, hunched frowning over his computer, Bill tried. He just hoped that the General realised how difficult he was making things for him. Somehow he doubted it.

“Doctor?” Landry asked, his voice starting to contain notes of panic as well as stress.

“Any minute,” Bill told him with a glance at the clock in the corner of his screen as he proofread the program he had created to adapt the ventilation system. It was the best that he could do in such a short amount of time. He snatched up the radio lying on the desk beside his mouse, “Siler, have you sealed the vent?”

“Almost finished, Doc,” Siler’s voice floated imperturbably out of the radio, and Bill exchanged a glance with General Landry that almost made him feel like a member of SG-1, instead of Colonel Carter’s deputy.

l

Sam watched the screen in disgust as the download bar finally crept up to one hundred percent and the words, ‘Download Complete’ flashed up, despite everything she’d done to slow it down. Where were the others? What was taking them so long? Slowly, she reached out and disconnected the hard drive from the computer only to have it snatched from her hands by Ba’al.

“I’ll take that,” he said.

“It won’t do you any good,” Sam told him. “They’ll never let you off the base, even if you kill us all.”

“Yes, that’s what I wanted you to think,” Ba’al gloated. “Otherwise, you never would have given me the code.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked, confused.

“I knew they would never negotiate,” Ba’al said, crouching down beside her. “Not even for you,” he stood, putting the hard drive in one pocket and pulling a Beretta out of the other. Sam tensed, waiting for the shot that she was sure would follow. “Fortunately,” Ba’al said, “That’s not the plan.”

She watched him walk out of the room, and, even though she heard him lock it behind him, she still tried the door, kicking it in frustration when it refused to open. She was trapped and she’d just given Ba’al highly sensitive information. Now what was she going to do? Fortunately, she didn’t have time to worry about it as, in the corner, Doctor Wilson began to stir.

Sam rushed over to her, “Hey,” she said, kneeling beside her. “You okay?”

She groaned and then spoke, “I’ve been better.” Opening her yellow-green eyes, the doctor looked around at their surroundings. “Where are we?”

“Storeroom on level sixteen,” Sam told her, making sure to check her pupils. “Can you stand?”

“Of course,” she said indignantly but Sam helped her up anyway; a good thing, because she staggered slightly. “What happened?”

l

Cam stopped as soon as Osbourne held up his hand. By now, he’d had enough experience of the man’s supernatural senses to know that if he said stop, they stopped. So far, although the route they’d taken was a roundabout one, the werewolf had led them always in the same general direction. And, unlike the others, they weren’t pinned down. Cam and the SF’s with them flattened themselves against the same wall as Osbourne and waited...

Footsteps approached... A Ba’al with a Beretta in hand walked past their hallway without even looking down it... and his footsteps receded into the distance. Cam breathed a sigh of relief and Osbourne stepped out into the intersection, sniffing the air.

“That way,” he said, facing the direction the Ba’al had come from.

Cam was past the point of questioning him. Instead, he led the SF’s after Osbourne as the short man with blue-black hair trotted down the hallway.

l

Sam quickly filled Doctor ‘Call-Me-Jool’ Wilson in as she searched the shelves in the storage room to find something to cut the cable ties wrapped around her wrists. Finding nothing and realising that the second Ba’al must have taken the knife he use to cut her restraints earlier with him, Sam returned to the redhead only to discover that she had somehow managed to free herself.

“How did you do that?” she wanted to know.

“Faulty restraints?” Jool offered the excuse hopefully, smiling brightly at Colonel Carter as she stared suspiciously at her. Hurriedly, she changed the subject, “So we’re locked in?”

“Yep,” Sam said gesturing at the door. She remembered why she disliked the woman when she checked the door herself.

“Hmm...” Jool said, studying the door. “Who the bloody hell decided that it would be a good idea to not to put a lock on this side of the door in case someone got locked in?”

“This room used to be a holding cell,” Sam explained through gritted teeth. “Besides, the Ba’als took my security card. We wouldn’t be able to get out anyway.”

l

“I don’t mean to rush you boys,” Vala whispered into her radio, her eyes locked on Captain O’Neil as the cute young Captain peered quickly round the corner of their cover. “But we’re about to be discovered here.”

