Continuing Stargate

[bradly08]

wtf?

I was not insulting any of the treads, im just making a coment on how many have spawned of this tread.

[Wazmux]

I have the sulution!
Lets make a Bradly08 war thread!

No, lets get of bradlys back, he didnt mean to insult the alaska zombie thread

[Commander Thor]

power the ar ships people. we hunt down the infidels. we hunt down all followers of the evil god " the repair man "

get our s09 priors! we need to move before he runs

[s09119]

15x11 "Quid Pro Quo" (Part 2 of 2)
Synopsis: The Alliance braces for the imminent Der'kal attack on Dakara while the human refugees prepare to mount a final, desperate assault on Earth.

Spoiler:

((45 second recap of "Severed Dreams," "Earthfall," "To Have Loved and Lost," "Sojourn," and "Interludes"))

Over Earth, a massive Der'kal fleet has been assembled; dozens of ships strong pulled from all across the sector in preparation for the jump to the last Alliance stronghold inside invaded space... Dakara. Thousands upon thousands of fightercraft swarm in between their carrier ships, keeping a watchful eye for any pre-preemptive strikes that may come from nearby star systems. Gunships ferry ammunition and personnel from the surface to their cruisers, loading the last essential supplies for the coming battle. The aliens are confident of victory, especially given their continued numerical superiority in the war thus far, but they're not taking any unnecessary risks nonetheless.

A ways away from the main group of ships, a pair of hyperspace windows open, and almost immediately after, two gargantuan Der'kal superships exit, flanked by an escorting group of cruisers, frigates, and corvettes. The mammoth vessels slowly make their way towards their fellows in orbit, in the process passing overhead the single spot in space where the camera is located. The view slowly pulls back, revealing what must be the main window of a cloaked tel'tak. In the pilot's chair, a dark-haired human woman watches the newly-arrived Der'kal ships as they move closer to Earth. She punches in commands to the scanner array, getting in-depth readings on all the alien vessels in the area, then begins powering up her hyperdrive to make a jump back to friendly space.

Just before hitting the button to send her on her way, though, the woman takes one last look out at the war-ravaged planet hanging in the distance. Shaking her head, Vala Mal Doran mutters they one day it'll be back to the way it was, then engages her FTL system and jumps away.

Half a galaxy away, Colonel Carter is outlining her attack strategy for an assault on Der'kal-held Earth to the various ship captains. She wants to use their few BC-303s to run interference against the alien warships, pulling as many as they can away from the orbital defense group. Then a strikeforce of F-302s and F-302bs will make a short hyperspace jump from Mars to Earth, taxing their drives to the fullest, to be sure, and proceed to launch as many naquadriah-enhanced nukes as Sam can spare into the heart of the enemy flotilla. They will proceed to fall back, regroup, and join in anew alongside their DSC-304s, which will be escorting the two MBP-305s into the fray. If all goes according to plan, they should be able to tip the odds enough to make the slugfest tilt just enough in their favor to win.

Colonel Ellis isn't sure if it's the best use of their resources, though, particularly the part about committing every last one of their ships to the battle; if this effort goes south, the Beta Site (and its thousands of refugee citizens) will be left completely defenseless to counterattack. If the aliens are at all smart, they'd ensure the survival of a at least one human ship and interrogate its crew until they finally learned the location of the Beta Site, and then it really would be an endgame for the Tau'ri. The planet has nothing to stop an assault save the fleet in orbit, and with that departed or destroyed, the refugees would have no way to fight back.

Sam insists that they need every bullet and missile they can get if they want to have a chance in Hell of pulling this whole thing off, as even with a depleted force, the planet is still going to be as difficult to seize for them as it was for the Der'kal themselves almost two years ago ("Star By Star"). Comparatively, they can count each MBP-305 as a match for a small group of alien cruisers, but they won't have any idea as to how many ships they'll really be up against until the scout dispatched by the Alliance arrives to give them an accurate figure. Until then, it's all guesswork.

