Prologue
The Lion Goddess

In the later years, the name they gave themselves would be forgotten, lost in time as well as history, another faded page in a book no longer remembered, existing nowhere. For the purposes of the telling, we will call them the Nefertem. They were no different from any of the races that were brought from the mythical First World, whose name they no longer remembered but whose memory burned forever in their minds. As they emerged into their new home, herded by the Jaffa lion guards, the enslaved would often dream of the place where their race was born.

In time, it would fade in memory even though they still dreamt of cool desert sands and the Nile glistening under the heat of a yellow sun so different the looming crimson giant burning fire into their backs with each sunrise. Still more profound was the memory of the husbands left behind, the sons who were forgotten but remained thick in their hearts still, like a viscous fluid drowning them with longing. They were a race of women, bred to work, slaves of the twin goddesses to whom their entire existence belonged. They knew not if they were the only ones seeded on alien worlds, for the sisters and mothers taken with them, were absent when they finally reached their destination.

Understanding the plan of Isis was not required, just obedience.

For almost a thousand years, they lived with the Jaffa standing watch over them, using their progeny to perpetuate their existence of bondage. All the while the Goddess of All, Isis held absolute power over them, twisting their lives like helpless reeds in the wind. She and her right hand, the dreaded warrior goddess Sekhmet held iron control over every aspect of their days while continuing to seeds dozen worlds where women were many and men were few and kept alive as little more breeding stock. The Nefertem did not know precisely how long they allowed their sons to be butchered for the sin of being male or how many tears were shed for this terrible culling, where the weak perished and the beautiful kept secluded, used for breeding stock,

As it always happened in the realm of conquerors, it took only one voice at the right time to inspire the flame of rebellion. It began slowly and awkwardly as these things often transpired, with whispers in the dark and eyes cast to the night sky, wondering if there was not more to what they had and was it wrong to dream of it. Soon, the whispers became voices, unafraid, not alone and united in the belief that in the First World; they were strong and could be again if they dared. It took a long time of hiding to build their strength, to understand their masters were not really Gods to whom they should follow blindly as their predecessors had done.

Throughout history, it is claimed that men are closer to God. This may be true, but it is women who understand him best. The Nerfertem understood their goddesses better than Isis or Sekhmet believed them capable. Perhaps they were gods, but Nefertem decided they no longer cared for the religious validity of it, abandoning ideology for something greater. Instead, they embraced the belief the soul would find its own way in the afterlife, requiring nothing from the Gods who claimed sovereignty over it. With this new enlightenment, the Nefertem prepared to commit the ultimate sacrilege, renouncing their faith and destroy the shackles of the goddesses trapping them in a cycle of despair.

Weapons were secreted away, crude but effective. On occasions, Jaffa weapons were acquired and other pieces of technology that seemed terrifying at first, but upon investigation revealed further revelation that utterly destroyed the goddesses hold on them for all time. Realising it was not magic they were wielded, the miraculous power of Isis, Goddess of All and Sekhmet, Eye of Ra were the products of the tools they possessed. Once this spread across the many, it rallied the remaining stragglers to the cause. Knowing tools, not magic enslaved them, created a surge of independence that broke the back of their conquerors in one resounding roar.

The rebellion came as it inevitably did, with the Jaffa killing many of their numbers, but also with them inflicting similar destruction upon the ranks of the Lion guard. With each Jaffa that fell, a rebel warrior would strip the body of its arsenal of weapons until finally, there was no more Jaffa to fight and the population fell upon the fortress of Isis, breaching its formidable walls. The Goddess attempted to escape, but the rebels were no fools. To allow Isis and Sekhmet escape might mean the inclusion of Ra himself into the battle and the Sun God’s power was well known. Many perished in the fight to keep the Lion Goddesses from fleeing, but eventually, Isis and Sekhmet were subdued and confined.

For a time, the Nerfertem were undecided in what manner they should deal with the tyrants responsible for their slavery. Despite their belief neither Isis nor Sekhmet possessed magic to destroy them, there was enough superstition left in them to fear the taking the life of a god, even one as evil as these had been. Instead, a new punishment was chosen. A sentence that would result in no divine blood being shed, avoiding the wrath of any higher power that might sit in judgement over their actions.

The fortress in which Isis and Sekhmet ruled for so long was constructed below ground because Isis often claimed she was the Goddess of the Earth and so kept her domicile need to be close to the soil. For ten days and nights, as it was written in the books the Nerfertem children would someday read in schools, the rebels cleared everything of value within the labyrinth-like walls of the underground building. The tools that made Isis and Sekhmet rulers of their world were removed except for the sarcophagus. That device would keep them alive no matter how much time had passed, keeping their bodies fresh and alive for all time.

It was not left as a kindness.

When the fortress was finally cleared of its treasure, every possible escape was sealed except for one. The warning etched in stone was a message not only to the future generations but served as a reminder of what was achieved this day. Kicking and screaming, Isis and Sekhmet were lowered into their final resting-place and sealed inside for all eternity. The rebels who moved the cover stone into place and entombed the Goddess of All and the Eye of Ra within their burial place, heard the angered screams of outrage and vengeance until the last crack disappeared muted them into silence.

No one ever returned to the place after the deed was done.

Children would sometimes dare each other to approach it, only to be forced away by the sounds of screaming and clawing of nails against rock as if something within was demanding escape. Eventually, the sounds withered away and time for the Nerfertem continued on its singular pace. The scars of Isis and Sekhmet were forgotten, and their legend descended into folklore even though their final resting-place was still forbidden territory. The race continued with both genders in equal participation, developing a civilisation devoid of Jaffa minders and divine rulers who dictated how they ought to live. They progressed well in their world, which named Thebes after the land their ancestors had been taken from in the First World.

It was a thousand years passed after the burial of Isis and Sekhmet when the Nerfertem, a race now in a space-age level of development, reached an unhappy discovery about their world. For the past hundred years or so, the temperature began to soar. Oceans were drying up, and deforestation was taking place on a global scale. They tried valiantly to fight it, using all their accumulated scientific knowledge to stop the inevitable but eventually, there was no denying it. The crimson giant around which their world orbited was dying. Solar flares began lashing the planet, killing whole cities in one devastating surge of heat and intense nuclear fire. Although they were a space-faring race, they possess no technology to move a million people to another world.

In desperation, for the first time in a thousand years, the Nefertem turned to the Chapaii for their salvation. Until now, the gate was largely ignored mostly out of old superstition Ra would come searching for Isis and Sekhmet and put an end to the precious freedom, so many of them had died to win. However, with the imminent destruction of their world, the escape it provided could not be denied, and scientists began assembling the gate to make it functional again.

The task of moving an entire population of one million people through the gate to colonise a New World took approximately two years to complete. By then, the solar flares devastated much of the surface, driving the last remnants of the Nerfertem underground as they continued working tirelessly, sending everyone through until the last human passed through the gate and Thebes became a world abandoned to the coming disaster.

No one remembered Isis, Goddess of All or Sekhmet, Eye of Ra.

Chapter One
Resurrection

Four Corners, New Mexico – 1879

As a general rule, mornings in the Larabee household were nowhere this hectic. However, when one had a wife who happened to be the editor of the Clarion News and a son readying himself for the school day, Chris Larabee decided it could be forgiven the pandemonium presently running riot through his house was unavoidable. The gunslinger and lawman watched his wife with mild fascination, the same way a man watching a twister across the desert might be mesmerised by the awesome fury of nature at its most prolific. At the moment, there was little difference between the two as cyclone Mary rampaged through the kitchen like a blur of colour. With the soft rustle of her skirt following her around, she moved to the music playing inside her mind.

Chris chose to stay out of harm's way, taking the position at the head of the kitchen table, nursing his cup of coffee as he watched her moving through the room, running from one little task to another. He pondered how she managed to keep it all in memory, the things she had to do. Finally, Chris decided it was one of those secrets known only to women and remained incomprehensible to men, even if women were kind enough to explain it, which most of the time they were not. 

Mary was busily preparing breakfast. Chris savoured the aroma of eggs and sausages cooking sizzling in the pan, seeping into the walls of the kitchen to remain there for most of the morning. It was a pleasant smell, Chris readily decided. It reminded him of all things inviting and warm about his life in this house. His best memories of Sarah was the food she cooked and how it would travel through the house and remind him the moment he walked through the door she was waiting for him. He was pleasantly surprised when the memory returned to him the first morning of his married life to Mary Travis, reminding him of the scent of hot coffee and warm breakfast his universe had changed.

Mary paid little attention to him as she worked, her thoughts locked in a place only she could see as she fulfilled each task in her mind. Still, Chris marvelled at how she could do all the things she did with a pleasant smile of contentment on her face as if everything was under control and it only required her singular concentration for it to remain that way. He sipped his coffee quietly and did not offer to help. He learned early on she preferred him to be just where he was, out of her way so she could get things done.

As Mary once put to him so clearly, "If I need help, I’ll ask for it."

He supposed it was her way of keeping her independence, which was very important to her, even though she was a married woman now. Chris could not begrudge her that. His life was one of uncertainty despite the domesticity of a wife and child, he was a still lawman in Four Corners which meant death was something he faced daily. Should anything happen to him, Chris did not want Mary as helpless as she was when Steven Travis died and left her alone. He continued drinking his coffee, observing silently as she placed the hot food onto plates and served them on the table.

"Chris, put these on the table mats please?" She asked hastily as she headed towards the door of the kitchen and peered up the stairs leading to the upper floor of the house.

"Billy Travis, if I have to tell you again breakfast is ready, you’ll go to school hungry!" She barked and then turned on her heels to return to the kitchen. She paused a moment, taking note Chris was smiling at her.

"What?" She asked suspiciously, wondering what that curious expression on his face was all about.

"Nothing." He shook his head, affectionately. "Got a big day planned?"

"Something like that." She found his smile infectious and found one stealing across her face as well as she realised how she must have appeared this morning. Mary wondered what Chris was thinking when he watched her silently like this, keeping counsel to himself as she flew across the room like a hummingbird, trying to do all her chores into a few short hours. A lot of the time, Mary believed he was humouring her even though he was never less than encouraging in most of her endeavours unless he thought there was some genuine threat to be had.

"Everything will be fine." He assured her as she poured a glass of milk for Billy and placed it next to her son’s plate. "Sit down for a moment and catch your breath. I’ll get Billy to school myself if need be. You do whatever you got to do."

"Thank you," she said gratefully, leaning over to kiss him gently on his lips, wondering how she could have stumbled upon such a wonderful man hidden beneath the hardened exterior of a notorious gunslinger. Mary sat down just as they heard Billy’s heavy footsteps running down the stairs, becoming louder as the boy approached the table.

"I’ve got a pie made already," she instructed as she shook her folded napkin out and smoothed it on her skirt as they prepared to eat. "All you have to do is warm it up for lunch. I should be home well before evening, so supper is not a problem."

"Okay," he nodded obediently, deciding he might surprise her by getting Inez to do something for that meal to save Mary from the chore when she returned home that evening. "I’ll keep Billy with me for the rest of the day once school is out."

"There’s no need," Mary countered quickly. "Apparently, some of the children are going to the creek after school, so I wouldn’t expect him back before supper."

"I’ll be at the jailhouse or the saloon," Chris replied. He knew Mary would prefer him to be in town if she was going to be away from it for a few hours, in case of any emergency that might occur with Billy.

Usually, Chris would spend the day out at the shack with Vin and Buck, continuing their work on their new horse ranching venture. For the last week or two, they had been hard at work building stables and corrals for the horses they had yet to buy and knew that it would not be very long before things were up and running. It had been relatively quiet in Four Corners, with no signs of outlaws or any kind of criminal element that might require the attention of all seven lawmen. Of course, there were always routine things that needed taking care of, but with careful management, Chris saw to it the work was shared evenly. However, with Mary’s trip out of town today, Chris decided that it might be nice if they took a break from work.

"Anything interesting or newsworthy I ought to know about?" Mary asked as Billy made his appearance in the room, dressed for school with his books in hand. Good mornings and salutations were traded back and forth as the boy sat at his part of the table and immediately dug into his food with the ravenous frenzy expected of a boy his age.

"Not really. Just a few drunks in the tanks according to Josiah. Nothing that’s going to top your story with Doctor Faulkner."

Some weeks ago, a group of travellers had discovered an ancient Indian site that seemed to predate most of the tribes originating in this area. The discovery of ancient underground mounds was growing in prominence for some years now, with more of these strange constructs being discovered. The most recent excavation was nothing like those previous sites as it was almost ten times larger than any found previously, and was virtually buried underground as if someone built a fortress they wished hidden from all eyes. It did not take long for an archaeological team to converge on the site and very soon, a large-scale excavation was being conducted under the very tightest rein of secrecy with the press being barred from the site.

Mary, who had an interest in ancient Indian cultures, had a chance meeting with Dr Calvin Faulkner, the head archaeologist, during a trip into the town by the doctor to get supplies. Faulkner, an elderly man, was impressed by Mary’s genuine interest in the project, beyond journalistic curiosity, invited Mary to visit the site to write her story, confident she could do justice to the subject. Chris knew nothing about archaeology or journalism for that matter, but he did know what a tremendous opportunity this was for her.

For Mary, it was a chance to write about something exciting and different, not to mention some big-city newspapers had approached her about picking up the story and running it in their publications, further sweetening the opportunity. Mary had not felt so inspired by anything she had written since she first started the paper, and she was also gratified by how supportive Chris was by the whole thing.

"I guess not." She said feeling a surge of emotion at how wonderful he had been through all this. She had been driving him crazy with research as she formulated notes on the questions she would ask when the time came for the meeting. "Thank you for being so good about this." She took his hand in hers.

"Well," Chris eased back into his chair and remarked with a hint of teasing. "I was just doing it so you’d become this famous writer and I can be a kept man really."

"You’d die of boredom in a week." She giggled.

"I don’t know," Chris disagreed, still indulging the moment of silliness. "Billy and I would find something to do, wouldn’t we?"

"We sure will." Billy nodded. "We could go fishing, hunting and all those things people in the big city do."

"Enough!" Mary laughed as the two men in her life enjoyed their little joke enormously. "You’re starting to overwhelm me with pressure."

"You can do it ma." Billy declared with the unabashed honesty that sliced through all her reservations, only a child could deliver so effectively. "Ma can do anything, right, Chris?"

"You can’t argue with that. Billy's a smart kid."

"Naturally," Mary said with a perfectly straight face. "He’s my son."

"I notice that he’s your son when he’s a smart kid and becomes mine when he gets in trouble." Chris pointed out, recalling similar talk from Sarah about Adam. "You ready for school, pardner?" Chris turned his attention to Billy, who was wolfing down his breakfast like he was starving.

"Yep," Billy answered. "Mrs King said we’re going to start a new book today, Peter and the Wolf."

"That’s a good story." Chris agreed, having read it once himself a long time ago "You’ll like it. It’s about a boy who goes hunting for this wolf."

"How wonderfully gruesome." Mary wrinkled her nose in distaste, wondering what it was with the male psyche that drew such fascination from hunting things down and killing it. "I’ve got to go now if I want to get to the dig early," she said, finishing up her breakfast and turning to Billy. "You too, Billy." She urged him to finish his meal quickly.

"You go," Chris offered, "I’ll see to it. Billy gets to school in plenty of time."

Clearly, this was an idea that suited her for she did not reject it immediately and took a moment to consider her answer before replying in the positive. "All right then," she said, looking at both husband and son as she planted a kiss on Billy’s forehead and another on Chris’ lips before sailing out of the room. They heard her pause in the hallway where she collected the basket containing all the things she would need for her sojourn out of town, including a bit of lunch, writing implements and her notes. "I’ll see you for supper. Don’t get into any trouble." She called out.

"We won’t, Ma," Billy reassured her boisterously.

"See you, Mary." Chris made a similar farewell and then looked at Billy with a smile and added in a softer voice. "The only who gets into trouble around here is her."

"I heard that!" She sang out before the door closed behind her.

***********

"Buck," Alexandra Styles said impatiently. "I can’t listen to the baby’s heartbeat if you don’t be quiet."

"I just want to know everything is all right," Buck whined as he was forced to stand in the corner of the examination room, hating it, he was forced to remain in there like a misbehaved child. For a moment, Buck had flashbacks of his few years in schools, where being the class clown was not as entertaining to the teacher as it was to his fellow students. Buck was exiled to the corner after both Alex Styles and Inez Recillos had become so annoyed by his hovering, it was either that or to be thrown out of the room altogether so Alex could conduct her fortnightly examination of Inez.

"Buck," Inez glared at him from where she was lying on the examination table. "If I knew you were going to be like this when you first asked, I would have never have let you come with me."

"I just want to be apart of it." He complained, digging his hands into his pockets and really feeling like a child now. His curiosity was insatiable in this because both mother and child meant so much to him. He already felt excluded because Inez would not marry him as was proper with a child coming into this world, but he was not about to miss the other aspects of the birth experience. He wanted to be there for Inez in everything because his own father had never been, and Buck hated the idea of being thought the same way.

"Well, you can," Alex replied as she continued her examination. "Just do it quietly, I need to concentrate on what I’m doing."

Alex continued to conduct the standard tests required for a woman in her third trimester. Inez was in her eight-month of pregnancy, and she was spending most of her time in the kitchen doing the cooking since it as easier on her then ending bar at the Standish Tavern.

"So what you doing now?" Buck inquired as he saw Alex wrapping a strange device around Inez’s arm and squeezing air through the rubber tube attached to it.

"Just checking her blood pressure," Alex explained, not minding answering his questions when he was out of the way like this, instead of getting under her feet. The material around Inez’s forearm began to inflate, while at the same time, the part of the device which held its readings was under close scrutiny by Alex.

"Am I okay?" Inez inquired.

"Yes," the doctor nodded after a moment. "Its always high during pregnancy. Don’t forget, you increase four times the amount of blood normally in your system, which is probably why you feel a little bloated."

"A little?" Inez glanced at her swollen abdomen with sarcasm. "I feel like water buffalo."

"You look like one too." Buck grinned.

"And here I wondered why she hadn’t married you yet," Alex gave him a look. "How can she decide when you’re such a charmer."

"I aim to please." He took a tentative step closer. "So everything is okay with the baby?" He asked again, trying to hide his concern behind his wry sense of humour.

"Perfectly normal," Alex answered for his benefit as well as Inez and saw both parents letting out a sigh of relief following those reassuring words. "You’re in good shape Inez, and the baby’s heartbeat is strong."

"You can hear it through that thing?" Buck gestured to the stethoscope hanging around her neck.

"Yes," Alex nodded before a thought came to her. Slipping the device from around herself, she handed it to Buck and instructed him to put it on. "Go ahead," she smiled, knowing for all his masculine bluster, the pride at being a new father was genuine. Holding the other end against Inez’s stomach, Alex positioned it carefully so that he could hear the baby clearly.

Buck was not sure what he was listening for, thinking the device sounded odd in his hears, unable to appreciate the raspy sounds to be any more than the friction of metal against the fabric of Inez’s dress when suddenly it came through like a clap of thunder. Then he heard it; loud and rumbling with a steady rhythm that seemed mire in thick fluid, distant yet so unimaginably close. As he realised he was hearing the tiny heartbeat of his child amplified for his listening pleasure, his curiosity became wonder.

"I can hear it!" He exclaimed like a child unwrapping a wonderful Christmas present. "I can hear his heartbeat! God, it’s so loud!"

"It usually is through the stethoscope," Alex pointed out even though she was pleased with his reaction but not as much as Inez who was trying her hardest to hide the emotion welling in her eyes. Despite her outward ambivalence to Buck at times, Alex could tell Inez was deeply moved by Buck Wilmington’s efforts to be apart of their child’s life even before its birth. With Inez bearing the stigma of being an unwed mother, there were some factions of Four Corners’ society who considered her to be little more than a wanton. Inez survived the trials of her pregnancy due to the friends in her corner. Not to mention the man who would defend her honour to the death if necessary. 

"Hi, Darlin’" Vin Tanner announced himself as they heard the front door of the clinic open with the arrival of the tracker.

"Hey, Vin!" Buck immediately called out with excitement overflowing from his voice in elation at what he was hearing. "Get over here!"

Vin made his way up the hall after closing the door behind him and appeared a moment later through the partition that separated the examination room from the rest of the floor. He peered cautiously past the canvas first, ensuring he was not interrupting anything by his sudden appearance. Ever since he walked in on Alex and one of her patients in the early days of their relationship, the tracker was careful not to simply come barging in on her, having decided he never wanted to see another dowager’s bare bottom again.

Vin kissed Alex in greeting upon entry before he turned his attention to his friend whose summons had brought him here. "What’s up, Buck?" 

Vin approached the tall man who was still transfixed by what he heard through the stethoscope.

"You gotta listen to this." Buck declared, pulling the device from his ears and handing it to the tracker so Vin could hear for himself what had captured Buck’s imagination.

"You just have to love his enthusiasm." Alex chuckled as she looked at Inez who was rolling her eyes in resignation at Buck’s enthusiasm.

"What?" Vin asked quizzically as he inserted the buds of the medical instrument into his ears and wrinkled his brow in concentration to listen to what Buck wanted for him to hear.

"Just shut up and listen," Buck said impatiently, wanting to share his wondrous discovery with everyone and deciding since that was somewhat impractical, he would have to be content with just Vin for the moment. He never thought something as simple as hearing his unborn child’s heartbeat could be so amazing, but Buck was learning there was much about himself; he was only now starting to discover thanks to the baby.

"I hear it," Vin said after a second, a faint smile crossing his features as he recognised what it was Buck was trying to share with him. He met Alex’s gaze, and they both shared a moment of warm affection at the life forming before them, even if they were not personally responsible for it. Just being apart of the whole thing made the experience all the more special, Vin found himself thinking. "It's damn fine." He responded into that too soft voice of his, hinting at the awe he felt by the sparkle in his cobalt coloured eyes.

"Isn’t it?" Buck grinned. "My sons’ got a heartbeat like a stallion."

"Your son?" Inez looked at him with amusement. "What makes you think that it’s going to be a boy?" She questioned as Alex gestured that they were done with the examination. She immediately started to move off the table, ending Vin’s session with the stethoscope. The tracker promptly handed the instrument back to Alex as Inez stood up.