“We know you’re back there,” Ba’al’s voice called out.

“So much for the plan,” Captain O’Neil said as he popped up and quickly fired off a couple of shots before ducking back down behind cover.

“Time to improvise,” Vala agreed, taking her turn to shoot at the Ba’als as the SF’s also broke cover to fire on them.

l

“Aw, hell,” Cam said as he heard the distant gunfire that followed quickly on the heels of Vala’s radio message. “Let’s move!” he ordered.

l

“Five pounds says I can get us out,” Jool said, standing back from the door.

“How?” Sam scoffed even as she ran the currency conversion through her mind. At least it wasn’t a high risk bet, she reflected.

“Never mind how, do we have a bet?” Jool asked, holding out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Colonel Carter took it, squeezing her hand in a tight handshake that might have bothered Jool is she wasn’t a slayer. Instead, she grinned confidently at the Colonel.

Suddenly she frowned as her sensitive ears picked up a sound in the distance.

“Gunfire,” she said, moving closer to the door, her head tilted to one side.

“I don’t hear it,” the Colonel said, moving to stand by her side.

l

“We’re ready,” Bill announced sitting back from his computer and looking at General Landry for further instructions.

Instructions that Hank was just opening his mouth to give when the radio on the computer desk squawked into life, “We have gunfire! Level sixteen.”

Lunging, Hank grabbed the radio just before Bill Lee, “Siler, hit ‘em with everything we’ve got.”

“Yes, sir!” Siler replied enthusiastically over the radio.

l

The two women in front of the storeroom door jumped back as it suddenly flew open to reveal Colonel Mitchell, Daniel Osbourne and three SFs, all pointing weapons into the room. Although, in Oz’s case, it was a simple zat gun that he was aiming. Hastily, the men averted their weapons.

“Are you okay?” Cam asked them with concern in his voice.

“We’re fine,” Sam answered for the both of them. “What’s happening?”

“Teal’c and Vala are providing a distraction while we flood the level with symbiote poison,” Cam rapidly brought her up to speed. “With Andrew and O’Neil,” he added with a swift glance at Julie Wilson.

“Colonel Mitchell,” Teal’c’ss voice came over the radio attached to Cam’s chest. “Vala Mal Doran and I have joined forces. It would appear that the Ba’als are retreating into one of the isolation rooms.”

Sam frowned worriedly, “All of them together?”

Cam quickly relayed the question to Teal’c and the Jaffa responded immediately, “It would appear so.”

“Why?” Cam asked after Teal’c’s reply. He got no answer as Sam ran from the room. “Sam?” he called after her and then turned inquiringly to Julie Wilson, who simply shrugged. They all hotfooted it out of the room, following Sam.

At the back of the group, Jool deliberately matched her pace to Oz’s. He was pale and sweating and looked as though he was about to collapse. She’d couldn’t understand why he had come with Colonel Mitchell until he explained and then she was quietly furious with him for leaving his sickbed. And with Jon for letting him.

The hallways slowly began to fill with drifts of the gas as they hurried through them. Every now and then, they’d come across a Ba’al who had been poisoned by it. They left the bodies where they lay, shrouded in a gassy mist. But there were still plenty of places where the gas had yet to reach and that slowed them down, forcing them to move carefully while they checked for Ba’als that were still alive. They never came across any however, and the sound of gunfire drew ever closer.

It wasn’t long before they reached the others, and Jool heard Colonel Mitchell call Colonel Carter’s first name as the blonde darted across the open space, past two Ba’als who were in their final death throes and round the corner. Colonel Mitchell followed her, and so did Jon and Andrew. After a moment’s indecision, Jool decided to stay with Oz, as he slumped, trembling, down the wall to the floor. But she could still hear what was going on around the corner as she began to administer what little first aid she could to Oz.

“You’re too late,” Sam told the Ba’als gathered in the isolation room from her position in the doorway. “It’s symbiote poisoning.”

“You’re the one who’s too late,” the first Ba’al replied as Cam, and a SF joined her in the doorway, followed quickly by Andrew Wells and the General’s Clone.