And thankfully, that's when Carter receives a transmission from the Jupiter's bridge that they've detected an old-style Goa'uld cargo ship exiting hyperspace nearby, no doubt the Alliance scouring party. Sam excuses herself from the other ship captains and heads for the bridge, intrigued. On her way, she radios Daniel and Jack to join her, then contacts Dr. Talbot on the surface and asks how the situation there is. Her former commander replies that they're breaking down some of the prefab houses set up after their arrival and converting them into bombardment shelters and barricades; should the attack on Earth fall and the Der'kal locate the Beta Site, they're going to put up a fight to remember to repel the inevitable counterstrike. Satisfied and proud, Sam laughs, saying that Talbot sure has come a long way from steadfastly-United-Nations-loyal diplomat, to independent and influential commander of the ISGC, to a leader of the remainder of the human race here in exile. Times certainly have changed.

Arriving at the bridge, Carter looks over to see Daniel and Jack beaming in, both of whom were down planetside helping in the preparations. Jackson rubs his hands together and asks what the big event is, and Sam explains that the Alliance scout has arrived. The communications officer interrupts then, saying that they're being hailed by the tel'tak, and the transmission is put through... and the image of Vala Mal Doran flashes to life on the viewscreen. Having not seen her for more than twelve months, the trio of refugees are stunned, expecting a member of Alliance Intelligence, not an old friend. Jackson especially is struck by her arrival, his face lighting up like it hasn't since before the fall of Earth.

Vala, pleased to see her old teammates haven't forgotten her, asks if she's clear to ring aboard the Jupiter to give her full report, not to mention explaining why she's the one that went to investigate. Sam clears it immediately, and tells her to ask one of the marines in the ring room to guide her to the Engineering deck's conference room so they can talk. Curious but excited, the three others leave as the image of their newly-returned ally fizzles out.

A short time later, the group has met up in the conference room; Sam, Daniel, and O'Neill sitting around a long table waiting in flight suit, business casual, and civilian clothes, respectively. After a moment, Vala appears in the diirway, dressed in one of her "galactic" outfits (as seen in "Avalon, Part 1" and "The Ties That Bind"). An alien pistol hangs from her waist, and she, if anything, looks slightly younger than she did when she left to go rally the galaxy's underworld ("To Have Loved and Lost"). Unlike the other previous members of the ISGC's top staff, this difficult period, the time away appears to have rejuvenated her, doubtless thanks to the lack of all the stress and problematic events that have plagued the refugees since the Beta Site became their home. Her hair is being dyed again, with a lone streak of blond running through the black, and her skin is creamy and clear. It really is a striking moment.

Sliding into a chair of her own, Vala frowns at the others, asking why they're staring at her like they are. Daniel is the first to recover, stammering that there's just so many questions he has, but he guesses he should start with the most-pressing; why was she looking into the Der'kal defenses of Earth, and what did she find? She explains that she's spent the better part of a year rebuilding what remained of the Lucian Alliance after Zanous Garrin ripped it in two, and has since turned it into a highly-efficient and well-organized smuggling and hit-and-run group, with operatives and ships all over the galaxy. She herself was in the area anyway, trying to plot a backdoor route to quicken smuggling operations across the frontlines, so when a call came in from Heliopolis asking if she could dispatch a ship to take a peek, she offered to just do it herself.

Moving on, she pulls out a Goa'uld data crystal and hands it to Sam, telling her that it contains all the information she gathered, from ship counts to relative positions in orbit. Whoever sent them their tip-off ("Interludes") knew what they were talking about, as their word checked out one-hundred percent. And there's a bit of extra spying, too; as she prepared to leave, two superships arrived, something not mentioned in the mysterious communique... and that's enough to crush Carter's battle strategy. With a pair of the massive warships in the picture, even a small fleet of MBP-305s would be hard-pressed to come out of the carnage alive. She'll need to completely rethink things now.

Shortly afterwards, a new plan has been hammered out, with agreement from all ranking senior officers; Sam will take only two ships to Earth—the Jupiter and Aurora. The pair of MBP-305s make the most sense to go, as they will provide maximum weapon and shield power without sacrificing the Beta Site's defensive capabilities should the mission fail. And in addition, Jason Carter will join Vala on her tel'tak, carrying Pandora's Box with him as an additional piece of their arsenal. The hope is that someone near-Ancient level himself will be more-able to utilize the Box than Daniel, who found himself able to fire it but unable to control its effect ("Pandora's Box"). The two battlecruisers will drop out of hyperspace and engage the enemy head-on, distracting them while the scout ship emerges, cloaks, and stays still long enough for Jason to get a lock on the alien formation and rip it apart. Once that's finished, Vala will take her ship to Dakara, allowing the Box to be used on the enemy there, too. If all goes according to plan, they should be able to devastate the Der'kal beyond imagining.