"It's gotta be." Buck insisted. "That’s a boy’s heartbeat."

"I think having a daughter ain’t so bad," Vin replied. "So long as she got ten fingers and toes and is all-round healthy."

"Which I can safely say it is for the moment," Alex finalised her report for Inez’s benefit. "Whether or not it is a girl or a boy. Just take it easy this last month and don’t stray too far from town. It's not uncommon for you to go into labour prematurely, this being your first child and all."

"God wouldn’t do it to me." Buck maintained his abject belief that their child was going to be a boy. "He wouldn’t give me a daughter. I’d have to keep her safe from every varmint that ever slithered across the Territory like...."

"You?" Vin asked with complete innocence even though the mischief was apparent in his eyes.

"Yeah," Buck mused uncomfortably at that possibility. He thought of all the angry encounters he endured throughout his adult life from angry fathers, some who were so persistent in their determination to save their daughters from ruin and more specifically from him, they were ready to shoot him. Any daughter of Inez’s would be beautiful, and he knew personally how single-minded some men were when it came to the chase.

Oh no, he thought to himself, not his daughter. No way in hell was anyone getting close to her….

"You done here?" Vin asked Alex, ignoring the distressed look on Buck’s face as the possibility of what having a daughter would mean to him, impressed itself on the Lothario’s mind like nothing before.

"I think so," she answered with a smile, wondering if he had something in mind and so hoping that he did. It was a beautiful morning outside, and although she ought to be working, Alex would love to spend a day with Vin out of town. 

"Anything else you want to ask me, Inez?" She regarded the mother to be collecting her basket, and the father who was still dazed by the idea of a daughter.

"Have a good time you two," Inez replied and motioned to Buck to follow. "Come along, dad."

"But I don’t know anything about a girl…," Buck muttered as he followed Inez out, barely noticing anything else. Inez rolled her eyes and shook her head in resignation, accustomed to all of Buck’s eccentricities by now.

Once Inez and Buck were gone, Alex slid her arms around Vin and returned to his initial inquiry. "Looks I’m free for the day, cowboy. What did you have in mind?" 

"Well Chris needs to stay in town today so we won’t be going to the shack," Vin replied, savouring the feel of her against him. They had not had that much of a chance to spend the whole day together lately, what with his obligations to Four Corners as one of its guardians as well as the horse ranching venture he, Chris Larabee and Buck Wilmington embarked upon. He missed their rides together and wanted to spend some time alone with her. "I thought we’d take a ride to the river or something."

"Or something, huh?" Alex beamed, liking that idea a great deal. "I could spend a day doing that." Like Vin, Alex could not remember when was the last time they had spent any quality time together and she looked forward to the day he planned for them, enough to know that she could leave things in Nathan’s capable hands for awhile. Between Nathan and Rain, Four Corners could afford to be without its resident physician for one afternoon. Besides, when it came down to it, Vin would always come first with Alex, and it was with utmost confidence she could safely say that it was the same for him too. After almost a year and a half together, their relationship was just as fresh as that curious day when Vin and Alex had first acknowledged how they felt for one another in isolation of Agnes Doherty’s cabin. In the time since then, they had weathered all kinds of storms, and Alex had come to the firm conclusion, there was no longer any hurdle that could rip them apart.

Their love for each other was eternal, even if they were not.

***********

Planet PX250 - 2000

As planets went, Colonel Jack O’Neill of SGC Team 1 had seen better places to visit since becoming an interstellar traveller.

PX250, as it was uninspiringly called, was a hellish world. With a rapidly decaying orbit around a red giant, the entire planet was uninhabitable. A few brave yet futile traces of vegetation still remained on the surface, struggling to survive in the ever-increasing heat with no idea doom was coming for it and the life spawned in the parched soil. The analysis of what remained of the planet’s atmosphere indicated this was a world once filled with life, with enough pollution in its content to indicate the presence of civilisation well beyond the nuclear age.

Usually, a world in such a state of ruin would not rate a second glance by the SGC Command. However, the probe sent through the gate also detected evidence of the highly advanced species once been in residence here. Despite the exploratory nature of the SGC, it was still, in essence, a military body. As such, the need for better weapons to fight the Goa’uld threat took precedence in matters where science ought to be making crucial decisions. The leavings of a sophisticated society who might have fended off the Goa’uld threat was nothing to dismiss without further investigation and thus armed with radiations suits and Geiger counters, SGC Command sent its best team through the gate.

"Well, this is nice." Jack let his gaze sweep across the landscape and found nothing that appeared terribly inviting. In the distance, they could see the silhouette of a city with tall spires whose architectural design looked very much Egyptian in its origin.

"It's fascinating." Dr Daniel Jackson remarked, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as he walked on ahead, seldom considering that it might be dangerous to do so.

Jack had become used to Daniel’s ignorance of military protocol, having to remind himself often the young man was by nature and trade a scholar, who spent most of his life around books. In contrast, he, lived his life moving from one covert operation to another. However, despite it being terribly easy to label Daniel as little more than a bookworm, Jack knew from experience that in a fight, Daniel was more reliable than any soldier he had ever served with and an even better friend. They shared a kinship in discovering the secrets of the gate together during that first mission to Abydos. Since then, the friendship that resulted saw past their differences.

"It’s the first time we’ve seen a truly evolved race that might have originated from the Egyptian pantheon. Normally, the Goa’uld control keeps the culture from developing but this," Daniel regarded the city ahead with almost childish wonder. "This is truly remarkable."

"Well, you’re not wrong there," Major Samantha Carter smiled at Daniel’s youthful enthusiasm not to mention his typical scientific curiosity. Sometimes, it was easy to forget Daniel saw their trips through the gate as scientific expeditions. "It certainly has a high concentration of Naquadah. The readings I get are off the scale. Mostly coming from a north-west direction."

The blond woman looked in a direction that was not near the city even though she knew it was where Daniel wish to go the most. However, they could make a survey of the city at another time. At the moment, it was more necessary they carried out the primary motive for coming here in the first place, the Naquadah. With radiation levels so high, they could not afford to be exposed to this atmosphere for more than a few hours before cellular degradation would begin to take effect.

"Perhaps a mine." The final member of SG1 remarked. Teal’c as always said little but observed everything. The former Jaffa was just as fascinated by this world as Daniel himself, noting how it bore familiarities with his own home of Chulok, if had it been free of Apophis’s rule and allowed to evolve in its own stead. Like PX250, Chulok was one of the few worlds to maintain an Egyptian influence in its social development, and everything from its architecture to its belief structure reflected the culture that sprung from the banks of the Nile.

"No, the readings don’t seem to be consistent with ore deposits." She paused and looked ahead as if she could see their destination even though it was about a kilometre away from their present location. "It appears refined."

Jack left his team to ruminate as he cast his gaze over the sky and was reminded of the caution received about doing that. Staring at a red giant for too long a period could blind a person. As it was, they were forced to walk around in these cumbersome radiations suits to protect them but felt like sauna against the skin. He wanted this mission over and done with as quickly as possible. Besides, he was uncomfortable at the look of the sky. Even now, they could see the churning and bubbling heat on the surface of the sun, promising a thousand kinds of death in a nuclear fire. "Let’s just get there and do the survey," Jack growled, feeling the hellish landscape before him affect his mood with just as much turbulence.

"This way," Sam replied, taking the lead since she recognised his tone all too well and knew what concerned him. As the astrophysicist of the group, she more than any of them was aware of the danger in remaining here too long. While she would love to indulge Daniel his desire to further examine the city, she was military also and her conditioning to the complete the mission overrode the scientific considerations.

They crossed the distance to the Naquadah reading in good time since there was very little in their way to cause delays. There were traces of civilisation all the way to the location, structures that were quickly slipping into complete ruin with the heat and harsh windstorms that scoured the landscape. Natural vegetation and wildlife were almost nonexistent. The only survivors of the terrible climatic upheaval being no more evolved than lichens and mossy growths requiring little water to survive. Most of the terrain was covered in fine dust, wind erosion had blown away the topsoil long ago.

"I wonder what happened to them?" Daniel asked as he glanced longingly at the city. It was becoming apparent they would not have time to investigate.

"This culture is quite technologically superior Daniel Jackson," Teal’c remarked. "I believe they would have used the gate to escape."

"I agree," Sam added. "Whatever is happening has been coming for a long time. I think there is no one here because they left before the atmosphere became this."

"How are we for time?" Jack asked, thinking this was the perfect note on which to check the countdown to their own departure. The sky was rumbling with atmospheric discharges of radiation due to the sun’s turbulent state and gushes of gale-force wind only made Jack more eager to leave.

"Two hours," Sam answered automatically. "We’re not far from where we’re supposed to be Sir," she informed him dutifully. "Just over this hill."

As they crested the top of the bare hill, they found themselves looking down over the sprawling expanse of what appeared to be a structure half-buried in the ground. The wind erosion had sandblasted away the soil covering it, and the pyramid remained half exposed to the world. The indications of civilisation around the monument were absent as if no one wished to be near this relic that seemed as old as it was forgotten.

"Is that what I think it is?" Jack asked, staring through his visor at the thing and praying they were not going to be facing a Goa’uld System Lord with a very big ship.

"No, it is not," Teal’c spoke up for the benefit of his companions who had erroneously believed it to be a ship even though they could be forgiven for thinking so. Goa’uld builders, in general, did not have much imagination and their vessels, architecture and engineering followed a fundamental design. "I believe it was an underground fortress, but I have not seen one for a very long time. Apophis did not favour such structures."

"It’s a bunker?" Jack looked at the big man with a mixture of disbelief and surprise but knew that Teal’c seldom imparted information that was not accurate.

"It's incredible," Daniel exclaimed and was already striding towards it.

"Daniel hold up." Jack ordered, disliking anything that was a surprise to him and not about to let the kid do something stupid by treading where angels feared when they knew nothing about what ‘that’ was before them. Daniel paused and waited for the others to catch up with him before resuming his journey towards their unexpected find.

"This is the source of the Naquadah Sir," Sam confirmed what they had all guessed already. "It’s almost constructed entirely of the stuff."

"Wonderful," Jack remarked abruptly, more concerned about the threat it might pose as opposed to the design of it. "Teal’c you said you saw one of these before, when?"

"It was before I became First Prime," Teal’c answered as they approached the exposed apex of the pyramid jutting from the earth. "It was on a world formerly under the control of a Goa’uld System Lord that was thought dead for many centuries."

"Which one?" Daniel asked, offhandedly.

"I believe it was Isis." 

"Isis?" Daniel stopped and looked at Teal’c. "Really?" He was surprised even for Daniel, and Jack wanted to know why.

"And this Isis was…?" Jack prompted Daniel to explain.

"Well, she sat in the pantheon of Egyptians gods almost as highly as Ra. She was his consort, whatever you want to call it. Like Hera to Zeus, she was the Queen of All." Daniel explained, even more, inspired at the idea they might be finding a relic of that famous goddess. "Its explains why she built her fortresses underground as well. Isis was a goddess of fertility and motherhood; she is attributed to anything relating to growth, like Demeter who controlled the seasons. Earth mother would be the best description of her. She would have felt a great infinity to stay close to the soil because that was meant to be her domain, I suppose."

"Like Hathor?" Sam inquired, remembering with distaste that particular Goa’uld.

"Not like Hathor," Daniel shook his head. "Hathor seduced men with pheromones, but Isis was known to be a sorceress with great powers of cunning."

"This could have been one of her worlds." Teal’c pointed out.

"Well, she hasn’t been here in a while," Jack remarked. "No way, she would let these people become what they did if she was still in charge."

"O’Neill is right," Teal’c agreed "Like all Goa’uld, Isis would not allow this world to develop and achieve technological superiority that might be a threat. This is is most likely one of her enclaves, but I doubt it has seen her presence for a long time."

"That’s good to know," Jack replied and then turned to Daniel. "Okay kid, knock yourself out."

There appeared to be only one entrance into the structure since all others had been sealed from the outside. No doubt the former residents of this world wanted to prevent intruders from stumbling into any Goa’uld booby traps left behind. It required Teal’c's staff weapon to blast an opening through the doors since the locking mechanism was damaged. Musty air from years of confinement bombarded them as soon as it was freed from its long imprisonment, briskly being blown away by the harsh winds sweeping across the globe. As Jack and Teal’c prepared to enter, Daniel studied the markings on the damaged door.

"Can you read it?" Sam peered over his shoulder as he studied the unmistakably Egyptian glyphs on the stone. Much of the inscription was worn away and only a few clearly defined glyphs remained to be translated.

"Not really," Daniel admitted disappointed. "Most of it is gone. The only words I can make out are Isis and Sekhmet."

"Sekhmet?" She looked at him quizzically as he turned away from the carving and prepared to follow Jack and Teal’c into the structure.

"Yes, she was supposedly sister to Hathor," Daniel explained as they allowed the darkness of the pyramid bunker to envelop them. "The powerful one as she was called, as well as the Eye of Ra. She was a warrior goddess."

Sam did not speak. Some months before, she played host to a Tokra Goa’uld named Jolinahr. During their joining, Sam learned that not all Goa’uld were conquerors and Jolinahr was part of a resistance movement. When Jolinahr relinquished his hold of her body to save Sam's life, his genetic memories of his knowledge remained inside her. Consequently, Sam now had vague impressions of Goa’uld culture that was of immeasurable importance only to the SCG but her understanding of the Goa’uld themselves. "Jolinahr remembers her. She’s extremely dangerous, a real beast."

As they progressed down the narrow corridor, they could see Jack and Teal’c up ahead, lighting the way with one of their xenon powered torches. The powerful illumination of the lights gave Sam and Daniel a clear view of what was lay ahead, and they soon entered a secondary chamber. Their new surroundings were strangely devoid of anything except a golden sarcophagus sitting in the middle of the room. There was no evidence of any technology or even furnishings in the chamber. Everything except for the sarcophagus was taken.

"I don’t get it," Jack said, confused after they activated the control panel and found the tomb-like device empty. "What leave this and take everything else?"

Daniel had to admit it was confusing. Of all the technology at the Goa’uld disposal, this was possibly the most essential piece of equipment they possessed. The sarcophagus could restore life even from a state of death. Its powers of regeneration could cure any illness and be able to maintain Goa’uld bodies for great lengths of time, even through centuries of existence. "Are the other rooms like this?" He asked Jack.

"I will go investigate." Teal’c offered and disappeared into the darkness before anyone could say the word to stop him.

"Colonel, look." Sam motioned him to where she was standing. While Jack and Daniel pondered the absence of any artefact other than the sarcophagus, she was studying it closely. 

"What?" Jack inquired striding up to her and realised what she was staring at. The dirt on the ground was thick, and until now, none of them paid any attention to it because they naturally assumed that no one had been inside this place since it was sealed long ago. What she was found was very obviously the scuff marks of footsteps in the thick film of dust. Someone had been here and recently if the tracks on the ground were any indication.

"Uh Oh," Daniel uttered first, always underestimating the situation by a country mile.

"Someone is in here." Jack declared in silent horror, realising Teal’c was presently wandering this place alone, with no idea they were not alone. "How is that possible?"

"With the sarcophagus here, it’s extremely possible," Daniel answered. "If they were trapped in here. Oh wow, they would have no choice but to use it."

"You’d go insane." Sam mused, unable to imagine such a terrible fate. "Imprisoned like this for who knows how long."

"I know I’d be pissed." Jack declared and started towards the direction Teal’c had taken. "Teal’c! He called out after the former Jaffa warrior. "Teal’c!" He cried out again, but there was no answer, just silence that seemed all the more foreboding in light of what they now knew.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a bolt of energy exploded into existence, impacting not too far from the sarcophagus. Daniel and Sam immediately ran for cover behind the Naquadah construct, knowing it would withstand the blast of what appeared to be the discharge of a staff weapon. Jack barely missed being hit full in the chest and landed badly when he leapt out of the way, feeling his shoulder pop as he impacted on it against the hard floor. Taking advantage of the confusion, the enemy emerged, two shadowy forms moving quickly through the room, with no intention of finishing them off as they ran down the corridor the same way the SG1 team had entered.

Sam did not follow them. Instead, she and Daniel hurried to Jack, who had yet to get up. The colonel was lying on his side, wincing in pain at the injury to his shoulder. 

"Don’t just stand there!" He barked at her. "Go after them!"

Sam nodded wildly, leaving Daniel to tend to the colonel while she took up the chase. As she ran down the long corridor, she could hear their voices whispering and realised whoever their attackers had been, they were definitely female. For a duo kept in virtual isolation for so long, they made it to the surface with remarkable speed. However, Sam wondered how long they could tolerate exposure to the radiated hell of the atmosphere. It did not help it was difficult for her to keep up with them while she was trapped inside this radiation suit which made it difficult to move with any kind of speed.

Arriving on the surface, she saw their attackers more clearly under the bright light of day. As suspected previously, the voices belong to a pair of women, clearly Mediterranean in origin, running at top speed towards the gate. Sam aimed her gun and fired, sending a hail of bullets in their direction to stop them in their tracks. However, the sarcophagus kept their bodies healthy even though they would be seeking new hosts because the older a body became, the harder it was for it to be renewed inside the sarcophagus. They were too far out of range because her bullets did nothing but alert them to her presence. Immediately, they swung around and started firing at her since the staff weapon did not possess the limitations of her gun.

While they did not succeed in harming her, Sam had a premonition, this was not the point of the exercise. The two women, wearing the garb of upper echelon Goa’ulds, were attempting to keep her at bay while they made their run at the Stargate. However, it was not just the Goa'uld that gave the astrophysicist concern now. Looking at the sky, something was brewing in the atmosphere, looking ominous as the clouds rumbled and the atmospheric disturbances intensified. Sam suddenly felt it was not wise to remain on this world any longer and immediately reached for her radio.

"Colonel," Sam spoke into the receiver.

"We’re right behind you." Jack O’Neill’s voice returned almost immediately. "Teal’c is okay. They managed to blindside him."

"Colonel, it's getting pretty nasty on the surface, I think we should get out of here now." Sam interrupted before Jack could continue. "The two Goa’uld are making their way to the gate, I’m going to try and stop them."

"Negative," Jack responded in a burst of static. "Follow them close enough to see where they’re going, and we’ll catch up with them later."

"Are you sure, Sir?" She asked and realised this was probably the wisest course of action. SG1 had been taken by surprise and the environment at this time was hardly the place to try and recapture two Goa'ulds.

"Yeah, we’ll meet you at the gate shortly."

With that, the line was terminated, and Sam found herself hurrying to follow his orders.

By the time she arrived at the gate, the two Goa’uld were already there and starting the dialling sequence. Sam made sure she stayed out of sight because her instructions were to maintain surveillance not engage. As she watched them converse in a language, Sam was sure Daniel could understand with ease, she noted they were not as well preserved as she initially believed. Although they appeared healthy, it was apparent their long confinement had taken its toll on their host bodies. She could see age catching up with them and knew wherever they were going, they would be searching for host bodies.

It was hard to distinguish between the two women since they were both of the same racial types. The Goa’uld seemed to preferred Eastern bodies, and these were no exception. However, ones wore the classical robes of a Goa'uld queen while the other was dressed in leather and armour. Jolinahr’s memories immediately identified the latter of the two as Sekhmet. It was Sekhmet who began the dialling sequence, and to Sam’s surprise, the address entered was that of Earth. They were going to Earth! Why?

On further thought, that destination made sense. After all, for two Gou’ulds who needed human bodies as hosts, there was no better destination that the source of humanity. Also, with their long confinement, they had no idea that the stargate on Earth was protected by a titanium iris that would kill them the moment they attempted to penetrate it without transmitting the proper signal to the SGC. As the last glyph on the dial home device as activated, the stargate came alive, spurting the matter stream through the circle of Naquadah before settling into a shimmering film of energy.

The Goa’uld wasted no time in taking advantage of the escape the portal offered and immediately disappeared into its rippling surface. As Sam watched them vanish, travelling to almost certain doom, she could not help but feel a twinge of pity for the death they were about to endure. After all, it was sad to think they had been trapped for so long only to find that their escape was equally meaningless.

In any case, it was too late now. The moment they chose Earth as their destination, they were doomed.

***********

Four Corners, New Mexico – 1879

"This is absolutely amazing." Mary Travis Larabee remarked as she stared at the artefact before her. She could understand what all the fuss was about now that she saw the excavation for herself. This was nothing like the mounds found in this area in recent years. As her eyes travelled over the massive circle of smoothly polished rock, with its odd yet mysterious carvings inside an inner ring within the main construction, Mary knew they had stumbled upon something utterly unknown. In fact, if she did not know better, she would think the symbols engraved were not an ancient Indian language at all but Egyptian even though she knew it was impossible. What on earth would Egyptian carvings be doing in North America? It made no sense.

"Tell me, Mrs Larabee," Dr Faulkner said with a smile, enjoying the young woman’s unabashed enthusiasm and fascination of what was becoming the find of the decade if not the century. "What do you think those markings are?"

"I have no idea." Mary confessed, "I would have thought they were of some ancient Aztec culture, but they look almost…." She did not wish to voice her claim, knowing he would think her stupid if she were wrong.

"Egyptian?" He ventured a guess.

"Yes," she admitted reluctantly. "But I’m an amateur at this sort of thing."

"You would be correct." He stated with a smile. "They are Egyptian glyphs, hence the reason for all the secrecy."

"Oh, my God. How is that possible?"

"Mrs Larabee, this entire dig is an impossibility." The old man with the tufts of grey hair and the perennially rumpled clothes gestured to the cavern before them. Not only was it one of the most significant underground structures she had ever seen, but it was also explained to her that this fortress of rock was man-made and the artefacts that they were finding were the like of nothing that had ever been seen. The biggest mystery of all was this large circle of rock, which appeared to resemble some kind of altar.

"Look at this," he presented her with an ornate piece of wrist jewellery that was to be worn around the hand and wrist, with a large blue gem at the centre of the wearer’s palm. Its design was one of the most breathtaking things Mary had ever seen. Examining it closely, she could see why this excavation was becoming such a defining event in archaeology.

"It's beautiful," Mary whispered as she continued to study it. "Is that a sapphire?" She asked of the gem in the middle.