A bright light began to shine in the centre of the Ba’als, spreading outwards. Beside Sam, Andrew Wells made a strange gesture and the Ba’als tumbled into one another, falling even as they were beamed away.

“What the heck did you do that for?” the clone demanded to know in the brief silence that followed.

“It’s not my fault,” Andrew Wells defended plaintively. “I summon air, not gas.”

l

Aboard the cloaked Tel’tek in geosynchronous orbit above Colorado, confusion reigned for several moments as Ba’als untangled themselves from Ba’als. It took some time before one Ba’al managed to emerge, victorious, from the rest.

Tugging the awful clothing that had been given him to wear into something resembling neatness, the Ba’al with a ‘1’ on his chest stepped out of the seething mass of clones and approached the Jaffa at the controls of the ship.

“Get us out of here,” he ordered, his voice coldly metallic.

With gestures of obeisance (for who wanted to be the one to witness his God sprawling on the floor?) the Jaffa obeyed, and the ship accelerated into hyperspace and away.

l

She was getting sick of waking up on the floor, Faith thought groggily. Pushing herself to her feet, she immediately realised that Anise was still standing in the hallway outside. Fuck! How long had she been out?

“Where is the knife?” Anise asked her coldly.

Longer than she thought, obviously. Faith noticed that the empty tray had been removed from her cell. And now that she was noticing stuff, what was with the fugly gold bracelet thingy Anise was wearing?

“Give me the knife!” Anise ordered furiously, her voice deepening into an alien tone.

“Even if I had a knife,” Faith said noncommittally. “How could I give it to you?” she lightly touched the forceshield to prove her point, getting an electric shock in the process.

“If you do not produce it immediately, I will be forced to move on to the next phase of tests,” warned Anise.

“Don’t know whatcha talkin’ about,” Faith shrugged nonchalantly.

Anise’s eyes flashed, a sign of her anger, and she raised the hand with the fugly bracelet on it, palm outwards to reveal a glowing crystal. Faith only had moment, in which she wondered what the bracelet thing was, before the pain hit her. She grunted, stumbling back under the onslaught.

“Heightened pain threshold,” Anise noted dispassionately into a small device that reminded Faith of a dictaphone. “Now...” she turned her attention back to Faith. “Tell me where the knife is!”

“Fuck you!” Faith told her forcefully.

Anise’s eyes narrowed and the pain Faith was experiencing increased ten-fold. Faith staggered and dropped to her knees. It hurt even to breathe but she concentrated on pushing air in and out of her chest, slowly and regularly.

“Give me the knife!” Anise demanded.

Faith gave her the bird instead. The agony reached unbearable levels. Faith blacked out.

l

After another night of the full moon, Oz had recovered enough to be allowed to attend the debriefing session in the morning. Jool refused to release him from the infirmary entirely however, and he was under strict instructions to return once the meeting was over. Now though, he sat at the conference table with his team, facing three-quarters of SG-1 and Vala Mal Doran as they all waited for General Landry to arrive.

The atmosphere in the room could only have been cut with a diamond bladed saw. Other than a brief nod to one another, Jon and Teal’c had ignored one another, while Colonel Carter had yet to even look at Oz’s team leader, preferring to alternate between reading the file she had brought with her and scowling at Jool. Beside Jon, Jool was oblivious to the blonde Colonel’s displeasure, staring down at the highly polished table. Clearly whatever had gone wrong between his two teammates the day that Ba’al arrived still hadn’t been resolved. Teal’c had refused to acknowledge Andrew at all, which had upset the young watcher, now sulking at the end of the table: Colonel Mitchell and Jon were maintaining a grudgingly respectful formality: Vala was clearly bored, her head propped on her hand as she stared into the distance; Oz wondered if he was the only person there who didn’t have a grudge against someone.

Low voices drifted up from the control room below. A clock ticked. And then the doorhandle to General Landry’s office rattled and they all pasted neutral expressions on their faces and straightened, the military officers getting to their feet.

“Good morning, sir,” Colonel Mitchell greeted the Commander of the base as he strode into the room.