While the ships reorganize for the new plan, Vala returns to her tel'tak to modify its hyperdrive as best she can. While she's working, she doesn't notice Daniel ring over from the Aurora, and is quite surprised when he taps her on the shoulder to say hello. She looks up from her task and smiles warmly, glad to see that she won't be getting a cold shoulder for not being around to help the refugees, a thought Jackson dismisses at once; even he was offworld doing other things for a time ("Severed Dreams"), after all. But now the team is finally back together, sans Mitchell, of course, and that's all that matters. Still though, there's something that Daniel needs to talk to Vala about, and that's what is going to happen if this mission actually succeeds. If they take back Earth, will she give up command of the Lucian Alliance's scraps and come back to the Tau'ri, or is this the end of their time on the same team? Vala sighs, muttering that she knew she'd have to face this sooner or later, and replies that she really isn't sure. She's a part of something now, an organization of her own, and she doesn't know if she can just walk away from it. She needs time to think, and with that, she bends back to her work, leaving Daniel to himself.

(First part of "Quid Pro Quo," see next two posts for more.)

[s09119]

(Second part of "Quid Pro Quo," see first post for start and next post for end.)

Spoiler:

Far away over Earth, a massive Der'kal fleet is entering hyperspace in tandem, departing for Dakara and the Free Jaffa waiting there. On his personal cruiser, Vur'naa watches them depart, his forehead creased in thought. Behind him, the door to his quarters slides open, and a warrior enters. After a moment, Vur'naa asks what is so important that requires he be disturbed, and the alien soldier reports that the men sent to collect Cameron Mitchell and Rebbecca Eaton are dead; the two prisoners have escaped ("Interludes"). And what's more, it appears that they hacked into a communications terminal on the command deck, sending out a tight-beam subspace transmission to a single planet on the opposite side of the galactic core. It's still being decoded, but there's almost no doubt that it was sent to the Tau'ri survivors offworld, and that it contained information on the Der'kal plan to attack the Jaffa.

Enraged, the alien commander spins on his heel, demanding to know how this could have happened. The warrior says that he doesn't know, only that a patrol noticed the cell block was unlocked and went to investigate, then discovered the corpses. The ship is being put under lockdown as they speak, but there have been ring transmissions on and off for the past hour, and there's no way to know if the two humans are still onboard or not. And with most of the fleet having just left for Dakara, there's no way they could search all this ships. But whatever the case, something needs to be done, and Vur'naa plans on doing everything within his power to find the two escapees. Grabbing his weapon belt off a table, he begins strapping it on as he exits his quarters, motioning for the warrior to follow.

On the surface, Lor'al is struggling to come to terms with the fact that her most-talented generals and admirals are dead, leaving the armada with significantly less of a tactical pool to draw from. As she stalks through the halls of the former United Nations headquarters in New York, a hallucinated image of Anise walks beside her, the Tok'ra continuing to taunt her from within her mind. Anise points out that it doesn't really matter anyway, as the Alliance is bound to win the war; they have the Ancients on their side if it really comes down to it. Snarling, Lor'al mutters that she knows enough about the ascended realm to know that they would not interfere in corporeal matters on such a grand scale for anything short of complete galactic destruction ("Threads"). The Der'kal are quite safe from their powers, she is sure.

But Anise isn't so sure. She explains that many of the Ascended have a great deal of sympathy for the Tau'ri, and SG-1 in particular. If they believed that wiping out the Der'kal wouldn't harm the universe much and would help the human team, they'd certainly step in. It's clear that Anise is embellishing greatly here, but Lor'al's crazed state of mind make it easy to convince her that this may be true. And if it could happen, then the Ancients really are a momentous threat to her and her plans for the galaxy. And they'd be a force for which she has no counter whatsoever, as ships and missiles and bombs would be useless against their abilities. For a moment, that insane look comes into her eyes, but it quickly fades as she gets a grip on reality again and decides that Anise is merely trying to throw her off the edge. Turning to the Tok'ra's apparition, she roars that if she thinks this will end in anything short of the Milky Way's domination, she's wrong. Marching off down the hall, Lor'al screams for subordinates to move out of her way, and Anise watches with an intrigued smile at her handiwork.