"I would say so, but it's cut is beyond any technique that’s ever been recorded," Faulkner answered as they continued walking past the other workmen in the main chamber. "I know I am on the verge of something extraordinary, but it will take me the rest of my life to find it."

"It’s a worthy goal." She said warmly, still studying the device.

"You have a good eye for these things." He said, genuinely impressed with the woman. There were not many journalists who loved the work for the stories they could tell, not the prestige of it. Mary was one of those rare individuals who wrote her stories as a reflection of the people they were meant to represent, not as sensationalist fodder in the pursuit of profit. "I would like you to continue your work with us. Record what we are doing here for a book."

"A book?" Mary stared at him in astonishment. "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely." He declared. "You have an affinity for the work we are doing, and I believe you truly care about the integrity of this site. That makes a great deal of difference to us here."

"Doctor Faulkner," Mary stammered, unable to believe what he was offering her. Not only would she adore being here while they uncovered the find of the century but to be allowed to write about it, to be lifted out of the mundane diatribe she had been writing for the past eight years, was a dream come true. "I don’t know what to say." Emotion choked the voice from her throat.

"Say, yes."

Mary was about to respond when suddenly, they heard the shudder of rock slamming against the rock. Both turned immediately and to their absolute surprise saw the circle beginning to move. Mary was frozen, but Faulkner and the other members of the dig hurried to the artefact, watching the inner ring of its construct sliding back and forth, pausing at certain symbols and ignoring the others.

When the inner ring reached its seventh symbol, something extraordinary happened. A gush of light exploded from the hollow of the circle, sending out a surge of something that could have been foam but she knew instinctively was not. Faulkner and the others were standing right in front of it, and Mary opened her mouth to caution them away from the device, but it was too late. In muted horror, she watched the wave explode outwards; vaporising them like smoke as it washed past them. Faulkner and his team barely time to scream as their bodies disappeared in front of Mary, withering away like one would blow away ash. By the time, the wave recoiled back into a ripple-like film of gossamer over the surface of the circle, Mary knew without a doubt that Faulkner and the excavation team were dead.

For a moment, she did not know what to do. She wanted to run, but journalistic curiosity in all its folly kept her rooted to the spot. She was witnessing something incredible, and Mary could not draw away even though every fibre of her being demanded otherwise. She watched the wave settle within the hollow of the ring, resembling a pool of water standing on its side. It was the most frightening thing Mary had ever seen but also the most amazing. 

Mary was about to step forward when suddenly, two women emerged through the ring. 

Their clothing was like nothing Mary recognised, but their skin colour and their features were exotic like Alex. They regarded her with cold eyes before their gaze moved over the cavern. The one dressed in leather and what resembled armour approached her while the other took stock of their surroundings.

"Hello." Mary attempted to communicate, wondering if she was mad for still being here.

The woman in the leather smiled faintly and immediately sent a chill of fear through Mary’s spine. Something inside Mary snapped at that moment, perhaps it was the realisation of imminent danger. She backed away, preparing to run, but it was too late. The woman’s grip was firm and had her by the hair even before Mary could turn to run.

"Let me go! What do you want?"

The woman did not answer but seemed to look at her with some measure of approval. She turned to her companion and spoke in that incomprehensible language. The other, the one dressed in robes and finery seemed to feign similar approval and Mary became all the more terrified for it. She struggled to break free, but her captor’s grip was like steel and Mary’s attempts to escape felt childlike and futile.

Suddenly, she was thrown on the ground, face first. As she hit the dirt, Mary squinted as grains of sand entered her eyes. "What are you doing!" Mary cried out as she felt the woman’s knee on her back, pinning her to the dirt helplessly like a child sticking a pin through an insect. She was aware that the end of her dress was ripped away and the bare skin of her neck and upper back was exposed. For a moment, Mary wondered absurdly if this was rape and knew it was impossible. The woman’s hand was holding her head down now, her grip secure by the large clump of golden hair she had intertwined within her fingers.

Mary froze when she felt something slither across her skin. Something wet and small, like a snake. Her reason left her then, and she started screaming as it travelled up her spine and brushing against the soft tissue of her neck. That was one final moment of sharp, intense pain when Mary Travis Larabee felt it penetrate the skin before everything she was disappeared in the scream that followed.

Chapter Two
Host

It was getting late.

Well, not terribly late as in that it was almost nightfall, but it was nevertheless getting on in the day. Chris peered out the batwing doors of the saloon and took note of the position of the sun in the afternoon sky, reminding himself it was only ten minutes ago he last looked. He knew it was pure foolishness, Mary was probably having the time of her life covering her story at the excavation. Although Chris displayed a laconic manner towards her career, often downplaying her enthusiasm for things with his own cold, deliberate demeanour, Chris could not deny being inordinately proud of his wife. It often amazed him the things she could do when he had thought himself at the stage of life where nothing could catch him unawares.

From the moment he met Mary Travis, he learned to expect the unexpected or else be prepared to spend a lot of time playing catch up. Inside her mind, were boundaries beyond his limited view of things. He was an avid reader but not even his literary self could take him the places Mary went every day. She did not see things in one dimension but in facets with more depth than he could imagine. Most people saw Four Corners as a town, Mary saw it as the future. When he and the rest of the seven had first arrived in town, Mary was their most stalwart supporter because she did not see seven men who would keep the peace. Not at all, Mary’s vision was broader than that simplistic idea. She saw Four Corners achieving the stability needed to herald the beginnings of prosperity, and in many ways, she was right.

Indeed she was idealistic, and that naivete landed her in more trouble than she knew what to do with, but he could not imagine her any other way. Seeing how she perceived life with so much hope saved him in more ways than she knew. By loving her, Chris was invited to share hers when all that was left in the wake of Sarah and Adam’s death was a blackness slowly killing him, one bullet and one glass of whisky at a time. From the moment he had met her, she aimed sunshine into his soul, and Chris could not imagine life without her any more.

"Judging from the way you keep glancing out the door Mr Larabee, I assume Mrs Larabee has yet to return from her latest feat of journalistic marvel?" Ezra Standish asked across the table where he was playing cards (as always) with JD, Buck and Josiah. Having no wish to get fleeced by the gambler but desiring the company, Chris joined them at the table and was content to observe the games only.

"She’s out at the site, ain’t she?" Josiah inquired. The archaeological dig a few miles out of town was a source of considerable speculation among the population of Four Corners. Truth be known, most of them had no idea what an archaeologist did until Faulker, and his team came to town. However, ancient Indian relics often translated into mysterious treasure to the uninformed. Before they all knew it, Four Corners was buzzing with the news a significant archaeological find was discovered, like Cortez’s non-existent El Dorado.

"Yeah," Chris told himself it was not getting late even though supper was approaching rather quickly and he would have to get a move on if he wanted to surprise Mary by having dinner ready by the time she got home. "I expect she’ll be a little late, though. Probably having the time of her life if I know Mary."

"Well, it is a pretty nice feather in her cap," Buck admitted. "Lot of those reporters are spitting teeth she managed to get Faulkner to even talk to her while he’s chasing the rest of them off. I think it's nice that Mary showed those big-city boys a thing or two."

"It could not have gone to a more deserving lady," Ezra said as he collected the discards in the middle of the table and meted out the appropriate number of cards to the complete the latter half of the game.

"When does Julia get back?" JD inquired since they were on the subject of the women.

"Thursday," Ezra answered automatically as JD gestured at him for two cards and promptly placed the appropriate number, face down before him. "She apparently has a general dislike for conducting her affairs in town."

"She’s a lady with secrets." Buck declared, and to that, no one could disagree because it was true. Julia Pemberton guarded her past with almost fanatic determination, causing them all to wonder on occasion why she was so adamant no one knew what she had been before her arrival in Four Corners.

"Aren’t we all?" Ezra shrugged off the remark. He trusted Julia and knew when she was ready to tell him about her life before Four Corners, she would do so. He was in no hurry to prise the truth from her, mainly because there were enough unsavoury excerpts from his life he did not wish disclosure to anyone.

Chris continued to wonder if he should be getting worried about Mary’s absence. Realistically, he knew she was probably held up at the dig, and she would roll into town, all flustered with excitement and eager to relate to him and Billy what she had been doing all day. The part of Chris Larabee, who knew when there was a shift in the wind for the worse, was edgy and restless. Something small and nondescript was working his calm reassurances with niggling persistence, and that was making it difficult to be so reasonable.

"I heard some talk Big Jake Holmes in riding into these parts on his way to Mexico." JD was saying, having picked up this piece of gossip when he was at the bar. "Maybe he’ll come to town." There was enough enthusiasm in his voice for all of them to know JD would love to encounter the notorious outlaw. It was easy to remember just how young he was when he spoke like this.

"I doubt it," Josiah remarked. "After robbing that bank in Eagle Bend, he ain’t that dumb to come near a town. Every lawman from here to the border has an eye for him and that $1000 reward on his head."

"A man who robs a bank and kills three people doing it, for less than his reward money ain’t necessarily a genius." Buck pointed out. "They say he’s a big man but ain’t the brain to match."

Chris was not paying much attention to their conversation in this regard because he did not think Homes would come into town either. The man may not be smart, but not even a fool would ride into town when his face was pasted on every wanted poster fit to print on. Besides, it was with smug satisfaction Chris knew the Seven’s reputation would keep the man away. One man on his own running from the law was not going to walk into town with seven formidable defenders.

Actually, his attention was focussed on something rather curious taking place outside of town. He could see people talking excitedly as they walked past the saloon, casting their eyes over their shoulders repeatedly as they stared at something coming down the street. Chris rose to his feet without saying a word and walked away from the table, his curiosity getting the better of him as he went to investigate. He emerged from the saloon in the afternoon sun and cast his gaze in the direction everyone was staring at. What he saw was enough to make him stare in stunned silence.

It was Mary.

At least he thought it was Mary. Everything about her was wrong. It had nothing to do with the fact she was no longer wearing the yellow floral print dress she had left in for the dig this morning but was now clad in something that looked like leather and skins. Her new clothes clung to her skin, emphasising her figure to an almost scandalous extent. Still was not that which captured his attention the most. He could not articulate into words, but it was there, glaring at him with blatant audacity.

Her walk was wrong. It was not the graceful movement she swept through town with, sashaying when she was in a good mood or stomping when she was mad. Instead, she moved with such stealth it would make even Vin proud. Suddenly, it came to him with a flash of insight, even though he could not imagine how it was possible. She moved like a hunter or one accustomed to stalking prey, sleek and menacing. If any of the seven were with him, Chris would have been surprised to hear them say she moving like him.

Like a killer.

Her blue-grey eyes surveyed the town, and once again, he saw those familiar eyes that captured his heart from the first but like before, they were different as well. They were changed in a way that sent a shudder down his spine even though he could not explain why. After a moment, he found he could identify what it was about her stare that seemed so alien. Her eyes were hard, almost granite in their expression. He had seen killers with kinder eyes. Her gaze did not look, it studied everything about her, even him. When her eyes touched him briefly, it did so with no recognition before she continued walking.

He noticed she was carrying a length of metal, almost like a pole. However, it did not look like iron or steel, and while it had the colour of copper, Chris knew instinctively that it was not. Then there was the way she held it in her hands, positioning her fingers in particular positions, almost as if she were poised to react at the slight provocation. The way he would if he were readying himself to fire his gun…..

It took a few seconds for Chris to realise she was not alone. The woman at her side was dressed just as strange, with robes that flowed off her dusky skin like the silk underthings women wore. For a moment, he thought she might have stepped out from one of those history books about the ancient world, for she seemed that much out of place. They walked through town, oblivious to the curious stares they were earning, exuding menace with each step they took. By now, Buck had emerged from the saloon, curious to see what drew Chris outside.

"Is that Mary?" Buck exclaimed in a hushed voice, just as mystified as he.

Chris did not speak, wanting to get to the bottom of this now. He strode towards her, unconsciously undoing the flap of his holster and was mortified when he realised what he had done. 

Suddenly before Chris could reach her, Billy came running out onto the street. The boy had seen his mother and though she was dressed strangely, saw nothing out of the ordinary. Seeing him approach Mary hastened Chris’s pace, the heart in gunslinger’s chest tightening as he hurried forward. Something bizarre was going on, and while Chris could not identify it precisely, his internal senses were screaming danger with every fibre of his being.

"Ma!" Billy called out cheerfully, pausing in front of Mary.

Her reaction stunned just about everybody who bore witness to it except Chris, who was expecting this even though he could not understand how. With speed he credited to some of the fastest gunslingers he had ever seen, Mary swung the metal rod at her son, like she was brandishing a weapon. 

"Mary!" 

Chris's interruption was the only thing that kept her from proceeding any further because she looked at Billy like she had no idea who he was. By now, Billy sensed something was wrong and started to back away, suddenly frightened by what he was seeing in his mother. She stood in the middle of the street, her eyes regarding him for the first time, narrowing as if she were sizing up an opponent, not someone she loved. Her companion turned to her and spoke in an unfamiliar language with a voice did not at all sound feminine but hoarse and brutal like a man’s. Mary seemed to understand what was being said to her and looked up at Chris. Eyes narrowing, she twisted her fist around the shaft of the rod, across what appeared to be a handgrip. The bulbous head of the rod snapped open, and it cackled as if it were electrified.

"Billy, come towards me," Chris stopped walking.

"But ma…" Billy protested.

"Now, Billy," Chris repeated. "Now."

That was enough since the boy was conditioned to obey him just as unquestioningly as his other

Mary glared at Chris with cold eyes and stated in the same unearthly voice used by her companion. "Withdraw, or I will kill this child."

Those words made Billy stop in his tracks, and he stared at his mother with the same astonishment the entire town of Four Corners, not to mention his stepfather was currently displaying. Billy stared at Chris, waiting for the gunslinger to explain what was happening but was rewarded with nothing but silence. His ma was staring at him with an expression of cold unfamiliarity, that strange pole still aimed in his direction.

Chris did not know what to say because he was still reeling from the menace in her words. What in God’s name had happened to her? 

"Mary, that’s your son." 

"Obey!" She shouted, ignoring his plea to reach her or the woman she might have been. "Do not meddle in our affairs or I will kill the child." To prove her point, she focussed her aim of the weapon squarely at Billy’s chest with no hesitation or conscience.

"This is insane." Buck found his voice in the face of the unbelievable drama unfolding before them. For all intents and purposes, this was Mary Travis Larabee, Chris’s wife and friend to all of them. "Chris, what’s happened to her?"

"I don’t know," Chris shook his head in stupefied shock. "But do what she says, back away."

"Chris…" His old friend started to protest.

"Do it!" Chris hissed angrily, not willing to risk Billy’s life at any price. He did not know what was happening to Mary, but the threat he saw in her eyes was real and what she held in her hand was a weapon, he had no doubt of that. Slowly, the two men backed away, with Chris keeping close sight of Billy at all times. Mary stepped forward while Billy was still racked with confusion and drew the boy to her, indicating to the men who would interfere with her and her companion, Billy would pay the price for their defiance. 

The rest of the seven emerged from the saloon, staring at the spectacle with similar shock and confusion. Outwardly, the woman before them was Mary Larabee, but her actions were proving that of a dangerous stranger.

It was at this moment Vin Tanner and Alexandra Styles returned to town. As always, they rode together on Peso, with the doctor’s arm securely around her lover, inciting the more Christian folk of Four Corners to gossip with disapproval at this behaviour. On this occasion, no one was paying attention. Neither Vin nor Alex had any idea what was going on as they rode to the saloon, but it was starting to appear something was amiss.

"Is that Mary?" Alex whispered in his ears as Peso reached the hitching post in front of the saloon.

"I think so," Vin replied, but like everyone else at present, he could no more understand what was happening than they could. However, he could tell one thing for certain, Chris was afraid. Anything that could make Chris Larabee scared was something to worry about. He dismounted his horse and helped Alex down from the saddle, eager to find out what was happening.

Perhaps it was because Mary was at the centre of things that Alex did not feel any fear as she followed Vin closely, concerned about her friend and just as curious about what was occurring at the moment. Vin came up alongside Chris and Buck, seeing now with absolute certainty the fear he saw earlier was no mirage. Something was spooking Chris badly. It was not just that Mary was dressed strangely, almost like a man, but the way she was holding Billy to her didn't look right. 

"What’s going on?" Vin whispered as he reached Chris.

"I don’t know." Chris managed to say, glad to see Vin but uncertain of what to do. His hand was still poised on his gun, but he could no more shoot her than he could comprehend the woman who left the pie in the oven for him this morning was this alien creature who glared at him like he was nothing to her.

"Mary’s gone out of her head," Buck replied quickly when Chris could not. "She threatened to kill Billy."

"What?" Vin looked at them in shock and disbelief. "That’s crazy!"

While Mary was keeping her eyes firmly on Chris and Billy, using the boy keep the others at bay, her companion was studying the faces around them. Unable to proceed further because their presence had captured too much attention, the quest for what they needed still remained. 

"Mary." Alexandra Styles called out to her friend, unaware that it was not Mary who was standing before them. "What are you doing?"

"Something is wrong with her," Chris said automatically, gesturing for her to be silent because while what happened to Mary was vague and undefined at the moment, the threat she had made to Billy’s life was. Chris had the feeling she had no idea Billy or any of them were. He knew it was insane, but the weapon she was holding went a long way to proving something very bizarre was happening. He experienced the impossible once before to know there was much in this world beyond his understanding. 

The other woman snapped her attention to Alex the moment the doctor spoke. In fact, both Mary and she stared at Alex with interest. For the first time since the threat against his life was made, Mary no longer seemed interested in Billy, but was focusing her concentration on Alex instead. For some reason, this frightened Chris almost as much as Mary's threat to kill Billy. The woman with her smiled, and it was a cold smile, devoid of humour and full of sinister intent. She opened her mouth and spoke in that strange voice again, in a language, none of them understood.

"Jesus," Vin exclaimed at the unnatural sound coming from the woman's throat.

"What are they saying?" Buck asked as they watched Mary converse with the stranger in that curious tongue.

"I think its Egyptian." Alex declared.

"Egyptian!" Chris looked at her, wondering if this could get any weirder. "You can understand it?"

"Not really," the doctor shook her head. "I recognize one or two words from an old dialect the Bedouins used to speak when I was travelling with my father. It could be Egyptian."

Whatever Chris was about to say next was cut short when Mary pushed Billy aside and raised the weapon at them this time. Chris went for his gun, preparing to shoot even though he knew he could not pull the trigger. Vin and Buck were similarly confused at what to do. They could not fire upon Mary, no matter how odd she was behaving.

"We want the woman," Mary spoke. "Give her to us."

Vin was the first one to react, glancing anxiously at Alex instinctively. "Give you to her for what?"

"Give her to us, or we will take her," Mary repeated, twisting her hand around the grip control of the weapon, creating more tendrils of blue energy to sparkle from its barrel.

"Alex get out of here!" Chris warned, knowing he had no choice now. He did not know what Mary and this woman planned for Alex, but at this point, he had no intention of finding out.

"But.."Alex started to stay before Vin cut her off abruptly, knowing Chris would not issue such an order unless it was vitally important.

"Get going!"

His harsh words made Alex jump, but it was enough to get her moving. She started backing away when suddenly, Mary swung the weapon in her direction and fired. A bolt of blue energy whizzed past her, striking the ground next to her feet. The impact set the earth on fire, and Alex froze with terror as she saw the sand on the surface turn black and fused with heat.

"Christ!" Buck gasped at the charred earth before then, unable to fathom what it would do to flesh.

"Stay where you are!" Mary ordered, turning the weapon on them again, capturing the attention of everyone now that they knew just precisely what they were up against. The expression on her face was one of pure menace, and to their horror, her blue-grey eyes glowed with sinister light. Chris felt his heart stop as he realized at that moment there was something inside Mary, something had taken her just as surely as it intended on taking Alex right now.

"What do we do, Chris?" Vin demanded. "We can't just let them take her!"

Unfortunately, that was precisely what was going to happen because they had no idea how to keep it from taking place. Chris did not know how to answer Vin because he did not know what to do. For the first time in his life, he was confronted with a situation to which he could not make a decision. Opening fire on Mary was not an option. Even if he could give the order to do so, he knew neither Vin nor Buck could carry it out, any more than Ezra, J.D. and Josiah who were watching with similar astonishment at the front steps of the saloon.

The woman with Mary stepped forward slowly, crossing the space between herself and Alex without fear of interference. She hardly cast her gaze in their direction as she approached Alex, whose instincts were to run but could not because the doctor was still horrified by the ground sizzling from the blast of that strange weapon Mary was keeping trained on all of them.

"Chris..." Vin started to say as the woman reached Alex, knowing something terrifying was about to happen unless they stopped this now. Acting purely out fear for Alex more than anything else, Vin rushed at the woman, attempting to keep her away from Alex when she swung to face him with surprising speed. Vin did not see the bracelet coiled around her wrist or the gem in the centre of her palm until she raised her hand. He was able to take no more than a step before something like a ton of bricks slammed into him with such force he was flung backwards like a fly that was swatted away.

"Vin!" Alex screamed, and the entire scene went to pandemonium.

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Chris rushed forward managing to get his hands on the weapon Mary was carrying and pull it away. It clattered on the ground as he flung it aside out of her reach when her fist flew, smashing into his jaw with more strength than he thought her capable. As Chris turned to her in stunned disbelief, he came to his senses just in time to see her pulling back to deliver another blow. He barely had time to block it when she threw a flying kick that landed squarely in his stomach and forced him to stagger back. The power of her movements was almost as astonishing as her ability to fight. Her attack was far from done, and she came at him before he had a chance to recover. Sweeping Chris's feet from under him with another low kick, Chris tumbled to the floor as Buck rushed forward to help, only to be halted with a powerful backhanded blow that sent him to the ground next to Chris.

In the meantime, Vin struggled to his feet, sure he had broken a rib upon landing. He saw the stranger turn her back on him and return her attention to Alex, who was trying to reach him when she found her away barred by his attacker. Alex tried to push her way past when the woman raised the strange device on her hand once more. The gem glowed, and suddenly all the fight in Alex dissipated as its light twinkled in her eyes.