“Is it?” grunted General Landry. “The President doesn’t seem to think so,” the room collectively winced. “Neither does the IOA,” the General added sourly as he sat down.

Jon bit his lip on the smart-aleck reply that sprang to mind as Carter, Mitchell and he sat down, and the debriefing began in earnest. Rather than ask them to recount, once again, the events leading up to and including yesterday’s escape, Hank jumped straight to the important question, “How the hell did he do it?”

Carter leaned forward, “It looks like the locator beacons actually served a dual purpose,” she explained. “In close proximity, they combined to amplify the signal, enough to be picked up through our jamming screen.”

“That’s why he needed us to go and round up the clones,” said Vala, aided by the benefit of hindsight. “He was playing us from the start.”

“I hate to say I told you so...” Jon said to General Landry.

No he didn’t, Hank thought, scowling at the young man, who perversely refused to be cowed. The leader of SG-13 had been tenaciously vocal in his belief that Ba’al had had an ulterior motive, even though he hadn’t been able to say what that motive might be.

“This was all so he could get his hands on that list of planets,” Mitchell said quickly, trying to smooth things over.

“You mean Merlin’s weapon,” Vala reminded him as Sam picked up a sheaf of papers. Sam froze.

Sam froze. “What?” she asked, her eyes dropping to the papers she held in her hands.

“Ba’al informed Doctor Wilson that Merlin’s weapon was located on one of the planets on the list of Ancient planets during her interrogation of him,” Teal’c informed her, one eyebrow arching slightly.

“Didn’t you read my report?” Jool asked her.

“I haven’t had time,” Sam told her, stuffing the copies of her report on Ba’al’s possible reasons for wanting the list back into the folder she had brought to the meeting. She’d been too busy extrapolating possibilities from the little they knew of the Ancient planets on the list. To rub salt in the wound, the possibility of Merlin’s weapon being on one of the planets on the list had never even crossed her mind.

“Can I get a copy of the footage?” General O’Neill’s clone requested and Sam made a mental note to take a look at it herself.

“Wouldn’t you rather have the one of have Jool breaking his nose?” Vala asked him curiously as Cam surreptitiously passed Sam a copy of Jool’s report.

“I’ve already got it,” said the clone as Sam began to quickly read the report and she could hear his grin in his voice.

“This is getting us nowhere people,” General Landry told them gruffly. “The IOA wants to know what we’re going to do about tracking Ba’al down and getting that list back.”

“The tracking device we took from Ba’al’s al’kesh still works,” Sam looked up from the report to say. “But there’s no way to tell him apart from the clones and-”

“Yes there is,” Jool interrupted her. Everyone stared at her and she could feel a slight blush burning her cheeks, “I’m sure I mentioned it.”

“Mentioned what?” Jon asked her, his voice dripping with sickening pleasantry.

“I set his nose crooked,” Jool said, her eyes wide as she stared around at them. “I’m sure I told you during the debriefing...”

She hadn’t, but Hank wasn’t going to argue with the woman who’d just handed him a way to tell Ba’al from his clones. “Why?” he wondered.

She shrugged, “It seemed like a good idea at the time. If he really was the real Ba’al then we needed a way to identify him and I’d just broken his nose...” she flushed, no doubt remembering the tongue-lashing he’d given her for that particular stunt, and trailed off awkwardly, staring down at the table.

“He took a great risk,” Teal’c said ponderously and Jon sat up and paid attention, wondering where he was going with this. “It was only because Agent Barratt violated protocol that he was afforded the opportunity to escape the interrogation room.”

“And that was the reason he was able to get all the clones in one place so they could beam out,” said Mitchell.

“So if he planned the whole thing in advance, how did he know what Barratt was going to do?” asked Jon.

l

Every part of her body ached. Her brain felt like someone had scrambled it with a whisk and then set off a nuclear bomb inside her skull. Her bottom lip trembled slightly and then was ruthlessly brought back under her control. Someone laid a wet cloth on her forehead and she relaxed as the pain began to ebb away.

“Take it easy, kid,” a voice from the Bronx said softly and Faith’s eyes snapped open, focussing on the shabbily dressed demon standing beside her bed.

“Whistler."