Back at the Beta Site, everything is set and ready; the two MBP-305s are maneuvering out of orbit and powering up their hyperdrives, and Vala and Jason are aboard the tel'tak, forming up right behind them. The rest of the refugee fleet hangs back over the planet, setting up a defensive screen to fend off a retaliatory assault should one come. On the bridge of the newly-christened Aurora, Colonel Sanders is anxiously rubbing the armrests of her command chair, not entirely sure of herself. Despite Carter's repeated assurances, her failure at the Battle of Earth still haunt her, and the loss of her previous vessel and most of her crew are jarring. Then the confirmation to make the jump comes in from the Jupiter, and she swallows hard and gives the order to open a window. On the flagship itself, Sam gives the same command, glancing behind her at Daniel and Jack, also on the bridge. Colonel Taylor wishes them all good-luck from the Beta Site facility, and then the three ships vanish into hyperspace.

While en route, Vala and Jason talk over the events of the past year, as neither one has been able to follow the exploits of the other. Jason shares the amazing things he saw while traveling the galaxy with Janus, cataloging the astonishing differences in what the Ancient observed in the future with what is happening now... and Vala tells him how she slowly rebuilt the Lucian Alliance from the ground-up and used it to take the fight deep into enemy space to the conquered worlds. Both of them know what humanity has been able to do is a far cry from the days of an invincible fleet of warships and teams of warriors that could topple enemies thousands of years more advanced with ease, but times have changed; no longer are they fighting the divided System Lords, the superweapon-vulnerable Replicators, or the arrogant Ori; the Der'kal are an enemy fully capable of crushing the Alliance, and they need to end this once and for all, before it's too late.

On the Aurora, Sanders is going over her battle plan in her head, determined not to be bested again. And on the Jupiter, Sam is staring straight out the window, counting down the minutes to when they'll arrive over their homeworld. Jack watches his wife, a strange look in his eyes as he contemplates what could very well be their last stand together. And lastly, Daniel busies himself at a sensory terminal, determined to do whatever he can to help in the fight.

Over the planet in question itself, Lor'al has moved to her flagship, and is diverting an entire section of her forces, already severely depleted by the group heading to Dakara. She plans to lay siege to the human colony that their escaped prisoners sent a transmission to, as her scientists have finally pinpointed its location and determined that it is the Tau'ri outpost known as the "Beta Site." This will be her chance to vanquish this annoying branch of humanity at long last, and she plans to commence at once. She turns to her helmsman and orders Vur'naa contacted, and after a moment, the male commander's face appears on a nearby viewscreen, transmitted from his own cruiser a few dozen kilometers away. Lor'al explains that she will be departing with almost half of their remaining forces to engage the humans on the other side of the galaxy, and she is charging him with the defense of Earth in the meantime. Vur'naa, incredulous, explaims that this is madness, and will leave him with hardly enough ships to fend off a strikeforce, let alone any major attack. But his superior is adamant, and orders him to see to the planet's protection immediately. Then she cuts the link and orders her men to take her flagship and its new battle group into hyperspace. Just before the view fades, Anise can be seen leaning in towards the alien's ear, whispering what must be the driving "logic" behind this crazed action.

Also in hyperspace, the refugee ships are only moments away from Earth now, and the final preparations are being made for combat. Sam opens up the shipwide radio and gives one last speech to her crew, affirming that she's never seen a group of people more determined and skilled than the men and women on the Jupiter, and that she doubts any other ship could have done what it did since they were forced to leave their homes. But now they are going to fulfill the promise she made to those trapped there what seems like a century before ("Star By Star"), and nothing is going to stand in their way of liberating their beloved world. Daniel smiles at her, saying that they've gone up against worse before and won, an ironic callback to a similar line he said while they were waiting for the Der'kal to attack them over Earth, and Jack tenderly embraces her before stepping back to let her work. Sighing and taking a breath, Carter orders the reversion back to realspace.

In orbit, the remnants of the once-mighty Der'kal defense fleet lies in wait. Made up of only a dozen cruisers, a few dozen more support frigates and corvettes, and the two superships, it is still an imposing sight, but not nearly the incredibly-massive armada that once protected Earth. In the distance, two hyperspace windows suddenly appear, and two small gray blobs can be seen shooting out. It only takes an instant for the Der'kal sensors to identify one as the MBP-305 Jupiter, the human warship that was the keystone in Earth's defense when they attacked, but the second one gives them paused; after all, it appears to be a second Jupiter, but that shouldn't be possible, since the humans had no way to construct a second one. The confusion is short-lived, though, as some of the defensive forces break off and move to engage, though the bulk of the vessels stay where they are, waiting.