Standing up, Vin tried to reach her as he saw her face drain of all expression. He got no more than a few steps when he realized Mary had retrieved her weapon and was preparing to incinerate Chris and Buck. Vin threw his weight against her, forcing her to drop the staff once again but his injury had made him slow, and she was faster than Vin believed possible. Mary slammed her foot into his knee, bringing him down as he groaned in pain. Before he could react to get out of the way, she delivered another kick to his face and left him dazed as she walked past him and picked up her weapon.

Chris got to his feet and saw Mary saying something to her companion in that strange language. The woman seemed to have Alex in her power as the doctor stared transfixed at the gem stone, responded in agreement to whatever was being said. When she lowered her hand, Alex was no longer looking at anything, her eyes seemed vacant and lost, and quite out of her head. Appearing as if they had come to a decision about something, Mary and her companion started walking again. This time, they headed towards a wagon and horse hitched next to Virgi Watson's hardware store. Alex followed them, still wearing that same empty look Chris was convinced registered nothing because the gem had taken her mind.

"Alex!" Vin called out after her, but Alex did not respond. She barely heard him as she followed them compliantly and Chris had a sinking feeling they had somehow lost Alex in the same way as Mary. The tracker was forcing himself to stand even though he clutched his side in obvious pain, determined to follow her.

"Stand down, Vin," Chris ordered because they had to regroup. They were all reeling from what just occurred, him most of all. But Chris knew, before they could formulate some kind of strategy, they had to understand what had happened to Mary and was now happening to Alex.

"We can't just let them take her!"

"Are you ready to shoot them down to stop them trying!" Chris turned on his friend fiercely. Did Vin have any idea how hard this was for him? That was his wife, who had gone through them like they were nothing. His jaw was still stinging with pain as he watched the trio climb into the wagon with Alex taking the reins with that same submissive expression, that was almost as unbelievable as everything had happened.

"What the hell is going on?" Buck roared as he watched helplessly with Vin and Chris, as Alex snapped the reins and sent the horses surging forward, spiriting herself and her companions away. "Where did she learn to fight like that?"

Chris could no more answer that question than the rest of it. As he watched Alex and Mary disappeared trailing a cloud of dust behind them, Chris knew if he ever wanted his wife back, he was going to have to find the answers.

***********

Alexandra Styles felt like she was dreaming.

It was an odd sort of dream where she was not quite awake but quite asleep either. She could see things transpiring around her but was powerless to affect any of it. Through the haze of her memory, she remembered vaguely she had spent a glorious day with Vin where they made love in the privacy of the wilderness and basked in the sun like teenagers. She felt the warmth of his skin against hers and breathed in the heady scent of his body. His fingers had danced across her naked flesh in sensual splendour as they lay on the grass. Those were the things she clung to it because she drowning in black everywhere else.

Alex knew that she was in danger, but she could do nothing to help herself. Her limbs felt sluggish and heavy, and although she had not wanted to go with them, there was not much she could do about it. Alex was compelled by a power she could not fight, bound by the glimmer of what she saw inside the facets of the sapphire stone. Even now, as she struggled valiantly to think clearly, she could only see the elegance of the gemstone, clouding her mind with its azure bindings. She sought to escape the prison inside her mind that had no walls but no doors either.

Alex was unable to refuse when she was told to take them from Four Corners because she was a fly caught in their web, helpless to do anything but obey. Yet she struggled to see if Vin was alright because she knew Mary had hurt him. What was it about Mary? Alex tried to think and found that image was also fading away into the mists. It was the swirling inside her head as they rode away from Four Corners. The one who trapped her in amber did not speak to her following that initial encounter in town. Instead, it was Mary who told her where they needed to go.

Alex kept thinking about Vin, wondering if he was safe even though it was hard to keep his face in her mind the further they away they got from the town, but he remained as her only anchor to reality. They left Far Corners behind until the brightness of day melted into the soft light of evening. As the sun began its rapid descent into the horizon, they came at last to their destination. She tried to remember it for what it was, sure Mary had spoken about it some days ago.

The structure was mostly underground with an entrance that led down to the depths of the earth. The sun had not quite set, so there was no need for illumination as they progressed down the ramp, taking them deep into its innards. There were tools scattered about and but the labourers who might have used them were nowhere to be seen. As the underground cavern swallowed her into its maw, things became even more confusing, and Vin began slipping further and further away from her thoughts. Yet knowing he existed somewhere, kept her from yielding to her terror. She wanted to so badly to be away from here, but she had no will to flee.

The Goa'uld visitors finally arrived at the cavern through which they entered this primitive world. Scattered across the ground, were the bodies of the dead workers who died when they came to the aid of the screaming woman whose body Sekhmet now possessed. However, their quest here had been accomplished. The Goa'uld had come here for bodies and now bodies they had.

Healthy, beautiful bodies that would survive for another thousand years or more if they so desired. It did not bother them that the world they left behind was now a dead husk of radiation. Isis had seeded many worlds where her worship continued and would be renewed once their Goddess walked among them again.

The host whose mind was her own, albeit temporarily was still trying to fight against the effects of the gem's confinement. As she struggled to fight the prison she was in, the Goa'uld decided to carry out the blending. It was time to leave this world, and it was best if the joining took place sooner before they were confronted by more of the host's former compatriots. Sekhmet had taken up watch, waiting for the inevitable confrontation, while Isis performed what needed to be done.

"Undress."

The stranger spoke to Alex in that brutish voice she could not ignore. 

Fighting it valiantly even though she did not have a hope of chasing away this fog inside her mind, Alex obeyed, her limbs offering no resistance despite Alex's desperate attempt to refuse. Her fingers worked with a will of their own, undoing the buttons running along the length of her dress. Slowly, she removed the garment, discarding the silken underthings until she stood before her captor, naked. Once again, Alex recoiled at what was happening to her, but she was powerless to do anything about it. 

Dread began to rise from the pit of her, as Alex realised something terrible was about to happen. But not even with her intelligence, could she guess what that might be. 

The woman circled her, her eyes moving over Alex's form as if she were assessing an animal she was about to buy. While Alex's expression remained vacant, inside, she was terrified. The woman paused behind her, and for a painfully long minute, nothing happened. She merely stood behind Alex for such a long time, even Mary returned to see what was happening. Alex felt her heart pounding in her chest, wishing that if they were going to kill her to be just done with it because she could not abide the waiting.

Suddenly, she felt something against the skin of her back. It was wet and slithery, snaking up her back with a gliding movement. Alex started gasping because her terror had done impossible, briefly allowing her to escape the fog. It was all the freedom Alex was allowed. She was still unable to do anything but submit to the horror of what was happening to her. Whatever was crawling up her back was alive, she could feel it against her skin as it crept up her neck. Its progress up her spine was painfully slow, and Alex felt her fear mounting which every inch of its journey, trying not to imagine what would happen to her when it finally reached its destination.

She felt it brush against her neck, whatever it was. It tickled her skin like something to be savoured. Alex was starting to gasp in fear, not far from screaming outright in terror. She no longer paid any attention to where Mary and the woman were, only knowing she stood poised on the edge of hell, and it was coming for her with a wisp of slime against her skin. Suddenly, Alex felt it dig into her flesh, burrowing into her neck with a pain so intense it was beyond imagining. Alex could feel it tearing into her flesh, she could feel it snaking inside of her, moving through bone and tissue until finally, it wrenched free a damn of pain the likes of which she had never known.

As the dream began to dissipate, Alexandra Styles plunged headlong into the nightmare.

***********

Chris was sure of one thing as he and the rest of the seven rode out of Four Corner, whatever turned Mary into a violent stranger had originated from the archaeological dig she was so eager to visit this morning. He knew it with absolute certainty because there could be no other explanation. When he saw her eyes glow, he had understood at last whatever was standing before him might look like his wife and be wearing her body like one would wear a suit of clothes, but it was not Mary.

It was something else.

What that something else might be and why it had taken not only Mary but Alex was what he had to find out if there was any chance of saving either of them. Experience in the past taught him the world was a place of smoky mirrors, where reality as he perceived it was only as deep as the reflection on the surface of the water. He cast his mind back to that other time when he had been faced with something just as unimaginable, and despite how he may have tried to deny its existence, the evidence and the situation were painfully real. Just as this was now.

Vin rode next to him, silent but full of worry. Chris, who had lost a wife and son, knew how to cope with the possibility of tragedy even if living with it was another matter entirely. Vin was young, and in love for the first time in his life. The bond between the tracker and his lady was deep and binding. So binding if Vin were to lose her, Chris was not entirely sure how Vin could survive the loss. What feared Chris almost as much as losing Mary, was the possibility if Vin did lose Alex, grief would eat him alive as it had done to Chris five years ago. The gunslinger did not want his friend to go down that black road, to feel nothing but the constant anguish that made the world grey and shapeless. 

Chris did not want Vin to end up like him.

"I am still at a loss to understand what has brought this about," Ezra exclaimed. Like the rest of them, he was just as astonished by what they had seen. "We have seen some strange things gentlemen, but I do believe this is a new realm of experience."

"Ezra shut up." Buck snapped, utterly aware of how difficult it was for Chris and Vin who were barely holding on to the hope they had not lost the women in their lives. Buck, who was right there alongside Chris when Mary had taken them both down, knew what he had seen just as clearly as Chris had.

"I did not mean to offend," the gambler stumbled, his smooth voice faltering as he realized his tactlessness in bringing up the subject when they were all painfully aware of what happened. Indeed the entire town had witnessed the debacle.

"It's okay," Chris spoke up, feeling generous because it was an extraordinary set of circumstances they now found themselves in and he was grateful his friends were willing to ride by his side as they went to face God only knew what.

"Chris," Josiah replied as they neared the excavation. "What are we going to do?" 

"What do you mean?" Chris turned to him, wondering how he could even ask such a question. Obviously, they were going to retrieve Mary and Alex by any means necessary, even if it meant dragging them back to town kicking and screaming.

"I mean, we can't shoot them." Josiah reminded them of the challenges of the task they were undertaking. "How are we going to bring them back without shooting them?"

"I don't know." Chris had to admit. "It's the weapons Mary's got that's half the problem. We need to get it away from her."

"The other one had something else," Vin added. "It was something she wore on her hand."

"I saw that," Nathan nodded. He was in his infirmary when he had heard the commotion and arrived on the scene just in time to see Vin flying across the air as if an invisible hand had swatted him aside like a badly behaved child. "She didn't even touch you."

While that may have been difficult to explain, the injuries left behind were no flights of fancy. Nathan knew at least two of Vin's ribs were cracked. Even now, he could see the tracker wincing in pain each time he galloped forward in the saddle. Unfortunately, there was no way that they were going to convince Vin to stay behind. Not while Alex was out there.

"I don't know you're going get that whatever it is Mary's got," J.D. confessed. Of all the seven, he had the hardest time dealing with all this because he was young, and his mind still reeled at every new experience. This was so far beyond what he knew, J.D. feared this might be an enemy they were not going to be able to beat. "She's really strong now. I mean, she knocked all three of you down. It's going to take all of us just to get that thing away from her."

As pessimistic as J.D. might have sounded, Chris knew the young man was right. Unfortunately, that did not change things. They still had to reach Mary and Alex to help them. Beyond that, Chris was no closer to a solution than when they left Four Corners. All he knew right now, was they had to find the women first.

Hopefully, the rest would work itself out later. Nearing the excavation, Chris was able to see first hand what Mary had been calling the find of the century.

The structure was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It was certainly not one of those ancient mounds, and while it protruded through the ground like one, the similarity ended there. As the seven approached, it appeared more triangular than anything else, almost like a pyramid buried underground.

"Oh my Lord," Ezra whispered. "It truly is an exceptional find."

The archaeologists had done a great deal of work with their earthmoving efforts, exposing much of the structure's upper portion, including an entrance that disappeared into the darkness where the sunlight could not reach.

"That ain't the word I'd use for it," Vin growled.

The wagon that Mary stole stood not far from the entrance leading into the heart of the structure. However, there was no sign of its passengers. The horses merely waited in bored impatience, unable to flee with the wagon still hitched to the harness on their backs. They reacted with a little snort of an acknowledgment as the seven riders approached but did nothing more to give away their presence. 

The afternoon was rapidly descending into dusk, and very soon it would be dark. Chris did not like the idea of being here at night, unable to explain why it was so imperative because he was not a man who was afraid of anything.

Chris and Vin dismounted first, and when the others did, Chris faced a very uncomfortable decision, he realized he had no choice but to make. It was the one thing he had been unable to do earlier, the one thing that might have kept this from escalating into the nightmare it had now become. He did not voice it to Vin because the tracker was edgy enough as it is. Although Vin Tanner was his level headed best friend who could be counted on in any situation, Chris knew when it came to Alex, all that restraint and calm deliberation were flung into the wind. His passion for Alex made him unpredictable, not to mention downright dangerous. However, right now, he needed Vin thinking straight, and so he remained silent.

Chris Larabee did not tell him it was likely that whatever happened to Mary had most likely claimed Alex as well. 

"Listen up," he cleared his throat and faced his friends as they prepared to enter the lion's den, so to speak. He searched the words to convey this was the hardest decision he ever faced in his life, but it had to be done if either woman was to be saved. "If they're in there and it's likely they are, they ain't going to be too happy to see us. I don't know what's happened to Mary, but she's a lot stronger than she used to be. She took all three of us down easy, and if she's still not herself, then we're going to have to forget that she's my wife or your friend."

It was Ezra who caught on what he was trying to say, even though he had trouble believing it. "Are you suggesting that we open fire on her Mr Larabee?" 

There were not many things that had the power to move the gambler to such shock, but he had to admit, hearing Chris Larabee insinuating this much had undoubtedly succeeded.

"Not to kill," Chris replied quickly, finding it difficult to keep his voice measured because he was so terribly afraid of losing Mary but knew deep inside, that to save her, he had to be the man she loved, the one who could be counted to protect her from anything. "Enough to wound her so that we can find out what's wrong with her."

"Chris..." Buck started to say, but the remark died in his throat when he saw the anguish in the gunslinger's eyes and understood how hard it was for him to give them the order.

"We also have to be prepared that Alex might be the same way," Chris admitted reluctantly. He had not wanted to tell Vin, but he had to know before they went into that cavern. 

Vin looked at him sharply. "We don't know that. There ain't no reason to believe that what got Mary has got her too." His voice had a tinge of desperation because he did not want to believe it.

"And no reason not to either," Josiah placed a hand on the younger man's back, trying to offer comfort in this dark time. "Vin, some bizarre things are going on here. You know if something like that can happen to Mary, it can also happen to Alex."

Vin said nothing, and although he did not want to believe it, he knew Josiah was right, and so was Chris about using any means necessary to subdue them both. When he saw Alex simply walk away from him, following Mary and the other woman obediently, Vin realized Alex was under the power of something vile and terrifying. If saving her meant Vin had hurt her, then Vin had no choice. He would do anything for Alex.

Even this.

"All right," Vin nodded, meeting Chris' gaze. "I hear you, pard. We'll do it your way."

"Remember," Chris reiterated. "We're going to try and get that weapon or whatever it is away from Mary. If we can get it away from her, maybe we can take her down without having to shoot."

"What about the other one?" J.D. asked. "She's got some kind of a weapon too." The young man reminded them all that the older woman with Mary had managed to send Vin through the air like she was blowing away a feather.

"That's right," Chris nodded, not having forgotten that at all. "That's why you, Josiah, Buck and Nathan are going to keep her distracted. Don't kill her but fire everything you got at her. Me, Ezra and Vin will deal with Mary."

Chris had trouble believing he was talking about his wife as if she were the enemy. Unfortunately, it was precisely what she was. When she turned her weapon on Billy, preparing to kill her own child, Chris knew Mary Larabee was gone. Whoever remained in her place was a murderer willing to kill a child, and that told Chris a great deal about the enemy he was facing.

He was facing someone willing to kill every one of them.

***********

Isis was pleased.

Her new body was everything she wished it to be. Unlike Sekhmet, who could tolerate fair skin and golden hair, Isis preferred to remain in the skin similar to the first human host she took for herself. Her host was young and healthy, not to mention extraordinarily beautiful. This met with the approval of Isis for the Goddess of All had to be fair. While Isis did not wish Sekhmet's form, she was impressed by it. The golden hair cascading past her shoulders was indeed breathtaking and seemed to shimmer each time Sekhmet moved. Still e it would take Isis some time to acquaint herself with Sekhmet's new visage, it was so different.

Her host's mind was sharp. She could hear it crying and weeping, begging freedom in its prison as it struggled and fought despite the increasing realization at the futility of it all. Of course, the hosts always fought in the beginning, and while this one had a great spirit, it was no match for her. Isis was a psyche in the cultivation for almost four thousand years. She had spent all that time perfecting dominance over her hosts and this latest acquisition, despite its powerful determination, was no different than any other she had crushed throughout the ages.

Isis slipped on the last of her clothing from her previous host body, deciding she did not like the restrictive garments worn by the new. She snorted in derision at the ludicrousness of these female bindings, aware only a male-dominated society could induce the females of its populace to wear such things as if the bindings were meant not only to hide their bodies but any semblance of self. Isis did not favour the male of the species. Men provided the code for life, whether they be Goa'uld or human. He decided the form, but he had no other use than that. 

Use him for your pleasure. Abuse him at your leisure.

She was an instrument of pain to every man she encountered. Ra sought to make her his queen, not realizing it was he she chose to make consort. When enough of them spread throughout the stars, she discarded him although it served his vanity to think it was he who had hunted her into hiding. Sekhmet was one of her children and her most exceptional pupil. The Lion Goddess and Eye of Ra as the humans once called her, had made inflicting pain more than just a chore, she had made it art. She thrived on war and the lust of blood, mainly male. Through four millennia of existence, Sekhmet was the standard for all warring goddesses of popular mythology. She had been Artemis, Diana, Kali and even mistaken for Mut. However, in truth, Isis was more Mut than Sekhmet, but there came the point where their destinies were so intermingled, they were often mistaken for each other.

She needed new clothes, but for now, the robes she had would have to do. It was time to leave the world of the Tau'Ri since it appeared time had made them something of a threat, albeit a small one. Smoothing her dress, she secured the ribbon device around her hand and searched the cavern for Sekhmet, who was glancing momentarily at the dead form she wore for so long. The body had started to shrivel without the Goa'uld host. In a matter of hours, it would be dust, like the rest of the things in this place.

"Are you ready?" Sekhmet emerged from the shadows. Always the warrior, she remained hidden in case of attack. "I grow weary of this world. My host's attachment to this place is...disconcerting."

"She feels the bindings of a husband and child," Isis explained. "Such folly has lasting connections. You will feel its stirrings for some time, I fear."

"Not for long," Sekhmet said with a cold smile. "I know how to drive it away."

"We should have taken one of their males with us," Isis remarked as both of them walked to the Chapaii's dialling device. "We will need the code of life to create new Jaffa."

"Yes," Sekhmet agreed. "I would like to have taken the one in black. I believe it was the host's mate. It might have proved an interesting lesson in who controls this body."

"He would not have made a good specimen," Isis said as she reached for the dialling device. "I sense much will in him. You would have killed him, forcing him to obey."

"We will find one when we have passed through the gate," Sekhmet said with a tinge of disappointment. She would have really have enjoyed breaking the host's mate, but Isis was right. It was time to leave this world. After so many years of confinement, she wished to be worshipped again. She wanted to luxuriate in the pleasure of male suffering. Perhaps Netjer, one of Isis's many bastions scattered throughout the universe, could offer such diversion.

"No doubt." The Goddess of All mused when suddenly; a loud eruption of sound tore through the stillness of the air. Taken off guard, Isis dropped to the ground, but there was no situation to which Sekhmet could be caught unaware for very long. She was the eye of the hunter, and she smelled blood in the water.

***********

"Why is Alex dressed like that!" Vin shouted as he and Chris circled the edge of the cavern, using the shadows to make their approach. They could see the shimmer of Mary's hair as she tried to run for cover once Josiah, J.D. and Nathan opened fired. It was only after they started shooting and saw her drop to her knees did they realize it was Alex whom they were firing at.

Chris did not answer Vin because the answer was rather obvious. The same thing that took over Mary now claimed Alex as well and made her just as dangerous as Mary, possibly even more. Her surprise lasted only seconds because, in a moment, she rose to her feet. She appeared not at all afraid of the bullets, and as she raised her hand, they all saw what she was wearing around her wrist.

"You know why!" Chris snapped angrily because this was not the time to discuss it.

"Mr Tanner," Ezra spoke, knowing both men were riding on a wave of emotion and now was the time to be alert with all their faculties intact. The creature that was Mary Travis Larabee was somewhere in here with them, and she had proven once already that she was capable of taking them all on and winning. "We need to focus."

Vin did not want to imagine Alex was as lost to him as Mary now appeared to be to Chris. As he watched the woman he loved, her eyes glowing as she snarled in almost feral rage at the men shooting at her, he knew that she was not Alex. Vin did not know who it was that was facing them with such power, he just knew it was not Alex. 

Slowly she raised her hand and the gem in the centre of her palm started to glow again. Vin knew what was coming just as surely as he had felt the ribs crack when she had flung him aside.

"Josiah, get down!" He shouted, trying to warn them.

They had been taking refuge behind a boulder, but when that invisible force she commanded struck, the large rock, which quickly stood over Josiah's head shattered like sand. Debris sprayed forth in all direction, raining the men behind it with stones and shards of jagged rock. As Josiah, J.D., Buck and Nathan scrambled out of the way, covered with fine grains of pulverized rock and dust, Alex took another step forward. As much as he pained him, Vin had to stop it. He knew if he could just talk to her, he could reach her.

Without thinking, he rushed forward from his hiding place into the centre of the cavern where she could see him.

"VIN!" Chris shouted angrily, unable to believe the young man could do this stupid, stupid thing! "Goddamn it! Get back here!" He almost went after the tracker when he felt a firm hand pulling him back before he too gave himself away.

"Chris, you cannot go after him, we still have another problem!" The gambler reminded, and Chris realized what he was talking about. Of course, Mary. She was still here somewhere, lying low for the moment, the way a smart hunter would do. She was watching in the darkness, waiting for them to show themselves so she could track them. Chris stared after Vin, unable to help his friend and feeling his heart die a little because he knew what was coming even if Vin did not.

In truth, Vin did know how dangerous an act he just committed. However, at the time, he could think of no other way to stop Alex from using that terrible weapon on the others. At least now, she would just focus her attack on him, and perhaps if Vin spoke to her, he might reach that part of her who knew who he was. Maybe she might remember she loved him. 

"Alex," Vin said slowly, holding his ground now that he was before her. "It's me, Vin. Please darlin', you know me."

She looked at him and lowered her hand.

Vin felt his heart pound as she stared at him for a few seconds with an expression on her face, he could not fathom. If anything convinced him she was another person, it was that inability to tell what she was thinking. Vin had always known what was inside Alex's heart by just staring into her eyes. She moved towards him slowly and even though she was dressed strangely, Vin could not deny how beautiful she appeared in her exotic clothes. He felt his heart pound as she approached him because she had not tried to attack. Instead, she was studying him as if trying to decipher what he was.

"It's me," Vin continued to say. "Its Vin. Come on, Alex, try to remember. You're wearing my ring on your finger."

She obviously had not realized it was there because she instinctively looked at her hand as he spoke. The band of gold remained around her finger, and she observed it for a few seconds before her eyes raised to meet his again.

"Vin."

"Yeah darlin'," he grinned hearing her voice and not that awful stranger using her lips to speak. "It's me."

"Vin," she repeated, taking a step towards him. She was close enough to touch him now, and Vin felt a surge of hope because she knew him! She recognized him!

"Vin! Get away from her!"

Chris could only watch with rising horror as Alex reached for Vin, placing her hand on his cheek as she drew him close. For a minute, he dared to hope perhaps Vin had reached Alex, and with that the possibility, he might be done for Mary as well. Vin was drawn to Alex's lips as their mouths met in a kiss of passion. Chris and Ezra stared as they all did as Alex continued to kiss Vin, her hand sliding around his neck, slipping past the strands of hair until finally, she reached the skin.

And then it all went to hell.

The gemstone came to life as she clenched her fist around his throat and there was one frozen moment in time when Chris heard Vin choke as the loud squelch of snapping bone screamed loud in all their ears. The tracker's body went limp in her grip, and she withdrew from him with a smile on her lips that was almost its exultation at the death just caused. Without saying another word, she viciously pulled the ring from her finger and dropped it on the ground about the same time Vin tumbled to the dirt.

"VIN!" Chris screamed, seeing the unusual angle of his neck and knowing with absolute certainty, it was broken. He might still be alive, but the red haze of rage running through Chris's mind did not permit him to believe it. He was about to run out there and face her, not caring whether or not she could do the same or who she might have been when suddenly, something slammed into his back.

Chris felt forward into the dirt, gasping in pain from the blow delivered to his kidneys. His legs felt weak, and he tried to turn around when, suddenly, he was hit with the most mind-numbing pain he had ever felt in his life. It tore through him like hot tendrils until all he could do was scream mindlessly from it. He heard Ezra calling out his name, trying to help but for some unknown reason, the gambler seemed very far away after a few seconds.

Sekhmet watched the man in black writhing in pain as she delivered to him one discharge of the weapon and then turned around to repeat the procedure on his companion. She regarded the smaller man and decided he might do for what Isis required and perhaps she would entertain herself with him when the breeding was done. His agony made him easy to handle, and she dragged him quickly towards the Chapaii, leaving the other to suffer his pains.

Isis was keeping the others at bay with the ribbon weapon at her disposal, blasting everything in sight until they were scrambling like children. How fortunate Sekhmet had found the Zat'nuk'atel weapon among the relics left behind during their time in this enclave. It made this entire engagement pass all the swifter since she had no desire to remain in the world of the Tau'ri for very much longer.

"I have your breeder," Sekhmet declared. "It is time to go."

Isis looked over the new acquisition briefly for there was little time for a prolonged inspection before nodding in approval. "He will do."

While their attacker scrambled to gain their bearings, Isis activated the Chapaii, entering the glyphs that would take them to Netjer.

Nathan watched them bringing the strange device to life, illuminating each panel they touched. He did not know why he was studying them, only knowing that it was necessary if Ezra was to come out of this alive. He could hear Chris groaning in pain, and he knew Vin was dead, somewhere behind him, Josiah was coughing out dust and J.D. was struggling to stay on his feet. Suddenly, the ring of stone they had previously ignored, gushed to life in a sight Nathan would not forget until his dying day. The connection that the strange symbols and the order they had been delivered on the smaller device had someone created this gateway, flared in his mind. Nathan quickly memorized the sequence as he watched Alex and Mary disappear into the shimmer in at the centre of the ring, taking Ezra with them.

He had to remember, or they would never see Ezra Standish again.

Chapter Three
The Goa'uld

This could not be happening.

A part of Chris Larabee refused to believe it when his mind finally cleared and the agony endured by his physical self, diminished enough for the onslaught of the even more significant emotional pain. Every muscle ached as he tried to get to his feet, the memory of excruciating pain stabbing at him even as he stood up shakily with Nathan’s help. Chris knew where the others were as he limped forward to join them. He did not know if he could stand seeing what they were staring at, at this moment but Chris was apart of the circle, and so he had to be there.

No one spoke because they were too shocked by what just happened.

His breath caught as he saw Buck pulling off his coat and laying it over Vin’s motionless form. His old friend looked up sombrely when he saw Chris approach, the grief in his eyes so thick it was a knife driven into Chris’s own heart. He had no idea Buck’s sorrow was mirrored in his own grief-stricken expression. Buck stepped away as Chris lowered to his knees with a slight groan of pain and forced himself to look under the coat even though it took a supreme effort not to scream in rage and denial. Unfortunately burying himself in unreality was not Chris’s way of handling grief. He plunged into it readily, allowing it to drown him in its black depths.

Removing the coat with trembling fingers, Chris found himself at the empty shell that was Vin Tanner. The discolouration and unusual angle of his neck left no doubt as to the cause of death. Whatever the thing inhabiting Alexandra Styles’s body was, it snapped Vin's neck like kindling, taking from this world the best friend he ever had. The anger inside Chris constricted his throat until he could not breathe. He had to stand up and walk away or else he would have put his fist through something and start screaming.

"Chris," Buck went after him as he staggered away. "Are you all right?"

"No, I am not alright, Buck!" He snarled in response. "Vin is dead, Ezra is Christ only knows where! Alex has become a goddamn killer and Mary…" he started to falter as that began to sink in. "The kindest thing I can probably do for Mary at this point is to kill her! No, I ain’t even close to being fucking all right."

"That may be," Buck was unable to refute anything Chris was saying and wishing he could allow the gunslinger time to cope with the loss of a wife and three friends but he could not. The situation was tenuous enough as it was and while all they had their own grief to contend with, the fact remained Ezra was still alive and despite the condition they were in, so were Mary and Alex. "But this ain’t the time to go to pieces Chris, we need you. Ezra’s still out there, and we got to get him back."

Chris turned on him viciously, wondering how anyone could ask anything of him now when Vin was lying dead, and Mary might as well be. "Get him back from where? They’re gone, Buck! They went through that....that…" Chris looked at the circle of stone, unable to even think of what to call it. "Whatever that is!"

"We can’t give up on them!" Buck roared angrily, feeling the same pain as Chris but Buck knew if he gave in to it now, if he allowed Chris to wallow in his grief like the man was itching to do, Chris would never emerge from it. He was like this when Sarah died, and Buck knew all the signs. Buck could see it coming as surely as the sun would rise tomorrow. He refused to let Chris give up then and he sure as hell was not about to do it now. Not when there was some measure of hope for their lost friends, no matter how remote it might seem. While Mary and the others were still alive, Buck Wilmington was not going to give her up for dead, not her, not Ezra, not any of them.

"Go to hell, Buck!" Chris swore, angry and wanting to hurt something or someone. Buck’s provocation was driving his rage past the point of no return, and they faced each other with tempers spiralling rapidly out of control. "That woman is my wife, and I want her back more than anything, but I don’t know how to help her or to even get to her!"

"You’re a goddamn coward Chris! You can’t stand?" Buck glared at his oldest friend in the world unwilling to let the matter rest, no matter what the consequences. "What the hell do you think she’s going through? She’s still in there somewhere, trapped inside herself, watching the monster that’s taken her body do things she can’t imagine! Are you just going to leave Mary like that! Even a dog deserves to be put out of its misery Chris!"

That was the last straw. Chris launched himself at Buck, and the big man was ready to take the challenge, more than willing to trade blows when Josiah intervened, trying to prise them apart before things deteriorated any further, as if they were not dismal as it is.

"Stop it both of you!" His gravelly voice resonated with authority. "This ain’t the time for this!"

"Stay out of it, Josiah!" Chris shouted as he tried breaking free of the grip Josiah was using to keep him and Buck from brawling like a couple of kids.

"No! I ain’t gonna let you both act like stupid vengeful children!" The preacher bellowed loudly, his own anguish at what just took place surfacing as he watched his friends tear each other apart. Not when this was the time they needed to be united the most. Vin Tanner meant as much to him as any of them, and he hated things had come to this. There were dark events afoot here, and the Lord was not likely to help them if they were behaving like this.

"I ain’t the one who’s giving up on Ezra!" Buck defended himself vehemently, just as furious because like Josiah, he saw the need for action, not remorse. Ezra Standish may have been a scheming, self-serving, morally depraved human being, but he was their friend. Buck was not willing to abandon him to whatever lay on the other side of the mysterious portal Mary and Alex had taken him through.

"Shut up Buck! I want to help Ezra as much as you do!" Chris roared furiously, incensed Buck could think him so willing to discard one of his own men. Chris knew they had to help Ezra, but he had no idea how to do that, and it was this lack of knowledge, making them all crazy. "I just don’t know how we’re going to do it!"

"We've got to try something!" Buck returned, accusation glaring from his eyes as it burned into Chris. Both of them were so wrapped up in their rage; neither noticed Nathan trying to get a word in edgewise.

"Try what!" Chris demanded when suddenly, a thunderous rumble filled the room. All men immediately fell silent, their anger at each other dissipating as their eyes turned to the source of the noise. The inner ring of the circle was moving again, pausing long enough to lock into sequence as it did before like the combination turns of a safe. 

"Get clear of it!" Nathan ordered, ushering them all away from its path. He saw the surge of energy gushing forth from the ring when Alex and Mary brought it to life earlier. There were too many unknowns about the device to demand anything but utmost caution when dealing with it. They hurried away from the thing, mesmerised by the strange sequence and the unearthly reverberation it seemed to make as it rested momentarily on those peculiar symbols engraved along its dark surface.

"What the hell is it doing?" Buck demanded as they took cover a suitable distance away from the object.

"I don’t know," Chris stared at it as he saw something beginning to happen when the seventh symbol was locked into place.

When the device was activated the first time, Chris was still screaming in pain from whatever Mary did to him, so he missed the terrifying sight of what Nathan was calling a portal, being opened. He watched the shimmer of light appear in the centre of the ring, resembling water with sunlight bouncing off the sparkling pool. Suddenly, the explosion of energy Nathan saw earlier, gushed forward, surging halfway across the cavern before recoiling back sharply into the hollow of the ring.

Chris emerged from his hiding place, his hand going for his gun although the effect once finished, did not look threatening. Besides, it just occurred to him that if this was a doorway to someplace else, then it might swing both ways, and that could mean they were about to have visitors. He motioned the others, who naturally took his decision to step forward as a sign it might be safe, to follow. Buck shadowed Chris, his own gun brandished as they waited with bated breath for something to emerge.

A few seconds later, it did.

Someone stepped out of the shimmer, but whether or not they were human was difficult to say. Automatically, Chris drew both guns, with no hesitation in pulling the trigger if it appeared the new arrival offered any threat. After seeing what Alex did to Vin, Chris was taking no chances. The others did the same and the being emerging in the odd coverings, froze in place. Every inch of him was hidden under a smooth material that resembled nothing like cloth, and he was aware immediately there was danger. Behind him, three other figures stepped through the portal with similar surprise after realising what lay before them.

"Move and we’ll kill you!" Chris warned, and this time he meant it. He would shoot them all dead if any of them so much as breathed wrong. Although he did not recognise all the equipment they were carrying with them, he had enough experience with strange travellers to know what was slung around their shoulders were weapons and extremely dangerous ones. "Drop the guns!" 

The figure in the lead stiffened at the suggestion and responded. 

"Not a chance in hell."

Chris did not expect that response because he sounded normal, not at all like the inhuman voices Mary and Alex used after they were possessed, whatever one called it. However, he was not about to be questioned on this point. "Drop the guns, or I will fill you with so many holes you’ll be dead before you hit the ground."

"Jack…." One of them started to say, looking at the leader in anxiety, even though Chris could not see his face.

"Carter, where are we?" The leader demanded, sounding more annoyed than frightened. "This doesn’t look like the SGC."

"Chris," Buck started to feel uncomfortable. Despite how peculiarly these people were dressed, they did not sound like the creatures who stole Mary and Alex’s bodies. In fact, they seemed very much like travellers lost and confused at where they were. "Maybe, we ought to think about this."

"Like Vin thought about it?" Chris bit back sharply and silenced Buck immediately because one of them was lying on the floor of this very cavern, dead, because he foolishly believed the woman he loved was still the person he knew.

"I don’t understand." Another one of the newcomers stammered with similar confusion and added to their bewilderment because she was undoubtedly female. "I dialled the address for home. We should be at the SGC."

"Am I the only one whose noticing that we’re not?" The leader's annoyance was beginning to turn into anger.

On that level at least, Chris could empathise and his own resolve at keeping these people under the point of a gun, wavered as he started to realise perhaps they were as human as they sounded. Furthermore, if they were aware of how to use the portal, then maybe they might be able to explain what happened to Mary and Alex and how the seven could find Ezra. "You’re in the Territory." Chris offered.

"The Territory?" The leader exclaimed before the other man spoke. 

"Jack, I think he might mean New Mexico. It's what they used to call it before statehood." 

"New Mexico?" 'Jack' burst out in astonishment. "We’re in New Mexico?" He turned to the woman and demanded. "How can we be in New Mexico, there is no gate in New Mexico!"

Chris let out a sigh of exasperation, deciding these people were no danger to him or his friends. "Alright, who are you people?"

"I’m Doctor Daniel Jackson," one of them stepped forward, fumbling for the covering over his head.

"Daniel…" Jack started to protest.

"Jack, we’re not where we’re supposed to be, and we need to know how we got here." The man named Daniel countered as if he were talking to a child. "Besides, if we don’t tell them something, they’re liable to shoot us."

"You got that right," Chris confirmed, not lowering his gun although he relaxed a bit. Doctor Daniel Jackson as he called himself, removed the hood covering his face and revealed himself to be very much human, not much older than Vin, Chris estimated. With dark gold hair, Daniel stared at them through steel-rimmed glasses and possessed a manner, not at all menacing but rather unassuming. Just from the way he spoke, Chris could tell immediately he was not a man comfortable with violence.

"What year is this?" Daniel asked once he revealed himself to them. He had been studying these men the moment they stepped through the gate and discovered they had not arrived at the SCG. There was no doubt this was a Goa’uld enclave, he could see the evidence of their technology throughout the room, including the sarcophagus lying at the far end. However, the fact these men believed they were in New Mexico made the whole thing impossible. Yet they were here, and he needed answers to explain how SG1 had come arrived at this point in time.

"Aw, not this again…" Buck started to groan. "1879. Let me guess, you’re from the future right?"

Daniel looked genuinely shocked. "The year 2000 actually."

"Daniel enough." Jack O’Neill ordered when he finally removed the radiation suit as they were all doing at the moment. "What’s going on here?" This time, he directed his question at Chris, whom he recognised as the one in charge.

"What’s going on?" Buck replied before Chris could answer. "We just saw two women whom we care about, his wife and a very pretty lady doctor, suddenly turn into murdering monsters who killed one of us and took the other through that there…whatever the hell that thing is!" Buck blurted out angrily, not possessing Chris’s patience after everything they had been through today.

"Oh hell," Jack swore out loud, realising not only had they arrived in the wrong time period, but they brought two Goa’ulds with them. "Let me guess, their eyes glowed?" He asked the man in black.

"Yeah," Chris nodded, "Their eyes glowed. What happened to my wife?" He asked in a low voice, only seconds from tearing out the man’s throat if he was not given his answers. While Buck may think he was beingpatient, Chris was actually biding his time, trying to see if these people could provide him with some inkling of what had taken Mary so he could fight it.

Daniel started moving away from the others, having seen the bodies of the two naked women whose corpses were rapidly decaying. No one seemed to be paying much notice to them because there was a fresher body lying in the dirt, covered by someone’s coat indicating he was someone important to the men assembled here.

"Jack," he motioned them to the empty husks previously occupied by Semkhet and Isis. "Over here."

"Jesus Christ!" Nathan exclaimed in horror as he realised the presence of the two bodies. "What’s happening to them?"

"Once it leaves its old body, the corpse starts decaying fast," Jack volunteered, meeting Chris’s gaze, understanding why there was so much paranoia running through the group. If this was 1879 and these men had encountered the Goa’uld, there was a lot of reason for them to be a little traumatised by the event, especially when one of those taken was a wife. It still pained him to think Skaara was now a Goa’uld host after how much the boy had come to mean to him on Abydos. To say nothing about the agony Daniel was going through losing Sha're so he could only imagine how this stranger in black must feel.

"What is it?" Chris asked softly, his eyes now transfixed on the withering bodies before him. Now he knew why they wanted Alex. They needed her body because their own was dying. Had it been like that for Mary too?

"It’s a parasite." Sam took the opportunity to explain. "It enters the body through the mouth or neck. Once it’s inside, it has complete possession."

"What about the person inside?" Josiah asked. "What happens to them?"

"They’re in there." She whispered, knowing from personal experience how it felt to be confined inside one’s mind with only a Goa’uld for company, helplessly watching it use her body against her will. She counted herself lucky Jolinahr was Tokra and not the bloodthirsty creature that was a system lord. "Trapped but powerless to do anything. The parasite has complete control over the body, and while the person is still in there, it cannot do anything but watch."

"Oh, my God," Nathan whispered. "You mean Miss Alex would have seen that thing kill Vin?" He tried to imagine what must be going through Alex’s mind right now, in whatever dark placed she was imprisoned. He could not imagine anything so terrible than to watch a loved one die in front of them and be powerless to do anything about it.

"Yes," Sam nodded sombrely. "You remember everything."

"Jack," Daniel spoke up having moved to the sarcophagus and discovered it was in perfect working order. "This thing works." 

"Are you sure?" Jack strode over to the others. Chris had more or less forgone the effort of considering these strangers a threat since they were freely admitting to him what happened to Mary and were providing him with much-needed information about the enemy they were facing.

"I don’t understand how this place could be here?" Sam looked around the cavern as her commanding officer went to investigate the sarcophagus. "We only knew of two gates on Earth."

"What exactly is this gate?" Buck inquired.

"Well," Sam debated how to explain it to him. She had reservations of telling him too much because she was worried about the effect it would have on the timeline, but it was more or less a moot point with them witnessing the arrival of SG1 and the Goa’uld through the gate. "It’s a gateway through the stars."

"You’re joking." He looked at her in astonishment. "You mean the ones up in the sky?"

"Yes," she nodded and saw him struggling to grasp the enormity of it all. She could not blame him of course. If 1879 was really the time, then he might as well be from the stone age where the gate was concerned. "This takes us from one planet to another instantly. All we have to do is step through."

"Wow!" JD exclaimed, his youth allowing no restraint on his enthusiasm. "You actually travel through one star to the other?"

Sam could not help but smile at his way of putting it, and as she looked up at the man with the moustache, he was sharing the moment with her. "Something like that." Sam nodded and then turned to the older man. "I take it they left as soon as they had new bodies?" She ventured a guess at what had taken place here before SG1’s arrival.

"Yeah," Buck nodded sadly. "Woman who killed Vin over there," he motioned to Vin’s body lying on the ground nearby, "she was his fiancee."

"Oh God," Sam gasped. "I am sorry." She said genuinely horrified by what a terrible thing it must have been for all of them. Suddenly a thought occurred to her. "Colonel!" She brushed past Buck and hurried to Jack and Daniel who were examining the sarcophagus.

"What? More surprises?" Jack looked over his shoulder at her sarcastically.

"If the sarcophagus works, can’t we put him in there?" She looked at the dead man lying under the coat. "I mean if the Goa’uld’s arrival here was an accident, then that man should not be dead! If we are to maintain the timeline, he needs to live, and we’ve got to bring these women back."

"What do you mean, put him in there?" Chris interjected, feeling like he was five steps behind and he supposed he was. "What good will that do? He’s dead."

"Carter, I don’t know," Jack said reluctantly. "We’re messing with history here."

"I believe Doctor Carter is right." Teal’c who had remained silent until this point remarked. He had been quiet because he suspected he intimidated the humans in the cavern with him somewhat. "The disruption to your world’s history has suffered much already. If there is a chance to repair the damage, it must be taken for we have no idea how this will affect the future events of the Tau’Ri."

Jack frowned in distaste because he disliked using Goa’uld technology, especially the sarcophagus. He remembered how Daniel had become after prolonged use of the device and discouraged anyone from utilising its life-regenerating effects. However, at this point in time, it appeared they had not much choice in the matter. Carter and Teal’c were correct, the integrity of the timeline had to be maintained. If this man was not meant to die and was dead because of an accidental encounter with a Goa’uld, who knows what repercussions his absence may have on future events? It might be minor fluctuations, and then again, it could be a major one. Whatever the case, they could not take the gamble.

"Alright," Jack let out a sigh of resignation. "Put him in."

"Put him in?" Chris demanded as he saw the woman and the imposing black man making moves towards Vin’s dead body. "You ain’t putting him anywhere until you tell us what you’re doing." Just to emphasise the point, Josiah and Nathan took up position near Vin, refusing to allow anyone to disturb it until explanations were forthcoming.

"Do you want him back or not?" Jack growled, his mood not improving by the debate considering what they were doing was bringing a man back to life.

"Back?" Nathan’s eyes widened by the implication. "He’s dead! How can you bring him back?"