On the bridge of the Aurora, Sanders has one of her crewmembers run a scan on the enemy laid out before them, searching for one ship in particular... she's after the cruiser that nearly blasted her to pieces, and she wants a little payback. In the meantime, though, she watches as her squadrons of F-302s and F-302bs rush out of their hangers, arming weapons and moving out ahead to attack incoming starfighters. As the two groups of fightercraft collide in a massive burst of bullets and plasma, the 305s power their Asgard weaponry and let loose on the closing Der'kal frigates. With two of them pounding away at the alien advance, it only takes a few seconds to reduce one, then two, then three of them to scrap metal, and the two cruisers in the oncoming group slow as they try to turn around and retreat from the surprising firepower. But it's no good, and the pair of human warships combine their blasts in an astonishing show of force and rip the two enemy vessels to shreds.

On his own cruiser, Vur'naa cannot believe this is happening; mere moments after Lor'al leaves, the humans attack. Could it be that his superior has turned traitor? But no, he decides that this is merely a terrible stroke of bad luck. Regardless, he is sure he can repel this assault; after all, it's only two ships, and he has his superships waiting in the wings, more than enough to deal with this. He prepares to order more ships to move out, but then notices another blip appear on sensors for just a moment before vanishing. Perplexed, he checks the readings again and finds nothing, and frowns. He knows that something is wrong here, but he hardly has time to devote attention to it right now, and clears the screen to allow for a display of the battle. It's time to end this before it begins.

[s09119]

(End of "Quid Pro Quo," see previous two posts for start.)

Spoiler:

On his own cruiser, Vur'naa cannot believe this is happening; mere moments after Lor'al leaves, the humans attack. Could it be that his superior has turned traitor? But no, he decides that this is merely a terrible stroke of bad luck. Regardless, he is sure he can repel this assault; after all, it's only two ships, and he has his superships waiting in the wings, more than enough to deal with this. Then he notices another blip appear on sensors for just a moment before vanishing. Perplexed, he checks the readings again and finds nothing, and frowns. He knows that something is wrong here, but he hardly has time to devote attention to it right now, and clears the screen to allow for a display of the battle. It's time to end this before it begins.

On their tel'tak, now cloaked, Vala and Jason are moving into position, sneaking past the conflict itself and taking up orbit just behind the main Der'kal formation. Recalibrating the cloak for maximum efficiency, Vala turns to her companion and asks if he really knows what he's doing, watching curiously as he grabs Pandora's Box gingerly off a nearby table and takes the golden orb in his hands. Examining it, Jason says that Daniel and Sam gave him a crash-course in how they think it's meant to be used, and they decided that you really just close your eyes, picture your target, think the command to fire, and let it go on its own. Just then, Carter contacts them from the Jupiter, saying that anytime they want to begin to feel free, as it's starting to get a little dicey for her. The two 305s are in the middle of fending off six Der'kal cruisers and hoards of escort ships, and there's really only so much they can do, even with all their incredibly advances.

Knowing that he needs to do something, Jason smiles weakly at Vala and closes his eyes. Suddenly, the entire room seems to fade away, and he's standing on nothing at all, exposed to vacuum. At first he panics, but slowly realizes that this is only an illusion produced by the Box, probably to allow a user to get a true, in-depth ability to target. Looking up at the battle, he stares at the first of the superships, noting that taking out one of those would be an incredible help, and suddenly he shoots forward to stand on top of the aforementioned vessel. Blinking, he looks down and whispers, "Fire..." and is suddenly back in his seat on the tel'tak, feeling very tired. Just then, the Box pulses with red light, and he pulls back his hands as if burned. Outside, the massive supership he had been "standing" on starts to contort itself, twisting in ways that its superstructure shouldn't allow for. In only a matter of seconds, the entire gargantuan craft twists into a hulk that bursts into flames, scattering debris in all directions, some of which crashes into nearby ships and shatters shields and hulls alike.