Jack shifted uncomfortably where he was standing, never being able to explain the sarcophagus's healing properties to any satisfactory degree. He glanced at Sam and Daniel, hoping they would jump in and relieve him of the chore. However, judging by the uneasy expressions on their face, Jack did not expect a rescue to be forthcoming. Besides, the man in black was looking at him, and Jack had the impression he wanted to hear the truth from Jack, who had clearly established himself as the leader of the SG1 team.

"That thing over there," Jack glanced in the direction of the sarcophagus. "The Goa’ulds use it to keep their bodies young and healthy for a long time."

"Goa’uld?" JD tried to pronounce it and could getnot the inflections right.

"That’s what we call them." Daniel volunteered helpfully.

"Right," Jack nodded, glancing at his feet before facing the man in black once again. "You got a name?" 

"Chris Larabee," Chris replied shortly. "Keep going, you said they use it to keep bodies healthy?" The gunslinger prompted, wanting to hear this if there was even a slight chance Vin could be restored to them again.

"Nice to meet you too," Jack muttered under his breath and continued. "It keeps bodies alive and young, even ones that have been hurt or diseased. It can heal just about anything, and on occasion, we’ve found it can revive a body that hasn’t been dead for long. So if your friend over there has any chance of waking up, we’ve got to get him in there right now."

It was too unbelievable, all of it. However, it was no less hard to believe than anything else Chris had seen today, and the truth was if it could give Vin his life back, Chris was willing to risk it, no matter how far fetched it may sound.

"Let them do it." 

"You sure about this, Chris?" Nathan asked. "We don’t know anything about that contraption."

"It can’t hurt Vin any more than he already is," Chris said softly. "Go on," he looked at Sam and Teal’c. "Do what you have to."

They did not move until Jack nodded his approval to proceed. The two members of SG1 acted quickly with Teal’c brushing past Josiah and Nathan who had stepped aside, allowing him access to the dead tracker. Teal’c picked up the corpse without any assistance while Sam returned to the sarcophagus, examining the device to see if it was in working order as Daniel believed. While Sam respected Daniel in every way, he was by profession an Egyptologist and a linguist while she was the one with all the expertise regarding Goa’uld technology.

"Have you seen this work before?" Buck asked Jack as Teal’c walked past them.

"A couple of times," Jack replied, neglecting to tell them he used the device himself even though he never liked it very much. "It works."

The group gathered around the sarcophagus as Sam activated the controls and the machine came alive with light oozing through the ornate coverstone. The sarcophagus gave off an eerie glow as Teal’c lowered Vin’s body into its smooth insides. The surface illuminated as soon his body made contact.

"This thing will bring him back to life?" JD asked with unmasked awe as contact with Vin’s body activated the device’s locking mechanism, and the large lid slid to a close over him. They stepped back and watched him disappear, not daring to hope he could be walking amongst them again.

"Now what?" Buck asked Sam, feeling most comfortable talking to her of all the strangers that came through the gate.

"Now, we wait." 

***********

Nightfall came very quickly following the arrival of the travellers. Since they could not leave while Vin was inside the device, there was no choice but to build a campfire and take care of the bodies, not just the Goa'uld hosts, but also that of the unfortunate excavation team who uncovered this underground bunker. They worked in silence as they performed the burial, giving the same reverence to the former hosts of Isis and Sekhmet as they did to the dead men. As Daniel explained to the seven, these hosts were just as innocent as Mary and Alex had been when they were taken, and should be afforded the same respect. Josiah even went so far as to say a few words as they buried the dead in the desert outside.

Following that, they sat around the campfire and waited for Vin to emerge from the sarcophagus.

No one had very much to say at first, being lost in their own thoughts as to the events of the day. Sam Carter spent most of her time trying to understand why they were sent back through time to this distant age in their history. Perhaps it was just serendipity that allowed this bunker to be uncovered at the same time the Goa’uld were attempting to use the gate. It was impossible to predict the chain of events when time was so completely out of sync. Sam was sure the solar disruption on Planet PX250 had been the cause of their unexpected arrival here.

A solar flare had once sent the SG1 team back to the year 1969 and while this was a great deal farther back and the situation more critical because there would be no General Hammond to help them, Sam believed there was a way home. They had access to the gate, which meant they had access to races with the technology to help them get back to their own time. The Nox and Tollan, for example, were more than capable of assisting them in such an endeavour or could even reproduce the same surges of energy that sent them here in the first place. Nevertheless, SG1's priority was not getting home, but the recovery of the women and the man who had become victims of the Goa’uld.

Daniel, in the meantime, busied himself by conducting an examination of the bunker Doctor Faulkner would never be able to perform himself. He was saddened the excavation team should die so tragically when this should have been the find of their lives. As he continued his studies of the place, the young man named JD stayed close to him, listening to his discoveries and ruminations with complete fascination. JD asked questions and paid attention to Daniel’s answers, and the linguist found he liked JD a great deal and was reminded of Skaara. Of course, he did not bring that observation to Jack’s attention.

After a while, Daniel learned enough to develop a hypothesis about this place and its strange origins. They had encountered cultures with a North American influence and always assumed they had come through the gate located in Egypt. However, the presence of a Stargate here seemed to explain how those tribes had come to be seeded on worlds halfway across the galaxy.

Chris Larabee said nothing, merely staring into the fire as they waited. Most of the conversation was between Buck, who had a thousand questions about the Goa’uld and Sam, who answered most of his queries. As always, Buck was quick to charm the only woman in the place, and while she fended off his flirtations with good humour, it was not hard to see she was slightly taken in by them as well.

Chris listened quietly, not saying much even though he heard everything being said. Despite what took place today, Chris still had trouble believing any of this was real, that Mary had turned into a ruthless killer and Vin was dead. Even though the strangers through the gate assured him the sarcophagus would bring him back to the friends who mourned him, Chris still felt empty. His thoughts seemed singularly focussed on Mary. Where was she at this moment, and what had she become? As he listened to the strangers talk about these Goa’ulds, Chris could hardly imagine the terrible things she was forced to witness while something controlled her body and forced it to perform callous acts of cruelty. He saw the creature in her eyes and knew with absolute certainty it was not his Mary, and it ached each time, he thought of how incapable he was of helping her.

"So what’s the story, Daniel?" Jack asked when Daniel and JD returned to the campfire.

"Well, there is evidence everywhere this place was devoted to Isis." Daniel let his gaze sweep across the cavern. Judging by the spacial degradation inside the bunker, I’m going to have to say it hasn’t seen traffic in about two thousand years. It’s hard to say for sure, I need more specialised equipment."

"This thing has been alive for two thousand years?" Josiah asked incredulously.

"Yes," Daniel answered. "With the sarcophagus, they can keep their bodies well preserved for hundreds of years, and when it finally starts to decay, they move." He did not meet Chris’s eyes when he spoke. "That is also why the ancient races considered them gods."

"I think I know where they went," Nathan spoke out finally. With everything that happened, the arrival of this strangers from the future, Vin’s death and now possible resurrection, the healer had forgotten all about the fact he memorised the sequence of glyphs, as Daniel called them, on the dialling device.

"What do you mean, you think you know where they’ve gone?" Chris threw an accusatory glare at Nathan for not bringing this up sooner.

"Take it easy, Chris," Buck warned, knowing Chris needed to be reminded some times he was not the only one grieving for lost friends. "Nathan, are you sure?"

"When they went in," Nathan explained quickly, knowing Chris’s temper was poised on such a thin edge at the moment, it was best he volunteered what he knew immediately. "I paid attention to the glyphs they touched. At the time, I figured it was important if there was any chance of getting Ezra back. I still remember the sequence."

The SG1 team exchanged glances because they knew as well as the new friends encountered in this time, what it meant.

"If he knows where they went, we can go after them," Daniel replied, stating the obvious.

"Colonel, we have to," Sam added her voice into the discussion. "We have to bring those people back. We have no idea how this will affect future events. We could go home and find nothing where it’s supposed to be. Isis and Sekhmet coming back here is not some predestination paradox, it’s an accident. We have to repair the damage."

Chris Larabee spoke. "We’re going, with or without you."

Jack met the man’s eyes and saw he was entirely serious about using the gate. "That is not an option. This whole mess with time involves you too. Anything happens to you in there, and we’d be back to square one."

"That’s your problem," Chris said firmly, making sure Jack understood how determined he was on this point. "I’m going to get my wife."

"You would not even know how to find her, Chris Larabee," Teal’c interjected. "Isis is a Goa’uld System Lord, she would have personal guards around her. Even if you are to reach her and Sekhmet, you will be faced with the same difficulty you encountered when you attempted to subdue her here. You will have even greater difficulty with Sekhmet. Her name is feared as the Eye of Ra, she has a great thirst for inflicting pain, and I am told she is very good at it."

"I don’t care." Chris was adamant. "She’s got my wife, and if it means I have to kill her to set Mary free, then that’s how it's got to be. Anything has to be better than letting Mary suffer for centuries while this thing uses her up."

"And we’re all willing to go with him," Buck stated, giving Chris a slight nod, indicating the others were with him on this course. "Mary, Alex and Ezra aren't just names in a history book of how things are supposed to be, they’re our friends and we ain’t letting them suffer the kind of hell you’re talking about. If it means going through that thing and facing whatever lies behind it, then we’re gonna do it. We’d rather have you with us, but we’ll do it alone if we have to."

Chris did not speak for a moment because he was too overwhelmed by Buck’s words and met the eyes of his old friend to convey a silent note of thanks, not just to Buck, but to the rest of his friends gathered around the fire. He turned to Jack once again. "What’s it going to be? You’re going to help us?"

Jack found a slow smile stealing across his face despite the enormity of what this gunfighter was demanding. He decided he liked Chris Larabee to the point of even seeing something in the man he could relate to. Jack wondered secretly what it was that twisted Chris's soul so out of shape and without actually hearing the details, knew he'd been there too. Besides, despite the risks to the timeline, history and other world-shaping events, Jack also knew if he were to find out where Skaara was at this minute, there would be no force on heaven and earth capable of keeping him from going after the boy. This man had lost a wife, and Jack knew personally how terrible that must be.

He only had to look at Daniel to be reminded.

"I guess we don’t have much choice." He conceded finally. "Okay, you come with us, but you do it our way." He met Chris’s gaze directly. "You don’t know what’s on the other side of the gate, we do. We’ve been there, and we’ve fought them. If we can get to your wife and your friends, we’ll get them back, but you’ve got to know we’re facing big odds if they’re gone to a planet where they have control. The people on these planets think the Goa’uld are gods, they ready to die for them."

"People tend to get mighty protective of their faith." Josiah nodded in understanding; after all, he came from a religious denomination that was willing to resort to burnings at the stake to maintain its integrity.

"We know the risks," Buck answered for all of them. "We’ll do what it takes to get them back." He glanced at Chris and added just so their leader did not have any ideas to the contrary. "We’ll also do it your way. You know the land better than we do."

"What happens if we do find them?" JD had to ask. In all their discussions to retrieve Mary, Alex and Ezra, it appeared no one had given any thought to the question. "If those things are still inside of them, how do we get them out?"

"That will not be easy," Teal’c replied, seeing how uncomfortable his companions were to answer the younger man’s question. "The Goa’uld will do everything in its power to remain in the body of its host. It will not leave willingly. It can only be induced to do so if it believes the host is dying."

Jack was glad that Teal’c was offering this information because he did not relish telling Chris Larabee it would be near impossible to force a Goa’uld to vacate its host body. Memories of his friend and fellow officer, Kowalski surfaced in Jack’s mind. The technology to remove the Goa’uld host did not exist a hundred and twenty years into the future, it certainly did not now.

Neither Jack nor Teal’c had to make that revelation because Chris was perceptive enough to guess what they were trying to put to him. "You’re saying that it will kill her before it lets her go."

"Yeah," Jack nodded, having no wish to lie to the man because he had to be prepared for the worst.

"Wait a minute Jack," Daniel spoke up because he hated the idea Chris would lose his wife, the way he lost Sha're. The past three years since she had gone was slow torture for Daniel because she was not dead, merely out of reach. It would have been so much simpler if the Goa’uld just killed her, at least he could mourn her and continue with his life. Instead, they took her from him, a small piece at a time, and that was far worse than knowing she was dead. Since he joined SG1, Sha're had become the Holy Grail Daniel was starting to realise he may never find. He wanted to spare Chris that hell. "If we find her, we could take her to Thor’s Hammer."

"Colonel, that’s it!" Sam exclaimed in excitement. "We take them to Thor’s hammer. Kendra had a Goa’uld inside of her for years, and she came out of it all right. If Larabee’s wife and the doctor have only been blended for a day or so, there should be no reason why it can’t do the same for them."

"What is this thing?" Chris asked, trying not to let himself be carried away by any false hopes. There was no reason to believe any of this could end up the way he wanted, and Chris was not one to linger on what-ifs.

"It’s hard to explain," Sam turned to him to try anyway. "But Thor's Hammer was built by a race even older than the Goa’uld. They must have been enemies at some point because the device was built specifically to remove a Goa’uld symbiote from its host body without harming the host."

"So if we take Mary and Alex to this Hammer thing, it will get rid of the Goa’ulds inside them?" Buck asked tentatively.

"More or less," Samantha said with a smile. "If we can get them there, that is exactly what it will do."

"Then what in the hell are we waiting for?" A lazy voice drawled behind them. "Let’s go find them."

"Vin!" JD exclaimed as they all turned around to find the tracker appearing out of the darkness, beyond the sphere of the fire’s illumination. Vin looked as if he had just woke from a deep sleep, rubbing wakefulness back into his eyes as he approached them. He had woken up in that strange tomb-like device and had a hundred questions as to why he was placed there.

Immediately, the rest of the seven jumped to their feet to greet the tracker except Chris, Jack noticed. The gunslinger hung back as the younger man they revived in the sarcophagus was being inundated with grateful slaps on the back and expressions of relief over his well being.

Chris let out a secret sigh of relief, hiding the emotion running through him away from the others because Chris was not one to share how he felt, no matter how pleased he was. Turning to Jack as the others surrounded Vin in happiness, he said quietly. "Thank you for this."

"It's not going to be easy, you know," Jack reiterated now he had a moment alone with Chris, without the rest of the seven in attendance. "I know you want your wife back, and we’re going to do everything to see it happens, but you’ve got to expect the worse. We’ve been fighting Goa’ulds for three years now, and I’m telling you it's going to be hard. We’re going to have trouble just getting through their guards."

"I ain’t good at taking orders," Chris admitted reluctantly.

"I got that impression," Jack remarked with a faint smile. "Ex-army?"

"Yeah. Union Blue."

"Thought so," The colonel chuckled. "Just keep your head down and take our lead. We’ll get her back." He replied with more confidence than he felt.

"If not," Chris took a deep breath having thought about this long and hard during the last few hours, paying close attention to what Samantha Carter had been saying about these Goa’uld and their ways. He knew he could do this thing as hard as it might be and what would happen to him after was anyone’s guess. But Chris had no choice, he had to do it because he loved Mary and he refused to let her suffer any more than she had to if he could save her from the pain. "If not, I’m going to kill her."

"What?" Daniel exclaimed, unable to believe what he just heard.

"Daniel," Jack interrupted, comprehending what Chris was saying even if his younger companion did not. "I understand." He met Chris’s eyes. "If it comes to that, we won’t stop you."

"I appreciate you don’t," Chris replied, looking at Daniel when he said this. "Because I ain’t letting her go through the hell of being trapped with some monster in her own body. I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way of letting that happen."

***********

Ezra Standish hated to admit this, but he was afraid.

He stared through the bars of his prison into the night air outside his window and knew everything he saw there was wrong. For starters, there were twin moons in the sky, and while they did not hang like orbs of light against a blue canvas of twinkling stars, Ezra knew they were not that different from the lunar object he knew. He regained consciousness to find himself in this dark dungeon. The memory of pain was still fresh in his mind as he tried to remember what happened before the blackness brought him to this place.

His heart sank, remembering Alex or whatever had taken Alex, lured Vin to his death. After that, things became rather vague. He knew he stopped Chris from doing something foolish because the gunslinger was ready to rush out and face Alex which Ezra knew would have gotten him killed as surely as Vin lay dead on the ground. Following that, Ezra felt the most intense pain he ever experienced. When Nicholas Serfonteine tortured him, Ezra had believed the whip that tore his flesh from his back was the worst pain he'd ever experienced. Until now. It paled in comparison with what he just went through a short time ago. 

Ezra did not know where this was, but he had the strange idea he was not in Four Corners or even in the Territory. There were two moons outside, and the stars in the amber speckled sky did not look right. Constellations were not where they should be, adding to his rising apprehension. Logically, the answer was right in front of him. Ezra was the result of a good education and that education included a sound knowledge of the sciences. He knew there was only only reason for what he saw outside his window, however incredible it might be. Unfortunately, if today taught him nothing else, everything was within the realm of impossibility.

His prison was really a dungeon. The walls were made of thick, grey brick, and there were bars on the small window. He was the only resident of the jail with guards posted out his door. After inspecting them, Ezra was surprised to see they were women. They were dressed not too differently from Mary, except for the headgear shaped like a lion, covering half their faces. He tried speaking to them, but they were totally unresponsive to any conversation. Finally, Ezra gave up altogether and returned to this insufferable waiting game, wondering after a while if he was going to be left to languish here forever or if any of the others were confined in this way as well.

Ezra started to doze off when suddenly, he heard the door of his jail open loudly. Ezra immediately woke, hearing footsteps entering the room. . He remained seated on the cold hard floor and wished he had the benefit of his weapons, but his derringer, like all his guns, was taken before he had regained consciousness.When his visitor entered, Ezra had been suffering his confinement in darkness. However, she brought with her some kind of lamp that burned without any flame. Still, it was no less alien than anything else he witnessed so far.

"You have rested?" She who was once Mary Travis Larabee asked him.

Ezra did not know how to answer. She wore a sheer white gown against her skin, and her hair was splayed across her shoulders in a cascade of gold. Mary had always seemed pristine to him. She was the kind of woman one admired but not lusted after, Chris Larabee excluded. At least until now. As Ezra stared at her, she made his mouth go dry. The woman exuded sex so powerfully, it was hard to avoid the arousal despite his situation.

"Yes," Ezra spoke softly, looking away because his traitorous body was responding to her scandalous clothing. "I have rested well enough. I suppose it is too much trouble to inquire if I would be allowed to leave."

"Where would you go human? Surely you do not believe you are on your homeworld any longer?"

Ezra felt his stomach heave as what he suspected all this time was flung into his face like cold water. He wanted to throw up in protest, but he could not. His fear was starting to choke him. However, he maintained a mask of indifference because it was never wise to show one’s hand until the time was right. At the moment, he needed all the advantage he could get.

"Where am I?" He asked, not expecting an answer.

"You are in the world we call Netjer." She responded, lowering to her knees. The dress she wore loose and afforded him an ample view of her bosom as she knelt. Ezra looked away because she was still Chris Larabee’s wife, and there was something in her eyes that gave him a reason to be cautious. "I brought you here for Isis."

"Isis?" Ezra looked at her blankly.

"She who killed your friend," she replied with no sense of remorse whatsoever. In fact, she was smiling as she said it. That cold indifference frightened Ezra almost as much as everything else was happening to him at this moment. Hiding his grief at Vin’s death, Ezra accepted the news silently, waiting to see why she was here and more specifically, why he was brought to this place.

"What do you want from me, Madam?" 

"Isis requires you as her consort." She saw no reason to hide anything from him. There would be nothing he could do to stop it anyway.

"Consort?" Ezra began to stammer because he thought he had misheard.

"Yes," she smiled, finding his discomfort at the suggestion amusing. "Do you find that so amazing?" She ran a finger against his thigh and then chuckled when he recoiled sharply from her touch as if scalded.

"She had a consort. If she had not killed Vin, he would have happily obliged her." Ezra replied bitterly, uncomfortable about the way Mary was eyeing and touching him. The menacing gleam that had given Chris pause was now mixed with desire, which to Ezra was much worse.

"He was the mate to the host," She grabbed his chin in her hands, before slamming his head against the wall. Ezra winced in pain, but he suffered far worse in his time. He almost reacted until he noticed her guards were standing by the door, watching him closely. All were armed with the exotic weapons she used to defeat them and cautioned him against making any move towards her. 

"You are to be consort to the Goddess of All." She continued to speak, making her look at him again. "It is not a request."

"I am no one’s breeding animal."

"You will be ours, hers and mine." She returned just as sharply, pressing his skull against the stone wall behind him. Her fingers dug into his cheeks until Ezra could feel her nails drawing blood. "You will do everything that is required of you, and you will do it happily, and then I may let you die quickly when it is over. Do not underestimate how much pain I am willing to make you suffer."

Ezra swallowed, hating this. "Who are you?" He ventured to ask, unable to stand thinking of her as Mary any more. "You are certainly not the woman I know."

"The one you know is gone." She replied with a faint smile. "I feel her inside me, you know. She is weak and frightened. I hear her whimpering each time I expose her weakness. Your kind keep your women tamed and hidden away behind ridiculous clothes. You beat them into submission with your own petty insecurities when you ought to be grateful that we do not kill you for the waste of flesh you all are."

"This is hardly the way to win me over." Ezra found himself saying. "I am afraid there are some things about the male physique that do not respond well under threat. If I am to be consort to your Isis, Lady….?"

"Sekhmet." She introduced herself, slipping her dress over her bare shoulders and Ezra found himself staring at something only Chris Larabee should be viewing. Despite himself, he could not deny how magnificent she looked, and how much he wanted to touch her as she stood before him bare. Ezra found his gaze mesmerized by the alabaster cream of her neck and the soft, round shape of her breasts, begging for his touch. Involuntarily, he felt his body react, and she noticed it with almost triumphant pleasure. "Now that was not so difficult, was it?" She purred and leaned towards him.

Ezra felt her mouth against his, warm and soft. Her lips were like silk, and her taste was all her own. Every woman seemed to have their own flavour, and Mary's like Julia was intoxicating. He kept his hands on the ground, pressing his palms against the stone because he did not trust himself to do anything else with them. This was Chris’s wife, and Ezra had no business being in this position. Her tongue snaked into his mouth and explored him as he felt his arousal intensify. While Ezra refused to touch her, she was held back by no such restraints. He felt her hand glide across his thigh, snaking up his hips with feather-like touches before moving across his aching groin.

"Please," he somehow managed to whisper. "I can’t do this."