On the Jupiter, Sam, Daniel, and Jack are all stunned. The superships represent the aliens' most potent weapons, craft that can wreck entire fleets single-handedly, and they just tore one apart like it was paper. Tapping her radio, Sam asks if Jason could do that again, but there's no answer from the tel'tak. She asks again and Vala finally answers, saying that using the Box took a lot out of him, and that he needs a moment to catch his breath. As the shields take more and more of a beating, though, Sam says that they really don't have the time. Looking out of the window, she watches the Aurora decimate an enemy cruiser with its energy weapons, then launch a nuclear missile salvo at a second one. In the distance, more alien craft are approaching, even in the wake of the supership's destruction. Clearly, the Der'kal aren't just going to give up.

Rapidly speeding away from the besieged Earth, Lor'al and her larger fleet of warships are preparing for a battle of their own against humanity. Suddenly, a loud BOOM! echoes throughout her flagship, and she is nearly thrown from her command chair but the vibrations. Once she recovers, she orders the fleet to drop out of hyperspace wherever they are to find out what just happened. As the craft begin their maneuvers, a report comes in from the engine room that someone wired together some explosives from a nearby weapons locker and detonated them on shield generator; the entire thing is little more than a smoking crater now. Furious, Lor'al demands to know who did this, but the answer is fairly obvious to her; the two escaped prisoners Vur'naa reported earlier must have snuck aboard her ship. As she prepares to order a full search, her communications officer picks up a subspace message that was being sent out from Earth only moments after they left. They couldn't get it before due to their position in hyperspace, but now that they're out of the tunnel, they can receive it just fine.

The message is a desperate call for reinforcements from Vur'naa; a small Tau'ri force has attacked Earth, and they possess some kind of weapon capable of shredding a supership in mere seconds. He is doing everything he can to defend the planet, but if he does not receive assistance soon, a strategic withdrawal may be the only option. Unbelieving that this is really happening, Lor'al orders her fleet to turn around and rush back to their base at full speed, then turns to face the hallucination of Anise standing a few feet away. Roaring in frustration, she screams that she knows it is the Tok'ra that is behind all this, making her believe that attacking the Beta Site at this most-critical time made sense and allowing for the Ta'uri to be as successful as they are.

Anise just smiles, though, saying that she only ever suggested things. After all, it was Lor'al's orders that made all this happen in the long run, and that's what the Exarch will hear when he learns of her incompetence. Slowly but surely, Lor'al is realizing what an intricate web the symbiote has been weaving these past few months, alienating her from her subordinates, causing her to do crazed, insane things, and now compromising the defense of the world the armada lost so many men and ships in conquering. The Exarch will surely not tolerate this, and perhaps the only thing protecting her from his wrath is that she herself killed the te'kal assigned to monitor her, due to Anise's influence, of course. She's very nearly been checkmated, but she's not prepared to be beaten, not yet. Ordering her fleet to head back to Earth, she glares coldly at Anise, promising that when this is over, her time will come.

Back over Earth, Jason is using Pandora's Box to disintegrate a group of frigates attempting to flank the Jupiter's position. The battle has clearly turned in the humans' favor now, with the two 305s now closing on what remains of Vur'naa's fleet over Earth, most of it already devastated by the power of the Box. On Vala's tel'tak, the strain of using the Ancient device for so long is clearly taking its toll, though, and Jason is visibly showing signs of bodily stress, his face pale and ashen as he struggles to concentrate. Despite Pandora's attempts to create such an incredible weapon for human use, there are clearly limitations to human physiology which she simply couldn't overcome, and while Jason is certainly closer to Ancient than most, even he is still a homo sapien at the end of the day. Concerned, Vala radios Sam and tells her that she thinks the boy needs a break, and Carter agrees. The only problem is that they have no one to replace him, and there are still too many enemy vessels for the two 305s to handle. Col. Sanders is also in agreement, pointing out that her own shields are dropping dangerously close to failing, and they need a quick fix now or not at all.

Looking between the viewscreen with Vala and Sanders' faces and Carter, it is O'Neill that finally steps forward and agrees to try his hand at controlling the Box. He's the closest natural human to the Ancients as it is, and while he doubts he can manage anywhere near the level of control Jason has exhibited, he'll do what he can. Sam clears it at once, but tells Jack to be careful before letting giving the all-clear to beam him over to the tel'tak.

Transporting onto the pel'tak, Jack helps Vala pull the Box free from Jason's hands, letting the young man collapse gratefully into his chair, breathing hard and looking spent. Vala bites her lip and says that the younger Carter doesn't look very well, and she radios Sam with a request to beam him to the Jupiter's med bay, a request that is granted and executed at once. Taking the seat now vacated by Jason, Jack frowns and places his hands on either side of the golden orb, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. On the Aurora, Sanders looks out at the alien formation, holding her own breath and wondering what's going to happen... and then three of the enemy cruisers are twisted into bits, exploding brilliantly in the darkness. O'Neill can do it, after all, and she turns back to the task of winning the battle.