Her fingers moulded over his groin, caressing him gently, making him groan into her mouth. He could feel her chest pressing into his body, brushing against the fabric of his shirt. He was so close to giving in to her, but he was adamant he would not. Ezra kept telling himself this was wrong, he would not make love to Chris Larabee’s wife, not for all the threats in the world.

Sekhmet noticed the male’s resistance, and it excited her even more, he was struggling to restrain himself even when it was undeniable he wanted her. Her other hand slipped into the folds of her discarded clothes, seeking the device she brought with her into the dungeon, and once her hand grasped it, pressed it at his knee. She had taken charge of his mouth, kissing him with such lust that even if his moral sensibilities did not wish to react, his body was making the decision for him. He was groaning softly, her hands caressing him until he was whimpering for her to stop.

She held the derringer against his knee and fired.

Ezra screamed into her mouth as he felt the bullet tear through his knee cap, shattering bone and sending hot icicles of pain coursing through his body. She continued to kiss him even though he was caught in a red haze of agony and struggling to push her off him. After a moment, Sekhmet relented and stepped away, watching him reach for his knee, bleeding profusely as he groaned in agony, almost collapsing against the floor from the pain. She stared at him for a few seconds, relishing every drop of blood and every cry he was trying hard to stifle.

With a smile, Sekhmet looked at Ezra and replied. "You taste so much better when you’re in pain."

***********

Taking Jack’s advice, Chris decided against telling Vin how he was brought back to life. Instead, they would explain he was severely injured, and the sarcophagus healed those wounds with its miraculous properties. When Chris produced that story for Vin, none of the others disagreed because it seemed a lot simpler than explaining to the man he was resurrected from death. Vin had enough worries on his mind at the moment without having the burden of that knowledge as well.

"I shouldn’t have lost my head like that." Vin apologised as he and Chris faced each other, taking a moment alone as the others prepared for the journey they were about to take. Most of them had spare ammunition in their saddlebags, and while they went outside to retrieve them and any other supplies they might need, Chris decided to let Vin in on what they intended to do. The tracker seemed to take the news of their new acquaintances with the same laconic manner he took everything. "It’s a good thing I didn’t get myself killed." He said with a half-smile and had no idea why Chris paled.

"Well, don’t do it again," Chris said in a low voice, hiding the truth from his eyes. Seeing Vin die was one of the worst moments of his life. Until the young man fell to the ground, his neck broken and his eyes appearing as if they would see nothing again, Chris had not believed it possible to feel such pain over the death of a friend. It was a given he should expect to feel this way when it came to a wife or child but rarely had he felt so close to another person than he did to Vin Tanner. In some ways, his friendship with Vin was even more profound than the one he shared with Buck, even though they had known each other for so much longer. "I got enough trouble worrying about what we’re about to do without watching your back."

"I thought I could reach her," Vin confessed, recalling those awful few moments when he pleaded with Alex to remember him. "I really thought she was in there somewhere."

"Well, according to Jack and the others, she is," Chris replied, trying to let Vin know he could not be blamed for acting the way he did. Until that moment, he had not realised how lost Mary was to him and to herself. "It’s the Goa’uld inside her that made her hurt you."

"I know," Vin said, shaking his head unable to believe the extraordinary circumstances they stumbled into. "It's just so hard to understand how something could just steal someone’s body like it was something out of a store." With a slight smile, Vin added. "It always seems to happen to us, doesn’t it? The weird stuff."

"Oh yeah," Chris grinned. "I keep hoping for some perfectly ordinary badass outlaw to give us trouble instead of what we seem to run into."

"We’ve had our share of those too."

"We’ve had our share of everything," Chris admitted. 

Despite his optimistic appraisal of the situation, Chris did not feel confident they could retrieve Mary and Alex. They might get lucky with Ezra, that is if the duo had not made the gambler into one of their slaves. Still, the best Chris could hope for was to end Mary’s suffering. He hoped when the time came, Vin was strong enough to do the same for Alex because Chris knew the doctor well enough to know it would be a living hell for her to be trapped inside the body of a ruthless killer.

"We should get going soon." Jack approached the two men. "They’ve got a head start on us, we don’t want them to gain any more ground."

"What are our chances of catching up to them?" Vin asked as they started towards the gate.

"Hard to say," Jack answered honestly. "We don’t know much about Isis. It's not a Goa’uld we’ve run into before. From what Teal’c tells me, she’s bad news. Doesn’t like men too much."

"I got that impression," Chris agreed. "The one that got Mary went through us like we weren’t even there."

"Sekhmet." Daniel offered politely. "She was worshipped as a warrior goddess. Judging by what is known of her, she doesn't think much of men except for breeding purposes. Its probably why they took your friend."

Chris stiffened at the idea. "You mean they took Ezra to…"

"Yeah," Jack said, not allowing that sentence to run its course. "They need men to breed more of them, so they can create an army of Jaffa." He already explained to them what the Jaffa was, so he did not need to clarify that statement any further. Besides, the whole subject was awkward enough as it is, and Jack told himself to have a private chat to Daniel about what he would disclose to these men in future.

"And they picked Ezra?" Chris almost laughed, wondering how he could even find this remotely funny when it should have been enraging. "Buck would have gone with them willingly." Still, in coming to think of Mary and Sekhmet as two separate entities, it made her loss so much easier to bear. He hoped it would remain that way when he saw Mary face to face.

"I doubt he’d find it much fun," Sam added, Jolinahr’s memories of Sekhmet had given her insight into the Goa’uld’s behaviour which would seem to indicate their missing friend would not be enjoying the experience. "She’s a monster. She likes causing pain, especially to men. We’d better find him before they’re done."

"Jesus," Vin whispered softly.

The rest of the seven returned the cavern at that point, and Jack decided it was time to go. This entire mission had become a roller coaster ride, and this was just the latest swell in the trip. He had not anticipated facing a Goa’uld System Lord and her bloodthirsty companion, let alone one who had stolen bodies from Earth’s past. At least, they had help in facing the threat awaiting them on the other side of the gate. He did not know much about Chris Larabee or his men, but he could see that their bond of fellowship was binding, and such loyalty was something Jack O’Neill valued highly. He felt the same way about SG1.

"Okay," he looked at the men around him. "Important safety tip. When you go through, it will be cold on the other side. Don’t ask me why because I don’t understand it, and it will take Sam too long to explain it. Just take a breath and step through. It's just like walking through a door."

"Get on with it," Chris growled.

Jack gave him a look. "You’re not a people person, are you?" 

Chris opened his mouth to respond when Vin spoke for him. "We’re just really anxious to get going."

Jack shrugged and decided the joke segment of the preflight instructions could wait until later and turned to Daniel, who was standing by the dialling device with Nathan Jackson. "All right, Daniel, let’s do it."

As everyone stepped out of the way and Daniel began dialling in the address Nathan had seen, they watched in silent awe as the massive circle of stone came to life once more, making the ground tremble as the ring of symbols moved into place. The cavern was soon aglow with ethereal light, reminiscent of those underground pools where the reflection of water would bounced off the walls of the cave it ran through with luminescent colours. When the final glyph locked into place, the same surge of power exploded through the hollow of the ring, before the recoil turned the disarray into a shimmery wall of colour. It was beautiful and also frightening.

Jack went through first, showing the others that there was nothing to fear, followed by Teal’c. Daniel and Sam stayed behind to usher the rest of the group through the gate. The remaining SG1 members could empathise with their apprehension at stepping through such an unknown. Chris felt no such fears. He looked at it and marvelled secretly at the light dancing off the glistening surface and told himself that Mary was behind there. All he had to do to find her was to step through.

Chris Larabee was willing to walk through hell itself to find Mary.

Chapter Four
Playground of the Gods

Cold.

It seeped into his skin, through his clothes until he could feel it pressed up against his bones. He shivered involuntarily, annoyed he should be affected so severely when he was more than accustomed to the cold. How many nights had he spent out on the prairie under the stars in the middle of winter? How many blizzards and snowstorms had he been caught in throughout his life? This should not have affected him the way it had, Chris Larabee argued inwardly after he tumbled to the ground, feeling frost on his duster and the tiny fragments of ice against his skin. Still, after what he just witnessed, he knew nothing about his situation was ordinary. His mind was still reeling from the effects of what he had seen after stepping through the gate.

It was so beautiful.

It felt like he was spirited away through the night sky, streaking through the stars at high speed until all that remained was a kaleidoscope of colour in front of him. Chris had no idea what kind of science could explain this magic, and to him, it truly felt like magic, but he knew he was journeying somewhere beyond the boundaries of human imagination. Until he stepped through the gate, a part of him that believed nothing he was told about Mary’s condition or the Goa’uld who had supposedly eaten up her soul and was using her body like a new suit of clothes, was real. However, when he realised his physical self had been carried across the stars, he realised there was no denying any of it. 

"Where the hell are we?" He heard Buck ask and looked up to see his old friend rubbing his arms, trying to create enough friction to generate the warmth to dispel the iciness they were all feeling. Even Buck’s moustache was iced over with bluish-white frost collecting on the strands.

"Hey, look at the sky!" JD’s voice exploded in his head with a tinge of fear and excitement rolled up into a mix that was pure JD. As usual, the young man found it difficult to remain still even now. He was moving off the stone floor they were thrown onto and making his way down the steps leading to the ground.

"I told you, Dorothy," Jack O’Neill responded. "This isn’t Kansas." The man from the future had little trouble adjusting to a trip Chris was sure he had taken a hundred times before. Like all military men worth their salt, he recovered quickly and was dusting the ice from himself as he took stock of their surroundings.

"Whose Dorothy?" Vin grumbled as he was still recovering, but Chris watched his eyes and knew the tracker was already studying this new place. Aside from the gate and the stone floor upon which it stood, there were no other signs of civilisation. The gate remained inside the clearing of what appeared to be an incredibly dense forest, with tall tapering trees that blocked out the sky with their canopy of leaves. There was little undergrowth because Chris suspected no sunlight could penetrate to allow it.

"Is everyone all right?" Sam asked everyone with concern. She was moving through the group, assessing everyone’s condition as women found it their God-given right to do, no matter how much they think they might have been past all those things in whatever future. Chris supposed that there were some things not even time could change.

"Yeah," Nathan answered, letting his own gaze assess the state of his friends. While they appeared to be slightly disorientated from the trip, he saw signs they were quickly recovering from their experience. Some like JD was more than recovered and was rearing to go. "Hey JD, don’t stray too far."

"I’m not a kid, Nathan," JD returned quickly. "I can look out for myself." 

"You get your ass back here before I go over there and get you." Chris snapped.

JD frowned, but he was not about to argue with Chris when the gunslinger appeared to be in such a foul mood. Reluctantly, he climbed up the steps to join them.

Jack shook his head, almost grinning because Chris would have made one hell of a drill sergeant. "Definitely not a people person."

"So I take it we’re not where we were," Josiah stated as the preacher looked into the night and saw a totally alien sky from the one he had known all his life. Still, while it felt unnerving to see a different sky, the beauty of it was universal because this canvas was just as breathtaking as the one at home.

"I don’t know if it means anything to you," Daniel remarked with a faint smile. "But you are as of this moment, the first modern men to visit another planet."

"Except that no one can know about it," Jack replied. "Sorry."

"Well, we ain’t here to be famous," Vin answered, but he was just as curious as JD to start exploring this place. While Alex preoccupied his thoughts, he could not help feeling a little excited by the notion he was on another world. Of course, there was much about his own that still awaited discovery, but for the moment, they were somewhere no one had really been in possibly thousands of years. "Let’s get going."

"Just hold your horses," Jack ordered. "We have no idea where we are or what’s waiting for us out there."

Vin was not listening, and he was already making his way down the steps to the ground. The tracker knew if he could just get to the land, he could find out what they needed to know. The air did not feel damp, so Vin was assured there had been no rain in the past few hours. Reaching the ground, he dropped to his knees and studied the soil. It was difficult to see in the darkness, but the twin moons offered enough illumination for him to make out what was needed for him to know where to go next. The soil was dry as Vin suspected and it did not take long for him to find the tracks in the dirt he was seeking.

"Three people were here." He announced to the others.

"Are you sure?" Jack immediately asked as Chris strode towards Vin, with the Colonel not far behind.

"Yeah," Vin nodded, studying the tracks in the dirt carefully. "Two sets of tracks and one that’s a little strange."

"They were carrying Ezra," Nathan reminded. "That’s probably why."

Teal’c joined Jack and Chris as they went to Vin’s side. The young man was still studying the marks on the ground, even though they made little sense to anyone else. Vin’s concentration was singular, and Chris knew as long as grass and soil were there for him to examine, Vin would be able to read the tracks here just as well as he could at home.

"Vin Tanner is correct, O’Neill." The former Jaffa remarked as he cast his sombre gaze on the same soil Vin was studying so carefully. "I believe they travelled in a north-westerly direction."

"That looks about right." Vin agreed. "Tracks don't look old, so it was a couple of hours ago."

Jack could see Chris was in no frame of mind to wait even though he felt otherwise. While the others were curious to see what was out here, Chris Larabee was eager to reach his wife and would not tolerate any delays. Although Jack could sympathise with the man’s feelings, his determination to reach the woman was bordering on dangerous, and the leader of SG1 was keeping a close watch on him, who also did not take orders well since he was used to giving them.

"I think we ought to stay put, but I’m guessing that’s not what you want to do?" Jack stared at Chris. 

Chris wanted to proceed immediately, but Jack's gaze forced him to be reasonable. The forest beyond this clearing was thick and unknown to them. As skilled as Vin was tracking through the dark, the truth was it was never wise to do so in such unfamiliar terrain. Besides, this was not just a different place, it was a different world, and the few hours it would take to reach dawn would not make that much difference to Mary’s state. It would be wiser if they found a place to camp, preferably in the cover of the trees and continued their search in the morning. His friends had followed him to another world to recover Mary, he was not about to endanger their lives by reckless impatience.

"No, you’re right." Chris sighed, agreeing with Jack. "We should find a place to camp and start looking at first light."

"Good idea," Jack nodded and threw Chris a grateful smile for making the logical choice instead of the emotional one. "We’ll make for those trees for cover. Carter, Teal’c, I want a defensive perimeter. Set up a row of claymores. I want to know before anything comes our way tonight."

"Yes Sir," Sam answered and went to Teal’c who had the ordinance. As the others proceeded onwards, Sam examined the artillery Teal’c carried in a heavy backpack. She was counting how many claymores they had at their disposal when she saw Buck Wilmington breaking away from the main group to join her.

"Up for some help, little lady?" 

"Sure," Sam returned his smile, wondering what it was about the man that did not make her want to slap him for calling her little lady as she would most other men of her time. "We’re going to be setting up some mines along a defensive perimeter, some tripwire too."

Teal’c had walked up ahead, no doubt spotting an ideal location, as well as allowing her to converse with Buck alone. Sam had the feeling small talk made Teal’c uncomfortable as well as interaction from these men of the past who had no idea what he was. She could not blame him. The concept of extraterrestrial life would not become prevalent until the 1900s. As it was, she was somewhat surprised they accepted what they were told about the Goa’uld so readily. There was no reason for them to know Teal’c’s history as well. Too much information could be just as dangerous as too little.

"I ain’t never met no woman in the army," Buck stated as they walked in the darkness.

"You probably won’t for another hundred years," Sam replied, sensing no chauvinism in the remark, merely curiosity. "It’s just starting to feel normal in my time."

"Well, you look like you’re doing good. I heard Jack call you a Major?"

"Yeah, I got promoted a few months ago." She was unable to keep the pride out of her voice.

"Are you going to be career army?" He looked at her, deciding if there were men who chose this course, he could not see why it would be different for her in the future.

"I don’t know," Sam never really thought about it. "I guess I would like to be married someday, have a few kids. I just never thought about it. What about you? Any children?"

"I got a baby on the way," Buck said with just as much pride as Sam had announced her rank. "Mother’s a little stubborn, she ain’t willing to marry me yet, but I’m working on her."

Sam chuckled. "What did you do?"

"I didn’t do anything," Buck protested with complete innocence. "Except have a little trouble keeping my eye on one woman, but I’ve been staying on the straight and narrow these past five months since I found out about the baby."

"Well, that’s a start," she laughed, understanding perfectly why the mother of his child would have difficulty selecting him as a husband. Despite the fact he was a little rough around the edges by her standards, she had no doubt Buck Wilmington was quite the ladies man. What made him even more attractive, was the fact he genuinely liked women. He did not set out to fill some unknown quota most womanisers tended to do.

"I hope so," Buck offered her a devious grin. "Cause it's killing me. I ain’t felt this deprived since I was a kid."

"Chocolate helps." Sam smirked. "Lots and lots of chocolate ice cream. Saved my life more than my gun."

With that, she laughed, and Buck joined her, hating the fact he liked her more than he should and knowing perfectly well anything between them was impossible.

***********

Where was Buck Wilmington when you needed him?

Buck would love playing consort. Why did they have to take him for such a purpose? He did not want to be here, lying in soft sheets, feeling soft material under him while his leg throbbed in pain that had yet to subside in its intensity even though he was a little more accustomed to it. Mary or Sekhmet, as she now called herself, left him shortly after inflicting his injury. The delight she'd taken in his pain, chilled him to the bone and he started to feel the stirring’s of genuine fear whenever he thought she might come back.

It was bad enough he felt so guilty at having responded to her seduction but to know he was meant to be some kind of stud animal for both Mary and Alex, was enough to make his skin crawl. He had no idea how he was going to resist them when the time came for both women to take their liberties with him, considering how he reacted to Mary despite all his resistance. He had not believed how incredibly arousing she could be when she set her mind to it, and natural curiosity made him even more responsive.

Now he was here, carried in by guards who had unceremoniously dropped him in this bed and ensured his arms were secured to the bedposts while his legs remained free, not that he could do much with them anyway. He managed to tie a piece of his shirt sleeve around his shattered knee to stem the bleeding, but even Ezra knew it was not going to be enough. He had lost a great deal of blood and also now felt weak from its effects, not to mention the pain he was still feeling. Worst yet, he could smell the pleasant scent of incense burning, and the soft lights of the room and his opulent surroundings made him anxious as to what was going to come through that door. It preyed heavily in his mind what Mary…no, it was not Mary who had done this to him, it was Sekhmet, Ezra reminded himself. Sekhmet said they needed him for a consort. Her actions gave him no doubt what that would require.

He heard the sound of a door opening and immediately raised his head on the bed to see who entered, praying secretly it was not Sekhmet. He felt weak and exhausted from his injury and did not know how much he could resist it if she decided to play more of her sadistic games. But, it was not Sekhmet who entered the room and close the doors behind her. It was the creature called Isis, whom he now knew was occupying Alex’s body. Isis sauntered towards him, wearing a dress not that different from the one Sekhmet wore earlier, except her dusky coloured skin stood out more prolifically through the sheer fabric. She sauntered towards the bed and paused at its edge, examining him without saying a word.

"I take it, it is your turn to cause me pain, Madam?" 

Her eyes shifted to his leg, and a hint of annoyance crossed her face when she saw the damage inflicted there.

"Sekhmet’s predilections are not our own. We did not require you harmed."

"How nice for you." He did not wish to look at her as he lay his head back on the pillow and tried pulling free of the ropes keeping him tied to the bedposts. Unfortunately, her guards had done an efficient job of keeping him pinned, and there was no foreseeable way of breaking free of them.

She did not respond to his remark but instead climbed unto the bed with him. Sitting on the edge, she moved her hand over his damaged knee, the ribbon device still coiled around her wrist. For a moment, Ezra thought she was going to inflict further harm upon him when suddenly, the gem in the centre of her palm came alive, and she moved it over the wound. Ezra braced himself for pain, but the exact opposite happened.

He watched as the amber glow illuminated the torn flesh and broken bone. Then slowly but surely the pain began to recede. He could feel it drawn from his body like poison from a wound. His eyes were mesmerised as he watched her work, marvelling at the disappearance of the discomfort he felt and furthermore, the rapid healing of flesh under her ministrations. He watched skin being repaired, felt bones knit until finally when it was all said and done, his knee appeared just as it did before the derringer shattered it.

"Is that better?" she asked when she finally removed her hand from him.

"Yes," he swallowed, amazed by what he had seen. "Thank you."

"In our time we have been worshipped as many things." Her voice was still unearthly, not at all like Alex’s but it was devoid of the cold, cruelty of Sekhmet. "Goddess to All, Queen of the Underworld, Wife to Ra. We are also the patron goddess of the healing arts by those you called the children of the Nile."

"Egyptians."

"We survive in this way because we must." She explained. "Our world was dying, and the bodies nature had seen fit to give us were inadequate to the task of maintaining our existence. In our natural form, we possess great intelligence and power, but we are unable to exert any use of it because we lack the necessity of bipedal locomotion. When Ra found your world, he gave us all immortality and a new lease on life. However, for us to be able to function in your bodies, we must adapt our young to its new host before the birthing."

Ezra began to understand. "Is that why you require me?"

"Men decide the form." She said without expression. "Those are the rules. Without your genetic matter, we cannot suit my children to their host bodies, but we find the whole idea of coupling this way distasteful."

"Then what is to be done," Ezra asked anxiously, hoping against hope, she didn't intend forcing him. As much as he was aroused by Alex's body in this guise, Vin was his friend, and he would not betray that for anything. 

"We have our ways," she replied, raising her hand to his forehead. Before he had a chance to question what he was doing, a blast of energy escaped the jewel and struck him in the centre of his skull. The human slumped to his side, unconscious and Isis rose to her feet, leaving him sprawled across the bed. 

"Jaffa!" She called out loud as she watched him lying there. A few seconds later, a Jaffar warrior entered the room, her head bowed in the presence of her queen. Isis barely regarded the woman's appearance before speaking. "You may begin the extraction." 

***********

The daylight offered no great revelation to the new arrivals of the planet Netjer.

It was in the morning, as it was the night before, a land of thick equatorial forests, with much of the concentration of greenery in its dense canopy of leaves high above the ground. Even as they moved through the woods, very little sunlight penetrated the canopy above. Thus vegetation at ground level was at a minimum except for lichens and vines that would thrive even in the most brutal terrain. The night passed without incident for the off worlders, although no one could really sleep with any amount of comfort.

Chris spent most of the night watching the sky, trying to imagine how far from home he was and whether or not Mary was watching the same stars. He came to the unhappy conclusion she probably was, but could no more appreciate it than she could control her body with Sekhmet in possession of it. During the night, Chris talked to Daniel Jackson about the goddess and who she was in the mythological sense. What he learnt only reaffirmed Chris's belief if she would not relinquish her hold of Mary’s body, he would give Mary a merciful ending.

Daniel also told Chris about his wife Sha're, whom he had been searching for these past three years since she was taken from him.

As Daniel spoke about her, it was apparent to Chris the younger man had not given up hope of recovering his wife even if it was becoming more and more distant as time passed. Chris could not imagine that kind of torture and prayed he would not have to suffer the same situation. The more he spoke to Daniel, the more Chris understood why Daniel was so willing to reveal the truth to them during their initial encounter at the excavation. Chris hoped with all his heart, Daniel would find his wife because no man deserved to suffer the pain of not knowing. The gunslinger also resolved himself to put an end to things here on this world because he had no intention of pursuing Mary from world to world, hoping he would get lucky and find her. If Mary was lost, then Chris had to think about Billy. He would have to make a life for the boy who was Mary’s gift to him.

***********

Vin and Teal’c started out before most of the camp had risen, deciding a little reconnaissance was necessary. Although the tracker intended to go alone as it was his custom in his unofficial capacity as a scout among the seven, Teal’c insisted on joining him. The former Jaffa knew Jack would not take kindly to the younger man going off on his own and decided a compromise of sorts would pacify both Jack and the tracker by accompanying him. As humans went, Teal’c found Vin Tanner to be quiet company since every Tau’Ri he ever met seemed uncomfortable with silence. The tracker did not speak a great deal except when it was necessary, and his skills were impressive, even to a Jaffa.

"You’re ain't like the others are you?" Vin asked as they moved through the forest, following what resembled a disused trail. It was overgrown and thick, but there was enough evidence to suggest someone used it recently for both men to guess this was probably the path taken by Isis and Sekhmet by their return to Netjer.

"No, I am not," Teal’c replied, seeing no reason to lie when it was undeniable he was different.

"What were you?" Vin looked at him. "You look like us, but you ain’t."

Teal’c paused, debating whether or not he should tell the truth. After a moment, he decided against lying mainly because he was not very good at it. "I am a Jaffa."

Vin had listened to Daniel Jackson enough to know what that was. He paused and looked at the former Jaffa closely. "How come you ain’t with them Goa’uld things that took Alex?" 

There was surprisingly enough, no accusation in his voice, just curiosity.

"I do not believe they are gods and have enslaved my people by forcing us to carry the infant Goa’uld. When I learnt of O’Neill and the others, I realised I could free my people by helping SG1."

Vin nodded in understanding and looked at Teal’c. "I got a price on my head, you know?"

"Really?" Teal’c met his blue eyes with a raised brow. "For what reason?

"Murder. I supposedly killed a man."

"You do not appear to me to be a murderer." 

"That’s good cause you don’t look to me like someone who’ll turn me into the Goa’uld, so I guess we’re nothing like what people think we are." Vin flashed him a faint smile and was unsurprised when Teal’c returned it with one of his own.

The trail they followed had not been used for quite some time except for the recent arrival from the gate. Teal’c explained most cultures under Goa’uld influence tended to stay away from the Stargate, feeling it sacrilege to interfere with in any way. With the sun coming up, the temperature also rose steadily, and the climate of the immediate area became heavy with humidity. Judging by the loamy texture of the soil, the region saw a large amount of rainfall. They were fortunate a trail still remained with the high level of growth of the natural vegetation.

They travelled a little more than a mile when they heard the distinct sounds of habitation beyond the trees. As they approached the boundary emptying into a large clearing, the sounds became audible to the point they were able to identify them. Neither Vin nor Teal’c made any comment when they realised the sounds were in actual fact voices, and those same voices were filled with fear. Despite the overwhelming urge to render aid, their primary mission was to remain undercover and determine what awaited them beyond the safety of the forest. Edging towards the edge of the trees, they peered through the foliage and observed silently.

The voices crying out in fear were coming from a small settlement in the centre of cleared land. The homes were constructed of mud and looked like the constructs Vin saw south of the border, not terribly sophisticated. What was causing such distress amongst the population was the presence of Jaffa Lion guards moving through the village. There was at least a dozen of them, carrying staff weapons and clad in full battle armour, not unlike those Teal’c wore as a Jaffa of the Serpent Guard. Except the helmets worn by these guards were styled after the lion as opposed to a snake.

There was also one other significant difference.

"They’re all women." Vin pointed out, surprised. 

"Isis favours women above men. Logically, her personal guard would be female." Teal’c explained and saw Vin immediately shrug uncomfortably and felt the need to add further. "Do not underestimate them, Vin Tanner, they have been trained in the art of combat like all Jaffa warriors. They are prepared to die defending their Goa’uld master."

"I ain't happy about shooting women," Vin confessed and not liking the idea he would have to if he wished to get Alex back. He watched them as they moved through the village like a scourge, entering houses and forcibly removing young women from their homes. Vin also noticed a decided lack of males in general and that added to his bewilderment. "What are they doing?"

"I believe," Teal’c ventured a guess, "they are selecting future Jaffa."

"But they ain’t older than JD," Vin exclaimed, noticing how young some of these would-be warriors were as they were taken away. "Where are all the men?"

"I do not believe there are many." The former Jaffa replied. "If their only function in this society is for breeding purposes, then only perfect specimens would be kept alive, and I doubt they would be kept here. I would assume they would be housed in the Goa’uld stronghold."

The idea men should be kept like cattle made Vin cringe, and he wondered how anyone could live like this. As it was, he had difficulty dealing with the whole concept of a society dominated by women. He watched the Jaffa rounding up their new recruits and noticed not all were averse to accompanying the guards.

"Does this happen all the time?" He asked, wondering if Teal’c was taken the same way.

"No," Teal’c shook his head. "For many of us, it is an honour to serve the gods, and for others, it is enslavement. We are given little choice to debate the matter, and when the Primtakh is over, it is too late."

"The what?" 

"The Primtakh, the ritual when the Goa’uld symbiote is placed in our bodies. I was implanted when I was twelve years old."

"Twelve years old!" The tracker exclaimed in shock. "You were just a kid! How come they’re being taken so late?" He referred to the young women being herded away.

"I am uncertain," Teal’c answered and considered for a moment. "Possibly because a Goa’uld has not been present for some time and would not have been many symbiotes available for implantation. It is likely with the arrival of Isis and Sekhmet, that situation has changed. Isis is considered Goddess of All, which may mean she is a Queen Goa’uld. She would have the ability to reproduce offspring. I understand that is why your friend was taken."

Vin said nothing, trying not to even think about that part of this unbelievable situation. The idea something possessing Alex’s body was going to use Ezra’s to reproduce incensed Vin beyond belief and fired a spark of jealousy he knew he should not be feeling. It was neither Alex’s fault nor Ezra’s for that matter, this happened to them, and Vin was not about to blame either for anything. If he got Alex back, he was going to be grateful enough for that miracle without holding her accountable for anything the creature inside her had used her body to do.

"We should be getting back to the others," Vin said finally, having seen enough for the moment and started to withdraw into the forest, ignoring the continuing sounds of terror as young women were carried off to uncertain futures.

***********

"We don’t have a lot of time," Jack announced to everyone as they started moving towards the village. "If they’re recruiting new Jaffa, it's not going to be long before they get their numbers up to strength. Our best bet of getting your wife and your girlfriend back is to find them before that happens."

"I’m glad Ezra decided to hold out," Vin grumbled despite his efforts to remain sensible about this. He knew it was not Ezra or Alex’s fault but knowing Ezra may have to be intimate with her to create new offspring stuck in his craw. Vin kept reminding himself Alex had no choice in the matter, and God only knows what they were doing to Ezra if even half the stories about this Sekhmet were true.

"He may not have a choice," Daniel said, rushing immediately to Ezra Standish’s defence, having been in a similar position when the SGC was infiltrated by the Goa’uld queen, Hathor. "The queen Goa’ulds have some kind of pheromone they use to control men. Even if he didn’t want to be the contributor," that was the most delicate terminology Daniel could use after Jack had a chat to him about his clinical description of things, "she would most likely use it on him to get him to obey."

"Like she made Miss Alex go with her in town," Nathan reminded. 

"Something like that," Daniel replied, seeing no need to go into it with that much depth.

"Is Sekhmet a Goa’uld queen?" Buck inquired, fascinated by this whole concept of pheromone attractors and wondered fleetingly if this was what his animal magnetism was all about. Was he exuding some kind of scent that made women go crazy around him? He had a dozen questions on why it did not always work and were there specific kinds of females on which this did not apply, like Inez for instance.

"I don’t think so," Sam answered automatically, finding herself responding to most of Buck’s questions since he was the one in the group she seemed to interact with most. Despite herself, Sam found the lawman somewhat compelling even though she knew anything between them was impossible as well as insane. She had a feeling Buck knew it too. "Goa’uld queens are territorial. They don't interact with each other."

"If Isis can use these pheromones to make men vulnerable, we’re going to have trouble confronting her." Josiah pointed out. "She’s hard enough to get the jump on as it is."

"Well, that’s easy," Jack said with a smile looking at Sam.

The major returned his gaze suspiciously and immediately asked. "What?"

"We send the one person after her who is not going to be affected by her mojo, and that’s you Major Carter," Jack announced, quite pleased with himself over that piece of reasoning.

"Wait a minute." Sam returned his gaze. "I can’t take her on my own. You’re talking about a Goa’uld queen, probably the oldest and most powerful Goa’uld queen. She predates all the others except maybe Ra."

"You took care of Seth." Jack pointed out, believing in earnest she could do it. Jack saw what Sam did to that particular Goa’uld and knew when she had to, Sam could do amazing things with Goa’uld technology. The only thing preventing her from utilising her full potential was her own reservations.

"But that was different." She protested, hating their plan rested on her abilities, abilities she had difficulty coping with, as it was.

"Sam," Jack said quietly, dropping his voice an octave so she would know he was speaking to her as her friend, not as her commanding officer. "We don’t have any other way of facing her. You know that. If we go after her, chances are you’ll be having to face all of us instead of just her. We can take Sekhmet out, and we might even be able to help you with Isis at a minimum safe distance, but we’re not going to be able to take her down without you."

"Damn." She swore under her breath. "Alright," she nodded and reached into her backpack, producing a device she had discovered in Isis’s enclave back on Earth. She had not known why she had taken it, crediting it to some unknown insight she might need it. "I took one of these things with me when I was there."

"Jesus!" Buck exclaimed as he saw her fitting the ribbon device around her hand. "What are you doing?" He was horrified she was wearing the same destructive weapon on her hand Isis almost killed all of them with.

"It’s the only way to take Isis down," Daniel explained, seeing how uncomfortable Sam was about all this as she tried the device on for size and concentrated on making the sapphire gem come to life. "Sam was taken by a Goa’uld a year ago. Once you’re taken, you have some ability to work their technology."

"You were taken?" Buck looked at her.

She nodded slowly.

"But you came out of it," Chris said quickly, feeling a surge of real hope in his chest this condition was not permanent. If this woman was freed, then there was a chance Mary could be saved just like she was.

"Only because the Goa’uld I was carrying was different," Sam replied, hating to disclose too much about Jolinahr but they were all staring at her, needing to understand and yet Sam felt worse about telling it to Buck. "He wasn’t like the others. He belonged to a group called the Tokra, and he jumped into me because he hadn’t a choice at the time. However, when my life was threatened by his being there, he freed me at the cost of his own."

"This gets weirder and weirder." JD declared and decided that perhaps that was all the explanation he needed. "Well, as long as you’re okay now."

"Don’t you just love the kid?" Josiah smiled, patting his back in appreciation of JD’s tolerance and simple statement on how they should all be regarding the matter.

"Do you remember much about when he was inside you?" Vin asked as they resumed the walk to the village. He wanted to know because he needed to understand what it was like for Alex, in the dark place she was now confined. Even though he did not look at Chris, he could tell the gunslinger was listening carefully to their conversation.

"I remember everything." She said softly. "I was terrified, even when I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Until we discovered Thor’s Hammer, there was no way to successfully remove a Goa’uld symbiote, and I was afraid he would never let me go. I’d seen too many of them at that time to know I didn’t want to live that way."

Chris remained silent but listened carefully. Sam Carter had given him hope it was all possible to find Mary and return her to the person he married only six months ago. Chris remembered the last sane moment they had shared together and felt a pang of sorrow because Chris would miss the breakfasts in the morning, where she would rush around the kitchen, juggling her roles as mother, wife and editor of the Clarion News. He would miss seeing her words on paper, and he would miss holding her in his arms.

"But you’re okay now?" Buck asked, finally overriding his revulsion at the idea she might have carried one of those creatures inside of her when he realised just how horrified she was by its presence. He was mortified by his insensitivity and resolved himself, he could no more hold that against her than he would with Mary and Alex.

"Yeah," she nodded with a smile, pleased he no longer viewed her like some freak. "I had some nightmares for a while, but strangely enough, I remember some things about him, which is useful for what I have to do."

"It also helps that when she puts that thing on, she kicks some serious butt." Jack threw her a playful smile.

"Well I’m getting used to it," she replied, raising a hand at a nearby tree and concentrating as hard as she could.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Suddenly, without warning, the gem started glowing with amber light, and a burst of sound, not unlike someone throwing a boulder in water, filled their ears. Whatever invisible force was being discharged by the gem, manifested when the tapered trunk of the tree snapped in half like kindling. Splinters flew in all directions as the tree began its sharp descent as it toppled over. Its weight dragged it through the branches and leaves of other trees, creating a racket as birds nesting in its spindly branches took flight before finally, it crashed on the ground.

"Wow," JD said with a mixture of astonishment and awe.

"Well, I say you’re a little more use to it, ma’am." Nathan grinned, feeling some measure of relief knowing they were not relying entirely on their guns when those as a defence was so inadequate during their first encounter with Isis and Sekhmet.

"Not bad," Chris remarked, starting to feel the odds shift a little bit more in their favour after seeing that display.

"The life of a star," Jack replied, walking up alongside her and throwing Sam an encouraging smile as they moved past the settling dust of her tree felling abilities.

"Oh yeah," Sam frowned, wishing she felt that confident herself. "Show business is my life."

***********

Isis could feel her children swirling around her body as she sat in the polished stone bath as the birthing process continued. Once she secured the code of life from the Chosen One, Isis inseminated herself with his seed and fulfilled her duty as the mother of all. Once fertilisation was completed, the process between conception and birth was extremely brief. She only had to remain inside the warmth of this place to wait for the life to fill her.

Even now, what remained of her lion guards on Netjer were gathering new hosts for the larvae Goa’uld being born as she nested here. She could see their infant forms, swimming through the bubbling water, adjusting themselves to the life beyond her womb. They waited in unknowing expectation for the moment they slid into the bodies of their new hosts. She smiled in satisfaction at the creation before her, knowing they were only the first in the new order she was creating.

She would make her Chosen One her consort and keep him at his side for he was of good stock and would produce healthy, perfect children. He would sit at her side while Sekhmet remained at her right hand and their triumvirate would bring the other System Lords to their knees. Isis would destroy Ra, who fled to the stars following the rebellion, coward that he was. Ra who imprisoned Hathor, who presumed to call himself Lord of them all when he was but only one of many, including Apophis, Seth, Sokra, Zeus and Yew. United, they would be in a position to challenge the Asgard and bring about a true consolidation of Goa’uld power. She felt empowered by this first step and knew this was always her destiny.

Occasionally, she would hear stirring’s of her host’s mind. It amused Isis to listen to its grief over the death of the man she killed. It was necessary to end his life for Isis would not fall prey to the same kind of attachments Sekhmet’s host still felt for the man in black, even though Sekhmet herself would be loathed to admit it. If not for the bond between her host and the man she called Vin, Isis might have been inclined to select him as her Chosen One instead. However, the emotional ties would have created conflicts Isis was unprepared to deal with, no matter how beautiful the man may have been.

In any case, she was satisfied with the selection ultimately made without her needing to perform the odious act. He was a beautiful and healthy specimen and judging from the range available in this fortress on Netjer, he was still the choicest specimen available to her, and her children required the best to adapt.

Even now, she could see them gaining strength as they moved languidly through the churning water, becoming more confident of themselves and their surroundings. Isis, Goddess of All, was pleased as she eased into the curve of the bath, feeling her body rest from the exertion of birth in the luxurious warmth of the water. She closed her eyes to take a moment for herself when she heard the doors to her chamber open and knew only one person who would dare interrupt her sojourn in here.

"What do you require of us that cannot wait, Sekhmet?" She asked, not opening her eyes.

"You healed the man, and I am told that you have dubbed him your Chosen?" Sekhmet glared at her queen. "You have actually taken this human as your Chosen One? You have not done this in almost two millennia. Why now?"

"We have been imprisoned for almost a thousand years," Isis replied, still enjoying her bath and seeing no need to face her companion yet. "Our forces are weakened throughout all our enclaves as they are here. Our Jaffa exists only because they have been stealing symbiotes from other System Lords. Our forces are depleted and easily absorbed. We have selected our Chosen One because we will need to replenish our Jaffa quickly. We have chosen him because he is the best specimen here."

"I think you like this human." Sekhmet accused.

Isis stood up abruptly and stared at Sekhmet with eyes glowing. Without saying another word, the ribbon device came to life and swept the warrior goddess off her feet and slammed her into the nearby wall. Sekhmet let out a growl of pain and jumped to her feet, recovering almost immediately with teeth bared.

"We are the Goddess of All. We allow you to accompany us because you are our child, and you are useful. Do not ever make the mistake of assuming you are equal to us because you are not. We have hatched a thousand like you in our time, and we will hatch a thousand more in the days to come." Isis glowered, stepping out of the tub, her body dripping with moisture like an animal newly risen from the primordial ooze, readying for combat to the death in the game of survival. "He is ours to do with. Until such time as his usefulness is ended, you will remember he is our Chosen One. Do you understand us?"

Sekhmet swallowed, aware she had gone too far and nodded slowly. It was not often the Goddess of All chose to exert her power this way, but even Sekhmet was not foolish enough to defy Isis. Her loyalty to the Queen mother was without question, and she remained on her knees, humbled by the display of force. "I understand," she said adequately subdued. "Please accept my apologies, Goddess of All."

"Your apologies are accepted," Isis remarked with a faint smile. "Now you will tell us if the vessels for your new brothers and sisters are ready."

"Yes, the crop has been harvested and are gathered in the holding cells, awaiting blending."

"Good," Isis nodded in approval and turned back to her bath. "We must give strength to my children for a little longer, but we will soon be ready to create our army. We will call you when we are ready. You may go now."

Biting her lip, Sekhmet rose to her feet with nothing less than rage through inside her veins as she took herself from the presence of her queen and went to seek the one who could satiate her fury with his pain.

Isis said Sekhmet had to remember he was the Chosen One. She had said nothing about not harming him.

***********

Something was going on outside.

When Ezra was returned to his cell the next morning, he was assured by Isis it would not be for long. Even though he fulfilled her needs, he had the sense she was going to keep him around for reasons other than simple reproduction and hoped to stay alive for a little longer. The gambler kept telling himself it was just a matter of fluid donation, and if Ezra didn't agree to it, she would turn him into one of her mindless slaves which he could not abide. He had to do whatever he could to keep that from happening. If that meant providing her with seed to create more of her progeny, it would have to do until he could think of a way to escape. 

After he was left alone in his cell, Ezra became aware of noises outside his window and peered through the bars to observe what was happening. He could see a group of Jaffa guards, as Isis called them, ushering a group of women into the fortress. Ezra counted at least twenty of them and wondered what their purpose was. They were all young, he estimated the oldest among the group was about Casey Wells’s age. It took a few more minutes to make another observation about the group, and that was the fact they were all stunning. Their racial stock was a mixture of African, Mediterranean and Native American, but they were all perfect specimens. Actually, beautiful was an incorrect word, Ezra decided after a moment. Healthy. Not one of them looked weak or physically handicapped in any way.

They were all tall, supple and lithe, still marked by youthful awkwardness of course, but possessed the potential to be something extraordinary. Suddenly, Ezra's heart froze with the realisation at what they were there for. Jaffa. She was turning this entire group into Jaffa. Jaffa that would be seeded by creatures she would create because he allowed her to milk him like a cow. Ezra felt his stomach hollow at the thought, wishing there could have been another way for him to stay alive now he understood what his actions would mean for those innocents outside.

Jesus, did this nightmare ever end?

He hated being used as breeding stock, having to betray his friends and the one whose body Isis was in possession of. He loathed the fact he was forced into this circumstance, to have no choice but to comply with their demands to survive and Ezra liked it even less he was going to be responsible for enslaving those people outside. He was going to be sick. For a moment, Ezra could do nothing except bury his face in his hands and tried to deal with this latest development in his insane captivity. This prison was one without any reprieve, and he was going to be trapped in this hell forever. The idea he would never see Julia again, that he would be forced to be Alex’s breeding animal, knowing she was trapped in a hell,even worse than his own, filled Ezra with despair.

Just when Ezra thought things could not get any worse, the door to his cell opened, and Sekhmet entered the room. The glare in her eyes as she looked upon him told Ezra he was in a great deal of trouble because even he could tell she was out for blood.

"You are quite favoured by Isis." She said, walking towards him, menace in every step she took to close the distance between them. Behind her, the Jaffa guards watched with indifference, caring little about his plight except to act if he made one move against their Goddess. "What exactly did you do to do her to become her Chosen One?"

"A gentlemen never tells," Ezra replied, trying to hide the fear he felt and the pounding inside his chest.

"You will tell me," she said with a smile as her hand captured his chin and forced him against the wall. She looked into his eyes with clear intentions of making him suffer. "You will tell me, and then you will show me."

"My talents are exclusive, Lady." Ezra swallowed, bracing himself for the hurt. "I do not share them."

With a predatory gleam in her eyes as she leaned close to his ear, Sekhmet whispered softly. "By the time I am done with you, you will share everything with me. Even your pain."

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