In hyperspace, racing back to Earth at full speed, Lor'al's fleet streaks past star system after star system, desperate not to lose their greatest acquisition yet. In the darkness, no one notices a small Der'kal gunship slip out of the main hanger, pulling away as fast as it can. In its cockpit, Maj. Eaton and Col. Mitchell, having no idea how to fly in hyperspace, hold on tight... and are rammed into one another as their small craft is tossed like a plaything far behind the alien fleet, spinning in every direction at once. Hoping for anything to help fix the situation, Eaton slams her fist down on their small hyperdrive's control console, and they successfully rip a miniature window open back into realspace... right in the middle of a Free Jaffa fleet in orbit over Dar Eshkalon. It's not home... but it's certainly close enough, and the two hail their allies with glee, glad to finally be in the clear.

Over Earth, Vur'naa knows that he's lost. Reports are coming in that the fleet sent to attack Dakara is likewise failing, coming up against impossible numbers of Jaffa, Nox, and Tok'ra ships arrayed in the exact spot they reverted to realspace. Somehow, the Alliance knew they were on their way, and the fleet is already pulling back to nearby worlds to salvage what they can of their forces, something he knows he must now do, as well. As another two of his ships are lost to the incredible power of Pandora's Box, he orders his fleet to jump to the closest conquered planet for repairs and rearmament, grimacing as his ship shakes with impacts from the Aurora. But Sanders isn't ready to let him go without a fight. Watching as his cruiser pulls away and opens a hyperspace window, she lashes out with one last beam of blue plasma, slicing through his shields and striking the exact spot where the old Aurora's nameplate is attached and disintegrating the entire area. She and her crew cry out in success, then watch as the remnants of the once-great armada withdraws to safety.

On the Jupiter, Daniel and Sam join in the celebration, gazing down at their homeworld. The Der'kal still occupy the surface, but with the human resistance rising up on all six inhabited continents, she guesses it won't be long before it's theirs again in full. Radioing Vala, Sam congratulates her and Jack on an amazing job well done, but her face suddenly falls when she hears the unheard reply. Her mouth hanging open in a mixed look of terror and despair, she stares out the forward window at Earth, Vala's tel'tak decloaking and speeding toward them in the distance. Something terrible has happened, and as the screen fades, only one word can be heard:

"Jack..."

((The End))

[Rasunda]

It's even better when well....
It's the best episode ever!!!
But no one thought of Jack....

[janus 510]

excellent episode well worth the wait

[LegendoftheAsgards]

oh yeah what a episode that was... So great S09119. worthy the long time we had to wait to read it. Looking forward to the next now

[Yggdrasil]

Noooo! not O´neill

[Dodgified]

Amazing episode! Stupid Der'kal! not knowing we have pandora's box and all. But supership's aren't going to do anything no more! Only problem is, if after this you decide to write more SG-1, with a new enemy. Then pandora's box is going to be too powerful, so you'll have to make an enemy ship that can't be destroyed by the box.

Noooo! not O´neill

He never said he was dead! maybe, in a comma? or.. i don't know!
He won't die, he'll ascend (hopefully you can't kill o'neill!)

[Dr. Daedalus]

Tremendous episode. . I never saw what the quid pro quo was.

Spoiler:

"Jack..."

Dr. D

[s09119]

Tremendous episode. . I never saw what the quid pro quo was.

Spoiler:

"Jack..."

Dr. D

...that would be the thing in the spoiler.

[Dark lord me]

*Sheds tear* You must make Jack ascend. You can't kill jack. Worth the wait to. You will have to destroy the box soon after taking out like one of two more superships. ...After the long wait you must have more then one episode done right?
Oh and you said Ellis was ging to be in it but I didnt see him anywhere

[s09119]

*Sheds tear* You must make Jack ascend. You can't kill jack. Worth the wait to. You will have to destroy the box soon after taking out like one of two more superships. ...After the long wait you must have more then one episode done right?
Oh and you said Ellis was ging to be in it but I didnt see him anywhere

He's in the fifth paragraph of the first part of the episode